There wasn't any visible flash of light or anything, Audrey frowned.
Ed whinnied and cantered back and forth in his stall.
"What is it?" Asked Mika.
"Cannot ye smell the exquisite aroma of equine feminine lust? Gadzooks, of course, not!"
They looked at the heap of a man lying in the straw, and suddenly, they weren't. A big white mare lay there instead. The innkeeper's clothing and boots simply vanished.
"I was trying for a mule - a molly mule," lamented Audrey looking angrily at the stone.
"I didn't see anything," said Mika in soft amazement. "I should have seen something." He paused, and took a step back from Audrey and the innkeeper's stone, and added in a fearful tone, "Unless..."
"Unless what?" Audrey asked, holding the stone as though she wanted to hurl it, "Don't worry I won't use it on you."
"At least not intentionally," Mika said. He produced an empty black suede pouch, and asked Audrey, " Please carefully drop the stone into this pouch. It should hopefully contain the stone's magic."
Audrey shrugged and obeyed.
"Whew!" Mika said as he drew the drawstrings tight on the pouch. "No wonder he couldn't control the stone. I isn't really a transformation stone at all."
"Then what is it?" Audrey demanded.
Ed seemed lost for the moment. He was over by the mare nudging it with his nose. It whimpered softly. Mika and Audrey secured the stable doors before heading back to the inn
"Perhaps we can find out more about how the innkeeper got this stone by searching his rooms at the inn," Mika said.
Audrey grinned, "I'm searching behind the bar."
Mika sighed, but refrained from saying it was a bit early.
"What should I be looking for?" Audrey asked.
"Ideally a journal or diary, but anything unusual. Perhaps he has other magical devices that he stole or traded, so be careful."
"I will. So what is the stone, if it's not a transformation spell caster how does it transform people?"
"It transforms their history. You mean, if I'd been born your brother, I'd've been Aubrey? How could I have been born your brother, we haven't the same parents?"
"That's what makes these reality twisting spells so dangerous. In order to achieve the goal, it may require a series of unlikely enchantments or events. So in the reality where Aubrey and Mika were stable boys, somewhere in our previous history we encountered a wizard or witch who turned one or both of us into urchins. Perhaps in the reality where I became the stable boy, you slew the witch. In the reality where the witch changed you, perhaps I defeated the witch and changed you back. That stableboy spell seemed more like witchcraft than wizardry."
"What's the difference?" Audrey asked as they entered the Inn. "And why shouldn't the witch have changed us both into urchins and why change us into urchins anyway?"
"Perhaps she lived in a gingerbread cottage? I don't know. That's the risk in using this stone. It reshapes reality to meet your goal as closely as possible. He wanted stable boys so the spell found an alternate reality where I was a stable boy and transposed us. Then when he used it on you, he found a reality where you were my brother and transformed into a stable boy. Perhaps it was the same reality where I was transformed, perhaps it was a different one. Perhaps we didn't even know each other in those alternate realities where we were transformed. But then how did we think we were brothers? Perhaps the stone does more than personal realities perhaps it changes perceptions to even over the rough edges of the transformation. This stone might be elder magic," Mika swallowed hard, "Gulp."
"So you don't think you can figure out how it works then, unless maybe he has an instruction booklet stashed in here," Mika said from behind the bar holding a brown unmarked bottle.
"Uh, I'd be careful what you drink. If he's been altering reality to collect magical devices there might be potions in some of those bottles. It just struck me that yesterday when we came to the fork in the path we took the path to this village after we had decided to take the other path. Oh, that's because that nice young lad told us that the bridge was out on the main road, and we should take the less traveled path to avoid having the ford the river."
"You think he was an enchantment? Perhaps the innkeeper has minions," Audrey said with her hand on the hilt of her sword.
"More likely he used the stone to twist reality to direct wizards, witches and those possessing magical items to take the path to his inn. The lad could have been perfectly honest, but plucked out of time. I don't think they've had rain around these parts in months, let alone a flood. But maybe 10 or 100 years ago, they did. The lad's clothing was a bit out of fashion don't you think?
"Hm," Audrey looked thoughtful for a moment. She stared down at the floor behind the bar. Mika opened the door to the innkeeper's rooms behind the bar cautiously.
"Wait!" shouted Audrey, "Look at this!"
Her arm was outstretched with her sword pointing parallel to the floor. A nondescript soiled brown rag hung from the tip of the sword. Mika stared for a moment, then the rag blinked. A green human eye blinked from the flat piece of cloth. Mika walked over slowly, and removed the cloth from the end of Audrey's sword. He lay the cloth down on the counter gently straightening it out. He looked sadly at the rag.
"So what is it? A demon or a transformed person?"
"I think it's a transformed person. I think it's a person I transformed years ago when I was just learning magic, but I changed him back. Perhaps he met the innkeeper before us? If it the stone changed reality so that he is the same flattened man, but not changed back, then I should be able to change him back easily." Mika frowned.
"So why did you flatten this guy in the first place, and why did you change him back afterward? Who do you think he is?"
"His eyes look like those of Matteus Daniel Fly. They're that same mischievous green. He was older than me, a third year magic student. He wasn't that good, and no wizards wanted to apprentice him. I caught him stealing some magical devices from the Master's workshop. I used the flattening spell to stop him. I called the master, and Matteus was expelled. I heard he had gone to work for a dark wizard, the one called Dzwell?"
"Dzwell the Unspeakable?" Asked Audrey in surprise. Looking down at the cloth, "Maybe you shouldn't change him back?"
"Yes, it's me Mat! Don't listen to her! Please, Mika, change me back!"
"It speaks!" Audrey said leveling her sword at the rag. "Why didn't it speak earlier? How did it get flattened?"
"Sorry, I was expecting Dzwell to come in and transform you into stableboys again, but since it looks like you managed to defeat him, I decided to speak. Really being a rag in this place, you learn to keep your mouth shut."
"Dzwell is the innkeeper?"
"Yeah, caught by one of his own spells. Unfortunately, I was caught up in it too. He was holding that spellstone of his, elder magic he had stolen from an elfin sorcerer. He mused how his life would have been different if he hadn't taken the path he had. He looked out over the great city he had just conquered, and mused, "I wonder what it would be like if I had chosen a life in the country." Then we were here. I was flattened lying on the counter of this filthy bar, and Dzwell was the innkeeper. He stared at the stone confused for a moment and put it into his pocket. Then he picked me up and started to clean the bar. I screamed. and he held me out in amazement. He didn't remember he was Dzwell the wizard anymore. He thought he was a barkeeper named Jurl. Perhaps before he became Dzwell his name was Jurl? Anyway he was fascinated by his magic rag, but since flattened I couldn't really do anything, he tired of me and began using me as a rag. Please change me back. I could really use a drink."
"Don't change him back yet, Mika." Audrey said as he uncorked the bottle that was sitting on the counter. She tipped over the lips that had be moving on the cloth. "Drink up, flat Mat. Then continue your story. Then we will decide whether to make you a man again."
"Mika, tell her I was a comely man. All the women loved me, when we were at magic school. And a few of the boys too."
"Glug, glug. not so fast. It's hard to drink when flattened," sputtered the rag.
Mika rifled through his pack and extracted a black wax crayon, and began to draw on the rag. "Continue your story, Matteus, while I work on this spell."
"Ooh, that tickles. Uh, wait, when we were at school you simply gestured and muttered something to transform me and change me back? Well, since you're under Dzwell's spell now too, I have to do more. So tell us about Dzwell the Innkeeper. How long have you been here? What other people has he transformed?"
"Oh, in the last two hundred years, I'd say he transformed thousands. Mostly into animals which he sold, but-"
"Two hundred years? Now I know he's lying. Dzwell destroyed the island of Mello last year, I had mercenary friends who died in that battle," Audrey said angrily.
"Time traveled then? I guess. He was wondering how things would have been different. Perhaps it's longer than 200 years. Dzwell once told me before he became the innkeeper that he was 500 years old. As for Mello, I was at his side when he plunged Mello into the sea and transformed all its occupants into tuna, and that was ten years before he used the stone. Please change me back, so I can warn him!"
"I'll never it tuna again," Audrey said. Then she did a double take, "Definitely, don't change this villein back into a man, or I'll take that stone and use it to change you into that stableboy, flatten Mat. but instead of using him as a rag, I'll sew him into your loincloth."
Mat's and Mika's mouths each gaped open at Audrey's outburst.
Mika said in an amazed tone, "I didn't know you sew."
"Please I won't warn Dzwell, I'll help you. I don't want to be flat anymore! Even if I warned him, it probably would do any good, what with the way that stone warps reality. I'd probably still end up spending over 200 years as a bar rag."
Mika seemed lost in thought with his crayon raised in mid-mark, then he said, "A loincloth?" He adjusted his crotch with his free hand.
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" wailed the rag, "Please, Mika, I said I was sorry, it was like 200 years ago - er, right, the time distortion thing- so it was only what five, ten years ago maybe? For you? I really was sorry. I'll do anything. Right, I'll tell you everything. First off, you don't want to go through the door to Jurl's quarters without first defusing the traps. You see Jurl didn't know the first thing about magic when he first became an innkeeper, but he was fascinated with magic transformation. He held me up and listened to me prattle calling him Dzwell and telling him what a great wizard he was. Then he scoffed, and said, "Do I look like a wizard? But I can see the benefit of magic, so you say this stone twisted reality so this great Wizard became a humble barkeep? What sort of wizard would do that?" I told him I thought it was a mistake, and he said, "I thought you said I was a great wizard who didn't make mistakes. I thought you said I conquered the whole world? Why would I give that up to live in this godforsaken little village?" He thought I was trying to trick him into using the stone to change me back, he said he thought I was Dzwell and that some other wizard had defeated him with the stone that he had found as a boy, and if I had been a rag all these years, why I hadn't I spoken before?" I had no answer to that."
Mika drew another line with his crayon.
"You're not still thinking of changing him back, Mika?" Audrey asked.
Just then the sound of horses whinnying echoed through the quiet morning.
"Guess, Ed just mounted Jurl - er, Dzwell?" Audrey said with a smile.
"You changed Dzwell into a mare!" exclaimed Mat, "But he hasn't been changed into a mare since that battle with the Witch Queen Raal, he changed back easily enough, but he was Dzwell then, not Jurl. Did you say mount! Oh, if he -er, she- get pregnant, he will never be able to change back."
"Good," said Audrey.
Mika furrowed his brow. He stared at the pouch hanging from his belt and shook his head. This was getting way to complex. As far as he knew, Dzwell had conquered the seven kingdoms, but had never battled the Witch Queen Raal, so that event was in the future. And Dzwell would conquer the world in the next ten years? His master wouldn't allow that - unless it was over his dead body. The stone could change all that maybe- did Dzwell have the stone yet or had he always had it? That would explain some of his amazing victories, like the one in Mello. The sea witches had protected Mello against sorcery for 1000 years, but somehow Dzwell got through all their ancient spells as if they had never been cast. The stone? That could have changed the reality to one where the island was unwarded. That would mean there were two stones now. That it had replicated itself as these two realities overlapped. His frown deepened.
"Please you have to separate them before the mare is impregnated," pleaded Mat.
Mika rubbed his chin.
"I can wash him up, and sew him into a loincloth for you, Mika, if like?" proffered Audrey.
Mika almost asked Audrey if she really sewed, but there were more important questions he needed to resolve before he went down that path.