The fox covered the travellers’ tracks with her paw, padding at the soil and flattening it out, and felt herself smile as she did so. The moon and stars above, she had watched them wander for hours, scratching their heads, jaws chattering in the cold, questioning where they had and hadn’t been. Knirey felt her tail wagging as she thought of their struggle, the fox equivalent of laughter.

  A few moments later, the travellers emerged again, stumbling around like newborn deer. Knirey sculked away, lithely springing to hide behind a tree.

  ‘I am certain we’ve been here before,’ the man claimed, hands shivering.

  ‘How do you know that?’ the woman snapped.

  ‘Well,’ he replied, gesturing vaguely, ‘I’ve seen that tree before.’

  ‘You’ve seen the bloody tree before?’ she cried, ‘it’s a tree, they all look the bastard same!’

  ‘Now, now, Discrey, there’s no need to be angry, we still have plenty of time to reach Dusolt before the dawn.’

  ‘And we’d be able to get a night’s rest before the meeting tomorrow if you had decided to buy that map!’

  ‘Don’t give me this, Discrey. I know every man in the Merchants’ Guild and the fellow selling that map was not one of them. A swindler, he was, we’d be more lost than we are now if we’d bought it, I can tell you that for free.’

  ‘I’m starting to doubt that, Carnom, I really am.’

  ‘Hold on,’ the man, Carnom, said to the woman, eyes pointed towards Knirey, ‘there’s a fox.’

  ‘Who cares if there’s a fox?’ the woman, Discrey, replied.

  ‘Maybe it can show us the way, like in the old tales. A fox led Berelia to Dusolt, didn’t it?’

  ‘First you’re recognising trees, now you reckon you’re the second coming of the Boarmother. What’s happened to you, Carnom?’

  A shiver ran through Knirey. Just as the argument was getting fun, they had to notice her. She turned and sprinted away, weaving between trees until she was certain she was out of their sight. Nestled in the shrubbery, she could just about make out the pair of them, still arguing with each other and looking around like fish in the desert, tiny in her view.

  The fun hadn’t ended just yet.

  Wings sprouted from her back, her claws turned into talons and her fur into feathers as she transformed from fox into crow and fluttered up to the forest canopy. Flapping from one tree to the next, she pushed forward, closing back in on the bickering merchants. When she perched above them, branch gently rocking with the impact of her weight, just as they seemed about to turn around and leave, she left herself fall from the branch, transforming into a rather imposing male human she had seen on her last trip into the Endlands right before she hit the ground with a thud.

  The pair of them, now dwarfed by her size, shrieked and shuffled back like frightened cats.

  ‘Hand over your wares!’ she bellowed, in the voice of the man she imitated.

  ‘Of course,’ the male merchant said, opening his pack and unloading textiles and fabrics and sewing needles into her bricklike palms, followed by a folded blue silken dress. ‘We’re only textile merchants,’ he added, ‘but I can assure you, while it may not look like much, these cloths can sell for a hefty sum if you find the right buyer-’

  ‘And your money too!’ Knirey added.

  The man nudged the woman, who shakily opened a coinpurse and unloaded a small handful of five or so golden coins into Knirey’s hands.

  ‘This is all we have,’ the woman croaked. After a pause, she added, ‘Please, if you know the way to Dusolt-’

  ‘Leave!’ Knirey cried, ‘and never return to my woods again, or it won’t be your cloth you’re losing next time!’

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  The merchants nodded and made vague agreeing sounds with quivering lips and tearful eyes, before turning and running away. Knirey watched, unblinking, until they were nothing more than specks in the distance.

  She laughed, watching them vanish into the forest. The sun was soon to rise, and there was no way for them to make it to Dusolt in time, especially since she had sent them running in the complete opposite direction. Gazing down at her thick hands, filled with fabrics and a small collection of coins, she saw that she was completely naked, and remembered that humans are the only animal that don’t tend to walk around unclothed, making them a pain to transform into.

  Perhaps that was why they were so frightened.

  She let the fabrics, sewing equipment and coins fall to ground before allowing the dress to unfurl in her hands. An undeniably beautiful garment, probably one that a lot of work had gone into, had taken a lot of resources, and someone of importance was to purchase once the merchants reached Dusolt. And now Knirey, in the form of a naked hulking Endlander, owned it.

  Squinting at the gown, she spent a few moments considering wearing it, but soon realised that her current form wouldn’t be able to fit into it without damaging the material, and instead transformed into an attractive young woman from Dusolt before slipping into it. Much more to her preference. She bent down and picked up the coins scattered on the ground, leaving the fabrics to blow away in the wind and the needles to puncture the feet of a passing rodent, and carried them in her hands as she wandered through the forest. The downside to garments like these, she thought as she stepped over roots with bare, uncomfortable feet, is that the most beautiful are far less likely to have pockets. Just another strange quirk of human culture.

  The sun had begun to rise when she arrived at the little stream that trickled down the rocky crevices of the hillside towards the edge of the forest. A small opening, just barely large enough for a human to crawl through, lay at the bottom, beneath a dwindling waterfall and before a murky pond. On her hands and knees, she crawled in, soot covering her hands and insects scurrying around her. To the untrained eye, the cave looked shallow, as though it ended shortly after beginning, but she knew that not to be the case. She pushed aside the stone at the end of the tunnel, and emerged through to the grand chamber on the other side.

  Larger than a house, the dark chamber filled Knirey with the same worry it always did. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, spiders clung to the walls, and before her on the furthest wall lay carved the sigil of Otrain, a circle divided into two halves, a sickly light emerging from behind. In front of the sigil lay the offering-pit, a black void in the earth about the size of a human lying down. She replaced the stone behind her, and stood up, still cradling the coins.

  She dropped them into the pit; they made no sound as they descended out of view.

  A stirring groan emerged from behind the sigil. ‘Gold,’ the voice of Otrain boomed in the Ancient Tongue, ‘an acceptable offering. Who is it that stands before me?’

  ‘It’s Knirey,’ she replied in the same language.

  ‘Knirey,’ Otrain echoed, ‘I should have expected you. My own hope that a being of something other than my own creation would make an offering is foolish, and should be discarded.’

  ‘I am sure your day of recognition will come eventually, Grand Creator,’ Knirey said to the voice behind the wall.

  Otrain grumbled. ‘It is a disappointment that you come, not only in the form of a human, but dressed in their unnatural garments as well.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She gripped her dirtied skirt, looking down at the ground.

  ‘Of all my creations, you are one of the few I fear will one day forget where she came from.’

  ‘I promise I will not,’ she said, looking back up at the sigil.

  ‘I hope your words hold truth, as they so seldom do. What is it you wished to speak to me about?’

  ‘I simply wished to make you an offering, to show my devotion.’

  She had never heard Otrain laugh, but the silence that followed could have easily been filled by it. ‘We both know that is not the case, Knirey,’ it said.

  ‘You have seen through me,’ she admitted, ‘and it is ironic that this comes after you reprimanded me for associating myself too closely with humans, but I wished to report to you of the current state of Dusolt, their grand city, and ask for your counsel on the matter.’

  ‘Speak.’

  ‘I obtained the gold, and this dress,’ she added, ‘from a pair of merchants. From them I learnt that there is to be a Merchants’ Guild meeting held in Dusolt this very morning, and an important one at that. That guild has more resources at their disposal than any others, and I wanted to know if I had permission to infiltrate the city and attempt to find more offerings for you?’

  ‘For someone who breathes deceit,’ Otrain responded, ‘I can always tell when you are lying. Offerings are an afterthought for you. You wish to get closer to the humans, to perform whatever mischief it is you love so much. I cannot stop you. All I want you to know is this: some of your nestmates have been researching ancient texts, and tell me they are close to uncovering what it takes to release me from my prison.’

  ‘It is great to hear that.’

  ‘Do not be surprised if you are ordered, one day soon, to assist them in this.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘That is all,’ the voice groaned once more, before falling back into silence.

  ‘Otrain,’ Knirey said, though she knew he would not respond again without another offering. ‘Bastard.’