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Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Sorry, but this is the last chapter available on the web. If you would like to read more, please click on the author's initials above and send him an email to let him know. Thanks for enjoying fiction at weregamers.com. -Bryan, your weremaster

"I have fruit for you, Malik," said a wraith-like figure with a radiant smile. She was beautiful - dressed in an ephemeral white gown with golden blonde hair.I tried to squint, but nothing seemed to be working right. Loud buzzing thickened my hearing, and I could not feel anything. I could smell nothing, though a newly broken yellow sphere was held before me. From the fuzzy perspective, I must have been propped up on my back. I felt a sharp pain, and fire ran up my arm. I tried to slap out the flames I knew should be there, but my left arm simply refused to obey.

The buzzing feathered off, and my vision cleared somewhat. Enough to see that instead of an angel, Shiza sat scowling at me. Her white shirt was dusty with a day’s travel and translucent in intriguing places due to the sweat running in rivulets down face and neck. I think I stared at the soft pulse of the artery in her neck too long.

"Damnit, Dog," she cursed angrily. "Do you want some of this or not? You useless cur." A nasty taste excreted into my mouth. I tried to refuse, but my voice just croaked. I licked my lips, and taking it as my desire for it, Shiza dumped the opened fruit onto my stomach. "Fine, then feed yourself. I am tired of feeding your useless, cowardly carcass!" I watched, perplexed, as disgust rolled from her in waves.

Swallowing the cottony feeling in my throat, I wet my tongue.

"Don’t. want... it, bitch," I laughed at the sounds I was making - and the pure fire the comment provoked in my erstwhile nurse. My vision had become such that I could see her eyes wrinkle as she narrowed them. Her mouth turned down at the corners briefly, and a slow smile spread across her face. She reached down and squeezed the fruit and it burst, sending spurting streams of juice onto my bare stomach. I couldn’t even be upset about it - the view she afforded me as she stood and stalked away was worth the juice leaking its way from stomach to sides.

The burning sensation then reached a crescendo that swept my entire body. I grabbed the edge of whatever pallet I was laying on, and the wood creaked under my pain-wracked grip. If the wound didn’t kill me, this will, I thought. My head lolled to the side as I looked at Mugha sitting silently next to me. She held a blue-green paste and was rubbing it into a nasty slice in my arm. The area around the cut was angry red and puffy. Ah, I thought, the dagger was poisoned.

The poison was a virulent one, reduced from the crushed leaves of the jhastra plant and grown in a secret location in Himesh. I had seen the canyon where it was produced. There, the quasi-political entity that controlled the production had terraces cut into solid rock. Pipes fed the plants water, and a small well-paid group of gardeners worked to keep the beds free of the weeds. Getting that poison was not cheap. So what was here that was that valuable? I kept trying to piece the scraps together to try and get some sort of picture, but I was mystified. There was nothing normally in a ’Van that was worth hiring assassins for. It might.could only be.

I kept my face as neutral as I could as the realization hit me. I am not normally in a ’Van. And neither are the artifacts that I had recovered for Jolier and Lyra.

"I have been a fool, Mugha," I muttered to myself. Self-pity wasn’t my style, but my failure to see the obvious hit me hard in my weakened state. I could not think of any other reason for an interested party to risk exposure like that. Immediately I wondered if Dhras were still alive, or if his tent had been plundered for the artifacts. They were valuable, I had no doubt. What they represented exactly was unknown to me, but I was under no such impression of others. There might be any number of people who could have known of the artifacts’ return from the Temple. At least Jolier had said they were ’returning’ them and I believe that he believed it. Who he was delivering them to would be an exercise for another time. My immediate concern was being in a position to defend myself - and select others - if need be.

"I need food, little mother." The statement brought Mugha’s eyes up and they pierced me.

"In my little village we could see the storms breaking in the mountains before they rushed down upon us in their fury. There is such a storm brewing in you, makhti." Without another word, she set a bowl of steaming broth in my lap, then stood and hopped down from the wagon. I ate, already dreading the coming days.