Fever

The dream of flying engulfed him. From the sharp points of his talons to the tips of his outspread wing feathers, from the delicate but strong skeleton to the piercing eyes that watched his shadow, far below, skim over field and meadow, aware of the rabbit who froze in its tracks before running for its life.

To him, always, the earth was something to leave behind as often as he could, so the fantasy took him, not of plunging down to sink talons into warm fur so he could feast, but to fly higher, up above the clouds and higher still where the air grew colder.

He was crossing that permeable boundary said to exist between sky and night, getting his first glimpse of clustered stars when a heavy weight landed on his mortal abdomen and woke him.

“Brother,” he complained with eyes still closed, “I could have gone a little farther.”

The weight shifted to his chest and settled there, but continued moving enough to distract him from plunging back into his dream.

Groaning, he opened his eyes, prepared to be told that Brother Knows Best and the usual rigamarole, but instead, he stared into the green eyes of a hefty black cat.

Though desiring to push the intruder away, his arms under the covers felt much too heavy to move. Sweat prickled on his face, dampened the hair at the nape of his neck and gathered in his armpits.

Where had this cat come from? Looking beyond those green eyes, he did not recognise the room and wondered why the wall with a shuttered window was distinctly curved. This was nowhere that he and his brother ever lodged in their peregrinations.

The black cat yowled, a sound magnified by the small room.

As if this was a summons, he heard quick movement on what sounded to be wooden steps.

***

Yawning after not enough sleep, the witch who was also a lightkeeper opened the door to the guestroom. She discovered her black cat sitting on the shapeshifter’s chest and exchanged a look with Shadow that said so that’s where you got to, which was answered by her familiar blinking twice.

When she approached the bed, the shifter looked up at her vaguely.

“Are you well?” she asked, but the unpleasant smell she inhaled told her he was not. She noticed the sweat on his face and told him, “No harm intended.” Smiling and moving slowly, she placed the back of her hand against his forehead, felt the hot flesh and nearly swore. Dropping all gentleness because of her worry, she asked, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he rasped, showing no awareness of why she might question him.

So, it was not the worst type of fever and might not be contagious. Regardless, her very next thought was to wrestle him down the stairs and outside into the inclement weather where he would doubtless perish with nobody tending him.

Measuring her memory of him from yesterday when he arrived as a seagull and then stood naked in mortal form before her, she could very well have done it. One hacking cough might have prompted her to because she had a duty as a lightkeeper to preserve herself as long as she could, no matter what. Keeping the light burning was essential to preserving whatever was left of the realm.

But he lay there with the black cat staring down into his eyes. Surely her familiar would have made some sign if he was afflicted with a contagious fever?

The shifter grimaced as he tried to swallow then managed to croak, “Where’s my brother?”

She could see in his eyes that he had no idea who or what she was, maybe had forgotten whatever brought him here to the Light Tower at the edge of the world. And to think, her worst thought when she composed herself to sleep last night had been that she might find a seagull in her guest room and not be able to help him shift back.

“I do not know where your brother is,” she told him, “but I am a friend and here to help you.”

His feverish gaze weighed her words, some glimmer of sense briefly occupying his mind, then he sighed before his eyelids closed. Fortunately, her father had begun to share his knowledge of healing arts with her before her talent for witchery became obvious when she not only charmed a half dozen field mice to dance for her as a child, but protected them from several lurking cats.

Thereafter, she learned from mother as well as father, though she never mastered herbs and practical remedies as easily as she took to spell work and enchantments.

***

When she managed to prepare a mixture and the shifter had swallowed every last drop and kept it down, she returned to her study.

Intrigued, she watched as Shadow paced back and forth in front of the shelved books, eying them as keenly as if a mouse had scampered in among the volumes.

“What is it you have seen?” she asked.

“M’row,” he told her, glancing over his shining black furred shoulder, his eyes intensely green.

She saw the slender volume then, darker than those that surrounded it, and plucked the book while her familiar purred approval.

No title on the spine or cover, but the interwoven etchings of birds, fishes, and animals reminded her of a bestiary. However, the beautiful images accompanying description of these and other creatures she expected did not inhabit the pages. Instead, these were laden with finely scribed lines which began with an interesting statement. Shifting involves both more and less complication than anyone unacquainted with the art would suspect.

***

She sighed and stroked Shadow who had curled up on his corner of her desk away from where the candle burned so no hot wax would drip on his velvety black fur. Then she picked up the brown sea-hawk feather quill to write about the fever and the cures that she applied in her own book of remedies which had lain untouched since the previous lightkeeper perished.

She had only been able to delay the inevitable, not bring him back to full health. Inscribing glyphs and sigils in her book of spells would have not made her frown and pause for thought so often, but witchcraft could not charm away an illness.

The volume in regard to shapeshifting proved an interesting distraction when she had time in and amongst all her other needful tasks. To keep the light lit and turning, to fish for fresh salmon if the weather was kind, to renew the spell work protecting the lighthouse tower every night because frequent pressure from the inimical dark forces that dwelled just beyond the oceanic horizon continually frayed the barrier that she and the lightkeepers before her had established.

On the unhallowed island, the seers long ago had written, there were not many of the horrific creatures and possibly fought among themselves occasionally, depleting their numbers. However, if they managed to overcome this necessary bulwark of the realm, they would swiftly bring greater ruin than the civil war was doing. Not only that, but they could then contaminate the lands beyond the borders with their plague of chaos, destroying as they conquered.

And, without the servant who had looked after the previous lightkeeper, she also needed to cook and, for the moment, patiently feed some herb-laced nourishing broth to the shapeshifter which, fortunately, stayed down when he swallowed. Plus, she needed to keep him clean and dry, though a little spell work assisted with that.

***

The morning after the night during which the fever finally broke, the shapeshifter opened his eyes to find the green gaze of Shadow only inches away, sharing the same generous pillow.

Sight of the hefty black cat brought the scent of salmon to his recollection and a pang of hunger clenched his stomach. Yet he remembered partaking of the feast the witch offered on his arrival last night, how he crammed in every morsel, washed down with the juice of mixed berries.

But perhaps it was already evening. Hard to tell when the only window was shuttered whether it was closed up against the storm or the night or worse things that he did not want to contemplate now. Alongside the feast, less immediate memories returned to him. That his brother was dead. That the realm was being torn apart by civil war.

His shoulders as he absently shrugged them felt oddly unencumbered by the pains he expected to persist. Careful to not disturb the motionless cat, he stretched fully, surprised that the movement evoked barely any aches.

He rolled onto his back with unexpected slowness, a weakness of body that he could not understand. Closing his eyes to concentrate, he reached tentatively inside his mind, just for the edge of the template of the seagull, needing to establish how resonant it remained without getting overwhelmed and potentially overcome by it. That he had survived the night without shifting was a good sign, but no guarantee.

Nothing arose in his thoughts, no raucous seagull cries, not the least sensation of riding the wind or rocking on the swell of a wave.

Shadow began purring, a comforting sound.

He turned on his side so he could stroke the black fur, unused to answering a cat’s demands but willing enough while he was a guest here to get along with all the occupants of the lighthouse tower. He wondered if the witch would resent his attentions to his familiar, but trusted that she would speak her mind if this was the case.

When he felt more at home in his body, he lay back again, closing his eyes and deliberately imagining a seagull, prepared to dismiss the image if need be. Not the least nuance of resonance came to him, though he could picture the strong winged gray and white gull easily enough.

Despite hunger and a rising thirst making themselves known, he concentrated. Every shifter had their own method. His brother tried to convince him that entering a house was the only way to organise the knowledge. Behind each door waited another template, so entering the room selected and commenced the appropriate shift.

That notion had only frightened him as a child because in his mental house, the creatures came thronging out of the rooms and chased him. His own choice, though it took some time to discover it, was a weighty volume bound with a heavy lock which took effort to open but could be closed in a heartbeat. Some pages held mere sketches of shapes he had explored but never cared to fathom himself. Other pages were more like paintings in natural colours with fine details.

Only, in this moment, with the black cat purring beside him, when he closed his eyes, applied his will to the protective lock and heaved the volume open, page after page in his mind’s eye held no trace of even a sketch, no matter how slowly or rapidly he flicked through the pages. When he tried to ignore the book and then quickly consult a random page as if he could sneak up on the information stored there, it was all totally and completely blank.

***

She slept longer after the difficult night and needed to check on shapeshifter because she was not entirely certain he would still be living. As she had lost the politeness of knocking when entering the guest room during the days and nights of his fever as he almost always lay abed uncaring, she walked in without any warning.

To find the shapeshifter sitting up on the edge of the bed was a relief, his nakedness somewhat distracting though caring for him during his illness made that more ordinary than it should have been. However, the way he sobbed with his hands spread over his face made her heart ache. Forgotten memories must have besieged him now that he survived the fever.

He stared at her like someone in the process of drowning might watch a passing ship.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I am empty,” he replied in a dull tone. “My mind is blank. Every creature that I ever shifted to has vanished.”

“You had a fever after you arrived here as a seagull,” she started to explain.

“Seagull,” he said as he seized his head in both hands, “sea-hawk, peacock, kestrel, not even a feather abides. And those are easy for me, the first I learned, like slipping on a glove. As for the others including all the seasons I spent studying dragons, nothing but absolutely nothing remains in my stupid skull.”

Nothing in the extravagant tales she heard earlier in her life mentioned anything about the fascinating power possibly being lost. If anything, many stories told how an excess of ability caused havoc in one way or another.

She considered the slim volume which she had read from cover to cover, but her somewhat improved knowledge of shapeshifting did not provide her with any hope to offer. She could merely resolve that she would give him that book in case it was any use to him. Not now, though, not while he was grieving a loss that might well be permanent.

Adjusting to becoming mortal would be a difficult task for anyone with magical blood. She exchanged a glance with her familiar and felt sure that Shadow grasped the circumstances too. The black cat inveigled his way into close proximity and demanded attention until the crying stopped.

The witch felt a tinge of jealousy but could not begrudge such comfort as her familiar could provide. Her guest might not yet have realised that he was stranded here as long as he was unable to shapeshift into a gray and white seagull to cross the ocean waves again. She doubted any ship would be sail while the civil war continued.