Chapter 22:

The Changer

When they finally arrived in the port town their maps ­iden­tified as Jaston, Keolah was cer­tain that they must have the wrong place. This wasn’t a great city so much as a collection of rough tumble­down shacks sitting along the shore, with docks jutting out that looked like they were about to fall into the water and fishing boats that didn’t look the slightest bit seaworthy. ‘Water damage’ would have been too kind a des­crip­tion for buildings that Keolah was afraid might fall in on their heads at any given moment should they dare to step inside. This must be just an­other little coastal fishing village. They’d prob­ably have dir­ec­tions to Jaston here, at least.

“I’ve made several trans­lator amulets keyed to Albrynnian,” Amanda said, passing them out. There weren’t enough for the en­tire crew, but Keolah’s group as well as Calto and Sarom Zenk were covered. They were the ones most likely to be interac­ting with the natives, at any rate.

Two men app­roached them, scraggly and with somewhat lighter skin than was typical for humans. One of them had a blue-gray aura typical of a Water Mage, but the other… She’d seen Sedder’s dark gray aura, and even the pure black auras of true Death Mages, but this was some­thing else. A black tinged with pur­ple, but deeper than any pur­ple she’d ever seen, like a hole in the world that drew in all light. What color lay beyond violet in the spectrum?

“What sort of travelers comes in such a strange vessel?” asked one of them. “Ain’t many that sail in from the north.”

Keolah could sense the enchant­ment on her amulet adjusting it­self and settling into a slightly diff­erent pattern as the man spoke. Well, that was cer­tainly diff­erent. “What in the Abyss did this amulet just do?” Keolah asked Amanda.

“It’s updating it­self to their dialect,” Amanda said. “It’s similar enough to the one it was programmed with for it to adjust. It still might be a little wonky, though.”

Sarom cleared his throat. “I am Captain Sarom Zenk, of the gnomish steam­ship, uh, Care­ful,” he said, not even bothering with the ship’s full name.

“And I am Vakis, and this is Tor. What is a… steam-ship?”

“It’s…” Calto glanced at the buildings, back at the men, at their primitive tools and the clothes they were wearing. “A ship that uses… steam… like you get from boiling water. It uses that to push oars under it so it rows it­self to move in the water.”

Vakis blinked. “I dunno how that might be accom­plished, but it sounds clever.”

“Thanks,” Calto said.

They made a round of intro­ductions. Tor mostly stood to the side silently, and Keolah might have thought that he was mute if it weren’t for his occasional quiet inter­­jec­tion. Vakis seemed surprisingly dis­­in­ter­ested in the fact that some of them were elves, gnomes, dwarves, or goblins. Keolah couldn’t ­imag­ine that he’d actually seen their kinds before, but he just seemed to take their strange appearances in stride.

“We were looking to head for Jaston,” Keolah said. “But I think we might have gotten blown off course in the storms we en­countered on the way here. Can you tell us where it is?”

“This is Jaston,” Vakis said.

Keolah raised an eye­brow. “Are you serious?” She looked over to the rotting buildings. “This is Albrynnia’s great sea­port?”

Vakis shrugged. “Perhaps it has seen better days.”

“Clearly,” Amanda said with a sigh. “Vakis, Tor, we’re looking to get some­where and you prob­ably know the way better than me. Are you willing to take us to Shadow­flame Village? Or at least tell us how to get there?”

“Shadow­flame… Village?” Vakis repeated, scowling. “There is no such place. Mount Shadow­flame contains only the lair of the Bringer of Change upon its slopes.”

“Well, that should do,” Amanda said. “How do we get to the lair of the Bringer of Change?”

“Why would you wish to go there?” Vakis asked. “Anyone who goes there does not return the same. Unless, of course, you don’t wanna be the same any­more.” He gave a look to each member of the group.

“What, she doesn’t hurt any­one?” Haw­thorne asked. “Doesn’t unleash monsters on people to slaughter them brutally?”

Vakis blinked. “No, not really. Not un­less she gets pissed off about some­thing. Mostly she just hangs around on Mount Shadow­flame and minds her own beeswax.”

“Er,” Keolah said awk­wardly. “I think my trans­lator amulet glitched.”

“Sorry about that,” Amanda said. “Idioms are hard.”

“Okay then,” Keolah said, turning back to the two humans. “Can you tell us how to get to the lair of the Changer?”

“I could,” Vakis said. “But you would never be able to navigate the wilds your­selves.”

“Then can you guide us there?” Keolah asked.

“Why do you wish to see her?” Vakis asked.

“She has infor­mation that is im­por­tant to us,” Keolah said.

“What sort of infor­mation could the Bringer of Change possibly have that would ­in­ter­est people enough to sail across the Sea of Stars?” Vakis won­dered in­cred­ulously. “She is ancient, yes, but dan­gerous and un­pred­ic­table. What could possibly be so im­por­tant that you would risk this jour­ney?”

“Some­thing that could change every­thing,” Keolah said vaguely.

“Well, if it’s likely to change the world, maybe she would be willing to help you,” Vakis said.

“Vakis, be assured that I will guarantee your safe­ty on this mission,” Amanda said. “The Changer will not harm you.”

Vakis looked at her con­sideringly. “How can you promise that?”

“She’s my cousin,” Amanda said.

“You?” Vakis said in sur­prise.

Amanda nodded. “Yes.”

“You are the Shaper?” Vakis said.

“Yes.”

“My lady,” Vakis said with a bow. “I should have known, when I saw your ship. I will take you at your word, then. But please forgive me that I will remain a safe dis­tance behind you once we draw close to her lair.”

“I under­stand,” Amanda said. “Once we’re close, I will take point.”

“Are you coming as well, Tor?” Vakis asked.

Tor nodded silently.

“So, an­other walk through a jungle again?” Haw­thorne said.

“Jungle?” Vakis repeated. “Forest. wil­der­ness.”

“Whatever you and Amanda’s trans­lator amulets want to call it,” Haw­thorne said. “Places with lots of trees out­side of towns.”

“Yes, let’s not strain its vocabulary too heavily,” Amanda said with a smirk. “Gods only know how it might try to trans­late pro­fanity…”

Haw­thorne let off a long string of ob­scenities in multi­ple lan­guages. Amanda sighed and put her face in her palm.

Vakis made a puzzled ex­pression. “Your pro­fanity involves bodily func­tions and canines?”

“So, it went with ‘literally’, app­ar­ently,” Amanda said.

“Yours doesn’t? Haw­thorne asked. “How do you cuss, then?”

“Well, if you want to in­sult some­one, you can call them an an­imal or a flesh-eater,” Vakis said. “If you hit your toe on a rock, you can say ‘Swords!’”

“Sword is a swear word here?” Haw­thorne asked in­cred­ulously.

“Yes,” Vakis said.

“Bloody sword, that’s cool,” Haw­thorne exclaimed.

“Yes, you’ve got the hang of it already,” Vakis said with a smirk.

“You’re going to have to take off the trans­lator amulet to find out the actual word for it,” Amanda pointed out longsufferingly.

Keolah cleared her throat. “I would say that we should prob­ably get going already, but at this point we might as well just stay here in Jaston for the night and set out in the morning, Vakis willing.”

Vakis nodded. “Yes, I’m sure the inn has room for you all.”

Sedder looked dubiously toward the buildings. “How about we just camp at the edge of town, in­stead?”

Vakis shrugged. “If you prefer.”

<I’m not so sure about how I might go about traveling through the wil­der­ness, if there’s too many trees,> Nar­cella tepped. <But I would prefer not to have to be left behind again.>

Vakis looked at the floka con­sideringly, again not even seeming sur­prised at the sudden tele­pathic con­tact. “If you stuck to the ground, you might be able to make it through. Or you could fly ahead and meet us there, though I’m not sure I’d advise that.”

<Hmm,> Nar­cella tepped thought­fully. <I will attempt to make it on the ground, then.>

“Failing all else, I can prob­ably con­vince the local plant life to let you pass,” Keolah said.

Albrynnia was, so far, not nearly as terrifying to Keolah as it had been made out to be. A cat­like creature looked down at them from a limb with six eyes, three tails swishing behind it before it scurried off. A rodent with a mouth on its belly and a long eye stalk peered at them while clinging to the trunk of a tree. Nothing leapt out at them to try to kill them. Really, any foreign creatures they’d en­countered on their travels may as well have been mutant monsters, any­way. Even the plant life was strange, but again, she had no idea of what had been ‘normal’ for Albrynnia before the coming of the Changer. A lot of it glowed. Some of it had eyes.

“This doesn’t seem so bad, so far,” Haw­thorne commented dubiously, staring back at a bush that was staring at her.

“It’s pretty peace­ful in the strip of land north of the moun­tains of Sorrow,” Vakis said.

“Oh, now that is a lovely name for a land­mark,” Haw­thorne said.

Vakis shrugged. “If we were to attempt to travel through the Pass of Lamen­tation into the rest of the con­tinent, we would quickly be beset by hostile creatures.”

“Then let’s not do that un­less ab­solutely necessary,” Keolah said.

“Knowing our luck, it will prob­ably be necessary,” Sedder said.

“Don’t jinx us,” Delven said with a smirk. “Vakis, why don’t you tell me every­thing you know about the his­tory of Albrynnia? Yeah, I can hear it from Amanda, sure, but do you have any songs, stories, ballads you can share?”

“Tor’s the bard here,” Vakis said.

Delven looked in sur­prise at the quiet man. “Really? I didn’t think he carried an instrument.”

“He just sings,” Vakis said.

“Well, al­right then,” Delven said. “Could I hear some of your songs?”

Tor nodded, then proceeded to break into song. Very unlike his quiet, hesitant speaking voice, his singing voice was strong, full-bodied and confident. He sang tales of wars and strife, of love and romance, of glory and ad­ven­ture. Keolah had no idea that Albrynnia had such a for­gotten his­tory. It seemed sad that all that was left of them in Kalor was ancient ruins and tales of monsters.

After several long days of travel through the wil­der­ness, Vakis held up a hand. “We’re getting close, I think.”

Amanda nodded and moved to the front of the group while Vakis moved to the back. Keolah felt her heart race and anxiety spring up. This was beyond any­thing they’d done before, and hon­estly pretty terrifying. This was one woman who single-handedly brought down an empire. She had god­like power and could destroy them all on a whim, or worse. But Keolah had faith in Amanda, and didn’t think that they were being led into a trap. Amanda might have been per­fectly capable of destroying them in the Valley of Gal had she been so in­clined.

Through the foliage they went, up a rough slope, to a cave framed in bioluminescent fungi. Amanda held up a hand to signal to the others to stay behind for the moment, and slowly app­roached. Amanda also seemed uneasy about the situation, which didn’t help Keolah avoid being ner­vous. Although she’d said the Changer was dan­gerous and un­­pred­ic­table, she’d been reason­ably cer­tain that she wouldn’t attack them. Now Keolah had to won­der whether Amanda was just try­ing to reassure them. As Amanda drew close, an aura became vis­ible, a strong, earthy brown, the color of the mud bricks the humans built with in Ras­calanse.

The creature that emerged from the cave was like every nightmare Keolah had ever had rolled into a single, horrible monstrosity. Writhing ten­tacles surrounded an un­iden­tifiable blob of body parts, and numerous eye stalks turned toward the group, pinning each of them under the gaze of one eye. At the top of what must have been the head sat a pair of antlers and no less than three sets of horns, along with two additional horns along the snout.

Com­pletely unfazed by the monster’s appearance, Amanda strode right up to it and whis­pered one word that Keolah didn’t catch. The tentacles twitched, and all eyes swiveled to focus on Amanda. After one more minute of staring, the creature’s form shrank, and the tentacles and eye stalks retracted. When that was done, what remained was… still not human, but at least a biped. Striped brown fur covered the body, pointed ears topped a catlike face, and a twitching tail trailed along behind.

“So, cousin,” the creature purred. “What are you calling your­self these days? And who is this you have brought with you?”

“Amanda Kim­child. And these are some friends who are working on a very ­in­ter­esting project.”

“Friends, mrrr? Very well, friends. Call me Harmony Kim­child, then. And wel­come to my realm.”

“Your realm?” Delven won­dered.

“I am the Changer.” Harmony grinned broadly. “Some have called me the Mother of Monsters. Quite the quaint title, don’t you think? Better by far than being the mother of humans.”

For once in her life, Keolah had no idea what to say. What can one even say to a being like this?

“What’s wrong with humans?” Delven asked.

“They’re just so… boring,” Harmony said distaste­fully. “You there, brown human!”

“My name is Delven, my lady,” Delven said, making a suave bow.

“Delven!” Harmony said. “Didn’t you ever want fur? Horns? A tail? Claws?”

“Not really, no,” Delven said. “Claws and fur would make it hard to play the lute, horns would keep getting caught on things, and a tail would com­plicate wearing pants.”

Harmony paused thought­fully and shrugged. “Pants are overrated any­way.”

“Harmony, you will not change him with­out his permission,” Amanda said firmly.

Harmony waved a hand at Delven, causing a long, rat-like tail to sprout from his rear. “I just did.”

Delven jumped in sur­prise. “What the hell?”

Amanda glared at her. “Change him back. Right this in­stant.”

“Or what?” Harmony said.

“Or I won’t bring you any­more guests,” Amanda said.

“Oh maaaaaan,” Harmony groaned.

“And I won’t tell you about the very fascinating project we’re working on,” Amanda said. “It’s very much some­thing you’d be ­in­ter­ested in.”

Harmony sighed. “Fiiiiine, if I must.” She flicked one finger and Delven’s tail shrunk back into his body. “Tell me now. Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

“You are such a child,” Amanda muttered.

“Hey, I’m only three years younger than you,” Harmony said, pouting.

“I don’t see as how our rel­ative ages really matter after how­ever long it’s been,” Amanda said. “You are no longer thir­teen.”

Ignoring her, Harmony looked over to Nar­cella. “And you there. Floka. Didn’t you ever want hands, and a mouth that can make words?”

<My name is Nar­cella. And I am per­fectly content with my current form.>

“Content, you say?” Harmony said. “You never wished for any­thing more?”

<More?> Nar­cella tepped in confusion.

“You never even con­sidered the possibility that you didn’t need to be trapped in this form for­ever?” Harmony asked.

<I really don’t feel ‘trapped’,> Nar­cella insisted. <Although one time some­one threatened to turn me into a parrot. I really didn’t appreciate that.>

Harmony giggle-snorted. “No, that would just be silly. Here! Let me show you what I mean.”

“Cousin—” Amanda tried to inter­rupt, but it was too late.

Nar­cella’s form shifted and shrank, growing arms beneath her wings and her beak vanishing to be rep­laced by an elvenoid mouth. Silver jumped in startlement, and stared at her.

<What…> Nar­cella’s men­tal communication was laced in shock. <What did you do to me? What am I?>

“You’re a harpy, now,” Harmony said. “And you don’t need to use tele­pathy, you know. You have a mouth, now. I mean, an actual mouth and not a beak.”

<I would prefer to use tele­pathy, thank you very much,> Nar­cella tepped in annoyance.

“Suit your­self,” Harmony said.

<And I would have preferred not to be a harpy, as well,> Nar­cella went on.

“Change her back, cousin,” Amanda said with a sigh.

“I don’t think she really wants to be a floka,” Harmony said. “Come on. Opposable thumbs! They’re a great thing to have! You can’t have too many of them!”

Zen­dellor whickered in agree­ment.

“If it’s not what her soul thinks she should be, then she shouldn’t be it,” Kithere argued. “Though I’m not sure what her soul thinks she is.”

“How am I even supposed to ride a harpy?” Silver won­dered. “She’s much too small to carry any­one, now.”

“That’s your biggest con­sideration?” Harmony said, scowling. “She’s a sapient being, not a beast of burden.”

“I never said she was!” Silver protested.

Nar­cella held up a hand and flexed it testingly, stretching out each finger one at a time. <This is such a strange sensation.>

“Try it out, at least!” Harmony pressed. “If you really don’t like it by tomorrow, tell me and I’ll change you back, okay?”

Nar­cella worked up her new mouth into diff­erent ex­pressions. <Fine. If you insist.>

Delven cleared his throat. “Maybe we can all sit down and have a nice, long chat about… things. The past, the present, and the future.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, sure,” Harmony said. “Come on inside. There are seating arrange­ments that will suit most bodily configurations.”

“We’re mostly elvenoid, Harmony,” Haw­thorne said. “Except for Nar­cella and Zen­dellor, and Zen­dellor can turn into a human if he really wants to.”

Harmony looked at her in amusement and prac­tically giggled. “‘Elvenoid’? You think humans are ‘elvenoid’?”

Haw­thorne looked at the humans in the group in puzzlement, and then back to Harmony. “Well, they are.” She narrowed her eyes as Harmony con­tinued to giggle. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing!” Harmony said, turning to prance inside.

Amanda shrugged help­lessly and followed Harmony into the cave. Hesitantly, the rest of the group followed, some of them much more reluc­tant than others.

“I’m not going in there,” Vakis said quietly. “Not after what she did to Delven and Nar­cella.”

“She did change me back, at least,” Delven said dubiously. “Not sure that I really need a tail, though.”

“You don’t,” Vakis said.

Tor went in with­out comment, though, and Vakis finally just sighed and followed him in. Harmony’s lair, such as it was, did not even remotely resemble the abode of any civ­il­ized being. No mage lights or gas lamps lined the walls, but glowing teal lichen casting an unearthly green light upon the chamber. The ‘seating arrange­ments’ Harmony had men­tioned were actually large, gnarled roots winding their way through the tunnels, and along the way, taking on the unnatural shapes of chairs and benches. Keolah didn’t find this par­tic­ularly odd, but the two Albrynnians seemed more than a little uncom­fortable about it and refused to sit down.

“So, guests!” Harmony said brightly, moving about the cave. “Can I get you any­thing to eat? Drink?” Now and then, she punctuated her words with a tentacle extending from her body and grasping a jar or bottle lined up on living wood shelves along the walls, and peering into it with an eye stalk, before retrac­ting both back into her body again. “I might have some­thing some­where around here that you might con­sider tasty and hope­fully non-toxic to your species.”

“Um,” Calto said, blinking.

“No thank you,” Delven said politely but firmly.

Amanda just sighed. “Cousin, please stop that,” she said quietly.

Keolah kept won­dering by the minute just how good an idea this was. They’d traveled to the other side of the world to find this being. She’d known that the Changer was in­sane before even leaving the Valley of Gal, but actually seeing it in per­son was disquieting, to say the least.

Harmony noticed that Vakis and Tor were still standing and waved to them. “Come on, sit down, sit down! I won’t bite.”

Vakis took a small step backwards.

Harmony rolled her eyes so far the pupils spun up and came around out the bottom again. “Fine, don’t sit down, then, if you prefer.” She looked to the others. “So, seeing as you don’t want any refreshments and some of you won’t even sit down — let me tell you, it seems like you don’t really appreciate my hos­pitality—”

Delven coughed.

“—do any of you want to tell me what this is about and why you wanted to see me so badly?”

Amanda ex­plained, “My new friends here dis­covered an ancient relic built by those who came before us and are attemp­ting to figure out how it works.”

“Those who came before us?” Harmony said. “How do you know it even still works after all this time?”

“It works,” Keolah said quietly.

“Well, I’ll take your word on that, I suppose,” Harmony said. “But how would I possibly help with that?”

“I was won­dering if you knew where to find the Catalyst,” Amanda said.

“The Catalyst?” Harmony repeated. “Why in the name­less Void do you want to see him?”

“I thought he might know where the Tinean books are,” Amanda said.

Harmony snorted softly. “No, he wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?” Amanda said.

“Yeah,” Harmony said. “Nobody knows where they are but me. And even I won’t know where they all are any­more.”

Amanda groaned. “What did you do with them, cousin?”

“Oh, not much,” Harmony said. “I just took the damned things and scattered them across Lezaria and dropped them in in­credibly incon­venient locations to retrieve them from. How do you feel like trips to the bottom of vol­canos, the deepest part of the ocean, below the southern ice sea, and both moons?”

Sedder softly hit his head against a giant root repeatedly.

“How did you even get to the moons?” Amanda won­dered in bafflement.

“I don’t even know how we’d retrieve some­thing at the bottom of a vol­cano, never mind on the moons,” Yennik muttered.

“That was kind of the idea,” Harmony said. “I didn’t want any­one messing with those.”

“Well, one way or an­other, you’re going to help us,” Amanda said.

“Why?” Harmony asked.

“Do you want to be involved in what we’re doing here, or not?” Amanda asked.

“Do you even know what this ancient relic you found does?” Harmony won­dered.

“It will let us visit other worlds,” Keolah said.

Harmony opened her mouth as if to make an­other argument, but then realized exactly what Keolah had said and just gaped at her.

“I spoke to the, shall we say dis­tant cousins, of the ones who made it,” Keolah said. “They ex­plained to me about the Nexus, but refused to teach me any­thing and sim­ply warned me against try­ing to use it for fear I’d turn evil or some­thing like its builders.”

“We could go to other worlds?” Harmony finally found her voice again.

“Yes,” Keolah said. “The void elves used these Nexi to connect an empire that once spanned greater than all of Lezaria. But some­thing happened, some great catastrophe, and now they’re gone, and the Nexus stands silent and dark.”

“Alright,” Harmony said. “Alright, I’ll help you. If you let me in on this, of course.”

“Of course,” Keolah said magnanimously, and not because Harmony terrified her.

“This could be quite the undertaking, though,” Harmony said. “It might take years to collect all the books again. I went to great lengths to make sure no­body used the things again.”

“If I might make an inter­­jec­tion,” Calto said. “I may have an alter­native.”