Close Encounters of the Magical Kind Page 20

  “Ooo, this has promise,” Steve chortled, rubbing his hands together. “Dare I ask in what way?”

  “Changing the color of our feathers, our fur, and even the number of talons on our front legs.”

  “The number of talons?” Sarah quizzically repeated, looking down at Loryss’ avian front legs.

  “Early griffins had an extra talon on their feet,” Nyx explained. “My sire told me that when I was a cub.”

  “I wonder what would happen if one of us were to fall in,” Steve mused, nudging Sarah’s shoulder with his.

  “Get that thought out of your head,” Sarah scolded. “Not only are we not going to try, we don’t have the time. Focus. We have a mission to accomplish, remember?”

  “You’re no fun,” Steve grumbled and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Fine. Loryss, you said you’re not supposed to be here, right?”

  Loryss nodded.

  “Do you have any idea how you ended up in a Pool? Did one just happen to appear underneath you?”

  “Unknown. I fell asleep that night and the following morning, when I awoke, I was shocked to discover myself emerging from a Pool. I knew instantly what had happened.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Steve grumped.

  “Perhaps we’re not meant to,” Sarah gently told him. “We didn’t have any idea where Tesur was going when he took us to the Arch. We couldn’t see the island for what it was during our approach. I wouldn’t worry about it. Besides, did you hear what Loryss said? Ranal has some type of Fountain of Youth on it. Boy, would I like to find that Pool.”

  “Didn’t you just say that we don’t have time to check out the Pools?” Steve teased, grinning at her.

  “I’m not suggesting we look for it. I’m just saying it would have been nice. That’s all.”

  “Mm-hmm. I believe you. Ow!”

  Sarah had punched him on his arm.

  They passed by several small pools that were as still as glass. Everyone was quiet as they walked by. Steve leaned over the closest pool to him and softly whistled.

  “I wonder what that one does.”

  “Perhaps nothing,” Sarah suggested.

  “I thought every pool did something different,” Steve argued.

  “Most do,” Loryss agreed. “I was advised upon my arrival to use the Pools at my own risk because only a very select few were nothing more than they appear. Water.”

  “So why put them here?” Steve demanded. “What’s the purpose?”

  Loryss’ wings rustled against her back.

  “I have an opinion, if you’d care to hear it.”

  Steve nodded, “Go for it.”

  “Entertainment.”

  “What? Really?”

  The griffin nodded, “Aye. As you might have imagined, there’s not a whole lot to do up here.”

  “If that’s the case then this Usol character has a strange sense of humor,” Steve softly muttered.

  “Would you please keep comments like that to yourself?” Sarah hissed at him. “I’d just as soon not anger the being that not only created this island but is also more than likely still keeping an eye on it.” She glanced back at her husband and smiled once she saw his face. His defiant look was gone and he was now nervously looking about.

  Steve noticed he was being watched and smiled sheepishly. A split second later the smile was gone and he was frowning once more. He increased his pace until he was walking next to Loryss.

  “Wait. You’re telling us that we can use the pools to jump from one area of the island to the other? Why in the world are we walking when we could be teleporting there? Which ones are they? How do they work?”

  “That would anger Usol,” Loryss answered, briefly glancing in his direction. “Pools are for griffin use only.”

  “What happens if we were to try?” Steve pressed.

  Loryss turned until she was looking at Steve.

  “I would advise against it. However, I must confess I would be extremely interested to see what would happen to you should you insist. Therefore, after you.”

  Sarah gasped with surprise as her husband instantly veered off the path and angled towards a small pool less than a dozen feet from them.

  “What do you think you’re doing? Get back here this instant. You heard Loryss. That could be a teleporting pool.”

  “Exactly,” Steve told her as he squatted down near the water’s edge. “What if it takes us straight to the flower?”

  “What if it drops you straight off this island?” Sarah countered.

  About to dip a finger in the pool, Steve hesitated. A look of concern spread across his features. He sighed, straightened up, and look back at her.

  “You’re no fun. I’ve got a serious urge to do a cannonball right into the middle of that thing. I’d love to find out what it does.”

  “Well, keep wondering,” Sarah told him. “There’s no way we’re going to put ourselves at risk so that we can see what –”

  Just then they all heard a loud cracking noise, instantly silencing the entire group. Then they heard half a dozen more cracks, coming progressively quicker and quicker. Both husband and wife swallowed nervously. If Sarah didn’t know any better then she’d say it sounded like a tree falling through…

  Her thoughts were cut short as both of their griffin companions squawked with alarm. She and Steve whirled around. She had been right. She could see the top of a huge pine tree slowly pushing its way past its neighbors on its way to the ground. Unfortunately, it was angling straight towards them and it was picking up speed. In just a matter of a few seconds the towering tree had crashed into its neighbors, uprooting three of them. Now there were at least four full-sized evergreens crashing noisily to the ground. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere except…

  Steve must’ve already come to the same conclusion as she. He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her bodily out of the way, forcing both of them into the small pool. Sarah took one look at the trees careening towards them, made eye contact with her husband, and dove as far down into the pool as she could.

  After what felt like an eternity had passed – when in reality it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds – Sarah felt someone tapping her shoulder. It was her husband, and he was frantically pointing up. Together they kicked towards the bright sunshine directly above them.

  Sputtering, Sarah’s head broke the surface of the supernaturally still pond. Even with their splashing about there was barely any ripples in the water. A few seconds later Steve’s head appeared next to hers, facing the other direction.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we were just forced into the water. Coincidence? What do you want to bet that…?” Steve trailed off as he finally spun around to look at her. His eyes widened. “Umm…”

  Sarah felt the blood drain out of her face. Steve was looking at her as though she had just sprouted horns. He was giving her such a peculiar look that it made her want to run a hand through her hair and ascertain for herself that she hadn’t grown a set.

  “What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Sarah then noticed that the two griffins, who had kept themselves out of harm’s way by leaping into the nearby trees, were at the water’s edge. Each stared at them with unreadable expressions on their faces. Steve nodded towards shore and started swimming in that direction, being careful to avoid the two trees that were now partially blocking their way. Had Steve not pulled her out of harm’s way, and into the water, then they would have most certainly been struck, perhaps even killed.

  Sarah felt firm ground under her feet and stepped out of the water. Both Loryss and Nyx were still staring silently at her. Steve appeared by her side and carefully turned her head until he was looking straight into her eyes. Sarah slapped his hand out of the way.

  “What are you doing? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Her husband pointed back at the water.

  “Maybe you ought to see for yourself.”

  Confused, and somewhat
scared, Sarah leaned out over the pool to look at her reflection. She almost screamed with surprise. The face staring back at her wasn’t hers! In fact, it didn’t even look human!

  She studied her face. Her reflection, containing a decidedly feline form, studied her back. What was the term for her appearance? Anthro feline?

  Sarah groaned and bit back a curse. While still humanoid in appearance, she now had a fine coating of pale fur covering her skin. Her nose had shrunk and turned black. Her cheeks had become rounded. The area below her nose had thickened and her mouth had shrunk to half its size. Also compounding the problem were the existence of nearly a dozen vibrissae on either side of her face that were at least six inches. Good lord, she had whiskers! Could this day get any worse?

  She ran her tongue over her teeth and felt sharp points everywhere. That’s just great. Of course she had a matching set of fangs to go along with everything else. At least she didn’t have any… Sarah’s hands flew to the top of her head and gingerly felt around.

  Yes, they were there. Protruding above her head were two very feline-looking ears. Intent on finding some way to place the blame on Steve, Sarah angrily extended an arm and pointed at the water.

  “This is all your fault! Look what’s happened to me! I look like a damn cat now!”

  Steve stared at her with his mouth open. Finally, after a couple of awkward moments of silence, he shook his head.

  “I’ve got nothin’, babe. I had no idea that was going to happen to you. Those trees were falling straight towards us. I had to do something.”

  Sarah looked at her hands. While still mostly humanoid in appearance, her fingers were still covered by a fine coat of soft, pale fur. Ugh. This was something else she didn’t need. What had caused that tree to drop right then? Was it this same mysterious force that tried to prevent them from arriving on Ranal? If she didn’t know any better then she’d say someone was actively trying to drive them away.

  Sarah scowled. In her current state it came out as a hissing growl. She started to clench her hands together, to form a fist, when inch-long talons appeared at the tip of each finger. Surprised, she turned to her husband.

  “Do you see this?”

  Steve was already backpedaling.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault. I didn’t cause that tree to fall when it did.”

  “Then why didn’t something happen to you?” Sarah complained. “Why am I the only one that has been affected?”

  “Who says you are?” Loryss asked from nearby.

  Sarah rounded on the griffin.

  “What? What was that? Has something happened to someone else?”

  “Perhaps you should ask your mate,” Loryss advised.

  “I don’t have to,” Sarah said, turning back to Steve. She watched him trudge out of the water. “He looks perfectly fine to…”

  She trailed off as Steve finally extricated himself out of the water. Her mouth closed with an audible snap. She held a hand to her mouth and tried to stifle a giggle.

  “Okay, maybe I don’t have it so bad.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asked as he stepped away from the pool.

  Sarah felt the heat pouring off of him as he walked by, proving that he was now working on drying his clothes. She shook her head. She could actually see the water lines receding from his shirt as the ambient temperatures continued to climb. By the time she made it to her husband’s side his clothes were dry.

  “Loryss is right. You didn’t make it out of that pool unscathed.”

  Steve held his hands up in front of them and turned them this way and that. Then he ran his hands over his arms and legs. Finding nothing she watched her husband run his hands through his hair. Confused, he met her eyes and shrugged.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t find a thing wrong.”

  Sarah spun her finger in the air.

  “Turn around. You’ll find the problem.”

  Steve rotated in place but was then yanked to a sudden stop, as if someone had tied a rope around his waist and anchored it to a tree. Confused, Steve twisted around to see that he had become attached to a tree. Kinda.

  He had a tail! A long skinny brown tail – attached to his own butt – had wrapped itself around the closest tree and was hanging on, as if for dear life. Steve stared stupidly at the tail. He followed it back with his eyes to verify again that it was physically attached to him. He even gave a few experimental tugs to see if it was someone’s idea of a bad joke.

  Sarah watched her husband wince in pain after giving his tail several more sharp tugs. No, it certainly wasn’t his imagination. Steve had a tail and it was real. And not cooperating, she thought with a giggle. From the way he was scowling at the tail she could tell that he wanted it to let go of the tree, only the tail didn’t seem to be getting the message.

  Steve looked over at her and saw that she was trying to suppress her laughter. He scowled, looked back at his tail, and tugged a few more times. He finally crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

  “Alrighty, Ms. Chuckles. You seem to think this is so damn funny. How do I make it let go?”

  “I could bite it off,” Loryss casually suggested.

  “Are you kidding me?” Steve sputtered, backing up against the tree in order to protect his newest appendage. “No biting, thank you very much. Sarah, stop laughing.”

  “I can’t help it,” Sarah wheezed out between breaths. “Your face is so funny!”

  “I didn’t laugh at you,” her husband pointed out.

  “Yes you did,” Sarah countered. “I could hear you.”

  “Check your hearing! I did not!”

  Sarah tapped the side of her head, “I heard it up here. Okay, all hysterics aside, can you tell it to let go? We have to get going?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to jump back in?” Steve asked, frowning as he looked at the pool. “We might be able to fix this.”

  “And we could very easily make it worse,” Sarah pointed out.

  “You want to go around looking like that?” Steve asked.

  “Not particularly, but we don’t have a choice. We don’t have time to deal with this. Besides, we’ve already wasted enough time as it is.”

  “I think I got the short end of the deal here,” Steve grumped.

  “You have a tail. I look like a cat. There’s no comparison who got it worse.”

  “I’d like to weigh in here,” a new voice disgustedly chimed in.

  Sarah’s eyes widened and she came to an abrupt stop. Thinian! The Fae had been in her pocket when she dove into the pool! Both she and her husband had been affected. What about him? Had anything happened to him? She waited until the griffins had looked away before opening her jacket to see about looking inside her pocket.

  “Thinian? Are you okay?”

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” came the Fae’s sour response.

  She felt movement inside her jacket. It felt as though the Fae was trying to extricate himself from the confines of her pocket but wasn’t having any luck. Her clothes were still wet and it was making movement difficult.

  A frog appeared, completely covered in warts. It stood up on two legs, comically crossed its front legs across its chest, and glared at Sarah with a look of utter disgust. The frog’s mouth opened but before Thinian could say anything, the vocal sac expanded and a loud ribbet escaped his mouth. Horrified, Thinian slapped his two amphibian appendages over his mouth. Sarah noticed her husband had stopped, cocked his head, and started to turn around. The frog leapt off her shoulder and back into the pool. Surprised, Sarah stared at the surface of the small pool and waited.

  “What was that?” Steve asked.

  “Umm…”

  “Come on. We need to catch up to the griffins.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  A few ripples appeared on the pool’s surface. A tiny form practically leapt out of the water, scrambled up her clothes, and dove headfirst into her inner jacket pocket. It
had happened so fast that Sarah had been unable to get a good look at what Thinian had become.

  “Thinian, are you –”

  “Do not concern yourself with me,” Thinian’s snapped. “I’ve dealt with far worse than this.”

  “But if you –”

  “Do you wish to help? Dry your clothes. I’m freezing in here.”

  Sarah motioned Steve over and quietly explained what she needed him to do. Less than two minutes later she was completely dry. Steve had tried – unsuccessfully – to persuade Thinian to come out so he could see for himself what the poor Fae had been transformed into, but he had been refused. Steve moved off, hurrying to catch up to the griffins. As soon as she was alone she gently prodded her pocket.

  “Better?”

  “Yes,” Thinian grumped.

  “So what do you look like now? Is it any better than the frog?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Thinian snapped from inside her pocket.

  “Will you come out here? No one is going to laugh at you.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Sarah caught up with the rest of the group in time to see Steve striking up a conversation with the griffins, who up until this point, had been very tight-lipped.

  “So, what are you in for?” Steve companionably asked. “What happened to you?”

  Both griffins turned their heads almost 180° to stare back at him. Loryss rustled her wings a few times, stretched them out, and then folded them flat against her back. Sarah thought for sure the griffin was going to ignore him, but surprisingly Loryss decreased her pace to allow Steve to walk beside her. The griffin sighed.

  “I’ve had time to reason things out. I was betrayed. Poisoned.”

  “How would one griffin go about poisoning another?” Steve asked.

  “I hadn’t been feeling well. Ceraeon had been bringing me various things to eat, all in an attempt to help me regain my strength. It was working. I was starting to feel better. I had fallen asleep and when I awoke I saw several freshly picked seedpods in the nest.”