“It was an arm. Just remembered. I’ll tell you about Elene later. What I figured out is that somehow our bodies know what shape we’re supposed to be. I mean, when you cut any man’s arm, arm skin grows back there, not a nose or another head. Why? Because the body knows what’s supposed to be where. I figured that if that was the case, all I had to do to make a perfect disguise was change the instructions. Hah, if only it were that simple. I figured out a few things along the way. Like Ladeshians aren’t just really tanned. And if you change your height dramatically, expect to be uncoordinated for a year. And don’t mess with your eyesight. And don’t change things about your body that you merely don’t like. Pretty soon you’ll be so damn beautiful people will stop on the streets to watch you—it makes for a lousy disguise. Anyway, it took me—I don’t know—a hundred years? I have about twenty bodies I do now. That is, bodies I’ve spent enough time in that I know how they work, understand their stride, their movement, their quirks. Twenty is probably too many, but I got nervous once when I found two different paintings of me made two hundred years apart from different sides of Midcyru and obviously me in both of them. Some Alitaeran collector had the two hanging side-by-side in his study. I’d moved to Alitaera to start a new life and I was using that same damn body.”

“Wait, you’re telling me you could have chosen any face? And you chose the nasty ugly Durzo Blint face?”

“That’s my real face,” Durzo said, offended.

Blood rushed to Kylar’s cheeks. “Oh, by the God, I’m so sorry. I mean, I’m sorry I said that, not that your face is . . .”

“Gotcha,” Durzo said.

Kylar pursed his lips. “Bastard.”

“Anyway, it takes time to make the transition, especially when you start, and doing it halfway can be rather horrifying. We’re on the trail, so we may meet people. If the skin on the upper half of my body is blackest Ladeshian, but my legs are white, or if half my face is young and half old, folks don’t take it too well. I can actually do it much faster now, but I figured I’d show you body magic that’s merely intensely difficult before I show you the damn-near impossible stuff.”

“Wait, does that mean you can make yourself look like anything? So you could be a girl?”

“I don’t want to hear your twisted fantasies,” Durzo said.

“Hey!”