The Changing (11 page)

Feeling as if there was nothing he could do, and knowing that Sara’s actions were only a result of the process he had used to heal her, Seth closed the distance between himself and the woman he adored above all others. Now she had finished retching, Seth pulled Sara into his arms in an attempt to comfort her. Though crying and wracked by sobs with blood staining her lips and chin, Sara pulled out of Seth’s arms and turned to face him.

"What did you do to me?" Sara questioned, the pain clear on her face. "What have I become? What kind of person drinks someone's blood?"

"It's OK my love, we will figure it out," Seth tried to reason with her. "Look, I am unharmed." He added pointing to his neck. "It's barely a scratch."

"This is not all right, Seth, I bit you like an animal," Sara replied still crying, her voice rising in a near scream. "I drank your blood, that is..."

"I can fix it Sara," Seth pleaded cutting her words short. "I told you that it wasn't complete, that I would have to finish at a later time. I didn't know this would happen, but I can fix it." Seth tried to pull Sara back into his arms.

"But why would I do that?" Sara asked. "It's like I didn't even have control over myself."

"It must have been an instinct passed to you from the bat," Seth replied. "Sara, I am sorry that I did this to you. I'm sorry that I'm not a healer who could have just mended your wound, and that things have changed about you. I did the best I could, and I promise that someday, when we are away from here and find our way home, that I will repair it. I know I can fix it, I just need time." Seth said tears now streaming from his own eyes.

The young couple, deciding that there was nothing else that they could do about it at least for the time being, found comfort in each other’s arms, working through their fears and uncertainties together. This time around, Sara was extra cautious not to put her face anywhere near Seth’s neck again. After calming down, and having had time to think the events over, Sara decided she needed more answers.

"So the bats drink blood?" Sara asked.

"I would presume so. One bit me earlier in the leg," Seth replied.

"I could feel your blood actually flowing inside my teeth," Sara said.

"Inside?" Seth asked.

"Yeah, inside my teeth, all the way up my jaw," Sara returned.

"Let me see." Seth took Sara’s chin in his hand.

Opening her mouth, Sara tilted her head back to expose her upper canine teeth to Seth, but with almost no light remaining in the room Seth could see nothing. Raising his other hand beside her face Seth summoned a magical blue green fireball in his palm to illuminate Sara’s face. As he had suspected, in the center of each of the razor sharp teeth was a small hole, like a tube leading up into her jaw where it connected directly into her blood supply. The discovery lent another question to Seth’s mind, the answer to which he imagined was important. When Sara had bitten him, a portion of her own blood had managed to mingle into his bloodstream, yet when the bat had bitten him no such thing had occurred. Thinking it over a minute, Seth determined that this too was his fault. He had altered the bat's bone structure in its head, jaw and teeth so much he had obviously created a flaw. Whereas the original creature must have a means in place to keep the blood flowing into its teeth going in one direction, through his alterations of those systems, Seth had inadvertently also corrupted them and now the direction of the blood flow could no longer be maintained.

"Yup, it looks like you have little tunnels through your teeth that go up into your jaw," Seth assured Sara. "Did you happen to notice anything else?" Seth asked hoping for more clues as to the extent of Sara’s change.

"Not really," Sara answered. "I feel fine now, nothing unusual or out of the ordinary, besides a bit sick to my stomach and I'm still shaken up a little. So what do we do now?"

"I don't know," Seth admitted. "My sole goal up until now was to save you, and now I only hope you won't end up resenting me for the means by which I did just that." Seth added with honest concern in his voice.

"I love you Seth," Sara began. "I will always love you no matter what the consequences may be. You did what you had to do out of love for me. How could I ever resent that? You said you can fix it, and I believe that if there is anyone on Thurr who can, it is you. As for me, I will simply have to try and fight those urges if they surface again. I will have to be vigilant and keep track of how my body is feeling and reacting until we know exactly what I have become. Until that time, though, let’s focus on learning what this change has done to me and try and deal with it," Sara concluded, sounding more determined than ever.

"You know, you are absolutely the most incredible woman I have ever met," Seth said with a smile. "Do you feel up to trying to get out of here?"

"Like I said, my love, I feel amazing. I'm stronger and faster and I feel light as a feather," Sara explained.

With that Seth stood, and taking her small hand pulled Sara to her feet. She had been right, of course. She was extremely light belaying her size. Raising his palms upwards, Seth summoned forth a large fireball. Forcing his will upon the power, he slowly sent the crackling inferno levitating upwards towards the ceiling for a better view. Seth and Sara watched as the ball of fire approached the ceiling above, and neither were able to distinguish any useful detail to assist in their escape from their would be prison.

"So what now?" Sara asked again.

"I have an idea," Seth told her.

Without further explanation, Seth stepped forward motioning for Sara to stand behind him. With his fireball still levitating well overhead to illuminate the room, Seth reached inside himself and stole away a portion of his own huge life force. He unleashed it into himself to feel the ecstasy of the power within him. Focusing the power to his purpose, Seth placed the heels of his hands together, his palms facing outwards, and unleashed a column of fire unlike any other he had created before. Concentrating to keep the column focused, Seth poured his power into the inferno directing its heat into the stone wall of the chamber. As the stone began to heat it steamed and hissed as it first began to glow a deep red slowly brightening to orange and then yellow as the stone itself began to liquefy and run down the wall like wax on the side of a candle. Now that it was molten, Seth separated his hands. Controlling the fire column with his right hand he began to turn slowly to the right. Using his free left hand, Seth issued forth a powerful blast of air in a column equal in power to that of the fire in his right. As he heated the stone and it became molten, Seth blasted it with air both creating a depression in the stone as well as quickly cooling it to keep the molten stone from puddling. As Seth completed his first cut into the stone, he began working on another line above the first. Continuing the pattern ever higher on the wall, he created in essence a stone ladder all the way to the portal above. As Seth worked the stone chamber became hotter and hotter to the point where the heat was near unbearable and both he and Sara began to perspire at an alarming rate. Fortunately for the both of them, the process did not take a prolonged amount of time, though Seth warned Sara it could be some while before the stone was cool enough to touch.

As the stone cooled over the following hours it made odd rumbling sounds from time to time that reminded Seth of the black horde's war drums from a few days before. Seth found himself wondering at the fate of those he had left behind. He knew he had nearly destroyed the enemy army, but he did not know what the final outcome had been, if Borrik or Garret had survived, or even if the battle continued still this very night. Seth needed to hurry and find a way back from wherever he was to Valdadore, not only to learn the outcome of the battle, but also to finish Sara’s healing and redeem himself to her.

But first Seth needed to figure out just where he and Sara had landed. Approaching the stone wall with Sara in tow, Seth tested the surface with his hand. The stone had cooled to a bearable degree, and once again clad in their armor and prepared to leave, they began to climb the wall to the chamber above.

* * * * *

Borrik and his men raced through the ancient forest using their keen eyes and noses to guide them through the absolute darkness that only the vision of a nighttime predator could penetrate. As they ran on in near silence, their only communications were telepathically shared allowing their ears to focus on the sounds surrounding them. Borrik, the leader of the wolf men, led his small pack of hybrid troops east attempting to follow his would-be guides many miles ahead. The cat girls, it seemed, had no intentions of stopping until they reached their destination, and Borrik worried that if the duo of feline sisters gained any more lead than they currently held, he and his men would likely lose their scent and with it the trail to their master.

Sniffing vigorously as he ran, Borrik assured himself he was on still on the trail of the girls, and again he also noted the scent of a lone human male. As of yet the large beast of a man had found no reason as to why a single human would venture so far into this forest alone, so far from any town or city. What particularly surprised Borrik upon locating the scent this time was the potency. The man's scent was fresh and strong whereas the previous times he had located it the scent had been days old and weak. Borrik mulled over the revelation for many hours as he ran like a wraith over the mossy ground of the forest floor. Deciding it best he sent another image to his troops imprinted with the feeling that to a wolf meant caution. Receiving replies from all his troops, Borrik knew that if they crossed this human he would not be harmed. However, he had an uneasy feeling about the scenario that he simply could not escape.

Many miles and many hours passed as the great pack of hybrid wolf troops rushed headlong through the immense forest with no signs of any other living beings besides the occasional scent lofted upon the currents of lazy air beneath the treed canopy. From time to time Borrik would glance skyward and on occasion believed he could see the first moon in the sky, its crimson surface reflecting light back down upon him. Although unsure with only an occasional glance through branches and leaves, and moving at a precarious speed, Borrik imagined the moon full, and that too lent a certain sense of disquiet to him that he could not quite place. Something foreboding was approaching, of that much Borrik was certain. His instincts screamed for him to stop or turn back, but he knew he must continue lest he lose the trail. None of his troops had made mention of anything out of the ordinary either verbally or telepathically, and as such Borrik began to believe it paranoia that guided his feelings.

Running still through the forest, his troops spread out behind him finding their own trails and footfalls, Borrik again found the scent of the human upon a tree as he passed. It was a musty smell, like that of a man who had worked in the sun for many days, laboring and sweating without drinking enough water. This time the scent was stronger than any time previous and Borrik nearly felt as if it had been left on purpose. It was as if the scent was simply too strong whereas in the times previous it was an accidental occurrence. Now it was something more substantial. Borrik began to slow his pace to better judge his surroundings. Fearing an ambush or something more sinister, Borrik was caught quite by surprise as the trees parted into a clearing ahead of him. Slowing to a stop, realizing that something was out of the ordinary in the clearing ahead, Borrik subliminally gave his men the order to fan out to gain numerous vantage points. He saw nothing of immediate danger so Borrik strode to the edge of the clearing, and gleaning information from his troops as well, was able to determine many things that made him both anxious and nervous.

First and foremost, Borrik, along with several of his troops, noted the scents of humans covering the entire perimeter of the clearing. Secondly, the clearing was obviously not a natural occurrence as it was perfectly circular and even the branches above dared not overhang the cleared ground below. Also upon the ground, small patches of the moss had been carved away in rows baring the deep black soil beneath, and sprouting from these rows of bare soil were the beginnings of some sort of cultivated mushrooms with wide red caps and green spotted trunks. The third thing Borrik noticed that was verified by one of the females in his pack was the scent of children. These were not the scents of the very young whose breath and perspiration was sweet upon the tongue, but the scent of those nearing adulthood, or having reached adulthood but having never bred before. The scent of untainted human virginity hung thick in the air which led Borrik to his next discovery. The male scent he had been following all day was the only one present in the clearing. Here, in the very near past had gathered a large group of women, or soon to be women, and a single man. It seemed to Borrik a great oddity, and although his instincts screamed against it, Borrik ordered his pack to enter the clearing, careful not to disrupt the apparently cultivated crops, and to follow him down a well-worn path that exited the clearing just opposite where Borrik now stood. It was a mistake Borrik would regret for the rest of his days; a mistake unspeakable to any priest of any religion. It was a mistake that would burden his soul almost to the point of no return, stripping him at least for a moment of any trace of humanity he still clung to.

Stepping into the clearing as of one mind, the pack of beast men Lord Seth had created only days ago immersed themselves for the first time that night in the light of both of the moons that inhabited the sky above them. In an occurrence that only happened three times a year on Thurr, both moons this night had risen in their full glory illuminating the world below in crimson and blue beams of ethereal light. To a normal wolf a single full moon in the sky meant two things. First it would make for a good night to hunt, and second the bitches in the pack would be coming into heat and would be looking to breed. On a night such as this, with both luminescent orbs in the sky, the power of nature was tenfold, and as the light of the moons struck Borrik and his troops something within them snapped. Becoming for the first time unchained by their humanity, instincts overruled human emotion and like a pack of wild beasts, digging claws into the soft loam beneath them, the wolf hybrid creatures sprang into action with lust in their veins and wild ferociousness in their eyes. Howling and barking like a pack of hunger-driven, mad beasts the once men raced down the trail sending clumps of moss and soil raining down around them as they tore the earth beneath them with their claws.