Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (8 page)

Kallen sighed and mopped up the rest of the mess. “No
matter how much you may dislike him, Talbot is not a monster.”

“I’m not talking about him. Lunas proposed to Kasile.”

Kallen stopped cleaning and gaped in alarm. “Are you
serious?!”

“Yes. She’d be engaged right now if it weren’t for Siron.”

Instead of disposing the towel into a waste bin or laundry
hamper, she just burned it with a fire spell. She was on her feet and at the
door before her next words left her mouth.

“We gotta stop that right now!”

“Exactly, which means I need to get out of here pronto.
Which means I need to convince Talbot to let me out. Which means I need to know
anything that could help me stay in control during a full transformation. Tasio
implied that you know what I need.”

Suddenly, Kallen was bashful and hesitant.

“Kallen!”

Kallen turned away from him. “He... He wants me to show
you my chimera form, my true form, the one I pick up in the Siduban Chaos
Explosion. I don’t do that for just anyone.”

“Why not?”

Kallen hugged herself. “It’s a reminder of the worst time
of my life. You may think you have it bad, but it’s nothing compared to what I
went through.”

The quiver of her voice stirred the grendel; not to eat or
to fight but to protect. Rationally, Eric knew that he couldn’t protect Kallen
from her memories, but he was itching to take some kind of action. Seeing
Kallen emotionally vulnerable was a baffling experience.

 “I was a damsel in distress, but there was no knight to
save me because I was treated like a dragon. There were no laws to protect me
so they did whatever they wanted to me. If I told you
half
of
what they did, you’d try to kill all of them
for being threats.”

Her body melded and shifted. It grew bigger and broader. Fur
and scales replaced bare flesh in but a few random spots. Fungus that he’d only
seen growing in a chaotic zone grew in her and on her. Patches of her form
gleamed as if with radiation. From this chaotic mass grew four heads: a goat
with green fur, a dragon with golden brown scales, a lion with silver grey fur,
and a black and white snake extending from her rear. The human head was gone.

“This is
what happened to me,”
the goat head said.
“This is my true form. I am not human. I am a chimera.”

“By the
blessing of Lady Chaos, I was empowered,”
the dragon head said.
“Now I can continue my parents’
work.”

“By the
curse of Lady Chaos, I lost everything,”
the lion head said.
“I must find my little sister and
cure her.”

“They can’t
make up their minds,”
the snake head said. “
By the way, it’s been a while since
hablo espanol contigo
.
There are few forms that allow me to speak directly to mortals. Usually, I have
to use tricksters,
Y
that’s like playing telephone, except when they’re
doing it deliberately,
wakari masen. Wakari mas ka?”

“No, I don’t understand that. In fact, I don’t understand
any of this.”

Despite its fearsome appearance, Eric didn’t consider the
chimera to be a threat. It was still Kallen and Kallen was not a threat.

“My three
forward heads represent three facets of myself,
” the goat head explained.
“The snake tail thinks it’s Lady
Chaos. I think it’s my religious nature or my imagination. It never makes sense,
so I ignore it.”

“
Sumimasen,
Kallen. For me, time and space are things that happen
otra hambra
,
so I don’t have the same frame of reference that you do.
Coko des ka?
”

Kallen’s chimera body receded. Despite protests from the
snake, her human form returned. Her clothing returned as well. She too
possessed elven clothing to keep her expenses down. There was no indication
that she had been a four-headed chimera moments ago. To Eric, she hadn’t
changed at all. She was still Kallen.

“I like your true form.”

“Thanks...” She stroked her hair once. “The point is that
they are all me. Who I am does not change between forms because my soul stays
the same and so my mind stays the same. Kallen the chimera is not different
from Kallen the human because both have the same memories and experiences. It’s
what I’ve been telling you. The grendel is not some alternate personality that you
need to suppress or accept. It’s just you as you are right now.”

“Then why has my behavior changed? Why do I think
differently?”

“Because
you
have changed. Nothing chaos touches
stays the same. Since coming to this world, it has changed you twice, and
believe it or not, the second one is the lesser of the two.”

“Really? I’d like to hear this argument.”

“A monster is functionally the same as a mercenary;
killing for food. In your case, money to buy food. You protect your family. You
are not malicious in your job. You require mana to live and be effective. The
only thing that’s truly changed is physical appearance. Tell me that your
transformation from Eric Watley of Threa to Eric Watley of Tariatla was less
radical in your change of behavior and I’ll drop it.”

“Assuming I believe all that, how do we convince Talbot?”

“Like this.”

Kallen knocked on the door of each of the leading
scientists involved with Eric’s case; loudly and passionately until they got
out of bed and answered the door. The especially stubborn or heavily sleeping
were visited by The Trickster.

Due to the late hour, they were all irritated, but Kallen
put on the charm, explained her plan, and encouraged them to brag. Despite losing
sleep to her actions, they were excited to receive recognition. They wanted to
confirm Eric safe as much as Eric himself did. One does not embark on an
impossible task involving dangerous creatures just to make money. They were
idealists looking for a cure, they were Chaosists, Orderists, or Noitearcans on
a holy cause, nerds who thought the field to be fascinating, or adventurers who
decided to get respectable but wanted to hang on to their lifestyle.

Kallen gathered the disparate disciplines together and
they formed their argument. Then, they pulled Talbot from his bed in order to
present their findings. When he, in his grogginess, protested that it could
wait until morning, Kallen countered that it was Eric’s freedom on the line and
that he himself wouldn’t want to wait if the situation were reversed.
Grudgingly, he put on his uniform and sat behind his desk.

The thesis of the presentation was that Eric stood as a
stable and mentally healthy individual who was not a threat to anyone. To prove
this, they put forward five points. The first was that there was no anger or
malice in his monster mindset and instead there was only responses to threats,
food, and obstacles. The second was that his response to threats was heavily
conditioned by the rules of his guild. The third was that he was not sexually a
threat to anyone because of his new mindset. The fourth point was that he was
not a culinary threat to anyone because of his ability to survive on mana
alone. The fifth was Kallen’s own record of behavior.

The lack of maliciousness in monsters was a long-proven
fact. Monsters could
feel
anger but could not direct it towards anything
in particular; they were too stupid for that. When they attacked, it was
because they were hungry, felt threatened, or they simply felt like it. In any
case, there was no need to fear that Eric would attack someone who called him a
derogatory name, at least not any more than they had to fear from any other
sapient. On the contrary, Eric’s threat response would be a judgment call, just
as any sapient’s would, and this judgment was guided by the rules of the
Dragon’s Lair charter.

The Mother Dragon insisted on a code of conduct for her
“children” to ensure they behaved themselves. This code included rules of self-restraint
such as “never kill the client” and a sense of professionalism such as “we are
professionals, not mongrels.” It also fostered a sense of communal cooperation
and well-being that transcended blood and race such as “the guild shall be our
home and everyone in it shall be family.” This nicely coincided with the pack
mentality sometimes found in cohesive monster groups. They believed these rules
to be hard-wired into Eric’s brain with Eric no more able to disobey Ridley the
Dragoness (in her capacity as the leader of the guild) than a bee would the
queen of its hive.

In terms of his hunger, Eric could survive on mana. His
teammates and Professor Haburt testified that he lived on “the dew of the
universe” while in Ceiha thanks to the enlightenment he experienced inside
Dengel’s Lair. After nine days without eating anything, Nolien took photographs
of Eric’s emaciated body because, as a healer, he couldn’t believe it. Thus, there
was no fear of him feeding his fellow sapients, nor was there any fear of
sexual assault.

Eric was not sexually interested in his fellow sapients. They
scientifically measured his state of arousal to women (and men for good
measure) and confirmed this to be the case. They even hired a prostitute to
seduce him. He yawned and said, “I’m not interested in a long string of pussy
jokes. Besides, you might have anthrax.” Talbot chuckled a bit at that but then
covered it with a cough. The only times Eric experienced a heightened state of
sexual arousal was when Kallen herself was involved.  

“Really?” Talbot asked.

Kallen flipped her hair. “What can I say? I’m
irresistible.”

To further strength their argument, she brought up her own
record of good behavior. Since the Siduban Chaos Explosion, the only things she
had killed were monsters and rogues. Aside from the “Ice Cream Incident,” she
had a clean criminal history. Her mutation was more severe because she was
mutated by genuine chaotic energy, while Eric’s mutation was in a lesser Fog
cloud. If she could do it, then so could Eric.

For a six
th
point, Tasio
appeared.

“If he causes any trouble, you can blame it on me because
I’ll be the one truly responsible.”

Talbot was silent for sixty seconds.

“You all make good points, especially him,” he pointed to
Tasio, who beamed. “Frankly, I’ve been considering his release for some time
now. The costs of keeping him here are adding up and he’s been behaving well
since the Radio Incident. The general public is pressing for his freedom as
well. Ever since the Winter Blaze Festival, mana mutation advocates have been
demanding his release. The only thing that concerns me is that Eric has not
demonstrated full control in his full grendel form.”

“Then I won’t take my full grendel form. I don’t like it
any more than you do.”

Talbot nodded. He did the paperwork and notified the ICDMM
council. With his recommendation, along with that of the leading scientists and
department heads, they approved Eric’s release. Talbot himself handed him a
photocopy of the certificate. Eric grasped it and shouted for joy in his
grendel voice. Then he ran to the teleportation room.

 As soon as he arrived, the guard turned him away. He
showed his certificate and politely asked him to stand aside. Talbot, standing
behind Eric, gave the guard the nod. Eric passed and the teleport arch started
up. Never had he been so happy to vomit from teleportation sickness.

Aside from those trickling to or from pubs, the streets of
Roalt were empty. The ground was slick and the air was frigid. Snow had fallen
in earnest and it blanketed both the streets and the rooftops. Torch Day, the
major winter holiday in Ataidar, was coming. At that time, every street and
roof would be decorated in Fire’s motifs. Until then, the streets were barren.

Eric raced out of Scholar Town and passed the statues
marking the entrance to Royal Town. His goal was the castle.

Kas, I’ve been released from the ICDMM containment wing
and I’m on my way to see you. Will the guards give me trouble?

Yes.

He stopped. That wasn’t what he expected, neither in word
nor in tone. It was awfully cold and borderline hostile.

Say again?

I am queen and I cannot have male visitors at this
hour, and certainly not mercenary monsters. Not at any hour are those things
appropriate.

Kas? What’s wrong?

Do NOT address me with so familiar a name! I am Queen
Kasile Landros Ataidar VII, but you must address me as “Your Majesty.”

Sirens went off in Eric’s mind. Something was wrong. If
his Kas wanted him to call her “Your Majesty,” then something was seriously
wrong indeed.

Is Lunas there with you?

Did you not hear me about “male visitors at this hour”?
Has mutation compromised your memory? Lunas is not in my room and giving me
advice at this very moment. Such a thing would not be proper. Go back to your
lair, Grendel!

If the streets weren't deserted before, they were now.
Eric emitted a low-level killing intent in all directions that scared off every
sapient for three square blocks. His hands remained a grendel's all the way to
the castle. His slitted eyes watched for threats and obstacles. When the moat
guards blocked his path, he decided they qualified.

"Stand
aside or suffer my wrath."

"Wha-how did—”

The guards switched from crossing their weapons to
brandishing them.

"No one is allowed inside the castle after
dark."

They were obstructing the path to his little sister! Eric
raised the right arm of the grendel. It struck the barrier and created eight
holes from seven claws. The guard gritted her teeth and repelled him while her
partner jabbed his spear butt into Eric's gut, knocking him on his own.

"Eric Watley, do you think you're dealing with city
folk?" the woman asked. "We kill monsters like you for
practice."