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[columns][center][item=golden roundhorn][/center][nextcol][color=transparent]..[/color][nextcol][color=#E22D17][font=garamond][size=7][size=4][b]ramifications[/b][/size][/size][/font][/color]
[size=2]written by Disillusionist
special thanks to After
[color=#9494A9]3,723 words[/color][/size][/columns]
[color=#2F1F1B]It should have been sweltering—[url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=44574157]Banditaccia[/url] had been born and raised in Dragonhome, and she thought she knew deserts. This certainly was one. It was bleak and barren, with a blue sky blazing fiercely overhead. Beyond the stones that outlined the road, sand dunes rose, dwarfing even the great Guardian.
But though she could see heatwaves shimmering off the sand, Banditaccia didn’t feel them. The air was tepid, almost cool. [i]“It’s the road,”[/i] she told herself, shivering as she strode past the stones. As the entire road was lined with them, it was quite a lot of shivering on her part. So she gave one last, irritated shake of her hide, and she squinted ahead. Her companion had left her behind long ago, and was now visible as a dark blue dot against the bright blue sky.
“Mesa!” It was less a call than an exasperated groan. The Guardian quickened her pace, following the Fae towards their destination: the city of Byzmara.
It wasn’t all that far away now, but [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=44447287]Mesarthim[/url] darted towards it, wings almost blurring, as though the city would suddenly vanish into the ground. She was always such an impatient thing, practically vibrating with intense, almost vicious energy. [i]“It’s probably worse now,”[/i] Banditaccia thought gloomily, [i]“since she thinks she’ll finally break that curse she’s always babbling about.”[/i]
Mesarthim had always been a little strange. She’d apparently gotten into a tremendous argument with her previous clan and been abandoned in the wilds of the Shifting Expanse. [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=32181477]Origenes[/url] and his team, heading back from yet another wild goose chase, had come across her, lying unconscious in the dunes. She’d tagged along eagerly when they’d mentioned they were heading back to the lair: Origenes was rather soft-hearted and had been unable to refuse the poor, confused Fae.
And she [i]was[/i] confused. Once she’d fully recovered from her misadventure, Mesarthim had gone around asking after her previous clan. “It’s an all-female clan of assassins!” she’d claimed—and gotten a few laughs in response.
“Never heard of them! And you’d think we would have: an all-female clan of spies and assassins would definitely be noteworthy.”
“Hah! But then again, they wouldn’t be very good assassins if everyone knew about them, surely?”
“Well, there’s the [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/drs/3043236#post_3043236]Blood Moon Dancers[/url]. They’ve got drakes among their ranks, but the ladies rule the roost, they do.”
“Nah, she said her clan’s name was...the Benet...nash? What a silly name. That sounds more like something I’d have for breakfast.”
“Claims she used to be a Guardian,” [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=19148364]Pyrea[/url], the Chief Healer, had muttered. She shook her head, clucking disapprovingly. “I can believe [i]that[/i], at least. Something might have gone wrong; the transformation scroll might have been tampered with. And it could have adversely affected her mind.”
Her subordinates had stared at her, wide-eyed with shock. “I hadn’t known such a thing could happen,” [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=31031765]Tiferet[/url] the hydrotherapist gasped.
“It’s incredibly rare, but it [i]does[/i] happen. Someone trying to add or modify the conditions of the spell, perhaps tack on a color change or eternal youth. Spells aren’t meant to be combined like that. That’s why the scrolls are separate.”
[i]“I suppose it[/i] is [i]some sort of curse,”[/i] Banditaccia thought as she finally caught up to the Fae. They were at the end of a long but steadily moving queue of people, beasts, and wares that were entering the city. [i]“Her memories of her old clan are addled. Maybe the disagreement was a lot more serious than she remembers and they used some sort of memory-modifying spell on her before throwing her out.”[/i]
And at the back of Banditaccia’s mind, a completely different question was asked: [i]“We were alone on the road for hours. Where on earth did all these people come from?”[/i]
“Hullo, welcome to Byzmara,” said the [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/5904572]Ridgeback[/url] at the gates. She spoke with a casual drawl, but the green eyes with which she examined them were very sharp indeed. “First time here, eh?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Banditaccia said. “We were, um, hoping to forge new connections with—”
The Ridgeback shut her eyes. “Aaagh, more fancy talk! I was just checking to see if you’re new. Head along inside, thank you; we don’t want to hold up the line....”
“Hey!” Banditaccia gasped as Mesarthim took off again, fluttering like a dragonfly. As the Guardian galumphed after her, the Ridgeback’s laugh rang out from behind: “Nice to see people excited about visiting. Enjoy your stay, ladies!”[/color]
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[color=#2F1F1B]Mesarthim soon alighted upon the buttress of a building. The map she’d brought with her flapped in the breeze. It had been kindly provided by [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=33548824]Mara Eltanin[/url]—the Master Merchant had visited Byzmara some time before on business, and she had been happy to answer Mesarthim’s questions about it.
“A way to break that curse? Well, Byzmara’s an astounding place; I’m sure you can find a thaumaturgist or a merchant who might be able to help you. Let’s make sure you get all those memories back...”
[i]“My memories are perfectly fine, thank you very much!”[/i] Mesarthim thought, her frills stiff with indignation. She seethed quietly as it all came flooding back: how her great Guardian strength had been stripped from her by the elders of the Benetnash, and how she had instead been warped into the small, frail Fae she now was. Her assassin’s skills had been expunged from her mind—and worst of all, her own voice had been ensorcelled. She could still recall the Benetnash, could shout their deeds from every rooftop...but nobody who heard her speak of the assassins would believe her. Even those who had encountered them before would be completely, utterly skeptical.
And so now, here she was, still tiny and frail, having to endure people’s pitying looks and platitudes. “Poor girl, she’s made a story out of whole cloth. But [i]what[/i] a wild imagination she has...!”
Mesarthim would have crushed the map in one tiny fist, but she did need it. She had never visited Byzmara before, and what little she’d seen of it so far was labyrinthine and confusing. As she’d [i]sort of[/i] explained to her clanmates, she was here to find a counter-curse....
[i]“Except it’ll be a bit simpler than that.”[/i] Her frills curved slyly, like a smile. [i]“If I find a breed change scroll and change myself back, the enchantment will surely be broken!”
Surely, surely[/i]...And if—no, [i]when[/i] she’d regained her shape and skills, she would vanish into the labyrinth of the city. The Sunbeam Ruins were no place for an assassin, and good riddance! None of their magic had been of use to her. Better to hide out here, or perhaps flee into the desert; she had been raised in one, after all.
Mesarthim had been of two minds about letting Banditaccia accompany her. The Guardian was her supervisor (which still rankled Mesarthim somewhat; [i]she[/i] had been in the clan longer!), and like most dragons, she hadn’t liked the idea of spending her days off with her boss. On the other hand, Banditaccia was the closest thing she had to an ally. She was trustworthy and would probably be useful in confrontations....
[i]“If not for that damned curse, I would have all my memories [/i]and[i] skills and wouldn’t need to drag this clumsy behemoth around with me!”[/i] But her memories and skills weren’t here; instead, here was Banditaccia, bending down to squint at the map.
“The Commercial District, right? Looks like it’s over there.”
“Yes, Tasha.” It took all of Mesarthim’s self-control to affect appreciation and not roll her eyes. They followed the map through Byzmara’s streets, passing storefronts and tents and stalls.
“Did you have a specific shop in mind? This place is making me dizzy. I can barely read—Huh!” Banditaccia blinked at a shop sign. “Thought it was in a different...Um, it’s just swirly lettering. Uh...”
“We should ask.”
“Right.” As expected of a large, prosperous city, Byzmara was bustling. Dragons (or at least they [i]looked[/i] like dragons...) nonchalantly bypassed the visitors. Through windows and doorways, faces were glimpsed; voices and laughter resounded.
There was no shortage of people to ask, but Mesarthim made no move. She crouched near a shop wall again, rigid and suspicious. She rather reminded Banditaccia of a sullen, standoffish youngling: “Mother, I’ve got a bad toothache; I need to see the healer. [i]What[/i]? I’ve got to make an appointment [i]by myself[/i]?! Ooooaaaaww, [i]Moooom[/i]...!”
So the Guardian pushed away her exasperation and ambled into the nearest shop. It turned out to be a florist’s, and the Bogsneak behind the counter circled a section of the map with one claw. “Maybe right about here?”
Banditaccia thanked him and headed back outside. Mesarthim glanced at the map and grunted, and that was all the thanks her supervisor got out of her.
About a half-hour later, they were deep in the Commercial District, in the section favored by purveyors of spells and ensorcelled artifacts. Banditaccia was unsure how to feel about the place. The shops here seemed to lean in, like a pack of hydrenas preparing to pounce. There were still plenty of people about, but they were more furtive than nonchalant, their faces stiff and unfriendly. A lot like Mesarthim, come to think of it....
“Well, it looks like you might find what you need here. Why don’t you try asking for a change?”
Mesarthim grunted in negation. Banditaccia suppressed a sigh. The friendly florist’s shop now seemed very far away.
So she craned her neck and looked around. As she did, a glint of gold caught her eye: a weather vane atop a tent of rich, deep scarlet. It swung lazily in the breeze.
“That looks interesting....”
“What does?” Mesarthim asked as she lowered her head. Banditaccia was about to reply—and as she turned, she saw the blaze of scarlet through a nearby alley.
It was a bit of a squeeze for the Guardian, but soon she was on the other side, puffing slightly with exertion. Mesarthim fluttered around her as she poked her head into the large, gold-trimmed tent. “Hello...?”
“Visitors?” Two large, orange eyes shone in the gloom. With a rustle and curl of dark smoke, a [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=52199388]Spiral[/url] swirled into clearer view.
“Visi...ah, no, customers. [i]Customers[/i]!” He beckoned them inside. “Do come in. If you would care to wait—”
“Do you sell spells of transformation here?” Mesarthim, it seemed, was done with keeping quiet. Banditaccia wryly guessed why: Behind the Spiral, there was a short passage walled in silk, and it opened into what seemed to be a very large room. Glints of gold and jewels...and possibly [i]magic[/i]...shone from the deeper shadows—and the Fae’s sharp eyes were fixed on them.
“Hmm? Well, now...I could scrounge something up.” The Spiral looked warily back and forth. He had a small broom and dustpan clutched in his claws, and the visitors realized they’d interrupted his cleaning.
Both broom and dustpan vanished beneath his voluminous cloak. He beckoned to them with his tail as he fluttered into the next room. Sure enough, it was filled with wares. They sat on shelves or racks or directly on the floor; some even hung from the silken walls and ceiling. A large lamp, shedding warm orange light, was suspended from the center of the roof.
Banditaccia blinked. “I thought there’d be a tent pole. How does it stay up—”
“Magic!” The Spiral beamed. Banditaccia would have laughed, but Mesarthim was already fluttering away. She circled over the shelves, looking for something promising.
[i]“Statuettes...rugs...lanterns...knives...[/i]scrolls[i]!”[/i]
The scrolls were neatly rolled up and tied shut. Tags were affixed to their ribbons, with descriptions of their spells. Mesarthim scanned them rapidly. [i]“Guardian, Guardian...”[/i]
“Mesa!” Banditaccia gasped when they reached her: The Fae was dragging a large transformation scroll from the rack. The Spiral, meanwhile, waggled a claw. “That’ll be fifty thousand pieces of gold, if you please.”
“What? For a curse-breaker? That seems rather cheap—”
“It’s a breed change,” Mesarthim snapped. “I want to be a Guardian again.”
Banditaccia shook her head. Suddenly she was a little confused. “Wait, I thought you said you were looking for something to break the curse—”
“The shape change is [i]part[/i] of the curse! And I remember everything perfectly; my memories aren’t [i]wrong[/i]!”
“All right, all right, so you think undoing one part of the curse will make it easier to undo everything else. I can understand that....”
Mesarthim looked as though she might argue further, but the Spiral cleared his throat and held out a paw again. From the shadows of his cloak, he produced a pair of scales. Mesarthim tossed him her coin purse, and a wealth of gold flowed out and onto the pans. Remarkably—or perhaps not—none of the coins spilled onto the floor. And then once the scales had apparently measured fifty thousand gold pieces, the treasure stopped flowing out.
“There we go. Done and done!” The scales and treasure vanished; the Spiral now held out a receipt. Banditaccia plucked it from his grasp.
“So! Thank you for your purch...Oh! I have to ask...What was it again...Ahem, will that be all? I could take the scales out again if you want to buy more—”
“No, that will be all.”
“Oh.” The Spiral sagged.
Mesarthim, meanwhile, broke the seal on the scroll. She stared, with an intensity the others found unnerving, at the stylized Guardian and rules painted upon it. The tag headed [i]Breed Change: Guardian[/i] fluttered to the floor.
“I mean to use this now.”
Banditaccia relaxed. “Well, I’ve never used breed change scrolls before, but the shopkeeper can probably help you.”
“I can certainly try!” Yet despite those words, anxiety shone in the Spiral’s eyes. His tail tied itself into a knot, untied again. “Only, you see...I’m not so good with magic—”
“What? Neither am I, but surely you can read these instructions. And this is one of your wares, after all.” Mesarthim snatched up the tag and thrust it at him. He took it, but his tail knotted up again.
“Yes, um...it seems fairly simple...[i]eergh[/i]. Probably just best if we wait for my employer to come back? He’s more skilled at magic than—”
“Wait...your employer?” Banditaccia’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, I...Didn’t I tell you? I’m the assistant shopkeeper, I am. My master normally oversees things, but he’s gone out to lunch. I handle only basic transactions. And, um, cleaning.”
“When will he be back?” Mesarthim asked. The Spiral shrugged. “Don’t know. Could be soon, maybe an hour? But you could just find someone else to help—”
“[i]No[/i]!” The word cracked like a whip. The Spiral flinched back, and Banditaccia’s jaw dropped. She was about to reprimand her subordinate, but Mesarthim rushed on, “I [i]will[/i] have my shape restored to me! I am so tired of—”
“Shh, [i]ssshh[/i]! All right, you small...um, tiny...[i]ahem[/i]!” The Spiral cleared his throat. Mesarthim shoved the scroll at him, and he tried to juggle it and the instructions at the same time.
“Such a bull-headed little...Near the entrance is better! So that you don’t wreck the wares when you get your shape back.”
Mesarthim settled down at the entrance of the tent. Sunlight streamed in behind her, casting her face in shadow. The Spiral started to mutter, reading from the instruction tag. With his other paw, he waved the scroll before Mesarthim. The painted Guardian upon it wavered visibly as the spell took hold, and tatters of mist formed in the air around the Fae, briefly obscuring her body.
[i]“Goodness, however will I explain this to everybody else? She only told us she was looking for help with her memories,”[/i] Banditaccia fretted silently. She wouldn’t interrupt the transformation now, though. If she did, something could go wrong—
And something was [i]already[/i] going wrong. Pain bloomed on Mesarthim’s face; she cringed, her paws pressed to her temples. Banditaccia gasped—she knew that breed changes, done right, weren’t supposed to be painful. This [i]definitely[/i] wasn’t going right.
“Wait! Stop the spell!” she whispered urgently to the Spiral. He jerked in surprise, half-turning to face her.
And before either of them could speak, Mesarthim shrieked. She convulsed suddenly, her wings flapping wildly, sending her careening around the room. Banditaccia cringed, expecting her to explode into a much larger shape and send broken items flying everywhere. But the Fae didn’t grow.
Something else did.
With a hideous creaking noise, horns exploded out of the sides of Mesarthim’s head. Banditaccia’s heart nearly stopped—but there was no blood, no broken bones. They simply [i]appeared[/i], jutting out of Mesarthim’s temples, curling into neat ram’s horns.
Their sudden weight unbalanced the Fae, and she plummeted to the floor. “What happened to me? What happened?!” she gasped, patting herself over.
And then she felt the horns, and she froze. And the scream erupted from her again: pure panic this time, high and terrified.
“Mesa, just calm down! The spell can be reversed; we can fix it—”
“My head...horns...I have horns!” Mesarthim’s eyes bulged in fear. She tugged on the horns, but they wouldn’t come off. They [i]were[/i] a part of her, growing from her skull as though they’d always belonged there.
“I tried to tell you!” the Spiral moaned. He was wringing the scroll and the tag in his paws now. “Said I wasn’t good at magic! It...It must’ve been what I said...”
“Here, what’s all this, then?”
It was a familiar voice, though it took Banditaccia a moment to recognize it. She turned towards the tent entrance—and the Ridgeback guard poked her head into the room.
“Heard the screaming from a couple o’ streets over. Now, if everybody would just—”
“A spell went wrong. We’re trying to sort it out,” Banditaccia explained. The Spiral nodded fervently.
And Mesarthim squealed again. She jetted out of the tent, narrowly dodging the Ridgeback’s massive paw. The guard sighed.
“Yeah, it happens. Guess you’d better go see to her. Oh, and ask her not to yell so loudly, aye? I’d hate to have my lunch interrupted again.”[/color]
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[color=#2F1F1B]Mesarthim hadn’t gone far—Banditaccia found her slumped in an alley not too far from the shop, her head cradled in her paws. Her frills were drooping in distress, and she didn’t look up as Banditaccia approached.
“D...Do they hurt?” the Guardian couldn’t help asking.
“No. But...” Mesarthim drew in a deep breath. “Horns. Horns on my head! I’m [i]hideous[/i]!”
“Oh, hey now! Guardians have horns, too!”
“Yes, but not like [i]these[/i]!” The Fae’s eyes flashed fury. “I’ll strangle that wretched worm. I’ll twist his entire body into knots! I’ll—”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Banditaccia snapped. “He is quite sorry...Well, he [i]looked[/i] very sorry when I left the tent. He was sweeping up the mess, anyway. We’ll go back and talk to him—or to his boss.”
“Buy another shape change?”
“Sure, why not? I’ve got enough money. Or we could just demand a refund for the last one.”
Mesarthim was silent for a while. She scowled at the opposite wall, her tail twitching.
“Never mind,” she grumbled at last. Banditaccia’s jaw dropped again. “What?”
“Not necessary. Wouldn’t work, anyway.”
“Oh...it wouldn’t?”
Mesarthim watched the emotions play out across the Guardian’s face. She saw more than others thought; she always did. The curse hadn’t been able to excise [i]that[/i], at least....
[i]Confusion, disbelief...[/i]and finally, calmness. [i]“All’s right with the world, and they’ll forget everything I try to tell them about my [/i]real[i] past...”[/i]
“All right, Mesa, if you say so—[i]hey[/i]! You really need to stop zipping off like that....”
But she didn’t stop, and eventually, the Guardian followed her back to the gates. She snatched a cloak from a nearby stall as she passed, pulling the hood up over her head. The vendor protested, his wings flapping angrily, until Banditaccia dumped a pawful of coins onto the countertop.
From there, the two visitors joined a new queue, this time of people on their way out of the city. The guard waved them on, and they stepped out onto the road again.
They soon left most of the crush behind. In the sudden calmness, they both became aware of a soft jingling noise. Mesarthim’s frills curled in distaste as she beheld her cloak properly for the first time.
“Ugh, it’s got loads of tiny bells!”
“We can go back and swap it for another one,” Banditaccia sighed. She turned to look back at the city, tried to peer beyond the dust cloud raised by the travelers. And then she squinted in suspicion.
“Isn’t that the Spiral from earlier?”
It certainly was. He looped out of the dust, trailing puffs of black smoke, and before Banditaccia could react, he’d glommed onto the underside of her wing like a bat. She shrieked and flapped madly, trying to shake him off. “Oy, what’s your problem?!”
“You’re heading away from Byzmara? Take me with you!”
“Wha...?” Banditaccia curved her neck around to peer in disbelief at him. Mesarthim snorted. “I take it your [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=49444298]employer[/url] wasn’t too pleased about what happened?”
“He wo—erm, no, he [i]wasn’t[/i]! I’ve been fired; I’m out of a job, out of a home! Not going to stay here any longer. This place, it will swallow me whole!”
Banditaccia suppressed a shiver. She hadn’t realized it until then, but she’d felt the same way about the city, too.
“Well, fine. We live in the Sunbeam Ruins, so we’re going back there....Does that sit well with you?”
“Fine, fine. Let’s be away from here!”
“You’re a twitchy little thing, aren’t you? We don’t even know your name.”
“Mm? You don’t?” The Spiral blinked in surprise. He scratched his jaw, his fiery eyes blinking. “Tashbaan. [i]Tash[/i] for short. Umm...”
Tashbaan’s gaze tracked uneasily to Mesarthim—and to the golden horns curled against the sides of her head. The Fae glared squarely back, and he looked away.
“‘Not very good with magic,’ you said?” Banditaccia grumbled. Tashbaan sighed. “No. Maybe it was because I said...‘bull-headed’?”
“Those look more like [i]ram’s[/i] horns.”
“See, I didn’t even get that right. But I could try again? Maybe with another—”
“[i]No[/i]!” Mesarthim snapped. She tugged her new cloak tighter about herself and fluttered on. Behind her, she could dimly hear Banditaccia chattering to Tashbaan, alternately chiding him and asking questions....
She wasn’t about to let him test another spell on her, though. She wasn’t going to let [i]anyone[/i] test another changing spell on her. Because now the thought was creeping into her mind, like ice-cold water seeping into a stone—
[i]“What if this happened not because he’s bad at magic, but because the curse is stronger than I thought?”[/i][/color]
[right][font=Copperplate Gothic Light][color=#E22D17][size=5][b]~ The End[/b][/color][/size][/font][/right]
[size=2][color=#9494A9][b]Credits:[/b] Special thanks for [i]After[/i] for allowing the inclusion of Aurio and Byzmara, and for reviewing Aurio’s dialogue.[/color][/size]
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ramifications
written by Disillusionist
special thanks to After
3,723 words
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It should have been sweltering—Banditaccia had been born and raised in Dragonhome, and she thought she knew deserts. This certainly was one. It was bleak and barren, with a blue sky blazing fiercely overhead. Beyond the stones that outlined the road, sand dunes rose, dwarfing even the great Guardian.
But though she could see heatwaves shimmering off the sand, Banditaccia didn’t feel them. The air was tepid, almost cool. “It’s the road,” she told herself, shivering as she strode past the stones. As the entire road was lined with them, it was quite a lot of shivering on her part. So she gave one last, irritated shake of her hide, and she squinted ahead. Her companion had left her behind long ago, and was now visible as a dark blue dot against the bright blue sky.
“Mesa!” It was less a call than an exasperated groan. The Guardian quickened her pace, following the Fae towards their destination: the city of Byzmara.
It wasn’t all that far away now, but Mesarthim darted towards it, wings almost blurring, as though the city would suddenly vanish into the ground. She was always such an impatient thing, practically vibrating with intense, almost vicious energy. “It’s probably worse now,” Banditaccia thought gloomily, “since she thinks she’ll finally break that curse she’s always babbling about.”
Mesarthim had always been a little strange. She’d apparently gotten into a tremendous argument with her previous clan and been abandoned in the wilds of the Shifting Expanse. Origenes and his team, heading back from yet another wild goose chase, had come across her, lying unconscious in the dunes. She’d tagged along eagerly when they’d mentioned they were heading back to the lair: Origenes was rather soft-hearted and had been unable to refuse the poor, confused Fae.
And she was confused. Once she’d fully recovered from her misadventure, Mesarthim had gone around asking after her previous clan. “It’s an all-female clan of assassins!” she’d claimed—and gotten a few laughs in response.
“Never heard of them! And you’d think we would have: an all-female clan of spies and assassins would definitely be noteworthy.”
“Hah! But then again, they wouldn’t be very good assassins if everyone knew about them, surely?”
“Well, there’s the Blood Moon Dancers. They’ve got drakes among their ranks, but the ladies rule the roost, they do.”
“Nah, she said her clan’s name was...the Benet...nash? What a silly name. That sounds more like something I’d have for breakfast.”
“Claims she used to be a Guardian,” Pyrea, the Chief Healer, had muttered. She shook her head, clucking disapprovingly. “I can believe that, at least. Something might have gone wrong; the transformation scroll might have been tampered with. And it could have adversely affected her mind.”
Her subordinates had stared at her, wide-eyed with shock. “I hadn’t known such a thing could happen,” Tiferet the hydrotherapist gasped.
“It’s incredibly rare, but it does happen. Someone trying to add or modify the conditions of the spell, perhaps tack on a color change or eternal youth. Spells aren’t meant to be combined like that. That’s why the scrolls are separate.”
“I suppose it is some sort of curse,” Banditaccia thought as she finally caught up to the Fae. They were at the end of a long but steadily moving queue of people, beasts, and wares that were entering the city. “Her memories of her old clan are addled. Maybe the disagreement was a lot more serious than she remembers and they used some sort of memory-modifying spell on her before throwing her out.”
And at the back of Banditaccia’s mind, a completely different question was asked: “We were alone on the road for hours. Where on earth did all these people come from?”
“Hullo, welcome to Byzmara,” said the Ridgeback at the gates. She spoke with a casual drawl, but the green eyes with which she examined them were very sharp indeed. “First time here, eh?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Banditaccia said. “We were, um, hoping to forge new connections with—”
The Ridgeback shut her eyes. “Aaagh, more fancy talk! I was just checking to see if you’re new. Head along inside, thank you; we don’t want to hold up the line....”
“Hey!” Banditaccia gasped as Mesarthim took off again, fluttering like a dragonfly. As the Guardian galumphed after her, the Ridgeback’s laugh rang out from behind: “Nice to see people excited about visiting. Enjoy your stay, ladies!”
Mesarthim soon alighted upon the buttress of a building. The map she’d brought with her flapped in the breeze. It had been kindly provided by Mara Eltanin—the Master Merchant had visited Byzmara some time before on business, and she had been happy to answer Mesarthim’s questions about it.
“A way to break that curse? Well, Byzmara’s an astounding place; I’m sure you can find a thaumaturgist or a merchant who might be able to help you. Let’s make sure you get all those memories back...”
“My memories are perfectly fine, thank you very much!” Mesarthim thought, her frills stiff with indignation. She seethed quietly as it all came flooding back: how her great Guardian strength had been stripped from her by the elders of the Benetnash, and how she had instead been warped into the small, frail Fae she now was. Her assassin’s skills had been expunged from her mind—and worst of all, her own voice had been ensorcelled. She could still recall the Benetnash, could shout their deeds from every rooftop...but nobody who heard her speak of the assassins would believe her. Even those who had encountered them before would be completely, utterly skeptical.
And so now, here she was, still tiny and frail, having to endure people’s pitying looks and platitudes. “Poor girl, she’s made a story out of whole cloth. But what a wild imagination she has...!”
Mesarthim would have crushed the map in one tiny fist, but she did need it. She had never visited Byzmara before, and what little she’d seen of it so far was labyrinthine and confusing. As she’d sort of explained to her clanmates, she was here to find a counter-curse....
“Except it’ll be a bit simpler than that.” Her frills curved slyly, like a smile. “If I find a breed change scroll and change myself back, the enchantment will surely be broken!”
Surely, surely...And if—no, when she’d regained her shape and skills, she would vanish into the labyrinth of the city. The Sunbeam Ruins were no place for an assassin, and good riddance! None of their magic had been of use to her. Better to hide out here, or perhaps flee into the desert; she had been raised in one, after all.
Mesarthim had been of two minds about letting Banditaccia accompany her. The Guardian was her supervisor (which still rankled Mesarthim somewhat; she had been in the clan longer!), and like most dragons, she hadn’t liked the idea of spending her days off with her boss. On the other hand, Banditaccia was the closest thing she had to an ally. She was trustworthy and would probably be useful in confrontations....
“If not for that damned curse, I would have all my memories and skills and wouldn’t need to drag this clumsy behemoth around with me!” But her memories and skills weren’t here; instead, here was Banditaccia, bending down to squint at the map.
“The Commercial District, right? Looks like it’s over there.”
“Yes, Tasha.” It took all of Mesarthim’s self-control to affect appreciation and not roll her eyes. They followed the map through Byzmara’s streets, passing storefronts and tents and stalls.
“Did you have a specific shop in mind? This place is making me dizzy. I can barely read—Huh!” Banditaccia blinked at a shop sign. “Thought it was in a different...Um, it’s just swirly lettering. Uh...”
“We should ask.”
“Right.” As expected of a large, prosperous city, Byzmara was bustling. Dragons (or at least they looked like dragons...) nonchalantly bypassed the visitors. Through windows and doorways, faces were glimpsed; voices and laughter resounded.
There was no shortage of people to ask, but Mesarthim made no move. She crouched near a shop wall again, rigid and suspicious. She rather reminded Banditaccia of a sullen, standoffish youngling: “Mother, I’ve got a bad toothache; I need to see the healer. What? I’ve got to make an appointment by myself?! Ooooaaaaww, Moooom...!”
So the Guardian pushed away her exasperation and ambled into the nearest shop. It turned out to be a florist’s, and the Bogsneak behind the counter circled a section of the map with one claw. “Maybe right about here?”
Banditaccia thanked him and headed back outside. Mesarthim glanced at the map and grunted, and that was all the thanks her supervisor got out of her.
About a half-hour later, they were deep in the Commercial District, in the section favored by purveyors of spells and ensorcelled artifacts. Banditaccia was unsure how to feel about the place. The shops here seemed to lean in, like a pack of hydrenas preparing to pounce. There were still plenty of people about, but they were more furtive than nonchalant, their faces stiff and unfriendly. A lot like Mesarthim, come to think of it....
“Well, it looks like you might find what you need here. Why don’t you try asking for a change?”
Mesarthim grunted in negation. Banditaccia suppressed a sigh. The friendly florist’s shop now seemed very far away.
So she craned her neck and looked around. As she did, a glint of gold caught her eye: a weather vane atop a tent of rich, deep scarlet. It swung lazily in the breeze.
“That looks interesting....”
“What does?” Mesarthim asked as she lowered her head. Banditaccia was about to reply—and as she turned, she saw the blaze of scarlet through a nearby alley.
It was a bit of a squeeze for the Guardian, but soon she was on the other side, puffing slightly with exertion. Mesarthim fluttered around her as she poked her head into the large, gold-trimmed tent. “Hello...?”
“Visitors?” Two large, orange eyes shone in the gloom. With a rustle and curl of dark smoke, a Spiral swirled into clearer view.
“Visi...ah, no, customers. Customers!” He beckoned them inside. “Do come in. If you would care to wait—”
“Do you sell spells of transformation here?” Mesarthim, it seemed, was done with keeping quiet. Banditaccia wryly guessed why: Behind the Spiral, there was a short passage walled in silk, and it opened into what seemed to be a very large room. Glints of gold and jewels...and possibly magic...shone from the deeper shadows—and the Fae’s sharp eyes were fixed on them.
“Hmm? Well, now...I could scrounge something up.” The Spiral looked warily back and forth. He had a small broom and dustpan clutched in his claws, and the visitors realized they’d interrupted his cleaning.
Both broom and dustpan vanished beneath his voluminous cloak. He beckoned to them with his tail as he fluttered into the next room. Sure enough, it was filled with wares. They sat on shelves or racks or directly on the floor; some even hung from the silken walls and ceiling. A large lamp, shedding warm orange light, was suspended from the center of the roof.
Banditaccia blinked. “I thought there’d be a tent pole. How does it stay up—”
“Magic!” The Spiral beamed. Banditaccia would have laughed, but Mesarthim was already fluttering away. She circled over the shelves, looking for something promising.
“Statuettes...rugs...lanterns...knives...scrolls!”
The scrolls were neatly rolled up and tied shut. Tags were affixed to their ribbons, with descriptions of their spells. Mesarthim scanned them rapidly. “Guardian, Guardian...”
“Mesa!” Banditaccia gasped when they reached her: The Fae was dragging a large transformation scroll from the rack. The Spiral, meanwhile, waggled a claw. “That’ll be fifty thousand pieces of gold, if you please.”
“What? For a curse-breaker? That seems rather cheap—”
“It’s a breed change,” Mesarthim snapped. “I want to be a Guardian again.”
Banditaccia shook her head. Suddenly she was a little confused. “Wait, I thought you said you were looking for something to break the curse—”
“The shape change is part of the curse! And I remember everything perfectly; my memories aren’t wrong!”
“All right, all right, so you think undoing one part of the curse will make it easier to undo everything else. I can understand that....”
Mesarthim looked as though she might argue further, but the Spiral cleared his throat and held out a paw again. From the shadows of his cloak, he produced a pair of scales. Mesarthim tossed him her coin purse, and a wealth of gold flowed out and onto the pans. Remarkably—or perhaps not—none of the coins spilled onto the floor. And then once the scales had apparently measured fifty thousand gold pieces, the treasure stopped flowing out.
“There we go. Done and done!” The scales and treasure vanished; the Spiral now held out a receipt. Banditaccia plucked it from his grasp.
“So! Thank you for your purch...Oh! I have to ask...What was it again...Ahem, will that be all? I could take the scales out again if you want to buy more—”
“No, that will be all.”
“Oh.” The Spiral sagged.
Mesarthim, meanwhile, broke the seal on the scroll. She stared, with an intensity the others found unnerving, at the stylized Guardian and rules painted upon it. The tag headed Breed Change: Guardian fluttered to the floor.
“I mean to use this now.”
Banditaccia relaxed. “Well, I’ve never used breed change scrolls before, but the shopkeeper can probably help you.”
“I can certainly try!” Yet despite those words, anxiety shone in the Spiral’s eyes. His tail tied itself into a knot, untied again. “Only, you see...I’m not so good with magic—”
“What? Neither am I, but surely you can read these instructions. And this is one of your wares, after all.” Mesarthim snatched up the tag and thrust it at him. He took it, but his tail knotted up again.
“Yes, um...it seems fairly simple...eergh. Probably just best if we wait for my employer to come back? He’s more skilled at magic than—”
“Wait...your employer?” Banditaccia’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, I...Didn’t I tell you? I’m the assistant shopkeeper, I am. My master normally oversees things, but he’s gone out to lunch. I handle only basic transactions. And, um, cleaning.”
“When will he be back?” Mesarthim asked. The Spiral shrugged. “Don’t know. Could be soon, maybe an hour? But you could just find someone else to help—”
“No!” The word cracked like a whip. The Spiral flinched back, and Banditaccia’s jaw dropped. She was about to reprimand her subordinate, but Mesarthim rushed on, “I will have my shape restored to me! I am so tired of—”
“Shh, ssshh! All right, you small...um, tiny...ahem!” The Spiral cleared his throat. Mesarthim shoved the scroll at him, and he tried to juggle it and the instructions at the same time.
“Such a bull-headed little...Near the entrance is better! So that you don’t wreck the wares when you get your shape back.”
Mesarthim settled down at the entrance of the tent. Sunlight streamed in behind her, casting her face in shadow. The Spiral started to mutter, reading from the instruction tag. With his other paw, he waved the scroll before Mesarthim. The painted Guardian upon it wavered visibly as the spell took hold, and tatters of mist formed in the air around the Fae, briefly obscuring her body.
“Goodness, however will I explain this to everybody else? She only told us she was looking for help with her memories,” Banditaccia fretted silently. She wouldn’t interrupt the transformation now, though. If she did, something could go wrong—
And something was already going wrong. Pain bloomed on Mesarthim’s face; she cringed, her paws pressed to her temples. Banditaccia gasped—she knew that breed changes, done right, weren’t supposed to be painful. This definitely wasn’t going right.
“Wait! Stop the spell!” she whispered urgently to the Spiral. He jerked in surprise, half-turning to face her.
And before either of them could speak, Mesarthim shrieked. She convulsed suddenly, her wings flapping wildly, sending her careening around the room. Banditaccia cringed, expecting her to explode into a much larger shape and send broken items flying everywhere. But the Fae didn’t grow.
Something else did.
With a hideous creaking noise, horns exploded out of the sides of Mesarthim’s head. Banditaccia’s heart nearly stopped—but there was no blood, no broken bones. They simply appeared, jutting out of Mesarthim’s temples, curling into neat ram’s horns.
Their sudden weight unbalanced the Fae, and she plummeted to the floor. “What happened to me? What happened?!” she gasped, patting herself over.
And then she felt the horns, and she froze. And the scream erupted from her again: pure panic this time, high and terrified.
“Mesa, just calm down! The spell can be reversed; we can fix it—”
“My head...horns...I have horns!” Mesarthim’s eyes bulged in fear. She tugged on the horns, but they wouldn’t come off. They were a part of her, growing from her skull as though they’d always belonged there.
“I tried to tell you!” the Spiral moaned. He was wringing the scroll and the tag in his paws now. “Said I wasn’t good at magic! It...It must’ve been what I said...”
“Here, what’s all this, then?”
It was a familiar voice, though it took Banditaccia a moment to recognize it. She turned towards the tent entrance—and the Ridgeback guard poked her head into the room.
“Heard the screaming from a couple o’ streets over. Now, if everybody would just—”
“A spell went wrong. We’re trying to sort it out,” Banditaccia explained. The Spiral nodded fervently.
And Mesarthim squealed again. She jetted out of the tent, narrowly dodging the Ridgeback’s massive paw. The guard sighed.
“Yeah, it happens. Guess you’d better go see to her. Oh, and ask her not to yell so loudly, aye? I’d hate to have my lunch interrupted again.”
Mesarthim hadn’t gone far—Banditaccia found her slumped in an alley not too far from the shop, her head cradled in her paws. Her frills were drooping in distress, and she didn’t look up as Banditaccia approached.
“D...Do they hurt?” the Guardian couldn’t help asking.
“No. But...” Mesarthim drew in a deep breath. “Horns. Horns on my head! I’m hideous!”
“Oh, hey now! Guardians have horns, too!”
“Yes, but not like these!” The Fae’s eyes flashed fury. “I’ll strangle that wretched worm. I’ll twist his entire body into knots! I’ll—”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Banditaccia snapped. “He is quite sorry...Well, he looked very sorry when I left the tent. He was sweeping up the mess, anyway. We’ll go back and talk to him—or to his boss.”
“Buy another shape change?”
“Sure, why not? I’ve got enough money. Or we could just demand a refund for the last one.”
Mesarthim was silent for a while. She scowled at the opposite wall, her tail twitching.
“Never mind,” she grumbled at last. Banditaccia’s jaw dropped again. “What?”
“Not necessary. Wouldn’t work, anyway.”
“Oh...it wouldn’t?”
Mesarthim watched the emotions play out across the Guardian’s face. She saw more than others thought; she always did. The curse hadn’t been able to excise that, at least....
Confusion, disbelief...and finally, calmness. “All’s right with the world, and they’ll forget everything I try to tell them about my real past...”
“All right, Mesa, if you say so—hey! You really need to stop zipping off like that....”
But she didn’t stop, and eventually, the Guardian followed her back to the gates. She snatched a cloak from a nearby stall as she passed, pulling the hood up over her head. The vendor protested, his wings flapping angrily, until Banditaccia dumped a pawful of coins onto the countertop.
From there, the two visitors joined a new queue, this time of people on their way out of the city. The guard waved them on, and they stepped out onto the road again.
They soon left most of the crush behind. In the sudden calmness, they both became aware of a soft jingling noise. Mesarthim’s frills curled in distaste as she beheld her cloak properly for the first time.
“Ugh, it’s got loads of tiny bells!”
“We can go back and swap it for another one,” Banditaccia sighed. She turned to look back at the city, tried to peer beyond the dust cloud raised by the travelers. And then she squinted in suspicion.
“Isn’t that the Spiral from earlier?”
It certainly was. He looped out of the dust, trailing puffs of black smoke, and before Banditaccia could react, he’d glommed onto the underside of her wing like a bat. She shrieked and flapped madly, trying to shake him off. “Oy, what’s your problem?!”
“You’re heading away from Byzmara? Take me with you!”
“Wha...?” Banditaccia curved her neck around to peer in disbelief at him. Mesarthim snorted. “I take it your employer wasn’t too pleased about what happened?”
“He wo—erm, no, he wasn’t! I’ve been fired; I’m out of a job, out of a home! Not going to stay here any longer. This place, it will swallow me whole!”
Banditaccia suppressed a shiver. She hadn’t realized it until then, but she’d felt the same way about the city, too.
“Well, fine. We live in the Sunbeam Ruins, so we’re going back there....Does that sit well with you?”
“Fine, fine. Let’s be away from here!”
“You’re a twitchy little thing, aren’t you? We don’t even know your name.”
“Mm? You don’t?” The Spiral blinked in surprise. He scratched his jaw, his fiery eyes blinking. “Tashbaan. Tash for short. Umm...”
Tashbaan’s gaze tracked uneasily to Mesarthim—and to the golden horns curled against the sides of her head. The Fae glared squarely back, and he looked away.
“‘Not very good with magic,’ you said?” Banditaccia grumbled. Tashbaan sighed. “No. Maybe it was because I said...‘bull-headed’?”
“Those look more like ram’s horns.”
“See, I didn’t even get that right. But I could try again? Maybe with another—”
“No!” Mesarthim snapped. She tugged her new cloak tighter about herself and fluttered on. Behind her, she could dimly hear Banditaccia chattering to Tashbaan, alternately chiding him and asking questions....
She wasn’t about to let him test another spell on her, though. She wasn’t going to let anyone test another changing spell on her. Because now the thought was creeping into her mind, like ice-cold water seeping into a stone—
“What if this happened not because he’s bad at magic, but because the curse is stronger than I thought?”
~ The End
Credits: Special thanks for After for allowing the inclusion of Aurio and Byzmara, and for reviewing Aurio’s dialogue.
