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
body of the kyree and back again, slow tears etching
their way down her cheeks.
"My god, my god—" she wept, "Oh, Tarma, you
were right! We should have gone for help."
She tried to take her oathkin in her arms, but it
was like holding a stiff, wooden doll.
"If I hadn't been so damned sure of myself—if I
hadn't been so determined to prove you were smoth-
ering me—it's all my fault, it's all my fault! What
have I done? What has my pride done to you?"
And Tarma rocked and crooned, oblivious to ev-
erything around her, while she wept with absolute
despair.
Eleven
You lied to me, you bastard!" Green eyes blazed
passionately with anger.
"You didn't listen carefully enough," Thalhkarsh
replied to the amber-haired hellion whom he had
backed into a corner of his "couch." "I said I would
change your form; I never said what I would change
it into."
"You never had any intention of changing me
back to a man!" Lastel choked, sagging to the pad-
ded platform, almost incoherent with rage.
"Quite right." The demon grinned maliciously as
he sat himself cross-legged on the padded platform,
carefully positioning himself so as to make escape
impossible. "Your emotions are strong; you are a
potent source of power for me, and an ever-renew-
able source. I had no intention of letting you free of
me while I still need you." He arranged himself
more comfortably with the aid of a cushion or two;
he had Lastel neatly pinned, and his otherworldly
strength and speed would enable him to counter
any move the woman made.
"Then when?"
"When shall I release you? Fool, don't you ever
think past the immediate moment?" For once the
molten-bronze face lost its mocking expression; the
glowing red-gold eyes looked frustrated. "Why should
you want release? What would you do if I gave you
back your previous form—where would you go?
Back to your wastelands, back to misery, back to
petty theft? Back to a life with every man's hand
against you, having to hide like a desert rat? Is that
what you want?"
"I_"
"Fool; blind, stupid fool! Your lust for power is
nearly as great as my own, yet you could accom-
plish nothing by yourself and everything with my
aid!" the demon rose to his feet, gesticulating.
"Think—for one moment, think! You are in a mage-
Talented body now; one in which the currents of
arcane power flow strongly. You could have me as a
patron. You could have all the advantages of being
my own High Prelate when I am made a god! And
you wish to throw this all away? Simply because
you do not care for the responses of a perfectly
healthy and attractive body?"
"But it isn't mine! It's a woman!" Lastel shrank
back into the corner, wailing. "I don't want this
body—"
"But I want you in it. I desire you, creature I
have made; I want you in a form attractive to me."
The demon came closer and placed his hands on
the walls to either side of Lastel, effectively ren-
dering her immobile. "Your emotions run so high,
and taste so sweetly to me that I sometimes think I
shall never release you."
"Why?" Lastel whispered. "Why me, why this?
And why here? I thought all your kind hated this
world."
"Not I." The demon's eyes smoldered as his ex-
pression turned thoughtful. "Your world is beauti-
ful in my eyes; your people have aroused more than
my hunger, they have aroused my desire. I want
this world, and I want the people in it! And I will
have it! Just as I shall have you."
"No—" Lastel whimpered.
"Then I ask in turn, why? Or why not? What
have I done save rouse your own passions? You are
well fed, well clothed, well housed—nor have I
ever harmed you physically."
"You're killing me!" Lastel cried, his voice break-
ing. "You're destroying my identity! Every time
you look at me, every time you touch me, I forget
what it was ever like, being a man! All I want is to
be your shadow, your servant; I want to exist only
for you! I never come back to myself until after
you've gone, and it takes longer to remember what I
was afterward—longer every time you do this to
me."
The demon smiled again with his former cruelty,
and brought his lips in to brush her neck. "Then,
little toy," he murmured, "perhaps it is something
best forgotten?"
Tarma was lost; without sight, without hearing,
without senses of any kind. Held there, and drained
weak past any hope of fighting back. So tired—too
tired to fight. Too tired to hope, or even care. Emp-
tied of every passion—
Wake UP!
The thin voice in her mind was the first sign that
there was any life at all in the vast emptiness
where she abode, alone. She strained to he
ar it
again, feeling ... something. Something besides the
apathy that had claimed her.
Mind-mate, wake!
It was familiar. If only she could remember, re-
member anything at all.
Wake, wake, wake!
The voice was stronger, and had the feel of teeth
in it. As if something large and powerful was clos-
ing fangs on her and shaking her. Teeth—
In the name of the Star-Eyed! the voice said, fran-
tically. You MUST wake!
Teeth. Star-Eyed. Those things had meant some-
thing, before she had become nothing. Had meant
something, when she was—
Tarma.
She was Tarma. She was Tarma still, Sworn One,
kyree-friend, she'enedra.
Every bit of her identity that she regained brought
more tiny pieces back with it, and more strength.
She fought off the gray fog that threatened to steal
those bits away, fought and held them, and put
more and more of herself together, fighting back
inch by inch. She was Shin'a'in, of the free folk of
the open plains—she would not be held and pri-
soned! She—would—not—be—held!
Now she felt pain, and welcomed it, for it was
one more bridge to reality. Salvation lay in pain,
not in the gray fog that sucked the pain and every-
thing else away from her. She held the pain to her,
cherished it, and reached for the voice in her mind.
She found that, too, and held to it, while it re-
joiced fiercely that she had found it.
No—not it. He. The kyree, the mage-beast. Warrl.
The friend of her soul, as Kethry was of her heart.
As if that recognition had broken the last strand
of foul magic holding her in the gray place, she
suddenly found herself possessed again of a body—a
body that ached in a way that was only too familiar.
A body stiff and chilled, and sitting—from the feel
of the air on her skin—nearly naked and on a cold
stone floor. She could hear nothing but the sound of
someone crying softly—and cautiously cracked her
eyes open the merest slit to see where she was.
She was in a cage; she could see the iron bars
before her, but unless she changed position and
moved, she couldn't see much else. She closed her
eyes again in an attempt to remember what could
have brought her to this pass. Her memories tum-
bled together, confused, as she tried with an aching
skull to sort them out.
But after a moment, it all came back to her, and
with it, a rush of anger and hatred.
Thalhkarsh!
The demon—he'd tricked her, trapped her—then
overpowered her, changed her, and done—something
to her to send her into that gray place. But if
Thalhkarsh had taken her, then where were Warrl
and Kethry?
I'm lying on the table, mind-mate, said the voice,
The demon thinks he killed me; he nearly did. His
magic sent me into little-death, and I decided to con-
tinue the trance until we were all alone; it seemed
safer that way. There was nothing I could do for you.
Your she'enedra is in the same cage as you. It would be
nice to let her know the demon hasn't destroyed your
mind after all. She thinks that you're worse than dead,
and blames herself entirely for what was both your
folly.
Tarma moved her head cautiously; her muscles
all ached. There was someone in the cage with her,
crumpled in a heap in the corner; by the shaking of
her shoulders, the source of the weeping—but—
That's not Kethry!
Not her body, but her spirit. The demon gave her
body to the bandit.
What bandit?
The kyree gave a mental growl. It's too hard to
explain; I'm going to break the trance. Tend to your
she'enedra.
Tarma licked lips that were swollen and bruised.
She'd felt this badly used once before, a time she
preferred not to think about.
There was something missing; something missing—
"No," she whispered, eyes opening wide with
shock, all thought driven from her in that instant
by her realization of what was missing. "Oh, no!"
The stranger's head snapped up; swollen and
red-rimmed amethyst eyes turned toward her.
"T-t-tarma?"
"It's gone," she choked, unable to comprehend
her loss. "The vysaka—the Goddess-bond—it's gone!"
She could feel her sanity slipping; feel herself going
over the edge. Without the Goddess-bond—
Take hold of yourself! the voice in her mind
snapped. It's probably all that damn demon's fault;
break his spells and it will come back! And anyway,
you're alive and I'm alive and Kethry's alive; I want us
all to STAY that way!
Warrl's annoyance was like a slap in the face; it
brought her back to a precarious sanity. And with
his reminder that Kethry was still alive, she turned
back toward the stranger whose tear-streaked face
peered through the gloom at her,
"Keth? Is that you?"
"You're back! Oh, Goddess bless, you're back!"
The platinum-haired beauty flung herself into
Tarma's arms, and clung there. "I thought he'd
destroyed you, and it was all my fault for insisting
that we do this ourselves instead of going for help
like you wanted."
"Here, now." Tarma gulped back tears of her
own, and pushed Kethry away with hands that
shook. "We're not out of this yet."
"T-tarma—Warrl—he's—''
Very much alive, thank you. The great furry shape
on the table outside their cage rose slowly to its
four feet, and shook itself painfully. I hurt. If you
hurt like I hurt, we are all in very sad condition.
Tarma sympathized with Kethry's bewilderment.
"He pulled a kyree trick on us all, she'enedra. He
told me that when the demon's magic hit him, it
sent him into little-death—a kind of trance. He
figured it was better to stay that way until we were
alone." She examined the confused countenance
before her. "He also said something about you trad-
ing bodies with a bandit .. . and don't I know that
face?"
"Lastel Longknife," she replied shakily. "He lived;
he's the one that had Thalhkarsh conjured up, and
I guess he got more than he bargained for, because
the demon turned him into a real woman. He was
the one spreading the rumors to lure us in here, I'll
bet. Now he's got my body—"
"I have the sinking feeling that you're going to
tell me you can't work magic in this one."
"Not very well," she admitted. "Though I haven't
tried any of the power magics that need more train-
ing than Talent."
"All right then; we can't magic our way out of
this cage, let's see if we can think our way out."
Tarma did her best to ignore the aching void
within her and took careful stock of the situation.
Their prison c
onsisted of the back half of a stone-
walled room; crude iron bars welded across the
middle made their half into a cage. It had an equally
crude door, padlocked shut. There was only one
door to the room itself, in the front half, and there
were no windows; the floor was of slate. In half of
the room beyond their cage was a table on which
Warrl—and something else—lay.
"Fur-face, is that Need next to you?"
The same.
"Then Thalhkarsh just made one big mistake,"
she said, narrowing her eyes with grim satisfaction.
"Get your tail over here, and bring the blade with
you."
Warrl snorted, picked up the hilt of the blade
gingerly in his mouth, and jumped down off the
table with it. He dragged it across the floor, com-
plaining mentally to Tarma the entire time.
"All right, Keth. I saw that thing shear clean
through armor and more than once. Have a crack at
the latch. It'll have to be you, she won't answer
physically to me."
"But—" Kethry looked doubtfully at the frail
arms of her new body, then told herself sternly to
remember that Need was a magical weapon, that it
responded (as the runes on its blade said) to wom-
an's need. And they certainly needed out of this
prison—
She raised the sword high over her head, and
brought it down on the latch-bar with all of her
strength.
With a shriek like a dying thing, the metal sheared
Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound Page 35