Chapter 10
In Which I Am Committing to a Course of Action and Refuse to Suffer Judgement for It, and Probably My Folks Back Home Wouldn’t Understand but I’m Here and They’re There and They Also Want Me Dead, so Forget Them, I’ll Dance to the Beat of My Own Drum (a Drum that at This Time Is Telling Me to Fuck an Old Man).
I decided to take seducing the mad sorcerer more seriously.
His odd acts of kindness, listening to me gab about my friendship troubles with Glenda, patching my wounds, the dragon scale, it all added up.
I mean sure, the guy had turned me into a vulture, threatened to pull my teeth out, and implanted some sort of sick torture device in my chest, but .
. . hmm, maybe this wasn’t a great idea.
Still, I wanted out of this vulture body. He could transmogrify me. All I needed was a path connecting those points, a way to make it worth his while, as it were.
“My lord,” I squawked over breakfast. The mad sorcerer was having thick-sliced bread with jam, and I was having a squirrel that had gotten trapped in the chimney and was only just beginning to rot.
I’d flown it down to the kitchen to eat with the sorcerer, figuring a lonely guy like him would appreciate a social meal.
“My lord,” I repeated, swallowing the scrap of squirrel intestine that dangled from my beak. “I think you should turn me into a woman.”
The mad sorcerer choked on his bread.
After some spluttering, hacking of breadcrumbs, and indecision on my part as to whether I should be smacking his back with a wing, he recovered enough to answer.
“Why in the world . . . ? Also, you are flinging rat . . . particles everywhere. From this point onward, you are forbidden from eating indoors. Effective immediately,” he added, as I raced to get in one last beakful.
“It’s a squirrel, my lord,” I said, wiping my beak on the brick oven. “They have the fluffy tails, that’s how you can tell.”
“Stop that! Stop that!” The sorcerer rose to shoo me off the oven and, confused, I circled the room to land on a chair.
“Anyway, the transmogrification, my lord. I figure—since the prophecy is clear about bodily sex—I can weasel out of the thing by swapping. Pretty smart, right?” I finished wiping my beak on my own back feathers and raised a talon to scratch an itch beneath my chin.
“‘Long eyelashes for a boy’ . . . I suppose you’re right.” The sorcerer seemed to be deep in thought. “And you are rather disgusting as a vulture.”
“Well, no, I groom regularly, my lord,” I protested. “There’s this nipple-looking thing at the base of my tail, see? And I get oil from there and smear it all over the place. Keeps me shiny.”
“Stop flaring your feathers, I do not wish to see it! Obey, or I will use the needle.” The sorcerer kneaded his forehead, his toast lying forgotten on the table.
A trio of small humanoid kitchen constructs descended on my squirrel, one carting it away and the other two working with brushes to scrub the scraps of red off the brickwork. I decided not to protest.
“I have given you free rein of this stronghold because, lacking opposable thumbs and any possible allies, the damage you could do is minimal. As a human, the situation would change.” The sorcerer’s forehead was lined and serious, but the lack of a solid ‘no’ made me giddy. Time for the sales pitch!
“I could cook and clean, and decorate—my lord, this place is pretty drab. That’s not even getting into the other stuff I could do.” I cocked my head in what I hoped was a significant manner, vultures not having any eyebrows to raise.
“Other stuff? No, no, I see that look, please don’t answer.
I know exactly where this is going.” The sorcerer’s eye flashed, and another little construct emerged to carry away his toast. Disappointment struck—I’d been hoping the sorcerer would eventually exit the kitchen having forgotten it entirely, leaving the crisp bread available for plundering.
But back to selling myself. “No, see, my lord, I reckon I could perform se—”
“Shut up, shut up, please stop talking. Alright. I will turn you into a human woman, on one condition.” The mad sorcerer raised a single bony finger.
“Oh, my lord?” Joy and relief unfolded like a flower. “And what’s that?”
“Please stop trying to seduce me.”