The creature grew in size again, and Serreg slipped through its outstretched arms and fell. Looking down, he saw the ridge slope clearly, and he knew an impact was coming. He pinwheeled his arms to right himself, hit the ground hard, and tumbled and slid for more than thirty feet before coming to an abrupt and painful stop against a bush.
He looked up. The abyssal monstrosity writhed in the air, black blood dribbling down its side. It turned toward him, bellowing in its singular voice, and Serreg tightened his grip on the dagger. Thankfully, he hadn't lost his grip on it when he fell. The beast moved toward him, but then abruptly deflated of menace and sank a few feet toward the ground. The arms started to retract, then grew limp. Its barbed tail swished a few times back and forth, then quivered and was still.
His dagger held defensively in front of him, Serreg moved back up the rocky slope. The beast hung above the ground, dead, yet still suspended seven feet in the air. Its arms dangled and bloody drool oozed its way out of the grotesque mouth, but the tail was still raised.
Serreg inspected the creature-as much as he could without getting too close. He saw the gaping wound his stinger had left, saw the single scratch on one of the wrists from his claw. The blood from the mouth attested to his first dagger thrust.
Odd that I can see so clearly in the dark, he thought.
He looked down at his hand. It was a hand all right, but not human-rougher, more powerful. His clothes were his, somewhat the worse for wear though nonetheless the robes of an archwizard, but they no longer fit properly.
His callused fingers found a wide face with low cheekbones and a sloping forehead. Small tusks sprouted from his mouth under a snotty nose.
"An orc?" he said, his voice muddy and unrefined. "Well, at leasht I can shpeak."
He cast a subtle detection spell, and discerned that the evil creature's concealing weave still stood. Confident that the others were unaware of the monstrosity's demise, Serreg limped back down the ridge, his dagger dangling from one tired hand.
He turned westward, doubling back on his original flight, hoping that the other things would search for him farther east. He increased his speed from a stagger to a walk, then to a jog, and even a bit better than that. Trotting along, he found he rather appreciated his orc body. His eyes pierced the darkness easily. The pain in ribs and wrist impeded him less than he expected; perhaps an orc's nervous system was partially inured to pain. He loped along at a good clip without getting appreciably winded. His muscles were tireless and his piggy snout with wide, flaring nostrils was ideally suited to bring in large quantities of air. True, the constant dribble of snot affronted his cultured upbringing, but he would happily endure that disgrace to get farther away from those nightmarish beasts.
He moved throughout the hours of darkness, ever to the west, finding a good steady pace he could maintain for hours. As he trotted, he contemplated the dagger in his hand and the position it had put him in, somehow blaming the dagger for his plight more than he blamed the hulking beast it had killed for him.
That the blade was priceless went without saying. It was a gift from a god-a god!-and though no one would ever believe the tale, its powers were unquestionable. It had slain a hulking brute that his magic hadn't even singed, and it had changed his shape, what, three times already? If only he could learn how to control it, what power he would have! Soar up to Karsus Enclave on the wings of a nighthawk, sneak through the city streets as a cat, change to a gnat to penetrate a gap in any locked window-there was a thought! A gnat with the intelligence and magical powers of an archwizard! No secret would be safe. All those other archwizards, scheming and plotting against Delia, trying to destroy his enclave and his people, their secrets would be exposed, their plans foiled! But it all depended on that damnable dagger….
Serreg tried to force the weapon to change his shape for him. He tried every incantation he knew, and as many religious supplications as he could bring to mind or invent. He expressed the desire as a wish, a command, and a bargain; verbally, mentally, and to the best of his ability, kinesthetically. He tried drawing his own blood with the blade to activate the ability, as well as spitting on it, sweating on it, kissing it, and eventually, cursing at it. Nothing worked.
By daybreak, after a full night's run and endless hours spent beating his will fruitlessly against the magic blade, Serreg was ready to quit. He'd survived those monsters he had unwittingly unearthed, so why bother with this thrice-damned intractable item anymore? His tired brain could think of no reason. He'd just throw the blade, sling it hard, get it away from him, be done with it. The dagger seemed to squirm in his grasp. He clenched his fist tight, cocked his arm, took a deep breath-
And stopped.
He couldn't throw it away. He was still an orc.
His shoulders sagged, and he sat heavily on the ground, head drooping in defeat.
Until he figured out how to change himself back into a human, he had to keep the blade. So long as he was an orc, any human he met would kill him on sight. The two races had been warring for three millennia already, and they wouldn't stop just for him. He had no magic left to teleport to his laboratory, and even if he did, the other mages would roast him alive. He'd be overwhelmed. And he certainly wasn't going to stoop so low as to try to move in with an orc tribe. He had to keep the dagger until he discovered how to make it work for him, instead of just working on him.
But that would have to wait for later. He was tired, injured, and the sun was too bright. So thinking, he lay back, flung his left arm over his eyes, and fell asleep, his right hand clutching the dagger to his chest.
He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, nor why he felt the sudden need to roll, hard, but he did so, only to see the tip of a spear imbed itself firmly in the dirt a scant few inches in front of his eyes.
He heard someone yell, "You jackass! You woke it up!" and a grunt as the spear was pulled out of the ground into the too-bright sky.
Hunters, militia, a stray farmer, Serreg didn't know. He didn't even have a clear idea where in Netheril he was.
But he knew his life was in mortal danger. His orc glands fired amazing amounts of adrenaline into his system, giving his senses such sensitive clarity that his ears rang in pain. The battle frenzy was a new sensation to the normally intellectual archwizard, one he was neither mentally nor emotionally, prepared for. Forgetting his magical training, he leaped to his feet bellowing a mighty battle cry. He saw a silhouette nearby, dark against the painful blue sky, with a spear held defensively. Serreg charged. orc instinct, or perhaps an ingrained warrior's training granted by the dagger, urged Serreg to roll under the spear. He dived, tumbled forward, and his feet came back in under him. Serreg lunged upward again, the full weight of his body and force of his legs burying the dagger deep into the hapless human's abdomen. Serreg heard him grunt in pain-
And the archwizard was in an entirely different world.
A great shapeless mass moved slowly toward him, so Serreg slid gracefully aside to let it pass. His mind expanded freely, seeing everything all around, as if his entire being was a single pupil designed to take in the whole world.
This is interesting, thought Serreg, hanging effortlessly in space a great distance above the surface of the world.
A baritone thunder rolled through the air, but Serreg saw that the sky was a cloudless blue, so he flew closer to the sources to investigate.
He was tiny.
Four towering hunters stood with spears, moving slowly as though through water. One was falling, doubled over, and Serreg saw drops of blood dripping from his belly, gracefully descending to the ground. On a whim, Serreg zipped under the dying hunter, weaving his narrow body between the crimson orbs as they fell.
Serreg flew up and hovered high above the hunters as he analyzed the situation. He found that he could inspect his body without turning his head, which was good, since it appeared he could hardly turn his head at all. A rapier-thin emerald thorax extended out behind him, and six legs dangled beneath. His four wings made a steady swoosh-swoosh sound as he absentmindedly flapped them. The perspective was a hard one, actually being an insect instead of studying one impaled upon a silver pin, but it did appear that he was a dragonfly.
And the dagger? Where was it?
He scanned his feet, but saw nothing. But then, right in front of his eyes, he saw a glint of steel. One of his mandibles, of course. He still had his weapon.
He checked the hunters again. One tended to his fallen comrade. The others looked around nervously, wondering to where the orc had vanished. Serreg would have smirked, had he been able to with his chitinous jaws. Instead, he turned back toward the west, keeping a careful watch for any predatory swallows or tree frogs.
As a dragonfly, Serreg didn't feel like he was going particularly fast, but he dismissed that to the apparent dilation of time and the very real dilation of the world. He knew he was out flying the best speed he could have made as a human. But what bothered him as he continued on his way, was how he would eat.
He started to feel a gnawing hunger. Had it been minutes or hours that he'd been a dragonfly? Serreg had no way of knowing. The hunger felt,different as an insect than it did as a human, a simpler sensation, but hunger just the same. And he had no idea what dragonflies ate.
Insects to him were pests to be swatted, or specimens to be inspected in a gallery, or a jar full of parts in an apothecary's lab. Beyond that, he'd never bothered with them. So what did insects eat? He thought about it, then decided he'd have to test potential foods. He knew different insects ate the pollen from flowers, others ate the plants themselves, and some even ate other insects. He also knew some ate dead animals or other, more repugnant substances, but he willfully neglected to pursue those lines for the moment.
He touched down on a stalk of wild grass waving in the breeze. It didn't look appetizing, but he tried to bite it anyway.
Nothing.
He flew farther until he found a wildflower, glowing brightly to his dragonfly eyes, but again, it didn't look appealing, he had no idea how exactly to bite it, and when he did manage something, it just wasn't right.
So he turned toward attacking insects. He lunged at a grasshopper, but it was far too large to handle. A gnat was too small to catch, and a fly too fast. Finally, he managed to catch a small fluttering insect-he didn't even know what it was called-and crushed it in his jaws. The meal filled his mouth-
For a split second. He found himself sitting on his haunches, surveying the landscape from a sizeable elevation. He drew his lips into a self-satisfied sneer, smearing a small insect across one jagged fang. He swiveled his head to look at the world from this new perspective, but his eyes did not really see anything. His attention turned inward, feeling the raw power that coursed through his veins. He stretched out his great leathery wings, and gave an experimental beat. He drew a deep breath into his cavernous lungs, and exhaled a stream of pungent acid.
Oh, yes. He was a dragon.
And he was hungry.
He sniffed the air, catching the musky scent of wild oxen on the breeze. His eagle-sharp eyes saw them half a mile away. They hadn't noticed his sudden transformation. No surprise, it's not every day that a dragonfly becomes a dragon. He folded his wings, and stalked them, catlike, through the grass. The herd startled at the noise of his approach. Serreg roared and took wing, moving like a thunderclap, low, heavy, and powerful. He circled the herd once, then struck the largest of the beasts with his lethal breath, liquefying its head as it ran.
He landed with a flurry of wings and a heavy thud as the herd stampeded away, screaming in animal panic. Serreg walked up to his kill and raised one paw to rend the meat when a glint of steel caught his eye. The foreclaw on his right front leg shone in the sun, carved with elegant glyphs.
The dagger.
His superior dragon intellect immediately understood: every time heti stabbed something, the dagger changed him.
Carefully Serreg set that black-scaled foot back down, and worked on the carcass with his other leg and his formidable teeth. He'd had no idea how much he would enjoy cracking bones between his jaws. Maybe it was part of being a dragon, or maybe he'd finally tapped into a heretofore unreachable part of his soul. Whichever the case, Serreg liked it.
The ox devoured, Serreg sat for a moment and contemplated the sky. Just as the dawn had driven away the darkness, so too had the day replaced the horrors of the past night with a bright new future. Life was looking good. Let those vile creatures sap the strength of the enclaves. Serreg didn't need them anymore.