Mark of the Fool
Chapter 610: Metamorphosis

Flesh rippled.

Bone cracked.

The cerberus was gripped by a terrible change.

He growled and snarled, eyes shut tight—every muscle tensed—as Theresa’s enhanced lifeforce poured through him, empowering and transforming his form.

“What’s happening to Brutus?” Theresa tried to rise, her voice filled with alarm. She managed to partly stand before stumbling, still weak from the ritual.

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” Alex caught her, holding her up. “It’s normal…probably.”

“Probably?” Theresa demanded.

“Everything I’ve read said that a reaction like this could happen from the ritual,” he explained. “But…since I’ve never done this before…”

Brutus continued snarling, shaking himself as red light moved beneath his skin like worms tunnelling through loose dirt.

His shoulders, haunches, lower legs, paws and tail, sprouted thick plates of bone—like those of a silence-spider or bone-charger—dripping with a honey- coloured liquid as the armoured plates covered those parts of his body.

His tail lengthened, a sheath of bone-armour forming over it as it cut the air, whipping back and forth.

Suddenly, his growls stilled.

No, that wasn’t right.

Everything about the cerberus stilled, from the sound of his nails scraping against the stone floor, to the snap his tail had made as it whipped back and forth. Even the tearing noise of mutating flesh had ceased. He moved, but made no sound.

“What in the Traveller’s name? Theresa gasped. “I can…I can feel something. I can feel our link. There’s no pain, but what is—”

Brutus’ jaws opened.

The huntress’ eyes flew wide.

“Alex, down!”

“Shit!” He shouted as they tumbled to the ground.

Silence fled, sound returned to the cerberus.

With a vengeance.

From three fanged mouths, undulating waves of sonic power shot out as howls lanced through the lab. Waves attacked the wall they were aimed toward, cracking it, bursting it with pure force.

Sonic howls punched through the earthbeyond the wall like force magic, until at last, Brutus was spent. From three newly formed holes in a wall of Alex’s laboratory, bits of stone, debris, and rock dust flowed.

Yet, nothing else was damaged.

Not a single glass beaker had so much as shuddered while Brutus’ howls tore apart earth and stone.

Alex’s mind raced, trying to make sense of what was happening, but before he could.

“What’re you doing, boy?” Theresa said to Brutus.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“There’s…something…it feels like a knot of power inside him,” she said. “It…almost feels like an organ somewhere in his body. I don’t think it was there before, and now he’s making it do something, but I don’t know what—!”

Before she could finish, his body flashed red. The sound of flesh shifting soon followed, as the cerberus reached into the pulsing knot of power.

His body began to grow.

Already bearing the height and bulk of a small pony, the hound grew beyond that. Bone elongated, thickening. Fangs tapered. Muscles bulged.

Soon, he was the size of a draft horse…perhaps bigger.

More bone armour emerged.

Plate after plate erupted from his skin, sheathing his entire body in a suit of dense bone. Every inch of him was growing armour, even surrounding his mouths with thin slits that also encircled his noses and eyes.

The bone armour spread, covering his fangs and claws, lengthening and protecting them, turning them to serrated, merciless, blades. A thick bulb of ossein swelled over the tip of his tail, transforming it from a bone-sheathed whip, to a deadly flail.

The armour was strategically peppered with spikes, it started with the bone-club capping his tail, transforming it into the head of a spiked mace. Barbs now covered his body armour like porcupine quills, and when at last this secondary transformation had ended, Brutus was enormous, protected in a spiked covering of plated bone armour, complete with deadly natural weapons. His hulking form—thick with powerful musculature—had transformed into an engine of destruction, radiating vitality and power.

He let out three low growls, each rumbling through the laboratory like boulders grinding to dust.

His eyes glowed blood red, and the air rippled around his jaws with every breath he took.

“Brutus…?” Theresa asked. “Is that…are you alright?”

The cerberus whirled, releasing three ear-shattering barks and bounded toward her, a giant wall of charging spikes.

“Oh gods, the spikes!” Alex screamed.

“Wait, wait, boy! Calm down! Calm down!” she cried. “You don’t want to hurt mommy with those barbs, do you?”

Brutus abruptly stopped—armoured nails scraping trenches in the floor—pausing a single pace away, looming over them. He cocked his enormous heads.

He let out three quiet barks.

Then went silent.

Again, sheathed in that eerie, silence-spider-like stillness, Brutus began to shrink. The spikes withdrew into his bone plates, and they in turn melted back into his skin, leaving only flesh and soft fur.

Only the plates that had initially formed over his shoulders, haunches, lower legs, paws and tail remained, now free from deadly barbs. The last of his new powers to go—the crimson glow in his eyes—dimmed, and died.

Aside from the remaining plates, he was his old self again, happily bounding to Theresa and bowling her over.

“Agh! Brutus, you’re so strong now!” she cried, laughing. “Oh by the Traveller, look at you!”

“What just happened?” Alex asked. “Did the transformation partially undo itself?”

“No,” she said. “It’s like there’s a well of power inside him.” She was giggling as three enormous tongues licked her face. “He can draw from it to transform and then change back, only those bits of armour stay.”

Theresa laughed. “It’s amazing. He took to my power so well! Look at how strong he is!”

“Yeah, I’ll say.” Alex murmured, staring at Brutus, then quickly going to his desk, he began recording what had happened. “I’ve got to get this down before I forget any of it!”

“Always the scholar, aren’t you?” she laughed as Brutus continued to slobber on her with sloppy kisses. “Well tell me this, Mr. Genius. Why did Brutus change the way he did? The armour and silence…it reminds me of silence-spiders.”

Alex paused his writing, squinting at the friendly—now semi-immortal canine—and scratched his head. “Well, I’m not going to lie and say I know what just happened. All I can tell you are some theories…no, they’re hypotheses…I’ll be honest, they’re more like guesses. Educated guesses, but guesses.”

Theresa giggled. “Well, tell me your ‘educated guesses’, Mr. Educated Genius.”

“Well,” he said. “First of all, the first monster Brutus ever killed was a silence-spider, right? Same with you. Before that, all you two had ever killed were forest animals you were hunting. Maybe that left an impression on him, and that’s how his new power manifested. To be honest, there’s…not a lot of science to this kind of magic. It’s old and terrifying, and even modern wizards don’t quite understand the causes of its different effects. Some things we’ve figured out, but others…”

He paused. “Though, you know what?” he continued. “I’m wondering if maybe you have something to do with it.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow, using Brutus to pull herself to her feet before Alex could get there to help her. “Oh, stay there, stay there. I’m just tired, not dead. And I’m already feeling like I’m recovering. Anyway, what do I have to do with it?”

“Well, our life energies reflect us to a certain degree,” Alex began.

“Alex, I’m a life enforcement practitioner. I know that,” she said. “Our emotions, personalities, reflect us and our souls.”

“Exactly. And you really wanted Brutus to be able to keep up with you and also protect himself,” Alex said. “So what happened? He developed a larger, more powerful body. That way, he can fight the kinds of enemies you fight in melee these days. You wanted him protected, so he developed armour with thorns that’d make any enemy think twice about hitting him. You use your arrows a lot, so he developed an attack at range to strike your enemies with you. You and he are hunters, so he developed silence to better sneak up on prey. What else…”

He looked at the bone plates. “Actually, you know what? I’m thinking about only half of this. Brutus isn’t sapient, but he’s got wants and wishes too. His lifeforce would reflect that. And maybe the silence-spider made an impression on him. He couldn’t bite through its armour when it attacked us back in the Coille, and he was helpless against the hive-queen. So, maybe he copied them, because he remembered how successfully they fought him.”

Alex scratched his head again. “But honestly, this is the same kind of magic that came out of a world where wizards only got power by making blood sacrifices, and calling on demons to make bargains for power. This is the stuff of souls, and genie wishes, and fairy curses. The most advanced archwizards of our day don’t quite understand that old magic the way we do most things, so I can only guess.”

“Well your guesses are good enough for me,” she said, smiling and kissing her cerberus. “Alex, this is—without a doubt—the greatest gift anyone has ever given to either Brutus or me. You know that? Seriously, nothing else compares.”

Alex put down his notebook, leaning back against the desk and blushing a little. “Well, uh, I put a lot of thought into it. I really wanted it to be special.”

Theresa scritched Brutus’ ear. “Well, it is. It really is. Now why don’t you go thank your dad for the wonderful gift, Brutus?”

Barking enthusiastically, the cerberus bounded across the lab and leapt onto Alex, licking him mercilessly.

“Agh! Not the face! Not the face!” he cried.

“Yes, the face!” Theresa commanded mercilessly. “Don’t leave him alone!”

“Arrrrgh!” Alex screamed in defeat as Theresa giggled.

A vicious look sparkled in the huntress’ eye. “You know what? I feel like some exercise. Do you feel like some exercise, Alex?”

“How do you mean?” the Thameish wizard asked between sloppy cerberus kisses.

“Well.” She flexed her fingers, making a tight fist. “What do you say we go to Thameland and maybe find ourselves a dungeon to raid? I feel stronger than ever. I can smell so many things in this room…I can hear so much better. I think I’m faster too. And I want to see Brutus in action.”

The cerberus barked.

“See! And he wants exercise too!” Theresa said, leaning on the desk. “Why don’t we tear apart some bone-chargers? Maybe even a behemoth or two? I feel my strength coming back.”

“Oh no,” Alex said. “None of that. What you two are going to do is rest for the day, while I feed you and give you plenty of fluids. In a few days we can talk about exercise.”

“What? Oh come ooooon,” the huntress whined. “We have to go to Thameland. We just have to! We have so much power now, we have to test it out. I might only be slightly stronger and faster, but Brutus is going to be a juggernaut now: completely unstoppable, I just know it! Come on, let’s gooooo.”

“No, no, no,” Alex said. “No you don’t. Like I said, this ritual is old magic, and every book I’ve read says both master and familiar need to be monitored for a few days after the ritual is complete, just in case there’s complications that don’t show up initially.”

“Come on, we’re fine. I can feel my strength returning and I can feel Brutus’, oh—” Theresa looked sharply at the cerberus.

Suddenly, the hound stopped licking Alex and yawned, tottering back to his mother. He gave her a big lick, then turned in a circle and collapsed at her feet in a ball.

In no time, he was fast asleep.

Theresa glared at him as though he was the biggest traitor in all of Thameish history.

“See?” Alex said. “The process takes a lot out of you, and you two won’t be at your best for at least a couple of days. You feel strong, but exerting yourselves will be too much. Come on, I made a fantastic dessert for us—frozen vanilla cake covered with whipped cream, and roasted chestnut slivers—and you and Brutus can just relax until Selina and Claygon get back. Khalik’s parents are leaving in a couple of days. And after that? We can go and have some fun.”

“Awww, but I want to try out this new power right now,” Theresa said, disappointed. “Come on, future husband—Oh what’s the use? You’re being annoyingly reasonable.”

“I know, I know.” Alex walked over and hugged her around the waist. He kissed her forehead. “But we’ll get a chance to try it out. I’m sure the enemies in Thameland will be there after you’ve recovered. Then, we can have at all the bone chargers we want: or hells, maybe some other type of Ravener spawn. Any kind we want. Who knows what we’ll find waiting when we get back to Thameland.”

“Uldar’s servants will be here tomorrow,” Eldin said, his whispering voice mixing with the sounds of the woods.

His agents watched him with eyes burning with fervour.

“Then we can begin our holy task as given me by the Third Apostle.” The priest’s smile was serene. “And we will bring together all those who threaten Uldar’s great plan. And like festering wounds, they will be cut away by our hand.”

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