Transformation

by Michael Ocheskey

  “Does that mean you’re still trapped inside this barrier, Cutie?” Genuine concern for Cutie crossed Draco’s face.

  “Not at all, Master. I no longer need to feed off of the gem’s magical power. I now feed off of your magic, so I can travel anywhere you go. I do have to remain within your magical barrier, though. It is an invisible barrier that shows how far your power reaches. As of now, that barrier is rather small; only about one hundred yards away from you. Luckily for me, you hadn’t become my master before you left the barrier today or I would have died. As you learn to harness your magic more fully, your barrier will increase and I will be able to travel farther away from you in order to fulfill your wishes.”

  As Draco and Alana spoke with Cutie, they passed the palace doors. They went to see King Aquarius, but he wasn’t anywhere in the castle. Apparently, he was doing some kingly duties with Captain Orion. Alana and Draco headed straight for the Sapphire Chamber Room. The door was guarded by two soldiers who refused to let them pass.

  “It is off limits to everyone unless accompanied by the king,” they chimed, holding their tridents in front of Draco as he attempted to open the door.

  “King Aquarius will most definitely let us pass,” Draco proclaimed in frustration. “I’ve already spoken with the Sapphire twice.”

  “Yes, my father knows that we have a connection with the Sapphire and that we must speak to it in order to gather information.” Alana was outraged at not being permitted entrance.

  “We cannot let you pass,” the guard closest to Alana announced in an official manner, “It is the King’s orders and has been thus for centuries. I have not received any contrary orders, so I cannot and will not let you pass.”

  Draco looked down in frustration and contemplated. Then he made a decision.

  “Of course. I respect your orders and wouldn’t want you to get into trouble. Yet, I hope you realize I will enter that room tonight, with or without your permission. It is an emergency. Since King Aquarius isn’t here to let us through, I will force my way in.”

  “Draco!” Alana looked dismayed. “You’ll get into trouble.”

  “Fine, let’s go.” Draco had concocted a plan and was ready to put it into action. As they walked down the hall, Draco spoke softly to Cutie, “Hey Cutie. Can you still feed off of my energy if I enter the magical gem’s dimension or do you need to come with me?”

  Cutie whispered her reply directly into Draco’s ear, “Master, if you truly are going to another dimension, I have no choice but to come with you.”

  “Okay, Alana. I’m returning to the chamber room and speaking to the Sapphire again.”

  “But how?”

  “I’m going to ‘force my way in’, and they won’t even know I’m there. Do you need to ask the Sapphire anything? I will ask him for you.”

  “No, but what do you plan on doing? How are you going to go in without being detected?”

  “By using a little bit of vanishing magic.” With that, Draco disappeared. Alana started; then spun around looking for him.

  “I’m down here!” A small, squeaky voice spoke from where Draco had been. Alana looked down to see a small bug she didn’t recognize. “I turned myself into an ant.” Seeing her confusion, he explained, “It’s a small creature from the surface world. I’m going to crawl under the crack in the door and they can’t stop me since they won’t be able to see me. Cutie! Come with me,” and he was off.

  Cutie followed suit, using her fairy magic to shrink herself down to the size of an ant as well, although she still looked like herself. Sneaking into the room was supposed to be a simple matter, but the problem came in actually getting through the door. There was no door crack. The room was more secure than any wall vault he'd ever seen.

  “Okay, Cutie. Any suggestions?”

  “Well, Master. You could use your magic to burrow a hole small enough for us to enter.”

  “Can I? I’m not sure,” Draco’s antennae flopped down in defeat. “I can’t use more than one spell at a time and I’m using all of my concentration just to stay in this form.”

  Cutie fluttered down to Draco’s side and started patting the top of his beady head. She gazed softly into his bulging eyes.

  “Master, you need to believe in yourself. There is nothing wrong with your magical powers. You may be new to this, but you are special. I felt it the moment you used your powers on the Kraken. You can already use magic instinctively and you can control it better than some of the greatest sorcerers I knew from before the Sorcerer’s Fall. All you need to do is believe in your abilities. Please Master, believe. All it takes is faith.

  “Your heart and soul are pure, a trait not many possess. How many people do you think would have risked their own lives to save this entire city or the humans you rescued before you came here?” Cutie got on her knees, so her face would be level with Draco’s, and pressed her head against his. “I want to know you, Master. Please, let me know you.” A feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed Draco and his mind seemed to fog over as both his and Cutie’s heads seemed to meld together into one.

  Draco opened his eyes and found himself back in his human form, but in a world he didn’t recognize, or did he? It was a world similar to the one he left behind, but without all of the technology. There were no modern inventions, no power lines, no cars, no sewers, no streets, no buildings of any kind, and no humans. Draco, lost to fear and confusion, started running, searching for anything that might bring him comfort. What he saw brought him a fleeting moment of comfort. There were people!

  These weren’t people like any he had ever seen. They looked like normal human beings save for their hair color and ears. Then he knew where he was. It was a different scenery than the last time he'd seen this world, but the people’s hair gave it away. He was back in the era of the sorcerer race and those in front of his were his fellow sorcerers. The sorcerers who were now walking through this vast and untainted wilderness all had long and elegant hair of fiery red, blazing blue, forest green, hot pink, sunshine yellow, deep purple, ivory white, and silver! A brilliant glow of silver hair flowed down the back of the man leading all of the others. It was the same silver hair that surrounded Draco, almost identical.

  The silver-haired man led a swarm of men, who were circled around a small, blonde haired boy that looked like him as a child, but it couldn’t be him. There was no possible way it could be him. This had to be a dream, but as Draco stared intently at the child it was impossible to deny that this boy was almost an exact copy of Draco as a child.

  Draco had a sudden urge to scream and separate the men from this child. Something in the men's stance warned him the child was in danger and a desire to make sure that no harm came to this child flooded through him, but he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried to scream or run forward he was held in tandem. He could do nothing but stay beside these people and watch them drag this scared little boy farther into the forest. Suddenly, the silver-haired man stopped and turned toward the others.

  “This is far enough,” he began. “You are here for your magic initiation. This is your rite to adulthood, Son. As leader of all sorcerers, I am required to oversee and participate in every initiation, even yours.”

  To Draco’s surprise, the fear in the child’s eyes evaporated as he stared intently at his father and nodded. “I’m ready, Father. Do what you must.”

  No sooner had the boy finished his words than the men surrounding him jumped back in unison. In one bound, they set a large distance between them and the boy. Draco understood as soon as the men began to shoot fireballs and lightning bolts, call up ice storms, and many other ferocious attacks on the boy. The men had distanced themselves in order to avoid getting hurt or killed. Their duty was to shock the child into using magic for the first time and they feared that his survival instinct might attack them as Draco’s and Alana’s had when they first used magic.

  As the child fell to his knees, screaming from the constant pain that attacked him, Draco turned towards the sil
ver-haired man and saw a river of tears drenching the ground at his feet. “My son,” he whispered as he attacked his own child, “If only this weren’t necessary. Forgive me, my son!”

  Listening to the father's cry for forgiveness brought back memories of what the Sapphire had told him. The sapphire had stated that all attempts to find another method to bring out the magical ability of their children had failed. Only an intense shock and trauma could unlock the magic within. Draco's eyes moistened as he thought how much this initiation must hurt the father as well as the son.

  Then he remembered something else the Sapphire had said. Initiations were supposed to take place at age sixteen. This child was clearly no teen. He was only about eight or nine.

  Draco turned his eyes back to the child in time to see a familiar transformation. It was a monster he also recognized as his own. It was the same beastly form he had taken when he attacked the Kraken and he knew what it meant. He tried to scream, to warn the men to stop their attack and run, but it was too late. It was over in only a few seconds. The child jumped from his knees into a standing position, spread his arms as far as they would go, and started spinning at an impossible speed. All of the attacks that had been flung at the child were now spinning around the child as if caught in a cyclone.

  The men encircling the child immediately switched to the defensive, but to no avail. Each one of them was struck in the chest by his own spell. All except one, the boy’s father. The men screamed and writhed in pain as electricity, flames, shards of ice, blades of water, and thorns tore at their bodies. When the assault ended the demonic appearance of the child faded and a bright, white light encompassed the child and all that surrounded him. When the light faded, all of the men were lying on their backs, breathing hard and long, with no wounds of any kind.

  The demonic appearance of the child disappeared, but the child looked different. Instead of the blonde, mid-back length hair that had once shown from his tender scalp, he bore a full and thick head of silver hair that flowed all of the way down his back and seemed like a kingly robe draped around him. The boy’s eyes were also the same enchanted eyes that his father and Draco shared.

  “My son,” the leader approached his son and embraced him tight, “I am so proud of you. You have surpassed my expectations, and upon my death, you will become our future ruler. You shall now inherit the name that I and all our royal ancestors possess. From this day forth, you shall be called Draco.” At that point, Draco found himself being drawn back to a full state of consciousness.

  “What was that?”

  Back in his small ant body, Draco found himself staring into Cutie’s eyes, his eyes slightly unfocused and shivering slightly.

  “I entered into your mind to discover everything I could about you. I saw your entire life including the events that brought you to this city. I also saw the purity of your soul. It was so warm and reminded me of the day I was born. I was born on the day the last king of the sorcerer race was initiated.” Cutie peered into Draco’s eyes with an all-piercing longing, “I am forever and always yours, Master. Now that I have seen your soul, I am even more inclined to believe in you as a person and a sorcerer. You possess the same spiritual energy and magical capabilities as the few chosen leaders of the sorcerer race. It's a magical talent that was practically unmatched in the time of the sorcerers.”

  Draco found he was truly grateful for Cutie and her sincere and heartfelt devotion, “Thank you, Cutie. I'll be counting on you from this day forth.”

  “I’m jealous,” Cutie bluntly announced, gazing longingly into Draco’s eyes. “Alana has a love that is forbidden to us fairies. She can be with you as a lover, a lifetime companion in many more ways than I can ever be to you. My role can be nothing more than your servant. No matter how much I grow to love you, I am nothing but your slave.”

  “Oh, Cutie,” Draco wrapped his antennae around her, the closest thing to a hug that he could do in this form. “You know that isn’t true. You are not, and will never be ‘nothing but my slave’. You are a dear friend to me and I have grown to love you deeply in the short time I have known you.”

  “Yes, but that isn’t the same thing. I have been in love with you for a long time now. I told you that I’ve been watching you since you first electrocuted Captain Orion. I have watched you and loved you since, but I know that you love Alana and I can’t be anything more to you than I already am.”

  Tears began to well up in her eyes as she resigned herself to the truth.

  “I know that. I have always known that, but as I watched you the last five months, I couldn’t help falling for you. The other fairies told me I was foolish to even expect any kind of relationship between us other than master and slave, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

  “What do you mean? foolish? I don’t ever consider falling in love a foolish matter. Love knows no bounds. Love can come from even the most unlikely of pairings, even between two people of different species. Look at the sorcerers who fell in love with humans to create people like me. Look at myself, a human who fell for a mermaid and chose to become one myself. It isn’t foolish to love someone who is different than you. Besides, you should expect a relationship other than master and slave because you have already attained two such relationships, friendship with Alana and me. Won’t you be my friend, Cutie? I need a friend, as I’m sure you do. You can continue to love me as my friend and stay by my side.”

  Cutie let Draco’s words surround her. As a single tear rolled down her cheek, she breathed out a single word in a defeated voice, “yes.”

  The gift of confidence Cutie had given Draco, both in her words and in the vision of the day she was born, granted Draco new hope. He took his new assurance and started walking through the door, Cutie right behind him. As he stepped up to the door, the stone parted to let him pass. When he had fully entered the room, he turned around to see the stone close behind Cutie. Another thought later and the ant became a human once more. Cutie also returned to normal size. Wasting no time, Draco swiftly and silently walked up to the Sapphire. He gently enclosed Cutie in one hand, blanketing his fingers around her body, and set the other upon the Sapphire.

  ROYAL WEDDING

  “Hello, Draco. I have been expecting you. I knew you would seek me out after you discovered your new merman body.”

  The instant Draco entered the realm of the Sapphire he was greeted by these words. The Sapphire’s voice was fierce and straightforward. It had lost its fatherly tones and reverted back to the eerie, deep voice it had used on several occasions thus far. It seemed as though the Sapphire was no longer worried of scaring Draco with his booming voice, and in response, Draco showed no signs of fear.

  What is going on here, Sapphire? Why am I so different? I don’t look like any of the merfolk from any of the Seven Cities.

  “Well, Draco. I think you already know a part of that answer, thanks to the memory this lovely fairy showed you.”

  Draco opened up his hand, with great difficulty, and Cutie jumped, startled by the blue light surrounding her. For some reason Draco couldn't comprehend, Cutie was able to move about inside this dimension much more freely than he or Alana could. He thought about it for a moment and then wrote it off as being due to her small size. It wasn't important anyway. He was here for other matters.

  What do you mean? I don’t understand?

  “You don’t, do you?” The Sapphire’s voice was almost mocking, accusing Draco and daring him to find the answer, “Think hard. What memory did you just witness?”

  I saw a sorcerer king being initia...It was him!

  “That’s correct. That man was the very last king the sorcerer race had prior to their destruction. He was one of the few survivors and his descendants were among those who mated with humanity. You are a descendant of that man. Did you not notice your resemblance to him? When I was creating your body I originally planned on turning you into a Sapphire merman, but your magic altered my own. When your magical powers awoke, it not only turned your human form into
a silver-haired sorcerer king, but it also turned your merman form into a silver-haired sorcerer king. Your magical power is still raw, but because of your heritage, your power has the potential to grow into a formidable force unsurpassed by any other sorcerer.

  “I notice you’ve been practicing today and you’ve made exceptional progress. It shouldn’t be very much longer, possibly a year or two, before you can effectively manipulate magic throughout your entire body.” Draco had a look of exasperation on his face and the Sapphire consoled him, “I see you are impatient in this matter. Remember, Draco, that controlling magic isn’t as easily done as you think. Even the king you saw in that vision wasn’t capable of these things immediately. It was all instinctive, just like you, until he grew into an adult. You will learn quickly enough, and you don’t need to worry about time. You and Alana are the only sorcerers currently in existence who can use your powers.”

  By the way, that reminds me. You told me that sorcerers were initiated when they turned sixteen, but the king I saw being initiated looked no older than ten. Why was that?

  “Those were desperate times. The current king, the boy’s father, knew that he was dying from a disease that magic couldn't cure and the people needed a successor. He did what he did to ensure that his son would be able to lead the people in his stead, should death come to him before his son came of age. There is much more to the story, yet I will have to tell you that at a later date should the need arise. Until then, you will have to trust me.”

  I hate it when you are cryptic.

  In response, Draco heard a distant sound of laughter radiate through the space surrounding him. It was the first time he had ever heard the Sapphire so much as show any signs of human emotions. He wasn’t sure he liked it. The Sapphire’s laugh sounded cruel and sadistic. Draco recognized the same feeling of terror he had the very first time he had heard the Sapphire speak course through his veins momentarily. The Sapphire’s eerie voice was something Draco had grown used to, but this laugh was a new development and caused Draco’s blood to boil. Draco wondered vaguely if all of the gems had voices that would make his skin crawl.