The Shapeshifter's Duel

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 83045

Elaine blasted the dragon-mage with huge bursts of multicolored energy, laughing like a child. "Where is your power now?" she scremed, shooting his feet with a red blast that made him jump in the air. "Where is your strength? Where is your glory?"

"Enough, hissed Minestus as his scales began to darken and his flesh began to shift. He transformed into a towering black serpent that, before Elaine could act, had sprung and wrapped her up in its coils. Elaine did not feel the pressing of the monster's flesh. She felt something far worse: the coldness of a void where time and space seemed to stretch on forever.

After a few agonizing seconds, Minestus let her go and shifted into the form of a tall, slim but large human. "This foolishness is over, girl," he hissed "I could have taken your life at any moment. Nevertheless, you challenge me as none ever has since Belboz first faced me, when he was young and strong and brave, so I will let you live. Perhaps we can play a game?"

"What sort of game?" said Elaine, her voice now hoarse and ragged and her body wracked with pain. Though lying on the floor and shuddering, she was still defiant.

"A very old game, that you must know well from ballads or fairy-tales and such. We shall fight a shapeshifter's duel. It is the only sort of battle where we could perhaps face each other on equal terms."

"Do your worst," said Elaine. She spat in Minestus's face.

"I shall make the first move," said Minestus. The shadows around him began to darken as he began to shift once more. "I am a tiger, terrible, fierce." He roared and sprang at her.

Elaine felt the power of the ring fill her once more. "I am a hunter, bold, unstoppable." She began to shift as well, strength filling her muscles, a spear appearing in her hand. She pierced the side of the tiger and blood burst from it.

The tiger only laughed. "I am old age, slow, relentless."

Elaine gasped as weakness entered her muscles, and her hair began to turn grey. The dragonmage was nowhere in body but she could feel its laugh in her bones. She had not been expecting a move like this. Nonetheless, she would not be vanquished, though she had to push her power to her utmost. "I am glory, conquering even death." As she pushed the power of her magic to the limits it seemed to grow more and more. The dragon gasped, small and dwarfed by her. They had both left body behind and yet saw each other and the world around them even more vividly.

"I am forgetfulness, destroying all names," screamed Minestus. Elaine gasped as she felt her power dimming. She was fading away into nothing.

"I am a book, name-preserving, all-enduring," said Elaine. Her power was now a firm wall that stood against all Minestus's battering.

"I am fire, hungry, all-consuming," said Minestus. Elaine felt the urge to scream as his power began to burn hers away, but she had no lungs. Words appeared on her pages instead.

"I am a scribe," she said at last. "Diligent, all-remembering." She took on human flesh once more and stood wriitng, her power slowly building up again.

"I am apathy," whispered Minestus. "Mind-dulling, soul-destroying." A dull drowsiness began to take hold of Elaine. She no longer moved the quill in her hands. She saw no point in fighting back and waited for the end to come. But a part of herself, small and weak, fought back.

Dully, weakly, she whispered "I am pain."

Minestus suddenly screamed and, shifting back into his dragon form, writhing and thrashing. In the thousands of years since he had become a mage his magic had become so great that he had never known the least bit of pain. Now it flooded his senses. Elaine, laughing exultantly, shifted into human form and with an arcane word raised her right arm and formed a shining blood-red dagger in her hand. She plunged it into Minestus's heart. The dragon-flame within it burst out and, as he stopped thrashing, began to die away.

  1. Elaine took in the power of the dying dragon-flame, making herself more powerful than either Belboz or Minestus had ever been.
  2. Elaine, suddenly horrified at what she has become, screams and tears the ring from her finger.
  3. A burning man appears in the room. [397]
  4. Meanwhile, Fred and the others try to escape the collapsing tunnels.

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Knight Random (with a tip of the hat to Neil Gaiman)

10/11/2008 4:31:02 PM

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