Changeling (Illustrated) (9 page)

“Just listen. Do not ask questions. Your life does depend upon it, and so do many others. You must go home. There is trouble in your land, and you possess a power that will be needed there.”

Dan felt constrained to listen. This man had some power himself. The evidence of it lay all about him. And his manner, as well as his words, compelled attention.

“Follow that green line,” the man instructed him. “This road will branch many times before you reach your destination. There will be interesting side ways, fascinating sights, possibly even other travelers of the most peculiar sort. You may look, but do not stray. Follow the line. It will take you home. I—Wait.”

The old man rested his weight upon his staff, breathing deeply.

“The strain has been great,” he said. “Excuse me. I require medication.”

He produced a small vial from a pouch at his waist and gulped its contents.

“Lean forward,” he said, moments later.

Dan inclined his head, his shoulders. The staff came forward, issuing a blue nimbus which settled upon him and seemed to sink, warmly, within his skull. His thoughts danced wildly, and for a long moment he seemed trapped in the midst of an invisible crowd, everyone babbling without letup about him.

“The language of that place,” the man told him. “It will take awhile to sink in, but you have it now. You will speak slowly at first, but you will understand. Facility will follow shortly.”

“Who are you? What are you?” Dan asked.

“My name is Mor, and the time has come for me to leave you to follow that line. There has to be an exchange of approximately equivalent living mass if the transfer is to be permanent. I must depart before I lose one of the qualifications. Walk on! Find your own answers!”

Mor turned with surprising energy and vanished into the rippling prospect to the right, as if passing behind a curtain. Dan took a step after him and halted. The shifting montage that he faced was frightening, almost maddening to behold for too long. He transferred his gaze back to the road. The green line was steady beneath the miniature storms.

He looked behind and saw that the glittering way seemed much the same as it did before him. He took one step, then another, following the green line forward. There was nothing else for him to do.

As he walked, he tried to understand the things that Mor had told him. What power? What menace? What changeling step-brother? And what was expected of him at the green line’s end? Soon, he gave up. His head was still buzzing from the onslaught of voices. He wondered what Betty would think when he failed to show up at her place, what his father would feel at his disappearance.

He halted and gasped. It only just then reached the level of realization that if this strange story were true, then Michael was not his father.

His wrist throbbed and a small, golden whirlwind rose, to follow him, dog-like, for several paces.

He shifted the guitar case to his other hand and continued walking. As he did, he was taken by a small pattern in the mosaic ahead and to his left—a tiny, bright scene at which he stared. As he focussed his attention upon it, it grew larger, coming to dominate that entire field of vision, beginning to assume a three-dimensional quality.

Coming abreast of it, he saw that it had receded without losing any of its distinction. A side road now led directly toward it, and he realized that he could walk there in a matter of minutes.

He saw bright green creatures playing within a sparkling lake, blue mountains behind them, orange stands of stone rising from the water, serving as platforms upon which they rested and cavorted before diving back in again, brilliant sunlight playing over the entire prospect, giant red dragonflies wheeling and dipping above the lake’s surface with amazing delicacy of motion, floating flowers, like pale, six-pointed stars . . . 

He found his feet moving in that direction. The call of the place grew stronger . . . 

Something yellow-eyed, long-eared and silver-furred passed him on the right, running bipedally, nose twitching.

“Late again!” it seemed to say. “Holy shit! She’ll have my head, sure!”

It looked at him for an instant as it went by, its glance sliding past him along the way to the lake-scene.

“Don’t go there!” it seemed to yell after him. “They eat warmbloods alive!”

He halted and shuddered. He looked way from the lake and its denizens, sought the green line, located it, returned there. By then, his informant was out of sight.

He tried to keep his eyes on the line as he continued, avoiding the sideshows as much as possible. It took an unexpected turn after a dozen paces, and he felt as if he were moving downhill for a time. Something like a red skateboard, bearing a large green scarab beetle, streaked by him. From time to time, he seemed to hear a chorus of voices singing something he could not distinguish.

He walked down this branch, and a piece of the action to his right seemed to beckon after his gaze. This time, he resisted, only to discover that the green line curved in that direction. A side road grew there as he advanced, and it seemed to lead on toward a forest.

The downhill sensation continued, and a breeze seemed to be blowing toward him. It smelled of leaf mold and earth and flowering things. He hurried, and the scene moved toward him at more than a reciprocal pace. The tiny storms began to diminish underfoot, the green line was widening . . . 

Suddenly, he heard bird-notes. He reached out and touched a tree trunk. The green line lost itself amid grasses. The world widened into a single place of forest and glade. The stars went out overhead, to be replaced by blue sky and clouds, crisscrossed by leafy boughs. He looked behind him. There was no road—only, for a moment, what seemed a golden strand of webbing, tossed by the wind toward his right, gone.

He began walking across the glade. Abruptly, he halted. He could wander lost for a long while if this were a sizable wood, and he had a feeling that it might be.

He removed his jacket, as the day was pleasant enough, placed it upon the trunk of a fallen tree, hoisted himself up and sat upon it. Better to stay right where he was until some plan of action suggested itself. This spot might in some way be significant as the terminus of his peculiar journey.

He opened the case to check on his guitar, which seemed intact. He raised it and began strumming upon it as he thought. It sounded all right, too.

He might locate a tree that looked more climbable than the giants which surrounded him, he decided, and see whether he could spot a town or a road from higher up. He looked about, without breaking his rhythm. Yes. That appeared to be a good one, a few hundred meters right rear . . . He faced forward again and almost missed a beat.

The tiny creature which cavorted before him looked exactly like what it was—a centaur colt. Its small hands moved in time with the rhythm, and it pranced.

Fascinated, he turned his attention to what he was playing, switching to a more complicated righthand style. Softly, he began singing. His wristmark grew warm, throbbed. Shortly, two more of the small creatures emerged from the woods, to join the dancer. As a number of leaves blew by, as he felt they must—as he had half-consciously willed it—he caught these in the net of his playing and swirled them about the laughing child-faces, the rearing pony-bodies. He drew birds to spin after them, and a deer he had somehow known was present to join in the movements which were now taking on a pattern. The day seemed to darken, as he willed it—though it must only have been a cloud passing over the sun—to transform the spectacle into a twilit scene, which somehow struck him as most appropriate.

He played tune after tune, and other creatures came to join in—bounding rabbits, racing squirrels—and somehow he knew that this
was
right and proper, exactly as it should be, in this place, with him playing, now . . . He felt as if he might go on forever, building walls of sound and toppling them, dancing in his heart, singing . . . 

He did not become aware of the girl until sometime after her arrival. Slim and fair, clad in blue, she appeared beside a tree, far to the left of the clearing, and stood beneath it, unmoving, watching and listening.

When he did notice her, he nodded, smiled and watched for her reaction. He wished to take no chance of frightening her away, making no sudden movements. When she returned his nod, with a small smile of her own, he stopped playing and placed the instrument back in its case.

The leaves fell, the animals froze for an instant then tore off into the woods. The day brightened.

“Hello,” he ventured. “You live around here?”

She nodded.

“I was walking the trail back to my village when I heard you. That was quite beautiful. What do you call that instrument? Is it magic?”

“A guitar,” he answered, “and sometimes I think so. My name is Dan. What’s yours?”

“Nora,” she said. “You’re a stranger. Where are you from? Where are you going?”

He snapped the case shut and climbed down to the ground.

“I’ve come a great distance,” he said slowly, seeking the proper sentence patterns, locating words with some hesitation, “just wandering, seeing things. I’d like to see your village.”

“You are a minstrel? You play for your keep?”

He hauled down his coat and shook it out, draped it over his arm.

“Yes,” he said. “Know anybody who needs one?”

“Maybe . . . later,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“There have been a number of deaths. No one will be in a festive mood.”

“I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps I can find some other employment for a time, while I learn something of this land.”

She brightened.

“Yes. I am sure that you could—now.”

He picked up the guitar case and moved forward.

“Show me the way,” he said.

“All right.” She turned and he followed her. “Tell me about your homeland and some of the places you’ve been.”

Best to make something up, he decided, something simple and rural. No telling yet what things are like here. Better yet, get her to talking. Hate to start out sounding like a liar . . . 

“Oh, one place is pretty much like another,” he began. “Is this farming country?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you are. So is mine. What sorts of crops do you grow?”

They came to the trail and she led him downward along it. Whenever a bird passed overhead, she looked upward and flinched. After a time, he found himself scanning the skies, also. He was able to direct the conversation all the way into town. By the time they got there, he had learned the story of Mark Marakson.

XI
.

The old man in the faded blue robe walked the streets of the drowsing city, past darkened storefronts, parked vehicles, spilled trashcans, graffiti that he could not read. His step was slow, his breathing heavy. Periodically, he paused to lean upon his staff or rest against the side of a building.

Slowly, light began to leak through the dark skyline before him, a yellow wave, rising, putting out stars. Far ahead, a shadowy oasis beckoned: trees, stirred by the faintest of morning breezes down a wide thoroughfare.

His stick tapped upon the concrete, more heavily now, as he crossed a side street and negotiated another block with faltering steps. His hand trembled as he reached out to grasp a lamppost. Several vehicles passed as he stood swaying there. When the street was clear, he crossed.

Nearer. It was nearer now, the place where the boughs swayed and the songs of birds rose in the early morning light. He strode clumsily ahead, the faintest of blue flickers occasionally dancing at the tip of his stick. The breeze brought him a weak, flower-like aroma as he bore toward the final corner.

He rested again, breathing heavily, almost gasping now. When he moved to cross this street, his gait was stiff, awkward. Once he fell, but there was no traffic and he recovered and staggered on.

The sky had grown pink beyond the small park which now lay before him. His staff, from which the final light had faded, swung clumsily through a patch of flowers which closed immediately, undisturbed, behind it. He did not hear the faint hiss of the aerosols as he crossed the fake grass to slump against the bole of a standard model mid-town park area tree, but only breathed the fragrance he had hoped might be there, smiling faintly as the breezes bore it to him, eyes following the dance of the butterflies in the still fresh light of the new-risen sun.

His staff slipped from his fingers and his breath came short and rushed as unnumbered mornings past joined with this one to smear all colors and smells into a greater reality which finally told the story he had always wondered at, through to its vision past objects. One of the butterflies, passing too near on its beam, was overtaken by his life’s final throb, to settle, fluttering, upon his upturned wrist near to the dragonmark it bore.

With a blare and a rattle, the city came alive about him.