Luxuriating in such thoughts, and other civic improvements, Gorlas dozed as the carriage rumbled onward.
Challice stood alone in her private chambers, staring at the hemisphere of glass with its trapped moon. What would she lose? Her reputation. Or, rather, that reputation would change. Hanut grinning, Shardan strutting in that knowing way of his, making sure his secret oozed from every pore so that it was anything but a secret. Other men would come to her, expecting pretty much the same. And maybe, by then, there would be no stopping her. And maybe, before too long, she’d find one man who decided that what he felt was love, and she would then begin to unveil her plan-the only plan she had and it certainly made sense. Eminently logical, even reasonable. Justifiable.
Sometimes the beast on its chain turns on its master. Sometimes it goes for his throat, and sometimes it gets there.
But it would take time. Neither Shardan Lim nor Hanut Orr would do-both needed Gorlas even though their triumvirate was a partnership of convenience. Any one of them would turn on the other if the situation presented itself-but not yet, not for a long while, she suspected.
Could she do this?
What is my life? Here, look around-what is it? She had no answer to that question. She was like a jeweller blind to the notion of value. Shiny or dull, it didn’t matter. Rare or abundant, the only difference lay in desire and how could one weigh that, when the need behind it was the same? The same, yes, in all its sordid hunger.
She could reduce all her needs to but one. She could do that. She would have to, to stomach what was to come.
She felt cold, could see the purple tracks through the pallid white skin of her arms as her blood flowed turgidly on. She needed to walk in sunlight, to feel the heat, and know that people would look upon her as she passed-on her fine cape of ermine with its borders of black silk sewn with silvered thread) on the bracelets on her wrists and down at her ankles-too much jewellery invited the thief’s snatch-ing hand, after all, and was crass besides. And her long hair would glisten with its scented oils, and there would be a certain look in her eyes, lazy, satiated, seduc-tively sealed away so that it seemed she took notice of nothing and no one, and this was, she well knew, a most enticing look in what were still beautiful eyes-
She found herself looking into them, there in the mirror, still clear even after half a carafe of wine at breakfast and then the pipe of rustleaf afterwards, and she had a sudden sense that the next time she stood thus, the face staring back at her would belong to someone else, another woman wearing her skin, her face. A stranger far more knowing, far wiser in the world’s dismal ways than this one before her now.
Was she looking forward to making her acquaintance?
It was possible.
The day beckoned and she turned away-before she saw too much of the woman she was leaving behind-and set about dressing for the city.