"Go away, beggar-brat!:

The words rang harshly through the crowded marketplace of Starhmoor. Metise threw her begging-bowl to the ground and wept, her tears more the result of hunger and frustration than of the abuse. She'd been begging for as long as she could remember, some eighteen years now, and a few words of refusal made little difference to her.

Her prematurely grey hair, rather small frame and too-lean body, the result of a lifetime of near-starvation, were all-too plainly noticeable, especially as she leaned against a nearby wall and tried to forget how many days it had been since she'd last eaten. The odors of various foods being cooked in the shops, however, made it impossible to keep her thoughts on anything but her hunger. She felt faint, and wished only that she could have a single scrap of meat.

No. No more. She remembered being told that sitting and wishing for meat was one of the first signs of approaching death. A person that sat and did not move, it was said, soon lost the will to live and died soon after that.

Suddenly afraid, she struggled to her feet. Somewhere in Starhmoor, she thought, there must be scraps of food for the taking. But where? The market stalls had been no good; she was not allowed to enter the wealthy section of the city; and the shadowed alleys of thieves' haven offered no hope to her. Most of its denizens were little better off than she was.

That left only two places; the charnel houses where the dead were burned, and, along the northwestern wall of Starhmoor, the glimmering dark towers of the city's wizards. Neither place was one where a sane person would go, only one driven mad by sorrow -- or by hunger.

She easily climbed the wall separating the charnel houses from the rest of Starhmoor. It was sloping on the city side and contained many places for a convenient hand- or foot-hold. Even then she had to sit down after reaching the top and regain what little strength she still had.

She didn't wait as long as she would have preferred. The sight of the low, long charnel houses and the eerily lifelike shadows caused by the flickering fires inside where the dead were burned was more than enough to force her quickly to her feet and a long the top of the wall. She walked swiftly, trying not to remember what she'd heard about the souls of the dead remaining until their mortal bodies were destroyed by fire. Yet, how could the dead know if a starving person were to sneak into one of the burning houses and remove an arm or leg to feast upon?

Abruptly, she shuddered at the revulsive thought and forced herself to keep looking straight ahead. Not far away the towers of the wizards stood lean and tall like silvery bones thrust upright out of the ground. For a moment she considered turning back, but then the terrible hollowness in her stomach drove her on.

She moved like a stalking animal now, her mind full of half-realized demons and age-old horrors that were rumored to guard the towers. Each step came slower as she neared them, but she did not stop, even when the wall abruptly split and veered away from her in either direction.

The towers were right ahead of her now, less than fifty feet away. She looked down into the pale, plantless yard and saw that, surrounding the base of each tower, a swirling circle of light about seven feet in height formed a sort of protective barrier. In places it seemed thick and heavy as drying blood, and in other areas it was so thin she could see right through it. Taking a deep breath, she sat down on the wall, swung her legs over the edge, then dropped down into the yard.

The circle of light might have been effective in keeping out a rival wizard, but it drifted away from her like mist as she approached one of the towers. She sighed in relief then, tremblingly, reached out to touch the heavy wooden door.

It was unlocked and swung open easily as she pushed it inward a crack. Half-expecting something to leap at her out of the darkened room inside, she waited a long moment then slipped in with a frantic rapidity. The feeling of being observed never left her from that moment on.

The chamber was dark and still, so quiet that her her slightest noise seemed to echo within it. She moved one cautious step at a time, testing for any objects in front of her before setting a foot down. The only light was a firefly-glow on the far side of the room, and she headed slowly toward it.

It took her a few minutes to realize that the glimmer came from around the edges of a trapdoor set in the ceiling. By this time she was almost under it, and found the set of stairs leading to the trapdoor quite by accident, nearly falling over them. Making her way upwards on her hands and knees, not daring to move at anything faster than a crawl, she stopped a number of times when she thought she heard a sound not of her making.

At last, when she could go no higher, she put a shoulder against the trapdoor and shoved raising it just enough to see into the room above. Though dark, there was enough light to make her blink for a few seconds until her eyes became used to it.

The room, as far as she could tell, was empty of any living thing. Abruptly hurling herself upwards, she set the trapdoor back down quietly then glanced around a second time. Seeing nothing, she stood upright and began walking toward another staircase on the far side of the chamber.

She hadn't gone more than her own length from the trapdoor when one of the shadows abruptly moved. She glimpsed the sinuous, twisting, many-armed shadow beside her, and whirled around to view only empty space. Shrieking, she knelt down and clawed at the door to pull it up again, but the rope handle disappeared from her grasp even as she strained at it.

"Who sent you here to spy on Pordyf? Answer me!"

She looked up, startled at the noiseless appearance of the mad-eyed man in the dust-brown robe. Trembling, too frightened to speak, she lowered her head and tried to crawl away from him.

"I felt your presence as soon as you slipped through my fence outside, but waited to see how far you would come. I believe Zortos is your employer; this has his touch. Well, for his insolence, and for your treachery, both of you shall be well served. I will deal with him presently, but will first attend to you, the street urchin he thought to use against me. Dearly indeed shall you pay."

She shrank down as he strode to her, the only thought in her that of escape, even though she knew it was far too late for that. She dared not even look up at him, but lay quivering as he raised his hands and brought them together above her gaunt form. A fine powder, so light that a breeze would have blown it away, drifted onto her, every grain of the dust seeming to strike her like a large stone.

"This curse for one year I lay on thee,
and none but your lover can set you free.
If you hear in that time these words not respoken,
the spell, once set, shall never be broken!
Like a serpent you came, like a serpent you go,
and throughout your body the fire shall flow.
Death-tailed and leather-winged shall you fly.
Not by sword, nor spear, nor arrow to die.
You shall ever hate the worm that thou be,
and given each month a fresh agony.
For birth at that time, a young dragon shall give,
and do so your lifetime, though eternity you live!"

She shrieked at the words, sobbing softly in the half-darkness. Her body suddenly felt like it was burning from within as though the inner skin had become a smoldering fire. Writhing in pain, she began tearing at her flesh until she tore it and pulled great handfuls of it away in ragged patches. Underneath the skin, the dull sheen of hard, dust-green scales shone with its own light.

She felt the stoniness of them and screamed again, continuing to rip at her skin even as she abruptly realized she no longer had hands but thin feet with three sharp claws on each foot. The weight of two great wings growing from near her ribs held her down as her body seemed to flow in all directions like water, and what little remained of her skin was shredded as she grew. There were no more screams now, only a steady hissing that became ever louder. The first sight of her tail, lying in a coil, brought a scalding, hideous shame that made her inner fires seem cold in comparison. She heaved her heavy body up on four long legs, and from her nostrils a thin jet of flame drove back the darkness.

"Enough!' Pordyf said, pleasedly surveying the huge form that now crouched before him. "Does it please you to know that you alone, among the intelligent creatures of Elysia, will be forever unable to speak? Your silence, thus, will never reval the words that can save you. The need for flesh will soon cause all to hate you and try to slay you, but there is nothing that can harm you. Now begone! The walls will let you pass only this once."

He confidently turned away, paying her no further heed as he walked rapidly from her. Metise watched him striding across the floor, and, as her mind cleared, recalled the ravenous hunger that had driven her to the tower in the first place. Her skin still burned from within, as it forever would, but she ignored the pain as she raised her head on its long neck, reached and brought her jaws down around the abruptly squealing wizard, Picking him up in the way a cat would a mouse, she bit once and felt hisa struggles cease. He provided only a small gulp, one bare mouthful, but the most satisfying meal she ever had.

(Note: This has since been reprinted in Polish)