by Lou Hoffmann
I have a job to do, he thought, shaking his head in dismay at this new obstacle.
They’re depending on me. Han…. Lucky… maybe all the Sunlands, or even all of Ethra.
Damn.
He stood suddenly and was treated to a sharp pain stabbing from his right ankle to his knee. Bending to check the severity of the injury, he got another shock. He had human legs, but they, too, had a covering of feathers. That reminded him about his arms, which he’d forgotten were wings.
But were they? Experimentally he flexed them. Yes. Wings. But at their ends, he had hands. A good thing?
He still wore his Sunlands clothes, khalta, sandals, and shirt—though that had been ripped apart by the emergence of the exaggerated shoulder muscles that come with his bird form. The torn material flapped in the wind like the cape of a child pretending to be a superhero. With some difficulty—wings bend, but not the same way arms do—he managed to get a grip on it and rip the shirt the rest of the way off.
Fighting to remain calm, he took full stock of his condition. He’d sprained an ankle, maybe bruised some ribs, but he didn’t think he’d broken anything. His heart was racing, but that wasn’t surprising. The whole experience from being shot at and diving through the mist-shadow to emerging half-transformed in a different world—even if it was a familiar one—added up to a waking nightmare.
He got a firm grip on his thoughts and organized an approach to try to deal with the situation. First, though he had little hope of success, he tried to reach Han with a thought. It didn’t surprise him when the effort failed, but it didn’t help him feel calm, either.
Next, he tried to transform completely to human form. That failed too.
Finally, he tried to revert to condor shape. Nope.
Momentarily defeated, he sat down again to stew over his problems. Oddly, the thing that almost sent him over the edge into panic was suddenly wondering what his face looked like. He tried to reach it with his hands, and after several tries managed to find his face, only poked his eye a little, and confirmed he did not have a beak, and his eyes, nose, lips, and teeth all felt normal. But on chin and neck, he found the lanceolate feathers of his neck ruff.
I might be a monster.
He spotted what looked like a small pond or a large puddle on the valley floor, maybe five hundred feet down and a half mile distant, and decided to make for it, hoping he could see his reflection. He tested the injured ankle and found it was already improving. He could walk, he decided, though he was a little worried about the steep descent and rough terrain, especially since using his hands would be awkward.
He decided on spreading his wings out for balance and taking the slope in a zigzag fashion, foothold to foothold, rather than trying to go straight down. It took a little longer, but he got to the bottom in one piece and only re-twisted his ankle once and not seriously. After he made it down, he hurried toward the smallish lake. He stopped where an elbow of the shore stilled the water, found the right angle for a reflection by trial and error, and took a look at his face.
He cursed—loudly—having confirmed he sported black feathers on his neck and chin and a bright red forehead. He looked like some kind of sicko’s idea of a stuffed animal, and it turned his stomach to think about it. Worse, he was afraid he’d never be able to complete the shift one way or another. He wanted to cry over the perfectly rotten day he’d had. He didn’t, but he did sit on a rock and cover his face with a wing.
A prickle on his neck told him someone was watching him.
He stood and slowly turned in a half circle, searching.
Maybe eighty yards away, a man of medium build and coloring stood near a jeep camouflaged in the muted colors of the dry forest. The jeep must have been there all along, parked in a bald clearing at the end of a dusty road. They aren’t notoriously quiet vehicles, and he would have heard it if the man had just arrived in it. He would have cursed himself for not paying enough attention to notice it before, but he figured he was already cursed enough and didn’t want to add to his already bad juju.
The man, dressed in blue jeans and a bright orange T-shirt, carried a very long rifle with a sophisticated-looking sight assembly and a semiautomatic clip attachment. Thank goodness, he wasn’t pointing it anywhere, at least not yet—the butt rested on the ground and he held the barrel with his left hand—but he watched Henry intently, apparently studying him.
Henry couldn’t blame the guy for staring, but that didn’t help him feel safe. Not in the least. Here he was—clearly a freak if not a monster, no apparent explanation for his condition or even his presence.
By some sweet miracle, the stranger didn’t seem to find Henry as scary as Henry found himself. He shouldered the rifle and calmly walked toward him, stopping not more than three yards away. During the man’s slow approach, Henry thought about trying to escape, but he knew he couldn’t run fast enough—his feathers would actually create drag, he supposed. And he sure couldn’t fly—no way could his wings—powerful as they were, support the weight of heavy human bones. Standing still panned out as the best option. He waited for the man to speak.
“Are you here for the conclave?”
That was absolutely not what Henry expected the man to say, and by the time he realized it might have been smart to say yes, he’d already let his shock and confusion show. Finally, he said, “No.” Happy to find he had a human voice box, he continued, “No I’m not. I’m here…. Well, I’m here by accident.”
The man got a perplexed, but almost amused look on his face, dropped the rifle butt to the ground again, and more or less leaning on the gun, asked, “Care to explain who you are and what you mean by that?”
“Uh. My name’s Henry George. I’m from Cirque Valley…. Well, I live in… I was living in Sacramento, but I grew up in Cirque Valley.” Though he knew he would be dodging the issue, he intended to say next that he was a firefighter. What came out of his mouth was “I’m a shapeshifter.” He stopped talking after that.
“Okay,” the man said. “So am I.”
Is this guy messing with me?
His suspicion must have shown on his face because the man rolled his eyes, held his left hand up in front of Henry’s face and allowed three forefingers and the thumb to become the talons of a bird of prey—eagle, Henry thought.
He’d been taking shallow, nervous breaths, though he hadn’t realized it. Now, he dragged in a deep lungful of the cooling late afternoon air of the lakeshore, and let it out as a long sigh, much relieved. There weren’t many people in Earth a shifter could turn to if they were in trouble, but a fellow shifter? A much more likely resource. As shifters were all predators of one sort or another—with one exception—they rarely saw each other as a threat, though territory could be an issue. Eagles, contrary to what many people might believe, are hunters first, but scavengers second, which means they might compete for food with condors where they share territory. It helps that condors are scavengers first and hunters only a distant second. Usually, eagles and condors can live together, as long as live prey isn’t scarce. This man didn’t look hungry.
“Talon Bastien is my name, and I’m the Speaker of the Bastien Eagle Clan.” He held out a hand, and Henry awkwardly shook it. “I’m thinking you can’t complete your transformation?”
“Well, no—” Henry had planned to explain that he hadn’t been able to do so, but still thought if he worked at it he might manage to shift, but he didn’t get a chance to finish.
“You’re not alone. Something’s happened, not just here, but all around the world. Some of the people in my own clan are afflicted. It’s… ugly. Frightening.” He stopped and looked away, his brow scrunched like he was thinking hard about something. “What did you mean, you got here by accident?”
How to explain? “Well,” Henry said slowly. “Uh, can I ask a quick question before I answer that? And believe me I know this might sound weird—”
Talon laughed in a scornful but friendly way and said, “Hey. We’re two shifters talking about
being stuck between shapes. How much weirder can it get?”
Henry nodded, pursed his lips, and took the plunge. “You decide. I need to ask—confirm—whether this is Earth.”
Talon squinted at him.
“I mean, I think it is,” Henry said, “but there are other possibilities.”
“Okay,” Talon said after another moment’s silence. “Yes, then. This is Earth, USA, Washington State, the Sinlahekin Game Reserve. Bastien Clan aerie is here and, uh, I work here too.”
“Okay,” Henry said. “Well, usually I’m a Sacramento firefighter. But lately I’ve… well… gone to another world. I was there, flying as condor, and then something happened, and I ended up here.”
“Condor, huh? I wasn’t sure.” Talon stopped and shook his head as if to clear it of nonsense. “Okay, fine. Listen, I’m on my way into the office to complete some paperwork. I’ll come back this way and if you’re still here, and you want me to, I’ll pick you up and take you up to the aerie. There’s a conclave going on—shifters from lots of countries coming in to try to figure a solution to this ailment, whatever it is. You have relatives?”
“Actually, no. I think I’m the last of my kind.”
Talon looked stricken, as if he couldn’t imagine such a fate. “No wonder you’d go to another world, eh?” Then he got that “light bulb” look and snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute! Cirque Valley! You’re from that tribe—what is it…?”
“Kotah’neh, yeah.”
“You’re the last of the whole nation?”
“No, though we’re scattered around California. But I’m pretty sure I’m the last condor.”
Somber, Talon said, “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. And yes, I’d love to go back to your aerie, be part of the meet. While you’re gone, I’m going to try to work on my shift. I don’t know how much you know about my people, but we’re a little different. Shifters like everyone else… uh, you know what I mean… but the elders teach us… I mean the elders taught me, a different way to shift. I think if I can settle my mind and focus, I might be able to make it work.”
“Okay. So if you can, do you think you can help the others?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said honestly. “But I’ll try.”
Talon nodded, turned, and started to walk away. Before he was out of earshot he confirmed, “Wait here, Henry. I’ll be back.”
THE CONDOR was in Henry’s DNA, and his first shift came without any conscious will on his part as soon as he was old enough to truly wish he could fly. That was how it worked for all bird-shifters. Pain clouded his memory of the event, but he remembered screaming and trying to run away from it. Of course he couldn’t. His father, uncle, and grandfather had sat with him, and he’d tried to climb into a lap for comfort. But it’s not possible to hold someone as they change shape inch by inch, bone by bone, cell by cell. In the end, no matter who was around, it was then and remained all his life the loneliest thing he’d ever experienced.
He’d gone through a wholly physical, natural shift one more time, and it had been less agonizing by a few degrees. According to the conventional shifter wisdom, the more experienced a shifter became, the easier the transformation became.
But Henry didn’t have to get used to it. He’d inherited something else, something most shifters didn’t have—a long familial relationship with a highly specialized kind of shamanic magic. Learning a shaman’s way of shapeshifting had been hard, even taught as lovingly as Henry’s grandfather had done. Henry had been six years old when he started learning, and by the time he was nine, he could more or less manage the entire shift by “bringing the condor outside into alignment with the condor inside.” But six more years and puberty passed before he could do it reliably, and he was seventeen before he could complete the shift in the space of a single breath with a simple, fleeting thought. Only then did his grandfather complete his education, guiding him to see the overlay of the “world condor” with the one that lived always in his cells.
“It’s in the space between the two realities that the magic exists, pressed into stillness,” his grandfather had explained. “To use it, give it room to expand and flow.”
Henry hadn’t had to think about any of the steps in the process for so long, it felt cumbersome trying to break it down now. Still, within a half hour, he’d experimented enough to come to two conclusions: One, his “natural process” shift wasn’t working well. Two, something might have broken down in the magic too.
He didn’t know how to fix the natural process. He barely knew how to initiate it, and he didn’t think he’d stand much chance of fixing it, since he’d only done it twice so very long ago. But he thought if he could figure out what had gone haywire in his shamanic process, he might be able to remedy it. Truth be told, though, he was pretty sure all the processes had to be in working order for the shaman’s way to work, so he could only hope that if he fixed the magic, his DNA would do its thing too.
Henry found a comfortable spot a few yards back from the lake’s muddy shore, kicked away a few twigs and rocks, and lay on his back on the ground. As he lay there at the intersection of earth and sky, it was just twilight—the intersection of day and night. He thought about the in-between for a moment, knowing that’s where the web of life connected all things, and that’s where the magic lay hidden and dormant. He let go of his thoughts about it, then entered into it. After a few moments, he found a strand on the web, and as he’d been taught so long ago, followed it until he found the world condor. As he’d done so many times before, he let himself, as Condor, flow along the pillars and strands of that greater being, slowing the process this time, watching each step as it happened.
There. A single strand hung loose.
So is it my DNA that’s broken after all?
Henry didn’t like the thought, felt both confused and sickened by it, but he wasn’t certain that’s what he was seeing, and he couldn’t waste time on those feelings. Laboriously—though in truth it may not have taken an entire second—he aligned the strand and repaired the break, using only the strength of will to get the job done. He imagined Condor, breathed, and shifted.
It was such a relief to find himself fully shifted that for a few minutes Henry just reveled in it—took off on the wing and indulged in a few acrobatics. But Thurlock’s talisman was still working, even here in Earth, and Henry was conscious of the fact that Condor would be less useful, there and then, than human. He’d made the shift to condor form first because it was easier to find on the web and enter. The shift to human was more complicated, because humans were so flexible and adaptable. Fortunately, having been born human made it a little easier, usually, and Henry hoped that would hold true now.
He returned to his place, used his bird’s eyes to look deeply into the web of life, and found the interwoven strands that belonged to humanity. He followed them until at last he found the strand that belonged solely to Henry George. He picked it up, followed it outward, took it in, and let it inform his imagination.
He breathed, and he shifted.
Exhausted, he would have liked to have just slept where he was. He couldn’t afford that luxury, so he got to his feet, brushed off his khalta, and faced his immediate future in the form of Talon, who’d returned and stood by his jeep watching Henry.
As Henry approached, Talon said, “Get in,” then did the same himself. He started the vehicle and pulled out onto the dusty road. Rather than heading back toward the pavement, he cut overland along a barely discernable track toward an upland that formed a barrier reminiscent of the Fallows’ North Face, though neither quite as dry, nor as eroded and craggy. The ride was bumpy and necessarily slow, but Talon drove it as if he’d done so at least a thousand times. After a few minutes he said, “Your shift doesn’t look like mine.”
Henry didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“I mean,” Talon explained, “for a while I could see both shapes—the human one sort of… translucent. Then, all at once, you were human, and t
he bird was gone altogether.”
Henry nodded. “Uh, yeah. Usually, the part where you can see both shapes doesn’t happen. I had to work through it slower than usual.”
“Slower! What the hell do you mean? When I shift, it’s… it’s skin stretching, bones popping. Painful. And in between I’m every shape imaginable but eagle or human. So what the hell was going on with you?”
Henry was relieved of the need to try to answer immediately because just then Talon pulled the jeep into a spot between a rock outcropping and some trees, then got out. “We walk from here,” he said.
When Talon started pulling brush up to hide the jeep, Henry made himself useful by going back to brush away as much evidence of the jeep’s passing as he could, doing it the way his uncle Hank had taught him.
“Thanks,” Talon said, when Henry joined him by the vehicle again, and then he led the way to a hidden trail—no more than a rocky track that any human would assume was made by wildlife. After they cleared the first steep fifty-yard climb and were trekking along a dry, mostly level gully between two ridges, Talon spoke up again. “You haven’t answered my question. Your shift—explain to me what I saw.”
Henry did his best to tell Talon about the shamanic shift—how it works and why, and how long and hard the learning of it had been. He explained that in normal circumstances a simple thought completed his shift—there was no discernible time between human and condor or vice versa. “Something happened when I came through whatever portal brought me back to Earth—something got disconnected, like. I think I’ve fixed it.”
“Well,” Talon said as they neared what appeared to be another cliff face blocking their way, “it seems a bit strange. I’ve only ever heard of one kind of shifter that doesn’t have to go through the shift the… natural way. That’s The White. And you’re not that.”
“No,” Henry agreed, “I’m not.” And he knew Talon wasn’t talking about his black feathers. Shifters knew about other shifters, even if, like Henry’s family, they kept themselves isolated. Natural shifters were predators, but that didn’t apply to The White. When Talon used that term, there’d been no need to add what kind of animal he spoke of, because—as all shifters knew—that the White changed from time to time and place to place. White Stag, White Elephant, White Buffalo. They were all the same being—the closest shifters had to a shared divinity. Though never worshipped, The White was revered and treasured in different ways among shifters around the world.
