The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Leusa didn’t trust the woman-wizard, Menupao.

She didn’t like her, but that was another thing entirely. The disliking of a free person by a slave was immaterial, every much as her liking would be: regardless of her feelings, she would still have to serve and be pleasing to the best of her abilities, because she was a mere slave. Leusa didn’t like the woman-wizard because Menupao was caustic and complaining and treated Leusa’s Master without the respect that was his due as a man. The wizard had also stolen control of her and Otieria’s bodies just to make a point. That was rude, especially in regard to a free woman like Otieria (less so for herself).

But all that was irrelevant, truly. Leusa didn’t trust Menupao; and she thought her Master was making a terrible mistake in collaborating with her.

Under different circumstances, she might have addressed her concerns with her Master, the Man-Wizard Alcaeus. But that would have been before what he had done to Lord Teuthes.

They were still hiding in the abandoned hovel. Menupao had spent hours examining the four masks Leusa’s Master had retrieved. She had taken the one mask different from the others and splayed it out on a table, waving her hands over it and chanting, holding the piece of leather in place with jewels she had formerly worn in her hair.

Later, she took out a knife and went to work on it, humming in a disturbing manner.

Eventually, she had turned to the three identical masks. Conducting her magic, the wizard had levitated all three into the air; and she had walked around them, occasionally touching one with her finger. After a time, near dawn, with the light shining in through the cracks in the hovel’s boards and illuminating the dust, Leusa had seen, or thought she had seen, the half-image of three women’s bodies behind the masks, the masks floating at head level, as if they were worn by half-invisible slave girls, and the masks were the only things truly non-transparent. Leusa had shivered, thinking they looked like three identical ghosts.

At long last, Menupao turned to Leusa’s Master. She took the dissected mask from the table.

The woman-wizard held it open and showed the shredded reverse side to Alcaeus. “The spells are ancient and complex,” Menupao said. “But I would have expected no less of the Sarothonim.” She put the leather face on the table, carefully, as if it might explode. “Fortunately, the application is simple, which is the case so often in complex, ancient magic.

“The pattern for the transformation lies in the mask itself. The box is the key, the mask the lock.”

“Less metaphor, more what we’re going to do,” Alcaeus said, impatiently. Leusa’s Master had been charged by his wizard guild to guard Otieria, the squire’s daughter softly crying in the corner of the room. Last night, teams of matched men-and-women had attempted to enslave Otieria with these very masks Menupao had been experimenting with, learning their secrets. Now they had to get out of the city, but these teams were still out searching for them. They needed a good disguise.

And what better disguise among identical slave girls could there be but as another identical slave girl?

Menupao pressed her lips together. Leusa perceived she was holding some curt remark back. Then she just continued: “The way it works, the woman wearing the mask is put in the box. The magic of the box unfolds the charm in the mask, transforming the woman into a standardized slave. It’s the combination that makes the change permanent. I can evoke the same transformation, temporarily, but only with your help.”

Alcaeus’ forehead creased. “How?”

“You have a charm on your person,” Menupao said, pointing. Leusa’s Master reached into his pocket and after a moment’s rummaging pulled out a small gold pendant. “I detected it earlier. That was made by a Pecthent wizard to be used on a Pecthent slut, to restore her memory temporarily.” Leusa had never seen this charm before, but her Master had spoken of it. He had acquired it in Utiae so he could speak to a slave he had once known before she had been made a slave. “We’ll have to experiment on your slut after all, Alcaeus.” Leusa drew back and put her head down. “If she wears both a mask and the charm, I can conjure a sympathy spell for myself and Otieria, who will also be wearing masks, and mirror the effect. We’ll all transform, but when you remove the charm from Leusa, we’ll be restored to our rightful forms.”

“Mixing wizardly styles is dangerous. I said before . . . .”

“If we want to do this, we have no choice,” Menupao said. “The power of the mask is strong. If I alone wore a mask, I could restore myself.” Her eyes shifted, and Leusa could tell she was either lying or unsure. “Without some kind of edge, though, I could not restore Otieria.”

The squire’s daughter bit her lips. “I think this is a bad idea,” she said, quietly. No one paid her any attention. “I want to go home,” she said.

“I’m not even sure I could remove the mask once it was in place,” the woman-wizard said. “But your charm was made to work on a Daoxechent slave to restore her identity, and it’s that magic that I’ll amplify. The important thing is . . .” and Menupao closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, “. . until the charm is removed, we’ll only be these Sarothonim slaves, in mind and body. You must make sure we’re never put into one of the Sarotho boxes, afterwards. I think that’s what’s done, periodically, to restore their health and youth.

“Only in our case, it would make any temporary change permanent.”

“I just wanted to get married,” Otieria said quietly. “I want to go home. Why can’t I just go home?”

Alcaeus and Menupao were still discussing the magic. Leusa took pity on the free young woman. “Forgive me, mistress,” she said to her, approaching on her knees. She gently took Otieria’s hand. “But your enemies will pursue you to whichever ship you attempt to board. They’re searching the city for you.”

“Can’t we hide?” Otieria sniffed and dabbed her nose.

“No, mistress. I’m sorry. Your enemies are using magic to find you. Menupao is screening you, but eventually they will break through. And then they would enslave you, forever.”

Otieria dabbed her eyes. “I don’t want to be a slave,” she whispered to Leusa.

“I know, mistress.”

“But I especially don’t want to be one of . . . those kind of slaves. It’s like their faces are . . . gone.”

“Yes, mistress. My Master will help you, if he can.”

Otieria gripped Leusa’s hand. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re . . . you’re very kind to me. Nobody else is.” She sniffed. “I want my husband. He would protect me.”

“Yes, mistress. We’ll bring you to him.” If possible, Leusa added silently.

Some months ago, Lord Teuthes, an old and respected senator of De, had come to her Master with a similar problem. No: more than a problem: he had come in desperation and fear not for his life but the lives of those he cared about. The Woman-Wizard Noalassa, of the same wizard order as Menupao belonged, had threatened to turn all the women he cared about in life into slaves and sexual playthings. Leusa’s Master had been forbidden to take direct action against Noalassa, and in any case his magic would have been ineffective against her. So, instead, her Master had taken the wind out from under Noalassa’s sails: he had stripped Teuthes of his ability to feel compassion. Her Master had turned Teuthes into a loveless monster, a cruel barbarian.

The strategy had worked. Noalassa had wanted to hurt Teuthes; but seeing as how he could no longer be hurt, she had subsequently ignored the old Teuthes’ loved ones. They were well and fine now.

Leusa hated what her Master had done. She understood the necessity—Noalassa would have found Teuthes’ women no matter where they had been spirited off, and the vengeances she would have taken on them would have been brutal—but this presented no change in her feelings. It was a wrong thing that had been done. It had had to be done, probably; but it was still wrong.

That was the worst part of it: the guilt.

Leusa loved her Master. She loved Alcaeus with every fiber of her being, from her toes to her tits; and though there was, possibly, no need for forgiveness, and certainly the forgiveness given by a slave was meaningless, Leusa forgave her Master. He had not, however, forgiven himself; and because she had spoken out at the time, she knew she had become the representation of his guilt. They had become distant since Teuthes, both guilt-stricken. Her Master still fucked her (though not as often as before), and she still served him (though he often spent more time alone now); but there was a divide between them, and neither of them could cross it. Leusa knew she was going to be sold soon.

“So, are we decided?”

Menupao held forth her hand, imperiously. After a moment’s reluctance, Leusa’s Master put the charm in her palm. The woman-wizard went to the table and arranged the three identical masks in a triangle pattern with the gold pendant in the middle. She then put her hands over the arrangement and started whispering, chanting. Presently, the pendant began to glow, and a similar glow formed around each of the masks. The other three people in the room stayed silent.

When she was finished with her spell, the wizard handed a mask to Otieria. “Put it on.”

Otieria fell back. “No,” she said, shaking her wildly. “No, you can’t make me . . . .” She stopped, blinked, then took the mask from Menupao. “Thank you, mistress,” she said, suddenly contrite and obedient. She drew the mask over her face, eyes behind the eyeholes calm.

“Slut,” Menupao then said, handing Leusa the second mask. Leusa looked to her Master, who nodded. With reluctance but obedience foremost in her heart and soul, Leusa took the proffered mask and put it on. As soon as she did, she felt it wriggle against her flesh. The inside surface of the mask pressed down upon her skin like a living thing. Every wrinkle smoothed out. In a moment, it was like she was wearing a second skin over her face.

Halfheartedly, she tried to remove it. It stuck fast. Leusa realized sickly that once one of these accursed things were worn, the woman wearing it would necessarily have to be transformed: while Leusa could breathe through the mask, she would have been able neither to eat nor drink.

Menupao took the third mask. The wizard hesitated, then, gritting her teeth, she drew it on. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. At length, she turned to Leusa’s Master. “When I start the spell, put the charm around Leusa’s throat.” Her voice was muffled but still discernible. “The charm will draw in psychic energy and save it for the reverse-transformation.”

Alcaeus lifted an eyebrow at this statement; nonetheless, he held the pendant up and moved closer to Leusa. “I’m ready,” he said.

And the transformation began.

At a slave market in Jondy, Alcaeus purchased, at a disturbingly cheap price, a fourth Eura to help camouflage the other three temporarily in his possession. At a nearby stall, he also bought three gold pendants similar to the one Leusa wore, albeit without the magical enchantments. He decorated the transformed Otieria and Menupao with them, along with the fourth unnamed Eura. He also bought them matching slave tunics. Disturbingly again, the vendor who sold him the tunics gave the wizard a recommendation, once Alcaeus informed him that they were for Euras: apparently, the rags were specially tailored for a Eura’s particular curves, and their color brought out a Eura’s skin tones more.

He was proven right. Once worn, the slaves were stunning in them: blond, perky, blank-eyed. All the vendors’ wares were tailored for particular models of slave girl, the wizard noted. As he had with the jewelry vendor, Alcaeus gave the man a command, some money, and then moved on.

The wizard wondered whom the woman had once been, the fourth Eura he now owned, and whether she had been rightfully convicted of a crime deserving of enslavement or had merely fallen prey to enslavers: the slave could hardly tell her himself (“We are Eura, master. We are here to serve. How may we see to your pleasure?").

The Sarothonim were a guild of women-wizards. Hence, their clairvoyance, their precognition, could only be directed at other females. Alcaeus thought it unlikely—yet not impossible—that his own involvement had been exposed, especially since he had slain the Sarothonim’s agents before they could report. The guild would be looking for Otieria and Pao, possibly in disguise: the Nyccleth had slain her own sets of enemy agents, so the blame for all might fall solely unto her.

The Sarothonim probably wouldn’t be on the lookout for a man with four identical slave girls all named “Eura.” Or so Alcaeus hoped.

For reasons of subterfuge, Alcaeus did not proceed directly on the month-long road to Marbat but decided to take up residence in a boarding house in the port city and while away a few days. As a wizard of the Ainchonnim Order, there was more than enough mundane business in Jondy that he could justify his presence. Still, he was worryingly concerned that his being there would be noted by the woman-wizards. Jondy was a big city; but coincidences were not favorably viewed by wizards.

After a few days, he found a third man, a merchant traveler, and gave him too a command, as well as some money from his purse. Then the wizard returned to the hostel.

While in the company of the Euras he had, at the hostel and, later, on the road to Marbat, Alcaeus found himself uncharacteristically celibate. It wasn’t impotency—he was a man-wizard, so that wasn’t even a possibility. He just wasn’t aroused. The Euras were undeniably pretty. They had beautiful legs, their blond hair was shiny and vibrant, their breasts and backsides were nicely shaped and more than suitable for caressing. They very much wanted to please him. “This Eura is here to serve,” one would say, handing him something, anything. “How may Eura see to your pleasure?” And she would bat her eyes and look up at him, mouth half open, obviously in need. If he had met one of these girls in a brothel, he would not have turned her out of bed. Yet that was the very crux of the issue: it wasn’t one.

He couldn’t tell them apart, Otieria, Menupao, or the fourth Eura; and he could only discern which Eura was Leusa by the enchantment of the pendant she wore. Once, he ordered them to hold on to numbers which he assigned them (“You are Number One,” he told the first Eura on the left. “You are Number Two. You are Three. And you are Number Four."); but they couldn’t.

“We are Eura, master. We are here to serve.” The only identity they could retain apparently was the one the masks had given them.

Their complete sameness turned him off. It was as simple as that. That, and their eyes: every time one of the Euras turned her glazed-white, robotically empty gaze upon him, he shuddered a little inside.

It had been even worse when his ‘Leusa’ had done it. “What is your name?” he had asked her one night, while the others were in the next room. He had known they were awake. They didn’t sleep.

“We are Eura, master. We are here to serve.” She had knelt at his feet gazing up at him, that vacant gaze going beyond him, it seemed, to the ceiling and to the skies above: there was no way of telling.

“Yes, I know that.” Alcaeus had leaned in close. He had handled the Pecthent pendant around her throat. “But what do you remember what your name was?”

In addition to the same face and the same body, the same hair and the same voice, all the Euras had the same facial expressions. When one was in need, her mouth opened in exactly the same way, her nipples hardened in exactly the same way. For the first time, Alcaeus had seen something distinctive in this one’s face. “We . . we remember . . .” She had frowned. Her white eyes had narrowed, as if in thought. “We were called ‘Leusa,’ master. We were the slave ‘Leusa.’”

Alcaeus had brushed his hair back from his forehead with both hands. Success, he had thought. He had been tempted to just rip the pendant off her, there and then. “What else do you remember?” he had asked.

“We were transformed into a Eura,” ‘Leusa’ had said. “We were transformed into a slave. We were owned by you, master.” She had touched her temples, as if in pain. “Before that, we were a free woman. We were the Lady Leusa Ioles.” She had then let out a deep breath, smiled the uniform smile of a Eura again, and looked up at Alcaeus. “But we are no longer those people. We are Eura. We are here to serve. How may we see to your pleasure?”

She had inched forward and pressed her breasts to his legs.

“Are you in pain, Leusa?” Alcaeus had asked. “Is it hard? Tell me the truth, and I’ll end this now.”

Another non-Eura expression of thoughtfulness had crossed the Eura’s face. “No, master. Please. Do not . . there is no need. We are here to serve.” She had crawled up into Alcaeus’ lap, and he had held her. “We feel ourselves wanting to be Eura. But . .” She had sighed. “We can resist. We can resist, as long as it is necessary to resist.” She had reached up, taken hold of the pendant, touched Alcaeus’ hand as their hands met.

“This helps. We are not all Eura because of it. We recall what and who we were.” She had sobbed then. “We do not want to be a Eura! Please, do not take it off, master. We do not want to be a Eura!” Alcaeus had held her tight. “If I take it off, you’ll be restored,” he had told her. “I’ll do it. Right now, I’ll do it. To the hells with the bride.”

“No, master. We do not believe that. We want to save her. We need to save her.”

She had pulled herself out his grip. She had stood before him.

“We are Eura, master. We are here to serve. We must go to Marbat first. Please, master. First.”

She had knelt then at his feet. The lines of pain in her face had evened out. It had been as if she were letting go of a heavy burden. “We are Eura, master. We are here to serve. How may we serve your pleasure?” The voice and intonations were perfectly Eura uniform.

Alcaeus had taken hold of the pendant again. He had stood for a moment, debating with himself, still unsure.

The Eura’s lips had trembled before resuming that cursed Eura smile. “We love you. We can resist as long as necessary, master.” He had believed her. And so he had made his final exchanges and set out the very next day.

Outside of Jondy, the Shossinian countryside was wild and majestic. There was a coastal road that Alcaeus could have followed, but with horses and a wagon he decided to take the less frequented routes available, using the stars and his magic to navigate. He avoided the dense, dark forests that predominated. The rocky hills also presented difficulties. Still, every night he made a campfire, and putting up (and taking down again) tents with his telekinesis was easy. The Euras, however, were not good company: “We are Eura, master. We are here to serve. How may we see to your pleasure?” He was getting sick of the phrase, which constituted much of their working vocabulary.

As for fucking them, he just didn’t have any interest.

Leaving Jondy, he was stopped several times by soldiers. “Where are you headed?” they would ask, and Alcaeus would tell them nothing but the truth. They were keenly interested in the four Euras in his possession; but eventually, after examining them, they always let him and the slaves go.

After a few days in the wilderness, even these brief stoppages stopped. The weather was cold, despite the island’s more southerly clime; and he was glad he had bought warmer outfits for the girls.

About a week and a half after leaving the city, Alcaeus was tending the night’s fire when he sensed the presence of another wizard. He stopped poking the campfire and stood.

He waited, patiently. At length, a female figure came into the light.

“We have no quarrel with you, Ainchon,” this figure said. She stepped a little closer. The woman-wizard wore a silken, unornamented dark-green dress, shiny, draped over a shapely figure, save for her arms, which were completely bare, without bracelets or jewelry. Her black hair was tightly arranged in an almost monastic bun. Her skin was the light gray of Ancient Shajjwashan. The woman’s face was preternaturally still; Alcaeus thought she was wearing a mask at first until she spoke. “Turn over the merchant’s daughter, and you may go in peace.”

Alcaeus held his arms out to the sides, showing them empty. “I don’t have her,” he said. Behind him, the four Euras all assumed identical postures of submission.

The barest, barest hint of a smile crossed the Sarotho wizard’s unadorned lips.

“We find that unlikely. You slew our agents. Otieria and her Nyccleth defender disappeared after you spoke with them. Your own slave girl has vanished. Since arriving in Shossin, you have gained four Euras in your possession, after but purchasing only one. Your plan is obvious.”

Alcaeus’ grin was wider than hers. “Pray tell, please.” He could hear others moving in the darkness outside the fire light. Moreover, the absence his psychic senses detected (or, rather, non-detected) told him that he was surrounded exclusively by female opponents. A good, strategic move on their part.

“Somehow, you have managed to disguise Otieria, the Nyccleth, and your slave as Euras,” the woman-wizard said. Her features had become once more porcelain still. “While we searched Jondy for the merchant’s daughter, you smuggled her out. After all, no one would associate a common Eura with the girl we wanted. And, even if so, we might have thought she had actually been transformed into a Eura, which was and still is our intent. That, or transformed into another harmonious girl.”

“Is that what you call your duplicate slaves? Harmonious girls?”

“Harmonious, yes. They are in harmony in mind, in harmony in body, with all trace of their previously disgusting individualities erased.” There was no tone of sarcasm in the woman’s voice, such as might have dripped from the mouth of Menupao. “The plague of uniqueness from which they suffered is cured at our hands.” Two other figures walked into view and came to stand side-by-side with the woman-wizard. Alcaeus blinked, surprised. So, he thought. It’s not just their slaves. It’s . . . everything.

For the newcomers he saw were absolutely identical to the first Sarotho wizard with which he had been speaking. They wore the same dress, they were the same height, they had the same body, they had the same face. They had the same aura of power and authority. They might have been identical triplet-wizards standing in front of him.

“The Nyccleth must have worked a spell to turn herself and the others in Euras,” the wizard on the left said.

“Clearly, she intended to reverse this transformation,” the wizard on the right said. “We are interested in how she managed to accomplish this, if successfully accomplish it she did. Perhaps, despite her intent, she failed.”

“We were of the opinion that the transformations imposed by our masks were permanent,” the wizard in the middle spoke. The voices of all three were, of course, identical. “We will need to investigate. But above all, Ainchon, we still want the merchant’s daughter. The alliance her father has arranged with the Seat Holders of Shossin is an impediment to our Absolute Ruler’s plans for this land.”

“It insults him,” the Sarotho on the left said.

“It insults we who serve the Absolute Ruler,” the Sarotho on the right said. The two on the outside nodded in unison. “But, as we said,” the one in the middle said (Her turn? Alcaeus thought), “we wish no quarrel with your wizard order, despite your interference. Turn over the Euras now, please.”

“We will examine them,” the left-wizard said. “Rest assured, we mean them no harm. If the transformation they have undergone is permanent, they shall be returned to you. It is only their uniqueness that we want destroyed. You may have what is left.”

“Thanks,” Alcaeus said, sotto voce.

“If their transformations, on the other hand, are found to be reversible,” the right-wizard said, “if they have managed somehow to duplicitously conceal their individuality, we will need to examine them. This may take some time. We are near a small town, as you may already know. A room could be arranged for you, easily. Once cured of their disease, your Euras shall be returned to you.”

“But if you fight us,” the middle-wizard spoke at last, “we will have no choice but to respond in kind. You would not win, for where you are but one, we are . . . not.”

Alcaeus heard more rustling in the dark. He felt the air pressure change. All the forest noise ceased.

“What is your decision, Ainchon Wizard?” the three in front spoke in unison, identically. They spread their identical hands, obviously ready to cast spells in his direction. Their magic couldn’t touch him, personally; but it could affect everything else in his environs: his clothes, the ground, the trees, even the air itself. Where wizards fought, the land was devastated.

“I choose . . ,” and he licked his lips, smacking them. “. . to take you up on your kind offer,” Alcaeus said, finally. He bowed, then stood aside.

He had the satisfaction of seeing the three wizards blink in surprise, so ready had they been to fight him.

He gestured, and the four identical Euras stood as one. “How may we serve your pleasure, master?” they said, in unison, breathing heavily.

“These ladies would like to speak with you, dears,” Alcaeus said.

“You sur . . surrender them?” All three wizards had spoken at once, brief stutter and all.

“Yes,” Alcaeus said, briefly, pointedly. “After all, they are just slaves, yes?” He saw the Sarotho wizards nod, still suspicious. “Take all the time you need to examine them.”

They did. Their examination took all night and much of the next day. Alcaeus did take them up on their offer, and true to their word the Sarothonim put him up for the night at a tavern in the small village down the road. He had a nice dinner, the first in a few weeks, and slept in a clean bed. It was heavenly.

“We could find nothing amiss,” one of the woman-wizards said to him the second day. “They are Euras, totally, in body and mind. They are perfectly harmonious.” She seemed satisfied yet at the same time disappointed. Alcaeus maintained his composure only with skills taught him by his peers.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Alcaeus said, blandly. “I take it I’m free to go?”

“Yes,” the Sarotho said.

“With my slaves?”

“Yes, of course. We are not thieves.” Her sisters-companions-clones had not joined them for this last exchange. “We were right, weren’t we? That was your plan? The Nyccleth wizard turned herself into a Eura, hoping to restore herself later on?” She sounded rather desperate for this confirmation.

“I really couldn’t say.”

“And she did the same with your slave and the merchant’s daughter. Yes, of course that it what she did.” Despite her gray porcelain exterior, the woman-wizard seemed distressed, though in a remote, disconnected fashion, such as might occur with a minor breach of etiquette observed from across a wedding reception. “Her magic failed, then. She and the others became the Euras they had only attempted to pretend to be.”

“I really couldn’t say.”

The wizard met his eyes. “You are still traveling to the Seat of Marbat?” Alcaeus nodded. “Convey to the Seat Holder our regrets concerning the loss of his bride. Do you intend to give him these Euras?”

“Yes.”

“An ironic gesture, and the same we ourselves intended to make. For that, and the courtesies you have accepted and given, we will forgive the deaths of our agents. But do not cross us again in Shossin.”

The wizard then shook her head. “No magic can restore them, you know. They are and forever will be Euras.” Another half-amused expression briefly crossed her face. “We will do the same to the next daughter sent to Fradlex in hopes of marriage by a merchant of De. Kindly tell him that as well, please.”

“I will do so,” Alcaeus said, shortly before leaving. “But I don’t think it will matter all that much.”

The remainder of his journey to Marbat was uneventful, and a leisurely three weeks later Alcaeus arrived at that coastal city. “Wait here,” he told the four Euras, at another boarding house, soon after settling.

“Yes, master,” they chorused. “We are here to serve.” They busied themselves making up his room, happy to be doing something, anything, for him.

Alcaeus had never been in Marbat before, so it took him the better part of a day to find both the building he wanted and one of the Sarotho transformation boxes. The latter he “borrowed” without permission, but he would ensure that it was returned long before it was missed. He didn’t want to get into any more trouble with the Sarothonim. Presently enough, he knocked on the door of a private residence, and when the door opened, he said, “I’m expected.”

The vendor who had sold him the Eura slave tunics back in Jondy nodded his head in respect and let him in. Inside, two other people were waiting: the jewelry salesman from Jondy, who had sold him the pendants, and the Marbatian merchant who owned this house.

“I take it everything went well,” Alcaeus declared, and the three men nodded. “Yes, sir. There were no problems at all.” The merchant went to a side door and opened it. Three Euras wearing gold pendants strolled into the room and knelt in the middle of the floor.

There was one benefit, Alcaeus had found, to the interchangeability of the Sarothonim’s “harmonious girls,” and it was that even their creators, apparently, could get them confused at a distance. Making the exchanges had hardly taken any misdirection at all: as the women-wizards themselves had told him, one Eura was the same as another. He had bought one. The three men he had ensorcelled in Jondy—given a magical command, and money, of course—had each also bought a Eura. His weeks in Jondy had given him plenty of opportunity to switch them around; and it wasn’t as if the Sarothonim could descry what they were doing, being men, after all. And while he had taken the long, obvious, overland route from Jondy to Marbat, the three of them—the two vendors and the merchant—had taken the same ship Otieria and Menupao had planned to take in the first place, with none the wiser. Simplicity itself.

“The slaves are well, gentlemen?” the man-wizard asked his three subjects. Their eyes were slightly dazed: Alcaeus hadn’t wanted to put them too completely into his power. “Yes, sir,” each man spoke.

“Excellent, excellent,” Alcaeus said. He looked over the three Euras. Again, he could not tell them apart, physically. But he could discern which one was his Leusa by the enchantment on her pendant.

He paid the men. “Thank you, sir, again,” the jewelry vendor told him, shaking his hand with both of his. “I’ve never enjoyed a trip more. The things that Eura could do with her mouth were . . were fantastic!”

“I’m glad she pleased you,” Alcaeus said, and he genuinely was. “Perhaps now you’ll have enough money to purchase your own.”

“I’ll buy a set of three!” the man declared, laughing. Alcaeus laughed with him and gently edited the fellow’s memories so that he would have only the faintest recollections of the “favor” he had done the wizard.

“I’ll need your house for another few hours,” he told the merchant. He had been returning to Marbat anyway. Alcaeus had surreptitiously been monitoring their progress—they were men—on his trip. The Sarothonim’s agents had never even looked in the merchant’s direction, his possession of a Eura notwithstanding. “Take all the time you want, sir,” the fellow said. He left, a little vaguer but richer.

“We are Eura, master,” the three identical slaves said to him when he returned with the box. “We are here to serve. How may we see to your pleasure?” Alcaeus levitated the Sarotho instrument into the middle of the room. “You,” he told ‘Leusa,’ “stand off to the side.” He looked over the transformed Otieria and Menupao. He couldn’t tell which was which, which was unfortunate because both would have to go into the box. He opened the side door and told them both to squeeze in. “Yes, master.”

He closed the door and locked it. Then, taking a deep breath, he went over to Leusa and removed the pendant from around her throat. Immediately, as he had expected, she collapsed to the floor, unconscious. At the same time, he heard rustling sounds from inside the transformation box.

He put his hands on it, ready to turn it. “Can you hear me, Pao?” he spoke loudly into the side. “You had better say something, or I’ll make sure you stay a Eura forever.” He nudged it a little forward.

There was more rustling. Alcaeus detected the aura of magic, woman-magic. “Yes,” he heard eventually. It both was and wasn’t the voice of a Eura, both was and wasn’t the voice of Menupao.

“Leusa was afraid that if I removed the pendant, she wouldn’t turn back into herself, that she would stay a Eura forever. I believed her. For your sake, she had better not.”

He heard a fist pounding on the inside of the box. “Let me out! Let me out!” Alcaeus heard Otieria whimpering, apparently confused. “I demand that you let me out!”

“Restore Leusa first, or I turn the box.”

“There . . there isn’t enough energy to return all three of us to normal,” Pao said, moaning.

“So you lied.” Hardly surprising, from a Nyccleth.

No reply, just more pounding. Alcaeus looked over at the Eura on the floor beside him. “If she awakens a Eura, then a Eura you and the bride will stay, forever.” Again, he nudged the box a little forward. One of the symbols on the side started to glow.

“NO! NO, WAIT!!” the Nyccleth wizard screamed. “I’ll . . . I’ll try, you bastard!” Alcaeus stepped back when he heard Menupao start chanting. He waited.

A few minutes later, Leusa lifted her face, framed as it always had been by his long, raven-black hair.

“Master?” she asked, looking around. “Is it over?” She stood and looked down at herself. No trace of the blond Eura remained, only the slave girl Alcaeus had found so much favor with in the first place.

He loved her so much. But he knew it was a weakness.

“Yes,” he said. He opened the box. Otieria scrambled out, nude and trying to cover herself up, crying. Pao just fell out onto her side, naked and unconscious, exhausted from the unprepared effort to use so much magical energy. She was still breathing, though, which Alcaeus supposed was a good thing.

The wizard ignored the two other women. He turned to Leusa. “We’re in Marbat,” he said. “It’s over.” He sighed deeply, remembering his promise to himself to sell her before he returned home.

He controlled his voice, finding only a little tremor in it when he spoke. “Find something for yourself and Otieria to wear. We have to . . . present her to her husband, after all.” He blinked back tears.

In the end, when everything was said and done, it was a beautiful marriage.