Shapechanger's Birth Read online

  She narrowed an invisible "finger" to paper thinness, invoked the dissolution action, and stroked it across the body of a fish just behind the fish's head. The esoteric knife sliced through the flesh as if it was air and the fish head plopped to the ground.

  She cut off the heads of the other two fish. She also cut off the fins and flensed the smooth brown skin away. A slender green branch smoothed and sharpened by an invisible claw made a convenient skewer.

  The fish were utterly delicious despite her lack of salt. Finished, she dissolved the remains with her esoteric hands, piled a few dry branches onto the fire, and retired to her burrow in the bushes to sleep.

  Late that afternoon she woke and examined the fire pit. As she had hoped a few coals covered with white ash remained hot enough to restart the fire with some twigs and dead leaves without using another match. She fished again, ate and slept again .

  The next day Mary fished and caught several fish very quickly. Cleaning up after the meal, she decided on a full-body bath. Immersing herself to get her hair completely clean she found that she could hold her breath longer than she'd expected. Over the next few days she learned to stay underwater for more than a half hour. The time varied by how often she breathed deeply before immersing herself, and how active she was under the water. Soon she became as agile in water as she was on land.

  Food assured, Mary began exploring, first at night and then during the day as she gained confidence in her stealth and familiarity with her surroundings. She kept close to the river and the land a little ways on each side of it, keeping always inside the bushes and trees.

  She discovered an abandoned cottage near the forest on the river's southern side. One edge of the roof had caved in but there was still plenty of shelter for those of her belongings which could be damaged by rain. The chimney was still clear and she started a fire in the fireplace within a bed of salvaged bricks shaped into a low box. Coals stayed hot in the box for a long time, enough so that often she could start a fire without a match.

  Mary made a bed for herself in the cottage. It was easy since her esoteric hands could cut anything with a thought, including stone. She cut blocks that had a slot at one end and tongue at the other so shaped that she could insert the tongue into another block's slot and, with a twist, lock the two blocks together. From a few dozen of these she made a rectangular "fence" a few inches high. Inside the fence, laid against the best-shielded wall in the cottage, she put leaves cut from several bushes. This made a simple bed that, for a shapechanger, was perfectly comfortable.

  A mile downriver was Ennistymon, a mile upriver to the east was a lake about a mile and half long but only two or three hundred yards wide. A few small boats were tethered at a short pier and during weekends most of them were in use by fishermen. She avoided the lake at first but soon became adept at entering the water out of sight and fishing underneath the surface. It helped that her esoteric claws worked just fine underwater and that she could swim faster than any fish.

  After a time she became able to stay underwater for up to two hours if she swam quite slowly or lay unmoving on the bottom of the lake. This way she could observe where fish and eels moved, congregated, and slept.

  She discovered that she did not need her witch hands to dry off her body. When she wanted it a skin made of the same esoteric stuff as her invisible hands covered her all over. At a thought water on her physical skin flashed into mist. With her magical skin and her instantly adaptable actual skin it was not long before she spent most of her time without clothes.

  One day while lingering near the bottom of the lake a hard shower came. It was quite restful to hear the rain falling on the water above her. The plinking water-strikes sounded almost musical.

  Surfacing for air she looked carefully around, using her binocular eyesight, but of course there were no fisherman out in the rain to see her. She wondered what they'd make of her if someone ever did see her, whether they'd talk of mermaids and selkies. And what they'd think of one with red hair!

  Roads that were little more than packed earth paralleled the river further east than she preferred to go, with occasional offshoots to the north and south. Small farms dotted the lush valley, keeping sheep and pigs and the occasional milk cow. Each farm had a garden, from which she stole. She did so very circumspectly, one to three carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, onions or whatever, and she carefully covered her tracks. She usually did this in the frequent Irish rains, which wiped away her scent as well as her tracks.

  She put on weight, most of it muscle, and her body began to round out, making her seem more like fourteen years old physically. One difference was that her period did not return.

  With practice she became able to switch back and forth between esoteric and visual images as easily as she refocused her eyes from near to far objects. It took much longer to view both images at the same time without confusion and know how the two corresponded.

  She also learned one day that she could control the color of her skin when she lazed in the sun. She was wishing that her skin would tan rather than turn red and peel, and found her wish coming true. Indeed she could turn her skin so brown it appeared black and lighten it till she was as white as an albino .

  Mary also discovered that she could control the growth of her flame-colored hair. It was then several inches long, much shorter than she was used to. Overnight she forced it to grow down past her shoulders, but the long hair was brittle and lackluster. She cut it close to her skull and let it begin growing again, at a more natural speed.

  As an experiment she coated her hair with mud and turned her skin to a medium brown with mottled patches then ventured away from the river. Lying or standing absolutely motionless in or near bushes she was effectively invisible. In this way she could get close enough to rabbits to kill them by throwing smooth round stones she found in the river. But the camouflage quickly became unnecessary. Her body changed so that she could throw with inhuman force and accuracy.

  After a few weeks Mary became sure enough of people's habits and her skills to sneak into stores and taverns in Ennistymon. She stole only a very few items, including a box of salt and of sugar and a small jar of pickles.

  This was easy to do. Doors on the ground floors were locked and windows barred. However, by now Mary was at least twice as strong as any man. She could leap straight up almost thirty feet and was nimbler than any ordinary human. She could usually come in from roofs or top floors, where doors and windows were rarely locked. Several times she lingered in the stores, seeing with her extrasensitive eyesight and exploring with her invisible hands inside containers without opening them. That was fun.

  When she found newspapers discarded in waste bins she took them home to her broken cottage and read every word, even of advertisements. She could have stolen (or borrowed) books and magazines but felt that would too easily call attention to her thievery. The newspapers came in handy also in starting fires from the coals left over from a previous fire.

  One day Mary traveled further east than ever before, where the valley became more heavily forested, and came upon a herd of red deer grazing in a meadow. Crawling in knee-high grass downwind from the herd she came close to it. Then she leaped up and chased a lamed but healthy buck, her shapechanger's body re-shaping itself subtly to run better. Catching it, she leaped atop its back and swiped her witch-blade through its throat.

  She wasn't able to drink much of the deer's blood before it drained into the grass and dirt. She laughed a little, ruefully. She wasn't a very good dearg-dur, the legendary Irish blood-drinker.

  However, sitting back on her haunches, taking stock of her body and its functioning, she decided that she made a pretty good bean-chat — woman-cat.

  A deer was a big animal. She ate as much of it as she could. This was a lot, since her stomach could expand to several times the size of an ordinary human's. She cut the deer into two parts, cached one in a tree, and carried the rest back to her cottage and set the meat to curing over a smoky fire. She returned to
the cache and retrieved the second part, still intact though mangled somewhat by birds.

  The hide she cured by scraping off excess flesh and hanging it with the flesh toward the sun.

  One day in mid-July Mary looked at the sun in the sky and knew. It was time for her to continue her journey.

  A few days south she would come to the River Shannon. It ran from the middle of Ireland southward then curved ever more westward to empty into the Atlantic. The Shannon steadily widened as it went till it was miles across when it met the ocean. Several cities lay on or near the river. Ennis, the capital of County Clare, was not that far from the Shannon. The huge city of Limerick straddled the river. There was also Kilrush, a few miles in from the sea. She'd heard much about it from a cousin who had once lived there. It sounded like the best compromise of small size and large opportunities.

  She spent several days preparing for the trip, killing a second deer and smoking some of its meat, cleaning her clothes as best she could — no more living naked like an animal — and preparing to pack. This time everything would go into a proper pack made of deerskin, with straps for her shoulders. In it would go her old possessions plus several more that she had made, such as a new set of shoes. It had been easy to make them, carrying as she did — thanks to her witch hands — knives and needles of perfect, unwearing sharpness.

  She set off a couple of hours past sunset. At Ennistymon only two businesses kept late-night hours, the taverns, so it was easy to avoid people. Past the edge of the village she began to jog along the road to the coast. It took only fifteen to twenty minutes to go the two miles to the seaside village of Lahinch on Liscannor Bay. Soon Mary was through it and on the coast road south.

  By midnight she'd reached another seaside village called Quilty. A road sign pointing to Kilrush led her inland and uphill. An hour or so thereafter she came across a stream and went inland along it to some bushes that provided a place to sleep. She was quickly asleep.

  Rain began soon thereafter. When the first drops woke her she bundled her dress into her pack and slept naked except for quick-grown oily fur all over her body and face that left her perfectly comfortable.

  The rain continued into the morning, so she went back to sleep at first light rather than brave the mud on the road. Mid-morning the sun came out. Mary woke, dried herself off, relieved herself, shed her fur, and donned her dress. She ate smoked deer meat as she walked. The road was too irregular and slick to jog.

  By mid-day the road was dry enough to begin jogging again.

  Just past noon Mary McCarthy slowed to a sedate walk, passed discreetly through the tiny village of Creegh, and crossed a bridge of the tiny river that gave the village its name. Her discretion wasn't enough, however. From a shabby tavern trouble followed her.

  Perhaps twenty minutes past the village she looked back to see if she could begin running again. The winding road through the low coastal hills of County Clare had indeed put her out of sight of the village. However, three horsemen were riding toward her from the direction of the village. She faced forward and continued walking.

  When the clip-clop of the horse's hooves on the packed earth of the road was near she courteously curved toward the grassy verge of the road to let the riders pass.

  They did not. One of them rode off the road then angled his horse toward her, forcing her back onto the road. Another came up to pace by her other side. The third took up station a few yards behind her.

  "Good day, fair lady," said the man who had forced her to change her path.

  Mary glanced up at him. His dress and the tack of his horse told of money and his attitude spoke of arrogant assurance. From his speech she judged him some petty English nobility. He was a handsome man, taller than most as best as she could judge a man in a saddle, with dark brown ringlets, a round face, and laughing brown eyes. The horse was a sleek dark brown, obviously expensive.

  He was silently laughing at her, and her temper flared, but she kept a rein on it. "Good day to you, sir."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To my home over the hill."

  He made a show of standing in his stirrups and shading his eyes under the hat he wore as if to see over the hill. There was an emerald feather stuck in the hat's sweat band.

  "Oh, goodness. I suspect you of a fib, fair lady. I see no cottage ahead. And as I know this country well, I'm sure there is none."

  "I think she's afraid of us," the man on her other side said, a cruel smile on his face. He was much of piece as the first one, she saw. Perhaps a brother or cousin.

  "No!" replied the first. "Why, how could she think that of us! We only want to be her friends."

  "I have all the friends I need," said Mary shortly.

  "Oh, but we're going to be even closer than friends." This was from the man behind Mary. She stopped and turned to look at him. He was younger and blond and his horse was not so good. A poor cousin of the other two, perhaps? Trying to match them in wit and other ways.

  It was obvious that they intended to rape her. She had other plans, however. They did not include getting her clothes bloody, so she needed to get out of her clothes without alarming them. And she needed to get them off their horses. Their mounts multiplied their effectiveness.

  Mary glanced at the man on her right, he with the green feather. He was the leader. She smiled at him and spoke.

  "Well, now, I would be friendlier if I thought you might have some coin about you."

  "Oh, yes, fair lady. We do indeed 'have some coin about us.'"

  "Then let us get to it. Over there."

  The direction of her nod was off to the side of the road up ahead where a few trees made a pleasant shade. She began walking again, stepping around the leader's horse off the road, angling toward the trees. Then, looking playfully back over her shoulder, she laughed and broke into a run toward the trees.

  It took a few moments for them to react. The leader laughed and kneed his horse into a trot. The other two followed suit.

  Under the shade of the nearest tree Mary let her pack slip off her back onto the ground. Then she began disrobing.

  By that time the leader was under the tree too and was off his horse. He hitched it to a branch of the tree and stood enjoying the show. The other two caught up and ground-reined their horses. The leader scowled at them and they hastily hitched their horses the same way.

  Ah, yes, Mary thought. When she started screaming they did not want their animals able to run away. She folded her clothes and placed them on the opposite side of a tree, placing her pack atop them. That should shield her possessions from any blood spatter.

  The leader was the first to reach Mary as she stood completely naked, fists on hips. The wind swirled her bright red shoulder-length hair around her face and ruffled the russet pubic hair between her legs. To them she would seem a fourteen-year old girl, with the muscles of a farmer but still lithe and pretty.

  The wind was from the leader to her, and she could smell the cruelty on him. There was no doubt. They planned to do horrible things to her, then kill her.

  She put out a hand toward him and he took the bait. He caught her wrist in a grip that would have pained an ordinary woman. She looked him directly in his eyes. Hurt a child, would you? she thought.

  She twisted her wrist, broke his grip, and it was now his wrist that was captured. He jerked his arm away, or tried to. She saw the exact moment when he understood that he'd made a terrible mistake. But by then it was far too late.

  Mary casually lifted his arm to a better position for a cut. He jerked his arm again, much harder, but her inhumanly dense muscles gave her half again her apparent weight. He only succeeded in pulling her a bit toward him.

  From her free hand she extended her invisible witch knife to a foot length and a razor's width. With a flick of her wrist she cut his arm completely in two at the elbow.

  Blood gushed as Mary threw his lower arm toward the farther man's face. Freed from her grasp the leader of the would-be rapists stumbled back, stari
ng in shock at his arm. Before his first scream Mary leaped around him and sliced off the head of the nearer brother/cousin with a lightning-quick pass from her other hand.

  As that body also began to fountain blood Mary turned toward the blond man. He'd dodged the arm thrown at him and drawn a gun. He cocked and leveled it and pulled the trigger.

  Mary had seen the gun and was already letting herself fall sideways. The ball struck her off-center. She felt a tremendous blow and stumbled to one knee. Blood bloomed from her side, but she began to get to her feet, lips pulled back and showing her teeth, snarling at him as if she were a wild animal. He hauled his horse's reins loose from their anchor and swung astride his horse, kicking it into a gallop, laying low over his horse's neck.

  Mary cursed herself for over-confidence and launched herself after him but slower than she could have. Part of her was repairing her wound and part of her was carefully metering her strength.

  Even so she gained on him within a few yards. Rather than leap atop the horse as she would have done unwounded, she grabbed his nearest ankle and jerked. He screamed and tried to hold onto the horse, but her weight was too much for him. He fell off the horse and lay stunned. She struck so as to take his head off but misjudged. Her invisible blade bisected his head at an angle so sharp that it sliced deep into his chest. His body jerked then flattened to the earth as if boneless.

  Mary sat down, panting, then lay down on her back, holding her side.

  Her body had already blocked both bleeding and pain. Mary turned her witch-sight into her body and examined the damage. One intestine was pierced and its contents mingling with the rest of her body. She encysted that area for further work and turned her attention to blood conduits. The several dozen damaged veins and arteries began to grow whole and smooth and she turned her attention elsewhere.

  Next she told her body to repair tissue damage and began urging it to push out the pistol ball. That would happen over several hours or days.