Sha’hae

The night screech landed on the apex of the slate roof with barely a whisper, the giant bird holding its wings outstretched for a moment before settling in. With a final ruffle of dirty gray feathers the three foot bird stalked to the edge of the roof to where it could watch and listen for rats, mice, or even the occasional unwary cat.

When the giant bird landed Sha'Hae spared it barely a glance from where she lay prone and unmoving, keeping her attention on the scene on the street below. Her position a few feet below the peak of the roof kept her from being silhouetted against the night sky and her black velvet hosen, shirt, and scarf wrapped tightly around her sliver white hair and face kept her completely hidden from any wandering eyes. Even though only her hands, bare feet, and the small area around her eyes were left uncovered every inch of her body had been darkened with kohl to match the darkest of nights so that the only hint of color was the golden yellow of her eyes.

The night screech twitched the long, feathery tufts that helped it hear a mouse a street away and swiveled its head to peer into the black shadows of the roof, shifting nervously from foot to foot as if it sensed that something was amiss.

Across the narrow gap formed by the alley a black glass wall loomed up another head taller than the roof Sha'Hae lay hidden on. The wall was so reflective that it didn't appear black at all but gave the illusion of being dirty wood siding and windows with drawn shades from the opposite side of the street.

Sha'Hae knew the mortal danger the night screech was in even just by being this close to that wall. She had witnessed countless night creatures fly or blunder into that glassy surface, and each time the hapless animals would be sucked slowly into its reflective depths. Some three weeks past two sailors recently arrived in port and stumbling back to their ship after a night drinking had met a similar fate.

Sha'Hae had watched as one of the bearded men had leaned his hand against the wall as he relieved himself. His terrified yells had quickly turned into anguished shrieks as his hand melted into the wall and the rest of body was drawn inexorably in. When the doomed sailor's friend had tried to help by grabbing his friend's hand and pulling, he too had been trapped like an ant in a drop of honey. When the first sailors shrieks ended with shocking abruptness as his face slipped below the glass surface of the wall his hapless friends shrieks had redoubled. The entire scene had taken only a few minutes, the second sailors cries ending just as abruptly and the night slipping quietly by as Sha'Hae watched the last bit of arm and leg disappear.

None of the windows had been thrown open to question what the terrible noise had been and not a single light had been lit in any of the rooms overlooking the glass wall which told Sha'Hae just how often such scenes happened.

Two men Sha'Hae knew intimately without ever having met walked along the cobblestone street below. The sounds of their hobnailed boots flattened and subdued in the narrow manmade canyon. The men were armed with truncheons, viscous short swords known as praeta and with chainmail beneath the house tabard for the city's greatest mage, Admond of the Glass. Armed and armored both men were easily more than a match for any of the common thieves, muggers, or local toughs that they might find lurking about, but even with every advantage both men seemed furtive. As they made their endless rounds they held the torches they carried high and stayed well away from the strange wall and their doppelgangers that followed along with them from within its depths.

More out of habit than anything else Sha'Hae counted the men's steps as she sang the song of Spring Awakening in her mind. Sha'Hae had had that song drilled into her for years as a child, many times at the end of a long switch her instructors were more than happy to employ and knew exactly how long each stanza and each chorus lasted. The men disappeared around the corner to the left following the black wall as Sha'Hae continued to go through the song in her mind. After the fourth stanza Sha'Hae watched as two different men dressed and armed as the first came around the corner to her right.

Sha'Hae had been watching this nightly dance for three months no matter the weather and knew the men's schedule, the patrols timing, even when the guardsmen were most likely to relieve themselves and in which dark alley. The four men on patrol tonight were but a third of the total number that resided behind that glass wall, with two tasked for walking the same route during the day and the remaining four tasked for whatever duties were required inside.

Sha'Hae knew from secondhand knowledge of the tower within the glass wall. Wide and squat, it only topped the wall by two stories which made it by far the shortest mage tower in the entire city. What the tower lacked for in height it certainly made up for by having the deadliest guardian of any private estate in or out of the entire city. The wall itself had been deemed a hazard and been banned by the city elders, but no one was quite sure how to break that troubling news to Admond or even to force him to abide by the decree and remove the wall. Many had suggested forcing Admond to have the wall removed, but since Admond was also known for his rather mercurial temper, penchant for cruelty, and positive delight in transforming hapless people who annoyed him into seemingly random and particularly unpleasant creatures no one had yet dared even broach the subject to the unstable mage.

Sha'Hae also knew of a map globe sitting on a bone pedestal in the saloon of the tower one floor down from the roof. That globe, or more properly, what that globe had secreted within was why she had spent three months watching and observing and most importantly, planning. Admond of the Glass, known for his mercurial temper, unsurpassed magical skill, and deadly glass wall was also know to have a Star Stone, and someone had hired the Black Brotherhood to relieve Admond of it. Sha'Hae neither knew nor cared who that someone was, only that the Brotherhood had been offered five thousand gold crowns for its acquisition.

There was but one more piece of knowledge that Sha'Hae had. The knowledge that three of the four guards tasked with working inside the tower and one of the day guards had been struck down by the sickness that had suddenly flared up in the local area. The sickness didn't kill a man so much as make him wish he'd been called to make his accounting of life and continued to baffle the healers. No one could say if the sickness came from the water in the area, some food that they had all eaten or some other thing that tied the men together. Sha'Hae had been careful to feed the mild poison to enough random people so that nothing could tie the sickness to just Admond and his tower guards.

Sha'Hae watched two more complete circuits of the guards below before slipping silently over the peak of the roof. The night screech never so much as ruffled its feathers. Sha'Hae paused before dropping over the edge of the roof just long enough to make a low, sibilant hiss. The night screech launched itself into the night with a call that did honor to its name and quickly disappeared. Sha'Hae stayed motionless, listening for any change in the sounds of the night. She regretted the necessity having to disturb the night screech, both for the noise it had made but also out of respect for the silent, deadly hunter.

Sha'Hae remained motionless for two stanzas until she was assured that the night remained undisturbed and then slipped over the edge of the roof. The stones of the cobles felt cold and slick with night mist and possibly less appealing things on but Sha'Hae barely noticed. She quickly slipped down the alley, her bare feet quieter than any cat, her black velvet and kohl a darker smudge in an already ink black alley. Before reaching the mouth of the alley Sha'Hae stopped, placing the palms of her hands on one wall and her feet on the opposite. As quickly as some men ran Sha'Hae 'walked' her way up the wall until her fingers found the fired clay shingles of the roof. In one swift, flowing motion Sha'Hae was on top of the roof and crouching, again listening for the slightest sound of discovery or pursuit. After two more stanzas Sha'Hae crossed the flat roof to an abandoned rookery, opening the door and slipping inside.

The inside of the rookery was even darker than the night without since Sha'Hae had checked and rechecked that not even the slightest sliver of light could penetrate, or more importantly escape. Once inside she quickly removed her shirt and hosen. Her scarf took longer to unwind, but it also dropped to the dust covered floor until she stood naked in the complete darkness. Her hand slipped up to touch the fine platinum chain hung about her neck, tracing the tiny, perfect links until her fingers touched the pendant that hung from it.

The pendant resembled a tiny feather carved from some flat black material. The moment her fingers touched the pendant she sensed the surge of magical energy from within. As the power in the pendant grew stronger her fingers began to tingle to the point where it was almost painful.

The tingling that had started in her fingers continued to spread and Sha'Hae closed her eyes to savor the feeling of warmth spreading through her chest and into her stomach. When the tingling finally reached the tips of her toes and her entire body seemed to hum with the same, clear note Sha'Hae opened her eyes.

"Cal, illistos, illu,"

Sha'Hae spoke the words of command with anticipation, her arms spread wide as a brilliant golden light filled the small room. The light seemed to double, and then redouble with a brilliance that should have been unbearable and yet wasn't. Sha'Hae stared down at her chest, her breasts covered in kohl seeming to merge before sprouting black, sleek feathers. Sha'Hae could feel herself shrinking as the magic coursed through her body, a liquid fire that was both unbearably painful and ultimately ecstatic at the same time.

Sha'Hae tried to bite her lip to keep from crying out in a mixture of pleasure and pain only to find that she no longer had a lip. Sha'Hae felt her body collapse inward and the room seemed to grow larger around her as the light began to quickly fade and then disappear. It took a moment for Sha'Hae to stop the room from spinning around her, the disorientation that always came with the transformation quickly fading. Sha'Hae spread her arms, now wings, and beat the air, causing herself to rise up off the floor. Once back on the dusty floor Sha'Hae took two tentative hop steps towards where she thought the hutch door was at and after only one miss found the cord that released it. The padded door sprang open and Sha'Hae hopped out.

The night had changed around her with smells suddenly sharper, full of body and texture, the light brighter but bleached of color. The wind currents and eddies swirling across the roof took on a language of their very own, a language that after years of practice Sha'Hae had finally if not mastered, at least begun to understand. Sha'Hae listened intently, deciphering the night sounds around her that she hadn't been able to hear before and the finally spread her wings and sprang up into the night sky. The flow of air over her wings was a sensual caress as she quickly crested the roofs and even the highest chimneys around her. The sense of exhilaration and freedom which was always so strong was a constant lure and danger for her.

Sha'Hae forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand, first circling down to pick up the small leather pouch that she had placed on top of the pigeon hutch earlier that night, then locating the stone tower within the protective glass wall. Sha'Hae took a moment to scan the roof and surrounding buildings where she had been laying minutes before, ensuring herself that the night screech had flown off and posed no danger. Once she was sure she wasn't about to become another birds nighttime meal Sha'Hae made straight for the top of the tower.

Over the months of watching Sha'Hae had seen several birds fly over the wall without incident. Only when one either landed on the wall or accidentally hit it were they pulled within the black glass. Only the past week Sha'Hae had chanced overflying the tower herself in her raven form for the very first time. When nothing had happened as she glided silently over Sha'Hae had taken the opportunity to see firsthand what was inside. Even as mundane as the courtyard, stables, and outbuildings were every little bit of information was helpful.

It took only moments for Sha'Hae to cross the distance, giving the top edge of the glass wall plenty of space as she glided to the crenellations that surrounded the top of the tower. Sha'Hae landed silently, quickly folding her wings and looking around the tower roof. A brazier, unlit and cold, was placed next to a wooden stool next to the outer wall a few steps from a closed trap door leading down. Most of the roof was taken up by shallow wooden boxes filled with dirt which had a dizzying array of herbs and plants growing in them.

Satisfied that no one was lurking on the roof Sha'Hae took the leather pouch in her beak, hopped to the edge of the crenellation and peered down the sheer wall of the tower. Eight feet below a slight ledge jutted out from the wall to mark the lip of the window Sha'Hae had watched obsessively for so long. The window was on the top floor of the tower, and from what Sha'Hae had been able to discern it opened into a sitting room outside of Admond's bedchamber. More importantly to Sha'Hae was the fact that that window was rarely if ever closed.

Sha'Hae spread her wings and hopped over the edge, silently gliding down to the protruding stone lip and landing softly. She listened intently at the window, head cocked to the side, for two complete stanzas of the Spring Awakening noting every creak of wood, the distant pop of an ember in a brazier, and the sigh of wind through the window where she now stood. The room beyond was indeed a sitting room, roughly a wedge shape with a closed intricately carved door of some ebon wood to her left and an archway leading into the center of the tower where the room narrowed directly across from the window. The room was furnished with a plush couch of deep red fabric, two sitting chairs and a brazier filled and ready with fresh coal for warmth. A massive bookcase dominated the entire wall across from the ebon door and reached from floor to ceiling. Books of every size, shape and description, loose papers, bound scrolls, and what looked to be large clay tablets were stacked and stuffed into every corner of the bookcase to the point of overflowing. A desk next to the bookcase was also piled high to the point where Sha'Hae was worried the slightest bump would cause either the table or the mountain of books to collapse.

With a final searching glance around the room Sha'Hae hopped inside, walking slowly over to the couch and then around to the far side so that the view from both the closed door and archway were blocked. Once Sha'Hae was concealed she dropped the leather pouch, placed her head beneath her wing to muffle sound and gave the soft 'grrck' that started her transformation back to her original form.

As Sha'Hae's body began to transform and grow she couldn't escape the sense of loss of freedom, a reduction of her soul even as her body grew and regained her original form. The transformation happened without fanfare or noise, the soft exhale of breath as Sha'Hae was returned to herself lost in the quiet nighttime sounds of the tower.

As Sha'Hae crouched behind the couch she was surprised by a familiar but unexpected sensation. It was both the curse and blessing of all Moon Elves to be more aware and more susceptible to magic in all its many forms which played an integral part in courtship, love, and intimacy. As Sha'Hae crouched, unmoving, the powerful magical aura that permeated the tower caused all the nerves of her body to begin to tingle and a warmth to spread through her stomach. The sensation was more annoying than pleasurable at the moment, the soft caress of the wind across her hardened nipples an unwelcome distraction.

After firmly banishing all thoughts of the magic embracing and caressing her body Sha'Hae picked up the leather pouch and quickly tied it around her waist, trying to concentrate on any change in the nighttime rhythm of the tower. With a final check Sha'Hae stood and slipped over to the open archway and peered beyond.

A wide, carpeted balcony completely encircled a central well outside the archway. A decorative wrought iron railing depicting a host of monsters and demons kept the unwary from falling over. Four doors and three more open archways were spaced unevenly around the circumference of the wall and a intricate metal stair led down half way around the central well on her right. Sha'Hae slipped out of the archway and across to the railing, her bare feet making not the slightest whisper on the thick carpet of the balcony.

A cautious glance over the edge showed her that the central well extended from the base of the castle through five floors each with its own balcony all the way to the top balcony where she now stood. A dim light could be seen on both the ground level and the second floor, the dim flickering giving it away as candle lanterns left burning for the night.

Sha'Hae paid particular attention to the intricate stairway that matched the gentle curve of the inside wall of the tower. At the floor below there was a short landing of only a few steps to where an identical staircase led further down to the next landing below. To all appearances the metal stairs were only an intricate decoration, but Sha'Hae knew better. Where the eye failed to see the intense, the bothersome and distracting arousal Sha'Hae's body felt knew the amazing power and malevolent intent that lurked within both sets of stairs. Sha'Hae had no idea what would happen if someone set foot on those stairs without leave, nor did she have any intention of finding out.

Sha'Hae shoved the physical distractions of her body aside and gracefully stepped over the edge of the railing, lowering herself down to where she was only gripping the edge of the balcony. Hanging by only her hands in mid air with the long drop down to the ground below Sha'Hae took the time to examine the landing and balcony below her. Satisfied that no one lurked unseen that she might have missed from above Sha'Hae kicked her legs once to swing her body in a pendulum motion and dropped, landing silently in a crouch.

There were five evenly spaced open archways on this level with no closed doors. Sha'Hae had been unable to find out exactly where the saloon was located beyond which level it was on, so she made a quick decision to head left, away from the stairs that were such a bother to her body. Sha'Hae's inner thighs were moist and the warmth in her lower stomach had become an ache that pulsed in time with her heart as she silently made her way to the first archway. She paused long enough to take a deep, calming breath and force her body's unwanted reaction to the back of her mind before she peered inside.

The room beyond was obviously a library, although much larger and better organized than the bookshelf upstairs. Sha'Hae quickly counted six rows of bookcases, each extending all the way to the ceiling and a wheeled iron stepladder that could be pushed around to wherever it was needed. The walls of the room were also lined with shelves with every square inch used.

Sha'Hae slipped past the archway and padded silently along the balcony to the next. A quick glance inside revealed the room to be similar to the library, with bookcases and shelves throughout, but instead of books the room contained glass jars, bottles, bundles of things best left to the imagination, and all the other myriad of things a mage would need for his craft. A large black table made of some glossy stone dominated the central portion of the room with a skull that certainly resembled a demon of some sort resting in the center. Sha'Hae firmly suppressed both her curiosity and her sudden spike of desire and padded onward towards the next open archway.