The Shapechangers

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Aye,” she whispered. “I have come to give you what aid I can.”

  He shook his head slowly. “This cannot be. No man could walk into Keough’s camp undiscovered. How is it you have done this?”

  She smiled, suddenly calm and exultant at the same time. “You have cursed my race, Carillon, but now see how it serves you. I came to you in lir-shape.”

  “You!”

  She glanced around anxiously, hushing him with a quick gesture. “Carillon, there is something in me that allows me to assume any animal form I wish. The shar tahl says it is the Old Blood in me, gotten from Lindir.” She saw the scowl begin on his face and slid into the tumbril, covering his mouth with her hand. “Lindir, Carillon. She had Cheysuli blood in her, from her mother, though it was little enough. Yet it gave me the magic of the Firstborn.”

  “I do not believe it.”

  “Shaine’s great-great grandsire took a Cheysuli meijha, who bore him a daughter. Perhaps you also have a drop or two of Cheysuli blood in your veins.”

  “I cannot believe it.”

  Alix smiled at him. “Were you not attended by a falcon earlier, my lord?”

  He scowled at her. “That was a bird.”

  “I am a bird, when I wish it.” She sighed and gently touched a bruised cheek. “I have come to get you free of this place. Do you wish to discuss my abilities all this night, rather than escaping?”

  He grabbed her before she could move, pulling her down until his mouth came down on hers. Alix, shocked into immobility, smelled his sweat and blood and fear, and wondered at her own lack of response.

  Is this not what I wanted for so long?

  She pulled away from him, one hand to her mouth. Carillon’s face, though shadowed, was not at all repentant. His eyes, looking so deeply into hers, saw the answer she could not speak, and he accepted it.

  He lifted his arms, chains clashing. “I go nowhere in these.”

  Alix looked away from his face; at the iron locked around his boots and the chain so short it denied him slack enough to walk.

  “I will get the iron from you,” she promised. “I will give you your freedom again.”

  “I would not ask you to risk yourself, Alix. I have given you my thanks for what you have done—if you wish an explanation—but I could not ask such a dangerous thing of you.”

  “I offer. You do not ask.” She smiled. “If I unlock your chains, could you take a horse from here?”

  He stared hard at the tumbril floor and at the muscles that quivered in his thighs. His voice, when it came, sounded old and worn thin. “I have been chained as you see me for weeks. I doubt I could stand without aid, let alone ride.” His eyes shifted to her face. “Alix, I would be willing to try, but I will not let you do this. I will not risk your life.”

  “You sound like Duncan!” she accused. “He will not credit my willingness to do this either.”

  His brows lowered. “What has the shapechanger to do with this?”

  Alix sat on her folded legs, forcing her frustration down. “He is my husband, Carillon, after Cheysuli fashion. He has much to do with this.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “You should not have gone with him from Homana-Mujhar. You could have stayed with me, once I had soothed the Mujhar.”

  “I chose to go with Duncan.” She sighed and forced herself to relax. “Carillon, we can speak of this another time. For now, I have come to help you escape. Tell me where the key to this iron is kept.”

  “No.”

  “Carillon!” she hissed.

  “I will not,” he said firmly. “I would rather remain a prisoner than risk you.”

  She glared at him, teeth and fists clenched, “They will take you to Mujhara! Tynstar is there, with Bellam. Carillon, you will be slain!”

  He remained silent.

  Alix ground her teeth and flung a furious glance around the area. Finally she hunched over, propping her chin on one hand.

  “I have come all this way for you, and you will not let me help you. I defied my husband, who said Homana-Mujhar is more important than Homana’s prince, and I have risked the life of my child for you, and still you will not let me do this.”

  “Child,” he said sharply, straightening. “You have conceived?”

  She scowled at him. “Aye. I have assumed the form of wolf and falcon. I have no knowledge what such magic will do to an unborn child, but I did it for you. For you, Carillon.”

  He closed his eyes. “Alix,” he said in despair, “you have been a foolish woman.”

  She picked at the leather of her borrowed leggings. “Aye, perhaps I have. But I cannot go back now.” She brightened. “Would it change your mind if I said the Cheysuli will come here?”

  He stared at her suspiciously. “Cheysuli?”

  She straightened, growing excited. “We were on our way to Mujhara, to aid Shaine. But Duncan will doubtless seek me here, when Cai tells him what I have done.” She smiled slowly, proudly. “He will not let me do this alone. He will come after me.”

  Carillon sighed wearily and fingered the bruise on his cheek. “Alix, if you are anything like your mother, I am not surprised she said no to royal betrothal and fled with a shapechanger. I think you are more stubborn than any woman I have known.”

  “They will come,” she said softly. “The Cheysuli. And you will be freed.”

  He raised a single eyebrow. “Duncan has no knowledge you are here?”

  She averted her face. “No. He would have forbidden it.”

  “As would I,” he retorted. “Perhaps he and I are more alike than I thought.”

  She watched emotion moving in his face, and his struggle to maintain a calm demeanor. She leaned forward and placed a gentle hand on his manacled forearm.

  “Carillon, the Cheysuli are not so different from the Homanans. They have only retained the gifts of the old gods.” She paused. “Do not curse us for it.”

  “Alix, you are more eloquent than my uncle’s courtiers.”

  “Will you not admit it?” she asked earnestly. “Will you not see we are not demons and beasts…not what men brand us?”

  “I cannot say. I have been taught to fear and mistrust them all my life. Alix…I have seen what they can do to men in battle…what they leave when they kill.”

  “That is battle,” she said quietly. “You should know, now, what price it exacts.” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “You know them, now. You know me.”

  Carillon drew up his legs, chains clashing, and stared over his knees at her. “If they come—if they come—there is little I can say against them. They will have proven their service to the Mujhar’s heir.” He smiled bleakly. “But they will not come.”

  “I came.”

  For a long moment he said nothing, studying her face. She sensed the conflict within him, realizing she had suffered her own measure of it when Duncan first insisted she go to the Keep.

  It is not easily done, she reflected. And he is no kind of man at all if he accedes so swiftly to words he has been taught not to hear.

  “Alix,” he said finally, “perhaps, in time, I will believe you. But not yet.”

  She removed her hand and stood. “If I cannot free you, perhaps there is something else. Can I steal food for you? Water?”

  “I do not hunger. Inactivity and chains take the appetite from a man.” His eyes were grim, hidden in shadow. “There is only one thing I would ask, and I cannot ask it of you.”

  “Tell me.”

  He pushed grimy fingers through tangled tawny hair, baring his face to the moonlight. Alix saw the glitter in his eyes.

  “There is a boy. Rowan. A Homanan boy no more than twelve, who came to serve his lord however he could.” His eyes closed a moment. “He told me he acted as a runner between the captains, carrying messages. But he, like me, was caught and made helpless. Keough’s son took Rowan from the prisoners—as he did me—and made him serve the Atvian lords.” Carillon’s face tightened into bitterness as he remembered. “I was forced to wat
ch him, in Keough’s field pavilion. His eyes followed me everywhere…and I could see the confusion in his face. I was his prince—Why could I not win his release?”

  “Carillon,” she said softly.

  Chains rattled and glinted in the moonlight. “Rowan did well enough at first. But he was tired, aching from the cuffs they had given him all night. They even made him serve me, though it was done as if I were no better than the poorest cur.” Breath hissed between his teeth. “Rowan tripped and fell across the table, and spilled wine all over Keough himself. When they picked him up he was crying in fear and exhaustion, but his face—when he looked at me—accepted what they would do to him. He knew.” He swore beneath his breath. “I tried to gainsay it. I tried to assuage Keough’s anger by offering to take the boy’s punishment myself—by the gods, I begged for it! I got on my knees to Keough…when I would not do it before, when they asked for it! But the boy was worth it.”

  “They would not accept it,” Alix said.

  “No. Thorne—Keough’s son—took Rowan out and had him flogged until the skin fell off his back…and then left him tied to the post.”

  “I have seen him.”

  Carillon gave up his breath as if he would breathe no more. “Only a boy, who wished to serve his lord. And do you see what that service has won him?”

  She felt for the knife in her right boot and found it. Then she smiled at Carillon. “I will free him for you, my lord. You will see.”

  “Alix!” he cried, jerking upright, but she had already blurred into the darkness.

  Chapter Six

  Alix flew to the post and perched upon it. The boy was still slumped at its base, but now she could see the movement of his back that told her he breathed. The flesh had nearly been stripped from his rib cage. She winced to herself, then looked closely at the field pavilions surrounding the area.

  The scarlet one was largest, and the finest. Men had set tall torches in the ground before it, illuminating its front. Two other smaller pavilions stood on either side of it, but the torchlight did not extend to them. Alix assured herself there were no guards near the post, then drifted down and blurred into human form.

  She drew the knife from her boot and knelt at the boy’s side. She put a hand on his shoulder, carefully avoiding his lacerated flesh. He made no movement and she feared his unconsciousness would hinder her ability to get him away safely.

  I will take him to the forest’s edge, she decided. Somehow I will get him there, and have him wait. When Duncan comes, I can take him to this boy. Rowan.

  He winced and moaned, stirring under her fingers. His eyes opened wide, dilated, pale in the moonlight. Fear changed his bruised face into a mask of terror.

  Alix moved around so he could see her clearly. “No, Rowan,” she said softly. “I am not your enemy. I am sent from Prince Carillon, who would have you free of this place.”

  His face was hidden behind his tied arm, but she could see the gleam of his light eyes. He swallowed visibly. “Prince Carillon?”

  Alix set her knife to the rope binding his legs and cut it. “He knows you have served his House,” she said soothingly. “He knows what loyalty you have given him. He would not have you so poorly treated for honorable service.”

  “I have not served honorably,” the boy said miserably. “I ran. I ran.” His head dropped. “And I was captured.”

  “Carillon was also captured,” she told him. “He fought, but was beaten.” Inwardly she flinched at so undermining Carillon’s prowess. But it was the truth. “You were here, Rowan. You came to serve. He has seen the honor in you, and he has done what he could to get you free. I have come in his name, because he asked it.” She bent closer to him. “He called you by name and told me to come straight here, to release you.”

  “I am not worthy.”

  She freed his hands and moved back to his side, sliding the knife into her boot. Carefully she helped him sit up.

  “You are more than worthy. Why else would the prince himself insist you be freed?”

  The light fell clearly on his face for the first time. It was bruised and grimy, but his eyes, staring at her, were as yellow as Duncan’s.

  Alix sucked in a breath. “Cheysuli!”

  Rowan recoiled from her, then winced. “No!” he cried. “I am not a demon!”

  She put a trembling hand toward his face. “No…oh no…you are not a demon. It is not a curse. Rowan—”

  “What do you do?” asked an accented voice from behind.

  Alix leaped to her feet and whirled, staring wide-eyed at the man. He stood before her like a demon in shadow, backlighted by the torches. He was dark-haired, bearded, and the color of his eyes was indeterminate. Before she could move he reached out and caught her arm.

  “Who are you, boy?”

  She was thankful for her warrior’s garb. “I am a servant of the prince, my lord. Prince Carillon.”

  He glanced down at Rowan, shivering against the post. The man smiled grimly and jerked Alix toward the scarlet pavilion, into the torchlight.

  She saw he was near Duncan’s age, but there the resemblance ended. He was tall and slender; strongly built. She saw cruelty and determination in the lines of his face; glinting in his brown eyes. He was richly dressed in black save for a blue tunic that bore the crest of a scarlet hand clasping a white lightning bolt. His mail, glinting in the light, was little more than ceremonial.

  His hand was tight on her arm. “You are no boy,” he said, surprised. He turned her face into the light. “No boy at all.” And he smiled.

  She tugged ineffectually against his grip. When she saw she could not break free she gave it up and waited silently.

  “Who are you? Why do you free that worthless child?”

  “He is not worthless!” she cried. “He only sought to serve his prince, as befits a loyal man. Yet you punish him for that!”

  “I punish him because he threw wine over my father,” the man said firmly. “He is fortunate I did not order him slain.”

  Alix froze. Thorne…Thorne! This man is Keough’s heir!

  His dark eyes narrowed. “What do you do here, girl?”

  “You saw me. I cut the boy free.”

  “Why?”

  She lifted her chin defiantly. “Because Carillon desired it.”

  “Carillon is a prisoner.” His accent twisted the name. “His desires are nothing to me.”

  “Let me go,” she said, knowing the request was futile.

  Thorne arched a dark brow. “I think not. But tell me why you desire to leave a prince’s presence so quickly.”

  “There is another prince whose company I prefer.”

  He stared at her malignantly. Alix began to regret antagonizing him, for fear of the reprisals that might affect Carillon.

  “My father will wish to see you,” Thorne said abruptly, and dragged her into the scarlet pavilion.

  Keough, Lord of Atvia, sat at a heavy slab table in the shadows of the pavilion. Braziers had been set out to ward off the chill and torches flamed in each corner. Alix stared at him and began to be very afraid for the first time.

  He was huge. His massive body dwarfed the chair he sat in, which had been bound with iron to lend it strength. His bared forearms rested on the table. She saw freckles and red hairs bleached golden by the sun. A white ridge of scar tissue snaked across the flesh and up his left arm. His hair also was red, threaded with white, and his beard was bushy. His deep-set eyes watched her in calm deliberation.

  “What have you brought me, Thorne?”

  “A woman dressed as a boy. You will have to ask her the reason for it.”

  Keough’s eyes narrowed. His Atvian mouth formed the Homanan syllables harshly, without the liquid grace she was accustomed to.

  “She does not look like a camp follower. They, at least, wear skirts.” His fingers combed his beard. “Are you a woman who prefers those of her own sex?”

  “No!” Alix hissed, against her will. She saw Keough’s small smile, and it rankled.
“I am a Homanan, my lord. That is all you need know.”

  “Then you are my enemy.”

  “Aye.” It was heartfelt.

  The beard and mustache parted as he grinned, displaying discolored teeth as big as the rest of him. “Have you come hoping to fight? If so, you are too late. The battle is already won. Prince Fergus and the generals are slain; executed. Most of the captains are dead, though I save a few for later exhibition. Even Carillon is in my hands.” Keough paused. “There is little left for you to champion.”

  Alix was done with this. She reached for the magic in her bones that would give her lir-shape before their eyes. But Thorne, seeming to sense something, twisted the arm he held until the sinews cracked. The sudden pain drove away the concentration the shapechange required.

  “What do I do with her?” Thorne asked. “Will you use her, or do I take her for myself?”

  Keough looked at her as she hung on her tiptoes. “Leave her with me. See if Carillon is still among us.”

  Thorne released her and left the tent. Alix cradled her aching arm against her chest, glaring at Keough. For the moment she was helpless, and knew it.

  The Atvian lord smiled and sat back in his massive chair. “You are not a light woman. You are not a soldier. What are you?”

  “Someone who will seek your downfall, Atvian, when I am given the chance.”

  “I could have you slain, girl. Or do it myself.” He raised his huge hands. “Your slender throat would not live long in these fingers.”

  “And your heart will not live long with a Cheysuli arrow piercing it,” Duncan said quietly.

  Alix swung around, shocked as she saw him standing inside the pavilion. His eyes rested on her briefly, expressionlessly, then returned to Keough. In his hands was the black war bow, its string invisible in the shadows. Eerily, it seemed the bow required no string to send its arrow winging into men’s flesh.

  Keough made a sound. Alix turned back and saw him stare at Duncan as if demons pursued his soul, His small eyes slid from Duncan to Alix, and she heard the malevolence in his tone.

  “So, you are a shapechanger witch sent to distract me while the others work against us.”