Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (best time to read books txt) 📕

“OMG! What happened to your head?!”

“What? Why? What’s wrong with it?” Warrior groped his face and felt… a lot of hair. <A mirror! A mirror! Somebody please get me a mirror!>

Upon Hordo’s signal, a Sylphian barmaid obliged and Warrior was able to survey the extent of the problem. His torso and limbs were exactly the same as before but now his whole head down to his neck had been replaced with… a bear’s.

Warrior started crying but what came out of his mouth was ursine moans. The moans were interspersed with comprehensible human words.

“Why? Why me? Why did I transform into a monster?”

“Your name…” Ranger whispered, mystified. “It’s no longer Warrior. It’s…”

“Arctodus,” Blacksmith finished. “Meaning Bear Tooth.”

Warrior / Arctodus / Bear Tooth continued moaning piteously.

“What do you mean, guys?” Elf asked. “That has always been his name.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Ranger said, confusion creeping in his voice. “We used to call him… Bear Tooth.”

“Exactly,” Elf said with conviction. “Bear Tooth was once a fearsome berserker so the Valkyries saw fit to resurrect him as part-jolfr.” As an afterthought, she asked: “Right?”

“Wait, how do you know his back story?” Ranger asked.

“I know all your back stories,” Elf said casually. “Including yours, Edmond Le Comte Noir.”

Ranger was dumbfounded. The title translated to “The Black Count”. But he couldn’t come up with a retort because he just noticed he was indeed wearing a full black outfit. It was an elegant justaucorps coat and chainmail vest, which should be centuries ahead of medieval fashion. He also had on breeches, stockings and a sword belt.

<It was definitely the shoes,> Hordo said.

Earlier, the Troll had given Ranger a freebie of sabatons with toes stretching twice his feet’s length. Those had now subsided into more practical boots.

“I know your story too…” Ranger a.k.a. the Count responded to Elf after doing a double-take, “… Nethril.”

The name was short for Nethril go-Dagnis, the powerful shaman queen of the Adularith elf tribe.

Grabbing the looking-glass from Bear Tooth, Elf beheld herself for the first time in Erebus. She was still an elf with pointed ears, crow skin and bright violet eyes. But now her long, curly hair had been braided into long locks and she wore a hooded cloak above her armor. A dainty tiara sloped into a flattering V-shape across her forehead and was accented at the vertex with a moonstone that dangled like a frozen drop.

Nethril, she thought to herself.

Lastly, Blacksmith had transformed into a soldier who was only slightly less equipped than a knight. He wore the lightweight shirt of chainmail that he had purchased and over it, a crimson surcoat emblazoned with a mysterious coat of arms that featured three rabbits running in an endless loop. His black hair had instantaneously grown longer. From a top-knot, it was now swept back into a man bun; and his Fu Manchu mustache had metamorphosed into a more regular, mid-length growth of both soup-strainer and beard. More importantly, he had lost the beer gut that had slowed him down and cost him his life more than once.

As they looked at him, the same name popped up in every Dreamwalker’s brain: Man-At-Arms.  

“What’s that on his chest?” asked the Count, who vaguely remembered seeing the same symbol as a carved roof boss in the historical Church of Saints-Pierre-et-Paul.

“That is Tinners’ Rabbits,” Mage explained, “It is a mystical motif that originated all the way from the ancient empire of Persia, traveled down the Silk Road to caves in the Far East, and appeared at various sacred sites in Europe; spanning all the four religions of Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity.”

“What does it mean?” Man-At-Arms asked as he lifted the front of his surcoat and looked down.

The three rabbits were chasing each other in a never-ending circle, joined together by their ears, which formed a triangle. At first, it would appear as though there were six ears, two for each animal but, if one looked closely, there were in fact only three.       

“No one knows for certain,” Mage answered. “Some say it symbolizes fertility while others say it represents eternity. I myself dare say it is an archetype. A visual puzzle and/ or a paradox.”

“What’s it doing on my surcoat?” Man-At-Arms asked under his breath.

****

They all retired to their room. Retired was a euphemism. First, they had to step out of the inn and climb a wooden staircase. The bedchamber was miniscule and what little space it had was cramped with at least four wooden cribs with straw mattresses. There was one chest with broken locks, a pitcher of dubious water and a brass basin.

“Why would we need the Nidhoggr skin?” Nethril asked Mage when she felt they were far enough away from eavesdropping ears. She didn’t think there was such a private spot in the inn but her use of modern English would at least deter anyone without a charmed hearing aid.