Impyrium by Henry H. Neff

Author:Henry H. Neff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

THE PHANTASIA GROTESQUE

I was born a poem, became a song,

and shall die as laws bound in calf.

I wish I’d stayed a poem.

—Mina I (9 P.C.–144 A.C.)

March would not go easily. Its gales whipped about Tùr an Ghrian, making the tower creak and sway like a flagpole. Hazel stood at a window, watching whitecaps move in formation across the harbor. Not even the boatmen were out. Two trade galleons lay at anchor, bright Lirlander Seals on their prows.

Hazel mopped her forehead with a sleeve. Her mouth was dry and her bones ached. Rascha had never pushed her so hard. No more progressions; the vye was dragging her from the sunny shallows into Mystics’ murkier waters. The feats Hazel had been attempting were not only challenging, they frightened her.

The vye’s staff rapped the malachite floor.

“Again, Your Highness.”

“I can’t, Rascha. I’m too tired.”

“Because you are resisting. Changing shape requires an open mind. Stop clinging to Hazel Faeregine.”

“But I am Hazel Faeregine.”

Rascha wanted her to let go, to open doors in her awareness, but Hazel was afraid of what might be lurking on the other side. She had not heard any whispers since the Direwood, but she was becoming obsessed with the Reaper’s portrait. Every night, she took the painting from its hiding place and stared at it by candlelight. The likeness both comforted and repelled her. She could no longer go to bed without completing her little ritual.

“That is only a name,” her tutor insisted. “You are matter and energy, a spark of awareness. You can assume whatever form you wish.”

Hazel turned to less existential concerns. “Then why do I have to become a pig?”

From her seat by a hearth, Sigga chuckled and nudged a piece of tangerine at Merlin. Hazel’s homunculus accepted it gratefully, holding the segment with its wingtips.

“Human and pig anatomy are similar,” Rascha answered. “It is the simplest transformation, and a useful one. I myself have had occasion to use it.”

As she finished the sentence, Rascha’s wolfish figure sank toward the ground. Robes pooled about her feet as the vye became a bristly black hog.

“I know you can do it,” said Hazel. “I’m the one who can’t. I don’t have enough power.”

The hog shifted again, flesh rippling, robes rising as it became an aged vye once again. Bending slowly, Rascha retrieved her staff. “You have power in spades. What you lack is focus and a willingness to let go. Try again.”

Trudging back within the ring of megaliths, Hazel balled her fists and shut her eyes. She pictured the pig she’d like to become: a cute pink ball with a curly tail.

“I’na morphos soo’ar,” she whispered. “I’na morphos soo’ar . . .”

“That’s it,” said Rascha. “You must see like a pig, hear like a pig, even smell like a pig . . .”

Hazel giggled.

“Focus!” Rascha barked.

Hazel’s smile vanished. She listened dutifully as her tutor encouraged her piggy alter ego to shiver in the windstorm, tamp the earth with cloven feet, root in damp pine needles, scratch her side against rough tree bark.

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