Page 47 of Inferno
“Yeah, that’s another little detail that’s going to be a bit of a surprise,” Nerik said, and Yorin braced himself all over again, anticipating some random piece of information that made no sense to come his way. And he was right.
“Fire-dogs can shape-shift. A little bit, at least. They don’t have true magic, the way a witch does, but they can change forms to look… Hey, here he is!”
Yorin snapped his head around as a loud crashing sound came from the undergrowth just past the fence. A large dog came bounding out of the ferns, tongue lolling… but to Yorin’s astonishment, it looked nothing like the creature he’d seen the day before.
Well, okay, he wasn’t totally different, Yorin mentally amended, as Zandro jumped the fence and trotted over to Nerik. His body shape was the same, tall and stocky with a wide head, but that was where the similarities ended. Zandro’s body, instead of being jet black, was now a dusky brown colour. He had fur, rather than the leathery look he’d had before, and his eyes were now dark brown, rather than glowing red. He looked like an ordinary domestic dog.
After receiving a welcoming pat on his head from Nerik, Zandro turned to face Yorin and sat down, his tail thumping against the path. “Zandro says hello,” Nerik said. From the faint smirk on his face, he seemed to be enjoying Yorin’s shock.
“Fire-dogs can shapeshift?” Yorin repeated, raising an eyebrow in a silent query.
“To a certain extent. Zandro, could you show Yorin how you pretend to be a log?”
The large dog hopped up and padded over to the fallen tree that was still lying in Nerik’s yard. He lay down next to it, his legs tucked underneath him, and before Yorin’s eyes, his fur changed colour, from brown to pale grey, and took on a rough appearance, until he looked almost exactly like the tree trunk he was lying beside.
“Great gods,” Yorin muttered. “That’s quite a trick.”
“That’s not all he can do. Hey Zandro, can you look like a rock?”
There was a small rockery bed at the side of the garden, so Zandro got up, shook himself, and lumbered over. He curled up next to the rocks, in as neat a ball as he could manage, and then changed his appearance again. Not five seconds later, Yorin would have sworn he was looking at nothing more interesting than a medium-sized boulder.
“That’s about the extent of his abilities,” Nerik said, as Zandro got up and returned to his side. “He can look like anything that’s roughly the same size and shape as he is, and that’s somewhere in the range of black, grey or brown. He could look like a pile of dirt, for example, but not like a potted plant. Too much colour, too many details. So it’s relatively easy for him to look like a pet dog. Just add a bit of fur and lighten his colouring. I taught him to do that yesterday. There’s a fire-dog that lives in town – I won’t name any names – and I showed Zandro a mental image of him, so he more or less just copied what the other dog looked like.”
Yorin was standing stock still, speechless as he tried to process everything he’d just been told. “Right. Wow. That’s impressive,” he said, keeping his eyes on the fire-dog, and Zandro’s tail wagged eagerly at the praise.
“You look a little shell-shocked,” Nerik said, amusement giving way to gentle concern. “Too much all at once?”
“Maybe just let me take a breather before you pull out the next surprise,” Yorin said, deliberately avoiding thinking about anything else Nerik had told him earlier. Fire-dogs were telepathic, according to his new lover, and… Nope, he didn’t want to think about that yet.
“I did have another question, though,” Yorin said, venturing back onto safer ground. “I know you invited me over for dinner – and I’m very happy to be spending the evening with you – but do you actually eat? I mean… well, I’ve seen you eat before, but… Do you normally eat human food? Or something else? Or is the eating just an illusion?”
“Okay, okay, one question at a time,” Nerik said, waving Yorin over towards the front door. “Yes, no and maybe. I can eat human food, so long as it doesn’t have too much water in it. Hence the pickiness about food I told you about before. But aside from that…” Nerik trailed off, his expression turning serious and his posture stiffening. He seemed to be listening to something, so Yorin tuned in to the ambient sounds… and there, beneath the rustle of the trees, he could hear the slow clopping of a horse’s hooves.
“What the…? Oh, gods, no,” Nerik said, his shoulders sagging a moment later. He muttered a heartfelt curse and rolled his eyes.
“What’s going on?” Yorin asked, baffled by the sudden change in his mood.
“That’ll be Stanley,” Nerik said. “With another horse that escaped from Mr Totser.” Something in his tone caught Yorin’s attention – something that told him there was more to the story than Nerik was letting on.
“Is that a problem?” Yorin asked. “I mean, even if he has another horse, couldn’t you just keep it here tonight and take it home tomorrow?”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Nerik said, though his annoyance was apparently not aimed at Yorin. But before he could say anything more, Stanley rounded the bend in the road, and sure enough, he had a horse in tow – tall and white, just like the last one.
“Yorin,” Stanley said first, when he pulled up at the gate. “You seem to be turning into a regular around here.” There was something in his tone that Yorin didn’t like, some subtle censure or disapproval.
“Good afternoon,” Yorin said, tamping down on the impulse to ask if Stanley had a problem with him being here. He didn’t care what Stanley’s opinion was, and there was nothing to be gained in getting into an argument over it.
“Horse for you,” Stanley said, turning his attention to Nerik. “You all right to take her up the mountain?”
Nerik hesitated. His gaze swung from Stanley, to Yorin, to the horse, and back to Stanley. “Can I take her another time?” Nerik asked. “Tomorrow, maybe?” His tone was tired and cautious and defeated, all at once, like he already knew what the answer was going to be.
Stanley looked affronted. “I’m sorry, was there something more important you were doing this evening?”
“Yes,” Nerik said, his tone displaying just the mildest hint of anger. “Having dinner with Yorin, actually.”
Yorin froze, suddenly feeling like he was caught between the teeth of a wolf and any misstep would see him crushed between powerful jaws. He didn’t know Stanley well, and he’d never had any quarrel with the man, but Stanley’s expression as he stared Nerik down was thunderous, a barely contained rage displayed in a clenched jaw and lips pressed thin against each other. A moment passed in silence, and then Stanley seemed to regain control of himself. “Yorin, my good man, would you mind excusing us for a moment? I’d just like to have a word with Nerik in private.”
“Anything you want to say to me, Yorin can hear,” Nerik butted in, before Yorin could answer. “He knows what I am.”