destroy everything you have worked to build.”
Her words brought my memories back and I suddenly understood my anger. “They must be punished,” I told her.
“No,” she said. “Not all of them, if you do this everyone will die. Does your mother deserve to suffer?”
A face appeared in my mind when she said those words and I remembered Miriam. I didn’t want to hurt her, yet my anger was beyond restraint. “I cannot stop now,” I told her.
“You must Mordecai, let go of your anger. You must not give up your humanity, not yet. Let the fires cool. Remember how your father banked the hearth at night? Relax… the fire will not die, just let it slumber, it does not need to burn so hotly.” As she spoke I grew calmer and I began to breathe again, though it seemed an unfamiliar practice.
After an unknowable period I finally regained myself. Moira talked to me through it all, soothing me and reminding me of things from my mortal life, helping me to regain my perspective. When I had finally recovered my sanity I was astonished at the change in my physical body.
I seemed to be made of molten rock; I was so hot I glowed like an iron pulled from a furnace. Now that I had calmed down though I was cooling off and my color had changed to a dull orange. I was also a lot bigger than normal. I stood at least fifteen feet in height and everything else had increased proportionally. Now that my mind was back to normal I felt close to panic at the changes in my body. I had no idea how to return to being flesh and blood again.
I looked down at Moira, desperate, “What do I do now?”
“I’m just relieved you’ve finally recovered your senses,” she replied.
“What about this?!” I said in a panicked tone, holding up my enormous stony hand.
“Now that you are yourself again I would think that part should be simple for you,” she said. “In case you don’t remember you just nearly wiped the face of the earth clean of all life. I think the rest of us deserve a minute to collect our wits.”
“Perhaps if you could just explain how I got this way,” I offered.
“I’m not sure how you did any of what you just did,” she said in an odd tone. “Normally when someone melds with the earth the way you did their mind is completely absorbed and they lose all conception of their prior emotions, yet somehow you projected your emotions onto everything else in the process. I even felt angry. You didn’t just become part of the earth, you made the earth become part of you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice held an almost petulant tone. “Except that you shouldn’t still be yourself. You went too far, and that’s an understatement. You should be like me now.”
I glanced at my body, “I think we do share certain features.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she snapped. “I’m not real; I’m a shadow of a person that once existed. You are still yourself.”
“I can’t go back to Lancaster like this,” I informed her.
She sighed, if elemental beings can be said to sigh that is. “You have shifted your physical body. In this case it was a side effect of your joining the earth but if you had gone any further your body would have completely lost humanoid form and become indistinguishable from the earth itself, does that make sense?”
I nodded. “So how do I undo this?”
“Idiot,” she said suddenly. “To think you would do so much yet be unable to manage the most fundamental part of shape shifting.”
“I haven’t had the most communicative teachers,” I replied sarcastically.
“Close your eyes and envisage yourself as you were before,” she replied, not deigning to respond to my remark. “Block everything out but your personal self, cut your ties to everything else. You must not think of anything but your body, and it must be the body you remember. Listen to the substance of your current self and coax it into becoming the self you remember.”
I thought about what she said for a moment before speaking. “Can I change anything?”
“What do you mean?” she said with a frown.
“I had a chipped tooth,” I said by way of example, “could I reimagine myself with a whole tooth?”
“You occupy the body of a giant, composed of rock and magma, and you want to know if you can rebuild yourself without a chip in your tooth?” Her expression was less than sympathetic.
“Yes.”
She stared at me for a long moment, pondering before she spoke, “Yes you could rebuild your body with a perfect tooth; however such a thing would be risky. You must remember your body, not just mentally, but viscerally. If you make a mistake you could die. Trying to alter your remembrance during the process could produce a tragic failure.”
I clenched my granite jaw, “I just discovered my wife is dead and my best friend along with her, I don’t really give a damn if I fail.” With those words I closed my eyes and tried to do as she had said, imagining myself as I had been. At first nothing happened, until I listened to my body. Once I had its voice in my mind I began to change it. It was a shocking realization, I was a rocky giant because my body’s song said I was, and by simply changing its reality, I became the flesh and blood human I remembered.
When I opened my eyes again I was human, though my tooth was no longer chipped. I smiled at that thought. I also now knew how fine the line between reality and illusion was. My body was in some fundamental way a product of my ‘vision’. If I changed the way I thought of it, it would change in response.
It occurred to me that I should test my theory. I closed my eyes again, but Moira’s voice broke my concentration, “Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?” I asked.
“Don’t try that… you haven’t learned enough yet. Shape shifting is in some ways the simplest of the arts but it is also fraught with the most dangers. The only thing you should attempt until you’ve had at least some basic advice is what you just did, returning to your proper form,” she answered.
“How did you know what I was thinking?”
“I have been acting as your miellte, since you badly need one. I am ‘listening’ to you, as best I can,” she responded.
“You can see my thoughts?” I asked curiously, and perhaps secretly a bit alarmed.
She smiled, “Not exactly. I can anticipate your actions and feel some of your emotions, but I don’t know exactly what you are thinking.”
For some reason that was the point when my normal human emotions kicked in again, while I had been in the form of an earthen giant I had felt only anger, the emotion I had been feeling when I changed. Now that I was flesh and blood again my normal ‘range’ seemed to be restored and my grief came back to me, washing over me like a river of sadness. “So you can feel my emotions now then?” I said in a voice devoid of the emotion I was feeling.
Though she was made of earth Moira’s features were as finely done as any mortal’s, her eyes revealed a deep sympathy within them. “Yes, I can feel your sorrow. I have known times such as these myself.”
“But you do not hear the question in my heart?”
“No,” she answered.
“Today I have seen the power I possess. A power so great it could destroy everything, yet I was unable to protect those most dear to me. I want to know why. Why?” As I asked the question I felt my anger returning, but I didn’t allow it to overwhelm me this time.
Moira’s expression changed as I spoke, becoming more stern. “Listen to me son of Illeniel, and I will tell you what I learned at great cost, once, long ago, ages before you were born. The ability to destroy is the least form of power, though it is the first form that any power will take. Even an infant is able to destroy things, weak though it may be. Using your talent to build, to create, or to restore, those are the greater forms of power; and those forms require time and cultivation to mature.”
I listened carefully, despite my anger and sorrow, even then my mind was working, looking ahead. “What of the power to protect?” I asked.
She closed her eyes. “That is an illusion. There is no power to protect, only to destroy and create anew. Protection is a result of the mind and clever use of power to manipulate the actions of those that would harm you, but it is not a result of power itself.”
