"Shaloon..." the sound of that voice made Shaloon stop dead in her tracks.
Master Archmage In'nin took his time to catch up with her, strolling down the hall at his own slow pace, the clinking of bare stone feet on the stone floor further enhancing his alien nature. Shaloon allowed him to pass before taking up the respectable position a few steps behind. His white robes practically glowed in the dim hall, a sharp contrast with his onyx skin. How he managed to get the stone to flow like real flesh was a mystery she hoped never to solve herself. Such immortality seemed more a curse than a blessing.
She followed the Master Archmage in silence to the rooms he shared with his sister, only daring to rush ahead when it came time to hold the door open for him. She hardly dared breathe as he passed and was glad rather than offended that his blank white eyes never turned her way.
"Close the door, Shaloon," Master Archmage Yonin ordered softly. Their organization's other leader appeared precisely opposite her brother, her white stone skin highlighted by black robes and lightless black eyes.
Shaloon wasn't about to insist that either of these two call her by her rank, no matter how hard-earned it was. She stood in continued silence, her eyes downcast, waiting for further orders from the caretakers of the Central Talon.
In'nin sighed and gestured for Shaloon to come closer as he spoke, "We have found the Firewyrm for you..."
Yonin continued where he left off, "This will be your last chance,"
"I..." Shaloon started, not sure what she could possibly say to defend herself.
In'nin interrupted, "Don't sound so nervous, Shaloon."
They continued to alternate speaking, Yonin continuing, "If you can't get her back, we will transfer you to another Talon."
"We can't afford to lose any more members,"
"Don't make us regret this decision."
Shaloon finally breathed a sigh of relief, "You won't. I swear it, I will retrieve the Firewyrm this time."
The twin leaders exchanged looks, communicating silently with each other, she was sure. Yonin nodded to her brother, then turned black eyes on Shaloon once more, "You will be working with Archmage Tolinar from now on."
"You will need his contacts, and it is our hope that your passion will focus him." In'nin finished. It was telling that they addressed Tolinar with the proper rank. Still, Shaloon was not about to insist on the same respect after her last failure.
Instead, she asked, "Where is the Firewyrm?"
Yonin answered, "She is being held at the Guild in Tarorn."
"They are keeping her in Clearhelm?" Shaloon couldn't help but speak out in her disbelief. She'd been sure they would take her to the kingdom capital or hide her away in some backwater village away from densely populated areas. Unless... "They still don't know what she is?"
"Apparently not," In'nin said,
"Otherwise, the Temple of the Slayer would have had her exterminated by now."
"As such, speed is important, Shaloon," In'nin instructed,
"But not at the expense of caution."
"We have managed to go undetected for millennia,"
"Don't ruin this now,"
"Not when we are so close."
"As much as we desire the return of the Firewyrm,"
"it is more important that she remain alive."
"Do not endanger her again," Yonin ordered, and Shaloon flinched, looking down to avoid those eerie eyes. She'd not expected the Firewyrm to fight beside the Paladins of Hengist, but wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
"Tolinar and I will start planning right away," Shaloon assured them.
She turned for the door, but In'nin called, "You are sure of what you saw?"
Her hand on the nob, Shaloon stopped. Turning back to the leaders, she nodded, "I saw his soul. It was new, Chosen, though I couldn't tell by whom."
In'nin and Yonin looked at each other again, staring at one another silently. Shaloon turned the handle, and when they didn't stop her, she left. She could worry about the implications of the dragon gods' return after she retrieved the Firewyrm.
***
She could hear the clucking long before she reached Tolinar's door. Yet, even that wasn't enough to prepare Shaloon for what awaited inside.
Chickens. Hundreds of chickens of every color and size clucked and scratched at the straw-strewn floor of the Archmage's personal rooms. The Archmage himself sat on a tall stool in the middle of it all, a particularly fat hen in his lap and his face buried in an open book.
Something fragile and wet cracked under Shaloon's slippered foot, and she jumped back, exclaiming, "What on all the planes of existence?!"
Tolinar snapped his book closed while Shaloon tried to scrape sticky yoke off her shoe. "They aren't in the heavenly planes. I've asked all the holy cluckers, and they say it isn't possible," Tolinar started to ramble, holding his fat chicken aloft and hopping off his stool, "Most likely they are in the outer planes with their father, and so their power is limited..." Tolinar was a wiry man in his early forties who managed to look younger by virtue of his strange hairstyle. Though the sides were cut short to his scalp, he allowed the middle to grow a few inches long and kept it sticking straight up with the points dyed bright red.
"What are you talking about?" Shaloon snapped, interrupting the other Warlock's ramble.
"The gods, of course! You said they were back. You said you saw..."
"That isn't our concern at the moment-" Shaloon tried to explain, though Tolinar continued to speak as though he hadn't heard her.
"I've been trying to figure out how they could possibly be reaching through the planes, but-" He waved the fat chicken around in his palm as he spoke.
"Tolinar!" Shaloon shouted, marching forward and knocking the hen from his hand. It clucked wildly, flapping its ineffectual wings to slow its descent to the ground. Shaloon ignored it, clapping her hands in front of her fellow's face to gain his attention, "Focus! We need to retrieve the Firewyrm. She is being kept in Tarorn. Do you have a source from the Guild there?" She'd been told that this man was the one to go to for information from just about anywhere in the kingdom. But she started to wonder how he could stay on topic long enough to get any of it.
The Archmage looked around his room, humming. Shaloon thought she might have to shout again when he muttered, "Yes... she should be... HERE!" he snapped his fingers with a muttered spell, and -grasping something she couldn't see- tugged.
With a distressed squawk, a thin and disheveled red hen flew backward through the air and toward the Warlocks, flapping madly and losing feathers all the way until Tolinar snatched it from the air. He pat its head with a gentle coo, tucking it under his arm.
It was too late... he was already too far gone to be of any use, Shaloon was sure of it. He grinned like a proud child at her, still petting his chicken and carrying it to his abandoned stool. Shaloon shook her head and made to leave the lost man alone with his room full of chickens when he started to chant again. The spell was incredibly advanced, something even the most highly experienced Archmages couldn't manage on a whim. Shaloon spun on her heel and watched as Tolinar crumbled an empty cocoon over the chicken, now perched on the stool. She watched in awe as the bird began to stretch, its feathers falling off and wings elongating into human arms and hands. A moment later, a redheaded woman sat on the stool shaking and jerking her head around much like the chicken she'd been a moment before.
Tolinar stepped back, sweeping his arms towards the woman and grinning at Shaloon, "It may take her a moment to remember how to talk, but she should hold all the memories of her time as a journeyman in Tarorn."
Shaloon felt her jaw fall open, looking around the room full of chickens in a new light. "All..." she swallowed, "All of these are polymorphed people?" she asked.
Tolinar nodded happily, "Quite the collection don't you think?" he bent down and scooped up the same fat hen as before, cuddling it close, "Chickens are my favorite and much easier than the wyrms were."
"You... you were the one who changed the wyrms?"
"That was a while ago... I don't remember much..." his eyes glazed over. Shaloon swallowed again. It had taken many Warlocks' lives and sanities to make Morndancer's creations and change them to a form that could be managed. Was this mad chicken lover really one of those who had helped in their greatest success?
Shaloon looked at Tolinar with new respect but turned her attention to the trembling woman on the stool, "We have a few questions for you, young lady..."
***
"I apologize for the inconvenience," Ranito mumbled only half-heartedly to Lily as he checked the tube leading from her left arm down to the small jar now nearly full of the girl's blood.
Lily hummed a distracted, "Uh hu..." as she read, clearly not listening. She held the book aloft with her right hand, turning the pages with her thumb, while Bruce combed her hair. The glittering golden strands now reaching nearly to her buttocks. Ranito wondered how she managed not to sit on it and why, considering how quickly it grew, she was so insistent that he not even trim it.
"What're you reading? It doesn't look like anything to do with your lessons..." Bruce asked politely.
"Romance..." Lily mumbled vaguely. She turned another page but then let her arm fall, throwing her head back with a loud moan, "How can something be so good and so infuriating at the same time?" she whined.
Ranito snorted, but Bruce snickered, "I think it's a requirement of the genre." the journeyman answered.
Ranito pinched the blood tube shut with one hand while he transferred it to a second jar. He'd promised to only take two each week. It would be enough to keep him mostly stocked without causing a physical drain on Lily. More frustrating was her insistence that he only take one scale a week, though he at least understood her hesitance, as they hadn't yet found a way to ease the pain of the procedure.
Lily lifted her book again but continued to complain to Bruce, "If they would just talk to each other, most of the drama wouldn't even be drama! They obviously care about each other, but the man is too stupid to notice the signs, and the woman is too stupid to realize that he isn't going to understand her hints and won't just tell him."
"Well, the reader knows all these things but do the characters? You have to imagine how they might feel..." Bruce explained as he hid his smile behind the task of combing Lily's hair.
The girl shrugged with only her right shoulder, experienced enough to keep her left still so as not to jostle the needle. "I know. He's a bit scarred from his last relationship; that lady was a complete bitch, but this girl has been nothing but nice, and even I think the hints have been obvious." Lily let her head drop back so she could look at Bruce upside down, "The last book was even more frustrating. The girl just refused to believe that the guy liked her, even when he told her outright. It all came down to her not liking herself, so she didn't understand how anyone else could." Bruce smiled down at her and gently lifted her head back up. Lily sighed, returning her eyes to her reading, "They always get it eventually though... and those scenes are..." her smile was broad, though she blushed a little, "... satisfying." she finished.
"That's romance, alright." Bruce nodded sagely. He stepped away from the girl and proceeded to clean the loose hairs from the comb onto a plate, speaking to Ranito when he said, "Done. I don't think I can get much more today."
Ranito nodded, turning back to the jar and checking its level before removing the needle carefully from Lily's arm. "Just the scale then," he told her, twisting her arm and searching the stripe for one sufficiently large. Lily pursed her lips and braced herself as he prepared the pliers. She flinched violently as he pulled the scale free and rubbed her arm with her wrist, still holding her book in her fingers. "All done. You may go, Firewyrm..."
"Lily." She corrected tersely.
Ranito didn't bother to look at her as he carried the scale to his work table, "Yes, Lily, my apologies,"
He could hear her walk to the door, and Bruce say, "Have a nice Solstice tomorrow, miss," before she mumbled something incoherent, probably once again distracted by her reading. The door opened, then closed again, and Ranito could feel Bruce approach from behind. The journeyman cleared his throat and spoke softly, "Firewyrm, Mage Ranito? Really?" he clearly disapproved.
"It is an appropriate title... and I would think she would take pride in it..." Ranito explained. He needed to use both hands to crack the scale with the pliers, even with their enchantment. He grunted as he strained, "They are a match, Bruce. Every comparative test has shown her scales are dragon scales..."
"How...?" the journeyman breathed.
Ranito ignored the question and continued, "Her hair as well. When compared to the records on file, it matches gold dragon scale..." as far as he knew, none of the Mages Guilds in the kingdom had any actual gold scales left to compare it to.
"But she's human!"
"Is she, though?" Ranito countered, still not looking away from the samples on his desk. "She's a powerful Sorcerer but lacks a familiar. She has scales, metallic hair, and vertical slitted pupils. And her blood..." he trailed off, needing to focus as he measured out a precise amount of Lily's blood and mixed it with a pre prepared potion. The liquid fizzed violently, flames shooting out the top of the vial in bursts. Once it calmed, he dropped in a piece of scale and watched as the liquid shifted, forming two distinct layers like oil in water, "We have nothing to compare it too directly, but indirectly it contains the properties of both..." taking a single strand of hair he added that to the mixture as well and it split again, forming three layers. They had lost all samples of actual dragon blood over four millennia ago.
He held his hand out expectantly, and Bruce passed him a glass pipette which Ranito used to extract one layer from the vial, transferring it to a clean container. Two more -separate and sterile- pipettes later, and the three liquids sat isolated in separate containers. "... but also human." The Mage finished.
"What is she, Ranito?" Bruce whispered, eyeing the three vials of blood.
Ranito shook his head, "I have a theory, but no way to definitively prove it... yet."
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