The view from the great tower has always been splendid.

Rising high above the great city of Eyros, it overlooks the main plaza, all decorated with greenery, water fountains and trees arranged in circles connected by paths.

Beyond the plaza there stands the city’s centrepiece: A vast building, like a cone with the top tapered back and rounded out by a great metal dome. From its balconies and windows cascade green vines and flowering plants. Fresh water runs perpetually down gullies built into the outside, sparing the plants from thirst.

It is the Grand Diet of Adena, the supreme hegemon on the continent of Prille.

Senator Ro Danest looks down at the sun glittering off of shallow pools around the fountains, at young couples splashing each other, old men soaking their sore feet in the cool water, and clasps his hands behind his back. They almost look like insects from up here, he thinks.

He loves this city, and all the people in it. He loves Adena, and all the nations beyond her, who rely on her trade and military strength to keep the peace.

In a short time, he hopes, he will be elected Consul, and become Adena’s spokesperson, her guardian, her guide. He will be the final authority on all matters of state, standing above the House of Citizens, the Learned and Respected House of Philosophers, and lastly, the Senate. He will shape Adena anew.

There comes a knock at the wooden door on the other side of the room.

“Enter,” Danest replies.

Danest turns.

The door opens, and through it steps a young guardsman, clutching a spear in hand. His expression is neutral. As is customary, he rotates the spear such that its tip points at the ground, then bows his head, avoiding eye contact with Danest as a sign of respect.

“Senator Danest, my superior,” the guardsman says. “She has arrived, sir.”

“Excellent,” he says. “Send her in.”

“Senator Danest,” the guardsman says, hesitantly. “Forgive me, my superior, but are you sure this is safe? She has powers of Changing—”

“Your concern is appreciated, guardsman. But I assure you, we have spoken many times prior to this meeting, in ink and paper. All has been arranged. All will be quite safe.” He waves his hand dismissively. “Now, send her in.”

“Yes, sir, my superior, sir.”

The guardsman gives the traditional Adeni salute – the index and middle fingers on the non-dominant hand, placed against the forehead – and turns away, returning the spear to its upright position, and leaves the room. Danest stares after him.

By rights, he is one of the most influential men in all Adena. Their insistence on mollycoddling him so is a constant source of irritation.

The room at the top of the great tower of Danest’s senatorial residence contains a wooden bed with enough room for three people, a table placed off to the side of the bed with a mirror, and a set of cabinets beneath a small table at the bed’s foot.

He walks to the mirror, and ensures he is presentable for the lady.

He is tall, swarthy-skinned and slender, dressed in the smart red-and-green patterned tunic of the National faction of the Diet, with formal linen trousers and wooden-soled sandals. His long, whitish-blond hair is kept from hanging loosely about his shoulders by a set of wooden pins. His lips, on either side of the philtrum, are marked with black vertical stripes of charcoal, signifying his Senatorial prestige.

Danest concludes that his appearance meets all standards of Adeni decorum, and turns back to the window, clasping his hands behind his back. It is considered polite in Adena to meet someone for the first time with one’s back turned, with an understanding that this indicates trust and good faith.

A moment later, there comes a knock at the wooden door.

“Enter,” Danest says.

The door opens, and he hears the sound of wooden soles clapping against the stone floor, coming to rest behind him.

“Senator Danest, my superior,” says a woman’s voice. “I have arrived, sir.”

Danest turns.

She stands with her hands clasped in front of her, her gaze drawn down to the floor. Long, reddish curls fall about her shoulders, like magma from the great volcanoes of Flodico. One of her shoulders is bare, and her light copper skin is freckled like an astronomical map on her flesh.

She is dressed in a beige tunic down to her knees, with a red-gold mantle about her body – most likely the most expensive item of clothing that she owns.

“Cytalis Trelen,” Danest says, as though exhaling a fine perfume. “So kind of you to join me.” He smiles. “You may regard me.”

She looks up, her hazel eyes meeting his blue.

“Thank you, my superior,” she says.

He has corresponded her for some time, this forbidden woman. She has come here to sell him an experience like no other. He has awaited this meeting for months.

Of course, it would be politically disastrous if anyone in the Industrial or Forward factions were to learn what is happening in this moment.

In the Diet, his faction stands for tradition, for the maintenance of Adeni customs, for Adena. The National faction stands for a powerful and influential Adeni state, a strong military that will defend Adeni interests, and for the betterment and moral enrichment of the Adeni people.

Of particular importance is maintaining the traditional marriage of three – two women to one man; one child borne by each woman; then the raising of those children to be good citizens of Adena. The men are the workers and breadwinners, the women are the homemakers and child-rearers. That is Adeni culture.

In that light, what he is doing right now is anathema. It flies in the face of all his outward moral and political values.

Yet, that is precisely what makes it so exhilarating.

Danest treads over to the table at the end of the room, opening a small cabinet and retrieving a bottle, a decanter, and two decoratively-cut glasses.

“So nice to finally meet you,” Danest says. “I’m very excited.”

“It’s an honour to serve you, my superior.”

“Enough of that fuss,” Danest says. “Call me Ro. Wine?”

Cytalis swallows.

“Yes, please, my...Ro.”

Danest stifles a laugh.

“Your Ro,” he says.

“I’m sorry, my superior—!”

“No, no,” Danest says, waving his hand. “I just thought it was funny.”

He grips one of the glasses and passes it to Cytalis, who accepts it gingerly.

“A very good year,” he says, idly. “I don’t suppose you find much wine like this in the New Village.”

The New Village is a relatively recent area of the city, built to accommodate foreign labour in the factories, dockyards and other industrial areas. Cytalis is an Adeni, but he can tell from her dress that she is not a wealthy Eyrosi.

“No,” Cytalis says. “It’s mainly ales down there, and some spirits.”

“Then drink as a queen,” Danest chortles. The word is still close to a profanity, even a century after the establishment of the Republic.

Cytalis looks down at the reddish liquid in her glass, brings it to her lips and sips. Such full lips, Danest thinks.

“It’s good wine,” Cytalis says.

“As I say,” Danest replies. “A good year.”

Cytalis smiles politely.

“So, is it true?” Danest asks. “Are you gifted with the Changing?”

Cytalis’s eyes flit to the wall, then back to Danest, as she takes another long sip of the wine.

“Yes,” she replies, succinctly. “I wouldn’t lie to you about such a thing.”

“Only about one in thirty people can do it, if I recall my studies correctly.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Cytalis says. “I only know that I’ve been able to do it for many years.”

Danest chuckles lightly and tries to regard Cytalis in a way that doesn’t seem to be leering.

“But not many use your gift for the same purpose as you. You’re special.”

Meeting Danest’s gaze once more, Cytalis brings the glass away from her lips.

Turning away from him, she sets the glass down on the table at the foot of the bed. Running her fingers through her hair, she unclasps a small, unembellished, functional brooch at her right shoulder and removes the mantle, folding it neatly and laying it on the bed.

“There are some things I can and cannot do for you, Ro,” she says, firmly.

“Of course,” Danest says. “I would not ask you to go beyond your limits, Cytalis.”

“I will not make you so small that I lose track of you,” Cytalis says, removing her sandals. “I will not do anything that will cause you to die, even if you ask me for it.”

“Of course,” Danest says. “I have ambitions that go beyond this room, you know.”

“The Changing will last no longer than an hour,” Cytalis continues. “In that time, you will not address me as Cytalis, but with any name you see fit. In turn, I will do the same for you. If at any point in the next hour you need to stop, use one of the words we agreed in our correspondence, or strike my skin three times. I will stop at once. Is all that clear?”

“Yes,” Danest says, taking another sip of the wine. “I see you are quite thorough about safety.”

“The last thing I’d want to do is put you in danger, Ro. In here, you are not a Senator of the Grand Diet of Adena. You are my client, and I have a basic duty of care to my clients.”

“Much appreciated,” Danest says. “Should I undress?”

“If you like,” Cytalis says, smiling coquettishly. “Though, I can make the Changing affect you alone, and not your attire.”

Danest grins, feeling blood rise to his cheeks.

“Then do it that way.”

“As you wish, Ro Danest.”

Her irises begin to glow faintly from behind, as if lit by candlelight.

Immediately, Danest feels something shift. A slight tingle in his feet, a restlessness in his legs and arms, a strange quivering in his chest and shoulders, an itch in his head. It is as though his body is resisting the Changing. He has been assured many times that this is perfectly natural.

He steadies himself against a bedpost, feeling his clothes loosening, and gazes at Cytalis, who has begun to undress herself, slipping her constellation-covered skin out from the off-white flaxen fabric.

Gripping her tunic in both hands, she removes it, leaving her bare skin open to the golden sunlight that pours in through the window. She places her hand on her hip and gazes back at Danest.

“The Changing has begun,” she says. “This should be fun.”

Danest is now at waist height to Cytalis, and is staring up at her, admiring her. Her bare legs are strong and well-worked, like many of the legs in the New Village, where the workers are on their feet most of the time, lifting and carrying heavy crates and operating machinery.

Her feet are veined, long-toed, unadorned. They are not like the feet of Senators’ wives, patterned with pigments, the toenails long and varnished, with rings on every other toe. Yet, Danest finds them beautiful in their simplicity. The feet of a working woman, on display for him.

Determined to drink in the sight of her, he stares up at her face, which looks back at him coyly, curiously. She walks around him just as he reaches the height of her knees, giving him a view of her buttocks, before seating herself on the bed, placing her chin in her upturned palms, allowing her breasts to hang freely over her belly.

The feeling fades, and as he extricates himself from a mass of heavy fabric that mere minutes ago clothed him, Danest finds himself merely ankle-high to a giantess.

“Well?” Cytalis says, curling her lip. “What name do you think fits me?”

He is in awe of her. He has never undergone Changing like this before, and the words cannot seem to find their way to his mouth.

The pins that held his hair in place now lie beside him, two-thirds the length of his body, and his light hair hangs down around his waist. In Adeni culture, this is a considerable transgression; it betrays a kind of slovenliness and carelessness about appearance that reads as low-class. It is, in a word, degrading.

A long, powerful leg stretches out towards him, and to his amazement, a toe about as thick as his torso prods him lightly on the belly.

“I asked you a question, little Ro. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Danest swallows.

“Goddess,” he says.

Cytalis smiles. And in that moment, he is truly staring at the visage of a goddess.

“Insect,” she responds.

Danest finds himself falling to his knees. He hadn’t quite expected the Changing to feel like this.

He, a high-ranking Senator, now an insect to a woman of the New Village, a woman who, in other circumstances, would not even be allowed to make eye contact with him, let alone refer to him in such a manner.

He likes it.

He feels his penis begin to stiffen between his legs, and almost unconsciously passes a hand in front of it, trying to hide it from the omniscient gaze of this goddess that looks down upon him. But she sees him, and her lip curls once again.

“Someone’s excited,” she says. “I can’t say I blame you. At this size, I tend to have that effect on people.”

Danest’s face is hot, so hot that he begins perspiring, beads of sweat pouring from his scalp and down his face. She is so powerful, so much greater than he, she could destroy him with a moment’s impulse. Part of him is screaming to abandon his political ambitions, accept his new place beneath her. The other is telling him that this is his penis doing the thinking for him.

In either case, his penis rises, twitching, and from it drips thick, clear pre-ejaculate, which splashes on the ground in tiny spots.

“You’re making a mess of the floor,” the goddess teases. “Well, you would be, if you were bigger.”

“Please, Goddess,” Danest says, abruptly. “I can’t stand it any more. Do what you want with me.”

She looks away a moment, as though in thought, then back at him.

“You’re going to regret saying that, insect.”

And before Danest can say another word, a hand, her hand, is reaching for him. These fingers, unbejewelled, these nails, unpolished. And as the fingers coil around his tiny, naked form, he feels her pulse in her palm. Is she as excited as he is? Her pulse would seem to betray this fact, but the deft movement of her hand, as she brings him up level with her eyes, pretends a kind of aloofness.

“You’re all so very sweet when you’re like this,” she remarks, adoringly, as though holding an infant animal.

Her thumb brushes gently along his chest and belly, stopping just short of his erect penis, which pokes out from between her middle and ring fingers like an obscenity in an otherwise chaste tableau.

She brings him close to her face, and he stares into her dilated black pupil, large enough now that he can see the individual muscle fibrils in her iris, which seem to stir as he meets her vast, almost oppressive gaze.

Her hot breath is buffeting against his flesh. It smells of wine, spice, and the other half, the world outside all these dusty corridors, discussions, division bells and committees. It smells of a life of labour, of a life lived where money is essential, not an abstract ticket to luxury, recalls her strong legs and firm buttocks. It smells of everything beyond that which he knows.

In that moment, he succumbs, fully gives in to her, allows her to possess him. He ceases to be Danest, and becomes a toy, an amusement, a thing in her hand with no independent will.

Sensing this, her lips part.

She wraps them around the tip, and involuntarily, his back arches as he tries to find purchase. Bolts explode through his nerves, earthquake shocks. He becomes himself, then not-himself, subject, then object, passive, then active. Somewhere in this oscillation is a unity that can be called Ro Danest.

Then, with a movement precise and practised, she pushes him into her, and her tongue laps softly at the underside of his shaft, coaxing more pearls on to her tongue.

Here he is, somewhere between mortal terror and overwhelming pleasure. She has made him hers, and he is aware now of where he is.

This, these lips, these teeth, this tongue, is the entrance of her. This is where she eats, this is where she breathes, this is where she speaks. If the desire took her, could she not make him hers forever, take him into her body, to nourish herself with the would-be Consul of Adena?

No, he thinks, banishing the thought. She wouldn’t do that. A goddess she may be, but only for a short time. The State is far, far greater than she, and should she give into her temptation, the supreme violence of every punitive power in Adena will be visited upon her, like a marauding spirit of vengeance.

In this moment, he belongs to her. But she cannot, will not devour him. For this is a mortal goddess, flesh and blood entire.

But what flesh and blood it is.

And her lips draw back and forth, back and forth. He moans softly, bucking against her hand, as though trying to wrest control, but she re-asserts herself, tightening her grip just slightly, sucking on him like a piece of confectionery. He tries half-heartedly to resist, to draw out this moment into an eternity, but to no avail. She has defeated him, conquered him.

At last, she obtains her prize, and with a soft moan, he orgasms, giving her all he can give, until, finally, he collapses against her thumb, exhausted.

“Oh, Goddess,” he is murmuring, so quietly he is sure she can’t hear him. “Oh, fuck...”

She brings him away from her mouth, wiping her lip, and swallows the meagre offering softly.

His skin is so sensitive that her grip around him feels like fire licking at him. She draws him to her lips once more, and plants a kiss upon his chest, then another on his back.

“That was wonderful,” she whispers, in a way that makes all the hairs on his arms and legs stand on edge. “You’re very good.”

Danest shudders in her hand, then manages to get out the word: “Gidarin.”

She sets him down on the ground, and he looks up at her, her eyes once again glowing faintly.

The tingling feeling returns, but this time, there is no resistance. It is the difference between pulling a wagon uphill and rolling it downhill. The Changing is restoring him, bringing him back home. In minutes, he is Senator Ro Danest once more.

“Are you alright?” Cytalis asks. “You used the stopping word.”

“Yes,” Danest says, a little uncertainly. “I just...wasn’t expecting it to be that intense. You were great, though.”

“First times are always difficult,” Cytalis says. “I am Cytalis once again. Do you need anything from me?”

“Was it true, what you said?” Danest asks. “Was I good?”

“Of course,” Cytalis replies. “I enjoyed myself. What about you?”

“Yes…” Danest says, trailing off. “…I am just not used to being so...vulnerable.”

Cytalis heaves herself off the bed and on to the wooden floor with Danest, placing her hands on his shoulders, pressing her thumbs into his back. Minutes ago, one of those hands held the balance of his life. Now it is pressing knots out of his muscles.

“It can be a frightening and intense experience,” she says, soothingly. “Being so small, in thrall to someone else. I understand. But we’re two people once again. You, Senator Ro Danest, and I…”

“Cytalis, of the New Village,” Danest says. “Thank you, Cytalis. You were everything our correspondence promised. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“You too, Ro,” Cytalis replies.

Hastily, she adds: “My superior.”

*

The Grand Diet is visible from most parts of the New Village.

It looms, a great colossus. The New Village exists, quite literally, in its shadow, particularly during the winter months, when the Sun never gets higher than twenty degrees in the sky. The streets are always shades of brown and orange, lit by the yellow flame of gas-lamps, tingeing everything in earth-tones.

And yet, it’s home.

Cytalis finds her way back through the streets, hoping that the jingling of coins in the small leather pouch she keeps concealed in her mantle doesn’t attract undue attention. She kept her face hidden as far as Ubravit Square, the main interstice between the Old City and the New Village. Couldn’t let anyone see.

She passes boarded-up shop windows. Former boutiques, grocers and emporia, now closed down. Some still have the remnants of mannequins in their windows, hastily-painted signs that read “CLOSING DOWN SALE – EVERYTHING MUST GO”. The death rattle of commerce in dead and empty streets.

The only places where any significant patronage is to be seen are the bars and taverns, where various working men drink tankards of ale, though even that gets less and less cheap by the day.

As she passes through the main square, she sees a small crowd gathered around the district notice board, and goes to see what the hubbub is about.

“What’s going on?” she asks another woman, standing on the outer edges of the crowd.

“New rules coming in from next week,” the woman says, gravely. “Sounds like they’re going to ban unlicensed Changing within Adeni borders...”

“What?”

“Something about keeping people safe...”

It’s blatant discrimination, Cytalis thinks. But what can anyone do? The High Court is held 5-3 by the Nationals, plus they hold the Senate and the House of Philosophers. No real way of challenging it.

“Damn,” she says.

“Anyway,” the woman says, trying to sound cheerful. “Lots to do. Best be going.”

“Likewise.”

Cytalis moves along, cutting down a side-road under a brick archway, and sees a man with a brush sticking a poster to a board.

A man and two women dressed in traditional Adeni clothing, with two smiling children on either woman’s lap. Above and below, a caption in stark white lettering:

DECENCY AND DECORUM IS ESSENTIAL TO OUR NATIONAL HEALTH

OBSERVE RESPECTABLE DRESS AND PROPER SPEECH IN PUBLIC

FOR THE GOOD OF ADENA

- A MESSAGE FROM THE CULTURAL MINISTRY

She scowls, turning the corner.

She finds a man standing outside her house. His name is Teb Godost. He is her landlord.

“Teb,” she says. “I’ve got your money, so there’s no need to break the door down and take my shit.”

“Twelve frintac,” Teb says, gruffly.

“Twelve?”

“Aye, twelve. Ten backdated for last month, plus two extra.”

“Shit, Teb. I only just made twenty.”

“Then you should pay your fucking rent on time. Twelve frintac.”

Cytalis reaches into her mantle and retrieves the pouch, removing from it six golden-coloured discs, and presses them into Teb’s hand.

“Keep the change,” she says, glibly.

“I’ll need four more next week,” Teb retorts, pocketing the coins.

“What? Why?”

“Diet’s making some changes to the tax system, and I’m getting screwed. I have mortgages to pay off on places like this, y’know. So your rent’s going up.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Read your contract, sweetheart.”

Teb grins smugly and walks away.

Cytalis angrily fumbles with the key in the lock, then enters her home, a room in a very small two-storey townhouse. She climbs the stairs and, entering her bedroom, practically falls into bed, burying her face in her pillow.

Twenty frintac, twenty frintac that was going to feed her for two weeks, and now she has but eight left, four of which already belong to Teb Godost. Four frintac. How is she meant to survive on four frintac?

How is anyone in the New Village meant to survive on the shit they’re paid?

She thinks once again of Ro Danest. If anyone were to find out what happened between her and the favourite for the Consulship, she’d be pilloried for it. Nobody here likes the Nationals, but their votes don’t count for anything.

Life in the Village gets harder and harder, and the denizens of the Old City just get richer and richer.

Some goddess I am.

She rolls over, gazing out of the window at the pink evening sky. There, looming over the tops of the houses, is a tall tower, overlooking the city.

As her gaze meets that of the high window, she swears that she sees him looking down at her.

End of part one