Ethelgren stood, rising to loom over Laina, a look of anger and disdain on his features. “Are you fucking stupid, girl? First you warn me, then you try to take my goddamn head off!”
Laina was still confused, but Will recognized the shift in tone and vocabulary. “Arrogan?”
Chapter 44
“Who the fuck else would it be? Moron!”
It was beyond strange watching his own face swear at him while doing such an absolutely perfect imitation of Arrogan’s mannerisms. Will leapt to his feet and threw his arms around the old man who now controlled his body.
Or tried to. He found himself stumbling as Arrogan stopped him by putting one hand on his face and holding him at arm’s length. “Lass, get control of yourself! I’m far too old for that sort of thing.”
“I’m not a lass!” yelled Will.
“You fucking well look like one.”
“I’m not. Let me explain,” began Will.
“What’s that then?” asked Arrogan, pointing at Laina’s torso. “Looks very much like a tit hanging out of your dress to my eyes. Have things have changed that much since I died?”
Internally, Laina grew embarrassed, and she quickly took control to fix her wardrobe malfunction. Meanwhile Will continued to talk. “It’s me! Will! Your grandson.”
Arrogan squinted at him carefully. “Hmm.” After a second, he made up his mind. “Nope, you’re nowhere near ugly enough to be him. Fetch me a mirror. I’ll show you what he’s supposed to look like.”
Will rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Listen. You’re in Will’s body, and I already know you’re Arrogan. Where do you think Will is right now?”
“Right here,” said the old man, tapping his chest. “That asshole Ethelgren trapped him in his own body and may yet again. We need to go somewhere quiet so I can coax him out and prepare him for what he needs to do.”
“I already got out,” explained Will. “Laina is loaning me the use of her body temporarily.”
That set Arrogan back on his heels. “You projected yourself, again?”
Will nodded.
“And now…” The old man pointed at Laina’s torso again. “You’re both in there?”
This time, Laina answered. “Hello, nice to meet you. This is Laina.”
Arrogan stared at them for a moment, his face pensive. After a moment he asked, “The half-sister, right, one of Nerrow’s spawn?”
Laina was livid. “Listen, you old bastard! You’d still be trapped in there if I hadn’t decided to help your stupid grandson!”
Arrogan held his hands up. “Whoa, hold on to your temper, girl! The worm-ridden apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree does it? You must take after your father.”
Don’t let him get to you, Will cautioned her as Laina’s rage began to spiral out of control. He’s like this with everyone. He absolutely loves to piss people off. Don’t give him the pleasure.
She held her tongue, and after a moment Arrogan continued, “Both of you in there, that’s insane. Do you have any idea how incredibly dangerous that is?”
“I had already lost control of my body,” said Will. “Given the situation, doesn’t it make sense to take some risks?”
He watched as his face nodded back at him. “Sure, for you. What about the girl? Did it ever occur to you that there might be permanent repercussions?”
Will and Laina both froze as they felt a faint shiver of anxiety. “Repercussions?”
“Death is the most common. There was a wizard once who used to experiment with what you’ve done. He wanted to create a hybrid soul that would enable him to do two things at once. Naturally he experimented with others before risking himself. Most of his initial subjects died, but those that didn’t went irretrievably insane, usually within minutes of the fusion.”
Will felt Laina’s mouth go dry.
“He figured the problem was that his subjects were strangers. So he moved on to testing it with married couples, which turned out to be a disaster. The survival rate was better, but the insanity rate was worse. Eventually he gave up on the whole idea, but only after someone managed to murder him in retribution for the people he had tortured.”
“Oh,” said Will.
“So then an enterprising do-gooder tried to do the surviving but insane subjects a favor by separating them. Of course, he only had one body, so he essentially split the soul and let one die. But his solution didn’t help either; the soul that remained usually became violent, or suicidal.”
“Are you saying I’ve killed her?” asked Will.
His grandfather shrugged. “Not at all. The fact that you’re both alive and still relatively sane suggests that you must have been remarkably compatible, but that’s just a guess. I have absolutely no way of knowing. It might also be because of the fact that your fusion was a mutually voluntary process. You didn’t have anyone from the outside forcing you into it.”
We are not compatible, not by any stretch of the imagination, remarked Laina. So just forget he even suggested that.
Will chuckled to himself. Laina’s thoughts and her emotions were completely at odds. “So what should we do?”
“Fix it,” said Arrogan. “And the sooner the better. The longer you two remain in there, mixing and sloshing about, the more likely you’ll start to meld into one inseparable whole.”
Laina was horrified. “Can we do that here? I’m ready when you are.”
“We need a safer place,” said the old man. He held out one hand, and a spell construct swirled into existence, a complex meld of two elemental turyn types, earth and air. When he released it, a disk formed from the cobblestones beneath his feet and then rose into the air, lifting him up. Reaching out, he offered Laina a hand as she scrambled aboard. Darla deftly leapt up, landing perfectly. “Hold onto me,” said Arrogan. “My feet are anchored by the spell, but yours aren’t.”
Darla took one arm while Laina grabbed the other. The disk lurched into motion with sudden speed, and her grip tightened.
“Which way?” asked Arrogan as they glided forward.
“North,” said Laina. “Follow that street there. We should be safe in the Alchemy building. Will’s friend is there.”
Arrogan smiled, and the disk sped up. The ground was rushing by just a foot beneath them, and he seemed to be enjoying the wind as it roared around their faces. Yelling, he asked an academic question, “Do you know why I chose an elemental spell for our transport?”