“I’m all for change,” Koradan said. “But how? If my men and I walked into the middle of a human city to try and explain it all, we’d be killed on sight. If you and your villagers showed up and did the same, you’d be called insane or brainwashed and likely locked up in a cell where you couldn’t do yourselves or anyone else any more harm. If we’re to even have a chance of changing anyone’s minds, we need hard evidence. But I’ve got absolutely no idea what we could show them that would make any difference.”
“I’ll keep thinking about it,” Lynette said. “Sooner or later, something has to come up. But… while we’re on the topic of warriors and prejudices, I have something…” She paused, chewing her lip nervously. “I have something I’d like to give you.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not really a gift so much as it is restoring something to its rightful owner. As far as is possible, at least.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Koradan said with a frown. There was nothing Lynette could have that might have belonged to him.
“When Kai was a warrior, it was common practice to loot from the dead Chalandrians. Which seemed a whole lot less awful before I knew they were all people instead of demons,” she added, more to herself than to Koradan. “Mostly they took swords or pieces of armour. But every now and then, someone found a body that had some jewellery on it. It sounds awfully macabre now, but Kai took a few pieces and gave them to me as gifts. A display of his prowess in battle, I suppose. Like displaying the antlers of a deer that you’ve killed.
“Some of the jewellery was actually quite beautiful. I wore some of it while Kai was still alive, but after he died, it didn’t feel right. Every time I looked at it, I was just reminded that he was dead and I was never going to see him again.
“But it was never really mine. It was stolen from the dead, so I thought I should give it to you. At the very least, it should belong to a Chalandrian, not a human. I don’t know what you’ll want to do with it, but I thought you might be able to sell it, and then use the money to set yourselves up somewhere comfortable. Some of it’s worth a fair bit. Or maybe you’d want to do something more sentimental. You mentioned you wanted to do some sort of ritual for your comrade who was killed. Maybe you’d want to do something symbolic for the people that Kai killed, as well. I don’t know. It’s up to you.” Cutting herself off sharply, Lynette marched off into her bedroom, returning with a wooden box. It was not quite a foot long and far plainer than most jewellery boxes Koradan had seen. In Chalandros, women kept their jewels in ornate boxes with fine engravings or painted scenes on the outside. Perhaps that wasn’t a custom that applied to humans and their jewellery?
“I’m touched by the gesture,” Koradan said to Lynette, as she put the box down in front of him. “But are you sure you don’t need it? If it’s worth money, then…”
“I’ve had it for years and I’ve never needed the money. It just sits in a box gathering dust. I’d much rather you have it.”
“Fair enough.” Koradan didn’t think it was necessary to give it to him, but he wasn’t going to argue. And if some of it could be sold, it would be a start for him and his men, perhaps to buy a cottage somewhere out of the way where they could begin building a life for themselves. Assuming they weren’t able to stay in this village, of course.
Just out of curiosity, he opened the box. The contents didn’t really concern him, but it was worth knowing what he was getting. But as he got a look at what was inside, his eyes opened wider. ‘A few pieces’ was a dramatic understatement. The box was crammed full of necklaces, rings, brooches, with jewels in all manner of colours.
The first few items he picked up were much like what he’d expected. An emerald brooch. A sapphire ring. A necklace with a large opal. He was about to close the lid again when something else caught his eye – a large stone of solid black. He dug it out from underneath a couple of other pieces and held it up…
“Great gods…” His jaw dropped, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. He glanced at Lynette. “This is obsidian.”
Lynette nodded, unperturbed by his discovery. “It seemed special at the time. Obsidian’s quite rare in the cities and expensive as a result. But the miners find chunks of it in the mine all the time. We sell some of them to merchants to make a bit of extra income, but to me, now, it’s just a black rock that comes out of the ground.”
“You have…” By the gods, they had so much of the stuff it was considered junk. Perhaps he could… But no, he’d need firstly a good jeweller, and secondly a witch for that…
But the gem sitting in the box in front of him was far more interesting, already polished and attached to a leather cord. And if it had been taken from a Chalandrian…
“I’m not sure you’re aware of what you’ve got here,” he said. Although, having said that, there was no guarantee he was right. Just because someone had an obsidian necklace didn’t mean that it was…
There was only one way to find out. Feeling his fingers shaking a little, Koradan fastened the necklace around his own neck. Then he took the jewel in his hand and pressed it against his chest, not knowing if it was going to work. “Take my form and hide me deep,” he recited. “Sunlight, moonlight, shadows keep. In human world, my self will sleep.” He’d heard the spell a dozen times or more, as people passed through the city on their way to the gate. Occasionally, a witch had an obsidian jewel that they could enchant and sell, or sometimes people brought their own and just needed a witch to add the magic to it. But the gems were rare, and getting rarer by the day. There had been none available when Koradan and his men had set out to make the crossing, and besides which, there wasn’t any spell available that would work on a vreki, no matter how much obsidian they had.
As the words activated the gem, Koradan felt a change in himself immediately. His fingers tingled, his head felt odd, like it was being squeezed, and his skin itched for a moment before the symptoms vanished as quickly as they’d arrived. He looked down at his hands and found them looking entirely human. His skin was now a dark brown colour, significantly darker than Lynette’s, but far lighter than his native jet black skin. And his claws were gone, replaced with blunt nails.
He looked up and saw Lynette’s shocked expression, and only then did he realise that he should have given her some kind of warning about what he was about to do. But discovering the obsidian had been such a surprise, it hadn’t occurred to him.
But now that he was having regrets, he realised that brazenly displaying the spell to a human was a profoundly foolish thing to do in the first place. Humans didn’t use magic, and if they discovered that a simple piece of obsidian was all it took to disguise a Chalandrian – ademon– as a human, then no Chalandrian would ever be safe in this world again. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of Chalandrians spread out across the human world, and if the secret got out, then anyone wearing an obsidian jewel would immediately be suspect. All the humans would have to do was remove the necklace to revert the person to their native form. And then promptly murder them for being a demon.
Lynette still hadn’t moved. She was gripping the edge of the table, her jaw hanging slackly, and she seemed to be barely breathing. Koradan considered removing the necklace… but at this point, that wasn’t going to take the shock away, and he actually wanted to know what he looked like as a human. Were his horns gone? His hair? His beard? He still hadn’t had a chance to shave, and the rough stubble was getting fuller by the day. He looked down at himself and saw that his body was a fraction smaller than it had been, leaner and his hips were narrower, though he still sported a significant amount of muscle across his chest. His chest was slightly hairy, though salases didn’t grow hair on their chests, and he reflected that its presence spoke of a fine attention to detail on the part of the witch who’d enchanted the stone. He dared to reach up and feel his head. His hair was still there, though he couldn’t see the colour from here, and his horns were indeed gone. He felt a brief moment of panic at the realisation, before reminding himself that this wasnormalfor a human. It was perfectly fine. His ears felt smaller, with a human’s rounded tops, rather than the points that salases had.
And still, Lynette hadn’t moved.
“Lynette? I’m sorry, I should have warned you. I didn’t actually think that was going to work.”
“What the hell just happened?” she asked, the dazed expression staying firmly fixed to her face.
How was he supposed to explain it? “This is obsidian,” he said, starting with the obvious as he held up the jewel. “Obsidian and one or two other stones are able to absorb magic. We have witches in Chalandros who infuse them with spells. This one has a glamour spell in it. It makes Chalandrians look like humans. It’s how a lot of people survive after they make it past the gate. I’m still a salas. I’m still the same person. I just look like a human for as long as I’m wearing the necklace.”
“Magic? Demons have magic,” Lynette said, more to herself than to him. “Of course they do. They have magic spells and you look like a human.” He forgave her the reference to demons for the moment. She’d proven over the last day or so that she no longer viewed him that way, but a shock of this magnitude was likely to jolt her back into her old views. She took a deep breath, and he watched as her shoulders relaxed.
“So… magic is actually a real thing in Chalandros?”
“Yes. We have witches and mages who are both skilled at using magic.”
