She had dropped to her haunches, waiting silently until the poison was dispersed harmlessly. Now she became aware of the thoughts of the three men in the room. One was waiting to go home to his family. Another was thinking of a missed meal. The third was considering murder.
Even as she linked to the thought she felt the man close his mind to her. A golden spell lanced through the bars, flowing over her body with whips of fire. She writhed under this new pain.
So desperate was she to escape it that she fled deep within the bestial body, allowing the beast control. It raged around the cage, slashing its great paws at the bars, bending them. Still the pain increased. Ustarte tried to flee again, surging up through the body, as if trying to claw her way free of the tortured flesh.
And in that moment she found the key that would save her life.
The beast withdrew. The spirit of Ustarte swelled. The body fell to the floor of the cage, writhing and Changing.
When she awoke she was resting in a bed. Her body was no longer quite that of the beast, but neither was it human. Her shoulders and torso were covered in thick, striped fur, her fingers were tipped with retractable talons. ‘You are a mystery to me, child,’ said a voice. Turning her head, she saw the third man sitting beside the bed. He was wonderfully handsome, his hair golden, his eyes a summer blue. The eyes of a kindly uncle, she thought. Yet there was no kindness in him. ‘But we will learn to solve it.’
Two days later she had been taken to a stockaded palace-prison high in the mountains. Here there were other mutations, man-beasts and were-creatures, the subjects of failed experiments. There was a serpent with the face of a child. It was kept in a domed cage of thin wire mesh, and fed on live rats. The creature did not speak, but at night it would make music, high and keening. The sound would tear at Ustarte’s soul every night for the five years she was imprisoned in that, awful place.
Unspeakable acts were committed against her body, and she in turn was trained to kill and feed. For two years she refused to kill a human. For two years Deresh Karany, the golden-haired sorcerer, subjected her to dreadful pain. Ultimately the torture broke her resistance, and she learnt to obey. Her first kill had been a young woman, her next a powerful man with only one arm. After that she learnt not to remember the faces and forms of her victims. Time and again Deresh Karany would force her to Change, and once in the bestial form she would be directed against some hapless human. Her long fangs and terrible talons would rip into the frail flesh, tearing off limbs, lapping up blood and crunching brittle bones.
She was a good Kraloth, obedient and trustworthy. Not once – in either of her forms – did she turn on her jailers. Not even a growl. Her obedience was instantaneous. And day by day they grew more complacent about her. They thought they had her beaten. She could read it in their thoughts. Never, since that first day back in the city, had she let them know of her other powers. She was careful not to betray her talent. Ustarte knew that Deresh Karany sensed them. Once he had walked towards her with a dagger in his hand. His thoughts were clear. I am going to ram this blade into your throat.
‘Good morning, my lord,’ she said.
‘Good morning, Ustarte.’ He sat beside her. ‘I am very pleased with you.’
I am going to kill you!
‘Thank you, my lord. What do you require of me?’
He had smiled and sheathed the dagger. ‘The creatures in this place are unique; twin forming is so rare. How does it feel when you shift from one form to the other?’
‘It is painful, Lord.’
‘Which form gives you the most pleasure?’
‘Neither gives me pleasure, Lord. In this, my near-human form, I derive some satisfaction from study, from the beauty of the sky. In Kraloth guise I glory in power and strength and the taste of flesh.’