Page 32 of Stone
“I was changed, yes, but I had no control over it. The priestess did it to save me. To allow me to get my revenge on those who falsely accused me, and who condemned me to die.”
“The priestess of the god of war, right?”
“Yes.”
“How? How did she changeyou?”
“She gave me a potion to drink.”
“A potion? Was it in that vial?”
“It was in the mother idol.”
“And after you drank what was in the mother idol, you changed into the form you’re in now?”
“Yes.”
An odd expression came over her face. “Then if we somehow manage to find an antidote to what you drank, is it conceivable you can change back into a man?”
Garenthfelt his body stiffenat the question. Change back into a man? Was it possible?
She laid a hand on his arm “There are too many questions we don’t have answers to,” she wisely remarked. “We don’t know what will happen to you once you recover the mother idol. Or what would happen to you if you don’t. You yourself don’t know where you’ll go after all this is over. But....”
“But what?”
“But whatever happens, I wantto be there with you when it does. I want to see this to the end with you,Garenth, if you’ll let me.”
It was then he knew that was exactly what he wanted, as well, and he nodded. “I also wish for you to see this through to the end.”
When the interpretation came through, she smiled at him with both her mouth and her eyes, andGarenthwould swear he felt a lightness in his body that he hadnever felt before.
