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himself as comfortable as possible on the damp grass. He leaned back against the tree and tried to picture that ghostly, beautiful mountain and the silver bitch. |
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The robin peered down from her perch, incensed that some crazy, naked human was apparently taking a nap on her doorstep. She hopped to a lower limb and watched the man's odd, angular face relax. In a moment he smiled dreamily and whispered two words: "The moon!" |
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However, Cyrus wasn't really asleep. If anything, he was more aware than he'd ever been in his life. Since his encounter with the wolf in the desert, a new set of glands had developed at the top of his adrenal gland. These new glandsgenetic precursors from a race of humanoid beings that had succumbed to the cataclysmic environmental upheavals of the first ice agewere flooding his system with a hormone that was both ancient and magical. The hormone accelerated his heart and pumped new blood and sinew into his arms and legs. It caused new "super" skin cells to form at a rate of millions per second and it altered his nervous system, sharpening his senses while increasing his tolerance for pain. |
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He felt the changesboth external and internalbut he didn't fight or try to control them. Before he knew it, his head was in the trees and he was standing eyeball to eyeball with his little red-bellied friend. |
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Startled by the sudden appearance of such a hairy monster, the robin hopped to the end of the branch and took flight without so much as a by-your-leave. |
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Don't go away mad, Cyrus thought. |
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His upward growth stopped almost as fast as it started, but his chest and shoulders continued to expand, filling out like oil spreading across the surface of a pond. He found that when he relaxed, the transformation wasn't nearly as badno worse than falling down a short flight of steps. True, his bones popped like bundles of dry twigs and his skin felt like it was two sizes too small and his jaw felt as if he had swallowed a pound of tenpenny nails. But it was merely uncomfortable, not painful. |
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