Transformation

by Kara Dalkey

  “But we have to. Good luck, Corwin of Carmarthen.” Nia closed her eyes and leaned against Corwin, the sword between them. She channeled her energy out of the center of her body, into the sword hilt. From there, the energy flowed into Corwin’s hands. She felt her strength draining from her as if it were water flowing out from her body. She felt weakness overtake her and fear creeping in as her body cried out that it was dying. Still Nia pushed on, pouring the power through, until she was spent and the world around her faded to nothingness.

  Corwin felt the power rushing in through his hands from the hilt of the sword, like cold fire coursing through his muscles. As it flowed in and in, unstoppable as a flood, he began to shake. The fire coursed into his chest, into his heart, as if he were holding wild lightning inside. He felt Nia’s hands, beneath his own, loosen their grip on the hilt. As they slipped away, Corwin caught her in his right arm and gently eased her to the floor. He laid her out straight upon the flagstones and placed the sword on top of her, the tip of the hilt under her chin. Placing his hand on the flat of the blade, he whispered, “Protect her, Eikis Calli Werr, until I return.” Corwin kissed Nia one last time, hoping against hope that she would be all right. Then he turned and dove into the black water.

  As he’d expected, the kraken swiftly re-formed in the water around him. The serpent’s eyes glowed red and the jaws opened wide.

  Come and get me, Corwin thought with cold hatred.

  The kraken lunged at him.

  Corwin let the serpent swallow him, felt the jaws close over him, felt the seething mass of tiny creatures that made up the kraken biting into his skin. Corwin allowed them, for a moment, letting the pain feed into his anger.

  And then he pulled. Having held the sword that drew the life from Nia, Corwin knew how to do it. He summoned the wild lightning of power within to draw out the life force from the kraken, as though every inch of his skin could breathe in its energy.

  Corwin screamed into the water as the new energy, adding to the fires within, became too much to contain. It filled him to overflowing and he felt himself expanding outward, ready to explode. It’s too much! Too much! I can’t hold it!

  Corwin realized that there would have to be a slight change of plans.

  He suddenly changed the direction of the power. Instead of drinking it in, Corwin fed himself, his life force, into the millions of creatures that made up the serpent. Instead of draining the kraken, Corwin became the kraken.

  Rising up out of the water, Corwin tested the strength of his new form. He gazed at the room with the kraken’s eyes, and it was now a tiny chamber, barely large enough for him. He raced through the water with the kraken’s speed. He roared with the serpent’s mouth and champed with kraken jaws.

  But he was still Corwin inside, and he still knew what he had to do. The Corwin/kraken circled the domed chamber twice before swimming out through the far archway and into the final chamber.

  Ma’el was there, though not in any shape Corwin had seen him in before. The center of the chamber was a round raised platform on which were carved similar symbols and levers to those Corwin had seen at the transfer point. But these were arrayed in a shape that required the ten arms of a Farworlder to manipulate. And that was the form Ma’el was trying to take.

  He was sprawled on the stone platform. Instead of the fish tail, Ma’el now had two tentacles sprouting from his hips. New limbs were growing from the ribs in his sides. Ma’el was spreading himself out, trying to reach for the symbols and levers in the pattern on the stone. But Corwin could see that it was painful, difficult and slow, and Ma’el hadn’t completed the process yet.

  Corwin roared with the kraken’s scream, feeling all the little creatures that were now also Corwin screaming too. The scream echoed and reverberated through the shrine chambers, a battle cry.

  Ma’el turned his now bulbous, lopsided head. “Have you at last devoured them, my friend? Well, I guess that’s best. Now let me finish my work.”

  But the Corwin/kraken just rose higher out of the water to loom over Ma’el, who looked very small below.

  Ma’el frowned. “Leave!” he ordered, but Corwin only opened his jaws wider.

  At last Corwin saw on Ma’el’s face what he’d been hoping to see. Terror. The knowledge that his great plan was about to fail. Then Corwin struck, lunging down and picking up Ma’el in his jaws. He shook his head, as he’d seen cats who’d caught a mouse do. Something snapped in Ma’el’s spine. Ma’el screamed in pain, then shouted out words that were obviously meant to dissolve the kraken spell. But Corwin had complete control of the kraken shape now, and the words had no effect.

  Corwin felt the world lurch around him, a feeling similar to the one he’d had during the passage through the unis. Ma’el was trying to bend space around them, but Corwin didn’t know why. He flung Ma’el back onto the stone and flowed over him, allowing the little creatures that made up the kraken to eat away at the evil mermyd, especially at the oculae that were the source of Ma’el’s power.

  Ma’el shrieked, and the folding of the unis vanished. Ma’el and the Corwin/kraken dropped together into the pool surrounding the stone platform. Then Corwin remembered that in water mermyds were much stronger—Ma’el had wanted to return to water. The Corwin/kraken coiled himself around Ma’el, who was rapidly healing, and threw him back onto the stone platform.

  With every moment, Ma’el’s power was returning. It was time for the final blow. Following Nia’s advice, Corwin knew he had to do to Ma’el what he’d done to the kraken.

  Corwin pulled at the life energy within Ma’el. Whatever power Ma’el spent to heal himself, Corwin absorbed. This wasn’t like the wild lightning he’d received from Nia. This was like swallowing the sun. All of the oculae beneath Ma’el’s skin resisted Corwin’s pull. But Corwin was bigger now, in kraken form. Corwin could now contain as much energy as needed, because a kraken could expand its length as long as there was water to build from. And the shrine had an outlet to the sea.

  Corwin felt himself swell, felt himself burn as if he were made of fire. The kraken shape was growing and growing, but Corwin couldn’t stop. He could feel Ma’el’s attempts to defend himself with the shreds of magic the mermyd and his oculae had left, but he was past a point of return. Corwin’s power grew and grew, and pulled out Ma’el’s energy faster and faster, until the life force in the mermyd dwindled and faded. Corwin didn’t hold back, as Nia had instructed, and there was no sword to soften the damage done to Ma’el. Corwin drained every bit of the mermyd’s life force until he knew, without a doubt, that Ma’el was dead and could never be revived.

  But the roiling power was still within him—or actually, Corwin was within it, helpless over what direction it might take. His mind expanded outward and knowledge flooded in, knowledge of the nature of time, the nature of life. Corwin found his consciousness floating in a vast darkness that was filled with pinpricks of light, each of them a sun. Corwin became frightened and sent a message to Gobaith. Help! What do I do?

  He didn’t receive the answer in words. Instead, a pattern pressed itself upon his mind, a ten-pointed star. Whirling symbols spun around the star, until they fell into a pattern that matched those carved on the stone.

  Suddenly, the process began again in reverse. Corwin felt energy draining out of him, flowing into the floor of the chamber as if the very core of the Earth was taking the power from him. For several long moments, Corwin shook, helpless as his power receded. Corwin wondered if he was about to die the very same way he’d killed Ma’el.

  And then, with a jolt, it stopped. Corwin was lying on his back on the round stone, in human shape again. There was a pile of ashes and bits of bone next to him, and Corwin realized with a shudder that it was the remains of Ma’el.

  Corwin sat up. The symbols in the circle around the star he was sitting in still glowed, but they were fading. All of my energy, and Ma’el’s, was taken into the center of power, Corwin thought. There was a deep rumble, and the stone beneath him qu
aked. A light rain of dust fell from the domed ceiling.

  What if the energy it absorbed was more than this shrine was made to handle? Corwin wondered. What if it collapses? Nia. I’ve got to get her out of here.

  Corwin stood and dove off the stone into the surrounding pool. He felt strong, healthier than he’d ever been in his life. He also felt like he’d retained some of the mysteries he’d learned, though it would take some time, maybe years, to sort them all out. But right now, Corwin’s main concern was finding Nia again and escaping the shrine.

  Corwin swam into the room that was all water and found Nia precisely where he’d left her. Henwyneb was bending over her, holding her hand, frowning in concern.

  “Corwin! There you are! I found our lady of Atlantis here. I was afraid the worst had happened to you.”

  “Is she still alive?” Corwin asked, feeling as if his entire being rested on the answer.

  “Yes, but barely.”

  Corwin let out a deep breath, then pulled himself out of the water and stood in the passageway. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

  The shrine trembled again, harder this time, as if to emphasize his point.

  “Take the sword,” Corwin went on, “and I’ll carry Nia.”

  Henwyneb took Eikis Calli Werr and Corwin scooped Nia up in his arms. Corwin noted that Henwyneb had wedged his walking staff in the hole with the swinging stone, making it possible to run down the passageway without fear of being struck.

  “That was clever,” Corwin said.

  “Not at all. I came in again, chasing Nag, and from a distance saw you two go through this corridor. If I were less of an old coward, I would have joined you sooner.”

  “’Coward’ is the last word I’d use for you,” Corwin said as they moved on.

  The next chamber was difficult. All the side stones on which he and Nia had run on upon their entry had fallen down. The stones in the middle were at different heights. And Corwin was carrying a heavy weight.

  Corwin leaped over the rim rocks onto the square stones in the central circle. To his amazement, they held. “Come on!” he yelled to Henwyneb, then ran.

  The shrine shuddered again, harder this time, and Corwin knew for sure that the walls and ceiling were going to come down. He stumbled and nearly fell on top of Nia, but he caught himself and ran on. At the far edge, at the doorway, Corwin had to lean precariously over the moat created when the rim rocks had dropped. Carefully, despite the little stones now raining down from this chamber’s dome, Corwin slid Nia onto the floor of the corridor and leaped in after her. “Hurry, Henwyneb!”

  The old man was still picking his way over the stones. As he got to the edge, he handed Corwin the sword hilt first. Henwyneb prepared to jump, but the shrine shook again and, with a cry of dismay, he fell forward over the gap.

  Corwin lay down on the stone floor of the passageway and grabbed Henwyneb’s right arm as the rest of the chamber paving-stones fell away. With all his strength, Corwin hauled Henwyneb up into the passageway beside him.

  A low boom was heard in the distance, and a plume of dust puffed out of the doorway across the chamber.

  “The third chamber’s collapsed,” Corwin said. “We have to run.” Gathering Nia up again and slinging her over his shoulder, Corwin ran for all he was worth. The gravel scree ramp kept slipping under his feet. Another, louder rumble behind him indicated that the second chamber was collapsing.

  Henwyneb was able to scramble out of the gravel-lined hole faster, aided by the sword—stabbing it into the dirt as an anchor. At the top, Henwyneb extended a hand to Corwin and helped pull him and Nia out onto the forest floor.

  Just as Corwin got out, the first chamber collapsed with a soft foomp as the earth above it fell in, coating the three of them with a layer of dust.

  Corwin laid Nia down on the soft moss and leaves of the forest floor while he caught his breath. She hadn’t stirred the entire way during their escape. In sorrow and fear, Corwin placed his ear to her chest. There was a heartbeat, but it was faint. He put his face next to hers. “Nia?” he said softly. He put his hands over her hair and shut his eyes, trying to reach her with his mind. But there was nothing.

  Corwin tried another way. Gobaith! Can you hear me? Why can’t I reach Nia?

  This time he received a response. She has to use all of the strength she has left to keep herself alive. You must get her into water, quickly, or her effort will fail.

  Fighting back tears, Corwin turned to Henwyneb. “I have to get her into water, fast. Should I take her to the sea? What if she doesn’t survive that long?”

  “There’s a small lake just to the south of here,” Henwyneb answered. “The druids say its waters have healing powers. That’s the closest and probably the best we can do for her, under the circumstances.”

  “The pond.” Corwin remembered with a chill the strange fear he’d felt when he and Nia were last there. And how upset he’d been when Nia noticed it again on their way to the shrine. Did I know this would happen somehow? Why couldn’t I have stopped it? But really, he wasn’t sure what he could have done differently. The sword had shown them the path to victory and they’d taken it, even at the price of Nia’s waking life. Sadly, Corwin picked Nia up once more and followed Henwyneb to the pond.

  A faint mist was rising off the waters, just as it had been on that day when he’d first been here. Corwin remembered Nag playing along the pond’s shores, and he was doubly sad.

  He walked into the water, letting it soak his trousers and tunic. It was warmer than he expected and a thick, loamy, plant smell arose as he moved. A scent full of life. Corwin floated Nia upon the water and held his hand out to Henwyneb. “The sword, please,” he said, his voice hoarse with sorrow.

  Henwyneb handed him Eikis Calli Werr. Corwin placed the sword lengthwise along Nia’s body and clasped her hands around the hilt. The area containing the oculus seemed to glow a little.

  “Heal, Nia,” Corwin said. “Heal and live, somehow. May whatever greater powers there are watch over you. I will wait for you.” Corwin kissed her cool lips softly. Then he pushed her farther out into the lake.

  She floated, for a time, her silvery hair fanned out in the water. She was beautiful in repose, as if the water were the most perfect bed for her long slumber. And then, slowly, she sank beneath the surface until he couldn’t see a trace of her anymore.

  Then Corwin wept. He let the sobs wrack his body and the tears flow from his eyes until they joined the water of the lake. In his mind, he heard Gobaith. You’ve done all you can for her. Together, you saved Atlantis and the dry-land world as well. She will be remembered here as our greatest hero. And remember that she isn’t dead, just resting deeply. There’s always hope for the future.

  Corwin felt a hand on his shoulder. “Come away, Corwin,” Henwyneb said. “There’s nothing more we can do. Let’s remember your lady as she was, brave and kind. Let her live in your heart and your thoughts.”

  Reluctantly, Corwin turned away and followed Henwyneb onto the lake shore. What am I supposed to do now? he wondered. For all the fear of the past few weeks, being joined with Nia and Gobaith and fighting Ma’el had given him a purpose. What came after that? Somehow he couldn’t picture returning to the life of a beachcomber or petty thief.

  Then the answer came to him, almost as if Nia was still in his thoughts. He would continue the Atlantean search for peace. He would pursue the ideal of a good king, unlike Vortigern or Ma’el. Someone who would preserve the world, not destroy it. He had no idea how he would achieve this, or even begin. But Corwin remembered the glory of the stars, the wisdom of the unis, and knew that some of the power of an Avatar still lay within him. He would find a way.

  Epilogue

  Year of Our Lord A.D. 475

  Somewhere west of Carmarthen

  The old man, with his long white beard and pointed, wide-brimmed hat, approached the lakeshore almost reverently. “You see, Majesty,” he said to the blond man beside him. “Here is the
lake, just as I’ve described it.”

  The king was a young man in his mid-twenties, but his face was worn and his muscles hardened from too many battles and too much worry. He frowned and looked out over the misty water. “I believe I’ve heard of this place. The mystics and druids call it a place of healing.”

  “So they do, Majesty, as they always have. It’s larger than when I first came here, long ago. It was just a pond back then.” The old man sighed, lost in memories.

  “But the mystics and their myths didn’t mention any swords,” the king said, confused. “I don’t understand why you said we’ll find a replacement for my lost sword here. Unless there’s a blacksmith hiding in these woods.”

  The old wizard smiled a knowing smile. “Oh, there are hidden things here, Majesty, make no mistake.”

  The king regarded the old man with long-accustomed patience. “And will you reveal these things to me, old man, or will I have to pull the truth from you as I pulled my former sword from a stone?”

  “Indulge me, Majesty. I’ve waited for this moment for a long time. Ever since I was a young man, younger than you, and had a different name. Once there was a lady, you see, who taught me many things. I learned most of my arts from her. She showed me how wide the world is, and how little I knew.”

  The king smiled. “She sounds like quite an extraordinary lady. I wish I could have met her.”

  “If you’re the king I think you are, you will.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The lady sleeps here, within this lake. She’s a nereid, a lady of the waters. She came to our land from beneath the sea. Her name is Niniane, and she was a hero to her people. She bears a sword that was forged long, long ago to be a gift to be given to a land-dwelling king who shows the promise of a peacemaker.” More softly, the old wizard added, “I’ve waited all my life to see her again.”

  “And you’re saying you think that I’m this king, the rightful bearer of the sword?”