Why not try being a stick?
Stones are stronger than sticks. We like being strong.
Sticks are strong too. Just try it for a while. You might like it.
No. We like being a stone.
I can change you right back. You will only have to be a stick for a moment.
We do not have to be anything we don’t want to be. We are a stone.
Elu frowned, trying to think of some logic that might appeal to a stone. What could possibly entice a stone to become a stick?
Why do you like being a stone?
Because we are one. Stones are strong. We are strong.
You are very strong. Stronger than any stick.
Yes.
But I know something stronger than a stone.
You lie.
No. I have seen it. Back in my youth I explored the stream. I saw stones there. One of them cut my brother. But there was something there that steadily wore down the stone.
What was it?
Water.
You lie. Water is weak. We are stronger than water.
I cannot lie to you. You know I do not lie. I saw stones there cut through by the steady flow of that cold water over hundreds of years.
How can it be?
I do not know. Would you like to find out?
Yes. We like being strong. If water is indeed stronger, we want to know.
Then do you permit me to change you into water?
Yes.
Closing his eyes, he searched within his mask. Its spirits stirred, growing excited at the prospect of soon exercising their power, and he directed their attention to the stone below him. Water, he told them, stone to water. He opened his eyes and looked down. Sure enough, the stone appeared to melt before his eyes, forming a small puddle on the solid dirt below.
Do you like it?
Before, we rested on the ground. Now we penetrate it. We are sinking into it. We were never this strong before.
Would you like to try something new?
Something stronger than water?
I don’t know. But it has water in it, sometimes.
What is it?
A stick. They grow on trees, and the tree’s roots suck water out of the ground to feed the sticks. The sticks have water in them. So they are strong both like a stone, and like water. Would you like to try?
Yes.
Again, Elu reached inward to his mask, and steered the spirits’ attention to the puddle. Intensely concentrating, he opened his eyes and the water sprouted upwards out of the earth and formed into a branch of an elmore tree, complete with needles and droplets of sap emerging here and there from the bark.
“Hey, you’re good. I couldn’t do that for many weeks after I got my mask,” said Zand.
Elu admired the swaying branch, rising from the earth as if it were a tree, but without trunk or branches of its own.
“What happens if you force something to change?”
“Bad things. Probably like how you’ve described what happens when people wear masks not fit for them.”
“It is not terrible at first. But the evil grows, for the mask twists the wearer and the wearer corrupts the mask,” said Elu.
“With shapes it is similar. It was a real struggle to get that rock to change to a stick, wasn’t it? Those are not like materials, and if you held the stone in that shape for too long it would degrade. The stick would become brittle, it would turn unnatural colors, and when you finally allow the stone to resume its normal shape, it too would be unnatural. Changed. And if you force it to a shape it does not desire, it will cause both you and the stone to go mad.”
“How does a stone go mad?”
“By rebelling against you and its natural shape, and reverting back to the form it was in before the gods made it a stone and the earth was masked by Sipora. I’ve never seen it myself but my master spoke of stones blazing hotter than a blacksmith’s fire and flowing like thick water.
A blacksmith’s fire. Thora was driven mad by a blacksmith’s fire. Her father’s fire.
Is it the stone’s fault if it goes mad and reverts back to its primordial form? Can Thora be held accountable for anything that happened after being raised by a drunken man who shoves his daughter into the fire?
“Can you teach me more?”
Zand laughed. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you? Shape changing always makes me hungry.”
“Zand, standing makes you hungry. Talking makes you hungry. Eating makes you hungry.”
“So it does.” Zand’s mouth tugged into a grin. “Let’s go.”
Chapter XI
Flight
THE FOLLOWING DAY ZAND TAUGHT Elu more. The morning started, as most of Elu’s days did, with several hours working closely with the master maskmaker of the palace of Hartree, assisting him with replenishing his stock of child and homeweaver masks. The afternoon came swiftly, for Elu delighted in the lore the master shared almost absentmindedly as he worked, and presently Zand knocked at the door.
“Shall we explore the coasts today?”
Elu finished threading a leather strip through a child’s mask. “Yes, almost done….”
They left the city behind and hiked east, towards the wide, undulating coast that marked the boundary between land and the cold Lacian Sea. Swift gulls caught up on the wind called to them, warning of sharp retribution if they disturbed their nests. They walked north along the coast, finding small caves cut into the hill by the regular ebb and flow of the water, fish caught in shallow tide pools, giant logs strewn over the sandy beach, left there by the now receding waves.
“What is it like to fly like the gull, I wonder,” said Elu, staring up at the soaring birds.
“It’s wonderful.”
“You’ve tried?”
“Of course! It’s one of my favorite shapes. I’ve flown high over the city, and it’s amazing to see it from up there. The people look like small insects crawling slowly through the maze of the city streets.”
“Can you teach me?”
Elu turned aside and put on the apprentice’s mask that Zand now held out to him once again. When he turned back around to talk to Zand, his friend had already changed, flapping his wings to gain height. He drifted through the air above Elu and settled on his shoulder, staring at him, locking his gaze on Elu and cocking its head. Elu laughed.
“You’re a bird! Come. Show it to me. Show me how.”
Zand hopped off his shoulder and changed back, his mask deforming from the bird’s beak and returning to its glass and steel form, momentarily revealing the vague scars of childhood pox on his face.
“First, come. Come look at a real bird.” They approached a flock of gulls that had alighted in the shallow water hunting insects and fish. They approached cautiously, not wanting to disturb them, and stopped a handful of paces off. “Look into that one there. Study its spirit. How does it feel?”
“Right now? Fear. It fears us. We are new to it. Unknown. It fears the unknown—what it can’t comprehend,” said Elu, studying the bird closest to them.
“And food. That’s what the gull cares about—food, and staying out of danger. We are a double threat to them right now, for not only are we unknown, we might be threatening their meal.”
“Their fear forces them upward. To flight. But not just fear. I see in them the longing for the sky. It calls to them, offering both safety and wonder,” said Elu.
“Yes. You need to feel that. We don’t think of the sky as safe, especially when looking down atop a building. But they do, and to be the gull you need to think of the sky as your refuge. Try.”
Elu dropped the satchel to the ground and closed his eyes. He imagined himself soaring through the air as if he were weightless, as if he belonged in the sky. He looked to the sky in his mind and tried to imagine the wonder it held for the bird. It was not difficult to imagine for the sky beckoned to him as well—the mask of the heavens that concealed most of the light from that other world called to the maskmaker within him. He reached out to the spi
rits of the mask and directed their power to himself and to the sky.
He felt himself change.
Opening his eyes, he saw the world as a gull. He opened his wings and shot upward, suddenly liberated of earth and weight, and saw the ground fall away as if it were the unsteady one and he now retreated to the safety only the steady sky could bring.
He excitedly beat his wings harder and faster, gaining altitude quickly, feeling the buffeting winds grow stronger as he flew higher and higher. He looked down and saw the shoreline far below and a small dot ascending up to him, growing until Elu recognized it as Zand changed into a gull as well. They circled around each other, wheeling higher and higher. Zand peeled off to the west and Elu followed.
They flew high over the city and Elu spied the palace far below, its guards patrolling the parapets like ants. The central market usually buzzed with activity at midday, but from this height it seemed placid and tranquil.
He called to Zand to catch his attention, but to his surprise he only heard the screech of a gull. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised—he was a gull after all, but he had half expected to hear his own voice.
They turned back to the east and glided slowly lower, coming level with the city wall and the tops of the taller trees nearby. Landing near his satchel, Zand immediately exploded back up into his normal form, laughing. Elu landed as well, but walked around at Zand’s feet. How to change back? He thought of his regular form, his humanness, but nothing happened.
“Stuck, are you?”
Elu answered with a nervous squawk.
Zand laughed again and crouched down to Elu. “Just as when you became a bird you had to get into its mindset, or its vision of the world, so too do you need to readjust your outlook. You need to think like a human again. What was important to you? As a gull, it was to fly from danger up to the safety of the sky, and marvel at the wonders there. As Elu, what do you want? What gave you purpose?”
Elu wasn’t sure. He had never given it much thought for he was not prone to such self reflection. His mind wandered back to Gheb, to his adventures in the forests with his brothers. He loved exploration. Is that what gave his life purpose? Yes. And no. There was more, wasn’t there? He wanted to do the right thing—that was a common theme in his life, wasn’t it? Yes, there was the usurper maskmaker in Ri Illiath, Karna, who he chastened. He had protected the honor of his craft and brought the man down. And the chief judge of Glendon—hadn’t Elu taken him down as well, freeing the people from their oppressor? Shouldn’t the people raise their arms and hail him as a hero? Especially with him as the Guardian, the world’s protector against the Terror?
The Terror he had unleashed. They should banish him or throw him in a dungeon for the pain he had brought into the world. He looked up at Zand, still smiling down at him. Zand was perfect, he thought. A man born in wealth, given a mask of power and sent to train with the greatest and most learned of his craft with a sack full of coins, and in spite of the privilege, he was good. He was kind. The wizard’s friend, the one Zand had frankly forgiven and sent on his way, Zand would have been more than justified in sending him to prison. But he did not.
He closed his eyes. He wanted to be like Zand. And Derry, who had rushed out to meet the Terror head on to protect his wife and his friend, not fearing the consequences to himself. Derry, who had freely given his own home to a stranger. And did Elu resemble them in some small way? As a maskmaker? To give people not just a covering for their face, but to give them a life—to labor and wear his life and hands away to give people power and purpose? That was his purpose, and he decided then to be Zand. To be Derry. He had thought to maybe befriend the master maskmaker of Hartree and thereby come into his good graces and possibly inherit the master’s priceless mask, but no more. He would return to Ri Illiath, or some other town that needed a maskmaker, and he would serve the people there.
Opening his eyes, Elu found himself looking mask to mask at Zand, who stood in front of him wearing a large grin.
“Found your life’s purpose, did you?” He stooped to retrieve his satchel, and tossed Elu’s to him as well.
Zand taught him new shapes and Elu learned the shapechanger’s mask, exploring its depths and capabilities. He felt he could make one himself if the need arose one day, and he hoped it would for he had grown fond of the spirits of the mask and the way the spirits of the material and objects around him responded to the mask’s call.
The fall came to an end and a chill breeze began to blow in from the northeast, from the icy reaches of the Lacian Sea. He remembered his trek to the north those many weeks ago—how frigid that dark land seemed even in midsummer. He and Zand made it a habit to fly together has often as they could—when their other duties did not inhibit it.
“How far can you fall?” Elu shouted as he tumbled through the air high above the city. Zand had taught him how to quickly change in mid-air, and the two found a new favorite game of soaring as high as they could, changing to their human form to fall some distance toward the ground before changing back to a gull’s shape and gliding safely back to the ground.
Zand shouted, “Farther than you!”
“Show it to me!”
“Don’t blink,” he said, and darted away downward, pointing his body towards the earth, speeding away from the tumbling Elu, who reached up to his mask to make sure it was securely affixed to his head. He had no desire to experience the thrill of falling without the shapechanger’s mask secure.
He spiraled head over foot, still high in the air. Zand called out from far below him, but Elu could barely hear his voice over the roaring wind in his ears.
He peered down, squinting against the blast of cold air hitting him in the face as he fell, and he searched for Zand.
On the ground, a new figure appeared, a handful of paces from their satchels.
Thora.
He yelled. She raised her arms at them. Zand continued his fall. He should have changed by now. He was too close to the ground. Elu closed his eyes against what he saw below and concentrated on the sky and the shape of a gull. His feathers and beak sprouted and he shot downward, beating his wings to gain speed. He craned his head this way and that, looking for Zand, but he saw no bird soaring away from the terrible mask below.
He looked at Thora again, and her arms had lowered. She looked at a jumbled unmoving wreck at her feet.
She had prevented him from changing.
Elu screamed a gull’s piercing, angry cry and flew at Thora, who now looked up and regarded the bird bearing down on her. She raised her arm and Elu saw the malevolent spirits in her mask work their magic, and he swerved to and fro, dodging the great walls of force that she directed up at him.
He broke off his fall, veering away from the awful figure poised above his fallen friend. Elu peered down at Zand and searched for his spirit, but could not find it. He screeched again, in fury at Thora and her evil mask.
Thora was gone forever. There was nothing to be saved. Nothing to be redeemed. The Terror was all that remained. He darted down again near her and grabbed his satchel with his talons and flew off, the currents of force slamming the ground he had just left making chunks of earth tumble through the air.
Pointing his beak south, he flew. He felt Thora attempt a chase but he shot away on the icy north wind, and even though she travelled swiftly with the Terror mask’s power she fell far behind. Elu cursed her in his head with every beat of his wings and he surged forward, out of reach of her deadly power.
South he flew, and west. His mind frenzied itself in anger and grief, and he didn’t know to where he flew, but he continued his course with a mind only for flight. Flight from the Terror that had now stolen his best friend. The gull keeps to the sky for safety, and so he stayed aloft for hours. The sun set, and he continued his flight. The sun rose behind him, far in the east, and still he beat his wings constantly.
He looked below him and saw a familiar sight. Gliding downward, he soon came to rest in the windowsill of the healer of Ghe
b, and she, waking from her sleep looked up and eyed him warily.
“I know you, I think.”
The gull released the satchel onto the healer’s floor and collapsed onto it, having expended all its energy, feeling, and power in the flight. The healer arose from her bed and stooped to lift the gull onto her table.
She began to chant, passing her hands slowly in the air above the still bird, which had closed its eyes and lay motionless on the table. For hours she chanted. People from the town came to her door seeking healing and she did not answer, but kept her vigil over the gull with the satchel full of masks.
It did not wake that day but at the next sunrise, the bird opened its eyes.
“You have flown far?”
He tried to answer, but only croaked out a ragged sound.
“You’ve stayed a bird for too long, my friend. What would cause you to do such a foolish thing?”
Elu had no answer, even if he could speak. He had wanted to fly farther, fly to the end of Terremar, to the lonely islands of the southern sea. If he could, he would fly to that other world where his old master Goshorn had already flown, as had now his friend Zand. And it humiliated him. Shame surged within his chest and his shapechanger’s mask mocked him, taunting him for his cowardice.
He lay there that day as well, but by the evening he managed to hop up onto his gull’s legs. Standing on the table he looked all around the small room of the healer’s hut. He thought about being a human again. Closing his eyes, he imagined standing tall and walking and talking, but he remained the same. Zand had warned him about staying in an unnatural shape for too long.
Zand.
Is death an unnatural shape? An unnatural state? His mind flashed back to the crumpled figure on the ground next to the Terror and he quickly brought his focus back to the present, unwilling to dwell on the image.
He recalled Zand’s words, his instructions for changing back to human form. What was important to him? What gave him purpose? He honestly couldn’t say anymore.
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 275
