Sky Woman: Book One of The Empress Saga

CHAPTER TWELVE

Enfri felt strange.

Understatement of a lifetime, she thought.

"Strange" didn't adequately describe the experience. Bizarre was closer to the mark. It was ridiculous, peculiar, odd, unconventional to the highest degree possible, but more than anything else, it was plain feathery.

"I'm a goose," Enfri stated in the same manner she'd say that the weather was cloudy.

Deebee, waddling up front in the guise of a silver-feathered matron, gave her a hard look. "Gosling, specifically. That means you go peep, not 'I'm a goose'. Don't make me regret adjusting the polymorphy to let you keep your vocal cords, so kindly button your beak, girl."

Enfri glared daggers at Deebee's back. It was easier for her to focus on something other than what they were doing. Being annoyed at Deebee kept Enfri's thoughts from the wild danger just out of sight.

"They've made a grave error," Deebee had said, before she turned Enfri into a gosling. "I don't know what that monster was thinking, but she's given us a chance."

Jin and the other assassins were probably expecting Enfri to wait for her end with prayers and meditations. A miscalculation; Enfri was no priestess. Or perhaps they believed she would try bursting from the house in a frantic dash for freedom. Just as unlikely. Enfri wasn't an idiot, either.

Deebee decided that they would sneak out by using a spell cast with the heart of a stag beetle as fuel; Deebee did say it was a grand treasure, after all. Enfri was told to shut her eyes tight, there was a strange feeling of warmth that surrounded her, and then opened her eyes. It was fortunate that the assassins were out a ways, else they would have likely heard Enfri cry out in utter shock to find herself turned into a baby goose. Deebee should have at least warned her what was going to happen.

After taking an hour to get used to walking in this new shape, Enfri then wriggled her way underneath the door and out of the house. Deebee told her that they would meet by the garden, where the real geese usually slept. Enfri then spent a few minutes nervously watching the geese stare bemusedly at the unclaimed gosling in their midst. It might have been her imagination, but Enfri was under the impression that the geese somehow recognized her.

It was a profound relief when Deebee appeared next to her and changed from a mouse to a goose. "Your body isn't made for changing form like mine," Deebee then explained in a hushed whisper. "It took every ounce of that heart's imprint and much of my ether to get this form to stick on you. Even so, I don't have the strength left to lock this spell. That means I'm going to have to hold it in place. I think I can keep it up for another few hours, so we need to be as far away as possible by then."

That was how Enfri found herself surrounded by geese as they made their way south towards the pond. She did her best not to think about what they were heading towards. Deebee said that Maya and another assassin were fifty yards south of the house. Hopefully they wouldn't pay any mind to a gaggle of domesticated geese in the night.

Another thing occupying Enfri's thoughts was the question of what had happened to her clothing and supplies. They had apparently vanished when Enfri was changed. That didn't make sense to her. Deebee wasn't able to make clothes for herself when she changed into a human form.

So, Enfri wondered, how did she manage to make mine a part of this form? Shouldn't I have shrunk right out of my dress?

Every time she learned something about magic, Enfri felt like three other things were brought into question. Spellcraft apparently had rules she couldn't guess at, let alone understand. She imagined that if she asked, Deebee would give very patient explanations about weaves and imprints or whatever nonsense that would leave her head spinning like a kite caught in a whirlwind.