The Changing Read online

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  Sara lay alone in darkness, fear and worry threatening to suffocate her very soul. She knew not whether she was dead or alive, or even somewhere in between, but her distress was not for herself. The last thing Sara could recall from the battle, after taking the wound to her neck, was Seth crouched over her fallen body as their enemies fell upon them both. Sara worried only for Seth. Knowing not if she herself yet lived, she had no idea if Seth thrived somehow, but she did know that she was lost to him. She was alone, and being alone had no way of knowing how Seth fared. Sara assumed herself either unconscious or dead, for no dream could be so dismal, lacking any sign of subconscious creativity. Nothing but blackness surrounded Sara, but if she lived there was hope that she would awaken to find Seth alive and well. However, Sara doubted that unconsciousness would allow her this level of conscious thought. Deciding therefore she was dead, Sara would have wept if she were able, having lost Seth, the man she had hoped to spend long years with and whose children she hoped to eventually bear. She had never before imagined death, but if she had, even death would have been more than this. Lost, alone, insubstantial, hopeless and painfully aware, Sara remained in darkness mourning her loss of Seth, never imagining herself or the loss of her own life worth mourning.

  Chapter 2

  A Secret of the Gods and Bounding Beauties

  Seth sat in the dark stone chamber berating himself for not having discovered this solution sooner. Sara lay in his lap unmoving. Her already milky skin was unnaturally pale and her luscious red lips had dulled to a shade of blue. Her heartbeat still fluttered occasionally, and every so often a ragged breath would escape her lips, but time was running out. Seth, infused with an inhuman amount of life energy, had overlooked before what now seemed like the most obvious solution possible, but he dared not risk acting upon impulse before he had taken the time to think the process through.

  Delving deep within himself Seth began to search through his own massive aura of power, looking for hidden secrets. The expansion of his mental capacity that came with the death of his own troops, who had worshipped him as their creator, had impressive effects that until now Seth had not explored. Upon first discovering his power, Seth had quickly taught himself to filter out the auras of the beings around him, finding them distracting at the best of times. Having made a habit of ignoring the surrounding auras, Seth had not, until now, discovered the change.

  Upon first viewing his own aura after being given the sight of the gods, Seth had found it to be a swirling mass of blackness that seemed to sparkle and glitter, but now he realized that he had been mistaken. Looking more carefully at his own aura revealed, after long study, that in fact it was a myriad of different shades of purples, blues, grays and blacks. The sparkles he had once witnessed were in fact tiny pinpricks of vibrant colors in every hue and shade that swirled aimlessly within the darker mass of his greater aura. This discovered, Seth then retreated from himself, and delved into Sara’s aura to see what it was that he might discover there.

  Sara’s aura was much smaller, the life force of a single being, and as such within moments Seth made another amazing discovery. Obviously the woman he loved had an aura different than his own, having not yet sworn her allegiance to any god. Sara’s was an aura of extraordinary color. It swirled and pulsed in vibrant hues as specks of alternating colors danced throughout her very being, but all of that was to be expected. What it was that Seth discovered in Sara’s aura now was that although upon first glance it appeared a chaotic maelstrom of light and color, there were in fact hundreds of different patterns working in unison within it. Each smaller pattern worked seamlessly with the others to form greater patterns of light and color, and those also worked within yet larger patterns, until ultimately they all worked together to create her aura in entirety. It was an amazing discovery, and with his new abilities to work through complex problems in his altered mind, Seth had a revelation.

  An aura wasn’t simply energy. It was a map, or a plan of sorts, built in three dimensions. The tiniest patterns that formed the smallest details all worked together as a whole to create the particular form of life which they inhabited. It was so obvious now to Seth that he delved into Sara’s aura further, and was amazed at the complexity and intricacy of even the smallest of the pattern's designs. However awed he was by the discovery, though, Seth had no time to waste and set to the task of memorizing and cataloging each individual pattern, every color, every swirl and every interaction between each of the fragments. It seemed to Seth an eternity as he worked to memorize thousands of interlocking patterns, but in reality less than an hour had passed. This task completed Seth, began to test himself.

  Turning inward once again Seth set to work within his own mind. Treating the exercise like a vast puzzle, Seth collected his thoughts and memories of the complexity of Sara’s aura and began recreating it within his mind, piece by piece. On completing the task Seth compared the creation in his mind with Sara’s actual aura. Pleased with the results, Seth dismantled his mental creation and then began erecting it once again. Over and over Seth went through the mental process of building and dismantling the mental model of Sara’s aura, each time accomplishing it faster before beginning anew. Seth continued until it was second nature, each part of the aura distinguishable from the others and placed upon the greater whole without thought. Finally assured of himself, Seth returned to his own aura to begin the process once more.

  After several minutes of investigation Seth found he had no need to memorize or catalog his own aura, for though immense, it was near identical in its working and complexities to Sara’s. In fact Seth was easily able to locate and distinguish every portion of his own aura that was a reflection of Sara’s and comparing them quickly, piece by piece, Seth found only one unexpected discrepancy. He already knew that the colors and hues of their patterns would be different, and they were. But otherwise all was the same apart from one single, miniscule, nearly indistinguishable difference. Seth had an extra pattern. Deep in the core of his aura, between several small fragments that in Sara were not interlocking, Seth had an additional piece to his puzzle. For where in Sara each of these small patterns worked together with other separate and individual patterns, in Seth, like a tiny spinning gear, a small piece pulsed and whirled, interlocking all those individual patterns together that in Sara were separate. Seth had found his road block.

  He had hoped against hope that their auras would be identical, and being so, he could have infused Sara with more power from his own being, perhaps speeding her recovery or, if nothing else, buying more time. This discovery left Seth’s plan in ruins, knowing not what this small difference was between them. It was a problem he was going to have to work with, but Seth believed his plan could still be possible if only he could discern the purpose of this difference.

  Seth’s first thought was anatomy. It was possible this tiny variance between the two distinguished one as male and the other as female, but upon further reflection Seth thought it unlikely. He had created hundreds of wolf men and women, caring not which gender of wolf he had joined a human male or female to. In whatever combination they had been joined, each of his troops retained their own previous sex. Looking back Seth thought himself lucky as altering a man or woman's sex could have caused some serious issues among the troops. So having discarded this explanation, Seth looked for another and in short order he found a further possibility. Perhaps his wolf troops were the explanation he sought. When they had died, their life power had infused into his own, swelling his aura and expanding his mind. But this idea Seth was also able to dismiss, but by doing so he made another discovery. If this minute difference between himself and Sara was from his binding with the power of his fallen followers, his body should have altered as theirs had. They had been one third wolf and two thirds man. Surely Seth too should appear as they had, a beast of a man with the resemblance of a wolf, covered in hair with a muzzle and fangs to boot. This left Seth yet another question. Why hadn't he changed when t
heir power had infused with his own?

  Seth pondered this for many moments before the answer finally came to him. It was the process of receiving the power that made all the difference. When Seth had stripped the life from the wolves by force and infused his troops with that power, the power itself had fought the action, retaining its original design. Each time Seth stripped the life from something to use for his own purposes, the power sought release. It strained to be free of him, and because of this he had been forced early on to learn to contain and control the power. But during life his troops had aligned themselves to him, worshipping him as their deity. By doing so, at the time of their deaths their power flowed to Seth willingly. That was the deciding factor. If the power was taken by force it retained its original form, holding to the plan of life that it sustained, but if given willingly, the power altered to take on the form of the one it had been given to. It was the answer Seth needed and gave him the ability to infuse Sara with his own aura without having any unwanted physical effects. Having reasoned it out, Seth was impressed by the revelation, but it still didn’t answer his original question. What was it that was different between his aura and Sara’s?

  Many more moments passed before Seth believed he had the answer. The difference now seemed obvious. It was simply the ability to wield magic. This ability was inherent from birth; some were simply born with it, and others without. Sara had no affinity to magic to Seth’s knowledge, and had even said as much in the past herself. This could account for the difference between the two auras, and to Seth it made perfect sense, but then yet another idea occurred. Seth realized that he had stumbled upon a possibility both wondrous and dangerous. What if that small piece of his aura that was lacking in Sara was a piece that Ishanya had infused him with, giving him the vision of the gods and the ability to command the very power of life itself? Was it possible to remove and replace individual pieces of a person's aura at will? If it was, the implications were incredible. Seth wished he had time to experiment and someone or something to experiment upon. A moment later it appeared as if his wish had been granted as a squeak sounded from somewhere, but at that same moment Seth realized that his time was up.

  Seth had not noticed the subtle change in his self-made prison over the time that he had been studying both his and Sara’s auras, but now as he saw Sara’s begin to slowly diminish with each pulse it made, at the same time he found that the room they inhabited had illuminated slightly. Having no time to seek out the source of the light, Seth reached inside himself and separated a portion of his life's power. Though much smaller than the whole, it was easily a portion equal to that of twenty men, and placing his hand upon Sara’s too-cold cheek, he let the power flow from himself into her. Seth watched the fraction of a second it took for Sara’s aura to infuse with the new power he gave her. He was relieved that his presumptions had been true. As the two auras melded into one, Seth’s own power altered as it became one with Sara, expanding her aura incredibly but leaving it otherwise unchanged. He watched for any noticeable sign of improvement, waiting for what felt like forever when finally he felt her heart flutter faintly and she too took a shallow, uneven breath. Seth had bought them some valuable time, but Sara’s aura still slowly and inevitably diminished with each pulse. Seth imagined they had another day at most but no more. Turning his attention from Sara, Seth gazed to the stone walls around him.

  It only took Seth a moment to find the source of the light, if he could even call it hat. With a little illumination, Seth was now able to see far above him to what appeared to be a ceiling made of great stone slabs, but it was not just a mere ceiling, it was also a floor. Several stories above him, perhaps three, the giant slabs created a near impenetrable surface. However, cut through one of the giant slabs was a portal through which a staircase once passed to the floor above. Somewhere beyond that level above, light shone from outside, illuminating the higher chamber and allowing a small amount of light to filter and reflect down into the lower room. Seth realized it was morning, and with his realization came a squeak akin to the one he had heard moments before, but this time the sound was accompanied by another familiar one.

  Seth watched with his neck craned back and Sara’s head upon his lap, straining to see into the room above him as steadily the amount of illumination increased. Shadows danced this way and that as something or some things crossed between the source of light and the portal through which Seth peered. He heard a great rustle from above, and watched to see what it could be that made the noise. Earlier in the night Seth had probed their surroundings with his magical abilities but found no life nearby. Hearing the sounds from above now, Seth reached out again to find an abundance of life headed straight towards him. Pulling Sara protectively to his chest, Seth sat silently as the creatures winged into his chamber from the one above. The sounds of many large, flapping wings echoing around the circular chamber, bouncing off the stone walls, created a sound similar to heavy rain on a thatch roof. The beasts were large, hairless creatures that came rushing through the portal above at reckless speeds. Then circling to slow their descent, each of the pale creatures glided one by one to the walls of the large room where, finding holds among the rocks, they landed. Grasping with their claws, they scurried slowly back up towards the ceiling, gathering into the darkest shadows there, retreating from the light, all the while squeaking and squawking in high-pitched tones.

  Seth had never seen their like before but knew the creatures to be some breed of large pale bat. Seth studied them as more continued to enter the chamber. Their flesh was not so different from his own, appearing as skin stretched over bone and muscle, though nowhere on their bodies could he discern any hair. Each of the bats had two hind legs, but their forward legs, or arms, were incorporated into their wings. At the centermost joint of the wing there was something akin to a clawed finger, and each of the other bones of the oddly shaped appendage made ribs within the wings of the beasts. Though easily four to five times the size of any other bats Seth had ever seen, they belayed their size with near effortless flight, and he was impressed with the creatures.

  Having studied the bats, scrutinizing their every detail, Seth then switched to his vision of the gods to analyze them further. What Seth found surprised him more than any other discovery this day. Each of the bats appeared to have two separate auras, which was perplexing enough, but what was more astonishing was that each of the bats contained one aura that was identical to every other bat’s, but their second one varied in size and intensity. With Seth’s new knowledge of auras, he was quickly able to establish at least four different variations of the bats’ second auras. If that discovery alone were not enough, as Seth watched, each of the bats’ second auras began to change. Within an hour they had managed somehow to alter their second auras and make them identical to their original, which they then each consumed as their second aura's became one with their first. It was astonishing to observe, and had Seth seen the process even the day before, he would not have understood it. Now Seth believed he had witnessed the bats absorbing stolen life forces from some other beings. These creatures, however, had some mechanism in place to process the life power before consuming it, for Seth knew that if they did not, each of them would have altered physically. Now Seth was really intrigued. But wanting a closer look, he now had to do something that was generally against his beliefs.

  Seth slid out from beneath Sara’s body and gently laid her upon the floor. Picking up her small crossbow from the pile of discarded armor and weapons, Seth drew the bow. Placing a bolt upon the slide, Seth looked up and took aim. Closing his eyes, Seth pulled the trigger and listened as with a shriek the bolt met its target. Ricocheting off the stone ceiling, the bolt hit the ground a fraction of a second before the beast landed, flapping its wings wildly and trying to flee but unable to sustain flight with a large tear in its right wing. Seth had pulled off the shot flawlessly. He wanted the creature alive in order to study its aura up close, but he needed it unable to fly so that he might experiment w
ith it a bit. Knowing bats were supposed to be blind, Seth removed his tunic and attempted to toss it over the head of the beast that now scurried around on the floor in a panic. After three attempts Seth succeeded and pounced upon the small, injured creature, pinning it to the ground beneath him. Careful not to hurt the beast further, nor release it, Seth wrapped his tunic about the beast snuggly. He tied the arms of his tunic in a knot securing it around the creature’s mid-section, binding its wings to its sides. Satisfied Seth released the large hairless bat, and returning to Sara he sat once again upon the stone floor.

  Seth reached out with his god-like vision to inspect the bat's aura in detail and found that, although still quite complex, its inner workings were slightly simpler than those of humans. Taking his time Seth repeated the process he had recently gone through and, piece by piece, he memorized and cataloged each pattern of the bat's aura within his mind, discovering along the way several similarities between the bat's and Sara’s auras. Seth felt that the discovery made sense seeing that both the bats and humans had four appendages, a torso, neck and head with two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. Seth too assumed the bats had a somewhat similarly functioning digestive tract, so the many likenesses made sense. But the bat did possess patterns that he and Sara did not, and vice versa. Several minutes into his study Seth noticed that the bat's aura was, like Sara’s, fading at an unnatural rate, and assuming he had injured it worse than he thought, Seth recaptured the creature to unbind it so that he might see the wound.