Preludes to War (Eve of Redemption Book 6)

by Joe Jackson

  The Wraith looked around. They were alone in the southern fields, and he ducked behind a stand of trees and melted into that black roiling mass. “Meet me at the surgeon’s office, where we will see if Seanada is at last ready to rejoin our efforts.”

  Kari agreed and took a different route back to town. When she reached the surgeon’s office, the Wraith was already there with Seanada. The half-syrinthian hadn’t spent the previous couple of weeks completely idle. She was stretching and exercising as much as she could, and the closer she got to fully healed, the more she was able to do. Now, Seanada was demonstrating her flexibility and ease of movement for her master, and Kari detected nothing in her motions or expression that said she was still in pain.

  “So, we are ready to begin the next phase of our plan,” he said. “Things have obviously changed since we undertook this mission of ours, but through subtlety and misdirection, I have worked them to our advantage. Seanada, as far as anyone outside our immediate contacts here knows, is dead. And her death has no doubt been reported back to King Sekassus, as has your presence, Lady Vanador.”

  “How are either of those things to our advantage?” Kari asked, and she laid a hand on her companion’s shoulder. “And what does this mean for Seanada’s family?”

  “Unfortunately, pain in the short term. But there will be a joyful reunion, assuming all goes according to plan. For the time being, her death must be made to look authentic, or we will not have the element of surprise against Amnastru. And that, Lady Vanador, is where you come in.”

  “But you just said they already know I’m here,” she countered, confused.

  “Indeed. Which is why, in between our lessons, I have arranged for you to disappear. By sundown tomorrow, a master artificer and transmuter named Diszaro Kovakt will be joining us to see to that end. You remember, Lady Vanador, the masterful shape-changing magic laid upon the syrinthians who infiltrated your Order?”

  “You’re going to shape-change me?”

  Seanada nodded slowly, apparently understanding where this was going. The Wraith seemed to bubble and roil in amusement. “Into a vulkinastra.”

  Kari balked, and noted the shock upon Seanada’s face now. “Wait, you’re going to turn me into the very thing Sekassus has most of his people hunting after?”

  “You are going to try to force the prophecy to come true?” Seanada reasoned.

  “Indeed. King Sekassus is afraid that a vulkinastra is going to lead a rebellion against him and depose him. Though that is not our true aim, we are going to see what may come of toying with the prophecy. And in the process, we will see if we can force the hands of some of these other kings who hesitate to invade Sorelizar.”

  Kari tilted her head. “So, you’re going to try to force King Emanitar and maybe King Morduri to help?”

  “And perhaps King Arku as well. It is difficult to say how many may strike when they smell blood or weakness. Perhaps all of them. Perhaps none. Our aim is still to kill Amnastru, but if things progress as far as I suspect they may, we will press the advantage beside those kings whose goals align with ours.”

  “What about Seanada?” Kari asked, eyeing her companion.

  “Oh, she will have her part to play. Fortunately, she already speaks beshathan and can change shape naturally as a half-succubus. It will be time to put those skills to full use again, Silent Fang.”

  “Of course, Master.” Seanada turned toward Kari. “You have been learning a bit of beshathan while I have been recovering?”

  Kari hardly even noticed that the question had been asked in beshathan. It took her a few moments to translate it in her head, but she did so almost subconsciously. “Yes, I have,” she said, trying her hand at the new tongue. “Though it will still be a while before I can properly wrap you in a blanket.”

  Seanada snorted and turned back to the Wraith. “Good tone and inflection already; she will be speaking it casually before too long, I suspect.”

  “She is a quick learner,” he said, that lifeless gaze turning fully to Kari. “We face two issues, however: We have much work to be done, and we need to get her home to her family before too much time passes. As it stands, she has already been gone longer than anticipated.”

  Kari nodded. She’d felt that keenly enough all through her training, the homesickness, the desire to spend time with her children…and to see Kris again. “If you could, would you send a messenger to contact those who followed me to Anthraxis? There should be one or two of my hunters there listening for word of me. They need to be told to stay put for the time being.”

  “It shall be arranged. For now, eat, rest, and practice the beshathan tongue. Tomorrow, our plan goes into effect.”

  Chapter X – The View from the Other Side

  Kari spent much of the evening and the following day conversing with Seanada in beshathan. It was a new language, and so it was a bit tedious to learn all the nuances, but Kari became infatuated with its structure and flow. There was something almost lyrical about the language, though that hadn’t shown through as well when Kari didn’t understand it. The more words and phrases she picked up, though, the more it appealed to her. Kari thought of the Wraith speaking with Little Gray in this alien language, and for some odd reason, she imagined singing to her children in it.

  Seanada was patient in her teaching, as she seemed to be in everything. Her mastery of several different languages was impressive, and yet it never really struck Kari as impressive that she, too, could speak several. Kari was fluent in the common trade tongue of Citaria, as well as rir, obviously, but also elvish, czarikk, and, to some extent, infernal. She was still awkward with beshathan, but it was coming more and more easily to her with Seanada’s instruction.

  “Thank you for taking the time to teach me,” Kari said. She tried to keep all of their conversations in beshathan while she was learning. She occasionally used the wrong word, or sometimes the right one in the wrong context, but Seanada never had trouble understanding. There were some words that had a particular meaning on the surface, but were only used in a very specific context. Her attempt to speak beshathan the day before had been one example. Now she snickered whenever she thought of saying properly wrap you in a blanket by mistake.

  “It is the least I can do in return for you saving me,” Seanada answered quietly. There was a tone of embarrassment to her words, as though she was ashamed to have had to be saved at all. “I owe you a life debt.”

  Kari considered her. “That’s not how it works between friends,” she said.

  The half-syrinthian raised her eyes to meet Kari’s gaze. “You consider me your friend?”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  “I cannot say,” Seanada said, looking out the window of the upper-story hostel room. “I have never truly had any friends. You remember my mother’s words regarding my youth. I was always an outsider: tolerated as an adopted child of the Te’Montasi clan, but never accepted. I had neighbors and classmates, but never friends. And I cannot fault them any more than I would fault you for keeping me at a distance. I am a demon.”

  “You need to stop thinking of yourself like that,” Kari chided her.

  “I am a demon,” she said, more insistently. “As I said to you, it is always just below the surface. Look how easily my sister succumbed to the temptations…”

  “Your sister had nothing to fight for but pain and envy,” Kari countered. She had to switch back to the Citarian trade tongue as their conversation became more complex. “You fight for your family, your neighbors…even those people who spurned you. You were willing to fight to defend me, and my children. You don’t fight for the demon, Seanada: you fight against it and everything it stands for. The only piece of your mother in you is blood, and blood is directed by the heart, not the other way around.”

  “You truly believe that?”

  “I believe you’re a good woman, Seanada. I believe you’re worthy of being my friend, and I trust you enough that I let you watch over my children and my family, and live among
us. I believe you fight for the right cause, and for the right reasons, and that’s not something I can say about very many people from Mehr’Durillia.”

  “Your trust means a great deal to me, as does your offer of friendship.”

  “It’s not an offer. It’s something you already have. Above all that, Seanada, I trust you with my life, and I hope you trust me with yours. This plan of your master’s…it makes me very nervous.”

  “Undoubtedly,” the half-syrinthian agreed. “To disguise yourself as a vulkinastra will be quite a risk to take within Sorelizar. But if he is correct – which he always has been, based on my experiences – it is going to allow a more forceful impact from our strike than simply taking one of King Sekassus’ children from him. This gambit of ours may very well start a war, Lady Vanador. A war that will claim the lives of many of my people, but will ultimately be worth it if we depose King Sekassus and leave no heir to take his throne.”

  “How many princes does he have?” Kari asked.

  “He had twelve before you slew Ressallk,” Seanada answered. “Some of them are quite powerful, others not so. Striking down Amnastru would be a fair indicator that we have nothing to fear from any but the king himself. And I do not believe it is my master’s intention that we engage the Cobra Lord in combat at all. Pieces have been put in place to ensure King Sekassus remains in his palace until the damage is done, and far too extensive for him to reasonably retaliate before we are gone like the wind.”

  “The explosives expert,” Kari mused, and Seanada nodded. “Do you know if any word has been sent to King Emanitar regarding our progress?”

  “I do not believe so. The Wraith does not want to involve King Emanitar until our plan has progressed far enough that his involvement would go far beyond simply killing Amnastru. Despite your reason for being here, the Wraith has far greater aspirations.”

  “So what’s your plan? If I’m being turned into a vulkinastra, what’re you going to do?”

  “I will disguise myself, ironically enough, as one of my people. Bear in mind, Lady–” She paused when Kari made a face. “…Kari, that with your new shape will also come a change in clothing and weapons. We cannot otherwise make it obvious who and what you and I are.”

  “Ketava,” Kari blurted, and the half-syrinthian chuckled. “I guess we’ll be putting my new training to the test when we fight Amnastru.”

  “We will both be tested to our limits, should we engage him ourselves.”

  They continued in their beshathan lesson through dinner. After sundown, that black mass entered through the cracks around the door of their now-shared hostel room. It took form with the intense orange eyes as usual, but said nothing. Instead, the Wraith turned toward the door only moments before there was a knock.

  Diszaro Kovakt looked to be an older elestram, his snout, neck, and upper chest peppered with grey and white. He introduced himself in the Citarian trade tongue by name with a curt nod, and Kari let him into the room. He bowed before the Wraith and nodded again to Seanada. Kari closed the door and stood with her back against it while the elestram set a leather case full of tools on the bed. Within minutes he had pulled out a wide array of prods, blades, needles, and other things, and Kari felt her hackles rise. Just what was he planning to do with all of that?

  Kari pointed at the pile of tools and looked at the Wraith wordlessly.

  “While arcane power will be involved with your transformation, it is not as simple as you might suspect,” he answered her unspoken question, drawing Diszaro’s attention momentarily.

  “You will need to get undressed before we may begin,” the elestram instructed.

  “Umm…,” Kari hesitated.

  “Come now, this will take long enough without you prudishly stalling.”

  “Diszaro, I did not ask you here to disrespect my allies,” the Wraith said in cold tones.

  “My apologies, Master, but I have traveled a good distance to come see to this. I have neither the time nor the patience for this woman to suddenly turn shy.”

  “Shy? It’s not taking my clothes off, it’s a matter of where you plan to stick me with all of those sharp objects you brought,” Kari said, gesturing toward the tools again. “I may heal fast, but that doesn’t mean I like being stabbed.”

  “I will need to test several things before I begin the actual work. I have never worked on a rir before, so other than the obvious,” he said, gesturing up and down at her, “I know very little about your anatomy. I will need to learn much about you in a short amount of time, collect a sample of blood, and, to put this plainly, make sure that when you want this enchantment to end, you turn back into your normal self.”

  “Was that supposed to make me more comfortable?”

  The Wraith shuddered in a way that suggested a sigh. “Lady Vanador, Diszaro has been long at this craft and I have the utmost confidence in his abilities. It will be uncomfortable, but allow him to do his work, that we may begin our work.”

  Kari looked at Seanada. If she wasn’t mistaken, the half-syrinthian was actually putting effort into not laughing. With a roll of her eyes, Kari shed her armor, padded clothing, and then her undergarments. She moved over to Diszaro at his gesture, and the elestram began taking in her naked form with great interest. She did feel more at ease after the first few moments; he had an expression that said strictly business.

  “Hmmm, bear in mind you will have additional nipples,” he said, lightly touching her tightly-muscled belly. “Let me see your teeth. Good, good. Very well, then, let me get a feel for the weight of your tail. Relax, let it hang limply. Your sense of balance will be different in the body of a mallasti; they have shorter, lighter tails, and yet the same posture in their legs. Your kind are…quite peculiar.”

  “I could say the same of you,” Kari offered.

  Diszaro nodded. “Much will be different in your new form. The mallasti are muscular like you are under those dense coats, but they are heavier. Your center of gravity will be lower. Your sense of balance, as I said, may be off at first. I know little of how well your kind see or hear, but those senses are keen on a mallasti, so even just your perceptions will take a little time to adjust. There will be a great deal of getting used to this new body.”

  Kari looked over her shoulder at the Wraith. “And I’ll have to wear different armor and carry different weapons?”

  “You will, though this has already been arranged. Your armor will be heavier than this magnificent set you wear, but I believe you will notice little difference in the stockier body of a mallasti. We shall see.”

  “What about swords?”

  “The mallasti have a weapon called a waushim that I believe you will find comfortable in your grip and style. We will go over these things tomorrow.”

  Diszaro spent a minute touching various places on Kari’s belly and asking her which organs were located there. She was far from an expert, but she knew a bit about it, mostly thanks to Grakin’s healing ministrations and the associated stories that went with them. A sigh escaped her as she thought of her husband, but though she received a few looks of concern, Kari didn’t explain herself.

  When Diszaro was finally done, he stood up straight before her. “Excellent. Well, that will eliminate a lot of the need for the prods and other tools I brought with me. I will still need a blood sample to more smoothly transition you through the change. And there is one other thing I have yet to test.”

  He crouched down and poked Kari in the center of her thigh. Her leg nearly buckled, and she grimaced in pain. He repeated the process over several spots on her body. She knew what he was doing: he was locating nerve clusters, or pressure points, things Kari had learned about under Suler Tumureldi. They were among the best places to strike to maim or kill, along with the many groupings of blood vessels and arteries around the body. It was an annoying process, and she was left with echoing pains everywhere he’d tested her, but it was over soon enough.

  “Now, let me just take a few drops of blood,” he said. He mer
cifully didn’t go for the fingertips, opting instead for a relatively painless spot on the side of her hand. He let a few drops of her blood drip onto a crystal, but he didn’t have to bother telling her to put pressure on the minor wound: it closed in no time. “Most interesting.”

  Diszaro took a deep breath and held up the crystal prism before Kari. “Now the true work begins. Try to remain as still as possible. This will be painful, but you have been through worse, no doubt. Remain centered, remember that pain is temporary, and when I am finished, you will be prepared to do as my master desires.”

  Kari sighed. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  The elestram began to speak in the hushed tones of a language Kari didn’t recognize. It was interesting: it wasn’t the same tongue Sonja used to use when practicing her arcane power, but it seemed to serve the same purpose. He wove the clawed fingers of one hand in an intricate pattern, the words becoming more intense as he gestured around her. At first, Kari felt nothing, but she prepared herself to be hurt.

  The initial jolt made her guts clench. It was as though the floor had reached up and taken hold of her legs, but a quick glance told her nothing of the sort had happened. Her very bones ached, and she gritted her teeth and groaned as what felt like cold fire shot up through her shins and into her thighs. She suddenly felt weak, like the ground was desperate to rush up and embrace her, but she kept solid on her two feet through sheer willpower. It proved fairly easy, since she now felt as though her legs each weighed more than she had in total previously.

  Fire seared down her belly, and Kari couldn’t hold back a grunting whine. As suggested, two more nipples appeared on her belly, then two more below those, but in looking down, Kari saw that her lower legs were now furry and white. She held her hands up and watched as her claws changed. It was subtle, but they weren’t quite the same as rir claws, and the flesh of her hands sprouted short, black, densely-packed, stubble-like hairs.