Ryan moved his hand with the glowing sphere around. The room he was in turned out to be a bedroom. By all appearances, it belonged to a young woman.
It was a round room with windows on three sides. Behind the windows, it was the dead of night; the ideally round yellow moon hung in the clear sky over the outline of castellation walls.
Windows had no bars. This was not a prison.
Ryan lit all the candles he could find and then looked around. The dull furnishings had signs of past luxury.
Dark spots on the ceiling turned out to be vestiges of painted decorations, disfigured by damp spots and cracks.
There were a bed, a wardrobe, a desk cluttered with papers and books, a dressing table with little caskets and phials. A roll of carpet lay next to the bed; the owner of the room removed it from the floor to fee up the space for the circle.
Ryan returned the carpet to its lawful place. Later, he would need to work out what to do with the circle. Leaving it as he found it was not possible.
A dress hung on a carved dressing screen. It was probably the last garment that the owner of the body wore.
Ryan took a chandelier and stepped up to the dressing table to take a look at himself. The owner of his new body was very young, sixteen or seventeen years old. She was quite tall and delicate, but not bony.
Two juicy apples of breasts, a slim waist, thighs that were not yet wide, but already possessed feminine curves.
He couldn't help running his hand all over the body, from collarbones to the dark triangle below. When he was alive, Ryan preferred more mature women, but he also would not mind picking such an innocent bud.
Ryan chuckled: other contenders for the bud were likely to show up. A female body might be of more trouble than use. Especially a body with such a cute aristocratic face. The girl had fine features, dark almond-shaped eyes (though he could not distinguish the exact color in such low light) with fluffy eyelashes. Her eyebrows were rather wide but had a beautiful curve, the lips were fairly plush, and hair resembled black silk.
Deciding that he has seen enough, Ryan took clothes of the dressing screen and laid it out in front of him.
The design was unfamiliar. Not that he was interested in women's outfits, yet, having taken off a few dozens of dresses, he could be considered an expert in fashion to a certain degree.
The absence of a corset was good news, as he would not be able to lace it alone. The undergarments turned out unchanged: knee-length bloomers and a long shirt. Clothes were clean but washed out almost to the point of transparency, with patched holes here and there. He spent half an hour, no less, pulling on woolen stockings and coping with all the clasps and lacing.
Adjusting his skirts, Ryan looked in the mirror. His look was passable. As he had no idea what to do with the hair, he left it loose.
The dress looked like an old spinster's garment with its coarse dark navy fabric, floor-length skirt, tight sleeves and small, barely noticeable lace trimmings near the wrists. It also had a high collar, almost upto the throat; either low necklines were out of favour now or the girl was exceedingly demure.
Among the clothes there was a silver locket on a chain. Inside it, Ryan found two skillfully painted portraits of young people, a man and a woman. He notices a vague similarity between his new body and the man: similar coal-black hair and curved brows. The medallion was too big for wearing under clothes, so Ryan put it on over the dress.
He could not locate any shoes except a worn pair of house-slippers.
He hard only an abstract idea as to the usage of cosmetics, so he did not even touch all the caskets and phials on the dressing table.
Instead, he focused on the desk. Laying aside piles of bills (to handle later) he studied the books. These included a herbal, a bestiary, a fortune-telling volume, a couple of grimoires. But the one to interest Ryan most was a thick volume in a brown cover with a gold-stamped title: "The history of magic and the art of sorcery in the Nine Kingdoms and on the Free Islands". He quickly thumbed through the book, taking notice of dates. It appeared that no less than two hundred years had passed from the moment of his death.
A silver bookmark marked the middle of the volume. Ryan opened the book on this page and wasn't exactly surprised, as the chapter was devoted to his own person. The author of "The history of magic..." described him as one of the most powerful and dangerous dark wizards over the course of the past millennium. If it were not for Great archmagus Alessan, a malicious and sinister necromancer, a kidnapper of virgins, a devourer of babies would now rule the Nine Kingdoms. Ryan was flattered by the number of pages allotted to him and by their content, though not without some exceptions. He was never really keen on virgins, preferred well-roasted pork ribs with fine wine to babies, and that pompous fop Alessan wasn't so powerful. Without the assistance of the Siun paladins and of the dozens of magicians gathered from all the Nine Kingdoms, he would have no chance of seizing the citadel of Tangrim.
Now it was clear to Ryan why the woman would pick him. He was summoned because of his fame as the most baleful and dangerous wizard of the past. But the identity of the spell-caster remained unclear.
Only the senders were noted on the bills, among them were the guilds of wine-makers, fishermen, and millers. The destination was Maathin castle. Ryan never heard about such a castle before, but this was no surprise, as everything might have changed over the centuries.
Under the bills, he found a thin notebook in a blue leather cover with fasteners. He opened it.
"This diary is a present for my 13th birthday from my priceless friend Katariana. Here, I will be writing my thoughts and..."
Here it was! A shrine of maiden dreams and complaints! It would be sure to contain the name of the target.
Ryan was on the point of delving into the writing, but right at this moment he heard a knock on the door.
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