by Kris Schnee
"That's plenty," said Fianna, snatching the bottle back. "Let's try the antivenom again." She looked at his exposed arm and gasped. Connor's vision was blurry all of the sudden, but he tried to see what she was looking at. Grey skin?
Something fell onto his sleeve. Hair. His hair, great clumps of it! The others were staring at his face. "What?" he tried to say, but there was only a weird buzzing in his throat.
Fianna started rapid-fire cursing. She threw down her pack to root through it. Lugh said, "I tried to warn you. The wine doesn't look evil, but —"
"But what?" said Connor in a squawking voice. He realized his mouth hadn't moved when he talked. He reached up to where the sound had come from: the top of his suddenly bald, slick head. His glove had torn to reveal rubbery, fleshy webbing between grey fingers, and his fingernails were detaching and falling off. Then something snaky brushed against his leg. He whirled in panic. Fianna jumped out of the way. He caught sight of something long and flexible, attached to his spine above the legs.
He grabbed it and they all stared. It looked like a thick extension of his torso, slimming to a pair of sideways fins. Very much like a dolphin's tail.
Fianna stood holding a small potion-vial and wearing a dumbfounded expression. "Uh, Connor?"
Connor pulled off the bugproof shirt so that he wore just a thin vest on his chest. His pants had torn in the back to make room for the big, heavy tail. His arms were hairless and grey. Other than that, he felt fine. "Powerful stuff," he said, resting against the wall. When he spoke his forehead buzzed and he became more aware of the beaklike snout that jutted out in front of his eyes.
"You're strangely calm about this," Lugh said.
Connor shuddered. "I thank the alcohol. But I was in a lot of pain just now. This is surprising but it doesn't hurt."
Lugh examined another wine bottle. "This has a 'J' seal, as though it were made by him, not for him."
"I don't think I can undo this change myself," said Fianna.
Connor turned around and felt the tail — his tail! — move with him. He couldn't get his shield to stay comfortably on his arm, so he left it and switched to the two-handed spear, which was scratching against something on his back.
Fianna looked behind him. "You have a fin, too!"
It felt like a rubbery block attached to his back, flexible and pointed. "Weren't you the one telling me to have fin?"
She razzed him.
Connor counted his blessings. He looked for the scar left by a manticore's claws last year and didn't see it. If anything, he felt better than he had in years! As long as he was still alive, there were more important things to worry about, like keeping the others safe. Curse-breaking could come later; it wasn't the first time one of them had been hit with some kind of unwanted magic. "For the moment I'm fine. Let's go on."
* 5. Fianna *
She was still tired from the flowers, although seeing Connor spontaneously turn into a dolphin-man was an eye-opener. She let him lead the way past the storeroom through more tunnels that looped around the pyramid. They found only another storage room full of seeds and tools, and no treasure to speak of. But in the hall that would take them back to the start, there was a little passage that led inward and down. At the end stood a sturdy oak door.
Fianna tugged Connor's tail to get his attention. Kind of as an excuse to feel it too: fishy but warm. She motioned him to step back. Connor nodded and let her do her thing. So, Fianna crept ahead and listened at the door, inspected it, then looked at Lugh, saying, "Magic?"
Lugh shook his head. No obvious magical traps then. Fianna took out lockpicks and cracked the lock after a few minutes. She gave a hand sign for, "Ready?" and when they nodded, she opened the door.
There was a large stone room whose floor dropped sharply just past the door. Plants filled the pit, and they were twitching. Then a very large fanged flower reared up on a stalk covered in thorns, and gave a roar of challenge.
Fianna blinked and shut the door, leaning back against it. She yawned. "Normally I'd be all for jumping down there and getting the hell beaten out of me by giant demon plant tentacles, but today I'm just not up for it." She had Lugh block the door while she rummaged through her pockets.
"What's the plan?" squeaked Connor.
Fianna pulled out two vials and mixed them. She opened the door, threw the vials at the bellowing flower monster, shut the door, and counted to three.
The whole pyramid seemed to shake with the explosion. "Better living through alchemy."
Connor whistled. "That works."
Fianna opened the door cautiously, only to have it fall off its hinges into the room. Down there the oversized bouquet was roasted and petals decorated the walls. She hopped down, pulled out a telescoping rod, and poked at what was left. "It's dead, Lugh."
Lugh made a ramp down into the room, letting Connor go next. Fianna found the remains of a shelf and some fancy vases and bottles that had been on it. "Oops," she said. At least there was also a big wooden treasure chest — finally something worthwhile to loot! So she pried that open, too hastily. Some mechanism inside the thing threw a cloud of pollen at her face.
Fianna fell back sputtering and flopped down on the charred floor, with the powder tickling her nose and eyes. She would've checked the lock if she hadn't already been so sleepy... yeah, sleep sounded good now.
Lugh shook her, doing something meanwhile to the pollen in the air. "Get up." But Fianna just flopped, unable to keep her eyes open as Lugh shouted distantly, "She's had a double dose!"
She dreamed of the island, and of the wizard walking around it preparing strange defenses. The pyramid was covered with enchanted, dangerous grapevines and the trees came to life to eat people. Jardin himself sat in an evil throne room guarded by a giant demon plant, plotting to curse and poison people with his wine. But Fianna was too tired even to dream, and started to sink past sleep.
After a while she started coughing in the dark. She didn't much care until someone started shaking her too. That made Fianna flail one arm, which didn't move right, and open her eyes.
Lugh looked down at her with a weird expression. Could it be he was actually smiling? "You're all right! I thought —"
Connor definitely had a grin on his beaked face, but he didn't seem to mean it. "I'm sorry," he said. Lugh even hugged her!
"Sorry for what?" Fianna asked, sitting up. There was a weight propping her up from behind, but everything felt wrong, and her voice —
"Oh, you didn't!" She batted at her face. Her hand brushed against whiskers and a bulky shape sticking out with her nose at the end of it.
Lugh now looked puzzled as he crouched beside her. Connor said, "We couldn't find anything in your pack to help, so we tried the wine."
"Should've checked the second left pocket on my belt," Fianna groused, with a low growly sound. She scratched the black fuzz of her flat chest. There was an odd scent along with the drifting smoke of the explosion. "Hey, what exactly did it do to me?"
Fianna stood up and nearly fell over, but the long new tail kept her balanced on big, clawed feet that stuck out from the front of her boots. She grabbed the tail, covered in sleek black fur, and said, "Something like... a cat?" Then the facts came together for her: the broad set of her shoulders, the skinny chest, the deep voice.
For him. "A... cat-man?"
Lugh stared, blushing. "After all that — why? We almost lose you and then you're a male all of the sudden, and an animal!"
Fianna said, "Cool it, Lugh," and laid one clawed hand on his shoulder, but Lugh turned and stepped away, shaking his head. "What's gotten into you?" Fianna said. At the back of Fianna's mind he felt like panicking, but making sure Lugh was all right was more important, and Connor had survived drinking the wine. If Fianna thought too much he'd probably be confused and scared, followed by dead, so the solution was to get back to work. Fianna picked up his stuff, realized how poorly all his clothes fit, decided he really didn't want to think about exactly where and why, and rearrang
ed everything as well as possible.
When Lugh turned back to them his face was a locked door again, making it more obvious how upset he'd looked before. "I'm all right," he said, shutting his eyes for a moment.
Connor was watching the entrance above them, and a charred oak door on the far wall. "Jardin could be here any moment."
"Another door?" Fianna was still surprised by his own voice. The echo of it didn't sound the way it did inside his own head. Whatever! Awkwardly, Fianna strode over to the door and attacked the lock with his lockpicks. These new catty fingers felt too big. Each click of his claws against the door startled him, making his weird pointy ears flick to catch the sound. At last the lock shifted and he smiled, feeling newly sharp teeth. "Got it."
Lugh came over from rummaging through the halls. He held a few torn sheets of paper. "I found something. The end of a mage's notes."
"Jardin's?" said Connor.
"No," said Lugh. "Someone else who came through here." Fianna backed away from the unlocked door and let Lugh read:
"He's caught the others one by one. Poor Rogg. I thought he was dead, and I'd already mourned him, but he came back as a mossy giant shooting burning needles. I had to kill him myself. That bastard Jardin is going to pay. As soon as I've rested here and refreshed my spells, I'll make sure of that."
Fianna turned around slowly. There were bits of leaves and roots splattered everywhere. His stomach churned; they might've once been a person. "Where did you find those notes?"
Lugh said, "In a shredded journal. There were bits of clothing but not even bones."
Connor whistled. "Got shot with needles by his changed friend, and turned into something himself, maybe."
Lugh nodded grimly. "Jardin hunted them down."
"Stop it!" said Fianna, hands on his knees, head shaking, tail lashing. "We're going to be — we'll be fine. Lugh, let's have your best magic barrier in front of us as we move."
"We could just leave," said Lugh. "While we can."
Connor pointed at the door with his spear. "Let's finish this."
Lugh said, "He must be waiting below."
Fianna looked to Connor to decide, but realized Connor was standing there working his triangular jaw and nervously feeling his new sharp teeth with his tongue. Lugh was sullen and fidgeting with his fighting-oar, not really wanting to advance or retreat.
Fianna shut his eyes and sighed. "I don't want to run, not now, and I don't want an evil wizard behind me. Let's open that door."
At this the others sprung into motion. Fianna pushed the door open.
* 6. Lugh *
Immediately Lugh put up a dim ward against spells of the crude projectile kind, just in case. Since stealth wasn't their strong suit today, Fianna tossed a pebble down the wooden stairs beyond the door. It rattled and bumped with what seemed like terrible loudness. Lugh winced, expecting some horrible hybrid beast to pounce it, but nothing reacted. They were all walking into some kind of trap, even so.
Connor seemed to sense this, and crept first down the stairs. Lugh went last, shuddering at Fianna's tail twitching in front of him. The stairs and the hall below seemed grown rather than built, and the wood gave faintly at each step.
Below stood an underground garden. The wooden ceiling was partly translucent, letting sunbeams through from the exterior garden above, apparently straight through the soil as well. The light shimmered down onto rows of jagged-leafed plants. Their scent was faintly fragrant, making them all stop. Lugh sniffed cautiously, then gave an "Okay" sign. Fianna stood there basking in the sunlight. Beams highlighted... ugh, his fur like velvet. Lugh sighed. He'd always wanted to talk with Fianna about anything other than traveling and treasure-hunting, but they were always busy on their adventures or planning for the next. He'd never worked up the courage to ask for more of Fianna's attention, and now he felt he'd lost the chance. If they got out of here and broke the spell on the other two, Lugh would try talking more to them. For now his friends were cursed. He had to keep on guard; they needed him.
Connor tousled Fianna's ears and Fianna purred, then looked surprised at the sound. He went back to business, wielding a knife and a boomerang.
The next room was a laboratory dominated by a wooden table, covered with scrolls, bottles, and potted plants. There was a device Lugh didn't recognize that had a tube aimed at a leaf trapped between glass plates. To one side was a dank little room with a skeleton in a cage. No time to investigate yet. And through another doorway —
"Jardin," Fianna whispered. Lugh hurried forward, ready to fight, and saw a bedroom. A man lay on the oaken bed with his stringy white hair loose and his wrinkled fingers clutching green sheets. A staff rested in the corner.
Fianna made a grabbing motion with one of the distance-grabbing gloves, which barely fit on his larger, clawed hand. Instead of flying over to him, the staff scraped across the floor and clattered down, striking green sparks. Fianna yelped and said, "Grab it!"
Lugh lurched forward, snatched the staff, and crashed into the wall. Green energy swirled around him but he was afraid if what it'd do if he let go. Connor stepped toward the bed, ready with his spear.
The old man in the bed didn't move.
Fianna poked him. Nothing. "Dead?"
"An illusion?" asked Connor, looking quickly over one shoulder.
Lugh looked at the man's magic-saturated body and its faint ties to the staff and something in the laboratory — treasured items, probably. "No sign of trickery. He's either dead or very good at faking it." Lugh would have liked to meet him, to see what he could do, even if it immediately ended in violence. Whatever Jardin's skills had been like to witness face to face, no one would see them again.
Fianna stomped the floor. "Somebody already killed him? They why didn't the islanders know?"
"Looks like he died in his sleep," said Connor.
Lugh thought. "Everyone was afraid of him. Depending on the timing, he could have been dead for years and no one would care." He shook his head. Of course they wouldn't care, except to cheer his death and loot the place. Like they were doing. "No one would know, I mean."
Fianna prodded Jardin again. Connor said, "Quit poking the dead wizard."
"I want to see something," said Lugh, and stepped back into the laboratory. The glow of Jardin's soul-connection led him to a shelf of books. "Plants: The Time and Life Series. Green Wizard Needs Food. The Green Miles. Journal."
Lugh pulled that last one from the shelf and ran his hands along a cover made of smooth, warm leaves bound with linen. (Much nicer than the library of the necromancer they'd once fought.) He flipped to near the end and began to read while the others looked over his shoulder.
"My next army will be both plant and animal. The new spell will warp bodies and minds to serve me..." Pages of notes followed.
"How convenient: test subjects have come to me. Unfortunately one escaped into the sea during his change, but I can at least watch from here as my new monster ravages the Arbre Islands on its own."
Connor squeaked. "The thing that washed ashore at the Salted Place."
"Blast," Lugh read. "The villagers banded together and used some sort of local folk magic, and a lot of pointy sticks and fire. How dull. I wish there were more suitable subjects."
He went on: "My own age is showing. It may be a preposterous idea, but if I were to invent a milder version of the curse, it could be an indirect way to restore myself! I've stumbled across a fountain of youth... Blast, again! I didn't think it through. Of course I couldn't use it on myself."
Lugh looked up from the book. "Every wizard has blind spots. Apparently one of his was on who he could affect." Lugh read again.
"Not even the indirect approach works. I had hoped to put the enchantment into potion form and use it that way, making myself young again by accepting the random changes of the 'curse'. But even the potion is useless on myself. The surviving prisoner is two-thirds mad, but perhaps if I could teach him the spell..."
Fianna glanced in the directi
on of the alcove with the caged skeleton. "I guess that went badly."
"I tore what flesh was left from the fool's bones. He had just enough of a mind to hear my demand and spit and hiss in response. I need a proper apprentice to learn the spell and use it on me. Then I will have my health back, and then I can return to my work of conquest! It won't matter how the spell changes me; I will be in peak form again."
Lugh stared at the last written pages, reading them with wide eyes. "What?" said Fianna.
"Some time passed before Jardin wrote any more." Lugh went on.
"After a life spent seeking power, I find that no one will trust me as their master. I now lack the strength to search for pupils on my own, and those I try to summon by various means all resist me despite my promises of magic and youth. The only exception was the one boy driven by vengeance and easily tempted to serve me, but who immediately turned on me like a viper. Much like I would have done in his position long ago. Since no one can be found to listen to me, learn from me, and master the transformation spell so that it can be cast on me, I am alone and helpless against Time itself.
"And so, I will make some use of my powers to make some last mark on the world. Not to bend others to my will; there's no further point in that. Instead, this will be... a gift. I will take my best wine and lace it with the spell that will make its drinker a healthy youth along with whatever unwanted change it does to them. A bit of fur or even bark is worth it. The magic is no good to me, but I might at least be remembered for making it, instead of for my other deeds.
"A crate of the wine is ready. I will try floating it to the islands tomorrow, with an explanation, and then... then perhaps someone will accept my apology, and come to visit this old man."
Lugh paused. "That's where it ends."
Fianna's whiskers twitched. "That can't be the end! He died trying to curse the islanders and that's it?"
Connor said, "I'm not sure it's a curse."
"Look at us!" said Fianna.