However, thoughts of the fifteen years of life he had snatched away were an excellent remedy for his bad mood. However painful it was to lose Luca, the healer’s hopes for the former slave’s sister warmed his heart, encased though it was in narcissistic ice. He would drain every last drop from that creature! And this very day, no less!
Their initial analyses and tests showed positive results — it was incredible! Two full-fledged donors, rich with decades of life, had been found in such a short time! The elder Dezisimu may be lost to him, but the girl, what was her name — Kora? — was at his full disposal.
Yadugara stretched in pleasure and smiled as he thought about visiting the House of Inspiration, a high-class brothel that took pride in the fact that the emperor himself had frequented it in his teenage years. He had no time to finish the thought. Someone came rushing loudly up the stairs and rapped on the door.
The man hissed in anger, lazily swung his legs off the bed and spoke in an amiable tone.
“I’ll kill you.”
He stood up easily and freely, no longer feeling the sickening familiar arthritis in his knees that had plagued him for years. He smiled, tensed his muscles, crouched and jumped, almost reaching the ceiling with his outstretched arms.
The one standing outside the door listened. It seemed they’d realized what they’d done and they were now shaking in fear. In the healer’s house, it was strictly forbidden to disturb the master’s rest. Be there fire, flood or plague, none would dare distract the master from his affairs.
The desperate knocking at the door was replaced by a timid tapping. Truly, the consequences shouldn’t be too dire. Yesterday Yadugara could have banished his underling to the basement for several hours for such an offense, regardless of his mood.
Today everything was different. Regardless of who was behind the door, Yadugara would keep the punishment to a light whipping.
He smoothed the edges of his silk pyjamas and pulled the door wide open. He saw young Reyna, her eyes red with tears.
“What’s wrong, girl?”
The girl fitfully clenched her fists at her breast, trying to gather herself, but her lower lip trembled and her tongue failed to obey, frozen in fear. Yadugara sensed disaster and his heart began to pound.
“Speak, damn you!”
“Kora... She...”
His good mood jumped straight off a cliff. Frowning, Yadugara moved Reyna aside and shouted in a low voice that boomed throughout the entire house.
“Penant! Senior Apprentice! Abyss take you! Come here, now, before I come down there and pull your stupid head off!”
“He isn’t here...” Reyna uttered, hiccuping and snivelling.
“Calm yourself!” Yadugara grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a good shake.
The girl’s teeth chattered a couple more times, then she swallowed and seemed to get a grip on herself. At least, her stupor passed and she managed to blurt out some words.
“I brought her lunch as you commanded, Master I swear on the Sacred Mother, I...”
“Stop!” The healer pulled his hand from the girl’s clinging grasp in disgust. “Who is ‘her’?”
“The girl! The creature’s sister! I did everything as you wanted, sir! She’s gone! She... She...”
Yadugara began to realize that his long-awaited guest had scorned her host’s hospitality and left his cozy home.
“What?!” the healer roared. “She what?!”
“She... ran away.”
“Idiot girl!”
Yadugara pushed his lover to the wall with such force that she hit the back of her head and fell down in a heap on the floor. Paying this no heed, he was already running down the steps two at a time, roaring and nervously plucking at his fluttering silk pyjamas as they strained to contain him.
A blood mist filled his vision. If the girl suspected something, then losing a donor wasn’t even the worst of it. Lentz could find out everything! The idiot Penant had let slip at dinner that he’d taken Luca to the palace, and if the sister went to her brother, Yadugara would never see the donor again!
Morons! He’d cut them all into little pieces with his scalpel and feed them to the chinils. Nobody could be trusted! Why wasn’t he woken? It was all falling apart! Where was everyone?
It was as if the home had died.
“Who let her out?!” Yadugara shouted. “Penant, you filthy rat, I’ll strangle you!”
Not a sound came in answer. The man ran out onto the porch. The sunlight blinded him for a moment, and a cold gust of wind gave him a sobering slap. His veil of fury fell.
Clenching and unclenching his fists, Yadugara sighed and went back upstairs to beat the truth out of the only witness to what had happened that he had.
* * *
Kora stopped. She had a stitch in her side. Her breath came out in wheezes. The toes of her bare feet were on fire from striking against the pavement.
What now? Where could she run? She couldn’t go home, that would be the first place they’d look for her. Mom was there! Although she was unconscious with a fever. They’d be too squeamish to touch her.
She’d made such a fool of herself! Why had she trusted them?! The fact that she’d been fed tall tales all the previous day and then locked in a room come nightfall clearly showed that she’d gotten into the kind of trouble she’d never dreamed of before. Karim was right.
And maybe back then she would have been able to twist her way out, but not now.
Her gaze slid to the prize clutched in her small fist. Sparkling with cut facets and multicolored gemstones, the silver candlestick glimmered in the sunlight. Kora couldn’t help but admire its fine filigree stand, entwined with leaves made of wire, and its crest in the shape of flowers.
Remembering herself and glancing around furtively, she sat down and covered the object in mud, so it wouldn’t stand out in the dirty and fetid district. People’s throats had been cut for less.
She was such an idiot! She had nowhere to go now, and this trinket was weighing her arm down. Who would she sell it to? It was too noticeable, too expensive. She should have chosen something small.
The night before, after some so-called ‘medical research,’ Reyna had let Kora into a room and then instantly slammed the door behind her. She’d heard the crunch of the lock as the key turned.
The girl was lost. Luca wasn’t in the house, but at first, they’d tried to convince her that her brother would be back. That self-important Penant, who strutted around like a peacock, told her that he was in the palace, but Kora noticed the flash of Yadugara’s angry gaze, and the senior apprentice immediately corrected himself, saying that her brother would return soon. One day soon. All she had to do was wait.
Luca was in the palace? Did they take her for a complete fool? Kora didn’t believe a single word from them after that, and the locked door in the room finally convinced her — nobody there was on her side. Her brother was probably already dead, and the same fate would have come to her if she hadn’t escaped.
Estimating the thickness of the bars on the window, Kora quickly glanced around the room and then put her eye to the keyhole. At the last moment, she saw Reyna calling someone called Daler as she walked away. If they put a guard outside her room, her chances of escape would be paltry.
The girl was used to adapting quickly and taking decisions instantly. Survival at any cost was the only goal in the life of anyone who lived in their district. The skill came down through the mother’s milk, and it forced the dwellers of the slums to rise each day from their sorry excuses for beds and go out to find food.
That was when Kora’s gaze landed on the ill-fated candlestick. It had the fine wires of a flower ornament coiled around it. Not hesitating for a second, the girl twisted out one of the wires and broke it. Running to the door and falling to her knees, she started to fashion a lock-pick out of the wire. The old man Vindor had taught her this once.
Her thin fingers with their broken dirty nails shook and disobeyed her. She kept dropping the l
ock-pick on the floor. She held her breath each time, listening. Finally, the crooked end of the wire caught and pulled at the weighty lock catch. As if it was doing her a big favor, the catch lazily and slowly turned, releasing the prisoner.
She didn’t remember running through the house and garden, hopping the fence, rushing barefoot through the empty alleyways. Only now, standing and trying to calm her galloping breath, did she realize that she’d stolen something. And if she’d nearly been sent to the mines for some soused apples, then for this...
She couldn’t return what she’d taken even if she wanted to. It wasn’t her conscience that bothered her. On the contrary. Master Yadugara had a whole cabinet of trinkets like this one. He wouldn’t even notice right away that one had gone missing.
On the other hand, Kora could sell this expensive bauble and get treatment for her mom! Now that her illusions about her brother had been dispelled, she was ready for everything. She tried not to think about the fact that the city watch would probably be looking for her. She needed to solve problems as they came up, as the alcoholic former gladiator had taught her.
Getting her bearings, the girl saw the familiar crooked and discolored sign of the inn.
Vindor! That was who would help her!
Opening the heavy and screeching door slightly, Kora saw just an empty room with flies flying around near the ceiling. Of course! It was still morning! All the local drunkards would be sleeping off last night, some at home, some in a nearby ditch.
The barmaid Irma jumped out from behind the door and grabbed the girl by the arm.
“Where do you think you’re going, harlot? You come in here like it’s your home! I’m going to tell Nemania that you’re looking around for something to steal, he’ll sort you out!”
“Let me go!” Kora said quietly.
“Why are you here?”
The barmaid’s cunning eyes landed on the dirt-covered candlestick. One silver flower bud stuck out from the clumps of mud.
“Two-horns’ impure mother! Are you sick of living?!” Irma whispered, covering her mouth in shock. “Where did you get this, tramp?”
The gears in the barmaid’s head began to turn. Her nostrils flared and her eyes turned crazy. She was already imagining the heap of shiny new coins that could be gotten for selling such a thing. She’d be able to pay off all her debts and leave that damned innkeeper!
Keeping hold of the girl’s wrist, apparently afraid that she might run away, Irma quickly tore off her filthy apron and shouted to someone inside the building.
“I’m going out for a while!”
Pushing the girl out into the street, she dragged her skinny, newly appeared guardian angel into a nearby alleyway. Kora had no more strength left to fight and flee.
Chapter 20. Metamorphosis Level Two
THE IDEA of turning into the emperor came to Luca as soon as he realized what level two metamorphosis gave him. He didn’t know what he’d do with Ma Ju Ro’s original body yet, or how to explain to Lentz how his own had disappeared. All he knew was that he had to escape by any means.
But after the idea came the decision. Luca realized that if he did have to explain anything to anyone, it wouldn’t be to him. Rulers didn’t have to explain themselves to anyone, right? But in that form, he could surely help his mother!
It was decided!
All he had to do was think it. There were no buttons, interface icons, nothing but the will of the carrier.
Copying requires physical contact with the subject.
Luca slid off his lounger and sat on the neighboring one. The former emperor’s fat body left him almost no room, and the boy had to push his cold arm off the couch. That was when his level two metamorphosis got the physical contact it needed.
Analyzing sample...
Species match: 100%.
Subject satisfies copying requirements.
Continue?
Luca nodded unwillingly and got a range of warnings.
The body of carrier Luca Dezisimu will be transformed into the subject Emperor Ma Ju Ro the Fourth.
Estimated copying time: 6 hours.
As soon as Luca thought again about how he might hide Ma Ju Ro’s real body, and how Lentz would take the slave’s disappearance, metamorphosis suggested a solution.
Do you wish for the subject Emperor Ma Ju Ro the Fourth to transform into Luca Dezisimu?
Do you wish to record the genetic code of the body of Luca Dezisimu?
Do you wish to overwrite the carrier’s memory?
Attention! The carrier’s memory will be partially lost!
“Yes! Yes! No!” Luca nearly shouted, panicking out of fear that the ability might not understand him correctly.
But it worked. The ability performed his mental commands as he wanted: it left him his own memory, the essence of his self, and entered the information on his own body into the archive.
Copying process started.
Transformed: 0.000000001%...
The percentage points rose, and Luca started itching like he never had before. His entire body itched, and then tiny probes finer than a human hair started emerging from his every pore. Thousands of them kept growing and growing until they reached the emperor’s body and melted into it.
The very sight of it made the boy feel sick, and the skin on his shaven scalp tightened, non-existent hairs raising on the back of his neck. Luca fell to the floor, curled up and prayed for only one thing: that all this would end quickly. He didn’t just feel himself changing. He saw it. The ability grew his bones, his muscle fibers, his tendons and ligaments, actively generated fat cells, forming the same strategic supplies that Ma Ju Ro the Fourth had.
The changes didn’t come in stages, but all at once all over his body: his hair grew, and everywhere, since Ma Ju Ro was very hairy. His vision turned poor, his teeth rotted, his liver cells withered and the walls of his veins thinned...
At the same time, the ability caught its carrier’s wishes — Luca was going insane from the itching — and reduced his sensitivity. The itching stopped. The boy stopped feeling anything at all.
Metamorphosis created a perfect copy, two at the same time. Esk would have told him it would have been easier to swap minds, but Esk didn’t exist anymore, and Luca’s thoughts were too chaotic and entangled. What next? Why was he transforming into the emperor if his first conversation would give him away as an imposter? How were mom and Kora doing? What should he do with the Tsoui points he’d earned? Spin the Wheel, or save them? Why was his heel itching?
His heel itched with incredible ferocity, and his ability was too busy with the copying to fix it. Luca tried to reach down, but his body refused to obey...
By the time it all ended, the boy’s mind had switched off entirely, and the first rays of sunlight shined through the shuttered window.
Copying process completed.
Transformed: 100%.
Finished with the operation, metamorphosis went to sleep, having exhausted all its reserves. The transformation had devoured everything. It hadn’t touched the emperor’s fat supplies, since that contradicted the command to make a perfect copy.
But Luca woke up. He intuitively felt that Lentz would appear at any moment. It would be a shame to screw up at the first stage of the plan he came up with in a moment of doubt before starting the transformation.
Through sheer strength of will alone, twisting from the ache in his stomach, almost falling over from hunger with this new, heavy and clumsy body, he carefully lifted up the puny and small body that he recognized as his own and placed it on the sofa he had been lying on. It was important not to break the tethers, which turned out to be difficult, but possible.
Then he lied down himself, on the seat the emperor had been on. Something stung in his chest, and he instinctively activated his ability to find out what it was.
Attention! Detected increased blood clotting in heart vessels and chambers!
Attention! Harmful microorganisms!
Blood clot detected!
>
Blood clot detected!
Blood clot detected..!
A column covered his entire vision, screaming about the avalanche of ever new blood clots. Luca realized that he was dying, and as he was dying, he wanted more than anything to live. His desire matched the action his metamorphosis had already begun, having decided that the carrier’s health was more important than the copy’s accuracy.
His fat supplies provided enough energy to neutralize all the harmful microorganisms, break up all the blood clots, and then the metamorphosis seemed to take a liking to the job and started fixing his organs.
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