Looking up, he found himself at the gate of Red Tower Prison.
Enough! I'm getting my own body back right now! he thought angrily, floating up from the groundand soaring to the roof of the prison.
It felt wonderful to fly, and he circled the Tower a few times, savoring it. The ships in the harborwere all on fire, however, and this disturbed him greatly. Diving like a swallow, he darted in through a hole in the prison roof.
It was dark here, too. Stumbling through the blackness, he spied a glimmer of light ahead. It came through the grille of a cell door. The door was locked but the wood turned to red butterflies at his touch. Passing through their gentle resistance, he stepped into a fiery brightness and threw his arm up to shield his eyes.
His true body stood in the center of the room, naked except for the crawling mass of tiny,spider-shaped flames that encased it from the neck down.
They should be gone! he thought, repulsed by the sight.
His body raised a hand to its chest, saying with Thero's voice, "They're coming from here."
"I'll stop them."
Approaching cautiously, Seregil brushed at the flame creatures on the chest. They fell away at histouch, revealing a bright blue eye glaring hatefully from a bloody hole in the chest just over the breastbone. Recoiling, Seregil watched in mounting horror as the skin around the eye began to twitch and stretch. The flame creatures crumpled and fell away and he could see the writhing motions beneath the skin of his body's chest and belly, as if something hideous was clawing its way out from inside.
Tears of blood streamed down from the unnatural eye but his face—Thero's now—smiled calmly.Still smiling, Thero leapt at him, arms outstretched as if to embrace him. With a strangled cry, Seregil fell backward through the red butterflies—
He sat up with a gasp. Pulling free of the tangled sheets, he went to the hearth and poked up a fire bright enough to light the room. His clothes were soaked through with cold, sour sweat. Stripping them off, he looked down at the pale, angular body he inhabited. Little wonder he was dreaming of his own!
The details of the nightmare were already skittering away, but he recalled the image of the eye with a shudder.
Tossing a few more logs on the fire, he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to his nose.
As he drifted back to sleep it occurred to him that this was the first time in weeks that he'd dreamed at all.
Late-morning light was streaming in at the open window when he opened his eyes again. Lying quietly for a moment, he discovered that he'd forgotten most of the nightmare. His second sleep had been filled with dreams of a lascivious nature quite unlike his usual fare and he'd awakened to find Thero's body in an uncomfortable state of arousal. Cold water soon put a stop to that. He pulled on a clean robe and went up the tower stairs two at a time.
"Good morning!" Nysander smiled at him over a cup of morning tea, a familiar, reassuring sight. "Are you feeling more at—dear me, you appear to have slept badly."
"I did," Seregil admitted. "I had some nightmare about going after my body. It had that eye in the chest, where the scar is. It was all sort of familiar, in a way, like I'd dreamed it before."
"How unpleasant. Do you recall any more of it than that?"
"Not really. Something about flying, I think, and fire— I don't know. Later on there were other, different images. Is it possible for me to have Thero's dreams?"
"A mental link through his body? I should not think so. Why?"
Seregil rubbed his eyelids and yawned. "Oh, nothing. First night in a new body and all that. Just between you and me, though, a few days in the Street of Lights wouldn't do Thero any harm."
"He seems to be celibate by nature."
Seregil chuckled cryptically. "By practice, perhaps, but not by nature!"
They kept to Nysander's tower all day, avoiding anyone perceptive enough to detect a change in «Thero» — not an easy task in a house full of wizards.
Wethis appeared to notice nothing amiss, and Seregil noted with amusement the guarded dislike that lurked behind the young servant's deferential mask as he went about his daily duties in Thero's room.
At midday Nysander went out to attend to some business elsewhere in the House. Seregil was poking restlessly around the workroom when a sharp rap sounded at the tower door. It was House etiquette to open the door to all callers, so Seregil had no choice but to answer. Peering out, he found Ylinestra
waiting impatiently in the corridor.
Her green silk gown was gathered tightly beneath the breasts, setting off her ravishing loveliness in a fashion that Seregil could not help but note.
He did not know her well, and her behavior toward him had always been civil to the point of coolness. It was quickly apparent now, however, that this reserve did not extend to Nysander's assistant.
"Ah, Thero! Is Nysander in?" She flashed a radiant, violet— eyed smile.
"Not just now, my lady," Seregil replied, wondering how Thero comported himself around such beautiful women. He soon had an inkling.
"So formal today!" Ylinestra chided playfully, sweeping past him. The crowded confines of the entrance might have explained the generous brush of silk-clad breast and thigh against his side; something in the lilt of her voice warned otherwise. Following her back to the workroom, Seregil felt a pleasant tug of anticipation. Both of them, he suspected, were about to put on excellent performances.
"Out chasing around on behalf of his pretty Aurлnfaie friend, is he?" she sighed, turning back to him with a conspiratorial pout.
"Not at the moment." Seregil gave a credible rendering of Thero's customary disdain at any mention of himself. "He's gone to see Mosrin i Argavan. Something about the library."
"And left you here to solitary toil, eh? How lonely for you. And me, as it turns out." Ylinestra drifted closer, and Seregil was suddenly aware of the light, spicy scent she wore. With it came a sudden mental image of the perfume rising invisibly from the warm cleft between her breasts. That put him on his guard. It wasn't his usual sort of thought at all, and smacked of magical machination.
"I hardly see Nysander anymore," she sulked, just inches away now. "You tell him for me that if he doesn't mend his ways, I'll look elsewhere for inspiration. I daresay he neglects you as well when that Seregil fellow is around. It makes one wonder—"
Arching a perfect eyebrow, she let the thought hang unfinished between them, then surprised him with a brisk, almost maternal pat on the arm. "If you find yourself at loose ends, my offer still stands."
"Offer?"
"Oh, shame on you!" she twinkled, coy again. "Those Ylani levitation chants I promised you? You still haven't come to learn them and you seemed so eager when we spoke last. I've a few other bits of magic that I think you'll enjoy, too, things Nysander can't teach you. I'd show you one now, only I need my own things. You must come to my rooms. You wouldn't want me to lose patience with you, would you?"
"No, not at all," Seregil assured her. "I'll come as soon as I can. I promise."
"There's a good boy." Brushing his cheek chastely with her own, she swept out leaving a light drift of scent in her wake.
Illior's Fingers! Seregil thought, impressed. What she hoped to gain by seducing Thero was beyond comprehension, but the sooner Nysander knew what was going on, the better.
To his disappointment, Nysander was more amused than outraged.
"What are you so upset about?" he asked. "Only this morning you were advocating just such a course of action yourself."
"Well, yes, but not with his master's lover!" sputtered Seregil.