Chapter Twenty-Five

Shapeshifter

Come… come to me… come…

Sif groaned in her sleep and rolled over. Though her body was sprawled untidily over her bed – she had fallen asleep before she could get under the covers – her mind was elsewhere; buried in a thick fog of exhaustion and half-forgotten dreams.

Sif.

The voice continued to whisper, in her mind, needling itself through the shades of sleep.

Sif. SIF!

The voice began to rouse her; half-conscious, she rolled over again and tried to go back to sleep. But it continued to call, louder and more insistent, refusing to let her go.

'Sif. Wake up. You must come.'

Sif dragged herself up onto her pillows, propping herself against the wall. 'What…? Saphira?'

'Come,' the voice said yet again. 'You must come now. Your master commands it.'

Sif felt a deep shudder go through her body. 'Yes… yes, Master. I'm coming.'

She got out of bed, muttering a word to create light around her. Still half-asleep, she reached for her clothes, only to find that they weren't there. She hadn't undressed before she went to bed. She hadn't even taken her shoes off. At least that would save time – her master sounded particularly impatient tonight.

She reached out with her mind. 'Saphira?'

The blue dragon's own mind radiated tired despair. 'Again?'

'Yes. I'm coming up now.'

'I will be ready for you.'

As Sif left the room, she glanced briefly at the mirror and caught a glimpse of her own face. She looked tired and worn, and pale. Her hair was unkempt – she hadn't combed it since… she couldn't remember when she had last combed it. I look old, she thought.

Saphira was waiting for her, up on the roost which had now been repaired. Sif climbed onto her back without stopping to put the saddle on, and the blue dragon took off.

'Will he come?' Sif asked. 'Will he come, Saphira?'

When Saphira did not reply, Sif didn't try and make her do so, and that was all either of them said during the flight toward the King's Wood.

Saphira landed a short distance away from the mountain – their master did not like them to approach it from the air – and the two of them walked the rest of the way.

'Do you think we'll have to stay long this time?' Sif asked.

'I hope not.'

Sif shuddered when they entered the clearing around the mountain. She hated it here. It was just another of the long list of horrors she had seen during the month or so since she and Saphira had taken their oaths of allegiance and their new master had taken Ravana's name and power.

If Saphira felt her partner's horror, she didn't show it. She walked on, toward the mountain, silently picking her way through the bones that littered the ground. Sif, keeping close beside her, saw the moonlight shine through the eyesockets of Lifrasir's skull. Even though the scales had gone along with the flesh, she still recognised it – she had seen where the bodies of Skirnir and his entire clan had landed, and had witnessed their rapid decay, step by step. They had refused to swear allegiance, and this was the price they had paid.

They both knew where their master was, and turned their steps toward the gaping hole in the mountainside where Ravana's tomb had been broken open. Light gleamed inside.

'Master,' Sif called tentatively. 'Master, Saphira and I are here.'

Silence.

'Go on,' Saphira urged.

Sif took a deep breath, and entered the cave.

There was no-one in there.

Sif paused, confused. Ravana's bones still decorated the cave where he had lived – the colossal ribcage spiking toward the ceiling, behind the collapsed spine and the scatter of bones that were the wings and legs. But there was no-one else there – no sign of the equally enormous imposter that had taken his place.

'Saphira,' Sif said as the blue dragon's head poked into the cave mouth after her. 'Where is he? There's nobody here.'

'Look,' Saphira said quietly.

Sif followed her partner's gaze, toward the source of the light. There was Ravana's skull, big enough to house a family, the horns, still attached, like the massive trunks of ancient trees. But there, perched incongrously on the snout, was something red.

'What…?' Sif began.

'Sif.' Her master's mental voice was suddenly in her head, harsh and demanding as always. 'Where have you been? Come to me now.'

Sif took another step forward. 'I don't understand,' she said. 'Where are you?'

'I am to your left. Come to me. Come now.'

And, in that moment, as Sif turned to look in that direction, she saw the red shape on the skull move and realised it was a person.

Heart thudding, she hurried toward it. 'I'm coming. I'm here…'

As she drew closer, bewilderment began to grow in her mind. She had not seen her master change shape since the night when Skandar had been stabbed, but now…

This new shape was…

Sif's heart quickened.

It was an elf. A female elf, clad in a simple red gown. Pointed ears poked through a head of shaggy bark-brown hair, and she had a rough, lanky look to her that did not match the pictures she had seen of elves in books. As she turned, she revealed a pale face with an elf's alien features, but there was a silver ring through her nose and more in her ears, and her slanted eyes were burning gold.

'Master.' Sif faltered.

'Come to me,' the elf said, aloud this time, and though her voice was far lighter and more human now the tones were still completely recognisable. 'I have been waiting for you.'

Sif obeyed. 'I'm sorry, Master, I didn't… I've never seen…'

The elf looked at her, oddly blank. 'I was tired of that shape. I wanted…' she paused, and Sif saw her fingers twisting and knotting together in her lap. 'I missed this shape.'

'It's a beautiful shape, Master,' Sif said politely.

The elf made an odd noise, perhaps a cough, or perhaps a kind of half-sob or laugh. 'This is my true shape,' she said. 'This is the shape I was born to, long ago. Tell me, Sif… have you ever seen a shape such as this?'

'No, Master,' said Sif. She paused. 'I… no, Master.'

The elf stood, raising herself on her macabre seat. 'You have seen a shape like mine?'

'I… y… I'm not… yes, Master,' said Sif. 'I thought you-,' she broke off, suddenly aware that she had said something she shouldn't have, but it was too late now. 'I only thought you looked a little like… Queen Skade. I saw her once when I was a girl. Her eyes were gold too.'

The elf hissed. 'I told you never to say that name again, Sif. I told you.'

'I'm sorry,' Sif babbled. 'Please, Master, I didn't mean to upset you, but you wanted me to tell you…'

She spat. 'Be silent. No. The two-shape's mother, the half-breed's slut… she was never an elf. Only a dragon wearing an elvish skin. She was a living abomination, like her mate. Like her son.'

'Yes, Master,' Sif said instantly. 'They were evil and disgusting creatures, and I always hated them.'

The elf appeared to relax. 'Do not lie to me, little human. I know you lusted after the two-shape. Nothing you ever thought or felt is a secret from me.'

Sif bowed her head. 'I know… Master. Forgive me.'

The elf watched her silently for a while. 'I thought you would like to see my true shape, Sif,' she said abruptly. 'And you, Saphira. It has been many, many centuries since another living creature saw it, and I have… I have worn so many shapes since then… I missed it.'

This wasn't the first time her master had spoken like this. 'Yes, Master,' Sif said obediently, though inside she burned to ask more.

The elf, however, seemed happy to tell her regardless. 'I have a name,' she added. 'A true name, to go with my true shape. Would you like to hear it?'

'Yes, Master,' said Sif.

'I am Scathach,' the elf told her. 'That is the name I was given, long ago, in Du Weldenvarden. The only thing my mother ever gave me, aside from a bitter legacy and a doomed life.'

'So you were an elf all along,' Sif dared to say. 'I should have known it, Master. Only an elf could be as powerful as you.'

'Elf!' Scathach snarled, like a dragon. 'Little fool. What do you know? You know nothing! You have always known nothing!'

Sif backed away. 'Y…yes, Master.'

Scathach, still standing on the dragon skull, clenched her fist. 'I am a shapeshifter,' she said haughtily. 'The last of the true shapeshifters. I am the Princess of my kind, the bearer of the greatest legacy in Alagaësia's history. You riders… you people who destroyed my kind, you believe you have the greatest power there is, but you are arrogant, and you are fools the like of which this world should never had been forced to suffer. I have magic, and I have the power of a dragon at my command. I have all powers. I can swim, fly, climb or burrow. I have all the wisdom and magical power of an elf, and the power of every other race that has ever existed. What is your own might, compared with that? You tell me! What are you, beside me?'

The elf's voice grew louder wilder by the moment, and Sif fell to her knees. Behind her, Saphira's own legs bent and she too grovelled, sharing her partner's fear.

Scathach composed herself. 'Nothing. Yes, you are nothing. You know that now. Yes. Nothing.' She seemed to be trying to reassure herself now, repeating the words like a child. 'You see now why you are the servant, and I am the master, don't you?'

'Yes, Master,' Sif managed.

'Good. Yes. You see it.' The shapeshifter ran her fingers over her face, breathing in deeply. 'Yes. And you see now why I destroyed the rest of your kind. What I did was not revenge, or madness, or a thirst for blood. I sought to destroy you for the sake of justice. Justice which has been denied to my race for too many centuries, too many thousands of years. Once we shapeshifters shared this land, with the dragons and the dwarves, and the humans, and hundreds of other races, wise and magnificent. But that was before the elves came, and created the riders. That was before their hate… burnt across the land, like a fire, destroying all in its path. Their madness, their obsession with purity and the supremacy of their own race…' she withdrew her hands and her eyes snapped open, burning with insane hatred. 'They destroyed us! They destroyed us all! Hunted us down and slaughtered us, as if we were animals! And so many others. Red dwarves, unicorn herders, sand people… even other elves! The dark elves, and the silver elves – all massacred. Done by your kind.'

Sif stood up. 'I know!' she yelled, unable to stop herself. 'Master, I know!'

Scathach paused, looking at her with an expression almost of shock. 'What?'

Sif hastily bowed her head. 'I know what the riders did, Master,' she said. 'We all knew. That was why Galbatorix destroyed the last generation of us. He wanted revenge for his race – the dark elves. And for all the others.'

'But then he sought to bring them back,' Scathach spat. 'He betrayed us all.'

'He brought us back so we could make things better, Master,' Sif said, but she said it in a dull, flat voice, without conviction.

Scathach sneered. 'And then he destroyed himself in a fight with a Shade, and let himself be stabbed to death by his own son.'

Sif gaped at her. 'How do you know that?' she said.

'I know all,' said Scathach. 'All, Sif. For centuries, I have known everything that happened in Alagaësia.'

Sif only stared at her, not daring to ask any more questions – aware, with Saphira's sudden jab at her mind, that she had gone too far. If she provoked the shapeshifter any further…

'I have known betrayal, and I have known pain,' Scathach said suddenly. 'I have known all this. Yes. Long ago… do you wish to know how I was born, Sif?'

Sif nodded wordlessly.

An awful, painful sneer spread over the shapeshifter's face. 'Long ago… before your kind came into being, my father came to Du Weldenvarden where the elves had been living for only two generations. He disguised himself as one of them, and that was how he met my mother. He seduced her, with his sly tongue and his shining eyes. He was plagued by lust; he had always thirsted after women – all the women he could have. He lived with her for weeks, until…' the sneer faltered. 'But what my mother did not know was that she was not the first elf her new lover had bedded. He had already claimed another elf woman – Linnëa, whom he had betrayed for a younger woman. Linnëa found them together, and in her fury she stabbed my father to death. After that she fled, and was killed by other elves trying to hunt her down for her crime.'

Sif looked up; this story sounded familiar, and so did the name. But she couldn't remember how or where from.

Scathach's sneer returned. 'What none of them knew was that my mother was pregnant. When I was born, it did not take long for them to realise that I was not an elf, and that since my mother was not a shapeshifter she must have lain with one. When the elves realised it, they killed her for her obscenity and violation of their laws. I escaped, and for many years I lived alone in Du Weldenvarden, learning how to control my powers. But I returned. Years later, I returned – thirsting for revenge over my mother's death. I killed many of them before they captured me, and then…' she paused, and shuddered ever so slightly. 'They condemned me, not to death, but to everlasting imprisonment. To escape from them, I melded myself into the living wood of a tree, and the elves cast magic around it – trapping me inside forever. That tree became known as the Menoa tree.'

Sif's heart leapt. The Menoa tree! 'But…' she couldn't stop herself. 'But Linnëa was the one who was trapped inside the tree. Wasn't she, Master?'

Scathach's golden eyes narrowed. 'You cannot trust old stories. Whatever truth they hold is rarely useful, and the lies more beguiling. No. The Menoa tree was my prison, and I lived inside it and heard and saw all that took place around me. I learned the language of the trees, and all the trees of Alagaësia knew, I knew. I knew that if the tree was ever destroyed, I would be set free, and when I learned the name of Galbatorix and what he had been doing, I knew he could be my salvation. If he invaded Ellesméra… but he did not! He came to Ellesméra and he left the elves alive, and the tree untouched! He destroyed so much – why could he not have destroyed my prison?'

Sif watched her in silence, the maddened voice of the shapeshifter ringing in her ears. Quite suddenly, as she saw the pain show in Scathach's face, she saw the lines of age around her eyes and mouth, and on her forehead, and realised that the shapeshifter was much older than she had appeared. No… she was ancient.

'But the Shades released me,' Scatchach said at last. 'It was they who destroyed Ellesméra and tore down my prison. Now I am free, and I have had my revenge, and taken the power I deserve for my own. You see now, Sif? Do you see why I did what I did?'

Sif couldn't look at her. 'Yes, Master.'

There was a faint thud as Scathach jumped down from the skull. 'Do you see?' she repeated, stepping toward Sif. 'Do you?'

Sif looked up. 'Yes, Master.'

Scathach came closer. She was only a little taller than Sif. 'But you and I have much in common,' she added. 'Both of our fathers were murdered, both of our mothers were executed. Both of us act in the name of justic and duty. Do we not?'

Sif stared at her shoes, her whole soul burning to kill the shapeshifter. 'We do… Master,' she said, hating the words as they came out of her mouth.

'Look at me, Sif,' Scathach demanded.

Sif did, and found the other's face mere inches away from her own. But though the eyes still burnt, there was an expression there… was it pleading? Not knowing what was expected of her, she stared back, saying nothing.

The moment seemed to last for a long time before Scathach suddenly turned away. 'Go, then,' she said.

Sif hesitated. 'Master…'

'GO!' Scathach screamed the word as she whirled around, her whole face distorted with rage.

Sif backed away and then ran, with Saphira, and they didn't stop running until they were out of the cave. There Saphira crouched low. 'Get on!'

Sif scrambled onto her back, and the blue dragon flew away at high speed.

When they had landed on the roost, Sif half-fell off her partner's back. Her legs buckled when she hit the ground, and she collapsed against Saphira's flank, shuddering.

Saphira touched her gently with her snout. 'Sif…'

Sif wrapped her arms around Saphira's muzzle, clinging to it. 'Saphira. Gods, what was that? What was that?'

Saphira kept very still. 'I believe our Master has told us the truth. He… is a she. And a shapeshifter. That, at least, makes sense.'

Sif realised she was crying – literally trembling with shock as tears ran down her face. 'But why?' she said. 'Why tell us? Why tell us anything?'

'Sif.' Saphira's mental voice was low and gentle. 'Sif, be still. I am here. Sif.'

Sif tried, but somehow that only made it worse, and she cried hard for several long minutes, holding onto Saphira as though her life depended on it. 'I wish I was dead, Saphira,' she said. 'Please, let me die. I don't want to live any more. It's too much. I can't stand it.'

'Sif-,'

'Everyone is dead!' Sif's mental voice was a scream. 'Everyone! There's nobody left! I can't do this, Saphira, I can't! I can't go on serving that… that thing for the rest of my life, I just can't. I can't. I won't. I want to die.'

'Sif.' Saphira's own voice was weak; cracked with her despair. 'Sif, we mustn't give up hope. We have to keep trying… we can find a way.'

'WE CAN'T!' it came out aloud, almost as a bellow. 'Saphira, we can't!' said Sif. 'There is nothing we can do, nothing. We can't fight, we can't run, we can't do anything except what she tells us to do. There's nobody left to help us.'

'Skandar could help us,' said Saphira. 'If he came back…'

'He won't,' said Sif, reverting to her mental voice. 'He's left us, Saphira. I sent him away. I told him… gods… I told him I could fight without him. I was so stupid! Why am I always so stupid? Why couldn't… if we'd brought him with us, he could have come up with a plan. He would have known what to do; he always knows what to do.'

'There'll be a chance for us one day, Sif,' said Saphira. 'I know there will be.'

One day. The words felt like arrows in Sif's heart. 'One day,' she repeated bitterly. 'Just like her, trapped inside that tree and waiting to get out. One day.'

'Yes,' said Saphira.

Sif stood up. 'I have to go to bed,' she said stiffly.

Saphira didn't try and stop her, and she went back inside and descended the staircase back to her own room. She slumped over the bed, neglecting to take off her shoes yet again.

'Sif.'

'What?'

Saphira's voice was distant. 'I think I know why she told us all that.'

'Why?' said Sif.

'Because she is lonely,' said Saphira.