“Were you very frightened?” Waylander asked the boy.
“Yes, sir. Is my uncle safe?”
“He was when last I saw him.” He turned his attention to Yu Yu. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like I want to be ditchdigger again,” said Yu Yu. “Like I could throw this puking sword in sea and go home.”
“You can do that,” said Waylander. “You are a free man.”
“Later,” said Yu Yu, “but first we have to find Men of Clay.”
Many of the servants were reluctant to return to the palace, but as the boldest of them moved through the doors, most of the others followed. Another fifteen joined the thirty who had already quit the Gray Man’s service and journeyed to Carlis.
Waylander walked out through the banquet hall and found Kysumu sitting cross-legged on the terrace stones. The Rajnee’s arms were extended outward, his head bowed. Waylander moved silently past him, leaving the warrior to his meditation.
The sun was high now in a clear blue sky, shining down on the myriad colors of the flowers in the terraced gardens. The scent of roses filled the air. It made the events of the night seem like a dream. Waylander strolled down to his apartments. The door was open, and there was a crimson smear on the frame.
Inside, the priestess Ustarte lay naked in one corner. Blood from a number of wounds to her flanks, arms, and legs was seeping through her striped fur. Waylander knelt beside her. She was unconscious. Stretching her out on her back, he examined the wounds. They were deep. Waylander drew the blue crystal from his pocket, slowly moving it over the tears in her flesh. He could see no sign of the flesh-eating maggots. Finding his medicine bag, he took from it a curved needle and began to stitch the largest of the jagged rips in her side. Her golden eyes opened and locked on his gaze. Then they closed once more. Waylander continued his work. Her fur was not soft like that of a cat. It was wiry and thick, the muscles beneath supple and immensely strong. Indeed, she was far stronger than the slim form suggested. There was further evidence of this when he tried to lift her to carry her to his bed. She weighed at least as much as two tall men. Unable to move her, Waylander fetched a pillow and some blankets and laid them on a chair close by. Then, using old cloths, he mopped up the blood around her. Wiping his hands clean, he lifted her head and slipped the pillow under it. Then he covered her with the blankets.
Having done all he could, Waylander left the building, pulled shut the door, and walked to the waterfall. Stripping off his clothes, he stood beneath the cold water.
Refreshed, he gathered up his clothes and returned to his rooms. Finding a fresh shirt and leggings, he dressed and returned to the priestess. Her breathing was shallow, her face ashen. Her eyes opened, and she tried to speak, the effort causing her to wince. “Don’t talk,” he said softly. “Rest now. I will fetch you some water.” Filling a goblet, he raised her head and held it to her lips. She drank a little and then sank back. “Sleep,” he said. “Nothing will harm you.” He was aware even as he said it that he could in truth make no such guarantees, but the words were out before he could stop them.
He walked to the door and sat down on the step. The fishermen were out in the bay, the white sails of their boats bright in the sunlight.
Waylander leaned back against the door frame.
Eldicar Manushan had been torn apart battling the demons in the ruins. He could not, surely, at the same time have summoned more monsters to attack the palace. Waylander considered the attack. There had been three targets: Mendyr Syn, Yu Yu Liang, and Ustarte. Since Yu Yu and the Rajnee sword had been in the hospital building, the death of the surgeon might have been merely a tragic coincidence. Anger flickered in his weary frame. Life was full of such meaningless tragedies.
His first wife, Tanya, and his three children had died because a group of raiders had decided to head southeast rather than southwest. Coincidentally, he had chosen that day to hunt venison rather than stay and rebuild the south pasture fence.
“You have no time for self-pity,” he said aloud, pushing the awful scenes from his mind.
He truly did not care whether Kydor stood or fell. War was a grisly fact of life and one he was powerless to alter. But the enemy had brought death to his house, and that he did care about. Demons had been unleashed within the palace. Omri had been a gentle, kind man. Talons had torn his chest open. Mendyr Syn had devoted his life to the care of others. In his last moments he had witnessed his patients being ripped apart.
Until now this had not been Waylander’s war.
Now it was.
Leaning his head back against the door frame, he closed his eyes. Sunlight was warm on his face. A soft breeze whispered against his skin. He was almost asleep when he heard soft footfalls on the steps. His dark eyes flicked open, and he drew a diamond-shaped knife from its sheath.
Keeva appeared, carrying a tray of food. Waylander pushed himself to his feet and stood blocking the doorway. “Emrin asked me to bring you some breakfast,” she said.
He was silent for a moment. “Was it you who hurled the carving knife at the beast?” he asked.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I saw it on the floor. Where did you aim for?”
“The eye.”
“Did you hit it?”
“Yes. It went in to the hilt.”
“Excellent.” He looked at her closely. “I want you to do something for me,” he said.
“Of course.”
“I want it done quietly. No one must know. No one at all.”
“You can trust me, Gray Man. I owe you my life.”
“Go to the north tower and the rooms of the priestess Ustarte. Let no one see you. Gather some of her clothes and gloves. Do not forget the gloves. Put them in a sack and bring them here.”
“She is still alive?”
Waylander stepped back into the apartments, beckoning her to follow him. Keeva paused in the doorway and gazed down on the sleeping priestess. One arm was outside the blankets. Keeva moved closer and stared down at the exposed fur-covered limb and the sharp claws extending from the short, stubby fingers. She recoiled instantly.
“Sweet heavens! What is she?” whispered Keeva.
“Someone who has been badly wounded,” he said softly. “No one must know she has survived the attack. You understand?”
“Is she a demon?”
“I do not know what she is, Keeva, but I believe there is no evil in her. Will you trust me on this?”
“I trust you, Gray Man. Will she live?”
“I have no way of knowing. The wounds are deep, and there may be massive internal bleeding. But I will do what I can.”
Ustarte opened her eyes. Her vision swam, then focused on the roughly wrought ceiling above her. Her mouth was dry, and she became aware of pain. It grew from a dull, throbbing ache to needles of fire in her side and back. She groaned.
Instantly a figure appeared above her. Lifting her head, he held a goblet of water to her lips. She drank sparingly at first, allowing the cool liquid to ease its way down her parched throat. The swirling began in her belly, and she quelled it. Must not change now, she thought, an edge of panic seeping into her mind. Looking up into the Gray Man’s face, she read his thoughts instinctively. He was concerned for her.
“I will live,” she whispered. “If I do not … become the beast.” She caught an image in his mind of a golden wolf dying on the stairs of the library. Sorrow flowed over her, and tears welled in her eyes. “They died for me,” she whispered.
“Aye, they did,” he said. The tears flowed onto her cheeks, and she began sobbing. She felt his hands on her shoulders. “Be calm, Ustarte! You will tear the stitches. There will be time for grief later.”
“They trusted me,” she said. “I betrayed them.”
“You betrayed no one. You did not summon the demons.”
“I could have opened a portal and taken them to safety.”
“Now you are making me angry,” he said, but the hand stroking her head was
still gentle. “There is no one living who would not change some aspect of the past if he could to avoid a hurt or a tragedy. We make mistakes. It is just the grim game of life. Your people followed you because they loved and believed in you. You were seeking to prevent a great evil. Yes, they died to protect you. And they did it willingly. It is for you to make that sacrifice worthwhile by surviving, as they wanted you to survive. You hear me?”
“I hear you, Gray Man. But we have lost. The gateway will open, and the evil of Kuan Hador will return.”
“Maybe so, maybe not. We still live. I have had many enemies, Ustarte, powerful enemies. Some commanded nations, others armies, others demons. They are all dead, and I still live. And while I live, I will not accept defeat.”
Closing her eyes, she tried to flow with the pain. Ustarte felt the blanket being lifted from her. The Gray Man was studying her wounds.
“They are healing well,” he said. “Why will this change be dangerous for you?”
“I become larger. The stitches will tear open. If this begins to happen, you must … kill me. I will no longer be Ustarte. And what I become will … slaughter you in its agony. You understand?”
“Yes. Rest now.”
For a human it would have been sound advice, but Ustarte knew that if she did not stay conscious, the swirling would begin again and she would metamorphose. She lay very still. Her thoughts began to drift. Several times she almost lost the focus. She saw again the breeding pens, felt again the terrible fear she had known. The crippled girl dragged from her home and brought underground to the ceaseless horror of the pens. Sharp knives cutting into her flesh, noxious liquids being forced down her throat. Each time she vomited, more of the fluid was poured into her mouth. Spells were cast, sharper than knives, hotter than fire, colder than ice.
Then the awful day when her frail body was merged with the beast. Its terror and rage swamped her as its molecules flowed into her human frame. The pain was indescribable, every muscle swelling and cramping. The child was swept away in a sea of blackness. But she clung to her individuality despite the roaring of the beast in her mind. Sensing her presence, the beast calmed.
Strange dreams followed. She felt herself running on all fours, her great limbs powering her across the plain at terrible speed. Then the leap to the back of the deer, her fangs closing on its neck, dragging it down, warm blood filling her mouth. She almost lost herself in the blood memory, but she clung to the tiny spark that was Ustarte.
She remembered the day she became aware of voices. “This new Kraloth does not conform, lord. It sleeps twenty hours and, when awake, seems confused. We have noted tremors in the muscles of its hind legs and occasional spasms.”
“Kill it,” came a second voice, harsh and cold.
“Aye, lord.”
The thought of dying flooded Ustarte with a burst of energy, and her spirit flowed up from the dark recesses of the bestial body. She felt again the pull of the flesh, the power of the muscles in her four limbs. Her eyes opened. She reared up, trying to speak. A low, guttural growl rippled from her throat. Her paws struck at the iron bars of the cage. A man in a green tunic pushed a long stick through the bars. Something sharp and bright on the end of it stabbed into her flesh. Fire flowed into her flanks.
Instinctively she knew it was poison. How she had dealt with it remained a mystery to her to this day. She could only assume that the merging had created in her an unforeseen talent, enhancing her lymphatic pathways in such a way that she could draw the poison into her system, breaking it down into component parts and subtly changing it.
She dropped to her haunches, waiting silently until the poison was dispersed harmlessly. Then she became aware of the thoughts of the three men in the room. One was waiting to go home to his family. Another was thinking of a missed meal. The third was considering murder.
Even as she linked to the thought, she felt the man close his mind to her. A golden spell lanced through the bars, flowing over her body with whips of fire. She writhed under this new pain.
So desperate was she to escape it that she fled deep within the bestial body, allowing the beast control. It raged around the cage, slashing its great paws at the bars, bending them. Still the pain increased. Ustarte tried to flee again, surging up through the body as if trying to claw her way free of the tortured flesh.
And in that moment she found the key that would save her life.
The beast withdrew. The spirit of Ustarte swelled. The body fell to the floor of the cage, writhing and changing.
When she awoke, she was resting in a bed. Her body was no longer quite that of the beast, but neither was it human. Her shoulders and torso were covered in thick, striped fur, her fingers tipped with retractable talons.
“You are a mystery to me, child,” said a voice. Turning her head, she saw the third man sitting beside the bed. He was wonderfully handsome, his hair golden, his eyes a summer blue. The eyes of a kindly uncle, she thought. Yet there was no kindness in him. “But we will learn to solve it.”
Two days later she had been taken to a stockaded palace prison high in the mountains. Here there were other mutations, man-beasts and werecreatures, the subjects of failed experiments. There was a serpent with the face of a child. It was kept in a domed cage of thin wire mesh and fed on live rats. The creature did not speak, but at night it would make music, high and keening. The sound would tear at Ustarte’s soul every night for the five years she was imprisoned in that awful place.
Unspeakable acts were committed against her body, and she in turn was trained to kill and feed. For two years she refused to kill a human. For two years Deresh Karany, the golden-haired sorcerer, subjected her to dreadful pain. Ultimately the torture broke her resistance, and she learned to obey. Her first kill had been a young woman, her next a powerful man with only one arm. After that she learned not to remember the faces and forms of her victims. Time and again Deresh Karany would force her to change, and once in the bestial form, she would be directed against some hapless human. Her long fangs and terrible talons would rip into the frail flesh, tearing off limbs, lapping up blood, and crunching brittle bones.
She was a good Kraloth, obedient and trustworthy. Not once, in either of her forms, did she turn on her jailers. Not even a growl. Her obedience was instantaneous. And day by day they grew more complacent about her. They thought they had her beaten. She could read it in their thoughts. Never, since that first day back in the city, had she let them know of her other powers. She was careful not to betray her talent. Ustarte knew that Deresh Karany sensed them. Once he had walked toward her with a dagger in his hand. His thoughts were clear: “I am going to ram this blade into your throat.”
“Good morning, my lord,” she said.
“Good morning, Ustarte.” He sat beside her. “I am very pleased with you.”
“I am going to kill you!”
“Thank you, my lord. What do you require of me?”
He smiled and sheathed the dagger. “The creatures in this place are unique; twin forming is so rare. How does it feel when you shift from one form to the other?”
“It is painful, lord.”
“Which form gives you the most pleasure?”
“Neither gives me pleasure, lord. In this, my near-human form, I derive some satisfaction from study, from the beauty of the sky. In Kraloth guise I glory in power and strength and the taste of flesh.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding, “the beast has no perception of abstracts. How, then, do you control it?”
“I cannot fully control it, lord. It is wild and savage. It obeys me because it knows I can deny it existence, but it constantly seeks ways to overcome me.”
“The spirit of the tiger remains alive?”
“I believe so.”
“Interesting.” He fell silent and seemed lost in thought. Then he met her gaze. “Back in the city I sensed you reaching out and touching my mind. You recall this?”
She had waited for this moment and knew it would be dangerous to offer a c
omplete lie. “Yes, lord. It was most mysterious. It was like flowing up from a deep sleep. Suddenly I heard distant voices, though I knew they were not real sounds.”
“And this has not happened since?”
“No, lord.”
“Let me know if it does.”
“I will, lord.”
“You are doing well, Ustarte. We are all proud of you.”
“Thank you, lord. That is most pleasing to me.”
One day, as she strolled in semihuman form, she saw that the small postern gate was unlocked. She stood in the doorway gazing out on the mountain path leading to the forest. Reaching out with her mind, she sensed the watchers close by, reading their thoughts. The door had been left open for her. Concentrating, she pushed her talent further. Five more guards were hidden behind the rocks some fifty paces from the postern gate. They were armed with spears, and two held a strong net.
Ustarte turned away and walked back to the main exercise area.
As the months passed, they trusted her more and more. She was used to assist in the training of others like herself. Prial was brought to the prison in chains. He was in his wolf form then and was snapping and biting at the guards. Ustarte reached out with her talent, feeling his rage and terror. “Be calm,” she whispered into his mind. “Be patient, for our time is coming.”
Waylander sat with the sleeping priestess for a while. Her breathing was even, but the gleam of perspiration on her face showed that her temperature was rising. Moving to the kitchen, he filled a bowl with cool water and returned to her side. Taking a cloth, he placed it in the water, squeezed out the excess liquid, and laid the cloth on her brow. She stirred, and the golden eyes opened. “Feels good,” she whispered. Gently he dabbed the cloth to her cheeks. She slept again.
Waylander rose from the floor and stretched. Then he stood very still and listened. Walking swiftly to the window, he drew the shutters closed, then stepped out through the door and into the sunshine, pulling the door closed behind him.