Pathway

A figure lay sprawled on the floor, naked, obsidian skin slick with sweat. A thick fall of pure white hair obscured its features. Muscles stood out in rigid lines on bare arms and legs. As they watched, the figure moaned softly and rolled over.

"Heavens tears," Chang Chang said, breathless. "What have I done?"

Beside her, Ju Feng grunted and shook his head. "Not what I was expectin' either."

The yaomo lying on the floor was Gallazza. Echoes of his features shone through plainly in the face. A face that was also unmistakably female. His last coherent knowledge of his surroundings was the young boy intercepting him while he was going for the sphere. King Laggarma's eyes glowed silver; then the girl, Chang Chang, released the sphere's power. After that, reality faded, and suddenly she was in his mind.

He'd braced for an immediate assault, fully expecting that this was the end. Talismans given to him by Arkhat's maidens. Something was wrong, though. She didn't try to probe his thoughts the way the dwarf had. She only watched, waited, hovering at the edges of his consciousness. Her terror filled his mind until he gasped with the force of it. What was she frightened of? Pain tore apart Gallazza's world. 

He remembered once, long ago, he'd been hit by a powerful energy bust that sent dark bolts of black lightning rippling across his skin. He didn't remember who had released the mystical move at him, but the energy had seized his heart and threatened to explode it out of his chest. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and he'd lost all control over his muscles. That pain had been nothing compared to what he felt now.

Muscle ripped off his bones, swelling and reshaping while he howled in agony. Then even his voice failed him when one by one his bones shattered and reformed, grating against each other and pushing at his skin. Gallazza squeezed his eyes shut. The pain made him weep. He didn't think he could stand to witness whatever transformation his body was undergoing. It would drive him mad. He gritted his teeth and tried not to bite through his tongue as his body convulsed and slammed against the stone floor.

It was over faster than he'd expected, or more likely, the pain had made him lose consciousness. When he opened his eyes, the first thing Gallazza noticed was the curtain of white obscuring his vision. He reached up to brush it away. That was the moment he realized he still had hands and hair—though the latter had lost all its black color and was now pure white. Pushing the hair out of his face, Gallazza noticed something curious about his hands. He held the left one up in front of his face and tried to discern what the curious thing was.

His hands were larger than they had been before—larger, yet the fingers were long and slender, ending in finely sculpted nails. Had he seen such hands on a female yaomo, Gallazza would have called them exceptionally beautiful. Running his thumb along his palm, Gallazza discovered more curiosities. His calluses, those hard skin patches where his dagger always pressed into his palm, were gone. For some reason, this absence disturbed Gallazza more than anything else that had happened to him. His hands trembled, and an oily knot of panic welled in his stomach.

Wrong—this is all wrong. What have they done to me?

A soft moan escaped Gallazza's lips. But the voice—the voice wasn't his. The sound that came from his throat was soft and rich as velvet. It put him in mind of the mistress mother as she whispered in his ear. Gallazza could bear it no longer. He rolled over and pushed himself up so he could look at the rest of his body. What he saw was stranger than anything he could ever have imagined.

Breasts.

Naked, Gallazza could take in the full extent of his alteration. Hard muscles had reshaped themselves into feminine curves. The muscles were still there, and the power, but that power came from a different source. He no longer had the body of a yaomo warrior, one who fought with short blades, daggers, and crept in the shadows. The lithe body he inhabited now most closely resembled that of a yaomo priestess. Female yaomo were naturally bigger and stronger than males—what they lacked in battle techniques and training they made up for in sheer body strength.

Gallazza licked his lips—even those felt different, strangely full under his tongue—and angled his naked body toward Ju Feng and the others. King Laggarma had collapsed several feet away, no doubt spent by the force of the sheer energy essence needed to transform the yaomo while sustaining the power in the spiritual soul realm.

"Why?" he asked in his new, unfamiliar voice. "Why did you change me?"

The four of them stared at him without speaking for several breaths. Gallazza swallowed, trying to force down that knot of panic that continued to swell within him. Why were they staring at him that way, their mouths open like dumb beasts? Were they playing with him?

Finally, Icelin answered. "The Silver Fire didn't change you," she said, "but it stripped away the magical essence that did."

She was lying, of course. Gallazza laughed at the absurdity of it. Did she really expect him to believe she and the others weren't responsible for his condition?

"You're all mad," he said.

A chill passed over him. With his nakedness came awareness of how vulnerable he was. Gallazza crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his knees up close to his body. The empty space between his legs jarred him. Heaven's tears, they'd taken everything from him. Arkhat, why? The question wracked him. What's the purpose of it all?

"Watch him … her, I guess," the boy crouched next to Chang Chang said. "She's goin' wild through the eyes."

"Titan's torso," the boy said, addressing king Laggarma. "If this is her true form, she had no idea."

"She must be one of their higher-ups," king Laggarma said. "An abyssal priestess or some other ranking female—must be why they're coming after us now. They want her back."

"Stop calling me a female!" Gallazza screeched. The high-pitched sound mocked him. He wanted to kill every one of them. Hatred roiled in his belly, suppressing the panic for a moment. "You did this to me! You—"

"No," Chang Chang said, interrupting him. Compassion shone in her eyes, which made Gallazza hate her more. "Listen to me, Gallazza," she pleaded. "I don't know why this was done to you, or what it means, but this is your true form. There is no more magical essence left on you."

"Lying bug," Gallazza snarled. He couldn't contain himself any longer. He lunged at Chang Chang, a feral cry ripping from his lungs.

Next to her, the young boy reacted like lightning, blocking his path, but he needn't have worried. Gallazza's strength had not yet returned in the wake of Chang Chang's mystical bust, and he was not used to this new body. His limbs refused to obey him properly, and he ended up collapsing on his stomach, the breath knocked from his chest, his long hair spread around him. Sucking in ragged breaths, Gallazza tried to channel his hate into energy but to no avail. He slammed his fist against the floor and screamed in impotent rage.

"She's as weak as I am … or nearly," king Laggarma said. Gallazza didn't look at the king. He couldn't bear to see that smug dwarf face, those silver eyes he wanted to tear out. "If she is someone valuable, we might have the advantage over the yaomo."

"But why was she sent here in this form," Ju Feng said, "with no knowledge of her true identity?"

"Maybe she was never meant to be a weapon used against Myria," Chang Chang said. "Titan's torso, I know she's caused enough chaos, intended or not, but what if this is part of some other yaomo plot?"

At her words, Gallazza went very still. Like a candle lit in a darkened room, a memory came to him in faint images, whispers. King Laggarma's voice and the voices of the others faded, replaced by a soothing chant. Gallazza closed his eyes to hear it. In his mind, he saw an obsidian altar covered in symbols and stained with the blood of old sacrifices. His perspective hovered above the altar, so that he could not see the face of the female yaomo who crouched before it, chanting in a soft, velvet-smooth voice. He recognized that voice. It had issued from his throat only a breath ago.

"I knew I'd find you here," said a new voice, coming from somewhere out of sight.

The figure before the altar halted in her prayers and looked up. For the first time, Gallazza was able to see his new face, and it struck him, bewilderingly, how beautiful it was, and at the same time how faintly similar to his own male visage. The flaws he'd exhibited in his male form were corrected in the female. Muddy red eyes deepened to a rich scarlet, and high cheekbones accentuated them. The crooked nose was now straight and small. In his vision, his fall of white hair had been tied back, secured with ribbons studded with onyx and ruby. Taken together, the features looked so natural, that Gallazza felt the first twinges of foreboding deep in his gut.

"The preparations have been made. You can't stop what I've begun," said the kneeling woman. A second figure joined her at the altar. Gallazza recognized Mistress Mother Furtha. She angled herself on her knees so she faced the altar and Gallazza's double.

"I know. May we both be worthy for the task ahead." 

Swaying forward on her knees, she kissed the other female, raising a hand to bury it in her thick white hair. Gallazza watched with a sense of detached amazement as his double leaned into the kiss, and his own body reacted, filling with warmth, desire, and frightening affection—for the woman he hated above all other yaomo.

This can't be right. He had no memory of such an interlude between himself and the mistress mother, yet the physical sensations coursing through his blood were so familiar. His skin tingled, reawakened by the phantoms conjured before him. More images crowded his thoughts, superimposing themselves over the scene.