“But,” I gritted my mental teeth and continued, “she is not a pureblood. She bears the Mark, but she came to shapeshifting late in life, and so has only three or four forms.”
“How can that be?” Kiraka sounded plaintive enough that my heart softened for the irascible old bitch.
“A great deal has happened while you slept—surely Dafne has explained.”
“My Daughter is clever, but understands only one face of the world. You explain.”
I gathered my wits, certain I only understood a different face and not the whole thing, but I’d try. “When the ancients—”
“Watch who you call ancient, child.”
The tart rejoinder made me pause, and I relaxed some that she retained a bit of humor. “Apologies. When our ancestors created the Heart and sealed magic within the barrier, aspects of the world outside began to wither for lack of magic.”
“I know this part. I was one of those that withered.”
“Do you want me to tell the story as I know it or not?”
“So impetuous. You have arrogance in plenty, but it has not been tempered by true trials. I imagine you’ve been celebrated among your pitifully gifted folk, certainly treated as something special among the mossbacks. You haven’t learned the iron will of one who’s endured the worst and survived through her own efforts. This is part of why you’re not good enough to learn how to be a dragon.”
“I’m the best my people have,” I snapped back, growing tired of hearing the litany of my inadequacy. “Do you want the rest of the history?”
“I said so.”
“As I understand it, those of you outside the barrier who relied on magic began to starve for it.”
“Yes. Many who’d taken dragon form died. A few of us, the strongest and most enduring, put ourselves in hibernation.”
I nodded to myself. Dafne had told me as much. “Inside the barrier, in Annfwn, we have very old tales of dragons, of the Final Form and what it can do, but they are legends only. History became tales that were embroidered.” Dafne would likely argue that this was the drawback of oral histories, rather than her precious documents. “If we ever knew why the barrier was established, we lost the reason for it.”
Kiraka said nothing, so I continued. “The Tala, as we came to call ourselves, lived in prosperity for a very long time. Annfwn is bountiful, warm, protected, and we flourished there. But, trapped inside the barrier, the magic seemed to intensify.”
The dragon mentally snorted, but offered nothing further, so I ignored the growing sense of anger from her.
“The magic turned back on us, corrosive in a way. Babies were born with too many limbs, extra heads, sometimes animal parts. Those that survived birth didn’t live long. The wizards and priestesses worked to teach these misbegotten children to shift, in the hope that they could make themselves whole, but they went wrong. Dreadfully wrong.”
“We could have told you that would happen.”
“Well, you weren’t there, were you?” I retorted, my nails biting into my palms. Easy for her to be distantly superior. She hadn’t held her own niece, soothing the poor babe with her misshapen face and crabbed claws, giving her love the few hours she’d lived, so she’d at least die with someone holding her. My sister, Anya, hadn’t been able to bear to even look at her daughter. “We did the best we could and it wasn’t enough. A few generations back, some Tala tried leaving Annfwn. They went out into the neighboring kingdoms and found mates to make whole and healthy children with.”
“Diluting the blood.”
“Surviving.”
“No, I survived. Your bastardized race is slowly dying.”
I couldn’t argue that. It was, after all, why I’d been sent. “We did make babies with the mossbacks, but only some could return through the barrier. Some pairings worked and others did not, though no one knows why. Those who could not remained outside and made lives the best they could. Depending on how strongly the old blood, how deeply the old magic marked them, these children were drawn to each other and sometimes their children possessed enough ability to return through the barrier. Many of them did, as they felt the call of the Heart in their bones, their longing bringing them back to Annfwn. A blessing, as these brought fresh blood back to us, making the birth of viable children more possible again.”
“But not enough, I’m sure,” Kiraka observed, not so caustic. But still angry, though I didn’t understand why.
“Not enough. We were fortunate, however, to have Andromeda ascend to the throne. Salena was of the old blood, very pure. She is Andromeda’s mother and my aunt.”
“Dead, though?”
“Long since.” I paused to send a blessing after Salena, may she look upon us and send good fortune for my effort here. “Over twenty-five years.”
“Barely a blink. I just missed her.”
Many of us would have Salena back, but she’d left us and Annfwn long before she died. “Salena possessed powerful foresight. She saw the rise of one of our outcast children, a mossback but with a bastard mix of shapeshifter blood—and a lust for power, along with his consuming need for Annfwn. Though she confided in no one, it’s believed she went through the barrier to be his queen in the outside world in order to divert him from Annfwn, to prevent him from consuming us in his hunger. She helped him conquer the various kingdoms, calling on us and her own magic to win the wars for him. Then she bore him three daughters, and died. The middle daughter was Andromeda, who grew up without magic, but then came home to wed our king.”
“Powerful blood, that she learned to shapeshift as an adult,” Kiraka commented thoughtfully. “Has she children?”
“Not yet.” I didn’t know if she and Rayfe had managed to conceive or not. Many Tala women lost the babies early on in pregnancy, a grief just slightly preferable to carrying the babes to full term only to have the hope they’d tried not to nourish be so brutally shattered.
“And the other two daughters?”
“One of them is Ursula, here on Nahanau, who you invited to test her sword with you.”
“Ah. I knew she shone brightly in my mind. Not enough of the blood, however.”
“No. She is not a shapeshifter, and has no sorcery. As such. She is the one who finally slew Uorsin and caused the barrier to move. The three sisters wrought some spell with the spilling of his blood, a magic jewel, and expanded the barrier outward. The return of magic wakened you and your brethren.”
“Yes. That makes sense.” Kiraka dismissed that tidbit as uninteresting, though I’d have dearly loved to learn more about it. “The third daughter contributed to the working?”
“The youngest daughter, Amelia, is the same as Ursula, but has borne twins, one of them a daughter with the Mark. Both have already shapeshifted.”
Kiraka’s attention leapt like a flame. “How old is this one?”
“She is but a toddler.”
“Young enough to be trained up properly,” Kiraka mused, a trickle of smoke making it clear she thought I hadn’t been. “But you say you haven’t enough time for her to grow up. What of your sisters, brothers, cousins? Have any of them more proficiency?”
“No.” Weary of this, I sighed. Never mind that I had only one sister and one brother left. “I am the best. And I might not be trained properly, but I can learn.”
“How do you know?” Kiraka looked into me, the glow of her eyes turning my skin pink.
“I’ve trained hard all my life. I have many forms, am still gaining more, and my magical skills are excellent—and also growing.”
“Yes, yes, yes. But how do you know you’re capable of learning what you need to, that you have the force of will to become the dragon and sustain the form? That you and your people even deserve this knowledge?”
“How can I know that?”
“Exactly.”
We fumed at each other, Kiraka literally. “Tell me,” she finally said, in a mental whisper licking with hissing flames, “what you imagine I want of you.”
“I imag
ine you’ll tell me. I’m prepared to pay whatever price is needed.”
“Do you even understand the stakes?”
Once again I held Anya’s dying baby in my arms, her forked tongue darting out to taste the tears that fell on her face, before it went still and pale, lolling out of her lipless mouth.
“More than that,” Kiraka said without compassion or remorse. “The scale is far larger than you comprehend.”
“Then tell me,” I asked, trying to sound humble. “I seek to understand.”
“You are not good enough.” Kiraka sounded infinitely weary, terribly resigned. “And the gelyneinioes approach. They have grown stronger over time while my children have grown weak and scattered on the one side, twisted and infertile on the other, all the while feeding the enemy through their selfishness. Perhaps it is all for naught. We lost the battle long ago and all of this has been spitting into the wind while we writhe in our dying throes.”
“Who are the gelyneinioes?” I didn’t even recognize the word.
“The ancient enemy who broke us and drove us to ground. The followers of a cruel god of permanent yet undying death. They took the brightest and best of us and made them into monsters, enslaved to be their puppets. We fought, but they won every battle. We faced the ultimate defeat. The only way to stop them was to take magic from the world. But if you understand anything at all about the universe you will know that nothing can disappear completely.”
“It can only be reduced, grown, or converted,” I replied.
“You are not a complete idiot. We couldn’t destroy magic utterly, so we condensed it. It was meant to be only in the Heart, buried in the depths of the sea, sealed away from all living beings.”
“But…”
“Yesssss.” Kiraka hissed her displeasure. “But some—your people—couldn’t bear to give up their precious spells, the freedom of changing forms at will. Even as the greatest of us resigned ourselves to the end of immortality, to the final sleep of infinite death, a few stole into the Heart and created an echo of it.”
“The barrier around Annfwn.”
“Was never meant to be. And thus your foolish people planted the seed and watered it, allowing magic to grow outside the heart. Your children should not flourish. They should all die, as they were never meant to exist in the first place.”
The ruthlessness took my breath away. “Regardless of what my ancestors did, we do exist. And we are innocent of such crimes. Certainly the Tala today don’t deserve such a punishment.”
“Does the world deserve to be subsumed to the gelyneinioes? You sprouted from a selfish seed and that is all you’re capable of sprouting in turn. Because of you, magic survived. Because of you, it spread. Because of you, the gelyneinioes are awake and growing by the moment. And now you come to me and ask that I help you?” Her scorn scorched my soul. “When I awoke and felt the presence of the gelyneinioes, I despaired. Then my Daughter came and I dared hope. She spoke to me of your kind, of shapeshifters and sorceresses such as my gallant comrades at arms had been, and I nurtured that hope. Perhaps we could yet win the war. When you came back, I watched you, listening to your thoughts while you played at taking forms and discarding them again. And I’ve realized there is no hope.”
I was weeping, I realized, overcome with her ancient despair and my fresh and final failure. “Then why even summon me here today?”
She chuckled, not in humor, but the wry, self-deprecating hiss of dry scales over rock, of flesh seared by fire. “If you live long enough, baby changeling, you will discover someday that there is a freedom in the final loss of hope. Because in the ultimate despair, you’ll try something you’d never thought to attempt.”
It made a certain sense, but I didn’t know what response she wanted from me. She waited, too, saying nothing, the burning scarlet flame of her eyes lighting every dark corner of my soul.
“What will you attempt?” I finally asked.
“A trial by fire.”
The hairs rose on my neck and absurdly I wished that I hadn’t made Marskal stay so far back. A ridiculous thought, as he couldn’t help me. I was alone in this. “What does that mean?”
“We’ll burn away the weakness and see what’s left. You said you were prepared to pay the price, any price. Are you really? I’ll give you a gift—if you can learn how to use it, perhaps there is cause to hope.”
Despite the fear that tried to throttle me, I had my answer ready for that one. Long since memorized. My mantra whenever my resolve flagged. “I’m prepared to learn whatever I need to. I’ll pay whatever price is needed.”
“Careful, youngling.” Again a wisp of compassion, of shared humanity in that inhuman mind voice. “Don’t simply parrot those words your elders ground into your mind. They are not here, but you are. You offer to pay with yourself. And it will take everything you have. Perhaps forever. And even then you may yet fail.”
“Yes.” As Salena had before me. She’d given her life, her happiness, her entire future, to save our people and the greater world. I would do no less. “I will pay.”
“I lied,” Kiraka mused with a hint of surprise. “It seems I retain a grain of hope, after all. I find myself hoping I’ll see you on the other side of this. I didn’t expect to like you.”
If the dragon liked me, I’d hate to see how she behaved toward those she hated.
“What is your name, little changeling?”
“Zynda. I am Zynda.”
“I shall remember your name, Zynda, and ask Moranu guide you. You might add your own prayer. You’ll want to take the easy path. If you truly want this, don’t take it. Choose pain.”
“Pain?”
“Yes. More than you think you can endure.”
And the dragon opened her mouth, a wash of flame roaring over me. The agony rent me, my skin firing and hair going to ash.
As I died, I sent up a last plea to the goddess of the moon, and the darkness. And regeneration.
~ 6 ~
Someone was screaming, but it wasn’t me. Someone else was shouting. Also not me.
A dragon roaring. Definitely not me.
But who was I?
I was all burning agony. Fire upon fire. Pain wracked me, and the sense of not being became almost worse than even that.
Form. I needed form, but there was none to be had.
I’d had a body once. A human one. The memory of it rippled in the distance, a sweet beacon that glimmered then faded as it receded. Unable to reach it, I cast about, seeking others. All my possible forms offered themselves—the dolphin, the falcon, the great heron, the tiger, the pony, the hummingbird, the snake, the owl, the wolf, the mermaid—and more. Ones I’d attempted and hadn’t grasped, or hadn’t cared to revisit. Others it had never occurred to me to try.
Desperate, I grabbed for them as they danced past, gazing back at me with my own eyes. Accusing and compassionate at once. Despite their sympathy for my plight, none would stop long enough for me to slide inside their skin.
And it hurt. Oh, it hurt so much.
I couldn’t bear to hold on anymore, so I let go.
I began to dissolve—the agony blessedly releasing me from its savage grip—spreading thin, becoming mist. The screams thinned in the distance and I welcomed that surcease, as well.
The quiet, the lack of feeling. All so much better.
After a timeless lapse, doorways appeared, opening into what seemed like long hallways. Each portal offered a fresh form. Human bodies for me. Not the one I’d had, but the seeds of new ones. Beginnings of new life. A fresh start.
Eager, spurred by an odd sense of urgency, I surveyed them. So many options. They beckoned to me, welcoming. I could be anyone. Easiest to simply pick one, then perhaps this prickling need to take action would ease.
“The easy choice,” someone said.
Nothing and no one there.
No, that wasn’t right. She was there. The absence of light. The dark of the moon.
“Goddess?” I asked. I shall remember your n
ame, Zynda, and ask Moranu guide you. But I didn’t remember who said that or who Zynda was. Or maybe I did, vaguely. I’d been her once.
“I am the dark, the absence that is the beginning. From the richness of this void we are born and grow, waxing again into full brightness, before waning into death. Vanishing, only to begin again.”
Those words tugged at a memory, also formless and without substance. It didn’t matter. The way lay before me. From the dark and the absence, I would go from this nothing to the fullness of life again.
“The easy path,” She repeated. “A right, but also a gift.”
I didn’t want to listen. I wanted a life again. A body to be mine. My birthright, She’d said as much.
“But for an accident of chance, others will not have that gift.”
I hesitated, not wanting to hear, but something in me turning to listen anyway. The moon goddess was there. All around and invisible. In Her formlessness, She was all forms. I caught glimpses of Her, curling horns, a sweep of wings, snaking tail, pumping gills. In Her shifting face, Her eyes alone remained constant, the color of moonlight at full, the dark centers the depthless dark of the new moon.
“Do you want to see?” She asked me, a simple question without judgment or expectation. Up to me to decide.
“No,” I said. I didn’t want anything but to go on my way, to my fresh start.
“I understand,” She replied with gentle compassion. “Go with My blessing, Daughter.”
Daughter. That caught me, a fish in a net, the silver cords of it pricking me. “But I should look,” I said, turning away from the feast of lives.
“There are no ‘shoulds.’ Only if you want to see. Only if you want to consider a different choice.”
Flickers came back to me. Standing before an altar, making a vow, promising to give my life to a different path. I’d believed in those promises, once. Back in the pain. In another life. And yet… it wasn’t in me to simply turn away from it.
“I ask to see it, Goddess.”
She turned, and I turned with Her, drawn into Her subtle vortex of shifting forms. They played over and through me, eddying currents, different and same, like the spectrum of colors in a rainbow, shimmering from one into the next.
The Shift of the Tide Page 7