Sons (Book 2)

by Scott V. Duff

  “Curious,” Ellorn commented. “I have the most complete picture of the Palace that I have ever had at this moment. I can even see the ‘non-presence’ of your brothers, but you shine most brightly, Lord Daybreak.”

  “So you can see me?” I asked it as I examined its genderless form, or rather, genital-less form. It definitely was male—Okay, just cut the crap. The damn thing was Ellorn stretched out another two feet. It was an interesting change to his features. “Not another ‘I-not-I’,” I muttered, remembering my first name for Ethan. “Ellorn, meet your authority. Tell me, out of curiosity, have you been fighting a Change?”

  Ellorn looked stricken, caught. He gulped, answering slowly, stuttering, “Y-y-yes, Lord.” Jimmy sat down on the steps close to Ellorn, concerned for the brownie.

  “Why? Damn, Ellorn, that’s got to hurt!” Jimmy said.

  “And you know we don’t care,” I said. “Gilán is causing the Changes to make life better for you and I will do everything I can to fill in any shortfalls. Ellorn, you have to know I’d take care of you of all people.”

  “I have no doubts of that, my Lord,” Ellorn said, smiling broadly. “My change began the night I arrived here. I asked the Palace to help stop it because my people needed a symbol of consistency at the higher levels. My needs were not paramount at that time, sir. When you began taking an interest in the Changed, the need for consistency increased as parents started prodding their children, trying to evoke a Change and therefore attract your attention. Since then, you’ve been busy and I haven’t thought to bother you with it.”

  I gawked at Jimmy. “It’s Braedon all over again.” Reaching across the Palace to my garden, I plucked two Esteleum from a bush and tossed one to Ellorn. “Load up. It looks like you’re gonna need it.”

  “Now? We’re doing this now, sir?” Ellorn asked, though he expected it.

  “It’s either that or we watch this blue thing do pornographic things to you,” Jimmy said, giggling.

  “No! Not yet you don’t!” I told it, getting up and scooting down the steps to get closer. It stepped back a foot from Ellorn, which meant there was now a foot and a half-inch between them. “You don’t get to invade him until you’ve helped undo what you’ve done. You blocked his Change. Now you get to help make it as fast and as painless as possible.”

  While our blue ghost wasn’t much in the intelligence department, he followed orders with the quickness of lightning. Literally hundreds of thin shards of blue lightning arced instantly between them and Ellorn seized in a silent scream of horrific pain he didn’t feel. Bones elongated and divided, lengthening his body and growing another two and a half feet taller. Muscles, skin, and cartilage stretched over bone at the same speed and I could only imagine what his internal organs were going through. His skull virtually exploded out of his face before the skin and musculature could form around it. His whole transformation was violent, gruesome, but totally clean except for the ash of his clothing.

  The lightning stopped and both Jimmy and me jumped to grab the faltering Ellorn. “Eat,” I murmured, shoving an Esteleum in his hand as we turned him gently onto the steps. My definitions on space were getting less fixed in reality as I grabbed a blanket off my bed and wrapped it around his shoulders as he shook from shock. We both studied his new body while he rested. Ellorn changed into an amalgam of an elf and a man, a hybrid. At barely five feet tall, he was a short man and a very short elf, but I had a feeling we weren’t quite done yet. He’d gone from a short and clunky brownie who moved with a lopsided grace born of oversized feet and hands to a thin and elegant young man, basically, with long fingers on narrow hands. Outwardly, the only physical marks of faery on him were his slightly curled ears poking out of his shoulder-length, curly hair; the oval-shaped pupils; and the second iris of Gilán’s influence.

  Inwardly was a much different story. His aura still said “Ellorn” but not “brownie.” Even his geas caste changed, which was normal for any Changed, but it caused a shift in the hierarchies in my mind. Ellorn moved from the top of the Palace, second of the Brownies, to a point near the Garrison Commanders. The entire Palace section of the hierarchy came with him. The genome pattern in the caste looked like it would be Gilán’s version of an elf if I was reading it right, with a healthy dose of human characteristics thrown in. There were differences in organs between a man and Ellorn. He has a dual larynx that allows him to speak in both human and most Faery tongues without resorting to magic. His lungs could pull oxygen from a much poorer environment, but handle worse air quality than men in general and there were reservoirs where oxygen could be stored. The concentration of muscle tissue and bone tissue meant that he was stronger than Faery elves. I couldn’t tell if he’d be faster and he was already smarter.

  “How do you feel, Ellorn?” I asked gently.

  He glanced over at me, still trembling. “Weak and dizzy,” he whispered.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “You just being here is enough, Lord.” He wasn’t seeking communion, but I infused the room with my power and created the link anyway. Not certain it would work, I attempted a similar link with the Palace authority and found the communication between them open and easy. “There are more in the Palace who should change similarly, Lord Daybreak. I can feel it. The Palace has blocked those Changes because of me. I am so ashamed.”

  “You made a mistake, Ellorn,” Jimmy said consolingly. “Nobody’s dead, nobody’s hurt. We’re fixing it.”

  “How many are we talking about, anyway?” I asked, watching the blue ectomorph continue to smile at us.

  “One thousand, two hundred and ninety-seven,” Ellorn said weakly. “I think.”

  “All Palace brownies?” I asked easily. The communion bond allowed him to see I wasn’t mad at him, just concerned for him and his fellows.

  “Y-yes, Lord,” Ellorn stammered, after thinking about it.

  “We’ll get to them once we figure out why you’ve stalled, then,” I said, comforting him. “Can you see any reason for it?”

  “No, Lord, except that in most cases of Change, that person’s immediate family is present to help soothe the transitions,” Ellorn explained. “But you and First are, by definition, as immediate as family gets with faery. And my clansmen are several levels away, distant cousins, at best.”

  “I think you’re misjudging how well liked you really are, Ellorn,” Jimmy said with smile. He opened the doors to the Throne Room, revealing the entire population of the Palace standing in the corridors, quietly listening for any noise that might pass through them. “If y’all are really quiet, I bet you could all sneak in and Daybreak won’t notice.”

  The Palace energy form did something curious then: two forms, exact duplicates of itself, split off from the first and moved to the doors. They directed traffic, more or less, selecting some of the brownies to stand at one side of the Throne. Being nervous creatures by nature, I made a point of speaking to them calmly and soothingly and told them there was nothing to be worried about. I was a little surprised when the entire Garrison filed in last. I felt ten shifts, three through the veil and seven across it, and my brothers and Dad appeared on the podium behind us. Mike and the guys were with Ted and Ric. The entire population of the Palace was in this room, except for the Guardsmen at the house in London. Mitch even brought Donny and Ana, dressed for bed, to see what was happening, sitting with the clan from their apartment. The Palace entity allowed Mitch and the kids to sit with them, even though they were among those to be Changed.

  Their thoughts weren’t difficult to read quickly either.

  “Ellorn, it seems to me that you’ve built one very large and very concerned ‘immediate family’ in a very short time,” I told my newest geno-type, scruffling his unbelievably soft hair. “It hasn’t triggered the rest of the Change, though, has it?”

  “No, sir, but it is… unexpected,” Ellorn whispered.

  “Why?” Shrank asked, flying in circles about us. “You’ve helped everyone in here, Ellorn, a
nd usually in profound ways. How the Garrison discovered your assistance in the food drives, I don’t know.”

  “He’s the only person who could have done it so quickly, Shrank,” Peter said, sitting on the steps facing one of the segregated groups of brownies. “These blue men feel like the Palace. Are they Ellorn’s Authority?”

  “Yeah, it’s been inhabiting the walls waiting for Ellorn’s Change,” I mumbled and studied him in the geas. The answer had to be here, in this amazingly complex melding of power and consciousnesses. Frankly, I didn’t see a problem. “Ellorn, do elves have a specific purpose in the Faery scheme of the world?”

  “I’m not sure I understand the question, Lord,” Ellorn said looking up at me. “You haven’t been especially definitive in regards to that, so we’ve been making assignments by talents instead.”

  “Can you work magic, Ellorn?” Peter asked, reaching out his left hand to touch his aura in places.

  “No, sir, not exactly. I mean, there is brownie magic, but it is nothing like the caliber that you do, Sir Peter,” Ellorn said trembling. I could feel his disappointment mounting.

  “First,” I turned and asked, “can you do magic?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “Yeah, some. Marty’s been helping me, and Ian. Just some minor stuff till I get the hang of it. The faery magic comes naturally, though. I can just ‘see’ that working.”

  “Interesting,” Kieran said cheerfully from above us. “I didn’t think that was possible. Seth, can we make that one of those things we keep under our hats, please? You have no idea how much trouble you’ll cause yourself if you let that out.” He was positively glowing his smile was so bright.

  “Yes, Kieran,” I said, agreeing with his request. “But that’s not something you really have to worry about. Anything dealing with the geas of my people is deeply personal to all of us. Trust me, no one would speak of this to an outsider. And this will require an adjustment to the geas—nothing major though.”

  I wasn’t sure how Peter saw the problem so quickly, but I was glad of it. The problem was, I didn’t know how to do it. Jimmy was an accident and the Garrison doesn’t really “use” magic as direct the magic of the geas, technically on loan from me. And I had to form a profile for other “elves” to follow as well. The profile had to be consistently passable from parent to child, just as the geas did. Genetics made that part easy since most of it was already coded in the Changed Ellorn already. I was going to have to wing it.

  “Ellorn, I’m afraid the Palace can’t buffer you from this,” I said. “I’m going to have to increase how much of the world you see and it’s not going to be a pleasant experience. It will be extremely disorienting and overwhelming. It will probably feel like the world is crashing in on you. I need you to concentrate on me until you can see normally again. Okay?”

  “Yes, Lord Daybreak,” Ellorn said, steeling himself for another attack on his mind.

  Poor little guy, except he wasn’t so little anymore. I felt like I was ripping him to shreds for being too damn good but I wasn’t the cause of this. Well, directly… consciously. “Don’t worry, Ellorn. I’ll be with you all the time.” Gilán sang through the three Palace power forms in answer to my call as I meddled with Ellorn’s consciousness. All I could think to do was increase the volume, so I did and prayed it didn’t hurt him.

  Ellorn literally blossomed before me as I slowly and purposefully changed how much of the universe he could comprehend. Starting with the multiply phasing sound of the magic of Gilán and following it with the sense of my aura, I steadily adjusted the geas by watching Ellorn. As long as he stayed calm and aware of me, his perspective on magic should stay at the level he saw. Then hopefully the geas template would handle the other thousand and some odd. If not, I get to do this some more. About the point where he could differentiate types of ley line energies, he started to get overwhelmed.

  “Stay with me Ellorn. We’re very close!” I urged him, strengthening the communion bond and pouring as much of Daybreak’s fortitude as I possibly could to him. “You’re doing so well, Ellorn. Can you talk to me?”

  “Y-yes, L-lord D-day-b-break,” Ellorn stammered heavily. “You are so-oo-oo bey-uuu-tee-fulll.”

  I grinned at him and moved in a little closer. “Let’s keep that between us, okay? Too many people already think I’m gay because the only bar I’ll go to is the Mineshaft and my best friend is gay. If all my elves are in love with me too, what will everybody say?”

  “Psth! Not… like that!” he slurred drunkenly, flailing an arm gently at me and bobbing his head. That forced me to move my hand from his shoulder and take ahold of his chin to keep his head still. Ellorn looked at me with a nearly human face, meeting my eyes the whole time and melted at my touch. “S’not se—tu-al.”

  I giggled along with him, his voice now a high, boyish tenor. Slowing the expansion to a stop while he was distracted by talking to me, I looked around his mind and decided this was pretty much where he needed to be. At this point, he needed to make the transition from Ellorn the Brownie to Ellorn the elf-man.

  You never cease to amaze me, Little Brother! Ethan called across the anchor in my cavern. You are actually creating a council-class wizard right before our eyes!

  Ellorn’s not quite there yet and he’s half the equation, y’know, I sent back, then said to Ellorn, “Stay with me, buddy. We’re almost there. Is the world still spinning?”

  “A little, sir,” he said, breaking eye contact with me. He didn’t fall into overload, so it looked like this was working.

  “That’s good. Eyes on me until it stops completely, please,” I said. “Then you can decide what you want to look like.”

  “What? I can ‘decide’ what to look like, Lord?” Ellorn asked woozily, then he giggled. “I want blue hair, like you had the day the generals were here.”

  “Okay,” I drawled, grinning. “Should all our elves have blue hair or just you?” Ellorn was coming into himself, a strange thing to think but there really wasn’t any other way to think of it.

  “Oh, no, sir, not just me, but not everyone,” Ellorn said, shakily. “We should be dominated by the hair colors of you and your brothers with the blue, green, purple and red of that day thrown in for good measure.”

  “Because you like the blue…” I murmured, grinning at him. He smiled rather sheepishly back. More strongly, I said, “Nothing wrong with that, Ellorn. I see no reason you can’t have blue hair. With your genetic structure as it’s written, you’re going to be about five foot eleven with my skin tone less the freckles. You’ll be thin unless you workout. And no matter what you do, you’ll still be adorably cute to me.”

  “Lord…” Ellorn said demurely and blushed. I locked the geas template in place at that point. He was oscillating with his personality some, but this was a tiny tremor. The Palace energy form brought a mirror from one of my side rooms, setting it on a wide step for us. Jimmy and I helped Ellorn to his feet while the blue ectomorph pulled itself together.

  I brushed the anchor to attract Ethan’s attention. Now I’ve created a council class wizard. This is supposed to be impossible?

  And still I can whoop your ass. Quite the paradox, isn’t it? Ethan sent back. He had a point.

  “Why is the ground so far away?” Ellorn asked without taking his eyes from the steps. With over four thousand voices, even a small chuckle turns into a roar of laughter. The fact that we heard nothing told me the Palace was blocking the noises from us and probably the sights from Ellorn as well.

  “The ground’s in the same place it always is, Ellorn,” Jimmy said. “You’re just a little further away from it than you’re used to bein’. Hey, Ellorn… Big hands, big feet…” Jimmy elbowed my formerly two-foot tall major-domo lightly in the ribs meaningfully, grinning. “You know what that means.” A chorus of snickers rose out of the Garrison, along with several catcalls and challenges to the myth. It only took seconds to cross into the faery side of the room where the joke fell flat. Elves would get it after some time, but
the brownies didn’t.

  “No, First, I don’t,” Ellorn said, looking in the mirror at Jimmy. “Is that bad? Should I ask for smaller hands? I don’t know what to do.”

  “Your hands and feet are fine, Ellorn,” Peter said soothingly, entering the conversation gently. “First is making a bad joke that you aren’t culturally able to understand yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be whopping him on the back of the head with the rest of us.”

  “He’d better not!” Jimmy muttered with a quick glare down at the “elf.”

  “His hair is the first step, I think,” I said airily, changing his hair color instantly to the shade of blue I used that day. It was darker than the diamonds but when the light hit it gave off a sheen of that color. It was… striking—definitely take some getting used to. I left it thick, giving him a rakish look or a look of pure innocence, depending on how he cut and combed it. I was pretty sure he’d gravitate to “innocent” naturally. The Change began anew at a slower rate than the first time.

  “What else, do you think?” Peter asked, admiring Ellorn’s growing figure in the mirror. “Ethan, any input?”

  “I was getting there,” I whined quietly. Of course I would ask Ethan and Kieran. Together, they developed the body Ethan used now. If anyone had any thoughts on what that process might be like, Ethan would.

  “Is his physiology consistent with how the other elves will mature?” Kieran asked. “Things like a height range, eye color, hearing range, sight range, that sort of thing.”

  “Yep,” I answered, sliding an arm over Ellorn’s rising shoulders. “They’ll look human except for the ears and eyes. Of course, any medical-grade scan will spot the internal differences immediately, but from what I can see in the geas, my elves will be every bit as physically capable as Faery realm elves, both physically and magically.”

  “His ribcage should be stronger and heavier, I think,” Ethan said. “They probably should drop a little lower in general considering where the heart is.”