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Descent

 
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Rabbit
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Joined: 07 Sep 2005
Posts: 345
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:15 am    Post subject: Descent Reply with quote

Hello!

This is copyrighted work. It's a self-contained story, more or less, but is also Part One of a three-part novel. I'm posting it here, but reserve the right to delete it in the future if I sell it for, like, actual money.


Descent




I hate driving rental cars. They are full of squeaks and rattles, their controls become loose and sloppy from long abuse, and though I am quite certain that they receive regular professional maintenance just as advertised, you can tell just by looking at the poor little things that no one really loves them. Take the tiny econobox Chevy I was sitting in at the moment, for example. A clicking noise emanated from the right side of the dashboard whenever I exceeded forty miles an hour. The driver’s seat listed distinctly to the left, mute testimony to a past customer’s weight problem. For some reason it was very difficult to shift from second to third. And last night I’d discovered that more than half of the dashboard lights were out. None of this really reflected badly on the manufacturer, at least not in my opinion. These problems were most likely the result of simple abuse. For example, my rental was just a tiny little roller-skate of a car— no engineer could be justly blamed for failing to consider the possibility of a four-hundred pound driver when he designed the seats. The second-to-third gearshift thing was clearly a linkage problem, the system probably having been thrown out of its rather delicate alignment by some Mario Andretti-type who gloried in speedshifting and otherwise abusing the itsy-bitsy drivetrain. And, over the years I’d seen many rental-cars actually veer wildly towards huge irregularities in the road, the resulting jarring impacts eliciting gleeful “Look at me! I’m not paying for this!” grins from the faces of the uncaring drivers within. This sort of behavior was quite sufficient to explain the dashboard rattle and failed lights. No, Chevrolet was not to blame for any of these nuisances. A skilled mechanic with simple tools could easily have fixed each and every complaint in just a few minutes, and the car would become a far more pleasant vehicle to drive as a result. The real problem was that no one cared enough about the poor little thing to properly fix it.

Grinding my teeth in frustration, I very carefully depressed the clutch (carefully, because the pedals had been designed for feet far smaller than mine) as traffic once more slowed and stopped. Usually driving is something that I truly enjoy, but the evil combination of an annoying rental car and heavy traffic and hot weather were steadily taking their toll on my patience. I was also still very keyed up—it had been a most stressful day. At least the car's motor ran smoothly enough, and its air conditioning blew cold. Focusing as best I could on life's small blessings, I set the emergency brake and waited patiently among the now-stationary vehicles, engine idling. Then the inevitable happened. A child riding in the van I was trapped behind noticed me and pointed. Soon a whole pack of five and six year-olds had their faces jammed up against the rear windows. I waved back, of course, my newly-altered hands still feeling decidedly odd to me; no matter how tired and annoyed I was deep down, I tried to always make time for kids who were, after, quite naturally curious. The children laughed in glee and waved back. Then traffic began to move again. Eventually the van rolled forward, and I let the distance between us increase until there was a large gap in front of me. A grateful semi driver ducked into the opening. He waved at me too. But at least this time the gesture was merely a "thank-you". He didn’t stare at me, something for which I was very grateful.

Traffic sort of froze in place for a long time after that, and the back end of a tractor-trailer offered little of interest to distract me. So, rather clumsily I turned on the unfamiliar radio. In doing so, I finally found something wrong that I could legitimately blame General Motors for. The left-rear speaker had an absolutely awful whine to it, one that was probably above the frequency range of most people’s hearing, but which acted as a painful dagger in my skull. Reflexively I tried to turn the caterwauling down, but my new hands still felt very awkward and in my groping I made it louder instead. The racket was agonizing; I actually came close to bailing out of the little car. But instead I was able to maintain enough presence of mind to grab the key and twist it, shutting off the radio along with the engine. Traffic still wasn't going much of anywhere, so I sat and practiced deep-breathing for a minute or two to calm down a bit from the big scare—my therapist would have been proud of me. A horn blared out, but I ignored it for the moment. Only when I felt better did I very carefully turn the radio’s switch to the “off” position and fire the little Chevy up once more. In the meantime, the truck in front of me had inched a whole ten feet forward. I did not allow myself to become angry at being honked at over such a small thing. Instead I pulled up close to the big trailer, then once again set the brake and toyed clumsily with the radio’s tiny controls. This time before switching the device on I turned the balance knob all the way over to the right, effectively killing power to the screaming speaker. By now I was no longer in any mood for music, but every big town had an AM talk station. Concentrating on the difficult control manipulations, I searched for it.

The correct frequency proved easy to find. And I was lucky-- the news was on. “…severe accident on Sixty-Seven,” a woman’s voice was earnestly explaining. “Northbound at exit ninety-two. No one appears to have been seriously hurt, but severe delays are anticipated as one of the empty vehicles is still moving and dangerous. Police on the scene suspect that pixie dust might have been a factor in the accident, and are taking full precautions..”

“Oh, great!” I complained out loud, shifting painfully in my crooked seat. Already my spine and tailbone ached from the leftward tilt my body was obliged to conform to, and the orthopedic cushion I always used when driving seemed unable to offer any help at all. But the only thing I could have done about my discomfort was to get out and walk around a bit, an action I felt very reluctant take. Some days, especially after being startled by something, I felt a surprising degree of shyness. The problem had been growing worse recently, and my therapists were telling me that this was something that I needed to start getting used to. So I sat right where I was in my little car, trying to put as positive a spin on the situation as I possibly could. At least I had air conditioning. At least I had a partially working radio. At least I was going to go back home tonight to my own house and car.

At least I was still pretty much myself, after what had happened. Or so far as I could tell I was still myself. For now. That counted for something, didn't it?

Idly I listened to the rest of the news. The local mayor was fighting with the city council over school funding. Elf-wannabe environmentalist groups were blocking the construction of a new highway. It was designed in part to take some of the traffic load off of Route sixty-seven, which everyone knew badly needed the help. But they were blocking it anyway. The city’s sanitation workers were threatening to strike. The home baseball team had lost last night, seven to four. And there was no end to the current heat wave in sight.

Just as the news was ending, a fire truck roared past me on the highway’s shoulder, siren wailing. The safest way to deal with pixie dust, I'd learned during my apprenticehip, was to use water. Rather a lot of water, in fact. So even if the heat wave wasn't ending any time soon, I knew that at least the traffic jam would. For the next thirty minutes or so I sat patiently in the Chevy, listening to a member of the local Board of Education discuss class sizes and teacher’s pay in a dull monotone. It was excruciatingly boring programming, but at least better than either religious stuff or the awful squeal that awaited me if I tried to listen to music. So I sat and waited, trying my level best to concentrate on a subject which interested me not in the least.

Because I knew that the moment I found myself with too much time on my hands, I was going to start thinking about the fingers I’d lost forever earlier in the afternoon. And then weep for hours.




I was very late delivering my parcel, though at least the woman waiting for me was understanding about the delay. “Took sixty-seven over here, did you?” she asked with a smile as I walked in. “That was a mistake!”

“Yeah” I replied, pressing my lips together in recalled frustration. “They were still hosing things down when I came through.

She looked at me searchingly. Quite naturally my cousin Megan was familiar with the details of my problem. “Didn’t pick any stray mana at the accident scene, did you Greg?”

My eyes dropped. This was not a subject that I liked to discuss, not even with family. But I couldn’t exactly lie to them or anyone else about my situation, either. Not when the truth was so clearly visible to anyone who cared to look. “No, not there. The washdown was pretty well finished when I passed through. And I was all the way in the opposite lane from the contaminated truck. Still, it was quite a mess, though.”

Megan immediately picked up on the key words I’d spoken. “What do you mean, ‘not there’”

I shuffled my feet, catching a hindclaw in the carpet. “Well… There was a security ward in the dropoff room. The thing was well-shielded, and twisted around in a way that I've never seen before. By the time I realized it was there, the damage was already done.” Almost shamefully I set down the little briefcase I was carrying, then held up my hands for her to see. Where this morning I had been the proud owner of two furry but otherwise human-looking hands, I now possessed a matching pair of rather pawlike mitten-thingies.

“Oh, no!” Megan whimpered, biting down on a finger. “Oh, God! I… I…”

I sighed. We didn’t see each other very often, and therefore my cousin wasn’t accustomed to being directly confronted with my curse. “It’s all right, Megan,” I reassured her, flexing my, well… Were the things at the ends of my arms still entitled to be referred to as 'hands'? “I kept the opposable thumbs. In fact, I drove all the way back here just fine. The car was a stickshift, too!”

“But… But…” she stuttered. Then her professional side took over. After all, like almost everyone else in my family she was a licensed thaumaturgist. “Was there any pain?” she demanded.

“No,” I replied honestly.

“How about your mind? Is it clear?”

“Crystal-clear. Do you think I’m acting funny or something?”

“You always act funny.” She paused, examining me closely. “I think you’ve lost a little height. And your eyes are wider apart than they were.”

“I think so, too,” I agreed. My muzzle also felt longer, though I didn’t add that part.

“Let me see your paws,” she demanded, not noticing me wince at her choice of words. So, to everyone else the things at the ends of my arms were now paws. If they looked like paws to others, then I would have to learn to think of them as such myself. Being totally realistic about this sort of thing was one of the primary keys to maintaining my sanity under very trying conditions. There was nothing at all to be gained by lying to myself. But still, the paws were another waypoint crossed on my descent down the slope towards pure animalhood. I held up my mitten-thingies for her and she kneaded first one and then the other gently but thoroughly. “It’s the same typical pattern of change you’ve been experiencing for years,” she said. “Your body is progressing towards a lapine state in a series of tiny logical jumps.” She sighed. “Those paws don’t feel very sensitive.”

“They’re not,” I agreed reluctantly. “The fur on them is very thick, especially on the, er… soles. And I think I’m going to have to learn to be careful of the claws. Heaven knows they’ve proven awkward enough on my feet. Or on my hindpaws, rather” I hastily corrected myself.

Megan tilted her head to one said and looked like she was about to break into tears. “Oh, Gregory!” she declared. “I hate watching this happen to you!”

She hated watching it, I hated living it. But no power on Earth could stop it. At age seventeen I’d been kidnapped and cursed by someone who seemingly hated my famous family; we never found out exactly who. The honorless cheat had cursed me anyway despite the payment of a huge magical ransom. Both irreversible and unstoppable, the curse was so far totally immune to all efforts to counter it. In fact, exposure to any sort of magic, such as my little encounter today, only made things go faster. Where once I’d been training to become a prestigious and powerful sorcerer in the family tradition, now I was someday with absolute certainty going to become a humble rabbit. A family pet instead of a family leader. In both mind and body.

But not today, I reminded myself as Megan finally gave in and threw herself into my arms to weep. Today I wasn't living in a cage, nor today would I beg for attention from friends and timidly cower away from strangers. I still had months or even years of at least near-humanity ahead of me. Well, that actually depended on how you defined “near”. Some would already say that I was more a near-rabbit than a near-human. And it also depended on exactly how you chose to define human, of course. Everything grew blurry very quickly once you started to try and define human in a world with magic in it.

It was too much, having her weeping in my arms that way. I broke down and wept myself, the wails emerging from my lips in the form of an eerie lapine cry. My ‘distress’ vocalizations had been one of the very first things to change, almost as if to deliberately add insult to injury and deny me peace even in tears. For weeks after it had happened I had tried not to cry because the sound was so embarrassing. These days, however, it had become an accepted part of who I was and so I cried freely whenever it was needful. Not that my crying so often was necessarily a good thing, I reminded myself coldly even through the tears. Possibly it meant that I was accepting my fate, giving in to my creeping bunnyhood. And I had resolved never to do that. Not ever! Make the best of things, yes. But give in? No! Not while I still had a human soul to fight back with!

And after that, it would no longer really matter very much.

Stiffening, I stood erect and looked up at my cousin. She towered a good foot over me these days or perhaps even a bit more, where once our statures had been reversed. “Now, now. There’s no use crying over spilt milk. What’s done is done. Don’t you want to see what I’ve brought you?”

She pulled away. “Yes. Of course, Gregory.” Her voice was becoming “professional” again. “We’re going to have to give you a more complete evaluation, of course. But that can wait a bit. What did you bring me?”

“Nothing powder,” I replied with a note of pride in my voice. “The real stuff, I think.”

“Oh!” She reached down and grabbed the briefcase. “May I?”

“But of course!” I was regaining my usual self-assurance rapidly, stepping back into the devil-may-care attitude that my self-respect demanded.

She carefully placed the valise on her desktop. “I’m going to take precautions, Greg. Hope you don't mind."

“Naturally not,” I replied easily. “Everyone does.”

“I’ll have to call your mother. To monitor.”

The lapine thing had strained my relationship with Mom badly, perhaps even beyond repair. Not only did she blame herself for what I was becoming, but because I was so magic-sensitive we could not even meet face-to-face anymore. Her mere physical presence was powerful enough to induce rapid change in me. Long ago I’d come to realize that she was the true target of what had been done to me. And the blow had struck home hard. “I understand.”

“Good.” With a fluid motion she picked up the phone. “Get me Aunt Clara please,” she ordered authoritatively. “Right away. Tell her secretary it’s important.”

I heard the administrative assistant’s reply clearly through the earpiece- “Right away, Ma’am.” There were at least a few bonuses involved in becoming a lapine, and I made it a point to actively seek them out and take special note of them. It was my way of making the best of things. I’d had rabbit-ears for almost half a decade, and frankly admitted to myself that I would miss them terribly if by some miracle I was ever cured.

My mother was on the line in seconds. “What is it, Megan? Is Gregory all right?”

Megan looked to me for guidance. I pressed my lips together for a second and then nodded. There was no point in trying to hide anything from anyone when my problems were quite literally written all over my face. “He’s descended a little bit further, Aunt Clara. There was some unexpected magic exposure. But basically he’s all right.”

“Oh my God!” I heard my mother reply. “How much damage was there?”

“He’s shrunk a little…”

“Oh God!”

…and his eyes are a bit further apart,” she finished quickly, clearly not wanting to lay too much on her aunt all at once. “But his mind is fine!”

“Does he seem any shyer to you?” Mom demanded. “More timid or high-strung?”

“No,” Megan said emphatically. “His mind is still fine, I'm quite certain. We’ll get him a full evaluation later. But he’s okay. Would you like to talk to him?”

I winced, but it was too late. “Yes!” my mother exclaimed eagerly. “Is he right there with you?”

Cousin Megan shrugged her shoulders theatrically. “Sorry!” she mouthed silently.

“It’s all right,” I muttered. Then the phone was in my hand—er, paw. “Hello, Mom!” I forced myself to say cheerfully. “I’m just fine. Don’t worry so much!”

“Gregory!” she exploded. “Gregory! When are you going to learn to stay at home and quit taking silly chances? You’re making things go even faster!”

I counted to ten, then decided to be firm. After all, we’d had this talk before. “Rabbits spend their whole lives sitting at home, Mom. Don’t you think I’m going to have plenty of time to do that later?”

There was silence on the line for a moment. When Mother finally spoke, her voice sounded deeply wounded. “Greg! How could you?”

If I let her take control of things, I reminded myself, I’d end up living out what little life I had left in a sterile clinic somewhere. In fact, it had taken a Council order to get me out of such a place when I was nineteen. But that had been years ago, and we understood each other’s situations better now. Or at least I hoped that we did. “I’m fine, Mom. Believe me, I’m fine. Remember how we decided that the physical changes are going faster than the mental? A little more rabbityness in the body doesn’t really show that much anymore.”

She sighed, calming herself a bit. “It’s just… This is so very hard for me, Son. I love you.”

“I know it’s hard, Mom. And I love you.” I swallowed a big lump in my throat. The sentiments were very real, I knew, on both sides. “I wish that I could hug you.”

“Oh, I want so much just to see you up close. To touch you, to smell you. My little boy, in my arms. Not through binoculars.”

I’m little again all right, a voice in the back of my head reminded me. And getting smaller all the time. “Someday we’ll beat this, Mom.” I changed the subject. “I made a buy today.”

“Oh?” she asked, her professional interest stirred. “What did you get?”

“Nothing Powder,” I replied. “Or at least I think so. That’s why Megan called. She wants you to monitor things while she opens it. And that means I’ve got to go.”

“Call me again soon?” she asked, hope evident in her voice.

“Of course,” I replied a bit guiltily. I didn’t call home nearly often enough, even by my own standards. “I’m gonna go wash up. Bye, Mom!”

“Bye, Gregory!” she replied. “Love you!”

With a sense of relief I handed the phone back to my cousin. “This dye stinks,” I said, sniffing at my chestnut-stained arm. “I’m getting sick of it. Have you got a place where I can wash up before I report in?”

Megan smiled. “I can do even better than that. There’s a groomer waiting downstairs for you with a warm bath and a blow dryer. I’ve been paying him overtime for hours.”

My mouth opened to protest, then closed again. A bath and a blow dryer sounded heavenly; I’d had a very long day. “Sold.”

“Good!” she replied, eyes twinkling. “I was afraid that you’d raise a fuss.”

“No,” I sighed. “Not this time. Thanks.” And with that I waved and turned away, heading for the elevator. During the one-floor drop my mind wrestled with an old dilemma. I enjoyed at a very deep level the sensation of having my fur washed and brushed and then spending an hour or so lying bonelessly under a blow dryer. In honesty, I had to admit that I enjoyed it a lot. But nonetheless I usually resisted being groomed to the point that most of the time my fur was dull, tangled and unhealthy-looking. Was loving every second of being petted and stroked and handled a form of giving in to creeping rabbithood? Was it a sign of weakness, of giving in and freely accepting changes in myself that in this case most clearly did affect my personality? Or, I asked myself, was this another case where I should simply make the best of the inevitable and chalk it up, like I did my steadily-increasing need to for more and more sleep, to simply maintaining good health? In my truest heart, I could never decide which course was the right one. But there was absolutely no doubt as to which was the more pleasant. And after the long, harassing day I'd had, this time pleasant was going to win out hands down.


The next day I woke up still lying on the groomer’s table. It was not unusual for me to fall asleep under the dryer, but I’d specifically asked to be awakened so that I could finish up my business with the Nothing Powder and head home. I raised my head as the first step towards going to find someone to complain to…

…and immediately laid it back down, sighing. My Uncle Andy was sitting in a big easy chair on the other side of the room, intently reading a very thick book. Uncle Andrew was a pivotal figure in my life. Though he had been gifted with far less natural Power than most of my relatives, ,my father's brother had struggled through an Apprenticeship regardless and become a fully qualified sorcerer. Then, not content to live out his life as a below-average mage, he'd returned to school and earned a second doctorate in a field at which he excelled, medicine. His official specialty nowadays was researching shapeshifting phenomenon and its related medical problems, but unofficially he had ended up becoming my mother’s top advisor on dozens of matters. Some folks claimed that he was the true Sovereign of the Sorcerer’s Guild, mother’s lifetime title notwithstanding. Deep down I felt that this was probably a fair observation. Mom had never really gotten over Dad’s death, and now my own little problem was wearing her down terribly. She didn’t spend nearly enough time on official business anymore. Not that anyone really blamed her. Andrew was the very youngest sibling of my father—he was only about seven years older than me. We’d always been very close, and had become much more so since I’d been cursed. Nowadays I was his only medical patient, and he was absolutely the only human being alive that I felt I could really, truly trust. “Hello, Uncle Andrew,” I finally said quietly. “I can’t say I’m that surprised you’re here.”

Andrew lowered his book calmly. “Good morning, sleepyhead. I hear that you’ve run afoul of a little magic. A security ward, in fact.”

I sighed. “Yes, but it’s no big deal. Just more of the same.”

“Of course not,” he replied. “By the way, I was asked to let you know that the Nothing Powder you bought was genuine. Congratulations! A whole bunch of folks want to ask you some questions about it. But I’ve got first dibs on you. Would you mind if I looked you over? I've brought some gear and had it set it up in the office next door.”

“Right,” I agreed listlessly. “No problem. But would you mind if I nibble on something first? I’m feeling very hungry.”

He smiled. “I’ve brought you a carrot, if you’d like it. I hear rabbits like those.”

From anyone else, this would have been a mortal insult. In fact, I’d made it a point to let all of my family know that I absolutely hated carrots. But it was a lie. The truth was that I loved them more than anything else on earth these days. Only Uncle Andrew knew this. We’d made a bargain back when my curse had first been diagnosed, he and I. He always told me the truth about my condition, and in return I held nothing back. No matter how embarrassing something was, I told him all about it. And then we both kept our mouths shut to others about things they did not need to know. Our bargain and the scrupulous way in which Andrew kept it, I'd often suspected, had saved my sanity.

The carrot he brought me was fresh and delicious. I bit it off in tiny bites and chewed each until there was nothing left in my mouth but heavenly-tasting juice. Then I chased my meal down with a few quick gulps of water from the sink. I felt much more awake after eating. “All right,” I said after wiping my muzzle fastidiously. “Ready to get started?”

“Yes,” he replied. ”Let’s.” And with that we stepped over into the office next door.

The room had truly been transformed overnight; there was no sign of the office furniture I’d noticed there yesterday, and Uncle Andy had brought in everything from a full-sized examining table to a portable x-ray machine. My family really is a fairly important one in the greater scheme of things, and quite wealthy as well. But I’d never seen a greater testament to the value of Andy’s time than the sheer expense he’d gone to in order to be certain that he had everything available on hand that might possible be of use, thus ensuring that he would not waste a moment.

“Hop up here,” he said formally, patting the table. I glared at his quite deliberate pun, then complied.

“All right,” he began professionally. “First things first. Let’s take a closer look at your hands.”

I held them up like a child proving that he’s washed properly before dinner. “Mmm- hmm,” he said thoughfully, turning them this and way and that so as to get a good view from all angles. “Mmm-hmm.” He released them, and I let my arms drop. “Next I want you take one of my hands in each of your forepaws and squeeze as hard as you can. All right?”

I sighed aloud. So Andrew thought of them as paws too—it seemed to be unanimous. I did as asked and squeezed furiously, but rather to my astonishment the grip didn’t seem to amount to much. I still had thumbs, all right. But they were very weak.

“Mmmh-hmm,” Andy said once again, just a trace of disappointment evident in his voice. Clearly he didn’t think much of my gripping ability either. “How are your eyes?”

“I honestly can’t tell any difference,” I replied. “But remember when they changed last time? I didn’t notice anything until I got the ticket for driving without headlights.”

“Hmm. Yes. I’d like you to see a specialist about them sometime within the next week. If I send someone out, would you be willing?”

“Of course,” I replied. I’d do almost anything for Andy.

“Good!” he agreed briskly. “All right then, climb down and stand up as straight as you can.”

I did so; then even before he asked I spread my arms outward as far as I could. It was a routine test…

…but this time the results were not routine. Try though I might, they would not extend straight out. I’d lost significant range of motion. Eyes wide in distress, I looked up at my uncle.

“It’s all right, Gregory,” he said in even tones. “It’s quite all right. Nothing new here, right? We went through this once before, didn’t we?”

I sighed and nodded. My legs would no longer spread very widely apart, either.

“So let’s try the legs, then. Spread your feet!”

Carefully, I let my legs splay out as far as they would go. Which was not all that far. I had not been able to cross my legs in many months. Near as I could tell I’d experienced no further losses, though in all honesty there was not all that much left for me lose. Even rabbits can spread their legs out a little bit, after all.

“Good!” Andy said encouragingly. “Now, let’s check for linkage. Fore-and-aft, if you will.”

Again, with considerable care I slid one big foot forward and let the other slide backwards. Rabbits tend to keep both legs at the same angle to the hip at all times. This is part of their natural bias towards hopping instead of running. While lapines can and do “uncouple” their legs and move them separately, it is clear to any observer that it feels unnatural and awkward to the rabbit concerned.

This time, I realized, I was the rabbit concerned. Almost as soon as I got past the normal spread I used every day in bipedal walking I felt a little pain. This was new, and my eyes widened again. Apparently, I was much closer to beginning my hopping career than I’d previously realized.

My uncle looked away, then tried to conceal the gesture by making notations in his little book. “Umm-hmm,” he said briskly. “Yes… Well. One more thing I’d like to check, if you don’t mind. Something new.”

I’d been given “new” tests before. Each had marked an unwelcome new stage of my descent. “All right,” I managed to reply calmly. “What’s your pleasure?”

Andy looked away again, then met my eyes head-on. “This is going to be pretty hard on you.”

I thrust my non-chin forward. “All right. I understand. Let’s just get it over with.”

He nodded. “Right. Greg, I want you to try sitting down on all fours, bunny-style.”

My jaw dropped. “Hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute!” I began. “How can you stand there and-"

He held up his hand before I could really get rolling. “Greg!” he interrupted. “Greg! Gregory!”

The last, spoken rather loudly, arrested me in midstream. “What?” I asked sullenly.

“How does your back feel lately?” he asked pointedly.

It ached, of course. And the discomfort was growing steadily worse. Yesterday I’d had experienced even worse pain than usual on the drive back, I recalled. But I’d blamed it on the tilted driver’s seat... “Oh my God!” I whispered. This was... This was terrible!

Andy exhaled forcefully and threw his clipboard down with a clatter. He looked like he wanted to hit someone, hit them hard. Then with a determined effort he brought himself back under control. “Yes, we’re getting there,” he explained softly. “The end-game will be coming very soon now. I’m not trying to humiliate you; by now you ought to realize that. But the test is becoming necessary.”

I nodded, then looked down. “Of course you’re not trying to humiliate me. I know that, Uncle Andy. You'd never do that. . But… But… it’s too soon!”

He shook his head. “You’ve already lasted considerably longer as a biped than we projected. Remember?”

“Yes, but…” I swallowed through a throat suddenly very tight, then realized there really wasn’t a hell of a lot left for me to say. After all, I’d known for years that this day was coming. “Shit. All right.” With exaggerated care I squatted down, then bent over until my brand spanking new forepaws were firmly in place on the floor. Rather awkwardly I next lowered my hindquarters until I felt the fur on my tail brush the linoleum.

“How does it feel?” Andrew asked worriedly. I think he was afraid I might totally freak out. If so, he was fully justified in his concern. My heart was beating a mile a minute, and my chest was heaving as I drew in quick, ragged breaths. I tried to relax, then worked conscientiously at breathing slowly for a time. Andrew, seeing what I was going through, waited patiently.

“It’s bad,” I finally said. “Very, very bad.”

“Bad?” my uncle asked. “Bad how? Where does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt anywhere at all,” I replied testily. “That’s what’s bad. My back feels better, my neck, my chest… Andy, I ought to be getting leg cramps from being all twisted up like this. But I’m not. Sitting here like this feels good. Restful even. Why?”

“Your leg structure has altered considerably since our last checkup,” he replied calmly. “It’s clear to anyone with a professional eye.” Andrew hesitated uncertainly, then made a decision. “Try to hop for me?” he asked.

My split upper lip curled in utter revulsion, causing my whiskers to bristle furiously. “Do I have to?” The question was a snarl.

“Someday you will,” my uncle replied calmly. “Why not today?”

The logic was inescapable. I rose to my toes and took a single tentative little hop, then a second. “It’s awkward,” I commented honestly after thinking it over a minute. “Less so than I would have expected, though. A lot less.”

“You’ll get better at it in time,” Andy replied, looking away again. Often I wondered who was suffering more over this thing, my family or me? “Practice when you’re alone. But for now, I presume you’d prefer to walk? Even though it’s uncomfortable?”

“Oh, yes!” I agreed emphatically, rising to stand in the more conventional manner. Instantly my back began to ache again; I ignored it. “Can you adjust my brace some more, maybe?”

My doctor nodded. “I think so. I picked it up from the groomer when I got in last night. We’ll save the fitting for last. Right now, I’d like to check your mental functions. Want to hop back up into bed again?”

“Sure!” Feeling less inhibited around Andrew than around most people, I gracefully leapt upwards and landed cleanly on the mattress in a single bound rather than clambering up the bedrail as a fully human person my size would have done. Then I laid myself down on my side and curled up comfortably. Suddenly I realized that my feet were only inches from my nose. Yet I was fully relaxed. It was a bit unnerving. ”Go ahead.”

“All right.” Uncle Andrew picked up a notebook and paged through it. “Who was the first president of the United States?”

“George Washington,” I replied easily.

“Good. What automakers are commonly described as “The Big Three”?

This time I smiled. Andrew knew I’d loved cars since early childhood. “Ford, Chrysler, General Motors.”

“Fine! Now, what’s ten divided by two?”

I felt my brain lock up tight as a drum. “I… I… I…”

“Come on, Gregory!” Andrew encouraged me. “You can do it!”

Math skills had been among the earliest of my losses. Trying to manipulate figures felt like staring into a black hole. It was terrifying. “I… I… I…” In actual physical pain I felt myself writhing about on the bed. Part of my head felt empty, as if a bit of brain tissue had been physically removed. Divided by? Divided by? What was that? I’d known once, could even remember what it was like to know...

“Come on, Gregory! Ten divided by two! You can do it!”

My uncle’s voice grew more and more distant. Idly I found myself remembering the carrot I’d enjoyed for breakfast; it had been so moist and tasty and.…

…WHAP! The slap in the face took me utterly by surprise; instantly my head was up and ears erect, swiveling alertly in their search for danger. But the only possible source of the blow was Uncle Andy, who couldn’t possibly have hit me.

Could he?

My doctor sighed, looking at the floor. “Andy, I’m sorry. But you weren’t with me any more for a minute there, were you?"

There was a sudden chill in the air. “No.”

“What happened?” he demanded.

I closed my eyes. “I… I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“I see.” My uncle sat down heavily on the bed next to me. “You went feral, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Or at least I think I did. It's never happened before. Honest!”

There was a long silence. “Last time I checked you out, you could have solved that math problem.”

“I haven’t been able to do algebra in ages!” I replied testily. “This is nothing new!”

Another long silence. “Which is more, a quarter tank of gas, or half?” my uncle asked.

“Half,” I replied easily. “That’s almost twice as much. Maybe even three times.”

“Mmm-hmm. And which is more, a quart of milk or a half-gallon?”

My mind raced again without getting anywhere, but this time I got the skid under control before losing traction entirely. “I never did know that metric stuff very well,” I answered, glad to be able to provide an answer that was at least acceptable. My mother was notoriously bad at metrics, in fact.

“Of course,” Andrew replied. “A lot of folks get confused over metric terms.” Then he sighed and wrote in his book for a very long time. When he was done, there was a tear in his eye.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look like someone just died or something. I didn’t do that badly. I know I didn’t!”

“Of course not,” he replied, looking away. Then he stopped himself. “No, damnit! I won’t patronize you. I swore that I wouldn’t.” My father’s brother stood up, then turned to face me. “Son, brace yourself.”

Ice encased my heart. “I’m braced. Get on with it.”

“Your brain damage has progressed. Badly. You’ve lost your math skills almost entirely, and there are signs that the effects are progressing into related areas as well.” He paused. “That’s the truth, Greg.”

My guts twisted. I’d never realized I was so close to the edge! “Can I stay out on my own? For at least a little while longer? I want to live, Uncle Andy. Not rot in a gilded cage.”

He looked uncertain. “Up until today… I’m not…”

“Please! “ I whispered urgently, terrified at the uncertain sound of his words. Long ago I’d chosen him as the one to make the decisions about things like this, if I were too far gone. “Just for a little bit longer? I’ll be fine. I’ve always gotten by. And I’m working on the Nothing Powder project! You can’t afford to lose me now! There’s no one else who can take my place on that. No one!”

“Gregory,” he answered firmly, “we’ll let you help pick out your nurses. And you won’t ever be a prisoner again, even if you do have a legal guardian. I swear it!”

This was not what I wanted to hear. “But… Damnit, Uncle Andrew!” I paused to collect my wits. My algebra skills might be shot, but there was far more involved in who I was than that, wasn't there? I was… I had once been… The world blurred for a moment as tears filed my eyes. And then I knew what I must say.

“Who was my father?” I asked firmly.

He blinked. It was totally out of character for me to speak ritually, though I had once earned the right. “Gustavus Lombard,” he replied in answer to the traditional Guild question. “My beloved brother. Perhaps the most powerful mage who ever lived. And one of the noblest.”

“My mother,” I asked formally. “Who is she?”

“Queen of the Sorcerers,” he replied evenly. “Long may she reign.”

“And who am I?” I asked.

He tried to look away again, but I was growing tired of that. With a soft forepaw I reached over and turned his face towards me. “Who am I?” I asked again. “And speak the truth.”

“You are Gregory Lombard,” he replied with tears pouring from his eyes. “Son of my brother and much beloved of us all. You are Gregory, whose potential was once so blinding and whose wretched fate is thus twice tragic.”

Anger coursed through me like fire. “My picture hangs on the Family wall,” I observed. “Does it not? Next to those of my ancestors for almost a thousand years back?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Of course it does. And it will always hang there, in a place of great honor.” He paused. “We are not ashamed of you, Gregory. You know that. You’ve faced this terrible thing with dignity and with courage. No Family could possibly ask more of you.”

“I can ask more!” I growled in rage. “By God, I can ask a lot more! I’m not satisfied to live my life out as an object of pity, Andrew. I’m not satisfied to know that for the next thousand years little Guild children are going to look at my portrait and write sad poems about who I might have become. Do you hear me?”

He nodded.

“Once I would have stood in line to succeed my mother. Now I am nothing and no one. I’m going to lose my body and I’m going to lose my mind, in that order. But do you know what hurts me the most of all?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ve often wondered, though. So as to try and move heaven and earth to make it hurt less.”

I barely heard him. “What hurts me the most of all is that I’ve lost my chance to make a difference, to prove to myself and others that I am worthy of my name and of my line. Can you see that? Can you understand?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Of course. But you have proven this already, have you not? By your courage so far in the face of… of…”

He tried to look away again, but I reached out and grasped him by the collar with both forepaws, pressing my face up close to his. “Then leave me be, Uncle! Allow me to work on this Nothing Powder thing. Give me the chance to be remembered a thousand years from now not as the young Lombard whose life was utterly stolen away, but rather as the once-heir who managed to contribute something important to the Guild despite the terrible thing that was done to him." I paused, looking deeply into his eyes. “My future is going to be hell, Andrew. Sheer hell. And I’ve not much time left. Please, won’t you let me go down fighting for our Guild? And for our family?”


The rest of the checkup was rather an anticlimax. Without promising anything, Andrew weighed me and x-rayed my whole body, giving special emphasis to my hips, skull and forepaws. Then he measured me for some alterations to my back-brace, and I was free again, at least for the moment. I wandered down the hallway and rode up one floor. Megan wasn’t waiting for me at the front desk like she had been last night—I could hardly expect her to be, after all, her being such a busy woman—but my cousin had left word to be called the minute I showed up and asked about her. In fact, I was still getting my clothing settled comfortably over the orthopedics hardware when she appeared.

“Hi, Greg!” she said with a smile. “You look a lot better in white.”

I grinned. The chestnut-colored dye I’d been wearing stank and made my fur feel itchy-stiff, but it was the best possible way to hide my identity while I was out making buys. Though shapeshifting was not all that common of a phenomenon, the world was also a mighty big place. There were more rabbit-people in it than one might expect. But so far as anyone knew, I was the only white one. Uncle Andrew claimed that given my family background it was probably inevitable that I would turn into a white-whatever, white being the color of magic. “Thanks, cuz. You wanted to see me about the buy?”

She smiled. “Yes. I’ve set up a conference call. My office?” Megan waved her arm invitingly, and I led the way past the receptionist and into her place of business. As part of her official duties, my cousin regularly officially greeted state governors, congressmen and senators there; the place was quite impressive and the furniture well-padded. But the guest chair was very uncomfortable for me to sit in regardless. It was proportioned all wrong, and cramped my tail.

“Uh, I think I’ll stand if you don’t mind.” I explained politely, hopping down. “Assuming this won’t take too long.”

Megan understood. “Of course, Greg. Make yourself at home and let me know when you’re ready to get started.”

“Now, I guess” I replied, shrugging. My shoulders didn’t move as freely as they used to, I noted absently. Par for the course.

“All right, then.” My cousin punched a couple buttons, then began. “Archie, Grace, Gwendolyn? Are you there? Prince Gregory has arrived.”

I pressed my lips together. I hated being referred to as “Prince” Gregory. In fact, I always had. Our little monarchy had been magically locked into place by spells a millennia or more back. Breaking the Royal Line at this point would weaken every Guild member in the world catastrophically, or else we thaumaturgists would have gone to some kind of elected council long since. It would have far more modern, and fairer as well. I'd always felt a bit embarrassed in some ways to be a Prince by right of birth. But it was far worse now that the title had become a mere mockery, a promise that could never be fulfilled. Megan was very correct in her behavior, however. Appearances had to be maintained when outsiders were present. And Gwendolyn was FBI, not family or Guild.

“Archie Blandon here! Hi, Greg!” Archie was a computer geek, distantly family but not magically endowed. I knew him slightly. There were better programmers for hire out there, but as a relation he was utterly trustworthy. And we needed somebody discreet in his job.

“Hey, Arch!” I replied.

There was a pause, then Grace spoke. “I’m here too.” Grace was a specialist in Nothing Powder, not an easy thing to find. She was not family. But as a sworn Guild sister she merited equal trust.

“Excellent,” Megan replied. “Gwendolyn?”

“Here!” she finally replied after a long silence. “Sorry, went out for coffee.”

Megan looked unhappy, but I fully understood. “I apologize, Mrs. Matthews” I interjected contritely. “Uncle Andrew took a lot longer with me than I would have expected. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“No, I understand” she replied sincerely. “Treating your condition comes first, Your Highness. I’m just sorry I was late coming back.”

“Quite all right,” Megan replied brusquely. “But we have a lot to accomplish here. So let’s get right down to business, shall we? Everyone present should have been informed by now that Gregory successfully made a black market purchase of Nothing Powder yesterday afternoon. We have authenticated that the powder is genuine, and the packaging disappeared as soon as we opened it up. There is essentially no physical evidence but the powder itself, which is perfectly normal in every way. Would you care to describe the transaction, Greg?”

“Yes,” I spoke up, self-conscious of the rather high pitch my voice had taken recently. My words sounded almost as if they came from a child, which did nothing to help me feel authoritative and official on occasions like this one. “It went down exactly as promised. The Powder was in a YMCA locker downtown, to which I’d been sent the key. They provided exactly what was paid for; someone is dealing honestly in unlicensed magical goods, it seems.”

“There was a security ward,” Megan pointed out.

“Yes,” I noted. “More unlicensed magic. Whoever is behind this knows what they are doing. The ward vanished as soon as the transaction was completed.”

“A magical ward?” Archie asked worriedly. “Are… are you all right, Greg?”

It was good to know that others cared, but at times the continual explanations could become a bit irritating nonetheless. “Yes,” I replied as politely as possible. “Just fine. Uncle Archie agrees.”

“Good!” he answered, relief evident in his voice. “I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Yes, well… Anyway, there’s not much more for me to tell. No excitement, no troubles, no worries at all except for a bad traffic jam on the way back. Personally, I’m quite eager to fly home and get back to work.” There was a long silence after my words. Too long.

Finally, it was Gwendolyn who spoke up. “Your Highness, what do you have in mind as a next step?”

The same thing I’d always had in mind, of course. “Another buy. And another and another until we obtain some evidence we can actually use to figure out who is behind this. Renegade Guilders, Elves, it doesn’t matter. No one is perfect; a mistake will be made eventually.”

“I see,” the FBI lady said. She sounded unconvinced. “With all due respect, Your Highness, we are taking a considerable risk here with your person. What makes you so certain that we will not be the first ones to make a mistake?”

“Someone out there is selling genuine magical products,” I explained patiently. “This is not only almost unheard of, but it is also very, very dangerous. Nothing Powder is not healthy stuff to be around if you don’t know how to handle it.” I turned to my cousin. “How much was there in the bag, anyway?” I asked her.

“The full amount promised,” she replied soberly. “Ten drams.”

“And how much mischief could you make with that, Grace?” I asked pointedly. “Even if you were ignorant of the stuff?”

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed apprehensively. “Almost anyone can use Nothing Powder. You just have to blow it towards whatever you want to take the magic out of. To start with, you could counter almost any magical spell, even a fairly powerful one. So the amount of potential damage would depend on what the original spell was intended for. The President has a heart condition that the Guild repaired magically, for example. It would be fairly simple to reverse that spell from, say, a few hundred yards away. Things like that. Though ten drams isn’t enough to reverse a disaster spell, like the one that the Guild put on Mount St. Helens to keep it from erupting back when I was a kid. That would take a lot more Powder than ten drams!”

There was more silence. “I didn’t know that,” Gwendolyn said eventually. “About the President, I mean.

“Oh, yes!” I replied eagerly. “It’s no secret.”

“Then…” Gwen sounded irritated. “I just don’t understand, Your Highness. Why are you so insistent on handling this yourself? And why won’t you let anyone cover you? You’re taking incredible risks. I mean, I hate to be impolite. But the fact is that you’ve been kidnapped once already.”

And the FBI had utterly failed to catch the party or parties responsible, I didn’t remind her. After all, my family had failed to catch them too. “First of all, I can’t be followed or ‘covered’, as you FBI folks put it, because we are dealing with magic users here. We can see things you can’t, Agent Farber, and go places beyond your imagination. If anyone tries to follow or monitor me, even a skilled magic user, they may well only succeed in getting me killed. Or worse. Which brings me to the second point. I completed four years of sorcerer’s training before the kidnapping. You knew that, did you not?”

“Yes,” Gwendolyn replied. “But-“

“No, I can’t be around mana any more. But the training is not entirely wasted. For example, could any of your agents have spotted the security ward yesterday? I’ll give you a hint: It did not exist in any of the ordinary three dimensions.”

I waited a bit for her to reply, but she did not. “Not only is there that factor to consider,” I went on, “But all you have to do is look at me to see that I have an excellent reason for wanting to buy Nothing Powder in the first place. Trained sorcerers know that the stuff only works in one out of perhaps a thousand cases of cursing, that in the rest it only produces insanity or an excruciatingly painful death. Mundanes, however, often fail to understand this. A truly afflicted person will leap onto any bandwagon that offers hope. Selling cursed mundanes Nothing Powder is a lot like selling cancer patients laetrile. They will line up in droves to buy it, based only on that one in a thousand chance. And besides,” I pointed out. “It was only through my on-line support group that we first heard about this stuff being on the market to start with. Archie has kept me anonymous there right from the get-go, to protect my privacy. And I’m still anonymous, aren’t I?”

“No one knows who you are, Greg.” he replied soberly. “Your video feed has shown you as a brown bunny from day one. And your true location is totally hidden. I wrote the software myself.”

“See?” I pointed out to the room in general. “There’s dangerous stuff out there. Only a cursed person who has been in an on-line support group long enough to be well-known and trusted can hope to find it, or at least that’s true the last I’ve heard. Has any intact Nothing Powder turned up anywhere else?”

“No,” Gwen admitted. “Only around the cursed. Or their corpses.”

I shook my head. “This is bigger than that; it’s simply got to be. Nothing else makes any sense. But for now, I’m about the only one I know of who can pass as cursed, who at least has a limited ability to detect magic, and whom everyone in a position of authority can trust. And as for the personal danger…” I paused and sighed. “Perhaps the rest of you don’t want to hear this, but it’s true regardless. I really don’t have all that much to lose anymore, do I? Why shouldn’t I take chances, rather than some other poor slob who still has a real life ahead of him?”

The meeting dragged a bit after that; both sides had pretty much had their say. We talked for over an hour while saying nothing new, and I became steadily more frustrated. Why couldn’t anyone but me see that the Nothing Powder affair had ramifications extending far beyond the deaths of a few cursed people? Why weren’t these other folks, intelligent and capable every one of them, able to understand that this had to be only the tip of the iceberg? And most of all, why could they not see that I was clearly the right person to investigate? It was only when I caught Megan furtively looking at her watch that I began to understand. There are none so blind as those who have been firmly instructed not to see. When the discussion eventually wound down, no plan of action having been agreed upon, I was not in the least surprised to find my Uncle Andrew waiting for me in hall outside Megan’s office.

“Hello, Andrew” I greeted him politely.

“Hi, Greg!” he replied. “I’m headed for the airport. Want to ride back with me? I’ve got plane tickets bought for us both.”

“Certainly,” I agreed. “I’ve just got to return my rental car. We can meet aboard the plane, if you’d like.“

“No need for that,” my uncle replied. “One of Megan’s people can take care of it. That way we can spend some time together.”

“Fine,” I agreed. There was no point in arguing. “Where are you parked?”

“I rented a limo today so that I could get some work done instead of driving. It's waiting out front.”

“Fine,” I agreed again, a bit lifelessly.

“Excellent!” Then he swept his arm in a grotesquely overdone flourish. “After you, my dear Alphonse.”

It was an old joke, but one that never failed to bring a smile to my face. “Non, non,” I replied in a phony French accent, shaking my head theatrically, then gesturing hugely with my own arm. “After you, my dear Gastone.”

"Non!" Andrew replied somberly, gesturing again. "I weel not hear of this madness! After you, Alphonse!" The silly game went on for quite some time, ending of course with both of us jammed in the doorway. Thus we shared one last happy moment together despite the fact that both of us were quite aware of what was going to be discussed during the long ride to the airport.

That subject was, of course, the terms under which I was about to be declared legally incompetent to manage my own affairs any longer.




I stared blankly out the limo's window, not even feeling like crying anymore. I’d known for a long time that this day was eventually going to come, but still the gently spoken words stung like a thousand hornets.

“…not going to be terribly intrusive, Greg,” my uncle was explaining. “You’ll still have your privacy, and you can still live in your own house for a very long time to come if you wish. Would you be more comfortable there?”

“Yes,” I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’ve got it all scent-marked the way I like it now. You may have read that we rabbits sometimes find it very stressful to adapt to a new range.”

At first my uncle didn’t realize that I was joking. He stared at me popeyed for a timeless moment, then spoke in reassuring tones. “If you really see it as your home range, well…”

“Damnit, I was kidding!” The words were bitter in my mouth. Had I flubbed the algebra test that badly? “Yes, I want to stay at home for as long as possible. But that’s because it’s my home, not because it smells right. Human people like to be at home too, you know.”

Uncle Andrew looked relieved, but not entirely convinced. Our usually easygoing relationship had become very badly strained in the last few minutes. So strained, in fact, that it might very well never recover. “That much is settled, then. I’ll have my people find you some live-in help…”

“I don’t need any live-in help!” I declared for the dozenth time. “I’m not incompetent yet, can’t you see that? Lots of people are bad with numbers, and they get by just fine. Why should I be any different?”

Andrew sighed. “No, you’re genuinely not incompetent. Not yet. But the point is, Greg, that you will be. And very soon at that. Right?”

Whenever he put things that baldly, I had a very hard time arguing. “No,” I finally whispered. “It won’t be very long at all. Will it?” Tears welled up in my eyes, and I wanted to whine.

Andrew laid a gentle hand on my knee and absently stroked my soft fur until the bad moment passed. “And when that time comes, somebody will need to already be there with you and ready to help, Greg. They will need to know where things are, what needs to be done, what you like and dislike. We can’t wait any longer.”

I flopped my head back onto the leather seat in resignation. “Part of me understands, Andrew. Really it does. But this Nothing Powder thing…”

“…is no longer any of your concern” he finished for me. “You are not in any state to be running around taking any more stupid risks. Period. End of subject. I can’t believe you ever sweet-talked me into letting you make that first buy. It came very near to ruining you, son.”

I kicked my legs viciously, something I often did nowadays when angry or frustrated. A toeclaw caught the leather upholstery just right and punched a tiny hole, making me feel vaguely guilty. The limo was quite a nice car, really, and not deserving of such treatment. Not deserving of being torn up by a badly-behaved animal…

The tears began to flow freely at last, and I was no longer able to choke back the wails. I curled up into a miserable little ball right there on the seat and wept as if I were the only one weeping for the whole world. Uncle Andy held me in his arms and gently stroked me behind the ears as I cried away unashamedly. “It’s all right,” he reassured me. “God knows, son, it’s all right. We’re going to get through this…”

And then he broke down too, because the simple truth was that we were not going to get through this, that I was in the process of losing my mind, that there could be no happy ending. The cards had all been turned over and I’d rolled boxeyes. Or rolled something like that; I couldn’t remember exactly what any more. But in any event the game was over, and the loser was no one but me. I cried for seeming hours, until I felt empty and hollow inside. And then, rabbitlike, I slept deeply and dreamlessly.



A very long time later, I felt myself being gently shaken awake. We were at the airport, and the chauffer was holding our door open. “Come on,” Andrew told me gently. “We’re running late. Can you walk? If not, I’ll carry you.”

“I can walk” I replied gamely as I climbed to my feet, though my back was aching badly from standing through the long teleconference in Megan’s office. Unfortunately the pain did not lessen as we traveled seeming miles to our concourse. “If you’d have asked me,” I looked up and muttered to my uncle at one point, “I’d have suggested that you to pick another airline. Global has the worst possible location in this place.”

“Now he tells me,” Andrew muttered in reply. “Now he tells me.” When we finally made it to Security, my uncle made it a point to stop me a hundred feet away from the entryway. “Wards,” he explained.

“I know about them,” I replied a bit testily. “I fly all the time.”

“Just making certain. I’ll go on ahead and get things worked out.” I nodded and watched as my uncle briskly walked up to the nearest guard, displaying his sorcerer’s license and pointing his finger at me. The guard shook his head firmly, and my eyes widened in surprise as I watched Andy place his hands firmly on his hips. “Shit!” I murmured under my breath. Only very rarely do I use profanity, but I was not in the mood for red tape right then, and clearly neither was my uncle. Not after what we had just been through together. But unfortunately the guard was in the mood to be stubborn. He'd picked a bad day for it, though. Uncle Andy was a genuinely nice guy, but when his temper finally breaks is best to be prepared for an absolute cloudburst. In mere seconds his voice had risen to a screech that did not require a rabbit’s ears to be plainly heard all the way across the concourse. “I’ll be utterly and eternally damned if I will subject my nephew to a personal magical examination!” he shouted. “Don’t you understand? Due to his condition he simply cannot be subjected to mana! None at all, not even the tiny amount in a hand-ward. I’m a sorcerer, I’m supposed to know these things! You license those wands from my organization! And you are supposed to listen to me regarding their use!”

“Mister,” the guard replied, his voice cold. “If your nephew don’t go through my checkpoint and get looked at, he don’t get on the plane. No exceptions. No matter who you are.” His mouth was set firmly.

“Get me your supervisor!” Andrew roared.

“He’s out sick,” the guard replied calmly. “I’m the senior man here today. And here at this security checkpoint what I say goes!” One of the other guards rolled her eyes at me; I smiled back weakly in sympathy. My back was killing me!

“God-Damn-It!” Andrew roared, each syllable exploding as a separate sentence out of his barrel chest. “God-Damn-It-To-Hell!” He looked around, apparently trying to spot someone with a fancier uniform than that of the truculent man in front of him. But there were none to be found. Angrily he spun on his heel and stomped back towards me. I felt my back become tense in just the barest hint of a panic reaction. And then the tenseness became an agonizing spasm. I’d stood up and walked far too much for one day, my back was informing me in no uncertain terms. It was past time to rest.

Andrew was too angry to notice my pain. “I’m going to go find someone to get us past this imbecile!” he declared with a shake of his fist in the direction of the security gate. “Wait here and I’ll be right back.”

“Sure thing!” I replied weakly. Everyone in the place was staring at us by then, of course. Usually even an obviously cursed person like me can get through an airport without making too much of a fuss by simply keeping quiet and never stopping moving. But now, I felt like a spotlight was focussed directly on me. Everyone was looking my way. And my back, oh heavens my aching back!

“Five minutes or less,” my uncle promised as he passed. “I’m going to use a personal connection.” And then he was by me and gone.

But the million staring eyes were not.

“Look Mommy!” my sharp ears overheard a little girl saying to her mother. “A bunny rabbit!”

I tried to look away, but they were all around me, all talking about me. “Cursed,” one man was saying knowingly. “I saw a special on TV…”

“…part animal. He’s a sign of God’s wrath at mankind for using unnatural powers…”

“…wonder if he makes the girls happy? More likely it’s two thrusts and…”

“…Mommy! I want to pet him!”

The muscles in my back burned horribly, and the pitiless meat-eating eyes glittered wherever I looked. With everything I had I fought to stay calm, to stay upright, to remain human. A minute passed, then two and three and four.

And then five. And six.

My pain was absolutely terrible by then, the muscles quivering in their struggle to hold me erect. The back-brace I depended so much on fitted much too loosely now, and the new resized one would not arrive for days. Desperately I rocked back and forth on my feet, looked longingly at all the empty chairs around me. Each and every one of them was designed for human anatomy and therefore could not provide even the slightest bit of relief to my protesting muscles. Unless I laid down across them, of course. On my stomach. But lying down was not what my body really craved, needed, screamed for.

It wanted me to sit down. Rabbit-style. Like an animal. Right then and there. It had felt so good when I had done that before!

The minutes dragged on. Seven. Eight. Nine. And it was as the tenth minute of my suffering ticked off that I knew I was finally beaten. Against my will, despite my strongest efforts, I lowered my forepaws to the floor and settled my hindquarters onto the airport carpet, sitting down as an animal, in front of dozens of strangers. I felt utterly degraded, humiliated beyond belief. For a minute or more I kept my eyes closed in shame, afraid to look upon the disgusted and revolted expressions of the people around me. But something strange happened as the time rolled by. And that something was nothing. Strain my ears though I might, I could her no new remarks being made, detec
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Rabbit
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Joined: 07 Sep 2005
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Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Strain my ears though I might, I could her no new remarks being made, detect no insults being hurled. The bits of conversation I picked up were unchanged.

“….know, but Mommy! Why can’t I pet him? He looks like such a nice bunny!

“…Lord have mercy on his soul, as he is suffering for the sins of…”

“…bet that fur really gets the women…”

Eventually I opened my eyes. Nothing had changed in rest of the universe. Nothing at all. But inside me, everything had changed forevermore. I had been beaten, really and truly beaten, for the very first time. Ever. I felt very small, and very afraid.

“I’m back!” Andrew announced ten minutes later, walking up briskly behind me with a predatory note in his voice. “Had to call direct to the Mayor’s office and pull him out of a meeting. They’re holding our flight. And any second now…”

A woman in an expensive-looking dress came running down the concourse. “Dr. Lombard?” she cried out just a little desperately. “Dr. Lombard? Where are you?”

“Here,” Andrew replied, his word a near growl. “Think you can help us out?”

“Oh, yes!” she said emphatically. “Oh yes, I’m quite certain that I can.” She looked down at me. “And I presume this is Prince Gregory?”

“None other,” Andrew replied for me.

“I’m Cathleen Madison,” she explained hastily. “With the airport executive staff. You gentlemen will be on your way in about two minutes. I promise! Both of you have our deepest apologies, especially you, Your Highness...” Just about then two blue-uniformed city cops came striding up. Things were getting interesting.

“Mrs. Madison?” one asked. “The Mayor’s office…”

“Yes!” she snapped. “We are in a tremendous hurry.” She pointed at me. “This is Prince Gregory of the Sorcerer’s Guild, and his uncle Duke Andrew. His Highness has a condition that makes it impossible for him to be subjected to any form of magical search. You will,” she declared emphatically, “get these two gentlemen to Gate Seven without any further delay, and without any search. Their plane is being held.”

The cops looked at each other, then at the gate. “Who’s the idiot that wouldn’t let them through?” the older one asked.

“Him!” my uncle declared solemnly, pointing at his nemesis. Whom, it was to be noted, was suddenly looking distinctly pale in the face.

It took mere moments for the barriers to be pushed aside and the wards to be removed from the checkpoint. Uncle Andrew rested his hand triumphantly on my head as we waited. “Gregory,” he finally said slowly. “The royalty business is highly overrated. But there are times when having a hereditary title can come in handy.”

I nodded, Andrew’s hand moving with my head. It was incredible, even my doctor seemed not to be aware of my feral, animalistic posture. Was I so far gone that the way I was sitting looked natural to everyone else? “Uncle Andy?” I said softly.

He looked down at me for the first time. “Yes? Is something the matter?”

“I… I…” My mouth was very dry, so I swallowed and began again. “The muscles in my back were hurting really, really bad. I had to sit down like this. I didn’t want to, but I had to.”

He cocked his head to one side, then spoke sympathetically. “And you weren’t emotionally ready for it?”

“No,” I whispered, so quietly I was not sure he could hear me. “I’m… I’m not ready at all. Not for any of it! It’s too soon. Way, way too soon! I’m only twenty-six!”

Uncle Andy didn’t really have much to say to that. But then, no one ever did. So instead he ruffled my ears and changed the subject. “Can you walk to the gate?” he asked gently. “If you have to hop, you have to. No one will say anything. I promise.”

The very thought of standing up again made me wince. “I could hop,” I said slowly. “But maybe we might get a scooter instead?”

“Good idea! Mrs. Madison can have us one here in two shakes, I’m sure." Andrew grinned evilly. "After all, they’re treating us like royalty just now, aren’t they?”



The cart proved to be a major blessing, as Gate Seven was located nearly at the far end of the long concourse. By the time we got there I felt able to stand again, though I leaned heavily on the railing in the jetway. Like the rest of the family, Uncle Andrew and I make it a matter of pride not to flaunt our wealth. It's our most important tradition. Most of the time, therefore, we fly tourist class. But my curse made me an exception, one that everyone understood. I flew first class as way of maintaining my privacy. The passengers there were more discreet as a rule; I’d yet to meet one who stared or asked annoying questions. And besides, the very front row in first class often had only two seats in it. Somehow Uncle Andrew had managed to reserve these for us. It was either a minor miracle or else a flagrant example of VIP “pull”. But I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. We still had not taken our seats when the plane began taxiing, and our airplane was aloft almost immediately. From the window seat I enjoyed the takeoff, then called for a pillow and took yet another nap.

I slept twelve full hours that day, the same as any other rabbit usually did.



The jet touched down lightly, but I woke up regardless and stretched. “We’re there,” Andrew pointed out unnecessarily.

“Yes,” I replied between yawns. “I know.”

Things went a lot smoother on the home end of our journey. Not only was there a lot less that could go wrong in the first place, but the people at the airport knew us by name. Uncle Andrew’s big white Lincoln was parked near the terminal in a reserved slot that the Guild paid to have held for official use. It cost more than any of cared to admit. But the simple fact was that our time was valuable. While no single one of us flew often enough to justify such an extravagance, Guild interests generated enough traffic to keep our special slot in use just about full time.

“I guess you took a taxi?” my Uncle asked as I clambered in.

“Yeah.” My own house was fairly close to the airport.

“Good. I’ll drive you home then.” We rode wordlessly through the parking lot and out onto the highway, then just as we were working up to cruising speed the traffic began slowing down to a crawl. “Shit,” Uncle Andy murmured, “We’ve caught rush hour.” I nodded sadly in agreement. The Interstate gods certainly had not been kind to me recently. In fact, they seemed bound and determined to make certain that I spent most of what little time I had left to me bound up in swarms of frustrated commuters.

This time, at least, things never did come to a complete stop. The left lanes continued moving, albeit slowly, and a lucky gap allowed us to shift over and make progress once more. We crawled past perhaps half a mile of cars before finally moving up far enough in the pack to see what was the congestion was all about. A band of elves was travelling down the rightmost lane. On horseback, of course.

I pressed my lips together in frustration at the sight. No matter what sort of arrangements were made for them, elves seemed to continually cause problems everywhere they went. The dwarves, the trolls, even the gnomes got along perfectly well with both us and each other. In fact, their unique talents made them especially productive members of society in most cases. After all, who would have guessed that trolls would prove to have such an incredible knack for the advertising business? Sure, the pixies caused problems sometimes, but people understood. Pixies were not sentient after all, and even on those rare occasions when it was destructive their magic usually wore off within a few hours. But the elves, they were a breed apart. No matter how hard they tried, they could not seem to master any technology more complicated than a bow and arrow. Their culture had been in ruins since the loss of Atlantis back in late prehistoric times, but long after their sun had set the elves continued to consider themselves somehow superior to the rest of us. We’d fought wars with them from time to time, just as the dwarves and the rest had. In fact the elves often attacked all the rest of us at once. Each time it turned into a one-sided slaughter, a massive spilling of “fair-folk” blood. Bows and arrows, no matter how well handled, were no match for the machine-pistols favored by the rest of Earth’s warriors. Besides, there were and perhaps always had been many more of us than them, especially we humans. Nowadays the pitiful remnants of the race wandered about the countryside in filthy rags, oblivious to and perhaps incapable of comprehending traffic regulations and trespassing laws and all the rest of the fabric of modern society. They made excellent gardeners and game wardens, but only rarely stayed in one place long enough to hold a steady job. Then it would be time for them to move on, urged on by some strange song no one else could hear.

Two or three cars up, a semi honked angrily as it finally worked free of the traffic jam. The elves’ horses shied and reared at the loud noise, and as the riders tried to get their mounts back under control the tallest elf, riding in front, made an angry two-fingered sign at the trucker. It was not a polite gesture, and unfortunately the trucker seemingly knew exactly what it meant. He slammed on his brakes and squealed to a halt. Then he rolled down his passenger-side window.

“You did what to my grandmother?” he roared in rage. “You did what? Well, maybe so! But while you were doing it, my grandfather was cleaning the vermin out of Blythe!”

My throat tightened. Blythe had been perhaps the most unfortunate incident in the long series of misunderstandings and out-and-out hatred that had marked human-elf relations since who knew when. The settlement had been the very last elvish town in the world of any size. It no longer existed, nor did its inhabitants. This insult was far deadlier than the two-fingered gesture. In response the Elvish leader stiffened in rage and wheeled his horse about as if to charge. But with a malicious grin the trucker blew another blast from his air horn, and the sound sent the horses scrambling once again. Then, grinning victoriously, the trucker threw his rig back into gear and drove away.

I sighed. It was pitiful, really. Elves lived forever unless killed, and were quite intelligent in their own way. According to legend, mankind stole the original secrets of magic from elvish mages. There were even a few humans who idolized elves and their mysterious ways so much that they adopted their lifestyle and culture-- a human man and a woman rode with this particular band, I could see. But despite all their abilities, despite their physical beauty and avowed respect for all things living, somehow elves simply could not co-exist with others. Not even the pixies would willingly visit an encampment of them. There was talk about setting aside an international elf reservation and confining all of the survivors there for their own protection, lest they be wiped out entirely. While the idea usually seemed repugnant to me, right at that moment I would have been hard-pressed to argue against the proposition.

Traffic came to a complete standstill as the motorists in the very front of the mass politely stopped in order to let the horsemen regain control of their mounts. And then we began to creep by one car at a time again, almost as if ashamed. The human children frankly stared at the beautiful faces and ragged cloaks, while most adults tended to look away. I joined the kids and stared openly, meeting the curiously inexpressive black eyes dead on. The Elves were a beaten race, an also-ran in the Darwin Sweepstakes. Without a miracle they would never recover. Most of the rest of us felt pity for them.

To a degree, so did I. But I would not have been human if the pity were not at least somewhat mixed with anger and resentment. My curse showed every sign of an Elvish origin, though there could be no certain proof. Elves after all specialized in magic involving plants and animals. And part of me was sure that somewhere out there among the wandering ragged bands the Elf who had destroyed me was watching and waiting and yearning for nothing more than for than the time to become right for him to strike again. Even after I became a pure rabbit, I knew that my hatred for that particular elf would live on. With my brain gone, even after I became smaller than a housecat, given half a chance I knew that I would be hard pressed not to rip that particular elf's throat out, or else die trying.

When we finally arrived at my place Uncle Andy pulled his big sedan up into my driveway and shut off the engine. “Now Gregory,” he asked sternly. “Do you want me to stay here with you tonight?”

“No,” I replied with a shake of my head. “You don’t need to. I’ll be fine.”

He smiled his crooked half-grin. “You’d tell me that regardless, wouldn’t you?”

I half smiled back. “Of course.”

“Well, then.” A pause. “I think you’re good for another night or two alone at least. Until we can work out something better. Promise to call me every day? And your mother too?”

“Sure.”

“Good.” He hesitated, then reached out and ruffled my ears. “It’s not over yet, Greg. Not by a long shot. We can still fight this. There are magicians working on a breakthrough all the time.”

“Yeah,” I replied absently, my attention distracted. Something moving in the front yard had caught my eye. “I know.” My body tensed reflexively, but the object was only a wild bunny come out to graze. She was anything but a threat to me, yet still I found myself staring at her intently. Andrew followed my gaze, misinterpreting my actions completely.

“Greg!” he whispered urgently. “Don’t give up hope! You won’t end up like that!”

“I’m not giving up hope,” I whispered, the spell broken. “I’m not giving up, not at all.” But deep in my soul I was finally convinced that the rabbit invading my being was soon going to take over, had already largely in fact done so. For to me the doe had for just a moment appeared so gracefully built, so exquisitely graceful…. I'd wanted her sexually just then, and wanted her badly. More deep mental damage, this time apparent even to me. For better or for worse, I now knew in my heart, it was all over. I'd be fully a rabbit in no time.

No time at all.


It's natural for both humans and rabbits to seek comfort in the routine and the ordinary. I made myself a little dinner and then fired up the television, but not much was on. Full of nervous energy—as I usually was these days around sunrise and sunset—I paced my little house over and over, searching for something pleasant and normal to distract myself with. A new car magazine had come in the mail, and I scanned a few articles in it that touched on my areas of interest. But when I was done I still felt very restless. Finally I turned on the computer and logged myself onto ThauNet, the computer network set up for victims of magical afflictions. Though I was not going to be permitted to pursue the Nothing Powder thing any more, I’d made a lot of friends there and received a lot of emotional support. On-line chatting was not something I planned on giving up even if I couldn't work the case any more. At almost any given hour of the day or night, it was a fair bet that someone else with a fur coat much like mine would be there looking for someone to talk to. Sure enough, that night there were at least a dozen individuals present, every last one of them Cursed just like I was. Sally Bjorn was just beginning to turn into a mouse. No one knew exactly why, as was often the case. Probably some distant ancestor had offended a mage. Back in the old days magic-users were much freer in the use of mana, and most likely one of them had laid a Curse that had activated itself so rarely down the generations that it was utterly forgotten. No one knew anymore what the ancestor's offense had been, but that did not stop the magic. Ditto for Harold Westerfield, a rabbit just like me. But they at least they were pretty much keeping their intellects so far. It seemed likely that they might never lose them at all.

Far sadder were the cases of Thomas and Eric Steinman, twin brothers who were pretty much finished changing into a matched pair of Clydesdales. Their icons were showing up on the screen just below the brown rabbit representing me, but they seemed to be saying nothing. Nor had they said anything in several weeks that I knew of. Their physical transformations had progressed much faster than my own, which was perhaps kinder in the greater scheme of things. There was no real reason for further optimism; they were horses, pure and simple. My guess was that a parent had turned on the machines in their stalls in the hope that a word or two from one of us might generate a reaction.

“Hi, Eric!” I said cheerfully. “Hi, Thomas!” How are you tonight?” The Eric icon tossed its tail and whuffled, which might or might have meant something. Thomas simply ignored me. A bright outline appeared around the icon of another friend-- I knew from memory that it was red, though I was no longer able to perceive that color. It meant that he wanted to chat with me privately.

“The twins haven’t said a thing,” Jonas commented sadly. He was almost done changing himself, into a gargoyle in his case. But at least it was clear that his mind was unaffected. The rest of us were happy for him, if a touch envious. “Not in several nights. Sorry.” He knew of my own condition, of course, and understood my special interest in the equines. In fact, he was probably my closest friend.

“Damn,” I whispered. “How are you?”

“It’s rough sometimes, I’ll admit. I’m not quite solid stone yet in the daylight, and I have terrible, well, daymares. But it’s not like what you…” He lapsed into silence.

“Yeah,” I agreed, whispering. “I’ve got forepaws now, Jonas. And I can’t do any algebra at all anymore. They say I need someone to watch me. ” Conversation sort of lapsed after that until Thomas and Eric disappeared from the channel a few minutes later.

“Wonder how long my folks will keep on trying after I’m gone?” asked Holly Himmel. She’d been Harvey Himmel until recently, when the hand of an angry and long-dead mage had reached out for another slice of revenge. Most people whose curses involved sex changes kept their old names and identities, but this would have been very difficult in Holly’s case. She was becoming a rather buxom pixie. “A week? A month? A year?”

“As long as it takes to be sure,” Jonas replied confidently. “And then some.” There was more silence on the channel for a long time after that. Though it was certainly well-intended, the supportive comment rang false coming from someone whose own mind was not at stake. We terminal cases had, very privately, discussed forming our own separate group several times. But somehow it never happened, probably because the result would have been just too gloomy…

“I know,” Holly replied in her trilling voice. “I know, everyone will do all they can.” There was more silence, which this time I decided to fill myself with a lighter subject.

“Hey, I saw a bunch of elves today,” I commented to fill the emptiness. “They were moving camp right down a major highway at rush hour.”

“Silly elves!” Holly replied, tittering. She sounded awfully pixie-ish already, sometimes.

“At rush hour?” Campbell asked. He was British and becoming a bull mastiff, but apparently the term was common to both sides of the Atlantic. As were the related problems. “They have no sense at all, eh?”

“Not much,” I agreed, simply making conversation. “You should have seen them go crazy when a truck- that’s a lorry to you, Campbell” I stuck in with a grin, “blew its air horn at them. The horses couldn’t handle that at all.”

Jane, an Arabian-soon-to-be, nickered in protest. Apparently at one time, mages had particularly enjoyed curses involving horses, as the form was quite common.

“No,” I explained to her. “I felt sorry for the horses, Jane. And even for the elves, kinda. But… Well, the whole situation is a mess.”

“Over here, too” Campbell agreed. “Blythe, you know.”

I nodded. The famous massacre had occurred in the UK. Feelings were still harder there than in most places. “Everywhere, it’s a mess. But what can anyone do?”

“At least we had normal lives once,” Jonas pointed out. “At least we once fit in and could do normal things. We have a background, an understanding of what it is like to be part of what is normal. Even someone like me, having once been human, will probably find a way to fit in again someday. But the elves… Only the ones that can remember Atlantis ever really belonged to a viable culture. And that one is long, long dead.”

“I can understand why they are angry,” Holly offered. “At least pixies never get mad. I almost never get mad anymore, you know. When I get upset, I just spread my little wings and dance, dance, dance…” The conversation paused again as Holly’s icon dipped and twirled. Once she got started doing that, the rest of us knew, she could be gone for hours. One day she would not ever come back at all.

But at least she seemed happy.Would I be a happy bunny, I wondered? Would I be able to appreciate the difference between being happy and unhappy? No one knew. No one had ever come back from goung all of the way. Not ever.

I was quietly musing on this when something happened that made my heart leap into my throat. For a little window way off to one side of my screen had appeared and was flashing insistently. There was no name or icon attached to it, and I knew from experience that if I tried to trace it the path would lead in fruitless circles. It was my Nothing Powder connection! Before I could even think about it, I reached over with my mouse and clicked on the icon.

“Did you make the deal?” a deep voice asked me.

“Yes,” I replied. “I made money, you made money. Everyone’s happy.”

“Who bought it? Did it work?”

“Now, now!” I replied in a cautioning tone. “My business, not yours. I respect your privacy, you can respect mine.”

The line was silent for a long time. Idly I watched Holly dance her pixie dance and wondered what I was doing still talking to the dealer. It was just going to get me in trouble, was all.

“Want more?” the voice finally asked. “Maybe for yourself, this time?”

I smiled. Nothing Powder could not cure me; it had already been tried in micro-dosages. A complex and powerful spell like my Curse was not something you could simply just stop in midstream without doing serious damage. “Maybe for me, maybe for resale. Might as well enjoy the time I’ve got left, and that’s a lot easier to do with lots of cash.”

Another long pause. “We’ve got more than we need. But there’s not much time. Ten grand in gold, and the deal goes down tonight.”

“Tonight?” I asked incredulously. “Tonight?”

“Tonight,” he replied flatly. “You won’t be hearing from us again, bunny rabbit. I’d suggest that this time you use the stuff on yourself. It’ll be your last batch.”

“Where?” I demanded. “It’s late, and there aren’t many flights-“

The voice gave me a location and I gulped; it was only about forty miles from my home, out an old highway that paralleled a river, ducking and weaving up and down the bluffs. I drove the road fairly frequently for the sheer pleasure of it, and knew the area well. Alarm bells began going off in my head by the score.

“Let me check the airline schedules,” I temporized, actually bringing up my favorite travel webpage in case they were somehow monitoring me. “I’ll need to see if I can get a flight out of Lambert Field.” My fake electronic address was in St. Louis.

“Right,” the voice agreed. “I’ll wait.”

My mind was spinning as I studied the airline schedules. I still had more than ten thousand in Family gold sitting in my wall safe; it had been placed there against this very possibility and no one had taken it back yet. If I decided I wanted to make this buy, all I would have to do would be to drive out into the country and close the deal. But it seemed awfully fishy for it to be so close to home…

“There’s a 9:17 flight,” the voice observed. “Could you make that one?”

“No,” I replied firmly. “I’m too far from town. The first chance I’ll have is the 11:33.”

“All right,” the voice agreed reluctantly. “We’re about an hour and a half from the airport. With you having to rent a car, I’ll figure to see you at about 2:15 AM. If you aren’t here by 2:30, I won’t be either.”

“Right,” I agreed laconically, and then the connection was cut. I bought a ticket from the web page, just in case, then said my good-byes to the folks on ThauNet and shut down.

“Damndamndamn!” I murmured to myself, standing up and popping my sore back. Adrenaline was flooding my system, and I simply had to get up and move. As rapidly as my big feet would allow I strode up and down my hallway, thinking intently. There were about a thousand excellent reasons why I should not go out and make this buy, I knew. First and foremost, of course, I’d told my Uncle that I wouldn’t. I hated the idea of lying to him. And I had to admit that he had good reasons for not wanting me to take any more chances; with my algebra skills totally withered away what part of my mind might I lose next? Surely another security ward would be waiting for me; it was almost a given. I would be exposed to that much magic as a minimum. How much more might there be this time? Also, since no one would ever approve of my making another deal under any circumstances, I could not let anyone know in advance where I would be. And the location thing; was it too much of a coincidence? I lived in a fairly big city, and the address was not all that close. But still… Were the bad guys on to me? Was it worth the risk? I wanted very badly to accomplish something before I became an animal; wanted to justify the faith that everyone had once placed in me before I lost the chance forever. I was tired of being a mere object of pity, and ashamed of how little I’d been able to get done in my life. For Heaven’s sake, I was a Lombard by my father and a Grisham of the Royal line by my mother! Had I died in childhood my lack of accomplishment might be excusable, but here I was in my twenties and what had I done? Nothing! What would I be remembered for? Becoming a goddamned rabbit! It was intolerable that my Curse should win this final victory, should steal from me my legacy as well as my life! I ground my teeth in agonized indecision for what seemed like forever, then remembered that my fur was bleached back to its natural white again. Which meant that if I was to make the deadline, my new dye-job would have to start almost immediately. For that matter, did I still have enough dye in the house to make me brown again?

It was the dye issue which ended up making the decision for me. I had two full bottles of brown in the cabinet, plus three half-bottles left over from other times when I’d opened up too many by accident. It would take three and a half bottles to do a good job on me, I knew from experience. But was what I had on hand enough? The stuff was not all that easy to buy; it was specially formulated for fur. Ordinary human hair dye did not work well at all on me and if there was not enough of the special stuff right on hand then there was no point in my even considering further action. Carefully I lined up the bottles on my vanity, trying to decide. Was there or wasn’t there enough? Just thinking about it made my head hurt. One bottle, two bottles… Then what? It was all so confusing! Angrily I hopped about my house, shaking my head in frustration.

Then finally it came to me. I would begin work, and if there were three and a half bottles or more then I would be the first to know, wouldn't I? If I came up short, I'd simply explain to my family that I’d just felt like being brown again for a while. They'd not question it, not with everything else that was going on in my life. Carefully I laid out some old towels, then climbed into the shower and got to work. Just as I was finishing up the tops of my feet the last bottle ran out. Perfect! I dried my fur on the towels, then turned on my blow dryer and rotated solemnly under it until I was dry and the new coloration had set firmly. My coat was getting a little frizzy from all the abuse, but it didn’t really matter. I’d never be using dye again, after all. This was absolutely the last time.

Usually I stayed under the dryer longer than was really needful. The hot air blast was warm and relaxing, so much so that sometimes even when I was not wet I laid under it simply to relax. But I was far, far too upset by then to appreciate sybaritic pleasure. The dye-problem had not been a complex one, I knew. Yet I’d been totally unable to solve it, totally unable to even figure out how to begin a calculation that should have required no more than a few minutes, if I remembered correctly. It was yet another painful reminder of how far gone I was, and it came after a day full of such reminders. My inability to do algebra was a minor problem in the wider scheme of things. Up until then it had not bothered me unduly. Once applied to a real-life problem, however, my lack had made me feel terribly helpless and…

…inferior. Just as being forced to sit like an animal in public had made me face the reality of becoming a quadruped, just as lusting for a doe had made me feel base and bestial, so I now recognized in my heart the true horror that was to come. I would soon be losing far more than I'd already lost, losing the power of speech, the ability to reason, my dignity and independence, even in time my very identity. No, I was not gone yet. Not even nearly gone. But soon, very soon…

So in the end it was the dye problem that finally decided me on my course of action. It made me recognize that I really didn’t wish to live any longer anyway, not at the price that I was most certainly going to have to pay. Sure, bringing home more evidence in the Nothing Powder case would be nice. And if the evidence helped capture the guilty ones, that would be better still. In any event, it would be good that everyone, now and forever, would know that I’d worked right up until the end to justify my royal title and live up to the expectations of my heritage.

Deep down inside, though, I was rather hoping and even expecting that a merciful bullet in the brain was waiting for me instead. The whole setup was far too pat, but I no longer really cared. To commit suicide was to give up. It was not something I could even consider, for the Family’s sake. But dying in the line of duty, now… That was another matter entirely. And perhaps the one decent and clean thing left in the world that I could in good faith hope for.



Once I was dry, the rest of my preparations went quickly enough. I dictated my last will and testament into the computer, using the camera attachment to verify that I was indeed me. It would stand up in court so long as no one worked very hard at challenging it, which I expected to be the case since I had very few personal possessions of any monetary value. For the record I stated that I thought Uncle Andrew would make an excellent Regent should I outlive Mother in my incapacitated form; no one seemed very sure about what rate I was aging at currently or would age in the future. Then I send a copy of the document to an on-line data-storage outfit with instructions to forward it along to Mother in a week. If I wasn’t back by then to cancel the mailing, she was going to need it. I also took a moment to print out two copies of the conversation I’d had with my supplier, including the time and description I’d been given for the location of my buy. One copy I pocketed, the other I left prominently in the center of the kitchen table.

Next I turned my attention to more immediate things. For a moment I feared that I would be unable to open my combination safe, but simple numbers and counting were apparently still within my repertoire. I shoveled out eight tiny gold bars, same as last time, and stuffed them carelessly into my jacket pocket. After hesitating for just the slightest second, I also picked up the snub-nosed revolver I kept there too. But then I put it right back and locked the safe up tight. I’d only needed to hold the gun in my paw for a moment to realize that the weapon was now useless to me except as a poorly-made club. For I no longer had a trigger finger.

Next I carefully walked around my little home turning out lights and making certain that everything was in perfect order. I’d become quite attached to the little place; it was very much mine even though the deed remained in Mother’s name. I could never really be sure whether my strong sense of ownership came from lapine territoriality or simple human pride, but regardless of the source the emotion was very real. If I failed to return, it was important to me that everything be in order here.

And then suddenly there was nothing else left to do. I patted my jacket pocket to make sure that I’d not forgotten the gold, then stepped through the door into my garage. Awaiting me there, looking almost as if it had missed me, was the only thing I owned that really mattered to me, my primer-gray 1968 Dodge Dart GTS Convertible. “Hi,” I actually said aloud as I walked around towards the front of the vehicle. "Missed you."

“Hi, yourself” it seemed to answer back. “Want to go for a run?”

I grinned despite myself as, exerting all of my strength, I threw back the hood. The big slab of metal weighed several times what the equivalent part on a modern vehicle did, and as always I felt a shiver of excitement run up and down my spine as the cleverly-crafted springs counterbalanced the mass and then raised it over my head. I’d set up a permanent work light on the wall that focused on the engine compartment; without even looking I reached over and flipped the switch on. The 340-cubic-inch power plant, a miracle of technology, literally gleamed. When you are covered with white fur and spend much of your free time under the hood of a car, you can’t afford to leave a single leak or grease spot untended-to. With infinite care I checked the oil and generally looked things over, then dragged a ladder over and climbed up two steps so as to be able to reach the front of the hood and close it. As I continued shrinking down to rabbit-size, shutting the hood was growing more and more awkward. This time I almost literally had to hang from the front edge of the blamed thing before it would swing shut. But no matter; it was well worth the trouble to me.

The top was already down, it being midsummer, and putting the ladder back where it belonged was the work of only a moment. Then I was sitting behind the wheel, smiling in anticipation as the garage door rose automatically behind me. When it was all the way up I reached down with my foot to open the throttle slightly, then frowned. I’d lost a little height since the last time I’d driven the Dart, it seemed. While my foot could still reach the pedal, it was now an awkward stretch. Sighing, I adjusted the seat to its extreme forward notch, then took my time adjusting all three mirrors. When this was done I checked the gold bars one last time, cracked the throttle and then turned the key.

“Rrr-rrr-rrr,” the big brute of a motor groaned as it turned slowly over. The Chrysler workers who’d originally assembled my engine would no longer have recognized it. I’d upped the compression, put in a more radical cam, fuel injected it, the works. My starter motor had to work very hard as a result, and the cam, optimized for performance instead of smoothness and reliability, made starting the Dart more of an art form than a science. “Rrr-rrr-rrr… B-B-Baroom!”

My face broke into an involuntary grin as the big V-8 began thrashing away, its dual exhausts singing a tune all the sweeter for my sensitive lapine ears. I let it idle for a moment to warm up, then depressed the clutch and slid the big gearshift lever into reverse. “Crash-Chunk!” my transmission said, and I grinned again. Modern cars had real wimps for transmissions compared to my rig. Sure, it was crudely machined, noisy, poorly synchronized, and had a sloppy linkage. But you could use its innards to pulverize a half-ton of gravel and the gearbox would soldier right on regardless, not missing a beat. To me, this was American engineering at its finest, what domestic cars were supposed to be all about.

I rolled the car backwards down my drive, then shifted into first and idled along for a while. While my property was fairly extensive, the house itself was located near one edge and my neighbor lived fairly close by. At this time of night, she would be trying to sleep. So I kept a tight rein on my Dart until I was all the way out onto the main road. Only then did I open things up.

It was glorious to be out in a convertible on such a beautiful night. The wind was warm and delightful as it rippled the fur against my soft skin and lovingly caressed my long ears, and the night sounds and smells were crystal-clear despite the murmuring of the exhaust. My gauges all looked normal as I hit the Interstate; with childish ease I accelerated to 50, 60, 70, 80 miles an hour on the deserted highway, tapping only the tiniest portion of the naked raw-edged power that waited patiently for me in reserve. It was perfectly safe for me to run a little fast with no one else around. Before I knew it the Dart and I arrived at our exit. Reluctantly we rolled to a stop at the top of the ramp, the engine loping badly due the high-performance camshaft. A police car was sitting there waiting for someone to run the red light; I ruined his night by waiting calmly until it turned green and signaling properly before making my right turn out into the countryside beyond his jurisdiction.

Once I was well out into the hinterland on a road I knew very well I let the 340 have its head a bit. Together we charged out of curves and ran flat out down long straightaways, the intakes producing such a roar that it seemed as if the hood would surely cave in under the pressure. Acceleration shoved me back, back, back hard into the seat, my arms straining to hold onto the wheel and tail cramping in protest. At other times, in other places I might have been more careful. But tonight I had nothing left to lose, and there was no one else out on the roads for me to endanger. Did I enjoy driving so fast because of the rabbit in me? Maybe. Did I find streaking down the twisting country roads rewarding because on some level the action reminded me of outracing predators? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It didn’t matter very much to me any more. Any more than it would matter if I hit a telephone pole or somesuch. My seat belt was conspicuously unfastened, and this was no accident at all.

At the rate I was travelling, it soon became clear, I would arrive much too early at my destination. Reluctantly, heartbeat still racing with adrenaline, I slowed down a bit and tried to calm myself. It worked; the need for speed was no longer so urgent and I sat back to enjoy the night air for the rest of the journey. Even so, I made it to my first landmark at 1:07 by my dashboard clock, about twenty minutes early. I’d have to find something to do to kill time- there was no way that I could have flown in from St. Louis and arrived so early. I thought about driving past the small turnoff I’d been told to look out for and then circling back. But no, someone might see me come from the wrong direction. Or for that matter…

Oh my heavens! I’d almost made a terrible mistake, I suddenly realized! People do not rent primer-gray 1967 Dart GTS convertibles at airports these days, or at least not so often that you’d notice. My jaw dropped as I realized what an idiot I’d been, and castigated myself for trying to imagine that I could handle something like this and think of everything all by myself. What a hare-brain I was becoming! Quickly I tried to think things through as I slowed the Dart to a crawl. There wasn’t time to go back to the airport and rent a car, nor was there anyplace closer where I cold get one. I was early, but not that early. Which left two options. I could either go back home and pretend it all never happened (No! part of my mind screamed) or else… what?

Hmm. I could park short of my destination and walk the rest of the way in, perhaps. There was plenty of time for that, and it would give me a good chance to take a look-see around before knocking on the door. The more I thought about this option, the more I liked it. It was even something I could tell the supplier I’d done as a precaution, if he asked. And so, this became my best and only plan. But I was still blushing under my fur at having been so stupid in the first place.

How much else, I wondered, had I done wrong?




The turnoff came up sooner than I expected, just beyond a moldering “Stuckey’s” billboard. I throttled back and shifted down, then rather delicately steered my Dodge down a narrow gravel track that seemed to lead across a pasture of sorts. The ground in the area was absolutely flat, though the river valley wall rose sharply to my left and I could smell the water nearby. Presumably, I was rolling up the driveway of a farm of some sort. According to my instructions, I had two more miles of slow going before getting to the old house trailer where I was supposed to meet my connection. I glanced at my odometer, then turned the headlights off. No sense in advertising my presence any more than was needful, after all. Besides, the moon was up and I could see pretty well without lights, once my eyes adjusted. Might as well take whatever advantages I could of the changes in my body, I reasoned, seeing as how I most certainly had to put up with all the disadvantages. And there were an awful lot of the latter, with many more to come.

For a seeming eternity gravel crunched under my tires as the Dodge and I crept forward. Then a steep, dark embankment loomed up ahead. I shifted to neutral, then scrunched my head up close to the dashboard until I could read the odometer in the moonlight. I’d come a mile and a half; near enough. And it was 1:45. The timing could not be better. Resolutely I shut down my motor and pulled my door latch…

…only to stop my hand just in time. How stupid I was being tonight! If I opened the door, all the courtesy lights would come on, illuminating the Dart like a Christmas tree. Instead, I realized, I should climb out the hard way. Which of course would not be all that difficult with the top down. I shook my head at how closely I’d come to giving my position away. The mutter of my motor and the crunch of gravel as I drove in was bad enough, though perhaps unavoidable. But to spotlight myself…

I sighed and leaned back a moment to get my racing pulse under control. Then I tried one last time to think things through. What else was I doing wrong? I shifted in my seat, and the jingle of the car keys dangling from my paw caught my attention. I’d best do what I could to silence myself, shouldn’t I, if I planned to sneak around? I looked around for ideas, then inserted the keys back into the ignition. It was not very likely that my Dart would be stolen, out in the middle of nowhere after midnight. Then I checked the rest of my pockets and encountered the gold bars. I shook myself vigorously, but even my sensitive ears could detect no more than a slight rattle from them. As nearly as I could tell, I was set.

One of the advantages of keeping your car in primer instead of painting it is that you don’t need to fear minor scratches. I stood up and effortlessly hopped into the back seat, then crawled across the trunk lid and down onto the gravel. Owning a convertible was so convenient sometimes! There were tall weeds standing in the ditches alongside the driveway, and I walked as close to the right-hand line of foliage as possible in order to break up my silhouette. No doubt if anyone was keeping a lookout they’d already have seen my car and the precaution would do no good. But still, it was good practice and a way to get into the proper mindset.

The embankment up ahead was clearly artificial- a levee, I realized once I stood at its base. It ran off to both the left and right as far as I could see, and was thickly overgrown with brush and small trees. The driveway simply ran directly up this side and (presumably) down the other. Until I got up on top, I could see no further. I sighed, then decided to try and find an alternative to the road. This took perhaps five minutes. In deer country, an overgrown area surrounded by good grazing becomes home to dozens of cervids. Their trails ran everywhere, and were quite easily locatable to someone gifted with my nasal acuity. I had to drop to all fours to get through a few tough spots, but by the time I arrived at the top of the slope I was reasonably sure that no one knew where I was, not even if they’d seen me leave the Dart. Moving carefully, not rustling a single leaf, I stuck my head out of the thick cover and looked down on my destination.

The house trailer was white, just as my connection had said it would be. It was not set up to be lived in, however. Rather it sat forlornly in a field atop its travelling wheels with tall weeds growing all around it, abandoned. I squinted in the moonlight, trying to make out more details, but there was little to be seen. There were no curtains in the windows, no signs of life whatsoever. I sniffed carefully at the air, and picked up only the smoke of a distant fire, then the equally distant aroma of rotting fish. The river again, I figured. A stand of large trees swept across the meadow a few dozen yards beyond the trailer, and tentatively I guessed that they marked the near bank of the stream. There was no sign of any magic about, nor of any security wards of any kind anywhere. I gulped. I’d gained nothing from my reconnaissance, nothing at all except to kill a few minutes.

And now it was time to make my buy.

With great care I moved across the top of the levee, then turned left to follow the weed-lined ditch down the steep slope to where it led almost right up to the front door of the trailer. No one seemed to notice me as I looked up at the entryway; there was no reaction of any kind. The front door was open a crack; had there been the slightest breeze it would have been swinging back and forth on its hinges.

“Hello?” I asked, the sound barely escaping my tight throat. “Hello?”

“Hello!” a deep bass voice replied warmly. I recognized it from several computer chats; it was my connection. “We’ve been expecting you. Come on in!”

Suddenly trembling in fear, I scanned the open area around me with eyes and ears and nose. The ditch was only a very few feet away. Reminding myself of this made me feel better, somehow. “I like it better out here,” I replied with a tremor in my voice. “Please?”

The door opened slightly; clearly someone was standing behind it. “In here or no deal,” the voice replied sharply. “You need us a lot more than we need you.”

My voice failed me entirely then as the trembling became uncontrollable and the image of the friendly ditch filled my mind. But I shook off the fear as best I was able and stood my ground.

The voice spoke again, cajolingly. “Come on, there’s only one-”

And then a net dropped over my head! Someone had sneaked across the roof while I was distracted! I pumped my legs explosively, tried for all I was worth to run, to get away, to find a safe place far, far away from the scary darkness and the deep voice! But my energetic efforts just entangled me further. Two slight figures dropped alongside me-- elves!-- and wrapped me up tighter and tighter until, shaking with fear, I stopped fighting them.

“Get the gold,” the deep voice ordered firmly in the fair tongue. Small nimble hands probed my pockets until they found the bars, and I watched the two net-throwers literally dance with glee as they held the fortune above their heads in triumph.

“Good,” the deep voice said with satisfaction. “Very, very good my brothers! Now, bring him inside so we that can take a better look at what the hunting gods have brought us this night.”

The door to the trailer was several feet off of the ground due to the travel-wheels; the two Elves who’d netted me showed little consideration for my person as they tossed me up onto the living room floor like a sack of potatoes, then lithely scrambled up behind me. A few seconds passed while someone mucked about with flint and steel, then a single candle lit the room. I blinked in the sudden brightness before taking a look around. There were four elves in the room, or rather two true elves and two human converts. The two men towered above the rest. Clearly they were full-adoptees, as their ears had been crudely trimmed into points, a sign of final acceptance into the community. The bigger of the two smiled, but the expression was cold and heartless. “So,” he rumbled in his deep voice. “We’ve snared ourselves a rabbit, have we? What’s the rabbit’s name?”

He didn’t know? Or was he testing me somehow? Either way, I could think of a fairly good answer, one that didn’t require much at all in the way of histrionics. “Ah! Ah! Ah!” I replied in a lapine wail, struggling pitifully against the net once more. “Ah! Ah! Ah!”

The big man-elf frowned. “Come on, Richard!” he demanded, using my fake name from the chat room. “You’re not that far gone. What’s your real name?”

I wailed some more, and the elves began looking irritated. A rabbit’s wail sounds a very good deal like the cry of a baby, and is just as penetrating and grating on the nerves. Both elves and humans are genetically and socially programmed to respond to this sound.

“By the pimples of the Gods!” the deep-voiced one mumbled to himself in elvish. Then he turned to the other human and continued in the same tongue. “Hekla, go tell Hirst that we’ve got the rabbit but he’s not talking yet. I’m don’t know if he’s faking or not, but it really doesn’t matter. It's time to move.”

“Aye, Henst” Hekla replied. His breath reeked, and I realized that he must have the devil’s own case of tooth decay. Natural-born elves do not get sick, suffer from poor eyesight, or have bad teeth. Therefore, human converts did not admit suffering from any of these failings either, even when they really did. Besides, the cures for all these problems required the use of “unnatural” substances and technology, something unacceptable to the elvish lifestyle under any circumstances. Hekla must have been in continual pain, but if he was a typical convert then he’d die before admitting that he was any less an elf than one of the True Blood.

The dentist’s nightmare went running off into the darkness, and then Henst barked out more orders. “Go get our horses, Hanni!” he commanded. The smaller true elf nodded and dashed out. Once he was gone Henst spoke again. “All right, Homma. Let’s get the bunny untangled and ready to travel.”

I tensed myself, then kicked and fought at every opportunity. But even the blood-elf was considerably bigger and stronger than I was, and in almost no time I had my paws bound together in front of me. (They would no longer reach around back, though my captors made several painful efforts at forcing them to do so) and a noose tied tightly around my neck. “We’ll have to watch him closely,” Homma noted. “Look at those teeth! He could gnaw through a rope in no time flat.”

I’d been thinking the very same thing, actually, but did not let my disappointment show.

“Yes,” Henst agreed with a nod. “He’ll have to be watched every second. But it should be well worth the trouble. He’s proven that he’s very rich.”

Homma grinned ferally, remembering the gold bars. “They rape the Earth of treasures that she would not willingly give. But this time, we’ll take her goods back for her! The ransom should be enormous for one with access to so much gold.”

I tried to remain expressionless though my mind was racing. Did they truly not know who I was? Was this whole setup just a simple kidnapping? What did elves need money for, anyway? They never bought anything…

…but then again, they never used computers either, I realized suddenly. Or they never had before, at least. But clearly the Fair Folk had entered the information age somehow. There was no possible mistaking the leader’s deep bass voice. Not for someone with my ears!

Henst returned Homma’s smile. “Yes.” Then he paused, looking puzzled. “Where could Hekla be? He should have returned by now.”

“I’ll go find out,” Homma replied with a note of irritation evident in his tone. Apparently Hekla was often tardy. “If it’s all right?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll mind the prisoners. But be quick! The night is passing!”

Prisoners? Then there was at least one more captive! But who? Where?

Homma nodded in acknowledgement and vanished silently into the darkness, leaving me alone with the big human. He looked at me and spoke once again in English. “Hello? Do you understand me?”

Simulating abject terror, I cringed away from the sound. When you’re a rabbit, such actions come very naturally. They appear very natural to others, as well. Which can be useful.

“Listen to me,” he explained gently, leaning slightly forward. “We’ve got no quarrel with you, Richard or whatever your name is. No one wants to hurt you. In fact, I actually feel genuine pity for you. It must be terrible to be Cursed.” The man-elf looked at me hopefully, but I met his gaze with stony silence. Eventually he continued on. “All we want to do is ransom you. You humans have all the money and all the power. We will not demand more than your family can pay, I swear it. And you will not be hurt in the slightest. But the sooner you tell us who you are, the sooner we can let your loved ones know where you are at and begin the process of getting you home!”

Could it be true? Had my cover actually held? They really didn’t know who I was! It seemed a major victory, albeit one won in the course of a losing campaign. I realized I’d been looking the elf in the eye for much too long a time, so I cringed again and allowed myself to tremble violently. The gestures worked; Henst sighed and turned away, picking up my leash. “Come on, then” he murmured in English. “I’ve got some packing-up to do, and I’m not letting my eyes off of you for a second.”

I let him drag me along without putting up too much of a fight; after all, I still needed to learn more. With the candle held high Henst led me down the mobile home’s cramped hallway to a back bedroom. There was a tiny bathroom located there, and someone had opened up a wall and exposed the plastic pipes that supplied water to it. Apparently the trailer had suffered from plumbing difficulties for quite some time before being abandoned. With care the Elf tied me to a pipe. Then he stepped over into the opposite corner, squatted down and got to work.

It was very frustrating. Quite obviously Henst was trying to block my view with his body, and between his efforts and the old bed located in the room’s center he did a fairly good job at first. Then I dropped to all fours-- not in the least self-consciously, under these circumstances-- and looked under the bed. This gave me an unobstructed view of my captor meticulously breaking down a tiny computer center consisting of a motorcycle battery, a laptop, and a cell-phone. Then he opened the window and reached out, dragging in a flat boardlike thingie that I realized had to be a solar cell. It all made sense.

Suddenly Henst turned and checked on me; clearly he didn’t intend to give me enough private time to chew through my lead. I was ready though, and as the big man watched I rolled over onto my back, doglike, and snapped desperately at the rope. “You’ll get used to it,” he said mock-comfortingly. “That or a cage when we settle down again. Unless you want to talk?”

I kept right on chewing. The rope tasted terrible, and the cords were tough and stringy. Still, gnawing at it offered me a certain peace of mind, I noticed. Yet another change in my personality, and one very much for the worse. I was deeply disturbed, but didn't let my jaws slacken off their pace in the slightest.

Henst frowned, then returned to his work. There was a single saddlebag lying on the floor, and several old cloaks seemingly used for padding. Carefully he wrapped his paraphernalia in the cloaks, then tried to slide everything into the bag. But it was a tight fit, and his first attempt to get everything neatly packaged away failed. “Midden of the gods!” he cursed loudly and fluently in Elvish as I continued gnawing, more for show than out of any real hope of escape. “Gutpile of Narcus!” With the last he slammed down the empty saddlebag in frustration, startling me terribly.

Apparently the sudden banging sound startled someone else as well. For in the next bedroom, my sensitive ears detected a small body stirring. And then, very quietly, I listened as a small child began to sob.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always been very sensitive to the feelings of children. When kids cry at a restaurant, I can’t eat. Uncle Andrew thought it might be part of the ears-and-fur deal, but I knew better. Even when I was still entirely human, I felt the same way. The child continued to weep hopelessly, and deep down in my heart the rules of engagement changed. Up until that moment this whole escapade had been almost a game. A game likely to get me killed, true enough. But that really didn't enter into things too much any more. With my problems being what they were, the possibility of my own death was merely part of the fascination of it all. Now, however, something far more important than my own life was at stake. They'd kidnapped a child! Suddenly Henst and his crew were not merely misguided, but truly evil.

I had to think very quickly. More elves would arrive at any moment, and I now knew that my fellow prisoner-- or at least one fellow prisoner-- was located right next door. Plus, my captors did not yet realize who I was, something that was sure to change in the next few hours or days. This was the best chance I was likely to get for some time. Maybe ever. Besides, we were not too far from a National Forest. Let a band of elves loose in there, and they could disappear for years despite the best efforts of rangers, helicopters and dogs. It was their one great talent.

My mind raced furiously. The breakout had to be now, right now. No hesitations, no planning, no sitting and thinking it over. But how? It would take time to chew through my bonds, more time than Henst would ever allow me. I had to find a way to cut them, or slip out of them…

Then I had it. It was not a particularly good plan, nor one I found appealing. But it was quick, and it stood a fair chance of success. “Henst!” I said clearly and distinctly. “Henst! I want to talk now.”

The renegade turned towards me. “Good!” he replied in a reassuring voice. “I knew you'd come around. What’s your name?”

“Richard, truly! Richard Dennington. My family has lots of money. I want to go home!” I made the last part into a near-wail. If I could just lure him closer…

It worked. He stepped around the bed and placed a reassuring hand on my head. “We’ll get you home,” he promised. “Just you take it easy until then. What’s your phone number?”

My jaw trembled in fear. “876…” I stuttered tantalizingly. “876…”

“Yes,” he replied, looking me dead in the eyes. “876. I have that part. Go on.”

He was totally unguarded in that moment. So I reached out with my mind and submerged myself into the spirit beyond that laid beyond the body of Henst the elf. It had been a very long time since I’d done magic, and I’d never actually finished the training. But my natural power level was very, very high. Henst was utterly and completely mine, once I’d decided I was willing to pay the price. He was totally defenseless against a magical attack. I could have rendered him insane, destroyed his identity, or even cut off his soul from the body. It was not proper for a mage to be cruel to the mundane, however, so I merely put him into a deep sleep.

Almost instantly, the payment for what I had just done came due and I felt my Curse activate itself with a will. There was no agonizing pain, no theatrical snapping of tendons and breaking of bones. I shrank rapidly and immediately, however. My hips rotated within me, my neck twisted, my head changed shape and grew smaller and smaller. Even as I watched with sinking heart my thumbs disappeared and I felt my shoulders bend further forward on my frame. Actually using magic myself, my doctors had warned me, was the quickest way of all to accelerate my demise. And I’d just proved them right. But I’d also just freed myself of my guard and bonds. The rope that had been so tightly tied around my forepaws was lying limp on the floor when my head cleared. And the one around my neck dangled loosely. A single shake, and it was gone. I was free!

Free, free, free! I hopped about in pure exultation for a time. Free, free, free! But there were walls all around me still-- I was not truly free at all! I dashed about madly, looking for the door to the little bedroom. Then I found it, and made one, two, three leaps down the hallway, accelerating with each until…

…I heard another cry from the closed-off bedroom.

Instantly I skidded to a halt, my claws digging into the decaying carpet. This brought a smile to my face. Starting and stopping so quickly was fun! I liked hopping on this stuff! Rather dopily I leapt forward again, then darted to the right suddenly and spun right around just because I could. Then I leapt up high, high, high in the air, my heart soaring with the sheer joy of leaping…

…and I came down to earth with a crash, shaking the cobwebs from my clearly diminished mind. Damnit, Gregory! I told myself. You’re not done yet. You have a job to do! Then you can run and play for the rest of your life, if you wish! The thought was like a bucket of ice water in my face. For the rest of my life I would hop and play! For the rest of my life! I shook my head again, then pressed my nose up against the bedroom door. It swung open with a squeak, and I was in.

The room was very dark, but my new body was built with darkness in mind. I sat up on my hindlegs and spread my ears wide. The sobbing came from…

…over there! I hopped silently towards the sound, sniffing and listening every inch of the way. The child was not human, I knew already from her scent, though I could not identify her race. Whatever she was, I’d never smelled anyone like her. “Sss!” I whispered when my nose ran up against the cage they were keeping her in. “Sss!”

The child stiffened in fear.

“No!” I exclaimed. “I'm here to help you!”

“Do you know my Mommy?” she asked.

“Yes!” I lied easily. Under the circumstances, it was the only thing to do. “She sent me to help you.”

“You sound funny,” she whispered back.

“I’m a bunny rabbit,” I explained. She sounded very young, whatever kind of being she was. “My name is Gregory. What’s yours?”

“A bunny rabbit? Like Lagarth?”

“Uh-huh,” I replied brightly and confidently, wondering who in the world Lagarth was. And for that matter, I also wondered just how much like him I'd now become. I’d not exactly had a decent chance to check myself over, after all. “What’s your name, honey?”

“Tallismane.” It was a Gnomish name. No wonder she sounded so small!

“I need to get you out of that cage, Tallismane. Does it have a door?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where is it?” I asked patiently. “This end?”

“Yes.” She rattled it.

I was on it in a flash. Elves are clever craftsmen at need when natural materials are involved, and I feared that the latch might be beyond my now-limited abilities to crack. But the cage was held shut by a simple hasp backed by a board too large for the captive to reach around. Simple and effective, but more importantly something I still was able to deal with despite my altered state. I opened the door easily. “There. Come on out.”

“Oh!” she said as she crawled free. “Thank you!”

I felt my heart melting. It was very important for me to please Tallismane, I realized suddenly. I liked her a lot. I wondered if I could get her to pet and hold me… I was just starting to cuddle up against her warm little body when I remembered again where we were. I shook my head again to clear it, making my ears flap wildly. “You’re a very silly bunny!” Tallismane observed.

“Yes,” I agreed. “And getting sillier all the time." I sighed before continuing. "We have to leave now, dear. Can you follow me? Maybe you could put your hand on my back and feel where I am?”

“Silly!” she replied with a giggle. “I’m a Gnome!”

Of course! Gnomes had infra-red eyes and could see perfectly in total darkness. They lived underground and mostly worked as miners. I was getting silly, not to remember that. “Good! Then follow me. And if I run, I want you to follow me just as
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Rabbit
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Joined: 07 Sep 2005
Posts: 345
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good! Then follow me. And if I run, I want you to follow me just as fast as you can. All right?”

“All right.”

I hopped slowly out into the living room, Tallismane following obediently. The door was still open, and I dropped easily to the ground outside.

“Bunny Rabbit…” the little girl said worriedly from the doorway behind me. “That’s too far down. I can’t jump that far.”

In the distance I could hear the beat of hooves, and they were growing closer very quickly indeed. Something was after me! I hopped into the brushy ditch and took cover.

“Bunny?” The little girl’s voice was terrified. “Bunny?”

It was hard to speak aloud when my instincts were screaming for silence. Very, very hard. But I did it anyway. “R-r-right here, hon.”

“I’m scared!”

She thought she was scared! My heart was pounding, my breathing had become shallow and rapid, my eyes were wide and staring… I forced myself to speak again. “Honey, you have to jump. It’s the only way.”

“But I can’t!” she wailed loudly.

I cursed under my breath. How could I ever hide properly, with someone… “Tallismane, your mother told me you could jump. She said to make you jump. So, jump!”

“I… I…” The hoofbeats were growing louder. There were only seconds left.

“Jump! “ I hissed. “Now!”

The gnome hesitated for just a second, then made the leap. I dashed out to meet her.

“I made it!” she declared excitedly, climbing to her feet. I scented blood oozing from her left knee, but not very much of it. Probably it was just skinned.

“Good girl!” I answered her enthusiastically. “Good girl! Now, follow me.” I leapt effortlessly into the ditch, made two long low hops under a thorn bush, then turned around and stuck up my head to check on my charge. She was clumsily barging into the overgrowth.

“Bunny?” she asked. “Where are you?”

The horses were getting very close, and I ground my teeth in frustration. Had I ever been so clumsy, so graceless, so damned slow while still walking on two legs? Clearly this wasn’t going to work out as planned.

“They’re coming!” I whispered urgently. “Just drop where you are! Now!”

“Oh, no!” the little girl cried out. I was afraid that she would panic and run, but with only the slightest hesitation she did as I’d instructed and dropped where she stood.

“Shh!” I cautioned, edging further under my thorn bush. The horses came trotting up, four of them bearing a total of two elves. One of them smelled of rotting teeth- it was Hekla, the other renegade. The second I did not know, but he dismounted with the fluid grace and ease of motion that was usually associated with elvish old age. “Henst?’ the old one asked in a musical voice. “Henst, gabra tone ing?”

I felt ice forming in my belly. I’d learned Elvish as an infant. The words should have meant something, I knew, but instead they danced just beyond the edge of a dark, dark place. I ran the words through my mind over and over again, unable to let the matter drop. Gabra tone ing? Gabra tone ing? Gabra tone ing? My head ached terribly, I suddenly realized. But there was a trickle of fresh water at the bottom of the ditch. It was cool and wet. I slurped some up silently, then turned my attention to the greenery around me. I couldn’t eat the thorn bush, of course, but there were some very nice young weeds growing near the water that…

It was seemed like a very long time passed before I came around, though it could not have been more than two or three minutes. Tallismane was hugging me and quietly sobbing once again, and I was chewing on…

…blech! I was eating a weed! Urgently I spat the stuff out. Who knew if it might be poisonous? And the water I’d just drunk- it was green and slimy and had bugs in it and-

-suddenly I wanted to vomit, not because of what I’d eaten and drunk but rather because of what I was becoming, through and through. My head spun and my stomach cramped. Then the moment passed. There would be plenty of time for that kind of thing, the rest of my life, even. But later.

“Tallis?” I asked. “Tallismane?”

“Oh!” she whispered, hugging me tighter. It felt very nice. “Bunny! I thought you were gone!”

“I’m sorry, honey” I apologized. “Really and truly. But that happens sometimes. I can’t help it.”

“It’s all right,” she replied with the solemnity of childhood. “I understand.”

I felt warm and soft and fuzzy in her arms, safe and secure and… I shook my head again to clear it. “Are they looking for us?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered back. “They went inside, then came out carrying the big scary one. For a minute they had an argument, then one of them blew a horn. They split up after that. One of them took the sick elf away, and the other is looking around all over the place. He’s behind the trailer now. He looked right at us, bunny! But I stayed really really still and he went away.”

I nodded. “Which way did the one with the sick elf go?”

“That way,” she pointed. In the moonlight and shadows and thick growth even I could barely make out the gesture-- no wonder they hadn’t seen us! I looked in the direction indicated…

…then realized I had done so without turning my head. My head! It had been all reshaped! My heart thump-thump-thumped again at this, but quickly I got myself back under control. This had been coming for a long, long time, I told myself. I hadn’t even noticed the change until now. How bad could it be if I hadn’t even noticed? At least I could still speak.

For now.

“Are you okay, bunny rabbit?” Tallismane asked me. I could smell her sudden fear, spawned from my own.

“Fine,” I reassured her, blinking slowly. It was much harder to see, now that I was thinking about it instead of just doing it. Everything was blurry. “Just fine. We rabbits sure do get scared easy, don’t we?”

“I’m glad I’m not a bunny rabbit,” she replied. “I’m scared enough now!”

I smiled wryly, then tried to think. The elf camp must be some distance away, or else I would have noticed it when checking things out from the top of the levee. But it could not be too far off. The elves would be here soon to look for their prisoners, in strength.

“We’ve got to move!” I whispered. “Right now! We have to get further away from the trailer.”

“Okay,” Tallis replied trustingly. I hopped out of the brush and looked around me as best I could. My eyes were very limited, I realized, especially in seeing things at a distance. But still, between what I could still make out now and what I could recall from earlier in the evening, there was one obvious route of escape. The gravel road made a curve once it swept past the trailer and ran alongside the densely-overgrown levee. There was very little open ground to cross between the ditch and the good cover-- perfect! We could work our way down the ditch under the thornbushes, then make our dash like lightning together. Once in the brush, we would be safe, safe, safe! I smiled and turned towards Tallismane to explain this, then shut my mouth before I could speak. How stupid I was becoming! Tallis was a bandy-legged gnome, short and squat and at home far below ground, not someone who could run free in the fields and forest! Her skin was already covered with tiny cuts and thorn punctures just from the few minutes she’d been hiding with me. This girl would be doing no dashing tonight, none at all. Nor any sneaking either, for that matter.

I pressed my lips together. The hoofbeats were getting louder-- I was able to hear them now without pressing my head to the ground. And there! The horn again! There might be dozens of elves coming for us! Probably were, even!

But what could we do about it?

Once again there was no time to plan. If Tallismane couldn’t move quickly or quietly, then she would just have to stay right where she was, wouldn’t she? My mind whirled as I turned over the possibilities. Elves were skilled trackers and hunters, true enough. But usually hunters pursued only one quarry at a time. Would they follow their habits reflexively? I could hope, couldn’t I? After all the elves were being granted even less time for reflection than I was…

“Stay here, Tallis” I whispered urgently. “This is a really good hiding place for you. I’m going to go away for a little while, and then come back. When I come and call you, run to me just as fast as you can. Okay?”

“No!" she whispered. "No! Don’t go away!” The little gnome clung tightly to me.

I pushed her arm firmly away with my nose. With any luck, they Elves would not think to search so close to the trailer. But the gnome-girl grabbed me and hugged me tight to her again. I could have quite simply wriggled out of her grasp, but I needed for her to be quiet while I was gone. Which meant that Tallis had to actively cooperate. If the little girl started crying again, we were totally sunk. “I have to go, honey. Really I do. I’ll be back for you, though.”

“Please?” she pleaded. “I didn’t like it in that cage. Please don’t go ‘way!”

I sighed. “Honey, your Mommy told me that you were a brave little gnome, and that you would help me get you out of here. Are you brave like she said you are?”

“Uh-huh!” Tallis nodded vigorously.

I felt myself smile. It was good that I could still do that, I decided. It felt good. “I thought so. You’ve been very brave so far tonight, haven’t you?”

She nodded again. “Uh-huh. I think so.”

“I know so. So please be brave one last time for me. Okay?”

“Okay,” she sighed. “I guess so.” Her arm dropped then, and I was free to move out. But one last time I rubbed tight up against her for luck; actually I was rather growing fond of Tallismane. She was a real trouper, deep down. And then I was on my way.

Carefully, almost on my belly I slunk my way down the ditch. But I was not nearly as far along as I would have liked to have been by the time my old friend Hekla of the rotten teeth rode slowly out from behind the mobile home. He was sitting very erect in his saddle, I could see, and peering out intently over the fields. “They can’t have gone far,” you could almost hear him thinking.

But thinking was the last thing I wanted him doing. So I put a stop to it. Explosively I broke cover, hopping directly toward him as confidently as if I’d been a quadruped all my life. Hekla’s jaw dropped, and far, far too slowly he reached for the net draped across his saddle. I drew up short as I approached the man-elf, pretending that I was confused. Then, my apparent panic only partly faked, I darted madly back and forth with tail high along a crazy zigzag course that took me right back into the ditch I’d just left.

The same ditch, maybe. But a good long way from Tallis still lay hidden, of course.

Goggle-eyed, Hekla sat in his saddle for long seconds. Clearly, he was not the quickest-witted of elves. But eventually he recovered nicely and blew his horn in a long pure note. Another horn answered from not as far away as I might have hoped, and I knew that things were liable to get mighty complicated in a hurry.

Hekla trotted his horse over to where I’d disappeared into the ditch; obligingly I ducked out between the beast's legs, scampered madly about for a time, then dashed for cover again. Another few precious yards gained, and the hunter seemed totally focussed on me. So far, so good!

Then the rest of the band galloped up in a thunder of hooves. From deep in the thorns I watched them arrive in a cloud of dust and tried to count them. The effort made my head hurt, however, and immediately I gave it up as beyond me. It was unmistakable evidence of more of my mind lost, but that didn’t really seem to matter any longer. I was well into the end-game of my life now; there could be no more real tomorrows for me. If I’d gained rabbit-cunning and reflexes at the expense of a few dozen IQ points, then given present circumstances it was a good trade. Hekla gabbled excitedly to his mates and pointed directly at me, but I knew that I was in no real danger so long as they wanted me alive to ransom. Knowing where I’d gone to ground was one thing, but digging me out, I expected, would prove to be something else entirely.

Still, the elves did a credible job at trying to wall me in. Many of them climbed down from their mounts and eased themselves right into the brush with me. Had they formed a line shoulder-to-shoulder, they might well have succeeded. But it’s very difficult to move smoothly through thorny brush unless you can squeeze along under it, like I now could. Even for an elf, it's hard to move through dense brush. By the time my pursuers kicked and thrashed their way into a circle around my supposed position, I was long gone. One of them literally almost stepped on me without even realizing I was there. I sat calmly for a few moments and admired their technique from a little further down the ditch as slowly the elves drew their circle in. A pair of real rabbits they had trapped totally by accident came dashing out, and the confusion was tremendous. Elves shouted, nets were cast and one of the wild bunnies was actually captured, a rather remarkable feat considering the poor hunting conditions and time of night. But it didn’t take them very long to realize that the bunny they’d captured didn’t look the slightest bit like me, and was quite a bit smaller besides. They grumbled and muttered to each other, an ugly sound. Then they began to reorganize.

Which of course was exactly the one thing that I could not afford to let happen. If they really took time to think about it, my pursuers would realize that attempting to catch one particular rabbit alive in the middle of the night in what might as well be his home turf was bound to be an exercise in futility. Had elves kept dogs, the story would have been very different indeed. But the Fair Folk considered pet-keeping to be a particularly odious form of enslavement, and yet another reason to hate the humans who had invented the concept. At the moment that attitude was just fine and dandy with me; I wasn’t going to be a human all that much longer anyway, was I? Therefore it wasn’t my fight anymore; I had other problems now. Such as keeping the elves hot after me regardless of their low probability of success For if they gave up on me and went after Tallismane, or even worse split up into two groups, finding the girl would prove relatively simple. Then they would most likely head off into the woods with her, and who knew what her fate would be? Henst had spoken of taking good care of me, and his voice had almost dripped with concern. But the cold truth was that these elves had kept the little girl in a cage and left her to cry alone on the dark. I couldn’t let them recapture Tallis and get away, I just couldn’t! My only hope was to keep them so worked up that they would not make the intelligent choice, which was to cut their losses by giving up on me and working on the girl.

So I showed myself again. This time I imitated an overly-docile cottontail seeking to graze in a suburban yard. Ears erect and eyes wide open, I hopped once into the open and sat. The Elves did not notice, so I took two more hops into the clear and plopped my bottom down once again. What did they need, flashing lights? It was finally Hekla’s horse, the one whose legs I had run between earlier, that seemed to take notice of me. She whinnied and snorted, and several pairs of bright black eyes turned my way.

“Unta!” several shouted all at once. “Unta, Unta, Unta!” And then the mad scramble began once again. I allowed one still-mounted elf to cut me off from the ditch, then whirled and weaved a complex dance out in the open as more and more of his brethren joined the merry chase. They formed a circle once again, this time with me trapped out in the open grass and having nowhere to hide. My heart hammered in my chest and I feared for a moment that I’d pushed my luck just a tiny bit too far. I hopped about madly as the circle shrunk bit by bit. Then one of the youngsters made a mistake. He cast his net while I was still too far away, and as it fell I was able to dodge to the side. The trap fell on empty ground, leaving the hunter bereft of any means of snaring me.

So I charged him. The elf tried to grab me bare-handed, but he never had a prayer. Though I was still considerably bigger than a true bunny, making me a larger target, I was also proportionately faster and stronger and gifted in full measure with the lapine talent for wriggling and squirming. I was through his hands in a heartbeat, and as we parted I cruelly raked his lower arms with my hindclaws out of sheer spite. Then I was past him and accelerating like a bullet exploding from the muzzle of a rifle.

Unfortunately, my escape point had opened up on the wrong side of the circle. I’d planned on doubling back into the ditch one last time and drawing the elves still further away from Tallismane’s hide, but after such a close shave I simply could not force myself to take any more chances. The tangled growth of the levee lay dead ahead as I burst out of the trap, and my legs seemed powerless to take me anywhere else. I hopped lightly underneath another friendly thorn bush, then turned around to see what was happening.

The elves were now very, very angry with me and with each other, it seemed, and my heart sank. Even as I watched they turned their backs and began walking tiredly away. There was no way they would come after me again, especially now that I was in better cover then ever. Damn! And I hadn’t led them nearly far enough away from Tallis to suit me yet! I drummed my hindfeet on the ground in frustration, then forcibly calmed myself down a bit. There simply wasn’t anything to be done about it, any more than there was anything to be done about Tallis’s inability to move quickly or silently. I’d just have to accept things as they were and make do with what I had. Accepting things and making do was something I’d been doing on a daily basis ever since being Cursed, after all. So without wasting another second, I turned tail and dashed away from the little meadow just as quickly as my feet would carry me. The most difficult part of all, both physically and mentally, was coming up next. I was very much afraid that I was no longer up to the challenge, but I knew that I would give it my best and then some regardless of the odds.
For I might be turning into an animal, yes. But even cowardly rabbits, I was fast discovering, still had pride.



The world seemingly flew by as I hopped over the levee and went dashing along the edge of the overgrown area at the earthen mound’s base. I made a few spy hops to see if there were any elves about on this side of the dike, and upon seeing none I swerved out into the open so as to cover ground more quickly. This was definitely risky, but needful as I could not be sure how long it would take my pursuers to locate Tallis. My car loomed up out of the darkness just about exactly where I recalled leaving it, and I skidded to a halt in the gravel alongside it, feeling suddenly very uneasy. The Dart appeared much, much bigger to me than it had when I’d parked it. How small had I become, anyway? Now, the slab-side of the vehicle towered over me like a cliff-face. My plans had called for driving Tallis out, since she could not run. But suddenly I wasn’t sure that I could even climb into my car, much less drive it!

I hopped around the Dodge in frustration, seeking a low point. But everywhere the vehicle’s body rose straight and sheer above me. Rabbits aren’t built to climb, and heights had already begun to make me a little nervous months back. I made one last circuit of the car, then sat down uneasily in front of it. For the moment I was defeated.

Defeated! The word tasted like ashes in my mouth. I would not be defeated, I swore to myself, would not let Tallismane be taken without a struggle! Angrily I pummeled the ground once more with my hindfeet. I’d overcome so many difficulties since being cursed, done so many things that someone with my physique was supposed to unable to do. Surely I could surmount one more obstacle, could leap one more hurdle…

Hmm.

Just how high could I leap, anyway? I’d not really had much time to experiment. Flexing a hindleg experimentally, for the first time I really appreciated just how much latent strength there was in the limb. The car seemed very tall, but perhaps I was strong enough to do it?

Or perhaps not, I thought to myself grimly. But there was only one way to be sure. The clock was ticking, and there wasn’t a second to lose. Once more I raced around the Dart, trying to figure out the best place to land. That would be the trunk lid, I decided, the same route by which I’d left the car. Not allowing myself too much time to mull things over lest I begin to believe that the feat was impossible, I raced a short distance down the gravel road, then turned and drove myself forward for all that I was worth. The wind sang in my ears, my pulse throbbed, my body thrust ahead like a perfect machine…

…until my left hindfoot slipped in the treacherous gravel just as I tried to launch myself. It happened at the worst possible moment-- moving so fast, I had no time to react or even to try and protectively twist my body around in midair. There was a dull thud as my head rammed up against the unyielding chrome bumper, and then everything went black.

I was lying on my side when I came to, soft fur the only cushion between my flesh and the rough road surface. My head was still ringing with the impact, and for what seemed like a very long time I could not move a muscle. Eventually my eyes opened seemingly on their own initiative, and I could see that it was still dark. I’d not been unconscious very long, then. Queasily I rolled over onto my belly and shook the gravel out of my fur; the motion seemed to drive a red-hot iron into my right cheekbone. Probably it was broken; already my eye was nearly swollen shut. Drunkenly I stood up, then hopped slowly back and forth a little. Everything worked fairly well except for my head, which simply would not clear. I was severely befuddled for a time, not sure where or even who I was. It would be very nice, I decided, to simply lay down under the great big car and take a nice nap. I’d just closed my eyes for a long rest when an elf-horn sounded in the distance. The single sweet note brought everything back to me. Tallismane! I had to go get Tallismane!

The swollen knot on my face was growing bigger by the second, it seemed, and the sick feeling in my stomach was no laughing matter either. But I knew what had to be done, and forced myself to do it. Once more I hopped a short distance from the back end of my car, then I turned and hopped just as forcefully as before, despite the throbbing and the pain and the thick fog I still seemed to be moving through. No! something that should have been alien but wasn't cried out in my mind. Stop! Hurthurthurt! Confused, I broke off my run and skidded to a halt once again. What was I trying to do? I was going to kill myself if I rammed into the bumper again! Then I cursed my weakness, took a few deep and steadying breaths, and tried again.

Leap, leap, leap, LEAP! This time my toeclaws found good purchase and I absolutely rocketed skywards. My chest caught the lip of the rear deck, but the momentum I’d created was so great that I tumbled forward onto the flat metal instead of backwards to the gravel below. The impact knocked the wind out of me, but when all the dust settled I was firmly settled atop my Dart. There wasn’t much time for self-congratulation, however. I laid still with my shattered cheek pressed up against the cool gray metal for a few short seconds, recovering from the blow to my lungs. Then it was time to get going once again.

It was a simple matter to hop across the folded convertible top, then ease my way down into the passenger compartment. Being a sports model, my car had bucket seats and there was plenty of room for me to climb between them. Presently I was behind the wheel and ready to go! With a smile marred only by the goose-egg on my face, I stood up proud and tall behind the steering wheel and placed my paws on the spokes.

But soon enough my grin faded. There was something terribly wrong. I was in my car, yes, forepaws on the wheel just like always. Everything was perfect, absolutely everything.

So why on Earth wasn’t I going anywhere?



I shook my head in confusion despite the pain it caused me. It was becoming so very hard sometimes to think about things! As long as I was running away from people or trying to figure out how to get places, it seemed, my mind was all right. Which made sense, when you thought about it—these were after all the sorts of activities one expects from a rabbit and I would therefore never lose the skills involved. But as for everything else…

I began to wail in fear and frustration. Damnit, I’d forgotten how to drive! Driving was the thing I loved doing most in all the world! Desperately I looked around the inside of the car, trying to remember things. My head throbbed at the effort, and I grew more and more confused as I took in one meaningless control after another. Only the steering wheel made sense to me. For some reason I remembered it well enough. You turned it left or right. Experimentally I leaned on the spokes, but it would not budge. Oh no! It wasn’t working! Did I remember wrong? Had I lost everything? I wailed pitifully at the injustice of it all, then got back to work.

Looking down, I realized there feet-thingies too. I hopped down into the footwell and studied them intently. They were black and hard, and I was certain that they were very important somehow. I tried to count them, but it was no use. My brain just couldn’t do that any more. There were a whole bunch of them, though, and they seemed awfully complicated. Angrily I stamped my foot and grabbed the biggest lever-thingie in my teeth. Then I shook my head vigorously, determined to make the nasty thing give up and submit to me. The sticklike-object sort of flopped back and forth…

…and as it did, the odd motion helped me remember something! The big lever on my right had to move at the same time that the far left foot thingie was pressed down. A living body can sometimes remember things, Uncle Andy had explained to me once, where a damaged brain has forgotten them. Physical reflexes are every bit as much imprinted into the nervous system as are the more esoteric memories. We’d temporarily regained some of my algebra skills that way in the very beginning, back when I’d just recently lost them.

Well, I’d just now lost my driving skills, right? The technique was at least worth a try. I sat down behind the wheel and tried to remember my trip earlier in the evening. I’d gone fast around a very sharp corner once, and enjoyed it greatly. Coming out of the turn I’d…

My right leg jerked. I’d stepped on the right-hand thingie to go faster!

Well, this was a promising beginning! Already the Dart seemed less mysterious and threatening. Any moron could drive a car, it seemed, even a bunny rabbit. All I had to do was figure out how to jigger the pedals…

This was easier said than done. I knew from my memory fragment that the far right pedal had to be pressed down in order to go forward, but there was no way that I could stretch far enough to reach it while also holding onto the wheel. The remedy for this was simple enough—I found an old plastic coffee cup under the seat and wedged into place so that the pedal stayed down all the time. It was not pressed quite all the way down, as the cup was not large enough. But it was pretty close to being all the way. That might be enough, maybe.

Then I bent my head down to the key on the dashboard; twisting it was something I remembered clearly enough. My paws could not turn it any longer, but my teeth did the trick nicely. “Rrr-“ the engine said, but as it did so the Dart lurched drunkenly forward. I’d done something wrong again. This was all so confusing! How could I have possibly ever enjoyed driving, anyway? You had to be a genius to figure all this stuff out!

I breathed deeply to calm down, then searched my memory for another time when the car had lurched forward like that. It was not easy; but eventually I recalled one. It had happened the day I’d bought my car and driven it home for the very first time. I closed my eyes, and remembered the joy and overwhelming sense of pride I’d felt. The floorboards had been full of rusty holes, the windshield was cracked, and the top was in rags. But I was in love, love, love with my rare find! Slowly I'd crept up to a traffic light. Everyone was staring at me, I knew, as much at the white bunny ears as the ratty old wreck of a car. The light turned green and I'd moved my left leg much too quickly. The car had bucked and jerked…

That was it! It was the thingie on the left! The bucking and jerking had something to do with the left pedal! Desperately I searched under the seats for another coffee cup or anything else to hold that pedal down too. But there was nothing to be found! What was I going to do?

Well, I could sit on the thingie, couldn’t I? Somehow the solution felt right. Once I got the noisy-thing going maybe the car would start moving and I would be okay. It was a long and awkward reach, but eventually I was able to both hold the pedal down with my behind and turn the key with my mouth.

“Rrr,” the Dart said. “Rrr-Rrr-Rrr BAROOOOOOOOOOOM!”

Oh, no! It wasn’t supposed to do that! The sound was much too loud, I knew, much too noisy! And scary! It was going to blow up! Terrified I leapt up into the driver’s seat to bail out…

…but as soon as my weight came off of the pedal the Dart’s tires scrabbled madly for purchase and the car surged forward so quickly that even I could not have kept up with it! The Dart had gone mad!

“BAROOOOOOOOM!” my car continued to scream insanely. Already we were going much too fast for me to even consider jumping out. In desperation I turned around in the seat and tried to get the raging monster under control. We were drifting off of the gravel road to the left; instinctively I twisted the wheel and straightened us out. The spokes turned easily now! Maybe my crazy plan might actually still work! The levee loomed up in the darkness; despite my shattered cheek I grinned as we flew up the steep embankment. Going fast was an awful lot of fun, all right! I remembered that part just fine. Enjoying speed for its own sake was perhaps the only thing about myself I would never lose. But then the fun suddenly ceased as the Dart and I came flying over the top of the mound. We were going too fast! Much, much too fast! And I had not the faintest idea of how to slow us down! With an elegant grace that belied its age, the heavy old convertible seemed for a moment to sprout wings and fly. I floated, floated, floated above my seat…

…then came crashing down as gravity reasserted itself and we slammed hard into the gravel. I was knocked to the floor and everything went black again, just like when I’d run into the bumper. But this time I was only out for a second. I climbed up high in the seat again and took command of the wheel once more. Everything seemed all right for a second or two, but then I realized that the noisy-thingy was much quieter and that we were slowing down! I ducked down under the dashboard again and saw right away that my cup had been knocked out of place. I started to put it back, then realized that I needed to slow down soon anyhow to let Tallismane get in. The trailer was just ahead. I’d pick her up, then drive her straight home. Wouldn’t her parents be surprised and happy to see her?

There were elves all over the place, but their horses didn’t seem to like my Dart very much. And neither did they. I guess they couldn't see who was driving, because most of them scattered like leaves before the wind when I came rolling up. I honked the horn at them a few times- how could anyone ever forget about the horn?- and some of the horses went crazy. But there were still a few elves pretty close to where I needed to stop. I pointed the Dart right at them, and even though I was going slower now they turned and ran from me as well. Probably it was a good thing for them that they did. I had always considered myself a very good driver, and I might actually have been able to hit them.

Tallis climbed out of the ditch at the sound of my horn, bless her, and I saw her standing by the side of the road waiting for me. She was such a smart girl! I rolled the Dodge up beside her and then hopped down to sit on the pedal-thingie. The gnome climbed in while I wedged my coffee cup back into place. “BA-ROOOOOOOOOOOM!” my Dart roared in anger. But this time instead of being afraid of the noise, exhilaration filled my heart. Nyah, nyah, nyah, elves! The back tires spun and caught, and once more my car exploded into motion.

I was going fast again, possibly too fast. Did the Dart only have two speeds, too slow and too fast? And, I suddenly realized, I was going the wrong way at that! The main road was behind me. Who knew where this little by-way might lead? Into a dead-end, most likely. Well, I reasoned, there was nothing for it but to find out. The further we got from the elves before we ran out of road, the better. I turned towards Tallis and grinned. “Are you all right?” I asked her.

“Yes, but…” She looked uneasily down the road.

“But what?” I asked.

“My Mommy never drives so fast on little roads like this” she said accusingly.

My ears were flapping in the breeze and I’d just successfully faced down a whole troop of elvish hunters. Nothing could faze me anymore! “Rabbits go everywhere fast,” I explained confidently. “It’s just how we do things.”

“Oh,” Tallis replied. But she sounded unconvinced somehow.

I wanted to explain further, but as it happened I didn’t have any more time to talk just then. A turnoff appeared, but it was closed off by a very solid-looking gate. Most of the traffic took the turnoff these days, it was clear, because the supposed “main” road I was following began to decay rapidly. Then it petered out altogether, and without any warning at all I was barreling through the main body of elves, all packed up and ready to move camp. There were elf-women and horses everywhere! Most seemed to be screaming and some ran about hysterically as I slewed and dodged my speeding car right through the thick of things. By a miracle I missed them all. Once we were past that hazard, things opened up a little and I had both room to maneuver and time to think. The ground was grassy and fairly level except for one large rectangular patch of weeds marked off at the corners by stacks of cement blocks. It was where the mobile home had until recently been situated, I reckoned. Giving that area a wide berth, I wrenched the Dart around until we faced the direction from which we’d come and came bearing down upon the harried elvish baggage train once again. The women had mostly cleared out by the time I raced back through, but the animals were still running about in confusion. Silly creatures; didn't they know that rabbits always circle back? This time I lightly clipped a laden donkey. It hee-hawed in rage, but seemed to be unhurt except in dignity.

Then we were roaring up the gravel road again, virtually flying. I looked over at Tallis and smiled reassuringly again, but the child still seemed very frightened despite my effort. Well, she’d been through a lot recently. It was to be expected, I supposed, that she should have some kind of reaction to her recent experiences.

Something hit the windshield hard and ricocheted upwards off of the angled glass. An arrow! Then another shaft came flying out of the darkness, and another and another. But I couldn’t see where they were coming from! How could I dodge what I could not see? My left hand twitched, and I remembered the headlights. Cars had lights on them so that you could see things at night! I reached out and turned what I thought was the right thingie, but the wipers switched on instead. Cursing, I tried again but the rubber blades merely moved faster. On the third attempt, however, I hit the correct switch, and the whole field lit up as if the sun had risen. The Dart had really good headlights, I recalled now that I saw them. I’d paid lots and lots of money for extra ones. Instantly the elves ceased fire and grabbed at their eyes in pain. Before they could recover I was past them.

Now that the lights were on, I could see that the mobile home was just ahead. We were almost free!

Suddenly a sparkling light appeared near one corner of the building, and something slammed into my car. Then the light blinked again, and two more blows shook the Dart. It was a shooter gun! We were being shot at!

Elves?, I asked myself. With shooter guns? That simply could not be, could it?

There wasn’t much I could do except keep right on going just like I had been. We would either make it past, or we would not. “Get down!” I commanded my passenger. “Hide, Tallismane! Find good cover!”

More bullets slammed into the car, and I hunched down as low as I could in the driver’s seat. White smoke began to curl back towards me from the loud-thingie. It smelled funny, but it was smoke, sure enough! A fire! Oh no! We were in trouble now! The flashing light blinked again, and this time I could hear the shooter-gun quite plainly over the car’s moving-noise. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, not at all. But we couldn’t get away, not if we were on fire! And shooter-guns were bad things; if the elves used them we could never run! Lips pressed firmly together, I swerved towards the gunman. “Eat him, Dart!” I commanded with my teeth bared. “Eat him!”

As I bored down on the elf like the end of the world the he stood his ground and fired again. But the stream of bullets had no more effect on my car than had the ones that had come before. My Dart was big and heavy and strong, not like newer cars; he’d need a much bigger shooter gun than that puny little thing to kill it! Then, too late the elf tried to duck behind the corner of the mobile home. I swerved resolutely and struck him square. It was a terrible blow! But he had his revenge. I’d become so intent on feeding the elf to the Dart that I was not looking beyond him. The corner of the mobile home was looming up quickly. Oh no! I tried desperately to turn the Dodge, but it was too late. With a terrific impact we slammed into the siding…

…and broke right on through, noisy-thingie still screaming and splinters of flimsy wooden framing flying seemingly everywhere! The jarring blow knocked me down into the footwell, and by the time I regained my perch on the driver’s seat the Dart was in trouble again. I could see clearly that we were headed towards the ditch, and I tried and tried to turn us away from it. But the wheel would not spin that way anymore, and I knew in my heart that this was truly the end of the road. The go-noise seemed louder and more defiant than ever, but this time the Dart was finally defeated. We careened madly through the brush, then the front of the car dipped down steeply. Though we jittered and shook and the roar went on and on and on, we were firmly snared. Reflexively I turned off the key, then collapsed onto the console. It was over. The Dart was wrecked, I was in no shape to run and hide, Tallismane would be recaptured and caged. I groaned in agony…

…and then the brightest light I’d ever seen in my life stabbed out of the sky and struck me full in the face.

“DON’T MOVE!” a powerful voice from the heavens cried out. “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

It was a police helicopter, probably responding to all the racket. Shooter-guns made lots of noise, and for that matter so had my Dart. The cavalry had come! But was it in time? There were still plenty of elves about…

“Tallis!” I croaked. “Tallis! We have to go hide just one more time. Ready?”

I was answered only by silence.

“Tallismane?”

Oh, no! I sniffed the air carefully, trying to penetrate through the funny-smelling smoke that was masking everything. Now that I was making a deliberate effort, I scented Gnomish blood. A lot of blood! With desperate urgency I hopped down into the passenger-side footwell. Tallis had taken shelter there, but seemingly too late. A bullet had found her neck, and even as I watched a jet of blood pulsated from the wound!

“No!” I whispered, looking around desperately for something that might help. There was nothing to be found, though, nothing at all. The helicopter was still circling above, and I could hear a siren in the distance. But already I knew that our help would arrive far, far too late.

Clearly, there was only one proper course left open to me. I pawed at the wound and examined it closely, then flopped the young gnome over and examined the exit wound with equal care. My eyes might not have the capacity for detail they once had, but they were enough to allow me to open the inner eye that was my birthright.

Someone moaned in the distance. Presumably, it was the elf I’d just run down. But I didn’t have time for him just then, or for any other elves that might make an appearance. If they wanted to kill us, let them. I was busy!

Nearly-forgotten inner ecstasy began to swell inside me, and I grinned in a pleasure that was very nearly sexual. This was what I'd been truly born for, not hopping across fields! Like a dancer I mentally began spinning and weaving the mana that lay latent inside me, shaping it until it was a perfect fit for Tallismane’s wound. Magic is something easy to learn, but hard to master. Almost anyone with the Gift can perform a healing spell, but huge amounts of Power are required by the inexperienced. In later training a sorcerer learns how to conserve his strength in situations like the one I was facing by using incantations and wands and the like as points of focus. But, given enough raw power, these accessories were in a pinch dispensable. What I was about to do would be beyond the abilities of almost any living mage denied the use of focus-points. The amount of mana required was tremendous. But I was plenty rich in mana, at least as rich as my father had been. If I was willing to use everything I had, I could save Tallismane.

And I was going to do exactly that, cost what it might.

I closed my eyes and laid one forepaw on each side of the gnome’s neck. Then as I smiled as the beauty of it all, the wonderful joy of Life and Power flowed through me like a fresh and crystal-pure stream. I poured myself into Tallismane’s wound, healing and blessing and loving her every fiber, for a true healing required no less. Then she was safe and no longer bleeding, and I was finally face to face with my ultimate fate. For after what I had just done, my full and complete change was both inevitable and imminent.

Straining with the effort, I prolonged the healing spell for as long as I possibly could. There was still a tiny trace of mana left in me, and I had no reason to save any of it. Full and complete rabbithood awaited me once this spell was done; there would be no miraculous escape. I’d come here hoping deep down to find a bullet, I reminded myself, but instead the bullet had found someone else. It was fitting that I should balance the scales, this was a good way for me to end my human life. If I was going to become a beast, at least this way I would not fade away by tiny measures and spend months grieving over what I was losing. Not that rabbithood had proven to be the worst of all possible fates, I mused. I’d done pretty well for myself as a rabbit, hadn’t I? It could be worse, I reassured myself as the mana ran thinner and thinner. It could be worse…

“Who are you?” a deep voice asked me out of nowhere. “I would know your name.”

I looked up, startled almost to the point of losing the spell that might keep me sane and sentient for perhaps another minute or two. “Hail, Henst” I replied in the manner of the elves, though sadly not in their tongue. The renegade was in very bad shape; in fact it was probably only because he’d spent his whole life denying the existence of pain that he was even able to stand. Clearly it had been he whom I’d fed to the Dart. Blood streamed down the side of Henst's head, and the elf-man clutched convulsively at his side, which looked a bit caved in. But his free arm still held the shooter gun firmly and steadily. “Come to finish your work?”

“No,” he replied sadly, lowering the shooter. “Our fight is over. I’ve come to learn the name of he who has killed me. Will you do me the honor?”

I released a breath I’d not realized I was holding. Odd, how one hangs onto life even when a clean death is something to be coveted. “You could still live,” I pointed out. “Modern medicine does wonders. And you have information that I can assure you would be most welcome in certain circles. Why are elves suddenly carrying guns and using computers, Henst? Why do you seek to gain money through kidnappings, when you could so easily earn far greater sums by working alongside the rest of us? For that matter, why does the fight between our peoples go on and on, when humans would gladly see it end? We have no desire to fight elves. You might become a bridge between us, Henst, and do elfdom a far greater service by living than ever you could perform by dying. Your knowledge would most surely buy you your health. And perhaps even your freedom.”

Henst smiled bitterly. “You humans are weak. You believe in nothing!” The big man bent over double in a spasm of pain, then stood stonily erect once more, face hard and expressionless. “I could kill you easily. Yet instead I honor you by asking your name. Will you not return my respect?”

I nodded soberly, feeling the last vestiges of mana depart from me forever. “Then hear me well, Henst, and if you chance to live long enough then share my name far and wide. I am Crown Prince Gregory of the House of Lombard. My beloved and lost father was Gustavus, the most powerful, and my mother is Guild Queen Clara, long may she reign. I am deeply proud of my family, and of my heritage. Others must judge whether or not I have lived up to the standards of my line of descent, though I know in my heart that I have made every effort within my power to live up to the legacy of courage and honor. I go to face my Curse now, Henst, and here at the last I find myself strangely unafraid and unashamed. Please tell my family and especially my mother that I love them very deeply, and that my last thoughts were of them.”

Henst looked very confused, but I had no time left to explain things any further. My time was up and as my body began its final shift I accepted that I would never know who had Cursed me, would never discover why the elves were selling Nothing Powder, would not live to know if someday the fair folk might learn to live in peace with the rest of us. In story and fable there always comes a summing up, a neat conclusion, an ending that is satisfying to the mind of the reader so that he can put down his book and walk away feeling fulfilled. But reality was very different from fiction, I now understood. And I was the sadder for having learned the truth. For here I was at the very end, and there were a hundred things I’d never done, a thousand mysteries left unsolved, a million potentials left unfilled…

Then the Curse struck me like a tidal wave. My body changed, my mind changed, my soul changed in a terrible melange of altered perceptions and thoughts. Desperately I tried to hold on to who I was, tried to be who I’d always been. The struggle was utterly hopeless, of course, and perhaps even foolish for the pain that it caused me. But the most important battles of all are always the ones in which you fight on regardless of pain, long after the last shreds of hope are forever gone. “I am Prince Gregory!” I declared aloud as my mind melted to nothing. Icy fingers of fear convulsively grasped at my heart and tried to wrench away my reason, but I would not let them win, not even here at the very last second of my sentience when there could be no shame of any kind left for me. “I am Prince Gregory,” I said aloud with quiet dignity as Henst respectfully stood and bore witness to my passing. “I am Prince Gregory. I am… I am…

"I…
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Virmir
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Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 107

PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 2:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very nice. The hook at the beginning is strong, where you drop subtle hints leave the reader guessing as to what Gregory is turning into (though I should have known, having read some of your earlier works!). Greg reminded me a lot of Prince Phil from Metamor Keep (my current addiction, hehe...), which I thought was pretty cool. The whole car scene near the end is brilliant.

My only little quibble would be how you set up a pretty normal modern world with the addition of magic. This is just a personal preference though, as I have had trouble picturing a society evolving into something that resembles our own when you've got wizards and stuff running around. On the other hand, you do suggest that people are mostly mundane and magic is incorporated into technology ("security wards" are a nice touch). I doubt the setting would bother most anyone but me.

Altogether, I enjoyed it a lot. A couple of hours reading well spent. Bravo! Thanks for sharing!

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Rabbit
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Joined: 07 Sep 2005
Posts: 345
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 4:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you very kindly, Vir.

I can't say just why, but I like writing contmporary societies with magic incorporated as a part of everyday life. It just feels right, coming off of the keyboard.

Prince Phil was written as a sort of semi-parody of my ubiquitous abbit-characters; his servant/bodgueard Rupert (name and all) are taken directly from a rather similar character in my first novel "Transmuation Now!", which Raccoon's Bokshelf will be bringing out soon. Originally, MK was a very lighthearted place where writers didn't take themselves very seriously (I recall three hunters or warriors named Moe, Larry, and Curley, for example), and since I wrote there only in the earliest days of the storyverse, I did a lot of silly stuff like parodying myself. It was my goal for the jokes (like Rupert's name) to be "inside" stuff, transparent to readers unfamliar with what I was poking fun at.

Again, I'm gald you're enjoying MK, and thank you for reading "Descent". I may post the other parts soon, if there's enough interest.
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Luther
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Joined: 14 Sep 2006
Posts: 34
Location: Linden, TN

PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice work. There were three things that really stuck out to me:

1. Gregory being unable to get close to his mother, due to her power and his curse, (just seems like something a vilian would come up with).
2. ThauNet (something so simple Id never would of thought of it).
3. And of course the ending.

As for magic in modern society, I like it. Makes simple things like a internet forum (in the case of ThauNet) real interesting.

-L
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Rabbit
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Joined: 07 Sep 2005
Posts: 345
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you, Luther. I appreciate your taking the time to comment.
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