Chapter 187: Life Or Death [6] (1/2)

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.