neetha Napew - The Paths Of The Perambulator

Had he known what was coming, it’s doubtful the wizard would have voiced such confidence, for this was a perturbation so severe and unsettling, it seemed certain to drive them all mad before the world snapped back to reality again. All were affected. All save one.

Jon-Tom was not changed at all. Throughout the entire transformation he suffered nothing more than a momentary nausea. And while he could understand his companions’ distress from a philosophical standpoint, it was hard for him to empathize with their metamorphosis.

“Oh, God,” Dormas moaned, “this is too much! I—I don’t think I can handle it.”

“Easy, steady there.” It was clear Clothahump himself, despite his brave and defiant words of a moment ago, was more than a little shaken by the change that overcame them. “I know it’s bad, but we’ve come through worse.”

“No, we haven’t,” cried Sorbl. “Master, this is terrible! I can’t fly. I’ve lost my wings completely and I have these things instead.”

Indeed there was something particularly heart-wrenching about an earthbound owl, though Sorbl was no more or less severely altered than any of the others.

“As ‘eaven is me witness,” Mudge was muttering disconsolately, “if I gets back me old self again, I’ll never complain at wot fate ‘as in store for me. I’m one with Dormas on this, Your Sorcerership. I don’t know ‘ow long I can stand it.”

“We have no choice,” Clothahump told them grimly. “We have to stand it—somehow.” He stood there gritting his teeth, in itself a remarkable circumstance since turtles do not have teeth. But Clothahump had them now. So did Sorbl.

“Come on now.” Jon-Tom tried his best to cheer them. “It’s not all that bad. If you’ll just try relaxing, you might find yourselves getting used to it.”

“I’m gonna die for sure,” Dormas moaned. Her toughness and resilience had deserted her in the face of this newest nightmare.

“Get used to this?” said Colin. “I’d sooner pluck out my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at myself.”

“Yes, it’s easy for you to stand there calmly and mouth platitudes,” said a whimpering Sorbl. “You aren’t suffering as we are suffering.”

That much was true, Jon-Tom had to admit. Demonstrating an extraordinary and unprecedented selectivity, the perturbation had left him untouched, whereas his friends had been radically altered. Clothahump could now grit his teeth because for the first time in his life he had some. Sorbl was having to adjust to a body without wings. As for poor Dormas, she had to feel as if her whole skeleton had been wrenched sideways. It was a change they had been threatened with as children, and now they were experiencing it for real. Their worst nightmares had come true.

Each and every one of them had been turned into (it was almost too awful to say aloud) a human being.

There was Clothahump, holding his ground while furiously trying to recall some spell, any spell, that might restore them to their real selves. He had been transformed into a short old man with a long white beard, long hair, and a slightly smaller set of six-sided spectacles. He wore canvas pants and a tan safari jacket full of pockets. Only the eyes were the same, staring out from beneath a brow of hair instead of shell.

Next to him a strapping lady of fifty-five swayed awkwardly on her feet. She was six feet tall. Dormas hadn’t been broken by her pack load because it, too, had been changed, shrunk down to a single backpack, which hung from shoulder straps. Her hair was short and black, and her handsome, if terrified, face was lined and deeply tanned.

Then there was a short, slim teenager whose eyes darted wildly in all directions. Once he turned and ran toward a nearby tree while flapping his arms, until he realized anew that he was incapable of flight. The look in his yellow eyes was piteous to behold. Colin tried to comfort the distraught Sorbl. The koala’s attire was little changed from what he’d been wearing before the perturbation had struck. Black leather and metal studs, though altered to fit the body of a fullback. He stood five-nine and must have weighed a good two hundred and twenty pounds, Jon-Tom guessed, and all of it muscle. A perfect human analog of the little koala. He also had the face of a movie villain and eyes that glittered. It would have been an entirely intimidating personage if not for the retention, albeit furless, of grossly oversize ears.

And then there was Mudge. A man in his mid-thirties, thin and wiry. He wore his green cap and carried sword and longbow, both lengthened to fit his human form. Very impressive in his transformation, except for the fear in his face and the disgust in his voice.

“This is bloody awful, just bloody awful.” He held out both arms and had to fight to keep from shaking uncontrollably. “Look at this sickening, naked flesh. Not a ‘int o’ fur anywheres.” He twisted around to look behind him. “An’ no proper tail, either. Nothin’. A void where an expression ought to be.” He gazed pleadingly at Clothahump. “Tell us this ain’t goin’ to last much longer, sir.”

“You are no more anxious for a return to normalcy than I, water rat. If you feel naked and unprotected, consider for a moment the emotions I am experiencing.”

“It’s indecent,” Colin insisted. “Damn indecent. Enough to make a strong koala cry.”

“We’ve got to do something,” Dormas insisted. Her voice was clear, the phrasing elegant and little changed from her normal tone. “If I have to stay like this much longer, I’ll go crackers. I keep wanting to sit down on all fours as is right and proper, and this body doesn’t work like that. Look at these useless little things.” She displayed first her right arm, then the left. “Put the slightest upper body pressure on them and they’ll break, I know they will. The rest of you can go on about losing a little fur, but what about me? I can’t even walk properly.”

“What about me, what about these?” The teenager shook his arms at her. “Bats are naked, too, but at least they can fly. I’m grounded.” He started to sob.

“Take it easy,” Jon-Tom urged them. “We’ll be changing back soon.”

“Aye, an’ wot if we don’t?” Jon-Tom had to admit it was unsettling to find himself standing eye to eye with a swarthy older man and hear Mudge’s familiar voice issuing from his throat. It was nothing but a man standing before him. There wasn’t a hint of whisker or fur about the man’s face, and yet he knew it was Mudge. In addition to that unmistakable voice, there were the eyes, blue and challenging. It was fascinating to watch him move. There were all of Mudge’s little gestures and affectations, being played back at three-quarter speed.

“We can’t stay like this much longer, mate. An intelligent mind can take only so much.”

“I am trying,” Clothahump said earnestly. “I have been trying for the past several minutes, but it is difficult to design the parameters of a spell with all of you moaning and blabbering at once.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Jon-Tom plucked idly, thoughtfully, at his duar.

Mudge hastened to put a restraining hand on his friend’s wrist. “Be careful, lad. Don’t screw this one up. Make this perturbation’s effects permanent and you’ll ‘ave at least one death on your ‘ands, because I’ll surely kill meself if I’m forced to occupy this obscene guise forever.”

“Don’t worry, Mudge. Hey, I’m hot. Remember how I handled the fire?”

“Aye, and almost got yourself cooked in the bargain. Mess this spellsong up and I’ll barbecue you meself.” He removed his hand. “Bugger me though if I ain’t curious to see wot sort o’ song you can come up with to counter a catastrophe like this.”