Kandler raised his sword and kicked in the door. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The shutters on the room’s sole window flapped open in the stiffening wind.
“Esprл?” Kandler whispered. As the words left his lips, he regretted them. If the girl popped out at him without warning, though, he feared he might kill her by reflex.
“It’s all right, sir,” a voice growled out of the darkness at him. A thin and wiry silhouette stepped partly from the shadows. “She’s safe.”
“Burch?” Kandler lowered his blade an inch. Something about this wasn’t right. Sir? Burch never called anyone sir, even knights. “Where is she?”
“I sent her to Norra’s house, sir.”
Kandler let loose a false sigh of relief. “Thank the Silver Flame,” Kandler said, his mind racing. Who was this creature that looked something like Burch, at least in the dimly lit room? Where was Esprл?
“Come on,” Kandler said. He lowered his blade as he spoke. He needed this creature alive. “Let’s go get her.”
The justicar turned and stepped out of the room. As he walked into the light in the main room of his house, he heard the shifter step up behind him, just as he’d hoped.
Kandler reached back and grabbed the shifter by the arm. He spied a long, silvery knife in the creature’s hand, and he knew that it had been meant for his heart, probably to be stabbed in from behind and up under his ribs.
Rolling forward, Kandler hurled the lighter creature over his shoulder and into the room, slamming him onto his back. The air whooshed from the creature’s lungs, and Kandler pounced on him before he could recover.
The justicar kicked the creature in the ribs, once, twice. He felt the bones there snap under his assault, and he smiled. This creature was behind Esprл’s disappearance, he was sure, and he wanted him to hurt for it. The third time Kandler kicked, though, the shifter grabbed his foot and twisted hard.
Kandler crashed to the ground. He landed on his sword arm but avoided slicing himself on his own blade, which went skittering from his hand. Frustrated at himself for letting his foe get the better of him, he lashed out with his free foot and booted the shifter in the nose.
The shifter let go of Kandler’s foot and scrambled for the door. The justicar knew that if the creature reached the darkness outside of the house he might never find him, and then Esprл might be lost to him forever. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
Kandler leaped to his feet and grabbed the nearest thing at hand-a frying pan hanging from a nail on the wall. He hurled it, and it caught the creature flat in the back.
The shifter tumbled down the front stairs of Kandler’s home and into the night. Kandler had hoped the creature would trip on the porch or, better yet, fall back into the house. He cursed his luck and rushed forward, his heart pounding in his ears. The justicar dashed out the door and leaped down atop the creature, trying to crush it beneath his bulk.
Kandler fell on the shifter with all his weight. He felt the satisfaction of a rib or three cracking under him as he landed squarely on the creature. The shifter let out a high-pitched yelp.
Kandler threw his arms under the shifter’s then reached up and laced his fingers behind the shifter’s head. The creature thrashed about, trying to slip free, but Kandler just squeezed his arms together harder. This creature was his only link to Esprл, and he was never going to let go.
The shifter thrashed about like a wild animal, struggling to get free from Kandler’s hold. The justicar pressed his elbows together, trying to force the fight from the creature. “Where is she?” he growled. Even to his own ears, he sounded desperate bordering on mad.
The creature in Kandler’s arms became both taller and broader. Its teeth morphed into tusks, and its skin grew rough and leathery. From the smell alone, Kandler didn’t need to turn his foe around to know he was now holding something that looked almost exactly like an orc. The thing let loose a stomach-wrenching snarl.
Kandler pulled his elbows back nearly a foot, bending the orc’s arms back nearly to the breaking point. Then he bore down and forward, slamming the thing’s face into the ground. He felt the orc’s snout smash into the crater’s hardened floor. One of the creature’s tusks broke off and stabbed it in the face. The creature yelped in pain. Kandler felt the blood pooling around his arms.
“I’ve dealt with your kind before, changeling,” Kandler said. “I won’t let go.”
The justicar felt something tickling about at the base of his brain. His fingers started to go numb. It reminded Kandler of his youth in Sham, the wondrous City of Towers. Once, at a friend’s birthday party, a performer had asked him to come onstage to help out with a trick. The little gnome had reached into Kandler’s brain and stunned him silly for a moment. He hadn’t realized what had happened until he’d come to a moment later and saw everyone laughing at the way he was drooling down his shirt.
Afterward, Kandler had asked his father what had happened. “That was a psion, son,” the old man had said, his huge paw of a hand on the young Kandler’s shoulder. “They use their brains to mess with ours. You can’t trust them for a second.”
Still a bit confused, Kandler had asked his father what he should do if something like that happened again. The old man just flashed his son a rueful smile. “Me?” he said with an ironic laugh, “I’d kill him. But that’s not for you, son. I’m just a soldier. You’ll be better than that.”
The efforts of the creature in his arms brought all the shame and confusion back into Kandler’s head, and he used those emotions to force the tendrils from his mind. He found the outrage blazing in his heart and centered on that, shoving the invader back. He bore down harder and ground the orc’s face into the dirt. What was left of its tusks scraped against the rocky floor.
“Get-out-of-my-head!” Kandler growled. He pounded the orc’s face against the ground to punctuate each word. The sensation in the justicar’s head vanished.
Kandler snorted down at the creature in his arms. “If I feel an inkling of you in my brain, I’ll snap your neck.” To emphasize his seriousness, he squeezed the creature’s neck between the heels of his hands, and the fight slid out of it.
The creature in Kandler’s arms slimmed down and grew shorter. Its hair lengthened, and its skin became smooth and pale. Its shape changed too, and Kandler realized he was now holding a woman.
“You’re quite the warrior, justicar,” the changeling said through lips now unbroken by an orc’s shattered tusk. “It’ll be a sad day when I have to kill you.”
“Where’s my daughter?” Kandler said. The creature’s bravado hadn’t unnerved him, but he struggled to keep his desperation about Esprл’s safety from his voice.
The changeling snickered as best she could. “If I tell you, you’ll kill me.”
Kandler slammed the changeling’s face into the ground again. “If you don’t talk, I’ll kill you for sure.”
“You’re bluffing,” the changeling said. She morphed into something softer, sweeter-a slim lady elf with long, blonde hair.
It was the scent of her hair that informed Kandler instantly that he was holding the form of his wife again-the dear, deceased Esprina. For a moment, his grief over her death threatened to flood him, but he shoved it back. He hadn’t been with his wife when she’d died on the Day of Mourning, and he’d spent many long, empty nights since wishing he’d had one last chance. This wasn’t her though, and that thought made him angrier than ever.
Kandler ground the changeling’s fine features into the crater floor and flexed his muscles, pulling her arms back to breaking. He knew what had happened. The creature had pulled the image of his long-dead wife from his mind and transformed into her, hoping that the presence of his beloved would break his will. In that, she’d made a horrible, perhaps final mistake.
“Don’t you dare use her against me,” Kandler snarled, his ferocity surprising even him. “Last chance, then you die. Where is my daughter?”