CHANGELING: Book Two in the Weaver Series

by Vaun Murphrey

  Fid Tal’s humor changed, her thoughts where moving on past Pez’s suggestion as she considered the grand plan in her head. She considered Kal. His mirth was long gone as he returned her regard. After a deep breath she said softly, “Kal will keep the ability to bend but he will be consigned to the lowest levels where he has always belonged.”

  Some of the other Axsian’s gasped but Kal didn’t flinch or betray an iota of alarm. I had no idea what this meant and neither did Cass. We would have to ask him and hope the question wasn’t offensive.

  Sil gave himself a moment to ruminate and after an almost imperceptible head nod from Kal he said, “Done.”

  Her Highness spoke to Pez without looking at him. “Bring Kal back to await Judgment after Sil has asked his questions. I have more pressing matters to investigate.”

  With no warning Fid Tal was gone in a gush of ozone scented air.

  Sil barked at Pez, “You…go elsewhere until I call!”

  Pez objected in an affronted voice, “I was instructed to watch over Kal until his Judgment.”

  Kal spoke up…finally. “No, you were not. You were instructed to bring me back. I cannot flee restricted as I am and Sil cannot permit me to leave without your presence. What do you think could happen in your absence?”

  With a defeated look at Sil and Kal, Guild Member Pez vanished from sight in another puff of ozone.

  Hershey addressed Sil, entreaty evident in his posture. “I am sorry I let things progress. Your word should have been enough to withstand her commands. Old habits of obedience took hold. I apologize for my lack of loyalty to our charter. Please forgive me.”

  One arm extended to pat his underling on the shoulder in a conciliatory way, Sil sighed away his disappointment to say, “It was politics at its worst, Zik, and you never were good at it. Learn to stand tall or you will never be what I know you can be.”

  Kal strolled over to our side and began to pick the strip off of our forehead carefully.

  Sil came close and asked softly, “Do you feel any damage to your minds?”

  Cassandra and I laughed together, me in our head and her out loud.

  All eyes turned to us again. Cassandra opened our mouth to explain just as Kal got a good grip on an edge to rip the flexible rectangle from our skin. The burn and pinch was intense. I imagined a huge red swath above our eyebrows. My twin felt the damage with the tips of our fingers as Kal handed over the used device to Sil.

  We weren’t going to walk around with that crap on our head for who knew how long. With the grudging consent of my sister I went in the Web to heal us. This part of my gifts was relatively new and I felt like a blind person joyously feeling their way around a Braille library.

  Instinctively I grasped the essence of my sister in the Web that would allow me to make changes in the physical world. I thought of most things in the mindscape I’d called home for many years as a quantum copy of the harder less manipulable ‘real’ world our body lived in. No one really knew what the Web was only that it existed and defied the laws of physics in the doing of it.

  Most people think of space as mostly black with dots of faraway light, an infinite two dimensional night sky if you will. While the Web—or the Collective as it used to be called—did resemble space, it was alive with color and intentional activity. Floating nebulae-like clouds of discarded and lost memories drifted sporadically between groupings of brilliant variegated illumination that resembled galaxies. Bursts of color zinged in paths akin to asteroids as Weavers traveled across the known Universe we’d constructed with our minds and souls.

  Heaven wasn’t a dream for me.

  I tore myself away from the distraction of the knowledge and joy to be found exploring and concentrated again on my sister’s essence. I pictured the skin of our forehead then zoomed through it like a microscope with a target in mind. The damage wasn’t deep, just to the epidermis, specifically the stratum corneum, and the cell repair was fairly quick and required a minimum of energy. That was good because with all the power pushes, first in the holding cell with the jump to look outside and the chest kick to Pez then with the fight in the infirmary, we probably needed to eat soon. If we had been able to keep down Maggie’s chocolate cake we might not have been having this problem at all.

  I shared the thought about our possible energy shortage and Cass let me know she understood. Distantly I could hear her speaking with Sil and Kal but I took a moment just to be. If you ‘listened’ to the utter quiet long enough it started to whisper things back. I imagined it was like the sounds a gestating human heard through the walls of their mother’s stomach, indistinct but comforting. Sometimes I chased the tantalizing echoes to find forgotten lives or living fascinations.

  My sister pulled at me for attention and I dove back into the ‘real’ world.

  Grouchily I asked, “What?”

  The heat from the renewal process still lingered on the skin of our forehead. Sil was waving a couple of different instruments over our face, blocking our sight but we knew it was him because of the black fingernails curled around the sides of the devices.

  My twin harrumphed mentally at me and I sensed how shaky we felt. Add to that the forgotten need to empty our bladder and you had a minor emergency so I spoke up to Sil, saying, “Before you guys get all carried away with your tests do you need a urine sample?”

  Our vision was abruptly unobstructed and Sil dropped his tools in separate pockets before saying, “Do you have a need to eliminate because of the skin regeneration?”

  I blinked and Cass fidgeted as I said, “No, we just need to pee.”

  Kal walked us over to a large cabinet looking affair with no knobs. He pushed on the seam where the doors met and they popped open with a release of air that smelled faintly funky and singed. Was this like an alien port-a-potty or were all of their facilities like this? We had so many questions!

  As the doors swung wide a faint light was revealed. Another one of those fuzzy glowing green circles, like the ones from the Obsidian tunnel, was mounted on the interior. Kal motioned for us to enter then turned his back as the doors drifted closed automatically.

  Apparently Axsian’s also sat to do their business because the ceramic looking igloo shaped gray seat in front of us looked very similar to an Earth toilet albeit on a taller scale. My sister took over getting our clothes out of the way then hopped us up to relieve our bladder. Ah the ecstasy. Freud might actually have something with his theory on psychosexual development and the pleasure associated with controlling bladder and bowel movement, although we were past that stage. Not until we were done did Cass realize there was nothing available for us to wipe with.

  I thought, “That’s great, dude. What now?”

  A ping of sound like the chime of a timer sounded and we felt a whoosh of air against our exposed nether region. My sister yelped and got us vertical in seconds.

  Kal yelled from outside the doors, “Do you require assistance?”

  Embarrassed, Cass arched our neck to reply and kept our naked posterior facing outward. At least if he opened the doors we’d only moon him, not give him the full show.

  “We’re fine!”

  Our ears heard the tinkle of rapid chimes again as if in warning something more was yet to happen. Just as the alarm became a solid whine the top of the ‘toilet’ closed like the petals of a flower drawing together. A scent hit our nose that smelled hot. When silence reigned again, the seat returned to its open position.

  My sister leaned us over to look inside the waterless depression and the scent of burned waste hit our nose. We jumped when Kal knocked on the door. Cassandra yanked our pants over our hips. The cotton of our underwear didn’t feel wet. In fact we felt clean. Nifty.

  Another cheerful chime caught our attention. A panel slid open on the left with muted red light. Experimentally I poked one of our fingers into the illumination and nothing bad happened.

  Cass ventured out loud, “I think it’s to clean our hands?”

  It hadn’t burned
our skin so I rolled all ten fingers through the crimson shine until the light diminished. The doors opened with no warning and Kal stood expectantly with Sil impatiently waiting in the background.

  Without ceremony I announced to our audience, “We need food.”

  I’d noticed a tremble in our digits. Passing out wasn’t an option here.

  Sil spoke up. “I yield to your judgment Kal as I know nothing of their dietary requirements.”

  We stepped out and closed the doors of the toilet behind us.

  They called on Pez to gather an assortment of food. He was less than pleased to be our waiter. After he popped out in a huff I said to Kal, “You better hope he doesn’t spit in the grub.”

  Sil’s dark eyes lit with amusement and his surprised smile reminded us of the first time we’d met Melody at the school and her face had shone like a dark star. Not that the good doctor looked feminine in the least. He looked like he could bench press a truck, but his personality let you know he wouldn’t toss said truck on any innocent civilians. His demeanor changed to one of avid friendly curiosity as he motioned to the chair we’d been sitting in earlier.

  Once seated, Cass and I endured another bout of instrument waving with Sil making intermittent exclamations under his breath.

  Kal crossed his arms over his chest. “Will you share your memory with me of the attack?”

  His manner was stiff and I had a feeling he was trying to communicate with body language that we not betray something. Cass was puzzled but she felt my consent so she answered for us.

  “Right now?”

  Sil paused in the reading of his data to say, “It will not interrupt the collection of information. Monitoring their brain activity while you converse in the Web would be interesting. Will one stay and the other go?”

  “Generally that’s how we do it,” I answered.

  Kal widened his stance and closed his eyes.

  As always the transition from ‘real’ world to Web was smooth and refreshing for me. My essence stretched out from where it was linked with my twin and I reveled in the luxurious sensation of limitlessness around me. I hadn’t been able to find Kal when I searched for him back on Earth but now he hovered close by. His light reminded me of a piece of hard candy; a vibrant yellow ring encircling a rich green core. I reached inside my own thoughts and streamed a copy of the attack in my guardian’s direction like an asteroid on a collision course. He caught it easily then sent a reproving thought our way.

  Stillness emanated from Kal before he said, “So now we both know their faces. I cannot say I recognize them, but I would caution you against revealing this fact to anyone other than me. You are new to our ways and honesty is not always the best course.”

  Since Cass and I had already made that decision it wasn’t hard to agree. I pushed forward acceptance and then ventured a question. “What did Fid Tal mean when she said you would be confined to the lowest levels where you belong?” Kal’s brilliant inner core began to spin and churn. Instantly I wished I hadn’t asked but Cass and I needed to know.

  His words had richness to them like sap oozing out of a maple tree. “Axsian’s have a desire for hierarchy and order—perhaps because our gifts can cause so much havoc in the day to day. Much of an individual’s social standing relies upon their ancestry. Even the way we live and where are determined by our genetics. The lowest classes live on the bottom, farthest from the light.”

  The weight of the emotion behind that simple explanation let me know there was more but I decided not to ask. We would know soon enough. I had one more question though. “How did you hide yourself from me in the Web?” Relief hit me from Kal’s direction at the change in subject.

  “Think invisible thoughts, Grasshopper,” he said, amusement riddling his tone.

  Without warning our guardian’s yellow-green ball of light vanished. Somebody liked to watch old TV shows on Earth a little too much.

  Chapter Four: Vanishing Act

  I waited patiently in the Web but Kal never came back. Time is somewhat relative in a place with no up or down, no dawn and the eternal night of space. Invisible thoughts eluded me. How would I know anyway? I couldn’t look at myself. While I was here I thought now would be a good time to let Gerome and Maggie know we were alive and well.

  Nigh on instantaneously at the flexing of my will, my aunt and uncle’s Web essence popped into view. Neither of them was in attendance so I ‘knocked’ as it were. Maggie came first, brightening her hearth fire with her quick mind.

  “Cass? Are you okay? Do you need to come back?”

  “It’s Silver.” I tried to keep my emotions tugged in but I was sure my irritation at her smothering mothering tone leaked out.

  A hesitation with a slight pullback preceded a deflated, “Oh.”

  Gerome saved me from the awkward moment as he swooped into attendance and flooded his LED-bright essence with the force of his discerning mental presence.

  “Yes, Niece?” he asked.

  “It’s Silver, Gerome.”

  His answer was whip fast. “The Niece still stands. What do you need?”

  A little taken aback I stammered mentally, trying to remember what I’d wanted to say. “I just wanted you to know we made it and we’re alright.”

  Maggie was itching to ask questions but I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Where is Cass?” Gerome asked curtly.

  I sent over the image to both of them of Sil and his many pockets of instruments. Maggie flashed alarm at his obsidian eyed, sharp toothed countenance but Gerome didn’t flicker at all. He’d probably already seen Kal without his camouflage. A little warning would have been nice.

  Gerome caught the tail end of my irritation and spoke. “It wasn’t my information to share, Silver. You found out on your own and you survived. Call us if you need us.”

  With that my uncle was gone. Maggie still drifted and flared close by. I wasn’t being fair to her. There really wasn’t a good reason she got under my skin. The sky was blue, our hair was brown, and Maggie pissed me off by existing. Whatever. I wanted to end on a positive note. At some point I was going to have to warn her I’d fixed her fertility issues but now wasn’t the time. “I’ll tell Cassandra you asked after her. I’m sure she’ll contact you guys again. I had an opportunity to let you know we’re okay so I took it. Do you want me to switch out with her for a minute?” I was hoping she’d say no.

  Orange and yellow tongues of flame wove around excitedly like a fire with fresh fuel before Maggie said, “Yes.”

  Resigned, I popped back out of the Web with ease just in time to hear my sister objecting to our food.

  “I’m not eating that. It’s still moving,” Cass exclaimed.

  Our eyes were focused on a tray with assorted small dishes. One plate in particular had a yellowish custard-looking blob of something in the middle and it was indeed moving like jiggling Jell-O. I sent to Cass, “If it looks like snot and it feels like snot, don’t eat it…it might be snot. Maggie’s in the Web if you want to go say hello. I’ll figure out the food.”

  Pure joy and a surge of relief flowed from my twin and she closed our eyes to transfer her mind. I lifted our lids slowly and stared at the assorted offerings. A spiked purple ball and some blue oblong banana-looking things were grouped in a shallow bowl. I thought they could be fruit, possibly. Another plate had a lump of brown grainy stuff that had the consistency of liver pate. I raised our eyes to Kal. “What do you like?”

  He reached over and shifted the brown lump in our direction. “You will find this acceptable I believe. Your sausage on Earth tastes similar.”

  I looked around for any utensils and Kal chuckled. “It is finger food.”

  Our index finger sank in to the first knuckle as I scooped a small amount toward our mouth. It was mealy but surprisingly good. There was a hint of spice that did remind me of sausage. My plate rapidly became empty. Expectantly I looked to Kal for more direction. We continued that way until I sampled every dish but the yellow wiggly one.
There was only so far I was willing to experiment, barring outright starvation being imminent which it wasn’t. The spiked ball turned out to contain tart grapefruit-like juice. Kal had demonstrated how to break off one of the small protuberances to make a hole for drinking.

  Sil smiled at us occasionally from his work area. Hershey and the other two doctors were gathered around him, studying the results from the many tests they’d run on us.

  My happy little feast of discovery was interrupted by Pez. Frankly I’d forgotten he’d been the one to bring the food.

  “Your presence is required, Kal.” Pez’s words weren’t unkind but they had an artificial consideration to them.

  Cass came back just in time to see our guardian straighten and rub a hand over his bald head. She thought at me, “What did I miss, Silver?”

  In a dour dry tone I said out loud, “You missed the food, Sister, which was actually good. I’ll share the memory later. Pez says it’s time for Kal to go.”

  My twin slid back in control of our body just as smoothly as I’d slid into the Web mere minutes ago. She wiped our hands on the thighs of our jeans. “Good luck, Kal. We’ll be pulling for you.”

  Pez tugged on his sash then clasped his hands. “At some point they may ask for your Earthling’s testimony. I will escort her to the Judgment Chamber and then back here.”

  Sil stood and his cohorts melted away, mutely clearing a path for their midnight-skinned leader. “I will accompany you when the time comes, Pez. While Kal is otherwise occupied I claim responsibility for their welfare.”

  The other man’s face went blank then his head oriented slowly toward Sil. “Are you insinuating something?”

  Sil smiled but the friendly tilt to his lips failed to translate to his shining serious eyes.

  Kal tapped the top of our head with an index finger. “Be alert. Trust Sil.”

  I bobbed our head and Sil came closer as Kal walked away. Pez opened a wall tunnel and they were gone. I watched the rock seal closed until it was a miniscule black dot that disappeared. Now we would wait. Doing nothing wasn’t an option so Cass popped us upright and we took stock of the shape our body was in. The meal had replenished our resources nicely and the shakiness was gone. We were so inwardly concentrated that Sil’s voice startled us.