The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  The boy ducked his head, tried to smile through what were suspiciously like tears. True, it wasn’t unexpected. His father had been a Tragamor, able to move great boulders or pull down mountains by just looking at them, but it was still hard for him to accept that he must forget the Shifters, forget the Danderbat citadel, go off to a strange place and become something else again when all he knew was Shifter. He could take comfort from the fact that he wouldn’t grieve. He wouldn’t even remember a week hence when the Forgetters had done with him. Still, looking at it from this end, it must seem dreadful. Mavin ducked her head to hide her own tears, feeling for him. It could have been her. She might not have been Shifter, either. No one knew she was, not yet.

  “All right, childer. I’m not keeping you long today. Elder Garbat Grimsby is coming in for a minute, just to ask a few simple questions, see how you’re coming. Since two of you are off to Schlaizy Noithn in the morning, he’ll just review two or three little Shifter things and let you all go. Sit up straight and don’t go boneless at the Elder, it isn’t considered polite. Remember, to show politeness to Elders and honored guests, you hold your own shape hard. Keep that in mind…” She broke off, turning to the door, as she heard the whirring hum of something coming.

  It came into the room like a huge top, spinning, full of colors and sounds, screaming its way across the room, bumping chairs away, full of its own force, circling to stop before them all and slowly, slowly, change into old Garbat, hugely satisfied with himself, fixing them all with his Shifter eyes to see if they were impressed. All of them were. It was a new trick to Mavin, and when reared in a Shifter stronghold those were few and seldom, with every Shifter challenging every other to think of new things day on day. The Elders came infrequently out of their secret place deep within the keep, or at least so it was said. Mavin thought that if she were an Elder, she would be around the keep all day every day, as a bit of rock wall, a chair, a table in some dusty corner, watching what went on, hearing what was said. It was this thought which kept her behavior moderately circumspect, and she looked hard at the Elder now. He might have been the very pillar she had sat under to Shift her toes. She shivered, crouching a little so as not to make him look at her.

  Handbright managed some words of welcome. Old Garbat folded his hands on his fat stomach and fixed his eyes on Janjiver. “What about you, Janjiver. You tell me what shapes Shifters can take, and when.”

  The boy Janjiver was a lazy lout, most thought, with a long, strong body and a good Talent which went largely unused. There were those who said he would never come out of Schlaizy Noithn, and indeed there were some young Shifters who never did. If one wanted to take the shape of a pombi or a great owl or some other thing which could live well off the land, one might live in Schlaizy Noithn for all one’s life without turning a hand. “A Shifter worth his net,” said Janjiver in his lazy voice, “can take any shape at all. He can bulk himself up to twenty times bigger, given a little time, or more if the shape is fairly simple. He can conserve bulk and take shape a quarter size, though it takes practice. The shape he cannot take is the shape of another real person.”

  “And why can’t he do that, Janjiver?”

  “Because it’s not in our nature, Elder. The wicked Mirrormen may mock mankind but we Shifters do not. All the Danderbats back to the time of Xhindi forbid it.”

  “And you, Thrillfoot. What is the Shifter’s honor?”

  “It is a Shifter’s honor to brook no stay, be stopped by no barrier, halted by no wall, enclosed by no fence. A Shifter goes where a Shifter will.” Thrillfoot threw his hair back with a toss of his head, grinning broadly. He was looking forward to Schlaizy Noithn. In the citadel he was befamilied to death, and the desire for freedom was hot in him. He rejoiced to answer, knowing it was the last answering he would do for many a year.

  “And what is a Shifter to the rest of the world, Janjiver?”

  “A Shifter to the rest of the world, Elder, is what a Shifter says he is, and a Shifter always says less than he is.”

  “Always,” agreed Thrillfoot, smiling.

  This was just good sense and was taught to every Shifter child from the time he was weaned. The shapes a Shifter could take and the shapes he would let the outside world think he could take were two different things. Shifters were too sly to let all they could do become general knowledge, for in that shiftiness lay the Shifters’ safety. One wouldn’t look for a tree-shaped Shifter if one thought Shifters couldn’t shift into trees. So it was that most of the world had been led to believe Shifters could become pombis or fustigars or owls, and nothing much more than that. Indeed for some Shifters it was true. It was possible to fall in love with a special shape and ever after be able to take only that shape besides one’s true one – or for a few, only that shape forever. It had been known to happen. Shifter childer were warned about it, and those who indulged themselves by staying pombis or fustigars for a whole season or more were pointed out as horrible examples. So now in the classroom everyone nodded in agreement.

  Garbat manifested himself as pleased, gave each of the boys who were off to Schlaizy Noithn a handmade Danderbat token – at which they showed considerable pleasure, intricate handmade things being the only things Shifters ever bothered to carry – and then took himself away, soon followed by most of the others.

  Leggy Bartiban did not go out with them. He had tears running down his cheeks openly now. “That’s a Shifter secret, teacher, not letting the world know what shapes we can do. How do you know for sure I won’t tell all the Shifter secrets when I’m gone away from you?”

  “Ah, lad,” Handbright came to hug him, drawing him tight into the circle of her arms. “You’ll not remember. Truly. I have never lied to you, Leggy, and I’ll not lie now. It is sad for you to go, and sad for us to lose you, but you will not suffer it. We have contract with the good Forgetter, Methlees of Glen, who has been our Forgetter for more seasons than anyone remembers. You’ll go to her house, and the people from the school will be there, and she’ll take your hand, like this, and you’ll know the people, and remember them, and will forget us like a dream. And that’s the way of it, Leggy, the whole way of it. You’ll be a Tragamor child born, always friendly to the Shifters, but not grieving over them a bit.”

  “Do they need to forget me my mother?” The boy was crying openly now.

  “Shush. What silliness. Of course they’ll not forget you your mother. You’ll remember her name and face and the sound of her voice, and you’ll welcome her happily to visit you at Festival. You’ll see her as often as you do now, and most of the other boys at school will be the same, except for those who came to the Schoolhouses as infants and do not know their mothers at all. Now go along. Go ask anyone if that isn’t so, and if anyone tells you otherwise, send them to me. Go on, now, and stop crying. I’ve got things to do.”

  Then all had gone but Mavin, who sat in her seat and was still, watching the back of Handbright’s head until Handbright turned to see those keen eyes looking into her as though she had been a well of water. “Well, little sister, and you still here?”

  “It was a lie, wasn’t it, Handbright, about his mother?” Her voice was not accusing.

  Handbright started to deny it, then stopped, fixed by that birdlike gaze. “It was and it wasn’t, she-child. He will remember her name, and her face, and the sound of her voice. He’ll welcome her at Festival, if she chooses to visit him. But all the detail, the little memories, the places and times surrounding the two of them will be gone, so there’ll be little loving feeling left. Now that may build again, and I’ve seen it happen time after time.”

  “And you’ve seen the other, too. Where no one cares, after.”

  After a long weary silence, Handbright said, “Yes, I can’t deny it, Mavin. I’ve seen that, too. But he doesn’t see his mother now but once or twice a year, at Assembly time. So it’s not such a great loss.”

  “So why can’t he stay here, with us. I like Leggy.”

  “We all like him,
child. But he’s not Shifter. He has to learn how to use his own Talent or he’ll be a zip-bird with wings off, all life long, flopping in the dust and trying to fly. That’d be hateful, surely, and not something you’d wish for him?”

  Mavin twirled hair around one finger, shook her head from side to side, thinking, then laid her hand upon Handbright’s own and made her fingers curl bonelessly around Handbright’s wrist. Handbright stiffened in acknowledgement, her face showing gladness mixed with something so like shame that Mavin did not understand it and drew her hand away.

  “Lords, child! How long?”

  Mavin shrugged. “A little while.”

  “How marvelous. Wonderful.” Handbright’s voice did not rejoice; it was oddly flat and without enthusiasm. “I have to tell the Elders so we can plan your Talent party…”

  “No!” It came out firmly, a command, in a voice almost adult. “No, Handbright. I’m not ready for you to do that. It hasn’t been long enough yet … to get used to the idea. Give me … some time yet, please, sister. Don’t do me like Leggy, throwing me into something all unprepared for it.” She laughed, unsteadily, keeping her eyes pleading and saying not half of the things she was feeling.

  “Well…” Handbright was acquiescent, doubtful, seeming of two minds. “You know the Elders like to know as soon as one of us shows Talent, Mavin. They’ve been worried about you. I’ve been worried about you. It isn’t a thing one can hide for very long. As your Talent gets stronger, any Shifter will be able to tell.”

  “Not hide. Not exactly. Just have time to get used to the ideas. A few days to think about it is all. It won’t make any difference to anyone.” And she saw the dull flush mounting on Handbright’s cheeks, taking this to mean that yes, it did make a difference, but not understanding just what that difference might be.

  “All right. I won’t tell anyone yet. But everyone will have to know soon. You tell me when you’re ready, but it can’t be long, Mavin. Really. Not long.” She leaned forward to hug the younger girl, then turned away to the corridor as though more deeply troubled than Mavin could account for. Mavin remained a long time in the room thinking of what had happened there that day.

  The tears of Leggy, sent away to forget.

  The words of Janjiver, in answer to the question of the Elder, what is a Shifter, to the world?

  “A Shifter to the rest of the world, Elder, is what a Shifter says he is, and a Shifter always says less than he is.”

  “I, too,” she said to herself, “could be wise to follow the words of the catechism. I could say less than I am.”

  She went out into the day, back to the alleys of the p’natti, fairly sure that though Handbright would be upset and worried for a time, she would say nothing about Mavin’s Talent until Mavin told her yes. And Mavin had begun to feel that perhaps she did not want to tell her yes. Not today. Not tomorrow. Perhaps, though she did not know why, not ever.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Had it not been for the fact that Assembly time was only days away, Handbright would have worried more over Mavin, would have been more insistent that the Elders be told that Mavin had shown Talent, was indeed Shifter, might now be admitted to full membership in the clan Danderbat and begin to relieve some of the endless demands made upon Handbright for the past half-dozen years. Though she was fond of Mavin – and of eight-year-old Mertyn, too, if it came to that – it did not occur to her that Mavin knew no more than Mertyn did about what would be expected of a new Shifter girl by Gormier and Haribald, and by the others. Though Handbright had never told Mavin any of the facts of life of Shifter girl existence, she assumed that Mavin had picked it up somewhere, perhaps as she herself had done, from another young she-person. In making the assumption, she forgot that there were no other Shifter girls to have giggled with Mavin in the corners, that Handbright could have been the only source of this information unless one of the old crones had seen fit to enlighten the child, an unlikely possibility.

  Indeed, if she had had time to think about it, she would have known that Mavin was as innocent as her little brother of any knowledge of what would happen when it became known she was Shifter. Who could she have observed in that role except Handbright herself? Who else was there behind the p’natti to share responsibility or provide company? Had there been a dozen or so girls growing up together, as there should be in a clan the size of Danderbat, Handbright herself would have been far less weary and put upon for she would have been sought out by the old man things no more often than she could have found bearable. Part of the problem, of course, was that she had not conceived. If she had been pregnant, now, or had a child at the breast… Or better yet, if she had borne three or four, then she could have gone away, have left the keep and fled to Schlaizy Noithn or out into the world. Any such realization made her uncomfortable. It was easier simply not to think of it, so she did not consider Mavin’s ignorance, did not consider the matter at all except to think without thinking that with Mavin coming to a proper age, the demands on herself might be less.

  When Handbright had been a forty-season child there had been others near in age. Throsset of Dowes. The twin daughters of old Gormier, Zabatine and Sambeline. At least three or four others. But the twins had soon had twin children, two sets of sons, had left them in the nursery and fled. And Throsset had simply gone, with a word to no one and no one knowing where. And all the others had had their children and gone into the world, one by one, so that for four years Handbright had been alone behind the p’natti – alone except for a few crones and homebound types who were too lazy to do else than linger in the keep, and the Danderbat granders who were there to keep watch. That was all except for peripatetic clan members who visited from time to time. Well, at least the last of the babies was now out of loincloths and into trowsies. And Mertyn was eight. And Mavin now would be available to help … help.

  So she thought, in the back of her head, not taking time to worry it because Assembly was so near and there was so much to do. Of course more hands were assembled to do it, too, for the Danderbat were beginning to gather. The kitchens were getting hot from fires kept burning under the ovens. Foods were being brought by wagon from as far away as Zebit and Betand. All during the year Shifters might eat grass in the fields or meat off the bone, but at Assembly time they wanted cookery and were even willing to hire to get it done. That was the true sign that Assembly was near, when the cooks arrived by wagon from Hawsport, all wide-eyed at being surrounded by Shifters. Of course the kitchens were underground and there were guards on them from morn to night so they didn’t see what non-Shifters shouldn’t see, but the gold they were paid was good gold and more of it than a pawnish chef might make in a season otherwise.

  Mavin, aware that Handbright was distracted by all this flutter, decided it would be best to lose herself in the confusion. She knew a half-hundred places in the keep in which one might crouch or lie totally unobserved and watch what went on. Now with the Danderbat gathering from all the world, and sensible that it was a time of great change for herself whether she wished to change or no, she took to hiding herself, watching, staring, learning from a distance rather than being ever present and handy as old Gormier had noticed her being. But he was now so mightily enthralled by gossip from a hundred places in a hundred voices, so distracted by the clan members gathering in their beast-headed cloaks of fur, full of tall tales and babble, that he forgot about Mavin or any intentions he may have had toward her. Mavin, however, had merely exchanged ubiquity for invisibility, hiding herself in any available cubby to see what it was that went on as the Danderbat clansmen came home. As Gormier was a man of restless, lecherous energy, full of talk, a good one to watch if one wanted to learn things, she followed him about as she had done for years, peering down on him from odd corners above rafters or from rain spouts. It was thuswise she finally lost her stubborn naiveté.

  Gormier and Haribald were helping unload a wagon of vegetables which had been hauled all the way from Zebit up the River Haws and the windy trail to the top of
the table mountain on which the keep sat, just east of the range of fire hills which separated it from Schlaizy Noithn. As they were about this business, they heard a drumming noise and looked out through the p’natti to see a vast brown ball, leathery hard, with arms at either edge, cudgeling itself to make a thunder roar. They set up a hail which Mavin heard, hid as she was under the edge of the keep roof in a gutter, and the drum ceased pounding upon itself to make a trial run at the p’natti. It assaulted the launching ramps, rolling upward at increasing speed, propelling itself by hand pushes along its circumference, to take projectile form as it left the ramp, then a winged form which snagged the top of a slything pillar with a hooked talon only to change again into a fluid serpent which slythed down the pillar before launching upward once more in a flurry of bright veils which floated upon the sky, the veils forming a brilliant parachute against the blue. Even Mavin gasped, and the granders made drum chests for themselves, beating with their arms, an answering thunder of applause. So the falling parachute, making itself into a neat bundle as it dropped, became a Shifter man on the ground before them, the parachute veils gathering in and disappearing into the general hard shape. Mavin recognized him then as Wurstery Wimpole, for he had won the tournament in a previous year and been much glorified then by the Danderbat.

  “Damfine, Wurstery. Damfine. Like that parachute thingy, soft as down.” Gormier, pounding him on his hard shape back, shaking his hand in sudden pain as Wurstery made a shell back there to take the blows. “Haribald was just saying he hadn’t seen veils used so – or such a color! – in a dozen years. Amblevail Dassnt used to do some parachute thing, but his was pale stuff beside yours. You going to use that coming in during procession?”

  “Oh, might, might. Have another trick or two I’ve been practicing. Might use them instead. Anyhow, that’s days away and there’s days between! I’ve been bringing myself eager cross country thinking of the drink and the cookery and the Danderbat girls.”