Chapter Fourteen
The Chapel was more magnificent than I imagined in all of my daydreaming. No one was allowed inside the holy vestibule until after completing their first Incantation. I always longed for the day when I would be able to visit the place where my sisters and parents spent much of their time. When they were all living in Finias, that is.
Its walls were strung with orbs of swirling silver and periwinkle moonlight. Ellylon, four-inches tall, busily dashed below the ceiling of ribbed wooden beams. Their iridescent wings bounced light around the room in flickering waves. The diminutive creatures kept everything in the Chapel running efficiently.
I stepped in from the stone archway, and the massive oak door shut behind me with Ellylon magic. Onora shuffled in ahead of me, addressing one of the older Ellylons in whispered tones as I continued gazing about the room.
The walls, on first glance, looked like they were made of wood, but were actually massive trees placed in a circle. Their boughs reached upward and formed a ribbed ceiling. No sky could be seen through the branches, the leaves were merely pitch above primeval limbs.
Muirna stood at the far end of the Chapel, conversing with two other women in red cloaks. All three looked over at me and Onora, abruptly stopped their talking, and strolled across the room. They delicately wove between the concentric circles of cushions that must serve as the Ring’s seats when in session. An orb over three feet in diameter hovered in the center of the pavilion, its dim light swirling arms of smoky light and popping in random succession.
Each seat in the room was unique, expressing its owner’s specialties and traits with their colors, styles, and symbols. I remembered watching Mother sew the details on Branna and Bridget’s cushions. I spied Branna’s spot, with its obvious purple background covered in gold runes – the mark of Inkers. The tassels on the sides of the cushion were jade. I turned to ask Onora what the tassels meant when the three High Sidhe arrived, slightly bowed their heads at Onora, and then raised their chins to me. I lowered my head in response; I knew the ritual, the required respect.
The two Sidhe on either side of Muirna were as wrinkled as Onora, but their eyes were as cold as Muirna’s. One of the Sidhe stooped next to Muirna, her hunchback and head covered in a gold scarf. I knew the mark of the golden veil. A Transfigurine.
I only caught glimpses of the hunchback’s kind before, but knew the sign of the golden scarf was only bestowed on the greatest of shifters. This Sidhe could mutate not only into known creatures, but could blend different species into one unique morph. It was a skill that took a century to perfect, and the strength it took to make such a change could drain ten regular Sidhe. At an Incantation some years before, I recalled the one and only time I had seen a Transfigurine morph – a silver scaled giraffe with claws for hooves.
The hunchback meekly smiled at me, her gap-toothed grin a yellowing line of stones fighting and twisting for space among her inflamed gums.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. At first I thought it was the disgust from the Transfigurine’s tooth decay that sent me bending over, but then my eyes involuntarily moved to the shortest of the three women. She was a spindly and almost elf-like creature. She stared at me in disgust. Her upper-lip twitched and I doubled over in pain once again, clenching my stomach with both hands as I collapsed to the floor.
I wretched from the searing pain that felt like a thousand wasps eating me apart from the inside, but I kept my mouth shut tight.
I will not let them hear me cry. I thought it again and again.
As the pain tore through my body, the last thing I saw was Muirna’s wicked smile beaming down at me like she’d won some kind of sick game. Shutting my eyes to the moonlit room, I took my consciousness to another place in the same way Onora taught me during training.
“Find your sanctuary,” Onora’s voice echoed from my memory.
I’ll find it.
I searched for the place I knew would bring solitude, despite the tugging at my intestines and the burning going from my belly to the back of my throat.
I swallowed the pain back down as best as I could.
I’ll find it. Sanctuary.
Not the mound, it held too much sorrow despite the fond memories. No, I knew exactly where I was going as my mind flew across the meadows of Finias, past the Charcoal Crags, and through the twisting black canyons.
There!
Between the rolling desert hills, a cleft in the arid wasteland revealed a moment of verdant color.
Closer, closer I hurtled. To the cleft, past the thin spring that bubbled into a stream, and down the ancient hole cut through stone by the incessant water’s spilling.
Once within the dampness of our secret cave, I felt secure. The icy pool of freshwater was barely visible from the dim light that shone through the hole cut by the waterfall above. I felt Father watching from the dark recesses of the cave, just like the first time he took me to our oasis. It was in the cave that he taught me my first defensive spells.
Everyone said I was too young to learn, but Father insisted that I needed to know. I no longer had Mother’s protection, and he wanted me to be able to keep myself safe.
From what? I hadn’t a clue, and Father never fully explained.
In the cave, my head was fortified and all of his lessons came back. They were no longer playful games in the cave. They were something tangible and reachable. Now I understood what he gave me before he went missing. I pushed the pain out of our cave as though I was ushering out an unwelcome guest.
The discomfort in my stomach lulled to a dull ache, and I sat up on the floor. My mind came back from the cave and into the Chapel.
“Interesting.” Muirna stood over me, staring down with raised brows.
“Seems it was faster than usual,” the short one agreed, smiling impishly to herself.
Onora stood back, observing the three Sidhe who simply brushed her aside and now stood over me.
“Have you ever seen one come out of it on her own volition, Grania?” Muirna turned to the petite Sidhe.
Grania smiled naughtily, “Never so quickly. I know that for certain. With practice? Well, I’m sure she could learn to withstand my forces.”
The three High Sidhe nodded as one, contemplating me with their wrinkled gazes. Then it struck me. Grania was one of the Doloric – able to torture others without a word.
“Tallulah? Why don’t you take our young guest with you for a moment and see what you can accomplish with her.” Muirna helped me to my feet and guided me with bony hands to the hunchback. Tallulah led me through the Chapel and out a side door concealed between massive trunk walls.
The rock-walled room was cool compared to the warm expanse of the Chapel. I looked around for something familiar to set me at ease, but everything in the nook was new and strange. I didn’t know what to expect being alone with a Transfigurine.
Tallulah softly closed the door and turned toward me. Her emerald eyes twinkled in the dim silver light. “Now.” She clapped her hands together and took a belabored step forward. “Has anyone ever tried teaching you Transfiguring? Multimorphing?” Her fiendish smile sent my skin crawling.
I fidgeted with the hem of my peasant blouse, avoiding looking at the Sidhe who I was afraid would morph into a frightening creature at any moment. It was all I expected after Grania let loose her powers on me. I had been so helpless and weak. Now I just waited for the Transfigurine to pop into some beast – for some kind of sick joke.
“Uhmm. Not really. No one’s ever really shown me transforming beyond the basics. You know, the stuff you have to know for the Incantation. That’s all.”
“Well, looks like you’re going to try today!” Tallulah shuffled over to the only piece of furniture in the small room – a round stone table. “Up here.” She indicated the table with the jerk of her shrouded head.
I cautiously stepped up to the waist-high table, unsure of what to do. So, I simply hopped up and sat on the edge, my feet hanging p
recariously off the edge.
Tallulah rolled her bulging eyes. “This isn’t a medical exam. Stand.” Her voice was void of any emotion.
In the middle of the six-foot table I awkwardly stood. From this angle I could see the runes inscribed around the table’s smooth grey edge. I couldn’t make all of them out because, as I had told the High Sidhe, I was only taught the basics. On my right I could make out symbols for dragon and snake, while to the left I read rabbit and horse. The rest of the symbols were largely unintelligible, but I could pick out an odd one here or there.
“Look around you again, Morgan. You are going to pick two of those runes to focus all of your energy on and then you will combine them. The closer the location of the runes to one another, the easier the match.” She pointed at the dragon and another symbol right next to it. “If they lie opposite from each other on the table, that is the real challenge.” She pointed from the dragon across to the horse. “Understand?”
“That’s it? I just think about it?” It all seemed entirely too simplistic.
“It’s not just thinking. You must combine them down to the smallest molecule, imagining how the parts all fit together and meld into one stunning creation. Go ahead. Try it out, and we’ll see how you do on a dry run.”
As I stared around the table, I focused on two I figured would be easy enough to combine.
“Do you have your choices?”
I nodded as I kept the runes for toad and newt locked in my mind.
“Now first picture what its head would look like. Just the head and nothing else!” the High Sidhe warned with the shake of her knobby pointer finger.
The runes morphed in my head, creating an olive blob with two black dots – not at all toad or newt, but a start.
“Details, Morgan. Details,” Tallulah coached me.
Toad’s throat. The blob elongated, creating a thin layer of tissue at the bottom, perfectly structured for croaking.
Newt’s smile. Again the form shifted and a line appeared above the throat.
I didn’t even have to think the words anymore as the eyes turned toad, the head smoothing out and taking on sheen. The throat stayed puffed, but the neck slimmed down to a thin silvery body, its front legs small while its hind legs flexed their massive muscles, ready to leap in midair. The speckled tail kept it balanced and produced toxins that would disable any attacking predators. Its salmon speckled back curved with ease as it slithered into the darkening pools of my brain.
“Once you have it completed, make it a part of you. Say the word.”
Out of the darkness its bulbous eyes stared into mine through the slight fog in my mind’s periphery. Lips parted, its tongue snapped the word from the air and swallowed it whole and deep into my chest.
“Aistrím,” I whispered it, my voice sounding small as it ricocheted off empty walls.
“Louder and like you mean it.”
“Aistrím.” I spoke it to the hollowness that hid behind my eyes. For a fleeting flash my skin crept amphibian, the wetness palpable inside my newly flexible bones, and then the sensation disappeared with the splash of Newtoad sinking beneath a pool’s surface.
My eyes opened to see the High Sidhe standing on the floor before me. Her eyes squinted as she pulled the scarf off her head. She revealed a misshapen mass which protruded from the back of her head and melded with the hump on her back.
“Perhaps I should give this to you.” She indicated the golden fabric in her bent fingers.
I tried not to stare at the High Sidhe’s deformity, but Tallulah was a Sidhe of legend. She never removed her scarf in public. Stories were told to every Sidhe youth about a young Tallulah who was one of the most gifted Transfigurines ever. One day she tried blending two powers at once – morphing her shapes while casting a defensive spell. Unfortunately, her plan did not work out as expected. The spell backfired, and she was left with the permanent scar. Everyone said she was lucky she didn’t die. Elders used her to serve as an example for two important lessons. One, do not be foolish with magic. And two, be willing to take chances. Like the end of her story goes, Tallulah went on to master the art of Transfiguring and spell-weaving at the same time. It was through her mistake that a new skill was born.
I looked away from Tallulah’s scarred neck and back. I hoped the High Sidhe did not notice my hesitation.
“Did it work?” I leapt off the table so I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable while talking to the shifter.
“Do you always ask stupid questions?” Tallulah gruffly replied and turned away. She left the way she came, covering her deformities once more with her mastery’s golden token.