Most people hesitated before telling Aznar Thrul something he didn't want to hear. Shabella never did, and that was one of the things that made him if not like at least respect her.
"Szass Tam," she said, "who committed the order of Necromancy to the struggle, convinced Iphegor Nath to send the Burning Braziers, and armed the priests with their torch weapons."
"And who just recently saved the northern tharchs from a Rashemi invasion."
"Yes."
"Curse it!" Aznar exploded. "I don't care what the whoresons done. How can they make a hero of a lich?"
"We Thayans aren't a squeamish people," Shabella replied. "You Red Wizards made sure of that when you recruited orcs, zombies, and even demons to serve you. The commoners had little choice but to get used to them."
"Spare me your gloss on the history of the realm. Tell me who spreads these tidings through the alehouses and markets in a way that lionizes Szass Tam at the expense of everyone else who contributed to the victory."
"Agents employed by Dmitra Flass and Malark Springhill, most likely."
"If you know that, why haven't your cutthroats silenced them?"
"Because I don't really know, I simply infer. The taletellers are wily and my followers haven't yet identified them."
"Too busy skirmishing with the Shadowmasters?" he asked, referring to the one cartel of thieves that sought to supplant her and her organization.
"I have to address the problem," Shabella said. "I'm no use to you dead."
"Are you of any use currently? Perhaps your rivals wouldn't be so foolish as to give their business priority over mine."
"The local Shadowmasters are only one chapter of a greater network based in Thesk. Would it truly suit Your Omnipotence to have foreigners controlling all thievery south of the First Escarpment?"
"It might at least suit me to see someone else officiating in front of Mask's high altar, so get out of here and do what needs doing."
She bowed and withdrew.
The unsatisfactory interview left Aznar feeling as restless and edgy as before, but perhaps he knew a way to lift his spirits. It had been a month since he'd visited Mari Agneh.
Though he didn't play with her as frequently-or, often, as elaborately-as in the first years of her captivity, she still amused him on occasion, which made her a rarity. Generally, the torment of a particular victim eventually came to seem repetitive and stale, at which point he consigned that prisoner to his or her final agonies and moved on to the next.
He supposed it was Mari's austere good looks and defiant spirit that he still found piquant, combined with the fact that she was nearly the first person of significance he'd punished after assuming the mantle of a zulkir. In her way, she was a memento of his ascension.
Smiling now, he rose, took up his staff of luminous congealed flame, and exited the private chamber into a larger hall where bodyguards, clerks, and other functionaries awaited his pleasure. He waved them off and tramped on alone, through one magnificently appointed space after another. His passage was a like a ripple in a pond, agitating everyone. Sentries came to attention and saluted, while everybody else groveled in the manner appropriate to his station.
Such displays became less frequent once he made his way to corridors that, while no less handsomely decorated, were smaller and less well travelled. From there, a concealed door admitted him to his private prison.
Mari gave him a level stare as he entered her cell. "I'm going to kill you tonight," she said.
It surprised him a little. She hadn't made that particular threat in quite a while, not since they'd proved her helplessness time and again.
"By all means, try," he answered. "It always made our times together that much more entertaining, but first, take off your clothes, and keep your eyes on me as you do it. I want you to see me seeing you."
She obeyed, as of course she had to. His magic left her no choice.
"Now crawl to me on your belly and clean my shoes with your tongue."
She did that, too.
"Now hug the whipping post." He wouldn't need to tie or shackle her to keep her there. His spoken will sufficed even for that.
He laid down his staff, took down the whip from its hook on the wall, and cut her back into a tidy Crosshatch of bloody welts. Though it was the least of his accomplishments, he'd always taken a certain satisfaction in his skill with a lash. He fancied that if he hadn't been born with a talent for magic, he could have been one of Thay's more successful slavers. Perhaps it would have been a less stressful and demanding existence than the life of a zulkir.
Mari invariably struggled against the need to cry out. Perhaps what remained of her warrior's pride demanded it, whereas he found pleasure in overcoming that resistance, striking for as long as it took to get her squealing like an animal.
Perhaps the day's worries and frustrations had wearied him more than he knew, for tonight, it seemed to take an unusually long time. He grew hot and sweaty, peeled off his crimson robe, and then the garments underneath, all the way down to his smallclothes.
Eventually Mari gave him a reaction, though not precisely the one he was expecting. Her shoulders began to shake, and she made a breathy, rhythmic sound. For a moment, he assumed she was sobbing then he realized that in reality, the noise was laughter.
He shook his head. He'd just been imagining she was the one plaything that would never break, and here was the first sign her sanity was crumbling at last. Life could be so drearily perverse.
"Turn around," he said, and she did. "Tell me what's so funny."
"The flogging doesn't hurt," she said, "not really, and you don't have any pockets anymore." She charged him.
Though she hadn't lifted her hand to him in quite some time, he was always watchful for it, always prepared, even in the deepest throes of lust, and it was no different now. "Stop!" he snapped.
She didn't stop. She raked her nails across his eye and punched him in the throat.
Half blind, half choking, he reeled back, then reflex took over. She was right, he'd divested himself of his protective talismans and the physical components required to cast many of his most powerful spells. He was the greatest master of Evocation in all Thay, though, and capable of creating many other effects by word and gesture alone. He croaked a word of power, jabbed out his hand, and bright globes of light burst in rapid succession from his fingertips. Swelling larger, they hurtled at Mari, each engulfing her in its turn, and with a deafening crackle, discharging the lightning that constituted its essence into her body.
Startled, hurt, Aznar had lashed out with one of the most potent attacks available to him, and he immediately realized the response was excessive. Such an abundance of magic he might have used to kill a giant or wyvern. In all likelihood, there wouldn't even be anything left of her body and not much left of the furniture either.
When he caught his breath, wiped the tears from his stinging eye, and blinked the blurriness out of the world, he saw that he was half right. The spell had blasted the whipping post and bed frame into smoking scraps of kindling. The blankets, pillows, and mattress were on fire, but Mari stood where she'd stood before, seemingly unscathed.
Unscathed but not unchanged. She had four arms, not two, and her smooth ivory skin had darkened and roughened into purple scales. Her eyes glowed red, and the bottom half of her face had lengthened into a muzzle complete with fangs.
It occurred to him that, except for her merely human stature and the fact that she was still manifestly female, she now resembled one of the demon guards stationed elsewhere in the palace. What did that mean? The order of Conjuration had supplied those demons. Was it possible Nevron had turned against him?
Mari gathered herself to spring, and Aznar realized he'd better put such speculations aside. He'd unravel the mystery of his captive's transformation in due course, but for now, what mattered was defending himself against her. It was obvious that in her altered condition, she no longer felt constrained to obey his commands.