"I'm afraid," she finally said.
Ertai looked up from his scroll. "Why are you afraid? You're the emissary of Phyrexia. Of the people here, you're probably the safest one of all. No one dares harm you."
"Perhaps I misuse the word. I've never felt this way before. I think it's fear."
"What are you afraid of?"
"Hurting someone."
Ertai left the chaise and leaned on the arm of Belbe's chair. "You're afraid of hurting someone else, not being hurt yourself?"
"Yes."
"Who're you afraid of hurting?"
"Crovax."
The young sorcerer did a double take. "By all the colors," he said. "Why should you be afraid of that?"
"Because I want to hurt him. I think about it all the time. I want to break his limbs, put out his eyes, dismember him, castrate him-"
"I get the idea," Ertai said hastily. "No one would weep if you did kill Crovax."
She seized his hand in a powerful grip. "Listen to what I say! I want to hurt him, and when I'm done, I want to hurt him all over again. Killing him would be mercy. I don't want him to find any mercy!"
"Belbe, my hand-"
"At first the images were just fleeting. I could distract myself with other things. In the Dream Halls I broke Volrath's dream records because I really wanted to break Crovax's skull."
Her fingers were digging into his flesh. Ertai tried to pry her fingers loose, but even his newly grown muscles were no match for Belbe's enhanced strength.
"I'm not supposed to care what Crovax does so long as it serves the purposes of my masters. His methods are coarse, but he is the strongest candidate for evincar. Why don't I name him to the post and depart? I have the means. I'm not responsible for the people here. Is it because I know in time Crovax will kill every living thing on this world to feed his appetite for destruction?"
Ertai made a fist and hit Belbe as hard as he could on the jaw. Her head snapped back, and for a brief instant he saw the light of rage in her eyes. His heart shrank to a hard ball, and a hollow place opened in the pit of his stomach. Belbe must have seen the expression of fear on Ertai's face, and she abruptly released him. He backed away quickly, rubbing his sorely bruised hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, Ertai."
"I hope I'm not around when you do mean to hurt someone," he said ruefully. His mood quickly changed. "Do you really have a way to leave Rath?"
"Of course. I cannot allow you to go," she said, lowering her feet to the floor.
"Even if it means Crovax kills me?"
"Yes."
Ertai paced up and down. "You know I can't compete with him for the evincar post. Although my knowledge and talent far exceed his, I can't match him in sheer power."
"No one can. Crovax feeds on death. Every time something near him dies, he absorbs the life-force from it, increasing his own power. Combined with his innate lust for destruction, no one will be able to stop him."
"How long have you known this?"
She lowered her head to her knees. "It became clear to me yesterday. I kept trying to determine why his power keeps increasing, despite the mistakes he makes. Then I realized his modifications on Phyrexia were largely neurological, not mechanical. Though he was obviously given muscular and size enhancements, the important changes must have been made on the inside. He still eats food like a normal being of flesh, but it's just a habit he hasn't given up yet. His command of the flow-stone is growing exponentially. It doesn't come from rare cutlets and sour wine. Obviously, he has another source of power.
"Then I realized what was happening-the deaths of so many soldiers in battle fed Crovax enough energy for him to teleport for the first time from the battlefield to the Citadel. Slaughter of the hostages has boosted his power a thousandfold more. Soon he'll be unstoppable. That's why I want to hurt him. I want him to know what it feels like to suffer at another's hands."
For a moment, Ertai forgot about escape. "Why don't you kill him? He'll kill us both if we get in his way."
"I must put the best possible candidate on the throne of Rath."
"Why?" he shouted. The flowstone around him rose in a hundred tiny peaks.
"It's my purpose," she replied hotly. "It's the reason I exist."
"I have a notion for you, Belbe. Exist to be yourself! Loyalty is an admirable trait, but you can't cling to it in the face of certain destruction!"
She stalked across the floor, flattening the flowstone waves with her feet. An inch from his face she stopped.
"This is why you and your kind will fail-you think only of yourselves, your own petty individual concerns above the welfare of your race! My masters will destroy you and anyone else who stands in their way. It's the law of nature that the efficient shall displace the inefficient…"
Ertai carefully lifted her hand and clasped it with his own. "You're the same race as I," he said. "You've no common cause with beings whose sole purpose is to force people like us into slavery."
His touch was firm and warm. Belbe stared at him, at their hands. She dropped Ertai's hand and turned away.
He put his arms around her. Unlike Crovax, his touch was gentle. "Why do you always turn away at the last moment?" he said.
"I cannot do what I imagine."
"Why not? What stops you?"
Belbe shuddered. "I am not alone and never have been. There is a… device in my body which transmits everything I see and do to my masters on Phyrexia."
He turned Belbe to face him. "Where is this device?" She took his hand and pressed the tips of his fingers to her breastbone. He felt the curved surface of the Lens imbedded there.
"Can it be removed?"
"Perhaps on Phyrexia. Not here."
He closed his eyes and probed the Lens with his mind. Touching it, even psychically, was like entering a vast empty well, black and bottomless. There seemed no end to it, as it stretched all the way from Rath to the secret plane of her overlords.
Belbe lowered her head to his shoulder.
Ertai sighed in awe. "That thing could swallow me whole."
"Could you break it, or block it?" she murmured. "At least for a little while?"
"Hmm, maybe. Your masters can't bear the natural lifeforce, right? Perhaps if I send a charge of such energy into this device it will blind them."
He cupped his palms together over the imbedded orb and summoned all the natural magic he could reach on this unnatural world. Belbe felt a buildup of heat in her chest. It didn't burn, but slowly diffused outward through her neck, arms, and abdomen. Ertai removed his hands.
"Did it work?" she asked.
"There's no way to know for certain."
She draped her arms around his neck. "I don't care anymore. I'm tired of being a lens. I want to be alone with you, if only for a while."
After some hours in each other's arms, Ertai was spent and Belbe drained of her stormy emotions. He fell asleep on the chaise. She watched him a while, breathing deeply, his lips just apart. His hair was russet brown now, and next to her pale skin the increasing grayness of his flesh was quite noticeable. He was indeed beginning to resemble a lesser version of Greven il-Vec.
Belbe got up, careful not to disturb her sleeping lover. She was cold, and though she tried to dispel the goose pimples on her arms and legs, she found she couldn't. This puzzled her until she decided it must be due to Ertai's spell. Her Phyrexian systems weren't meant to handle natural magic, and her loss of metabolic control was probably due to the presence of his magical charge in her system. She glanced back at the naked, sleeping Ertai. It was worth it.