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She’s got bigger breasts than me

     “ou knew Brand by his alias as the Hermit, in overshadow?” I asked. I was trying to get Malachie talking, but apparently this question wasn’t open enough.
“I knew your uncle,” his voice said from the darkness. Malachie he did not elaborate.
I still had not been allowed to see Malachie’s face. I wondered why, but I had forgiven him this little eccentricity because he had told me many interesting things about Ornach, Archai and how he thought that my position as Ornach’s secretary put me in danger. In addition, he elaborated and explained when I asked him to. This was such a refreshing change that I had also forgiven him for pulling me out of my prison in Galoria with a common demon-summoning spell. So, sitting on the ground, surrounded by the pentagram he had drawn, I tried to think of other questions to ask the old sage.

“What did you think about Brand’s theory that our Pattern was not strong enough?”
Malachie sighed.
“That has become obvious, isn’t it? The Pattern is too weak, yes, that wasn’t the problem, we all agreed on that. The fact that people like Ornach and Lothair have free rein here shows us that the Powers aren’t strong enough. And that’s because they spend too much of their energy on each other. I just didn’t agree with Brand on the solution he had in mind.”
“His solution was wiping out a part of…?”
“He wanted to disturb the balance and disable one of the Powers, so that the other could use all its energy against the invaders.”
“Isn’t that…?”

I had been trapped in Chaos when the Logrus was damaged, and I had heard the stories the Elders told about what had happened when Martin’s blood stained the Pattern. How could either of those disasters strengthen this reality?
I tried to communicate the chaos I had witnessed but managed only shrugs and gestures.
“I saw what happened the last time, when the Logrus was damaged. Doesn’t damaging either Power have bad consequences for all of shadow?”
“O yes absolutely,” Malachie said. I imagined him nodding, invisible in the darkness.
“Don’t forget: your uncle thought like an Amberite. Shadow was less important to him than reality. And the reality was in danger.”
“But if we can’t travel through shadow, how can we protect this reality?”
“To him Amber was reality. And Chaos.”

How strange. Had Brand not thought about the future?
“But Amber can’t exist without its neighbouring shadows!”
“Perhaps it can.”
“He should have taken a look at Amber’s economy,” I said, incensed. “Brand can’t have been that stupid!”

Without the Golden Circle, Amber will go hungry. Almost all of our corn is imported. Parts of Arden could be cleared and turned into arable land, but without the Golden Circle Amber would cease to be a port city. No longer would the luxury goods from a double dozen shadows flow through our warehouses, no exotic spices would perfume the markets, no foreign traders, adventurers, or artists would stay in our inns and walk through our streets. Amber would survive, yes, but to me she would lose much of her lustre. I sighed inwardly. Brand would have thought like a scientist, thinking about the theory of shadow and substance while forgetting that people would still have to live there.

“Amber in its current form would cease to exist,” Malachie said, “But Amber is resilient. Maybe he had a different Amber in mind. What he wanted to achieve was a condensed form of this reality, one that would be stronger. He wanted one of the Powers to be dominant and the other subservient, so we could spend our energy on other things. But I told him I thought that was rubbish, and I still think it is.”
I nodded.
“But what other answers could there be…?” Malachie continued. “How it could be done, I still don’t know, but his idea was utter nonsense.”
I agreed. It is no use sacrificing the essence of a thing to cling to the shape of it.

“Is it not possible that, when the full scale of the disaster becomes clear, the we will al pull together and cooperate?” I asked.
“We?” Malachie asked, suddenly intense. I think he still suspected me of wanting to collaborate with those Archai.
“Amber, Chaos, Galoria…”
As soon as I said it I realised I was being naïve.
“Yes, yes. But that kind of cooperation will always come too late. But, well, it isn’t over yet and a lot can happen. Personally, I think that would be a better solution than your uncle’s, may he rest in peace. Not that I think it will happen anytime soon…”
I decided to put my hopes on that, then. Better yet, I could promote cooperation between the Courts, Galoria and Amber. A shared research project between Amber and Galoria with Estefan and his Pattern and Nexus toys would be a good start.

“Again, I really appreciate you taking the trouble to speak with me like this,” I said. Questions, I had questions. But by the Unicorn, at that moment I could not think of a single one of them. And it seemed our conversation was drawing to a close. I sighed and gave up. If I started asking questions just for the sake of asking, they would just be dumb ones anyway.
“Let’s keep our hopes up,” Malachie said. “There is still a lot to do.”
I heard the rustle of paper.
“Can I drop you off anywhere? I can banish you but then you will end up where you came from. “
“I would like that best,” I said. “Do that, please.”
More rustling came from the darkness.
“It goes: ‘be gone foul fiend…’” I prompted.
“BEGONE FOUL FIEND FROM WHENCE THOU CAME—“

“O, excuse me!”
Malachie left off the chanting and sighed, half annoyed.
“Yes?”
“Would you mind lighting a candle, over there? Before I go I would like to see what you look like. I won’t abuse the knowledge, I promise, but, just to be able to place you?”
“Maybe some other time,” Malachie said, and I believe I heard a smile in his voice. I was glad I left him smiling, maybe he would think back on our encounter with something of affection.
“Please proceed, then.”

Malachie banished me according to the rules of the art. The blue pulsing of power began again, and I pushed, pulled and pushed in the rhythm of the magic, and with a plop I was back in…
… my own body. On the floor, in human form, in my sitting room in Galoria. My back hurt, my right leg was asleep and the carpet had left an imprint on my cheek. Had I never really left this room or did I pass out after Malachie had banished me? My dress and slippers were intact, did that mean anything? Had I really spoken with Malachie or had it been an impostor? If Malachie had put me off somewhere else, would my dress have been torn or not? Was what he told me true?
I took a hot bath, intending to mull over what he said, but I was too tired and drowsy to sift the facts properly and soon I crawled off to bed.

. . . _ . . .

High, twittering voices from the sitting room woke me up. I put on a robe and went to see who was there. Two little pink-winged pixies looked up guiltily and put down the silver tray they had been carrying between them, one on each handle.
“Why didn’t you eat the breakfast?” one demanded. It had blue spots on its wings and wore a dark blue waistcoat.
“It’s very good food, it was!”
I apologised for sleeping through breakfast and said they could eat it for me if they wanted. They did, and while I had the hot lunch they had brought with them, we talked about Galoria. The pixies called themselves Tariki, and they were not the only exotic race that had settled here. Among the immigrants were blue skinned magician-sailors called Caunas and a big, slow, demonic looking race that called themselves Shanti. A dwarfish race had come to Galoria and brought riches with it. They, along with a large number of human settlers, had made their way to the young kingdom hoping to find a new home. The newcomers were escaping prosecution, poverty, or just seeking to take advantage of the opportunities this new, highly magical land had to offer. Alexander had brought human troops with him too, and they in turn had brought their wives and family.

The Tariki’s chatter and stories made this a wonderful brunch. They were glad to shirk a little and were talkative in the extreme. I was under the impression all the castle’s fairy servants goof off a lot. But they looked cute and fit the décor and Monias paid them peanuts anyway so he came out ahead.

When we were done and my winged friends had left, I asked the Hendrake guards by my door if they knew if Estefan had been taken out of his water-and-bread prison cell yet. It had been discussed, the guards said, because his colleague had also been given a room in this wing.
“Which one of his colleagues would this be?” I asked as if I could name a dozen.
“Doctor Antarra Bowmore. She was put here only yesterday.”
I found this very odd! Isn’t it strange that Estefan and his rival in science would end up in exactly the same universe, when there were millions to choose from? Two scientists, in prison cells instead of useful and productive in a laboratory… It was time to bring my plan to Monias’ attention.

When I declared I was ready to speak to their king, my guards reacted rather less eager than I had expected them to. Not even the hint that I wanted to ‘confess’ could induce them to take me to Monias.
“Maybe,” the female guard, Raven, stammered, “Maybe the king… I think you will see him soon.”
The way she said it prompted me to ask her what she meant.
“At your trial, of course.”

But not even my assurance that I needed to see Monias before the trial got me my audience with the king. The entire rest of the day I spent waiting in my room. Restless, did some push-ups and sit-ups and stretching exercises. I learned a piano suite by heart and finished the romance novel I had started. When I put the little book back on the bookshelf I found a dictionary, and looked up the word ‘premises’. I had used it correctly. All the time I thought about what Malachie had told me. There was no way to check the truth of what he had said, or even if he had been who he said he was, so I shelved the whole problem.

I slept badly that night. Around half past two, the Nexus security in my room flared up. After a couple of minutes it abated and I went back to sleep. But at a quarter to three it happened again, and again twenty minutes after that, and it kept bothering me on and off for the rest of the night. Sometimes the pressure got so bad it smothered me. So, when morning finally came, I was groggy and grouchy. It is nice to be wanted, but why could my would-be rescuer not try a more efficient or at least less annoying way to reach me? The first twelve times didn’t work, try something else already!

Despite my bad mood, I spent a lot of effort on my morning toilette. This could be the day of my trial, damn Monias, Alexander and whoever else was in charge. Neither Monias nor any of his advisors had come by to hear what I had to say, and that bothered me. It was such a nice idea, everyone would benefit, and now maybe nothing would come of it. In a beautiful chiffon dress of rose-red and rose-pink, I greeted the Hendrakes who came to get me. It was about ten o’clock in the morning.

No more than thirty feet down the hallway, we stopped at a door exactly like mine. The captain of the guard knocked and politely inquired:
“Doctor Bowmore?”
A young woman, I guessed her to be in her late twenties, came out, nodded at us and closed the door behind her. The guards and I were dumbstruck. She looked a fright! She wore a red dress, doubtlessly one from a wardrobe like mine, but somehow she had removed the stays from the bodice so the dress hung from her shoulders like a rag. Under the dress she wore neither undershirt nor petticoats so the fabric hung straight down. The hem of her skirt would have dragged over the floor if she hadn’t chosen a dress that was several sizes too small, so her sleeves ended inches above her wrists. ‘A mess’ was too slight a term for the way she looked.

Yet, despite her bedraggled appearance, the girl was pretty enough. She had good skin and lovely, half long white hair, which curled loosely around her shoulders like a streetwalker’s.
I said:
“Doctor Bowmore, I presume?”
“Yes,” Dr Bowmore said. “And you are?”
I decided to overlook her manners and be friendly. This was a chance to speak to her alone.
“Lady Boadice of Amber.”
Antarra said “Ah!” as if my name or at least the word ‘Amber’ meant anything to her.
“May I, before we appear in public, give you a hand with your appearance? I am afraid that in this attire, you will make a less than favourable impression. Shall we ask our guards if they will allow us to return to your apartment for a moment?”
“What’s wrong with this?” Antarra Bowmore said, plucking at her red skirt.
“It’s not really… suitable.” I said. “Some might even call it indecent.”
Dr Bowmore looked surprised, and stammered:
“But it covers everything, doesn’t it?”
How cute, she really had no idea.
“The question is: how does it cover me,” I said with a smile. “At the moment you are dressed in a way… that does not do justice to your social class.”
She seemed to understand.
We asked our guards to give us time to get Dr. Bowmore dressed, laughed heartily when they said we had five minutes, and with some sighs and exclamations were allowed fifteen minutes to make her presentable.

This was going to be good. I closed the door and helped the doctor out of her red disaster.
“Dr Bowmore,” I said, tearing the buttons off the back, the dress was ruined anyway, “You are a colleague of lord Estefan?”
Dr Bowmore snorted.
“I wouldn’t call him a colleague. He worked on one of my projects.”
I looked through her closet while the doctor complained about Estefan and his work ethic. I noticed that where Estefan spoke about the technical details of the Nexus drive, Doctor Antarra Bowmore talked about the power structures in her university,
where Estefan had held only an insignificant position.

“Yes yes,” I said, discarding dress after dress, “your intellectual differences aside, you and I are in terribly hot water, here in Galoria. It appears that you and Estefan, and your colleagues at the university, have violated a patent. King Monias has exclusive rights to this thing he calls ‘the Nexus’.
I found a dress of light blue satin of approximately the right size and started to look for undergarments.
“O,” Doctor Bowmore said.
“And he can make our lives very difficult. You could call him a dictator.”
“Yes, well,” the doctor said grumpily. “Nobody told me that!”
“That’s why I’m telling you now.”
Silly girl. Didn’t you come here to explore? That’s just the sort of thing an explorer should look out for.
“Ah. Aha,” was all Dr. Bowmore said.

In no time I had put her into an undershirt, petticoats and a corset, and before I laced her up I quickly put up her hair. She had beautiful hair, I have said this before: silver white and softly curling. Although her eyebrows, lashes and roots declared her a brunette by birth, it was still the best bleach job I had ever seen.
We bickered a bit when it was time to pull the laces of her stays. The doctor was not used to wearing a corselet and said she couldn’t breath. It’s tricky, I have to admit, and you really should have grown up in them – like me - to get the hang of dancing in one, but sometimes a tight lacing up can make you look simply gorgeous!

Our guards were knocking on the door, impatient to be gone, but we ignored them.
Antarra asked:
“Are there any women at court? A queen? Does Monias have a wife?”
I told her about Felicia Wysternion and how she was rumoured to be mad, and we shared a conspiratal grin. We both thought the same thing, I wager.
When the guards knocked again, we called in unison that we were coming, and I helped Antarra into her overdress and handed her her shoes. I tied a ribbon around her wrist, stole a flower from a vase to put in her hair and she was finished. She looked a picture, a little porcelain statue of a woman! She had delicate features, the dress I picked brought out the blue in her eyes and the corselet brought two of her biggest assets nicely to attention.
When she came out, the guards held their breath. Gratified, I took this as a tribute to my creative powers. They hadn’t gasped like that when they saw me that morning, but I told myself they had only seen me at my best. Also: Dr. Antarra Bowmore had the appealingly naïve air of a debutante, and I had to admit that with the big breasts and the silver hair she made a lovely impression.

We were ready! With Antarra tottering on her heels, seeking support on the arm of one of the Hendrakes, and me floating along like a queen, we walked up to the courtroom.

. . . _ . . .

Just before we reached our destination, another group of guards joined us. They were dragging a third prisoner along, and from the shine of his silver coverall I recognized Estefan. My friend didn’t look good; he was dirty, unshaven and he wore heavy chains on his wrists and ankles. The weight of the iron bent him down but when he looked up, he recognised Dr. Bowmore and scowled at her. Unexpectedly, and despite the weight of his chains, he threw himself at her. He would have reached her if she hadn’t cleverly used Estefan’s own chains to trip him. Nevertheless, I had not missed the little gesture her hand had made towards her left sleeve, as if she had a weapon hidden there. Her narrow sleeves did not allow space for a dagger but if she had one of those strange weapons Estefan had shown me in the Silver Egg, she could have put that up her sleeve when I was not looking. I had left her alone often enough when I dressed her to give her that chance. Interesting!

I caught Estefan before he hit the ground and hurt himself.
“Estefan!” I scolded, “This is not the time to settle personal quarrels. We are in deep trouble!”
Estefan only pointed and shouted:
“Have you seen that… she-devil!”
Dr Bowmore raised an eyebrow at his language.
“I am afraid that, for the moment, we will have to combine forces. Or in any case—“
“It’s all her fault,” Estefan growled. I put him back on his feet. He reeked of straw and sweat.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr Bowmore said haughtily.
“It’s her fault!” Estefan shouted and he gestured as far as his bonds allowed. Our guards didn’t know what to do with the situation. We weren’t trying to escape, and they were not allowed to harm us, I supposed, and they respected Dr. Bowmore and me too much to manhandle us, so what?
“She set us up!” Estefan hissed, still glaring intently at Dr. Bowmore.

I didn’t think so but Estefan would not listen. So I gave him my little speech about the Nexus and Galoria’s monopoly, and how we had violated it, and how Monias had the power to make our lives very unpleasant. The guards allowed it, impatiently. They jostled Estefan but were obviously loathe to bother Dr Bowmore or me, so we could safely ignore them until a pageboy opened a door at the end of our hallway.

. . . _ . . .

Like the other ones, this was a room that was designed to impress. On a dais of pink-veined marble stood another throne, on which Monias was seated. Again, he was dressed in velvet and ermine, without a crown but with a sceptre this time. Left of the throne, sunlight fell through high windows, the walls were clad in blue damask and high above the wooden floor gilded angels flew across a purple sky. Only a smattering of courtiers lined the walls and I was a little disappointed. This did not look like a courtroom; just a ballroom with a throne at the end. And I would have liked the audience to be a little bigger.

Monias cleared his throat and gestured to a herald, who was to read the charges. It came down to this: Estefan, Dr. Bowmore and I were accused of espionage and high treason. At the words ‘high treason’ I spoke up.

“High treason? I’m not even a citizen of this country. I can therefore not be accused of high treason, or even ordinary treason, here.”
“Silence!” one of the secretaries who flanked Monias shouted. His colleagues fell in with him and tried to impute me with contempt of court.

“How do you plead,” Monias said when silence had returned.
“Innocent,” I said, making my voice carry clearly to all corners of the room. “On all accounts.”
The courtiers murmured again, and Dr. Bowmore took the opportunity to ask if we were allowed to explain.
“Go ahead and try,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, looking up. “Err, not guilty!”
Everyone then looked at Estefan, who ruined the moment by pointing at Dr. Bowmore and shouting:
“She’s guilty!”

Dr Bowmore tried to save the situation with a pleading: “Your highness, this man is--“ but a loud “Silence!” from a secretary cut her off. The first herald cleared his throat and said:
“King Monias will now pronounce the verdict.”

Already? Didn’t they even try to keep up a semblance of justice? I didn’t understand, surely Monias would want to have a reputation as a fair and just ruler? All those recent immigrants in his kingdom and he did not care about his image?
And to top it up, someone was trying to trump me. It was right on time: while I was in Dr. Bowmore’s chambers whatever had kept me awake half the night had activated her Nexus-security too, and that was twenty minutes ago. Someone had been trumping me every 20 minutes since last night. This ‘courtroom’ had no Nexus-security, so no blue suffocating fields to block the call. I ignored the trump’s pressure and tried to concentrate on what Dr. Bowmore was saying.
She had taken a step forward and was clasping her hands under her bosom.
“—I will throw myself on your mercy. Please grant this poor woman…“

WOW. She wasn’t such an amateur as she had seemed. Clumsy Dr. Bowmore was shamelessly using her feminine charms. And with obvious effect, she had Monias’ undivided attention.
He rubbed his chin and said:
“Of course we are a merciful king…”
Encouraged, she continued:
“O king Monias, I come from a distant land to… find out things about this country.” (A bad argument if you’re accused of espionage, but who am I to criticize.)
“We wanted to exchange information, and we wanted to learn from your country, but we didn’t know there was a monopoly on that… you know. So we had sent Estefan, and he never told us it was so, and if we knew we would never have done it. It was his obligation to inform us, and he didn’t, else we would have known and approached you first for trade agreements or something.”

Unbelievable! It worked, and very well too! Her heaving bosom in particular was having its effect: the eyes of every male in the room were fixed on her snowy D-cup, and Monias had the best view of all.

How irritating! Here I stood, looking as gorgeous as I was ever going to get, and all they saw was a snivelling little shadow girl. On the other hand; if I hadn’t fixed her up, her plea would not have made a tenth of the impression it was making now. And I could never grovel like that; I have a reputation to maintain. But if I were her, I would have gone for a more teary and less bewildered approach.
“—I’m only a, a…” Dr. Bowmore was saying.
“Simple scientist,” I suggested under my breath.
“—simple scientist, and I know nothing about your world and your complicated, imposing court. Ask Alexander, he will tell you I am here purely—“

Someone interrupted:
“Lord Alexander is not available at the moment.”
That explained a couple of things. It also meant that Estefan probably wasn’t interrogated exhaustively either.
“Yes, I know it is difficult for me to impress such a great and powerful man,” Dr. Bowmore went on, looking up through the eyelashes that I painted, “And please…”
She kneeled and sought eye contact with Monias. I hoped she wasn’t pushing it.
“Please, you may search all my things, and, and…”

Monias left his throne and helped her up.
“I am sure this all rests on a misunderstanding,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes. Dr Bowmore stepped a little closer to him. She was still holding his hand. Unfortunately, Estefan chose that moment to shout:
“Don’t believe a word of it, that witch!”
Dr Bowmore pretended to be frightened. Monias gestured to the guards and said:
“We have heard enough,” and two Hendrakes dragged Estefan out of the courtroom by his chains.

This was getting further and further out of hand. But how to take initiative away from Dr. Bowmore and onto myself? I don’t do ‘dumb blonde’; peroxide won’t take on my hair. Estefan was taken away, out of my sight. What was this? What did Monias want to accomplish with this charade? This was no show trial; there weren’t enough spectators, or even a half-hearted attempt at a show of justice. And no one had tried to scare or intimidate us yet. I didn’t understand, and that annoying trumpcontact kept on pulling at my mind and breaking my concentration. Who could it be? I didn’t want to take it, I wanted to look around and understand what was going on. Unfortunately the trumper chose that moment to push the contact.

The room had gone awfully quiet. King Monias was silently gazing into Dr. Bowmore’s eyes. My guards weren’t so inattentive, they must have sensed the increase in Pattern energy. They drew their swords at me, which made Monias look up.

“King Monias,” I said with my hand at my eyes, “I’m being plagued by an attempted trump call. Will you allow me to take it? It is… distracting.”
“Do you have to do that now?” Monias asked petulantly.
Yes I do, you horny ape. Have you no brains? Now I knew what made a man like Monias build himself a palace of sugar and cherubs: no deep psychological reasons but just plain bad taste.

Instead, I said:
“I don’t think I can block it much longer,” and that was true. The pressure on my mind was steadily increasing to unbearable levels. Damn, not now!
Monias gestured at his guards and they raised their swords. One stepped up behind me and put a knife at my throat.

I did not want to take a contact like this, it was much too dangerous! But there was nothing I could do.
“Not like this!” I protested, my hands over my eyes. “It’s pushing…!”
“You can take the contact now,” a gentle voice said by my ear. It was the captain with the moustache, the one I met earlier.
“Not with a knife—“ I panted. The pressure had become unbearable. I hate it when people invade my mind. It happens all the time and there is so little I can do against it. Usually I would have used my trump to build a trump defence, but they had taken my entire deck.
“No, not…” I managed, but something pushed and I blocked, but it was an arrow, a spear, a battering ram and it broke through my defences…
No!

. . . _ . . .

It was hell.
It was Murlas and he came thundering into my mind like an avalanche. I fled and withdrew into the far recesses of my mind, making myself tiny. I was a dot, I was invisible, I was not there at all. Something like the voice of Adrian asked me to wait, wait a little, but I was not there to listen.

They opened my eyes and saw Monias and Doctor Bowmore. They saw the courtroom, the guards, and the weapons the guards were pointing at me. I sensed Murlas and Adrian understood the situation and were glad the guards had not decided to cut my throat. I did not allow myself to feel the same relief, it might give my position away. The feeling of Adrian’s voice sounded through my head again:
“Boadice, I don’t know where you are, but—“

This was worse than rape, and I released a feeling of panic and repulsion, regretting it immediately but they could not use it to deduce my location, as I was not there.
“Let’s withdraw,” Adrian said to Murlas.
Monias was regarding my body strangely and for a moment there was eye contact. Murlas was startled and wanted to withdraw, but all he managed to do was move my hands. Adrian on the other hand withdrew from my body; a blessed release. But now I was alone with Murlas, which was somehow worse. Murlas flipped some switches in my body and it passed out, taking us into darkness.

The release of pressure on my ribs brought me back to reality. Nothing had changed. My body, my lovely home was still not mine and I was a lone guerrilla soldier regarding the invading army from behind a sheltering bush. Murlas had no access to the buried treasure that was my memory, but he had the run of the land my body. He opened my eyes and saw Dr. Bowmore bent over me, and he too looked at her displayed bosom. She said:
“Boadice, are you all right?”
Murlas kept my body slack and mumbled something.
“Say something,” Dr. Bowmore insisted, “do you know where you are? What’s the year? Who’s the president?”
Murlas mumbled: “Galoria…”

I could feel the shape if not the content of his thoughts. It seemed he decided to impersonate me, and there was the feeling of experience in that matter, which would have alarmed me if I had allowed myself any feelings. Drowsily, he said “hello” to Dr. Bowmore.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Trumpcontact…”
“Yes, erm,” she said, and I noticed she was supporting my head on her arm. “This is not normal for a trumpcontact, is it?”
“Too… strong.”
“Who was it?” Dr. Bowmore asked.
“Don’t know. Vague…”
Dr Bowmore looked questioningly to Monias, who was regarding my body suspiciously.
“Is she still possessed? “ he asked. “Or, err…”

Murlas noticed Monias’ suspicions and remained vague and neutral. There is a rumour that Monias and Murlas were already acquainted before Galoria was founded.
“Normally,” Monias said to Dr. Bowmore, “those mind-to-mind contacts are severed when the body goes unconscious. She should be all right.”
“Can you sit up?” Dr. Bowmore asked me.
Murlas tried, and did, and was surprised to see my breasts almost fall out of my bodice. Someone had cut the laces of my corset when I was unconscious, the standard treatment when a lady faints. Had my boobs been as big as Dr. Bowmore’s, it would have been quite indecent. Murlas pretended ‘I’ had suffered a serious mental ordeal and seemed to regard his stay in my body as a –gasp-- educational experience! He should not have been surprised when my lipstick stained the glass of water he was offered. Timidly, he asked:
“A... trial?”
Dr Bowmore shot a glance at Monias.
“It will be postponed for the time being,” Monias said. “I shall reach a verdict forthcoming.” He turned to Dr. Bowmore. “Maybe, in the meantime, we can exchange some thoughts on--”
Dr Bowmore smiled back at him.

. . . _ . . .

Murlas let himself be led back to my old prison chambers. This was wrong. In my jail, between the insulating walls of the Nexus, there would be no way to drive out this invader. But how could I defeat him? I, who on the mental battlefield meant less than nothing? There was nothing I could do, nothing, and yet I had to act because there was no telling what Murlas would do with my body now he had it. If it was only me, I would sit it out and wait for him to leave, never showing my presence. But if I let him be, he might hurt my baby, perhaps without even knowing he did so! I had to fight, even if it killed me. Being born to Murlas would be the worst fate that could befall my child, ever. I had to fight...

In my mind, I walked toward Azrain-in-the-body-of-Murlas, and felt his knife in my arm again. His mind held mine like a vice and he smiled, and in his eyes I saw that the agonising pain he was inflicting was only the promise of worse to come.
“You’re dead,” I said to him, and he disappeared.

It was dark in my head. There was a collar around my neck, and it gave me pain while I tried to attack the one that held the leash. Through the pain, I managed to get my hands on the Hywaran dictator and I broke his back and tore the collar to bits. In the darkness there was a road.

The road led to a dark figure. It was small and seemed to be not much more than a mantle of black mist against the darkness. The mist threw itself at me, it sucked and tore at me and I think I screamed. It stank of Logrus. At last I broke away and fled.
“Now I know you’re there!” I yelled while I ran. It did not pursue.

Filigree was waiting for me. She smiled and her tattooed lines glowed in the darkness.
“You tricked me,” I said. “You lured me out of hiding in a situation just like this one.”
“Yes,” Filigree said, still amused. “You were stupid.”
I had no answer to that. I can not decide to be smarter, all I can do is my best. And I had to recover my body. I had to save my baby, so I turned my back on her.

I felt Murlas’ presence. He was in my mind, filling it to the brink. Fear galvanised into fury and I sprang, tearing like a she-bear.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.

He was like a mountain, I tore away dirt and rocks but saw no dent. It was him or me. Kill.

He was like a rock, so hard I hurt myself, but also immobile, scared?

There was a bit of reason left between the red of my fury.
Out.

He let himself be pushed away; I felt him give. There was no road for him to take, no way for him to retreat. Victory? He tried to talk to me but I had a baby to protect. He had no way out.

Kill, or out! I could not hurt him, not much. Although fury was my source of strength, I perceived it was not enough to save me. Murlas either could not or would not hurt me. There was an itching in my mind that prompted me to withdraw. A Filigree-trick? It felt like a trump contact. I saw a way to win.

I allowed the contact and it was Alexander. Swiftly, I pushed Murlas in the direction of the trumplink. Alexander saw him and uttered a word that shattered the contact. No! We were trapped again, both of us.

Then I had an idea. I withdrew, and Murlas let me.
“I’ll kick you out!” I told him, to which he replied:
“Please do.”
With the trump I had memorised, I opened a trump link to Samal. Samal accepted the contact. Murlas tried to say something to his lover but I would not allow it.
“All or nothing. You leave now, right now.”
Murlas let himself be pushed through to Samal and I slammed the link shut behind him. I had won. Or at least survived.

Then I slept.

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