The Jekyll Legacy by Jaye Michael & Levanah Greene Chapter Twelve Interlude

Victorian alchemy meets modern science and magic.
What could possibly go wrong?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 — William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1603, 1604, 1623)

 

“Where are the bricks?”

“Huh?” Selene snarled and stopped rubbing her stomach. She’d been alternating between rubbing and scanning the environment for most of the morning. Phil was certain she was angry with him given how few words had been exchanged and how brusque those few had been. He was at the point of giving up when he decided on one last stab at humor.

“I said ‘where are the bricks?’ You know; the yellow bricks this road is supposed to be made of?”

Selene stopped and turned to Phil, who was walking just behind her on the tree-lined road. They were at point, so the others hadn’t heard his question. “This isn’t Oz and there isn’t any yellow brick road. Phil, I hope you don’t think this is going to be some pleasant field trip to the zoo or something. There really is death out there waiting for you and I’d hate to think I brought you here just to die.”

“I think I can take care of myself,” Phil huffed.

There was great sadness in Selene’s eyes as she responded. “Please don’t make me show you how wrong you are. Didn’t the situation at the church show you exactly how dangerous this world can be?”

“What it showed me was that there is more to life than the magic of car sales, which is what I was going to be doing in my father’s dealership as soon as high school ended, unless I got my scholarship.”

“Phil,” she said sadly, “I think you’d better go back with the others now. I don’t think I can be responsible for your safety.”

“Huh?

“I said, please go back and join the others. I don’t want to see you harmed as a result of your severe case of overconfidence.”

To say that Phil was taken aback by Selene’s words was an understatement. He stopped and gaped at her with hurt puppy dog eyes as the others trudged toward them and soon caught up to them.

Rhea was the first to notice that something was wrong. “Hey, what is this? Trouble in paradise?”

“Apprentice? Is something wrong between the two of you?” Akcuanrut asked.

Selene stared from Phil to Rhea to Akcuanrut and back again. Without warning, she bolted off the path and ran into the woods.

“Oh, drat. What did I say now?” Rhea asked as she hurried after her red-haired friend.

“What happened here?” Akcuanrut asked.

Phil sighed heavily. “I — I don’t know. She’s been mad about something all morning. Trying to cheer her up a moment ago, I asked where the yellow brick road was as a sort of joke, because on our world there’s a famous story in which a yellow brick road plays a prominent part. I just wanted to see her smile or laugh. Instead, she turned on me, and then told me to join the group, because she couldn’t be responsible for my safety.

“I think I know what might be wrong,” Emily said. “I don’t think it was really anything you said or did, Phil, but I’ll let you know after we’ve spoken.” With that the male centaur galloped purposefully off into the woods in search of the two girls.

“Do you know what’s going on, Master?”

“I know that this is a chance to practice your skills, Apprentice. How might you answer your own question?”

“I could follow Mrs. Lanyon?”

“You are not the Apprentice Skulker. You must think Magically.”

“I could make myself invisible and eavesdrop,” Phil mused, “but you already told me to think of other ways of discovering the information. Besides, I’m not sure I’ve learned sufficient control to avoid all the pitfalls of trying to not exist in terms of the visual, auditory and olfactory senses of several people.”

Akcuanrut said nothing, only raised one eyebrow.

Phil tried to think, and then said, “I know! I could become a copy of her so I’d know exactly how she thinks —” Then his face fell. “But I don’t know if I’d be able to retain sufficient magic to return to my own body afterwards, and twin barbarian princesses is more than enough. Triplets might be more than this world could survive. Besides, if I did become a duplicate of her, I probably wouldn’t have sufficient knowledge of how it feels to be female to recognize and interpret the problem.” Then he thought again. “Either that, or I’d know so much about how she feels that I’d be furious with me as well, so probably wouldn’t help me out of spite.”

Akcuanrut said nothing again, but this time rolled his eyes.

Then he had a brilliant idea. “I could place a geis on her that would require her to tell me, but that would require me to have more willpower than she does, and quite honestly, I’m not certain I do.”

Akcuanrut pursed his lips in silent disapproval.

“No, you’re right, of course. Coercion is the first step on the Dark Path, and would inevitably turn her against me.” He sighed in defeat. “I could… I… I don’t know what I could do, Master. I’m sorry.” He hung his head.

Akcuanrut sighed deeply. “So close, but then you give up. You could wait patiently until she returns. She obviously has thinking of her own to do. Time answers all questions, assuming we have time to spare, so the magical lesson here is: ‘Observe carefully. Think carefully. Take care not to rush to precipitous action.’ ”

Phil stared after the wizard as Akcuanrut stolled over to a nearby tree and sat leaning against it. He was instantly snoring quietly.

“This is magic?” Phil wondered to himself as he turned to peer toward the wooded area where Selene, Rhea and Mrs. Lanyon had disappeared.

“It’s the magic of Patience, hasty Apprentice. All true magic lies at the heart of life, life in its essence, which forever unfolds. Before you can conjure a rose, you must understand why flowers grow.” The words echoed in Phil’s mind and he twirled back to see Akcuanrut, still by the tree, still apparently sound asleep, in mid-snore.

Gentle, reproving laughter echoed in Phil’s mind and he thought, ‘I guess the old guy’s getting some of his magical powers back.’ Phil turned back to the woods and stared intently, hoping against hope that no one would realize he was blushing.

Emily Lanyon found his daughter’s wayward friend sitting forlorn in a small clearing about a thousand yards from the road. In the midst of a pastoral scene that would have inspired any artist, complete with small babbling brook and a riot of color from exotic wildflowers that crowded every inch of the sunlit area, Selene sat on a small boulder with her head bowed, and she was crying while nervously cleaning her sword with a handful of leaves and flowers. Rhea was trying futilely to calm her down or soothe her somehow, but having little luck. Emily changed magically into his purely human form to appear slightly less imposing and walked loudly towards the pair, scuffing his feet against the dirt to insure that his approach was heard.

“Go away. We want to be alone,” Rhea growled before turning back to Selene.

“Do you know why she’s upset?”

“No. Now go away and leave us alone. This is girl… guy… private stuff.”

Selene sniffed in apparent agreement with her friend’s uncompromising, if slightly incoherent position.

“Yes, it is. Now do you, an apparent girl, know why Selene’s upset?”

“Because Phil was a pig, just like that other pig, his friend Tim.” she said sullenly.

“I don’t think so,” Emily replied. “Have you asked her?”

“I’ll ask her as soon as she’s stopped crying. Now just leave us the heck alone.”

“Rhea Lanyon, you watch your tone of voice.” he scolded. “I’ll make allowance for your concern for your friend, but I am still your mother — in mind and spirit, if not in body, and have been a girl much longer than you’ve been alive.” Turning to Selene even before Rhea could mutter an apology, he asked, “Selene, dear. It’s okay. If you can’t talk right now, that’s okay too, but you can nod your head or shake it, and I do need to ask you some questions.”

Selene stuck out her lower lip in a pout, but said nothing.

Emily nodded, as if she’d just said something eloquent. “You’re angry with Phil, then, but why? Has he said or done something to hurt you?”

A nod followed immediately by a negative head shake and another sigh.

“So you’re mad at him, but not for something he’s said or done. Do you know why you’re mad at him?”

Another negative head shake, but less certain.

“Does your tummy hurt or feel funny, like something’s wrong, but you can’t quite place what it might be?”

A nod. The tears slowly stopped as Selene considered Emily Lanyon’s words.

“Do you also feel like you need to do something, but you don’t know quite what it is you need to do? I always felt that way just before.”

“Unh-huh.” It was accompanied by a nod as if Selene wasn’t certain her whispered words had been heard.

“Selene, dear, my beloved foster-daughter. I think you’re suffering from two things. The first, and probably the most important right now, is that you’re beginning to fall in love with Phil, who seems to be a wonderful young man, astonishingly brave, not entirely foolhardy, and willing to risk his life for you. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s falling in love with you as well.” She paused for a long moment while Selene considered her words. “Your other problem is smaller, although it can be overwhelming at times, in that you’re suffering not only from the pangs of young love, but from PMS, premenstrual syndrome. You’re about to have your first period, dear, and I wish more than ever that I still shared that with you. It’s something that mothers and daughters have helped each other through for a million years or more, and you’ve been robbed of that through circumstance, as have I, but yours is the most bitter loss, I think, because we don’t know what’s happened to your real mother, and I make an awkward surrogate at best.”

Selene looked up at him, and then ran sobbing into his arms, where Mrs. Lanyon hugged her close and stroked her hair.

“There now, sweet baby,” he crooned, as tender and loving as any mother could be. “You’ll feel better after a good cry. It always helped for me, when I was still a woman, and you’re truly a woman now.”

Rhea stared at the male centaur in disbelief. Finally, she blurted out, “Omigod! That’s not possible. We’re…. We’re…. Oh. Oh!”

Mrs. Lanyon looked up at his new daughter. “Yes, dear, only females menstruate, but you two haven’t been young women for long, so you haven’t had much practice. Having been one for the first forty years of my life, I recognize the signs, although I must admit I can’t work up too much sorrow over their absence right now. There’s something to be said for being able to remain on an even emotional plane, although of course I’ve lost the highs as well as the lows. Remember that, both of you, if you start to feel down.” He turned to include Rhea. “As women, you’re more susceptible to depression and blue funks, but you’ll also experience joys, deep and lasting joys, that far surpass what you were capable of before. It has to do with the basic wiring of your new female brains, and how we’re…. Pardon…, how you’re put together now.“

Then he turned again to Selene, who was still weeping, and said, “I suggest you take Akcuanrut aside and privately ask him to help provide whatever is used on this world to control the bleeding. Soft cotton rags work, although you’d have to wash them carefully to avoid bacterial or other infection, and we don’t have much cotton cloth to spare, so an organic local substitute would be better in the long run. You might also ask him if he has anything to help with the irritability and other symptoms.”

Selene said nothing in reply, although her panicked blush was probably as eloquent as any words.

“Just consider him your personal physician, dear. For all our supposed ‘natural modesty,’ we’re expected to show our private parts to a large number of men over the years, since female GYN specialists aren’t thick on the ground, even in these relatively enlightened times. By the way, Rhea, you might want to join Selene when she has that conversation. If you’re not about to receive your monthly visitor, you’ll probably be experiencing it soon, since you were changed on the very same day. In fact,” Mrs. Lanyon mused aloud, “I’d better have this conversation with your father too — or do centaurs just go into heat? I wonder.”

Now it was Rhea’s turn to blush. Whether it was at the thought of her father going into heat, or the impending likelihood of menstruation, she didn’t say.

“Now come on, both of you. Get up and let’s join the rest of our party. They’re waiting for us and we still have an evil amorphous blob to catch and destroy.”

“But I can’t.” Selene was crying again. “I’ve been horrible to Phil. He must hate me. And the others — how can they trust me if I can’t keep my head?”

“By being brave and doing what you have to do. That’s what women have done for eons and will continue to do for eons to come. You’ll also find, my dear, that men are quite willing to forgive you almost anything, as long as they’re confident of your love for them, and I’m quite sure that Phil loves you, possibly as much as you love him. All you’ll have to do is tell him so and he’ll be happy as a clam. Now come on, girls,” he gestured with both hands to encourage them to rise, “ we’ve got work to do.”

With that, Emily reached out a hand and took Selene’s hand as she allowed her true self to reappear. The centaur gently pulled the barbarian woman to her feet and led her back towards the others.

Rhea followed; a bemused expression on her face as she grumbled to no one in particular, “What the heck kind of quest is this? People don’t menstruate during quests. Ask anyone who’s done rôle play gaming. There’s never a bathroom or even a need for a bathroom. If we’re going to have to deal with things like PMS, we’re going to have to deal with all the rest of the things women deal with, like getting… Oh, my God!” Too late, she realized that her voice had risen to a shout.

The others turned back to see what the problem was. Selene was comforted to know that, PMS or not, her sword was out of its scabbard and in her hand before she completed her turn. Behind her, she could hear the others approaching at a dead run.

“I think the word you’re searching for, dear, is ‘pregnant,” Emily calmly offered.

“What? Who’s pregnant? What’s going on here?” Herbert Lanyon screamed, drowning out similar questions from the others. Turning towards an equally shocked Phil, the centaur filly glared and asked ominously, “Do you know anything about this, Phillip?”

“Yeah, Phil, I thought we meant something to each other,” Selene chimed in mischievously.

“Selene, don’t make things worse than they are. Everyone, no one is pregnant, at least not at the moment.” Emily gazed at his daughter’s friend in mild reproof and warning.

“I think a bit more of an explanation is in order here, Emily,” Dr. Lanyon blustered rather fetchingly, suddenly unsure of herself. “One of the girls definitely screamed and that usually means something’s wrong.”

“We can talk later, dear. For now, thank you for caring enough to come running, but it was a false alarm. I think Selene’s ready to resume our trek so, if everyone’s had sufficient opportunity to rest….” He completed the statement with a gesture to usher everyone back to the path.

“Not quite, Mrs. Lanyon,” Selene interjected. “Rhea and I need to speak to Akcuanrut.” When no one moved, she made ‘shooing movements’ and added, “Privately, please.”

With that the others reluctantly moved off towards the road. Before pulling the elder sorcerer aside, Selene called out as sweetly as she could, “Phil, dear, would you please join me at point in a few moments? I owe you an apology, and could really use your help.”

The night was clear and comfortable, brightly lit by the two moons, which seemed farther apart. The sounds of the small brook bubbling away just beneath the trees at the edge of the clearing would have been appealing under different circumstances, but it was a quiet and introspective group that pitched camp that night. Rhea was still coming to grips with the realities of her new gender. Selene was off in the shadows at the edge of the campsite, doing her best, despite her discomfort, to convince Phil that she wasn’t really mad at him without telling him exactly what was wrong. D’lon-Ra was off hunting his dinner and spending the night away from the group in recognition of the fact that he still wasn’t fully accepted and trusted. Akcuanrut was off concocting potions for Rhea and Selene to ease their premenstrual symptoms, still only potential for Rhea, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. The wizard had also showed them the fluffy leaves of a certain low-lying plant and then explained their use, when wrapped in a length of cloth, so the two barbarians were out in the midst of a largish patch of them, taking some grim satisfaction in slashing at the stems with their knives as they gathered the amount that their mother had advised might be necessary.

“Dear?” Dr. Lanyon asked her wife as they grazed on some delicious wild wheat a short distance from the camp.

“Yes?”

“Do you think Rhea and Selene have changed?”

“You mean more than what would be expected from someone still acclimating to something as basic as a change in gender?”

“Oh, yummy. Try this,” Dr. Lanyon pointed to a clump of what looked like rye grass, “and yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”

Emily pondered for a while before answering. “I don’t know. There have definitely been changes; this afternoon’s discoveries are just the most recent, but I also see Rhea as being more polite — not cursing as much. And Selene seems to have picked up a boyfriend, which makes me wonder a bit. But I can’t tell exactly what’s due to the change in gender and what might be due to the rather unusual situation we all seem to be in. Why do you ask, Herbert?”

“Because I wonder if there might not be yet another explanation for these changes.” Dr. Lanyon hesitated.

“Don’t stop now, dear. You’ve got my full attention.”

“Well. It’s based on something Akcuanrut said. We were talking about magic and he was trying to explain how it worked.”

“You mean other than centaur magic, I presume. We don’t seem to need to do anything special when we change shapes and so forth.”

“True, but I’m not certain that we’re completely unaffected either.”

“This doesn’t sound good. Herbert Lanyon, you tell me what you’re talking about right now. No more beating around the bush.”

“Of course, Emily, dear. It seems that the measure of how good a wizard is is how little he’s affected by the magic he causes. It’s common, for example, to find that someone who creates evil magic, even for the best of motives, will become at least a bit more evil.

“He used the example of Na-Noc, an Emperor’s Champion and Hero who is now clearly evil, due to his prolonged contact with evil magic. Unlike D’lon-Ra, he ignored his magical training and thus couldn’t protect himself.”

“We’ll come back to how that affects us in a moment, but does that mean that Na-Noc could be saved if he was surrounded by good magic for a long period of time?” Emily asked.

“Exactly. Akcuanrut says that the long term goal is to bring Na-Noc back to the College of Wizards and surround him in a bubble of good magic.”

“So why didn’t he do that back in the Dungeon of Despair or whatever he called it, where we first meet him?”

“I asked Akcuanrut that same question. Apparently, it takes a minimum of five wizards to create something like that and more, many more, to sustain it for any length of time, since it has to be maintained at full strength both day and night for many days. Despite his rather prodigious abilities, Akcuanrut just didn’t have the ability to do it himself, and still doesn’t, unless we run across quite a few more wizards during our quest.”

“Let’s get some water from that stream, dear” Emily suggested and they cantered across the field toward the brook, swinging wide of the campsite in order to continue their conversation in private.

“So, to continue your logical arguments,” he said, “if Na-Noc can be changed from good to evil, or vice versa, by contact with magic, you’re wondering if Rhea and Selene could be changed by magic.”

“Or us.”

“Or…Oh! Do you think we’ve changed?” Emily stopped short.

“I don’t know. Most of what’s happened so far has been driven by factors beyond our control. We’ve been reacting rather than acting. My guess is yes, but I don’t know exactly how. In the West, we tend to think of the Self as somehow separate from the body, a philosophic analogy to the concept of a soul, but what if the body is the Self? If true, our changes imply far more than just a change of gender or shape.”

The remainder of the night was spent in silence as each considered the implications, taking time to eat a few mouthfuls of the choicest grasses every once in a while. Although they dozed for a few moments from time to time, they quickly fell into a rhythm of sleeping and waking that ensured that one of them was always awake and on guard while the other slumbered upright, their stay mechanisms locked and hooves firmly planted in a wide stance to remain upright. Neither noticed that this wasn’t at all their usual habit.

Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002 Jeffrey M. Mahr — All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2012 Levanah Greene — All Rights Reserved