As the morning brightened and grew-warmer with the rising of the sun, Brann sat staring at the empty clearing, not seeing it. She wasn’t tired, wasn’t sleepy, only empty.
“Bramble.” Yaril’s voice demanded her attention. She looked around, eyes unfocused. “Here.” Yaril put a hot mug in her hand. “Drink this.” When Brann sat without moving, staring at the mug, the changechild made a small spitting sound like an angry cat, wrapped her hands round Brann’s and lifted the cup to Brann’s lips.
The scalding liquid burned her mouth but Brann kept drinking. When the mug was empty, Yaril took it away and came back with more tea and a sandwich of stale bread and thick chunks of cheese, scolded her into eating them. Food in the belly woke her will, gave her the energy she’d not had; the emptiness she’d been suffering was of the body as well as of the spirit; she realized that when Jaril brought the pimush’s horse to her, the beast wearing her saddle and the pimush’s bridle, the rest of her gear in place with some additions. He was a fine lovely beast-no wonder Uncle Migel had coveted him-prancing, nostrils flaring but tamed by the touch of Jaril’s hand when Brann was ready to mount.
“Up you go,” Jaril said. He caught her about the legs and tossed her onto the snorting beast, his strength once again surprising her; having seen him as a frail child or an insubstantial shimmering hanging in midair, she could not help letting her eyes fool her into underestimating him. She settled into the saddle, began settling the horse, stroking him, comforting him, teaching him that she wasn’t about to allow any nonsense from him.
Then she was riding away down the mountain, holding the horse to a steady canter when he wanted to run. Brindle boarhounds trotted beside her, or disappeared into the trees on scouting runs. The track continued to follow the river, clinging to the sides of ravines where she drowned in the boom of cataracts, departing grudgingly from the cliffs where the river fell in rainbowed mists. Down and down without stopping, eating in the saddle, drinking from the pimush’s waterskin, ignoring the continued chafing of her thighs, the cramps in fingers, arms, legs, down and down until the pimush’s horse was leaden with fatigue, until they were out of the mountains and in gently rolling foothills.
When the Wounded Moon was an hour off the horizon, she curled up in a hollow padded with grass and went to sleep, leaving the horse and her safety to the children. She slept heavily and if she dreamed, she remembered nothing of it later.
SHE WOKE with the sun beating into her eyes, sweat greasing a body drastically changed, woke to the pinching irritation of clothing that was much too small for her.
She sat up, groaned. Hastily she ripped off what was left of her trousers, most of the seams having given way as she slept, breathed a sigh of relief, tore off the remains of her shirt, bundled the rags and wiped at sweat that was viscous and high-smelling. Her hair was stiff with dirt and dried sweat. When she tried combing her fingers through it, it came out in handfuls. She rubbed at her head with the wadded-up shirt; all the hair came out, mouse-brown tresses dead and dark, falling to the grass around her. She kept scrubbing until her head was bare, polished bare. Throwing the shirt aside, she ran her hands over the body the night had given her, the full soft breasts, the narrow waist, the broader hips, the pubic hair glinting like coiled silver wire in the sunlight. She wanted to cry, to howl, lost and confused.
A hand on her shoulder. She jerked convulsively, cried out in a voice she didn’t recognize, flung herself away-then saw it was Yaril. Yaril holding neatly folded clothing. “Jaril’s fixing breakfast next hollow over. You better get dressed. Here.”
Brann shook out the shirt, looked from it to Yaril. “Where…”
“Brought it with us. Just in case.”
Brann looked at the shirt she still held out and snorted. “Just in case I grew a couple feet taller and a dozen years older?” She bit on her lip, uncomfortable with the deeper richer voice that came out of her, a woman’s voice-not the one she knew as hers.
“Just in case you couldn’t go back to Arth Slya. Just in case you needed to free your father and the others as well as the ones the soldiers had taken. Seemed obvious to Jaril and me that the Temuengs would round up the Fair people before coming after the villagers.”
“You didn’t say anything about that.”
“You had enough on your mind.”
“You did this to me. Why?”
“A child of eleven. A girl child,” Yaril said. “Think, Brann. Don’t just stand there glupping like a fish. Put that shirt on. Who’d let such a child travel unmolested? Chances are the first man or woman who needed a laborer would grab you and put you to work for your keep. Who’d bother listening to a child? And that’s far from the worst that could happen. So we used all that life you drank and grew you older. You haven’t lost anything, Bramble-all-thorns, we’ve stabilized you at this age. You won’t change again unless you wish it.”
Her head feeling as hard as seasoned oak, Brann stared at her. “What…” She pulled the shirt on, began buttoning it, having to pull it tight across her newly acquired breasts. “Stabilized?”
“You know what the word means, Put these on, they belonged to Mareddi who’s about your size so they should fit.”
Brann stepped into the trousers, drew them up, began pulling the laces tight. “But I don’t know what it means when you use it about me.”
“Means you’ll stay the age you are until you want to change it.”
“You can do that?”
“Well, we have, haven’t we? Like we told you before, Bramble, we’re a meld, the three of us. You’re stuck with more limits than we have, but we can shift your shape about some. Not a lot and it takes a lot of energy, but, well, you see. Here. Boots. Mareddi’s too. Might be a touch roomy.”
“Weird.” She ran her hand over her head. “Am I going to stay egg-bald? I’d rather not.” She pulled on the boots, stomped her feet down in them.
Yaril giggled. “I could say wait and see. Well, no, Bramble. New hair’s already starting to come in.”
“I’m hungry.” She looked at the blanket she’d slept in, nudged it with her toe. “What a stink, I need a bath.” Shrugging, she started toward the smell of roasting coyno.
ON HER SECOND day out of the mountains she came to a small village where Jaril bought her a long scarf to cover the stubble on her head, also more bread and cheese, some bacon and the handful of tea the woman could spare. Brann hadn’t thought about the need for money before and was startled when he came up with a handful of coppers and bronze bits, though she had wit enough to keep her mouth shut while there were strangers about to hear her. Later, when she was riding down a rutted road between two badly tended boundary hedges, she called the hound back and pulled Jaril up before her. “Where’d you get the coin?” She smiled ruefully, shook her head. “I forgot we couldn’t travel down here without it.”