Wyst replied, "Not quite. They're chimera. Shape-shifting creatures, beasts of the dream planes employed by sorcerers. Dangerous as anything alive because they can become anything that has lived and a thousand things that never have."
As I watched, the albatross became a small winged lizard, and a raven transformed into a yellow pelican.
Wyst spurred his horse onward. He didn't seem afraid, but he never did. He tutored us on what to expect while the creatures, in various winged forms, trailed from the air.
"The most important thing to remember is that chimera are compulsive shape-shifters. They can't hold any particular form for long, and that unpredictability can work against as much as for them. Their minds, like their bodies, are fluid, in capable of keeping to any strategy. One moment, you'll be facing a dragon-headed lion and the next, it will be a puppy or a weasel or perhaps a bass. Strike at these vulnerable moments."
A glance showed the chimera flying lower and closer.
"They'll warn before they attack."
The chimera followed for another hour. I mostly ignored them, only occasionally allowing myself a curious glimpse. The assortment of shapes was always different. First, three owls of different colors. Then a mallard, a goose, and a hummingbird. Then a condor, a larger hummingbird, and a flying chicken. Then a bat, a winged serpent, and an eight-legged turtle treading the air with its churning legs.
The chimera swooped just over our heads and screeched with warbling voices. They landed just ahead.
Wyst drew his sword. "They're ready."
Gwurm knelt to allow me to climb off his shoulders. He set aside my sack and cracked his knuckles. An odd act for a troll, given their lack of fleshly joints.
The chimera moved closer. Each took on a different form. There was a liquid grace to their shifting. Heads and limbs sprouted and shrank away and changed. Fur became scales became skin became feathers. Yet no matter what they became, whether natural beast or strange amalgamation, they always seemed to be wearing the right form. My witchly instincts told me the chimera's shapes weren't dictated by chance. There was a pattern at work, albeit the indecipherable pattern of living dreams. Understanding what cannot be understood is a witch's trade.
The first chimera became a great, hairy bear. The head shrank into the body and grew out of its chest. Its forearms became insectlike, ending in bladed hooks. The second chimera became a very traditional ogre. The third took on a serpentine form with a moose's head and a row of deadly spikes running down its spine.
We paired off. Penelope and I faced the bear-thing. Gwurm stood before the ogre. Wyst readied himself to battle the moose-headed serpent.
I knew what I must do to defeat my chimera, but I wasn't a talented enough witch to decipher three dreams at once. I trusted Gwurm and Wyst to overcome their own.
I whispered instructions to Penelope. She twitched her understanding, and then the trial began.
The ogre chimera charged Gwurm, but trolls are twice as strong as ogres. Gwurm hefted his opponent high in the air and slammed it to the ground. The chimera shifted into a monstrous bull. Gwurm held tight to the bucking beast.
Wyst and the serpent circled each other warily. The chimera snapped and snarled. The White Knight stabbed at it. Neither had drawn blood yet.
I was able to watch all this because my own magic had reduced the earth to sucking mud beneath the bear-thing's feet. It sank into the ground, screeching and howling. One bladed arm was the last to disappear. It wasn't defeated. I was merely guiding it into a more acceptable form.
The earth rumbled, and a giant centipede burst forth at my feet. It towered over me, clicking its mandibles and hissing. It snatched me up in its blades, whipping me from side to side, and sliced me in two at the waist. My lower half fell away, but the centipede grabbed me in a dozen short arms. It changed colors, from bright green to dull orange. Mucus dripped from its wriggling mouth. Then it hacked into my neck. There was the gush of blood, the pain of tearing flesh, and my head bounced to the ground where it came to a rolling stop.
The chimera, unable to hold its centipede form, melted and shifted once again. It became a large, two-legged toad with a face that was all mouth. It opened its jaws, showing rows of jagged teeth.
I could feel my body, but it was as if my neck was a thousand miles long. Giving direction to my limbs was a distant, deliberate affair. I was largely helpless. Penelope was not.
The toad pounced at my head only to be swatted down by my broom. The chimera shook its head clear and screeched at her. She moved in small circles before striking again in a full, wide arc. The force cracked her handle and sent the chimera tumbling away. It jumped to its feet, already shifting again. It sprouted feathers and a single enormous eye. Penelope shot forward and speared it in that eye. The chimera collapsed, very dead.
My broom wasted no time. She tugged free of her opponent and floated to my side. She swept my head back to my torso. It took a few moments for me to get my hands to shove my head back into place. The flesh of my neck knit back together, but even my powers of regeneration were limited so that it was a loose fit. A hard nod or a sudden jerk and it would fall off again.
I pushed myself up and studied the fight. Gwurm's chimera was now a thing with dozens of tentacles. The troll struggled, but he was wrapped in its smothering coils. He gasped just before his body surrendered to the pressure and fell apart. The troll pieces slipped from the chimera's hold. The beast became a badger with a peacock tail and kicked around Gwurm's parts, looking for a vulnerable portion.
I found a stone and threw it at the beast. It whirled, slobbering, teeth bared, and scrambled in my direction. The badger shape grew roughly human as it seized me in clawed hands. It expanded to tremendous size and parted its jaws to swallow me whole. At which point, I shoved an arm down its gullet. My curse gives me a knack for tearing flesh, and the malleable flesh of the chimera proved vulnerable. I punched through the back of its mouth and wrapped my fingers around something squishy and warm and hopefully vital. Although with chimera, this was mostly a matter of chance. The monster bit off my arm just as I squeezed. The chimera gurgled, staggered, and fell over. I was buried beneath its enormous form.
With only one arm and no way of freeing myself, I lay beneath the chimera and listened as Wyst battled the last one. There was a lot of grunting and shrieking, and this went on for some time. Finally, there was one last bubbling screech.
Then silence.
The beast atop me swayed. I thought it might still be alive, but then it rolled over. Wyst of the West knelt beside me. Multicolored blood coated his shirt. Sweat glimmered on his dark skin. He wrapped tender arms around me and leaned me against the chimera's corpse.
"Are you hurt?"
"Hurt, but not harmed," I replied. "How is Gwurm?"
"I'm fine, but I lost an eye. Watch for it."
Wyst fetched my legs, and by the way he was walking, I could see he was injured. His White Knight invulnerability must have failed him in some way. Some of the blood on his side was his own.
As I fished around the monster's slackened jaws to retrieve my arm, Wyst retrieved my sack. I reached in for some needle and thread to stitch myself together and instead found Newt. Like all lost things, he was in the last and most obvious place I looked.
19
Our first triat behind us, and none of us being in traveling condition, we camped beside the chimera corpses. Only Newt had escaped injury, and that was only because he'd missed the battle. This annoyed him. He would have rather taken part and been killed than lose an opportunity to fight. He sulked as the rest of us tended our wounds.