Fey 02 - Changeling (2 page)

"So?" the woman asked, her wings fluttering.

"Our noses are straight."

"He has to have some Islander."

"Rugar said leave him if there is no magic."

The woman put her hands on her hips.
 
"Look at those eyes.
 
Look at how bright they are.
 
Then tell me there's no magic."

"The magic is always stronger when the blood is mixed," said another woman.

In the other room, his mother's laugh grew closer.
 
"Nicholas, let's just see the babe.
 
Maybe we can decide what to call him then."

The little people froze.
 
His hands were still grasping.
 
Outside the protection of the crib, the air was cold.
 
The little people had brought deep warmth with them.
 

"Stay for a moment," his father said.

"The Healer said--"

"Healers be damned."

The little people waited another moment, then the woman snapped her fingers.
 
"Quickly," she said.
 

Their wings fluttered, and the group floated above him, as pretty as the lights.
 
He wasn't sure of them.
 
Touching them had hurt, but they were so pretty.

So pretty.
 

They fanned out around him, holding strands as thin as spider webs.
 
They flew back and forth, weaving the strands.
 
The woman stood near his head, outside of the strands, clutching a tiny stone to her chest.

"Hurry," she said.

"Nicholas, really."
 
His mother laughed again.
 
"Stop.
 
We can't."

"I know," his father said.
 
"But it's so much nicer than fighting.
 
Maybe we shouldn't call him anything."

"Can you imagine?" she said.
 
"He's a grandfather and his friends all call him 'baby.'"

The strands had formed a piece of white gauze between him and the world.
 
The shadow moved on his nurse's face, lifting away a tiny bit, and glancing over its flat shoulder at the flying people.

"Not yet," the woman said.

The shadow flattened out over the nurse once more.
 

The gauze enveloped him and his blankets.
 
He felt warm and secure.
 
The little people held the edges of the gauze and lifted him from the crib.

He could see the whole room.
 
It was big.
 
His nurse sat in one corner, the shadow over her face, her eyelids moving back and forth.
 
A bed with filmy red curtains sat in the far side of the room, and chairs lined the walls.
 
All the windows were covered with tapestries, and the tapestries were pictures of babies--being born, being held, being crowned.
 
Only one window was open--the window the people had come through.

Floating was fun.
 
It felt like being held.
 
He snuggled into his blankets, and watched the little woman put the stone on his pillow.
 

Then the door handle turned.
 
The little woman floated above the crib, shooing the others away with her hands.
 
"Hurry!" she whispered.
 
"Hurry!"

"We might wake him up, Jewel," his father said.

"Babies sleep sound."

"Wait," he said.
 
"Let me find out what the name means.
 
Then we can have a real talk.
 
If it has no meaning, then--"

"Find out who had the name before," she said.
 
"That's important."

They were almost to the window.
 
For a moment, he had forgotten his mother.
 
He remembered her now.
 
He wanted her to float with him.
 
He rolled over, making the little people curse.
 
The net swung precariously.
 
He cried out, a long plaintive wail.

"Shush!" the little man nearest him said.

The shadow lifted off the nurse's face.
 
She snorted, sighed, and sank deeper in sleep.
 
The shadow crawled over the fireplace toward the window.

He cried out again.
 
The nurse stirred and ran a hand over her face.
 
His feet were outside.
 
It was raining, but the drops didn't touch him.
 
They veered away from his feet as if he wore a protective cover.
 

The nurse's eyes flickered open.
 
"What a dream I had, baby," she said.
 
"What a dream."

He howled.
 
The little people hurried him outside even faster.
 
She went to the crib and looked down.
 
His gaze followed hers.
 
In his bed, another baby lay.
 
His eyes were open, but empty.
 
The nurse brushed her hand on his cheek.

"You're cold, lambkins," she said.

The little woman huddled in the curtain around the crib.
 
She moved her fingers and the baby cooed.
 
The nurse smiled.

He was staring at the baby that had replaced him.
 
It looked like him, but it was not him.
 
It had been a stone a moment before.

"Changeling," he thought, marking not just his first word, but the arrival of his conscious being, born a full adult, thanks to the Fey's magic touch.

He screamed.
 
The little people pulled him outside, over the courtyard and into the street.
 
The nurse looked up, and went to the window, a frown marring her soft features.
 
He cried again, but he was already as high as the clouds, and well down the street.
 
The nurse shook her head, grabbed the tapestry, and pulled it closed.

"Hush, child," the little man floating above him said.
 
"You're going home."

THE ASSASSINATION

[Three Years Later]

TWO

The trees near Kenniland Marshes grew tall and spindly, but their silvery leaves were thick and provided excellent cover.
 
Rugar, the Black King's son and leader of the Fey on Blue Isle, balanced precariously on the fork between two branches on the tallest tree near the entrance to the marsh.
 
Fortunately the spring air was warm.
 
He had been in the tree since dawn, and his legs were cramping.
 
He straightened them slowly so that he wouldn't shake the branches, or destroy the tiny opening he had made in the leaves.
 
The arrows in the quiver strapped to his back rustled.
 
The bow slipped from its resting place and he dived for it before it clattered down the trunk.

Then he froze, breathing softly, waiting for his heart to slow down to normal.

He double-checked the tiny circle of lights that revolved just above his head.
 
His momentary fear hadn't dissolved them.
 
Good.
 
His escape route remained intact.

So far, no one had appeared on the road, but he didn't want to take any chances.
 
The Islanders had grown careless in the four years of peace, but he had not.
 
If anything, he had become more wary.

Rugar had arrived at the Marshes a week before, keeping off the main roads, and feeding himself from the land.
 
A few times he had had to hide in the brush beside the road.
 
Fey were taller and darker than the Islanders.

He had been surprised to discover that he enjoyed the cross-country trip.
  
He hadn't bushwhacked across Blue Isle before, and he was startled at its varied terrain.
 
The Marshes were at the far south end, and beyond them like the jagged teeth of a Hevish Desert Dog rose the mountain range that encircled the Isle.

Actually there were two ranges, broken in the center by the Cardidas River.
 
The Snow Mountains covered most of the Isle, from the Stone Guardians in the west to the Slides of Death in the east.
 
The imposing, treeless Eyes of the Roca covered the coastline north of the river, from the Cliffs of Blood on the east to the other side of the Guardians on the west.
 
Because of these mountains, Blue Isle was almost impossible to reach by sea.
 
The mountains were tall and sheer on the ocean sides.
 
The only natural harbor was the mouth of the river on the west, blocked by the Stone Guardians.

His invasion force had come through the Guardians five years before, using an old map, an enthralled Nye navigator, and magic.
  
The Guardians were tall rocks partially submerged.
 
Ships rammed the rocks all the time. Without a map, a lot of luck, and navigator knowledgeable in the ways of the currents, no one could get through the Guardians.
 
From the day the Fey had invaded Blue Isle, the Guardian watchers stopped working the currents.
 
The Islander King, Alexander, had sent the watchers to the settlements in the Eastern Snow Mountains.
 
For five years, no one had studied the currents.
 
Blue Isle was completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Rugar would end that soon.

He settled back on the fork, the smooth bark hard against his thighs.
 
He pulled the bow across his lap and stroked the string.
 
Until he had come to the Isle, he had never used a bow.
 
The Fey had abandoned them generations before, preferring swords and their magical talents to fight wars.
 
He started practicing with the bow and arrow shortly after he had stolen his grandson three years before.
 
This plan had not been in Rugar's mind then; only a knowledge that he should learn the weapon the Islanders prefer.
 
During the Fey's first year on Blue Isle, many of them died when the tip of an arrow dipped in poison touched their bodies.

He was going to see how the Islanders would like it.

The marsh smelled of mud and rank, long-standing water.
 
He had been in the tree long enough that thin-legged birds had landed in the water, and were fishing beneath its surface.
 
Grass poked through the wet as did bushes, and more spindly trees.
 
Only the road, purposely built high across the marsh, made the soggy land look any different from the hard ground leading into it.

There were villages around the marsh, but he had avoided them.
 
So far, he had been successful in keeping himself hidden.
 
He was days away from Blue Isle's main city, Jahn, and another day away from the Shadowlands where his loyal Fey remained.
 
To his knowledge, no Fey had ever been this far south, not even the traitorous Burden and the band of deserters who had followed him out of Shadowlands shortly after Jewel's marriage.

The deserters claimed Shadowlands was no longer necessary. Rugar disagreed.
 
He had created two Shadowlands, one to hold the ships, and one to protect his invasion force.
 
Only Visionaries could make Shadowlands.
 
They were boxes so large that a hundred giants could not hold them.
 
The boxes were invisible to the naked eye, but solid to someone inside.
 
The doorways were marked by a circle of lights.
 
Once created, the Shadowlands remained solid until the Visionary destroyed them or until the Visionary died.