Shades of the Silent: When It Alteration Finds

[aithne]

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
--Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

6/3/1221
Shanghai

The week between Wuhan and Shanghai was relatively uneventful, except for a pair of river crossings that got exciting due to the rivers being close to flood stage. We stopped on the outskirts, reining in.

"Let's find a place just inside the walls," I said. "I'd like a reasonable escape route, if we turn out to need it." Temur was looking at the city with an unreadable look. "You can stay outside, if you want," I told him. "I know how much you like big cities."

He shook his head. "I'll come in."

"Your choice. Let's go." Down we went, passing through the gates. We got a lazy look from the guards on the gates, but fortunately, they didn't seem to worry too much about us. Once we got inside the walls, I could see why. Shanghai was a huge port town, and it seemed like the entire thing was a market, selling things both mundane and nearly unrecognizable. At one stand, I had to stop and ask what the statues that were being sold were. "Fertility gods from the west," the man said and gave me a gap-toothed grin. "Put one of these by your bed and every woman who comes to your bed will leave satisfied and with a belly full of sons." On further glance, I realized what I'd taken for an extra limb on the carved stone figures was actually something else entirely. I passed on purchasing one.

The din was almost unbearable, the smells of food both freshly cooked and spoiled, unwashed bodies, urine, all of it mixing into an unpleasant mess. We managed to find a place to stable the horses that had a few rooms for let. The place was small, but it was, surprisingly, mostly clean. "I'm going to go see if I can find someone to buy the diamond from me," I told the rest. I'll need at least two of you--Temur, you can stay here with the horses if you want. We can go see what's for sale out in the city."

Temur said that he did want to stay here, and the rest of us wandered out into the city. We asked directions and were pointed towards the main market a sprawling complex of shops and stalls that took up most of the center of the city. We walked, looking around; every other person here seemed to be doing the same, we were by no means the only strangers in town.

If I'd thought the rest of the city was overwhelming, this was doubly so. The only one of us who seemed particularly comfortable here was Zayd. "Just like the souks back home," he said to me as we dodged a man with a cart.

I located the jewelers' stalls, but the one I contacted offered me no more than half of its worth. As much as I tried to bargain with him, he stood firm, and I eventually left to take my business elsewhere.

"Maybe the mages will have more money," I muttered to Zayd as I stepped out of the jeweler's shop. He fell in beside me, and Sacha fell in on my other side, Nomolun behind us. The mages of the city kept their stalls nearby, and we asked directions and had the alley pointed out to us.

Walking down the alleys, I saw that most of the stalls had some sort of identifying marker on them--usually the name of the mage carved on a wooden sign above the stall or on the doorway of the shop. One shop that caught my eye had "Aban, buyer and seller of unusual artifacts" carved into a board that was nailed to the lintel. On the corner of the sign was tacked a piece of rice paper, with characters neatly brushed onto it.

In need of large, high quality gems and jewels.

"Looks like our store. Stay out here, I'll yell if I need you." I ducked into the shop, finding the usual mage clutter. Books and scrolls, racks of potions, some cups and goblets and jars of things mages usually had a use for. Being an illusionist, I didn't generally need a lot of consumable ingredients; if I ever decided to try to make one last longer, or continue without my attention, I might need something physical to anchor it to.

There were weapons, as well, some knives, an interesting bow, a couple of longswords. The proprietor had been reading a scroll when I'd come in, had glanced up at me and then gone back to what he was doing. I cleared my through gently. "Aban, I presume?"

He straightened. "Yes, sir. How can I help you?"

I motioned toward the door. "Are you still looking for large gems?"

"Sure am, have some?"

"One that you may be interested in, yes." I kept my mouth steady.

"Have it on you?" He eyed me, taking in my travel-worn coat, the thinness of my fingers. "Not stolen right?"

"I do, and of course it's not stolen."

That seemed to satisfy him. "Good. Let's see it."

I had it in a pouch, tied securely to the inside of my coat. As I handed it to him, his eyebrows went up. He studied it for a bit, holding it in front of a lamp, turning it this way and that. He named a price for it in coin, but then added, "I am not much of a bargainer. I will give about eight-tenths of what it's worth in coin, because that's all I have. Then you can have the other two-tenths in stuff. Best I can do."

"That's a quite acceptable bargain," I told him.

"Have your eye on something?"

I pointed. "The bow, over there." By my calculation, if the note that was attached to it was correct, it was likely worth the scout's portion. We were allowed to keep two-tenths of what we captured; if we stole ten horses, we would keep two. Not that this man would have reason to know this.

He glanced where I'd pointed, and nodded. "It enhances strength and speed. That's a pricy one, but I will part with for you. Anything else, you get to buy. Sound fair?"

"Sounds fair to me. The coin, and the bow."

Aban nodded and ducked down behind the counter. He pulled out bag after bag of coin, and I blessed the tidy mind of the Chinese moneychangers; each bag was marked with what it contained, and knotted with the moneychangers' seal. The moneychangers were not people to mess with, and so the moneychangers' knot was considered to be more or less a guarantee of a fair weight in coin.

Eight bags later, he pulled down the bow and set it on the counter next to the coin. "There you are." I pulled out a pair of larger bags I'd brought with me for just this purpose, and began to load the bags into it.

As I did so, I asked, "Out of curiosity, have you heard of a group of shapeshifters who lives in town somewhere?"

A suspicious look settled over Aban's features. "Yes, yes I have. Be careful who you ask about that. Shapeshifters are a sore topic around here. The city guard has been hunting them for years." He looked around, and lowered his voice. "If I have seen them, and I am not saying I have, they could live in the poor section of town, by the docks."

"Have you ever heard of a way they can be told from regular people? Just in theory."

"The guards sometimes come by and buy these." Aban pulled down a potion, evidently satisfied that we were speaking the same language. "Lets you see things that have changed shape."

"Ah, that would be useful. How much for a pair of those?"

"Three liang apiece. For you." He smiled.

"Thank you," I said, and passed him the money and accepted the potions. I bowed to him, and then collected my things and went outside. I distributed the coin between Zayd and Sacha, and we walked back to the inn to stash it in our packs.

"We may be able to find the shapeshifters down by the docks," I told the rest once we were done with that. "I have some potions of sight that should reveal them. Nomolun, I'd like you with me. The rest of you I'd like nearby in case of trouble."

"I can cast that spell of sight," Nomolun said. "That's not a problem. I won't need the potion."

They agreed, and down we went. Temur looked very much less than happy, and I promised myself we'd get out of this city as soon as we could. We wandered around the docks for a bit, until I spotted someone who was not quite right. I could see the human form, a man in tattered clothing sweeping the street, but the human form seemed somehow misty. Beneath was something decidedly not human.

Its skin was a dark green, but I couldn't tell from here whether it was scaled. Its face was dominated by a pair of huge black eyes, beneath of which was a slit for a nose and a thin-lipped mouth. It had three digits on each hand, and though it was naked, I couldn't see any visible signs of genitalia. Would a shapeshifter race even need males and females, if they could shape their flesh at will?

I shook my head, drawing myself away from my speculations. I nudged Nomolun and together we walked up to the shapeshifter. "My pardon, but I need to speak with you," I said to the shapeshifter.

He or she looked up, startled. "Did I miss something?" The shapeshifter glanced past us to the street, eyes scanning the crowd nervously.

"No, I admit, this seems somewhat random, but I assure you that it is not."

Now that nervous glance was focused on me and Nomolun. "Yes, what can I do for you ma'am?"

I flinched; the shapeshifter had seen right through my disguise without even missing a beat. "It is about a mask. I can't say any more on the street."

The shapeshifter motioned to a space between crates. I led the way, and he followed. I ducked down, and the shapeshifter followed suit. "A mask?" he asked quietly. "The Mask?"

"The Mask of Nalon. I believe you are a member of the people who can destroy it."

I could not tell what emotion the look that crossed the shapeshifter's face signified. "Give me the place where you are staying. Someone more important than I will meet you there within the hour."

"The Road of Bells, near where it intersects with the butcher's district. A guesthouse with chrysanthemums and rearing horses on the gate."

"They will be there soon," he said, then rose and moved off purposefully. I collected Nomolun, and nodded to the others who fell in behind us.

"Some of them will meet us at the guesthouse," I said to them. "Let's go."

Half an hour later, six people arrived at the gates of the guesthouse. There was a small garden within the walls, and I invited them in. "You have the item?" the one who seemed to be the leader asked. He looked like a Chinese man of middling height, heavyset, with an intelligent gaze.

I nodded. "I do. I would see it destroyed, or changed so that it will no longer harm."

"The destruction of the item can be done, though it may cause some unforeseen complications. Changing the item may take time, we would have to rest the soul from it. A process that could be lengthy."

"How lengthy? And what are the possible consequences to its destruction?"

He opened his hands, shrugging. "I don't know how long it could take, days, weeks, maybe years. The item, when destroyed, will release all its energy. That could have some serious repercussions. But from what I know of them, each goes out in a different way, and it's impossible to predict."

I inclined my head. "They do. Often, they leave things of beauty in their wake."

The shapeshifter smiled thinly. "That would be useful in this place."

"It would. But it may be best done out of town, away from people."

"That was our estimation of the item as well," he said. "Please come with us and bring the item. You all may come if you so choose."

"I will meet you back down here in a moment," I said, and rose. Spirit, are you somewhere you can get out if you need to?

Temur knows well enough to leave my rope so I can slip out of it, and the fence is low enough for me to jump, he replied. I will stay and watch the rest, unless you need me.

Good, I said, sending a smile to him. Then I slipped upstairs and retrieved the mask from the lead box, wrapping it in a cloth. Zayd had, a little while back, put some magelocks and other spells on the box to make it more difficult to get into. I had contributed with a spell from my specialty, an illusion that would make the box seem very boring. It was less visual than a simple suggestion that the box didn't appear to have anything of value in it. It was safe enough here, where nobody knew where we were.

Out I went, and followed the shapeshifters out into the city. We headed back down towards the docks, but turned abruptly into a side street that had a narrow, almost hidden staircase going down.

Down we went, down the stone staircase into a tunnel that stank like a midden, worse than the streets above. Water--at least, I hoped it was water--dripped from the ceiling above. There was a rotting wooden gate, more steps downward, several tight turns. Then the tunnel turned to carved stone, tunneled rather than built. The smell abated, and the tunnel opened out into a great hall and then into a cavern.

There was a ramp down into the cavern, and we walked along a broad boulevard through the center of a stone city. Everything felt somehow shabby, the tops of walls crumbling, the scent of decay heavy on the air. It felt vaguely familiar, and I looked around, trying to figure out why.

"Old drow city, spider pictograms everywhere." Zayd was glancing around, and gestured at the wall we were walking past, realistic carvings of spiders in unlikely poses danced along just below eye level. On the other side of the boulevard, there was what once might have been a garden or park, an open space now filled with trash and debris. We were coming up on a large square, a pile of stone in the middle that seemed to have been carved into some sort of shape, once upon a time.

I looked over at the shapeshifter who seemed to be in charge. "Are there any drow still living here?"

"No, they all left or were killed by the humans. Humans live a short time, and their memory of this place has vanished into myth."

"Ah, so you found it abandoned and took over."

He nodded. "Yes, and little has changed really. The drow were hunted, and so are we. The city is falling down around us and many of our people starve. We built the mask for money to help ourselves, but I fear we sold our souls to a great evil."

I glanced around. "Kamil was a great salesman, it seems. There are many people who were deceived by him. What happened when he came to ask you to make the mask?"

The shapeshifter looked away. "Kamil came to us, hoping to use our shapeshifting abilities to create this mask. In return he would give us money and food to feed our people. It is a never-ending battle for us. Humans kill what they fear, and they fear our abilities to look like them." He glanced over at me and I looked back, not judging, just listening. "He kept his promise and so did we, creating that which you have now. We lived well for a few weeks and then they found us and we lost half our population on a raid by the emperor. Kamil, it is said, told them where to find us."

"He probably knew you would be able to destroy what you'd created, and wanted to try to destroy you to prevent it from happening," I said.

"What he didn't know is that we created the item using a different magic, from an ancient source. And that to undo this mask, we have to take it back there and the bearer of the mask is needed to destroy it."

Worry spilled into me. "Where is this place?"

He gestured with his chin, up ahead. "Close, but this is as far as your companions can come."

I looked at the shapeshifter, weighing him. Finally, I looked at my small tribe. "Wait for me," I told them.

Not one of them looked happy about it. Zayd in particular looked like he wanted to argue, but I gave him a warning look and he kept his mouth shut. I wasn't happy about it either, but I was going to have to trust these people. I turned to the one I'd been speaking to. "Lead on," I said, quietly.

He motioned that I should walk next to him, and the other five shapeshifters fell in beside us as we walked out of the great square, leaving my family behind. We passed through the town and out the other side, into a carved tunnel much like the one we'd entered the city through, only this one led down instead of up to the surface.

The entrance to the tunnel had once been blocked by gates that shone purple-grey in the light of the stones the shapeshifters carried instead of torches. Mithril, I thought, drow-worked. The gates were battered and twisted, having been bashed open by something huge once upon a time.

Down into a maze of tunnels we went. The shapeshifter next to me led me down and down, twisting and turning. I started keeping track of our route in my mind, using my scout's training to stamp the way we had come in my mind, making a map of stone and air-current. I had not once been truly lost in the last twelve years, and I was not intending to make today an exception.

"What is this place?" I asked as we took another turn. (Left, eddy of wind from ahead, glint of quartz in the sharp corner.)

"The drow built it to confuse enemies. There is not straight path through. It took years to map all the places and we are just now finding hidden doors and passages that lead to other places." (Right, step down, oppressive feel, smell of exposed coal.) "It will take several more decades to map totally, I believe, possibly a century."

(Right, beginning of a spiral.) "Something precious down here that they wanted to guard," I said.

(Left out of the spiral, narrows immediately to no wider than my outstretched arms, no echoes.) "Yes, we thought we had found it and now I don't know. We think there may be more, but one of the more precious things we found is where we are traveling." (Straight ahead but opens out, more echoes in here, smell of water, damp air, fungus.)

We went, tending all the time downward, into the bowels of the stone that the drow had carved to guard their most precious treasures. On occasion, we backtracked--my guide made the occasional wrong turn, and muttered to himself and turned us around again. I lost the scent of water, but I heard, oddly, a very loud drip ahead. It wasn't water. It wasn't quite right for water.

We were heading straight towards the noise. The tunnel we were in dead-ended in a room that was immediately crowded with us in it, about ten feet across, irregularly shaped as if it were a natural cave. The stone here was dark and shot through with brilliant flashes of quartz.

The walls were featureless, except for the stone bowls attached to them that the shapeshifter put their light stones into, and one other bowl, this one on the floor.

From a crack in the wall, as I watched, a large drop of liquid oozed and then fell into the bowl, splashing loudly. I relaxed into my magical sight and saw that the liquid was very magical. It appeared that there was a drip produced every two minutes or so.

The leader turned to me. "As the bearer, you must go first. Catch the next drip in your palm and drink it. Then wait until we all do the same."

"All right," I said, and went to kneel by the bowl. I held out my hand over the bowl, and waited. Finally, a large drop fell into my hand, nearly filling my palm. It felt heavy and oily, like melted candle wax.

I stared at it, then lifted my hand to my mouth and forced myself to swallow it. It tasted like wax. Unpleasant, but not horrible. The leader knelt as I got up, and caught the next drip. Three others took their turn as I waited for something to happen.

It started with a tingling feeling at the top of my head, sweeping down my spine, making me shiver. I started to feel light-headed, a bit dizzy and nauseous, and I put my hand out to the wall to steady myself.

My hand began to take on the dark color on the wall, and the grey spread down my arm swiftly. I yanked my hand away from the wall with an oath. "What the--?"

The leader said, "It is a side effect of the magic. Pay it no mind." My hand returned to its normal color, and still feeling ill, I wrapped my arms around myself and watched as the last two shapeshifters drank a drop of the liquid. By the last one, I was starting to feel a bit steadier.

The leader stepped forward. "Get the mask out, Yesui, and hold it with one hand. We all need to touch it." I nodded and pulled out the mask, unwrapping it. Its surface still felt oily, and the whisper from it was just as oily as the object it resided in. I held it out to the others with a quick prayer to whoever might be listening that this wouldn't obliterate us.

The six others reached out to take the mask, each of them touching it. Then they began to change forms, faster than my eye could really follow, each form with hands, but otherwise anything seemed to go. I saw fur, feathers, scales, green skin and blue, wings and fangs and antennae. The leader was standing next to me, and, fascinated, I felt the brush of his skin against mine, the ripple as forms came and went.

He spoke, still changing. "Now, Yesui, the magic has had time to work on you. Change, people you know, people you don't, but any face or any body you can imagine. Think of them now, and become them."

Who would be easiest? Nomolun. I thought of her, pressing my will down with an effort, and felt a chill sweep over my skin as my hands changed, shifting from my ragged nails to her smooth, taped fingers. I thought of Sacha, Zayd, Temur, and became them in turn. Then I tried my family, Al Alta, Chagatai, Borte, my mother. I watched as my hand changed with every thought.

"Faster," the leader commanded. "Keep pace with us."

Faster it was, and I abandoned people I knew for people I didn't know, stretching and shrinking, trying to match my rhythm with the others. Now, I too was blurring through the changes, catching the wave they were riding and slipping through forms with them. My skin felt as if it were frozen, with each change breaking over me like spring meltwater.

In my hand, the mask began to stretch, as if it were becoming clay once more. It stretched, becoming thinner and thinner, until it had tripled in size. Then, as all of us shifted at once, it broke.

The flash was blinding, and we all fell away from each other. I put my hand up, rubbing my eyes, somehow unsurprised to find that my face seemed to be a patchwork of fur and scales. Once the spots had cleared, I found I was holding what seemed to be no more than a shard of pottery. The rest had stopped changing, and were settling back into the forms they had worn when they had come in. They each, too, had a shard in their hand.

The leader looked over at me. "Remember who you are Yesui, hold that image."

I nodded, the movement feeling strange, and I could feel the chill of change spread over me as I remembered my own face, my own body, my own soul. The leader smiled. "That's good. It would be disconcerting for your friends to see you as the mish mash of parts you were just then."

"I'm sure it would have been." I looked around. The only change in the room was that the drip was coming much more quickly, now. "That's strange. Nothing seems to have changed that much." I stepped over to the drip, looking at the crack where the oily substance emerged from the wall. "Odd. I wonder what this stuff is, and where it's coming from."

"We don't know, but it breaks down fast when it leaves this room," he said, as the rest collected their light stones.

I asked, "How long can I expect the effects on me to last?"

Was that the faintest of smiles in his eyes? "It should wear off in about three months."

I gulped. "...Ah. I'd expected hours, maybe a day. Powerful magic, that one. I suppose we should be getting back. My people are worried about me, I'm sure."

"I am sure they are," he said, and with that we began to go towards the city once more, taking the same route back.

We came back out into the original tunnel, and the leader blinked as he saw that the mithril gates were once again whole...and closed. They opened silently to a touch, however, and closed behind us. I felt a breeze on my face, and realized that the air down here was alive now, moving briskly, and the scent of decay that had lingered down here was gone.

As we came into the city, I could see that the buildings were clean, the stone restored. I hadn't thought twice about the cobbles of the boulevard, but they were now perfectly flat, making walking easy. I looked around, smiling. "Ah, I thought something like this might have happened."

The leader looked over at me. Now he was the one who was a bit discomfited. "It has happened before?"

I gestured at the city, at the square coming up. "The artifacts tend to create things of beauty when they're destroyed. That's why I was surprised when I didn't see any changes around us before." I heard, echoing through the city, the sounds of people--shouting, singing, glad noises all.

"There was probably little to change down there, it has its own simple beauty."

I looked over at him. "Would it be too much to ask that all of my people be led down to that cave, and allowed to partake?"

"If you would like, I can take you all down, yes."

About then, we arrived back in the central square. The stone was shining, and the rubble in the middle of the square turned out to be an enormous statue with public fountains at the base. I looked up at the statue, blinking. Took a step back. Looked again. Blinked again.

"The drow have some interesting ideas about what constitutes art. Whoever designed this was crazy. A genius, but insane." That was Zayd, coming over to meet us and seeing where I was looking.

"Is that--"

"Exactly what you think it is."

I opened my mouth, closed it again. "That's...impressive. I didn't know drow could bend like that. And the spiders? And why do those three seem to have dragon wings?"

"Good questions," Zayd said, grinning. "Well, at least they all seem to be having a good time. The other side's just as interesting as this one. Reminds me of a book I got my hands on once. I'll tell you about it. In private." He grinned again, and I laughed.

"The city restored itself," Nomolun said. "Look, there are stone columns that light paths, and there are things growing down here again. The water supply is back, and it's clean. From the smell of things, the sewer situation is resolved as well."

There were more shapeshifters entering the square, running in to talk to the leader. He turned to us after a few of these reports. "I'm told that there are bare places that have sprouted into fields of vegetables that grow down here. The place has returned to its former glory, the glory that none of us are old enough to remember." He was fair glowing with happiness. "We no longer need to work above ground to make ends meet. With what we have now, we can be self-sufficient, and we can reduce our encounters with the humans above. We are free."

"I'm very glad," I told him, my smile genuine. "One moment, I need to talk with my companions." I drew them aside, and took a breath. "They gave me a magic, to help me destroy the mask. It's something that will last three months, and it'll come in handy. I was thinking of having us all partake."

"What is it?" Sacha asked.

I looked at him and smiled. Then I concentrated, and felt the chill break over my skin again. A moment later, I was a perfect copy of Sacha. "This," I said, in his voice. "Any shape I can imagine." I shifted into another form, this one Aban, the mage I'd met earlier that day. "You all can see how useful this would be, I'm sure."

"We could travel as Chinese. Avoid getting killed for our faces," Sacha said.

"Exactly," I said. Sacha looked excited, Temur extremely dubious. Zayd was interested, Nomolun cautious but curious. "I know it's strange, but--" I shifted back into my own form. "Useful. Very useful."

If you go down there, I wish to come as well, Spirit broke in.

I hadn't even thought that the bond horse would want to come along, but it made perfect sense. The brotherhood knew what he looked like, now. Of course, I sent back. "Spirit-walker wants to partake," I said. "Who's in?"

In the end, all of them agreed, and we got Spirit down into the city. The shapeshifter leader led us down, and we managed to get Spirit through the tight places with only a little trouble. The only one of us who truly balked at taking the oily water was Temur, who found the whole affair to be bizarre and uncomfortable. I couldn't blame him. The initial excitement was wearing off, leaving a bit of strangeness behind. Temur did partake, finally, though he was the last one of us to do so.

I waited as the nausea hit my tribe, and waited for it to be past. It hit Zayd the worst, and he leaned against the wall and sort of slid down until he was sitting with his back against it. He'd turned a greenish color, and I crouched by him and held his hand until it passed.

Then we went up and out of the buried city, and back to our inn for the night, having a heartfelt goodbye and an invitation to come stay whenever we liked extended by the shapeshifters. "We'll leave in the morning. South, I think," I said as we made our way towards the surface.

"Or north?" Sacha asked.

"Let's let whatever's going to happen in the north happen. Once Kamil realizes that the snake isn't coming, the Khan will probably sack the city. We can't get there in time to prevent it."

He looked thoughtful. "No, but I was thinking that with the new abilities we could get in and out, looking Chinese in a place that will kill Mongols on sight. Just a thought."

I weighed it in my mind. "True enough. And if we get there during the sack, we could be whichever side appears to be winning at that time. Traveling in this country as Mongols is easier in the south than the north, anyway."

"Your choice, we have all lived this long by your skills, so whichever way you choose."

I nodded. "Let me have a look at the map when we get back to our things. I'll decide then."

I did have a look at the map when we got back, and discovered that we really were about halfway between Taiwan and Beijing. I have to admit that, in the end, it was the prospect of putting off the voyage by boat to Taiwan that decided me. I had never been on a large boat before. In fact, I'd never really seen the sea proper. I'd been down to the docks here, of course, but the bay was enclosed. I could almost believe it was a big lake, if it weren't for the smell.

Actually traveling on the sea was a daunting prospect. It was not the proper way for a tribesman to travel. The sea we navigated was the endless grasses of the steppes, not poison water that actively wanted to drown those who rode it.

North it was, towards Beijing. Very early the next morning, as dawn was staining the sky grey, I was woken from a light sleep in Zayd's arms by a pressure from Spirit's mind. Would you come down? he asked. I have something I want you to see.

Yawning, I slipped out of bed and dressed. Zayd woke and reached for me, but I said, "Spirit wants to see me, go back to sleep." He muttered and rolled over, immediately following my direction. Down the back stairs I went, to the stableyard.

In a roomy stall at the back of the stable was Spirit. But not as I'd ever seen him.

He was a man, a Chinese man to be specific, naked. I looked him up and down. "Not bad for a beginner. You've got a few problems, though. That," I said, and pointed, "needs to be about a tenth of the size, and it goes down sort of between your legs, right about here on the pelvis. Your bellybutton goes there." I gestured at my own body, lifting my shirt to show him my navel. "And we have five toes. Just a second, I'll show you." I plopped down in the straw and pulled off my boot, determined not to be embarrassed by the fact that, despite the errors, the horse who shared my mind was now a man--and not a bad-looking one, at that.

Don't even go there, Yesui, I told myself in my secret heart of hearts. "See?" I said, holding up my now-bare foot and wiggling my toes. "The big toe goes on the inside of each foot." I heard a snort from behind me, and turned to see Wind hanging her head over the stall wall, a look of derision in her soft brown eyes. "You, missy, can keep your opinions to yourself," I told her.

She blew another snort, this one at Spirit, who ignored her. "Oops. Ah well, you guys wear clothing all the time, it's hard to tell some of these things." He was changing those things, and held his foot up for inspection. All the toes were there, and he wiggled them to demonstrate them.

I jumped as he spoke; I was hearing an echo--his voice in my mind, and his voice out loud. His human voice was the same deep voice as the voice I'd always heard in my head, and he was speaking the tribesmen's language. "Speaking of, we're going to need to find you some clothing." I blinked. "And...oh. You probably have no idea how to ride a horse, do you?"

He chuckled. "No idea how to ride a horse, Walking is a bit tricky as well." He tried to demonstrate and stumbled in the straw.

I shook my head. "This is really strange, by the way."

He looked down at me, having caught himself on the rough wood of the stall wall. "Same here. Very strange."

"Probably stranger for you than for me. I just have to get used to seeing you in a different form, and hearing you when you talk. You have to get used to being in that different form. This is going to take a little while to get used to." Truth be told, I was sort of missing that other form already. Even though I knew it was the same person in that body, the difference was so profound that it was like looking at a stranger. I knew it was Spirit in there, the horse I belonged to. But though my head knew that his form didn't matter, my heart wanted the horse back.

"Its only for three months, and I just wanted to practice a bit for when we get to the city. It's disconcerting at best to do this." Spirit was looking down at himself, holding up his hands, turning them over and inspecting the palms of them. He seemed to be fascinated by how his hands moved as he opened and closed them again and again.

"This is going to be a lot easier than keeping up that disguise, at least," I said. I began to shift myself, changing to a Chinese male who could be Spirit's younger brother. Definitely a family resemblance, there.

"Yes," he said, and then started changing. Back to his own form he went, and I breathed out a grateful sigh. Then his color changed, grey dapples covering the jet of his coat. Easier, I think, this way.

I looked him over with a practiced eye. "That wouldn't fool a Mongol, but it would probably fool the brotherhood."

Yes, but I only have to fool them and the Chinese by not looking like a Mongol horse.

I nodded, and began to pull my boot back on. "True enough. We do have obviously Mongol horses, but I think they'll pass a casual glance if the rest of aren't looking like Mongols."

Spirit's voice was thoughtful. Might want to say, captured in a raid. Not terribly uncommon.

"And we do have a couple of horses that aren't Mongol horses, so it's plausible," I said. I got up and went to scratch the side of Spirit's neck. He draped his head over my shoulder, an equine hug. "We'll be leaving in a few hours. North."

I know, he said, and after that we stood in silent communion for a few minutes. Afterwards, I went to go see to Wind, since I was up. I checked her legs and hooves, then ran my hands over her back. She turned her head, looking at me with a curious and gentle eye.

She was beginning to show her pregnancy a little, her sides rounder than they had been. The foal was still lying lightly within her, though, as it should at this stage. "Late October, it should be," I murmured to her. "Then we get to see what your foal is like, don't we, girl? Wonder if it'll be black like Spirit, or grey like your line?" I slid my hands over the curve of her sides. She was such a joy when she was pregnant, like most mares quieting and calming under the influence of the foal she carried.

Wind's first foal, a colt, had been born two years before I'd left for Otrar, and I'd given him to Orbei. The colt had been gelded, to make a kind mount for my small sister, and she loved him dearly. She'd named him Noonday, for reasons she explained to nobody but the colt, as was proper for one's own horse.

The foal she carried now probably wasn't a bond horse like Spirit, but it was precious all the same: the first real sign that we could be self-sufficient, a tribe of our own, after all of this was said and done. Two of the other mares were pregnant now, Bell Flight by Blade and Nightfall by Bee. Temur hadn't wanted to put all of our eggs in one stallion's basket, so to speak, and he wanted to see how Wind's foal worked out before recruiting Spirit to impregnate any of the other mares.

Bell and Nightfall weren't due until spring next year, Temur having bred them on both of their second heats this year. We'd need to find a safe place for a few weeks in October to let Wind give birth; I thought Lhasa would probably do.

I leaned against Wind, breathing in her familiar scent, and allowed myself to think of the future. Traveling, finally not hunted by half the world. I could have children of my own, and I had a feeling Nomolun would have some, as well. Maybe Orbei would choose to come with us, and my mother.

And I allowed myself, as I so rarely did, to hope that I would be able to keep both Zayd and Sacha with me. To have both of them as fathers for my children would be a pleasure and a joy. I wanted both of them with me. It was selfish of me, I admitted, but each of them brought such light into my life that it was hard to imagine life without either of them.

I let the thoughts and the feelings pass by me. Things would be as they would be. I didn't know if I'd survive, as Kamil grew more and more desperate to stop me, and I didn't know if my entire little tribe would survive.

But thoughts of a gentle future were a warm place in my chest all the way to Beijing.

We traveled quickly, and two weeks later we arrived outside of Beijing. We had no trouble on the way north, and I'd discovered some very interesting things about what it was like to live inside a male body nearly full-time on the way. I had to admit the plumbing was convenient, even if it had a mind of its own. I understood now some comments my brothers had made when they'd thought I was too young to know what they were talking about.

We continued the mummer's play we'd started when I'd taken on my guise as a male, when we'd started to ride east. I still didn't get to spend whole nights with either of my lovers, though both of them made up for it with the intensity of our encounters. Sacha, bless him, was enthusiastically experimental with our new ability to shapechange, and I got to experience what very few people ever get to--sex from the other gender's point of view. Of course, this heralded a return of my doubts about Sacha's proclivities, and introduced a few doubts about my own. I mostly decided to relax and enjoy it, as this was an opportunity I doubted I'd ever have again.

Zayd was less interested in the possibilities of shapeshifting, though he had to admit that he rather liked my ability to change to the body of any woman I could think of. "I like your original form the best, though," he murmured to me one night as we lay together, naked atop the blanket, both of us damp with sweat. "To be honest, I will be glad when the magic wears off and we head back into lands where you can be yourself again. It's your form, your face, your spirit that I love. I miss you just being yourself, Yesui. I know there's nothing I can do except help you finish what you came to this forsaken country to do, but I wish the time would pass a bit more quickly."

I rolled over, raised myself on one elbow. It was quite dark in the tent, the only light was from the low fire that burned outside, sneaking in around the edges of the tent flap. Zayd's face was just an outline in the darkness, and I reached out to trace the line of his cheek with gentle fingers. "Soon," I told him. "I do what I need to do in Beijing, get the gloves away from my father, we go to Haerbin quickly, and then go west." I cupped his cheek on my palm and leaned over to kiss him.

I wanted to ask, Will you stay with me, after? Will you travel to your homeland with me, let me meet your family? Will you help raise my children, father a few of them?

Those were questions I could not ask, promises I could not make. Not yet. There were too many things left to do, and I did not know where those things would take me. There was a cold fear in me, and it was becoming heavier as we got closer to Beijing, and my father.

"What's wrong?" Zayd asked.

I shook my head, then nestled down beside him. "Worried about seeing my father again. If I do."

He turned so he could throw his arm over me. His breath was warm on my hair, and I snuggled closer, glad of the solidity of him. It seemed inconceivable that I could ever not love this man, right now. "We will be with you, love. No matter what."

And it was on that quietly confident answer that I drifted off to sleep, to dream confused dreams about my father, my brothers and sisters, my mother and the family I had never met.

The next morning, we put our feet to the dusty road and walked into Beijing.

Comments

[dark-infidel.livejournal.com]

Bravo.
That was original and compelling.
I can't wait for more.