Trapped

"I'm Rosalind," Jode answered. "The real Rosalind."

"You aren't," the boy said… but he cast a furtive glance at Dreamsinger.

Jode caught the look. "That's another of my mother's doppelgängers. Created by sorcery. She rolled me aside when you weren't looking, but-"

Sebastian interrupted, "What do you mean, rolled you aside?"

"Pushed me sideways. Out of this world. But I had a magic wand that let me come back."

Jode held up a small rod as wide as my pinkie-finger and twice as long. He pushed a button on one end, and suddenly the rod sparkled with lights, like red and green sequins glittering in the dimness. I bet when the rod touched you, it made a soft ‹BINK›.

Dreamsinger glared. "Where did you get that?"

"Stole it from one of my mother's sorcerers. A gullible man who always wore orange."

Jode couldn't hide the taunt in those words. The ‹BINK›-rod had come from the Spark in orange armor-Mind-Lord Priest, killed at the winter anchorage. With such a rod in hand, Jode had apparently avoided the fate of the Lucifer in the tobacco field: when Dreamsinger had "rolled" Jode aside, the alien shapeshifter could use its own ‹BINK›-rod to return. Apparently, such rods could both send you away and bring you back.

Even wearing Rosalind's face, Jode looked smug. And the Lucifer wasn't finished. "Do you want to see who's real?" Jode asked Sebastian. "Use your powers to dispel all the sorcery in this room. You'll see the whole truth."

Dreamsinger had time to narrow her eyes-her beautiful Hafsah eyes, so calm and perfect. Then something went thud in my head, like a concussion from the inside out: things rearranged themselves in my brain, making my body as weak as water. If I hadn't been down on the floor already, I think I would have collapsed. But the dizziness passed in seconds; when my vision stopped reeling, the woman in Sebastian's arms had changed.

The first thing I saw was red-full body armor colored sorcerer's crimson, made of plastic and molded in the shape of a chunkily voluptuous female figure. This was no graceful Hafsah in harem pants; the armor wasn't as bulky as plate mail, but it possessed a similar stolidity. The breasts and hips built onto the underlying shell had the crude excess of a Stone Age fertility carving… so extreme they were almost a parody. Especially in contrast to the woman beneath.

I could finally see the real Dreamsinger because she wasn't wearing her helmet-she must have decided to remove it when she started kissing Sebastian. Surprisingly, the Sorcery-Lord looked the same age as the girl she portrayed: Dreamsinger was a reedy weedy sixteen-year-old whose tan skin revealed vivid acne pimples. Her facial features would have fit in well on the streets of Seoul, but her hair was dyed an unnatural red, the same bright shade as her armor. She hadn't touched up the hair coloring for quite some time, as evidenced by a deep darkness at the roots.

Behold the all-powerful sorceress: a plain-faced poseur decked out like a femme fatale. But I reminded myself Dreamsinger was still lethal-perhaps more than ever, now that her disguise had been stripped away.

Sebastian cringed back from her, sliding along the wall of the airlock shack. Dreamsinger didn't go after him. One hand twitched, and suddenly a rod appeared in her grip, identical to the one held by Jode. She thumbed the activation button, waking red and green glitters along the rod's length. Meanwhile, her other hand snapped into a sorcerous pose, some fingers bent, some splayed, aimed at Sebastian in case he tried a psionic attack; but the boy did nothing except stare aghast.

"Don't look at me that way," Dreamsinger told him, not lowering her guard. Her voice had changed from Hafsah's purring alto into a high and scratchy soprano. "You can see I'm a Spark Lord-you must recognize the armor. So don't get ideas about taking me on. I doubt if you'd win… and if you did, my brothers and sisters would come after you. You wouldn't like that. You wouldn't like that at all."

Sebastian was still staring in horror. "What… when…"

Dreamsinger laughed-a false laugh I'd heard from teenagers many times before. Trying to sound amused and superior when her feelings had just been hurt. "When did I take over Rosalind's place? Did you sleep with me when you thought you were sleeping with her? That would have been just awful, wouldn't it? But I'm not the one you have to worry about, dear brother. I only stepped in a short time ago… while you were killing my Keepers."

Sebastian looked outraged. "They were trying to kill me!"

"True. I knew they wouldn't succeed, but at least they distracted you so I could make my substitution. A valuable sacrifice, don't you think?"

"No," Jode said. The Lucifer hadn't moved since Sebastian knocked away the Element gun. "Sacrifices are only valuable if they accomplish their goal. Otherwise, they're just deaths."

"Rosalind…" Sebastian began.