The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped by Sheri S. Tepper Read Free Book Online Page B

head nodded, and the beast stepped away from the wall, into the forest which Mavin knew as few others of the keep had ever known. By dawn they would need to be leagues away, down the cliff road which led to Haws Valley and well buried in the woods which lay along the upper stretches of the River Haws. She could not let the boy know she was shifter. His mind would be open to any Demon riding along who might choose to Read him, and it was better if he simply did not know. So, there would be play acting aplenty in the hours and days to come.

    They would be safe from pursuit for at least this day. The three in the tower room would not be found for hours, perhaps not for days. Each one of them had struggled, frightened half out of his wits and mad with the pain of missing vital parts of himself. Struggle had been useless. Mavin had prepared for the encounter by taking more bulk than the three of them put together, part of that bulk a Mavin-shaped piece, and the rest a huge, tentacled thing which swumbled them up and thrust them into the baskets no matter how they howled, pushing and squashing until they were forced to take the shape of the basket, without lungs or lips or eyes. Gormier had been first, arriving full of explicit, lewd instructions for the cowering girl, ready to force them upon her, only to be thrust into agonized silence by the hugeness that was Mavin. Then Wurstery, then Haribald, each coming into the dark room expecting nothing more than a bit of the usual. Well, usual they now had. Handbright’s usual. They would probably live, if they were found before they starved, but they would not father any more Danderbats. A shifter might shift as he would: once that part of his self was gone, it was gone forever. He might shift him a part which looked similar, but he would take no pleasure from it. Beneath Mertyn’s drowsing form the horse shuddered, half in horror, half in satisfaction.

    Now that the boy was soundly asleep, Mavin grew tentacles again, small ones to hold him securely on her back, and began to run. The horse shape was well and fully practiced, constructed for fleetness with eyes that could spy through the dark to see every hollow or bit of broken ground. Night fled past.

    Behind them in the keep a hysterical Wurstery managed a hair-thin tentacle to lift the latch of his basket. Behind them in the keep was consternation, fury. The Elders were summoned out of their inner privacies by bells.

    “Handbright,” they said. “It was Handbright!” No one was thinking to look for Mavin or for Mertyn. A shifter girl only just come to Talent could not have done this thing. It could only possibly have been done by someone older, someone who had practiced secretly. Ah, yes, that is why she never conceived. Surely it was Handbright. The Danderbats had only thought the creature looked like Mavin. The room had been dark. It had been Handbright, shifting shape, desirous of protecting (protecting?) her little sister.

    Jealous, Gormier offered. Jealous that the younger girl would get all their attention. At which there was much clucking of agreement, save among the crones who looked knowingly at one another but said nothing.

    The Xhindi did not believe in Healers, but one was sent for nonetheless. The three Danderbats were in too much pain to let nature heal them. Pain and fury.

    Far off to the north, the horse ran on, the boy cushioned soft on its wide back, as dawn leaked milky into the edges of the sky. She stopped, laid him down, went off into the woods to give up bulk and clothe herself. When she came out into the clearing, he was rubbing his eyes, looking up at her in gladness. “Mavin. You said you’d be here, but I thought maybe you’d forget.”

    She took him in her arms, glad that he could not fully see her face. “Oh, no, Mertyn,” she said. “Never fear that about Mavin. Mavin does not forget.”

    He slept curled in her arms, as secure as though he had been in the childer’s rooms at the