The stolen car broke down a few miles short of their goal, the engine smoking something terrible. It was early evening, insects chirping in the dimming light. Knife and Chet did the manly thing and popped the hood. They looked at the smoking engine, then at one another. Chet instinctively understood that Knife knew as little about engines as himself but had responded to the masculine urge to seem in charge of such matters. They vented a simultaneous sigh. There was a greenish yellow liquid dripping from a ruptured part inside. Who knew what kind of part? Certainly not Chet, to whom all engines were a closed book.
Knife cleared his throat. “Um. Maybe that’s the radiator?”
“Could be.”
The sun was setting. After escaping Semaphore yesterday, they’d driven thirty out of thirty-five hours on the road, taking short breaks and switching out drivers. Chet had bought snacks at a convenience store, but they’d avoided the few restaurants scattered in the mountains, let alone hotels. The results were hunger and seedy exhaustion. Knife had insisted everyone drive at the speed limit, which had been a pain. Nearly nine-hundred miles over the Monastery Mountains hadn’t been a straight line, either.
Now they were surrounded by rolling hills and farm country. West Eicha was a decidedly civilized chunk of continent. On one side of the road, a herd of marauch watched them curiously from behind a picket fence. The graceful, seven-foot tall hoofed animals craned their long necks, probably hoping for carrots. One occasionally honked through its distinct droopy nose.
“Let’s start walking," Journey said, touching her head nervously.
Journey was back in female form, apparently because she felt like it. Knife had given her back her jacket, and she’d fashioned a turban of sorts out of the white tee-shirt. It looked odd, but at least it covered her baldness. Nothing else could be done.
Knife sighed. “Walking is exactly right. We can’t hitchhike like this—we’re too memorable together.”
Night settled as they hiked. Cars occasionally passed them. A few slowed down but Knife waved them on, smiling and bantering with forced cheer. They turned off the gravel byway for a dirt road. Chet hoped Knife and Journey knew where they were going, as there were no signs. Fenimore found a fallen branch and trimmed it with his hunting knife as they crossed through a wood lot, whittling a walking stick. Chet was chaffing and hungy, but at least it wasn’t cold in summertime.
Chet gaped as they broke through the trees. The stars overhead were brighter than he’d ever seen in his life. Elderbeth hadn’t yet risen on the horizon to drown out the night sky in green light. “We really are in the country, aren’t we?” Chet said after a while.
“Yep,” Knife said. “Our colleague, Othnielia, likes it that way.”
“At least it isn’t threatening rain," Journey murmured.
“That’s true. We’re being framed for murder with half the police force of Wetshul after us, we’re bound to an ancient, blood-soaked magical relic, and separated from our luggage and transportation, but at least we won’t burn to death tonight.”
Chet scowled. “Hey, you didn’t just see your professor’s dead body bloody on the floor.”
“Or wake up three-hundred years in the future,” Fenimore added.
“Yes, I suppose there’s that.” Journey sounded like she wanted to cry, but was holding herself together. “Though now that I think about it, being pushed into lucid mud would be the most horrible of fates. I wouldn’t want to wake up in the future not knowing what had happened between times. Centuries or even millennia, gone. Just like that. Or you might not ever wake up again, and you’d never know it.”
“I went into lucid mud, once, and I woke up again," Knife said, sounding amused in the dark.
“That was under controlled circumstances, as I recall.”
“Hey, my plan worked, didn’t it?” Knife sounded hurt. “And the Watering Times could hardly be called ‘controlled circumstances.’”
Chet frowned critically. “Wouldn’t lucid mud burn you to dea—ah. Not water based, right.” He was growing stupider by the minute to forget what he’d learned only last semester. “Knife, why did you go into lucid mud?”
Knife obliged. The story was followed by others; they took turns spinning tales, though Chet didn’t have much life experience to draw on.
The stories stopped when they arrived at what turned out to be a farm. There were no exterior lights on the property, but by that time Elderbeth had risen. The gas giant dominated a quarter of the night sky. Without light pollution, Chet could see swirling details on the planet’s surface, plus a scattering of silhouetted moons. More importantly, by Elderbeth’s light Chet could see a large barn, exterior buildings and a cozy house surrounded by fields and rolling farmland. It looked like a calendar picture. He could smell wood-fire smoke and the odor of farm animals like the past come to life. No sounds of traffic. The front window was illuminated by an oil lantern, the others covered by gingham curtains; there was flickering light inside, as if from fire rather than electricity.
Journey knocked on the door. After a moment it was opened by an overweight, middle-aged, flaxen-skinned woman wearing what seemed to be a homemade dress and apron. Chet’s heart froze: were they at the wrong place? Her graying hair seemed real.
The woman looked over her shoulder and called, “’Lia, they’re here.”
A gaunt man with a wrinkled, deeply tanned face appeared behind her. He had a distinct belly sticking out, though he wasn’t fat. It was only by his wrinkled bald head that Chet would have ever guessed the guy was Flame. He didn’t look Flame. Why would a shapeshifter want to appear so ugly? Yet he grinned toothily—he was missing an incisor—as Journey leapt into his arms.
“Othnielia!” she cried out. Now Journey was crying as she buried her face in his chest. “Oh, Pantheon, everything’s turned to shit.”
“There, now, lovely one. Come in and tell me all about it.” The guy—Flame—held her tenderly. “Masie, get the fire built up? And let’s heat some supper. I assume you haven’t eaten yet.”
“No, not yet,” Knife said.
Knife was hanging back, Chet realized. He seemed vaguely uncomfortable. Chet noticed that Knife had changed back in his usual bistre-skinned, tall-and-skinny shape. The messy wig looked like a wig, out of context next to his skin tone.
“Well, come on in. Don’t dangle on my doorstep and let mosquitoes inside.”
Chet gulped and obeyed. The house didn’t have any electric lights—instead oil lamps burned on the hewn dining room table and sitting room, which also had a fire in the grate. A younger woman attended to it as Masie moved around the kitchen, getting down plates and stirring a real cook-stove fire. Othnielia had his hands full with Journey. He crooned softly as she wept all over him. Chet wondered whether the Flame would help in the kitchen otherwise, if the division of labor was fairer in this house than with a real man and woman. Or, um, women.
Fenimore breathed in deeply beside him. “At last, a real place,” he said. “I was starting to wonder if there was any normalcy left on Uos.”
Chet found himself oddly in agreement with Fenimore. Despite its strangeness, this house seemed very real to him, too.
“Othnielia and his family are rare,” Knife murmured. “At least they have glass windows rather than oiled cloth or rice paper, as if we still lived in the Cobalt Era.”
The young woman who’d been building up the fire came over and shyly introduced herself as Saemion. Chet wondered how she fit into the picture. Was Othnielia involved with one woman or both? She couldn’t be his daughter, after all. His curiosity fled as soon as the table was set and a pot of thick, bubbling stew placed on a trivet in the middle. It smelled alluringly of doedicu meat and vegetables. Pickled sides of all sorts were placed around it in little dishes. Fresh baked bread joined the rest, a rounded scoop of white butter placed beside the loaf. Chet’s mouth watered unabashedly. When the older woman, Masie, finally invited them to sit and dig in, Chet nearly scrambled to his place at the table.
“I’ll clean up afterwards, much as I’m able. You two go on to bed,” Othnielia told Masie, hugging her tenderly. They finished with a loving kiss. Othnielia offered the same to Saemion, who accepted readily.
It didn’t look like Othnielia had a platonic relationship with either of them. Were they... a threesome? Strange threesome, if true. Masie seemed to be in her late forties, Saemion maybe a few years older than Chet. Othnielia—who knew? Hadn’t Oak said that Flame could live up to a hundred and forty years? Maybe he chose to appear as an old man because he was, in fact, old.
Othnielia listened to Journey and Knife explain as they ate. After they finished talking, he sighed. “Well, I can’t do much about the mess you’re in.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Journey said, her face darkening with emotion. “I have no wish to bring trouble upon you and yours.”
“As it may be. Both of you are welcome to bathe in my hearth and bunk down in the front room. You boys can sleep in the barn,” Othnielia said, regarding Chet and Fenimore with neutral eyes. “The hay loft is cozy enough in summertime.”
Knife cleared his throat. “Othnielia, do you have a vehicle we can use?”
“No, sorry. I still stick to the old ways around here; the most I have with is a tractor, and that’s forty years old. Picked it up after the war for almost nothing, old-fashioned as it is.”
“It’s so quiet,” Journey murmured. “Ah! I know what’s missing. ’Lia, where are the children?”
Children? Chet jerked in surprise then glanced around surreptitiously. Hadn’t Journey said that Flame were sterile?
Othnielia took in Chet’s obvious bewilderment.“I generally have four or five orphans that I’m raising at any given time. That’s what I do. I farm the land, breed animals and raise unwanted children. That’s what I’ve done every lifetime I’ve ever lived when given a choice in the matter.”
“Are they in bed?” Journey persisted.
“No, we have none at the moment. There’s a lot of anti-Flame feeling just now, as you are aware—officials think we’re perverts and abusers. It trickles down to the local level. You both know I don’t go in for wigs or hiding my nature; I’d rather be burned to death, and of course I have been. When I take in orphans these days, a social worker from the providence shows up at my doorstep, soon as people notice. I’ve stopped trying.”
Knife frowned at this. “You were the first among us to start that tradition. Why should you bow to such blatant ignorance? You could sue.”
“Sue my neighbors and friends? Last time we had the social worker in for supper when she came by to cart another kid away. I figure, give them about twenty years or so. The pendulum’ll swing our way again. Some horrible new disease will kill a lot of parents and taint a lot of kids, and they’ll be stuffed into overfilled trains again, shipped out to rural regions. It happens. I’ll go and sit in on town hall meetings and voice my opinion, as usual. They know me. Eventually they’ll let me do it again.” Othnielia chuckled. “Masie says we should take some of these new foster-parent classes to appease social services. I’ll take the classes, but don’t think they can teach me anything about raising orphans I don’t already know.”
Chet felt himself swaying as he finished the last of his stew and bread. Everything he’d thought he’d known about Flame was wrong. For mercurial shapeshifters, they sure were a mixed lot. Cunning as he was, Knife had kept the same face and figure for centuries, only changing when he needed to. Oak studied hard and tolerated administrative prejudice to finish her professional degree. Othnielia was the strangest of all: a craggy, ugly individual dedicated to only three things in life... or lives. Of all of them, Journey was the most stereotypically Flame, with her feminine tendencies and bi-sexed nature. Yet even Journey defied surface impressions. The way she’d fled into Othnielia’s arms spoke of a long-term relationship. Not a sexual relationship, either, Chet thought. More like a child seeking comfort from a parent, which was bizarre, given that Journey was thousands of years old.
Othnielia retrieved an oil lamp and blankets, leading Chet and Fenimore out to the barn. Sleepy ceroses poked their heads out of stalls. Chet avoided them, wary of their horns, though they snuffled at him curiously. A pen near the back of the barn smelled distinctly of palaeoth, though nothing stirred in that direction.
Othnielia climbed up the loft ladder and Chet followed, Fenimore at his heels. “I’ll be up before dawn to do the chores. It’s best if you boys sleep in that corner rather than near the drop off, because I’ll be forking down hay to ceroses in the morning.”
“Okay,” Chet murmured. He wanted to go to sleep as soon as possible but Othnielia seemed to be watching them with a measured, knowing gaze.
“I understand you’ve lost your luggage. If you boys have need, there’s a grease bucket behind the barn. It shouldn’t be rancid; just slaughtered a doedicu a few weeks ago.”
“Um. Thank you?” Chet rubbed his arms and took the offered blankets gingerly.
Fenimore smiled far more sincerely and thanked Othnielia using flowery, old-fashioned wording. Were these his courtly manners? Othnielia grinned toothily and answered with the proper responses, though his accent in the Tache language was terrible—worse than Chet’s.
Othnielia left, taking the light with him. Chet burrowed down into the hay and draped the blankets over himself and Fenimore, feeling vulnerable and decidedly strange. The hay smelled good, though it was scratchy. Fenimore spooned him, his body warm.
Just before Chet dropped to sleep he heard Fenimore murmur, “Grease, eh? Guess that one’s Flame after all.”
It rained the next morning, and Knife and Journey stayed in the house. Was it part of the plan to take things slow, or just necessity? Othnielia didn’t seem inconvenienced, anyway; he wore bright yellow slickers and an enormous cone-shaped hat to do his chores. He’d covered every part of his body, including his face.
Later during breakfast, Journey confirmed Chet’s assessment by saying, “We’re not going anywhere right now. Think of it as a rest day.” Knife grunted agreement, looking trapped and uncomfortable.
Chet could use a rest day but missed his books intensely. Saemion offered up her collection of lurid pulp romance novels for his perusal. There were several set in historic time periods—Chet studied their covers doubtfully before selecting one and retreating to the barn. He gave up around chapter three, grumpy at the historically inaccurate details.
Fenimore, who’d been sharpening his blade on a leather strop, glanced up. “Rain’s stopped. Come on, let’s explore this place.”
The farm was beautiful, Chet had to admit. There were rolling pastures and bawling baby animals in pens. Masie came out with a bucket of scraps and fed the free-roaming palaeoth, who butted their blunt heads against her waist, nearly knocking her over.
“Get on with you,” she said with mock anger, slapping their furry haunches.
Saemion was outside in another cone-shaped hat, weeding the enormous vegetable garden, domesticated peteinos sifting the soil and making mewing noises at her side. For a while, Chet weeded beside her, breathing in the scent of fertile, wet soil while Fenimore poked about.
After a time, Fenimore grew bored and cajoled Chet until he got to his feet. “Look, there’s a lake over there.”
“That’s the doedicu range,” Saemion said, pausing to wipe her brow. “Their tails are clipped, but stay away from the male enclosure on the far side of the lake.”
Sure enough, Chet spotted his first doedicu as they wandered to the wooden fence. It was enormous, over six feet, its dome-shaped shell layered like ancient leather armor. More doedicus rushed the fence upon spotting them, shuffling quickly upon their short feet. Expecting treats, probably. Chet felt guilty about his empty hands and pockets. As Saemion had said, the doedicus’ tails had each been cut short at five feet long and lacked their famous spikes. Chet hung back as Fenimore held out a fennel bulb pilfered from the garden. A doedicu stuck its head out of the shell and whiffled the vegetable curiously with its thick beak. It took the bulb delicately, then scampered away on its short feet, head retracted into its shell to avoid the other doedicus crowding in for a taste.
“They’re really tame,” Fenimore said, breaking out into a grin. “I bet they’ll let us ride them. Come on, let’s try it.”
“But...” Chet swallowed as Fenimore vaulted the fence. Chet hunched. He was no athlete; he was a scholar, for Pantheon’s sake.
Fenimore glanced over his shoulder. “Unbend, you milk-livered pumpion. It’s time to grow a pair, eh?”
“If you think insulting me is going to make me do something stupid—”
“They’re tame, cream puff! Don’t make me come back there and get you.”
“Right. Tame, right.” Chet gulped and awkwardly climbed the rough, splintery fence.
The beasts sniffed him curiously. They were huge. Chet had once read that the coteries of Palister had required boys to ride an unclipped doedicu three miles before permitting him to be a man. In that culture, Chet would have been a boy forever. A baby doedicu, perhaps a season old, clung to its mother’s side as she investigated Chet. Chet found himself breathing easier around the baby animal. It was so cute.
“Come on, let’s ascend a big one together,” Fenimore said. He grabbed Chet’s hand and hauled him through the grazing herd.
Chet’s shoes, already damp from the wet grass, were soaked through as they stomped through mud. Where did the lake start, anyway? Chet looked over and saw several doedicus—or at least, their half-submerged shells—in the water. Amphibious grazers, they were at home in the lake as on land.
Fenimore stopped and surveyed the herd. “There, that one, the castrated male. Seven feet tall if it’s an inch.”
Chet groaned. “Fenimore, I don’t think this is a good—”
Fenimore grabbed his hand and hauled him to the doedicu. Then Fenimore let go and scrambled up its shell. The grazing doedicu ignored him. Chet bit his lip and followed—or tried, anyway. His feet kept slipping.
“You’re not going fast enough!” Fenimore snarled. He grabbed the neck of Chet’s sweater and hung on as Chet tried to find a foothold.
Perhaps it was his awkwardness that alerted the doedicu to their presence, for it stuck its head out, bellowed, and scampered on its tiny feet toward the lake. Terrified of falling to the distant ground below, Chet screamed up to Fenimore, “Don’t let go, don’t let go...”
Water splashed around them; the shell tipped as the doedicu dove. Fenimore didn’t let go of Chet so much as he lost his hold on the doedicu. They both fell into the lake. Chet splashed down, accidentally gulping water. It was cold. Oh Pantheon, it was cold!
Soaked through, Chet gasped and swam toward shore until he found footing in the soft, muddy bottom. Where was Fenimore? Could he even swim? Something grabbed Chet’s foot, hauling him sideways and underwater. Chet’s scream was lost in the lake. A moment later, he fought his way back to the surface, Fenimore laughing beside him.
“The look on your face.” Fenimore’s beautiful eyelashes dripping water, cheeks dimpled with mirth.
“That’s not funny!” Chet cried out, splashing at Fenimore. “I thought you’d drowned!”
“The venerable Countess LaDaven didn’t raise her sons to be cowardly of the sea. I spent my childhood summers at the seashore in Torque.”
“Bully for you," Chet grumbled, wading out of the lake.
Sardonic applause caught his attention, and he looked toward the fence: they had an audience. Saemion, Masie, and Othnielia had gathered there. Othnielia still wore his cone hat, yellow slicker and knee-high waders despite the fact that the rain had stopped.
“Good thing for you I clip tails and castrate my doedicus,” he commented as Chet hauled himself over the fence, Fenimore following lightly. “If you two had tried that with one of the intact males, you would have ended up with broken bones.”
Chet didn’t reply, stomping back toward the barn. He was wet, muddy, freezing and didn’t have a change of clothes. Not even a change of underwear. Undoubtedly, Othnielia could lend him something if he asked. How humiliating. Chet wasn’t going to ask if it killed him. Fenimore cheerfully chattered with the others and followed them as far as the house. Chet stumbled into the barn. It was warmer here, anyway. He stripped off clothes and laid them over the wooden beams. They dripped on the distant floor below, his shoes helplessly wet. Chet huddled under a blanket, teeth chattering and attempted once again to read the historically-inaccurate romance novel. He set it aside after a minute, seething. How dare Fenimore make him a laughing stock!
As if in reply to his thought, Fenimore’s head appeared in the ladder hole. He’d already changed into dry, borrowed clothing. “Here,” Fenimore said, tossing up a bundle of clothes. “These are for you.” He disappeared, grinning sardonically.
Chet unrolled the bundle, grateful despite himself, then froze. It was women’s clothing. There was a purple skirt and a low-cut blouse, a white bra and sexy pink underwear. Chet couldn’t breathe. Part of him was furious. What was this fresh humiliation Fenimore had dished up for him? Another part of him was... curiously aroused. The cloth was soft, the underwear and bra satiny. He’d never considered dressing in women’s clothing, yet here was the perfect opportunity.
Fenimore poked back through the ladder hole, hauling up a covered wooden bucket. “Still not dressed? You’ll catch your death.”
“Why didn’t you bring me regular clothes?”
“Is it not obvious? You scream so like a girl I thought you might as well dress like one as well.”
Chet scowled at him. “You’re so obnoxious, you, you...”
Fenimore touched him under the chin, and Chet abruptly lost his train of thought . “I had also thought how delightful it would be to pilfer you as a woman. Flame are not the only ones who can play such games.”
Chet’s muscles contracted at the thought, his penis hardening between one breath and the next. Fenimore noticed, grinning down Chet’s naked body under the insufficient blanket.
“Get dressed,” Fenimore ordered. “If you’re good, I shall undertake to educate you most thoroughly, little girl.”