Transformation

by Carol Berg

  The strip of shingle narrowed, and soon there was nowhere to go but into the sea. I had no intention of stepping into the water—a notorious lurking place for wicked surprises—so I removed my cloak and my shirt, stuffed them under a rock in case I needed them later, and triggered the enchantment that would cause me to transform. As my back and shoulders began to burn, I walked back the way I had come, pausing in the lee of a massive boulder just long enough to bring my wings under control as they materialized. The final moment of transformation was a dangerously vulnerable time. But soon I was able to read the wind and shape it to lift me from the rocky beach and take me a short distance out over the water so I could get a better view. Where was the demon?

  “Come, servant. Where have you gone?” hissed my adversary from within my head as well as outside. “I feel you hunting. Is that needful? Your posturing has come to an end, as you knew it would, and you must pay the price. Aid me in this conquest and kneel before me, and perhaps you will survive to share in the changing of the world.”

  I had faced a hundred demons in my life, many of them bound so intimately with their evil hosts that they had taken on their names and personalities. But this one ... it had absorbed the corruption of a thousand hosts throughout its existence. Every vileness a human could devise was given form in its words. It had taken on a life of its own—perverse, corrupt, unclean—that came cascading out of its mouth in a vile vomit of hatred. At last I recognized the missing piece of the Khelid mystery. I had wondered how Kastavan could cast away his life so easily and allow the demon to move on to Aleksander. But it had not been Kastavan’s choice at all. The Khelid had not bent the demons to their service; it was the other way around. The Khelid had been nothing but a succulent opportunity for a demon who had grown into its own purpose and was determined to take its place in the world.

  I glided over the water’s edge looking back toward shore to seek out the demon, and there ahead of me, across the rolling deadness of the sea at the end of the shingle, loomed a monstrous blackness. The smell that wafted from it told me that it was what I sought.

  On the day I crawled out of Balthar’s coffin, drowned in filth and shame and hopeless terror, I had been forced to strip the bodies of Ezzarians who had lain dead in the summer heat for the three days I was buried. I had believed that nothing could ever cleanse that stench from my nostrils. Time had done the impossible, but now as I flew toward the shapeless darkness, the same stink floated on the wind.

  I circled once to get a lungful of the clearer air over the water, changed the silver knife into a longsword, then I stretched my wings straight behind and plummeted toward the monster. It seemed the size of the Derzhi Summer Palace, but was probably no larger than one of the towers. I could make no assessment of its vulnerability in the darkness, but I could certainly not count on any sunrise to give me a better view, so I relied on surprise and strength, plunging the sword into the beast with all the force of my dive. Quickly I wrenched out the weapon, streaked upward, then came down on another side. The beast was made of flesh, not armor or scales, a thin, tough outer hide stretching over rippling bulges of gelatinous tissue. When I pulled out the sword, large globs of the stinking mess came off in my hands, while the outer hide grew over the wound instantly, like cooling grease on a pot of stew.

  The beast shuddered when I yanked out the sword the first time, and when I stabbed it again, a low growl rumbled at the edge of hearing, so dreadful in its timbre that sweat beaded on my forehead and between my shoulder blades. The sultry air held the stink close.

  Stab. Withdraw. Fly upward. Circle and stab again. And again.

  A ferocious roar exploded from beside me as I struck, shattering one of my ears. It felt like a knife had been driven into my head, and hot fluid flowed down my left cheek.

  Again. Stab. Withdraw. This time when I flew upward, a thick arm of darkness reached after me, shredding my breeches above my boots and raking my thigh with acid tendrils. No question I had hurt it. I struck again.

  “Who comes here? I will know you!” It didn’t matter that one of my ears was useless. The words vibrated in my bones, and the world itself began to writhe in pain. The darkness folded in upon itself. The sky swelled like boiling syrup. The restless ocean behind me exploded in inky waterspouts that clawed at the burgeoning clouds. And behind the tumult I perceived a soundless cry of such hopeless torment that I almost dropped my sword and fell from the sky.

  Aleksander. His agony threatened to rip the weaving of the world. Such violent madness made it almost impossible for an Aife to maintain her enchantment. She had to hold all of it in her mind. From every expression of Aleksander’s being, she drew a thread that she wove into the unpatterned weft of the world’s essence, giving it shape and substance. I walked upon the threads of her creation, breathed the air she shaped from them. The water of this ocean could drown me; the stones crush or support me. And if her threads snapped too quickly, we would both be lost ... and Aleksander would go mad.

  To my right a pale light flickered, but I could pay it no heed. A thick tendril had wrapped itself about my ankle and was pulling me toward a gaping maw awash in luminescent green drool. I slashed at the writhing arm, cursing myself for the distraction.

  Forget Ysanne. Forget Aleksander. Concentrate or you’ll be dead.

  “The slave! It is my own slave who comes sneaking in here claiming to be a warrior.”

  The timbre of the voice had changed. Sneering contempt. Bone-chilling softness. Agonizing familiarity. I refused to listen to the sound or what it signified. I circled the thrashing monster and landed on the rocks. Standing amid the gross remnants of the beast flesh, I struck upward at the stinking bulk. But before my blade could reach it, it vanished.

  “Shall we play a game, slave?” The voice slithered past my useless ear. “Let’s make this a merry hunt. Come find me. Show me your warrior’s skills.” A laugh from behind me had me spinning in my tracks. A man stood a hundred paces away, hands on his hips. His face was only a blur in the darkness, but I could not mistake the tall, lean shape. He retreated, running and laughing, and I gathered the wind and took after him. I traversed the length of the shore, but I could not find him, so I caught an updraft and soared above the cliffs.

  The face of the land was as I had already seen, a broken and scarred wasteland. Great slabs of rock were tilted crazily one upon the other. Cracks and fissures scarred the wide barrens, so deep they glowed red in the darkness as if the land were bleeding from a violent lashing. The heat rose from the molten deeps, buffeting me as I flew. Where would he go? Why lead me on this chase?

  The land broke upward into mountainous ridges. I settled to the top of a narrow shoulder of rock that allowed me to see back across the wastes to the cliffs and the sea, and forward into the mountains. I needed to think.

  A cold wind blew off the mountains, pelting me with grit from the ridge top as I tried to come up with a plan. I could explore for days and never find him if he chose to stay hidden. An Aife could hold for a day; Ysanne for a few hours more than most. But there was no precedent for a demon that would not reveal itself when challenged.

  “Hear me ...” The whisper was almost indistinguishable from the wind. The pale smear of light I’d seen earlier glimmered a few paces ahead of me. “... danger ... the fortresses ... Parnifour. ...” I stared at a wavering image of Aleksander taking form in front of me, and I strained to make sense of the words with my damaged hearing ... when I sensed a movement of air behind me. I whirled about, just in time to avoid having one wing sliced from my back. The sword left only a long tear in the wing, but a deep, fiery gash in my left side.

  The figure behind me gave voice to my doubts. “Can you fly with only one of those grotesque appendages?” Aleksander—a fully fleshed image instead of the wraithlike glimmer. His blood-streaked sword was pressed tight against my own. “A slave with aspirations of glory. Can’t permit that.” He whipped his blade around and lunged. I parried, and we fought up and down that ridge, mo
ving so quickly a human eye could have seen nothing but a blur.

  I did not let his face deceive me. He was no more Aleksander than was the gelatinous creature on the shore. Unfortunately, he was also no less. He had Aleksander’s skills and reflexes joined with the demon’s speed and tirelessness. And he knew my moves. Aleksander had watched me train, critiqued my form for two weeks. I could not make a move he failed to counter. We battled for an hour or more on that narrow strip of rock. I left a bloody streak on his arm, but he had me to my knees. Though I got out of it, I took another wound on the right thigh and another painful rent in my left wing. I was considering a leap from the edge of the cliff to give myself a moment to breathe, but the demon was relentless, and I wasn’t sure the damaged wing would hold. A shard of rock broke off under my foot, and I slipped backward, my left leg dangling over the edge. I was afraid that in the moment’s vulnerability, I was going to lose a limb or an eye or my life. But in the same instant, the demon Aleksander stepped back, laughing, and stretched his arms to the sides in invitation. “Find me, slave. You know me well ... as I know you. You don’t say what you’re thinking, but now I am joined with this being of power, I can read it for myself. You can hide from me no longer. I know your name, and I will use it to bind you in heavier chains than you had before. You will fear me at last, and there will be no end to it. But not yet. I want to enjoy this little duel a while longer. It gives me pleasure to watch you pursue your own doom. For the present you must use everything you know of me to seek me out. Your oath commands it.” He laughed uproariously. “You see? You have always been a slave and will never be anything else.” Then he vanished.

  I crawled back onto the ridge top and lay gulping for air, the sharp rocks cutting into my face and chest. The wind whined off the mountains, making me shiver as my sweat dried. I had to force myself to keep breathing in spite of the wound in my side, which burned with the slightest movement. The cut in my thigh was less painful, but was bleeding heavily, so I tore a strip from my shredded breeches to bind it.

  I didn’t understand the demon’s game. He could have had me. But I dared not sit still, lest he change his mind. So I summoned the wind and gingerly flexed my damaged wing. The same sensitivity that enabled me to feel the slightest variation in the air ensured that there was no such thing as a “mild” tear. But I let the wind do most of the work, and made sure I was no more than an arm span from the ground until I was sure it would hold. My course was wobbly, with an alarming tendency to curve to the left and downward as I favored my left side. But after a time I learned to compensate and put aside any thought of it. There were more important concerns.

  Where would the demon hide? It was no use wondering why. I had to find him. Ysanne could not hold indefinitely. My injuries weren’t going to get any better. I hunted up and down the valleys, using every trick of discernment I possessed. Several times I caught sight of the ghostly shimmer, but I ignored it. I could not allow myself to conjure such imaginings of Aleksander. It had almost gotten me killed, and I couldn’t help him if I was dead. Yet the apparition was persistent. As I entered a valley that looked eerily like Capharna, I heard the whispering again. “... danger ... the border castles ... portal ... warn ...” Words designed to catch my attention. To make me vulnerable. I was vulnerable enough.

  Where would Aleksander hide? Sleet bit at my skin, and frost coated my eyelashes as I flew deeper into the mountains, where, buried in a snow-clad valley, I found the corpse of Capharna. Charred timbers had fallen against the stones of broken towers, all rimed with frost to make it an eerie white in the black midnight. Carefully I explored the ruins of the Summer Palace, the kitchens where iron stoves lay rusting, the graceful galleries now collapsed, their treasures scattered, tapestries ripped and rotting under a blanket of filthy snow. I leaped from one pile of rubble to another, until I reached the great throne hall where Aleksander’s life had crumbled. The wall at the inner end where I had hidden behind the brass grillwork still stood, but the domed roof had fallen in, its brilliantly colored mosaics shattered and scattered like colored sleet amid the destruction. The Lion Throne lay crushed beneath a fallen column, the virile beast itself staring upward, helpless under the mass of stone. Fitting.

  “... must listen ... their plan ... open to Khelidar ... beg you listen ...” Haunting desperation from the wraith that shimmered in the gloom. But every lesson of my life demanded that I stay apart, especially in that place where the specter of my captivity walked with the other ghosts. The vision was so real that I could feel iron bands about my wrists and gnawing helplessness in my belly.

  I shook it off. It was a ruse to distract me. To make me weak.

  “... for the love of the gods, hear me ... danger under the mountains. Parnifour, Karn’Hegeth, all of them ...”

  Despising myself, I turned my back on the apparition.

  “Where are you?” I screamed. “Come out and be done with this foolery!”

  I clambered over the stones, snow swirling into my face.

  “Have you come back to your proper place, slave?” Searing fire ripped across my shoulders, a brutal lash knocking me to my knees.

  But this time I would not stay down. I gathered all of my strength and infused it with my anger, then I brought my gathered right wing around with the force of a whirlwind. The demon Aleksander looked astonished as he slammed into the standing wall. I transformed the silver knife into a spear and launched it at the slumped figure, but in the instant before it struck, he disappeared.

  “Face me, coward,” I screamed. “Who is it has forgotten his place? You are no prince, but a nightmare lingered too long into day. Hyssad! His soul is not yours. His body is not yours. His life is not yours. I will not allow it.” I yanked the spear from the dirt and summoned the wind.

  “Your prating rings hollow unless you find me.” No laughter this time. “If you don’t do it soon, your Aife will never wake from her enchantment, and you will live here with me for eternity. Your past servitude will be as honey to the gall of my lash. Find me, slave.” The world shuddered once more with the silent horror of Aleksander’s torment.

  I spiraled upward from the ruined city, trying to decide where to hunt next. The demon was correct in every point. My victory in one skirmish was of no significance whatsoever. The wind tore at my ragged left wing, and every effort to straighten my course pumped blood from the wound in my side. The blow I’d struck had ripped the gash wide open. The cut in my thigh throbbed, and the acid burns on my thighs and knees had blistered so badly I had to cut off the tatters of my breeches to keep them from flapping against them.

  Where would Aleksander hide? Where would he feel safe? Desert. The dune seas where he was born ... where he would race his horses, the sands in a cloud behind him ... where he could see his enemies for leagues around ... where the stark beauties of sun and sand in a thousand subtle shadings fed his soul. But I could find no desert in the dark realm Ysanne had woven. No sun. Parched, lifeless ground, but not the serene openness of Aleksander’s home. For endless hours I made long sweeps across the landscape, feeling my strength and the precious time leaking away with my blood. At last I stood on the cliff tops overlooking the boundary of the desolate sea, where I had stepped through the portal.

  Ah, fool. See what is before you. The sky was not lifeless, any more than Aleksander’s desert was lifeless. Winging its way through the low clouds was a bird, a solitary patch of white against the looming darkness. I smiled and launched myself from the cliff, ignoring the sticky warmth on the arm I had kept pressed to my side as I rested, ignoring the fresh trickling wetness below my ribs. Across the uneasy waves I followed the bird, sure that I would find what I sought in the midst of the watery desert. “Thank you, my love,” I whispered, and a soft breath of wind caressed my cheek.

  It was an island fortress, poking up from the gray water like a fist. I circled, hunting for some weakness, and I believed I’d found it on the battlements, where a small wooden door led into one of the towers. I lan
ded on a stone parapet and changed the silver knife into an ax.

  “Come out,” I said. “There’s nowhere else to hide.” I raised the ax. The wraith appeared before me, holding out its hands as if to stay my blows. I paid it no mind, but struck the door. Twice. Three times. The wood began to splinter. My anger, my impatience, everything pent up for sixteen years was mustered into the blows of that ax. I could have destroyed the stone battlement itself with my fury.

  But the wraith took on more solid form ... Aleksander’s form. It did not speak, but brandished a quite lethal sword, threatening me away from the door.

  “So you’ve come out,” I said. “I thank you for not forcing me to dismantle your refuge. Shall we get this done?”

  The wraith did not speak and did not attack, just held its ground. So I changed my ax for a sword and went after it. I had no time for games. A blizzard of feints and blows. Ordinarily the wings gave me more in power, flexibility, and mobility than they hampered in weight, but not that day. The shredded one had little strength and could not furl tightly when I needed it to. Yet even so, I did not fall, for never did the apparition attack. When I stepped back, it did also. I could not understand it. What was it defending, when it had summoned me there?

  “Can you not find me?” The voice came, not from the Aleksander I had been fighting, but from a second apparition that materialized just behind me. Hoping I would not have to fight both at once, I gave him no time to taunt. I spun, ducked a wicked slash, and grazed his shoulder with an upward cut. He growled and came after me. Advantage. Disadvantage. Forward. Backward. Battle unending ... unrelenting ... unthinking ... no difference between the blade and the arm that wielded it. I became a whirlwind, a hurricane of edged steel and anger ... and every time I gained an advantage, he would disappear and shift position. I knew how to manage such a fight. Each time he began anew, I watched and learned how the manifestation was to be different, and I adjusted my technique. Eventually we would finish it. Eventually he would make a mistake. I would not falter. I would not.