Chương 2: Familiar

Even though he knew there was someone in this room watching him, hearing the voice still startled him significantly. He tried to turn toward the voice, but he must have done it too quickly as his tail caught between his legs, causing him to trip face-first onto the chalk on the hard stone floor. He then ungracefully spun around on his bronze belly to face the speaker. A young man in dark blue robes sat on a stool. He had an ancient-looking leather tome in his lap with a quill in hand.

When the young man stood, the lizard's stomach dropped. He was not in a strangely proportioned room but was simply short. He was less than half the young man's height which put him somewhere under three feet tall. The man was thin, somewhere between late adolescence and his early twenties, with brown hair escaping in several directions at once. Dark circles sat under his eyes, suggesting chronic sleep deprivation, poor life choices, or both.

"Hmmm." The young man consulted his leather-bound tome, gaze bouncing between the lizard and the page as though hoping one would change when he looked away. His shoulders sagged further.

"Well, you're definitely bipedal, so that portion of Professor Venwick's modifications worked. That's something, I suppose. Unfortunately you still haven't shown any sign of advanced intelligence and you are clumsy. If only I had the funds, I could dissolve you and try again."

"Dissolve? What is this? What did you do to me? What the hell is a kobold?" His mouth felt alien as he spoke. Tongue, teeth, and jaw were all wrong. His voice came out too high and gravelly. Worse, every s hissed around his forked tongue which led to him grimacing each time he heard himself. The wizard's head snapped up, eyes wide.

"You can speak? Full sentences?" He stepped closer, nearly tripping over his robes.

"That's rare for a brand-new construct of any species, and despite being a kobold, you didn't repeat a single word! Say something else. Anything." The paternal impulse to answer 'something else' surfaced and was immediately dismissed. That said he noticed a strange desire to please tugging at the back of his mind, encouraging him toward talking.

"What did you do to me? Where am I? What happened? How can I get home? I was supposed to read to my daughter tonight and now I'm here and I don't understand..." The words tumbled out too quickly, his forked tongue mangling them worse the faster he talked. The internal jitter he had noticed earlier would not let him slow down. While he spoke, a small brass button three feet away caught his eye. The compulsion hit like a physical blow. His body lurched toward it, hands and knees striking stone. Need it. Must have it.

Mine. Shiny. Perfect. MINE. He recognized the thoughts as not his own even as they consumed him. With effort, he stopped himself mid-crawl and pushed back. Alien. That impulse was completely alien. The button still whispered from the floor, but after the first wave passed, ignoring it became possible.

"Fascinating." The young man scribbled in the tome. All traces of disappointment vanished, replaced by intense scientific interest and a grin much too large for the situation.

"Articulate speech and conscious resistance to hoarding. Rapid speech patterns are typical for kobolds, and hyperactivity is practically universal, but this level of ignoring instincts?" He paused, quill hovering.

"This is exactly what Professor Venwick's modifications were designed to produce. I can't believe it worked!"

"What are you talking about? What is a kobold?" Arguing from a face-down position on cold stone had its limitations, especially since the cold seemed to make him more lethargic. As the kobold tried to stand again, his legs buckled. He had tried to settle his weight onto heels that did not exist in the right place, and his body rejected the attempt. His feet were too long and his ankles were set too high. Only the front portions of his feet took his weight, while the wrong joint strained under the load.

His tail lashed behind him to compensate, but he had not included a tail in the calculation, so the correction only dragged him sideways. He collapsed back against the stone. At least he was sitting instead of face-down now, which was technically progress. The wizard gave a startled little chuckle, then remembered he was supposed to be answering a question.

"Well, you are a kobold. Kobolds are short bipedal creatures that are distantly related to dragons."

"Related to dragons?"

"Distantly. Very distantly. Similar to how a house cat is related to a tiger, except the tiger is the size of a barn and breathes fire and the house cat is… well you."

"Thanks." It was the first time he could remember being compared to a house cat, but there had been a lot of firsts in the last several minutes.

"Kobolds mostly live underground. Clever in the practical sense, not the academic one. They are masters of creating traps and digging tunnels. Kobolds are physically weak, though I suppose that's relative. They are known to be loyal to a fault, especially if there's a dragon involved." The wizard frowned, as if his notes had personally betrayed him.

"The speech is the strange part. Every kobold I have ever seen or heard about who spoke Common doubled words. Yes-yes, no-no, dig-dig. Even constructs do it, it's just how kobolds seem to speak Common. It's rather annoying to listen to." He wrinkled his nose, then tilted his head, studying the kobold more closely.

"That's the part I can't explain about you. You haven't doubled words a single time. Hopefully it's a sign you're abnormally smart for a kobold. Maybe you are up to double digits in intelligence although not knowing what a kobold is does concern me. I wonder if you are the first Venwick ritual construct kobold? Maybe I could become famous for making a smart non-citizen creature!"

"I'm a human being and not supposed to be a kobold. That's why I talk the way I do." Only then did the implication register. The wizard was already imagining how this situation might make him famous. Worse, he kept insisting that he had created him.

"You didn't make me! My name is Dr. Mark Wright. I'm a thirty-five-year-old psychiatrist from Dallas. I have a wife and daughter, and I demand you change me back and take me home!" Mark forced slow breaths until the panic receded enough to stand. This time his legs held. The young man set down his tome. His eyes grew wide at what Mark had said.

"You truly remember a family? A wife and daughter?" His voice dropped.

"Those are extremely specific details for a newly created construct."

"I'm not a construct! I'm a person!" Mark's legs buckled again. He hit stone, scales scraping, but forced himself back up.

"I'm a human psychiatrist with a family and hundreds of patients relying on me." Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"What's a psychiatrist?" Mark stared at him. Here he was with a tail and claws, trying to explain his profession to a wizard who claimed to have just created him.

"It's a doctor for the mind," Mark said.

"I treat depression, mania, trauma, psychosis. I prescribe medication. I do therapy. I went to medical school, completed residency, and own a practice. I have patients who know me." The young man's quill scratched across parchment.

"A mind healer? Never heard of one of those. I'm sure, if I understood half the terms you just said, I would find that an impressive resume for a construct generated…" He checked the timepiece on his desk with a smile plastered on his face.

"…about ten minutes ago." The smile only made Mark angrier.

"Ten minutes? I'm older than you! I'm thirty-five years old, and you look like you're a teenager!"

"I'm twenty-one, actually. You mentioned a place called Dallas?" The young man kept writing.

"I've never heard of it. Is that in the Contested Territories? Past the bordertowns at the edge of Arvandor?"

"It's a city in the United States on Earth! Texas!" Mark's volume rose.

"I live there with my wife Sarah and my daughter Emma and I was supposed to read to her tonight!"

"I notice you grimace each time you hiss your S's. Unfortunately, you'd better get used to it. With your anatomy, I don't think a kobold can make those sounds without hissing."

"That's what you're focusing on? How I hiss with certain sounds?" Mark's tail whipped wildly, sending the tilted candle behind him flying. The flame died when it fell which was fortunate considering all the papers and books scattered about. Mark was just glad it was one less thing illuminating this nightmare.

"What were you going to read to her?" The young man's tone shifted, becoming careful, deliberate. Mark had the distinct impression he was being tested, but despite that feeling he was still grateful to talk about his family and home instead of the mechanics of his new lisp.

"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We're reading through the Narnia series. We got to the part where Eustace turned into a dragon because he slept on a dragon hoard and had greedy thoughts and..." The words died in his throat. A transformation story, right as he was claiming to have been transformed. The young man scribbled faster.

"Interesting. Your daughter. What does she like? What are her interests?"

"She loves dinosaurs." Mark's voice dropped.

"She wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up."

"What's a paleontologist?"

"A person who studies ancient life. Dinosaurs were massive reptile-like animals that lived millions of years ago. Emma's favorite is Tyrannosaurus rex. Forty feet long and could bite through bone..." His voice faded. Mark could see where this line of questioning was going and he didn't like it. The young man stared at him, eyes bright with realization.

"So let me understand this correctly. In your memories, you have a daughter who loves ancient reptilian creatures. You were reading her a story about a boy transformed into a dragon. And now you yourself are a kobold, which has distant draconic ancestry."

"I know where you're going with this. They're not false memories. A few dragon-related details doesn't make this body mine. In fact dinosaurs were more like birds than modern day reptiles."

"Maybe that's why your ritual grabbed this shape," Mark said, though he hated how thin the explanation sounded even as he made it.

"Maybe I was thinking about Emma and the book and whatever you did caught on those details." The wizard's quill stopped moving. He looked down at the tome, then back at Mark. He wrote something brief, then underlined it hard enough to nearly tear the parchment.

"Look, we got off to a rough start. I should introduce myself properly." The young man's voice softened.

"I'm Wes Durum, third-year apprentice wizard at the Academy of Practical Thaumaturgy at Lutraville. I specialize in ritual magic and potions." He bowed slightly.

"And you are my newly created familiar." He tilted his head, studying Mark further.

"A dragonkin was my first choice. Or one of the stronger beastkin, provided it was smart enough. Something I could give a fierce name to." Wes flipped back several pages and ran one finger down a dog-eared page that Mark could tell contained a list, and murmured almost to himself.

"With you being a kobold, I have no idea what to call you."

"I've been researching good familiar names ever since I manifested magical ability at age twelve. Unfortunately most of the ones I had picked out probably wouldn't be approved for a kobold. Dreadmauler, Deathgrip, and Skullpiercer…" Mark stared at him, mouth hanging open just far enough for his forked tongue to rest against teeth that were much too sharp to be his.

"Lionsbane," Wes continued, testing it aloud.

"That one I had saved in case of a feline beastkin. Ashfang for a dragonkin. I have had Ashfang picked out since I was thirteen." His shoulders sagged.

"None of them really work for a kobold, though."

"My name is Mark." Wes's eyes caught on something in the book, and excitement lit his face with horrifying speed.

"Oh this could work! Bloodclaw! You've got claws. Most of your scales are red. That's the perfect name for you! I just need to check to see if it's in the kobold registry…" Before Wes could go any further, Mark cut him off.

"My name is Mark!" He marched toward Wes, tail swinging behind him. Once he reached the wizard, he tried to draw himself up to his full height, rising as far as his backward-bent legs allowed. Even then, he barely reached Wes's waist.

"My name is Dr. Mark Wright, and I am not being called Bloodclaw." Wes finally looked up from the book and down at the kobold standing beside him.

"Nor am I being called Lionsbane, which is a terrible name for any feline, since it means enemy of lions. I will not be called Ashfang, Skullpiercer, Deathgrip, or anything else that sounds like it was scribbled in the margin of an immature adolescent's notebook. Turn the page."

"But I have to…"

"Go back to writing notes about me. We are not discussing alterations to my name unless you also want to discuss what I will be calling you." Wes reluctantly flipped back to his notes. Despite being half Wes's size, Mark was pleased to discover that talking to him like a disappointed parent was apparently the correct strategy. Wes looked like an adolescent, and if he insisted on acting like one, Mark would use the tone he used on adolescents.

"Now before we go further, Mr. Wes Durum. What the hell is a familiar? Isn't that like a witch's cat? Did you really pluck me from my world, where I'm a doctor, a husband, and a father, to be your pet lizard?!" Wes's hands rose, defensive.

"A kobold wasn't my first choice, but you're bipedal and appear intelligent, so you meet my primary criteria. A familiar isn't a pet. It's a companion a wizard forms a magical bond with. Some wizards use them to enhance spell power. Adventurers use them to complement a party. I wanted one who could assist with my studies and eventually help with research. I specifically wanted an intelligent familiar to provide perspective on complex problems." His hands moved as he spoke, searching for words.

"The best wizards treat their familiars as partners, and that is what I want. I wanted someone who could push me, and who I could help in return." Could help? You took me from my wife and child. The only way you could help me is if you can give me back my life.

"So you want a research partner." Mark's voice went flat.

"One you own."

"It's not really ownership..." Some of the panic loosened. Not much, but enough for one desperate thought to slip through. Maybe this was not slavery in the way he feared.

"If that's true, what rights do I have? Can I leave? Can I refuse your orders?" Wes's jaw tightened.

"Independence is... not exactly how familiar law works."

"That means no." Wes winced.

"It means you're bound to me in all aspects of life. If I gave you a direct order, the bond would pressure you to obey. You could probably fight it, if you had to." Mark's eyes bulged. Wes saw it and immediately tried to backtrack.

"I'm not planning to force you to do anything that you don't want to do." He stopped, and took a deep breath.

"Look, I know how this sounds, but most wizards consider their familiar as close to them as family. That's what I really want for us." This was far worse than ownership. He remembered earlier in their conversation when Wes had told him to speak, didn't he feel somewhat compelled to speak during that moment? As much as Wes would deny the comparison Mark was for all intents and purposes a trained pet with a magical leash that compelled him to do what his master commanded.

Yet he was supposed to be grateful because good masters loved their pets like family.

"I saved for three months to afford Professor Venwick's modified ritual because I wanted a familiar with enhanced intelligence." Wes leaned forward and grabbed a crystal lens from his desk.

"Someone who could help me research magic. You could do published research! Maybe if I become a great researcher you can become a Prime Familiar just like my apothecary boss, Morty, did with his masters! A Prime Familiar is..."

"I hate doing research," Mark interrupted.

"I'm a clinician. I help people. I don't assist wizards with research, and I definitely don't teach kids who steal me from my family and make me their slave pet lizard." He crossed his arms, claws scraping against scales. Wes went quiet for a moment. When he spoke again the sales pitch was gone.

"You keep saying I stole you. That I took a person from his family." Wes's voice became careful.

"I can show you proof that you were created, not abducted."