Sphereshifters: Aleph (Story Arcs 1, 2)

by Joshua Lemay

the physics(metaphysics?) going on. How could it talk?

  The pearl--or something--cleared its throat? Did pearls have throats? "You want the pearl, correct? You're late. I've waited too long. The last person to arrive came--huh, one hundred years ago? That's a long time."

  "Excuse me," Lancer said, polite as possible. "Pearls aren't supposed to speak."

  "I'm not a pearl, you idiot, I'm a clam."

  Lancer glanced downwards. What he'd mistaken for a floor with the texture of a tongue, was definitely a clam's fleshy insides. The lid? The clamshell's top. That explained the wavy shape at the edge of his confines.

  None of this lightened his mood. In fact, he felt worse. How else should he feel with a giant clam eating him?

  "I shouldn't have said that," the clam said.

  "Shouldn't have said what?" If a talking clam wanted to devour him, Lancer thought it could at least be conversational beforehand. Proper etiquette or something.

  "I meant," the clam said with the utmost authority, "I'm a god."

  Lancer didn't buy it. "You're not a god, are you?"

  "You've put me in a spot. Strictly speaking, no. I know sphereshifting, though. I feel this is exceptional enough to guarantee godhood." The clam hesitated. "Will you believe that?"

  Lancer didn't even care. "Today," he said, "has been terrible. First my sister misleads me and forces me to travel under awkward arrangements, then weird pheromone sphereshifting sends me head over heels for a girl I don't particularly like--she's nice, don't misunderstand--and then some fancily dressed man imprisons us, tosses me into this lake, and tells me to find a moonstone pearl or he'll kill Jaylee. She's the girl. And now you're eating me, so can we do this? Things can't get worse."

  "Oh," the clam said.

  Lancer waited, wondering how clams ate, hoping it was painless. Crush food with their tongues, or melt it to pieces with acid? Neither sounded painless, which upset him. Perhaps sphereshifting clams ate differently, though.

  "I wasn't eating you," the clam said, sounding awkward about the confusion.

  "If you're not eating me, why'd you trap me?" A valid question, Lancer thought. Also the clam lied about his godliness, so why not about this?

  "You looked like you could use a breather. Also this pearl is heavy. After holding it for so long I'm looking to get rid of it, start new projects, you know?"

  Lancer didn't know, but he nodded nonetheless.

  "You sound depressed. Can I help?"

  Lancer laughed. A clam who made magical pearls wanted to help him. The entire concept seemed ridiculous. "I don't see how you could."

  "Do you have a lot of time? We could concoct a plan?"

  "How long have I been here?"

  "That's difficult. I prefer simplicity. The sun rises, sets, and that's a day. Not long? Sixty ticks?"

  Lancer blinked. "What?"

  "You know? I knew a watch once. It fell into the water by me and ticked. Sixty of those."

  "Ohhh." That made sense. "A minute?"

  "If you say so."

  "I have two more of those. Less considering I need to swim to the surface, too."

  "One hundred and twenty ticks. Let's do this in ninety. That seems good."

  Lancer couldn't help but feel that a clam, no matter its extracurricular abilities, had a lot to learn about sense of urgency. "If you say so," Lancer said.

  "Indeed."

  They brainstormed.

  Slagrock Funeral Ceremony

  "So," the clam said, wasting a tick. "We have options."

  The clam had options, maybe. Lancer only had eighty-seven seconds left. "Let's go with the first."

  "Are you sure?" The clam sounded dubious. "That's--"

  Lancer interrupted. "Yes, I think that's our best course of action."

  With seventy ticks remaining, the clam waited for Lancer's approval after explaining his idea.

  Lancer blinked, completely stunned, wasting precious seconds. Slightly over a minute to go, which possibly allowed for another plan, but anything in-depth and they couldn't act upon it. At least with this plan they had a plan, which was barely above winging it and praying. Lancer emphasized "barely" in his mind.

  "Breathe deep," the clam said. "When I open my shell you won't be able to breathe underwater anymore. That's how it works."

  Lancer swallowed lungfuls of air at fifty-nine seconds and at fifty-seven seconds the clam lifted his clamshell lid. By the light of the moonstone pearl, Lancer swam to the edge of the clam's perch and pulled away the rocks and sand beneath. Slowly the clam came loose, the bindings holding him in place coming undone.

  Lancer re-entered the clam and the lid closed again. Freeing the clam took more effort than he'd first thought, but then again he had never dug underwater before either.

  "Plenty of time!" the clam said, jubilant. "Fourteen ticks and counting."

  "That's it?" Lancer panicked, clutching his hair. "Are you serious? This won't work. I can't see how it will."

  "Ten," the clam said.

  "This is ridiculous, you know? I might as well--"

  "Nine."

  "--have stayed in the reservoir--"

  "Eight."

  "--and drowned for all the good this'll--"

  "Seven."

  "--do."

  "Early liftoff. Not sure why I started with ten," the clam said.

  Lancer didn't know either, because despite the clam's countdown, they had nine seconds remaining.

  The clam didn't care, though. Lancer wondered if clams could care? Did they lack that feeling? Probably, which made it all the worse. If he survived this, which he doubted at the moment, he would have learned a valuable lesson: Never trust a clam to do the right thing.

  With that thought in mind, Lancer didn't even care when bubbles blooped through the closed clam's shell, popping against his face. He didn't worry when the clam's momentum caused him to bounce back and get stuck near the clamshell's hinge. What did it matter, because in three--no two--seconds Jaylee was a goner.

  Wait, they'd finished early on purpose to allow half a minute extra time, didn't they? Lancer had planned to swim to the surface, but with this plan he no longer needed to. A slight victory, but by how much?

  Lancer's spirits rose, and he enjoyed it somewhat when the clamshell opened midair revealing the sky overhead. He peeked over the edge of the flying clamshell to the ground below.

  Jaylee's body twisted in Albedo's earthen cage. The rocks contorted upon shrinking, grasping her body like a skintight suit. In thirty seconds, they would press against her skin until her bones cracked.

  The plan, Lancer thought, had merit. He thought it dumb before, but now he saw the light. Perhaps the sun helped, cheered him up, but after counting down moments and listening to a clam's bad ideas, thirty seconds seemed like a lifetime.

  "Are you sure about this?" Lancer asked.

  "Nearly. Afterwards I won't be much use, though. Out of water I'm like a clam out of water," the clam said.

  Lancer ignored the clam's lack of cunning simile and prepared for his part. Dragging himself away from the hinge, he gripped the clamshell's edge and tensed his leg muscles. Albedo and Isabelle gaped at the flying clam, clearly unsure what to make of it.

  Lancer relied on that, trusting somewhat in the clam(only somewhat, a small amount). At the apex of their flight, he leaped, earthbound.

  He was good at this. Without any sphereshifting to speak of, he required instinct and physical ability to complete every task. Maybe he couldn't do anything as fast, or to the same effect, as another sphereshifting skilled individual but he could do it just as well as most under common circumstances. This was no different, and after the practice of jumping out of trees onto unprepared victims for a prank, Lancer executed a perfect leap onto Albedo.

  For good measure, he wound back his fist and slammed it into the well-dressed man's shoulder upon impact. Every bit of momentum and hurt counted, Lancer thought. Oh, sure, he crashed too, both men sprawled onto the ground, limbs akimbo, but who
cared?

  Lancer recovered quickly, cocking his head to watch the clam. Like the shellfish assured, he soared straight for Jaylee's cage, unerring.

  How many seconds left? Lancer didn't know, nor did he care. Albedo hastened to conduct an earth sphereshift which would crush Jaylee, but Lancer springboarded off the ground, landing on the man's stomach. Compromised, Albedo's attempt failed.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Lancer saw the clam crash through the cage. Rocks cracked, splintered into a million tiny shards, pitched into the clam's open maw before they harmed Jaylee. Then Jaylee followed suit, engulfed along with the rocks. The clamshell closed as it touched ground, rolling until it decelerated to a stop.

  "You wretched, wicked child," Albedo said, shoving Lancer and rising to his feet.

  Isabelle, silent all this time, enraptured in the goings-on, laughed. "Splendid show though, you must admit?"

  "Shut up." Albedo turned to face Lancer, pure destruction gleaming in his eyes. Chunks of ground rose by his feet, forming hardened spikes. He ripped through one at the tip and tossed it in the air like a throwing dagger.

  "I might have allowed you your life," Albedo said, "If only for entertainment, I might've. Now? I'm going to bury you alive!"

  Jaylee's Introduction

  Jaylee's brother said she was obsessive. Her father thought she had too much free time. Her mother only smiled and said, "Jaylee, would you like a--" holding out her most recent cooked creation.

  Well, her brother was a twit, she thought. And her father thought everyone had too much time. Her mother understood, though. Her mother was the one who taught her about pheromones in the first place. The cookies she baked were delicious, too.

  It started when she began her diary at the age