"Why?" Pol asked. "What have I done to you?"
"Personally, nothing," Larick answered. "But the evil you would work is so great that everything I have done is warranted. You will learn more of what lies before you by-and-by. Now I must get back to the other initiates."
Pol extended one massive, taloned hand to seize him. Larick gestured briefly and the entire limb was instantly paralyzed.
"What--?"
"I have complete control of your new body," the other stated. "I have enfolded you in a series of virtually unbreakable spells. See how I lay my will upon you, totally immobilizing you now? There is also a masking spell. It even compensates for your ungainliness. Only you see yourself as you truly are--a necessary reminder, I'd say. You are now, in all ways, my creature."
"And you were so concerned about black magic," Pol said. "Perhaps you feared competition?"
Larick winced and looked away.
"It was necessary, this time," he said, "to combat a greater ill."
"Don't preach me that line. I've done nothing wrong. You have."
Larick turned away. Pol screamed at him.
His cry was cut short as the man turned back and gestured again. Now Pol could no longer speak at all.
"I'll come for you last and we will journey to Castle Avinconet," Larick said, and then he smiled. "Don't go away."
He passed the rocky corner and was gone.
Pol heard a drop of water fall from a stalactite into a nearby pool. He heard the sounds of his own shallow breathing. He heard the distant voices of the other initiates, doubtless discussing the night's experiences.
If magic had bound him, then magic could free him, he decided. But he could not locate the sources of his own power. It seemed as if that part of him were somehow asleep. He brooded over Larick' s words, over the fact that his dreams were apparently a nasty reality to someone else. He sought through his memories for some clue as to why this should be so. He wondered whether his present situation were in any way connected with the attack of the sorcerer Mouseglove had dispatched back at Rondoval. He strained to move, but no movement followed.
Then there came the sound of a footstep beyond the passage. It seemed too soon for Larick to be returning, but--
A large man, as tall but wider than Larick, turned the corner and advanced. His face was a constantly shifting thing, as if seen through a multi-phase refracting medium. The eyes drifted, the nose swelled and shrank, the mouth twisted through ghastly parodies of human expressions. But when he opened it to speak, Pol still saw that there was a shining, capped tooth. He tried the second seeing but was unable to penetrate the distortion spell the person wore like a mask.
"I see that my disguise still holds for your features," came the familiar voice. "But what have you done with the rest?"
Pol found that he could not even snarl.
"Actually," the man went on, "that is a terrific body. You could wreak all sorts of havoc with it, if you'd a mind to. I suppose you're rather attached to your own, though, eh?"
He raised his head, one huge eye and one small one focusing upon Pol's own, shifting relative sizes even as he stared.
"Forgive me," he said then. "I'd forgotten you can't answer."
He raised one hand and slapped Pol lightly across the mouth. It stung for only a moment, and something seemed to be released with the stinging. Pol found that his jaws were unlocked, that he could move his head.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked.
"I haven't the time to tell you, even if I wished to," the other replied. "It's a long story and there are other considerations of much greater moment just now. Everything seems to be coming along nicely, though. I wouldn't worry too much."
"You call this 'nicely'?" Pol said, casting his gaze down over his monstrous form.
"Well, not necessarily from an esthetic standpoint, if you happen to be human," the man said. "I was referring to the progression of events. Larick thinks he's got you now."
"Offhand, I'd say he's right."
"That might be remedied, if you're willing to play the game out."
"I don't even know the stakes, or the rules."
"That will be a part of your reward if all goes welclass="underline" answers to your questions--and answers to some you haven't even thought of yet."
"Such as who you are, and what you're after?"
"That will almost assuredly come out."
"Will I like what I discover?"
"In matters of taste, each person is of course the only judge."
"What choice have I?"
"You may act, or be acted upon."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Go along with things, find out what it is that your captor desires and decide whether that is what you also want. Then you act accordingly. Larick feels that he has you under complete control, but in a moment I will break his infantile spells. I will also reverse the moderately clever body exchange he has worked upon you, restoring to you your own vigorous, youthful--if fetigued--carcass. Then will follow the work of a true master. Freed and restored, I will disguise your body as I disguised your features, giving to it in every respect the semblance of the monster you now are. For an encore, I will then cloak you in a masking spell in all ways identical to the one which now hides your hideous appearance from most mortal eyes--"
"A disguise within a disguise?"
"Precisely."
"To what end?"
"At some point, those who desire you in the reduced state will be sure to strip away the outer layer to behold the captive monster within."
The large sorcerer strode forward and clasped him by the shoulders. Instantly, Pol felt something like an electric shock pass through him. His arm dropped. He sagged forward. His boots fell to the floor from where he had clutched them beneath his left arm all this long while. The sorcerer seized that arm and an agonizing pain ran through it. Before Pol could examine it, he had hold of the other. He was humming as he worked. Whether or not this was a part of his procedure, Pol could not tell.
As he raised his hands and realized that they were indeed his hands again, the man struck him a mighty blow across the back with his left hand and upon the chest just above the heart with his right. Even within the well-muscled and heavily armored form that he wore, Pol could tell that the man was no weakling.
He felt the air rush out of his lungs as his chest cavity was returned to normal. He began to straighten and the sorcerer struck him a terrific blow in the abdomen, well below the belt. The change continued in that region, and he straightened fully, massaging, slapping himself, as much for the joy of feeling his own form again as to ease the omnipresent aches.
The big sorcerer kicked him in the shins and he felt the aches, straightening and shrinkage begin in his legs.
"I must say you have a violent approach to these matters," he remarked.
"Perhaps you'd prefer a six-hour incantation with incense?"
"I never argue with success."
"Prudent. I now begin the first masking spell, causing you to look as you just were."
The illusion began, growing like a gray mist about him, shaped by the flowing gestures of the face-changer's hands.
Pol felt his hidden dragonmark throb in the presence of this magic. Soon it cloaked him completely, coalescing, sinking through his garments.
The sorcerer sighed and straightened.
"...And that will be all they see, if they pierce your outer guise, soon to be supplied by me. I must caution you concerning the obvious, however."
"That being?"