Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter

by Jean Johnson

  I'll keep the tiger and the wolf; they're good fighting forms. The magpie for flight, or maybe the owl—I might have to fly about at night, so I'll keep both. That's four. I should probably keep the viper for the venom I've learned to replicate, and the horse form in case I need to carry Traver out of here myself. Which leaves my hunting cat shape, I guess. I like being a medium-sized cat... but of all the shapes I know, it's the least useful for this moment. And I know I can get it back. I lost the viper one when I tried being a duck for a while, then decided to go back to being a snake; that venom has been handy in the past, even if it gives me a stomachache if I swallow too much.

  Zellan had pulled up the trapdoor to the root cellar. He slung a waterskin over his shoulder, picked up a milky white globe in a net, rapped it once sharply to make the enchanted glass glow with a bright, steady light, and descended carefully into the shadowed depths. Grabbing the steel mirror from his saddlebags, Kenyen followed the other man into the cellar, where Traver awaited them. Rather than being bound hand and foot, the youth had been hobbled at his feet and manacled to the stone-dug wall by a modest length of chain.

  It hadn't been necessary to gag him; the shepherd's croft stood quite alone on this particular foothill, with no signs of neighbors or paths to other homes for the last two miles. Traver could have shouted himself hoarse and no one but the shapeshifters and sheep would have heard him. From the quiet but clear murmurs of the three elders' voices overhead, discussing some minor business related to the mine that Tunric apparently oversaw, Traver had probably heard every word of their earlier debate.

  Kenyen dared a brief, subtle wink while Zellan's back was still turned, but his expression was calm, almost bored, when Zellan glanced back at him. With his features no longer copying Tunric's stubbled jowls, it wasn't difficult to look impassive.

  Hanging the netted lightglobe from a hook overhead, Zellan lifted his chin at Kenyen, then looked at the Corredai male. "I know you've been listening to us, up above. I also know that you know he's going to copy your face and take your place. If you want that pretty little girl of yours to survive what he needs to do, you will tell him everything about yourself."

  Kenyen slowly licked his lips, then gave Traver a feral grin. Zellan lifted his brows briefly at the younger shifter, then looked back at the chained man. Traver swallowed, touched the cuffs on his wrists with a soft clink of his chains, and nodded. "I... I'll do it. Just don't hurt her. And you will let me go, right?"

  "As free as a bird, once the elders get what they want... and once I get paid in my cut of the prize," Kenyen agreed, doing his best to sound like a hardened, uncaring criminal. "Of course, the more I know about you and how to be you, the less I'll have to beguile her with a tumble. They smell so tasty when I tumble them, too..."

  Zellan shot him a quelling look, then tossed the waterskin he had brought to the manacled youth. He lifted his chin at Traver. "Start talking, boy."

  Traver looked between the two of them. "Um... what should I talk about?"

  "Start with your family, follow it up with a typical day in your life, and work your way outward from there," Kenyen ordered, holding up the steel mirror so that he could start practicing not only Traver's face but his facial expressions as he spoke. "Things that you like, things that you don't like, childhood memories that you remember with fondness, things you remember with fear... but start with yourself and your family."

  "And you won't hurt me?" Traver asked.

  Kenyen leveled a firm look at the slightly younger man. "If you don't try my patience, no."

  "Um... I'm Traver Ys Ten. Son of Ysal Trud Hen and Tenaria Tev Kee," he explained. "I have two older brothers, Belseth Ys Nar—their mother was Narian, she died before I was born—and Sellah Ys Nar. They both have their own farmholds farther down the Valley. My older sister is Namya Ys Ten, and my younger brother and sister are Tellik and Tinia Ys Ten; we all live at home with our parents—they all look like me, of course, brown eyes, wavy brown hair, not too stout but not too slender..."

  Hours later, when Kenyen was tired and Traver was resting in silence, his voice rendered hoarse, unable to say much more, the Mongrel shifters finally left the two young men alone. Sort of alone. Hints of the gray light of dawn filtered down from the open trapdoor, mingling with the steady glow of the lightglobe and the flickering glow of the rush lights upstairs. Knowing that they didn't have much time, Kenyen shifted close enough to clasp Traver's hand.

  The two of them exchanged worried looks, though the Shifterai tried to convey hope toward the Corredai. Traver breathed deep, gave the opening to the upstairs a wary look, then shifted his hands toward the waistband of his clothes. Frowning in confusion, Kenyen watched as the slightly younger man pulled at his laces and... bared himself? His disbelieving expression earned a pointed glare from the Corredai male. Traver pointed firmly at his manhood, then tugged on something hidden on the underside of his flesh.

  A ring. A beaded one, which pierced his foreskin. Deeply disturbed—ears and noses were often pierced on the Plains, but never that—Kenyen watched Traver carefully remove it, trying his best not to make his chains clank. When the youth held it out to him, Kenyen recoiled a little. Rolling his eyes, Traver grasped his hand and dropped the ring in it, mouthing something. Unable to make sense of it, Kenyen gave up and leaned close.

  "Solyn expects me to wear it," Traver breathed. "She'll know you're a shifter without it. You have to wear it."

  Face hot with embarrassment, Kenyen reluctantly accepted the metal loop. What kind of a maiden—outkingdom or otherwise—would demand her betrothed wear a ring on his... his...? And I have to wear it, if I'm to be successful at pretending to be this man?

  Footsteps overhead warned both of them that the gray-haired elder was returning; hurrying, Traver relaced his trousers, hiding himself once more. Zellan had gone upstairs to sleep a few hours back, and the other man—still unnamed—had come down to take his turn in watching their "newest" member of Family Mongrel, leaving just long enough to make a trip to the refreshing hut outside. Shifting back slightly to hide his proximity to their prisoner, Kenyen clenched his fist around the ring and made a show of smothering a yawn.

  "No rest for you," the aging shifter grunted, working his way down the rungs of the ladder. "You'll need to look exhausted and out of it, if you're to fake a concussion. Show me your game face."

  Flexing his muscles, Kenyen shifted from his own heart-shaped face to the somewhat more oval visage of Traver Ys Ten. He also shifted his body, picking up more muscles in his arms and less in his legs. The whole transformation took less than three seconds.

  As he had thought might happen, the memory of what it felt like to be a hunting cat, only slightly larger than a typical house cat, was already fading from his consciousness. Kenyen could still consciously remember how to shift into any of his other shapes, but looking like Traver Ys Ten, being Traver Ys Ten, took concentration. Memory. That robbed him of the room to be aware of at least one other shape.

  "How do I sound?" he asked.

  The stocky elder raised his brows. "... Remarkably like the boy. A little rough around the edges, though."

  "Well, he's been speaking for hours." Kenyen glanced at Traver, narrowing his eyes slightly in a feigned show of wariness. "Maybe a little too helpful. I hope you haven't been lying to us."

  "You said if I cooperated, you'd let me go. And that you'd leave the valley," Traver croaked, licking his lips. "That's what I want. I want all of you gone. So you go take whatever you're looking for and just go, and leave the rest of us alone. That's the deal, right?"

  "... Right. That's the deal." Kenyen didn't believe it for an instant. The other shapeshifters would not want to leave any witnesses alive, which meant Traver was a dead man. "Well, you just stay put, and be nice and cooperative. I'll be back for more information. Don't make me track you down."

  The growled threat made Traver nod, then shake his head. Turning toward the ladder, Kenyen reached for the rungs. The other shifte
r cleared his throat. Glancing back, Kenyen lifted a brow in inquiry.

  "You'll want his clothes. Take them now. Give him yours so he doesn't freeze at night," the elder added, holding out the keys to the manacles shackling the young man to the root cellar wall. "We're almost ready for you to make your debut. You'll need to be Traver Ys Ten from head to toe to pull this off."

  Sighing, Kenyen accepted the keys and turned back to the other young man. Tucking the beaded ring into a fold of flesh in his palm, he started to unlock the manacles. A thought occurred to him while reaching for the ankle cuffs. Carefully shaping one finger into a stiff, tough claw, he in turn shaped that into an imitation of the next key.

  Using his body to hide what he was doing, he tested it in the lock. It hurt a little, twisting his hand hard enough to move the metal pins inside the hole, but it did work. That wasn't the problem, however; the problem would be figuring out a way to get Traver away from these curs without them being able to track him by scent.

  "Get your clothes off," Kenyen ordered gruffly. He took a few moments to subtly study the ends of the keys, doing his best to commit their angles to memory without being obvious. There was no guarantee he'd be able to get ahold of them later, and a high chance he'd be in a hurry to get Traver free.

  Once Traver had stripped off everything but his underdrawers, Kenyen did the same, then donned the plain brown linen pants, lighter brown shirt, and darker brown tunic the youth had been wearing. The smell of the Corredai permeated his clothes. Kenyen was grateful most outkingdom residents didn't have the sensitive nostrils of a shifter; had they tried to attempt this on the Plains, those who knew the victim best would be able to smell through any such disguise.

  The wool socks smelled even worse, full of sweat and fear and the need to be changed. Pulling them on with a flinch, Kenyen stuffed his feet into Traver's calf-length boots, grateful those at least were close enough in size to his own that he didn't have to keep his feet constantly reshaped. Rechecking the buttons along his shoulder and side, he wrapped Traver's leather belt around his hips. Traver in turn tugged on his gathered breikas, his linen chamak, and his boots. The Corredai wrinkled his nose at having to do so without the cushioning of socks but didn't complain openly.

  The only things which they didn't trade were the tinder kit Kenyen carried, his money pouch, his eating knife, and his pectoral necklace. The beaded collar was too distinctively Shifterai, with its seven rows of animal forms carved on the small spheres of wire-linked wood, so he couldn't wear it. But neither could he leave it behind. For now, Kenyen stuffed it into his, or rather, Traver's pouch next to the metal tin containing his char cloth, flint, and steel knapper.

  "Up you go," the elder shifter ordered Kenyen, taking the keys so he could restore their prisoner's bindings. "We'll be scraping your head and giving it a bloody bruise, which you will exaggerate rather than downplay. You'll also need to roll in the mud—if you can twist your ankle or sprain your wrist, even better. The plan is to have Zellan find you tumbled in a ravine, your pony gone, and your memory dazed."

  "Let me guess. I ran off from the tea caravan because I forgot something back home, only my pony got spooked and abandoned me before I made it, correct?" Kenyen asked, face and voice and build still shaped to look like the young man they were holding.

  "You can't remember why... but that's what Zellan proposed to the rest of the caravan when he offered to go looking for 'you,'" the unnamed elder agreed, huffing with age as he crawled up the ladder.

  The man imitating Tunric had long since gone home, as had the eldest one, the white-haired shifter. Cullerog apparently lived here, but he wasn't in the cabin, no doubt gone to check on the sheep before turning them out to their stone-walled fold for the day. Zellan breathed softly where he lay sprawled on the bed, his body limp and his face slack in the way that only deep sleep could provide.

  The gray-haired shifter picked up a stout length of wood almost as thick as his wrist, selecting it from the bin by the hearth. "Bend over, boy, so I can hit you on the head with this."

  "In a Netherhell, you will," Kenyen growled. He held up his hand, his gaze firm. "I'll hit myself, thank you. I'm not going to bend over and let you hit me so hard, you splatter my brain across the floor—I don't want to find out this was just an elaborate setup staged by those bitches back home to get their revenge on me."

  The older man snorted in derision, then chuckled. "Maybe you are one of us after all. Good choice, boy—but if you don't hit hard enough, I will clobber you enough to make it look real."

  Kenyen concentrated, drawing up memories of his many injuries over the last five years, fighting with the members of his warband. He didn't even have to take the stick from the other shifter, let alone swing it. His left eye, still shaped like the Corredai's, blackened and grew puffy. His hair shifted, sporting not one, but two lumps. His right ankle twinged, shifting his weight to his left leg, and his left arm sagged from its socket. The elder blinked, brows lifting in surprise.

  "... Either you've pretended to be injured before, boy," he murmured, "or you've been injured a lot, to be able to re-create it so convincingly on a whim."

  Kenyen almost pointed out that if he'd had only three more shapes, qualifying himself for the rank of multerai, shapeshifter-lord, he'd have been put into the rotation for his warband's leadership. A last-moment twinge of caution stayed his tongue. Instead, he merely said, "I've taken a lot of damage, yes, but I've also learned how to survive it."

  "Good. You'll need to be tough. Just don't show it. That boy down there is a weakling," the unnamed man dismissed. "Pretend to be him, and you'll get close enough to the blacksmith to be trusted. The moment you are that trusted, we'll tell you what to look for." Crossing to the bed, he whacked the frame with the stick. "Wake up, Zellan Fin Don!"

  Zellan, or rather the shifter playing him, woke with a snort. Twisting onto his side, he pushed halfway up on one elbow, blinking at the two of them. "Wha...? Oh. It's time, already?"

  "Yes, it's time, you lazy mutt. Go drag this son of a cur through the mud, then haul him back home to that Healer bitch and her little girl," the elder ordered.

  "As for you, and Cullerog," Kenyen interjected, "keep the real Traver alive and unharmed. I know I didn't learn enough to imitate him flawlessly. That means I'll need more cooperation out of him."

  Zellan snorted. "Are you concerned for him? I thought you ate people."

  "Only when I'm in the mood." The words turned his stomach, but they had to be said. Kenyen didn't want to give these men any excuse to doubt that he was as much of a bastard cur as they were. "Besides, any herdsman will tell you that you always tend your flock carefully when raising them, even if the end result is an intent to slit their throats and hang them up to bleed dry."

  "I'll go get that pony ready," Zellan stated, levering himself off the bed. "We can pretend it was lost when you fell, then recaptured shortly before finding you."

  "What about my horse?" Kenyen asked. The elder snorted.

  "That'll be your 'gift' to join us, of course. Traver wouldn't have the means to acquire such a fine steed," the stocky, older man dismissed. "He's just a farmer's boy. A dirt grubber."

  "I'm expecting to get back four times what that mare is worth, off the Plains," Kenyen warned him. What he wanted to do was protest the mare's loss, period, but couldn't. That wasn't a part of the role he was supposed to play. "As it was, they barely let me keep her when they threw me out. So whatever it is you want, it had better be worth it."

  "Oh, it is. If the rumors are true..." Grinning, the elderly shifter patted his flap-covered forehead with his fingers, then shooed Kenyen and Zellan out of the cottage. "Go on; you've a long ride to get back home, and a bit of a rough time dragging yourself around, making it look like you really did fall."

  Nodding, Kenyen headed outside. Not to the barn, though that was his eventual goal. The first thing he had to do, however, was to clean off that... ring... hastily buried in the skin of his palm, and dredge up enou
gh courage to apply it to the necessary spot. Being a Shifterai, he wouldn't have to actually pierce such delicate skin, but he would have to shift a small hole for it... and then remember to maintain it, so that he didn't accidentally lose said ring down one of his trouser legs later.

  As dangerous as his situation was, Kenyen couldn't stop worrying over one particular thought in the back of his head. What kind of woman, outlander or not, would want a man to pierce that part of himself?

  The slopes of the Nespah Valley, covered in the tea plantations and terraced gardens of the various holdings claiming the land, looked like a patchwork blanket sewn from a thousand shades of living green. Most of it was darker than the paler pastels of spring, but here and there, the stone hedges supporting each terrace had been strewn with wildflowers, sending streaks of bright colors across the hillsides. Fruit and nut trees lined the ridges and the vales, waves of wheat and oats rippled in sinewy streaks, and mossy-roofed, pale stone cottages dotted the landscape.

  The scent of tea perfumed the air; not quite pungent, it played the dominant scent for all but the closest of those blooms. Still, Kenyen breathed in a hundred different aromas, from the wild roses lining the hedge walls rising up on his right, to the scent of roasted beef wafting out of one of the larger homes lower down the hillside on his left. The rippling curves of the terraces and the mazelike paths between the tea hedges gave the landscape a scribbled texture; the shouting peals of children at play, racing from level to level with baskets bouncing on their arms and dogs chasing merrily at their heels, gave the sounds of the scene a happy level of chaos to match.

  Not that he had control over where they were going. Zellan had picked up his own mountain pony at an inn just a couple of hours from the shepherd's cottage, hastily left behind in the need to track down the missing Traver with shifter tricks. Now he held the reins of Traver's pony, leading it and its swaying lump of Traver-shaped flesh, since Kenyen was trying to look too injured and dazed to have guided his own steed.