Nigel Findley - Into the Void

"Did it work?" Teldin asked.

Estriss was silent for a moment, then asked, What do you feel? His mental tone was emotionless, noncommittal.

The illithid's intense scrutiny was making Teldin uneasy. He shifted on the edge of the bunk. "I think I felt something," he said slowly, "but I'm not sure. It could have been my imagination."

How do you feel now? Estriss pressed. Warm? Cold?

Teldin paused. Now that the mind flayer mentioned it, he did feel as if the temperature in the cabin had dropped a couple of degrees. Plus, he felt the thin, somehow edgy feeling he always associated with not enough sleep or not enough to eat. "Slightly cool," he replied at last. "Estriss, did it work?"

Estriss didn't answer immediately, and that was answer enough. Teldin raised a hand to his face, ran his fingers over his nose and cheek….

And snatched his hand away with a stifled cry. It wasn't his face that he'd touched. The nose was broader, tie cheekbones less pronounced. Even the texture of the skin was different. The sensations from his fingers were as if he'd reached out and touched someone else's face, yet the nerves of his face felt his exploring fingers as if nothing at all were amiss. The combination of the prosaic with the alien was shocking-terrifying at some deep level of his being. He sprang to his feet and looked around the cabin for something he could use for a mirror.

Estriss had anticipated his need. The illithid had removed a thin disk of finely polished silver metal from a drawer in the desk and now handed it to Teldin without a word.

Teldin held the mirror at chest level for a few heartbeats. He knew what he was going to see; there would be no surprise. How would it feel to see someone else's face in place of his? How would he react? He took a deep breath and raised the minor.

The biggest shock was that there was no real shock. The face in the polished silver was Aelfred's, there was no doubt about that, but emotionally it had little real impact. It was as if Aelfred was standing beside him and Teldin was holding the mirror at such an angle that it reflected the other man's face. He raised his hand to his cheek again.

That's when the shock struck him, almost powerfully enough to make him drop the mirror. It was the juxtaposition of the familiar and the bizarre again. The muscles of his arm and hand told him that he was raising his hand to his own face. The mirror told him he was reaching for Aelfred's face. The reassuring falsehood that the face in the mirror somehow wasn't associated with his body was shattered. He clenched his jaw to stop himself from whimpering with atavistic dread. In the mirror, Aelfred's face mimicked the movement.

A touch on his shoulder made him jump. Estriss's hand squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. With an effort, Teldin brought his jumbled emotions a little more under control. "I'm all right," he said quietly. Surprisingly, his voice sounded steady in his own ears. He examined the face in the mirror again, this time trying to be more critical and less emotional in his reactions.

There was something wrong with the image, he realized at once-apart from the total wrongness of his wearing the wrong face, of course. The individual features seemed correct, almost perfectly matching his memory of Aelfred, but there was something else, and it took him several moments to recognize it. The face was Aelfred's, but the neck and shoulders beneath it were Teldin's. Aelfred's head was large-in keeping with the rest of his body-and his neck was thick and muscular. In the mirror, the warrior's big head sat atop Teldin's relatively slender neck.

He felt his neck with his fingers. At least there was no discontinuity there; his neck felt the way it always had. Can I change it? he wondered. He closed his eyes and started to concentrate on rebuilding his mental image of Aelfred-the neck too, this time.

The illithid's grip on his shoulder tightened, breaking into his concentration. He opened his eyes again.

Estriss was distressed, that was obvious from the jerky movements of his facial tentacles. No, his mental voice said urgently. Do nothing more, not for the moment. Let us move slowly. Tell me again, what do you feel?

Teldin quickly gave himself a mental once-over. The sense of cold, of somehow being stretched- that was the only way he could describe it, even to himself-was still there. Maybe it was slightly more noticeable. He described the sensation to Estriss.

The mind flayer nodded thoughtfully. Km are sensing the drain, he mused. You are contributing energy to the process. Estriss considered for a moment. The shapechange appears to testable, he went on. Tell me, are you concentrating on maintaining it?

"I don't think so," replied Teldin.

Relax, Estriss instructed. Let go. Let the change slip away.

Obediently, Teldin took a deep breath, held it for a few heartbeats, then released it slowly. He felt tension drain out of his neck and shoulders. He repeated the process again, this time concentrating on relaxing his mind as well as his body, then he raised the mirror. Aelfred's face still looked back at him, and he felt a twinge of fear. What if he couldn't reverse the change? What would he do? "Estriss… ?"

You are right, the illithid remarked, you do not need to concentrate on the new shape to maintain it. It must require an act of will to return to your normal form. That is good.

"But how do I do it?" Teldin snapped.

Try this, Estriss replied at once. Visualize Aelfred's features melting may to reveal your own.

Teldin shut his eyes. He took another calming breath to slow his pounding heart a little, then let the image of Aelfred develop once more in his mind. This time it was much easier, and he was amazed at how quickly the details established themselves. It must be the cloak that's doing this, he found himself thinking, I don't have that good a memory for details.

As Estriss had suggested, he imagined Aelfred's features melting away-becoming transparent and running away like water. Instantly his own, familiar features started to reappear in his mental image. The eyes became blue once more, the hair brown, the bone structure more slender. As his own face appeared, he realized that this felt quite different from when he'd had to first create a mental picture of himself. Then he'd been building up the features from nothing. Now it felt as though the features were already there, independent of his will, and he was merely revealing them. There was no sensation of power this time, not even the hint of it. Instead he felt the cold, stretched feeling fade and eventually vanish. He opened his eyes.

Fascinating. The illithid's voice was a mental whisper.

Teldin raised the mirror and found himself looking into his familiar bright blue eyes. He smiled with relief, and the smile in the mirror was his own.

How do you fed now? Estriss asked.

"Fine."

Are you not tired?

Teldin hesitated. "A little tired, I suppose," he said, "as though I'd walked a few miles." He hesitated. "What does it look like?" he asked suddenly. "The change…"

It looks… unusual, Estriss answered. Your face appears to be concealed by a gray haze, similar to a smudge on a painting. When the haze vanishes, the change is complete. It was the illithid's turn to hesitate. I will admit, he said slowly, that I am glad for the haze. The sight of your features rearranging themselves-openly, without concealment-would, I think, be highly disturbing to me. He shook himself, as if to drive away an uncomfortable thought or image. Will you perform one more test for me?

"What is it?"