by Kris Schnee
Connor did, making clicking sounds. "After all the venom and poison of this place's defenses, I'm a healthy young man with a long life to look forward to. From the looks of things, so are you."
Fianna shuddered. "He didn't mention an antidote. Of all the ways to heal the sick!"
"And I liked fish anyway."
At this Fianna cracked a nervous smile. "You look okay, at least."
"As do you. Lugh, tell Fianna this isn't all bad."
Lugh stared at Fianna and felt tears in his eyes, which made no sense. He just wanted Fianna to be alive and happy, so it was stupid of him to care that the girl he'd known had become... this fuzzy thing. Fianna didn't belong to him.
"Hey," Fianna said. "Lugh, it's all right."
Lugh sniffed and saw the cat-person's eyes looking back at him with concern. Fianna was there for him, and always had been.
"Thank you," Lugh said. "Do you... suppose the wine would help my leg?"
Fianna looked at his bad leg. "You'd drink it just for that?"
He met Fianna's eyes. "No." It was better to join the others in being changed than to be left apart from them.
Connor went to get a bottle, leaving Lugh with Fianna in the dead wizard's laboratory. In Jardin's home and crypt.
Lugh looked through the clutter and said, "There's the wine, and a formula for it on these scrolls. We could help a lot of people with this and get rich, even without whatever else is here."
Fianna nodded. "Are you sure you want to do this? You don't know what will happen. We could be stuck like this." Fianna started to get a panicked look.
Lugh said, "But we'll stick together, right?"
Fianna was distracted from worry. "Yeah. We'll find other places to go."
Lugh looked back at the peacefully dead man. "He wasn't all bad, then. Not in the end."
Fianna tugged thoughtfully at his whiskers. "But if Jardin had never gotten old, he might've stayed evil. And if we give the wine to people, what'll happen? They might be better off dying peacefully."
Lugh blinked. "You'd rather be dead?"
"Well... no. I wouldn't."
"Good!" Lugh was surprised at how forcefully he said it. "Anyway, the old and sick people we save will gang up on the occasional evil wizard we also save, right? Just like at the Salted Place. That's better than us deciding they should all just die because we're afraid of the consequences, I think."
Connor returned, saying, "Besides, who would take an evil warlord seriously with such a ridiculous tail as yours?"
Fianna said, "You're one to talk."
"Give me that water vial. I'm all dried out."
Lugh let himself smile, listening to their banter, but then he thought of his bad leg, his bald head, his many scars. For those he had the wine. For the nightmares he had his friends. He raised a toast to them, and drank.
Lugh knew something of what to expect, but the feeling of fur crawling across his skin still startled him. When his ears twitched and a huge tail sprouted from his spine he nearly fainted. Fianna distracted him from the fear by reaching out to scratch his fuzzy chest.
Which started to feel soft and nice, as it swelled...
Lugh saw the others getting taller, or maybe it was himself shrinking a bit. He was stretching and squashing in strange places, but Fianna and Connor were there for him and had been through much the same thing.
Lugh shut her eyes for a minute, wrapped in Fianna's warm arms as her change finished.
Connor squeaked. "Not bad. A squirrel, I'd say. Very mobile."
When Fianna let Lugh go and squeezed her fuzzy hand, Lugh took a few steps. A different gait, big tail, and strong legs made her trip and end up in an upside-down heap against the wall, laughing with the others.
Lugh stood and hugged Fianna, trying to see the girl she'd known. The same smile was there on that new feline muzzle, which was getting closer. Fianna's snout bumped against Lugh's own and both of them blushed. Lugh stammered, "I never got to ask if you, um..."
Fianna murmured. "Liked you? Of course, silly. I was afraid to ask, too. These bodies are strange, but I suspect I can get to..."
Lugh glanced over at Connor, who had a grin plastered on that dolphin face of his. "Ah, just say it!" the man said. "Fianna, are you or are you not tempted to jump in the sack with the cute squirrel-mage?"
Lugh and Fianna sputtered, but Fianna eventually nodded.
Lugh had been embarrassed enough today that she went for it at last, leaning forward to kiss her friend and see what it was like. Warm, musky, confusing, and something she wanted to learn a lot more about.
Connor said, "We do need to make sure we leave without getting killed by any other stray traps, you know. Jardin didn't bother to disable everything on his way out of this world."
Lugh nodded. They all had plenty of time, if they were at least as young and healthy as they'd been going into this place.
They soon found that when Lugh created walls and ramps of magic, the energy he summoned was no longer a dim red, but bright and golden.
When they got back to the shore, there was a bit of trouble hacking their canoe free from stray killer vines, but the three dealt with that. The real challenge was in loading up the loot, plotting how best to use it, and burying a bottle of good wine in the grave they'd dug for a bad man.
A Walk In the Park
Jake grumbled at the gate to Adventure Studios, where he was holding a free pass. He'd looked forward all week to using it. But once he drove all the way out here, he learned that there was a special Christmas and New Year's event going on for the rest of the year, and his voucher didn't apply. He'd argued with the gate clerk's manager, then stomped away to think about their offer to sell him a half-price weekend ticket. Fine, he decided; it was better than missing out completely. He shelled out the money and tried to shake off his bad mood.
The whole park was relentlessly decked out in Christmas stuff. Fake snow, candy canes, and speakers blaring absolutely every standard carol. All despite the place being in Florida, and seventy degrees and sunny. It was weird walking around in a t-shirt past piles of cotton snow! The rides were all open, but mobbed with tourists. Jake stood in line for forty-five minutes or so for a ride that was just a 3D-ish movie with water jets and confetti being blown at him for some reason, for five minutes. Blah. He tested out one of the roller coasters for more excitement. Forty-five minutes to wait, five minutes of terror.
Why did this place have to be so popular and crowded? Jake sighed and gave up on the rides for now. Adventure Studios was overrun with people, so that he kept banging into someone whenever he moved without glancing over one shoulder. Blah! He couldn't let a bad start spoil his whole trip. He needed to relax.
He dodged away from the worst crowds and found himself in one of the restaurants, the Doorway Cafe. Doors everywhere, ranging from ornate temple gateways to glowing blue and orange holes in the wall. Jake thought it was a pretty good place, even if what it sold was mostly the same overpriced burgers as every other restaurant in the theme park. And even though finding the men's room was hell.
He still had the free pass he'd gotten as an early Christmas present. It was a fancy plastic card, faintly translucent and glittery. Although it hadn't been what he hoped for at the entrance gate, there might be another benefit to it. The park sold "fast passes" that were kind of obnoxious but useful, letting the owner cut in line at any ride. Maybe the special card counted as one of those. He shrugged; it was worth a shot. He ate a quick meal to help calm down and ignore the throngs of people walking by. Once he was done, he stretched and headed out to take another shot at the rides.
He'd started his weekend adventure right after work, so it was dusk already and starting to get dark. The park looked strange at this hour. The unreal haze of the slanting sun helped make the fake stage-set buildings look more natural, so that he could pretend he was really in an Arabian market that happened to have a roller coaster.
Which was a little odd, because he wasn't in the market area anymore. He'd enter
ed the Doorway Cafe through it, but had left by a different exit. This one had taken him to a whole other district of the park. The buildings here were in a bright cartoonish style. They looked full of energy, practically ready to leap off of their foundations and bounce along to a happy song. The winding street of gift shops and restaurants made a nice contrast to the Arabian zone and whatever that spooky castle in the distance was.
The castle looked interesting. He wandered in that general direction and past a fried-dough stand. There didn't seem to be much of a line outside, so it looked like a welcome break from standing around. He dodged around another cart selling whole turkey legs, then stopped at a rope barrier he hadn't noticed.
There was a whole zigzag waiting area for people to stand around in, like he'd been doing for other rides, but this one was empty. Jake thought he'd just seen someone walk in, and there was no obvious "Closed" sign, so he shrugged and ducked under a few rows of empty guardrails. The line led from the castle exterior into a dungeon, with torches on the walls. It took him a moment to recognize that they were electric. The effect would've been neat except that there were also flat-panel TVs to amuse the guests while they were waiting.
So was the ride open or not? The TVs were off and nobody else was here. For that matter, which ride was this? Jake pulled out his park map, which gleamed eerily in the fake torchlight. He was in the Cartoon Zone, and so this must be... Mouse Quest Castle. One of the movies this area was based on, was about a bunch of adventurers who'd been turned into mice by a witch's curse. There was no actual ride listed here, though; the map was outdated.
Jake shrugged and headed farther down the tunnel to find out whether this was a roller coaster or a motion simulator or what. Other than one sign warning people away if they were bothered by flashing lights, there wasn't much to indicate that he was even in a theme park. Jake pulled a silver pocketwatch from his back pocket and realized he'd been walking through this castle for ten minutes. There was a grinding noise ahead, and dripping water, but when he got to the actual ride, no one was working there. He'd come to a tunnel that led into darkness, with a set of carts on a track. They were rolling along and pausing briefly at the loading area as though nothing were wrong.
Jake called out, "Hello?" Considering that the attendants were basically only there to keep some kid or stupid person from hurting themselves, he might as well see what this thing was. He took out a large wooden sign and a marker from somewhere, set them down, and wrote "Unattended Ride — Use At Own Risk" for anybody else who walked in. He hopped into a cart, thought better of it, and hopped back out to attach a complaints box to the sign plus some paper and pencils. There! He flicked his ears backward, got back on the ride and let the cart carry him away into the tunnel.
Creepy music started up. He hadn't seen the movie this place was based on, but it seemed scarier than typical cartoon fare. The lyrics were something about ravenous cats prowling for prey. He actually found himself ducking in his seat when the special effects started up. Lots of flame jets and swinging blades and feline shadows. The cart sped up and the track veered this way and that through a dungeon. There was even a scent of dust and dripping water down here in the dark. An experience that had started out as a vaguely gothy version of "It's A Small World After All" had started to become a roller coaster... And he was all alone in the tunnels.
It was a relief when the cart finally stopped. Jake had been in the dark so long that the lights of the exit station seemed surreal, like blacklights making everything from the walls to his skin glow. The last area had featured an evil cat king about to eat him. Jake had felt like he was clawing at the seat, more scared than he had any right to be. He managed to laugh. "That was not a kids' ride," he said, as the cart's safety bar released. He got up and stretched...
Just in time for the cart to plummet into darkness with him standing in it.
* * *
Jake woke up lying painfully on his back, in a dark room. He sat up, saw an odd glow around his hands, and held them up. They were shining as though under a blacklight again. But stranger yet, they were grey, there were little claws at the ends, and two fingers on each hand had been squashed together into one. Jake yelped and scrambled to his feet. A whiplike tail behind him caught his attention next, and it wouldn't pull loose when he yanked at it. It was as though he'd been doused in glowing paint and decorated like a mouse! He tried to brush away the grey fur painted along his arms, but the stuff wouldn't come off. The faint light overhead had that same unreal quality that made everything glow without really helping him to see his surroundings. That had to be why he looked like this, yeah, plus nerves. He laughed. He'd get out of here and tell everyone it was an awesome ride, very convincing.
The only door out of this little spot was locked. He pounded on it and shouted, but no one came. What was going on? He looked around and realized that the room looked like a fantasy castle's version of a broom closet, with a glowing oversize key on a high shelf. He tried to hop up to the thing and fell over backwards onto the stone floor, hard enough that he thought he'd be badly hurt. Instead, though, he felt like he'd been squashed against the floor for a moment and sprung back up without a scratch. Weird! Even so, he couldn't grab the key. In frustration he took out a battleaxe and just smashed the door down.
He blinked. "Wait a minute. Where did I get this?!"
Jake was holding an unreasonably big steel axe notched from heavy use, with a tiny scrawled inscription reading "Property Of Ulfgar". It glowed like everything else in here. Come to think of it, where had he gotten that sign earlier, or the pocketwatch? The door was laying in pieces on the floor. Jake dropped the axe so that he didn't get arrested or something, then hurried out. He glanced back into the room and saw that the axe had vanished, like it had stopped existing as soon as he wasn't paying attention to it.
A feline hiss distracted him. He was back along the ride's tunnel, and for all he knew, the special effects were more real than they should be. He stumbled through the darkness toward where he'd been literally dropped off. An empty cart whooshed past, but it was too fast to get into. Finally he made it back through a long and winding hall that led to the station, and hopped out to relatively normal ground. "Hello!?" Still, no one was here. At least there was an exit! He could get out of this weird light and figure out what had happened to him.
The outdoor air was a little chilly. Night had fallen. People were still walking around, though a lot fewer than before. He peeked out from a doorway, then looked back down at himself and gasped. He hadn't changed back! Despite leaving the castle and whatever special effects it was using to make him look like a mouse, he still had glowing fuzzy skin and a tail! The streetlights overhead were normal but his rodent hide still looked like something from a cartoon. He said to himself, "Okay, apparently I'm seeing things." He wondered whether to try walking in the open and risk being seen. Why not?
A mother beamed at him and said, "Hey, look! It's one of the mascots. Wave hello, dear!" Her kid waved meekly. Jake waved back, confused. He supposed he did fit in pretty well with the toon castle theme, if he was glowing and mousy like this. So had he been sneakily dressed in a costume and doused in special paint, or what? Hopefully somebody around here would know. He walked down the toon-city street and headed for the next area of the park, in search of answers.
He hesitated at the bridge where cartoonish colors gave way to dark jungle wood. The air was felt vaguely tense along the border, as though crossing it was special, somehow. He took out a giant, ancient-looking scroll from his back pocket and... "Now wait a minute." He glanced back and found he wasn't actually wearing pants anymore, just a long and vaguely medieval tunic. Great; not even the gift shops sold pants! He took a few steps, trying to figure out where he'd have the best chance of finding someone in charge... and stepped across the bridge without meaning to.
Jake shivered and felt fur bristling along his tail. He marveled at being able to feel the thing curling behind him at all. "I have stripes, now?" It didn't l
ook mousy anymore, and neither did his paws. He glanced at the map again. He'd crossed over into the Lost Temple Zone, full of towering trees and jungle drums. That kind of matched what he was seeing on his own body now: orange and black stripes all along his arms and tail, like... "A tiger. I've turned from a mouse into a big cat." He darted off of the main pathway, into the trees that hid the park's maintenance sheds and other behind-the-scenes equipment. He needed a moment to hide and think.
Though he'd expected time to catch his breath, the changes kept going. His medieval tunic was shifting now too. Starting to look like a ragged, buttoned shirt tied up around his chest to leave his midriff bare. He was going to get arrested for running around half-naked. Yeesh! He whipped out a needle and thread, tore down some big leaves from the trees, and quickly made a proper skirt for himself so there wouldn't be any lovestruck explorer guys expecting him to pounce on them.
Jake stood in the little jungle, starting to count just how many things were wrong with what he'd just done and thought. Now that he looked himself over again, that shirt looked awfully puffy around the chest, and the top button looked ready to burst. He poked at his chest with his hands, trying not to use the sharp little claws on his delicate fingers, and blushed. Considering how well the skirt fit around his hips, too... well, her hips, the latest changes had made her not just a tiger but a tiger-girl in a jungle outfit.
Jake shuddered. She had to get this situation dealt with somehow! She dashed back across the bridge to try undoing the latest change first... Whew! She found herself turning back into a mouse, not that that counted as normal. The jungle finery was shifting back too, into the peasant tunic he'd had in the castle.
That was progress. Maybe if he concentrated on keeping his clothes the same, sort of like how he'd kept his props around for as long as he focused on them, he could stick to mouse form. He took a deep breath, crossed the jungle bridge, and immediately became a slinky tigress again. "Oh, come on!" There was even a flower in her hair.