Chaos Shifter

by Marc Secchia

  Ah yes, the future was bright.

  Chapter 10: Chaos Magic

  CoME MIDAFTERNOON of that fourth day since her fall, Asturbar decided he was hungry and in the mood for something a little different. A man must keep up his strength. After peeking into the bedroom to find Nyahi had completely burrowed beneath the blankets and could not be seen, he consulted the Seven Scamps.

  What shall we have for dinner, eh boys?

  Prime Scamp made her displeasure heard.

  And girls. Indeed, your mighty Marshal-ness! His mocking bow made her throw out her tiny chest and expectorate a fireball of pleasure. I humbly submit to your magnificent will.

  Cheep, cheep! Prime Scamp announced facetiously.

  Bread and fish, with spiced root tubers? he interpreted – a free interpretation, of course. Nothing new about his basic ingredients. The trickery would lie in the spices and the cooking.

  Fatty promptly prodded Prime in the haunches, his three forward-facing talons unsheathed. Digger clobbered Fatty for that misdemeanour, and in a trice Nyahi’s living room floor was an all-claws-in tussle. Mostly good-natured, he supposed, eying the flashing fangs and mock-chewing on wingtips going on with mild concern.

  Until they thumped into her midriff.

  Out! Out, you scurvy clutch of Cloudlands pirates! Asturbar shooed them out of the door. He had to bend to grab Fatty’s tail; she protested with a talon-swipe that opened three parallel cuts on his forearm. Hey! Stow the claws.

  She blinked her eyes glumly, and he clearly saw their colour change to a smoky orange. Chirr-chirr? she apologised.

  That’s far too cute. Asturbar hunkered down, holding out his arms, and heard, rrrrrriiip!

  Sigh. His military trousers had been well worn before he started this adventure, and Nyahi’s fireball had damaged the material further. For a man acutely aware of his extreme size, this was mortifying. Thankfully she only stirred at the disturbance, kicking the patchwork quilt covers and moaning for a few moments before settling right in again, her right calf muscle and ankle dangling toward the floor. Still a ridiculously shapely ankle, which captured his attention for such a goggling hiatus, it was a flaming embarrassment to admit to himself how besotted he was over this girl.

  Nyahi was worth it.

  Asturbar scooped Fatty up with better care; to his surprise, she crooned and nuzzled against his cupped hands. Huh, he said. A girl who’s brewing up eggs needs her rest from those irrepressible scamps you call your friends.

  He popped her up on a warm wooden ledge beside the oven and stoked the fire. The dragonet seemed to appreciate this gesture, because her inner eye membranes flickered very rapidly several times before she curled up nose to tail. Her outer eyelids drooped. These dragonets could snooze at the drop of a platinum mark. Asturbar removed his trousers and examined the rent ruefully. Fixable. Oh well, he’d prepare the elements now, put the bread in to bake before he set to fixing his trousers, and hope Nyahi woke up to enjoy a meal with him. All the hallmarks of a Commander’s masterful strategizing there, Asturbar!

  Soon he was whistling and humming a few snatches of old soldiering songs as he kneaded the bread with his powerful hands, and rolled the sinewy ropes of muscle in his shoulders to loosen them. Good workout this morning. He popped a couple of fish in a pan with a dash of oil and a judicious few pinches of her spices. Precious remains must be hoarded. He identified them by smell, choosing a few unfamiliar ones that tickled his olfactory senses. Then he contemplated the prospect of the two dishes cohabiting in the oven. Fishy bread, anyone? Nope. She owned a very tasteful set of bakeware, however. These specimens would not have been out of place in the Marshal’s personal kitchen.

  A Chaos Beast with decent taste in kitchen implements? Surely not.

  Oho, were those sizumi seeds on the rack? Asturbar fashioned a few seeded rolls alongside the plain ones, ruefully considered her braided works of art, and decided he should stay within his limitations as a cook. Early on he had decided that military rations were not to his taste, so he had hung about the kitchens until he learned how to cook decent, nourishing fare, which his unit had always appreciated. Popularity via gut appeal. Shameless. After popping the bread in the oval oven on the side away from the flames, he banked the fire and threw in fifty press-ups of impeccable form on his way back to the table. Right. Time for the trousers.

  He picked them up and poked his fingers through the rent. “A boot in the backside for letting your uniform standards slide, soldier!” Compare Nyahi to him. Dragonet to his Dragon … ah, in this form, anyways. Moving swiftly on before he stewed upon just how immense her Dragoness manifestations had been. He sewed and sewed, pursing his lips as he concentrated on making his thick fingers perform such a delicate task. Soon, a few choice words escaped his lips. Paws like his just weren’t up it. Tossing aside the garment with a hiss of annoyance, he stalked over to the oven. Ooh, yes. Smelling so good. He swivelled upon his heel with a satisfied swagger and a dance step, then flexed his physique – giving it the full treatment, meaning arms curved low and held rigid to make every muscle up and around his shoulders pop with the effort, while he clenched his pectorals and abdominals into a rigid washboard of pure muscle. Grr. Feeling restive. Now, what should he do with those tubers …

  “Mmm,” purred Nyahi. He tweaked a muscle in his neck, so fast did his head snap about. “I could get used to having that much man in my kitchen!”

  She lay atop the covers on her stomach, chin propped on her wrists and her ankles coyly crossed behind her back. Her expression reminded Asturbar all too plainly that he was clad only in his undershorts, and that when she was nude, there was simply no more enthralling sight in all the Island-World.

  “I’ll put on my trousers,” he growled.

  In a passable imitation of his accent, the wretch goaded him, “When I’m enjoying the show this much? Do carry on. How much chunky muscle does it take to bake a bread roll, Boots?”

  “I thought you couldn’t see –”

  “I see enough.”

  He marched toward her, moving his hands deliberately to his shorts waistband. “Might this clarify matters?”

  She giggled, “Oh please, no! That’ll just make a girl – oh –”

  Asturbar looked down at his feet. The large blue puddle of – well, some living substance anyways – rippled as if she were laughing, or humiliated, he did not know which. He said, “Melt? Does this mean you worship the ground I tread upon?”

  Wiii-gra-BANG!

  There she went. A frothing, disturbingly animalistic riverine creature whistled out of the shutters which he had strategically left open, not wanting to essay another repair this week; the sound of her outcry faded precipitously. Probably gone to ground in her cave. Best tidy up the bedroom. No – he heard running steps! Before he could do so much as half turn about, Nyahi sprinted in through the doorway and threw herself at his neck.

  “I missed you already! Whee!”

  Asturbar knew about force. He knew how hard he could strike an object or enemy, armoured or unarmoured, and he knew given his forty-two stone in weight, the laws of physics decreed that a nude girl of her size could almost never generate enough momentum to topple him. But he had ulterior motives. He wanted to be toppled, and so they tumbled in a happy heap atop the covers.

  Crack!

  “Sodding murgalizards!” There went the bedframe.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  He managed to evade her eager kisses for half a second. “I’m sorry, Nyahi. I’ll fix –”

  “Mind on the target, soldier!” she laughed.

  “Is that so?” Lifting her bodily with his hands splayed across her breastbone and upper thighs, he held her aloft for examination. “A good soldier makes a detailed survey of the terrain. He lays his plans and his strategies. Yes. I see a number of very tempting targets … holy Fra’anior! You have the pointiest ears I’ve ever seen, Nyahi.”

  She gave her pout extra sappiness. “Excuse me, but I thought any Azingl
oriax warrior worth his weight in platinum marks would not be examining my ears right now!”

  They burned the bread, of course, but some of it could be rescued. It tasted smoky but wholesome. The fish was excellent, and the company better still. Asturbar told Nyahi tales about his soldiering days, when he and Bantukor were just rookie infantrymen – true tales for a change, not the embellished nonsense and boasting common to the majority soldiers. He was deeply embroiled in a tale about his first campaign to liberate a Merchant House from a despotic Shapeshifter Marshal, when the girl put down her needlework – redoing a certain someone’s botched attempt upon his trousers – and placed her hand upon his scarred forearm.

  When he met her eyes, he found them brimming with tears. He blurted out, “What? What did I say?”

  “Do you realise you just gave your name away?”

  “I … did?”

  “You just said that, deep in the battle, Bantukor shouted, ‘A name starting with the rune ‘A’, sah!’ ”

  “Cruzzaberries! I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. I’m awful at guessing games, and I was dreading this one.” Raising his hand to her lips, she kissed his heavily scarred knuckles one by one. Warm lips. Warmer heart. “Commander Asturbar. Your name suits you.”

  “Ex-Commander.”

  “Asturbar is a strong name.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The kind of name for a man who doesn’t just crack a bed …”

  “Hey!”

  “He commands it.”

  As her teasing twisted in an unexpected direction, Asturbar found his cheeks flaming yet again. So he had made a mistake. Been provoked. And thoroughly flattened the bed. After a touch more foolery, he fetched his certificate of origin and showed it to her, but she too could not read the script.

  “We’ll find a way,” she assured him softly. “Tell me about these medals. Each and every one.”

  He could not imagine she might find their history interesting, but those gleaming eyes … like crysglass panes of mystic power and adoration. Yet another shade of blue! Aquamarine today. Did they change with her mood, or with her magic? He spoke until the night drew in, telling her the life of a mercenary soldier. How attacks worked. Defence. The heights and grizzly lows of honour, regret and glory. What soldiers did with their spare time, or to unwind during a campaign. The truth behind some of those so-called honours, and the true honours which often escaped unnoticed. An infant saved from the ruin. Innocent Dragon roosts spared and wars averted through successful negotiation. The immense power of the Marshals and their hegemony over the Isles of Wyldaroon and beyond.

  “Not all are evil,” he told her. “In the earlier days of my Command, before our reputation as the Mistral Fires grew more nuanced, we conducted over a dozen campaigns for a Shapeshifter Dragoness called Marshal Huaricithe when she split from a mighty two-headed beast called Tahootax the Terrible – now there was a beast! Two heads, you see, and as wide in the beam as a Dragonship is long. He rose from being a formidable fighter in the Gladiator Pits to becoming one of the most powerful and feared Marshals of all Wyldaroon. But he fell hard, wing, paw and three hearts, for this tiny Blue Shapeshifter called Huaricithe, or Huari for short. Small but feisty, I should say. Reminds me of someone I could poke with a short stick at this point.”

  “Truly?” said Nyahi, taking unarguable possession of his lap. Slipping her arms about his neck, she batted her eyelashes at him. “Who could you be talking about?”

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Couldn’t say.”

  “Come on, I gave mine away. Time for a slip of the tongue on your part.”

  She pecked him chastely upon the lips. “You licentious, immoral old geezer, moving in with a woman six summers your junior. Later.”

  “Huh, where’s the crime in that, I ask you?”

  “Finish your story.”

  “I’LL HAVE YOUR NAME!”

  “Bellowing gets you nowhere, Commander Boots. Courteous orders … you can give me those ten days a week. And, you woke the dragonet. Mean man.”

  He had frightened her into turning into a pretty, tubular spray of white Azorine lilies with wings. Asturbar waggled an eyebrow. “Apologies? What shall I do – kiss your petals? Very fetching. Anyhow, Tahootax was not called The Terrible for nought, and Marshal Huari was the noblest of noble Dragonesses, if you know what I mean. Unimpeachable honour, gallant deeds, help the poor and downtrodden, all that malarkey.” The white flowers formed their stems into an icy illustration of her opinion. “Joke, Nyahi,” he clarified hastily. “I’m working on reforming the immoral mercenary in me … but it’s hard around you, well proven.”

  One perfect lily made an interrogative, ‘that’s different’ gesture.

  “Oh, you enjoy that bit, do you?” he suggested. Fifteen flowers climbed his chest and started dropping petal-ish smackers upon their target with abandon – neck, cheeks, collarbone … “Wilful misinterpretation is my middle name. Now, stop distracting me or I’ll never finish this story. When Huari split with Tahootax, he decided that the appropriate response was to start wiping out Island nations and Houses one by one. And he was not shy about the scope of his campaign. Huari brought in the Mistral Fires to stop him. We eventually fought him to a standstill, but it wasn’t a pretty affair. Four months of bloody battles before the negotiators finally settled a deal. He has been recovering his strength and hating Huaricithe ever since. But it is said that she owns something of the power of the Star Dragoness of yore. If anyone could help you, it might be her.”

  The flowers twined their stems about his neck, and squeezed.

  “No!”

  She squeezed tighter.

  “There was none of that – down, you jealous little Dragoness! She’s far too old for me, anyways, and I was already betrothed to someone else, which I told you – aaargh! Would you … thank you. I’m arguing with a flower. Honestly.”

  The petals returned to osculation with devious intent, while the stems formed the word, ‘mine’ in perfect runic script in front of his startled eyes. He tried to untwine her but gave up with a sigh. He might very well tear her to pieces. Rather unromantic. “So, tell me about yourself, my silver-skinned sylph. Were you always this clingy? Where were you born? When did you first become aware of this Chaos Beast magic?”

  Ghastly silence.

  KAABOOM!!

  Asturbar picked himself ruefully up off the floor. Perhaps she was not ready for questions yet. Then, he punched his left fist into his right palm with an explosive expletive aimed squarely at himself. He had just called her a beast.

  End of cuddle.

  * * * *

  Nyahi did not return that evening, despite that he called numerous times from just beyond the wards, nor the following day – five times he called, with mounting concern. There was a strange smell about the cave, and her tracks clearly led into it but not back out again. He worried a great deal, but on the third morning he had barely begun to yawn sleepily when a silvery-blue hand – attached to a ten-foot arm, he reckoned – flew from the darkness and unexpectedly tickled him beneath the chin.

  He growled, “No. You can’t just disappear for two whole days without word and expect me not to be worried sick, Nyahi! I’m furious with you!”

  His anger was fading by the second, and she knew it.

  Nyahi stepped into the light, smiling uncertainly at him. “Sorry, Boots – Asturbar. I couldn’t change back for the longest time, but I should have returned yesterday, or at least told you what I was doing. Forgive me?”

  “Maybe …”

  “I was afraid of your questions.”

  “You didn’t stop to listen,” he began harshly, but then pulled up with a rueful grin. “Ugh. Listen, I was the one who called you a beast. I feel horrible. Low blow. Worse than a low blow, it was unthinking and awful of me.”

  It seemed apologies were in order.

  It did not hinder matters that they were both very, very apologetic indeed. Nor that she had
conveniently mislaid her clothing, yet again.

  Asturbar thought that a splendid quality in a woman. Hopefully it was habit-forming.

  After a few minutes, the tall girl murmured against his lips, “Save the kissing and making up for just a minute, Big Boots. I’ve something special I’d like to show you.” Her white-blue eyes sparkled like lightly-tinted diamonds as she indicated the cave entrance. “I spent all of yesterday undoing the wards. That’s why I was so busy. I remember my tutor telling me that wards grow crusty with age – that’s one of the prime reasons why House wards are so powerful and entrenched. Did you know?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Well, it took some time and considerable force, but if you’d like to follow me …” she pulled away from him until just their fingertips touched, then a smile of rare brilliance touched Nyahi’s lips as she barked so gruffly it startled him, “Permission to gawk at your derriere on the way in, ma’am? Permission granted, soldier!” She switched voices at will. “What if this task addles my poor, frazzled little brain, ma’am? Just mind your head, soldier!”

  Guffawing raucously, Asturbar reached out for an exploratory tweak of said derriere. One flawless behind, female, blue. A deadly weapon, in his estimation. “Oh, these are fine assets, ma’am. Fine assets indeed!”

  “Forward, march!”

  “We don’t actually say that. Usually it’s the commanding officer who leads from the front, so the cry is, ‘For the Mistrals!’ or ‘Follow me, you idjut-flatbrained sons of dracotortoises!’ ”

  Hooting with laughter, Nyahi roared back, “Soldier, atteeeeen-shun!”

  He snapped out a rigid salute. “Yes sah, ma’am sah!”

  “Keep a covetous eye on the assets, you idjut-brained … whatever it was!”

  “My pleasure, ma’am!”

  ’Twas pleasure indeed and distraction most fair, but as Asturbar entered the cavern hand in hand with the mysterious proprietor of his heart, he became diverted in a new way. As he had suspected but never discovered for certain, the Island’s interior appeared to be liberally honeycombed with caves. Glorious caves. It was like walking into a Marshal’s cathedral of vaulted ceilings and massive supporting columns, but no Marshal had ever dreamed of decorating his hall with such wealth. The columns were so thick it gave the appearance of being a maze of many caverns, but they all interconnected through arches of rubies and garnets, diamonds and silvery meriatite, here a lode of apparently pure gold as thick as his outspread arms – unimaginable wealth! In many places whitish gemstones glowed with an innate radiance, shedding enough light that he could observe every detail without care for shadow or blemish.