by Andre Norton
The Changer dropped his hands and for the first time his eyes left Cory, so the boy felt a sense of relief, as if that intent stare had held him prisoner. Now the shaper looked from Cory to the image of mud and back again with long measurement, though the ball head of the figure remained unfinished.
Apparently satisfied with his work, the Changer edged backward without rising to his feet, putting his hands to the ground on either side to pull himself along. Again Cory felt relief from some loosening of the will that held him. But he guessed that it was best not to betray he had that small freedom, lest the Changer turn his full attention once more on his prisoner.
Now the Changer pulled sticks before him, so that they lay between him and the image he had created. He set these up for a fire as the otters had their signal, in the form of a tepee. But he did not touch light to it at once. Instead he took from his belt pouch some small packets of leaves folded in upon themselves, each fastened with sharp thorns into tight packages. These he unpinned one by one, to display small amounts of what might be dried herbs or dust.
Cory was deeply afraid now, though as yet he had not been openly threatened. If he could have done so he would have run, just as he had from the buffalo and the dancer. But, though he was somewhat freed from the bonds the Changer had so mysteriously laid upon him, he was not free enough to leave. He knew, he could not tell how—unless that was part of Yellow Shell’s beaver memory still lingering with him—that if he could not fight now, it would be the end of him. For the Changer’s full medicine would be too strong for him to withstand.
Too strong for animals—but what about man? How had that thought come to Cory? Animal—man. Man was an animal, but also more, sometimes only a little, but still more. Thoughts raced in his mind. If he let the Changer complete the magic he would do here—then perhaps man would never be that little bit more, though he could not tell how he knew that.
Suddenly, as clearly as if his eyes actually saw it before him—a picture formed in his mind—the head of a black bird. Crow—such as served the Changer? No! There were white circles about the eyes and the bird’s beak opened to voice a medicine song—Raven!
And it seemed to Cory that when he thought the name Raven, the picture in his mind turned its eyes on him and a new picture formed, by the will and power of Raven. Another bird head—this one white—Storm Cloud? No, it was a greater eagle. And he remembered the White Eagle to whom Yellow Shell had appealed when he loosed the bit of down that had guided him here.
But what had the White Eagle to do with—? Again as he identified the picture, that majestic bird also turned to look squarely at him and once more came another picture. But this one was vast, clouded, he could see only a bit of it, and he sensed with awe that it was given to no one to see the whole of what stood there.
And perhaps it was the remnants of Yellow Shell’s memory that gave an awesome name to that half-seen shadow. For that it was awesome even the human Cory recognized. Thunderbird! And when he named it in his mind it became clearer for a single instant. But Cory could never afterwards recall just what he had seen then, or if he had seen anything at all, but had only been blinded by the appearance of something it was not given to his kind to understand.
But Thunderbird’s shadow remained with him. And to that vague picture Yellow Shell’s memory added some words that were strong medicine—very strong. Cory did not repeat them aloud, but he turned his head to look at the mud image, which moment by moment grew less and less like clay, more and more like brown skin laid over firm flesh, upheld by solid bone.
Cory studied the ball of a head that had never been truly finished, and in his mind he repeated the medicine words, trying to shut out all but those words and the need for saying them over and over. Why it was necessary to do this he could not say, only that it was all he could do to prevent the Changer from completing his purpose.
Smoke with a strong smell puffed up around him, but drifted more towards the image, clinging to the mud. Then hands reached out to grasp the clay body on either side of its slender waist, lifted it up. Cory, still watching, repeated the words in his mind now with all his energy. He saw the Changer set the mud man down with its feet in the blazing, smoking fire, so that the flames rose up about it.
Then the Changer stood up, his half-man, half-beast form even stranger looking when he was erect. And he began a medicine song. But Cory tried to shut his ears to the sound, to think only of the words that would call the Thunderbird. While his feet could not move from where they appeared to be fixed to the ground, he found he could raise his hands somewhat. And they moved now in signs following the words in his mind.
At first the flames rose very high, shoulder high around the image, and the smoke veiled it from view. There was a feeling of triumph, of success in that smoke, and in the singing.
Still Cory’s hands moved to match the words in his mind and perhaps the Changer was so intent upon his own magic that he did not see what Cory did.
Then the smoke rippled and a wind rose out of nowhere. The sun was clouded and a chill edged the breeze. The dance and song pattern of the Changer altered. He took a step or two more, then stood, looking about him with quick wariness, as if he had been shocked out of a dream.
The wind not only whipped away the smoke but it pulled at the live brands of the fire, whirling one up in a shower of sparks, carrying it away, to be followed by a second, a third. The Changer cried out, but his voice sounded more like the howl of a coyote. He flung up his hand as if to stop one of those flying torches, and the fire of it must have singed him painfully, for again he howled in rage.
His eyes flamed yellow-green, turning from the wind-driven fire to Cory, and his lips drew back to show the fangs of a hunting beast. He vigorously made signs with his man hands. For a moment the wind died a little, the showering sparks did not fill the air.
Only now the clouds had so darkened the sky that they made a low ceiling. Cory felt that if he reached up his arm he could touch them. From those clouds broke flashes of lightning and the Changer whirled at the first brilliant crackling, as if he could not believe in this sudden storm.
He snarled at the flashes, again showing his fangs, and voiced a long, wailing howl. He might have been ordering those clouds to clear, the sun to shine again. But only for a moment he stood so, looking up into the gathering fury. Then he turned, his anger visible in every upstanding hair on his shoulders, in the prick of his ears, the wrinkling of his lips.
Once more his hands moved in signs. The bit of Yellow Shell still in Cory cringed at the sight of those. For, not being a medicine beaver, he could not read the signs, yet in them he saw great power.
Cory’s thoughts faltered; he could no longer remember clearly those words that had spoiled what the Changer meant to do here. But his failure to keep up the fight did not seem to matter. Perhaps he had only prepared the way for another force that would now take over, whether he continued to call it or not.
His hands fell heavily to his sides, as if once more chained there. And he could not move, even when one of the wind-blown brands burned his neck with its sparks, singeing his hair.
For if the wind had subsided a little at the Changer’s retort, it rose again, scattering the fire as if a broom had been used for that purpose. And the flames were almost gone as huge drops of rain fell with the force of blows on the ground, on the dying coals, on the mud image, and on Cory.
Now the Changer stood to his full height, his Coyote head flung back on his man’s shoulders, his eyes searching the sky as he turned his head slowly. It was as if he looked to find his enemy above, searched there for a target against which to loose his powers.
For a long moment he stood so, while the coals of fire hissed black and dead under the pelting of the rain and it grew colder and colder. Cory, who only moments earlier had felt the terrible heat of the sun in this desert place, now shivered and shook under the blast of the chill.
Seeming at last to have made up his mind, the Changer turned his back
on the now dead fire, on the image standing in what had been its heart. He went to one of the dead bushes nearby and, stooping down, laced the fingers of his right hand among its branches, bringing it up out of the ground in a single pull.
Its roots made a tangle from among which he plucked a bag. Cory, seeing it, knew that this was what Yellow Shell had hunted. This was the Changer’s great medicine; with it in hand he was armed, ready to stand firm against all the spirits of sky, earth, water, and air.
With both hands he held it aloft, into the full force of the storm, shaking it from side to side as if it were a dance rattle, or as if he wanted the spirits in that punishing wind to be well aware of with what he threatened them.
The wind died, the rain ceased, the clouds began to split apart. All the while the Changer, holding high his mighty power, danced and sang. That singing was not for the ears of man, it was stronger than any lightning crackle, any cruel roll of thunder.
Still the Changer danced and sang, and held the medicine bundle as one might hold a spear against an enemy, driving away the storm that had spoiled all his plans. For how long he danced so, Cory could not have said, for time no longer had a meaning.
But at last even the Changer must have grown tired, for Cory could see again, hear again. And the beast-man sat upon the ground even as he had when first Yellow Shell had looked down into the forest of stone trees. There was now only a shapeless mass of clay where the image had stood, flowing down from a blob supported on two legs that the fire had baked into a more enduring substance.
The Changer lifted the hand holding the medicine bundle and tapped that mass lightly, and straightway even the legs became mud again. He looked down for a long time at that sticky pile. Then he roused, threw back his head, and gave one of those far-sounding howls. Having done so, he stared at Cory and there was such an evil glint in his narrow beast eyes that the boy tried vainly to fight the bonds laid upon him.
For a time the Changer made no move, though now and then he turned his head with the coyote ears a-prick as if he were listening. The sun went down, to leave them in the night. No fire burned and Cory’s human sight could not pierce the darkness as Yellow Shell’s had done. But, almost as if he wanted to prove to Cory that he had won, the Changer rebuilt the fire, though it was not in the same place as the other and he did not toss into it the contents of leaf packets.
There came a fluttering out of the dark, and feathered shapes lit on the ground, hopped into the circle of light about the fire. Crows—ten—twenty—more—coming and going so that Cory could not count them, or even be sure that they were not the same ones over and over. As each hopped past the Changer, he spat out on the ground a mouthful of yellow-brown clay, which the beast-man mixed with the other mass. And that grew taller and taller. Now he scraped and mixed it well, working the new and old clay together as he sang in a voice hardly louder than a murmur, as if he feared being overheard.
Some of the crows settled down on the other side of the fire. Cory noted that they showed interest, not in what their master was doing but in the medicine bag that lay close to him, for he had not returned it to hiding after using it to drive off the storm. And the boy knew that if he could but get it out of the Changer’s reach, he could put an end to all that was happening here. But he could see no chance of that.
Knead, pinch, pull, shape—the Changer’s human hands moved faster, with a greater sureness than they had before, as if, having once made the manikin, his fingers remembered their task. But this time the figure he wrought was larger, was as tall in fact as a man, as Uncle Jasper.
Uncle Jasper. Cory blinked. That other world seemed so far away, so lost to him now. Yet, when he had thought of Uncle Jasper—Yes! His hands had been able to move: Uncle Jasper, the ranch—Dad—Just as he had seen the Raven, White Eagle, and that shadowy other in his mind, so now he tried to picture all he could that was most important to him of his own world and time. But, as he felt his bonds loosen, he did not try yet to move. Patience he had learned from Yellow Shell, and the determination to fight for survival, but some of this stubborn will to face danger was now Cory’s own, either newborn or simply newly roused from a spark that had always been there, but that he had not known he had.
Let the Changer become so interested in his “man” that he would forget Cory. Even now he seldom looked at the boy; he appeared no longer to need him as a pattern.
And the birds—They had eyes only for the medicine bag. To reach it Cory would have to half circle the fire, but in a second, before he got so far, the Changer could snatch it to safety. His only hope was to wait for some chance.
Again the body stood finished, the head remaining a round ball. But this time the Changer went to work on that. He made no attempt to give it a human face. Instead the clay moved under his fingers into the shape of a long narrow jaw and nose, pointed ears—the head of a coyote, twin to the one on the Changer’s own shoulders. He stood back at last to study it critically. Then, with finger-tips, went to work again, modifying the beast look somewhat. Still it was far more an animal’s mask than any face. But that apparently was the result the Changer wanted.
Now for the first time in hours he looked directly at Cory with a tooth-showing grin.
“How like you my man?” he barked.
“It is not a man.” Cory told him the truth.
“But it is the new man,” the Changer told him. “For this is a man as he should be for the good of the People. And for the good of the Changer.” Again he laughed, though it was more of a yapping.
“Yes,” he continued, “this is man as the People need him, for to us he shall be a slave and not a master. These—” he touched the dangling mud hands almost contemptuously, “shall serve the People as sometimes paws cannot. These—” now he rapped the wide mud shoulders, then stooped to run a finger-tip down the clay legs, “shall bear burdens, run to our command. This is man as the Changer has made him, shaped from the earth, hardened, as he soon will be, by fire, made ready for the life—” now he turned to look at Cory with those evil, narrow eyes, “you shall give him!”
Cory cried out; he thought he screamed. And in that moment he was answered out of the dark, out of the sky—with a shriek that set the very earth trembling under them.
The Changer Challenged
Once more the sky was torn by broad purple flashes of lightning and a chill wind blew about them. In a half crouch, snarling, the Changer turned to face the dark beyond the fire.
Something moved there. Cory could not see it plainly; the clouds were so thick, the night so very dark. But he thought that great wings fanned, that a head as large as his own body turned so that burning eyes might look upon them. And the boy wanted to throw himself to the ground, dig into the sand, as if he were Yellow Shell diving into the river water.
The crows cried out, but they did not take to the air. Instead they cowered close to the ground, as if seeking shelter where there was no cover left. But the Changer now stood tall, his back to the fire and to his man of mud, facing the fluttering in the night.
“Hear me.” He spoke as he would to Cory, yet even above the noise made by the crows, the drumming of the thunder, he could be heard. “I am He Who Shapes, and this is my power. You cannot deny it to me for it is mine!”
And he spoke as if he knew very well who or what was in the dark there, and felt confident that he could safely face it so.
Who—or what—This was the shadow that had risen behind the White Eagle in Yellow Shell’s vision—this was the Thunderbird!
To Cory, Yellow Shell’s memory supplied the rest—this was the Thunderbird whose presence was in the storm, the wind, the lightning, the pound of thunder, the rise of wind. The Thunderbird spoke for one being only—the Great Spirit.
“I am He Who Shapes, who changes,” the Changer repeated, still confident, but faintly angry now. “This is my power and I hold it against all the spirit ones, great or small!”
The crows cawed together harshly. Then, instead of taking to w
ing, they scuttled out of the circle of light, taking shelter in the shadow of one of the trees lying prone. If they could dig their way into the sand, thought Cory, seeing their flight, they would be doing that right now.
There was a fanning of wings, so huge they could be felt as a rippling of the air, and after that a new crackling of lightning. But as yet no rain had appeared.
“Elder Brother, listen. We have no quarrel, no spear, no claw or fang now bared to make a red road running between us. You lead the storm clouds into battle, as was given you to do. I but do as was given me, I shape and change, shape and change. And now it is in me to shape one who will serve the People, who will not say ‘Do this, do that,’ ‘Come be my meat and let me eat,’ ‘Come be my robe and let me wear.’ For if I do not breathe life into this one, there shall come another somewhat like him but of another shaping, and then it shall be ill for the People, and all their greatness shall be gone. They will dwindle into less and less, and some shall vanish from mother earth, never to be seen again. I, the Changer, have foreseen this evil thing. And because I am the Changer, it is laid upon me to see that it will not come to be so.”
“The time is not due, the shape is not right. It is not for you, Younger Brother, to do this, which is a great, great thing that none but the ONE ABOVE may do.” The words rolled out of the dark with the beat of thunder, as if they were a chant sung to a drum.
“I am the Changer, Elder Brother. So was the power given me in the First Days, so it has always been. Such power once given cannot be taken away. That is the Right and the Law.”
“That is the Right and the Law,” agreed the voice from the dark. “But also it is the Right and the Law that one may challenge you, is that not also the truth?”
