Like Bees In Springtime

By Trismegistus Shandy

Meanwhile, Kiznelan, one of the royalist wizards, is trying to develop an improved telepathy spell that works at greater distances. And Znembalan, having been forced to serve her enemies for a year, is returning to the People's Army to reunite with Kazmina and Psavian.

Content warnings: mind control, hive mind, traumatic injury, depression, death and injury of cavalry horses, not as much death as you'd realistically expect in a war story, involuntary transformation, backstory rape mentioned

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trismegistus Shandy
• Release date: May 11, 2023

Trismegistus Shandy

Trismegistus Shandy lives in the northern hemisphere. They've been writing since childhood and posting stories online since 2007.

Book preview

Like Bees in Springtime

Trismegistus Shandy

Like Bees in Springtime

by Trismegistus Shandy

Smashwords Edition

License

This novel is released under under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The cover is based on The Magic Circle, a public domain painting by John William Waterhouse.

Content Warnings

Mind control, hive mind, traumatic injury, depression, death and injury of cavalry horses, not as much death as you'd realistically expect in a war story, involuntary transformation, backstory rape mentioned

Epistle Dedicatory

To the honored explorer and ambassador, Znembalash daughter of Kazmina:

I take this occasion to thank you again, madam, publicly this time, for the gracious notice you took of my first two books, and the kind interviews you granted me. You were out of the country when I was researching those first books, else they would have been greatly improved by information you alone could supply. Your stories about your foreign travels provided the material for my third book, at a time when I was mired in research for this, which would and should have been the third; and your accounts of what your mother and your grandparents did during the War provided solutions to many difficulties that plagued me in the course of writing the book you now hold in your hands. I apologize again for the long delays which attended the research and writing of this chronicle; I hope you will find that it was worth the wait. Be pleased, then, to take it under your protection, and if it meets with your favor, perhaps to recommend it to friends who ask you about your family’s history.

Your most humble and obedient servant,

Latak son of Zeluvi

A Brief Summary of the First Two Books

As a young man, Znembalan the enchanter traveled throughout the civilized lands, collecting every known transformation spell. He had become friends with the young Viluri psychomancer, Psavian, at an earlier conclave of wizards, and he spent a considerable time with his friend when his travels took him to Niluri. Later, his travels took him into the barbarian lands south of Maresh, where he was transformed into a woman by a wizard who took offense when he asked too many questions.

Returning to the civilized lands, she attended the next conclave of wizards under the pseudonym of Renelissa. She had a brief affair with Psavian during the conclave, and found, afterward, that she was pregnant.

While her daughter Kazmina was still a baby, she completed her researches, reverse-engineering the transformation spell used on her as well as various other traditional spells that would change a human temporarily or permanently into specific animals. She synthesized a new general-purpose transformation spell that could change any animal of any age or sex into any other, and once her daughter was weaned, she changed back into a man, the closest approximation of his original self he could manage.

Znembalan returned to his home town of Vmanashi, set up a wizardry practice, and bought a couple of slaves, Mbisan and Denevla. He raised Kazmina by himself, never telling Psavian of the child’s parentage for fear of damaging Psavian’s relationship with his wife.

In the following years, Znembalan got involved with the nascent republican movement, and when Kazmina was thirteen, he decided to free Mbisan and Denevla. Mbisan stayed on as a free servant for five more years, but Denevla soon left Znembalan’s service.

When Kazmina was eighteen, the Setuaznu Civil War broke out, beginning with the republican revolution that deposed King Sundavu, followed by the formation of the Senate, which decreed the abolition of slavery and the monarchy, among other laws and customs.

Afterward, three royalist factions supporting different claimants to the throne arose, some more popular than others, but all having a strong base of support in some region of of the country. Ndivalan, one of the claimants, made an alliance with his father-in-law, the King of Mezinakh, who sent his army to support his son-in-law.

Znembalan and Mbisan went off to join the People’s Army, while Kazmina stayed home in Vmanashi and kept the wizardry practice going. Several months into the war, however, she left Setuaznu and stayed for a time with different friends of Znembalan in Niluri, learning the basics of psychomancy from Psavian. She also learned that Znembalan was her mother, and Psavian her real father. Near the end of her time in Niluri, she served as a delegate from the republican wizards of Setuaznu to the decennial conclave of wizards held in Nilepsan; here she became friends with several wizards near her age, including Tafrelam, a diviner from Fenrashi in Harafra, and Pautsanu, an enchanter from Nesantsai in Niluri. Both men paid court to her, but she told them she would not marry until after the war in Setuaznu was over, and that they should not wait for her.

Znembalan and his colleague Kevmulan developed a trap spell which the soldiers under their command lured enemy soldiers into: it transformed everyone who stepped on certain enchanted spots of ground into identical three-year-old girls. The conclave of wizards tried a number of the wizards supporting different factions in the civil war for war crimes, including Znembalan and Kevmulan; Znembalan was sentenced to one year of service to his enemies, four months for both of the royalist factions who had been affected by the traps, while Kevmulan was sentenced to a year in prison.

Psavian met with Znembalan again while she was in Niluri being tried before the conclave, and they rekindled their old romance, Psavian’s wife having since died. They agreed to get married soon after Znembalan had served her sentence.

After getting in trouble with the law in Niluri for helping a number of slaves escape, Kazmina returned to Setuaznu and enlisted in the People’s Army, and Psavian, after winding up his affairs and turning over most of his property to his legitimate adult children, followed her a short time later.

When Kazmina had transformed those slaves to make them unrecognizable to their overseers and masters, she had accidentally used a variation on her mother’s spell which made some of them into potential wizards, a thing which no one had ever known to be possible. Since her enlistment, she has been working on research to reproduce that accidental variation and find a way to cast it reliably on demand, as well as healing sick and wounded soldiers.

After two years of war, the republicans have lost Zmindashi, the capital city, and some other areas they held early in the war; the People’s Fifth Army holds the city of Vmanashi in the northwest, Znembalan and Kazmina’s home town, while the People’s Fourth Army is fighting the supporters of Vmalanda and Ndivalan further south. The supporters of Mbavalash hold the capital and the territory surrounding it, and are now preparing to advance on Vmanashi.

---

Part One

A hospital in Vmanashi. Fifteenth day of second month, third year of the Republic.

Kazmina looked up as the orderlies brought in her next patient, and possibly her next experimental subject. He was missing his right leg, which had been amputated above the knee and not long ago; it wasn’t fully healed.

Set him down on the cot there, she told the orderlies. You can go now. They left and she shut the door behind them.

The room the army had given her to work with was a small one, off in a corner of the hospital. It was a big house that had been confiscated from a royalist family when the People’s Army took Vmanashi. This had once been a sitting room; Kazmina had spread the little table with more books and papers than it could comfortably hold, and a cot had been squeezed in to the other end of the room, but it still held several cabinets and shelves once belonging to the former owners of the house, long since looted of most of their contents, as well as three chairs, one upholstered and two of bare wood.

Do you understand me? she asked. Or do we need an interpreter?

Yes, ma’am, he said. From a couple of words she couldn’t be sure what dialect of Tuaznu the man spoke, but probably northern or coastal, pretty close to her own. She went on:

I’m going to give you back your leg. The question is whether I give you something else as well. Do you speak any languages besides Tuaznu?

A little Ilishpi. My mother’s parents spoke it. What does that have to do with —

That pinned him down as being from the northwest, nearer the coast than Kazmina’s home town of Vmanashi. Can you read and write?

Sure; I used to keep records for the mill back home. I haven’t read many books, if that’s what you’re asking, but I’ve read all the ones in our village.

Good. I gather, if you were keeping records for a mill, you know arithmetic too?

Sure, try me.

She gave him some arithmetic problems and he solved them correctly; she gave him a copy of Vnelda’s History of the Reign of King Tazniva and had him read a passage aloud, then asked him questions about it. He would do, she decided.

Before I restore your leg, and maybe do something else, I need you to swear secrecy. You mustn’t tell anyone about what we do here, except the obvious part about how a wizard restored your leg. And if you keep your mouth shut even about that, around people who don’t know you ever lost your leg, that’s best.

All right, I guess you don’t want the enemy wizards figuring out how you do it? I swear I won’t tell. You want to blindfold me while you work your spells?

That won’t be necessary. You might as well watch and listen, though you won’t understand much. Before we go any farther, I need to ask you if you’ll volunteer to help me with some magical research.

What?

I’m developing a new spell — or devising a new variation of an existing spell, rather. I’ll test it on you while I’m restoring your leg — or I won’t, if you don’t want to volunteer; in that case I’ll just restore the leg the tried-and-true way and send you back.

All right, that sounds fine. I’ll volunteer.

Wait. I’m required to warn you of the risks first. If I use the experimental version of the spell, you’ll have a different face and figure — probably just slightly different, but maybe enough that your friends won’t recognize you. If the spell doesn’t work — if it doesn’t have the extra effect I’m looking for — I’ll just change you back into your old self, plus the leg of course, probably in an hour or less. But there’s a slight risk something could happen to me and I wouldn’t be able to restore you; you’d be stuck with a strange face. I think those are the only risks; I’ve already tested the spell on animals and determined it’s pretty safe.

Might it be a woman’s face? he asked apprehensively. I heard tell how some of you wizards turned enemy soldiers into women or little girls —

You won’t be a woman, she reassured him. "I’ve got better control of the spell than that. You’ll be a man, within a few centimeters of your current height, and recognizable as related to your parents if not obviously their son. You might not look like you, but more like a brother or cousin of your old self. And probably for less than an hour."

Oh. Well, that’s all right then. Go ahead.

I’ll need to cut a lock of hair first. She took up the scissors from her table and came around to the cot, leaning over him to cut a small lock of hair near his left ear. She tucked it into a folded piece of paper, labeled it with a lead pencil, and went to work.

First she worked the divination spell, one she had only recently mastered, which would test him for wizardly potential. As usual, like all of her test subjects so far, he had none. Then she cast the pain-deadening spell her father had taught her. She was going to use a slower version of her mother’s total transformation spell, and that would hurt a lot if she didn’t take precautions. Then she began working the transformation spell that would modify the man slightly, copying a chapter of Kazmina’s own life-runes into his animate structure, and possibly, if variant #56 of the transformation spell worked right, make him a potential wizard.

(Of the first fifty-five variants, thirty-eight did nothing, fourteen worked just like her mother’s transformation spell except that they left her feeling more drained, and three had odd side effects that seemed unrelated to transformation. She’d set those aside for further research during peacetime.)

She worked the variant spell slowly, speaking the text aloud and making gestures to guide the flow of energies. The original spell her mother had taught her, she knew so well she could cast it in a few moments without speaking or gesturing; most of the work was carried on by her subconscious mind, so she could just concentrate on the form she wanted someone to take, and they took it. But a little over a year ago, when she was tired and in a hurry, she’d somehow cast the spell a little differently, when using it to disguise some escaped slaves so their master and overseer wouldn’t recognize them. And she’d turned several of them into potential wizards.

She hadn’t realized it at the time, but later some of those escaped slaves had taken jobs as servants in the house of a Harafran diviner, Hestan of Fenrashi. With his trained wizard-sight, he’d noticed their wizardly potential, and, on working a divination to determine which wizard they were related to — assuming at first they were probably misplaced bastard children of some known wizard — he found it pointed squarely at Kazmina herself, who had used bits of her own life-runes in remaking the former slaves’ bodies.

During the conclave of wizards last year, Hestan had spoken to Kazmina and her father Psavian about this and had agreed to keep quiet about this explosive discovery until Kazmina had the chance to do more research on it. Her mother Znembalan, who’d invented the transformation spell, was unable to do the research just then, as she was serving a sentence for war crimes — she had to spend a year in service to the Republic’s enemies, healing their wounded soldiers and restoring, as far as possible, all the soldiers she’d transformed with her magic.

As Kazmina went on casting the spell, the man’s body shifted, his right leg growing back even as his left leg grew a few centimeters longer. His facial features melted and flowed into a new configuration, his eyes slightly farther apart, his lips slightly thinner, his nose slightly smaller. Then it was done. Kazmina sat down to rest for a few moments before going on to the next stage.

The soldier patted his new leg gingerly. Thank you, ma’am. I thought I’d never walk again with that leg gone. Can I stand up now?

Sure, but don’t leave the room. I’ve got to do some tests to see if my new version of the leg-regrowing spell had certain side effects.

He stood up and stretched, a broad grin on his face; Kazmina couldn’t help smiling back. This was one of the best parts of being a wizard — that and flying. The soldier paced back and forth a little in the narrow room the army had allotted her for her research, then sat down on the cot again. It seems to work fine, ma’am. Thank you again ever so much!

You’re welcome. Now sit still, and I’ll do my tests.

She spoke the divination spell that would show her if the man now had wizardly potential. Until recently, she’d had to depend on a diviner from the Intelligence Office to test her subjects after their initial transformation. But by now she’d learned that spell and could test them herself.

And this man had no more wizardly potential than he’d had before she transformed him.

All right, she said, give me just a moment and I’ll have you back to your usual self... She picked up the packet of hair she’d cut from his original body and studied it for a moment, reading the life-runes from the hair and imposing them on his body, using the original version of the transformation spell which she could cast silently in moments. The soldier reverted to his original self, plus a restored leg and minus a few scars.

We’re done here, she said with a forced smile. Tell the captain I said you’re cleared to return to your unit.

Yes, ma’am. Thank you again. He saluted and left the room.

She sighed and made another entry in her research log. Variant #56 of the transformation spell, combined with chapter forty-five of her own life-runes: no obvious effect. Next time, she’d try it with chapter forty-six, and then she’d have to come up with variant #57. She might as well start planning out the new variant while she waited for her next patient. Soon, her mother’s sentence would be up and she could work with her on it.

---

The infirmary in Ndivalan’s camp, somewhere in southwestern Setuaznu. 3/2/16

Znembalan completed his healing spell, then palpated the man’s belly, where the swelling was already going down. Keep him lying down and resting for another day, he said to Zulkhitem, the Mezinakhi nurse who was accompanying him on his rounds, then he can probably go back to his unit. Let’s see, who’s next?

The soldier in the next cot had burns, probably pyromantic in origin, all over his face and chest and right arm; he’d lost both eyes. He was bandaged all over. There was no other way; Znembalan had to do a transformation. Standard healing spells would take many days of repeated application to take care of the skin, and still wouldn’t restore the man’s sight. He studied the man’s life-runes and worked the spell to restore the man’s body to what the life-runes said it should be; the skin all over his body, not just in the burned areas, turned the reddish pink of a newborn baby. The man screamed with the momentary pain of the transformation, then gasped, and Znembalan told Zulkhitem:

Take off his bandages while I examine the next patient.

She was just beginning to do so when a messenger boy ran into the field infirmary and looked around, then dashed over to Znembalan and said: Sir, General Sevmek wants you in his tent right now.

Very well. He glanced aside at the soldier he’d just transformed; the bandages were half off and the man’s new eyes were exposed. Znembalan nodded to Zulkhitem and said: I don’t know when I’ll be back, and followed the messenger boy out of the infirmary.

The general’s tent wasn’t far away, but Znembalan had never been there since the army camped here, less than a hundred kilometers from Vmanashi, where his daughter was stationed, or had been recently. He’d seen the general at a distance several times since he was sent to serve the self-styled King Ndivalan's army, but didn’t know him.

When he followed the boy into the tent, his eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light; then he saw several men standing around, some sitting on camp stools, and two lying on cots, apparently unconscious. By his insignia, one of the sitting men must be the general. You sent for me?

You’re the anarchist wizard, our prisoner?

Close enough. I’m Znembalan of Vmanashi. Technically he was a prisoner of the Compact of Wizards, but he was in the custody of Ndivalan’s army. The geas the conclave had placed him under required him to obey certain orders the royalist officers gave him, but it didn’t require him to be especially respectful; he neither saluted nor addressed the general by his title, as he didn’t recognize the authority of the government he served.

I want you to heal these men by transforming them, he said. Turn each of them into a healthy version of the other man.

I’ll see if they need transformations, Znembalan said. I normally save my energy by not working a transformation when a basic healing spell will do.

You’ll do what I tell you, the general blustered, and Znembalan shook his head.

I’ve already tested the boundaries of the geas; I know what kind of orders I’m required to obey. And my sentence is over in just a few days, so there’s not much you can do to me if I refuse. Now, if you’ll be quiet, I can work a couple of diagnostic spells and figure out what these men really need...

The general turned to one of the men standing around; Znembalan half-listened while he worked his diagnostic spell on the first man, the younger of the two, who was sweaty, with an unhealthy pallor. Is he right? the general asked. The other man responded in a low tone that Znembalan couldn’t catch.

The man had been poisoned, probably by something in his food. That was odd; if enemy saboteurs had poisoned the army’s food supply (as Znembalan himself had done a couple of times, when he was free), or if part of the supplies had gone bad naturally, there should have been a lot of poisoning cases in the infirmary, but Znembalan hadn’t seen any lately. He turned to the older man and worked another diagnostic, tuning out the low murmur of conversation until he was interrupted by the general speaking up louder:

You’ll be on bread and water for the rest of your sentence if you don’t do as I say.

Fine. Don’t interrupt me again. He resumed the broken diagnostic spell, and a few moments later exclaimed: Hey! This man’s not sick at all; he’s just under a sleep spell!

One of the younger men — he looked vaguely familiar, and Znembalan thought he remembered seeing him at a regional meeting of wizards — muttered, I told you it wouldn’t work, sir. Znembalan resumed:

I don’t know what you’re about, but I’m just going to work a basic healing spell on this other man. It will keep him from dying of the poison — poison I suspect you gave him, but I don’t see how to prove it — and have him back on his feet in a day or two. Make sure he gets plenty to drink in the next few days: boiled water or weak beer. He turned back to the poisoned man and started working the healing spell.

The general and his advisors murmured together again. Wait, the general said. We’ll let you go early if you’ll do the transformations I asked for.

No. I’ve missed my friends for almost eight months, I can hold out for four more days. Besides, you don’t have the authority to let me go home early; if you don’t want to use my services for the next few days, I’d still be a prisoner of the Compact. Don’t interrupt again.

Znembalan healed the poisoned man; he also took a small sample of the man’s hair, and of the other, sleeping man’s as well. Later on, when he was free, he’d get a diviner to work on the hair samples and figure out who these men were. He suspected the poisoned man was a prisoner of war, either a republican or a supporter of King Mbavalash, and that the general had wanted to disguise one of his own soldiers before exchanging prisoners, to insert a spy into the enemy ranks. Znembalan had done that kind of transformation before, when he was serving in the People’s Army, but he wasn’t going to help the royalists do it. The geas required him to change back the people he’d transformed, and to heal sick and wounded men, not to obey any and all arbitrary orders.

He returned to the infirmary. Anything interesting happen while I was gone? he asked Zulkhitem.

Pezikhal started groaning and went into a cold sweat, she said. His pulse is weaker than before.

I’ll take him next, then. Where is he...?

---

The republican camp outside Vmanashi. 3/2/16, evening

Psavian returned to the republican camp on foot; he’d abandoned his too-conspicuous mount not long after he left Mbavalash’s camp and stolen a less flashy horse, but it had gotten away from him when he stopped to rest. He approached the sentries and gave the password: Mbavalash eats voles. Someone thought they had a sense of humor.

That was the password two days ago, one sentry said, half-drawing his sword.

I was supposed to return then, but my mission took longer than expected. Get Lieutenant Kazmina or Captain Mbadisan, they can vouch for me; I’m Psavian of Nilepsan, in a sorcerous disguise.

The sentries looked at one another, and the other man said: I’ll go. I think the lieutenant works at the hospital.

Yes, Psavian said, and the captain is usually found at the communication wizards’ tent at this time of day. Hurry.

You’d better undo your disguise before he gets back, the remaining sentry advised.

Only Lieutenant Kazmina can do that, Psavian said. Not exactly true; Znembalan could do it, of course, but he wasn’t available.

A quarter of an hour later the other sentry returned with Captain Mbadisan. He’d seen Kazmina transform Psavian into the likeness of Major Vmalash, and after asking for another password, one he and Psavian had agreed on, he verified his identity. (The real Vmalash was in the prisoner of war camp west of the city; Psavian had mind-probed him before he left, to learn what he needed to know to impersonate him. The man had good second-hand mind-shields, given him by one of Mbavalash’s psychomancers, but Psavian was better, and he had plenty of time to work.)

I’ll take you straight to General Kazhnem, Mbadisan said; he’ll want to know what you learned right away. Then you can trot over to the hospital and have Kazmina change you back.

The news isn’t good. I can tell you that Mbavalash is gathering forces for an attack, and it will be soon.

We thought so. It will be good to have details.

They walked in silence the rest of the way to General Kazhnem’s headquarters. The army was camped outside the city walls of Vmanashi; the officers were lodged in houses confiscated from royalists, or in guest rooms offered them by loyal republicans, while the common soldiers slept in tents erected in fallow fields and pastures. General Kazhnem’s headquarters was in a large house set well back off the road, on the outskirts of the village of Vamban. Psavian announced himself to one of the general’s aides-de-camp, and waited in an antechamber for a quarter of an hour before the general sent for him. Captain Mbadisan went back to the communication wizards’ headquarters.

He was nearly an hour telling the general and his advisors what he had learned while impersonating Major Vmalash, and answering their questions about the build-up toward Mbavalash’s attack on Vmanashi.

After the debriefing, they started talking about preparations for battle, and if necessary defending the city against a siege. Should they evacuate some of the civilians from the city? Who and how many?

If I may suggest, sir, Psavian put in, Lieutenant Kazmina could offer rejuvenating and healing transformations to those who wish to serve the republic but are physically unable to do so due to age or illness. Or enable them to evacuate, as the case may be.

It’s tempting, the general said, but I think Lieutenant Kazmina has more important assignments at present. Time enough to use her for recruitment if we find ourselves besieged and need to turn as many civilians as possible into soldiers. But — Major Pindushna, have someone ask around for veterans of the uprising in King Zhaminash’s second year. Find out where they live and before they evacuate, try to persuade them to volunteer for Lieutenant Kazmina’s research. They’ll be rejuvenated even if her new spell doesn’t work on them...

---

It was getting dark when Psavian reached the hospital where his daughter was stationed, which was inside the city walls. At this time of day he wasn’t sure if she’d be here, or at the junior officers’ mess, or in her quarters... but he suspected he’d find her here.

He identified himself to the sentry and entered, then found his way to Kazmina’s workroom and knocked. A few moments later a weary voice called out, Come in.

He opened the door and found Kazmina sitting at her table, copying something from a slate into a book. A single oil lamp burned on the table, casting inverted shadows onto Kazmina’s face. She looked up as he came in and said: Father! I’m glad you’re back safe.

So am I. I came to see you as soon as I’d been debriefed. But it looks like you’re pretty tired; I can wait and change back tomorrow.

No, I’m fine, I can change you now... She rummaged through things in a cabinet and came up with an envelope, from which she drew a lock of black hair. Moments later, Psavian felt his body shift and change.

There you go, Kazmina said. Oh, I’m more tired than I thought. I’ve been at this for too long.

Kazmina! I told you I could wait. Have you eaten yet?

She glanced out the window at the sunset. Not in too many hours. Let’s go; I’m not going to get much else done here tonight.

They repaired to the officers’ mess and ate supper, a generous portion of corn-meal porridge and a thin slice of ham — the enlisted men would have to make do with just the corn porridge. On the way, Kazmina told him about the slight progress she’d made in her research in the last few days.

I’ve good news, Psavian told her; you’ll be getting a new influx of experimental subjects. The general wants to recruit volunteers among the veterans of... hmm, a certain uprising some years ago. I don’t know the details. He wants you to rejuvenate them and if you can’t make potential wizards, you’ll at least let them return to active duty as soldiers.

Kazmina furrowed her brow. The uprising early in King Zhaminash’s reign? Yeah, those guys would be pretty old, ten or twenty years older than you or Daddy. Kazmina still called her mother Daddy, as he’d been a man most of the time while she was growing up, and Psavian himself (whom she’d known to be her father for less than two years) Father.

What was that uprising about, do you know?

Well... some people say it was a forerunner of the Revolution, but Daddy’s not as sure. He says it was about taxes; the people mostly didn’t object to there being a king or to Zhaminash being king, but they thought they shouldn’t have to pay the usual taxes when the harvest was terrible. And Zhaminash insisted on collecting them all the same.

I see. And I suppose the king’s army defeated the rebels — was it a long campaign?

I don’t remember. If I get a chance to go to the house I can find a book to look it up in. Her mother’s estate, where she’d grown up, was just a few kilometers southwest of the city, but she’d been too busy to visit the place often lately.

No, never mind.

During supper he told her a little of what he’d learned about Mbavalash’s impending attack. She listened, aghast. Oh, Father! I feel useless. I’m going to ask Colonel Tazhlat to reassign me to a combat unit — with the way the war is going, my research isn’t going to bear fruit until after we’re defeated.

I’m sure you’ll reproduce your results eventually, Psavian said.

I’m sure I can too, if I live long enough and have enough volunteers to work on — but even if I start turning people into wizards tomorrow, could they learn enough magic to help us before it’s too late?

---

Ndivalan’s camp. 3/2/17, early morning

When Znembalan woke during the night, he listened carefully to the breathing of his tent-mates and the sounds of the camp around him. All steady and quiet, except for Kiznelan and Tavmem’s snores. He started transforming himself, but he had to work slowly and carefully to avoid setting off the magic-detection spell that Tavmem had put on the tent. And because the transformation was slow, it was more painful than usual; but Znembalan had developed a high pain threshold over many years of using this transformation spell on himself, and he did not cry out, groan or whimper. Sometime after his sentence ended, he told himself, he must learn Psavian’s pain-deadening spell. Kazmina, quick study that she was, had picked it up just a few months after Psavian started teaching her psychomancy.

Slowly, painfully, he shrank down, growing short fur all over, a tail growing out from the base of his spine and his nose and mouth extending into a snout. Once he was completely transformed into a mouse, he rested for a few moments to recover from the pain, then crawled out of his crumpled sheets, scurried down the leg of his cot, and slipped out of the tent.

The geas prevented him from trying to escape, but he’d found that it only prevented him from leaving the camp. He could still wander around the camp at night if he wished, and several times — though not too often, to keep down the risk of detection — he’d snuck out like this to see what he could learn. Once out of the tent, he changed into a black cat, for the longer legs and faster pace, and quickly made his way to General Sevmek’s headquarters, where he’d been summoned the previous day.

There was a guard posted outside, but he took no notice of the cat. Znembalan changed again into a mouse and slipped past him into the tent; there was no one inside. He changed himself into a human, except for his eyes, which he made catlike for better night vision; he couldn’t afford to make a light. Then he started going through the papers on the general’s desk. Maybe he wouldn’t get a chance to report anything he learned until the intelligence was out of date — that had happened before — but it was worth a try.

---

The hospital in Vmanashi. 3/2/17, afternoon

Come in, Kazmina called in answer to the knock. It was Corporal Vmelo, escorting a stoop-shouldered man with sparse white hair who walked with a cane.

Your next volunteer, Corporal Vmelo announced.

Hello, I’m Lieutenant Kazmina daughter of Znembalan, she said, rising in respect for the aged. Come in and have a seat.

The old man did so, and Vmelo left, closing the door behind him. They told me if I joined the army you’d make me young again, he said. Are there a lot of pretty young ladies in the army these days?

A few. Most of them are wizards. There were others who’d disguised themselves as men to join up; Kazmina could spot them a hundred meters away with her wizard-sight despite their best efforts at concealment, but had never exposed them. In some cases she’d approached them discreetly and offered to transform them into men, or adjust their figure to make it easier for them to pass as men; a couple of them had taken her up on it. Let me tell you first something of what I’m working on. I’m researching a new variation on a spell —

I don’t suppose there can be many others as pretty as you, he went on. She smiled wanly and went on to explain the risks of participating in her research.

If you refuse, I’ll just make you young, more or less what you were when you were about twenty. If you agree, I’ll test the experimental spell on you, and you’ll be young again, but you’ll look a little different from what you used to...

Just so long as you don’t mess up my chin, he said cheerily. The girls all used to say it was my best feature. Kazmina sighed and went on to explain how he’d look like his old self’s brother, and would probably be back to looking like his old self an hour or so later if nothing went wrong. Finally, she had his informed consent and was able to begin the pain-deadening spell —

Where’s the privy, young lady? I have to say I can’t hold it as long as I used to.

Kazmina sighed and was about to show him to the privy... No, wait. This was something she could do something about. Yes, you can, she said, and worked a quick partial transformation to expand his bladder capacity and strengthen his sphincters. Now sit still and be quiet, please.

Despite her admonition, he interrupted her twice while she worked the divination establishing a baseline: he had no wizardly potential. So she cut a lock of his hair, worked the pain-deadening spell, and started working variant #57 of the transformation spell, using chapter three of her life-runes to remake the old soldier’s body. His shoulders and back gradually straightened, the wrinkles smoothed out, liver spots and moles vanished, thin wisps of white hair darkened and grew thicker; at last the spell was complete and a young man in his prime sat before her. She took a deep breath and said: Now you can go to the privy. But come right back; I’m not finished with you.

A short while later, when his bladder was empty and she was rested, she worked the divination to detect wizardly potential.

After so many attempts, so many castings of the spell with