Chapter 2

Since the arrival of Treck, Arakel had been disturbed. He was not used to the living, and far preferred the company of the dead if the truth were known. Now, two weeks after Treck’s arrival, Arakel lay in his bed, his eyes open but his was mind lost in that place where dreams become memories.

As a child, he stood in a wide circular room, the walls and floor made of solid marble, the domed roof held in place by great vaults. A great well, easily four hundred feet across, sat in the center of the room with no railing to guard it, and from that well came low, sensual moans and cries. Oil lamps hung from the vaults at varying levels, casting a golden glow across the room.

Scattered around the room were women clad in light robes open at the front, not one of them covering their body, standing in small group, sitting on lushly cushioned benches or relaxing in small sunken pools of hot, steaming water. All of them were in some stage of pregnancy, from only a slight bump to large distended bellies. Some men were present as well, clad only in loincloths and open, sleeveless robes, displaying their toned bodies, utterly hairless save for their flowing scalp locks.

Dressed like the other men, he stepped closer to the great well, and gazed down over the edge. The well dropped down nearly fifteen feet, and at the bottom rested four large creatures. Their true form was difficult to discern, because each was a mass of roiling tentacles, thick and thin, each tentacle flexible and immensely strong. His eyes were drawn to the creatures, beloved of his people and known as Nek-Tem, tracing their tentacles with his eyes and trying to see their true forms as he ignored the women in the well who were creating the moans and cries.

Because there were women down there, at least eight of them, suspended in mid-air by the Nek-Tem as their tentacles probed and plundered the women. Two of the women, each being enjoyed by a different Nek-Tem, had been pushed together and they kissed each other, their hands sliding over the others body in sensual bliss.

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he turned...

and woke in his own bed, his eyes blinking a few times. He sat up, and looked about. From the main room he could hear the muted murmur of conversation, something he wasn’t used to. He swung his legs off the bed, stood up, and pulled on a pair of leather pants that he had draped over a chair the night before. Then he stepped into his boots and walked out to the main room. Lim and Treck paid him no mind, as they hadn’t for a week now, by his own request. He grabbed his sleeveless coat as he walked down the long tunnel that lead out to the rough entrance of the Cave of Spirits.

Outside, it was raining again, which he took as a good sign. He walked higher into the mountains, taking his time and keeping his eyes open for a rare weed. While he looked with his eyes, he opened his mind and sent it back to the Cave so he could listen to Lim and Treck.

“I asked you before why you follow Arakel, Lim,” Treck was asking, “and you never did tell me.”

“Arakel and I have somewhat similar goals,” Lim admitted. “In life I was a whore, fun and easy work that I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, there were some in my homeland who were against having whores and brothels, a clan called the Ryu-Sincar.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Treck admitted darkly, “they find the largest moral issue in a city when they enter, and then champion the forces against it. Afterwards, they use the influence and popular support to embed themselves in the city and become parasites.”

“Yes they do. The fanned out through the city in a single night and set fire to every brothel and rounded up every street whore they could find. The city elders were thankful, but what nobody was told was that the whores were kept as toys, for pure amusement and sadistic torture. I was among them, and while I enjoyed the whore’s life, I did not enjoy being a toy or whipping post, or coupling with a horse.”

Arakel ducked unto a rock outcropping, his eyes still sweeping the nooks and crannies of the rock for the weed. He already knew Lim’s story, knew more that she was telling Treck, so he stopped listening. Finally, in a crack at the base of a cliff, he found the weed. The stem was dark purple and the leaves a bloody red. It looked exactly as it did in the alchemical tome he had in the Cave. His hand slid into his coat, and came out with a short silver knife, which he used to slice the stem in a single motion. He put the knife away, and pulled out a silk cloth, which he used to wrap the weed before starting back down towards the cave.

When he got back, Lim and Treck were still talking, and he went straight away into his room. Setting the silk-wrapped weed on the dresser by the heavy book, he stripped off his wet overcoat and tossed it onto the nearby chair. He opened the book to the proper page, and then unlatched the box. He pushed the lid up, and went back to the dresser, where he unwrapped the weed, and picked up a heavy dagger, its blade etched with mystical symbols before returning to kneel at the edge of the box, setting the dagger beside his knee.

Arakel squeezed the stem of the weed, pushing out its thick white liquid, making it drip into the box, his hands moving in a specific pattern, dripping the liquid in an alchemical sigil before laying it inside the box and picking up the dagger. In a firm motion he slashed his own wrist, and held the cut over the box. As the blood began to drip into the box, he moved his wrist reverse of what he had with the weed.

When he finished the pattern, lights flared from the box, and before his eyes the mess inside began to coalesce, pulling together to form an androgynous, hairless human body. Arakel rocked back on his heels then stood, bending his arm to keep his wrist up as he walked to the dresser where he kept bandages. He put a bandage on the cut, and wrapped it in clean linen before walking back to the box.

The body inside was perfectly formed, entirely hairless and completely sexless. Its eyes were open, but aside from the black pupils they held no colour at all. A little button nose and slit of a mouth completed it. Arakel put one hand over the body, and his eyes closed.

In the main room, Lim looked down the hall. She could feel Arakel calling her, his magic reaching out and tugging her dead spirit to come to him. She floated that way, ignoring Treck’s questions and the fact that he followed he down the hall. When she got to Arakel’s chambers, she saw him standing there, bare-chested with one wrist wrapped in bandages, his other hand held over the large box at the foot of his bed. She saw a sexless form in the box, and then felt an even stronger call.

No, she realized after a moment. It was the same call, Arakel’s call, he was simply calling her into the sexless body in the box. She resisted as best she could, but when he looked at her, his eyes conveyed an entire conversation, one they had held centuries ago. With that look, her resistance melted. As she descended on the body, she turned over, letting herself relax as she entered the body. The moment her ghostly figure touched the created form, it pulled her in, drawing her essence inside.

The body gave a spasm, and began to ripple. This, Arakel knew, was the real test. As the body absorbed Lim, the spasms and ripples became more severe until it gave a final jerk, and the ripples subsided. For a second, nothing happened. Then the body began to change. Nipples appeared on it’s flat chest, with areola slowly spreading outwards until they covered about a half inch circle. Beneath the nipples, the chest began to swell, two small bumps that steadily increased in size as the body changed around it, the torso thinning, the legs and arms toning up as stubble appeared on the head, even as the chin and jaw narrowed, becoming more feminine.

When the eyes opened again, they were a deep vibrant purple. As she, the body was definitely a she now, sat up, her breasts stopped growing, not overly large, but certainly not small, the kind of breasts that draw the attention of every man, and more than a few women, who see them, no matter what they happen to be wrapped in. Her lips were no longer a thin slit, but full and ripe, the stubble on her head still growing, like cascading fire rolling down her back in thick waves until it finally stopped at her waist.