wizards. He’d never met one yet that was entirely right in the head.
Just in case the man’s night vision wasn’t any better than Averone’s, the farmer raised the crossbow as if he was making ready to attack. A soldier used whatever weapons were ready to hand, even if all he had to fight with was a bluff.
“Get off my land.” Averone tried to speak in a strong, confident tone, but he couldn’t keep his voice from quavering.
The man continued approaching. He glanced at the dead cow as he passed it and shook his head.
“You really should take better care of your animals. This poor thing looks as if it was slaughtered by a blind butcher with a dull cleaver and a bad case of arthritis.”
The man let out a high-pitched giggle at his joke, and the sound sent a chill racing down the length of Averone’s spine. It was not the sort of sound a sane person would make.
The man stepped closer, and Averone was able to make out his basic features, enough to see that he was a thin, middle-aged man. At first, Averone relaxed a bit. The farmer was young and strong, and if it came down to a physical contest, he had no doubt he’d be able to take the older man. But there was that thing on his shoulder, and Averone noticed that one of the man’s hands was significantly larger than the other. He remembered the serpent the woman had commanded, and for the first time he wondered if it had been a serpent at all. Whatever the woman had been, he had a feeling that this new arrival was something similar, and that scared him. He’d been lucky to survive his encounter with the woman, and now he was being confronted by a second lunatic. Even more, there was something about the man’s manner that told Averone he was far more dangerous than the woman.
Despite his training, Averone found himself backing up several steps as the man approached.
“I don’t want any trouble, so why don’t you just be on your way?”
The man smiled, his teeth gleaming blue-white in the moonlight. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I’d just like to you stand still for a bit.”
Before Averone could react, the man opened his mouth and a thin tendril not unlike the serpent thing possessed by the woman shot forth. A barbed tip struck Averone at the base of the throat, and a sensation of coolness swiftly spread throughout his body. His muscles spasmed and locked tight, and within seconds he could no longer move, though he could still breathe, if only shallowly.
The tendril withdrew into the man’s mouth. “That’s better,” he said.
Averone calmly wondered how the man could speak with such a strange tongue, and a distant part of his mind realized that his body wasn’t the only thing that had been paralyzed. His emotions had been too. He felt no fear, no concern over what might happen to him while he was unable to move. Only a mild curiosity.
The man walked around Averone, looking him up and down as if the farmer was a steer he was considering purchasing. Averone was still able to blink, although he couldn’t move his eyes or turn his neck to follow the man with his gaze. But the man was now close enough that when he moved in front of Averone’s eyes, he could see that the shape he had taken for a familiar was some manner of snakelike creature with a single large eye. If Averone hadn’t been in the grip of the strange paralysis, he would’ve recoiled at the sight of the thing. As it was, he still found it somewhat disturbing.
“I saw you talking with my niece,” the man said. “Lovely girl, isn’t she? A bit on the serious side, but she gets that from her father. We’ve been playing hide and seek all day, but of course I have an unfair advantage. I always carry a few toys around with me-including a device called a concealer that allows me to roam about undetected if I wish. For the last few hours I’ve been within shouting distance of Lirra and she didn’t know it. It’s been amusing watching her adjust to the presence of her new friend, and I was especially intrigued by her encounter with you. After she took the life of your cow, I thought for certain that she wouldn’t be able to resist taking yours. The lust to spill blood runs strong in symbionts, you see, and once they start killing it becomes almost impossible to stop them. But Lirra was able to resist the symbiont’s influence and spare your life. I always knew my niece was strong, but I’m beginning to see that she’s far stronger than I ever imagined. I’m going to have so much fun plumbing the depths of her strength and learning what it takes to finally break her.”
The man stopped in front of Averone and grinned.
“But in the meantime, there’s something else I’d like to try. You might have noticed that I’ve recently acquired several new friends of my own.” The man raised his misshapen clawed hand, and the sinuous creature draped across his shoulders trained its single milky white eye on Averone. “But my symbionts aren’t the only gifts I’ve received. A powerful benefactor graced me with his touch, and not only did he open my eyes to the true nature of reality, but he granted me certain abilities as well-abilities that I’ve been dying to try out.”
The man reached toward Averone’s face with his left hand-this one perfectly normal-and brushed the tips of his fingers across the farmer’s cheek. Averone felt his flesh grow warm beneath the artificer’s touch, and when the man pulled his fingers away, the skin stuck to them, stretching like warm tree sap.
“I can now shape flesh and bone the way a potter shapes clay, and you, my dear farmer, are going to be my first work of art.”
Averone could see the light of madness shining in the artificer’s gaze as the man shook loose the strands of cheek flesh from his fingers and reached toward his forehead. He paused for an instant and then plunged his hand into Averone’s skull, fingers passing through flesh and bone as easily as if they were made of water. Still paralyzed, Averone stood completely still as the artificer went to work molding, shaping, and rearranging his mind, but inside he screamed in agony.
Ranja crouched on a hilltop a quarter of a mile from where the two men stood. She kept low to the ground, her mottled green clothing helping to conceal her from them. She’d been following Lirra at a distance and watched as the woman savagely killed a cow for no apparent reason. She’d seen the farmer confront Lirra, and she’d fully expected the woman to slay him as well, and she’d been surprised when Lirra had turned away and departed, leaving the man alive. Fusing with a symbiont had clearly taken a toll on Lirra’s mind, but she’d been able to resist the urge to kill the farmer. It seemed the woman hadn’t completely succumbed to madness yet, and that intrigued Ranja. She respected strength and courage, and it appeared Lirra had an abundant supply of both.
When Lirra rendered the farmer unconscious and departed, Ranja had fully intended to follow her, though she’d planned to wait before doing so to allow the woman to put some distance between them. But as she waited, she was shocked by the sudden appearance of Elidyr. And “appear” was precisely what the man had done. One moment he wasn’t there, the next he was. Ranja didn’t know what sort of magic the man had used, but she was familiar with any number of spells or devices that could accomplish the task, and the specifics didn’t really matter to her. As this was the first time she’d seen Elidyr since he’d walked away from the lodge, she decided to stick around and see what he’d do. She could always catch up to Lirra later.
But Ranja regretted her choice when she saw a symbiont burst forth from Elidyr’s mouth to paralyze the farmer, and she
The hackles rose on the back of Ranja’s neck, and a low growl sounded deep in her throat. Instinctively, she changed form, teeth and claws lengthening, hair thickening and becoming furlike, her face assuming a more bestial aspect.
Perhaps it was her growling, soft though it was, or perhaps it was due to some preternatural sense that Elidyr possessed, but the man looked away from the farmer and turned his gaze toward the shifter. He grinned, as if delighted to see her, raised his oversized claw of a hand and waved.
That was too much for Ranja. She bolted and fled as swiftly as her bestial form would allow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The town of Geirrid lay in the center of Warlord Bergerron’s lands, surrounded by open fields and dense forests beyond. It was the kind of place you stopped briefly at on your way to somewhere else, and that was precisely why Lirra hoped she’d be able to move about without drawing too much attention to herself.
The guards stationed at the town’s main entrance hadn’t given her a first glance, let alone a second, as she
