Read Online Lamarchos by Jo Clayton - Free Book Online Page A

under dirt, there’s no more problem.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “This damn lump of shit.” She was shivering more violently. “The sooner we get off …”
    â€œYou do it that way, you’ve got another problem.” Aleytys’ voice was cool and crisp, pulling Maissa back around in a wary hunter’s crouch. She straightened and glared at Aleytys.
    Stroking a gentle hand over the speaker’s fluff, Aleytys nodded toward the boy. “Me. You’ll have to do me too. I will not stand aside and watch that boy killed. I will not.”
    â€œYou!” Lips curling in a contemptuous sneer that was part snarl, baring her small ivory teeth, she ran insolent eyes over Aleytys from head to feet then back up again. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, the words came out in clear harsh syllables. “Filthy grubling. You will not? Phah!”
    She wheeled and leaped at the boy who stood gaping at the fury plunging toward him. Face contorted with a hideous combination of rage and killer-lust, hands set for the killing blow, she was a screaming death missile. She bounced off Stavver as he leaped between her and her prey. Moving faster than Aleytys had ever seen him shift his long thin body, he whipped past her as she tottered off balance and wrapped wiry arms about her. “Leyta,” he grunted out. “Get that damn magic of yours working.”
    The diadem sang, flowing in phantom splendor on the blue-black hair while in her head fragmented images of cool wary black eyes flickered hazily at the rim of mental vision, triggering confusion and a ravening curiosity in her. Her body moved, clumsily at first, then with a swift sureness that startled and delighted her. For the first time since the diadem had started taking her body she wasn’t wholly pushed aside, a helpless prisoner in her own skull. She shared the grafted skill and the pleasure she found in it added to the confusion that wheeled in her head. Stavver’s strained face, Maissa’s hate-ugly one reflected the phantom sparks of flickering colors from the jeweled centers of the diadem flowers as they caught the light and reflected it back. “LET HER GO.” Her voice sounded strange to her as if it struggled toward a resonant baritone an octave below her normal tones.
    Stavver nodded. He released Maissa, shoving her roughly forward while he leaped backwards several paces.
    With a shriek Maissa whipped a hand in a three-finger strike at Aleytys’ throat, not bothering to cover out of her contempt for what confronted her. Aleytys swept the hand aside and struck hard, whipping her fist around, so that two knuckles slammed into the juncture of jaw and neck, drawing a grunt of pain out of the smaller woman. Maissa fell back but hit the ground in a quick roll that brought her to her feet poised to attack.
    As soon as the strike was completed Aleytys threw her suddenly skilled body back, ready to attack again if necessary.
    Maissa circled warily probing for weaknesses in Aleytys’ defense, eyes chilling into reluctant respect as she failed to find any opening. Finally, breathing a little too quickly, she moved out of reach and dropped her hands, staring fascinated at the glimmering diadem coiling regally above a stern, drawn face, set in strange lines, a shifting of features into a new conformation that altered Aleytys almost out of recognition. Made obscurely uneasy by this change, Maissa focused on the jeweled crown. Greed seeped in to replace the anger. “The diadem,” she breathed. “The Rmoahl diadem. Stavver said you had it.”
    The black-eyed presence flowed imperceptibly from her nerve webbing as the chimes dimmed to taut silence. Aleytys shrugged. “As you see,” she said, her throat tight, her voice shrill in reaction to its plummet into the lower tones. Olelo came scampering to her, small black hands out, begging to be taken up. Absently she settled the