Bared Blade (16 page)

“Uh…” I began, but couldn’t for the life of me think of anything to say next.

Vala grinned. “I take it you like what you see, then?” She showed not the slightest sign of body modesty and I was reminded that at the Kodamian games, the athletes mostly compete in the nude.

“I think he’s actually drooling,” Stel said, rather dryly.

I turned toward her, initially delighted at being offered a distraction from staring at the naked Vala. But apparently the spell required nudity for both partners, because Stel was also stripping. Because of her injuries, she’d only just managed to get her shirt off, exposing large full breasts. Beneath
were loops and loops of bandages that acted rather like a corset, lifting them up and forward. At that point, I closed my eyes and turned around while I tried to reclaim my composure. Behind me, Vala chuckled low and wicked while Stel snorted amusedly.

“Ah, he’s blushing,” said Stel. “That’s kind of sweet. The legends never mentioned that the Kingslayer was shy.”

I wanted to growl at her. For a number of reasons. First off, I’m neither shy, nor am I normally thrown off my stride by the naked female form. Not if I’m somewhere I’d be expecting it, say in a Tienese bathhouse, or on a Kodamian field of sport. But I originally come from a culture where nudity is strongly associated with sex, and if I don’t have time to think ahead, that’s where my mind goes. Especially with Vala reminding me of the first great love of my life. Though Jax would probably have been more shocked right then than I was. She came to the temple from Dalridia, an even more modest culture than Varya.

Second, there’s the whole Kingslayer thing. That guy isn’t me. Not anymore, at least. I was him once, but that was before my goddess died and took the Blade part of me with her, the better part of me, really. These days I’m just a jack living in a world of shadow.

I shrugged and turned back around to face the pair of naked women. They were still both attractive, and a part of me couldn’t help but react to that, but this time I had it under control.

“I tell you,” I said, “you kill one lousy king, and pretty soon people are buying you hats that are three sizes too large with the word ‘Kingslayer’ writ large across the brim. Don’t listen to the stories. I’m no legend, I’m just Aral. What you see is what you get.”

Triss had visibly started at my initial comment and now his mouth was half hanging open. “Wait, was that a joke up there at the front?”

“Might have been,” I said defensively. “Why?”

“Because it’s been an awfully long time since you made one for real, and I’m kind of hopeful right now.”

“Didn’t have much to laugh at,” I replied. “Or, no, that’s not it. Say rather that I didn’t have much to laugh with, and it’ll be closer to the truth.”

“And that’s changed?” Triss asked, and his voice made it sound like he was trying to keep a particularly tricky spell from exploding in his face.

“Some. Maybe. I don’t know for sure, but maybe.”

“I’ll take that,” said Triss.

I turned my attention back to Vala. “Sorry about my silence there a minute ago. The answer is ‘Yes.’ I do indeed like what I see. You’re a very attractive woman.” Now Vala blushed, and I turned to Stel who was just peeling off the last of her bandages to expose a huge patch of bruises. “So are you, I might add. Though I think you’d look better without all that black and blue.”

Stel didn’t blush, she smiled. “It’s really not my color scheme. The yellow and green that will come later, on the other hand…” She put her fingers to her lips and made a smooching sound.

“Tell me more about this bonewright,” I said.

“It’ll be easier to just show you and answer any questions you have left after,” said Vala.

Vala turned and headed over to help Stel down into a cross-legged position in the nearer of the two hexagons, before settling herself in the farther. The two faced each other, with Stel’s back to me.

Vala looked at me over her bond-mate’s shoulder with a wicked glint in her eye. “Which do you prefer, Aral, brunette or redhead?”

“Raven, why do you ask?”

“Sweet of you to say,” said Vala, whose hair was already black. “But that wasn’t one of the options. Brown or red?”

“Then red.” Jax was a brunette, and I really didn’t need Vala hitting my weak spots any harder than she already was. Not if I was to have any hope of honestly finding the justice in this situation.

“Done.” She lowered her hands to rest on her knees with the palms turned up, then began the bonewright.

T
he
bonewright was a subtle spell, with no overt gestures or chanting to start things off, just a lot of concentration on the proper sequence of the glyphs and their naming. I could follow along with my magesight, as long multicolored threads of light slid from the tips of Vala’s fingers outward to connect to first one ideogram, and then another as she named them. Soon she sat in the middle of a cat’s cradle of light: green and gold and scarlet and violet and azure and peach.

Techniques learned long ago helped me make sense of the process, and to store enough cues away that I could probably even hope to remember how it was done later, if someone wanted to know. At that thought I felt a little lead ball form in my heart, because for me there was no one left to tell. The art of mapping a spell was something I’d only ever really used when making reports to the masters and priests at the temple, and now they were all gone into the grave. Triss and I were alone in the world.

I was so distracted then that I almost missed the start of the next stage, when Vala raised her hands to touch her face. More threads of light rose from the glyphs then, connecting
themselves to Stel’s head and chest, mirroring the structure that centered on Vala. Making tiny, subtle motions, Vala ran her fingertips along her own cheekbones.

In response, the lights touching Stel dug into her face, stretching and twisting, reshaping bones and flesh. Stel grunted like she’d taken an arrow to the chest, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. Though she was clearly in agony she neither screamed nor tried to move away from the threads. Drops of blood broke out here and there on her face, prickling up in the wake of the moving threads.

Her cheeks broadened and thickened at the same time that her lips narrowed. Deeper chin, teeth that shifted to give her the faint hint of an overbite, higher thicker eyebrows, a stronger nose, eyes that went from deep brown to shimmering green, hair lightening from black to a chestnut brown. When Vala finished, Stel was still a pretty woman, but a very different one.

Now Vala’s hand moved down, cupping her breasts and squeezing and shaping, shifting from there to her sides and ribs. A tiny high-pitched noise escaped from Stel’s lips, like the dying squeak of a mouse, as her breasts grew higher and smaller, their nipples lightening and shrinking. The changes left more blood in their wake, mixing with the sweat that sheeted Stel’s skin. She whimpered a little as the color began to fade from her bruises, and I could see her ribs shifting and knitting from ten feet away.

Finally, mercifully, Vala finished. Stel sagged forward as the light left her. But now it was Vala’s turn. The threads that had fallen away from Stel snapped back to connect with their counterparts on Vala, collapsing into themselves and doubling in size. For a couple of heartbeats nothing more happened.

Then, Stel’s face took on a look of intense concentration as Vala’s hand began to move again. The motion was different this time, no less smooth or clean, just much less
Vala
. Though I couldn’t have proved it, I could see that Stel had taken control of Vala’s body. The fingers that slid along Vala’s jaw drawing lines of blood, moved in a firmer, more
matter-of-fact way than they had earlier. Still graceful, but a warrior’s grace now instead of a dancer’s.

It was simultaneously fascinating and repulsive, this obvious invasion, and I wondered briefly if that was how another Shade might see things when I took control of Triss to perform a spell or sail-jump. I wanted to turn away, and yet, I found that I couldn’t. It was too fascinating. The process flowed along in just the same sort of way it had for Stel, though Vala made no noise at all.

Features shifted first: jaw lengthened, lips fattened as if by bee sting, cheeks hollowed out under freshly razor-edged cheek bones, eye sockets deepened. Blue eyes became an exotic amber, streaming tears. Short straight black hair shifted to a thick curly auburn, and dropped to hang below her shoulders. A faint scar appeared at the corner of her right eye like the echo of a tear. When her hands moved down, her breasts became fuller and farther apart, though no less firm. A stroke across her pubic hair changed it to match her hair, and that was it below the neck. They made no deeper changes to Vala’s body, just shifted the areas that attracted the most attention.

When they had finished, Stel released Vala, or so it appeared, as Vala suddenly sagged forward like a string-cut puppet. For several heartbeats she sort of hung there, looking empty. Then, slowly, she put her hands on her knees and forced herself back upright. Sweat and blood and tears stained her face and chest. She looked like she’d just run an endurance race as she sat there gasping for breath.

“Fuck,” she whispered as she began to loose the threads of her magic, letting them fall away one by one. “I hate it when that happens.”

“What?” asked Triss.

“I prove Stel right.”

Stel, who didn’t look like she felt any better than Vala, blinked several times, and said, “Could you repeat that?”

“I said you were right. Are you happy now?”

“I’d be happier if I knew what I was right about.”

Vala laughed, or tried to—it sounded harsh and forced.
“That bit earlier where I said that a sufficiently disciplined mage might be able to handle this spell on their own. There’s no fucking way. If you hadn’t been moving my hands I could never have managed to keep hold of the magic. I could
feel
my bones being reshaped—like someone chopping off bits and gluing them on again in less comfortable positions.” She suddenly hugged herself, covering her breasts with her crossed arms. “And what it did to my tits …never again.”

“I’d think a lone mage would need more tools, too,” I said. “Like a mirror for starters.”

“I don’t think so,” said Stel. “I wasn’t really looking at Vala while I was working with her hands. It’s much more about imagining the result you want than it is making conscious visual choices in the moment.”

By then Vala’d dropped the last of the glowing threads, and now she simply fell over onto her side without otherwise changing position. Stel was apparently made of tougher stuff. That or she was just more bullheaded. In either case, she forced herself up onto hands and knees and started crawling toward her clothes. Triss, quicker of wit than I was, slid down the wall and picked them up to carry over to her.

“Thanks.” Stel crawled into her shirt, then flopped over onto her back to drag her pants over her hips. She tossed her underwear in the general direction of her bandages, then closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the boards with a gentle thud. “
Now
we drink.”

Somewhere along about then it occurred to me that I should probably be helping, so I picked up Vala’s clothes and brought them to her.

“No way,” she said when I set them down in front of her. “I know where those have been.” She sighed. “But I suppose I don’t have much choice at the moment.” Still, she didn’t move.

“You could borrow one of my shirts,” I said. “I’ve got a complete change of clothes or two stored here. They’re pretty threadbare, but they’re clean, and with the size difference it’d just about make a dress for you.”

“Yes please.”

Stel opened one eye and glared at me balefully as I passed her on the way to the appropriate amphora. “And where were you with your offers of clean clothes a minute ago when
I
was in need?”

“Sorry,” I said. “It hadn’t occurred to me yet. You’re welcome to the other set.” I tossed a pair of aging pants and an old threadbare shirt her way. “It’d just about fit you.”

She poked at them with a finger. “Ah, you just want to see me naked again. I’d even indulge you if I didn’t think changing would hurt more than it was worth. Maybe after I’ve had a couple of drinks it’ll sound like a better idea.”

I had no good answer to that, so I just hauled the better of my two spare shirts over to Vala. It fit her more like a tent than a dress, with the too-wide collar continually falling off her shoulder to expose a distracting amount of pale flesh, including the top of a much fuller breast than the old Vala’s. And it only covered her to the tops of her knees, a scandalous length in any court in the eleven kingdoms of the east.

That, however, was far less distracting than the changes to her face and hair. I’d only just started to get to know the old Vala, and here she was looking like a whole new person. She didn’t even look Kodamian now, more like an Aveni or Osian, though the only place I’d ever seen amber eyes like that was in the mage lands.

“And it’s permanent, you say?” I asked as we all moved back over to where we’d created a rough sort of sitting room with the barrels.