“Enjoying yourself?”
“Maldred!” The child spat the name in a tone that was anything but childlike. “You’ve no reason to spy on me! Not here! Not in my domain! You should be well away from here and—”
“Your domain? You don’t own this swamp.” The speaker was a statuesque man with ropy muscles tanned from long hours in the sun. Despite his size, he moved as gracefully as a panther, making scarcely a sound as he approached. “You don’t own me, either, Nura Bint-Drax. I’ll go where I choose, and I’ll watch who I choose.”
She made an “oohing” sound, with a sultry woman’s voice, then punctuated it with a petulant little-girl pout. “You’ll be where the master tells you to be, Maldred, and when he tells you to be there. It is he who pulls your strings, as you well know.”
Maldred crossed his arms and stared down his hawkish nose at the child-woman. He opened his mouth as if to protest, then changed his mind and shook his head. He was sweating from the heat, his hair and clothes damp with moisture, and beads of sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes and dotted the skin above his lip.
There was not a single drop of sweat on the child.
“Whereas I am his ally, Maldred, you are his slave,” she added pointedly.
He continued to quietly regard her, laboring to appear stoic and unemotional but failing when his mouth turned downward in a sneer. No matter how hard he tried, Maldred couldn’t hide his contempt for Nura Bint-Drax.
“The master came to me, asking for my help, Maldred. Sought me out above all others in this swamp.” She thrust out her chin for emphasis, clearly trying to provoke him with her taunting. “O
Crowned Prince of Blöten, you crawled to the master, begging for his help. That makes me strong and desirable, and that… that makes you—” she paused, letting the silence weigh heavy between them—“that makes you practically nothing, O Prince.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, but still Maldred held his tongue.
The ageless child paced a tight circle around him, then returned to stand in front of him, her bright blue eyes slowly appraising him. “I’m surprised the master hasn’t sent you on some menial errand,” she persisted, eyes narrowing and small finger wagging. She pursed her lips and stepped closer, and he retreated to keep her at arm’s length.
“Especially since you lost Dhamon Grimwulf in Shrentak. I’m surprised the master doesn’t have you cleaning a cave or gathering food for his pets. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t dismissed you entirely from his service.”
Maldred’s eyes flew wide, and he finally retaliated. “Dhamon was with me in Shrentak. I didn’t lose him.”
“You lost him to the mad old woman.”
“The sage. I led him to the sage.”
“Which wasn’t part of the plan. You should have died for the affront of changing the plan. Helping him wasn’t at all part of the plan.” She placed her tiny fists firmly against her hips. “Because of your impudence, you lost Dhamon.”
“I wouldn’t have—”
“…what? Wouldn’t have lost him if the black dragon’s minions hadn’t interfered? Dhamon had released Sable’s prisoners. There was bound to be a fight. Dhamon could have perished there, Maldred, and it would have been your fault. All your fault… losing him as you did. I thought you were going to keep such good track of him. I thought you were going to deliver him to the master. Isn’t that what you agreed to do?”
“I did what I felt I needed to do,” Maldred countered. “Besides, it was all part of the test, wasn’t it?
All part of pushing Dhamon to his very limits to see if he was the one.”
She laughed lightly, the sound of crystal wind chimes tinkling in a breeze. Then the air shimmered and swirled around the child, as if the cloud of insects had all become fireflies performing at her behest. Her pale skin began to darken and take on the sheen of polished walnut, and she began to grow. Her stubby fingers became long and elegant, ending in pointed, manicured nails. Her legs grew shapely and sinewy, complimenting a lithe body that would attract attention in any city. Her face, though attractive, acquired a hardness and was crowned with a cap of short, inky hair that matched her flashing eyes. Her dress of pale flower petals became a worn, black leather tunic that had once belonged to Dhamon Grimwulf.
She’d stolen the garment from him, along with his precious magical sword, when he encountered her in Ergothian whore-guise in the foothills of Blöten. She’d nearly killed him then, another one of her tests, but he successfully fought his way out of that trap.
And out of the next one.
“What you felt you needed to do…?” She reached out a slender arm and poked Maldred in the chest with a finger. A spot of blood blossomed from where she’d pricked him with her sharp nail. “What you needed to do was bring him here to me. Do you fail at everything you attempt, O Prince?”
He stared blankly, not replying, eyes meeting hers balefully but seeing something in their darkness that made his skin crawl.
“Don’t like this form, Maldred? It’s human. I would have thought you’d find it pleasing. Or do you prefer my true one?” Her smile was definitely evil now, her eyes suddenly ice.
Maldred involuntarily shuddered as he watched the next transformation.
The seductive Ergothian’s skin rippled like disturbed water, changing hue and texture, the smoothness becoming scales as large as coins. Her legs melded together into a tail as she towered above Maldred, and her body thickened. From the neck down she became a snake, one easily twenty feet long. Alternating bands of black and red scales glistened on her like wet jewels in the waning sunlight. Her head was not that of a snake, however, but that of the ageless child, and her copper-colored hair fanned away to form a hood. She raised herself up and leaned back on her coil, looking reproachfully at Maldred.
“Appropriate,” he pronounced contemptuously. “You change forms the way a snake sheds skin.” A pause. “And one form is no more preferable than the other.”
Her eyes darkened and sparkled, and motes of blue light leaped from her face and danced in the air.
“You, however, prefer this pretty human shell you’ve painted over your own ugly body, don’t you?
Humans are a lesser race, Prince, but I suppose even they are above your inferior race.”
The motes of light grew brighter, sharper, becoming yellow, then white, then with a simple gesture from the child-snake, they sprang forward like darts to strike Maldred in the chest.
He recoiled from the impact, hands clutching where the light darts had embedded themselves. He doubled over, gasping, as a second volley struck. He was quick to raise his head, eyes that wished they were daggers aimed at her.
“You bitch!”
He would have continued to curse her, had her magic not taken hold. The light darts had burrowed under his skin and begun to chase away the spell that cast the handsome human form over his real body.
Maldred’s muscles bulged, and his frame expanded, ripping his vest and pants until the clothes barely covered him. His chest became broader as he grew to a height of more than nine feet. His sun-bronzed skin changed to a bright sky-blue. His brow thickened above his eyes, his nose becoming larger and puglike. The short hair that had appeared meticulously trimmed turned snow-white and flared away from his face, a wild mane that fell well below his shoulders.
“There,” the child-snake said smugly when the metamorphosis was complete. “I do like to gaze upon your true ogre-mage body, Prince. I despise you, and yet I gain greater pleasure from despising something as hideous as your ogre self.” There was more silence between them before she added, “I wonder if the master also considers you hideous?”