Authors: Scott V. Duff
“No, sir, not exactly. I mean, there is brownie magic, but it is nothing like the caliber that you do, Sir Peter,” Ellorn said trembling. I could feel his disappointment mounting.
“First,” I turned and asked, “can you do magic?”
Jimmy shrugged. “Yeah, some. Marty’s been helping me, and Ian. Just some minor stuff till I get the hang of it. The faery magic comes naturally, though. I can just ‘see’ that working.”
“Interesting,” Kieran said cheerfully from above us. “I didn’t think that was possible. Seth, can we make that one of those things we keep under our hats, please? You have no idea how much trouble you’ll cause yourself if you let that out.” He was positively glowing his smile was so bright.
“Yes, Kieran,” I said, agreeing with his request. “But that’s not something you really have to worry about. Anything dealing with the geas of my people is deeply personal to all of us. Trust me, no one would speak of this to an outsider. And this will require an adjustment to the geas—nothing major though.”
I wasn’t sure how Peter saw the problem so quickly, but I was glad of it. The problem was, I didn’t know how to do it. Jimmy was an accident and the Garrison doesn’t really “use” magic as direct the magic of the geas, technically on loan from me. And I had to form a profile for other “elves” to follow as well. The profile had to be consistently passable from parent to child, just as the geas did. Genetics made that part easy since most of it was already coded in the Changed Ellorn already. I was going to have to wing it.
“Ellorn, I’m afraid the Palace can’t buffer you from this,” I said. “I’m going to have to increase how much of the world you see and it’s not going to be a pleasant experience. It will be extremely disorienting and overwhelming. It will probably feel like the world is crashing in on you. I need you to concentrate on me until you can see normally again. Okay?”
“Yes, Lord Daybreak,” Ellorn said, steeling himself for another attack on his mind.
Poor little guy, except he wasn’t so little anymore. I felt like I was ripping him to shreds for being too damn good but I wasn’t the cause of this. Well, directly… consciously. “Don’t worry, Ellorn. I’ll be with you all the time.” Gilán sang through the three Palace power forms in answer to my call as I meddled with Ellorn’s consciousness. All I could think to do was increase the volume, so I did and prayed it didn’t hurt him.
Ellorn literally blossomed before me as I slowly and purposefully changed how much of the universe he could comprehend. Starting with the multiply phasing sound of the magic of Gilán and following it with the sense of my aura, I steadily adjusted the geas by watching Ellorn. As long as he stayed calm and aware of me, his perspective on magic should stay at the level he saw. Then hopefully the geas template would handle the other thousand and some odd. If not, I get to do this some more. About the point where he could differentiate types of ley line energies, he started to get overwhelmed.
“Stay with me Ellorn. We’re very close!” I urged him, strengthening the communion bond and pouring as much of Daybreak’s fortitude as I possibly could to him. “You’re doing so well, Ellorn. Can you talk to me?”
“Y-yes, L-lord D-day-b-break,” Ellorn stammered heavily. “You are so-oo-oo bey-uuu-tee-fulll.”
I grinned at him and moved in a little closer. “Let’s keep that between us, okay? Too many people already think I’m gay because the only bar I’ll go to is the Mineshaft and my best friend is gay. If all my elves are in love with me too, what will everybody say?”
“Psth! Not… like that!” he slurred drunkenly, flailing an arm gently at me and bobbing his head. That forced me to move my hand from his shoulder and take ahold of his chin to keep his head still. Ellorn looked at me with a nearly human face, meeting my eyes the whole time and melted at my touch. “S’not se—tu-al.”
I giggled along with him, his voice now a high, boyish tenor. Slowing the expansion to a stop while he was distracted by talking to me, I looked around his mind and decided this was pretty much where he needed to be. At this point, he needed to make the transition from Ellorn the Brownie to Ellorn the elf-man.
You never cease to amaze me, Little Brother!
Ethan called across the anchor in my cavern.
You are actually
creating
a council-class wizard right before our eyes!
Ellorn’s not quite there yet and he’s half the equation, y’know,
I sent back, then said to Ellorn, “Stay with me, buddy. We’re almost there. Is the world still spinning?”
“A little, sir,” he said, breaking eye contact with me. He didn’t fall into overload, so it looked like this was working.
“That’s good. Eyes on me until it stops completely, please,” I said. “Then you can decide what you want to look like.”
“What? I can ‘decide’ what to look like, Lord?” Ellorn asked woozily, then he giggled. “I want blue hair, like you had the day the generals were here.”
“Okay,” I drawled, grinning. “Should all our elves have blue hair or just you?” Ellorn was coming into himself, a strange thing to think but there really wasn’t any other way
to
think of it.
“Oh, no, sir, not just me, but not everyone,” Ellorn said, shakily. “We should be dominated by the hair colors of you and your brothers with the blue, green, purple and red of that day thrown in for good measure.”
“Because you like the blue…” I murmured, grinning at him. He smiled rather sheepishly back. More strongly, I said, “Nothing wrong with that, Ellorn. I see no reason you can’t have blue hair. With your genetic structure as it’s written, you’re going to be about five foot eleven with my skin tone less the freckles. You’ll be thin unless you workout. And no matter what you do, you’ll still be adorably cute to me.”
“Lord…” Ellorn said demurely and blushed. I locked the geas template in place at that point. He was oscillating with his personality some, but this was a tiny tremor. The Palace energy form brought a mirror from one of my side rooms, setting it on a wide step for us. Jimmy and I helped Ellorn to his feet while the blue ectomorph pulled itself together.
I brushed the anchor to attract Ethan’s attention.
Now
I’ve created a council class wizard. This is supposed to be impossible?
And still I can whoop your ass. Quite the paradox, isn’t it?
Ethan sent back. He had a point.
“Why is the ground so far away?” Ellorn asked without taking his eyes from the steps. With over four thousand voices, even a small chuckle turns into a roar of laughter. The fact that we heard nothing told me the Palace was blocking the noises from us and probably the sights from Ellorn as well.
“The ground’s in the same place it always is, Ellorn,” Jimmy said. “You’re just a little further away from it than you’re used to bein’. Hey, Ellorn… Big hands, big feet…” Jimmy elbowed my formerly two-foot tall
major-domo
lightly in the ribs meaningfully, grinning. “You know what
that
means.” A chorus of snickers rose out of the Garrison, along with several catcalls and challenges to the myth. It only took seconds to cross into the faery side of the room where the joke fell flat. Elves would get it after some time, but the brownies didn’t.
“No, First, I don’t,” Ellorn said, looking in the mirror at Jimmy. “Is that bad? Should I ask for smaller hands? I don’t know what to do.”
“Your hands and feet are fine, Ellorn,” Peter said soothingly, entering the conversation gently. “First is making a bad joke that you aren’t culturally able to understand yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be whopping him on the back of the head with the rest of us.”
“He’d better not!” Jimmy muttered with a quick glare down at the “elf.”
“His hair is the first step, I think,” I said airily, changing his hair color instantly to the shade of blue I used that day. It was darker than the diamonds but when the light hit it gave off a sheen of that color. It was… striking—definitely take some getting used to. I left it thick, giving him a rakish look or a look of pure innocence, depending on how he cut and combed it. I was pretty sure he’d gravitate to “innocent” naturally. The Change began anew at a slower rate than the first time.
“What else, do you think?” Peter asked, admiring Ellorn’s growing figure in the mirror. “Ethan, any input?”
“I was getting there,” I whined quietly. Of course I would ask Ethan and Kieran. Together, they developed the body Ethan used now. If anyone had any thoughts on what that process might be like, Ethan would.
“Is his physiology consistent with how the other elves will mature?” Kieran asked. “Things like a height range, eye color, hearing range, sight range, that sort of thing.”
“Yep,” I answered, sliding an arm over Ellorn’s rising shoulders. “They’ll look human except for the ears and eyes. Of course, any medical-grade scan will spot the internal differences immediately, but from what I can see in the geas, my elves will be every bit as physically capable as Faery realm elves, both physically and magically.”
“His ribcage should be stronger and heavier, I think,” Ethan said. “They probably should drop a little lower in general considering where the heart is.”
“Heavier? Really? There’s a lot of sacrifice in doing that,” I said in warning, studying the template. “It’ll cut the number of live births down by at least two over the female lifetime if I increase the average per elf even two grams per side. It’s a massive sliding scale of proportions. It’s not a viable option, but, if they can learn to use breathing techniques to harden the pockets around their lungs, that would provide extra protection for the heart.”
“You seem to have thought of everything,” Dad commented, watching Ellorn wearily.
“You’re kidding, right?” I said, turning to him. “Actually, let’s talk about this a little later tonight.” He had other things on his mind that followed a similar vein.
“Are they immortal?” Peter asked.
“Just long-lived, like the other elves,” I said, shaking my head negatively.
“I don’t see any internal changes,” Kieran said. “Mostly because I’m not entirely certain what the changes that are already there will do. How is the ferrous content of the blood handled?”
“It’s ignored. Apparently, neither Gilán nor Daybreak are bothered by iron,” I said, shrugging.
“
That
is truly interesting for faery magic,” Kieran said. Dad took a real interest in it as well.
“It could be because of the nature of Gilán,” I said, drawing a circle in the air. “You can’t have one of these without a whole slew of elements, iron among them.”
“You mean your elves will be free of the Iron-Death?” Dad asked loudly, almost angrily.
“They already are,” I said, waving a hand back at the men of the Garrison. “Can we get back to Ellorn, please?”
“I dunno, Seth. He looks pretty damn good to me,” Jimmy said, circling around him and smacking him on the ass as he went. “Might want to work on those glutes, though.” Ellorn jumped, literally, three inches off the floor at the swat in shock.
“Yes, First! Immediately, First!” he cried out sharply, anxiously. “What’s a ‘glute,’ First?” My brothers, as tactful as ever, broke into gales of laughter, as did the Garrison, but the Palace was still blocking them.
“Your ass,” Jimmy answered between bursts of snickering. Ethan and Peter were barely holding him up, or barely trying, I couldn’t quite tell. All three of them were falling all over each other laughing.
“Relax, Ellorn. First was just being… himself, something you missed out on at two feet tall,” I said, squeezing his shoulders again. “Now you’ve seen close to four hundred men. Is there anything you’d like to change about yourself while we’re here? We don’t have much time left.”
“Shouldn’t I be taller?” he asked looking up at me. “The shortest adult elf I’ve seen is over eighty inches tall.”
“I can make you taller, Ellorn, over eighty inches, if you’d like, but there isn’t any ‘should’ to it,” I said. “Look at Ethan. He can whoop both Peter’s and my asses, and he’s four inches shorter than me. You’re in charge of the Palace. If you want to be more intimidating, that’s fine. I think you should just look in the mirror and say ‘How do I look? What would I like to change?’ and forget about what anyone else in the universe thinks.”
Ellorn chuckled and turned to the mirror. It saddened me greatly right then that I’d never hear his nerve-wracking squeals or high-pitched giggles again. He attacked the mirror’s image with a thousand minor changes a second, morphing himself at an amazing rate through hundreds of different forms. When he hit on one that made him look like a Faery elf, he stopped and held the image. Looking left and right at his soon-to-be brethren, he asked with a smile, “Haven’t they always seemed a bit creepy looking to y’all?” The Palace amplified his question for the whole room. He got a resounding “Yes” in return, in unison from everyone, followed by crash of laughs that turned into carousing on an epic scale on the faery side. The Palace tempered the noise on the dais but didn’t cut it off, so we weren’t deafened.
Ellorn kept going while the brownies played in the background of his mirror.
Peter looked down Ellorn’s body and asked, “What about simple cosmetic changes? Your beard?”
Ellorn made a very subtle nod to the mirror, so Peter turned sharply around him, sliding his left hand around Ellorn’s head and forcing Ellorn to take him by the hips and under the blanket. His reflection had a blue beard with mustache with a month’s growth. There had to be fifteen shades of blue in there. “Good, and a treasure trail?” he asked as he drew his hand seductively down Ellorn’s naked chest, rubbing where it should be thickest, I think. My little man was getting felt up and I was letting it happen—what kind of father was I? The image changed: the pectorals were back with some chest hair filled in.