Fur Magic (14 page)

And if he were once more a boy, could he stay that way? Could he find his way back to his own world and time? The medicine bundle was what he needed to bargain with the Changer—Raven and the spirit dream had made that plain. And the medicine bundle was gone from the lodge in the coyote village. The Changer was working, or trying to work, strong magic here, so he must need that powerful bundle. As yet Cory had had no chance to look around, but perhaps if he got the Changer to believe he would be willing to aid in this present task, he could be given that chance.

The Changer's fingers were still now. He began to wipe the mud from them by scraping one hand over the other, until they were clean of most of the moist mass. All the time he eyed Cory as if he were measuring, weighing, turning the beaver inside out to get at what might lie beneath his furry hide.

Would he get out the bundle? Did he need to bring it into the open if he were to make Cory human once more? But the Changer was apparently in no hurry. He still rubbed his hands together, but absently now, as if his thoughts were very busy elsewhere.

Then he began to sing, a low-voiced chant. Cory could not understand the words, but the beaver's body began to shiver, chills ran along his spine, down forelimbs and back legs. The broad, powerful tail twitched, rose a little to beat up and down, hitting the ground in a thumping he could not control. The bond that had tied Yellow Shell in place no longer held.
Instead the beaver began to dance, against his will. He moved to no familiar beat of drum or ankle rattle, no sounding of turtle shell filled with pebbles, but to the song the Changer sang. Faster and faster he danced, whirling about in a dizzying circle that made his head spin so that he felt he could no longer see, or think, or breathe.

On and on he spun in that bewildering circle until there was nothing left in the world but that singing, loud as the crackle of lightning, the roll of storm thunder across mountain tops. Still Yellow Shell danced.

As suddenly as he had begun, the singer stopped. Once more Yellow Shell—no, not the beaver but the boy Cory—stood foot-rooted to the ground directly before the pile of mud from which the Changer was trying to shape his man. But Cory no longer wore Yellow Shell's thick fur, his paws, his tail. In so much had he won—he was a boy again.

However, he could not move, as he speedily discovered. He was as much a prisoner standing here as he had been when tied by the mink ropes. And now fear returned to him as he saw the animal jaws of the Changer open in a knowing grin, as if the other could read his thoughts and took pleasure in defeating his hopes. Perhaps—Cory shivered in spite of the sun's heat on his head and shoulders—perhaps this strange creature could do just that.

Still keeping his green eyes on Cory, the Changer began to work again with the clay, pinching, prodding, pulling it into shape, not looking at what he was doing at all, but rather at the boy's body. But it would seem that this method worked, for the manikin that now grew under his fingers was no rough figure but far more of a human shape. And he sang
as he worked, words that Cory did not understand, though he recognized quickly that it was a song of power.

Up and up rose the figure the Changer made. Now it was as tall as Cory's knees, as his waist, and still it grew as the Changer's hands moved faster and faster, his singing grew louder. Never did he look at what he fashioned, but always at the boy, though once or twice he leaned over to spit into the mud, and again he threw into the clay pinches of some dusty stuff he took from a small pouch belted around his misshapen, half-beast body.

Now the manikin stood as tall as Cory's shoulder. As yet the head remained only a ball, but the body was clearly done. And Cory's fear deepened, for there was this about the Changer's work—as it grew more human, so did Cory hate it more. It was as though it might be a great enemy, or the sum of all his own fears from both worlds.

The Changer dropped his hands and for the first time his eyes left Cory, so the boy felt a sense of relief, as if that intent stare had held him prisoner. Now the shaper looked from Cory to the image of mud and back again with long measurement, though the ball head of the figure remained unfinished.

Apparently satisfied with his work, the Changer edged backward without rising to his feet, putting his hands to the ground on either side to pull himself along. Again Cory felt relief from some loosening of the will that held him. But he guessed that it was best not to betray he had that small freedom, lest the Changer turn his full attention once more on his prisoner.

Now the Changer pulled sticks before him, so that they
lay between him and the image he had created. He set these up for a fire as the otters had their signal, in the form of a tepee. But he did not touch light to it at once. Instead he took from his belt pouch some small packets of leaves folded in upon themselves, each fastened with sharp thorns into tight packages. These he unpinned one by one, to display small amounts of what might be dried herbs or dust.

Cory was deeply afraid now, though as yet he had not been openly threatened. If he could have done so he would have run, just as he had from the buffalo and the dancer. But, though he was somewhat freed from the bonds the Changer had so mysteriously laid upon him, he was not free enough to leave. He knew, he could not tell how—unless that was part of Yellow Shell's beaver memory still lingering with him—that if he could not fight now, it would be the end of him. For the Changer's full medicine would be too strong for him to withstand.

Too strong for animals—but what about man? How had that thought come to Cory? Animal—man. Man
was
an animal, but also more, sometimes only a little, but still more. Thoughts raced in his mind. If he let the Changer complete the magic he would do here—then perhaps man would never be that little bit more, though he could not tell how he knew that.

Suddenly, as clearly as if his eyes actually saw it before him—a picture formed in his mind—the head of a black bird. Crow—such as served the Changer? No! There were white circles about the eyes and the bird's beak opened to voice a medicine song—Raven!

And it seemed to Cory that when he thought the name
Raven, the picture in his mind turned its eyes on him and a new picture formed, by the will and power of Raven. Another bird head—this one white—Storm Cloud? No, it was a greater eagle. And he remembered the White Eagle to whom Yellow Shell had appealed when he loosed the bit of down that had guided him here.

But what had the White Eagle to do with—? Again as he identified the picture, that majestic bird also turned to look squarely at him and once more came another picture. But this one was vast, clouded, he could see only a bit of it, and he sensed with awe that it was given to no one to see the whole of what stood there.

And perhaps it was the remnants of Yellow Shell's memory that gave an awesome name to that half-seen shadow. For that it was awesome even the human Cory recognized. Thunderbird! And when he named it in his mind it became clearer for a single instant. But Cory could never afterwards recall just what he had seen then, or if he had seen anything at all, but had only been blinded by the appearance of something it was not given to his kind to understand.

But Thunderbird's shadow remained with him. And to that vague picture Yellow Shell's memory added some words that were strong medicine—very strong. Cory did not repeat them aloud, but he turned his head to look at the mud image, which moment by moment grew less and less like clay, more and more like brown skin laid over firm flesh, upheld by solid bone.

Cory studied the ball of a head that had never been truly finished, and in his mind he repeated the medicine words, trying to shut out all but those words and the need for saying
them over and over. Why it was necessary to do this he could not say, only that it was all he
could
do to prevent the Changer from completing his purpose.

Smoke with a strong smell puffed up around him, but drifted more towards the image, clinging to the mud. Then hands reached out to grasp the clay body on either side of its slender waist, lifted it up. Cory, still watching, repeated the words in his mind now with all his energy. He saw the Changer set the mud man down with its feet in the blazing, smoking fire, so that the flames rose up about it.

Then the Changer stood up, his half-man, half-beast form even stranger looking when he was erect. And he began a medicine song. But Cory tried to shut his ears to the sound, to think only of the words that would call the Thunderbird. While his feet could not move from where they appeared to be fixed to the ground, he found he could raise his hands somewhat. And they moved now in signs following the words in his mind.

At first the flames rose very high, shoulder high around the image, and the smoke veiled it from view. There was a feeling of triumph, of success in that smoke, and in the singing.

Still Cory's hands moved to match the words in his mind and perhaps the Changer was so intent upon his own magic that he did not see what Cory did.

Then the smoke rippled and a wind rose out of nowhere. The sun was clouded and a chill edged the breeze. The dance and song pattern of the Changer altered. He took a step or two more, then stood, looking about him with quick wariness, as if he had been shocked out of a dream.

The wind not only whipped away the smoke but it pulled at the live brands of the fire, whirling one up in a shower of sparks, carrying it away, to be followed by a second, a third. The Changer cried out, but his voice sounded more like the howl of a coyote. He flung up his hand as if to stop one of those flying torches, and the fire of it must have singed him painfully, for again he howled in rage.

His eyes flamed yellow-green, turning from the wind-driven fire to Cory, and his lips drew back to show the fangs of a hunting beast. He vigorously made signs with his man hands. For a moment the wind died a little, the showering sparks did not fill the air.

Only now the clouds had so darkened the sky that they made a low ceiling. Cory felt that if he reached up his arm he could touch them. From those clouds broke flashes of lightning and the Changer whirled at the first brilliant crackling, as if he could not believe in this sudden storm.

He snarled at the flashes, again showing his fangs, and voiced a long, wailing howl. He might have been ordering those clouds to clear, the sun to shine again. But only for a moment he stood so, looking up into the gathering fury. Then he turned, his anger visible in every upstanding hair on his shoulders, in the prick of his ears, the wrinkling of his lips.

Once more his hands moved in signs. The bit of Yellow Shell still in Cory cringed at the sight of those. For, not being a medicine beaver, he could not read the signs, yet in them he saw great power.

Cory's thoughts faltered; he could no longer remember clearly those words that had spoiled what the Changer meant
to do here. But his failure to keep up the fight did not seem to matter. Perhaps he had only prepared the way for another force that would now take over, whether he continued to call it or not.

His hands fell heavily to his sides, as if once more chained there. And he could not move, even when one of the wind-blown brands burned his neck with its sparks, singeing his hair.

For if the wind had subsided a little at the Changer's retort, it rose again, scattering the fire as if a broom had been used for that purpose. And the flames were almost gone as huge drops of rain fell with the force of blows on the ground, on the dying coals, on the mud image, and on Cory.

Now the Changer stood to his full height, his Coyote head flung back on his man's shoulders, his eyes searching the sky as he turned his head slowly. It was as if he looked to find his enemy above, searched there for a target against which to loose his powers.

For a long moment he stood so, while the coals of fire hissed black and dead under the pelting of the rain and it grew colder and colder. Cory, who only moments earlier had felt the terrible heat of the sun in this desert place, now shivered and shook under the blast of the chill.

Seeming at last to have made up his mind, the Changer turned his back on the now dead fire, on the image standing in what had been its heart. He went to one of the dead bushes nearby and, stooping down, laced the fingers of his right hand among its branches, bringing it up out of the ground in a single pull.

Its roots made a tangle from among which he plucked a
bag. Cory, seeing it, knew that this was what Yellow Shell had hunted. This was the Changer's great medicine; with it in hand he was armed, ready to stand firm against all the spirits of sky, earth, water, and air.

With both hands he held it aloft, into the full force of the storm, shaking it from side to side as if it were a dance rattle, or as if he wanted the spirits in that punishing wind to be well aware of with what he threatened them.

The wind died, the rain ceased, the clouds began to split apart. All the while the Changer, holding high his mighty power, danced and sang. That singing was not for the ears of man, it was stronger than any lightning crackle, any cruel roll of thunder.

Still the Changer danced and sang, and held the medicine bundle as one might hold a spear against an enemy, driving away the storm that had spoiled all his plans. For how long he danced so, Cory could not have said, for time no longer had a meaning.

But at last even the Changer must have grown tired, for Cory could see again, hear again. And the beast-man sat upon the ground even as he had when first Yellow Shell had looked down into the forest of stone trees. There was now only a shapeless mass of clay where the image had stood, flowing down from a blob supported on two legs that the fire had baked into a more enduring substance.

The Changer lifted the hand holding the medicine bundle and tapped that mass lightly, and straightway even the legs became mud again. He looked down for a long time at that sticky pile. Then he roused, threw back his head, and gave one of those far-sounding howls. Having done so, he stared at
Cory and there was such an evil glint in his narrow beast eyes that the boy tried vainly to fight the bonds laid upon him.