The Beauty And The Beast: A Story Of Necromantra free porn video

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The back story of Necromantra, a supporting character in MANTRA Magazine (Malibu Comics), is rich and complex. Most Ultraverse fans will already be familiar with Necromantra's exploits and for this reason we have made only a minimal effort to interpolate expository material into the story. A character-career summary is appended at the end of the story for those new to the Malibu universe. Chronologically, this adventure continues and concludes the four-part Necromantra miniseries published in 1995. Necromantra, the Arielles, the Tradesmen, the Darkur, the Aerwa and some of the major characters referred to in this story are original creations of Malibu Comics and are copyrighted by Marvel Comics, Inc. THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST A story of Necromantra By Aladdin Chapter 1: A Pearl Beyond Price I came to a dark bend in what seemed to be a carters' road. I paused and scanned the gathering darkness perplexedly, able to see little more than a fading trace of purple in the horizonless distance. Was that direction west? Why did it look so strange? Why could I not recognize the constellations in the star-filled sky above me? I looked down at myself, detachedly, as I would have regarded a stranger. A billowing cloak flapped around my form in the frost-edged wind, a wrap of midnight blue -- almost black in the silvery light of the moon-disk. I next examined the silhouettes of my hands, held up against the luminous of the moon. They were the hands of youth, not age and this seemed very wrong. I was not young. I must be ancient. Surely my hands should not have sharp nails, their skin should not be smooth or their movements supple. Strangest of all, these hands looked like a woman's. Was I woman? Just as I had assumed I was old, I had taken it for granted that I was a man. I felt beneath my cloak exploringly and found that my body to be firm but slender, its skin like warm silk. I now knew that I was a young woman. How could I have forgotten? I realized then that I held something in one of the hands that had fascinated me -- a thin chain wrapped twice round my right index finger -- a red jewel in a metal setting. I held the pendant up in the moonlight. Its glitter evoked not the slightest ripple in the deep, dark well that was my memory and so I let it drop to earth. Now a cry echoed overhead and I listened alertly, quelling even my faint breathing while scanning the wide, starlit sky. A moment later, the call sounded again and this time I recognized it for a crow's cry. I heard the bird flutter invisibly against the vaulting blackness and alight behind me as a falling shadow. "You are abroad very late tonight, Master Crow," I said, turning in amusement, but my words came out dry and faint, like a moan sighed through parched lips. I studied the moonlit ground, seeking the lone black bird that was my only companion. The earth was even darker than the heavens above, for it lacked stars. Before I gave up the search, the walked from its hiding place inside my thin moon shadow, the argentine glow reflected on its glossy plumage. My corvine stalker was pecking at something on the earth, a thing that winked in the moonlight like an eye of carbuncle. It was the very pendant that I had thoughtlessly discarded fascinated it. I felt a twinge of covetness and might have pettishly reclaimed my property except that I now noticed a cluttered table at the side of the lane with stools arrayed on either side. Who had placed it in what seemed to be a cornfield? Where the late diners so wealthy they could go away heedless of their plates and kettles? Or had they left them behind in terrified flight? I frowned thoughtfully. Why had I thought of fear and flight? Why did I presume that the night held anything terrifying? Had I forgotten some danger, but still heard the echoes of it in my mind? Was my anxiety born of the sinister ambience of this desolate place? I noticed a child's teddy bear seated on one of the stools. I stroked my smooth cheek with an idle thumb. Had a child, careless of his toys, left it behind? Was it truly the echo of a memory or simply my overwrought imagination that told me that no young master would ever retrieve it? The thought depressed me for some reason, as if the thing that had been sewn and given in love were itself an orphaned child doomed by the unfeelingness of the world. Here it would lie, unwanted, unneeded, until its cloth rotted, its seams broke and nesting birds carried off its straw. Though I felt a burning in my eyes, they must have been adjusting to the gloom, for now I saw something else not far distant -- an executed man suspended from a cross. I drew in a hard, consternated breath, but upon stepping closer I realized that this was no hanged man but a simple scarecrow, a crude homunculus held aloft by a supporting frame of wood. With a smile I asked myself, what poor scarecrow would permit a crow to play uncaringly but a few yards away? My smile now became an oval of surprise when a shape moved out of the shadows behind the scarecrow. This was no night-prowling beast, but a girl-child. This child, if it were in truth a human waif and not a wandering spirit, never looked my way, but took an empty stool from the table. This she deposited before the scarecrow and climbed up on it. There she stood, on tiptoes and reached to touch the bulbous head of the effigy. Without intending to, I found myself speaking to her. "Girl, why do you go abroad in the dark of the night? Where are your home and your parents?" Perhaps my feeble words never reached the newcomer's ears, for she -- the girl or spirit - seemed to heed me not at all, but stepped silently from the stool and vanished into the shadows of the cornstalks, as quietly as a field mouse. Not completely certain that anyone had ever really been there, I walked up to scarecrow and placed my hand upon the stool placed beneath it. If the stool was real, did that mean that the girl who had placed it there had been real also? The night gave me no answer, but I belatedly remembered the ruby prize still lying on the earth and, impulsively, stepped slowly toward the crow. The avian, declining to defend its booty, scurried a short distance away, where it hopped into a rut and stood staring at me with indignation from what it must have considered a safe distance. I stooped to pick up the pendant, but as if it were a thing bewitched, an image took form before my eyes. My grasping fingers froze in space. I was seeing the face of a blonde girl whom I didn't know. How was it that I could I recall this certain face so clearly as I looked at it, but not the time nor the place where I had seen it in life? Had she been the girl-child on the stool? Instinct told me that that was not so. I straightened without having touched the pendant anew. A shiver ran through this slender shape so strange to me, as if the cloak afforded no protection from the chill wind at all. Now, at last, I understood all too well the nature of my vague anxiety. I had fled to this dark corner not trying to find something, but to leave memories behind. I had fled neither from blades nor claws, but from recollections too terrible to confront. "Go back," someone said from behind me. Startled, I spun about. Who had spoken with such a voice like an LP run at a wrong and unsteady speed? As far as I knew, there was no one with me, except the crow that still watched me intently from between the wagon ruts. I was even able to see it, its lustrous feathers made bright by moon-dust. It was just a bird, I told myself; why did it make me feel so haunted, so followed by an accusing stare? Yes, that was exactly the feeling. Its rapt, cocked eye challenged and condemned me. But why? What had been my crime? Do not ask that question, I told myself. You may remember. I covered my ears, but could still hear the voice when its command repeated. "Go back..." the bird said. *** I heard a woman screaming. And the screams were my own. I sought to roll to my feet, but could not move either my arms or legs. For one terrible instant thought myself paralyzed, but I realized that cords bound my wrists and ankles to some sort of rack or hard bunk. Dimly, I tried to recall where I was. Someone had made me his captive, but who and why? At just that moment, I heard a mutter of voices, but I could not understand the language. I listened carefully nonetheless and very quickly the speech became comprehensible, as though the speakers' minds were communicating directly with my own. "Have you succeeded, wizard?" one asked, his timbre an impossible one for human mimicry. "I believe so, Tradesman," a human voice replied. "It is a pernicious devil, this Soul-Rider and it does not want to be cast away into the darkness. The witch must be taught to ward it off, lest it return. The demon has been with her for so long that it had become like her own second nature, I fear; if we had left it undisturbed for much longer, it could not have been exorcized at all." "The potential for relapse must lessen her value," stated the inhuman voice. "I think that the longer the Soul-Rider is held at bay, the more it will weaken. Its hold will break in time." "Are her powers undiminished by her ordeal?" "They should be, Great One. But we must ask ourselves, will a witch so powerful submit to control?" "If an acquisition cannot be controlled, it must be destroyed," pronounced the "Tradesman." As I lay there, my thoughts fell into better order. Just as I had feared when I walked the long, dark road, I had remembered who I was and also remembered what had sent me into my flight toward oblivion. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. My own past accused me and I had no answer. Better far if had I remained forgetful ghost among ghosts. *** "Do you wish to die?" the Tradesman asked. This question didn't sound like a threat. In fact, the Tradesmen never made threats in my presence; they simply stated, as they would say, "the logical consequences of projected actions." Also, I had never yet heard these beings put emotion of any sort into their businesslike monotones. Probably their kind possessed no feelings that a human being would recognize. I stood before the speaker who was flanked by two more Tradesmen. I felt their ominous power as if it were a mass filling the room and making it, for all its size, feel claustrophobic. They sat perfectly still and made no threatening gesture at all. Yet I knew they must hate me because I had done the unheard of. I had killed a Tradesman. The Tradesmen are like the cells of a single body, I believe; the thoughts of one are shared by all others; the pain of one is felt by all. In a very real sense I had mortally offended their whole community. They had the means to make me pay dearly for my audacity, especially if my value in exchange did not live up to their expectations. Despite the commonplace name they went by, the Tradesmen were hardly commonplace beings. Rumor had it that even Boneyard, the most powerful human wizard I've yet encountered, was afraid to do ought but deal scrupulously with the dreaded Tradesmen. The knights with whom I once served had done battle with a party of their race back on Earth and they had killed us without effort, almost in the time it takes to tell it. To my surprise, these Tradesmen had recognized me as the warrior Thanasi from that deadly encounter. How could they have guessed my identity, considering this radically different form I wear and after the passage of so many centuries? Maybe they do not see bodies at all, but only souls. I suspect that they have only one soul themselves and it simultaneously occupies many bodies. All Tradesmen look alike to a human. All wear canvas-like, many- pocketed uniforms and some sort of mask or breathing device that hides their faces. Larger than men, their legs are strangely jointed, but the creatures otherwise appear manlike in outline. The Tradesmen are far- traveled beings, I know and do not confine themselves to just one world or even one dimension in space. They exchange the coveted for the fantastically rare. I do not doubt that the Earth's legends of demons with satanic pacts to offer are memories of the trading exploits of these mercantile outsiders. For a span that was as yet unknown to me, I had been their prisoner. They had believed that they owned me from the moment of my birth into this woman's shape and had sought me out when they deemed me ready to serve them. They had come to capture me like a fatted calf in the field. In fact, I must have been livestock in their eyes. I had been born into chattel slavery because my mother had bartered away my freedom even before my birth, in exchange for something that she needed of the Tradesmen to fulfill her dream of vengeance, the whole motive of her long life up to then. Had these alien eminences foreseen my conception and birth as a future event? Or had they done more? Had they been at work behind the scenes, manipulating my parents to bring about the end that they desired - the body of a powerful witch with the soul of a warrior? I had thought that I had chosen this form myself. I had willed my earth-bound spirit into the womb of a witch, desiring to be born again with mighty powers like her own. Had this bizarre notion, one that now seemed so mad, not originated in my own mind at all? "You do not answer me," said the Tradesman. "I have forgotten the question," I murmured, not caring whether my reply provoked him. "I asked, do you wish to die?" I shrugged. "I suppose I do." "Humans are strange creatures," he remarked. "We Tradesmen do only what we must and do not suffer from regret afterwards. Why are human beings continue to be so violent against their own kind if their subsequent remorse is so without bounds?" "It is our nature," I replied, as if that commonplace were a worthwhile answer. "We propose a trade," the creature said, setting aside its philosophical curiosity for the moment. "Our wizards tell us that they have chained the evil spirit that has lately guided your thoughts and deeds. In time you may be entirely free of its influence, so long as you remain obedient." "I will be no one's slave," I informed him. "You are thinking that you might escape us by way of death, but that shall not be. Tell me, sorceress, what do you desire? What do you crave with such all-consuming passion that you would willing consign to us both your body and soul to attain it?" "Nothing," I answered curtly, wondering what these alien beings knew of human passion. The Tradesmen then rose as a group. "We calculate that you reason fallaciously," pronounced my interviewer. "Come and we shall show you a pearl beyond price." This forced negotiation was something I wished to be done with, but the aliens had left me with no alternative but to hear them out. Wary, I followed the three into an adjoining room, a room I recognized as the same magic chamber where I had been subjected to the agony of exorcism. As for what they intended to offer me to make me accept the absolutely unacceptable, I had no inkling. The triumvirate led me to a glass coffin that had not been there before. It glowed with an interior light and I could feel its magical charge like static electricity on my bare arms and legs. The Tradesmen, stepping to the far side of the sepulture, bade me approach. Ready for almost anything, I placed my fingers upon the glass and cast a hard- set, frowning stare through its transparent lid. The sight within struck me like a blow to the chest. "You bastards!" I shouted, my epithet echoing between stonewalls until it faded away like -- like a slave's belated and futile rebellion. "You did a great evil," said the Tradesman, "more against yourself than against she who lies within this capsule. It is an evil whose memory you cannot bear unless you confront and destroy it, no matter what the cost to yourself. To have peace of spirit, to again desire life, the evil must be vanquished. What would you offer to have your most terrible act undone?" I glared at him. "Undone? I've sucked the soul from her body. She's dead. I'm her murderer? How can you undo that?" "How little you understand your own nature, Thanasi of Gaul. You are not empowered to take your victims' souls, only the life force of their bodies. You have yourself lived many lives, so how can you doubt that the dead can be restored? Though you have lived by transmigration, you have also seen your foe Boneyard revive his slain minions many times in the same bodies they have possessed from birth. Perhaps you did not know that your greatest enemy purchased his spell of resurrection from the Tradesmen? He paid a very high price, but never regretted the bargain - until the day he died." It was true. Boneyard had possessed such a spell. We knights had waged war for centuries, strangling, dismembering, hanging, burning, drowning and crushing each of Boneyard's elite guardsman hundreds of times over, but always the necromancer had brought them back, hail and hearty. Archimage, my master, had had no such talent, alas. Instead, he had sent our souls after death into the bodies of living men, thousands of them over the course of more than a thousand years, making us all accessories to mass murder. Now I realized that Archimage could himself have acquired the same resurrection spell that his brother used so routinely. He had not chosen to do so. Had the wizard merely been indifferent to his crimes or had the Tradesmen's asking price been unacceptable? Considering what Archimage had willingly sunk to with out it, how high could the price have been? "Though she has been dead for some while, the energies of magic have preserved her mortal vessel in this crystalline capsule. Should you request it, the wizards who serve us shall summon this girl back to life," the Tradesman continued. I looked at him, scarcely believing that I was hearing right. Of all my deeds, the murder of Arielle, princess of Ulik, had most haunted my days and nights. My murdering this one whom I loved, I had changed from a man who could live with his the burden of his sins into one who was being crushed by their accumulated weight. "The Princess Arielle was useless to us alive," said the Tradesman, "one of thousands of human princelings of no particular consequence. It is her value to you that alone makes her of value to us. Will you not pay the blood bond that you owe to the heir of Ulik and lay your agony to rest?" I shook my head as I fought against the idea. All life is pain, I told myself; maybe Arielle was better off free from it. If I negated her death, she would only have to die again later, perhaps in a more sorrowful way. If I yielded to the Tradesmen, the terrible power that I wielded as a sorceress would be placed at the service of sordid ambition. To wipe out one crime, must I perform a thousand others? Suddenly I heard myself asking, "What do you demand for her life?" I already knew the answer, but the rules of his people required him to state the contract. "Swear fealty as our obedient servant and also swear to be the faithful servant of any to whom we trade you and the girl may live again. No doubt her people will rejoice to have their heiress returned safely. None, in fact, need ever know that Death once had claimed her." "The monster called Lord Pumpkin rules in Ulik," I protested. "He would kill her again with pleasure." "This is not so, sorceress. The suzerainty of the scarecrow-that-walks ended the very night it began. One far stronger than Lord Pumpkin cast him from his high place. He abides in Ulik no longer. Already men wrangle for control of that unhappy kingdom and blood freely flows as ambition clashes with ambition." Staring into the alien's goggled-eyed mask, I asked, "And you would trust me to honor such a bargain?" "We knew that the Soul-Rider would not have kept his bargains," the Tradesman replied, "and so he was useless as a commodity in trade. But Thanasi of Gaul was ever a man of honor." I might have laughed. Would a man of honor have let a thousand die to save himself? Agonized, I could not help but look down at Arielle sleeping the sleep of death. I who had enjoyed the verses of Poe now found myself the protagonist of a quintessentially Poesque moment. Poe's heroes seldom finished well, I recalled. I had loved Arielle as my own daughter, but by loving her I had learned that my love is as deadly as my hate. In exchange for all she had given me, I first had stolen her happiness, then her legacy and finally her life. Or had the Beast in me done all that? Was I in fact innocent? If I had been possessed during all those days in Ulik, who was it that had loved Arielle, the demon or me? I could not believe that demons were capable of loving mortals. But if the love were mine, were not the crimes then committed mine also? "Will you make the trade?" the masked being asked, his tone still disinterested. I looked up at my tempters like a heroine addict looks at the powder that enslaves him. He hates the substance that offers him destruction, but at the same time feels overwhelmed with need. The Tradesmen had left me no choice. None whatsoever. Chapter 2: The Heart of Darkness I was sold to King Q'zon -- a creature of the Wold. I soon learned that the Wold was a region contended over by two mighty inhuman races, the dreaded Darkur, which Q'zon ruled and a tribe called the Aerwa, less hideous both in nature and appearance. In fact, the Aerwa's appearance reminded me of the elves in Earth's motion pictures. Both species of the Wold wielded mighty sorceries -- and also alien technologies that might as well have been sorcery. At first it seemed odd to me that a race of magic-wielders such as the Darkur should need yet another practitioner of dark magic and pay high to get him, but then again, the armies of Earth were always on the outlook for new and better bombs, though they have never lacked for bombs. To know the Darkur is to hate them, unfortunately and I hated the Darkur much worse than any animosity I felt for the Aerwa whom I fought at their bidding. Without breaking my bond, I resisted the Darkur's designs by contributing nothing to their warlike scheming. This passive resistance might have gotten me killed had Q'zon not been a monster of ego who was content to have his orders, even the most foolish and shortsighted, carried out to the letter. Had I vigorously prosecuted the war in my own way, I could have slain thousands of Aerwa instead of merely hundreds. The Aerwa, by the way, were a strange but not unhandsome people. I already knew of the existence of the both Aerwa and the Darkur from Earth. One each of their kind was a member of an ultra band called the Solution. They were both mercenaries, apparently, but the group that they attached themselves to seems to serve honorable causes, more or less. This did not greatly surprise me regarding the Aerwa, but "honor" and "Darkur" always sounded like a contradiction in terms. The Darkur looked like bodybuilders on steroids, except for their pointed ears and intimidating upper and lower incisors. They came in as many different colors as Easter eggs, though their hues were generally unattractive. This color variation showed up even in the same nuclear family and their people think no more of it than people do when siblings have different hair or eye color. But the Darkur have an organ that humans lack and this allows them to change shape at will. They use it to morph into battle-beasts terrible enough to come out of the nightmares of heroine addicts. As impressive as it is, this talent seems to be fairly crude and limited; I've never seen a Darkur use it to impersonate a specific person of any race. Be that as it may, the change is surely magical in nature, for it allows them to more than double their size and mass. The more skilled Darkur warriors become the largest and most formidable of brutes. Their best fighters prefer to create weapons out of their own bodies - strangling tentacles, horns organic spears or jets of acid. Against inferior foes they scorn to use manufactured weapons or armor. It may say much about the formidableness of the Aerwa that the Darkur go into battle against them heavily armed. I expected to dislike my "masters," whoever they turned out to be, but being bartered to the Darkur was like being thrown into a cage of lions. I do not speak lightly or in metaphor; one custom of the Darkur is to feast on the flesh of their enemies and their choice meat is that of the Aerwa race. So here I was, slave to one of the most appalling tribes I had ever encountered and the Tradesmen expected me to stay and do as told. I had little choice in the matter; the bargain had been struck and Arielle lived again. I had been permitted to speak to her once after her resurrection, this to assure me that this was in truth the Arielle I'd known rather than some vampire spirit called up to inhabit her dead flesh. Though Arielle remembered that she had died in the claws of the Beast, she spoke and acted as if blaming me was the farthest thing from her mind. Perhaps, for her, death had seemed like nothing more than a long sleep. Anyway, the wizards had explained to her my demonic possession. They had also been quite frank about the bargain that I'd struck to restore her to life. "You shouldn't have done it!" she exclaimed. "I had to. You were dead. I had murdered you myself. Living with that on my conscience was worst than anything I fear from the Tradesmen." "You did not mean to kill me!" "When I was beaten down, the Beast took over and sacrificed you to survive. Is it an excuse that I'm no master of my own actions?" "For me, yes. Marinna, you're all I have left. Let me at least go with you." Marinna; I could hardly hear that name spoken without cringing. It has a sad history. "Let me go with you," Arielle repeated, grasping my arms. I shook my head and detached her. "That won't be possible. It's bad enough that the Tradesmen will be holding you hostage. I don't want you in the power of anyone trying to control me. Go home and take up the life you were destined for." "I have no life left back home," she protested. "Before, when my father lived, I could be happy. Ulik reminds me of the happy times and I can no longer bear thinking of them. My place is with you." I had not come into that room to confess all, but now I knew that I must. "You must hate me for your own good, Ari. You must hate me with such intensity that you shall pray for my death every day. Who knows but that Providence will hear your plea and strike me dead?" "I can't hate you!" she exclaimed incredulously. "You have sacrificed so much to save me." I shook my head in pity, both for her and for myself. "You don't know what all I have sacrificed, Ari. I have sacrificed what should have been spared." "Then tell me what you have done that is so terrible and why it should make me hate you instead of loving you all the more." "I'm trying to say that I know who killed your father. I have always known. It was not the horned beast, it was not Lord Pumpkin and it was not the Tradesmen." "You knew?" she gasped. "Why did you not tell me?" "Because no one would have suffered me to become regent of Ulik had I told the truth." Arielle looked at me, her incredulous eyes grown wide. "Don't say any more," she pleaded. "Do I have to?" No, I didn't have to. She was an intelligent girl. That was one of the reasons I so swiftly come to love her. The princess' face had drained white, but I had done what mere decency had demanded. This brutal lesson was intended to teach Arielle about the faithlessness of friends. A future queen had to know that none around her might be trusted. This must cause her pain, I realized, but what does not kill us makes us stronger. If I could not be with her any longer, I could at least leave her with a heart too hardened to be broken easily. *** The Darkur made no sexual demands upon me, but I'm sure that this is only because they despise all other races as mere animals. Also, I think, they feared my sorcery. As a group they could easily slay me, but against any one I was much more powerful. Therefore I was left to my own devices for long periods between sanguinary campaigns against the Aerwa. It left me time to think and thinking, remembering, is a form of self-torture for me. I have lived some 1570 years, but when you get right down to it, I'm not sure that I have ever loved life. I had been ruled, I think by its negative, the hated of death. I speak here of my own death, of course; I have dealt out death to more enemies than I can remember. It is only recently that I have become the slaughterer of friends and family. I despised death, then, but did I love life? The man who truly loves life must respect life in others, I imagine. I can't say that I've ever done that. Hundreds of men had been sacrificed to keep me alive to serve the wizard Archimage. Once I had actually believed that our cause was so necessary that the sacrifice of hundreds of ordinary men was well worth the cost. How convenient. A cost is always more bearable if someone else pays it. Aside from morbid brooding of this sort, my appearance was always another source of distraction. After being a man, a warrior, for fifteen hundred years, what could have possessed me to let myself be born into the body of a woman? "Possessed," that's right term. If anything proves I was not myself, it is my occupation of this body. I never desired womanhood. When plotting to acquire power, a change of sex had only seemed only a necessary evil. I had learned that the wizard Archimage had been showing unusual interest in one particular human family. It had only been when he placed the soul of my comrade Lukasz into the body of a member of this family, that of Eden Blake, did I realize what Archimage's genealogical obsession had sought. I believe that he had for centuries been manipulating the family's gene pool, trying to strengthen the magical talent they had already shown in marked degree. Archimage had wanted a mighty warrior-servant, but could not use Eden Blake; her mild nature ruled that out. In fact, she hadn't even discovered that she possessed magical talents at the time that Lukasz's spirit had possessed her. Eden's spirit had remained to share her body with Lukasz and my old comrade in arms fell in love with her and eventually found a way to free himself from her shell and leave her in full possession of it. But that's when I intrude into their happiness, to my everlasting shame. I had myself born as their daughter and then threatened the lives of both my parents. I had slain Eden when she tried to protect Lukasz, who then voluntarily reoccupied her healed body to defeat me. Eden Blake hadn't deserved to die at my hands, but I pitied Lukasz even more. I know what it feels like to be even remotely responsibly for the death of a loved one. This time it must be worse for him than when Boneyard killed his wife Marinna. Every time he looks into the mirror he sees his beloved, but may never again enfold her into his arms. How strange it was to think that two hardheaded warriors like us were now a pair of twenty-something sorceresses and bitter enemies. Lukasz has made an inept woman so far and I wonder if I'll do any better. Unlike Mantra, I have been appallingly casual about taking up with male lovers, though I've never actually let my flirtations go all the way to consummation. But the idea of kissing and caressing males appalls me now in retrospect. Surely I had only acted under the influence of the Beast. Probably the demon has no sex of its own and is comfortable following the carnal impulses of either gender. How had this devil gotten its hold on me? I thought I could guess. Boneyard had captured me about two years before. I had languished in the necromancer's prison for some days, until suddenly his guards came for me. I remembered nothing after that until I "woke up" on the Soul Walk once again. Almost immediately, Archimage had drawn me back to earth into some truck driver's rock-hard body. This particular reincarnation had seemed no different from any of the hundreds that had I had undergone, but it was very different. Only weeks later my attitudes had undergone a complete transformation. I come to nurse a growing hatred for my companions and I desired not victory for my sworn lord, but person aggrandizement. I soon contacted a known Earth agent of Boneyard and had told him that wished to strike a bargain with my patron's deadly enemy. I sent the necromancer a message that would play the traitor in exchange for immortality on Earth. No doubt Boneyard had been expecting my call. I now believe that he had conjured Hell and bound one of its spawn to my own spirit, empowering it to follow me from body to body despite several reincarnations, corrupting and perverting me more each day. The human mages serving the Tradesmen had tried to explain the nature of the Beast. They had used the analogy of the vampire, a demonic spirit that took over the corporeal essence of a human being, assuming the memories of the living man. The vampire actually believed that he was the original human resurrected into state of dark power, when in fact it was an alien thing imposed by dark magic. The mages also explained that if the displaced soul were returned to the vampire- infested body - and this could only be brought about by the intervention of very powerful magic - the vampire-with-a-soul would remember everything that his demonic alter-ego had done, thought and felt. If the restored spirit were not evil itself, the vampire-with-a- soul ran the danger of being driven mad with remorse for the vampire's bloody doings. Was that what I was experiencing now? Is that why nothing on the earth or under it seems more loathsome to me than my own existence? It was too easy, too self-serving to pretend that I was innocent, that the evil I had shown such relish for had come from the Beast and not from my own heart of darkness. Nothing about me felt innocent anymore. *** When I wasn't lying awake in a bed that only a thick-skinned Darkur could have found comfortable, I usually suffered from nightmares. One of them, with little variation, had been reoccurring about once a week ever since my exorcism. When it began, I am on a bloody battlefield, one like a thousand that I have known in real life. Carnage lies all about me and I wonder why so many men have fought and died and why I still live. I wonder, too, where my fellow knights are. Then I recall that they were all slain with my aid and feel exultation in my crime. This is the point in the dream when I realize that I am not Thanasi, but Necromantra, although I am always male whenever I dream other dreams. As Necromantra lingers alone on the battlefield, the ground seemed to burst right under her - my -- feet and I am catapulted high into the air. I do not fall, but evoke my power of flight. To my astonished eyes a winged, horned beast emerges from the crater. It is of a blue-green hue and seems to have no legs. Below its waist is naught but a glowing miasma. It glares at me overhead, but does not rise to the attack. Instead its eyes like burning coals fix upon one the other living figure on the field, one whom I had not noticed until that instant, my daughter Arielle. The Beast moves swiftly against the girl and I know that its attack upon her is an indirect attack upon me. There is something about Arielle that forces it to destroy her before it is free to destroy me. I am swifter than the Beast and I fly to the girl's side, defending her with a searing magical bolt sent into our attacker's repellant face as it rears above us. Now the in its frenzy to reach Arielle, it hurls all its power against my own. It seeks to seize me, to break my bones in its clawed fists, but as I am held with crushing power, I summon purging flames that not even its hell-spawned flesh can bear. Its hold broken, we again do battle - I with sorcery, it with brutish strength and the loathsome power to draw life from the living like juice from a plum. It feeds on death, I know; it is Death itself taken hideous form. I take flight, successfully leading it away from Arielle and knowing, somehow, that the Beast has a weakness. In the dream I know what this weakness is and I am maneuvering him in order to turn and strike at the right moment, but at this point I awaken sweat-soaked, my shouts of defiance echoing in my ears. Most of the dream is a memory from life. I actually fought the enemy wizard's Beast and defeated it. But that was another wizard's Beast, not my own. What is the dream trying to teach me? Maybe it holds no lesson at all and is only a warning that the Beast is near and will drag me back into its pit if I should ever lack the strength and will to resist it. That night, as always, the nightmare left me exhausted, but feeling too endangered to led down my guard. If I did not continue the fight in wakefulness it might still win. So, falling from my bed and taking a lotus-like position on the chill stone floor, I chalked down the mystic runes of the wizards' spell and chanted the incantations needed to keep the Beast at bay. If I performed this rite of protection whenever the Beast challenged me, I have been told, its desperate hold will eventually be broken and the thing will fall back into Hell. Then, the ritual completed, my overtaxed power fully expended, I staggered back into bed and slept the sleep of the dead. And this sleep, so far, has mercifully been dreamless. *** The Darkur lords usually told me nothing of their plans, except where to go in order to kill and destroy. Despite all secrecy, useful news sometimes seeped through, to be spoken here and there in guarded whispers. I took care to bribe well those whose whispers carried the most reliable news. On this day, it was bandied about that a delegation of humans had arrived at the stronghold of Q'zon. Interestingly, these were not captives, but emissaries. To my greater surprise, the name of Ulik was associated with them. Why had men of Ulik come to the Darkur? Why had the Darkur not immediately attacked and slain them? There were few other human beings in the kingdom and most of them were either hostages or slaves. Further rumor revealed that they were Ulikan rebels seeking an alliance with the mighty Darkur. If true, they had to be stupid! If they admitted Darkur into their country, how on earth were they going to get rid of them? I began to wonder how Arielle figured in these intrigues. Were these emissaries in support of her cause or against it? Did she have a cause of her own or was she at the mercy of the plotters? If the sadistic Darkur flooded into the kingdom and reduced it to rubble, what might befall the girl? I had to know more, if only to protect her. *** I soon learned where the Ulikans were lodged and went by night to the chamber of their delegation leader, traveling ghost-like through the stonework to avoid detection. I took care that Baron Vigon was not looking when I levitated up through the floor and solidified behind him. I was wearing not my magical armor, but a gown given to me by Q'zon. The fabric, I had at once noticed, showed a mended slit under its left breast, one such as a stiletto might make. I doubted that the garment's former owner was in any condition to miss it. "My lord." I whispered. The man whirled, a startled look on his bearded face. No doubt his visit to the Darkur had made him jumpy and probably with good cause. The light of the oil lamp and brazier displayed my familiar features to his startled glaze. I recognized him in return, as a gentry-born officeholder who regularly attended the functions and ceremonies at the court of Ulik. "You recognize me, don't you, my lord Vigon?" "Is this some illusion that these devil Darkur have sent?" the man replied, his eyes like saucers. "I am flesh and blood, lord." I kept my tone plaintive. Though I have had little experience playing the damsel in distress until lately, I have worn many bodies in my time and acted out many roles. "I was kidnapped by those fiends who call themselves Tradesmen," I pressed, "and they sold me to the Darkur for the skill of sorcery that I possess. Tell me, sir, how fares my adopted homeland? I have heard rumors of terrible trouble; how is my dear daughter Arielle?" He looked me over incredulously, scarcely believing that I was real. I waited tensely for his reaction to me, wondering how much did he know of the evil I had worked in Ulik. If time had found me out, if Arielle had denounced me, he would be justified in trying to kill me on the spot. The gray-haired emissary stepped closer, knelt and took my hand to kiss. "Lady Tavon, you live! And you say you are a sorceress, lady? I never would have believed it!" The more fool you, I thought, without letting my sarcasm show in my doe-like expression. "It is true. Didn't Arielle speak of this when she returned?" "She said nothing of you, lady." Relieved, I asked, "Is she well?" "Alas, Arielle is the captive bride-to-be of Duke Erhan. His possession of the true heiress has made his lawless pretension formidable indeed. Since the princess returned, several of the factions have joined his cause. If my master Viscount Armand does not marshal sufficient forces and strike soon, the usurper's power will grow so great as to be well- nigh unassailable." I had already heard that these emissaries were beholding to Armand, a grandee of the Ulik countryside, but had not known until now that Erhan was his principal rival. I hardly knew either man and had no reason to favor one over the other. Armand had seldom visited court when I had been there, but Duke Erhan had served Tavon as the warden of the armory and I recalled his aloof, cunning face. "Bride to be? What does she think of that?!" I asked, not liking the idea of a fourteen-year-old girl being forced to marry a middle-aged schemer. "She has little practical choice, I fear. It is Armand's hope to save her, however." To save her for himself, I wagered, but to Vigon I said, "I will do anything to help my daughter." I fell quiet then. A man like Vigon would trust me more if what passed between us hereafter was made to seem like his idea, not mine. I sensed his mind racing behind in his solicitous expression. "My lady! A wonderful thought!" he said at last. "You still have many admirers and sympathizers at home in Ulik. If you threw your support behind the Viscount, the whole countryside would rise in his - and, of course, your -- cause. It may be possible to overawe the renegade duke without war and compel him to surrender Arielle to her lawful guardian, yourself." There it was. The wheels if intrigue had been set into motion. If not stopped by a superior force very quickly they would soon gather an irresistible momentum. I only hoped that Arielle and I would not be ground down by them. Chapter 3: The Banner of the Slithor His fingers grasped my hair in a fist like s steel clamp and threw me against the granite wall. The breath came out of me in a single "Huff" and while I fought to keep my feet the hall spun topsy-turvy around my head. "You deceitful bitch!" He bunched his fist as if to deliver a killing blow, but at the last instant opened his hand to slap my face hard enough to knock me against the cold stones. I sank to the flags and as I painfully lay at his feet, wondering if his vengeful blow had dislocated my neck, the brute stepped back, waiting. I didn't know what he was waiting for and didn't dare fight back, so I filled my breathless lungs and tried to mollify him. "I beg of you, Majesty, my magic is mighty but my body is weak. If you beat me to death I cannot serve you!" "You serve me poorly enough, human cow!" bellowed King Q'zon. "How dare you intrigue behind my back?!" "I did not, lord! I only sought news of my daughter, the Princess Arielle! "I did not consent to anything," I declared with a pant. "When Vigon told me what I wished to know, I withdrew!" He made another fist. "That dog Vigon knows about your rank in Ulik, but you declined to inform me! What punishment should I inflict for such perfidy?" "My master will do as his wisdom directs him," I said. "If I had known that my bitch of a sorceress was the missing regent of Ulik, I might have found some way to take advantage of it. Why did you try to keep secrets from you master?" I already knew that Q'zon hated to be told anything that didn't flatter his vanity. That is why I couched my answer as I did: "What is a former human regent to one who is the greatest of all the Darkur? I supposed that the Tradesmen had already told you of my origin and that you simply didn't care." Annoyed, but no longer ferocious, he prodded my haunch with his sharp- nailed foot. "I care about all things that I may benefit from. Vigon wants to make you Viscount Armand's puppet, just as Erhan has made a puppet of the princess Arielle. You are fortunate that these humans' intrigues may serve my own. If Ulik is rotten with internal dissention, it may fall like an apple into my fist. Fortunately for you, my slave, you are the perfect cat's paw." "I live to obey," I assured him. He grabbed my hair again and yanked me to my feet. "The day you cease to obey is the day that you will die," he reminded me with a snarl. "Stop bleeding like a slaughtered pig and make yourself presentable. I must act quickly if an opportunity is not to be lost." He shoved me against the wall in the act of releasing me. "As my lord wills," I muttered, my teeth clenched against the physical pain that I was careful to exaggerate. Inwardly I promised to leave him lying dead a pool of his own ichors the first chance I got. Q'zon stomped away at that point and, alone at last, I gingerly probed my sore spots. Since I had a knack for magical self-healing, scrapes and bruises such as these didn't much worry me. Far more important, my interview with Q'zon told me that my plan was still proceeding well. *** A few days later, a servant conducted me into a conference room to join King Q'zon, several of his Darkur aides and the human emissaries from Ulik. "Marinna," rumbled Q'zon in acknowledgement. This was untoward politeness, considering the source. On most occasions, "whore," "slut," "slave," or "bitch" rolled much more congenially off the king's thick tongue. "These are my commands," he declared. "You will accompany the emissaries back to the war camp of Viscount Armand in Ulik. When he asks you, you shall accept his proposal of marriage. The reappearance of Ulik's queen in support of the viscount should strengthen Armand's political hand considerably. If the Duke Erhan is still determined to make a fight of it, a contingent of Darkur troops shall reinforce an assault upon the citadel." He did not add what I'd already guessed - that Armand would immediately afterwards be made his puppet or killed outright. Probably the former, since a Darkur viceroy ruling directly would cause too much alarm in Man Land. But it hardly mattered how he intended to dispose of Ulik, since I was bound and determined that he would never get that far. "As my lord commands," I replied. *** A month later, all was in readiness for Viscount Armand to make his bid for power. Thought the last weeks, a large share of the grandees and courtiers of Ulik had been paying calls at his war camp. With myself acting as the figurehead in Armand's faction, the balance of power had shifted again. Some of Erhan's less committed adherents had agreed to change the color of their coats for promises of gain in the viscount's service. Only two main factions remained at what had become the eleventh hour; what had started out as a polygonal dispute had simplified into confrontation between a court faction vs. a country faction. The Darkur contingent had been left encamped about fifty miles back along the march, there to wait until needed. Armand feared that their premature appearance before the throne city of Roch might cause the defenders to dig in harder and, worse, begin to draw new support from all who hated and feared the aliens. I went about the war camp freely, though Q'zon's ambassador with his Darkur aids kept careful watch on me, perhaps fearing my defection since my old affiliations had always been with Princess Arielle and the city courtiers. My leash would surely have been drawn tighter still, except that Q'zon knew that the Tradesmen held some sort of sword over my head to keep me honest. He apparently didn't know the nature of the "sword," which was all to the good. Had the brutish monarch ever found out what Arielle meant to me, he would have taken care to get her into his power? To Armand's disappointment, no sudden collapse of the opposing faction occurred despite his having gained the "favor" of the queen regent. Be that as it may, Erhan, his rival, undoubtedly felt the ground shifting beneath his feet. My role as Armand's bride-to-be mainly consisted of receiving deputations from would-be supporters and persuading them to cast their lot with my "betrothed." Many personages had come from Erhan's palace under flags of truce to prove me an imposter by means of sly interrogation. Those who came in good faith usually left convinced that I was indeed Queen Marinna, which called for little cleverness on my part because I was telling the truth. The claques who issued from Erhan's inner circle generally dismissed me as a fraud, but the people as a whole apparently recognized the truth - as far as they knew it. At first I had hoped that Arielle herself might a visit, whereupon I could confide in her my plan, but she never came. What I needed most, however, was an ally in carrying out my designs, but of all those that I entertained, I trusted none enough to take them into my confidence. I didn't that is, until the young captain came calling. *** I saw a fair-haired youth approaching my tent, accompanied by warriors of obvious rank, all larger, stronger and older. These personages spoke to my concierge and he in turn secured my permission for them to enter. The lad stepped through the flap with lowered head. When he found firm footing and straightened, I froze. I was seeing no mere boy-knight of princely bearing, but my own stepdaughter inexplicably grown to young womanhood in just few months. "Arielle!" I gasped. The girl-warrior met my stare with the faint smile of wry courtesy. "We have not met, my lady. Does my fame so much precede me?" The speaker's voice sounded rather unlike Princess Arielle's and so I decided that this maiden and Princess Arielle were not one and the same, but merely close kin. Because she had not bothered to correct the name I had erroneously bestowed, I reasoned that I had inadvertently named her true. My stepdaughter had once mentioned that she had been born and christened "Winola," but had adopted the name of her cousin Arielle, the she-warrior. "My apologies, Madame Knight," I said. "I took you for my stepdaughter. No doubt your similarity of cast, no less than your famed exploits, must have inspired her to assume your honored name." In Ulik it was custom for a child to choose a new, adult, name at the first appearance of either the beard or menstrual blood. I also had been informed that it had been this elder Arielle who had lead a revolt that deposed Lord Pumpkin's regent in Ulik a little more than a year before my own arrival. The story also spoke of her possession of a magic sword given to her by a demon. It had enabled her to pursue Lord Pumpkin to his otherworldly hiding place and there strike him down. The evil magic emanating from the blade she carried in her scabbard was almost suffocating. "That is true, Lady Tavon," my visitor replied. Her tone sounded rather chillier than it had before and I wondered why. "Alas," she continued, "I have seen but little of Arielle-Winola since my return from Wedo." The Amazon knight now looked back at her retinue. "Hanno, Japet, is this lady your true queen?" I now recognized the knights whom she addressed -- officers from the kingdom's cavalry troop. The horsemen begged my leave and commenced my interrogation when I granted it. Their questions were blunter than those I had earlier received from diplomats and couriers, but I was used to the ways of professional fighting men. My fellow knights under Archimage had been of similar stamp. My detailed replies seemed to satisfy and when I sensed the question and answer session was complete, I asked Arielle some questions of my own. "Which faction do you favor, Madame Knight?" When the young woman knitted her brows, I realized that I was affronting her by my form of address. Nonetheless, she replied without remonstrance: "To be frank, we favor the cause of Princess Arielle." "You are for Erhan, then?" I probed delicately. "No, we are not, my lady." I decided then and there that I must speak privately with this intriguing young Captain Arielle. "Where have you pitched your camp, warrior," I asked. "On the north side of the pond," she replied after just the briefest hesitation, "under the banner of the Slithor. Your visitation would be welcome at any time - day or night." Was this mere gallantry or was it an invitation offered with a purpose? "I usually don't like Slithors," I noted. Indeed, one had all but killed me when I first arrived in Ulik. The mask I wore as Necromantra, by the way, was crafted from the enchanted skin of a Slithor, but that didn't make me like the giant snake one bit better. "It may be that you shall like this Slithor more than most," the warrior-maid suggested, with just a hint of good humor in her eyes. Maybe I will, I dared to hope. *** As seen from the space rock of Vahdala, the Godwheel resembles an old 45-rpm record, only inconceivably larger. Inside the hole of the "record" hang two small suns. These tiny binaries seem to rise and fall relative to the surface of the Godwheel, quite unlike the horizon-to- horizon passage of Earth's sun. When both suns bob out of view at the same time, true night descends on this surface of the Godwheel (also like a record, it has two surfaces and both are inhabited). But nights of that kind come only after an interval of several days. Men needed the healthful rhythms of night and day, a rhythm that the periodicity of the binaries leaves unsatisfied. This, no doubt, is why the ancient builders of the Godwheel placed huge disks in rotation near the rim of the central hole to block the rays of the suns for several hours at frequent intervals. The lunar disks are translucent enough to let pass a faint silvery light resembling moon glow. Theologians on Earth usually hold that the world was created for man. This seems to be literally true of Godwheel. But why was the human race so important in the designers' scheme? There are many other races here, besides the Darkur and Aerwa. What been done to accommodate them? I can't say. A subject as vast as the Godwheel would take a study of many lifetimes. Craving secrecy, I used magic to put my maids asleep. Then, to avoid Darkur spies, I went phantasmal and flew underground in the direction of the pond until I broke its surface next to Captain Arielle's encampment. The befouled water smelled rank, but I had more important things on my mind than pollution. I hadn't killed anyone for many days and this omission had put my powers into noticeable decline. Before I could do anything about that, however, I wanted to meet with the elder Arielle. Once on dry land, I flashed into the purloined garb of a serving maid and stole into the camp. Overhead, the Slithor banner fluttered in the wind, telling me I had found the right bivouac. But I was still left to wonder which of the several tents belonged to the warrior-maid. No feminine accouterments had been left on the tent ropes, but the warrior-maid wore male-style clothes with an unconscious grace that I doubted that she had only use for lingerie. I can magically sense life-auras, but while it's easy to tell a Darkur aura from a human's, differentiating a human male's aura from a human female's is much more difficult and my powers were not at their peak. I detected more than one occupant in most of the tents, which caused me to rule them out. Though Arielle was a leader, she struck me as a loner. When I detected a tent of good quality holding only a single aura, I decided to check it out. Going phantasmal once more, I pressed my face through the canvas. It was too dark to see anything inside, so I ventured to expend a little more magic, making my face glow like a nightlight. Unfortunately, the person I'd intruded upon was not asleep and immediately reacted to my illuminated visage. I quickly drew back before the Maid of Ulik could seize that accursed sword of hers and whispered, "Captain. It's I, Lady Marinna Tavon. I'm sorry. You must know that I'm a witch." "Mar-Marinna?" the woman muttered. "Come around to the flap and enter." I did so, but kept a force shield around me; I've been murdered to many times in my long existence to be very trusting. The spell, by the way, makes me glow faintly, which is a definite drawback when using it in dim light. "Can't you turn out that light?" my hostess hissed with evident annoyance. "Drop that hell-blade and I will," I told her. Though the knight was dressed in a loose tunic that left her long, slim legs fetchingly bare, she still had on her sword belt. "My word, do you actually sleep wearing that thing?" I inquired. "The sword was given to my by a demon at the price of a dozen friends' lives. It has a mind of its own and unfortunate things happen if I do not remain in contact with it." With that she sheathed the ensorcelled weapon and I likewise dispensed with my force field. The tent consequently fell into deep shadow, with only the faint glow of the false moon penetrating the canvas to give us light. "Do you mean to say that you sacrificed your friends to win that magical steel?" I asked. I'd met plenty of people who would not have scrupled to destroy friends for gain, but I wouldn't have pegged Captain Arielle to be one of their type. Her tone grew harsh. "It was their self immolation! I would have died myself to spare them!" Hers was an easy protest, perhaps, but for now I was willing to give the enigmatic young warrior the benefit of the doubt. "I didn't come to quarrel," I insisted. "Something you said made me hope that you might be trusted." "And what was it I said?" she asked, her voice dry and tense. "That Princess Arielle has some rights in this business." I felt the knight's wariness ease behind the enfolding screen of darkness. "Do you really care about her so much?" she asked. "I was beginning to think that there were not a dozen persons in all of Ulik who would give a copper for her fate." "Not a dozen? I had hoped you had more warriors in your following than that." "I have a couple hundred men-at-arms, but they are personally committed to me, not to Tavon's heir. He was not High Lord for very long and there are few in Ulik who would now wish to place the scepter into the hands of a fourteen-year-old girl. These are, alas, troubled times." "The times are always troubled," I averred, "and that girl has the courage and decency to make a rare queen. But why aren't you a candidate for the throne yourself?" "I am related to the anointed family only on the distaff side," she explained. "I might have successfully offered myself to a faction as another pretender, but that would only have added to my country's strife. Anyway, most people would consider me unsuitable for a throne. I do not care to discuss the reasons why." She couldn't see the curiosity in my face through the darkness. Did the Maid of Ulik hide a secret? It now occurred to me that her countrymen seemed uneasily whenever they spoke of Captain Arielle, as if she were a tabooed subject. Her sex did not bar her from the throne of Ulik and people remembered her revolt gratefully, so what was the difficulty? Maybe I knew. Her own father had been Lord Pumpkin's regent, ruling oppressively even though the inhuman usurper had been long absent, having gone to what the Ulikans called the "Otherworld." Arielle had led a band of rebels into the fortress of Roch, did battle with her ruthless father and personally slew him, nearly dying herself in the attempt. Was it the parricide that had disqualified her from lordly power? Or was it that her sire's treason had tainted the family name to such a degree that no great deed on her part could ever totally make up for it? All I said in reply was, "I came here hoping that we could best serve the princess together." "Is that what you truly want?" she asked urgently. "I heard rumors that you were not to be trusted. Your reign is remembered for its bloodthirstiness and its conquests that were without chivalry. Some highborn men of Ulik actually came to me in Wido to urge me to lead them against you. I decided not to be...hasty." If I had then known that she was the natural leader of the opposition, I would have sent assassins after her. But now I didn't care. "I can understand their sentiment," I told the young woman. "If the truth were told, I was insane for a long time. I have my wits for the moment, I think and I'm only serving Armand's cause because I'm forced to." "How are you forced?" "Powerful interests have a hold on me." "You speak of the Darkur?" "No; it's worse. The Tradesmen enslaved me and the princess' life is the bond for my good behavior. The walls of Roch would not protect her for an instant if I play them false." Arielle shook her head. "There was a moment not long ago when I hoped I could help my young cousin to the throne. Now I would be satisfied just to save her life and honor." "That's my opinion also," I confided. "I have my sorcery, but I could use some human assistance." "I want to believe that I can trust you." I wanted her to believe it too, but I didn't know for how long I could continue to trust myself. Chapter 4: The Curse of Death After leaving Arielle's tent, my wobbly flight reminded me how badly I needed a kill. Mantra, whom I've made my enemy, is a witch that draws her power from life. Would that I were like her, but even when my spirit occupied Mantra's body my sorcery was of the blackest kind, only able to siphon power from a victim's death. The magic we possess cannot be different, so the curse of death that is always with me must spring from my own nature. Do I need any more proof that the Beast still lives? I might have slain one or more of the domestic livestock - there were many occupying the camp pens-but the half-formed spirits of dumb beasts are weak in the vital energies that my rapacious magic hungers for. I would have had to play Ajax and slaughter a whole corral of livestock to collect life force equal to that provided by one grown man. While I had little enough liking for Armand's or Erhan's adherents, I didn't want to slaughter human beings wantonly. As I soldier I'd learned to take pride not so much in how many I killed, but the number that I might have killed but had spared without injury to my cause. Most men who get follow adventurers in these power grabs are no better or worse than those of us who had served Archimage. My forbearance led to the question, who else was there to kill? Where are the dragons when you really need them? The closest thing to dragons abroad that night in Ulik would be the Darkur contingent. Better yet, assassinating one of their kind would prove personally satisfying. I wasn't just bloodthirsty; I thought that a dead Darkur might get the pot of intrigue boiling nicely. I didn't think the human/Darkur accord could last long if I stressed it. The sooner it broke down, the sooner the aliens withdrew in anger, the better for Roch. I knew the risks, however. Instead of simply pulling out, the vengeful Darkur might start a gener