The Gems of Raga-Tor (Elemental Legends Book 1) (7 page)

“Well, I need to know, so think of some wench and change,” Raga said so off-handedly that Eris was startled. He bolted up straight in his chair, eyes wide with shock.

“What! There’s not enough gold in this entire city to bribe me to do that. It’s bad enough I’ve agreed to help you. You don’t need to mock me. Besides, do you know how exhausting that is? Unlike you, I can't just wave my hand and become something else.”

Raga waved Eris to silence. “Listen to me. If my plan for getting the second gem is going to work, I need to know what you look like as a woman. Do you think I can trust a real woman to do what I have in mind?” He frowned at Eris. “Stop your foolishness. If you’re ugly, then we’ll have to find a real woman anyway. Now change. Do whatever it is you do.”

“You’re crazy. This is the most insane thing I’ve heard yet and I’ve no use for it. Why don’t you get out of here and I’ll forget I ever saw you.” Angrily, Eris stood up and waited impatiently for Raga to rise.

“I’m not leaving. As long as those gems are out there, I’m with you. You disappoint me, though. I didn’t think there was anything you feared doing,” Raga said with emphasis on the word ‘fear.’ It had the desired effect.

Eris drew himself up straight.

“Afraid? Why should I be afraid?’

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“It disgusts me. It’s wrong.”

Raga shrugged. “All I can say is that the sooner you do this, the sooner our plan takes another step forward.”

Eris was at a loss. Every argument that entered his head was futile. He scowled at Raga and gave up.

“I’m certainly not going to do it in front of you.” He turned and went behind the warped wooden partition. He stared at the paint peeling off in ugly, cankerous flakes. His frustration peaked. Everything in his life, his surroundings, his predicament suddenly seemed dirty and squalid. After a few frustrating minutes, he came back around the partition unchanged.

“What’s wrong?” Raga asked, but he saw the anger etched on Eris’ arrogant face.

“I can’t do this. Yesterday was enough. Why don’t we just get on the road across the escarpment and see if it happens along the way?”

Raga sat up straighter and drank the rest of the wine. “We don’t have time to find a replacement if you aren’t suitable for the task that I believe faces us.”

“I’ll be glad for the day your logic fails you,” Eris said annoyed. “This isn’t as easy to do as you think. I’ve spent the last three or four phases of the moon teaching myself how
not
to daydream. Yesterday was an accident.”

“We need to get you un-spelled in a hurry. You’re becoming unhealthy,” Raga jested.

Eris’ scowl darkened.

“Go downstairs and get a wench—one that dances.”

“Good idea. What kind do you want? Blond, red-head—”

“I don’t care. Whatever you want. At this point I’m sure even fat, old and ugly will serve.”

Raga snickered.

Eris walked around the partition. “If the lore of Raga-Tor is right about anything, it’s this obnoxious mean streak you have.”

Raga stood and went to the door. “I’ll bring you a pretty one. When you’ve changed, drop something on the floor and I’ll get rid of her. And take off those clothes. You need to be just right from head to foot for this to work.”

Eris instinctively had a bad feeling. Having survived this long in the environs of magic, he knew when trouble perched on his windowsill.

Hearing the door close, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it across the room to the bed. He grabbed a chair and pulled it up close to the partition. He sat and pulled off his boots. He decided to wait until after the change to take off the rest. Maybe that way he wouldn’t feel quite so self-conscious.

He untied the leather bracers on each forearm and slid them off. He squeezed the leather of one to make sure the green gem was still where it should be, and then pushed both of them deep into one boot.

Waiting for Raga, he felt acutely embarrassed. What in the Seven Hells was he doing by agreeing to display himself stark naked in front of a man he had just met? A man he didn’t even want to know. He rubbed his face with his hands and felt a little dazed, definitely confused, and most disturbing of all, he felt completely vulnerable with all control slipping from his grasp. Eris Pann, on most days, was a consummate leader and nothing escaped his astute attention. The present situation was completely unacceptable and becoming more so.

Before he sunk into another raging pit of anger, the door opened and a laughing girl glided into the room.

“You know, I really can’t dance without music,” she chirped.

“Don’t worry, little bird, my musician is behind that partition. He’s not a pretty sight so I keep him hidden.”

“Oh. I’ve heard that really ugly people are crazy and dangerous,” she half whispered and was careful not to look toward that part of the room.

Raga smiled and clapped his hands together. “You may begin.”

Eris jumped and stifled a curse when a lute and tambour, glowing like red-gold flames, appeared floating in the air beside his head. In spite of himself, he was amazed by the delicate, rich tones of the phantom instruments.

Eris leaned forward and rested his chin in cupped hands. The hinges that held the coarse wooden panels together sagged to create a narrow gap through which he saw the girl. Wrapped in yards of colorful veils, she began the first swaying steps of her slow, sensuous dance.

Raga kept his promise and found a girl who was quite lovely. During his stay at the Black Mare, he had only seen her a couple of times. She was slim of waist and long of arm. Her flaxen hair, caught up in a golden band atop her head, cascaded down as a silken mane glimmering gold in the light of the afternoon sun.

Relax, enjoy the moment, Eris thought, when after several minutes the metamorphosis had yet to occur.

The dancer pulled the last, pink diaphanous veil from the golden garter hung with tinkling bells that encircled her waist. She pulled the cloth slowly across her nude, swaying body. She swooned and flung it from her.

Eris felt the faint tickling sensation come over him that heralded the beginning of the transformation. The pent up emotion he didn’t allow himself with Kaitay took control. He squirmed on the stool wishing he didn’t know what was coming next.

The dancer gracefully gathered up the veils from the floor until she had them all in her arms, then launched them into the air. Amidst a mass of misty colors, she swayed.

With Raga’s help, the veils remained aloft floating up and down like a fairy queen’s gossamer sea. The girl, oblivious of the enchantment upon her veils, whirled, eyes closed, her nude body glistening. Her face echoed the rapture of the haunting melody that pulsed with sensuous life.

Eris clamped his hands over his mouth. Loins of Verin how he wanted that girl. His desire, so long put in chains, roared through him. He fought the impulse to rush out and grab her if only for a moment. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He gasped as the force of the curse hit him with strength equal to that of his passion.

The weakness. The awful weakness fell upon him first turning his taut, muscled body into the svelte form of the woman he became. Tiny hands seemed to massage his head as his hair lengthened and tickled him in the small of his back. As always, the emotional drain was immense. Suffering through the change twice in as many days, he nearly fainted for the exhaustion. His desires fled from him as dust before a storm, and he was filled with the emotions of any other woman in Rennas Baye. He suddenly feared the streets that only yesterday he had traversed quite unconcerned. He felt anxiety about his appearance and other insignificant details, that as a man, he gave nary a thought.

When it was over, Eris slumped forward, hands resting against the floor. Voluptuous, bare breasts touching, pressing against his thighs made him feel sick. The presence of the beautiful dancer prancing about the room annoyed him. Wearily, he picked up a boot and let it drop to the floor.

Hearing the faint sound, Raga released the veils and they fell in a colored whisper to the floor. He caused the music to stop and the girl sank down tiredly.

“That was very nice, my girl,” Raga complimented, and helped her to her feet. “Here is a silver for your lovely dance.”

The girl looked quizzically at him. “But I thought you wanted me for the afternoon?”

“Perhaps later. My musician grows restless and your assumption about him is correct,” Raga explained.

“Oh,” the girl whispered and quickly gathered up her costume and wrapped the veils around her slender body. She looked fearfully toward the darker side of the room. “Do you think he’ll attack me?”

He smiled at her gently and brushed back a wisp of silky hair. A thought entered his mind, but he let it go.

“Oh, no. I keep him chained to a peg in the floor,” Raga said and almost laughed thinking of the pout that probably creased Eris’ womanly face.

Without another word, the girl fled the room. Raga closed the door. The old trunk groaned as his significant weight settled on the lid.

“She’s gone, Eris. Now, let’s see what you’ve become.”

Eris quipped, “Would you like me chains and all?”

“You have a very nice voice,” Raga commented, hearing a rich, euphonic sound.

Eris stood up slowly and stretched. His now slimmer torso allowed his breaches to slide to the floor. He didn’t like this idea at all. He was totally at the mercy of this man, this sorcerer, who sat across the room. It would be nothing for Raga to overpower him in this state. There was nothing to do now but get the inspection over with.

Feeling more than a little peculiar, a horse fair or a slave market coming to mind, Eris stepped from behind the divider. He walked quite unladylike into the light, stopped and faced Raga with fists firmly planted on well-rounded hips.

Raga, for the first time in as long as he could remember, was speechless. And for a sorcerer of the Red Vale, a long time was indeed a long time.

“Well?” Eris demanded impatiently. There was no doubt as to the forthcoming answer. It was written all over the red-beard’s face.

Raga swallowed hard.

“Eris, you are….you are—no offense—quite the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Raga mumbled. His eyes once again looked Eris from head to foot and back again. “None of Charra-Tir’s other victims ever looked like this. Of course they didn’t have as much to start with either.”

Because of his height, Eris was tall for a woman. His body was a sensuous dream made flesh: curved and voluptuous with an underlying sinewy strength. Beneath the smooth olive skin of shoulders and thighs, muscle moved like living steel. His face was heart-shaped, with high cheeks and a full, inviting smile—a pout at the moment. He was possessed of a face of cold arrogance that only the most beautiful of women could command. His eyes were green, even unnaturally so, and thick, black hair fell in wavy patterns to his waist. Not even the gods themselves could improve on this.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Eris warned, understanding the look on Raga’s face. “I’m almost afraid to hear what you have to tell me about this plan of yours. By that silly look that won’t leave your face, I assume I’ve passed the test.”

“You far surpass anything I could have imagined. I wouldn’t even mind if you stayed that way for a week—or two,” Raga said appreciatively, lustfully. His eyes unabashedly devoured Eris one curve after the other.

“Shut up, Raga,” Eris snapped. “You make me sick. Now get that stupid look off your face and help me find something to wear. The clothes I have for this condition are being laundered.”

“Your wish is my staggering desire,” Raga teased and inclined his head, but failed to produce a garment.

Eris frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. Instantly, he realized that was the wrong thing for a woman like him to do. Raga’s eyes twinkled like fireflies.

“You bastard,” Eris cursed and went to sit on the edge of the bed. He grabbed up the shirt he had tossed there and pulled it on. It covered him well enough and would keep Raga from staring at him.

From a saddle bag on the floor he took out a whetstone, rag, and a small vial of oil and put them on the bed and then began tending to his brine-bathed sword—a task he should have seen to the night before. He defied Raga to speak as he moved the whetstone down the length of the blade with a kind of determination.

“Are you going to explain this little plot to me, or are there more tests you want me to pass?’ Eris asked curtly.

Raga seemed to ponder something as he scratched the beard under his chin.

“There is one more thing I need to know,” he said finally. “What happens to you, as a woman, when you… uh… well. . .”

Raga let his words trail off.

Eris exploded. He leapt from the bed with oily sword in hand.

“You cunning bastard! If you think for one moment you’re going to lay a hand on me—just try.” The sword’s point suddenly rested heavily against Raga’s broad chest. “You think this is funny. I don’t. I know what you’re thinking. I know damned well what you’re thinking. I’m a man, remember? How do you think I feel exhibiting myself like some slave girl on the auctioneer’s block? Do you think I’m here to act the whore for your pleasure?”

“Will you stop screeching and listen,” Raga interrupted. “I believe you know the red stone is in Reshan, but do you know exactly where?”

Eris looked at Raga guardedly for a moment, then spoke, “From the information I’ve managed to gather, the Sultan of Reshan has it. A merchant presented it to him in return for a year of tariff-free trade.”

“I’ve heard the same. That’s a good sign. And how were you going to get it?”

“I wasn’t going to plan anything until I got to Reshan and had a look at the palace. Then, I’ll probably sneak in and steal it from his treasure room.”

“Have you ever been to Reshan?”

“No. The caravans I ride with tend to avoid the place.”

“I thought not. No one has ever taken anything from that palace and lived.”

“The guards are that good? Are they above being bribed, or killed?” Eris asked. The blade still pressed against Raga’s chest.

“No. Everything is ensorcelled. Take anything from the palace and you’ll be afflicted with such insanity that you’ll tear your own throat out. I’ve seen it happen.”