Flesh Gambit by Mark Adam Page A

harness. Under the swirling blanket of tattoos, his skin had been burnt to copper by the equatorial sun, and his dreadlocks were swept back in a loose ponytail away from the hard planes of his face.
    At the door to his cabin, Khat slid his sword into its sheath. He could hear the murmur of the coven-whore through the wood and frowned. The erotic energy from the witch’s spell was as tangible as wind. If she didn’t finish soon he might have to give her to the crew to keep the girl safe.
    Khat pushed open the door and entered.
    The room was gloomy after the harsh light on the sunship’s deck. Khat pushed the door closed behind him before his vision had fully adjusted. He blinked the blur of the abrasive sun out of his eye and surveyed his chamber.
    It was hot in his quarters, stifling. Men sweated freely outside, and the coven-whore burned a triumvirate of red-hot braziers inside the confined room. Khat saw her crouching naked in the middle of them, chanting incessantly. Her breasts were swollen from suckling the anonymous daemon childe which came to her at night, though she’d told Khat it had been over a year since she had sold her own baby in accordance with her vow-pacts to Cahlii.
    Her body was slick with sweat from the top of her shaved head to the inner folds of her smooth thighs. Her eyes rolled up to show only the whites, and the augur had opened her Eye of the Magi in the center of her forehead. The jet black orb shifted to watch Khat as he moved through the room.
    He crossed to an apothecary’s table set in the cabin wall and picked up a decanter. The table was set beside a divan, and from its cushions the slave girl watched Khat. He tried to ignore her. The energy of the coven-whore’s spell worked on him like a drug and he couldn’t drive sexual images from out of his head. He forced himself to drink the tincture he had concocted.It tasted like honey-wine, but the herbs instilled a mildly euphoric calm.
    He tossed back the drink in one gulp and set the cup down. His pulse pounded at the temples. The slave girl had stripped down against the brutal heat in the room. Her body, young and nubile, was just as slick with sweat as Khat’s or the coven-whore’s. He could smell her the way a hound scents a bitch in heat. He put a small green pill into his mouth and chewed.
    “Put your clothes on.” Khat snapped, and the girl jumped to obey.
    He poured a second cup of the tincture, drank it, and his head began to clear. The slave girl’s silks had been designed to entice rather than hide. It was almost worse when she slipped the short robe on because Khat’s mind kept coming back to what she was hiding. He poured a third cupful and gave it to the girl.
    Behind him he heard the coven-whore cease her chanting. He turned and saw the lid slide closed over the black Eye of the Magi. The woman’s own startling blue irises rolled back from the inside of her head. Her cheekbones were strong, her mouth full. Khat wet his lips.
    “Is it done?” he demanded.
    “I have created a hole in the thaumaturgy used by the Infantana to protect the girl. The magics were stronger than I had anticipated. I am drained. Your old lover is a powerful sorceress.”
    “You didn’t put the dreams in the girl’s head!” Khat roared.
    “I’m tired, used up. I need energy.”
    Khat froze. He swallowed and felt the fear of a man who, thinking himself safe, slides between his bed sheets only to feel the sudden caress of a spider scuttling up his leg.
    “So take more drugs.”
    The coven-whore rose in a smooth, languid motion. The light from the braziers played across the sweat splashed along her inner thighs. The woman was as bald there as on top of her shaven head.
    “I’m no fool, bitch,” Khat spat. “Your magics work on me the same as any man, but I’m not so crazed I’d willingly service a succubus.”
    The coven-whore turned and crossed to the cabin’s only window. It was set in the back of the ship and looked out now over