Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) (15 page)

What’s happenin’? This is the most awful thing ever…

Turned out that shape-shifting hurt. I mean it really hurt.

I tried to stand up, but my body wouldn’t do it at first. It wanted to stay on all fours. The weight still clung to my backside.
What is that thing? Feels like a rubber mat.
Bending my head to see what was going on with my tortured body, I found that my neck had shortened. The thing didn’t want to move as far as it had before. My eyes were still magicked, so seeing in the dark proved to be no problem. What I saw
was
a problem.

Fur. Brown fur. And paws with claws.

This better not be permanent or I’ll turn Jasper into a commode and make use of him.

“Romulus, what…?” I tried to say. My voice squeaked out, like a giant mouse spoke for me. He didn’t answer. Instead, he handed me his mirror, which I trapped between my clumsy new paws. I gawked at what stared back at me. Beady eyes, buck teeth, whiskers, and a flat rubbery tail.

I’d been turned into a giant red-haired…beaver.

12/ “Safe” in Virginia

With a cracking of limbs and rustling of leaves, the uprooted peach tree waded into the Potomac, then slid over as if a lumberjack had felled him.

“Ooh, that’s nice!” Pitts said, wiggling his shoots. “Cools the roots, you know.”

“Jumpin’ Jehosophat!” I shouted. The words sounded, I don’t know…beavery. I could understand what I said, of course, and so could my friends, but to somebody who wasn’t a Marshal of the Equity it must’ve just been animal chattering. All to the good, otherwise those searching soldiers would have come running. “Jasper! What did you do to me? Who’d you…Jasper? Jasper?”

No answer. No giggly smart-aleck voice in my head. Nothing.

I felt for the sword with my clumsy paws.
Gone!
What a catastrophe.
I’m a giant rodent and the only one who can maybe change me back has skedaddled.
My pudgy form spun in circles to see if I’d dropped Morphageus in the weeds near the riverbank. Nope.
He’s gone, for sure. Now what do I do?

“Sword’s gone!” I barked through my buck teeth. “Sword’s gone! I’ve lost Morphageus. We’re in trouble now.” I wiggled my whiskers at Ernie and Romulus. “Come on, help me look.”

The Marshals were trying their darnedest not to laugh, but it wasn’t working too well. Romulus howled like the hound he’d once been, rolling in the grass. Ernie held his fat sides as if they would explode, which wasn’t a sight I wanted to see in my predicament.
One calamity at a time.
Roberta and Pitts snickered from the river’s edge.

“This ain’t funny!” I hissed. “It’s a disaster.”

“Oh, it’s a disaster, all right,” said the peach tree. “Worst disaster since Bull Run.”

Roberta chomped her sharp beak into the branch she sat on. The tree yelped. “Be nice,” she told Pitts.

“Some friends,” I groaned. “Are you gonna help me find the sword or not?”

“It’s around your neck, duckie,” Ernie said, pointing.

I groped at my throat. The Stone still hung there, on its silk cord, but I found something new there, too. It felt like a dog collar, but all made of steel. “What’s this?”

“Morphageus,” said Romulus.

“Can’t be. He’s not talkin’ to me. No voice in my head.”

Ernie rolled his eyes. “Of course not.”

“Goes without sayin’, shipmate,” added Roberta.

“What do you mean by that?” I demanded, tugging at the collar.

“He cain’t talk to you when you changes shape,” Romulus said, as if I’d asked to be told my own name. “All his power’s goin’ into holdin’ the spell.”

“She didn’t read the contract,” Ernie told the others with a shrug.

“Didn’t read the contract!” tree and parrot exclaimed in unison.

Romulus just shook his bald head in disappointed wonder.

Seems to me the Stone-Warden ain’t gettin’ the respect you’d think she’d deserve.
“Okay, okay! So I didn’t read the contract! Do y’all feel superior now?”

They looked at one another and nodded.

“And what else might I want to know? Hmm…How’s about when do I stop bein’ a tree-gnawer? That’d be handy information.”

“Spell just lasts an hour, matey,” Roberta answered. “Better hurry up with this.”

“Hurry up with what?” I notice that I talked with a lisp.
Darned beaver teeth.
“Everybody talk plain. Jasper may read minds, but I can’t.”

“Crossin’ the river, lovie,” Ernie said.

“Finally!” sighed Pitts. With a cracking of limbs and rustling of leaves, the uprooted peach tree waded into the Potomac, then slid over as if a lumberjack had felled him. Roberta launched herself away from her crashing perch. “Ooh, that’s nice!” Pitts said, wiggling his shoots. “Cools the roots, you know.”

Circling overhead, Roberta called out, “Let’s get goin’. That battalion’s on our trail.”

No sooner had the words left her beak than a bullet cracked past us. Romulus splashed into the water, clutched a large branch, and hid himself in its foliage. Our parrot guide swooped down to pick up Ernie and drop him into a knothole. I hesitated, but not for long. When more bullets started humming past us like horseflies from hell, I waddled into the water myself. The soldiers were close enough now that their voices could now be heard by ordinary ears.

“Push!” Ernie hollered.

“Huh?” I still wasn’t sure of the plan.

“You’re our steam engine and our screw. Pitts is the hull.”

“And the lot of you are freeloading passengers,” the tree said.

Now I realized why Jasper had given me this silly form. Not only was I a beaver, a natural smooth and strong swimmer, but I’d kept my Verity size. One enormous rodent, able to propel the tree along with good speed, even in the strong river current. It took a little getting used to, but after a couple of minutes of experimenting with my tail and webbed feet I had Pitts gliding through the water like a Yankee clipper. Good thing, too, because the vanguard of the infantry unit had arrived at the water’s edge and commenced to blasting at us with their Springfields. It must’ve looked odd to anybody watching, to see dozens of blue-coated soldiers standing on the bank at midnight, shooting at a floating tree. No doubt some of the troops thought it strange, too. But they followed their orders and kept firing at the ‘Rebel’ tree.

Before we were halfway across, I started to believe that I had found my natural form. Being a swimming beaver just felt right, somehow. Gliding through the cool water made me think that Roberta might’ve had the same sensation when she flew. I felt weightless, like the hot-air balloons the Army observers used, and as powerful as a locomotive engine. My broad flat tail threw out a great wake as it propelled us along.

“Woo!” I shouted, snout popping above the surface. “If I’d known that shape-shiftin’ was this much fun, I’d have done it years ago!”

“Not always so much fun, miss,” Romulus said. “’Specially if it ain’t yo’ choice, and you gots no way back.”

Ernie ran along Pitts’ trunk until he could stand right in front of my nose. “That’s why you’ll only hold shape for an hour. It can become a cravin’, like opium. Some mages get so attached to it that they have no control. They either lose themselves and can’t shift back, or their power is so corrupted that they shift with no intention. Sometimes their bodies shift in a mix of forms. Then you get monsters like Venoma, or worse. So don’t get to lovin’ this too much. It ain’t a good thing, missy.’

“Then you don’t feel a thrill, bein’---?”

“Lordy, no! A forced shift is a curse put on you by a twisted power. Any good feelin’s are washed out by the evil that’s witched you.”

“But I didn’t choose to take this shape, either. So why do I---?”

“Yes, you did. Somewhere deep in your mind you decided that this would be a good thing. All Morphageus can do is boost your mind and body. Except for defendin’ you from harm, everything else he does is caused by your will.”

Defending me from harm would have been a great idea right then. A monstrous geyser blew up just ahead, drenching all of us. Hard on its heels came the boom of naval cannon. It looked like the Merchantry had more than just the infantry battalion in its pocket. Dahlgren guns were firing from the heavy artillery battery to the north. Two more enormous cannonballs splashed nearby, while a third skipped across the surface and threw up a tower of mud on the far bank.

“South! Turn downstream!” ordered Pitts. Two of his main branches began paddling like the arms of a human swimmer. His longest roots kicked, too, making him look like a lifeguard on a mission. We swung around in a wide left turn. The young tree’s crown tried to rise up out of the water, but couldn’t get high enough to get rid of the drag. I flicked my tail and swam up to its ‘armpit’ to add my strength to the cause. Dozens of Minie balls from the soldiers’ rifles spattered sharp about us, clipping leaves and twigs. Bark cartwheeled through the night air. Roberta squawked and raced ahead, out of harm’s way. The rest of us moved to the far side of Pitts’ trunk for cover.

“Thanks,” Ernie said.

“You’re very welcome!” he snapped. “I gather that I’m just a wall to you people. A piece of lumber to cower behind. I have feelings, you know. This doesn’t exactly tickle.” Saying that, he rolled over and started doing a lazy backstroke. Romulus, Ernie, and I were ducked under.

“You ain’t the only one with feelin’s,” I told Pitts. “And if you don’t start bein’ more polite I’m gonna try out these new beaver teeth on your hide. Make the sawdust fly.”

“Touchy, touchy!” the peach tree muttered. But he shut up and continued swimming down the wide river.

We were coming up to the Long Bridge. It came by its name honest, for the Potomac must’ve been near upon a mile wide at that point. Made of masonry at each end, it was wood elsewhere, with three draws in it so boats could pass through. Though no boats were in sight, one of the draws had been raised anyhow, to keep unauthorized crossers from having an easy time of it. That wasn’t much of a problem, since the Army had placed forts atop Arlington Heights in case the Confederates tried to storm the capital. Filled with cannon and infantry, they strictly controlled access to Washington City. Near the open draw stood a pair of soldiers, smoking pipes and every now and then spitting into the river.

My witched ears could hear the pair talking. I shushed the others and whispered to them that we had to pretend that we were nothing more interesting than a fallen tree and a lonely old beaver. Romulus and Ernie hunkered down amidst Pitts’ leaves, all but invisible in the quarter-moon darkness. I glided through the water, staying as silent as I could manage while still steering the tree toward the gap in the bridge.

The soldiers were doing what soldiers always did on guard duty in the middle of the night. They were complaining. “Blockhead gunners,” one of them said in a northeastern accent. “Shootin’ at a river full o’ nothin.”

“Yep,” his partner agreed. He sounded older. “Anybody with half a brain knows that every grayback in Virginia is down at Richmond, laughin’ at McClellan.”

“Aw, Little Mac knows what he’s about, I expect. Mark my words. He’ll turn the tables on Johnny Reb yet.”

The older guard guffawed. “If he don’t set the table for ‘em instead!”

“Harney, I’m willin’ to lay you a steak dinner at the Willard that---say, what’s that there?”

“Where?”

“To yer left, ‘longside that tree.”

“I don’t see nothin, Buck.”

“You know, fer a guard you ain’t got the eyes God give a mole. Right there, in the far-side fork.”

“Looks like a…beaver. A big’un, too”

The younger sentry unslung his musket. “Big’un is right. That’s a trophy I don’t aim to pass up. Make me a whole suit o’ clothes and two fine hats, he will.”

Harney protested that even if he hit the beaver he’d likely never get it out of the river, but Buck had already banged away. Any other critter would’ve been dead to rights, but this rodent had magick ears and understood the Queen’s Britannic. I ducked under, letting the peach’s trunk absorb the heavy bullet. It dug a giant crater in Pitts’ hide.

“Ow! Damnation!” he hollered, rising halfway out of the water. His limbs snagged the side of the bridge as we were about to rush through the draw. With a mighty wrench he hauled himself onto the roadway and glared down the astonished soldiers. They gaped right back at the dripping talking tree, mouths hanging open like beached fish.

“I do declare that I have had my fill of you hairless apes puncturing my integument!” barked Pitts. “How would you like it if I did the same to you?”

A green peach, solid as a rock, bounced off of Harney’s noggin. The sentry sat down so hard he bounced. Rubbing the egg-sized knot on his forehead, he goggled at the tree and gibbered like a baby. His partner, still quicker on the draw, hauled up Harney’s own Springfield and cocked it. An instant later Pitts snatched it out of his hands and tied it around the bridge rail like a holiday bow.

“That’s not a rhetorical question,” grumbled Pitts, punctuating his remark with another painful peach shot, this time at the soldier still standing. When Buck had plopped down beside Harney, nursing his own lump, Pitts advanced on them. They were too amazed to stir an inch. I sympathized. Typical Army drill didn’t include enemy tree attacks.

“Lucky for you two I’m in a hurry, or I’d plant you deep. I reckon I’ll have to settle for watering you down to the roots.” With that he plucked the soldiers up by their blue sack coats and hurled them downstream close to a hundred feet. They skipped like the cannonball had earlier, landing in the shallows on the Washington side.

No sooner had Pitts made a self-satisfied nod of his crown than I heard distant clattering from the bridgehead. Troops coming at the double-quick, from the infantry company posted down there. No doubt already alerted by all the earlier shooting, they had sprung into action when the sentry had fired at me. Time to exercise the discretion that I’d heard was the better part of valor.

“Let’s go!” I cried. “Their friends are on the way. More bad news for your integument.”