“We need something better,” she said. “We need to make a good impression, as a pair of fine ladies — ”

“What?” he exclaimed.

“I'll explain in a little bit; I've figured out how to disguise you when we meet Psavian and Tsavila.”

---

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes

by Trismegistus Shandy

Part 4 of 22

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Feel free to repost or mirror it on any noncommercial site or list. You can also create derivative works, including adaptations to other media, or new stories using the same setting, characters and so forth, as long as you mention and point to the original story.

An earlier version of this novel was serialized on the tg_fiction mailing list from December 2010 to March 2011. Thanks to the people who posted comments on that draft.

The full novel is already available from Lulu.com. I'm serializing it here in twenty-two parts, at least one chapter per week if I can manage it.

---

That evening, they walked from their landing site to a nearby road they had seen from the air, and southward along it until they met two men, one in middle age and one much younger, driving an ox-cart. Launuru heard them speaking in Ksiluri, and knew they were probably well into Niluri; then he asked directions of them in that language, and learned that they were but five leagues from Nilepsan.

“I suppose we can't go any further as geese,” he said to Kazmina in Tuaznu, as the oxen plodded on past them; “one day's flight from here would take us well beyond the city.”

“Indeed,” the wizard said, “it might take us all the way to the ngava geese's winter home, and then the mating instinct would be as strong in us as the migrating instinct has been for the last four days.”

Launuru gaped at him, appalled. “I would not wish that,” he said. “You are a fine woman, but I love only Tsavila.” In spite of himself, he found his horrified thoughts dwelling on what might have happened if they had been too dominated by their migrating instinct to stop before passing the city. “If that were to happen,” he asked, morbid curiosity overcoming him, “and I begot goslings on you, would they have human souls, and have human rationality if you changed them into human babies...?”

“Oh, but you wouldn't beget them,” Kazmina said. “A flock of ngava is led by a male. After you laid the eggs I'd gotten on you, we would take turns, one sitting on the eggs while the other foraged for food. As for the goslings' souls, I think they would be human, but I'm not sure, and don't think it wise to try to find out.”

But this revelation had pushed aside his speculation about the souls of hypothetical goslings. “I've been a female goose for the last four days?”

“Indeed; I thought at first you knew, but when I realized you hadn't noticed, I decided not to worry you. It no longer matters, for we won't have occasion to use those forms again.”

He was at a loss for words for a moment, and decided to change the subject. “Shall we walk the rest of the way from here? Can you tell when these magical clothes are going to turn into rubbish again, and renew them or give a warning so we can hide until they dissolve and you can recreate them?”

“We'll acquire some real clothes soon,” Kazmina said. “For now, let's walk, but not both of us as humans. Can you ride a horse with no saddle or bridle?”

“I'm not sure,” he said, alarmed. “I've ridden with no saddle before, but never with no reins or bridle...”

“I'll be docile,” the wizard assured him. “Just hold onto my mane, tight enough to keep from falling off but not tight enough to hurt me. You know the roads here, I suppose; give me a gentle tug in one direction or another when we come to a crossroads, and I'll get us there faster than we could walk in human form. Or if no one's around, just tell me which way to go.” Once the ox-cart was out of sight around the bend, he gestured and the robe he wore dissolved into the dead leaves he had conjured them from; he knelt on the ground and began changing into a fine grey mare.

It had been nearly a year since Launuru had had occasion to ride, and much longer than that since he'd been obliged to ride bareback. With all Kazmina's cooperation, it took him four tries to get mounted. Once he was astride her, she ambled down the road at an easy pace among cornfields and pastures. They saw barns and houses a little more frequently as they went. Others passed them in both directions: a dozen or more people on foot, three ox-carts, and two men on horseback.

Just after sunset, when no one was in sight, Kazmina left the road, ambling into a copse of trees dividing a pasture from a cornfield. She stopped short. She shook her head slightly, not nearly hard enough to dislodge Launuru; but he took it as a hint, and dismounted. The moment he was clear of her, Kazmina changed back into a man. He conjured a robe for himself, not brightly colored as before, but of plain linen, and pulled it over his head. “We should stop for the night soon,” he said. “Do you have any ideas?”

“The people we met told us we were near the city, and I'd thought we would have gotten to an outlying village or maybe an inn by now. We could push on, look for an inn or a farmhouse to ask for shelter...”

“Let's rest here until morning. We'll sleep in an inn in the city tomorrow, I suppose. I want to sleep out in the open one more time before this adventure is over.”

Launuru had had plenty of “adventure” in the months of traveling under the geas, and was not so fond of sleeping in the open as Kazmina. However, he didn't argue. Kazmina worked her enchantment on the dead leaves under the trees, and soon they had a pair of cozy beds for as long as the enchantment would last; and hopefully not too hard after it wore off, either. Here in central Niluri, the weather was still warm on this sixth day of Autumn. They'd filled their goose-stomachs shortly after landing, and weren't hungry yet, though Launuru suspected he'd be famished by morning. They laid down, and Kazmina, after a few moments' silence, started telling a story about a trick she and Tsavila had played on their fathers that summer they had spent together. But he took longer and longer pauses in telling it, and fell asleep before getting to the point. Launuru fell asleep not long after.

---

The next morning, Kazmina conjured a tunic and trousers for Launuru, and transformed himself into a mare again. At first Launuru was too bleary to feel hungry yet; by the time his stomach started grumbling, they were well on their way down the road, and he hoped they would reach an inn or market soon. Kazmina paused to graze at the edges of pastures from time to time, which made him hungrier as he remembered how good grass had tasted when he was a goose (though not nearly as good as worms or fish). The road they were on dead-ended into another; he hesitated a moment and tugged Kazmina's mane slightly to lead her southeast, which ought to be toward Nilepsan. Before long, he began to recognize landmarks; they were on a road he knew slightly, northwest of the merchants' academy and the city.

He tugged her leftward at the next crossroad, and right at the next, bringing them to the broad, busy highway that ran from the north gate of the city, past the temple of Tsaumala and the merchants' academy, and all the way to the Long Bridge over the River Paletaksu into Harafra. It was that highway he had trodden when he left Nilepsan under Psavian's geas.

If he had not miscalculated his conversion from the Harafra to the Niluri calendar when he inquired the date of the innkeeper, they still had five days left until Tsavila was supposed to wed Itsulanu. She should still be at her father's house in the city. Kazmina would disguise him so he could meet Tsavila privately, while she distracted Tsavila's father with news of his old friend, her own father, and this time they would elude Psavian's clutches. They would wed secretly at some roadside shrine west of the city, and have their wedding hermitage at an inn, and set up business in Nesantsai, she doing wizardry and he interpreting for travelers and merchants until he had enough capital to set up as a merchant himself... He was so lost in happy memories and plans that he forgot the limited lifespan of the clothes he wore.

Until they fell to pieces, the dead leaves fluttering away on the breeze.

As luck would have it, he was neither alone nor in a great crowd of travelers at this point; he was passing a coach with a passenger sitting on the box next to the driver, and approaching an old woman on foot and a young man driving an ox-cart. All, it seemed, turned to stare at him on the sudden loss of his clothes.

As he wracked his brains for some explanation to offer them, Kazmina took control, breaking into a canter, passing the old woman and the ox-cart, and turning quickly into a side-lane, where they were soon out of sight of those, though not out of sight of some men working in a cornfield south of the lane. She stepped out of the lane into the fallow field on the north side and abruptly stopped, and Launuru, though he had taken a tighter hold of her mane when she increased her pace, almost fell off. When she continued holding still, he dismounted, and a moment later she transformed into a human — a man, with Viluri features and curly hair.

“I'm sorry,” he said; “I was supposed to be watching for that and stopping to replace your clothes at some convenient place before they fell apart.”

“I should have reminded you,” Launuru replied. “What now?” He looked; at least one of the men in the cornfield was approaching them.

“If he asks us our business and why we're naked, I don't see why you can't tell him the truth. Not the whole truth, of course, but as much as he needs to know.” She was gathering dead leaves and stalks from the ground as she spoke; he bent to help her.

“What's all this?” the farmer, or farmhand, said as he crossed the lane and approached them.

“Magic,” Launuru explained, thinking quickly how much he should say; “my clothes were conjured by magic, and they vanished a little sooner than I was expecting. To avoid the eyes of passersby I turned aside into this lane to replace them.” By the time he finished speaking, Kazmina had touched the bundle of leaves in his hands and turned them into a pair of trousers, which Launuru stepped into.

“Are you enchanters?” the farmer asked. “I saw you on a horse, and I thought I saw it change...”

“My companion is a wizard,” Launuru said, thinking fast and adjusting his speech to the high register used by the nobility. “A young wizard, and not so good at conjuring durable clothes as he claimed when I hired him. Mundane clothes would have been a better use of my money; rest assured I shall clothe myself with good Niluri cotton and Nemaretsu silk when I return home.”

The farmer gaped, in awe at and perhaps afraid of the young nobleman who could afford to hire a wizard to transform into a horse and carry him — foolish though he might be to pay for conjured clothes that would vanish in a few hours, he was not a man the farmer wished to make angry. “Carry on, my lord,” he said. “If you would wish to rest at my home and borrow whatever clothes I have which fit you — poor stuff, but they will not vanish off your body — ” He abruptly stopped, afraid perhaps that in his haste to avoid angering the nobleman, he had angered the wizard, which might well be worse.

Kazmina, knowing almost no Ksiluri, understood none of this; he conjured a tunic for Launuru, then said: “What's he saying? Should I turn into a horse again, or make some clothes for myself, if we'll be staying here a bit longer?”

“Let's get going,” Launuru replied in Tuaznu. Turning to the farmer, he said “I will not impose on your hospitality, good peasant, except to crave your help in mounting.” He tried to act nonchalant as Kazmina changed into a mare again and the farmer gasped in amazement. “An intelligent mount has great advantages over a dumb animal, but he is unwilling to accept a bridle or saddle.”

With the farmer's help, Launuru got mounted on the second try. He called a condescending expression of thanks over his shoulder as they cantered away, then cursed himself for failing to discuss their plans further with Kazmina while he had the chance. He noted the position of the sun, and resolved to stop in the next convenient secluded place well before these new clothes would vanish.

An hour or so later, not long after passing the merchants' academy, Launuru tugged gently at Kazmina's mane to urge her into another side-lane. Once they were well off the main road, with no one in sight, he dismounted. “Turn into a human, please, so we can talk. How much longer will these clothes last? We're almost to the Market-outside-the-Walls, but we have no money...” As he spoke, Kazmina shrank, then kept shrinking after she'd attained a nearly human shape and size; she finally stabilized as a small girl, apparently three or four years old. He trailed off, staring at her dumbfounded.

“I've noticed that small children don't always wear clothes around here,” she said. “This will save me the trouble of conjuring more clothes, if we remain human long. How far is it to the city from here?”

“Five or six kilometers, I guess,” he replied, being a bit vague both on the actual distance and how to convert it into Tuaznu measurements. “But probably less than a kilometer to the market.”

“Well, let's go on like this. And we'll butter our bread on the other side: you can give me a piggyback ride!” She grinned mischievously and held up her arms. He smiled in spite of himself and lifted her onto his shoulders, then started walking back toward the highway.

“You didn't answer my question,” he said. “What are we going to do for clothes? It would be an inconvenience to have to keep conjuring new ones whenever the old ones are about to disappear...”

“We can earn some money once we get to the market, I suppose,” she said. “Or if not there, then inside the city. Then buy real clothes, but only after we assume the forms in which we'll meet Psavian and Tsavila. I'll need to be myself, and we need to make up our minds how to disguise you so Psavian will let you be alone with Tsavila while I tell him the news from Setuaznu.”

“Yes, we need to earn money for clothes and food both. You've grazed here and there, but I haven't eaten anything since we became human again early last night. I can translate or interpret among five languages, but it will be hard to get that kind of work quickly in a small market like this one, with no credentials.”

“I can heal,” she said, “and I can establish my credentials as an enchantress in ten heartbeats. Interpret for me and I'll earn us enough money in an hour or two to live on for as long as it takes us to arrange your elopement.”

His legs, already sore from hours of unaccustomed bareback riding, grew tired before they reached the market. “You'll have to walk for a bit,” he said, and stepped out of the busy road for a moment to lift Kazmina down from his shoulders. She took his hand and said, “All right, Daddy;” then looked up at him and winked. He felt a wonderful shiver. Would it feel like this when he was a father, when he took his and Tsavila's children for a walk...? Of course they wouldn't let their children run around naked like peasants, but...

The Market-outside-the-Walls was in sight up ahead when Kazmina started whining. “My legs are tired, Daddy, can I ride piggyback again?”

He swung her onto his shoulders again, though his legs were hardly less sore. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You're not forgetting yourself, are you? Should you change into a grown person already, and worry about clothes after you've recovered your mind...?”

“I'm just having fun with you,” she said sharply. “If I can keep human rationality for twelve hours as a ngava goose, I can keep adult sense during half an hour as a little girl. I'm not sure that you could, but I can.”

Once they reached the market proper, and turned aside from the highway into the aisles of booths and tents, Launuru asked a passerby where the labor exchange was. He followed the directions to a platform where a tall man with sparse grey hair was calling out, “Hiring day-laborers to harvest Lord Paletsu's cotton. Three nobles a day, with meals and beer.”

Launuru looked around and asked a woman selling melons at a neighboring booth, “How does one make an offer of skilled work? I'm a translator and interpreter; I speak Ksemaretsu, Ksarafra, Ksetuatsenu...”

She interrupted him: “I'm sorry, we don't have a good system for that here. Just the labor-agents hiring field hands and the like. Try the Westgate or Temple Square markets in the city.”

“Ah. Thank you.” He turned to go.

“What did she say?” Kazmina asked.

“There's no good chance of selling skilled services here; she recommended a couple of markets in the city.”

“Never mind that,” she said. “Put me down and get ready to interpret for me.” He did so, and was astonished as she clambered up onto the platform beside the man calling out for day laborers, transforming as she did so into a seven-foot-tall woman, her scalp, breasts and privates covered with bright blue and indigo feathers. She said, “Tell them I'm an enchantress from the north, fallen on hard times, ready to do healings of all kinds of sickness and deformity for... eh, whatever you think's a reasonable price in this market.”

He caught her toss and threw it onward, jumping boldly onto the platform beside her and calling out: “Ladies and gentlemen, behold the great enchantress Katsemina of Netuatsenu. She has traveled from the far north to grace Niluri with her presence and offer her miraculous services at surprisingly modest rates. Come and be healed of all manner of disease or deformity...”

The labor-agent who'd had possession of the platform before them interrupted: “Here now, you can't do this! There's an order to these things.” Several other men standing at the far side of the platform noisily agreed; they didn't seem worried about angering an enchantress.

“My good man,” Launuru said soothingly, in a low voice, “I apologize for the impulsive behavior of my principal. She is a foreigner and unused to our customs. Of course we will pay a generous commission for the use of your platform. And the interruption to your own use of it will be only momentary; I see it's a large platform, you may continue calling out for laborers at one end while the enchantress and I solicit customers at this end...?”

Kazmina looked down at them. “Ask him if he'd like me to restore his hair to what it was in his youth,” she suggested; “perhaps that will mollify him.”

Launuru conveyed this offer, and the labor agent readily accepted it. At a wave of Kazmina's hand, his grey hair turned red and grew in thicker and longer all over his mostly bald scalp.

“Observe, ladies and gentlemen!” Launuru called out. “Baldness cured for two kings, moles and warts removed for six nobles, chills and fevers cured for three kings; inquire for our other rates.”

Within a few minutes, they had as much business as they needed, and ceded the platform to the labor-agent. Launuru interpreted the customers' requests and handled the money. He had a scare when the fourth customer in their queue came up to speak to him: it was the steward from the merchants' academy, who must be here at the market to buy fixings for the students' meals. He would ask awkward questions about where he had been, and tell people that he was back — perhaps news would even reach Psavian before Launuru and Kazmina got to his house... But he didn't seem to recognize him. “I have a toothache,” he said; “can your employer do something for me other than extracting the tooth?”

Launuru consulted with Kazmina, and told him, “Three kings.”

“Very well,” the steward said, and paid. Kazmina went to work on him, and within minutes he went on his way, satisfied.

After collecting thirteen silver coins of various sizes with various monarchs' faces on them, and a few dozen copper coins bearing the faces of lesser nobles, he decided they had enough, and told Kazmina so.

The labor-agent saw them turning away the rest of their would-be customers, and came to collect his commission. Launuru calculated a tenth of their earnings, deducted two kings for the baldness cure, and paid him.

“I'm glad the steward from the academy didn't recognize me,” Launuru said to Kazmina as they left the platform.

“Who?” Kazmina asked, shrinking into a little girl again — perhaps even younger-looking than before.

“The man with the toothache.”

“Oh. You haven't looked in a mirror, have you...? I gave you a different face last night, since I thought we might be getting close to places where people might recognize you.”

“Oh,” Launuru said, taken aback. He was glad of her foresight, but felt nonetheless disconcerted; what did he look like? The idea of having a different face was even stranger, in a way, than being a migrating goose.

He shook his head and said, “Shall we buy clothes now? I think I saw a few vendors of clothing earlier.”

“Lead the way.”

“But first, perhaps... will these clothes I'm wearing last another hour? I'd like to eat first, if possible.”

She studied his trousers critically. “They might last another hour, but they might not.”

He sighed. “Let's buy some real clothes first, then eat.”

She took his hand and toddled along next to him. Before, they'd passed unnoticed, one more barefoot peasant going to market with his little daughter. But too many people had seen the seven-foot tall, feathered enchantress, and seen her transformation into the tiny girl; they met with stares and whispers as they made their way among the booths and tents to the vendors selling cloth, thread, and ready-made clothes.

After looking at the offerings of several seamstresses, Kazmina expressed dissatisfaction. “We need something better,” she said. “We need to make a good impression, as a pair of fine ladies —”

“What?” he exclaimed.

“I'll explain in a little bit; I've figured out how to disguise you when we meet Psavian and Tsavila. Let's just buy something cheap here and find a good tailor in the city.”

“All right. Are you going to remain a little girl for now...?”

“No,” she said, taking a woman's robe from a table, seemingly at random, and pulling it over her head. “Give the woman some money,” she said, her voice muffled for a moment by the fabric.

“How much?” Launuru asked the vendor. “Nine nobles,” she said, watching apprehensively as Kazmina grew rapidly into the robe, an adult head and arms emerging from its neck and sleeves, and adult breasts filling out its front. “Now something for you, and shoes for both of us,” Kazmina said.

Soon Launuru's mind was relieved of the worry that his clothes would suddenly vanish again, and his belly was comfortably full of bread, cheese and sausage; but new worries replaced the old as he walked down the road to Nilepsan, listening to Kazmina explain her plan.

“No, no, there's got to be a better way,” he said. “Being a female goose was one thing; I wish you'd told me what you were doing ahead of time, I wouldn't have liked it but I would have recognized the necessity once you explained it. But I won't let you change me into a woman.”

“Why not?” she asked. “It's just as necessary. There are other ways I could get you in to see Tsavila, but they'd have disadvantages as bad or worse. Would you want to be an animal, a dog or ferret I'm giving to Tsavila as a wedding present? That would get you close to her, but you couldn't talk to her to see if she still feels the same way about you and to plan your elopement if she does. Or a child, posing as my servant? You could get into the house with me that way, and might even be allowed to see Tsavila alone, but perhaps not for very long; and you'd be at a much worse disadvantage if we somehow get separated. If you're an older servant, Psavian will send you to stay in the servants' quarters when I'm not needing your services, and he'll have Tsavila in with him and me while I tell them the news from Setuaznu. And if you're an adult male servant, or a male relative or friend of mine, Psavian won't let you be alone with Tsavila. But if you're a woman of her age and class, then he will have no real choice but to assign her to keep you entertained while he and I talk about my father and the arcana of our profession — even though he might prefer to include Tsavila in all such conversation, he could not, in politeness, leave you alone for hours on end once he's invited you in along with me.”

After several rounds of similar arguments, Launuru finally gave in, with bad grace, about the time they reached Northgate and entered the city.

They avoided the quarter of the city where Psavian, and Launuru's own family, lived; Launuru guided them to the Blue Frog, an inn he'd heard good things about, near Northgate. After they ate a light supper, he asked the innkeeper about his prices and available rooms, and interpreted for Kazmina: “He says he has two adjoining rooms on the ground floor. Let's inspect them; if they are in satisfactory condition I shall pay now for two nights.”

“Two rooms?” she asked. “But you are going to be a woman as well; we'll need only one.”

“I thought we'd wait until we're about to go to Psavian's house, and let you change me then.”

“We could wait until we're about to go to a tailor to be measured for fine clothes, and change you then, but hardly until we're about to go see Psavian. And how many nights can we afford in two rooms, after spending an adequate sum to dress ourselves as well-to-do ladies? I would prefer not to interrupt our business with Psavian with another adventure at a labor market.”

Exhausted from the long day, he gave in. “Show us the rooms,” he said to the innkeeper in Ksiluri. The man led the way down the hall from the common room and exhibited two rooms, each with one bed and one cabinet; the bed in the second room, nearer to the stableyard and garderobe, was somewhat larger, though the room itself was slightly smaller. “We'll take this one,” he said. “Just the one room.” The innkeeper smiled and took his money.

When they were alone, Kazmina said: “I'm quite tired from carrying you for half the day, and walking so much in the last few hours, and healing all those people at the market; and I suppose you're tired from carrying me, as well. But if we're to go to bed now, I'll need to work one more transformation first.”

“Very well,” he said. “Go ahead.” He steeled himself, scarcely knowing what to expect even after being changed into a goose several times.

As usual, Kazmina said no mystic words and made no gestures; Launuru simply felt his body stretching and compressing a little bit all over and more extremely in a few places, far more quickly and less painfully than when he'd become a goose or returned to human form. She looked down at herself, but resisted the impulse to touch. Time enough for that later.

“To bed, then,” said Kazmina. She removed the cheap robe, opened the cabinet doors, and hung it over one of them to air out; then crawled onto the bed and under the sheets.

It was the first time Launuru had seen her naked since — no, it wasn't. But it was the first time she'd seen her naked, female, adult and human all at once, since the first day of their journey. It was surprising how quickly she had become accustomed to the sight, which was so arousing and embarrassing when he'd first heard her say, “Take off your clothes,” and begin to remove her own. Launuru removed her own tunic and trousers, which were now too tight in the waist and chest though they'd been slightly loose when he bought them in the Market-outside-the-Walls, and hung them over the other door of the cabinet; then crawled carefully into bed, trying not to touch Kazmina or indeed extend her limbs across the meridian of the bed.

“Relax,” Kazmina murmured; “it's not really so different from when we were both men, back at that peasant's house.”

“For you, perhaps; you've been a man and a woman any number of times. For me...”

“It will only feel strange for a little while. Relax, get some sleep.”

Launuru thought apprehensively about her coming meeting with Psavian and Tsavila. Kazmina seemed confident that Psavian would not see through the disguise; presumably she had some protections against his spying spells, but perhaps she thought that their appearance would be so unsuspicious that the wizard would not waste energy on a spell to determine their true intentions. Even if Psavian was unsuspicious of them, and Launuru had a chance to speak with Tsavila alone while Kazmina kept the older wizard occupied, what would she think of him? Would she admire his courage in returning for her and risking her father's renewed and increased wrath, or think him unmanly for assuming such a form to get a chance to speak with her?

Kazmina's breathing became more regular, as Launuru remembered it being when they'd slept by campfires or in the miller's children's bed. Thankfully, she wasn't snoring as she had done on some previous nights; perhaps that was a trait of her masculine form? Launuru raised her right hand to her left breast, touching it gingerly at first, then grasping it firmly... It felt like part of her. Not an unusually interesting or exciting part. Of course, her wings and her long, flexible neck had felt natural and normal when she was a goose; within minutes after each transformation, she had forgotten she'd ever been human, and felt no disorientation or distress. Would it be the same now? Would she forget she'd ever been a man? Probably not; Kazmina would hardly have suggested using this form as a disguise if it would make her forget her reason for coming to speak secretly with Tsavila. But she might quickly lose the sense that being a woman was strange or unnatural for her. She ran a hand down her belly, touching her secret parts only briefly and lightly; stimulating herself might make her cry out, waking Kazmina, which would be awkward. But the empty space between her legs didn't, she realized, feel like a gap or lacuna. Nothing felt missing, though she knew perfectly well that she'd had something else there a quarter of an hour ago. Was she already losing her sense that she ought to be a man? Perhaps so, though she still remembered her whole life as a man much more clearly than any of her recent days as a migrating goose. Perhaps by the time they saw Psavian and Tsavila she would still remember the reason she came, but no longer care about it. She must speak to Kazmina about this first thing in the morning.