Mythic Transformations

by Kris Schnee

  Mythic Transformations

  by Kris Schnee

  Copyright © 2017

  Kris M. Schnee

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Fotokostic, https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Fotokostic

  A version of the story "Ivan and the Black Riders" first appeared in the story collection "Roar Volume 6",

  edited by Mary E. Lowd.

  https://www.amazon.com/ROAR-6-Kyell-Gold/dp/161450251X/.

  Please consider leaving a rating on Amazon or Goodreads! Ratings are important to independent authors.

  Contents

  Guardians of Mistcrown

  The Petlyakov-15 Amusement Engine

  Little Grey Dragons

  Griffin Rider Venn

  Kentauroi

  Ivan and the Black Riders

  Strange Waters

  Seal of Solitude

  Aldous and the Rain of Coins

  In Glass

  Where You Find It

  The Gift of Life

  ZOM100: Zombie Mitigation Lab

  The Temple Beneath the Ashes

  Author's Note

  About the Author/Other Works

  Guardians of Mistcrown

  # 1. #

  Darius carried a lantern in the morning to find his way through the chilly, clinging fog. No improvement from yesterday when his surveying tools had been useless. He checked on his pack mule, still staked and grazing the wet grass, and scratched her ears. "I still hardly know the way around here better than you. Let's go find that pass."

  He hiked three miles east along the southern slope of the Mistcrown Ridge. Any spot along this land could become his by ducal decree, if Darius could just find and map a better caravan route than skirting a hundred miles around the mountains. He'd build an inn, a toll road, and then move on and let the fame and profit follow him onward to more discoveries.

  Wait. What was that eddy in the mist? Darius crept toward it, afraid to jinx things. He murmured a prayer to Janya, friend of all travelers. There was a patch of darkness... but no, it was just a cave.

  His mule sniffed and sidestepped. "What is it, girl?" he said. White crags towered above them. Maybe the cave was deep enough to be a passage through this stubborn range! He chuckled. He might as well wish it was a portal to fairyland, lined with gold. Worth checking, though.

  Darius tied his mule down, checked his lantern, and drew his machete. He swirled the fog around him as he approached the cave.

  The white tunnel dimmed a few steps in. A faint animal scent reached him. Darius paused. He shouted "Hey!" into the gloom and listened for the growl of any beast he'd rather hear before meeting.

  Instead, a voice squawked back. "Human, stop!"

  The human stepped back. A click-thud of odd footfalls raced closer. Darius turned to run but the cave dweller bounded after him. A hot fuzzy weight pounced him, knocking him to the floor. His lantern rolled and its glow flashed like lightning across a mass of fur, claws and feathered wings. In panic Darius slashed with his machete. The blade cut into the monster's foreleg. Talons grabbed his wrist.

  The lantern stopped. It now showed a sharp eye and a hooked beak that opened to hiss and say, "Stop!"

  He said, "What?"

  "I, guardian," the creature said. It warily let him go. "Stand."

  Darius eased himself upright and put his blade away, then slowly set the fallen lantern upright. This was a griffin! Supposedly they were a common sight in the skies of distant lands... or in forgotten treasure-hoards. How did one talk to legendary predators? He held up his palms, where the minor pain of his scraped skin pulsed with his rapid heartbeat. "I don't want to fight."

  The griffin said, "Good. See that mark?" It pointed to an elaborate rune carved on the dim floor. "You cross, I must kill. Spell. Understand?"

  The mark was just past where he'd been tackled. "A spell forces you to kill intruders?"

  It nodded. "Maybe I not kill you." The griffin settled down on its haunches. "Where you from?"

  A judgment of whether he counted as an enemy to slay, maybe? The beast's relaxed pose confused him. He spoke truthfully, "Ironleaf, a town west of here. My family fled from a race of witch-rats and became wandering merchants. I'm more of a mapmaker."

  "You see many places?"

  "Yes. Why?"

  The griffin bounced on its taloned forefeet. "Tell, tell!"

  By the gods, this creature was demanding a story! Darius cleared his throat and sat on the cold stone floor. He told the griffin of the mines of Ironleaf and their water-pumping vines, and the coastal city that traded in the mystically light metal called lumina, and the brutal Holy State where masked priests held back the sea with spikes of coral.

  His stomach rumbled. The griffin tilted its beak. "Hungry?"

  "Yes."

  "I hunt. Wait. Do not cross mark." The griffin pushed past him and trotted out of the tunnel, twitching its feather-edged tail.

  Darius was alone in the misty cave, unguarded, while its defender went out to kill something for them. His poor mule was the most obvious target. He hurried outside, saying, "Hey! That's my animal out there!" The tethered mule reared up in fright, but then the griffin glanced back at him, squawked, and took to the air.

  Of all the things to find in these mountains! Darius went out to reassure his pack animal. Petting her calmed him down, too. "Think we should run?" he asked. The mule snorted and looked toward the cave. "Yeah, I still want to know what's in there, too."

  He walked back into the gloom of the griffin's lair. When he approached the warning rune, it began to glow and he took a hasty step back that made it fade. Whew! He peered as far around the curving tunnel as he dared. There was green-tinged light beyond. Maybe it really was the other end of a passage, leading to a forested valley.

  Darius laughed at himself. An encounter with a magical guardian and all he cared about was his maps? He could just ask. He walked back outside to wait.

  A rush of wings stirred the fog overhead. The griffin dropped a rabbit at his feet and landed, wiping blood off its beak. "Take."

  "Thank you," he said. "That won't be enough to share, though."

  "Don't need. I hunt only sometimes. Eat."

  The great cat-bird watched as he skinned the rabbit and kindled a small fire that burned away the nearby mist. It kept asking questions about his travels and about humans in general.

  Darius fed twigs to the fire so that it would help feed him. "Sir griffin --"

  "Sir?"

  "Figure of speech." The creature's accent was odd but it was hard to say how much of that was the beak, or its intelligence, or wherever it was from. Darius had been thinking of the creature as an "it", with less respect due than to his pack animal. "I'm Darius. What's your name?"

  Eagle eyes stared into the campfire. "No name."

  "You should have one." He thought through simple names, and remembered an innkeeper that he'd never seen leave her building. "What about... Zara?"

  The griffin raised one wing tentatively toward the fire's warmth, basked in it, then scooted closer. "Good."

  "How long have you been guarding this place? And why?"

  "Many, many years. This cave, spell nest."

  He searched his memory. He hadn't been born with the power to touch the Weave of magic and cast spells himself, but the power to see its emerald swirls of energy ran in his family. For him to sense a glow in that cave without even trying, could mean he'd found a natural fountain of mana, flowing into the world. So that's what Zara was guarding! Kingdoms had been carved into the map around nodes like this. One of them was the private fiefdom of a supposedly immortal wizard who, as a hobby, designed the witch-rats that had connived their way into ruling his hometown.

  The
fountain was of little use to him, but powerful people would love to buy knowledge of its location. Still, he did have a job to do. "Is there an easy path north from here?"

  "Easy? Fly." That beak didn't look capable of smiling, but there was a note of amusement in his voice. "On foot, only rocks rocks rocks."

  At least he'd asked. As for the other find... He could go to the duke and have him send a dozen soldiers to claim this place. Darius would be well rewarded. He'd just have to help murder a magical creature who wanted nothing more than to share campfire tales.

  He asked, "Why do you guard the 'spell-nest'?"

  "Spell."

  "Whose?"

  The griffin watched the flames. "Old wizard, here. Said he come back. Did not."

  "Do you know his name?"

  "Baccata."

  Darius startled. "The founder of the Holy State way south on the coast? But he died over a century ago!"

  "Not coming back, then."

  Darius pried the rabbit off its spit and cut a slab for himself, then offered the rest.

  The griffin might not have needed the food, but he devoured his portion, tearing it up with talons and beak and gobbling each chunk. He seemed fascinated by the simple miracle of roasting. "You heat food much?"

  "While traveling. I can teach you." Darius sighed. "I wish I could teach you to escape from this spell, instead. You're forced to attack anyone who crosses that mark in the cave, right? What if you're far away when that happens?"

  "Can't go far. Pulled back."

  "How far?" He was negotiating now with the terms of an ancient master wizard's compulsion.

  "Short flight." Zara squawked, looking thoughtful. "You cut through cave? Go around mark?"

  "Good idea, but I don't think that would work. At best I'd need to bring a wizard to see if the spell is on the tunnel itself or on the whole area around the magic node. I'd also need to bring digging equipment and a lot of patience, or miners." Which meant hiring people who'd care more about the node than about whether the griffin survived. "Can your claws break stone?"

  "No." The guardian settled down glumly with his head on his talons. "No good way out. Darius... I, trapped. If you, trapped by spell, you try leave?"

  "You mean, would I try to escape? Yes. It sounds like you were forced into this guard job, without even a book to read or a proper camp."

  "Book?"

  Darius fetched two thin leather-bound books from his still-uneasy mule's bags and showed them to the griffin. "This one's my journal, where I write about my travels. This one is a book of Janya's stories. She protects merchants and wanderers."

  "Book! Yes. Baccata had one."

  "He didn't happen to leave it?"

  "Yes."

  Darius' eyes widened. "For that, I would trade you more than cooking help."

  Zara's talons scraped furrows in the dirt. "Trade... Yes. Wait." He ran back into the cave.

  Darius sat there eating. There was hardly a way not to get rich and famous for his discoveries here! He murmured a prayer of thanks.

  Zara bounded out of the cave with something in his beak. He ran up to Darius and before he could react, tagged him with it. Not a book, but an egg carved from coral. Light flashed from the ball, hurling them both backward. Darius crashed onto his back and felt the fog swirl around him. "What was that?" he said. The mist had closed in on Zara, making him ripple like a reflection.

  Zara screeched. "Why you nice? It easy if you just thief!"

  A line of pain burned across Darius' arm. He hissed and clutched the long, shallow cut near his right wrist. Must have fallen on a rock. His skin was discolored already around the wound... Yellow and scaly, along his unhurt arm too. His fingers were growing sharper and each thumb was migrating to turn backward, like a bird's foot. "What did you do?!" he shouted.

  "I, trapped," said Zara. "Only way out."

  It wasn't just the fog that made Zara look strange, but his flesh flowing to make his beak shrink, his fur and feathers grow thin. Darius' own skin felt like clay being sculpted. His teeth pushed forward as a yellowing mass, and the taloned arm he used to feel it had tufts of brown feathers growing down past his elbow. When he got his first sight of a long tail snaking its way out from the base of his spine, he passed out.

  * * *

  Darius opened one weary eye to find a beak at the edge of his vision. The hard, curved thing rested on the ground, where an ant was crawling on it. He swiped the bug away and heard the clack of his scaly hand against the beak's numb surface. He sprang to his feet only to crash back down onto all fours. In front of him lay an equally groggy human dressed in the clothes Darius no longer wore. A man with Darius' face.

  "Zara, what! How!"

  The man stirred, coughed, and said, "Had to. So much time here." He rolled upright and slowly discovered how to stand. "How? Old spell egg. Many years to learn." Both their voices were drunkenly slurred, coming from unfamiliar faces.

  Darius crawled in a circle to look at himself. Cat paws, golden fur, dark feathers.

  He staggered out of the cave on all fours, as though he could flee from this body. When he got outside he sped up, waggling unfamiliar muscles on his back. Zara called out after him, but he kept running through the grasping fog with its looming rocks and trees.

  His chest ached from fatigue. He imagined he could get away, find help, undo the last day. But there was a headwind now shoving him backward. The wings he'd barely noticed spread out to catch the air and throw him skyward like a kite. He was suddenly high up, clawing with six limbs at empty air and unable to get farther away from the cave. Gravity slammed him down in a sobbing heap. He wasn't just cursed into this new shape; he was trapped!

  When he lifted his beaked head from the ground he found human-Zara standing there. Darius swore and ran past him, hearing no footsteps behind him with his long ears. He bounded back across the land until the line of the mountains stopped him. When he'd finished shouting his lungs raw, cursing Zara and fate itself, the former griffin was there again to hear his abuse trail off. He glared, starting forward to lunge at Zara, then tripped over his own tail.

  For a while he lay there curled in on himself. Fitful, shuddering sleep took him for a little while.

  When he looked again, Zara remained. He said, "Why are you still here, body-thief? Dark wizard! Monster!"

  The new human said, "I... sorry."

  He lifted his head from his taloned forefeet. "Why didn't you ask, damn you! I wanted to set you free and this is how you reward me?"

  Zara looked down at the dead campfire and prodded with one booted foot at the bones from their meal together. "Last human here, I kill. No choice. Two before, same. You, two steps more in cave..." He frowned and spoke slowly but more clearly. "If you take two more steps, past the mark in the cave, I must kill. No more kill."

  Darius' altered body shuddered. Had the human shape given Zara some of his speech and intelligence? Even now, was there a fog slowly dulling his mind? "The mark in the cave," he murmured, twice, slightly relieved he could form the words.

  "The binding spell on you, now," Zara said. "Senses griffin like me, so senses you. Sorry. Took years to see the spell."

  There had to be some way to reverse this magic! Though really, no rule of the world said so. Creatures used and hurt one another, and as Janya's sayings put it, "Rare and blessed are the fair dealers and the pavers of safe roads."

  He should use this new body to tear Zara apart in vengeance. But... all the former guardian wanted was the freedom of travel that Darius had enjoyed.

  "So," he said. "The wizard's book?"

  "In the cave. Take."

  Darius looked around for his mule, but she'd slipped her tether and left an obvious trail of trampled grass leading into the endless fog. There was even a comforting animal scent in that direction. He lifted one forefoot, glared at Zara, and pointed. "Fetch my mule. She'll trust you more than me, now. Her name is Nini." Looking like this, he couldn't approach her himself.

  Zara staggere
d away, unsure on two legs, and called out. Soon he came back holding the spooked mule's reins. He winced at the way Zara mishandled poor Nini. "Stop acting like you mean to eat her. She's yours now."

  Zara's head tilted.

  "You stole my body and you've trapped me here. You may as well take the mule too." He tensed, still wanting to charge and try out these new claws. The Travelers' Tales had Janya admonishing believers: "Strike down the false dealer, as a service to the true." But she also said: "Some folk can be led onto a true path." He counted the cost of an attempt, as a set of travel equipment he no longer needed much.

  Zara saw him warring with his own anger. "Can't take it back," Zara said, looking down.

  "Then leave me my small knife and my journal. Unbuckle Nini's packs without wrecking them and I'll tell you how to use the other things."

  They passed the afternoon and evening outside together, human and griffin, as though they were friends. Darius taught Zara enough that he might avoid being robbed and killed or dying lost in the forest. "Where do you want to go?"

  Zara, sitting on a rock, looked into the endless haze. "Anywhere."

  "You might try Ironleaf. The wizards there aren't evil, and they'd pay to get a look at someone affected by this spell."

  "Ironleaf? You said they drive your family out."

  "That doesn't make them bad. They outwitted and out-competed us with their magic and trade, is all." Darius winced at another thought, and saw from Zara's worried look that he'd realized the same thing. Consorting with wizards likely meant that they'd learn about the cave and its magic node, and they'd want to claim it. Over his dead body, literally. Damn! If he were ever going to be human again, he needed Zara to stay alive, and for one of them to find a mage sympathetic enough to help him peacefully. Since he was now trapped near this cave, the negotiator had to be this former cat-bird who'd been a hermit for over a century!

  Wait... Did that mean he might now live that long? This body didn't feel old or brittle. He glanced toward the magic wellspring whose curse linked its power to him.