BECOMING ONE
So many men seek only a union of the flesh, never guessing the joy that comes from a union of the minds.
— Jaz Laren Sylvarresta
Where the sea ape ended and Rhianna began, Rhianna wasn’t sure.
She had no volition. She was not Rhianna anymore. Now she was a sea ape, a girl named Oohtooroo.
Oohtooroo walked where she wanted, ate what she wanted. She squatted and peed on the grass while others watched and thought nothing of it.
Rhianna could observe the world at times, her consciousness weak, as if she were half asleep. But even in her most lucid moments she could not do one thing on her own. She could not move one of Oohtooroo’s thick fingers or blink an eye.
She was merely an observer, peering out through the eyes of an ape, an ape who loved Abravael more faithfully than any human ever could.
She craved his presence. He was the one who fed her sweet plantains and succulent pork. He was the one who groomed her skin, as her mother once had.
If Abravael had wanted it, she’d have given herself as his mate.
He could not move without Oohtooroo watching. Her eyes followed him everywhere. Her nose tasted the air for his scent as she slept. Her hands longed to touch him.
Oohtooroo wanted to keep him safe, fed, protected.
Until she got her endowment, she had not realized how that might be done. He had made noises and she had done her best to understand.
But with a single endowment of wit, Oohtooroo’s eyes seemed to open and her mind to quicken.
“Oohtooroo, come here,” her love said softly, and she understood. “Come” was one of only seven words that she had understood, but until now, she had always been unsure of its meaning. Abravael might say, “Come here one moment,” and she would go to him. But when he said, “How come you’re so stupid?” a moment later, she would go to him, and he would slap her as if she had offended him.
Now, there were so many layers of meaning exposed. “Come quickly” meant to hurry. “Come outside” meant that she should follow him out onto the palace green.
Many times, Oohtooroo wept tears of wonder as she suddenly discerned the meanings of the tiniest of phrases.
Rhianna in her lucid moments had to remain content to watch.
She watched Abravael at his studies, watched him practice with the blade and ax, and even when he slept at night, Rhianna, in Oohtooroo’s body, would lie down beside him, tenderly watching him, her heart so full of love and devotion that she thought it might break.
No beagle ever loved its master as perfectly as Oohtooroo did.
And one day, Abravael sat stroking Oohtooroo’s neck, whispering sweet words. “Good ape,” he said. “You’re a sweet thing.”
Oohtooroo sniffed in gratitude, her eyes welling with tears, and Rhianna realized that after only three days with endowments, the ape understood everything that was being said. She’d learned quickly, perhaps because Rhianna had already known how to speak, and Oohtooroo was now just learning to use the pathways of Rhianna’s mind. It was a marvel in itself.
“Love,” the ape said, her lips stretching out into nearly impossible shapes as she sought to duplicate the human words. “Love you.”
Abravael smiled and quipped, “You’re becoming quite the orator, aren’t you?”
“Love you,” Oohtooroo repeated, then reached out and took his hand, hugging it.
“How sweet,” Abravael said. “Do you love me enough to kill for me, when the time comes?”
“Yes,” Oohtooroo said.
“Sweet girl.” Abravael hugged her, reaching up to put an arm around her, his face pressed against Oohtooroo’s small breasts.
Waves of gratitude and adoration swept through Oohtooroo, and in some measure, the ape’s feelings for him mingled with Rhianna’s, becoming one.
38
THE RESCUE
All men are free to wander in the realm of thought. I only hope for the day when we are also free to act out all our most wholesome desires.
— Fallion Sylvarresta Orden
Aboard the Leviathan the mainmast and mizzenmast were now firmly ensconced, and all of the rigging had been repaired. New sails replaced those that had been lost.
The Leviathan was ready to sail. Only one thing remained…
A man named Felandar stood guard at the gates to the outer wall of Castle Shadoath. Thick fog had gathered for the night, and even the brightest torches did not let him see a dozen feet.
It didn’t matter. The island was dead on nights like these. Even the golaths went into hiding. The strengi-saats were supposed to confine themselves to the jungles, but when a fog came thick, the monsters often prowled the edge of camp. Indeed, on such nights, a score of golaths might well be dragged from their beds, kicking and screaming.
So in the dead of night Felandar relaxed, a pair of torches at his back to keep the monsters at bay.
He almost didn’t see the woman. He had glanced to his left, along the castle wall, and caught a movement from the corner of his eye.
Suddenly she came striding toward him as if she’d coalesced from the mist, a beautiful woman with silky black hair, eyes like dark pools, a stunning figure, and a gait that made her seem to flow rather than walk.
Instinctively he smiled, eager to make her acquaintance. She smiled apologetically, and with blinding speed struck him under the chin.
At first, he thought that she had slapped him, until he realized that cold metal had lodged in his throat.
She twisted the blade, and he heard gristle crackling along his vertebrae.
As Felandar gasped for breath, he grabbed the wrist of her knife hand, trying to stop her.
Myrrima twisted the blade again, and Felandar was no more.
Amid a cloud of thickening fog, Myrrima stalked onto the grounds of Castle Shadoath. Smoker came pacing behind, the coals in his pipe burning brightly.
The locals would not be able to see through her fog, yet Myrrima’s eyes pierced it easily enough. She was surprised at what she saw. It was well past midnight, and the grounds were dead. No guards patrolled. A single strengisaat crouched atop the west tower, seemingly lost in the fog.
Apparently, Shadoath felt that her monsters were guard enough. Certainly Myrrima would not have felt safe walking along those walls at night all alone.
There were three main buildings in the compound. Ahead, Myrrima knew from her previous visit, was the palace itself. She doubted that the dungeons would be there. To the left there appeared to be barracks for the palace retainers, though Myrrima could not be certain. To the right was another building, monolithic and low to the ground, lacking windows. It would be dank inside, and dark. Several guards huddled outside the front door, beside a small fire.
She raced to the guards and found as she neared that two of them were dead asleep. The others were playing dice.
These were Bright Ones that Myrrima was attacking, men whose skills and strength were the stuff of legend.
But they’d never done battle with a Runelord that had four endowments of metabolism. She had the advantage of superhuman speed.
She nailed the first one before he was even aware of her, her blade plunging into the back of his neck.
The other guard grunted and tried rising to his feet. He grabbed for his blade. His speed surprised her, and she recognized that he had endowments to match her own. A bright blade sprung from the scabbard at his back. It glowed like living fire and struck fear in the pit of Myrrima’s stomach.
Nice sword, she thought.
He took a wicked swing, and Myrrima dodged beneath it, felt the blade swish perilously close to her scalp.
Her dagger drove into his groin.
He leapt back, blood gushing from his leg, and tried to shout for help, but Myrrima lunged and plunged her blade up under his ribs, into his heart.
I really like your armor, too, she thought. But it didn’t do you much good, did it?
One sleeping guard startled awake as the dyi
ng man fell on him. Myrrima ended his life without a cry.
The last guard died in his sleep, blissfully unaware of the attack.
Myrrima sheathed the glowing sword, hiding its light. She tried the heavy door, found it locked. She stooped over the dead guards, searching for a key. Smoker came up and found it, turned the outside lock.
Myrrima went in, carefully, watching for more guards. But inside she found none.
Myrrima felt a thrill of surprise. She had expected more resistance. But then, they were on a small island in the middle of nowhere, and with an army outside. The dungeon was as secure as it needed to be.
She hurried down the hall, into the dark. The dungeon smelled of carrion and human filth. The coals in Smoker’s pipe suddenly blazed, giving Myrrima the only light that she needed. Myrrima still had endowments of sight, and her eyes were as keen as a cat’s.
She passed two cells, found that they were empty, but discovered an old man in the third. She studied him for a long moment before she realized that he was not old at all; he was a young man, mummified and rotting.
She almost dared not look into any other cell until she reached Fallion’s. What she found there horrified her.
Fallion hung from the wall, blood running from his wrists, unconscious, possibly dead.
They unlocked the door to his cell, and Myrrima lifted Fallion in order to take the weight off of his swollen wrists. As Smoker fumbled with the keys, Myrrima studied the boy to see if he was still breathing.
He was alive, barely. He smelled of stale urine, feces, blood, and sour sweat. His cheek, resting on her shoulder, burned with fever.
Smoker got the manacles unlocked, and Myrrima was about to carry Fallion outside when he moaned.
“Can’t go,” he said. “Not yet. Must free Jaz. In the palace.”
Myrrima had expected to find Jaz in a cell.
“He’s in the palace?” Myrrima asked.
Fallion nodded. “Shadoath took him.”
Myrrima trembled. She wasn’t strong enough to face Shadoath. But if Jaz was inside the palace, she’d have to go for him.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll get him. I want you and Smoker to leave. We have rangits tied up outside the gates. You’ll need to get as far away as you can, as fast as you can.”
Fallion opened his eyes, peered at her through dark slits. His lips were swollen and crusted with blood. “What about the others?”
“What others?” Myrrima asked. Fallion nodded down the hallway.
He wanted her to free the other prisoners.
To what end? she wondered. The night was dark; they’d have to sneak past an army. Once they managed that, the woods were full of strengi-saats. What would she be giving these people?
Hope, she realized. A slim chance. But it was better than none.
Smoker rushed out and began checking cells. Myrrima heard the rattle of keys, the snick of locks, the sound of people groaning and weeping in relief.
Myrrima lay Fallion down; he sprawled on the floor, too weak even to crawl.
Her heart was racing. Shadoath was a powerful Runelord, with endowments of hearing and sight and smell. It would be almost impossible to enter her home in the middle of the night without being detected.
And she would most certainly be awake. Her endowments of brawn and stamina would make it so that she needed no sleep.
Dare I risk this, Myrrima wondered, even for Jaz? He was not the heir apparent, and as far as children went, he didn’t show the maturity, insight, or even the strength of Fallion. In short, she expected little from him in this life. And if she had to choose to sacrifice one of the boys, she’d certainly have chosen to sacrifice Jaz.
But she couldn’t just leave him.
Myrrima still had endowments of her own. She’d taken endowments of hearing and sight years ago, and she had those. And she had four endowments of metabolism, and still had the brawn of two strong men.
Compared to a commoner, she was a ferocious warrior.
But Shadoath would be far more powerful.
Gathering her resolve, she wiped her blade, went out into the night, and headed for the palace.
She found the main gate barred from the inside.
She walked around the eastern wall to the back and found some stairs that led toward some upper apartments. Large apartments, she decided, too large for servants. One apartment was grand, and stood on columns that formed a portico. This would be Shadoath’s apartment. But there were smaller rooms on the other side-children’s apartments.
Myrrima had seen Shadoath’s son and daughter. They’d be sleeping up there. Would Jaz be sleeping with them?
Myrrima crept up the steps, knowing that a Runelord of Shadoath’s powers would hear the tiniest scuff of a shoe or rustle of cloth.
She gingerly pulled at the door. It too was barred from the inside.
Softly, she made her way back downstairs.
The servant’s quarters. That would be the only way that she might get in.
Sneaking along the outer wall, she came to a tiny room outside the kitchens, and found a window open, where some cook or maid sought to get a little fresh air. The window was in an apartment above the bakery, a room that would be hot here in this clime. Shadoath would have been outraged to see such a breach in security.
It was fourteen feet up to the window. Too far to jump.
Myrrima took off her boots and began to climb, her fingers and toes seeking purchase in the tiny cracks between the stone blocks of the building.
She controlled her breathing so that she did not pant, held her mouth so that she did not grunt. Even when she slid back a bit, breaking nails, she did not cry out.
In a few moments, she reached up over the windowsill and pulled herself inside.
A smelly baker lay on a dirty mattress with his wife and three kids. He snored so loudly that he wouldn’t have heard Myrrima if she’d started to dance.
She made her way across the room, carefully stepping over the little ones as if they were her own.
She thought about the guards that she had killed.
They may have wives and families, like my own, she told herself. I’ll have to be careful with them.
But she knew her duty.
When she opened the apartment door and found a corridor outside, with another guard-a powerful man, strong and handsome-she didn’t hesitate to rush in and stab him hard in the throat.
The man struggled fiercely as he died, reaching for his own blade, kicking at her. She wrestled him-until she stuck her blade in his throat once again, breaking his neck, and then laid him gently on the floor.
She waited for long moments, afraid that the sound of the struggle would have alerted Shadoath.
When she was certain that no one had heard, she followed the corridor upstairs to the royal apartments.
She moved as silently through the hallways as an apparition.
Just outside the queen’s quarters, she heard another guard pacing the floor. She ducked into an alcove as he walked downstairs, peering this way and that.
If he turned to his right, he’d stumble over the body of his dead comrade.
Myrrima’s heart hammered, and she silently prayed that he would turn to the left.
She studied the layout. There were only three doors-the queen’s apartment to her left, and the children’s rooms.
Myrrima went to the nearest of the children’s doors, tried the lock. It came open, the door creaking slightly. She stood for a long moment, fearing that Shadoath would have heard, that she’d come rushing out from her own room.
She stepped inside.
The apartment was large, with more than one room. A privy took up one small room, and down a short hallway, Myrrima found a bed.
The canopy above the bed was covered in golden samite, which glittered like gems in the wan light of the moon, which shone through a tiny window.
Lying in the bed was Shadoath’s daughter, the dark-haired girl that Myrrima had seen two days earlier, when
she’d come to ransom the princes.
A third room beckoned around a corner. Myrrima quietly walked toward it, a loose board creaking under her weight, and peered in. It was only a wardrobe, filled with clothing and mirrors.
Myrrima heard a startled gasp, the rustling of clothing, and turned to see the girl peering at her, face pale from terror.
Myrrima flung herself across the room, dagger drawn, prepared to kill the girl. She threw one hand over the girl’s mouth, grabbed at her throat with the other, thinking to snap her neck.
But the girl didn’t squirm, didn’t fight. She just held her finger up, as if warning Myrrima to be quiet.
Taking the girl’s cue, Myrrima cautiously pulled her hand away. She could see the track of tears on the girl’s cheeks.
“Are you here for Fallion and Jaz?” she whispered so softly that she could almost not be heard.
Myrrima nodded.
“Take me with you?” she asked, even softer.
Myrrima was puzzled.
The girl hesitated. “Fallion said that he could save me. Will you save me?”
Save her from what? Myrrima wondered. But instinctively she knew: Shadoath. Even a dull child knows when her mother is evil.
Again, Myrrima nodded.
“Follow me,” the girl whispered.
Quietly, she crawled out of bed, wearing only her night clothes. She did not stop to grab a cloak or shoes. She went straight to the door and opened it, peered into the hallway, and led Myrrima back down two flights of stairs toward the kitchens.
At the bottom of the stairs, a single candle gave light.
Valya hesitated a moment, peering about as if searching for the guard, then headed down a hallway.
They neared the buttery, and Myrrima heard a big man sniffing and moving about, apparently raiding the leftovers from dinner. It was the missing guard. They crept past the buttery, went down two doors, and the girl stepped into a poorly lit room.
It was the kitchen. There, lying before the hearth where the only light came from dying coals, Jaz lay curled up in a large basket.
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