46 Summer 516
Clyde had yet to learn to properly navigate the streets of Alvadas.
He did however feel he was beginning to reach a level of understanding for its sense of humor. If any city after all could be said to be alive and have a sense of things and feelings, he had come to see that would be Alvadas.
Or perhaps, he supposed, whoever was in control of the illusions, if anyone was and they hadn't just evolved to sentience and self designation, but if anyone did control them they had a sense of irony and humor.
As he walked down yet another street through the city a sign caught his eyes. Do enter, with the word not in between crossed out. Taking out his Chaon logic and applying it to the city, he pondered what such a sign could mean.
The most literal meaning was a welcome, a invitation.
Or, perhaps it meant quite the opposite, that it was warning one off but in a roundabout way by saying to enter but only sort of...
It seemed to him that it would either be a very good idea to enter the building... Or a very bad one.
Which of the two he had no idea, but he also didn't see any doors barred or people stopping him. It seemed to be a somewhat open place. Clyde pondered for a few more moments before finally committing and entering the building.
As soon as he entered his assumption was that his second possibility was the more likely of the two. Namely, when the door shut of its own accord behind him, slamming, he turned to see that in its place was a mirror. Except not a mirror, at least not in the sense of it reflecting him.
As he turned around, he was faced with himself. Except an image of himself holding his sides in laughter, holding his sides and pointing at himself as he silently laughed.
If this wasn't odd enough a few moments later laughter began to emit from the mirror, except not his own laughter.
Taking a few further paces into the house, he peered about, seeing many different mirrors. He noticed another him walking along the halls, holding a staff similar to the one he was holding(Cha), except that this one was a single contiguous piece of bone. It was as if someone had found a giant bone, and carved out a staff from that giant bit of something.
As he stared at the staff it suddenly began to mold and flex like a snake, beginning to twine and twist around the not him in the mirror. Then it dove into the not him's flesh, melding and merging. A few moments later the staff exited, poking its head so to speak out of the middle of the not him's back, only to submerge into the flesh once more.
Clyde passed onward, before the bone staff had a chance to exit from anywhere else.
As he passed another mirror he saw another not him, though this one was more different.
This not him was shorter, with a squatter frame and a thicker brow line. He had brown eyes, heavier eyelids and cheeks, though similar hair and ears.
He didn't hold a staff however, but a long wooden club.
Watching this not him he paused, and noticed after a few moments that he could hear breathing. Breathing in sync with the not him in the mirror. As if it was alive and watching him as he watched it.
Oddly enough the urge to do magic struck him. He couldn't see why not, after all he was alone... Though a deeper subconscious bit of him reminded him now perhaps wasn't the best time. But seeing the not him's in the mirrors gave him the urge to morph. What would happen if he morphed, or changed to look the same as the not him's in the mirrors?
Would they change also?
Holding Cha in the crook of his arm, Clyde began to feel his face with both hands.
As he did he focused on a single image, that of him not as a person but as a golem. A clay golem with clay flesh and wood bones underneath. A golem animated with motion, but easily shaped and moved.
This body, he reminded himself, was but one expression. It was but a vessel he lived in. If it changed he was still himself.
As he pushed and pulled at his face, trying to make it more like the not him in the mirror, he chanted under his breath a simple incantation.
“I am me, not my face. I am me, not my body. My body is but a clay golem, ready to be molded. I am me, not my face...”
Chanting this over and over, he focused on the emptiness of his body, the open and endless possibilities, and willed his body to take on another of those possibilities.
He started with the brow line, pushing and molding at his eyebrow and willing them to thicken and modify.
At first, and for many chimes, nothing happened. But as he chanted his mantra, he felt his flesh where his fingers touched slowly grow malleable. He pushed and pulled, moving the eyebrows into a thicker shape more similar to that of the not him in the mirror. The not him seemed to just stare back, doing nothing.
Once he had it in the right shape, he willed his djed to flow to the area, imagined the clay hardening like that warmed in a oven, hardening and solidifying.
Next he worked on the eyes. Closing his eyelids, he massaged his eyes through his eyelids, continuing on with his mantra as he willed his eyes to shift, to change color. He pictured the not him before him, the one with the brown eyes, and imagined in his head the golem body of him shifting and taking on the other's appearance. Then he focused on the eyes, willing those in particular to change.
After chanting for awhile he felt the liquid nature take on over his eyes, and at that moment pushed and pulled and willed the change of color to take place. Once he felt the change was done he willed it to harden, to stay, as he had with his eyebrows.
Opening his eyes, he looked at the mirror, to see the not him.
It was then that the fact that he had no way of knowing if he'd done the change correctly, as the mirrors didn't work like mirrors. He could have as easily gotten it right as gotten it wrong.
In truth he'd gotten it half right, his eyes changing from their normal blue to a dirty blueish brown.