by Joe Jackson
She couldn’t see the next stages of the transformation directly, but she sensed them in how she saw the others. Her eyesight changed slightly, and she wobbled in place and fought off a wave of nausea as her eyes went out of focus before correcting themselves. Her vision wasn’t any more acute, but smells and an almost preternatural sense of heat from warm bodies came to her nostrils. Kari reached up and felt the rounded, softly-furred ears of a mallasti in place of her normal pointed lobes. Her sense of hearing didn’t seem any sharper, but taste seemed to be another matter – in addition to her keener nose, her tongue now seemed to “smell” things to a certain extent. Most peculiar was her scent: she could smell rir, somehow knowing instinctively that was what she sensed, and yet there was also the scent of mallasti now.
There was a discomfiting gurgle that passed from her stomach down to her pelvis, almost like she had indigestion, and Kari wondered if her guts were rearranging themselves. No need to vomit or go relieve herself came, and she shook off the disturbing feeling, closed her eyes, and waited for what was to come. When nothing else happened, she opened her eyes fully and fixed her gaze on Diszaro.
“Amazing,” Seanada said, moving around Kari to take her in fully.
“I am impressed,” Diszaro said. “No screaming. That is a first.”
Kari moved past them to look at herself in the full-body mirror in the corner. She felt the weight of her own body keenly, her legs muscular but difficult to move at first. Once she got to the mirror, though, her jaw fell open slightly, letting her see those incredible mallasti teeth. She focused more on the form of the beautiful hyena-folk female with a white coat. She looked so much like Uldriana had when she’d removed the dye from her fur, but for the eyes. In this form, Kari’s eyes were that astonishing orange that glowed slightly, even in the well-lit room. She took in her belly with great interest, at the way the fur was just long enough and well-layered enough that it provided almost complete modesty.
The more she stared at herself, the less Kari felt naked. Nudity normally didn’t faze her anyway, but she felt clothed, covered as she was in the ivory coat. She reached down and patted her fists against her thighs, seeming rock-hard even compared to her normal body. She clenched her fists, flexed her arms, and squatted down, getting a feel for the muscles and dexterity of this new form. There was no other way to sum it all up; it was amazing.
“How do you feel?” the Wraith asked her.
“Like I weigh as much as a draft horse, but that I should,” she answered. “Strangely, I feel clothed even though I’m naked. And there’s…I don’t know how to explain it, there’s a little voice in the back of my mind, whispering something un…unintelligible.”
The Wraith and Diszaro exchanged a glance, and Kari turned to face them squarely; that didn’t seem to bode well.
“There is a little more to this than you may have suspected,” the transmuter said. “You do not simply look like a mallasti, Lady Vanador. You are a mallasti. That voice you hear in the back of your mind is your arcane power letting you know it is ready to answer your call.”
“What? Really? I can cast spells now?”
“You are untrained and unfamiliar with it,” the Wraith cautioned. “Do nothing until you have had time to confer with Seanada.”
Kari nodded but couldn’t help but turn a devilish grin on her companion, who chuckled.
“Heed my warning, Lady Vanador. You are a mallasti. Bear in mind that you no longer possess wings. If you used either them or your tail defensively, you must take that into account in battle. Also, should you mate with a beshathan, it is possible you may become pregnant.”
Kari’s brows rose at that. “Doubt that’ll be an issue, but I’ll keep it in mind.” She began to walk around the room, getting a feel for the way this body moved. She ducked and wove the way she would during her combat routine, and found the body responded well. She was heavier and denser with muscle and bone, but she felt no change in dexterity. The lack of wings meant she would be denied the ability to use them to dodge, lunge, or leap away in combat, but she could compensate for that by tightening up her routines. “This is amazing. How long will this trans…mutation last?”
“Until you wish it to end,” Diszaro said, collecting his tools to put back in the bag. “Bear in mind, it will take time to change back to your normal form, and it will be no less painful than the change to this one. The enchantment is also not intelligent: it cannot differentiate between an actual desire and a moment of panic. Do not fantasize about returning to your true form, or you will, and this ruse will not work a second time.”
“Understood.”
“And work on your accent, you still sound too much like a Citarian off-worlder.”
“Fine, and you work on your people skills,” Kari retorted. Diszaro looked back at her as he walked to the door, but flashed the barest smile before he left. Kari turned toward the Wraith and wondered what was going on in the mind of that roiling black mass. “Pleasant fellow.”
“Diszaro has ever been short on patience, something that becomes more and more obvious as he gets older,” the black mass replied, almost apologetically. “His work, though, is second to none, as you can see. This transformation has no doubt taken much out of you, so we will request some food from downstairs. Seanada, while we wait, go and retrieve Mastriana.”
“Yes, Master,” the half-syrinthian agreed, and left without delay.
“How do I look and sound, honestly?” Kari asked.
“You do still have a tendency to revert to your normal speech patterns, but you are switching to beshathan much more easily now. If I may make a suggestion, take the time to stop and prepare to speak our language before you begin. Let others get the impression of wisdom as you halt yourself, and they will not question your minor hesitations. As to how you look, take heed of Diszaro’s warning: you are going to be quite attractive to those you come across. A vulkinastra is an enticing possibility to court for more than one reason.”
“Right, they’re considered blessed on top of being beautiful.”
The Wraith stared at her, though it was hard to read anything in those dead-looking eyes or the roiling black mass that was his body. “You truly find this form beautiful?”
“I’m finding beauty in a great many things these days that I never considered before.”
“Epaxa chi’pri,” he said quietly.
Kari perked up and pointed at him. “I’ve heard that expression before, but I don’t know what it means. Hasn’t come up in any of my lessons. Can you explain it?”
“Hmmm. To literally translate it would be, light from without.” Kari’s confusion was clearly evident, as he continued, “Ah, Lady Vanador, for so long we have hoped to kindle enough of a faithful flame to possibly reawaken our Celestial Queen. We have long had this saying in our tongue, however – epaxa chi’pri – to remind us that light, faith, and hope may sometimes come from an outside, unexpected source. That we have inner light should not blind us to the fact that others do as well.”
“So you say it because I’m an outsider helping you?” She felt dumb trying to reason through what he was saying, but she was trying to figure out the context of Mildasa the wet-nurse having said the same thing when Kari visited Koursturaux. In that situation, it had been after Kari referred to Uldriana as her friend.
“You are an off-worlder bringing hope to the people of Mehr’Durillia,” he answered as Seanada came back with the mallasti woman from two weeks ago. Mastriana was disguised, just as Uldriana had been when Kari first met her, the mallasti woman’s fur dyed to hide the fact that she was a vulkinastra. “You are a light to our people, despite having been – and, in many cases, still being – regarded as an enemy. Epaxa chi’pri.”
“Epaxa chi’pri,” Mastriana repeated.
“A light to the world,” Seanada whispered. “Epaxa chi’pri.”
Kari stood speechless.
Mastriana turned to the Wraith then. “How may I be of service, Master?”
“It is time to put my plan in motion. We will need to have use of your name. You must, for the time being, disappear while Lady Vanador uses your name.”
“Mastriana?” Kari repeated.
“Mastriana Te’Dastra,” the woman confirmed with a nod, then turned back to the Wraith. “It shall be as you ask, Master. I will travel to Kaatherai under an assumed name, and take up menial employment until you send word that the task is complete.”
“Very well; see to it this moment.” Mastriana nodded and left. The Wraith turned to Kari as there was a knock at the door. “That should be our food. Take it, and take your meal, and we will discuss the final details of this plan.”
“To start a war,” Kari said.
“If we are lucky.”
*****
The road to Saovonn was shrouded in shadow even during the highest point of the sun’s journey. The southern end of Sorelizar was dense, beautiful forest, with depressed roads cut through the hills, such that the trees branched out over the road to grab every mote of sunshine they could. Traffic was nearly non-existent, but that was hardly a mystery: Amnastru had been through the area just weeks before, and might still be nearby. Finding the truth behind that was the current goal.
Information was hard to receive, which pointed to things becoming more tense among the lands of the mallasti. The Wraith’s plans had been put on hold temporarily while Kari and Seanada were held over in Ewuaswi, but that hadn’t slowed down Sekassus’ retaliation all that much. Where the demon king was at least somewhat subtle about his viciousness, his eldest son possessed none of that patient demeanor. He had hit Saovonn hard and quickly, such that any news coming out of it had slowed to a trickle in the last two weeks.
Kari looked sidelong at Seanada, the half-syrinthian woman also disguised as a female mallasti, though with the coloration typical for one of the Te’Montasi clan. Kari, by contrast, wore a hooded garment that hid the fact that she was a vulkinastra from anyone more than a few paces away. Both of the women were treading uncharted waters; Seanada may have been a natural shapeshifter as a half-succubus, but she had admittedly never taken another form for an extended period of time. At least she could speak beshathan and her accent was closer to a mallasti than a syrinthian. Kari was getting better and better with the language of the beshathans, and she paid particular mind to Seanada’s corrections when her usual accent slipped through.
The mallasti body was becoming almost second-nature to Kari after only a few days. She was used to its weight now, the way she could move in it, its capabilities and limitations. She hadn’t really toyed with the arcane power yet; for some reason, she felt it would be beyond her ability to understand and control. In almost every other respect, it was much like her true body – minus the wings – with the differences being mostly cosmetic. Kari wasn’t one for theology or philosophy, but she did find it astounding that so many races from so many worlds could be so similar in the way their bodies were stylized and operated.
The armor she wore was lightweight but both sufficient and efficient. It was built of scales of armor, which had an annoying tendency to pull fur every now and then, but the undergarments kept that to a minimum. It wasn’t going to provide as much protection as Kari’s paluric armor, which the Wraith was holding safely for her, but she had to wear something that wouldn’t give away her identity at a glance. What she found strangest about the armor, honestly, was that she so rarely saw mallasti wearing armor of any kind. Armed with their powerful arcane abilities, they rarely seemed to take up arms or armor in the sense of a traditional warrior.
Her weapons were something completely new. The Wraith had called them waushim – waushims? – and they were unlike anything Kari had ever wielded, at least in the sense of how they looked. How they felt was another matter altogether. Composed of a metal haft that was curved, topped with a crescent, axe-like blade, they looked like a stylish battle axe of some kind. In her hands, though, they felt very much like her scimitars in every respect, right down to where they were weighted. Built for slashing and chopping motions, Kari quickly found she could do nearly everything with them that she could with her swords.
Still, they weren’t her angel’s blades, and she found they didn’t feel as comfortable in her hands as those amazing swords that had revealed more and more to her in recent months. If she was to fight Amnastru and possibly several other princes, she wanted those swords to do it. Like with her armor, the Wraith was keeping them safe for her, and the fact that he could touch them at all made Kari wonder. Was his Wraith-like form just an illusion? Did the swords detect that there was an inherent goodness in him beyond it?
Either way, it wasn’t exactly a conversation starter.
“As soon as our work is finished, we’ll head straight back to your family,” Kari said in beshathan to break the long silence of the road.
Seanada regarded her briefly. “My mother will be emotionally ruined by this. It is well understood the risks I must take serving the Wraith, but to actually have news of my death reach her…it will take some time before she recovers, even once I show her I am still alive. Which, of course, we must make every effort to ensure becomes the truth. It is no given with the mission we are currently undertaking.”
“Of course,” Kari agreed. “Are you going to want to stay with your family for a while? Or return to Citaria with me?”
“That will depend on my mother’s wishes, I think, but more so on where I am needed. I do not have the luxury of sitting idly to comfort family, not with the acceleration of events. Then again, if war breaks out on a large scale as my master hopes, then I will likely remain here. What is your wish on the matter?”
“I’d like to keep you close to me if I can. But I want you to be where you need to be, not where I want you to be,” Kari answered, remembering the Oracle’s words to Aeligos when he had accompanied her to Terrassia.
“I feel much the same way. I appreciate your family very much. It reminds me of what my own is like around family gatherings. You are all willing to die for each other, but what is far more impressive is that you live for each other. Even the new blood added to your family – the burly woman and the assassin – and your close friends are all welcomed as family. That such grace would extend to a couple of syrinthians, and even myself to an extent, is humbling. You and your family have honored me, Se’sasha, and Liria in ways you may never understand.”
“Help me understand, then,” Kari suggested. “If I’m going to pass among the mallasti as one of them, it’ll help to know what I’ve done right, and what I may have done wrong.”
The disguised half-syrinthian nodded. “As you probably know, the bonds of family and clan are quite strong among the beshathans, the mallasti in particular. Much like with your family, they derive strength from each other, stand up for each other, fight for each other when necessary. The individual is not lost in the family, but at the same time, family is normally the most important aspect in their lives.”
“There is no greater joy among the mallasti than the birth of a child, whether one’s own, a new member of the family, or a new member of a neighbor’s family. Children are considered a gift from…” She paused and looked around, but the road was deserted within a mile. “They are considered a gift from Be’shatha. When a female conceives, she becomes the center of attention among the family, who care for her and pamper her throughout her term. When the child comes, it belongs to the family and clan nearly as much as the parents themselves, at least in terms of its importance.”
“Related or neighboring females who all have nursing children will take it in turns to nurse, so that the young mothers may take care of other matters in between. It strengthens their blood to have many different females nurse each child, and also strengthens the bonds of family and clan alike. I suspect this will not be the case with your sister-by-law and your priestess friend, but that is a shame.”
Kari nodded and cracked a smile. “It did take some time to get used to the idea of having a wet nurse, but what
a godsend that was.”
Seanada smirked. “So, as you see, my people are very much about the bonds of friends and family. But not just friends, family, and neighbors; bonds are maintained even among those who may not particularly care for each other. To assume that all of my people get along at all times would be foolishness, but despite differences, the bond of blood and clan is maintained. In this regard, know this: there are few honors you can give to a mallasti more potent than to invite one you regard as an enemy to take a meal with you.”
So that was it, Kari thought. The reaction she’d received when she asked Emma to dine with her, and she hadn’t taken any of the mallasti girl’s nonsense about slaves not eating with the master into account. Kari wasn’t sure how Emma regarded her – it was possible the sorceress did truly view Kari as little more than her master’s asset – but that little token courtesy had a much greater impact because of mallasti culture. Kari had done something kind, but it had been magnified from Emma’s point of view without Kari even understanding why.
“You may have seen such in any of the villages you have passed through, when all of its people take a meal together. All differences are set aside, and they share in the bounty of the Great Mother together, as one clan, despite their possible enmities.”
Kari nodded. “I know they aren’t fazed by nudity, rather like my people, and now that I have this furry covering, I think I understand why. I don’t feel naked even when I am.” The half-syrinthian made a gesture of agreement. “And from my experience, they seem to be rather casual about mating?”
Seanada raised a furry brow. It was amusing how her facial expressions translated to a mallasti countenance, but it helped Kari grow accustomed to the reactions of the normally impassive people. “Casual? About mating? Anything but. Mating is a sacred thing among these people, Lady…Kari. My brother has had a betrothed for well over a year, which is unusual, but still he and his bride-to-be maintain the customs of our people. They will not mate until she has celebrated her thirtieth year.”