24. Magic Most Fowl

As they came upon the High Hedge, Viconia was smugly resting her slender hand upon her new enchanted hammer, courtesy of Bassilus, Imoen was gleefully inspecting her new, magically glittering shortsword, a 'parting gift' from a hobgoblin named Zargal, and Garrick was holding aloft the skull of a skeleton who had recently been returned to true death.

"Alas, poor Yeslick!" the bard cried with great thespian zeal, holding aloft the grinning skull, "I knew him, Surgeon: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy...."

Viconia silenced him with a single wintry glare. "If you fancy your tongue in your throat rather than ripped out and shoved up a different bodily orifice, I suggest you take your infiinite jests elsewhere, ssinsuurul-jaluk ."

Onyx first opened the great double doors of the small fortress that was the High Hedge and strode through, with Jaheira and Khalid side by side. The were in a small but ornate stone anteroom. Hallways extended to the left and right, and a larger door led forward, through which the adventurers could see strange flashes of light.

"Excuse *cluck* me," Melicamp the chicken declared from atop Onyx's shoulder, "Let's *cluck* not tarry in this anteroom, flesh golems patrol it. Go forward!"

Jaheira looked left and Khalid right. From down each hallway they could see massive, disgusting creatues - humanoid, but the size of ogres, and not wearing any skin. They were merely massive constructs of muscular meat. And they were bounding their way into the anteroom with massive fists ready to pound the smaller fleshlings to pulps.

Onyx dashed forward throught the main door, followed by Khalid and Jaheira, then Viconia, Imoen, and Garrick. The gasped in awe at their new surroundings. A vaulted octagonal chamber made of some strange purplish marble, and the entire room was bathed in an otherwordly blue light. Most of the floor was taken up by a massive dias, perhaps fifty feet across, which had large arcane runes etched around the edge, strange patterns and swirls of color within a concentric band, and from the center of the dias sprouted an enormous crystal, which glowed an ethereal blue as bolts of electricity daned across the dias.

"Thalantyr!" Melicamp clucked nervously and Onyx broke his gaze from the crystal.

From around the side of this enormous, strange device proudly strode a wizard robed in crimson and gold, carrying himself with a glowing staff and a regal bearing. He had silvery hair, and his face was heavily creased, but he looked more like a man grown old with care and learning than with the mere passing of time.

"I don't have much patience for strangers on my property!" he bellowed fearlessly as the strode up to the six armed adventurers and their chicken. "Do us both a favor and move along...unless of course you have magic for sale. From the looks of you, you couldn't afford the items I have for sale! I sincerely hope you have some reason for bothering me."

Onyx met the glare politely, and stated, "It's...rather amusing actually. You see I happened rescue this, uh, talking chicken."

Thanaltyr grimaced, as if annoyed with a small child, "Chickens do not talk, so quite obviously it is a polymorphed being of some kind. Spells such as these wear of in time or can be dispeled. 'Tis a simple matter and one hardly worth the waste of my day. Keep moving!"

Viconia moved abreast of Onyx, puffed her chest out proudly, and declaerd, "We are quite aware of the mute status of chicken, male! This is a transformed man, but it is also a man who claims to be your apprentice."

The wizard scoffed, "Apprentice, woman?! I have had no apprentices! I teach no one about what I...wait...Melicamp?" the wizard peered intently at the fowl on Onyx's shoulder. "MELICAMP, is that you!?"

"Yes," the chicken nodded with its beaked head, "Master Thalantyr, it is *cluck* I."

The wizard scowled, looking at the chicken like he wished to charbroil it, which he surely could have with a flick of his wrist. "I am no 'master' and you are no 'apprentice!' What gall do you have to epect help from me!?"

Onyx arched an eyebrow, "He is not your student? You do seem to know of him."

Thalantyr glared acid arrows at the paladin. "A student wishes to LEARN! This file wishes only to have knowledge. I will tutor no one who does not understand the ramifications of what I have to teach! Not getting the quick gratification he wishes, he instead chose to steal from me!"

Melicamp fluttered down off Onyx's shoudler onto the floor, and peered at at the wizard with his beady bird eyes. "You speak of so much, but show so little! I only wished to *cluck* learn a fraction of the power you possess!"

Thalantyr scowled down at the fowl, "It has taken me some 50-odd yers to life to gain the power I wield, and the will not to use it. You are but a baby in comparison. Frankly, I'm surprised you changed into such an OLD chicken! How DID you manage that, by the by? You were muddling the simplest cantrip with I list observed you."

"I have progressed much since then..." the chicken stammered, "And I *cluck* 'borrowed' a few items to speed the process."

The wizard snorted. "As I thought. Well, it's obvious you can steal my tools, but not my understanding of them. Hold still while I dispel this foolish facade. Can't very well get my property back while it's polymorphed into y...wait a moment." The wizard suddenly looked quite grim. "I did not possess any items that allowed the casting of that enchantment. Wait...oh dear...Melicamp, listen very carefully. What did you take?"

"Nothing too valuable, I swear!" the chicken pleaded. "Just some *cluck* components, a few scrolls, a beat-up old pair of bracers, a blank spellbook, some parchment..."

Thalantyr gasped, "A pair of...oh no! You little FOOL! The bracers in my locked and trapped safe?! I certainly hope you can develop a taste for chicken feed, because you are going to be stuck the way you are for a very long time!"

The fowl looked down at the floor in shame, but the effect was of a chicken looking for a worm. "I know I stole for you, but you can't leave me like this! Please Master Thalantyr, please...*cluck*."

The wizard smirked, "It's not a matter of whether I wish to help or not, simply that I do not have the power to undo what you have done."

"Some mage you are," Viconia snorted, "The deVir house wizard could have fixed this without lifting a finger. Literally."

Before Thalantyr could respond, Onyx added, "So...what sort of item could cause this problem?"

Thalantyr paused solemnly, as if about to deliver a lecture to students, and began, "The magic that so many revere today was not always as it now is. Any adventurer worth his salt should know this, and know that not every bauble they wring from a dungeon will be helpful. The bracers in question were a vain little reminder of...well...it doesnt' really matter, does it? Suffice to say that I have no idea what their intended function was, and I was in no position to ask their former owner. Years have passed since my...release, and the spoils of that Netheril ruin remain as enigmatic as ever. They resist even the strongest divination, and attempts to dispel result only in explosive consequences. Some things should just stay buried."

Onyx nodded appreciatively, "Thank you for sharing this. But is there truly nothing that can be done for Melicamp - and your property melded to him?"

Thalantyr responded, "If you are willing, I shall do what must be done. We shall need a component that I do not have on hand, the head of an undead creature. I skeleton skull would do."

Garrick stopped idly tossing the skull in his hands. "Like this one, mister wizard sir?" He held it aloft, as if about to deliver another soliloqouy.

Thanaltyr smiled, "Precisely," and the bard handed him the grinning skull. The wizard then continued, "Now I shall try to bend a few magical rules to reincarnate this foolish boy."

He looked down at Melicamp, who began fluttering wildly. "Reincarnate? But does that spell not require *cluck* the recipient to be...dead!?"

Onyx decided he never knew a chicken could look so nervous as Thalantyr calmly answered, "There must be a necromantic element, hence the skull. I cannot fully explain, but it is something of a reversal on the reincarnation scheme. The age of the enchantment that changed you may allow for a loophole in the laws of magic. Or it may kill us both in the casting. Such is life.Well, let us see if you shall regain yours, or become a festhall dinner."

Thalantyr proceeded to clasp the skull and issue a string of arcane syllables that somehow sounded particularly archaic even to the party's untrained ears. One flash of light later, the chicken was gone, and a nervous-looking thin youn man in green mage robes stood where it had been.

"And that, as they say, is that," Thalantyr said emptily.

Melicamp looked down at himself, in joy and shock, holding up his hands and wiggling the fingers gleefully. "I have arms!! Arms and hands and feet an...OH thank you master Thalantyr, thank you!"

His master scowled, "Blast it! The bracers are no longer on him. As I feared. Likely they either spent what magic they had in a single charge, or it is there wont to be whisked away. I had hoped to seal them away, but now it's certain they will fall into the hands of some other unfortunate fool."

Knowing my luck, Onyx thought, I'll cross paths with that fool in the future.

"It was the greatest of luck you did not retain a wing for a limb," Thalantyr snickered at his apprentice. "You always were a bit cockeyed, but I suppose that doesn't count. I suggest you remain here, apprentice, so that I might keep a close eye on you. If you insist on toying with the forces of magic, I should see to it that you understand them. Perhaps you will be a touch more cautious, now that you have experienced what can go wrong."

"And you adventurers," he turned to the group, "I wish you *intelligence* on your journeys. I would wish you *luck*, but it runs out much quicker than you would think."

"An wise blessing, Thalantyr," Onyx nodded, "But before we part, might I see your wares?"

"As I said," Thalantyr snorted, "I'm sure you haven't the gold. And furthermore I see no mage among you."

"All true," Onyx grinned, "But if your wares prove tempting, perhaps in time we shall return with both wizards and wealth."

Thalantyr opened several previously-invisible doors in the wall behind him to reveal carefully arranged scrolls and artifacts, and the menagerrie of items was worth looking at out of sheer curiosity.

"Ooo," Imoen's face brightened up with great curiosity but also creased with serious appraisal, "Magey robes!"

" Arch mage robes," the wizard corrected.

He had an extensive assortment of magical potions and scrolls and wands, but his most curious items were also the most expensive - and gruesome. A claw and a tusk of some ancient beast the wizard called Kazgaroth. The tusk had been made into a sounding horn, and claw into a grisly glove, and each he said to bring to their wearers great benefits - and harm, quite what he could not say. Onyx felt both utter disgust and morbid fascination with the horn and claw, and an unknown voice spoke to him.

POWER...

I WAS MORE THAN A MAN...

YOUR VOICE BECOMES MY ROAR AND YOUR HAND MY CLAW...

YOU ARE WORTHY...

FOR YOU TOO ARE MORE THAN A MAN....

YOU ARE A BEAST.

The voice had become two voices, speaking in dissonant harmony. Onyx jerked his gaze away from the items, and looked at the nervously tittering, but human Melicamp. He sought power, and it turned him from a man into a chicken. Only barely did he become a man again. I should take Thalantyr's admonishings to heart. If I were to become a beast, I should fear I would never come back.