Sheri Tepper - Shapeshifter 02

by Necromancer Nine(Lit)

  "But she is nothing to you?"

  I began to bridle at this repeated question. "Not quite nothing, no! She is a captive. As were those in Castle Lament. I have told you my feelings about such matters."

  "Ah. Well. Perhaps we can do something about it."

  At that moment, I was glad there was no Demon among them. I had not been able to say she was nothing to me with an honest heart. She was a good deal to me, and the fact that she was now almost within reach of my voice made me tremble. Izia. I could not leave her to Nap's malevolence. I would have to find a way to free her. I did not understand the compulsion, for it was not merely pity, but I welcomed it as I now supposed I had welcomed Sylbie and Castle Lament. They were all problems, problems to be solved, wrongs to be righted. I thought again of Windlow's curious word: Justice. It was odd how many satisfying things could be done under that rubric. So, I ruminated while my cousins and mother leaned upon the stone to watch the wagons below.

  'There," whispered Mavin. "Nap has decided to wait until morning to enter the Blot." It was true. The camp had settled; Nap was seated beside his fire as others moved about the endless duties of the train. I saw Izia at once, moving among the animals, searching for the missing pair, her skirted figure plain among the trousered ones of the men, all walking with that strange hesitation which I now, too well, understood.

  "Is there some way we can free them?" I asked the twins. "From Nap, or from the boots?"

  "If it becomes important, we must find a way," said Swolwys. "However, those boots are locked on in a way we do not understand. I have heard Nap say that an Elator in those boots could not move out of them. A Tragamor could not move them from himself. A Shifter could not change out of them. They transcend Talent, so says Nap. Nap controls them, but he must return to the Blot every season to have that power renewed. It is growing weaker even now, and I think it is only that which brings him back to the Blot. Without his power, control of his servants wanes. The last day or two we have seen indications of rebellion among the pawns, particularly the newest ones. We went far to the south, you know, looking for you, I suppose, cousin. We stopped near the Bright Demesne. You were not there, but Nap bought pawns from a pawner, young, strong ones who look at him with mutiny in their eyes."

  "Izia? Is she likely to mutiny?"

  "No. Nap has had her since she was a child. He taunts her with that fact. He tells her that she was sold to him by a Shifter because she was worthless, that only Nap's kindness and forbearance have kept her alive these years. He has had her in the boots since she was seven or eight years old, for ten years, at least. Those years have bent her. She does not mutiny. She scarcely lives."

  "Why does he hold her so? Why?"

  The twins gave me a curious look, and Mavin speared me with one of her imperious stares, but Swolwys replied readily enough. "She comes of a line of horsebreeders and farmers from the South. Skill with animals is bred into that line as Talent is with us. She can do anything with horses, with almost any animal, and she is worth a thousand times her price to Nap. Also, she is fair."

  I did not want to hear about that. The thought of her in Nap's sleazy embrace was more than I could bear. "What now?" I asked.

  'Now you will take Swolwys' place," said Mavin. "You will go down to Nap's camp. We need to know what happens inside those walls on the morrow." She gave me another look, daring me to disagree, but I had no thought of that. No, I would have begged to go. I needed to see that Izia still lived... as I remembered her.

  7 - The Blot

  I was accepted among the water oxen as a water ox, that is, after I had laid hands upon the real beast enough to know how one was made. I had already learned it was easier to become something entirely imaginary than to become something which had a recognized form and movement of its own. Thus, for the first few hours of wateroxship, it was necessary to admonish myself to keep my head down, my tail in motion against the flies, my floppy feet out from under one another. Being a fustigar had been easier for me, once, but then I had seen fustigars every day of my life. Water oxen were more rural animals, certainly smellier ones. Dolwys whispered to me that I could stop monitoring my own behavior when the smell no longer seemed foreign. It did not take as long as I had expected.

  I learned in the transformation to pick up bulk, a thing I had not known before. At first inert, as one maintained a form the excess bulk became incorporated gradually into the flesh of the creature. When one shifted back, there was a certain bulk left over. Some Shifters, as the hillock had in Schlaizy Noithn, simply gained and gained until that network of fibers which made Shifters what they were was stretched so far it could not assume its original form. It was all in this network, so Mavin said. She had already harvested the flesh left over when Dolwys and Swolwys had Shifted back into human form. It was too scattered to make chops, she said, but it would make good soup. I confess a certain queasiness about this. I did not like the thought of eating what had once been a part of my cousins. They laughed at me when I said this, making me feel very young and foolish. Nonetheless, I did not like the idea and was glad it was not put to the test. Instead of soup, I learned to eat grass.

  I learned that Shifters had a jargon of their own, almost a language. Changing back into an original form was called "pulling the net," evidently from that network of fibers which transferred more or less intact from creature to creature, from form to form. One could "be" a bird with only about half the network. One could "be" a water ox with about two-thirds of it. What was left over simply lay about inside, doing nothing, available to "become" other things, clothing or whatever. It was all very interesting.

  At any rate, by morning I was an unremarkable water ox, driven from my graze to a wagon and hitched there, able to see Izia whenever I swung my head in her direction. Laggy Nap had at last decided to go the final few paces of his journey, into the shadowy courts of the Blot. The gates were open when we approached. They looked as though they had been open for a generation or more, hinges rusted and hanging, metal doors bent and sagging, grass pushing up between the stones. Inside the gates the shadows of the huge, spidery arches fell upon us, and a Tower-face mumbled at us from across the pavement. Dolwys whiffled as though startled, and I remembered that I was a water ox which would have been startled at such a sight and whiffled with him, hearing Izia's voice, "Shaaa, shaaa, shaa, still now, nothing to bother about, my strong ones. Shaaa, shaaa." The sound of her voice made me shiver involuntarily; perhaps any water ox would have shivered at it.

  We saw the first inhabitant of the place as it came mincing across the pavement, and for a moment I thought I had not managed the Shift of my eyes properly. Something was monstrously wrong with the shape which confronted us, and it stood before us for some time before my mind believed what my eyes saw. This was no Shifter. It was a true-person, or perhaps two persons. From the waist up it was two, two heads, two sets of shoulders, four arms, two chests tapering into one waist, one set of hips and legs. It chortled, "Dupey one," out of one mouth as the other mouth said in a deeper voice, "Dupey two." I looked up to see Izia trembling upon her seat and Laggy Nap striding forward with every expression of confidence.

  "Oyah, Dupies. Will you stable the beasts in the yard, or would you rather we stake them outside the walls?" His voice was ingratiating, a tone I had not heard him use except when he had sought to seduce me into his train outside Betand.

  The tenor head answered, 'Oh, here, here, Laggy Nap, here. Where Dupies can watch them, feed them, brush their pretty hides. You let Dupies have them. We'll love them all to bits nice things, great, wonderful beasties."

  Beside me Dolwys trembled. I, too, at the lustful endearments which sounded to me much like hunger. The deeper voice said, 'Oh, see how it shivers, pretty beasty is cold, all cold from the shadow. Bring it in the sun, Dupey, where it is warm

  "Fine," said Nap heartily. "You take them along into the sun and bring them food and water, Dupies. They'll love you for that."

  "Ooooh, love us all to bits, the
big things will."

  "Love us, yes they will." The two led us off, the one led us off, caroling their-its pleasure. Beside me Dolwys trembled again and again. I wondered what he was thinking. We were too much in evidence to talk. It would have to wait. We were taken to a sunny spot near a trough of water, and a cart of hay was pushed near to us. We swished our tails and swung our muzzles under the pattering hands and constant voices of the Dupies, trying to see through them or around them to what Nap and the others were doing.

  "Where is Fatman? Dupies, where is Fatman?" Nap was persistent in the question, as he needed to be to draw the monster's attention away from us.

  "Fatman? Oh, Fatman is here. Maybe in a little while, Laggy Nap. He was here a while ago. Patience, patience. He will be here."

  "Tallman? Is Tallman here as well?"

  "Oh, yes. Tallman is always here. Always sometimes. He goes and comes, Laggy Nap. Patience, patience." The two heads turned to one another, kissed passionately, hugged one another fiercely and went back to their patting and brushing of the horses. They had not groomed us yet. I found myself begging that they would not. This was not to be, however, and I was thoroughly fondled as was Dolwys at my side, with such hungry tenderness that we were both shaking by the time the Dupies had made off and left us. At last we could watch the people of the train, but they might have been made of stone, slumped as they were on the shadowy pavement of the place near one of the great, mouthy doors. None moved except Nap, striding among them, slapping his hands along his thighs, clicking his heels upon the stone, toe, toe, toe, an erratic rhythm. From some hidey hole we could hear the Dupey voices calling, "Patience, patience, Laggy Nap."

  The first evidence of other inhabitants came in a shrill, premonitory shrieking, like a tortured hinge crying stress into the quiet of the place. It came from within one of the towers, behind the mumble lips of the doors. The shriek became a rumble, the rumble a clatter and one of the mouths began to open, reluctantly wider and wider until the eyes disappeared in wrinkles and the teeth gaped wide above a metal tongue extending outward, toward us. down this ramp rolled a figure as strange in its way as the Dupies were in theirs, round, so fat that the shoulders bulged upward and the cheeks outward to make a single convex line which blended into a spherical form, a balloon, a ball, an egg of a man. He rode in a kind of cup, like an eggcup on wheels, and it was this vehicle which made the extraordinary shrieking noise.

  "Oil, Dupies," it cried. "Oil for the Fatwagon. Oh, she screams, doesn't she. Makes a terrible racket. Laggy Nap. wal-Ia, wallo, holla hello, listen to me come screaming at you. Oil! Oil! Dupies!"

  "Patience, patience, Fatman," came the answering call, evidently the standard reply to all happenings in this place. The Fatman rolled his eggcup backward and forward, sending all the animals into frenzies at the high-pitched sound, until the Dupies ran from whatever place they had been hiding. They bore a can of oil, and a kind of tag game ensued during which the sounds gradually diminished into almost quiet. It was only then that Laggy Nap came forward once more.

  "I greet you, Fatman."

  "Oh, I greet you as well, Laggy Nap. Have you a fine cargo for us this time? Something to please them? Something to make the great, tall things happy? I do hope so. They become difficult, Laggy Nap. Sensitive. Given to fits and hurling things at us for no reason. Oh, my, my, my, yes. They need distractions, Laggy Nap, indeed yes.

  "I have most of what I was sent for, yes."

  "Most? Do you say 'most,' Laggy Nap? Ah, to have only most may not be enough. It is far better to have more, not most. Well, he will be in a temper, you may be sure. Tallman will be in a temper, Laggy Nap. All the Tallmen. All. He'll tell you so, even if I don't." And the Fatwagon rolled away among the towering arches and the mumbling door-faces, exclaiming to itself as it went, careening here and there, light glistening again and again in the gloom from the bald pate of Fatman where he wheeled his way into the shadows.

  I heard Izia say to Laggy Nap, "Why will you not let us go outside? We are no good to you here. Let us take the animals outside the walls. We will wait for you there." Her voice was hopeless, even as she begged.

  "I want you here!" he hissed, fingers jumping along the seam of his trousers, tap tap, full of an energy and rhythm of their own. "Here."

  "We sicken," she murmured. "All of us, animals, all. In here. In the gloom of this place, we cannot help it. We sicken."

  "So, sicken. I care not whether you sicken. Sicken silently. I swear, I will find that Shifter who sold you to me and sell you back to him or have vengeance upon him for cheating me as he did."

  "You were not cheated, Laggy Nap! I have driven your animals across this world a dozen times in the ten years you have had me. Who treats your team beasts when they are injured or ill? Who gets them across fords they will not cross and up trails they will not climb? Who but me, Laggy Nap? You were not cheated."

  "I say I was because you do not give me peace. Now be silent or burn a little." His fingers tapped a different rhythm, and she caught her breath in sudden pain.

  I moved, and Dolwys immediately put one of his great, floppy feet upon mine, half tripping me in the process. I heard him sigh, "wait," or some such word, blown through his water ox throat. I subsided, frustrated, unable to do more than ache at her hurt. In any case, Nap did no more than twinge at her, perhaps because his powers were much dwindled and perhaps because the careening Fatwagon came barreling out of the dusk into our midst, its occupant caroling madly.

  "Tallman's coming, Laggy Nap. I sent the call, just as I knew you'd want me to, and he's coming swiftly. Watch the big mouth, now, Laggy Nap, he's on his way. Come Dupies, come and watch. Tallman's coming."

  The Dupies emerged from twilight places, chattering at one another like sparrows, patting at one another with their swift little hands, eyebrows cocked and mouths moving, all the time stroking at one another, pausing only to hug and kiss with that same greedy passion they had displayed toward the animals. They paused before one of the mumbling Tower mouths, waited in hushed expectancy. Reluctantly, Laggy Nap took up a position beside them and the Fatwagon rolled to one side. There was a long hush, then the sound of far off machinery in motion, a rumbling which vibrated the ground beneath us and sent all the Tower mouths into fits of grimaces.

  The mouth before us turned downward, an introspective frown, followed by an expression of alertness, wonder, and then it opened to vomit out its own metal tongue, an endless tongue which extruded itself into a platform a little raised above the surface on which we stood. Onto this platform rolled a little car, somewhat like those I have seen used in some pawnish mines to transport ore, except this one was flat. From its prow there stuck up a tall beam, narrow and high. The beam broke itself into angles and stepped down from the car, its top section bending to look down upon us all.

  "Tallman," cried the Dupies.

  "Tallman," Fatman warbled in the same tone.

  "Tallman," said Laggy Nap, his fingers jerking along the seams of his trousers. As for the rest of us, we animals, we pawns and animals, we said nothing but stared and stared. The voice, when it came, was a woodwind sound, a reed sound, deep and narrow-edged.

  "Well, Laggy Nap. You have returned. Have you fulfilled the orders I gave you?"

  Fumble, fumble, fingers tap tap along trouser seams, feet shuffle back and forth, pale as paper, Laggy Nap. 'I have most of what I was sent for, Tallman. The youth, Peter-the Necromancer, he was killed on the journey..."

  Along, long pause during which that narrow, hooded head bent above Laggy Nap as some great serpent head might bend above its prey. "Killed? How killed? By you?"

  "No, Tallman! Never! It was a rockslide on the southern route, in the canyons there. He would go that way, and mindful of your orders, we went with him until we could be sure to take him without injuring him. He went to the canyon wall to relieve himself, Tallman, and the wall broke over him. More rock than the train could move in a season, Tallman. His body, under all that rock Nap's voice faded into u
ncertainty, and the head above him never moved but brooded still in that unrelenting scrutiny.

  "How long ago?"

  "How long? Ah, let me think. We have been thirty-five days on the northern route, Izia, wasn't it thirty-five days? Then there was a space of three days getting back to Betand. Less than forty days, Tallman. Thirty-eight, I would say."

  "Not so long, then, that you could not take a Necromancer there and raise him. Raise this Peter. Find out from his spirit what it was he knew. Not too long for that?"

  "Oh, I could do that. Yes." He gave a little hop, as though eager to be on his way. "I need only to have my power renewed, Tallman. And to unload the cargo."

  There was a silence, a silence which drew out into a swamp of stillness in which no one moved. Laggy Nap himself did not seem to breathe. He might have forgotten how to breathe, so still he was, and when Tallman spoke at last the air came out of Nap as out of a balloon. "No, Laggy Nap. No power renewal this time. We will give you power when you return."

  "But, but Teeth chattering, face like melting ice. "How will I keep the pawns in order? How keep the beasts in order, the work done? How keep Izia doing her work