Chapter Chapter Thirty

The Bau-Bau Murders: a decade-old unsolved case comes to light again. Was it really a mythical shapeshifter who committed the killings?

Series starts tomorrow.

NEW TERRAN PRESS Turnings It was to have been so simple, Iolyn thought. No complications, no guilt, no regrets. She fell to her knees on a soft carpet of grass, the night breeze cool on her face. The nocturnally glowing qzoren flowers acted like natural oil-globes, casting a low, shivering light over her equally trembling body. No one was to get hurt; not even Nunek. Not at first. And now... and now...

She knelt in the middle of a ‘knot garden’, the design taken by Youdak from old-style Terran landscaping texts. The elegantly constructed plot lay near the middle of Iolyn’s main plantings, its interwoven uniqueness setting it off from the other mini-landscapes comprising the acreage. Breathing heavily, Iolyn leaned her head against the bottom of a piece of finely wrought sculpture, one of many dotted about the gardens she herself had commissioned. She knew she had become as hard and unfeeling as the stone that pressed coolly against her brow.

The drink she had needed earlier had turned into more than one. Now she felt sick and her mind writhed in turmoil.

What is wrong with me? she thought, a piercing agony rushing to every part of her body. What has happened?

After the terrible crime committed in her sitting room, Iolyn had realized she didn’t care, not only about the death of Terenio, which was horrifying and obscene enough, but about everything that had once been important to her. The only thing that mattered now, and had mattered for so long, was her desire to ‘disappear’ and live a new life.

And suddenly, that was a problem. It was as if a light had gone off in her head, as if, for the first time since she had started down this path of lies and fantastic deception, she could see everything clearly. What price was she willing to pay for this... ‘freedom’? What would the consequences truly be?

Terenio is dead, Behoola must be dealt with, and Kazrah has become unreliable. Nunek will be killed, Weller will be blamed and I will disappear. And maybe, just maybe, Weller will escape too, to join me in my exile.

She laughed, chortling drunkenly, and sank lower to the ground. She held her head over the reflecting pool and threw up. All my planning, all my dreams. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. And what has it amounted to? An impossible vid-fantasy? An imaginary child’s tale told at bedtime? By Vanera, what have I done? What did I hope to really accomplish?

She stood up, holding onto the statue for balance. Her condition was due to more than simply having had too much to drink. There is something wrong. I feel so strange. Her insides roiled, her head throbbed, sharp pains shot through her.

I never wanted to do this. Not really. Not really! I just wanted to run away. To hide. Not... not...

The transformation from a Senitte to a Terran. A tale out of ancient myth? Not according to Kazrah. There existed a method, a technology that could accomplish it. She deluded herself into believing if she underwent such an abomination under the guise of a Turning Ritual with all its religious accouterments, then Vanera would approve, that all would be well.

And again, no one would get hurt. That had been her primary condition. But the more she and the Ahnkan refined and added to their plan, the more complicated it got. For instance, there was the matter of the ‘scapegoat’, as the Terrans would say.

Simon Weller had been her addition to the scheme. One who would fit the role of said scapegoat nicely, one who would take the blame for the crime. But even he would adhere to her condition. He would sidestep the punishment associated with such an offense. With the money she paid him, he could escape as he had done before in his previous lives. The report Kazrah had compiled on the Terran’s past and present activities was, no doubt, incomplete but still informative. Weller had a history of jumping planets, moving off-world when his problems became too much for him to handle.

“The exact reasons for this constant migration are unclear,” Kazrah had told her. “He has covered his tracks well. But I wonder if our Master Weller might not be a fugitive, perhaps even a wanted criminal of some kind. Interesting, is it not?”

Alpha-Seni had become Weller’s third such home. Iolyn was certain he would be in no danger because of her plan, his reluctance for closure allowing him to take care of himself.

But, her thinking had branched off into other areas and her fantasy had expanded to include him in her recent change-of-heart.

The idea of him joining her was exciting, thrilling.

And impossible! She sobbed into the gray stone. How could my thinking have been so simplistic and childlike? I must have been mad.

A noise. A scraping of a sandal on stone.

“Are you ill, Mistress Honin-Zay?”

Iolyn looked up. Kazrah’s formidable silhouette stood outlined in the flickering light of the qzoren blossoms. For a heartbeat, Iolyn wondered if the Ahnkan was losing his touch. He was normally as silent as a spirit. Perhaps, like her, he too no longer cared.

“You!” she cried, clinging harder to the statue, almost embracing it in her anger and weakness. “You have done this appalling evil to me! You monster! Why did I ever let myself fall under your spell!”

Kazrah walked slowly into the garden and approached her. He blinked, a questioning look on his face. Slowly, he lifted his hand and cupped Iolyn’s cheek. Iolyn batted his hand away in revulsion. “I told you to never touch me again!”

“No,” Kazrah said softly. “You did not really tell me. You thought you were telling... Kazrah, was it?”

Iolyn stared. Kazrah grinned. His bejeweled teeth glittered. “What? What are you talking about?”

The Ahnkan closed his eyes as if listening to some inner voice. “And... and, it seems you would not have come this far if you did not have the urge to do this in the first place. At least that was Kazrah’s observation.”

Iolyn shook her head. “Stop babbling. Stop it!”

Again, Kazrah paused, his head bowed. And then, “I fear your body is rejecting the ritual treatments, or more precisely, the nano-tech injections.”

“No. That is not possible. You said that would not happen for another two suns; that I would have time before the final treatment.”

“Nevertheless, the small bits of knowledge and memory I’ve gleaned from my transformation tell me that is what is occurring. The shocking death you witnessed in your sitting room, the alcohol you have consumed. A delicate balance has been upset. All that work for nothing. If Kazrah were alive, he would be very displeased.”

If Kazrah were alive? Iolyn felt as if she was falling. Had the Ahnkan lost his mind?

Slowly, Kazrah began circling Iolyn, his hands clasped in front of him. From time to time, he glanced at her as he spoke but he almost seemed to be talking to someone else. And, she noticed through her haze of pain and confusion, his mode of speech had changed. His words and the manner of their speaking seemed coarser yet more... feminine? Yes, yes, that was what it sounded like. Was this a new game he was playing?

“I was close to Simon once myself, you know. Oh, yes. As close as two people can be even if they are of different, shall we say, backgrounds. I don’t wonder why you chose him for your scheme.” He laughed then, rolling his eyes. “He has great pain and has kept much of his problems to himself. It’s too bad but I think you’re right. He won’t truly be missed. Not here anyway. Maybe for a little while but he never really made many friends here.

“He’s haunted by his past, you know, although he never really told me what happened.” A shadow seemed to cross his face. “I wanted to reveal myself to him in the grenia but I was afraid. Afraid to show him who I really am, what I have become.

“But then I became angry. I realized it was because of him that I almost died and became this... thing. Because of him, I underwent the Turning Ritual.”

“What are you talking about! Stop it! Stop it!” Iolyn clawed at the statue as she fell to her knees again. Kazrah peered down upon her, a look of disgust on his face.

“You highborn fems are so weak, so spoiled, so pitiful. I should just kill you now.”

Kazrah’s head jerked to his right. Iolyn followed his gaze. Behoola’s Second, Ladora, stood at the entrance to the knot garden. What was she doing here?

She held a gun of some kind in her hand. The Second’s eyes darted back and forth from Kazrah to Iolyn. She seemed very surprised. “Ladora!” Iolyn cried hoarsely. “Get the guards! I think Kazrah has deactivated the camera-eyes! He is dangerous!”

Kazrah kept his eyes on Ladora, his mouth partially open in surprise. “Behoola,” he said softly. “Sister, I wanted to talk to you too, in the hallway, when I had become the one named Terenio. But I couldn’t, not then. Oh, Hooly, I was... ashamed.”

“What shit is this?” Ladora’s reaction echoed Iolyn’s own bewilderment. “Behoola? Why would you call me that? And what...what are you doing with my mistress?”

“Sister, you don’t know how much...”

“Enough!” Ladora licked her lips, her gaze now locked on the Ahnkan. “And don’t move, bodyguard. We have some things to discuss, you and I. I’m in no mood for games.”

Iolyn listened with only half her senses. Her vision blurred, a buzzing sounded in her ears. She tried to get to her feet. “Ladora!” she rasped. “Help me!”

A smile, brief and jittery, crossed Ladora’s face. “Yes, mistress. In a moment. Now, Kazrah, tell me who you really are. I know you are no mere bodyguard. I’ve seen Terenio.”

Iolyn rubbed her eyes, clearing them enough to see the Ahnkan inching his way toward Ladora who seemed in no hurry to come to her aid. She vaguely remembered Behoola commenting on Ladora’s undisciplined personality.

But even at this distance, Iolyn could see, despite Ladora’s seemingly calm exterior, the hand holding the gun trembled just a little and a small light of fear flickered in her eyes.

“Hooly,” Kazrah said. “Don’t you recognize me?” The Ahnkan sounded almost as if he were pleading. Why is he acting like this? Iolyn wondered.

“Stop calling me that!” Ladora backed up a step, giving ground to the approaching Ahnkan. It was evident to Iolyn by the expression on Ladora’s face the Second regretted this rash confrontation.

“It’s me,” Kazrah intoned softly. “Arshelle. Your sister.”

“Sister? You’re fragging male! And I don’t have a sister, you senseless grunk!”

Kazrah’s voice changed, its tone low and menacing. “Why did you abandon me?” he said, only an arm’s length from Ladora. From her awkward vantage point, Iolyn could see his sudden shift in emotions. It was almost as if he were two people, each one struggling for control. “Why did you leave me to fend for myself? You knew I wasn’t as strong as you; you knew I couldn’t resist the lure of the Pleasure Guild and their sex warrens. You and Father just left me...”

“Shut up!” Ladora raised the gun to the Ahnkan’s head. “Don’t come any closer.”

Iolyn wasn’t sure what happened next, it was over so quickly. Kazrah’s arm moved, forward and up. Ladora’s gun discharged, a short hissing sound, but its fatal, blue-white beam of energy shot harmlessly upward into the night sky. A moment followed of rushing movement and sound. Did Ladora cry out?

Iolyn rubbed her eyes again. She saw Kazrah kneeling over a now-prone Ladora. “Hooly!” he sobbed. “Why did you leave me? Why did you let me stay in that place? Look what you’ve made me do!”

The qzoren light glittered off Ladora’s gun. The compact, silver weapon lay just in front of Iolyn where it had fallen. Iolyn reached for it, her whole arm shaking violently. If she could...

In one fluid movement, Kazrah rose and walked to Iolyn. He grasped her arm and wrenched her away from the statue. She cried out in pain, tripping over her feet and falling to the ground.

The Ahnkan knelt over her now, his eyes cloudy, his whole demeanor once more metamorphosed into something sinister and vile. “It wasn’t Hooly, was it?” he said softly. “I can see that now. She doesn’t even look like her. What was I thinking?” Once again, he seemed to listen to some distant voice. “But I think I know what to do now,” he said. “Everything is so much clearer. Sometimes the memories are hard to bring forth. But they’re there if you try enough. It’s funny but I have something here in Kazrah’s robe that will help you, or so this singular memory tells me. You do want me to help you, don’t you?”

“What... what is happening? Why...?”

Kazrah pulled an injector from a pocket in his robe. He fondled the instrument, squinting at it as if he had never seen it before. “This will bring you back to the condition of your first treatment. At least for a while, I think, until the second treatment is completed and stabilizes your condition; long enough for you to complete this part of your... play, is it? Kazrah kept this on his person in case the rejection process happened sooner than expected.”

Iolyn’s breath came in scattered gasps. She tried to speak. “But first,” Kazrah said, cutting her off. “There’s something you must do for me.”

The Ahnkan turned away for a moment, his body suddenly seeming to fold in on itself. His bulky frame jerked and twitched; he seemed to shrink into his clothes. A sighing breath escaped him. For a long moment, he knelt as if praying, head down, taking deep gulps of air.

Slowly, oh, so slowly, he stood up, turned, and raised his head. Iolyn felt the world fall out from under her. Kazrah no longer stood in front of her. Instead, she looked into the eyes of a Senitte fem, thin and wild in appearance, still dressed in Kazrah’s clothes but now hanging off her as if she had indeed become shrunken. Her eyes were dark-circled; her lips dry and peeling; her hair dirty and matted; her breath smelled like overripe fruit.

Surely this is a dream. All a dream. Somehow, Iolyn managed to croak, “How...?”

“Don’t speak. Don’t move. Do nothing or I’ll kill you too.” She cocked her head to one side, almost feral in its strangeness. “I was hiding in the hallway earlier when I had been Terenio,” she said in a low, scratchy voice. “I heard you talking to my sister.”

Her sister? Behoola? By Vanera. Yes, yes. Despite the ravages of her face, there was a resemblance. But what did she mean? When she was Terenio?

“Fortunate our paths have crossed. It seems we both have interesting stories to tell.” A twisted smile crossed the woman’s face. “Why don’t you go first? I don’t have all the details from what little memories I’ve absorbed so I’ll need your help. I know a little about this ‘Turning’ of yours, about why you look more like a halfer now than a Senitte high-born. But why don’t you tell me the whole story? Yes? Tell me why you want to see Behoola later this moon. You’ll let me in on the finer points of this plan to kill your husband. You’ll tell me about what you want of Simon, this ‘framing,’ as you say, this new choice he will have. In other words, you’ll tell me everything.”

Iolyn swallowed. Vanera, she pleaded silently. Is this in your plan? Help me. Help me!

The woman licked her lips. She waved the injector in front of Iolyn’s face. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a high-born slag.” Her face took on a strange glow as if something inside her tried to get out. “And once you tell me all about this plan of yours and once you finish this meeting tonight with Simon, well, maybe then I’ll find out.”