The demon and his followers had been inter-
rupted by her entrance at the height of their plea-
sures. And it was the sight of the demon's partner
that had stricken Kethry to the heart—for the one
being used by the demon himself was Tarma.
But it was Tarma transformed; she wore the face
and body the demon had given her when he had
first tried to seduce her to his cause. Though smaller
and far frailer, she was still recognizably herself—
but with all her angularities softened, her harsh-
ness made silken, her flaws turned to beauty. Her
clothing was in rags, and she had the bruises and
the look of a woman who has been passed from one
brutal rape to another. That was bad enough, but
that was not what had struck Kethry like a dagger
to the heart; it was the absence of any mind or
sense in Tarma's blank blue eyes.
Tarma had survived rape before; were she still
aware and in charge of herself, she would still be
fighting. Mere brutal use would not have forced
her mind from her, not when the slaughter of her
entire Clan as well as her own abuse had failed to
do that when she was a young woman and far more
innocent than she was now. No—this had to be the
work of the demon. Knowing he would be unable to
break her spirit, Thalhkarsh had stolen Tarma's
mind; stolen her mind or somehow forced her soul
out of her body.
The demon, wearing his form of a tall, beautiful
human male, was the first to recover from surprise
at the interruption.
"Amusing," he said, not appearing at all amused.
"I had thought the skill of those I had paid would
more than equal yours, even with that puny blade
to augment it. It appears that I was mistaken."
Before Kethry could make a move, he had seized
Tarma, and pulled her before him—not as a shield,
but with evident threat.
"Put up your blade, sorceress," he purred bra-
zenly, "or I tear her limb from limb."
Kethry knew he was not bluffing, and Need clat-
tered to the floor from her nerveless hand.
He laughed, a hideous howl of triumph. "You dis-
appoint me, my enemy! You have made my conquest
too easy!" He stood up and tossed Tarma aside; she
fell to the pile of cushions with the limpness of a
lifeless doll, not even attempting to break her own
fall. "Come forth, my little toy—" he continued,
turning his back on his fallen victim and beckoning
to someone lurking behind the platform.
From out of the shadows among the hangings
came a woman, and when she stepped far enough
into the light that Kethry was able to get a good
look at her, the sorceress reeled as if she had been
struck. It couldn't be—
The woman was the twin of an image she herself
had once worn—and that she had placed on the
unconscious form of the marauding bandit Lastel
Longknife by way of appropriate punishment for
the women and girls he had used and murdered. It
was an image she had never expected to see again;
she had assumed the bandit would have been treated
with brutality equaling his own by what was left
of his fellows. By all rights, he should have been
dead—long dead.
"I think the bitch recognizes me, my lord," the
dulcet voice said, heavy irony in the title of subser-
vience. Platinum hair was pushed back from ame-
thyst eyes with a graceful but impatient hand.
"You never expected to see me again, did you?"
Her eyes blazed with helpless anger. "May every
god damn you for what you did to me, woman.
Death would have been better than the misery this
shape put me through! If it hadn't been for a forgot-
ten sword and an untied horse—"
She came closer, hands crooked into claws. "I've
dreamed of having you in my hands every night
since, gods—but not like this." Her eyes betrayed
that she was walking a very thin thread of sanity.
"What you did to me was bad enough—but being
trapped in this prison of a whore's carcass is more
than I can bear—it's worse than Hell, it's—"
She turned away, clenching her hands so tightly
that the knuckles popped. After a moment of inter-
nal struggle she regained control over herself, and
turned to the demon. "Well, since it was my tales
to the priests that lured them here, the time has
come for you to keep your side of the bargain."
"You wish to lose your current form? A pity—I
had thought you had come to enjoy my attentions."
The woman colored; Kethry was baffled. She had
only placed the illusion of being female on the ban-
dit, but this—this was a real woman! Mage-sight
showed only exactly what stood before her in normal-
sight, not the bandit of the desert hills!
"Damn you," she snarled. "Oh, gods, for a demon-
slaying blade! Yes, you bastard, I enjoy it! As you
very well know, squirming like a vile snake inside
my head! You've made me your slave as well as
your puppet; you've addicted me to you, and you
revel in my misery—you cursed me far worse than
ever she did. And now, damn you, I want free of it
and you and all else besides! I've paid my part of
the bargain. Now you live up to your side!"
Thalhkarsh smiled cruelly. "Very well, my pretty
little toy—go and take her lovely throat in both
your hands, and I shall free you of that body with
her death."
One of the acolytes scuttled around behind Kethry
and seized her arms, pinioning them behind her
back. He needn't have bothered; she was so in shock
she couldn't have moved if the ceiling had begun to
fall in on them. The slender beauty approached,
stark, bitter hatred in her eyes, and seized Kethry's
throat.
A howl echoed from behind her; a hurtling black
shape leaped over her straight at the demon. It was
Warrl—who evidently had met the same kind of
delaying tactics as Kethry had. Now he had broken
free of them, and he was in a killing rage. This time
Thalhkarsh took no chances with Warrl; from his
upraised hands came double bolts of crimson light-
ning. Warrl was hit squarely in midair by both of
them. He shrieked horribly, transfixed six feet above
the floor, caught and held in midleap. He writhed
once, shrieked again—then went limp. The aura of
the demon's magic faded; the body of the kyree
dropped to the ground like a shot bird, and did not
move again.
Lastel was not in the least distracted by this; she
tightened her hands around Kethry's neck. Kethry
struggled belatedly to free herself, managing to bring
her heel down on the foot of the acolyte behind her,
catching him squarely in the instep so that he yowled
and dropped to the floor, clutching his ruined foot.
But even when her arms were free, she was pow-
erless against the bandit; she scratched at Lastel's
hands and reached for her eyes with crooked
fingers—uselessly. Her own hands would not re-
spond; her lungs screamed for air, and she began to
black out.
The demon laughed, and again raised his hands;
Kethry felt as if she'd been plunged into the heart
of a fire. Crackling energies surrounded both of
them; her legs gave beneath her and it was only
when a new acolyte caught her arms and held her
up that she remained erect. With narrowing vision
she stared into Lastel's pale eyes, unable to look
away—
And suddenly she found herself staring down
into her own face, with her own neck between her
hands! Kethry released her grip with a cry of dis-
belief; stared down at at her hands, at herself,
horror written plain on her own face. Lastel stared
up at her out of her own eyes, hatred and black
despair making a twisted mask of her face.
The demon laughed at both of them, cruel enjoy-
ment plain in his tone. He eased off the monstrous
pile of silks and stalked proudly toward them, sweep-
ing the bandit up onto her feet and into his arms as
he came to stand over Kethry, who had sagged to
her knees in shock.
"I promised to change your form, fool—I did not
promise into what image!" he chortled. "And you,
witch—I have your rightful body in my keeping
now—and you will never, never reverse a spell to
which I and I alone hold the key!"
He gestured at his acolyte, who dropped his hold
on Kethry-now-Lastel and seized Lastel-now-Ke-
thry's arms instead, hauling her roughly to her feet.
"My foolish sorceress, my equally foolish toy,
how easy it is to manipulate you! Little toy, did you
truly think that I would release you when you take
such delight in my attentions? That I would allow
such a potent source of misery out of my posses-
sion? As for you, dear enemy—I have only begun to
take my revenge upon you. I shall leave you alive,
and in full possession of your senses—unlike your
sword-sister. No doubt you wonder what I have
done with her? I have wiped her mind clean; in
time I shall implant my teachings in her, so that I
shall have an acolyte of complete obedience and
complete devotion. It was a pity that I could not
force her to suffer as you shall, but her will com-
bined with her link to her chosen goddess was far
too strong to trifle with. But now that her mind is
gone, the link has gone with it, and she will be
mine for so long as I care to keep her."
Kethry was overwhelmed with agony and despair;
she stifled a moan with difficulty. She felt tears
burning her eyes and coursing down her cheeks;
her vision was blurred by them. The demon smiled
at the sight.
"As for you, you will be as potent a source of
pain as my little toy is; know that you will feed my
power with your grief and anguish. Know that your
blood-sister will be my plaything, willingly suffer-
ing because I order it. Know all this, and know that
you are helpless to prevent any of it! As for this—"
He prodded the body of Warrl with one toe. His
smile spread even wider as she tried involuntarily
to reach out, only to have the acolytes hold her
arms back.
"I think that I shall find something suitable to
use it for. Shall I have it mounted, or—yes. The fur
is quite good; quite soft and unusual. I think I shall
have it tanned—and it shall be your only bed, my
enemy!"
He laughed, as Kethry struggled in the arms of
his acolytes, stomach twisted and mind torn nearly
in shreds by her grief and hatred of him. She sub-
sided only when they threatened to wrench her
arms out of their sockets, and hung limply in their
grasp, panting with frustrated rage and weeping
soundlessly.
"Take her, and take her friend. Put them in the
place I prepared for them," Thalhkarsh ordered
with a lift of one eyebrow. "And take that and that
as well," he indicated the body of Warrl and Kethry's
sword Need. "Put them where she can see them
until I decide what to do with them. Perhaps, little
toy, I shall give the blade to you."
Lastel's hands clenched and unclenched as he
attempted to control himself. "Do it, damn you! If
you do, I'll use it on you, you bastard!"
"How kind of you to warn me, then. But come—
you wear a new body now, and I wish to see how it
differs from the old—don't you?"
Kethry's last sight of the demon was as he swept
Lastel up onto the platform, then she and Tarma
were hustled down another brick-lined corridor,
and shoved roughly into a makeshift cage that took
up the back half of a stone-lined storage room.
Warrl's carcass and Need were both dumped un-
ceremoniously on the slate table in front of the cage
door.
The room lacked windows entirely, and had only
the one door now shut and (from the sounds that
had come after her guards had shut it), locked.
Light came from a single torch in a holder near the
door. The cage was made of crudely-forged iron
bars welded across the entire room, with an equally
crude door of similar bars that had been padlocked
closed. There was nothing whatsoever in the cage;
she and Tarma had only what they were wearing,
which in Tarma's case was little more than rags,
and in hers, the simple shift and breeches Lastel
had been wearing. Though she searched, she found
no weapons at all.
Tarma sat blank-eyed in the corner of the cage
where she'd been left, rocking back and forth and
humming tunelessly to herself. The only thing that
the demon hadn't changed was her voice; still the
ruined parody of what it had been before the slaugh-
ter of her Clan.
Kethry went to her and knelt on the cold stone at
her side. "Tarma?" she asked, taking her she'enedra's
hand in hers and staring into those blank blue eyes.
She got no response for a moment, then the eyes
seemed to see her. One hand crept up, and Tarma
inserted the tip of her index finger into her mouth.
"Tarma?" the Shin'a'in echoed ingenuously. And
that was all of intelligence that Kethry could coax
from her; within moments her eyes had gone blank
again, and she was back to her rocking and tuneless
humming.
Kethry looked from the mindless Tarma to the
gone, the link has gone with it, and she will be
mine for so long as I care to keep her."
Kethry was overwhelmed with agony and despair;
she stifled a moan with difficulty. She felt tears
burning her eyes and coursing down her cheeks;
her vision was blurred by them. The demon smiled
at the sight.
"As for you, you wi
ll be as potent a source of
pain as my little toy is; know that you will feed my
power with your grief and anguish. Know that your
blood-sister will be my plaything, willingly suffer-
ing because I order it. Know all this, and know that
you are helpless to prevent any of it! As for this—"
He prodded the body of Warrl with one toe. His
smile spread even wider as she tried involuntarily
to reach out, only to have the acolytes hold her
arms back.
"I think that I shall find something suitable to
use it for. Shall I have it mounted, or—yes. The fur
is quite good; quite soft and unusual. I think I shall
have it tanned—and it shall be your only bed, my
enemy!"
He laughed, as Kethry struggled in the arms of
his acolytes, stomach twisted and mind torn nearly
in shreds by her grief and hatred of him. She sub-
sided only when they threatened to wrench her
arms out of their sockets, and hung limply in their
grasp, panting with frustrated rage and weeping
soundlessly.
"Take her, and take her friend. Put them in the
place I prepared for them," Thalhkarsh ordered
with a lift of one eyebrow. "And take that and that
as well," he indicated the body of Warrl and Kethry's
sword Need. "Put them where she can see them
until I decide what to do with them. Perhaps, little
toy, I shall give the blade to you."
Lastel's hands clenched and unclenched as he
attempted to control himself. "Do it, damn you! If
you do, I'll use it on you, you bastard!"
"How kind of you to warn me, then. But come—
you wear a new body now, and I wish to see how it
differs from the old—don't you?"
Kethry's last sight of the demon was as he swept
Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound Page 34
