The End of Changing

End of Changing

Somewhere during the passage of time, I've also lost my name, the Naji thought, puzzled, as always.

The old man sat on a sun-warmed rock atop the cliff above their village and stared past the cloudless sky bright with hot sun. He came up here often, more now that the village no longer needed him. It was an important place that touched his soul, but the reason for its importance continued to escape him. Today, perhaps he would remember. He let his thoughts fly free, fetters loosened.

Above him an eagle circled, screaming, capturing his attention. A skin-memory of cooler breezes flowing across the mountaintops startled him. For that instant he felt the wind against his face, and a whiff of desert scrub seasoned with the sharp scent of rodent blood. His eyes followed the eagle, but his mind explored the unexpected memory. It rode the air currents from cliff edge to mountain crag, he watching—until he knew: he had done this!

Trembling, the old man rose from the rock as memory after memory tumbled over him, gathering momentum, becoming a landslide.

Even his name returned to him. Jannoly. He tasted its flavor, and found it to his liking. After all these years!

Unable to stand under the weight of it all, he sank back to the rock beneath him. He raised one arm to his side, studying it, wondering if he still retained the abilities of his youth. Feathers—

"Naji! Naji!"

Village youngers rushed upon him, interrupting his experiment.

"Sing to us! Sing a song of great deeds!"

Perhaps he would sing the Song of Trinni who had brought them the knowledge of fire, or Bormellu who had researched the art of clothing. Or maybe he would sing of Lledl, tool-fashioner, or Maedu the Unfortunate, the one who had studied, then taught the use of weapons.

Jannoly, however, knew the song needing voice. Yet he was reluctant. He questioned the wisdom of letting the youngers know who they had once been. Even as he resisted the song of their origin, it burst forth from his lips.

Jannoly ranged far. His wings took him beyond the forest-edged valley of home into the waving plains. There was so much of the world to see! The Naji's songs failed to satisfy a youth who longed to see their reality.

Something glistened in the rich grassland. Was it a lake? No Naji had sung of water placed here, of a lake lacking a stream to feed it. He plunged down for a closer look.

The huge silvery body was not water at all, he realized in a squawk of surprise. An enormous egg rested on the tall-grass prairie. He could not imagine the immense creature that must have laid it. More curious than afraid, he swooped over its upper surface, crying his delight at his find. This was the stuff of songs!

Finally, not too far away, he rested on a lone tree to watch, and let his form relax into its original shape of a head and an abdomen, with his tentacles securing him to various branches. Soon the heat of the sun would crack the egg, he was sure, and he would be the first to see the younger within its shell.

Eventually a strange fissure appeared on its silver surface, rectangular, not a crack at all. As the seam widened it also moved outward until it formed a tongue to the ground. Astonished, he watched not one or two, but many beings pour out of the shiny ovoid, down the tongue and onto the grass.

Animals? Certainly like animals, they all bore the same shape. Of course, if they were youngers they wouldn't yet know how to imitate other life forms. Littlest youngers seem to be all head when they were born, he reminded himself. Yet these beings had well developed arms and legs, and they were already walking—in a strange, upright position. And they wore a loose, removable skin, he noted as one of them removed the skin of an upper torso.