Changer's Daughter by Jane Lindskold Read Free Book Online

understand, continues his introductions. “Since their names are rather long, they permit me to call them ‘Hip’ and ‘Hop.’ You may do likewise.”
    “I think,” the Wanderer says softly to the Changer, “that she intends to call them ‘Lunch’ and ‘dinner.’”
    Certainly Shahrazad’s expression, her red tongue lapping out to lick her muzzle, is in keeping with the Wanderer’s assessment.
    “She has met jackalopes before,” the Changer says, “during the Lustrum Review and again at the later September meeting. However, she has grown a great deal, even in the six weeks or so that have passed since the latter meeting, and she has become quite cocky. She may have forgotten what she learned of them before, or she may simply believe that she now exceeds her puppy limitations.”
    “And you’re going to leave her to find out on her own.”
    “That is correct. Frank knows that I want her both tested and taught. If he chooses as his intermediaries two athanor herbivores, I shall trust his judgment.”
    The Wanderer turns to study him. “Are you leaving her here, then, like sending her off to summer camp?”
    “Autumn into winter camp,” the Changer corrects. “Not immediately, no, but once she adjusts somewhat I will take a few jaunts. She has always been able to depend on me. I want her to learn to rely on herself as well.”
    “Necessary,” the Wanderer says, “although not always pleasant for the child.”
    “Nor for the parent,” the Changer says. “I am closer to this little one than I have been to any of my get for a long, long time, but I do her no favors if I am overprotective.”
    “She is athanor,” the Wanderer says. “The Harmony Dance proved that. Is she anything more? Did she inherit any of your other gifts?”
    “I don’t know,” the Changer says, “and I don’t really know how to find out. She may simply be an immortal coyote.”
    “That’s not bad,” the Wanderer says, thinking of the various athanor animals she has known over the years.
    “No,” the Changer agrees. “Sometimes, being a coyote is a very fine thing indeed.”

    Introductions completed, Shahrazad tears away from the house, daring her “chaperons” to keep up with her. She knows that, whatever she thinks of them, it would be bad manners to eat Frank’s friends in front of him. In any case, there is so much that she wants to see and smell.
    The evening before, when she had arrived, she had gotten the impression that all of this land was hers to roam. Today, with youthful enthusiasm, she plans not only to roam it, but to claim it as her domain. Here the air is cleaner than even in the forested reaches of the Sandia Mountains where she had lived with her father. There are no great roads, no low buzz of tires against asphalt, just space and grass and low trees and wonderful, heady smells.
    Skipping the area immediately around the ranch house—it is far too lived in for her wild tastes—she lopes outward, away from the dirt road they had driven in on, away from the pastures where odd-smelling horses graze (raising their heads to study her as she runs by), out to grassy reaches that hint of rabbits and mice and other tasty things.
    Shahrazad is so absorbed in her explorations that she doesn’t notice the raven who soars above, joyriding on the winds. She forgets the jackalopes who trail her, stopping to graze when she slows. She forgets everything except the caution her father has schooled into her and her delight.
    Mice, fat with grass seed, make a good lunch. Grasshoppers, slowing down as summer moves into winter, are easier to catch, and fun, too. Springing into the air from a standstill to come down on a single point, like a ballet dancer on her toe, wears her out after a while, and Shahrazad drowses on a sun-warmed rock. When she awakens, she doesn’t realize that her nearly invisible guides have steered her back toward the house until she crosses her own trail.
    By then, evening is falling and the