‘By the Powers,what has the goddess done to me?’ he said aloud.
‘The ... the... The Lady was the cause of this being done to you?’ said Rori.‘But why Spirit Lord?’
‘I have noidea.’ replied Aquitain trying to recollect what had happened theprevious evening and slowly it came to him.
‘I remembernow. Miranda, Quab and I were in Quab’s druid sanctuary at TwinTowers. It was just after sunset and wards suddenly went down thenCurbut the wizard and countless angry druids attacked us from allsides.’
‘I fought hardbut there were just too many of them. I couldn’t teleport away asmy teleport rings were depleted. They surrounded me and struck medown with their blue flaming weapons. It was very painful. My bearbody was destroyed. A little later I woke up in this body andMiranda teleported away with me. The rest is a little fuzzy.’
‘We are beingvery glad that you are coming back from the world of spirits againSpirit Lord Aquitain but we are not being so pleased about your newbody. We would be liking the big bear body much more.’ saidKami.
‘So would IKami. I was getting quite fond of being a spirit bear.’
‘When you werebeing a bear you were changing your shape to other bodies. Is therebeing a possibility of you changing your shape to another beingless frightening Spirit Lord.’ asked Rori. ‘The village people arebeing too terrified to be looking at you.’
‘Of course Rorimy young friend.’ said Aquitain and he thought of what he wouldchange into and as he looked at them he knew somehow that he couldchange into a little person without much effort.
He vaguelyrecalled Miranda saying the previous evening that he was some typeof shape-changing spider. He concentrated and changed shape endingup looking identical to the female little person.
Shastritara wasshocked. ‘You are looking like me.’ she said. ‘Why are you wishingto be looking like me?’
‘Oh. Sorry.’said Aquitain ‘I didn’t mean to look exactly like you. I was justtrying to look like one of your people.’ so he changed and thistime looked exactly like Rori.
‘You arelooking like the twin brother of Rori now.’ said Kami.
‘Oh. I thinkthat I need to see more of your people so that I can work out howto make small changes in my appearance so that I am not a copy ofany one of you but slightly different and unique so that you andyour people can tell me apart from the others.’
‘Why are youwishing to be like us Spirit Lord? Why are you not being a bearagain like yesterday?’ asked Kami.
‘I cannotchange my body size Kami. If I change to a bear I will look like ababy bear. If I change to a Newman then I will look like a smallchild. Would your people rather see me as a child or one of them? Ican also look like a snake or a slime creature if you wish butthat’s all the body shapes I know.’
‘I am seeingyour problem Spirit Lord. If those are being your choices thenbeing one of us is likely to being the most acceptable. There aresome warriors camped outside I will have Rori bring them in here sothat you can see the differences.’
While Rori wascollecting the warriors Aquitain stood in the circle of candles andused his power to detect magic to examine his immediate area. As hehad suspected the area inside the circle of candles was a magicallywarded area.
‘You have me ina warded area Kami. Why is that?’ he asked.
‘When thedruidess Miranda was bringing you to us last night she was askingthat we be giving you protection as you were being hunted by arebel group of druids. I was thinking that it would be being bestthat you are being hidden to their special sight.’
‘Your lorecontinues to amaze me Kami. No one would have guessed that youcould ward an area from scrying. That is very sophisticatedmagic.’
‘We are losingmuch of our lore as we are not being allowed to practice it.’ saidShastritara suddenly. ‘The druids are forbidding us to be usingit.’
‘QuietShastritara, it is not your place to be speaking badly of thedruids.’ said Kami harshly.
She defiantlyglared back at him but said nothing more. Aquitain used hismindlink with the female to ask her what she meant when she saidthat she was the Most Fearless. She looked guiltily at Kami andthen realised that he couldn’t hear what Aquitain was sayingthrough the mindlink. She gave him a toothy reptilian grin and satdown submissively behind Kami.
‘You are acunning one, Spirit Lord. I am now seeing why the druidess has beentelling us that you are being her favourite. I am being differentfrom the others in the tribe. My skin colour is being red. It onlyhas the purple coloration like the other Jeti as I am having to dyeit using blue berries.’
‘At one timethere was being a tribe of our peoples that all had truly red skin.They were always being fearless and having disagreements witheveryone. They were especially proud of a rite that was showing allthe others how fearless they were. While studying the lore I foundout about the rite and was wanting our tribe to be doing it. Allbut me were afraid. After I was completing the rite the tribe wereproud and called me the Most Fearless.’
‘How manydifferent scale colours are there?’ asked Aquitain suddenlyinterested.
‘Yes SpiritLord there were once being four pure scale colours representing thefour elements these were being pure reds, blues, greens and browns.They were proud and distinct and rarely mixed with each other. Thepure reds and blues being very head strong were the causing of muchtroubles with the druids and were nearly wiped out. They are nolonger being allowed. The surviving reds were only allowed by thedruids to be having children with the blues resulting in thepurples you see here which are more peaceful with the druids.’
‘The greens arealways being peaceful and causing few problems. The browns I ambeing told once existed before the time of the Great Storm and wereall lost in the storm.’
‘You are a redliving with the purple tribe are there any blues here?’ heasked.
‘The blues areall gone now. They were the ones that
