“Sort of,” Rupert said softly, but with authority, as if he really knew what he was talking about. “You just kind of relax all your muscles and imagine yourself as you’d like to be. Get an image of what you should look like in your head and superimpose it on your current image. Then you just sort of force the one on top of the other. It’s real hard at first, but it just takes effort. It helps if the form is something or someone you’re really familiar with.”
How this kid could know this was a mystery;
“Come on Tom,” Rupert sounded disappointed.
“You need some sleep, I’ll see what I can do. I promise.”
“Ok.” Rupert relaxed, but didn’t seem overly thrilled. No kid liked to go to bed. He closed his eyes.
Tom leaned back and thought about what the boy said. Would it really be that different from what he’d done to open this latest gateway? There he’d really imagined himself the flame, completely merged himself with the flame. If he did the same with an image of his old self would that work? Boggy had said it took a lot of energy, and the perceptions and demands of the wizards usually forced demons to return to their ‘true, demonic, form.’ Actually, Boggy had been talking about doing it in the Abyss, not in Astlan. Would it even be possible for a demon to alter his form here?
It seemed to Tom that a lot of this stuff about a demon’s form, which was intrinsically magical was wrapped somehow in people’s perceptions of him. As Tizzy and Boggy had said, they expect you to look like a demon, so you do. If he could change people’s perceptions, could he also change his form? If that were true, then Gastropé and Jenn would need to think of him as a human. New people he met, would never know any difference. Just exactly how much did the beliefs of the Astlanians influence reality? That was the question.
There was, Tom decided, only one way to find out. Taking a deep breath, which of course, being a demon he didn’t need, he began to relax. Just as he’d done with the gateway, he put himself in a trance. He began to call up an image of his old self. He built a complete image of himself as he remembered from the mirror. He figured it was important to get the whole thing correct. That wasn’t too hard, like many adolescents, he’d worried a lot about his growing body throughout puberty. He knew each little imperfection well. Soon he had the image in his mind. Then he created an image of himself, as he felt himself now. He hadn’t really seen much of his current form, except during that first summons, but he knew what it felt like.
He also knew what his old body felt like. He superimposed the images in his mind and the feelings of the two bodies. He willed, believed, imagined the sensations and appearance of his old body on top of his new one. Imagined himself shrinking to the smaller size. Imagined that he could actually feel hair growing on his scalp, his tail receding. His hooves turning into the balls of his feet. His lower joint becoming his heel, forming the entire foot. His claws retracting, becoming the fingers he remembered. He imagined, he believed, he knew. He opened his eyes.
He felt like he was holding his breath. He felt like he was about to explode. He felt like he was wearing clothes fourteen sizes too small. His breathing was ragged. His eyes almost seemed to be watering with the effort to keep from exploding. It was almost all he could do to keep from bursting apart.
Tom looked down at his legs. All he saw were these puny pink things with small wisps of hair on them. As he bent his head down to see the pinkish white flesh that was trying to contain the explosion, a lock of curly black hair fell over his eyes. He was himself! “Aaah, aah” Tom gasped.
Rupert woke, hearing a strange noise. He’d just dozed off thinking about Tom. He looked over to the demon. The demon was gone! In its place was a teenage boy! A naked one at that. Squatting down in the corner was a boy about six or seven years older than himself. He had long, very curly black hair and some faint freckles on his cheeks. His body was thin, but not skinny, and dusted with some dark hair on his legs and forearms. The boy was breathing hard, as if he had been exerting himself a lot. “Tom?” Rupert asked incredulously.
The boy smiled at him and nodded. Suddenly though, the boy gasped and bent over double. He began moaning in pain. Almost immediately his skin turned beet red and seemed to blister. The boy’s hair fell out, as he raised his head as if to howl in pain. His nose began pulling upward, his jaw coming forward to form a short snout. Horns began poking through the skin on his forehead. His whole body was bloating. Literally, his muscles were swelling like melons. His feet stretching, becoming lower legs. A short tail was thrashing its way up from his rear, growing longer and longer. Finger nails thickened and grew black and long.
