But I weren’t happy as a little big lad. Them strange feelings inside got me all mixed up. Dreams, they was, all times o day and not just sleeping. I dreamed of the sea and them waves rushing in. I heard them waves break on the cliffs, and I wanted to be swimming in that big cold ocean. I reckon I never cried when my Pa beat me, but I cried mighty often when I dreamed. Wanting to be out in them deep blues with the water rolling over me head, and me eyes open to them floating weeds, and them little fishes.
When I got even bigger, I left me Pa to rant and rave, and went walking along them big beaches, with the cliff all lost in shadow and them mighty big waves crashing in. Walk and walk, I did. Thinking. Dreaming. Hoping. That be when I cried, for I wanted something so bloody much it hurt me from me dirty big toes to the top of me dirty big head. Yearning! That be the word. Yearning so much I sat on the sand and wept.
Me Ma, well me Pa beat her too, poor lass. So t’weren’t no good going to her or just sitting around being beat and being sad and growing bigger n’ bigger. So I went north.
T’was the north as called to me. Them big freezing waters and the ice falling in white spears. And that be when I met the one as helped me. Me whole life changed. I’d bin sad fer so many years. But then I were as happy as any little fishes swimming in that big blue sea.
Not being one as counts mighty well, nor knowing what they calls the days, nor having any idea when one year ends and the next one starts, I don’t reckon I knows how old I were. Fourteen years maybe. Fifteen? Thirteen? But reckon it don’t matter. What matters is the story of what happened. And tis a story I wanna tell. So here it be. Read on. Or stop and sigh and say tis as boring as a fish bone in the gullet. That be your choice. But I shall tell me story whether you want to read it or no.
CHAPTER ONE
I were sitting all curled on the cliffs one morning. T’were early and there weren’t no sun for it was far north and winter were coming. The frost in the air seemed mighty thrilling to me. I wanted to drink it in. I dreamed of plunging into that ice cold sea and swimming and swimming and swimming all the way to that mighty big flat horizon way over there in the dark.
Then this voice, ever so soft like a feather blowing in the cold wind, it says, “Well, friend. Are you waiting to Change?”
I looks up quick, and there he were, this tall man. Not as tall as me, o’course, ‘cos no one ain’t as tall as me. But he were big, all dressed in a white fur cloak what swirled around his legs and looked like a part a’ the snow.
So I says, “I didn’t hear you come. Mighty quiet, you is. And change? Yes, I reckon I’d change if I could. Change to being a little fellow what wouldn’t be hated by them what hates me cos I’s big. I’d change this ugly big face if I could. And most of all, I’d change into a pretty little fish and dart out into that deep cold ocean.”
“Ah,” says this man all dressed in white fur. “You don’t know yet, then? Come with me, and I shall tell you what you are.”
I stared. “I knows what I is,” I snuffled. “I’s a big ugly lolloping fool, and mighty sad and mighty lost. That’s what I is.”
But he shakes his yellow head, all bright blue eyes and a stare like stars in the night. “You, my friend,” he says, “are big because you are more than one. You are not as single as the simple humanity of your village. You, my friend, are special.”
Well, I reckon we all likes to be called special, but I weren’t his friend and I reckoned he were after my coin or some such. “You ain’t as big as me,” I tells him, “but you is surely pretty big so mayhaps you knows sommint of being kicked just cos yous different.”
This fellow, he smiles and it were a mighty warm smile. I reckon I trusted him then. “Alright,” he says. “That may be true. But life is not about what we fear, or what we hate, or what we wish to avoid. Life is about what we love. Only that matters. We should stretch forwards and claim what we yearn for.”
“Yearning,” I says with a big nod till me head nearly rolls off. “That be the right word, I reckons. Tis like a big black stone in my gut, what bumps and squeezes and makes me gulp and heave. Every day I hurts. And every night I dreams o’ that bloody big beautiful ocean. I wants to swim that ocean, but then I reckon I’ll drown.” I grins. “Reckon that might be the best of all.”
Then, quite sudden like, he puts his hand on me chest. Tis a big hand with mighty long fingers, rough skinned and mighty strong. I felt winded, like all me breath were taken away. I gasps like a little brat child, and wheezes, “Right there, mister. That be where that mighty big black stone sits and rumbles.”
“That’s no stone,” says the man, looking deep into my eyes with his hand still pressing on my guts. “This is the real yearning bleeding creature within, just waiting to be given permission to breathe.” I stares at him whist he stares at me, and I sort of know he says true. But it don’t make no sense.
“Go on,” I says with a shiver.
“I smell my own kind from a great distance,” this man says. “My name is Thoddun, and I am Lord of the Transanima, in the ice palace of the north. Come with me, if you have the courage, and I will turn that stone into glory.”
Where the hand pushed at me I felt fire, though I were plenty well clothed – it being mighty cold as you can guess, being the frozen north with them icy gales blowing in and the black sky all alight with stars like snow and snow like stars. So I says, “This other me, well, what is it then? I reckon I’s big enough for four or five, but I only got one head and two arms. I wanna swim but I’s mighty heavy and I reckon I’d not float. So what is it then, this heavy stone? It don’t feel good and it makes me sad.”
“It makes you sad,” he says, “because you do not give it life. Come with me and I will show you what you are, and what will turn the sadness into joy.”
Well, I thinks, he ain’t gonna kill me cos I reckon he coulda done that already. So, being curious, as it were, to know what this garbelly gooky rubbish he were saying were all about, I done walked with him like he asked.
We walks down to the sea. The cliffs was slippy ice and shone like silver with the sparkle of them stars and the waves below. This fellow, he seems to know the path and so I plods along aside him till we comes to the beach. T’were just a little bay where the waves rolls in and the sand ain’t more’n’a scrubby bit o’ dirt between rocks. The ocean is all bright like it has more stars than the sky, and it thunders whilst the wind whistles and all me long black hair blows straight into me eyes so’s I can’t see nuffing. But I can smell the brine and I can smell the water and I can smell sommint else, what is even more exciting. I wipes the hair from me eyes, and I stares.
“Meet your brothers,” says this might strange man as calls hisself Thoddun.
And I looks. Well, I ain’t never seen these bloody big animals afore. My village is some way south. I bin walking north for nigh on twenty days, and I done counting for being tired and sad. Now here I is looking at the beautiful sea as beautiful as in my dreams, and here on the rocks is sommint a might beautiful too. Three o’ them there be. One is bigger with tusks like some monster from the deep. Them other two is littler, and they snuggles up to the bug ‘un like they loves him. I loves him too. He ain’t frighted o’me and I ain’t frighted o’ him.
I says, “By Thor’s hammers and all the icicles I ever seen, this be wonderful. What is they?”
“Meet the walrus,” says my new friend. “Breathe him. Know him. He is the deep secret you carry inside yourself. And until you let him live and breathe, you cannot know joy.”
Well, Thoddun sits aside me and I sits on them rocks and I looks at the walrus and he looks at me, and his two wives they snuffle, all pretty whiskers and lolloppy fat middles and pretty golden squeezed up eyes, and they all snorts, and I snorts back. Thoddun – he grins. I grins too and I wishes I has pretty whiskers too. “They be mighty gorgeous,” I says. “And I thank you for bringing me here. I ain’t never seen a walrus afore and now I reckon I can die happy.”
“We all die eventually,
’ Thoddun says. He ain’t looking at them beautiful walrus. He be gazing out to the horizon. Just a black streak, it is. Above there be stars and below there be stars but where the water is, it sways like a rocking cradle and I just longs to jump in. I learned meself to swim when I were a little big lad, but tis cold and dangerous. So I nods to Thoddun and he starts to explain. “Yes, we must all die. But let me first teach you how to live.” We sit together on them big rocks, and I breathes in that salty bite o’ frosty air, and I can hear me own breath like a power almost strong as the wind Thoddun smiles and goes on. “Humanity is a small race,” he continues. “They can love and they can hate, but they cannot be anything except themselves. You and I, my friend, we are not so simple.”
“My Ma always told me I were simple as the hair growing out me nostrils,” I sniffs. “I ain’t clever.”
His voice raises, all clear as bells, and loud so it floats over the ocean. Sounds carry well over water. I knows that, seeing as how I love the waves. So when I hears Thoddun’s voice all echoes and bells, I sits up and listens like I never listened to naught else in me whole miserable life. “Tell me,” I whispers.
And he tells me.
“The transanima are an ancient race,” he says. And I reckon even them little fish in the ocean start listening, and them three walruses, they bristles and wobbles and listens mighty hard. And Thoddun, he says, “We are born in the likeness of humans, but we are so much more than they. We are the Changelings, the Werepeople, the wizards of the north, and the holders of magic. We are men, but we are also the creature who bursts to be born within. I am a fourfold, for I carry the essence of man, of sea bear, of sea eagle, and of sea wolf. You,” and he stares at me so hard I reckon I blushed, “you are the walrus. There is no prouder beast. Man and walrus – encompassing land and sea – and so you are called giant for the giant who lives within.”
I loved his words but I didn’t know what they meant and shamed as I be to admit it, I reckoned he were a touch crazed. So I says, “Show me.” And he did.
CHAPTER TWO
This Thoddun fellow, he were a tall and beautiful man. Wide shoulders, he had, under that furry white cloak. Eyes all bright blue like stars and hair all shaggy gold. A bloody fine man. But what happened then – well – I soon learns he were far more than a fine man. I sat and watched with me mouth open, and them walruses, they watched too.
Stood there, he did, right in front of me on them slimy rocks, swept his cloak back from his shoulders, and stared. First off, he stared at me. Then them bright blue eyes went all glassy like watery stars, and I reckon he were staring inside somehow. Then he shook his head and all that bright yellow hair went sort of blurry and shaggy and pale. There was some sort of look he had, sort of joy, what I didn’t understand right proper at first. Never bin that happy meself in me whole life afore, so I didn’t understand. Now I knows. Oh yes – now I knows it and calls it bliss. But back then, I stares at this fellows bliss writ bright across his face, and I were puzzled.
Thoddun put his head down, but when he lifted it up again, it weren’t his head. Me – I just sat there like a bloody barnacle, and watched him turn into a huge white bear, just like them snow bears what they reckon wanders the north. I ain’t never seen one afore, just like I never seen a walrus. I only ever seen sheep and horses, but this weren’t no sheep. This thing had teeth like a shark and deep eyes and bloody big claws on bloody big feet.
Took me some moments, it did, and then I mumbled, “Thoddun? What the bloody Hel is you then?”
That bear didn’t speak. But it shook, all fur and danger and threat, and in a blink there were that same fellow again. Thoddun. Man and bear. He says, “Do you understand, friend?”
I shook me poor giddy head. “Magic,” I says.
“Perhaps,” he says. “But this is the way we are made. I do not think like a man. I do not act like a man. But nor do I think like a bear, nor act like one. I understand the creatures I have nestled within me. I nurse them. I adore them. They adore me. But I should also explain that they are me. I would not exist as a man did I not have the hearts of these other creatures within me. I am Transanima. I am not human.”
I gulps. Well, so would you.
You still reading? If you is, then let me tell you – big as I is, I were frighted. I ain’t never been so close to no animal what could eat me with one snap. But I didn’t want to look scared, so I says, “And I can – turn? I can – Change too?”
“Indeed you can and you must,” he says to me – all man now and looking just like any other. Though mayhaps not like any other. There were sommint – special. Just like he says. The transanima ain’t like single men. We be – special. “So,” I says, “will it take away that big black stone?”
“You have a yearning towards your other half,” he tells me. “It is your child, your twin, and it lives like a suckling child within you. If you do not give it breath, your heart will suffocate. Sadness or anger will be all that is left to you. So stand, gaze down at the majesty of those creatures watching you. And decide that you will join them.”
That were true enough, for I did.
So up I stands, and stared at this Thoddun Transanima, both me arms stretched out and ready. “Do me,” I begs.
Well, like I says, I don’t read. I don’t write. And I don’t even talk very good. So how does I explain what is the most joyous and marvellous thing in the whole wide world?
I stood up like he tells me. “Breathe deeply,” he says. “Feel that breath come up from your groin. Feel it swell in your chest, until it bursts from your mouth and steams the air. Now swallow back that frost, and take it deep inside. Now breathe again. Do this again and again and again, and concentrate only on the breath you breathe and the breath you take back.”
I did what he says and felt meself go all calm and happy. I didn’t think of naught else, just breathing, and it felt good.
“Now,” he says, voice all deep like it come up from his feet, “breathe slower. Slower. Slower. Raise your shoulders. Keep breathing as I have taught you. But as you do that, feel your shoulders come up and up until they are around your face.”
I did. I loved it. There was such a bubble o’ happiness, it didn’t feel like me. I were growed into a happy breathing thing what I’d only imagined afore.
“Now,” says Thoddun, and his deep voice were bubbling in my head just alongside the happiness, “Keep your legs together. Feel them merge. Feel them twitch. Feel them grow. Feel them gloriously moist, growing, merging, and swallowing upwards until they have taken control of your body.”
It happened like he says. I were so bloody happy, I could have been singing. Yet instead o’ singing, I heard meself grunt. I looks down. Tis all leather and bulging strength. Them silly big man’s legs is all gone, and tis all rich brown leather instead, wet with sea salt. I grins, all happy, and I can feel me whiskers twitch, tickling me nose. I wants to thank Thoddun, but I ain’t got no voice. Then I hears him saying, “You do not have to speak. I can hear your thoughts and I know your huge satisfaction. This happiness will grow as your expertise grows. You will discover the greatest joy that a Transanima can ever know, and that is the discovery of his other self. You, my friend, are reborn.”
Reborn? I were so excited, it were like being an infant again, all tucked up with love and warm kisses.
“But you must return,” Thoddun says. “This is your first Change, and you cannot stay too long in your other self. So do as I say. Breathe again, up from that walrus chest of yours. Breathe faster, deeper, faster. Imagine your legs separating. Exercise your desire to speak. Come back to me. You are man. You are Kjeld.”
And there I was, back in them ragged old clothes, scratching me nose and feeling almost disappointed to be human again.
“Thank you, lord,” I says, almost weeping with joy. “Can I do it again?”
But he shakes his head. “Not yet. You musty learn slowly. Of course, you must practise, but next time will be very, very slow. I took you fast, simpl
y to show you the truth of your other self. But you will find it hurts if you go too fast too quickly. Be patient. The creature you love needs your love, but you must not tire him. You can adore him while he rests inside you too.”
“Inside?” I asks. Tis hard to imagine that huge walrus all squashed up inside me belly like a turnip I had for dinner.
“His essence is inside you,” Thoddun explains. “As your essence is inside him. There are the wild ones who choose to become their creature halves almost without return, but they become lost and cruel, for their human side fades, and they take the hunger of the animal – even when the animals themselves are frightened of the Transanima and run from us when they realise we are not truly like them. So be wise, Kjeld, and Change slowly – and not too often. At least – not until you are expert.”
I stares at this beautiful man, and I falls to me knees. “I’s yours,” I tells him simply. “Order me, lord. I will obey till I dies. I will follow, I will protect you as I can. I love you, almost as I loves the walrus within.”
“Then come with me now,” he says, smiling. “And I will take you north.”
CHAPTER THREE
The ice palace were the most magnificent place I’d ever set me poor eyes on. I were born in a hut, then I wandered the open snows and slept in bushes. Now here I were, as happy as a little lad with a puppy, come to the greatest home in the world. T’was the palace o’ the Transanima, and everyone what lived there were like me. We is the Werepeople, and we’s special.
Not all like me, tell the truth. For there’s bears and birds, fishes and big whales, there be spotty cats and wolverines, foxes and wolves. We sleeps in good warm beds all snuggled together and we Changes when and where we wants. In the evenings there be huge fires, plenty to drink, and plenty to eat. Some of them bears and wolves, they goes out hunting. Them whales, they goes down to the sea for a swim. And me – I goes to the ocean too.
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 87