4
This is taking too long. The thought repeated in my head as I ran. My body still felt uncomfortable around me, like a pair of boots that were a size too big. Walking was comical at best. Instead of taking a step, I would fall forward and barely catch myself before falling again. The process repeated itself until each step became a little more natural, a little bit faster. It was still too slow. Every minute could be another minute of torture for her, another minute closer to death. It could already be too late.
The pain that suddenly blossomed in my chest was not physical; it did not belong to this body at all, and it scared me. I searched my memory, but I had never experienced pain like this. I stumbled and fell into a roll that brought me back to my feet. I needed a distraction.
I quickly assessed my situation. All my limbs were intact. A ragged breath left my chest as I tried to sigh at the realization that I had not even checked to see that the body was whole before I took it. I was wearing some kind of ceremonial armor. It was leather underneath, but so studded with metal and jewels that it appeared to be completely made of steel plates. I would have assumed that I was of a warrior class, but the gildings of silver and gold and the encrusted gemstones ruled that out. Judging by the amount of money I was wearing on that funeral pyre, I was either a high-ranking noble or very rich. Neither of those options made me feel any better about the situation.
There was a slim chance that I wasn’t a very popular noble, that people wouldn't recognize me in the capital until my work was done. I immediately began to break down the distinctive armor into its most basic components. I had only a short period of time to manipulate anything before I settled completely into the body. The pieces began to shimmer, and my body became lighter as the whole suit evaporated. A cloud of acrid mist surrounded me for a moment, but I saw millions of tiny elements that combined to make what other people see and touch. When I recombined them in a another order, they became something completely different. For a brief moment, I was running in the nude. The next moment, I was wearing a plain but well-made cotton shirt and goat-hide breeches that matched it agreeably enough. Without missing a stride, good, thick boots covered my feet, and I realized how much pain my feet were in. I hadn't noticed how badly the rough ground and occasional rocks had been cutting them.
I used some of the energy left from the armor to heal my feet and put the rest to use in refitting myself to this body, until at last I felt comfortable in my new form. I was able to push it harder than it was originally meant to go; in no time I was running at an inhuman speed.
The distraction had only lasted for a few minutes at most, and without something to occupy it, my mind wandered to dark places.
I imagined her huddled in a dank jail cell. What did they do to her? Why are her clothes torn? Who would dare to mar that perfect skin! The thought of her bleeding and broken enraged me. I would have blamed this volatile human form, but it wasn’t there. This pain was completely within my imagination and that place was mine alone. Kara! I screamed silently. Just stay alive. Stay alive and I promise to take you in my arms and love you forever. I’ll never reject you again. But as I watched her, another, more sinister, voice crept into my head.
“She has ruined you!” It was just my imagination again, but the voice wore the tone of disapproval and anger that I had come to expect from the Elders of my people. “You have betrayed your people, and you don’t even have the shame to feel remorse! These ‘humans’ are the children of Abomination, the EverOnes’ greatest failure. They will be your destruction! Come home before it’s too late.”
The fear of losing Kara forever spurred me forward. I had known that she was important to me, but I hadn’t realized the effect that losing her would have on me. The second threat was more sinister, though. This world was forbidden to us. This world was why the one we called Abomination had earned that name. I knew it was a lie, but I had let myself believe that I could go home after this. I could love Kara and still return to my world. That dream of clemency was gone now.
There weren’t many laws that governed my people, but I’d managed to break them all. The first two were simple; I had once thought they were absolute, but it wasn’t so rare to break them after all. The last one, though—that was my death sentence. There was no avoiding it. I couldn’t deny it. I stole a body in the presence of dozens of people, perhaps hundreds. If there was an enlightened one among them, they would have seen my true form. Given the wealth and status of this new body, there were probably a handful of them there. I would never be allowed to return home.
The punishment for this is absolute. My soul would be crystallized and shattered, to be scattered to the far reaches of the cosmos so that there would be no hope for me to ever be brought together again. I would spend eternity as a thousand little pieces of my consciousness, barely aware that I even existed, let alone the millennia that I had spent exploring the universe.
“You haven’t been exploring the universe.”
This time when I stumbled, I didn’t recover gracefully. I landed on my chest and skidded across the ground for a few feet before flipping into an uncontrolled roll and landing painfully on my back, staring up at the blue sky.
The voice that startled me belonged to a creature I had never imagined I would see. He looked like a human male, in form, at least. His skin was marbled with a white light almost too bright to look at and a black that seemed to suck in that same light. The effect was both startling and disturbing.
I immediately knew who he was.
He reached out a hand, and I warily accepted it. I had assumed that touching Abomination would feel dirty or wrong, but it just felt like another hand. There was no sensation of motion; I was simply in one spot and then another.
“You haven’t been exploring the universe.” His sudden statement broke through my astonishment, and I saw laughter in his eyes as he watched me, waiting for my reaction.
“What?” I said stupidly. I felt like a child again as I struggled to make sense of everything that was happening to me.
“I thought that perhaps you hadn’t heard me while you were falling on your face.” Abomination laughed lightly this time, stopping only when I glared at him.
“I have traveled the universe!” is all I could manage to spit out. My courage was gathering, and my anger was rising with it. “I have lived hundreds of lifetimes on dozens of worlds. I have used the technology of Mecas, tasted the peace of Val Al.” Abomination cut me off as he burst into a sudden bout of laughter. The man actually doubled over!
“Please stop,” he said between laughs. “I can’t take any more. It’s ok. You keep believing that you’re a space traveler; just don’t talk about it anymore.”
I actually considered stabbing him with the ceremonial sword still gripped in my left hand. I glared as best I could with my freshly borrowed face and thought I had gotten it down pretty well by the time he stopped laughing.
“Look, I just came to tell you that Kara is still very much alive. She’s being held just a few miles north of here, and no one is torturing or abusing her. So calm down, take your time, and do this right. Everything will work out for the best.” Abomination clapped his hand on my shoulder, a surprisingly affectionate gesture. “If you go running in there with that face and no explanation, they’re going to cut you down in a heartbeat.”
My body breathed a sigh of relief as he spoke, and his touch seemed to chase the tension out of my soul. There was no reason to believe anything he said, but I desperately wanted to. My plan of just bursting in and killing everyone hadn’t seemed nearly as stupid until I heard it out loud. These new emotions were messing with me. There were worlds where all my time was devoted to planning and executing military strategy; surely I could come up with something better than that.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, suddenly weary from the constant exertion of the last few days. “Why should I believe you?”
Abomination stood up straighter and looked off into the distance. “Because you were about to sto
rm in to save the woman you love and fail completely. I don’t get a lot of chances to step in and help my children, so I take every opportunity I get.” Then he was gone. There was no flash of light or sound of thunder. I was watching him, waiting for his next comment, and then the wind was rustling the tall grass around his empty footprints.
I looked at the northern horizon. Night was falling, and I could see the faint glow of civilization just over the next hill. Kara was so close, but I couldn’t move. The whole encounter was surreal, but I actually felt a little better. Maybe being stuck here wouldn’t be so bad. Abomination’s suggestion made sense; I needed a good plan.
Once I slowed down and started thinking clearly, a better plan developed. I stopped at a small inn, one of many on the outskirts of the capital. My hope at not being recognized was dashed when people kept giving me things I asked for, but never requested payment. I found a change of clothes and washed up in a spare room. I was glad no one was in the room when I jumped and cursed out loud at my own reflection. I was staring at the man who had just killed me a few days ago.
Duke Chival had been a general in the king’s army. He was specifically tasked with eliminating the leadership of a band of rebels that was getting too restless. Chival had personally led the kill squad. He had also been one of the Spellforged, a group of wizards that focused on using their magical abilities to enhance their bodies to a super-human degree. That made him remarkably difficult to kill. I would have been a match for him if I had been in a body of my own design. Unfortunately, that’s not what had happened. As my disembodied self had floated above the battlefield, I did get the satisfaction of seeing my specially trained team take him down. That wasn’t enough to save them all, though, or to stop Chival’s wizards from capturing Kara.
I was able to get into the castle dungeons with surprisingly little difficulty. However, I had a distinct feeling that there would be a lot of rumors going around tomorrow. A dozen or more servants would be frantic, telling stories about the ghost of Duke Chival, insisting that he “obviously isn’t dead” and barging into the dungeons, which is exactly what I had just done.
The sole jailer at least had the presence of mind to question my authority to retrieve a prisoner. His head made an unpleasant sound against the wall; I guess he hadn’t expected me to be that quick. I grabbed a light stick off the wall, and it immediately grew brighter. I had a strange effect on magic; even simple constructs like a light stick often behaved erratically around me. I grabbed the keys and headed into the next room.
The dungeon was dimly lit and crowded. Two rows of barred cells ran for a hundred feet in front of me, and the stench of unwashed bodies and who knows what else was almost too much for me to bear. From the last cell in the hallway came a pale blue light, almost like it led outside. As I approached, the glow resolved to a symbol that flowed across the floor of the dungeon, like it was constantly being redrawn with shining blue paint.
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I saw her, then it all came out in a relieved sigh. I rushed to the bars, excited to finally have her close to me.
“It’s about time you came for me.” Kara’s voice rang through the cell, surprisingly strong and happy. “I would not have picked that body, though.”
I stopped and stared at her stupidly. I felt like I was doing that a lot. I don’t think I had been speechless in centuries, and now it had happened twice in one day. A part of my mind was trying to figure out how she could possibly know it was me, and the rest was doing backflips and rejoicing at finding her.
“Hurry up and get me out of here. I need a warm bath, and you need a new face. I hope you don’t think that I’m going to kiss that one.” Kara approached the bars and, despite her harsh tone, smiled up at me.
“It’s not that simple. It took me three days to find this one, and I was in a hurry.” I tried to sound flippant like her, but I don’t think I was very successful. Instead, I could hear the fear and pain behind my voice. I brought up the keys and unlocked the door. As it swung open, Kara stood there, obviously anticipating something.
“Aren’t you going to come sweep me off my feet? I don’t plan on getting rescued often, so I’d like to make the best of this one.” At first I smiled at her obvious sarcasm, except she still didn't move. Finally I realized that she was actually going to wait for me to come in and get her.
“I would love to make this more memorable for you,” I said, despite how silly it sounded. I pointed at the glowing blue glyph on the ground. “That warding glyph may just block your powers, but I’m pretty sure that it would be a lot worse for me.” The conversation was getting weird, and I was getting nervous. I was certain there would be an entire army charging in here at any moment to capture us all again.
“How bad are we talking?” Kara asked slowly, and this time I saw it. She was definitely playing with me.
I struggled to keep my frustration in as I replied, “Well, I’d probably get pushed out of this body. It might even go so far as to start dissolving around me. It’s not something that I’ve ever played with.” My frustration and fear were boiling to the surface. “Can we get out of here now?”
“Fine,” was all she said. I was suddenly engulfed in a hug that nearly knocked me off my feet. As Kara wrapped herself around me, I did the same, holding her as tightly as I dared. Having her this close was distracting. I’m not sure how long I held her before she pulled away.
“I won't forget that you ruined the rescue, though. I had to do all the hard work,” she smirked, then grabbed the keys out of my hands.
I was too shocked to react as she headed toward the exit. I just stared at her until she started opening cell doors.
“Wait a second!” I rushed toward her. “There are criminals in these cells.” One of the prisoners glared at me, but I just glared back. He was a criminal.
“Hey, I’m a criminal, too. I can’t say that I’m fighting against corruption and then leave people behind.” She turned and looked me in the eyes. “I have to do this.”
It was obvious that she wanted me to understand. This wasn’t my war. I fought for Kara, not the rebellion. I didn’t realize until that moment how important this was to her. She was human. She couldn’t just jump to another body after this. Once her body was gone, she would fade away and be lost. Yet she was willing to endanger herself, not for money or power, but because it would be wrong, in her mind, to leave these people here.
“My plan doesn’t include smuggling twenty prisoners through the castle. We’re going to need a new one,” I said, trying to sound as calm and accepting of the situation as I could. All the time I spent living other people’s lives should have made situations like this easier, but none of them had included someone I had to worry about losing forever.
Kara continued unlocking doors. “Everything would be a lot easier if you would quit being stubborn and use all that magical energy you’ve got floating around yourself all the time.”
This wasn’t necessarily the best time for that argument again. It didn’t help that I knew I was never going to win.
“Look, I'm not like you. I require all the energy to keep this body working properly. I would need a body built just for magic use to do what you’re asking, and no one here seems to have one of those.” I wrinkled up my nose at the thought of the strange, jellyfish-like creatures that we used for learning about magical powers. “Plus, if you think this body is nasty, you’d really dislike that one,” I chuckled.
“That's because you don’t belong in someone else’s body. You should have your own. I’ve been watching you for a long time now.” Saying that made her blush, but she continued. “And I’m telling you that you’re exponentially stronger than me, and I’m abnormally strong, myself. The only records that mention anything like you are all from the Time of Chaos, when magic was wild and untamed.”
Kara finally opened the last cell and turned to look at me, one hand holding an open cell door and the other on her hip. She looked equally powerful and alluri
ng, which made me lose my train of thought again.
“You're supposed to be the expert here. Find us a way out of this, because they’ve got some pretty nasty wizards making their way down here right now.”
I started running through possible solutions. Now that she was out of the warding glyph, there was no reason she had to use the key to open all those doors. She could have ripped the doors off their hinges if she had wanted to. I realized she was saving her energy for the escape, making sure she stored every bit she could. She had every intent to fight her way out of here if she had to.
Stored energy! The thought echoed through my head until I finally caught on.
I looked at the blue light at the end of the hallway. The glyph required a huge amount of energy to function. I could see it, and I could feel it. I just couldn’t touch it, but Kara could. The glyph must have been a temporary solution. Most prisoners with Kara's power would be held at the Wizards’ compound, where things would have been monitored more closely. Nonetheless, if she were to use that energy, she could get us all out of there.
“Kara,” I said slowly. “Do you think you could wind-walk out of here?”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “Good suggestions would be better. I can get myself out, maybe you, too. I don’t know for sure; you tend to mess with my magic. You know, because . . . ”
“A simple yes or no would have worked,” I interrupted, sighing. “You can pull all the energy you need out of that glyph there, and get us all out of here.” I pointed toward the last cell.
Kara stepped up beside me and stared at the glyph. “I don’t think it works like that here.” I could feel her opening up, though.
“Just pull hard on it. You’ll feel it shift; pull on the weak spots when you see them, and I promise it will work.” I could feel them coming now—a handful of ordinary humans, like small stars in the distance, followed by little glowing balls of energy that had to be the wizards Kara had mentioned. The glyph shifted, and I turned my attention back to it. “That's it, Kara. Keep pulling it in, it’s going to break soon.”
I felt Kara open even more than I had ever thought she was capable of. My stolen body shifted. At first it was small, like an itch that tingled in my fingers and toes, then everything changed. The glyph burst, and Kara was surrounded by a glowing ball of energy. Her emerald green eyes shone with the pure blue light, like a perfectly clear sky. I could tell she was putting the energy to use as her eyes clouded and filled with lightning-like flashes.
There was a wind blowing in the small dungeon hallway now. As it built, Kara kept pulling in energy, and I could feel my control slipping. Though it had started as a corpse, the body I was wearing had been converted to pure energy as soon as I inhabited it. This meant that any wizard strong enough could pull it from my control. Right now, Kara was doing just that. My body was threatening to be pulled from me completely. I reached out and grabbed Kara’s shoulder. Deep down I knew it was a bad idea, but I was desperate not to be separated from her again.
“Don't!” Kara shouted, but then everything was lost in a massive gust of wind. My feet were rooted to the floor as a gale howled around me, whipping my clothing and pulling the skin back on my face.
A few seconds later, everything abruptly stopped. There was no crash or jolt; the wind was just gone. The dungeon was still there, mostly. I could see light down the hallway, and it stopped suddenly, about twenty feet away from us. “You brought the whole dungeon with us!” I said, laughing.