The Changing (3 page)

Many more moments passed before Seth believed he had the answer. The difference now seemed obvious. It was simply the ability to wield magic. This ability was inherent from birth; some were simply born with it, and others without. Sara had no affinity to magic to Seth’s knowledge, and had even said as much in the past herself. This could account for the difference between the two auras, and to Seth it made perfect sense, but then yet another idea occurred. Seth realized that he had stumbled upon a possibility both wondrous and dangerous. What if that small piece of his aura that was lacking in Sara was a piece that Ishanya had infused him with, giving him the vision of the gods and the ability to command the very power of life itself? Was it possible to remove and replace individual pieces of a person's aura at will? If it was, the implications were incredible. Seth wished he had time to experiment and someone or something to experiment upon. A moment later it appeared as if his wish had been granted as a squeak sounded from somewhere, but at that same moment Seth realized that his time was up.

Seth had not noticed the subtle change in his self-made prison over the time that he had been studying both his and Sara’s auras, but now as he saw Sara’s begin to slowly diminish with each pulse it made, at the same time he found that the room they inhabited had illuminated slightly. Having no time to seek out the source of the light, Seth reached inside himself and separated a portion of his life's power. Though much smaller than the whole, it was easily a portion equal to that of twenty men, and placing his hand upon Sara’s too-cold cheek, he let the power flow from himself into her. Seth watched the fraction of a second it took for Sara’s aura to infuse with the new power he gave her. He was relieved that his presumptions had been true. As the two auras melded into one, Seth’s own power altered as it became one with Sara, expanding her aura incredibly but leaving it otherwise unchanged. He watched for any noticeable sign of improvement, waiting for what felt like forever when finally he felt her heart flutter faintly and she too took a shallow, uneven breath. Seth had bought them some valuable time, but Sara’s aura still slowly and inevitably diminished with each pulse. Seth imagined they had another day at most but no more. Turning his attention from Sara, Seth gazed to the stone walls around him.

It only took Seth a moment to find the source of the light, if he could even call it hat. With a little illumination, Seth was now able to see far above him to what appeared to be a ceiling made of great stone slabs, but it was not just a mere ceiling, it was also a floor. Several stories above him, perhaps three, the giant slabs created a near impenetrable surface. However, cut through one of the giant slabs was a portal through which a staircase once passed to the floor above. Somewhere beyond that level above, light shone from outside, illuminating the higher chamber and allowing a small amount of light to filter and reflect down into the lower room. Seth realized it was morning, and with his realization came a squeak akin to the one he had heard moments before, but this time the sound was accompanied by another familiar one.

Seth watched with his neck craned back and Sara’s head upon his lap, straining to see into the room above him as steadily the amount of illumination increased. Shadows danced this way and that as something or some things crossed between the source of light and the portal through which Seth peered. He heard a great rustle from above, and watched to see what it could be that made the noise. Earlier in the night Seth had probed their surroundings with his magical abilities but found no life nearby. Hearing the sounds from above now, Seth reached out again to find an abundance of life headed straight towards him. Pulling Sara protectively to his chest, Seth sat silently as the creatures winged into his chamber from the one above. The sounds of many large, flapping wings echoing around the circular chamber, bouncing off the stone walls, created a sound similar to heavy rain on a thatch roof. The beasts were large, hairless creatures that came rushing through the portal above at reckless speeds. Then circling to slow their descent, each of the pale creatures glided one by one to the walls of the large room where, finding holds among the rocks, they landed. Grasping with their claws, they scurried slowly back up towards the ceiling, gathering into the darkest shadows there, retreating from the light, all the while squeaking and squawking in high-pitched tones.

Seth had never seen their like before but knew the creatures to be some breed of large pale bat. Seth studied them as more continued to enter the chamber. Their flesh was not so different from his own, appearing as skin stretched over bone and muscle, though nowhere on their bodies could he discern any hair. Each of the bats had two hind legs, but their forward legs, or arms, were incorporated into their wings. At the centermost joint of the wing there was something akin to a clawed finger, and each of the other bones of the oddly shaped appendage made ribs within the wings of the beasts. Though easily four to five times the size of any other bats Seth had ever seen, they belayed their size with near effortless flight, and he was impressed with the creatures.

Having studied the bats, scrutinizing their every detail, Seth then switched to his vision of the gods to analyze them further. What Seth found surprised him more than any other discovery this day. Each of the bats appeared to have two separate auras, which was perplexing enough, but what was more astonishing was that each of the bats contained one aura that was identical to every other bat’s, but their second one varied in size and intensity. With Seth’s new knowledge of auras, he was quickly able to establish at least four different variations of the bats’ second auras. If that discovery alone were not enough, as Seth watched, each of the bats’ second auras began to change. Within an hour they had managed somehow to alter their second auras and make them identical to their original, which they then each consumed as their second aura's became one with their first. It was astonishing to observe, and had Seth seen the process even the day before, he would not have understood it. Now Seth believed he had witnessed the bats absorbing stolen life forces from some other beings. These creatures, however, had some mechanism in place to process the life power before consuming it, for Seth knew that if they did not, each of them would have altered physically. Now Seth was really intrigued. But wanting a closer look, he now had to do something that was generally against his beliefs.

     Seth slid out from beneath Sara’s body and gently laid her upon the floor. Picking up her small crossbow from the pile of discarded armor and weapons, Seth drew the bow. Placing a bolt upon the slide, Seth looked up and took aim. Closing his eyes, Seth pulled the trigger and listened as with a shriek the bolt met its target. Ricocheting off the stone ceiling, the bolt hit the ground a fraction of a second before the beast landed, flapping its wings wildly and trying to flee but unable to sustain flight with a large tear in its right wing. Seth had pulled off the shot flawlessly. He wanted the creature alive in order to study its aura up close, but he needed it unable to fly so that he might experiment with it a bit. Knowing bats were supposed to be blind, Seth removed his tunic and attempted to toss it over the head of the beast that now scurried around on the floor in a panic. After three attempts Seth succeeded and pounced upon the small, injured creature, pinning it to the ground beneath him. Careful not to hurt the beast further, nor release it, Seth wrapped his tunic about the beast snuggly. He tied the arms of his tunic in a knot securing it around the creature’s mid-section, binding its wings to its sides. Satisfied Seth released the large hairless bat, and returning to Sara he sat once again upon the stone floor.

Seth reached out with his god-like vision to inspect the bat's aura in detail and found that, although still quite complex, its inner workings were slightly simpler than those of humans. Taking his time Seth repeated the process he had recently gone through and, piece by piece, he memorized and cataloged each pattern of the bat's aura within his mind, discovering along the way several similarities between the bat's and Sara’s auras. Seth felt that the discovery made sense seeing that both the bats and humans had four appendages, a torso, neck and head with two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. Seth too assumed the bats had a somewhat similarly functioning digestive tract, so the many likenesses made sense. But the bat did possess patterns that he and Sara did not, and vice versa. Several minutes into his study Seth noticed that the bat's aura was, like Sara’s, fading at an unnatural rate, and assuming he had injured it worse than he thought, Seth recaptured the creature to unbind it so that he might see the wound.

No sooner had Seth unwrapped the small beast than without warning it sprang into the air and took flight on two perfect wings with a screech that caused Seth to jump. Amazingly the creature had healed in as little as a quarter of an hour an injury that should have taken days, if not weeks, to mend properly. But Seth could see the cost of the creature's healing, for back amongst its peers it had the weakest aura among them. Seth believed these bats to be amazing creatures. They could consume others’ life forces, as Seth could, but unlike Seth these creatures had the ability to alter the power before they absorbed it. Also the bats could apparently heal themselves through some inherent means using the power of their own spark of life. Seth’s mouth falling wide open, he formulated a plan. It would take time and he knew he could afford no mistakes. He would have to experiment and test and experiment some more, but he believed now he could save Sara. Hurrying back to the side of the woman he loved, Seth again drew and loaded the crossbow.

* * * * *

Borrik ran along through the countryside in long, loping strides. The body Seth had made for him was incredible. He was able to run for hours and hours without feeling any strain, even fully armored, and when he did sweat, his short layer of downy fur held the moisture to his skin allowing his body to cool quickly. His legs pumped hard over the uneven ground as he raced below the midday sun. Borrik’s troops ran parallel to him on both sides, spread out wide to cover as much ground as possible. Borrik held little hope of finding Seth out in the wild somewhere, but hoping to make Raven's Hold by nightfall, he saw that searching in this manner would cause no harm.

The fact was that Borrik had no idea where to look for his master, and so had sent his captains in every direction in the hopes of seeking him out. Their plan was simple. Find every human civilization they could, question those who lived there and continue the process until they found Seth. It might be a search that lasted weeks, months or even years, but Borrik cared not how long it took just so long as the deed was accomplished. Together with his band of wolf troops he swept across the countryside through the foothills of the mountains to the south, heading north, deeper into the land of the humans.

Hours passed swiftly and silently as the scenery passed all around Borrik and he wondered how his men would be received among the towns and villages they came across. Realizing a possible problem he sent a mental image to his captains, spread far and wide across the lands, letting them know that no humans were to be harmed. Waiting several minutes as he raced along through the tall grasses of the hills, no response came to his order. Either his captains were too far away to communicate with, or they had received the order and felt no impulse to reply. Either way Borrik was sure he had done as much as he could and imagined that his men would simply defend themselves and flee if needed, rather than bring harm to the humans they once walked among. After all, they were not savage beasts. They were men and women with perhaps slightly skewed instincts.

The day had come and gone and still Borrik continued to run. His men had not slept since before leaving to join the army. Now, days later, he knew that they would soon need rest. Throughout the day his men would one by one fall back to stop for a drink, or run a hare to ground for a quick meal, but after they would hastily catch up. Only a dozen and a half miles away from Raven's Hold now, Borrik knew that his men would find some well-deserved rest. They could resume their search tomorrow if Seth were not located in the castle. Borrik stared ahead at the horizon knowing that at any moment the uppermost parts of the castle of Raven's Hold would grow upon it. However, he discovered something else instead.

Far in the distance, over the rise of a hill, Borrik watched as two graceful figures sped over the land a few miles ahead. Covering wide swathes of ground with each graceful stride, the wolf man recognized the figures instantly, even in the failing light. There were only two creatures of this kind upon the face of the world. Only two of the graceful and beautiful beings had Seth created. They had been girls once, sisters in fact, not quite to the age of adulthood, but both fully physically matured. Though they were beautiful, affectionate and mysterious, Borrik had to fight the urge to run them down and sink his teeth into them. This he imagined was his wolf instincts at work. For though he could overcome the urge, it was the dog in Borrik that wanted to chase the two girls who were now just as much feline as he was canine. Borrik hoped none of his men would take up the chase, but couldn’t help loosing a bark-like laugh at his thoughts.

Never again in the evening did Borrik catch sight of the girls, but twice he spied tracks that were theirs and also picked up their scent. Shortly before the last rays of light had left the land, Borrik raced up to the gates of the black castle city that was Raven's Hold. In the hours prior he had telepathically told his troops of their destination and, as he neared, his troops had closed the distance between their alpha and themselves, so as Borrik arrived those men he led were on his heels. Slowing himself and his men to a walk, Borrik strode directly to the small gate in the castle wall. The portcullis remained open to the full, its spikes looming above the opening in the massive stone wall.

As Borrik approached, the guards at the gate snapped to attention, remembering him as one of Seth’s guards when they had visited a few days prior. Seth had garnered quite a following from this castle, in fact he had acquired the majority of his troops here just days before and had transformed the untrained humans into feral fighting beasts along the road on the way to the battle itself. Some of the men and women now with Borrik had been living here on the streets, having been rousted from their homes by goblin and orc raiding parties who razed whole villages, raping and killing all who were not able to flee. Some of his troops may even have family or friends here, but Borrik knew not how their current visages would be welcomed even by those who may have once loved them. That made Borrik think twice about letting his men enter the city. Turning to face the guard at the gate, Borrik saluted as was their custom by banging his fist to his chest, allowing the man to return to a more comfortable position. Borrik asked the guard if he had seen or had heard of Seth returning to the castle, the battle having been won to the south. Much to his dismay, but not to his surprise, the guard replied that he had not. This information at hand, Borrik then turned to face his troops gathered behind him.