He considered that he was very lucky that cats had no expressions to read. And that the Troll could not actually read thoughts either. “Nor will you,” the Troll said, puffing up a little. “I am unique!”
I can see that. Is it true that you can change shape? I mean, change it to something other than your native form and this one? I had heard that some of the most powerful of Elementals can do that, but I have never seen it. He paused. Truly, I was thinking it must be some kind of myth.
“I can take any form I care to, as long as I have absorbed the original,” the Troll boasted, straightening, the pride evident in its voice. “Watch.”
In truth, Thomas would rather not have watched, but he didn’t have much choice. Watching the Troll shift forms was a very uncomfortable experience. Its body rippled in a stomach-churning manner, and the way the skin and hair seemed to crawl—it was entirely unnerving, and Thomas would have sworn until now that he had unshakeable nerves.
The Troll went through the forms of a dozen different people, all of whom must have been its victims, before Thomas shook his head in mock-admiration. He wasn’t admiring her, of course. What he was doing, after he got a grip on his own discomfort and mastered it, was studying her. When she changed shapes, she changed the clothing as well. So the clothing was a part of her. If you ripped it, would she bleed? Feel pain? He could see how she could counterfeit the living flesh, but how had she managed to learn to duplicate the clothing? Did she always wear this sort of “clothing,” or did she make use of an ordinary person’s wardrobe as well?
Then he realized that she must, because she was a real dancer. She would have changed costumes, changed into practice clothing.
How had she counterfeited being a real human all this time? Elementals generally did not understand humans. If she hadn’t been so evil, he would have been lost in real, not counterfeit, admiration.
That is amazing, he said. Can you take on the form of anything other than a human?
“If I choose,” the Troll replied smugly.
Thomas blinked, and the Troll’s form writhed, thickened, and instead of a human looming over him, there was a bear. It was a black bear, of the sort that often was taken from town to town by traveling entertainers and made to “dance” for thrown coins. In England they were usually not seen outside circuses, but on the Continent, such creatures were sometimes kept by gypsies. It balanced adroitly on its hind legs, looming over him, staring down at him from its tiny, shiny eyes, and growled.
Then it went to all fours, and writhed again, this time taking on the shape of a tiger easily the size of the sofa behind it.
Thomas got up and prowled around the beast, as if he was astonished by it. Amazing, he repeated. And you are, for all intents and purposes, the beast. Correct?
The tiger nodded.
I can see where these forms would be useful, the cat said thoughtfully. If you wanted to hunt someone, but did not want to chance the blame falling on you, all you would need to do would be to get him alone, take on the animal, and—
The tiger made a snickering sound, nodded, and the shape writhed again, and Thomas found himself staring up into the long tusks and whiskered cheeks of a walrus. I cannot imagine how that shape would be useful, he said doubtfully.
The troll returned to the shape of Nina. “Then you have never fallen off a ship in winter,” she said, with an air of superiority. He wondered about that statement. Had she fallen—or had she been pushed? He’d have bet on the latter.
I will take your word for it. Can you become a bird?
“Of course. But—” She frowned more deeply. “I do not care to do so for long. There is only so much thinking so little a head can do.” She made gesture of impatience. “So, why is it you have come to me, cat? Have you no loyalty to your mistress?”
Thomas snorted. I am a cat. When is a cat loyal to anything but his own best interest?
The feral smile that greeted that statement made him shudder. “Ha! Well said. And you wish to be on the winning side in this?”
He looked at her sideways. Let us say that I know where my own best interest lies.
“And what is it that you can do for me, cat?” Nina asked, taking her place on her chaise longue again, and curling up in a rather catlike pose herself. “I have servants. In fact, I have more than I need. You do not have hands, you cannot even do what they do.”
But I can go where they cannot. His keen hearing had detected something. A familiar footstep, coming slowly, cautiously forward.
Ninette! He very nearly leapt to his feet and ran out of the room then, and it was all he could do to keep himself from calling out Ninette’s name. The Troll clearly had no difficulty hearing and understanding his projected thoughts, and he was afraid to warn Ninette lest it should hear. How had she found him? Why was she here? How could he get her to escape? Could she escape?
Say you want to know what your lover is saying about you when you are on stage. I can creep under the seats, or into the private boxes and listen. He began speaking rapidly, hoping to hold the Troll’s attention. I can spy on him, or anyone else, as they sleep. I can find out the secrets of your rivals, I can learn anything you wish to have found out. A cat can go almost anywhere.
She laughed. “So you say. But I can become a cat too, or better still, a rat or a mouse. You say that a cat can go anywhere, but if I need to learn something all that badly, I can go where even a cat cannot, between the walls where no one would even suspect my existence.”
The footsteps had ceased; Thomas could tell that Ninette had stopped just out of sight, at the side of the doorway. Was she listening? Did she understand what she was hearing?
Had she thought to summon help before she came after him?
Oh come now! Thomas reproved. All these other things you have turned yourself into were quite large. It is one thing to make yourself into something human-sized or larger. But to make yourself into a mouse? I believe you are telling me a tale.
Nina reddened slightly with anger. “You doubt my abilities?”
Oh, I am sure you can make yourself into the form of a mouse, but it would have to be a mouse the size of a tiger. He licked his paw and rubbed it nonchalantly across his whiskers. It takes real skill in magic to be able to shrink yourself that way, and I have never actually seen anyone that could do that—outside of a spirit, since they don’t have any material body to begin with and can look like whatever they like.
“You think I don’t have the skill?” Nina shouted. She jumped up from the chaise longue. “I will show you, skill, cat! I will show you skill such as you have never seen!”
There came one of those moments in magic when the world seems to turn itself inside out.
This is because, in many ways, it is doing just that.
No human could have done what the Troll did, because no human had control over Earth magic energies and the Element of Earth that the Greater Elementals themselves did. Few humans could travel to any of the Elemental Planes, and fewer still returned to tell their story. And to tell the truth, Thomas had not really expected that the Troll had that level of skill. He had mostly been taunting it, to keep it from noticing Ninette.
The room suddenly seemed simultaneously far too small, and as large as a cathedral. The air thickened, and grew desert-hot. Thomas could not look at the Troll—not because he didn’t want to. He literally could not look at it. It had become some strange amorphous conglomeration of swirling energy clouds that wrenched at the eyes and felt all wrong, with something vaguely human-shaped in the middle of it. All the senses revolted at what was going on. It was impossible. It should not be. The eyes refused to believe what they were seeing, and then mind shied away from contemplating how the laws of physics were being shattered. The cloud of energies pulsed and vibrated and shuddered.