I reached the top of the mountain where the fort was. While I could have destroyed it easily, I reminded myself not to haste. Rozy was inside the fort and I didn’t want the smallest scratch to come to her because of me.

I peered into the fort through the main door. I saw the hall in which the Well to Everywhere had transported me the last time. Rozy was still at the same corner of the hall as before, chained to the pillars. She looked even more skinny and weak then the last time I had seen her. I thought her eyes were open. The sorcerer was at the centre of the hall and so were a bunch of Lazaki elders.

Mintuk pointed his hand at my face. Immediately a stinging sensation filled my eye. I reckoned that the sorcerer was using the same spell that he had used on me the last time. My eye became teary and it hurt badly.

I closed the eye hit by the spell and then put both of my front paws into the fort through the door. The entire while the Lazaki villagers were throwing whatever they could find at me. Spears, stones and arrows. Some would even run to me and stab me with swords and daggers, only to get kicked by one of my legs and fly away. The combined effect however was causing me some pain and there were several places about my body that I was bleeding. But I took the suffering. It was all for Rozy.

I gave my best effort and slowly I began to hit the front part of the fort. The walls of the fort began to shake and crumble at several places. Every now and then I would take a peek at the inside of the fort to ensure that Rozy was alright. In a matter of minutes I successfully removed the front part of the fort, creating a much larger entrance into it, such that I could put my head into the fort through it.

Once again the sorcerer pointed his hand at me. This time a patch of fur on my face came off, exposing my pink skin underneath it. I couldn’t get the point of the spell. But I thought that the spell would have had dreadful consequences were it used on an ordinary person.

Mintuk grabbed a spear from one of the Lazaki and came running at me. I immediately withdrew my face out of the fort. But the sorcerer was able to hit one of my arms with his spear. Darn it! It was the same arm that had been hurt during the monkey attack on the village of Collosi and also had been hit by Dani’s arrow. Unlucky arm.

I had to do away with the sorcerer. I threw my paw at him. My intention was to completely crush him and kill him, but just then I felt a pain on my back which distracted me and I couldn’t hit Mintuk hard enough. Some of the Lazaki elders began to run out of the fort through a door at the back.

I extended my paw towards the corner where Rozy was. Carefully, I was able to break her chains with my paws in a manner in which she wasn’t hurt. The moment she was free from the chains that she fell down on the floor, she was so weak. Next with much precaution I lifted her with one paw and placed her on the back of my neck. I felt a light pull on the fur of my neck and knew that she at least had enough strength to hold onto my fur and not fall off.

Then I pulled out the sorcerer from the fort. I didn’t know what to do with him. At the same time I couldn’t afford to stay at long at the top of the mountain as the villagers were still throwing things at me and I didn’t want anything to hit Rozy.

I hit the top of the fort hard with both my front paws at the same time such that the roof crumbled entirely. The sorcerer who had been near the entrance of the fort was hit by the debris from the falling roof and he was injured considerably.

I ran down the slope of the Lazaki mountain. I couldn’t believe that I had pulled off the impossible by rescuing Rozy! Even if Mintuk survived his wounds he was never going to dare come to get my wife.

I reached the foot of the mountain near the cave. I removed the boulder from the entrance. Dani, Lia, Slia and Ian came out. I bent down on my fours and Dani and Lia climbed up me and helped to take Rozy down.

“Oh Rozy!” Lia said with tears in her eyes, “Do not worry, I will heal you even if I become weak in the process.”

The Lazaki were not coming down the mountain to avenge me and were busy in counting their own loses. They were probably glad that I was at least off their mountain. I reckoned I could turn into a human for now.

I was about to deactivate the Monsterification spell, when a voice spoke to me… inside my head. It wasn’t my voice.

“Sorry, Rabbi,” Xoris’s voice said and although the voice was very much his, there was an edge to it that was very new. “I have kept my word. I told you that I would help you save your wife and I have. You even got my son injured and I am okay with that. But now I am taking control over your body.”

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“How can you speak to me? And what are you saying?” I asked.

“You have no idea what it feels like to stay inside someone else’s body and have non-existent control over which direction they moved, what they ate, what they did. For so many days I have suffered inside you. Do not worry, you will still be able to move your arms and legs as you wish, the only difference is that you will experience intense pain when you move them against my wish. Also, you will now be able to hear my voice as clearly as if I was speaking to you even when you are awake.”

“I never thought you would turn out like this. I should have never trusted you.”

“But you didn’t really have an option, did you?” Xoris said. “Remember that you cannot exist without me. At the end of the day it is my heart that beats inside you. Also, if you ever meet the big fat Worm again, do thank it. There was something about the spell that it gave to you that allowed me to grow within you even as you became a monster rabbit. The spell endowed me with the power to cause you intense pain if you disobey me. The spell also made me capable of speaking inside your head when you are awake. I reckon, while trying to handle all variables to ensure nothing wrong happens to you in the process of completing your wish to save your wife, the worm was not able to consider the main variable in the equation—me.”

“Shut up,” I said. “You can do whatever you want. This is my body and I am going to control it!”

“Ha! Try as much as you wish,” Xoris said. “Now if you do not start moving towards the south immediately, then I must unfortunately cause you pain. You see there are things that I have always aspired to do.”

I resolutely stood still.

“Fine, you asked for this,” Xoris said. I had thought I had experienced enough pain in my life, both mental and physical. But what I experienced next was of a wholly different nature. I began to shake. Tears welled in my eyes. I moved my head this way and that to communicate to my wives and to Ian what was happening to me. Lia had her eyes closed and was healing Rozy, who was barely conscious. Dani and Lia and Ian looked at me confusedly.

“Wh… what’s happening to you, Rabbi?” Dani asked, taking a step towards me. I hit my face against the ground. The pain was such that I felt like somebody was trying to eat me from the inside.

“Come on, move south!” Xoris said inside my head.

“No!” I told him. The pain intensified. I began to shudder violently with it.

“Why are you taking the pain when you can simply get rid of it by doing as I say?” Xoris asked, doubling the pain further.

I began to bite the ground in an effort to bear the pain.

“What are you doing?” Ian asked. Slia too was looking at me with a horrified and confused expression.

“I reckon this should do,” Xoris said. He increased the pain within me multiple times. “South!” he ordered. My body was keen to get rid of the pain and my legs immediately began to take me south.

“That’s like a good boy,” Xoris said to me and he lessened the pain by a small degree. “Keep moving south and ultimately you should no longer be feeling any pain.”

I took a final glance back at the base of the Lazaki hill, where my wives and Ian were. Large tears welled from my large eyes. I did not think that I was going to meet them again. Not in this life at least.

***

It was night. I had covered a massive distance from the Lazaki mountain, such that when I turned to look back, the great mountain was no longer visible in the horizon. I was still in the barbaric realm however. Wild vegetation surrounded me on all sides. Some wolves had tried to attack me earlier in the day, but I had easily scared them off being many times their size. Xoris kept urging me to keep moving south. He had removed the pain from me entirely by now and I was almost glad to do as he said as long as he didn’t give me the pain again. I had become a puppet of his. The king in me was humiliated, but the human in me was keen to survive.

“Where are we going?” I asked Xoris. The endless carrot still hung on my chest and as I moved forward it bounced on my chest.

“That is none of your concern,” Xoris said, “I am not giving you pain. Is that not enough for you?”

In a way it was enough. I recalled the pain earlier and just the thought of it was enough to make me shiver. I did not want to experience it again. But my legs were growing weary. My legs were massive ones, yet I had covered too large a distance and I was beginning to feel exhausted. My stomach groaned and I wanted to eat the carrot on my chest.

“I really did not think you would turn out to be like this,” I said to Xoris. “I trusted you. I thought that we could work together since fate brought us to occupy the same body.”

“Like I told you earlier, I kept my word and helped you rescue your wife,” Xoris said. “We never made any agreement on working together after your wife was rescued. Plus, we are working together, in a way at least.”

I figured trying to convince Xoris to change his mind would not work and I kept quiet. But with each step I took forward my energy was depleting and my body was feeling leaden.

“I notice that you are slowing down,” Xoris said. “Do you want me to give you the pain again? I do not take pleasure in making people suffer, at the same time I must make them suffer if they do not do as I say.”

“I cannot help it. I am feeling tired and hungry. I am the one moving all day, not you.”

Xoris was quiet.

“Fine,” he said. “You can turn into a human and eat that carrot of yours and go to sleep for the night. I do not want to be the controller of a weak monster rabbit. Recharge.”

I was glad to stop moving. I began to nibble the carrot and ate it at least ten times until my stomach felt full and my hunger was completely gone. Then I made myself comfortable and closed my eyes, hoping for a dreamless sleep in which I needn’t talk with Xoris.

***