by P. S. Power
She smiled at him, taking him in totally. Blatantly. Trying to make him feel ill at ease. He could see that. It wasn’t about her being mean however. The tickle of magic and concentration coming from her was all about getting him to learn as quickly as possible.
“Good. You’re going to learn how to do that. Some other tricks as well. For fighting you’ll be going to another world. We have a man who… Well, you need to learn English first. You get a week. It’s a fairly safe location, but has its own dangers to be aware of. You’ll be given information to learn, on that location. Customs and some of the people involved. Most of the time you won’t get that kind of thing, but we’re going to start you out easy. Now, if you feel clean enough, you should get dressed. I need to work up some things for you.” She magically arrayed herself in a full tunic and trousers. They were a soft seeming light tan color.
Trying to be good, he got back into the green skirt that he’d had on before. There was no praise for that part, past a nod. Then she moved over and touched the fabric.
“It needs to be thinner. About half that. You made a sewed line. These are actually worn tucked into a belt. It’s just a length of cloth. May I make the changes for you?” She waited, as if he could say no.
“Certainly?” He was still bulging at the front, even though he felt no particular draw toward the woman with him. She reminded him a bit too much of Diana for that, if he were going to be honest.
She made the changes with a hand on his hip, the tingle of the contact being magical in nature. The scanning kind that read him totally, he thought.
His Aunt Taman nodded.
“Move past that. About your sister? Now. You may have to have sex with her in a different reality. Or this one, if it comes up. You might also have to slit her throat, or do things that neither of us can imagine at all. Or my throat. That you will have to kill yourself, in some other form, is nearly certain. That’s so common that we’ll probably have to arrange that as part of your training, if we can. The faster you can adapt to things, the more helpful you will be. Everything rests in the balance here. You understand that part? This isn’t a battle for our lives. It isn’t about some silly ideological difference, or one group wanting the lands and women of another… If we lose, everything will cease to exist.”
That sounded hard to pull off, but he really had heard something like that before. Not that he was sure it was all real. The whole thing could be a game that was being played with him by his new family. If so, they were kind of sick minded. Even if it wasn’t a lark on their part they might well be a little bit off that way. Insane from their magical powers or something like that.
His aunt took his hand and pulled him away at a quick walk. Whatever changes had been made to him, it was really easy to keep up with her. She had those short little legs, after all. Also, for all that she was bossing him around, suggesting daring and naughty things for him, he had to notice that she was doing the minimal bit of that for herself. Wearing head to toe coverings in a land where people went mainly bare all the time stood out.
There was no tingle of mind reading, just a glance in his direction as she worked out what he was probably thinking. The interesting portion there was that she was a bit off. Not that he couldn’t follow the pattern she was using. It just focused more on how he was probably feeling, not knowing that all of his emotions were kind of muted for some reason. Either shock or the changes made to him.
He could kind of tell it wasn't the first one.
The words that came were soft however, in Standard so that the people they passed wouldn’t understand them as easily.
“I know that this is all probably very strange. We have to strip away any sense you have of being you, to leave room for the act that you’re going to need. You have to be able to fit in places, so that means being willing to do anything you need to. We…” She looked upset then, turning her head away from his, so he couldn’t see her face. When they got to the pod, she waved for him to stop.
Then she darted inside, coming out a few moments later with what appeared to be a glass shard. A black one, which was about the size of his fist. Rounded at the edges, but still rough. Not a polished tile or anything. He couldn’t tell what was on it, but there was magic bound to it.
“Sit on the ground and hold this. You have to keep your focus on it at all times. As you get better at doing it, you’ll need to consistently do more. If you do, you’ll feel good. Well and rested. When you fail, it will hurt. Not a lot, but enough to get your attention. A dull ache that will grow until you focus on the stone again. It isn’t hard to use, but it will remember what you did last, always requiring more. For right now, if you aren’t actively in other lessons you need to be using this at all times. Even while you eat. Do you understand?”
He didn’t really, but held his hand out anyway. Probably proving he was a fool. It was going to hurt him, after all. She’d just told him that.
“I just focus on the stone?”
“That’s right. I’ll be off doing other things for a few hours. So you just stay here and do that for now. When I get back, you can put it down. It has a time delay. You might want to start working now though. It’s only about twenty seconds that way.”
He tried to look at the rock directly, casting his mind toward the thing. That apparently wasn’t going to be enough to start with, since his whole body started to hurt. It wasn’t a bad pain, but it grew as time passed, even as he struggled with the concept of what was needed. Slowly, over time, things got worse. There was no particularly nice feelings about the thing either. Not for the first hour or so. Then, finally, he managed a brief time period of deep focus on the rock that was in his hand.
What he felt wasn’t intense pleasure or anything. Just fine. Good, but without anything more than that. Happy that he was doing it right. That lasted for as long as he kept the focus going, the pain hitting him harder and faster than it had before, now that he could manage the needed state at all. The next hour was a desperate attempt on his part to school his mind. When he got even the slightest bit bored, or distracted he was subjected to rather unpleasant feelings. It left him a bit ill and aching, not in real pain. Still, it was sharp enough to get Willum to pay attention to what he was doing, even when his mind kind of wanted him to go and do something else.
He was deep enough in, feeling all right, when Taman came back, standing in front of him for nearly a minute, her mind touching his, before stealing the rock from his fingers and dropping it into a cloth bag that wasn’t really there. Then she handed the blue fuzzy thing back to him.
“Not bad! I’d been told this kind of thing could work, but hadn’t really tried it before. Like I said, from now on, if you aren’t doing something else, that thing is in use. Now, I have a book for you to read. I had to get it from Warden. Maria Ward, the Countess, in fact. That part wasn’t a mistake, but we’ll go into that later. Read this. Then we’ll practice everything in it. I have some people coming for that, so hurry. It isn’t long, but you only have about an hour.”
The book had a nice leather cover. The pages were thicker than normal, being on leather sheets. In color. They showed… About what he’d honestly expected them to. The first section, in fifteen pages, was dedicated to descriptions and pictures of men and women engaged in sex acts. The ten pages after that showed men with other men, which was shocking, the last seven being dedicated to things women could do with one another. The words were technical, but in Standard, so he could work out what they meant easily enough. The pictures helped a lot that way.
It was then that Will understood that a lot of his internal emotional range had probably been stripped away. He should have been blushing brightly, putting the work down in near fear. Especially knowing that people were coming to test his knowledge and practice with him. Given the information he’d just read, then went back over, focusing on it as hard as he could, it was probably certain that he was about to have things done to him that he’d never even known were possible. Pain would, most likely, be involved as
well.
Instead of several men showing up to train him how to act like a woman, it was actually Itzel and one of her slightly older female friends. Taman smiled at him, but didn’t tell him their names.
“Pages one through six. We can move inside for this, since we can leave the public spectacle portions for later. Not that you won’t have me watching and calling out hints. Ladies?”
They both stripped bare as they got inside, since that was clearly what they were there for. It was fun, actually, if nerve wracking. It took several hours, in which time, Taman assured him he’d gone from unskilled to about what an average noble his age would know about such things. Nearly.
“We’ll have to have you do some things with men as well. I’ll transform you into a girl later… That part will take time though, so has to wait. There are more lessons needed for that than you might think. Anyway, this gives you the basic skills you might need for today. That doesn’t do anything toward getting Doris to do anything with you. We have three more hours before that class with her.”
There were more pictures then, though these were on a handheld. They showed a cute, but very old seeming woman. He nearly balked, given how ancient she was, but then just nodded. He kind of understood the idea of the day. His goal was to adapt, without questioning things more than was needed to do his job. No one even cared if he liked it, or it was simple or easy for him, inside. That didn’t really matter. He had to fight through things. Instantly.
“This is Doris?”
There was a nod then, as Taman looked at him. Likely for any sign of rebellion or distaste. He didn't let himself have either of those things.
“It is. She’s a true Ancient. Over three thousand years old. Don’t be confused by the picture, if you manage to get her to do anything, she’ll probably revert to her true form, which is young and lovely seeming. We don’t have any pictures of that right now. I’ll send you with a handheld, so try to get her to change if you can? Even if you manage it, don’t for a moment think that you’ll be fooling or tricking her. Even trying to do that will probably mean you fail at it. Your best bet is to actually be honest with her. Tell her that you were assigned seducing her as a task by me. Then ask her to teach you what to do. It might take several sessions with her to wear her down that way, so don’t let yourself become frustrated if you don’t get it done today. Now, she prizes focused minds, so back to your rock? Hurry. I’ll tell you when it’s time for you to go to your lesson.”
She physically pushed him then, sending him back outside. Not that he didn’t need to bathe again. Apparently he was doing that part in pain. At least for most of the time. He stared at the glassy black stone constantly, holding it in his left hand while he tried to clean up. That didn’t really work, but half an hour later he was back in front of the funny pea pod shaped black and white house, facing away from it as he tried to school his mind again. It was just as hard as before, but he did get to spend more time not suffering.
It also hurt worse when he failed at it.
Constantly. Eventually he noticed Taman standing there, taking the thing from his grasp.
“Don’t lose that. Go to Lairdgren School, walk from the node to the first street to the right, then go left until the alley. Then right, to the third building over. Just walk in. There will be people meditating. That’s basically what you’re doing. Use the rock until Doris tells you to do otherwise. You have about ten minutes to get there.”
He hurried, shifting his clothing as he did that. Only he didn't know what to wear at all. Stopping, he just asked.
“What kind of outfit?”
Taman smiled at him.
“The base of the clothing amulet you have is good for that. Student brown. Make your hair blond for it. About like Dumas? Green eyes. I’ll get you a mirror this time, but we need you to be able to do it without that kind of thing. Here.” She simply waved her right hand, making a shimmering appear next to him in the air. It was a magical projection, but from the feeling of it, she didn't have an amulet on that allowed that to happen.
Instead she simply focused intensely, making it appear almost instantly.
It took him longer to change his hair color. The eyes were actually easier for him, since just wanting the color green got a serviceable shade for that. The hair was harder, since he had to match an actual target that way. Dumas was kind of light colored as far as that went. Like the Count was.
Taman nodded at him when he got it right.
“Good. Go now. Hurry. Remember the directions.” She didn’t repeat them, but all he had to do was follow the map that he’d built in his head. He’d been to the school there before. That had been to talk to the Count, who’d used the chance to set him up for death, but it probably wouldn’t be a problem that day. The man hadn’t tried for him at dinner the night before after all. He also looked like a totally different person. The man would know that the effort was taking place, at a guess, but that didn't mean he had pictures of him yet.
There were real students out and about as he walked along, several of whom smiled at him, even if he was a bit short looking. That was probably down to his new looks as well as the hair and eyes. Commoners could have things other than brown or black hair, but it was rare enough to stand out. At the school he probably seemed young, instead of short, as far as that went. No one scowled at him at any rate.
He was a man though. In all senses of the word now. That part tried to call into his mind, since he was more than a bit confused, deep inside of himself. After all, he was nearly certain that he needed to rush back and marry Itzel at the moment. The other woman was an option as well that way, but he’d had parts of his body so deeply into the younger woman that he was nearly certain she might be with child from it. Except that he knew that wasn’t going to be happening.
No one had mentioned it, but Timon had made him immortal. One of the obvious rules there would be that they didn’t go around having millions of children. He was probably sterile, or so close to it that it was functionally going to be like that. It made sense to him, though part of him wasn’t certain of the idea. Not without checking on it. Which meant having planted his seed, there was a chance that something might grow.
He’d done things with, and to, the other lady there as well, but even a simple village boy knew that you didn’t get a child by doing most of them. Animals didn’t on the farms anyway.
When he found the room, in a focus stone building of middling size, about like the home his parents had, he just went in. The woman from the handheld was at the front, looking at smoke drifting up from a burning stick. It gave off a pleasant enough scent. She didn’t speak, so as to not interrupt any of the others who were there. Instead she simply smiled gently and gestured to a pad at the back of the room.
Willum bowed to her, then moved in that direction, pulling the stone from the pouch on his side. If that bothered her at all, the woman didn’t mention it or try to stop him. Again, the thing was fairly miserable to use, he did get to the nicer feelings faster than before however, so half an hour later, when Clemance, Dumas and his own little sister walked in, dressed exactly like he was, there was a single, fairly soft clap from the front.
“It is now time for English lessons. You meditating may stay, to learn or to practice ignoring the strange input.” Then the white haired woman started to speak, standing lightly, her brown clothing identical to what everyone else wore there.
It took him nearly an hour to learn enough words to understand about half of what she was saying. She pointed at Dumas with her whole hand.
“You, boy. Dumas Thompson.” The name sounded different, but a lot of what had been going on clicked in his head then. The sounds of the familiar word were different, but showed him that Standard was similar in a lot of ways to English. The other language flowed differently, but he started to understand the idea as she went on.
“Tell me of your day?” It was more commanding than the woman had been before. Dumas clearly struggled a little bit, even if he’d b
een taking lessons for a while now.
“I woke up, several hours past the sunrise. Then I ate, with my mother.” He said it correctly for Standard, so it came out as madter. The woman didn’t correct him, even if that wasn’t right. Willum just made a note of the conversation, trying to get things in order, in his head.
Clem was put to the question next, though it was a very different one. A thing that, he was nearly certain, wasn’t aimed at his cousin at all, but was a test for Diana.
“Tell me, Thomson, this new girl, do you think she’s pretty?”
The boy didn’t blush or anything, just nodding at first.
“She’s very… Hot? My cousin, so too close to date. We could bathe together without issue.”
Diana looked ready to blow up, being a commoner by training, if not blood. For instance, one of that type would have managed to seem embarrassed, but not like violence was about to happen. She did manage to relax a moment later. When she spoke it was choppy and horribly accented.
“That would be most welcome, of course.” It was kind of clear she didn’t really mean it, but Clemance ignored that bit of things, giving her a seated bow.
“We should do that, later?”
Diana seemed trapped, but Dumas bailed her out. For the time being.
“We can’t, brother. Is time for meeting, later in this day.”
What that was about Willum didn't know at all. He recorded it in his mind, since the words were all a bit off. Finally, Doris, looking wizened and a bit round of face, without being fat at all, which made her kind of cute, even if Ancient, looked at him.
“I don’t have a name for you, yet. I noticed that you brought your own meditation focus. Are you a new student here?”
He paused, trying to get the accent right. He didn't make it totally, though he did sound nearly smooth.
“Nope. I’m Diana’s brother, Willum Baker. Call me Will. The focus… It’s a magical device made by the Wizard Taman. If I mess up and don’t concentrate on it hard enough, it causes pain. I’ve been using it since this morning. Well, I had other lessons as well, but those are sort of secret.”