Cerberus Rex, Nameless

A Tale & Adventure, 17

"You. Feri and Asinis!" Guard's shouting down the street brought a strained smile to Noarwin's face as his appearance shifted into a young, freckle-faced urchin. "Captain Fairwind!" the guards cried.

"Oh dear." Noarwin looked at the others. "Time to run."

They dashed into the nearest ally and rounded several corners. The sound of their pursuing guards encouraged them faster. The team slid down declined paths, batted around hanging laundry, and leapt over or darted around carts of goods being passed through narrow streets of the province they'd fled into.

"Why aren't the rings working?" Asinis shouted at the others.

"There must be a flux in the ether powering them!" Noarwin said.

"What do we do?" Feri shrieked, her voice returned to a gravel pit of altering pitch.

"Stay out of Captain Fairwind's range!" Noarwin warned.

"Why?" Asinis asked. A thunk ahead stopped him in his tracks. He gawked at the lance as the others skidded to a halt around him. Its whole head was dug into the cobblestone wall they faced. Then they heard a crackling sound. Noarwin pulled them back and shards of stone jutted outward at them.

"Whoa!" Asinis stumbled over his feet as he attempted to guard Feri with one arm.

"That's why," Noarwin said, his glower on the spikes pointing out of the wall. "Go, go, go!" He pushed them to the right.

"Mr. Noarwin, why is your disguise working?" Feri panted.

"I'm not using a magic ring!" he said as he searched the streets for occupants and a way out. He knew the city, but he wasn't used to having to guide others with this amount of haste.

"What?" Asinis lowered his brow as he looked beside him at Noarwin.

"I used them so often, I decided it best to learn how to disguise myself. Without relying on the connection those cheap rings need to stay active. I use illusionary magic anyway, so it wasn't a difficult stretch." He grunted as he scrambled around crates abreast a wall and pushed them further up one path.

"We're going to die because you lent us cheap rings?" Feri shrieked.

"Do we just need to hide Feri and Asinis?" Silas asked, not a bit out of breath as he kept up with them.

A whoosh above made Noarwin dash to the side. The others, also hearing it, dispersed, barely missing the splash of water descending from somewhere above. Feri, looking over her shoulder at it, didn't see the woman come out of her house to shake a rug, and raced straight into it. She screamed, arms flailing as she fought it off and the woman shouted.

"I can change them into animals," Silas said as Feri caught up and raced ahead.

"You can?" Noarwin gawked, and Silas nodded. "And yourself?"

"I can change too if I need," Silas said.

"Okay!" Noarwin shouted. "Here's the plan. I'm going to switch to a residential farmer. Silas, I want that one a rooster and that one a hen. You turn into a shepherd dog. Understand?"

Silas nodded affirmatively. He flicked his hands out toward Asinis and Feri racing ahead. They popped in their new forms, both clucking and flapping as they fell. Silas ran at them and caught both. He turned to Noarwin now looking like an old farmer in a straw hat. Noarwin took them under his arms.

"They can still speak common, but their intelligence is the same as the animal they have become." With that expedient explanation, Silas shrunk in a swirl of leaves and magical light into a light red and white herding dog. He tilted his head at Noarwin, waiting for further instruction. Noarwin, his brow raised and lips smashed, nodded his approval.