10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

Vanda could not relax the child’s arm and when she yanked the splin- ter free the blood followed in bright red spurts.

“Dear Shipri preserve me,” the nursemaid intoned as Cha-bos’s wide- open eyes went completely white. “Hold her!”

The child was thrust into Illyra’s unwilling arms as Vanda shouted for the palace guards and crawled toward the unmended clothing to tear a compress. Illyra rocked back on her heels and went almost as rigid as Cha-bos herself as the warm blood trickled along her fingers.

This was no ordinary child-no ordinary blood. That was foul and potent venom gathering in the crevice between her thumb and forefinger. Illyra gulped, shuddered, and nearly fainted as the fluid streamed over her wrist and out of sight beneath her cuff. There was nothing she wanted to do more than heave the little girl across the room and get as far from her as mortally possible. But Vanda was back, ripping strips of cloth with her teeth, and the corridor resounded with approaching guards.

Illyra could do nothing but contain her revulsion ^as Vanda tended the wound and Cha-bos twitched and shuddered in her arms. The nursery shimmered with surreal absurdity: what manner of contagion could pos- sibly take root in a child whose very blood was poison? Then the visions came.

She was in the Beysib Empire, Seeing a nightmare world with a child’s eyes. Giants stormed from living shadows with red-dripping steel in their hands. Cold, unyielding hands held her from behind and made the world go wild as they moved her from the familiar to the horrible.