From alt.pub.dragons-inn Wed Dec 7 09:38:46 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7940 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.moneng.mei.com!uwm.edu!caen!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!leggy.zk3.dec.com!orb!not-for-mail From: hutch@ibeam.jf.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [KAN] A Year and a Day -- part 3 Date: 7 Dec 1994 07:24:14 -0000 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 702 Sender: news@Orb.Nashua.NH.US Message-ID: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL11] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This story is copyrighted 1994 by Stephen Hutchison. 'Raelf is my own creation, and Raphael was created by Bernie Hsiung and is used with his permission. Permission is granted for the distribution of this story on the usual alt-net channels and for archival but all other rights, including repost, are reserved to the author(s). A month ago in the real world, I posted the first two parts of this story. In them, 'Raelf had started a last-chance ritual to heal himself from the temporal fragmentation he suffered a year before. Meanwhile ar'Elya and Kadrys were looking at the pictures from her son. For us it's been a month. For 'Raelf, only an hour has gone by. ==--== The place where the stars do their dance is a deep blue floor lit with the silver radiance of the dancers. To the neophytes in the arts of magic, this is a place of deep mystery and mystic import. To the high priests and the advanced mages and wizards this is the place where the careful observer and worshipful supplicant can learn the Greater Secrets -- but only by watching the dance, for the careless or reckless watcher can tread by mistake into the paths of the dance, and be swept away by the stars, into their complex and fathomless forms and gyrations, and the luckiest of these are only destroyed forever. The unfortunate, the star-cursed, become stars themselves, and the most afflicted sometimes, horribly, become like gods. Sometimes, rarely, a wizard or a theurge has turned away from the dance and moved onward, higher. They eventually come to a place that is as far above the Place of the Dance as that ballroom is above the terrestrial world. It is filled with a pale silvery blue radiance, lit from below, and above are the walls of the world. Floating here in the infinite nowhere, if you know how to find it, there is a haven of solidity. In that haven, a feather bed and a maple stand with a gramophone and a comfortable chair, and a dark-stained cherry wardrobe holds a dozen dozen brightly colored dresses and a box, and the box holds bells and pinwheels and fireworks and a rag doll, four silver coins and a bottle with a sprayer filled with the smell of roses or lilacs or daisy or the incense burned in thanksgiving at the birth of a long-wanted babe, and much more. But there isn't anyone there in the haven. The place of Healing and Joy is abandoned -- for Joy is below, not in the Dance but in the hearts of those blessed among man, and the Healer is at the home of a sick friend. -=-=-=-=- Raphael touched the sleeping 'kan with his staff. The serpent on the staff reached down with his tongue and tasted the air that came from the creature's nose, and curled back, unconcerned. The touch of the staff woke the sleeper. "You're healed." Raphael was half-laughing. <> "You are healed, 'Raelf." <> The 'kan opened his eyes. He sat up, and winced, and closed his eyes again. He was in the middle of a complex diagram, surrounded by a bubble of space that mimicked the place of his birth. Maybe forty times in a minute, the elements of fire and air, water and earth and void that blend to form the world, would flex, and change, and stop blending for a moment, or one would take primacy over the others and the sphere would become like the Elemental planes. But it never lasted long. "You look different," Raphael said. <> 'Raelf said, without opening his eyes. "You're more than three times your former size, for one thing." Raphael crouched down and stared across the bubble, examining his patient. 'Raelf was still a whirl of changing elemental flows with a twelve-dimensional crystal at the center. That, at least, was still the same, even though the outside had changed. He was still a humanoid feline. Raphael pulled his staff out of the circle and shook off the drops of fire that had collected on the end. 'Raelf inhaled slowly, then exhaled. <> He still didn't open his eyes, but instead, he assumed a sort of meditative posture. "Timing? Oh, right on the edge. If we'd gone another minute it would have been a year and two days, and the ritual wouldn't have worked at all. Were you expecting your fur to change?" 'Raelf flinched. <> "Well, yes. Before you were a tenor and now you're a bass," Raphael answered. "Will you want a mirror? Joy gave me one." He pulled a hand-mirror out of his robe where it could not have been. <> 'Raelf opened his eyes and Raphael watched him. <> the 'kan said hesitantly. He combed the newly grown new mane back off his eyes, and touched the black tips of each ear. His muzzle had grown longer, and he pushed on it to no avail. <> he said dubiously, "Especially if it doesn't slow me down. I can even handle the metallic gold fur, and the long mane is cool, even if the rest of it is too bloody long. If I shed the alchemists'll be after my furniture. And I think I approve of the siamese pattern.>> He looked at his jet-black paws, flexing the long silver razorclaws in and out. <> He snarled into the mirror, showing shining silver dagger fangs. <> He looked at his eyes and blinked, twice. He frowned and growled. "I sense a reservation about something," Raphael whispered. <> 'Raelf grinned. The healer laughed. After a moment he remembered himself and continued the checklist. "Do you feel any instability? Any urge to split yourself?" <> He paused and felt his face. <> "How about the Gifts?" Raphael persisted. <> "You tell me." Raphael sat down on a convenient driftwood log that hadn't been there a moment ago. <> "You have to decide that yourself." 'Raelf continued looking at his body, grooming the back of his hand then bringing his tail around. <> -<>- 'Raelf's ears went flat. <> -<>- Raphael laughed at the voice and 'Raelf shrugged. <> he grinned. <> -<>- "Don't you worry about someone else getting in here and messing with your household ... servant?" <> 'Raelf said. -<>- <> 'Raelf growled. <> "There was only minor loss to entropy. Some of you was ... spent, in the process of becoming. This fits with the parameters of the ritual, as written. Minimal waste so that you could survive in the event that the recombination failed. Your elemental configuration is what I would be most interested in seeing right now." <> -<>- <> "'Raelf?" Raphael touched the sphere with a faint chiming. The 'kan looked up from flexing his claws in and out. <> He stood. <> The sphere of colors vanished. 'Raelf looked around himself, and inhaled. <> He vanished in a gout of flame, which coalesced into Kev, age 16. <> A tornado of cold air, Kev was gone, and the tornado contracted into Miro, who fell to his knees and grabbed his head. <> Water sprayed in from the pounding surf, and at its touch Miro dissolved, and the pool of water shaped itself into Lex, who was choking and coughing. <> Lex crumbled into dust and 'Raf pushed up from under the sand. << ... field on at .3>> 'Raf flickered back into 'Raelf as the beach flashed into colors. Raphael extended his wings and rode the turbulence. <> "WhaTW aas thaT ALl abOut?" Raphael said, then blinked -- his voice was echoing strangely as the air changed around him. <> 'Raelf shrugged apologetically. He stood up, holding his arms out slightly to the side, and began to glow from underneath. A chord sounded from nowhere, faint at first but growing increasingly louder, until the 'kan's fur was visibly shaking with the vibrations. Abruptly, the glow spread and 'Raelf turned translucent, with faint glyphs illuminated from inside. Raphael examined them closely, then waved his hand in front of 'Raelf's face. The light and sound show collapsed and the gold-furred catman sagged to his knees. "THey lOOk PerRFecctltly baLAnCeD. WHAt happenED?" <> Raelf stood up. "THe hICouGHS wERen'T ExpECTeD?" Raphael asked, intrigued. <> "MMayBE. WannT Too ttrY YOur GiFTs?" Raphael choked slightly as the environment was momentarily cast into the depths of Earth. <> "TheYY WerE Tiied INTo thE EEelemENTTTal noDes." Raphael coughed, and tried to clear his ears with the feather tip of one wing. <> 'Raelf suddenly grinned. The beach was the bottom of the sea. A crab rode by, on a Nautilus shell drawn by oversized sea horses. It stuck an eyestalk out at Raphael and hurried off on whatever business a crab would have. "This is very strange," Raphael said. Bubbles floated out of his mouth and swirled in all directions. <> 'Raelf said. <> "I can't see into you while you're doing whatever it is you're doing. Could you describe the settling-down process please?" He floated up from the "bottom" and relaxed. <> "It was focussing almost all your spare energies through each Gift before. You should be able to do that but it will require more work now." Raphael spread one wing out and used it to swirl himself in a circle in the water. <> The catman floated up into a lotus position, and a gentle current of water began flowing from him. After a second he inhaled sharply and shook his head. The current stopped. <> 'Raelf said, and with a flicker, the watery surroundings returned to the normal beach scene. Raphael drifted back down to the sand. <> "Thank you," Raphael said, quietly dignified. He pulled his wing back in against his body. "I recommend that you spend a few days getting accustomed to this new elemental balance before you try to revert to any non-'Kan shapes." <> Raphael frowned. "You could hurt yourself. You're not stabilized. Can't you wait and recover, then time travel backwards on your way to your home?" 'Raelf blinked, slowly. <> "Then, go as slow as you can. Don't push yourself." <> He began to pace back and forth, and stopped to shake the sand off his feet. <> he growled. <> "I think I'll watch for a few minutes," Raphael said, dubiously. <> 'Raelf purred. <> -<>- The beach gradually shifted into fire. The sands were coals, the air became flame, the ocean molten plasma. Raphael winced, wings starting to extend. <> 'Raelf said. <> The Healer relaxed. He stood in a bubble of normalcy in the midst of the elemental fire around them. "Thank you. I was rather tired, creating the last two Gifts took some work." <> 'Raelf crackled, looking vaguely into the surroundings. He contracted in on himself, and Kev stood in the middle of the flames, a teenaged boy with eyes of firey amber. <> he crowed. Something changed. The fire was different -- no longer constant flux, it was becoming crystalline. Kev expanded back out into 'Raelf-in-natural-form. The waves became a surge of something crackling and breaking, the noise incredible outside the protection of the sphere. "_What's_Happening?_" Raphael shouted. <> 'Raelf answered. He glinted, as the air around him suddenly changed to crystal. It began shattering as he moved, reforming behind him. After a moment he shrank again, a little, and changed into 'Raf, but different. He was mostly human in shape, with a mane of yellow gold hair that almost hid the horns on his head, and he had a lion's tail, and hairy catlike legs leading to paws, not to hooves. <> he rumbled. <> "_What_Is_Your_" Raphael shouted, but the noise suddenly stopped half way into his sentence, "template?" he finished, smiling wryly. <> he said, slowly standing on his hands and letting the crystal "air" hold him up. <> The crystal shimmered twice, and suddenly it was liquid; they were surrounded by Water. 'Raf frowned, and blinked. His eyes closed, forest-green crystal, and opened again, the pale grey green of ocean surf, and he was completely human, but not as large as 'Raf. <> he said. <> and he dolphin-kicked forward to float in front of Raphael in his bubble of normalcy. "Your name in this shape is different," Raphael noted. "It used to be more ... apt, to call you Lex, though that's not your truename. Now it seems like you should be Dave." <> Dave shook his hair, which floated around his face like seaweed. <> Raphael smiled. "I think he'd like almost anything you did." <> He concentrated, pressing his hands over his eyes, and expanded back into 'Raelf's feline form. <> In response, the water began to swirl around him, filling with bubbles, more and more turbulent until all that was left was froth, then spray, then clouds, all around 'Raelf, who stood unconcerned on the turbulent white mist. There was nothing solid around except the two of them, and the beach that stayed under Raphael's feet. He looked over the edge along the bottom curve at the mist, and the infinite extent of air along one side. "This could be disconcerting," he said. The snake on his staff curled tighter and nudged his hand. <> 'Raelf contracted again, hair going red, and his fur vanished into skin that kept the same gold tones, without the metallic gleam. <> he said, his voice carrying an Elvish lilt. Raphael nodded. "Each elemental node is tied to the persona that you had originally carrying the element in your battle." <> He picked up a bit of the fog and started to shape it into a duck. <> "If it's comfortable, don't push it. It should loosen up with time, as you finish healing." Raphael picked up his staff from the ground, and stroked the serpent's nose. <> The air began to darken. "You should be seeing it about now," Raphael smiled. "Just let yourself do what feels right." The darkness was suddenly filled with stars, and pale blue lines running between them tracing out the constellations. The cloud that Miro stood on was no longer a cloud; it was a whirling mass of coherent images, the dreams of insects and small animals. Miro closed his eyes, the green of sunset, and opened them a black the depth of obsidian. Raphael's smile grew wider as the elf blurred and refocussed, taller, more stretched, an abstract idea of gold laid over strength, whirling in balance, curious and footloose. He coalesced, crystalline ideas from the whirl of nothing. He was tall, something like human, skin deep brown just short of black, hair long and white-gold and somewhat shaggy, limbs stretched out but powerful and lithe and sleek and moving with unconscious grace. <> The world around them was dark - the stars had receded to the distant idea of sky, and the beach was stylized, explicit only where Raphael stood. The notion of waves tumbled against the edges of the beach, and the murmur of thoughts stirred the large palm leaf fractal imagery on the minimal abstract trees that reached towards the figurative stars. He looked up at Raphael. <> He extended perception around him again, examining the new body. It was taller than any he usually wore, more than two meters, with an angular face that was almost elvish. He had broad, high cheekbones, large, almost canted eyes, ears that were slightly pointed. His nose was sharp, roman, but stopped just short of aquiline. The mouth was wide, the smile somewhat sharp with teeth that were very white and strong, the canines longer than a dentist would approve of, but short of being true fangs. <> he repeated. "You seem to have formed a balance, the mixture of your self-images." Raphael was smiling wide, delighted with some private joke. <> He laughed, a sort of deep chiming. "This is part of it. In a while you'll learn the rest." <> He quirked a smile when Raphael shook his head no. <> "I'll stay and watch in case something comes undone. 'Raelf, I have a question." Raphael began to pace back and forth on the beach. The sand sparkled and spoke beneath his feet. <> "I'm at a loss to know how to ask this. Is what we just did, the blending of six separate and distinct people, a usual and common thing?" <> "Seldom so outwardly visible a merger." <> "Certainly. I know _how_ you eat, but not _why_, and I'm curious." Raphael stopped pacing for a moment, while 'Raelf stretched out on the theoretical sand. <> 'Raelf grinned, pulling a panpipe from the aether and playing a quick tune. <> he said. Raphael applauded slowly. "That seems to be only part of the story though." <> "And David was one of those." Raphael scratched distractedly at his head, almost audible pieces of the puzzle falling together around him. "You gave me just fragments of memory in your stay inside me, and I never understood the details of that joining." <> Raphael nodded. "That explains some anomalies then. Could you tell me about each of the people who went into you as you are now." <> "But you, uh, he decided to stay with you." <> "I believe I recall that." <> "And even knowing that he tried to take over the Empire of Raoh you accepted him?" 'Raelf's eyes opened and his voice held a tone of protest. <> "Please, go on." Raphael moved to the other side of the 'kan and continued his nervous pacing. <> "And that leaves 'Raf?" <<'Raf, well, we figured out that he's what Dave would have been if he'd been born a satyr. The "mix" stuck him with all of the satyr personality fragments, but they really fit together well. Anyway, I also always wanted back into the mainline. But you forgot one more. The Void partner. The capstone, the "me" who spent a month or so resting inside your head.>> "I'm ... sorry about that. I know you wanted to rejoin, but there was so much I was learning from him, about being my own person, about living this new existance I've chosen." <> 'Raphael nodded. "You're welcome. It was needed for the healing." 'Raelf sat up, long arms reaching out to wrap around long legs. <> "Just keep your eyes open," Raphael laughed. "One last question I have to ask you, about this composite, and the new balance between selves that you've formed. Is this, are _you_, really who you want to be?" <> He held up a dark-brown hand in front of his face. <> Raphael nodded impatiently. "Yes, but that's not what I meant. Have you, the essential you, become what you want to be?" He waited. <> 'Raelf stood. Raphael shrugged, allowing his wings to show. He took 'Raelf's hand in a formal handclasp. "There's nothing more I can do for you then. You know what you are now. You need to rediscover who you are, but you're well enough equipped for that task. Would you like me to remain, do you need company?" <> The wings unfurled again and Raphael vanished across the concept of distance, disappearing into the notion of "outside". 'Raelf hung suspended for a moment. Everything was still there, he remembered in intimate detail six lives. He felt the flicker of power at his heart, knew that he could damp it or increase it, and what that would cost him in the long run to do either. There was no mental chatter, which was a relief after the effort he'd been forced to make the last few months to keep himself from fragmenting permanently. Six points of view, but all one mind, one self. It was almost lonely. <> He was standing on the beach. Human, but he knew that was only a convenience, ebony-brown skin and gently curling hair so blond that it was white. He pulled the curls of hair back and bound them with a black metal clasp he created from an idea in the Void. He smiled, exposing new white teeth, slightly feral looking, and concentrated, and then his satyrlion body was there instead, a more even blend of both satyr and feline. He concentrated again, and the gold-skinned elf took his place, whistling a jig. He changed again, the tall blond surfer, and laughed. And changed, to a dark-skinned grubby street boy about seven years old. After a minute, nothing wrong happened. After ten minutes, he sighed, and walked to the edge of the beach. <> he whispered. <>