2.
I like pretty things. Pretty baubles, though tossed onto my lap by a father who smiles far too fondly, pretty words to fill the head. Pretty men who tell pretty lies. Hardship, courage, loyalty, what are these things to one such as I? I have never had a day where my meals were not brought to me or my feet were not oiled.
The name of Elisa Bel'Juazra is as exalted as it is feared, for I am in these lands know for my fair face, though perhaps diseased of soul. My bloodline wills beauty. It has always been so. For this reason I have always chosen my bedpartners carefully. The fishwives in the markets spit my name with venom; the men summon my image behind closed eyes when they kiss their hunchbacked wives.
Her telepathic voice fell on Sand's perfect elven ear as clearly as if she had spoken. Trailing behind him by a foot's length was Nar, opening and closing his mouth uselessly like a beached animal searching for breath. It could have been the effect of the ceilings of beaten gold or the lavish waste of gems sprinkled throughout the keystones of the archways through which they walked. It might also have been the clear pool where the lady's maids sat dangling their feet in the water, their laughter like music, precious spiced flowers sprinkled throughout the deep bath as if they had no value. Or the elven lady herself- statuesque, still, shackled by one ankle to the cushioned couch where she sat smoking on a long pipe filled with cherryweed.
She was unchanged, unviolated by time, as though Sand had merely walked from her chamber yesterday. With a turn of his hand behind him, the wizard motioned to his son to be still. It came upon him at once that the lady was not opening her mind to him, but rather in a trance wherein her mind spoke to a third entity. It was as if her secrets were being demanded of her- and, because her ladies lacked magical prowess, they saw and heard nothing but her ladyship lost to her own thoughts.
It was the shackle that drew Sand's eye.
"I wonder if you can speak of your sins so easily as you speak of your beauty," an obviously demonic voice sounded, startling Sand out of his thoughts. His sensitive nose twitched. There was another scent that the cherryroot was hiding- leave it to his expert nose to discern the underlying odor of brimstone that it was meant to hide. The woman's eyes were closed. If she was in any way aware of her visitors, she gave no sign of it. Sand reached out with his magical energies to send exploring tendrils throughout the room that would make clear any hidden entities. Nar watched all of this with the detachment of a student. Surely there was something to learn from the way the wizard's eyes moved behind their lids, seeing but unseeing, or from the small motions of his hands. It galled him that his father could learn any spell, take on any new knowledge, open his mind to whatever came close to its reaching grasp.
If I could get the hand movement right... sweat beaded on his forehead as he struggled to latch on to Sand's mental fingers combing through the room. He felt his power rise in a surge from the core of his being. It would go no further than the center of his chest. At last there was only the possibility of the spell, but it would not be birthed, and so he cursed under his breath. You are a sorcerer. You are by nature limited. Do nothing, and do not interrupt me, boy.
He tried not to take the rebuke to heart, but he felt it keenly. What kind of intelligence did that take, what level of mental discipline to put so strong a spell into play and still be able to discern the interruption of another mind? Nar crossed his arms petulantly. Yes, he was a sorcerer. While he could send fire through the streets of this city that would go into the history tomes, he couldn't get his head around a simple location spell.
"Speak, Bel'Juazra," the demon commanded. "If it is your soul you seek to save, you have offered me little in the way of bargaining. I would know the sweetness of your sins, and, if you will not speak them, I shall wrench them from your being."
The ladies that sat idly in their pool waved at Nar gently. They could not hear what the two men heard, he realized. Not only were they completely oblivious to arcane energy, but they were obviously bespelled in some way as if they were little more than furniture. It was unnatural to sit so idly by while their Lady was sat unmoving with visitors before her, her mind being rifled through with ruthless extraplanar fingers.
Sand came back to himself suddenly. He looked over his shoulder at his son, blue eyes meeting pale green. "He is within her. He is pillaging her memories. Can you hear them?"
"Yes, yes, I can hear them," Nar replied testily. Then, more calmly, "Forgive me, Sand. It has been many years since I admitted to myself that there are places a wizard's mind can go where mine will never roam."
This small admission took the wizard by surprise. In a brief, friendly gesture he reached out his hand and rested it on his newly acquired son's shoulder. "Perhaps there are things that we could both stand to learn, one from the other. We must listen to her tale as he brings it from her. She is marked for execution. The shackle binds her, though her prison is a soft one."
"She is under house arrest," Nar said.
"Yes. It is tradition here. The number of shackles reduces as her time draws close. She does not have long, I think."
"Now tell me of this great sin of yours, mortal woman. If it pleases me, we will see if some intercession may be granted in your predicament."
The spell was a strong one of compelling. She would answer.
The magic bloodline of Bel'Juazra can pass to a daughter. My womb was my father's last hope. There is something bred into us that can make the urge to procreate a frantic one with the passing of years. I never felt the calling, and yet my father became obsessed that I might carry on our line. I would have a son or a daughter. His word was law. It was not enough that he owned me. Marriage means little; the survival of the bloodline is paramount. I was stubborn, standing firm against his demands, though he supplied me with the company of many a young sorcerer. The sorcerers came from lands all around to seek Father's ridiculously high offer in gold for any who could get me with child. Still I continued to scorn his efforts, turning away even the most comely of them, desire them as I might. I had seen other women swell with child. I knew how their beauty waned with each birthing. Beauty was mine. She was the very fabric of my name. How could he so easily plot to take her from me, when she was the only thing that I could claim for my own? I was a sorceress, yes, but I was a woman first, and this body was my gift from the gods. Mine!
I forced his hand. He would tell me this as if such words would wring from me less contempt for him. But to place a geas upon one's own daughter! He must have been very desperate indeed to conceive of such a thing. I knew it for what it was when it came upon me. You have never known such lust as this, insatiable, burning in the limbs, day and night tormenting, maddening. Before he left for his travel that season, he told me how I could bring the compelling to its end. There was only one remedy for the curse he had placed upon my body. The cure was new life.
Truly, he had trapped me. I thought long upon what I would do. At long last I decided that I would thwart his purpose at its very heart. The bloodline of Bel'Juazra that had so blindly ensorcelled him and chained me to my own body like a slave would end. I would give him what he thought he wanted. The plan needed only to be set in motion. The choosing of my unwitting mate would be the key.
I saw him when he came into our dwelling by the side of a diplomat. The elf was well-groomed, well-spoken. His eyes searched the room as the diplomat spoke to the legal representative of our household. If he thought me beautiful, he did not react as most men, though his gaze landed upon me from time to time in the way that one appraises a parcel of property one is considering. When he spoke, it was with an interjection of a wit that left my ladies twittering amongst themselves. All of these things would have gone unnoticed had I not caught a faint movement of his hand. The diplomat made an interesting point. We sat back stunned by our sudden interest in his offer. It came to me that the diplomat seemed strangely beautiful to me at that moment. I turned to my fellow elf with a smile, never revealing that I now knew what he was. He did not shine with the charisma of a sorcerer. Instead, the power rose from that keen intellect he could not easily conceal. I sensed his hunger for the arcane. And I knew that he would respond as simply to the carelessly discarded artifact on my sidetable as a common woman would a bauble. I had only to display it on my person...he came then to my bed easily.
"You sought to corrupt your own bloodline." The demon laughed, a booming sound that swept through the room and unsteadied Nar.
"Can you tell me that the ploy has not had its benefits? The wizard served his purpose. The brat ruined my womb; the magic of sorcerer and wizard battled one another even before birth. And then, though he was most wroth with me, Father cast the vile little being as far from this house as was possible. That loss gained me my freedom, and Father's grudging respect. Never again would he deal with me in such a manner."
"Are you so free now?" The voice resonated. "You will die upon the morrow for your crimes."