Chapter Eighteen: The Transformation
Belgorath had not been ready to take upon himself the trauma that the transformation would with it bring. He went back to the Mountains, seeking spiritual guidance from the Elders, whose centuries of wisdom could perhaps prepare him better for what lay ahead.
Kifka had not visited Sennymay since they last talked in Darad's garden. His daughter grew at an alarming rate, and within the next two or three months of Belgorath's absence, she had grown to the Lord's waist, with flowing chestnut hair and odd eyes that showed wisdom beyond even the dragon's years. She constantly stayed around her father, observing everything with the strange spheres of her instruments of vision. Kifka had not felt comfortable around her. She brought the eerie aura with her as she followed the Lord around, and it drove him crazy to the point where he would have to summon the Gem or his brother to take the child away. He loved her dearly, do not misunderstand. Yet he felt that she was somehow connected to Senny's passiveness and odd behavior. The Rogue had not been like this before Athena's birth.
He finally summoned the child to his side, and sat her down on his knee.
"Athena," said Kifka. "What have you done to your mother?" he asked bluntly. The child only smiled back at him, her dimpled face almost glowing. "Do not pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about!" Kifka rose his voice. "Thou evil child! Tell me!"
"But daddy, I haven't done a thing," she answered with a sweet smile. "I know not what you speak of!"
At that, Kifka set her back down and ushered her off. He knew what it was, now that he had held her. A strange power ebb emitted itself from her young figure, and that was what had driven him almost crazy at times, and undoubtedly it was the cause for Senny's present condition.
That night, as Kifka was getting ready to go to bed, he froze in the middle of dismantling his armour. Something had struck him. Perhaps it was the effect of fatigue - and that stupid aura his daughter emitted - which had made him think of what he did. But nevertheless, he thought it. He drew himself up and out to the wing that had been occupied by Senny and Athena.
He rushed into the rogue's room, and grabbed her in his arms. She uttered a startled cry, then seemed to almost melt in his arms as he drew her closer.
"Sennymay," he uttered. "I want to ask you something."
"Anything you would like, my dearest Kifka," she answered softly.
"Senny… Will you marry me?"
The girl stared up at him with her beautiful eyes - now he finally saw what he had only thought he had glanced before. It was a rim around the iris of her eye, a sort of golden glow.
"I shall be damned!" he almost screamed in horror. "That child DOES have you in her control!" He threw the rogue aside and rushed out again, but this time to his daughter's room. Athena was the blasted Gold Gem, he though, and somehow she had ensnared the rogue in her golden net.
Athena looked up calmly as the heavy door of her room swung open on its hinges, and her father stormed it.
"Thou evil child!" he called her again. Kifka grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her into the air, the girl's feet dangling helplessly. He shook her until Athena's lustrous hair was in a disarray of chestnut brown. "What have you done to her! Answer me!"
"Alright, I can not shake thee off," answered the child. "Set me down."
Kifka put her down, but retained his grip on her tiny shoulders. "Now tell, you evil being."
"I am not evil!" exclaimed the child.
"Then what have you done to Sennymay!"
"But I haven't done a thing!" cried she. "I haven't done a thing…" And for the first time he saw her weep. Kifka was dumbfounded. He let go and kneeled in front of the child. He lifted her chin with his fingers and kissed her softly on the forehead. She wiped at her tears futilely.
"So, you do know what it is, then?" he asked after a pause.
"Yes," she sniffed. "I have tried very hard to make it go away, but I can't."
"Make what go away?"
"The things in her eyes. The things that make her so sinister."
"Then you see it too…" Kifka almost whispered with anticipation. "They aren't your Gem's power?"
"No. And I can not take them away." Athena spread her hands in front of her. "I don't have the power that I yearn for…"
Kifka paused for a long time, deep in thought. He went over his options - the possibilities that offered themselves to him, however few.
"If you had the power," he started, "would you… be able to… change her back?"
"Yes," she answered, her eyes fixed upon those of her father.
And so it was set. They spent the night talking about what could be done, and what had been done before, and what they needed to do to finally awaken the two warriors - the rogue and the dragon.
Upon the next morning Kifka had called upon the Dragon. The courtyard was empty, for all the guards were too terrified by the immense power that flowed and ebbed and hissed through the area. It was as if the nether spirits were converging in their dark Sabbath, and it was the castle courtyard that they had picked. The buildings warped and whirled under the pressure of the power. The Gem was violently sick. She vomited at perfect increments of five minutes, her head swimming in the sudden power that had converged beneath the castle and manifested itself in the courtyard. The Prince tied pieces of woolen yarn about his wrists as an old superstition, and roamed the castle aimlessly in a drunken stupor. Sennymay was a cooked vegetable, for the lack of a better description. She lay in bed, her eyes flung open and gazing at the sky. Kifka's muscles pulsed in pain as he constantly clenched his fists to resist the horrid effect the field exerted upon him. His teeth gritted together and that sent to his head the sensation of sandpaper rubbing against more and more sandpaper.
The dragon lay in the courtyard, his scales the very ebb of the power that converged beneath him. The scales constantly changed colour, like a freakish gigantic chameleon. His eyes almost glazed over, but he fought the energy that pumped itself into his body from the ground beneath him. If he had lifted himself above the ground with his massive wings, the strange power would lose its hold, but he resisted, knowing that it was finally time to realize his destiny.
Athena was almost as bad as her mother. She ranted on endlessly in an odd language that no one in the castle has ever heard. Her eyes had glazed over, and the pupils had rolled back inside her head, leaving her sockets the eerie colour of ghostly white. She had to be carried out into the courtyard, for her body was like overcooked acantha leaves. As she was placed next to her mother, her actions changed. She was passive and held her eyes open to the sky, while at the same time Senny would kick and scream and rant unintelligible phrases in odd tongues. Then they would switch off and the rogue would stare in judgement as the child raved on endlessly.
At last the six had been gathered.
Belgorath lay in the middle of the courtyard, heaving with laboured breathing.
Artemis stood, holding her stomach, her face a sickish green, her eyes watering, and her body swaying from side to side to match the pulse that palpitated through the ground.
Darad swayed back and forth drunkenly, holding his ears and cringing heavily.
Kifka stood straight, squinting slightly and holding on to his sword, squeezing the hilt until his knuckles turned white.
Sennymay lay on a woven rug, her lustrous hair spread out underneath her. She stared up into the clouds as Athena ranted on. Then it finally made sense.
" Idghwadr Ird Ird aeoghe," screamed Athena, "Woghda gheoad jrtr lird yhr ftago! Gaere lieh the dragoj! Here lies the dragon! Here lies the dragon! Here lies the dragon!"
Darad uncovered his ears in wonder. Suddenly everything seems blue and beautiful to him. His eyes were filled with a cerulean awe, and everything seemed to move up and down gently, like the waves on an ocean. Darad's body swayed with them, the glazed expression of his eyes deepening into something resembling one of concentration. The sways became steadier. And then he as well began to chant.
"Here lies the dragon! Here lies the dragon!" Athena chanted, but now Darad's gentle voice joined her.
Artemis found something almost erotic in the chanting, as her own voice joined it. The sickness that had inhabited her body before, now left as fast as it had come. Everything was suddenly green and electric as her sight returned to her momentarily. She looked over at the chanting Prince, and her heart began to beat faster than it had ever beaten before. His long green hair and the green garments, and all the green around him, it finally showed him to her in a new light - a light she had never seen before (no pun intended). Her body matched the steady weaving of the Prince, and she too chanted the dragon words.
Kifka didn't understand if the Prince and the Oracle chanted because they thought they should join in the festivities, or if they actually couldn't help it, like his daughter and his lover. Kifka couldn't feel any urge to chant. He only felt what he had felt before, but now the gravity of it intensified. He felt like he was being pressed and pushed and crushed from all sides. His muscles ached as he tried to tighten and tense his whole body -- make it almost like a rock -- in hopes of resisting that gravity. He did not feel an urge to chant, but he saw everything around him turn red. The red was of an odd hue. It was almost blood-like, but there was something different about it. It did not compel him to kill, or fight, or massacre. It was more of a driving urge to fill everything around him with an immense life force that would make every living thing bloom at its fullest and cause it to ripen to its peak. And that is exactly what he did.
The cloaked man once again stood and watched out of the tallest towers of the castle, himself affected by the sickening power ebbs that came from beneath the structure. Only this man had more control that the people below him. It came to him not of natural ability, but of centuries of study. He watched the young Lord fuss over his daughter, and the man suddenly felt a pang in his heart - something awful and sad struck at him and his control faltered for a moment. Yet he regained it and watched on. He hasn't seen them gather in a century, and he was not about to miss this moment.
Kifka's sudden urge was overwhelming. As he looked around him through the blood red in his eyes, his eyes stopped on something they couldn't have possibly missed - they stopped on the pulsating body of the dragon. Suddenly Kifka's impulse to procreate the life force running through him morphed into something horrible. He saw through his fiery eyes not a subject to fill with life, but a subject from which to draw that life. Pure muscle memory took over his arms and hands as he drew his sword and charged the dragon.
Belgorath was startled to see the Lord running at him and screaming an ethereal dragon slayer war cry while bearing his sword in an offensive manner. The dragon faltered for a second as fear ran through him. He was confused. He didn't know whether to defend himself or not. It was an immense dilemma to him; if he were to defend himself, he would have to stand - yet if he were to stand, the power that was needed for his transformation would leave him. Then blood ran over his eyes, and it no longer mattered to him if he lost that power. He saw Kifka, and only Kifka. The dragon bared his teeth and stood up.
The cloaked man watched from the tower. He saw a startled young dragon and a young human warrior charging the beast. Then he saw the dragon turn a crimson colour and suddenly come alive before the warrior. The beast threw back its head, took a deep breath, and unleashed a horrendous wave of fire at the Lord. The man did not even stagger, but seemed to just thrive even more as the fire seeped into him. He charged the dragon, waving his massive sword. The two fought ferociously as the four figures beside them - the Prince, the Oracle, the child, and the Rogue - circled the two fighters, chanting something in an unknown tongue. The echoes of tooth clashing with steel reverberated throughout the courtyard. The castle appeared to be in a sort of trance. The castle maids and the castle guards were either passed out cold on the floor somewhere, or sitting in a corner, shaking with fear. The battle drew on until the Lord and the dragon became one moving crimson form that radiated light into every corner of the courtyard. The cloaked man tightened his arms around him in anticipation.
Kifka felt his body get hotter and hotter as he danced in a ferocious fight with the crimson dragon. Finally everything became redder and redder until it turned black. Kifka passed out.
Belgorath stood over the Lord with barren teeth. The power that he felt before now seemed even greater. He spread his wings and bellowed a dragon war cry that sent birds flying out of their trees miles away from the castle. The walls of the towers shook. Belgorath looked around him at the figures dancing. Out of the four, he picked out little Athena, no higher than the waist of a human. Belgorath could kill her with just his one paw. But, something prevented him from doing so. He had felt it before, but felt stupid about it. He was a dragon, and she was a child. There could never be anything between them. Suddenly he felt faint, as if all the energy suddenly left him. His head swam and he fell to the ground with a massive thud that once again shook the walls of the castle. He saw Athena through his blurred eyes and reached for her. He saw then what he had never seen before. He saw himself reach for her with a human hand, opening his palm and reaching towards her.
Athena then lost her trance and rushed to the dragon. He lay on the ground, convulsing and groaning in pain. His body shrank and his colour faded into a peach, matching Athena's skin. His hands and feet became human, his wings retracted into his back, and his whole body convulsed until it resembled that of a human warrior. Athena took his reaching hand and put it on her breast. And then she too cried out in pain as her whole body twisted itself in agony and expanded rapidly. Her breast suddenly took shape and she underwent puberty in less than few seconds. Her hair shone even more, and her limbs became as slender and beautiful as her mother's. Her clothes ripped as her body rapidly grew out of them. She fell to the ground, still clutching Belgorath's hand. Then she saw everything become black and remembered no more.
The man watched from the tower as the dancers fell as well, one by one, to the ground. The energy of the castle suddenly faded, and the maids awoke, shaking and startled. The man left the tower and traveled to the courtyard. He lifted the women dancers one by one and brought them into their separate rooms. Then he lifted the men and brought them to their rooms. He then took Belgorath in his new human form and brought him to Athena's room. He stood over their bed and stared at the former Dragon and the sleeping Athena in admiration.
"It now begins," he said.
