The Shapechangers

by Jennifer Roberson

“A clan-leader can ever deny a warrior the woman he wishes. Taking a cheysula is a formal thing. The clan-leader must give his permission.”

  Alix felt cold and hollow, and very much alone. “And Duncan…?”

  “He gave me permission, Alix. He will not interfere.”

  Duncan! she cried within her soul.

  “If it is not me, it will be another,” Finn said gently.

  Alix looked at him. For the first time he spoke softly to her, without the mocking mannerisms she had come to expect. She summoned up the image of him shapechanging before her, but it no longer frightened her. She had her own ability, though no one knew of it yet. Part of him, she knew, must be like Duncan. If he was harsh and taunting and impulsive, it was because Duncan was not, and Finn must make his own way.

  She moved forward on her knees, sitting before him with leaves spread all around them. Alix slowly touched his hand, then pulled it into her own. She saw the startled flicker in his eyes.

  “Finn,” she said softly, “Rujho…” She swallowed and smiled. “Take me home.”

  His hand stiffened and jerked away. “Home…”

  “To the croft,” she said. “To Torrin. To the life I know.”

  His face masked itself. “This is your home, I will take you nowhere.”

  “Finn…” she said softly, “I give you a chance to pay back what you took from me. Take me home.”

  Finn got to his feet and looked down on her as she knelt in the leaves. “I could not let you go,” he said clearly. “Not now, when you are nearly mine. You forget, rujholla…I stole you because I wanted you. I will not give you up so easily.”

  “But if Duncan said no—”

  “Duncan said aye,” he reminded her. “Duncan has said I may have you.”

  She stared up at him. “And if I refuse you? If I stand up in Council and say I will not have you?”

  The mocking smile was back. “Do not forget our third gift, meijha. What you will not do willingly, you may be forced to do.”

  “Please,” she said.

  Finn looked down on her pleading face. “No,” he said, and left her.

  Alix stood outside the slate-colored pavilion and closed her eyes, summoning her courage. Finally she scratched at the doorflap and waited. Duncan called for her to enter.

  She hesitated, then pulled the doorflap aside. It dropped behind her as she stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. Duncan was hunched over a low worktable, a slender metal stylus held in one hand as he scraped carefully at gleaming gold.

  “Aye?” he asked, without looking up.

  Alix wet her lips. “Duncan.”

  The line of his shoulders and arms stiffened. For a moment he continued working on the gold ornament, then he set it aside and dropped his tool down. It rattled against the gold and wood, rolling across the table. Alix watched it move, unable to meet his eyes.

  “I have come to you because you are clan-leader,” she said carefully.

  “Sit down, Alix.”

  She knelt on the other side of the worktable, still not looking at him. Her heels dug into her thighs as she folded her legs under her. Finally she brought her head up.

  “Finn came to me. He said he has spoken to you; that he will ask for my clan-rights at Council.”

  He wore his solemn clan-leader face. “Aye.”

  Her breath was unsteady as she drew it in. “Duncan…I do not wish for Finn. You know that.”

  “It has been settled,” he said remotely. “And if you bring this up again, I cannot be only a clan-leader to you.”

  Alix smiled at the unspoken warning. At least he was not totally indifferent to her. “I have not come to ask you to reconsider your offer to me,” she told him. “You have made it plain what you will do, and I am done begging for more.”

  His eyes flickered. “Then what do you seek, Alix?”

  “I want you to withdraw your permission to Finn. I want nothing to do with him. We could never make a marriage between us…and I think it might be the death of one of us if we were forced. I think it would be his death…not mine.”

  Duncan smiled briefly, though he banished it quickly enough. “It would not be a tedious match.”

  “It will not be a match at all,” she said darkly. “Duncan, withdraw your permission.”

  “On what grounds?”

  She scowled at him. “I do not want him!”

  He shrugged. “Those are not grounds. That is merely contrariness speaking, and women are prone to that.”

  Alix stared at him. “You cannot want me to take him!”

  His face twisted. “No,” he said at last. “I do not want you to take him. But to refuse him because of that speaks of prejudice, and a clan-leader cannot be so petty. Alix, the match will be good for the clan.”

  “Is that all you can say?” she demanded. “Can you only see the clan, and not me? By the gods, Duncan, I thought we had more between us. What has become of this precious tahlmorra?”

  Color surged into his face, then slowly fell away. “Will you accept another warrior?”

  “You know there is only one warrior I will accept.”

  “Then the choice is yours,” he said softly. “Be meijha to me…or cheysula to another man.”

  “Why?”

  “I promised Malina when we were eight years old,” he said quietly. “A Cheysuli oath is binding.”

  “She broke it.”

  “She did not think I meant what I said.” Duncan touched the golden ornament on his table. “She went to Borrs because she thought I would change my mind. When I did not…she was fairly caught. The clan-leader had given his permission for Borrs to ask for her clan-rights, and once done that is not rescinded. It is binding.” He looked at her bleakly. “I did what you have done. I asked the clan-leader to withdraw his permission to Borrs, so that I could ask for Malina. He would not do it…and they were formally acknowledged before Council.”

  Alix frowned. “But I thought you were clan-leader, and that was why you would not take a cheysula.”

  He looked weary. “Tiernan died of a sickness. It took months. All knew I would be his successor, so I made my decision to remain solitary before he died. But he was still clan-leader. And when he died, Malina was already cheysula to Borrs.”

  “But the child…”

  “It could be mine. It could be Borrs’s.” He sighed faintly. “We are not a race that places much honor on fidelity.”

  She recoiled. “She was wed to him!”

  Duncan smiled. “I did not think you would understand.”

  “Do you mean you are willing to take Malina and myself, and yet may also seek other women?”

  He frowned thoughtfully. “I cannot say what I will do. What man could?”

  This new side of him shocked her. She peered into his face uncertainly. “Duncan…do you mean this?”

  He shrugged. “I have never been a man for all women. One suffices. I doubt I would trouble you that way.”

  “Duncan!”

  “Alix, she carries a child that may be mine.”

  “And I do not,” she said dully.

  “Alix—”

  “If she had not conceived, would you be so ready to make her your cheysula?”

  He looked away. “If Borrs had lived, and the child still mine…” Duncan sighed deeply. “I think I would have said nothing.”

  She stared at him. “Then it is the child…”

  “I have ever cared for Malina,” he said steadily.

  “And if the child is not yours?”

  His jaw tightened. “I cannot take that chance.”

  “Yet she is willing to share you with me?”

  “I made it a condition,” he said softly. “I said I would take her for the sake of the child…and if she would accept you as my meijha.”

  “Duncan!”

  “Small one, had she said no I would have made you my cheysula. But there is much between Malina and myself, and I could not forsake her so easily.”

  �
��But you forsake me…you give me to Finn!”

  “Because he has asked, and there is no reason to deny him. It is not for me to do.”

  “I will not have him. I have told him that, and now I tell you.” She fisted her hands in her skirt. “I am Cheysuli, clan-leader, and you cannot compel me.”

  “We will do whatever we must, Alix,” he said gently. “Even to one of our own.”

  She rose slowly, shaking her skirts into order. Somehow she summoned a smile. “You cannot force me, Duncan. That you will see.”

  She turned on her heel and left him.

  BOOK III

  “The Cheysula”

  Chapter One

  Alix stood before Raissa’s pavilion and called Cai and Storr to her. The lir came and accompanied her to the lightning-scored tree, saying nothing, though she was sure they knew what she planned to do. She needed practice in assuming lir-shape; if she wanted to impress upon the Council the magnitude of her abilities, she had better do it competently.

  Cai perched above her on a stout limb, preening his feathers into perfection. Storr sat down and watched her from wise amber eyes.

  “Help me,” she said.

  You need only think yourself a wolf, he said, and you will be one.

  She recalled the words he had used before, the sensations coursing through her body as she made the transition. A part of it still frightened her, but she also recognized it for the gift it was. And it might keep her from Finn, if she showed Council what she could do.

  Alix opened her eyes and crawled out of the deep hollow, shaking her shaggy red-gray coat. Sounds came more sharply to her twitching ears, and her nose told her more than she dreamed possible. She smiled, baring gleaming teeth.

  Storr and the young wolf-bitch shouldered through the underbrush. Alix delighted in the feel and sensation of things she normally paid no mind to. She found she did not lose awareness of herself as a person, rather that knowledge and awareness were enhanced and extended until she could comprehend both life processes. Her intelligence was neither diminished nor improved; she merely understood things as both human and wolf.

  She had lost her human speech but needed no words with the lir. Thoughts from Cai and Storr still formed themselves in patterns easily comprehended. With an uprush of pride and ecstasy she knew in full measure what it was to be Cheysuli.

  And in that same instant she understood why Shaine the Mujhar hated her race.

  He thinks the Cheysuli will use their arts in retribution for the qu’mahlin. He will never rescind it!

  Now you fully understand, liren, Cai chimed. Shaine cannot forgive himself his own pride, or his own fear.

  Alix, new to her wolf senses and lost in contemplation, did not hear the snapping of twigs in the underbrush. Cai winged higher and Storr slipped into the shadows, but she—glowing ruddy-gray in vibrant health—provided an inviting target to the mounted hunter.

  A bough cracked beneath the horse’s hooves. Alix spun around. Alarm spread through her sinews and charged her thudding heart with shock.

  She twisted, leaping into the air, yelping in fear and pain as the arrow sliced into the ruff at her neck.

  The hunter, dismounting to locate the downed wolf-bitch, parted the underbrush and found himself looking into the dilated eyes of a woman.

  He stumbled back a step as she clasped the flesh at the top of her left shoulder, blood welling between her fingers. She gripped the arrow in her free hand and threw it at him, trembling with shock and pain.

  Alix’s words tumbled over themselves as she cursed him, hardly able to speak through the violence of clenched teeth. He turned and crashed back through the underbrush to his horse.

  She moaned softly and rocked on her knees, one arm clasping her bleeding shoulder, the other stretched across her roiling stomach.

  You must return to the Keep! Storr said in alarm as he melted out of the trees.

  “I c-cannot…” she gasped.

  Cai came down to a nearby branch, agitated and mantling. Liren, you must get to the Keep.

  Alix could only force out a weakened denial and slipped bonelessly to the leafy ground, blood spilling rapidly from her shoulder.

  She was aware of pain when the arms took her from the ground and cradled her against a broad chest. Alix fought to open her eyes, achieved it, and stared dimly at Duncan’s face. It was drawn and pale, and in his eyes she saw fear.

  “Duncan…”

  “Be silent, small one. I will take you to the Keep.”

  “How did you know?” she asked weakly.

  “The lir came. Cai told me.”

  “What of Council?”

  His arms tightened. “Be silent, Alix! I will not have you weaken yourself with such worries.”

  He took her to Raissa’s pavilion and settled her on her thick furred pallet, shifting her limbs carefully. Though her mind was sluggish and strangely dull she was conscious of his gentleness and concern. But when she tried to ask him another question he placed a hand over her mouth.

  “If you will allow it, small one, I will let you feel the healing arts of the Cheysuli, But it must be soon.”

  Her ears rang and her bones felt heavy as stone. Her eyes saw only fuzziness. “I would not consign myself to death,” she whispered as he removed his hand. “Do what you will.”

  He settled himself next to her pallet, crossing his legs. He did not touch her, but his eyes were fixed on her with absolute possessiveness and determination.

  Suddenly she found herself trembling, unable to feel the soft furs beneath her or the warmth of the blood still spilling from her shoulder. Only air was beneath her, and when she tensed against its feather touch she felt the earth under her hands. Her fingers curled against it, clawing into its softness. It enveloped her in rich gentleness, entering the pores of her skin.

  She opened her mouth to scream but could find no voice. A blurring came into her mind, fogging her eyes, stopping her ears. She sought to lift a trembling hand and found her body would not answer her.

  Duncan’s hand smoothed hair from her damp forehead. “It is done, small one. Rest yourself. I promise you will be better.”

  Her eyes cleared slowly. She saw him by her, himself again, though he looked weary. “Duncan…”

  “Hush,” he said softly, running a gentle hand over the wounded shoulder. “It is healed, but it will take time for you to recover your strength. The earth magic does not give back everything.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I summoned the healing touch of the earth. It is magic that resides in all the lands, but only the Cheysuli may summon it.”

  “I will miss Council,” she said.

  “Aye. It will take time for your strength to return.”

  Her eyes closed. “It is better so. I have no wish to see you ask for Malina.”

  “Or have Finn ask for you?”

  Her eyes flew open. “Duncan…do not tease me. Not about this.”

  “I do not tease,” he said gently. “And I should not long prolong this for either of us.” He took her right hand and laced his fingers into hers. “Finn will not be asking for your clan-rights this night. Or ever.”

  “You have refused him?”

  “There is another warrior who takes precedence over Finn.”

  “Another!” Her fingers stiffened. “Duncan—”

  His free hand covered her mouth again. “Listen to me, small one; do not be so ready to fight me when there is no need.” He smiled at her. “I went to see Malina after you had left. I had every intention of asking for her clan-rights this night. But she let fall the truth of the child…that it was Borrs’s, and she knew it. She said nothing because she did not wish to lose me to you.” His expression was wry. “I had not thought myself the sort of man two women would want so badly, but I will not task myself over it. I will simply accept the wisdom of the gods.”

  Alix grinned at him, amused by his masculine assurance. Her fingers tightened in his. “If you will not have Malina—”
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  “—I will have you.” He bent and kissed her tenderly. “If you will take me.”

  “There is no question,” she whispered, fighting against drowsiness. “None.”

  He put something in her hand, curling her fingers around the coolness of metal. Alix opened her eyes and stared at the thing. It was a curving neck torque of purest gold, beaten into hundreds of gleaming facets. At the lowest point stretched the fluted wings of a soaring hawk, and in its talons was clasped a glowing lump of dark amber.

  “It is Cheysuli custom,” he said. “The warrior offers the woman a torque, to signify the bond, and if she accepts it they are considered wed.”

  “What of these clan-rights you speak of?”

  Duncan smiled. “I will ask for them formally in Council, but it would not hurt anything if we preceded the formality a little. If you are willing.”

  She ran a trembling finger over the gleaming hawk, down to the amber. “I must ask it, Duncan.”

  “Then ask.”

  “You said your race does not place so much honor on fidelity.”

  He smiled. “I thought it might be that. Small one, you need fear nothing. While it is true the Cheysuli do not often keep themselves to one woman, it does not mean we cannot. I respect your Homanan ideals, cheysula. I do not intend to give you reason to cast me out of your heart.”

  She closed her eyes to hide her tears. “Duncan…if this is the tahlmorra you spoke of…I think I can follow it faithfully.”

  He bent and kissed her brow. “Hush. I must leave you now, for Council, but I will return. Rest, cheysula.”

  She wanted to keep him by her but let him go. When he had left her Raissa came and knelt, covering her with a soft blanket.

  “Now you see the strength in him, Alix. For all Shaine’s qu’mahlin changed his life, it has made him a warrior.”

  She felt herself drifting. “You speak as if you have known him longer than any.”

  Raissa smiled. “I have. I bore him.”

  Alix’s eyes snapped open. “You are Duncan’s mother?”

  “And Finn’s.”

  She stared at the woman blankly. “You did not say…” She thought it over. “Nor did they.”

  “There was no need. But have I not proven a good ear for you to rant of Finn’s arrogance while you silently longed for Duncan?”