“Let me kiss you,” Keli said.
He let her kiss him. Nona saw the expertise of that kiss, and saw his hands slide down her bare back; he was indeed tempted. But he had resolved not to do it, and did not weaken. She felt the warring currents within him, relayed by Seqiro: the burgeoning desire and the denial. She was discovering, through this mental contact, how strong the passions of men were. No wonder they tended to be irrational on this subject.
Keli drew back and shook her head with regret. “Perhaps you won’t resist too much when I try to tie you,” she said. Then she walked to the edge and picked up a coil of tape.
But when her back was turned, Stave began his defense. His body seemed to shimmer. Nona knew what he was doing: he was Grafting an illusion of himself, while he crafted an illusion of nothing beside himself. He stepped into the second illusion, leaving the first.
Keli returned with the tape. She took a length between her two hands and flung it over the man she saw—and the tape passed through him without resistance.
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed in perfectly understandable annoyance. “You have magic!” There was a murmur of awe from the watching throng.
“I have magic,” the illusion agreed. “I am a man of the surface.” It was only technically correct; illusion was not considered true magic, but rather a cheap variant.
Then Keli regrouped. “But that’s why I must breed with you. My child must have magic, to achieve the surface and be human again.” She now seemed pleased rather than displeased, having verified her rationale. And more determined than ever.
But Stave was now cloaked by the illusion of nothingness and was in effect invisible. Nona had to admire the quality of the illusion; some were better than others at it, and he was one of the best. Perhaps there was a bit of despot blood in his ancestry. Keli had no such magic, and couldn’t see him.
“But I will catch you, my rare prize,” Keli said. “I will have your seed.” She stretched her ribbon out between her two hands and walked forward, seeking the unseen presence. The ribbon looked slight, but Nona was sure that it was strong enough to bind a person securely.
The illusion followed her. “Here I am,” it said.
“No, you aren’t,” she retorted, not looking.
“But I am,” it said. “You will never find me by casting at shadows.”
Keli ignored him and continued to walk with her ribbon. She moved back and forth, sometimes jumping, so as to surprise an invisible man who might think he was beyond her reach.
When this didn’t work, she expanded her effort. Her arms extended, becoming inhumanly long, still stretching out the ribbon between them. She was a shape-changer, and no longer bothering to maintain her seductive appearance, since that wasn’t working. As her arms lengthened, her breasts diminished; she was evidently drawing on their mass. Had she had magic, she might have increased her bulk, but as it was she was limited. Still, it was impressive enough, for no one on the surface had such power of self-changing.
When Keli still did not snare the invisible man, she extended herself again. She became shorter and wider, her legs far apart, and her arms reached out almost to the edges of the dais, still holding the ribbon. She no longer looked human at all. It was amazing.
Just how far could the rabble change? Nona had assumed that they could assume the likeness of any human being of their own sex, but this was far beyond that. Was Keli human at all? How was it possible to know?
The rabble are cross-human, Seqiro thought. I am learning their nature as the duel proceeds and I get farther into their minds. They have evolved not in size but in malleability, and are now as different from ordinary human beings as the despots are from the theows.
“But despots and theows are both human,” Nona said.
Yes. But in magic they are far apart.
“Because of the animus. But when that changes—”
It will not affect the rabble. But the rabble is close enough to human to breed with humans.
Nona remained amazed. Of course she had seen the remarkable changes in size which were possible without loss of the human condition; Angus was certainly human, yet could not breed with the folk of Oria. So now she was adjusting her concept of human; the rabble differed less than the sizes of surface folk.
The Keli creature started at one side of the dais and slowly crossed it with the ribbon. Now there was no way for an invisible man to avoid being intercepted. But Nona knew that this wasn’t going to work.
Because Stave had played a trick on the woman. Nona herself, distracted by the other aspects of the contest, had not caught on to it immediately. The key was this: illusion could be visual or sonic or smell. Not all together. An illusion man could look completely authentic, but he would have to freeze in place for a moment in order to speak. Yet the Stave illusion was speaking without interrupting his motion. That meant that it wasn’t the illusion; the man had returned to merge with the illusion, and was now being ignored by the creature who most wanted to catch him. As a tactic, it was a stroke of gentle genius. It seemed that Keli did not know enough of the nature of illusion magic to realize the falsity of this particular example.
However, Stave was now in front of the creature, and would soon be caught even if she didn’t realize that he was real. How would he escape?
He did have a way. He fetched a ribbon himself and stretched it out before him. “I am going to tie you,” he told Keli. “You had better defend yourself, or you will be helpless.”
She paid him no attention. She was intent on her sweep of the dais, which she was sure would be effective, and suffered no distractions. She moved slowly forward.
Stave came to stand directly in front of her. “This is your last warning,” he said sternly, threatening her with the ribbon.
Keli took another step. Stave reached over her head, which was now at about half normal human height, and made a loop of ribbon. He dropped it on her and began wrapping more of it around her.
It was a moment before Keli realized what was happening. She had become so accustomed to tuning him out that she could not adjust instantly. But as the tape tightened about her, she did catch on. “You’re real!”
“You noticed.” He was wrapping loops of ribbon around her extended arms now, making spot knots and pulling them tight. Her arms were reaching out so far that she was unable to bring them in quickly to grab him. Then he ducked down to throw a loop around her legs, pulling it tight. He hauled on the ribbon, hard. She had to fall, for her legs were now being bound together and she could not move to recover her balance.
“You are tying me!” she cried, surprised again, belatedly. She contracted her arms, but they remained enmeshed in the ribbon. Like a spider, he took advantage of her struggles to tie her more securely.
She tried to extend her legs, and they lengthened grotesquely, but remained tied together. Her shortened arms were bound to her sides. She could not shape-change her way out of confinement.
“You fooled me!” she accused him, still changing shape.
“You fooled yourself,” he replied. “You will not be breeding with me this day.”
Now she returned to her original form, naked and voluptuous. “Stave, you have me helpless! You can do what you desire with me. Breed with me!”