Shiftless
Josepha Sherman

The sign on our door reads discreetly, "TARTIN AND TARTIN, SOLUTIONS AND INVESTIGATIONS," and underneath that, "Licensed Shifters," together with the government seal. But here and now, the sign might as well have been invisible, for all the business we were getting.

"Hey-yi, Jazi, look at this."

I glanced up from my record-keeping in time to see Kerrik shift into the shape of an improbably large, rainbow-feathered, and very silly-looking bird. 

People are always wondering what it's like being married to a shifter, forgetting when they ask me that I'm one myself. And of course what they mean is, what's it like, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. I'll say only (when I'm not telling them to mind their own business) that yes, we have fun, and that's due more to the fact that we love each other than to any . . . shall we say . . . magical maneuvers.

"Don't moult on the carpet," I muttered. Then, relenting as he drooped his wings sadly, "Very pretty."

Kerrik turned back into himself with a shrug. "Come on, love, smile. Business is going to pick up, I feel it. Any day now, we're going to have more jobs than we can—"

A knock on the door interrupted him. With a "told you so" wink, Kerrik flung open the door. "Ah, Ser Warkan. What may we do for you today?"

Warkan comes direct from Royal Security, and is one of those somber, solid, honest types of no certain age, the ones whose job it is to see that everything runs smoothly and legally. We'd worked for him before, quiet, no-publicity but nicely paying jobs. "There's a mage," he said with no preamble. "Flashy sort, wealthy. Name's Garrith Kundin, or at least that's the name on the records. He bought the old Renten place outside the city, and he's been busy restoring the estate and rebuilding the horse breeding facilities."

Kerrik and I glanced at each other. "Let me guess," I said. "He's gained too much wealth too quickly."

Kerrik finished, "And you think that he's into something dark or you wouldn't be coming to us."

Warkan frowned. "We know he is: Just haven't been able to prove anything, that's all."

Of course all magicians in the kingdom must be licensed, the same as with us shifters, and no honest Practitioner complains about it. Ever since the Power Wars pretty much wiped out the Lartai Fields back in '81, there have been strong legal bans on the dark side of magic.

"I see where this is leading," Kerrik said, as casually as if we weren't hurting for a job. "You want us to get in there and find you that proof."

"Exactly." 

Sitting around our desk, khaffik mugs in hand, we got down to details, terms, risks. And with every word, I began to get more and more uneasy. Contrary to public belief, shifters can't just shift out of injuries; if you've been stabbed as hound and shift back into human, the wound's still there. And yes, we certainly can be killed, just like anyone else. This Kundin sounded like a nasty type, the sort who would think nothing of using magic to enslave or torment others. According to what Warkan was telling us, Kundin had an alarmingly high rate of employee turnovers—or downright employee vanishings. And rumor had it that he was getting money from certain sources in exchange for not harming said sources.

Ah yes, and rumor also said that shifters, as well as Kundin's employees, had been disappearing, though that didn't mean anything too serious, let alone that he was involved. We do tend to be a peripatetic lot, mostly because shifters tend to learn some awkward secrets, not always by chance. Still . . . there's always this danger: Stay shifted too long in another form, and you may forget your rightful shape. The thought of a human ending up as a hawk or bear, with no remembrance of any former life . . . 

Rumor, after all, is sometimes based in truth.

But before I could voice my objections, Kerrik said, "Can do." Utterly ignoring my frantic signals, my dear husband leaned back in his chair, smiling. "Ser Warkan, you've got yourself your shifters."
* * * 
That's Kerrik for you: In a word, reckless. Oh, his heart's in the right place, even when he's literally someone else, and I do love the man. But a little forethought added into his makeup really would be nice. 

As soon ask for the wind to be a rock.

When we were alone, I exploded, "Are you out of your—we have a partnership—how could you—"

"Money, love. Remember it? That pretty, shiny stuff we're almost out of?"

"Don't get cute, Kerrik." As his face instantly became a child's wide-eyed face, I snapped, "I mean it!"

He dropped all silliness. "And I mean it. Jazi, I'm going there—and I'm going alone."

"You can't! Dammit, the danger—"

"Horses," was all he said in reply, tapping me on the nose with a forefinger.

Right. Kundin was breeding horses. And I . . . I have an allergy that won't let me go anywhere near the beasts without starting to sneeze madly. 

"See, Jazi? Has to be me alone."

I wasn't buying that. Turning away, I pretended to be very busy shuffling papers. Kerrik's arms closed about me from behind, but I went boneless and slipped out of his embrace.

"Hey, love," he cajoled, "I'm not an amateur! I'll be careful."

And I was a garden snake. 

I mean that literally. I was getting so angry at his cockiness that I needed to cool off a bit outside, sliding out the window into the garden below.

Wrong move. While I was out there, slithering through the grass and fuming, something large flapped away overhead.

Kerrik.

Come back to me, love, I thought, along with some less printable things. And then I added, Alive, and in your rightful shape, dammit. 

I waited.

The day passed, and I waited some more. 

Another day passed, and finally I sighed to hide my uneasiness, and went down to the market square to see if there was any news.

Oh, there was news, all right: Kundin had just bought himself a brand-new horse, a shining black stallion like none anyone had ever seen.

I bet. 

He'd bought the beast from Ashaqat the Horse Trader, a stocky more-or-less honest little man. Ashaqat, when cornered by me, admitted that yes, he'd known it was no true horse he was selling, but that Kerrik had sworn him to secrecy. "Kundin didn't argue," he said. "Just paid my price right off. Didn't like my rope halter, though: Threw his own onto the, uh, horse."

Oh. No. "His own halter didn't have iron in it, did it?"

Ashaqat blinked in confusion. "Yes. Think so."

Damnation! Iron's the one metal that plays havoc with shifters, blocking their powers. Kerrik was chained up in horse shape as long as that halter stayed on him—and Kundin, by that deliberate use of iron, showed that he knew perfectly well he'd just caught himself a shifter. And if he kept Kerrik trapped in that form—

Not for long, I told the sorcerer silently. Not my husband, curse you. 

But how was I going to get Kerrik out of that mess? I couldn't just shift my way onto the estate; Kundin had made it clear that he was sensitive to a shifter's magic.

But nonmagical folk managed travel without shifting. So after a bit of thought, I put on the guise of a warrior woman, no great champion, just someone in battered leather armor. Not an unusual disguise in these days of peace for a warrior to be wandering about looking for work. I could more or less use the worn sword at my side, though I really, really didn't want things to come to that. I wasn't too happy about having iron at my side at all, but hey, couldn't play the role without a sword.

And so, acting on the theory that the simplest alibi was often the best, with no other disguise than this, I set out for Kundin's estate. 

Now, just because I'm allergic to horses doesn't mean that I can't enjoy looking at the lovely creatures, and I stood at the sight of the first fine green pasture of them, sniffing and wheezing just a touch, watching the mares and geldings grazing their way along, and all the while hunting for one special black stallion.

Nary a one. Not necessarily alarming, since stallions aren't generally pastured with mares. And none of the horses wore iron-studded halters, so none of them were anything but horses.

I hoped.

Kerrik, I thought.

Standing here wasn't getting him back. I marched on as though I were nothing more than a disgruntled warrior determined to find a job, right up to the main house, a rambling thing of white walls and a red-tiled roof, and rapped on the door.

Of course I got the should-have-been-expected, "Trade and servants around back."

Right. Good move, I told myself. Blow your cover right from the start. 

But matters were about to get even more interesting. As I turned to stalk with proper warrior indignation to the servants' entrance, I all but collided with a tall, distinguished figure, dark hair touched so charmingly with gray at the temples—Garrith Kundin himself. 

Distinguished, yes. But just then, I wouldn't have cared if he had looked like the King of the Serpent Isles, because I was too busy trying not to show my sudden burst of sheer panic. Surely he knew right off? Surely he sensed I was a shifter?

No, you idiot! 

Not even the mightiest of mages could sense magic that wasn't being used.

"My lord." I dipped my head to him in what I hoped was convincing warrior respect. "Forgive me."

A hand under my chin (and me trying not to flinch or, for that matter, bite) forced me up again. "For what, lady? Surely you are a lady, judging by your tone. Lost, perhaps, and hiding in warrior guise? Or are you a warrior, perchance, a noble one whose horse has thrown her?"

"My lord jests." Oh, hell, that's what had started this. Roughening my voice, I continued, "'M a good worker, lord, a hard worker. And, well, you know what things are like out there for warrior-types these days." I shrugged. "Could use a job."

He drew his hand back as though wishing for soap and water. "I have no need."

"Please, m'lord. I'll do anything to get a new stake."

Kundin was already bored with me. "Go find the head groom. He can always use someone to help out. I trust you have no objection to hard work?"

"No, m'lord." I'll be too busy sneezing my fool head off to mind the work. But at least I'd be nearer Kerrik. "Thank you, m'lord." 

Kundin didn't even bother to acknowledge that with a wave.

Too easy, I thought, far too easy. 

But there are times when you just don't want to argue about it. I went to the Head Groom, a bleak-eyed fellow like the spear carrier for Depression, and told him I was the new girl (all hands in stables are "boys" or "girls," no matter the age), then set to work raking out manure and carrying heavy pails of water and, yes, sneezing like mad. Rubbing my watering eyes, I pretended to merely be admiring the stock.

Not a stallion in the barn. Great.

So I, feigning utter ignorance and a brain the size of a pea, asked one of the under grooms, a scrawny, lank-haired young man with weaselly eyes, "Where are all the stallions?"

He, predictably, snickered. "Right here, sweetheart, right here."

Cute. I let my hand fall to the hilt of my sword as though by chance, and said, "Must be a mistake. I see only mares and," the slightest of pauses, "geldings. Where are the stallions?"

"Where the hell do you think?" That remark about "geldings" had gotten to him. "In the stallion barn, the other side of the farm. You keep away from there, if you understand what's good for you." Clichés, too. The boy was a walking wonder. "Woman goes near a stud—hell, you know."

Uh-huh, sure.

That night, of course, I left my musty little cubicle and set out for the stallion barn. Not quite as easily as all that. Nights are dark when you don't dare shift, and I couldn't take advantage of those nice patches of mage light coming from the globes set on poles; I had to stay safely in shadow—stubbing my toes, tripping over rocks and thinking, Kerrik, you owe me for this, I mean, you really owe me. 

Shathal the Silversmith, maybe . . . maybe even Eri the Goldsmith . . . 

The dimly lit stallion barn loomed up before me. There would be guards, but I could deal with those. With the sword, if need be. It was the magical shielding that was worrying me. 

But hey, I was passing as an ordinary, non-magical warrior woman: The shielding shouldn't react to me. Shouldn't. 

Kerrik, I reminded myself, and slipped into the barn, instantly surrounded by the warm, hay-and-horse aroma, my hand firmly over my mouth to stifle sneezes. The guards, two of them, were huddled at the far end of the barn, lost in what looked like a fevered game of Roll the Sticks, as fiercely as though they were at war with each other, and I tiptoed forward.

Oh, hell. Hell and all the demons. 

There were no less than six stallions in the barn. Each and every one of them was black without a single distinguishing white mark. And each and every one of them wore an iron-studded halter.

I risked the softest of whispers, trusting to keen equine hearing, "Kerrik?"

Right. Keen equine hearing, all right: All six pairs of ears twitched in my direction. Stifling a sigh and another sneeze, I set about doing this the hard way. Each stallion was, as I saw, almost absolutely the same as the next, so I gritted my teeth and, as the first horse gave me a wary sniff, I gave him one, too.

Hastily smothered sneeze: True horse.

Second horse, same reaction.

Third horse tried to bite me. Kerrik? No. Horse.

Fourth horse—

I sniffed, sniffed again. No sneeze. I damned near rubbed my nose against his: Nothing! Not even the slightest of eye-waterings. This was Kerrik!

"Kerrik!" I whispered. "Do you know me?"

Was that a nod, or merely a horsey head-toss? 

"Wait, wait, let me get the halter off—"

No. The sudden blaze of broken magic would surely bring Kundin rushing in here. Warily, warily, I slid open the latch on the stall door, praying that it wouldn't squeak, then warily, warily pulled the door open, praying that it wouldn't groan. Kerrik worked his careful way out, placing each hoof delicately so that it wouldn't clop, following me as closely as a dog. The guards were still engrossed in their game . . . we were going to make it . . . 

No, we weren't. As we left the barn, every mage light in the vicinity blazed into life. And there, dramatic as an actor, stood Garrith Kundin, dark cloak like a shadow about him and eyes amused.

What could I say? "You knew."

"Oh, from the beginning. Don't!" he added sharply to Kerrik, who was edging forward, teeth bared. "Move, and she's dead. In fact," the sorcerer added with a thin smile, "she's dead anyhow."

And with that, he was a great brown bear, and lunging. I had no time to drag off Kerrik's halter; he was still stuck in horse form. So I drew my sword and slashed at him. Ha, yes, got him—

No. No, not with that thick ursine pelt. I'd just cut off some fur, which would probably translate only to a scrape on human hide. And he, with an equally quick slash of claws, tore the sword from my hand.

So much for that. I abandoned all pretense of being a warrior woman and shifted away from him, leaving my clothes and leather armor in a heap on the ground and racing off as a slim-legged doe. Sure enough, the bear followed, swiping at me with claws like knives.

Damnation! There were sorceries like this, allowing the non-shifters to change shape—keep their clothes in the process, too, curse it—but the spells took power, a lot of power. Where Kundin was getting so much strength . . . 

Those missing employees. Yes, and the dull anger of everyone here—he was slowly draining their lives!

Ridiculous time for a revelation. The bear's teeth clashed shut, almost on my haunch, and I put on a new burst of speed. We raced over the ground—ha, yes!

A little closer, I told him. And I—

Shifted to cat, going flat to the ground. Sure enough, the bear rushed right over me, then stopped so suddenly he went head over heels. I leaped up, shifted to wolf, lunged for his exposed throat—

And found myself face to face with a great serpent, the type that crushes its prey. He did his best to crush me, a loop of his muscular body coiling about me and squeezing, but I—

Shifted to bird, flapping frantically free. He followed as a hawk, talons snatching for me, and I—

Shifted to human, dropping with a thud, right at Kerrik's hooves. As the hawk desperately backwatered his wings, I snatched up that discarded leather armor and swung it with all my force. I connected with the hawk so hard I heard him give a human "oof," and knocked him sideways out of the air. As the sorcerer fell, Kerrik reared, and his jaws snapped shut on the hawk's tail feathers. The hawk gave a very human yell and—

Suddenly was Garrith Kundin again, hanging ignominiously by the seat of his finely cut pants. A stallion's jaws are strong, and his neck muscles are like rock: without much effort, Kerrik held the sorcerer dangling helplessly.

"Give up, Kundin?" I asked, scrambling back into my warrior's garb. "All Kerrik has to do is shift his grip just a little bit to the front, and close his teeth with just a little bit more force, and—"

"Don't!" he gasped. "I surrender!"

"Wise," I said, and went hunting for rope. Iron does a fair job of binding magicians' powers, too, so I used two of those iron-studded halters to bind Kundin. "All right, Kerrik, drop him."

Kerrik did, snorting and trying his best to spit. Kundin lay in a furious heap.

"I won't forget this," he snarled.

Beyond us, his workers were gathering and, for a moment, my heart lurched. But the expression on all their faces was hardly that of love for their employer, so I merely smiled. "That's good, Kundin. You can think about this night all the time that you're in prison. Bend your head a little, Kerrik . . . ah, there."

I pulled off the cursed halter. The stallion blurred, vanished, and my husband stood, stark naked, in its place, looking dazed, relieved, and damned chilly. I snatched Kundin's cloak from him and wrapped it about Kerrik. His arms closed about me, and for a long, long while we could do nothing but cling to each other as though we'd never let go. 

But Kundin was raging. "This is criminal! Criminal! You have no grounds—"

"Oh, I don't know about that." Letting go of Kerrik for the moment, I ticked off the sorcerer's crimes on my fingers. "Wrongful imprisonment. Imposing of unnatural shape on a shifter. Draining of life force from employees. Yes, and I suspect that if we nosed about a bit, we'd find a few bodies, too. . . . "

We didn't. Warkan's forces did. They didn't find any more shifters being held against their wills; I don't want to think about how many of the horses on that farm might not have been born as such. 

Well now, you can't shift the past. It's comforting to know that Kundin's former employees testified, as did the families of the deceased. He's not going anywhere again. Not in human form, anyhow: The punishment for what he did is permanent shifting into . . . 

He makes a very pretty frog.

Now, back to Kerrik and me. Back to our happy little home, and me raging at him. "And what if I hadn't gotten there in time? You would have been a horse forever!"

"Oh, I would have found a way—"

"No, you would not!"

"I would."

"Would not!"

I'll spare you the rest of that. In fact, even I couldn't stand it, and flounced off to bed.

But Kerrik . . . well now, my infuriating, incorrigible and utterly dear-to-me husband shifted into a coverlet.

And what happened after that, dear reader, I leave to your imagination.