“Don’t know. I... I... never heard of the place.”
“Never heard of the place.” That gave Gastropé’ pause. If a supposedly educated priest had never heard of Freehold, it couldn’t be too close.
“Turelane?” The priest shook his head. “What about the wizard Exador? You ever hear of him?” The priest was about to shake his head, then stopped and thought for a moment.
“North and east, I think. I’m not sure though. He came to visit Duke Swery about four years ago.” Gastropé looked over to Jenn.
“Well it’s something. Maybe we can find a sage with a map. Look,” she turned to Edwyrd, “you’re Rupert’s cousin you should know where he lived.”
Edwyrd took a moment, “I know where he lived before he went off to school.”
“Oh.” Unfortunately, Jenn didn’t know where that was. It wasn’t clear to her that a little kid like Rupert would know how to make the necessary coordinate translations between the school and his old home. It would probably just be easier to find a sage. “Ok, gag him again. I guess we’ll go look for a sage.” Gastropé complied.
“What are your plans? You said you were passing through,” Jenn asked Edwyrd.
“Well, since he seems to somehow have gotten separated from his teachers, I feel it’s my duty as his cousin to make sure he gets back safely.” Edwyrd responded, also starting to pace slightly.
“So you’re coming with us.”
“Looks that way.” Edwyrd smiled rather shyly.
“Fine. Now we’ve got to go out and get supplies and directions. The problem is, I don’t want to leave the priest alone.”
“I can watch him,” Edwyrd volunteered. Tom really didn’t want to go back outside again so soon. He was afraid he was going to lose it any moment. If these guys would all leave, he could go into the kitchen away from the priest and turn back into his true form. True form! Aaaggghhh, Tom thought. What’s happened to my mind? This is my true form, not the demon one.
Gastropé looked at Edwyrd closely. “Aren’t you even going to ask why we have a priest tied up in his own temple? Before offering to guard him?” Gastropé asked suspiciously.
“Well... Rupert explained to me that he was this evil priest that had captured you after his henchmen attacked your caravan and killed a bunch of the people. You managed to turn the tables on him and now had him tied up so you could get away. Isn’t that what happened?” Edwyrd asked, as if trying to confirm Rupert’s story.
“Close enough,” Jenn said, trying to cut Gastropé off before he gave too much away. “Rupert, do you think it’s a good idea to leave the priest with Edwyrd?”
“I’d trust my cousin here, with my life. The priest won’t get away while we’re gone.”
“Ok then,” Jenn looked to Gastropé for agreement. He just sort of shrugged, apparently having nothing else to offer. “You wait here for us, with the door locked behind us.” She said to Edwyrd. “We’ll be back in an hour or so and we’ll knock like this,” she demonstrated. “Don’t untie him for anything.”
“Sure.” Edwyrd said, looking a little less tense for the moment. Jenn went and opened the door carefully, looking to make sure they weren’t observed. She motioned for the others to precede her out the door. When they had, she said “bye,” to Edwyrd and shut the door behind her.
Tom went to the door and put the bar across it. He looked over at the priest who was staring at him with pleading in his eyes. “Sorry,” Tom said. “But I’ve got my instructions. How can I trust you after what my cousin says you did?” The priest shook his head. Tom shrugged an apology and went into the kitchen.
As soon as he was out of sight of the priest, Tom started to relax. The change hurt still, but not quite so bad. Suddenly, Tom realized he had a problem. His clothes! Already his legs were constricted in the pants, and the shirt had come untucked by his growing taller. He concentrated on halting the process. It wasn’t easy and the breaches creaked as if the stitches were about to give way, and then it stopped. Concentrating on his human form as hard as he could, he felt the clothing get looser again.
Heaving a sigh of relief, he quickly stripped the clothes off into a pile. Finally, Tom thought and let the change occur. He gritted his teeth, but the pain almost felt like pleasure, this time he controlled it a little better. He changed slower, less abruptly. Finally he could completely relax. He was himself, or rather, he corrected sadly, he was his demon self.
This was really bothering him. This horrid demon form just felt so much better. Even now, not under any pressure, just thinking of trapping himself in that flimsy little white bag of flesh that was his old body made him feel uncomfortable. Why? A week ago, he’d have thought that’s all he wanted. Actually, even now, he’d love to go back to his normal old life. At least he thought he did. It was just that his old body was so weak, so flimsy. Actually, he thought, and this really disturbed him, it was rather ugly. Ugly? Like who should talk. This demon form was monstrous, as a human he at least looked normal. Why then, did he all of the sudden find normal so repellent?
Tom rested his head in his hands. Looking down at the pile of clothes on the floor, he thought how lucky he’d been not to rip them to shreds like the Incredible Hulk. A thought struck Tom suddenly. He looked at the clothes, he looked down at his body, his demon body. He was naked! He’d been running around naked all this time as a demon! It had never even occurred to him! Here he’d gone out in public, flown around, hung out with a girl! naked! Even now he was sitting here in the nude, and other than the fact that he didn’t want someone walking in and seeing a demon, he didn’t care if they saw him without any clothes!
Tom was shocked. Not by his nudity, but by the fact that he didn’t care about it, not before, not now. Intellectually, he knew he should be embarrassed to have people see him naked. Well, not exactly embarrassed. He gave a small smile of pride looking down between his legs. Not embarrassed at all.
Humor aside, he should feel uncomfortable naked, he always had before, now he no longer did. It was like he had no shame. Kind of like Adam and Eve before the apple, he thought suddenly. He supposed, though, that at least for the sake of others, he should put something on, even as a demon. Looking down at the clothes however, he remembered how strange they’d felt, even on his sickly, oversensitive human skin. They’d been most uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as the thought of wearing something now in demon form, but they hadn’t been pleasant. At the time though, the sensation of needing to blow up had overwhelmed him and he hadn’t noticed the additional discomfort.
He tossed around the idea of a loin cloth, but even that sounded kind of restraining and unnatural. He’d only be wearing it for others, and they hadn’t objected before. Actually, his demonic privates hanging out in the wind probably didn’t disturb humans as much as simply his overall demonic presence did. He guessed it would be kind of like trying to cover up one part of a giant toxic landfill in your backyard with a throw rug. Actually, it was also a moot point for the moment, since he was planning on only going out in public in Edwyrd form. Edwyrd would have no choice, society would demand clothes on him. Not to mention the fact that his tepid looking skin would probably get sun burned and otherwise damaged without clothes.
That was really one of the nice things about his own nice burgundy colored hide. Not only didn’t he get sunburned, he didn’t really feel hot or cold unless he was trying to. He also usually didn’t feel swords, daggers and spears either. Dragon blood and other demons hurt, but not much of anything the humans had thrown at him even bothered him. He almost had to laugh at the guy in Exador’s camp who whacked him with the sword. Poor fellow didn’t stand a chance in hell. Literally.