Gormier shook his head, sadly, Mavin peering down on him from the height and hearing him breathe. “No girls, Wustery. Not a one save Handbright, and she’s tired of it. Hardly worth the effort. She doesn’t make it enjoyable. I’ve been at her bed this past two, three years, and Haribald, too, seeing she’s of breeding age, but there’s no good of it at all.”
“You don’t mean it! Only one girl Shifter behind the p’natti? Lords, lords, what are the Danderbat coming to. Last time I was here, there were a dozen – two dozen.”
“Naa. Last time you was here was four years – twelve seasons ago, and there weren’t all that many. Throsset was here then. And my daughters, but they were just weaning the twins, one set each. And there was a flock of visitors, of course, but right after Assembly they left. After that there wasn’t another girlchild behind the p’natti save Mavin, and she’s only now maybe coming of age or maybe not. Lately the Danderbats’ve borne nothing but boys. Who would have thought there could be too many boys! There’s talk among the Elders that the Danderbats may be done, Wurstery. Talk of that, or of bringing back the women who’ve gone out, whether they’re willing or no…”
“So how come Handbright’s stayed so long? What is she, twenty-four or so?”
“She doesn’t bear. Never been pregnant once, so far as we know. One of these days, she’ll give up hope and take off for Schlaizy Noithn, I doubt not. She’s thought of it before, but we’ve discouraged her, Haribald and me.” Gormier gave his head a ponderous shake at the pity of it all. “So if you’re looking for female flesh, best ask a friend to shift for you, old Wurstery, or visit some other keep of some other clan, for there’s naught here for you save one old girl not worth the trouble and one new one not come to it yet.”
And it was in this wise that Mavin realized what Handbright’s flushed face had meant and why it was that Mavin’s being a Shifter would make a difference. The truth of it came to her all at once, a complete picture, in vivid detail and coloring. She went inside to the privy and lost her lunch.
There was no time to steam over it then, for Wurstery had been only one of the latest batch of Danderbats who were flowing in from all directions, laughing and shouting in the Assembly rooms downstairs, drifting up and down to the cellars to see what the cooks were preparing and whether the wine was in proper supply, taking their chances on the lottery which told them off into food service crews day by day during Assembly. Mavin, no longer invisible, was hugged, kissed, hauled about by the shoulders, congratulated on her growth, questioned as to her Talent, and sent on a thousand errands. It was impossible to escape. There were eyes everywhere, Danderbats everywhere, both grown ones and childer ones, for some Danderbat shes chose to take their childer with them rather than leave them in the nurseries of the keep. And a good thing, too, thought Mavin exhaustedly as she counted their numbers and went for the twentieth time escorting a small one to the privy. It was only that night, long after darkness had come and the keep had fallen into an almost quiet that she went to find Handbright, waking her from an exhausted drowse.
“Mavin? What’s wrong? What do you want?”
“Sister. I need to ask things.”
“Oh, Mavin, not now! I’ve been standing on my own feet since before dawn, and weariness has me by the throat. You’ve asked questions since you were born, and I can’t imagine what’s left to ask!” Handbright pulled a shawl around her shoulders and sat up in her narrow bed. This room at the top of the keep was her own, seldom visited, mostly undisturbed, and it was rare for anyone, Mavin included, to come there. Handbright herself usually slept near the nurseries, and she had sought this cubby now only because there were visitors aplenty to care for the children.
Mavin, slightly ashamed but undeterred, drifted to the window of the room and looked out across the p’natti to the line of fire hills upon the western horizon. Beyond them was Schlaizy Noithn, the ground of freedom where her schoolmates had gone to try their Talent and learn their way. Of course, she ones could go there too, if they liked, after they had had a lot of childer, or when they knew they could not. This had never been important before. She had known that fact as well as she knew her own name, or the sight of Handbright’s face, or the feel of a fellow Shifter through a changed hide, knowing this was Shifter kin even though he looked or smelled nothing like himself. But it had never really meant anything to her until now.
“Handbright, I want to go to Schlaizy Noithn.” And she waited to hear the proof of all her assumptions.
“You can’t do that, child. You’re a she-child. Danderbat womb keepers don’t go. You know that.”
“Of course I know it. But I said, I want to go to Schlaizy Noithn. I want to go regardless of what the Danderbats say. Suppose I go to a Healer in the Outside and ask her to take my womb away.”
“She wouldn’t do it. If she did, the Elders would kill her.”
“Suppose I changed me, so that I don’t have a womb at all.”
Handbright made the ward of evil sign, her face turning hard and wooden at the thought. Her voice was no longer kindly when she replied. “That’s a disgusting thought. How could you think such a thing?”
“Ah. Well, as to that, sister, answer me this. If I have my Talent party in a day or so, or say right after Assembly, when the visitors are gone, how long before I have to do man-woman stuff with old Gormier? Or Haribald? Or maybe old Garbat himself?”
The older girl turned away, face pale. “Ah, Mavin. I don’t want to talk about it. You’ll learn to manage. It’s part of being a Shifter girl, that’s all. You’ll live through it. Besides, you’ve known all about that … you’ve known…” Seeing Mavin’s face, she stopped, reddening. “You didn’t know?”
“No. I didn’t know. Not until this morning. I should have known, maybe, but I didn’t. I need to understand all this, Handbright. I have to know what this change is going to mean to me. Suddenly it’s me the old Danderbats are leching for. Now if I’d been Tragamor, you’d have turned me over to the Forgetter to take all my memories and send me out in a minute. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. It’s necessary. We always do that.”
“Even if I was a she-child Tragamor, you’d do the same. Womb or no womb, you’d turn a Tragamor she-child away to Schooltown in a minute.”
Handbright nodded, stiffly, seeing where the argument was going.
“But because I’m Shifter, a she-child Shifter, the Elders have said I have to womb-carry for them. I can shift my legs and arms, grow fur or feathers, make me wings for my shoulders, but I can’t fly or leap or turn into any other thing, for it might change womb and make it unfavorable for carrying baby Shifters. If I’m biddable, though, after I’ve had three or four or so, or once I can’t have any more, they’ll let me go to Schlaizy Noithn. Or out into the world. Isn’t that right?”
“You know it is. You’ve known those who went.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve seen them when they went, Handbright, and I’ve seen them when they come back. They say Throsset fled, and there’s a penalty on her if she comes back. She’s gone away far, and none have seen her.”
“Throsset was in love with a Demon, and he took her with him into the Western Sea. That’s what’s said.”
“She went. That’s what I mean. She didn’t stay here in the keep and carry babies for the Elders.”
“The word is she couldn’t. She had no proper parts to do it.”
“Then maybe I’m not the first to think of disposing of the proper parts,” Mavin said angrily. “Handbright, remember how you used to tell me you’d shift into a great sea bird when you had your Talent? You’d be a great white bird, you said, and explore all the reaches of the Western Sea. You used to say that. But here you are, teaching, baby watching, cooking and carrying for the Elders, and I know for a fact that there’s been much breeding done on you and no end of it planned, for I heard old Gormier talking of it and of how he’d discouraged your leaving…”
The older girl turned away, face flaming, half angry, half sham
ed. Undaunted, Mavin went on.
“You stayed here, and let yourself be used by old Gormier, and Haribald, and I don’t know how many others – and because you didn’t have childer, they kept at you. And the years go by, and it gets later and later. You don’t shift, you don’t do processionals, you don’t go to Schlaizy Noithn to learn your Talent, you don’t practice, and it still gets later. And maybe it’s too late to dream of becoming a great bird and going exploring, too.”
“Don’t you understand!” Handbright shouting at her, face red, tears flowing freely down the sides of her tired face. “I stayed because of Mertyn … and you. I stayed because our mother died. I stayed because there wasn’t anyone else!” She turned, hand out, warning Mavin not to say another word, and then she was out the door and away, so much anger in her face that Mavin knew it was the keep angered her, the world, the Elders, the place, the time, not Mavin alone. And yet Mavin felt small and wicked to have put this extra hardship upon Handbright just now during Assembly, when she must be bearing so much else. Even so, she did not regret it, for now she knew the truth of it. It was a hard bit of wisdom for the day, but it came to Mavin as a better thing than the fog she had been wandering about in until the overheard conversation of the morning.
“Still,” she whispered to herself, “I have doubts, Handbright. For you may have stayed out of grief for our mother, and out of care for baby Mertyn … and me. But there have been eight long years since then. And four long years since Throsset left. And I have been strong and able for at least four or five of those years. So why not have gone, Handbright? Why not have taken us with you? There must be some other reason.”
“Perhaps,” said the clear voice which had spoken to her from within her own mind that morning, “She is afraid or too tired or believes that it is her duty to stay in the Danderbat keep, oldest of the Xhindi keeps. Or because she believes she is needed here.” Mavin left the room thoughtfully, and went down the long stairs past the childer’s playground. Mertyn was there, sitting on the wall as he so often did, arms wrapped around his legs, cheek lying on his knees while he thought deep thoughts or invented things, a dark blot of shadow against the stars. Mavin considered, not for the first time, that he did not look like a Shifter child. But then, Mavin had not thought of herself resembling a Shifter child either and had grieved over that. Perhaps Mertyn was not and she could rejoice. She sat beside him to watch the stars prick out, darkness lying above the fireglow in the west.
“You’re sad looking, Mertyn child.”
“I was thinking about Leggy Bartiban. He was teaching me to play wands and rings, and now he’s gone. They took him to the Forgetter, and he’s gone. If I see him again ever, he won’t know me.” The child wiped tears, snuffling against his sleeve, face already stained. She hugged him to her, smelling the fresh bread smell of him, salt sweat and clean breath.
“Ah. He may know us both, Mertyn. Handbright says they don’t forget everyone. He’ll know us. He’ll just forget the Shifter things it’s better he forgets, anyhow, if he’s not Shifter. Why clutter up your mind with all stuff no good to it? Hmm? Besides, I can teach you to play wand-catch.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Well if you can, why didn’t you? I should’ve learned last year. I’m getting old fast, Mavin. Everyone says so.”
“Ah. Do you think you’re getting older than I am? If you could manage that, it would be fine, Mertyn. Then you could take me with you and we’d go travel the world.”
“I’m not catching up to you, Mavin,” he said seriously. The boy had little humor in him, and she despaired sometimes that he would ever understand any of her little jokes. It upset him if she told him she had been teasing so she pretended serious regard.
“No, of course you’re not. I was just wishing, thinking it would be nice to go traveling and Shifting.”
“Oh, it would. If you go, you mustn’t leave me all alone here, Mavin. I had Leggy, and he’s gone, and there’s only Handbright except you. I want to go traveling and Shifting more than anything. I dream about it sometimes, when I’m asleep and when I’m awake. I want to go. But you can’t go until you’ve had childer, Mavin. Girls aren’t supposed to. Janjiver says it messes up their insides.”
Mavin bit her lip, wanting to laugh at his tone of voice, unable to do so for the tears running inside her throat. “Tell me, Mertyn, why it is it doesn’t mess up a boy Shifter’s insides? Boys have baby-making parts, too, don’t they? But I’ve seen them Shift their parts all over themselves and then put them back and make a baby the same day. So why is it only she-Shifters have to be so careful?”
The boy looked doubtful, then thoughtful in that way he sometimes had. “I don’t know. That would be very interesting to know, wouldn’t it. What the difference is. I’ll ask Gormier Graywing…”
“Don’t” she said harshly. “Let me find out, brother child, I’d rather.” She left him sitting there under the stars, went out only to return and whisper to his shadow crouching dark against the wall, “Mertyn, if I were to figure out a way to go traveling, would you go with me?”
His voice when he replied was all child. “Oh, Mavin, could you? That would be fun!”
Could she? Could she? Could she do what Throsset of Dowes was said to have done? Leave in the dark of night, slipping away in silence, losing herself in the fire hills or the roads away north to Pfarb Durim. Oh, the mystery and wonder of Pfarb Durim, city of the ancients!
This was only dream stuff, only thoughts and ruminations, not intentions. She was not yet at the point of intention. Meantime it was Old Shuffle time, Assembly time, and she no less than any in the keep would watch the processions on the morrow.
For it was tomorrow that the visitors would come, tomorrow that the first procession would come through the p’natti, through Gormier’s new pillars and doors. Even now those of the younger clans were probably roaming about in the fire hills in pombi shape or fustigar shape or flying high overhead, endlessly circling like great waroo owls, ready to assemble with first light, making themselves a great drum orchestra to beat the sun up out of bed. She went to sleep in a cubby which faced the sunrise, so that the coming of the Shifters should not take her by surprise.
They began before dawn, drumming, hooting, whistling, a cacophonous hooraw which woke every person in the keep and brought them all to the roof where today’s kitchen crew gave them hot spiced tea and biscuits made of ox-root, all nibbling quietly in the pre-morn darkness while out in the fire hills that un-Gamish hooraw went on and on, rising and falling. Mavin huddled in her blanket, perched within the rainspout once more, out of sight and therefore out of anyone’s mind at all, she told herself. She did not want to see Handbright’s face.
It came toward dawn, and the Elders put their score pads on their laps, ready to note what it was they liked about the procession, already seeing Shifting shapes out beyond the p’natti, high tossed plumes, lifted wings, whirlings and leapings just at the edge of the light. Mavin waited, holding her breath. She had told herself that she was not so childish as to be excited, but the breath stuck in her throat nonetheless.
Full light. Out at the edge of the p’natti a hedge of prismed spears arose, shattering light in a thousand directions, then broke into shapes which came forward to the music of their own drumming. They came low, then upward to fly, to catch, to slide down, to rear upward again, to sparkle in jeweled greens and blues, fiery reds and ambers, scales like emerald and sapphire – the mythical jewels of heaven – and eyes which glowed a hundred shades of gold. Beyond the narrowing pillars they thrust upward into trees of gems, glittering from a million leaves, slid forward between the pillars and confronted the square-form portals in contracting shapes of bulked steel, gleaming gray and shiny. Around the slither-downs they came, erupting now into different shapes, some winged, some coiled like leaping springs, some vaporous as mist, all to break like water upon the barrier of the slything walls and take the shapes of fustigars and pombis and owls, tumbling and leaping over the walls and th
e ways until they were at the walls of the keep itself where they became whirling pools of light and shadow, towering higher and higher, drawing up, up, up to meet at the zenith above the keep in a dome, a shining lattice of drawn flesh, all the time the drumming going on and on, louder and louder, until a crash came to make their ears fall deaf.
And in that moment the high lattice fell, drew in upon itself like shadow to become the visitors from Bothercat the Rude Rock and Fretowl the Dark Wood and a dozen other Xhindi keeps, laughing outside the walls and demanding entrance. So was the first processional ended. Mavin sat in the high hidey hole, mouth open, so full of wonder at it that she could not wake herself from the dream.
Still there were some hundreds to be fed, and it would have taken advance planning and great determination to hide from so many. She was winkled out and set to carrying plates within the hour, and thereafter was not let alone for so much as a moment during the days or nights.
It was on the last day of Assembly that one of the Xhindi from Battlefox the Bright Day sought her, making a special thing of asking after her and begging her company for a walk in the p’natti. He told her his name was Plandybast Ogbone. “Your thalan, child. Do you know what that is?”
She looked at him mouth open. “Full brother of my mother? But she was Danderbat! Not Battlefox!”
“Oh, and yes, yes, child. True. But your grandma, her mother, was Battlefox right enough. Bore six for Battlefox, she did, before taking herself away into the deep world for time on her own. And it was here she met a scrofulous fellow called young Theobald, so it seems she told Battlefox Elders. And he got twins on her, which was your mama and me, and then she died. And young Theobald, he took the girl child and brought her back to the Danderbats knowing their deep scarcity of females, but me he kept with the Battlefoxes, reminding me frequent that I was thalan to any of her childer. He died some time back. And so I am thalan to Handbright, and to you, and to young Mertyn.
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