The Gift
(Extended Version)

by Trystl

 Chapter Four

1

Damian realized he was dreaming.

He was aware of a sense of body: his own breathing, and between breaths, a rhythmic heart beat pulsing gently against his chest; his thoughts meandered through his head�yet he was female in his dream. This occurred to him when he realized that she was dreaming. The vivid and colorful hypnopompic images that danced in front of him were meaningless: like a bug on a window when your focus is on the outer yard; but it brought a sudden shift in his awareness. He moved, felt the sheets sliding across her naked skin; and there was an emptiness between her legs.

He was dreaming about dreaming.

The realization made her dream begin to fade, but he clung to the sense of her body with a fierce determination.

His own dream was almost entirely tactile, lacking all visuals�except for her dream, which, although fading, floated before him like a small luminous sphere.

He found this sense of duel identity quite humorous. Laughing aloud in his sleep, he moved her hips, forcing her to arch her back as he worked his fingers between her leg. An excitement ran through him: not just her physical thrill, but a delicious sense of power and control. Her body tensed as if in protest, but his fingers came away soaking wet. She groaned. He could feel the ambiguous rumbling of her voice like a tickle in her throat, and dipped his finger into her wetness smiling as her groan softened and grudgingly became a moan.

A warm brightness struck his face and seemed to spread through his body. Moving his head�he became suddenly more aware of the division between himself and the dream girl. She was slowly slipping away.

Without knowing why, he felt a wave of melancholy. He was awake, but he didn�t open his eyes.

He didn�t move for quite some time.

The sun shining through the skylamp was giving Damian a dull headache that was swiftly crowding out the last lingerings of his dream. At last, in disgust he rolled onto his side, moaning as the sudden movement made his head throb. He thrust the pillow over his head, not ready to get up just yet, and still trying to recapture the bitter sweetness of his dream although it was already as distant as a childhood memory. He would never get it back.

It left him feeling restless.

He wondered why. It was almost as if he had taken something into the dream, left it, and now he knew it was gone, even if he couldn�t remember what it was.

Stretching his stiff muscles, he reached beneath the pillow, pressing his palms against his temples to massage the pain out of his head. The skin along his stomach pulled taunt. His muscles felt weak and stiff and awkward. He didn�t want to think about it. His head was hurting more now, and it was hard to concentrate on anything.

He stretched again, arching his back beneath the silky sheets, and for a moment, when he felt the sheets sliding lightly over his bare skin, it was as if he were back in his dream. He took pleasure in forcing the dream girl�s stiff muscles to work. She was his puppet; and he smiled even as she grimmaced.

Suddenly he realized who she was...and felt her body flush just as if he were still in the dream. His head throbbed more violently.

He remembered Shalis, the driver who had taken him to Tereesan�s, and the way the crimson shame washed over her pale body when she blushed. He recognized the invading warmth that crawled across his neck and shoulders, even though it was new to him. Could he have fallen back into his dream so easily, and yet thinking that the feeling faded almost instantly. He shiver as if with fevor; felt a wild spinning as he opened his eyes and pressed the pillow down over his face, smelling clean linin and the faint hint of feathers.

When he pushed away the pillow, the sun hit him like a slap in the face. The throbbing in his head was like a spike being hit with a hammer. He rolled over on his side, away from the sunlight, his mind suddenly awake and alert, if screaming for the comforting pressure of his hands against his temples.

The tightness in his head began to pass. He opened his eyes a second time. The room was dark except for the bright shaft of light...coming...from the wall? It wasn�t coming from the skylamp in his ceiling, but from a thick paned window! He couldn�t see much, but it was enough to see that this wasn�t his room. His bed was further away from the window. In fact his room was bigger altogether.

And why did he feel so groggy...it was as if he had been drugged.

Drugged!

The idea struck Damian hard.

He began to think back. He couldn�t remembered leaving Tereesan�s house, but he remembered fighting against the first effects of being drugged. Leesha had been drugged as well. He remembered seeing her slumped over beside him just before he had succumbed.

It didn�t make sense, though. If the healer hadn�t meant to kill him, what did he want? The nearest council meeting had been several days away. Surely he had not sleep long enough to miss it! And even if he had, it wouldn�t mean much. There were legal measures to counter that sort of thing.

A weight seemed to press against Damian�s forehead; he felt like curling back into his bed and sleeping for another three or four hours. Instead he forced himself to sit up. His head throbed, but he ignored it. This was to important! If Tereesan had taken so much trouble to drug him, then whatever he had planned was big. Damian had to find out what it was and quick. It might already be to late.

The problem was he didn�t have the faintest clue what to expect. The only thing he did know was that something had or was going to happened, and whatever it was, he wasn�t going to like it! He had to find out what it was so that he could take whatever steps he could to prevent it. Or, if it had already happened...to correct it.

Unsteadily he got to his feet. His head hurt when he stood, but the pain was not as bad as sitting up had been and it passed more quickly. Looking around, his eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light; and he tried to force his sluggish thoughts into productive motion. The first step was to find out were he was, and whether or not he was a prisoner.

The room was small, but while it wasn�t nearly as lavish as Damian�s estates, neither was it exactly shabby. The walls were largely bare, with few adornments; and the floor was without any rugs, but the wood was polished to a near shine. It was smooth, almost slick beneath his bare feet. Glancing around he saw that his clothes were not laid out by the bed, although he wore a loose fitting night shirt that nearly covered his knees.

He went to the dresser and opened a drawer. Inside were piles of women�s clothes.

He frowned and closed the drawer.

Had he been given a woman�s room, and his clothes taken so that he couldn�t run without causing himself a good deal of embarrassment? But he had bed clothes; and now that his eyes were adjusted to the light, he saw that the windows didn�t have bars. If he really wanted to leave there wasn�t much to stop him. He took a deep breath and noticed a peculiar, musty smell in the air. It was the distinctive smell that pervaded all of the buildings along the docks on the lower end of West Safks. He should have noticed it right away, as soon as he awoke. It was odd that he hadn�t; and even now the smell didn�t seem as strong as it usually did to him.

He went to the window putting a hand over his eyes to shade the worst of the sun, and looked out on a small alley strewn with rotting crates and heaps of garbage. For a moment the sight stirred a vague memory that he couldn�t quite place, yet for all he knew it could be any one of a hundred different alleys.

He thought of braving the stares of the people on the street and slipping quietly away, but if he wasn�t a prisoner he could leave whenever he wanted, and his curiosity wouldn�t let him leave until he found out where he was and why he was here. Someone had some explaining to do if they wanted to keep him from seeking satisfaction from the empyreal magistrates. But more than simple satisfaction, he was curious what Tereesan�s logic had been. What did the healer expected to gain by this strange ploy? And what else was involved that he had yet to find out?

Damian turned away from the window, and headed towards the two doors at the opposite end of the small room. They were on adjacent walls, but they were similar. One of them undoubtedly lead to a hallway, or perhaps directly into another room; the other door he wasn�t so sure about. It might lead into a closet, a bathing room, or even another bedroom.

It didn�t much matter to him.He went to the door on the left and opened it, only mildly surprised to find a small washroom, with a picture of water and a washing bowl on a table with plenty of drawers. The house must belong to a reasonably prosperous businessman, Damian though idly as he moved toward the water to freshen up a little before trying the other door. Then he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned. He found himself looking straight at Shalis who was standing in a doorway in the adjacent wall.She was obviously just as startled to see him; he blinked, waiting to see what she would do.

She didn�t move.

After a moment he frowned and took a menacing step towards her. She also took a step forward, so fast that he pulled back in alarm. She did the exact same. And suddenly with an intuitive flash, the doorway changed into a wall length mirror and that peculiar division of mind from body�that separateness that he had experience in his dream�returned with renewed strength.

His mouth fell open in disbelief, and in the mirror her mouth opened too. She was breathing rapidly�her small breasts rising and falling�but he could feel that they were his breasts now. She stared at him with wide, frightened and disbelieving eyes.This couldn�t be happening! It was part of his dream. But he knew that wasn�t true. It didn�t have the texture of a dream; and the realization that he might be dreaming didn�t bring the hoped for fading back into reality like in his earlier dreams.

He reached up, and in the mirror Shalis touched her cheek with the tips of her fingers. He dug into her flesh scraping a red line down her face, and felt his face stinging fiercely. He touched her firm yet delicate chin, and watched as the girl�s fingers traced down her neck and across the cloth of her night gown where it covered her breasts. Her face went red, but he could feel the wave of warmth spreading.

He was intently aware of everything about her: the chipped, red paint on her long fingernails, the gooseflesh that spread over her arms and legs�he could feel the night shirt hanging loosely on a body that seemed suddenly alien. He took a deep breath and felt his nipples harden as they rubbed against cloth. His stomach muscles tighten convulsively.

His knees were suddenly weak. It was all he could do to brace himself against a wall to keep from falling. When he looked at his hand he saw thin, Romastion-white fingers, shaking like an old woman�s. He looked back at the mirror, took a step towards it, then stopped in horror as he suddenly realized there was nothing but empty space between his legs. With a jerk, he reached beneath his night shirt, pressing his hand against her sex. He tensed. An odd sexual feeling radiated from his hand, with an intensity that angered and frightened him. He let it pass, then rammed his hand violently between her legs. The act rocked her body with a stab of unbearably sweet and intense pleasure and pain.

Without any tenderness, his hand found the gap between her legs; and she gasped involuntarily, with a strangled little cry, as his fingers spread her open, slipping sharply and deeply inside her. She was soaking wet, and shivered at his touch. He drank in the warm, musty smell or her; thrilled at her need, thrusting his hand deeper. She gasped eagerly�crying out in a breathy voice that felt strange in his throat. She was helpless in his hands, only they weren�t his hands�they were soft, weak hands with long delicate fingers and poorly painted fingernails.

Suddenly a desperate sense of loss washed over him. He fought against the sinking feeling that threatened to drag him into oblivion; but his legs gave away beneath him and he melted to the floor at her increasingly insistent touch.

It was a glorious relief from his own horror; and he took an ecstatic joy from the pleasurable punishment he was giving the Romastion whore who had stolen his body.

It was several minutes before he could make himself take his hand away, and by that time he felt spent and lay near exhaustion on the floor. He opened his eyes and lolled his head to the side. Shalis lay on the polished wood floor inside the mirror: Her hair was damp with the sweat that had already dried from her face. Tears of frustration and anger had stained her pale cheeks red.

Was that really him?

He turned away. Crawling to the wash-table, he used it to help himself stand; clinging to it as his legs sagged beneath him. He could feel one of Shalis� small breasts being pressed against his arm. Slowly he forced his breathing to deepen. A little strength was returning to his legs, although he still didn�t trust them to hold him.

Cupping a hand over the bowl, he poured some water from the picture. It felt good against his face. Then standing up straight, he turned back to the mirror.

Shalis was still staring at him. Her face, framed by white locks, was just as he remembered it�and yet there was a look of fear and anger that had not been there before. He stroked the soft strands of her worm silk hair. It did not hang thick and straight like Pedigree Romastion hair, but tangled about her head in soft waves that fluttered slightly in a breeze he didn�t feel.

�It�s some kind of black magic!� he hissed aloud.

The sound of her voice surprised him. It was still unexpected coming from his throat; and yet he was pleased to note that it was not quite Shalis�s voice. It was tainted by a certain quality that reminded him vaguely of his own.

He wiped more tears from his eyes. His female reflection was tired and sweaty; and her hair disheveled�yet the intensity of her appeal was painful. He enjoyed her humiliation, yet he despised his own weakness.

Suddenly he froze. Someone was knocking at the door; and he was in a panic, unsure what to do. A knock came again. He turned and walked hesitantly back into the bedroom; but before he could decide what to do, the door opened and a tall, young man entered.

�Shalis!� He looked around, saw Damian and started towards him. �Shalis? Are you alright?�

Damian took a step back. Although he had never seen the man before he knew who he was. It was Shalis�s lover...Yarvin; the man who owned her! His name came easily to Damian�s mind, like a long familiar, and pleasant friend�yet he had only heard of him from Shalis in a passing reference and would not have expected to remember it. �Why didn�t you answer?�

�I didn�t hear you,� Damian said. �I was...in the wash room.�

Yarvin reached for him. �Are you sure you�re alright?� he asked, frowning in confusion as Damian moved away from him. �I was worried about you when Damian brought you in last night. He said you�d been...�

�Damian brought me?�

Yarvin paused a deep frown creasing his brow; and Damian realized the man was puzzled by what seemed odd behavior for Shalis. He would have to be careful how he acted, and yet he was desperate to know more about this alleged Damian who had brought him here. Had Tereesan brought him, claiming to be him? It didn�t make sense!�

He said you�d been drinking a little to much...�

�But you saw him?� Damian said, fighting to keep his voice as calm as he could. He was suddenly feeling very light headed; and had to force himself to take deep breaths.

�Yes, I saw him!� The man said, an edge of concern in his voice. �He carried you up from the coach, and was good enough to wait until I could get Faldan out of bed to take him home.�

�I�m sorry,� Damian said, letting the tight grip he had been keeping on his emotions slip; and suddenly he was shaking uncontrollably. �I�m not feeling very well,� he said his voice barely more than a whisper. As he said it, he knew it was more true than he would have wished. Only the strength of his will had keep him together this long, and now that he had given in to the weakness of Shalis�s body, his legs were threatening to give out beneath him.

Seeing this, Yarvin rushed to support him. Before he knew it Yarvin had scooped him up in his arms. Instinctively Damian clung to him, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable�he was an insignificant weight, a weak and helpless thing in the strong arms of the young man; when Yarvin looked down at him with undisguised concern in his eyes, Damian felt a strong sense of security. Yarvin�s intense dark eyes held him in another way! He caught his breath, surprised at the stirring of new emotions that he didn�t quite understand but found alarming. The smell of Yarvin caused a quick startling response from between his legs. He recognized that these feelings were not his own, but rather that they came from this new body�and it frightened him.

It wasn�t just that Yarvin was a man. Homosexuality held little stigma in the Zanadian culture, and men of means frequently keep a stable of catamites instead of women. What frightened Damian was that Yarvin was in love with Shalis; and more importantly that Shalis had been in love with him. Even though her body had a new owner, it still remembered�and strong enough that he might be swayed by it�s irrational impulses, if he wasn�t careful.

�It�s alright now,� Yarvin said, pushing Damian gently back onto the pillow when he tried to sit up. He caressed Damian�s shoulder and brushed a hand over Shalis�s long hair. Out of the corner of his eye Damian could see the Ramastion white hair as it tangled around Yarvin�s fingers.

�Just lay still,� he said. He tried to smile, and Damian realized just how worried the man was.�I�m alright!� Damian pushed away the hand; and turned his head. He couldn�t look at Yarvin. He didn�t like the way the man looked back at him, or the way his body responded when their eyes meet. He needed time to think. Time to compose himself; and gather his wits. He was to confused to think straight. If he could just get the man out of the room for a little while, maybe he could figure this thing out�decide what to do.

�I�m hungry!� Damian said, in a plaintive moan.

Yarvin stood up. �I�ll fix something for you to eat.�

Damian nodded. �Thank you,� he said, watching as Yarvin walked to the door and closed it behind him.

As soon as he was gone, Damian sat up and looked around the room. He heard Yarvin rummaging around just beyond the door, and was in a sudden panic wondering how long it would take him to return with the promised food.

Damian didn�t know what to do, but he didn�t want to face Yarvin again�not with those intense dark eyes that caused the frightening stir of emotions to well up inside his chest. He couldn�t let himself become that man�s property�he wouldn�t let himself become anyone�s property, but especially not Yarvin�s�he�d kill himself first!

Noises from the other room grabbed his attention. He wondered what Yarvin was making. If it was something simple he would be returning with it soon.

Without thinking, he jumped up and looked around for something to wear. He had to get away before Yarvin came back! The slave�s tunic and the shoes Shalis had been wearing the night before were laying on the floor beside the bed. Picking them up he slipped into the shoes and pulled the tunic over his head. The slit sides and short cut left him feeling exposed. He was used to walking naked around his own room, but he thought wearing the tunic in public would feel awkward. If only he could find a pair of leggings, with their soft material clinging tightly to his flesh; but he couldn�t take the time to look now.

Footsteps drew his attention back to the door. The man was coming. Damian ran to the window, praying that it would open easily. He pulled up. It rose with an unexpected clang that made him thankful that the glass was thick enough to resist shattering.

�Shalis?�

Damian slipped through the window, looking back as Yarvin was opening the bedroom door with a platter of food in his hand. He let the window close loudly behind him, and ran�not looking back until he was out of the alley and lost in the crowd on the main street.

2

Damain had been walking in a daze for quite a while when he finally realized where he was. He didn�t remember when he had left the West End and started heading North along West Cartues Road, but when he saw the drive leading to Tereesan�s estate it brought him out of his reverie.

How long had he been walking?

The sun was noticeably higher in the sky, and he was tired and hungry. Until now it hadn�t occurred to him just how desperate his situation was: he was a slave that had run away! At least that was how it would be seen�and although the punishment for such an indiscretion was up to the owner, it was often quite severe. He though Yarvin might be lenient, but he didn�t want to go back there. He was completely serious about preferring to die rather than be a slave. That meant he had to find a way to keep himself feed and sheltered. It also meant hiding from constables who would be looking for Shalis if Yarvin had chosen to alert them.

Damian wasn�t even sure if he had Shalis�s title papers! What would he do if someone stopped him and asked for them? He began searching the tunic he wore�this was the tunic Shalis had worn last, the papers had to be somewhere in one of the secret pocket that every woman�s tunic had.

A lump seemed to swell up in his throat as he ran his hands over the tunic looking for the stiffness that would show him where the pocket was, and he swallowed a few times as his panic grew at not finding anything. At last he found the pocket centered below the neckline of the tunic. He slid his fingers beneath the fabric between Shalis� small breasts to retrieved the legal document.

To his surprise, Shalis was only Yarvin�s ward; although he was not her father. He had not purchased her outright, either, as Damian had expected, but had simply taken over her guardianship. That meant Yarvin was probably related to Shalis in some way: by blood, or perhaps Yarvin and her father had been BondBrothers. No tie was greater than that. Not the bond of mating or even the bond of allegiance to ones lord or master. BondBrothers were never separated without their consent. Not if they were slaves; and not if they were soldiers.

Therefore, it was not uncommon for a BondBrother to take the children of the one who had died; and if the dead BondBrother treated his children kindly then the second was honor bound to do so as well.

There was another possibility. Considering Yarvin�s obvious strong physical attraction for her, it was possible that he had bought her with the intention of taking her as his mate, but didn�t want her to have the stigma of having once been a slave.

Either way, until Shalis came of age, Yarvin had the right to sell her as if she were his property. She was not a slave, but she could be sold into slavery by her guardian. Unless she could draw up the papers to realign her allegiance first!

Damian�s mind raced as he thought through all the possibilities. If he could get into his office at home he could do up the legal paperwork. Once it was notarized by an empyreal magistrate, Yarvin�s options would be limited. Unless he could find a buyer willing to pay as much or more than the notarized offer for Shalis, he could not sell her to anyone but Damian. He could, however, hold Shalis until she became of legal age. At which time she could sign the papers herself.

Shalis was only seven, so Yarvin could hold her for at least a year, and that was likely to ruin Damian�s newly formed plans!

Still, it was worth the chance, for once Shalis was protected under Damian�s estate, he could try to regain a degree of control over his holdings. It would be a subtle control, indeed, but it would be as much as any low-bred female could ever hope to have.

The tricky part would be getting into the Damian estate. Braidon was very good at his job, but surely it could be done...and once in, getting the paperwork processed would be risky and difficult since it would all have to be done without anyone being the wiser.

First though, he had to get in the house; and for that he would need to wait until dark.

There was a large expanse of wooded land behind his estate which Damian liked to hunt. It was private land, full of pits and traps designed for trespassers as well as animals, but Damian knew what to avoid, and Braidon didn�t have the guards watch that side of the property as heavily. It would be the easiest way to enter without being seen.

Damian smiled for the first time since waking up that morning. He was beginning to regain a little of his confidence. Thinking about things he could do made all the difference; and now at least he had a plan.

Turning around he walked back toward the West End. It would be easier to find something to eat along the busy street markets in West Safks; and a slave girl wandering around that part of town would be less conspicuous than one walking along West Cartues with its tree lined parks and estates.

Docks and warehouses covered the strips of land on both sides of the river, but the poor and struggling merchants used the older docks on the West Side.

Away from the river�s edge the warehouses became fewer, and were slowly replaced by brothels, and taverns�the decrepit flop houses who�s survival depended mainly on the dock workers. Then came the small shops and sheltered flea markets housing several merchants who had banded together to fill up a building that was to large for any of them to manage individually. Open street markets had taken over areas that used to be parks when Essoria was smaller and West Safks was the wealthy part of town. Here, lining both sides of West Cartues Road, anyone was free to bring what they could to sell. There were those with nothing more than a small bag of goods slung over their shoulder�others brought and sold their goods out of small carts or larger wagons; while others used portable stalls, or compact tents which they could take with them when they left. Very few structures here were permanent, and none of those were built to last very long.

Damian had taken Cartues Road often enough, but he had always ridden in a carriage, never walked or shopped the street markets. Although he had an interest in a number of merchants there, they were small investments or loans, for which he exacted a heavy interest, he didn�t get involved with the merchants actual operations. He preferred to own, and buy from, the higher quality shops found across the river where the zoning laws required that all merchants work out of permanent buildings in good repair; and street performers and beggars were never allowed unless they could afford an expensive license.

 Sitting in his carriages, Damian had been insolated from the true pulse of market street�he had only seen the paltry buildings; the shabby, unkempt fountains and crumbling monuments of the abandoned parks; and the seedy sea of humanity that washed over its ever shifting corridors. He had never cared much for the street performers, the way some of the rich did. On the few occasions when he�d wanted entertainment he had hired the best performers to come to him.

But now, walking among the masses, he found that the market had an entirely different feel than he had expected: a sense of bustling excitement ran through the crowd and he was a part of it. No one moved aside as he approached the way they did for the carriages of the wealthy; and the air was filled with a constant din of noise and dust. Dozens of hawkers called out their wares; and there was the banter of barter between merchants and buyers; the conversations of companions; the shouts of arguing or fighting men, and the cheers of those who gathered to watch them. There were street musicians and dancers, singers and mimes, jugglers and magicians and acrobats�every variety of performer who could work the streets hoping for the good will and charity of the crowds who stopped to be entertained.

Damian stopped to watch a flutist who�s particular skill had drawn a large crowd. He was almost finished with the song he played. After the last note drifted off into silence there was a moment of silence then a round of applause grew into a hearty show of appreciation. A few coins were tossed into the open charity box at the man�s feet.

He gave an elegant bow.

�Thank you. Thank you,� he called loudly to the crowd. His voice was strong with the distinctive ring of a hawker, but unlike most of them his voice was as pleasant as a singer�s. �If you enjoyed my music,� he told the crowd. �Perhaps you would like to take a look at these fine instruments for sale by my friend Petrion.� He waved his hand towards a comparatively nice stall filled with musical instruments. �With a little practice you can play sweet music too! Don�t be shy folks. The quality is excellent, but the prices are low; with something for every price range.�

Several people had moved over to the stall to look, and a few were buying. Most settled for the cheaper instruments like Tambourines, Mouth Harps, Sern Tines and the smaller Drums; but two were looking at more expensive instruments.

Damian smiled.

The two men had a clever scam; and he wondered how it was set up financially. The floutist was young enough to be the merchant�s son. They didn�t look much alike, but he suspected they were somehow related. Both of them were mutts, a tangled mess of impure breeding, but their eyes were set the same, and both their smiles oozed with predatory charm.

These would be men to back, Damian thought. One day soon they will be on the other side of the river, despite their lack of breeding. And he could own a piece of them�a large peice if he were careful. But no...he sighed and realized that, for now, he could not act on that thought.

He scuffed his feet�Shalis� feet�over a packed deposit of rain-washed dirt.

Moving along, he stopped to listen with another crowd�but this time he watched the people who watched the street performer. They were mostly the working poor with little enough to spend; but there were a few who had plenty of money to be taken.

He watched for an opportunity to present itself.

As he stood, waiting for such a chance, he became aware that the temperature had begun to drop. Where earlier the sun had warmed him more than the slight breeze had cooled him, now it was the other way around, and he shivered slightly. It was to early in the day for the change to be from the coming of night. A cold front was moving in. The night would grow colder yet. If he didn�t find warmer clothes he would undoubtedly suffer the effects of weather exposure before the night was done. Shalis� light tunic was meant for the stifling heat of mid-summer, not the chilly winds of a cool spring night�and even though the temperature wouldn�t get anywhere near freezing, it was already cool enough to slowly leech away the warmth from an unprotected body.

Walking was his only protection, and he gladly wandered from stall to stall, and then more briskly for spells�searching for any opportunity to obtain money, food or clothing.

After a time he came upon a traveling slave merchant. There were waiting tables in a little roped off area where strong drinks were served and the men could mix with the merchant�s women as they made their choices. Near the privacy tent was a row of pegs for a man�s outer cloak while he was inside having his fun. Several cloaks hung from the pegs. Damian eyed them longingly, but there were to many people to see him take one. A young girl entering the roped area would be watched carefully, and promptly deported if she didn�t make her reason for being there known.

In his own body, Damian would have had a fair chance, and he might have tried to take one. But not now. Stealing was to great an offense to risk grabbing a cloak and running.

Damian wasn�t even sure Yarvin would claim him, and pay restitution for his crime after he�d run away just that morning. Either he would become a slave proper or recieve a severe punishment from Yarvin; and neither prospect pleased him.

He looked at the cloaks one last time and moved on, pushing his way through a thick knot in the crowd. He was unaccustomed to making his own way through the jostling, non-ingratiating people: always before he had had his carriage or a servant to cry out his passage. And Shalis� shorter stature only made it worse. Suddenly Damian felt like a man tied with weights and dropped into the sea. It was as if the bodies towering over and around him were water and if he couldn�t be free of them he would drown. The press of bodies had a way of carrying him with it�sucking him along like a drown-tide. He pushed forward, was jostled aside; tripped and nearly fell, but scrambled up and pushed harder in his sudden panic.

He broke free of the crowd, rushing headlong into the more open ground as he looked back at the press of madness.

Again he Stumbled, but this time he was caught roughly and shoved�nearly thrown�out of the way. He came down on hands and knees, his palms burning where the skin was torn away. Tears sprang unbidden to his eyes. He heard the man moving away, without so much as a word.

Suddenly the fire in his hands became a focus. The burning there seemed to shoot up his arms in a burst of adrenaline as his recent fear and now humiliation made his temper flare white hot.

He jumped up, facing the man and his escort who were already several paces away. �You ignorant, impotent, ugly looking bastard!� Damian shouted. �Who do you think you are...�

The man took a few more steps, then stopped and slowly turned around.

Damian�s eyes grew wide with the terrible realization that he was talking to an Aronian�a high-born of the same line as the Emperor�s own. Damian recognized him. His name was Meris, and he was a fellow Alderman, one of considerable ranking on the council.

Damian took a step back�becoming more aware of Shalis� body than he had been since the first moments when he had realized what body he wore after waking in Yarvin�s room.

From Damian such an insult would have been overlooked�despite their breeding�he outranked Meris on the council, and the fault was with Meris; but from the likes of Shalis, the insult could not be ignored. It demanded retribution, and Meris gave him a cold look that promised to deliver it.

�Surely your not talking to me,� he sneered.

Damian cursed Shalis� body, with its upsurge of fear that threatened to incapacitate him. He stammered, �N-no my lord! Of course not.�

�Who then?�

�It was the man who pushed me into you.�

�But you were looking at me!�

�An inexcusable discourtesy, your grace. But I assure you, it was the man who pushed me to whom I spoke.�

Meris smiled wickedly. �I suggest you come and prove it to me,� he said with thinly disguised malice. �Else I might choose to have my servants beat you here and now.�

Damian nodded. �Yes, my lord,� he said. But instead of going to Meris he turned and ran. He had no wish to find out how Meris wanted Shalis to prove such a thing.

He heard the footsteps of someone chasing him and darted back into the press of a crowd; glad now for the shelter of so many larger bodies. He twisted and pushed through, ducking behind a row of tents and zigzagging his way between more people and stalls. Although he was sure he had lost the pursuit, he keep running�until his legs felt like lead, and each breath was a ragged fire on his throat.

At last, when he could go no further, he slumped down and leaned against a stall for support. His hands were trembling as he raised them to cover his face.

That was stupid. Stupid, stupid!

He pressed his shaking hands against his eyes: his dainty fingers cool against the fire in his head. He couldn�t afford to make mistakes like that! A sharp chill sweep through him as he gulped for breath.

It�s because I still think of myself as a man; it�s to easy to forget the body I wear. This body of a perpetual child.

Even now he could feel his mind shrinking away from the idea, but he forced himself to face it: he wore Shalis� body; Shalis� face.

My face now! I�m nothing more than a child; and low-breed at that... not even pedigreed, but a mongrel, a Romastion hybrid. That�s how others see me.

His self loathing was bitter in his throat; but he realized that was how he would have to learn to see himself... Or, sooner or later, he would make a fatal mistake. He must be Shalis. He could not afford to think of himself in other terms! He was a child-slave until he came of age. Even if he could devise a way to maintain his holdings...

No! Damian is the one who has holdings; and I must find a way to gain control of them before others beat me to it. What�s his is no longer mine; I mustn�t think of it that way.

I have nothing... yet.

He breathed deeply, and frowned; his brows set with grim determination. �I am Shalis,� he whispered aloud.

The name felt very strange and unpleasant on his lips.

3

Shalis leaned against a tree, huddling with her arms wrapped around her legs, beneath a long heavy cloak. She rubbed their length for the warmth of the motion, glad that she had managed to sneak back into Yarvin�s place, without being caught; and pleased with the cloak�s dark color as well. It hide the ghostly paleness of her body, a benefit that hadn�t occurred to her until after it had begun to grow dark.

She stood up, stretching stiff leg muscles; then adjusted the hood, and pulled the folds of the cloak tightly around her. From where she stood she could see the rear of Damian�s house above the dense line of low brush at the edge of the woods. In the waning light of evening, it was little more than a shillouette against the night glow of the evening sky to the east. Shalis was thankful that at least the shadow lanes set most of the western half of the sky in darkness. Earlier in the day she had hoped the sky would cloud over, bringing a fuller darkness; but that had not happened.

Very soon it would be as dark as the night would get, but she wanted to wait a little longer. The later it was when she reached the house, the less likely any servants would be around to notice her. Still she had been waiting what seemed a very long time. Not wanting to be caught halfway into the dangerous woods as it grew dark, she had entered it several hours ago, and made her way quickly to this spot. She had been waiting patiently ever since, and was eager to get moving, yet rushing now would be foolish. She went back to her tree and sat down to wait, thankful again for Yarvin�s heavy cloak.

It was a good choice, returning to Yarvin�s�Shalis though as she huddled into the cloak�s warmth�and surprisingly easy. She hadn�t expected the window to still be open when she came down the alley. It made her weary of a trap, but at last she went ahead and climbed back into the room. She made more noise than she should have, and had to hide under the bed when Yarvin came into the room calling her name. He went to the window then, looked outside and called her name again, with a hoarse voice that sent an unexpected shiver up her spine. Until that moment Shalis hadn�t realized how deeply Yarvin was in love with her�and the young man�s confused anguish over her hasty departure exposed old feelings from Damian�s past that were much to similar for comfort.

For a moment she had been on the verge of coming out of hiding so that she could comfort Yarvin, and even now she wasn�t sure if that instinct came from the part of Damian that sympathized so deeply with what had been done to Yarvin, or if it was a sign of some residual emotion from Shalis� body.

She didn�t like to think about Shalis having tainted Damian�s personality, but she knew it was true. She had seen to many signs of it: odd little habits that came so easily that for a time she hadn�t even been aware that they were not Damian�s.

Like this clenching of my fists!

She shook her hands to release some of the tension she felt, but she could not help clenching her fists a few more times, before forcing herself to stop. That was Shalis� habit�the old Shalis�not hers; not Damian�s. She would not submit so easily to it...her body might be weak, but Damian�s mind was not. Already she had forced her mind to think of herself this way: as a woman; as Shalis. So far she had slipped only a few times.

She would force Shalis� body to learn new habits. She clenched her teeth, as if to prove her point, but it was no longer a second nature reaction as it had been for Damian�s old body, and it didn�t help much in relieving her tension.

Standing abruptly, she pulled the cloak about her. It was dark enough, time to start moving. She walked to the edge of the woods, and looked out over the shadowy stretch of lawn, noting the best paths of darkness between herself and the house.

From this distance she couldn�t see any of the guards. They would be lurking in the shadows too, watching the lighted areas, and listening for strange sounds. Some of the advantages were hers though. For instance, she knew where the guards were usually stationed and the patterns of their rounds; she knew the layout of the estate, as well; and how to get into the house without an invitation or a key.

She smiled at the fond memories of Damian�s childhood, when he had made a game of observing his father�s guards without letting them see him. Those childish games had come in handy when he was a little older and had wanted to sneak out of the house without his father knowing. To that end he had discovered an air-vent in the attic, which lead out to the roof, an easy access to several large shade trees. Several hours of tinkering with the vent had produced a secret latch that he could open from either side.

That was several years ago�before Braidon had become the head of Damian�s security�but Shalis could do no more than hope that the old Comilaun warrior had not discovered it. Even on a fairly close inspection the vent seemed to be a formidable barrier. Except for the secret latch, its thick bars, and heavy metal construction would make enough noise to attract attention if someone tried to break in by conventional means.

She climbed the fence, being careful not to touch the trip line that would send up an alarm. Moving slowly, she keep to the darkest shadows until she came to the loose clump of trees where the one she intended to climb was. So far it had been easy, but to her surprise the tree�s lowest branch was out of her reach. She had not taken into account that in Shalis� body she was more than a foot shorter than Damian.

She tried to shimmy up the bark but her arms were to weak to support her. She fell to the ground scraping the insides of her wrists on the bark, and irritating her already tender palms.

For a moment she began to panic. It took an effort to force her breathing to deepen. She sat down with her back against the side of the tree away from the house and tried to think. There were two other trees that hung over the house, but one was more difficult to climb, and the other was on an open, well-lite spot on the other side of the house. She would have to cut across the lighted part of the lawn, or face backtracking through the booby-trapped forest at night. Even when she got to the other tree, she suspected it would be almost as difficult navigating from one side of the roof to the other as it would be to climb this tree.

She looked around hoping to find something she could use to stand on, but nothing presented itself as a suitable choice. She leaned back against the tree, feeling defeated and gazed up at the evening sky. The limbs above her were dark silhouettes on the dim light of the shadow lanes. They matched her dark mood, and she watched them swaying in the gentle breeze with a grim and bitter frustration.

There were two choices left to her, it seemed. She could try to sneak into the house using a more conventional method, like a door or a window�or she could return to the edge of the forest, sleep the night where she knew it was safe and return tomorrow evening with something to help her with the climbing. Neither choice was very satisfying. Her odds of succeeding at the first were not very good, and the very thought of the second one galled her. To be so close, and not be able to reach her goal, just because she was to short and weak to climb a tree Damian had climbed as a child, was almost more than she could stand. It occurred to her that the tree�s trunk had gotten bigger in the intervening years, but that didn�t make her any more tolerant of her weaknesses.

She looked up at the trees, delaying the choice that she knew was inevitable, but that she didn�t want to make. A smaller fruit tree was a few feet in front of her, and it�s branches overlapped into the lower branches of the larger tree. If it were sturdier, strong enough to support her weight, she would have tried jumping from one tree to the other.

Then again, it didn�t have to support Damian, only the weight of Shalis�and she couldn�t be much more than half his weight. She was unaccustomed to judging such things in this new body, but it would be worth the risk.

She looked at the limbs more carefully. Two branches were almost touching, the smaller tree�s branch on top and passing perhaps a foot and a half beyond the other. That close to the end, the limb was little more than a twig, but if she used the other branches for balance and for supporting her weight she just might be able to get out far enough before it broke.

It was definitely worth the chance.

The first part of the climb was more difficult than she thought it would be�her upper body was pitifully weak; but once she managed to pull himself up she found that she had exceptional balance. In the darkness, she needed every bit of that skill. She edged her way out onto the branch, feeling with her toes and clinging to the tips of the other branches around her. Her weight was bowing the branch, threatening to make it snap. When she was still a little more than half the length of her body from the larger branch that was her goal, a popping sound made her freeze, and turned her blood cold!

She could feel the slight give in the branch. Another step would be more than it could hold. Just her weight could make the limb break, and the longer she waited the more likely that would happen.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath she made a decision. She leaned forward, bouncing ever so slightly on the limb so that it would act like a spring�to much bounce and it would break; not enough and she was likely to fall short. Letting go of the branches around her as she fell, she forced herself to keep her body stiff and flat. The branch cracked as she fell away from it; and the urge to bend her knees and reach out to catch herself was almost overpowering, but she didn�t let herself give in to that dangerous instinct.

Grabbing the branch, she took the impact of the fall against her chest. The air was rammed out of her. She gasped for a reluctant breath that felt like fire in her chest.

Somehow he had managed to hang on! She twisted around and wrapped her legs around the branch, getting her breath back as she took a moment to rest. She listened for signs that the guards had heard the noise and come to investigate. After a moment she pulled herself up with a great deal of effort and began to climb through the branches.

From there it was simple dropping to the roof; and the vent was just the way she remembered. She clicked the latch and climbed into the attic, closing the vent behind her.

The attic was pure blackness. Shalis sat quietly for several moments, hoping in vain that her eyes would begin to adjust to a small level of light. The last thing she needed was to stumble around and accidentally put her leg through the ceiling, or spend the whole night searching for the hatch that opened into a large storage room of the main upper hall. As a youth, Damian had carried a small hooded lantern to provide a glimmer of light without giving himself away. She had not remembered how dark the attic was without it.

She was just about to start moving in the direction she hoped was the right way, when she heard a muffled voice that she recognized as Braidon. He seemed to be greeting someone, although she couldn�t make out all his words.

The voice that answered Braidon surprised Shalis�it didn�t sound very much like she remembered Damian�s voice, but it wasn�t very likely to be anyone else; and there was a quality about it that seemed to fit despite the differences.

After the exchanged greetings, Braidon asked a few questions in his concise manner, and Damian answered, although he seemed a little reluctant. Shalis wished she could understand them better, for she could make out only fuzzy bits and pieces of their conversation. Not enough to get any accurate sense of what they were discussing.

At last the door closed and Shalis heard footsteps: Braidon retreating down the hall.

As quickly as she could without getting careless and making to much noise, she followed the sound of Braidon�s retreat until the Comilaun warrior took to the stairs and the sound of his walking disappeared as he descended.

Shalis guessed that she was about halfway between those steps and Damian�s room. If she was correct, and had managed to stay in the hallway�s path, then the attic hatch�which came out in a large storage room�would be somewhere just to her left.

As a child, most of Damian�s difficulty in sneaking out of the house had been in getting from the room he had used then�which was at the other end of the hall�passed the stairs and the guards, to the storage room where the hatch was...all without being seen. Since his father�s death, Damian�s childhood room had become a guestroom and he had moved to his father�s old room.

So the hatch was somewhere on Shalis� left.

She moved several steps further along the path that she judged was the hall, then she put her hand down into the trough between the crossbeams and began feeling her way, counting each time she took a crawling step forward. When she had taken a full thirty steps she turned around, moved to the next trough and counted off thirty-two steps. She worked her way back towards her room, adding another step at each new trough.

She was on her seventh turn when her fingers brushed over the wooden trim that told him she had found the ceiling hatch. She opened it and swung clumsily down to the floor, grateful that nothing had been placed in the way of her fall. It was still to dark to see, but after a short search she found the door to the hall. As she had expected, it was locked. She searched along the edge of the door trim near the floor, and found a loose nail in the wood with a key hanging from it just as she had expected. Sticking the key into the lock, without any light, took a little longer than she thought, but after a few minutes of playing she tripped the latch and the door swung open with a soft squeak.

Fortunately, the guards no longer patrolled the halls to prevent Damian from sneaking out of the house. Everything was dark and quiet. The glow stones in the wall lamps were already extinguished, which ment that the servants had retired to their own quarters. A glow came from Damian�s room, and the door was slightly ajar; but the rest of the hall was lite only by the wall lamps at the top of the stairs which were never put out, day or night.

She sliped through the door and started down the hall, staying close the walls and in shadows. Stoping at Damian�s open door, she listened. She could hear Damian humming. The soft, tone-deaf tune carried from behind the door to the bath. The melody was punctuated by the sound of clothes being droped to the floor, and then mercifully covered by running water as he began filling the tub.

Shalis grimmaced. She had not realized how poor Damian�s sense of tone had been.

Now it occurred to her that a strong sense of pitch was one of Shalis� strengths, and a bitter smile turned up the corners of her lips. It wasn�t likely to be a very useful strength, but she filed the information away in her mind.

Opening the door a little further she slipped into the room and made her way quietly to Damian�s writing desk for paper and pen. She tried the top drawer and found it locked as always. The key she knew would be on a chain around Damian�s neck. Fortunately he keep a duplicate set of his important keys in the floor safe and another set in the safe at his office.

The floor safe was next to his desk. Shalis spun the dial furiously to clear it then carefully worked through the pattern of turns which aligned the internal pins. Inside in several small leather pouches was the near total sum of portable wealth to be found in the house: less than 500 toates of minted money, and a few pieces of fine jewelry, gems and raw pieces of precious stones and metal. In a box with black velvet padding lay Damian�s important keys, and a signet ring bearing a smaller version of the seal on his official signiory. Carefully Shalis set the money and tray on the edge of the desk�closed the safe, and opened the desk drawer with the key. She pulled out paper and pen for writing and an ink pad to lend Damian�s official presence to the letters she would write.

It was a simple matter to draw up legal papers�alderman were taught the basics of legal form early in their training�but a significant legal procedure, such as realigning Shalis� allegiance into Damian�s holdings, required the notarization of a Zanadian magistrate. Damian could create the document, but without the nugatory consent of the motherland via a magistrate, it would never be valid.

Luckily for such a matter Damian would not have to appear in person: a runner could be sent with a request document officially sealed with his wax seigniory.

Unfortunately Damian�s signiory was in the safe at the office of a club in which he was the majority holder. Shalis would have to find a way to secretly get possession of the stamp if she was to maintain possession of Damian�s holdings while she was trapped in this body. All of her plans revolved around being able to produce the signiory wax-seal that would officially validate Damian�s legal documents, and give the magistrates cause to add their legally binding notarization.

A few of her plans would require a Zanadian magistrate to witness Damian�s signature on the papers to make them legally valid. That situation would be tricky, however, Damian knew a few magistrates who might be bought. But first things first! For now she had to think of a way to get by the security at the club, and gain access to Damian�s office.

Siting down at the desk to think, she took the pen in her hand, and after a moment began drafting a formal request for incorporating herself into Damian�s holdings.

She had written half a line before realizing that she was not using Damian�s old hand writing. Her new body made different motions. She wasn�t even sure what she was doing wrong, but the script was awkward and the shape of Damian�s letters were wrong. She cursed to herself. Every time she tried something she seemed to meet with a wall; and it was frustrating. Damian would not have made so many obvious mistakes, but Shalis�s mind didn�t seem to be as disciplined. It was likely that she�the old Shalis�hadn�t even known how to write.

Wadding up the paper she tried again.

This time she tried to remember how Damian�s fingers had held a pen; how he made certain letters. She worked meticulously, frowning with concentration as she moved her fingers slowly over the paper. After writing several words she began to get the feel of it, and was imitating Damian�s movements passably well. On a fresh piece of paper she began again, and when she was done, she stamped the document with the signet ring. It carried the weight of tradition even if it was legally impotent.

She signed the document and began drafting orders that should give her access to Damian�s office at the club under the pretext of cleaning. The club�s security was excellent. She would not be left alone while she cleaned, but once she and the guard were alone in the private confines of the office, she could use her body as a weapon. It was not as full figured as most men preferred, but her sex lure was strong. Damian had felt that attraction himself at Tereesan�s; most man would find Shalis appealing in a similar way. Even the best guards could be tempted at times to indulge in a little friendly recreation. The club office contained a bar, and the right powder sprinkled into a man�s drink could put him to sleep within minutes. She grimace thinking of what she might have to do until then, but at the same time her body was responding in a different manner.

She shivered, and placed both documents in separate envelopes, then signed Damian�s name on the front of each. From the bottom drawer of the desk she took out a small ivory strong box. Inside, along with other more deadly powders and oils, were several small paper packets with the powder she would need to make the guard sleep. One packet in his drink would put him to sleep, a second one could kill.

She took two just in case, stuffing the envelopes and the packet of powder in the hidden pocket of her tunic.

As she closed the drawer she smiled. The first step was done. The next step would be confronting the imposter. She listened carefully to the sounds coming from the bath and decided that Damian would be coming out very shortly.

 She took a deep breath, steadying herself for what she planned to do, then she began writing another letter using Damian�s script.

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