The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (27 page)

"I do so hate prying eyes while I work, and
this promises to be a delightfully informative experience. That
body you are using is quite familiar. I do believe those fingers
clutched this staff quite recently. I must be sure to inform our
men that she is no longer to be obeyed," he said.

"You will not live to speak those words," she
said, shifting to her stone form.

"I am confident the message will be
delivered. I see you have chosen the stone form rather than fire.
Surely this has something to do with the staggering decrease in
your strength since the last time you clashed with this weapon.
Tell me, are you tired?" he asked.

She flashed into motion. With improbable
reflexes, the weapon was raised to block, and with equally unlikely
strength the blow was deflected.

"Oh yes, you are
quite
tired," he
said.

The cloaks floated backward into the shadows
as the shape shifter unleashed a barrage of increasingly powerful
blows. Each was blocked, though the last brought what was certainly
the crackle of bone from the man's right wrist. The man dropped the
hand to his side and spun the halberd to speed with only the left.
The shape shifter raised her hand, meeting the blade with her palm.
With an ear splitting clang the metal came to a stop. Her other
hand gripped the shaft and tore it easily from the fingers of the
man. As soon as the metal left his skin the look of confidence and
intellect was replaced with one of horror and pain. He cried out
and cradled the shattered right hand.

"What . . . a-a-a-ah! What is this? What are
you? What is going on?" cried the man in a meek, almost whiny shell
of his former voice.

"You allowed yourself to be subverted by a
D'karon. You are tainted. You must be punished," the shape shifter
hissed, throwing down the weapon and delivering a bone-shattering
back hand to the sniveling thing in front of her.

The man dropped lifelessly to the ground, his
head turned sickeningly to the side. She turned to walk away, but
stopped, her eyes drifting down to the halberd. The gem in the
blade was still glowing faintly. She lifted her foot to grind it
into the ground, but before she could bring her heel down, the
weapon slid swiftly toward its former wielder. The right hand of
the beaten man raised. The fingers crackled open and clutched the
shaft of the weapon. The scrawny man lurched to his feet in a
single motion as though an outside force had drawn him up by the
shoulders. The shape shifter turned to the risen warrior. He
twisted his head back into place and smiled.

"Humans have the inexcusable habit of
deserting their vessel far before it has lost its usefulness. I am
wiser than that. You, too, show wisdom. You were not afraid to do
what had to be done. That is an admirable trait. A lesser warrior
would have pitied the usurped victim," he said.

"Weakness in the face of the enemy must not
be tolerated," she said, approaching him again.

"I agree. You and I see eye to eye on a
number of important issues. Have you considered switching
allegiances?" he asked.

She began to swipe at him with vicious
attacks with her stone claws. He deftly deflected each, backing
away as he did. The strikes were clashing so powerfully that the
stone of her hands was beginning to fracture and break away.
Finally the entirety of her left hand crumbled and she retreated to
regroup. Her opponent did not relent. Swinging the long weapon and
gaining momentum as he did, the man struck again and again with the
blade of the halberd. Cracks began to widen on the shape shifter's
form. Finally the man thrust the spiked tip of the weapon into her
chest. The force easily split the stone and buried the blade,
complete with the crystal it bore, halfway into the Chosen One's
body. A pulse from the crystal shattered the weakened creature, and
she was reduced to a pile of rubble on the ground.

"I wonder, can it be so easy? Somehow I doubt
it," the arrogant man considered aloud.

One by one, the pieces of the shifter
darkened to black and ignited. Before long hundreds of fist-sized
flames had flickered to life. The fire rose into the air, swirling
and reforming until the fiery form floated above her opponent,
brilliant eyes blazing with fury. The crystal at the end of the
staff took on a brilliant glow. As the Chosen swept in for attack
after attack, the gem was swung with precision. Some manner of
magic struck the insubstantial, flickering form as though it were
solid. Finally the shifter hung momentarily still in the air before
dividing into a half dozen intense balls of flame and surrounding
the enemy.

"Well now, aren't we clever," the man
admitted.

The fireballs closed in for attack, but an
instant before the first made contact he drove his halberd into the
ground and summoned a mystic shield. The fire clashed again and
again with the shield to no avail. This was more power than he
should have had. He too had been concealing his true strength.
Finally they withdrew, merging again. For a moment she floated,
considering her options. Slowly, she noticed a draw on her already
waning strength. She turned to see that, behind her, the four
cloaks had manifested charcoal black hands and were drawing off
flame in long filaments, attracting it like iron filings to a
magnet. Each of the four leeched away strength and gathered it into
growing fireballs of their own. The shape shifter tore through the
air after them. Just the slightest touch would ignite them. Had she
more strength she would be launching long tongues of flame after
them, but she had barely enough to maintain her form. After
dispatching only one of the cloth abominations she knew that she
couldn't afford to squander any more strength in her fire form. She
dropped back to the ground and shifted to stone once more.

"Stone again? Show me something new!" her
opponent mockingly demanded.

The three remaining cloaks now let their
stolen fire fly. The first splashed across her stone form. Swiftly
she shifted to flame again, reclaiming the remaining two before
returning to stone. The cloaks closed in, striking their phantom
limbs against her rocky body. She dropped to one knee as lines were
scored into her by the unnatural substance that composed the claws.
In a burst of motion she lashed out, managing to grasp two of them
and tear them to ribbons amid unholy, disembodied screeches. The
third pulled to a safe distance. The shifter raised her steely gaze
and locked eyes with her opponent, still protected by his
shield.

"It is just as well you refuse to join our
ranks. You would hardly be of any use to us," he taunted.

The stone eyes narrowed in anger. She thrust
her hands into the icy, cobbled street. A rumble began to shake the
town. Suddenly the ground beneath the man erupted with a spire of
stone. He was sent hurtling into the air. Quickly she took to the
air after him in the form of wind. With a mighty effort she managed
to separate him from his weapon and hurl it into the distance. She
then forced him with all of the speed she could muster to the
ground far below. She lingered for a few moments until she was
satisfied that this time the broken man would not arise. She then
cast her eyes to the east. She had nothing left. She would be
helpless in very short order. With no options left, she streaked
through the sky. There was no time to find Lain. Until she could
recover, she would have to make do with someone else.

#

Sleep had been fitful, made possible only due
to sheer exhaustion. Now it was impossible. Something, something
incredibly powerful, had shaken the mountain during the night. The
sound, like a crack of thunder, pulled her from sleep. A series of
low rumbles continued to reverberate throughout the mountainside
and valley. Each grumbling roar grew nearer. This sound chilled
Myranda more than the call of any beast. It was the sound of an
avalanche, the mountain shrugging off its blanket of snow and ice.
If the rumble reached her she would be buried without hope of
escape. She slid out into the open and strained her eyes as white
snow gave way to black night without so much as a glimmer of
anything else. The only thing that penetrated the whistling wall of
white and black was the thunderous roar. It was close enough to
make the ground tremble. Tiny cascades of powdery snow began to
form. There was no sense running. All she could do was hope.
Gradually the roar subsided, moving down the mountainside. Myranda
took a deep, relieved breath of the icy air.

Her ears, so recently turned to the
terrifying rumble, now turned to something else. The wind seemed
different. For most of the night it had been waxing and waning, but
it had always surrounded her. Now the shriek of high wind seemed to
be overwhelmingly from the west. She turned to the darkness,
raising her staff and conjuring a light in the gem. It barely cut
an arm's length further into the dense night. Suddenly a chaotic,
swirling form burst from the darkness, knocking Myranda to the
ground. It was the shape shifter, but something was wrong. She
seemed looser, less defined. The slivers of light that served as
eyes had a look of desperation. Fear. The windy form dropped to the
ground, the whirling wind tightening as it did when she changed
form, but just as quickly it loosened again.

"I do not have enough . . . I need something
simple. Something small!" she cried.

Her eyes shot to Myranda's hands. She grasped
them, pulling free one of her gloves. There was another burst of
wind as the bulk of her form whisked away. What remained dropped to
the ground, tightening and intensifying. Snow swirled into the mix.
After a few moments the snow settled, revealing a curious sight.
Beside the glove was a squirrel, presumably a duplicate of the one
that gave its fur to line the gloves. The tiny creature looked up
with as much dignity as such a small face could muster, and
spoke.

"Congratulations, human. I have deemed you
worthy to be assigned a purpose," she said. She spoke with the same
clear, powerful voice that she always did. The sound could not have
been more out of place.

"What are you doing here? What happened? MYN
NO!" she cried.

Her companion was moments from snapping up
the little creature. She froze when Myranda spoke up. The newest
form of the shape shifter turned slowly to the dragon, mouth still
agape. She looked fearlessly into the cavernous maw.

"I would prefer that you dispose of the
beast, but in the current state of things it may be of some use.
Keep it in line and it may live," she said.

"What happened?" she asked the creature,
stooping to pick it up.

"That is none of your concern. Suffice it to
say that even
my
strength is not boundless. The greater
portion of it has been stripped away by a number of confrontations
and I shall require an amount of time to recover. Until that time
you shall escort me, giving your life if you must, to keep me from
harm," she said.

"I will do my best," she said, extending her
hand.

Rather than allow herself to be picked up,
the proud creature leapt to her arm and scurried to her
shoulder.

"Your best is certain to be woefully
inadequate. That is why you shall take me to Lain. He, and only he,
is capable of providing protection, should it be truly required,"
she explained.

"You couldn't find Lain?" Myranda said.

"More pressing matters arose. Enough
questions. You will find him. Forgo sleep, forgo meals. Until I am
delivered to Lain, you shall not allow the pathetic weaknesses that
plague your race to delay us. Is that understood?" the creature
asked.

"I can't find Lain. I have something more
important to find," she said.

"Human, you have been given your orders.
Follow them," the creature said.

"I may have found another Chosen. Lain can
take care of himself, and I can protect you. This needs to be
done," she said.

"You will find nothing of use," the shifter
said.

"You will never find anything if you don't
look," she said. "And I intend to. If you do not wish to go with
me, then you are welcome to continue your search for Lain
alone."

The tiny creature on her shoulder gave a
frustrated sigh.

"It was an act of the purest optimism to
imagine that I might have coaxed a small minded mortal into acting
in a rational and intelligent manner. No matter. I will recover
just as quickly on an ill advised, dead end trek as on an
intelligent one," she proclaimed. "Pursue your foolishness. In a
day or two when I am myself again I shall leave you to your
pointless errands."

With that the creature moved to the interior
of Myranda's hood, curling about the back of her neck for maximum
warmth, with her head facing casually forward.

"Proceed," she ordered.

Myranda had not intended to continue until
morning, but now she couldn't bear to wait a moment longer. She was
sure that she would find another Chosen, and now the infuriating
shape shifter would be present to see it. She marched forward in
angry silence, Myn dutifully in tow. The wind and cold were
especially biting at night, and with nothing but the light from her
staff, the progress was slow. It became slower still when she
reached the near edge of the stretch of mountain ravaged by
avalanche. The ground was uneven and broken, great pieces of
rock-hard snow jutting at odd angles, as though the surface of the
mountain had been shattered.

After a few hours, the lack of sleep and
general exhaustion began to take its toll, and Myranda was having
trouble keeping her mind sharp. In the past she would have begun
talking aloud to herself or Myn. Now she had a companion, albeit a
bothersome one, who might offer a reply. She should have known
better. She should have known that any conversation with the shape
shifter would end just as the last had, with angry silence, but the
desire to hear something other than the relentless wind clouded her
judgment.