Fey 02 - Changeling (40 page)

"If we don't get the child now, it will die," the Shaman said.

"What about my grandson?" Rugar asked in Fey.

The Shaman brought her head up.
 
Her dark eyes were fathomless, but there was such fury in her expression that even Nicholas recoiled.
 
"Your grandson is beyond my help.
 
Now shut up and get out of my way.
 
I will not tell you again."

"Jewel's face is still melting," Nicholas said in Nye.
 
His Fey wasn't fluent enough for this kind of emergency.
 
"Can't you help Jewel?"

"The best way to help the Black King's granddaughter is to remove the child she's carrying," the Shaman said in the same language.

Nicholas squeezed Jewel's hand.
 
She did not respond.
 
The baby inside her womb had reverted to baby shape, its tiny fists clenched and pushing against the sides.

"We'll have to remove the child ourselves," the Shaman said in Fey.
 
One of the Fey women got between Jewel's legs, pushed her skirt up, and pulled her knees apart.
 
Another joined her.
 
The third stood and grabbed Jewel's stomach, blocking Nicholas's view.

A spasm rocked Jewel's body, and her hand almost slipped from his.
 
Her eyes were still closed, but her mouth fell partly open.
 
Another spasm jolted through her, and Nicholas understood.
 
They were inducing the spasms in her, trying to make her body act as if it were in labor.

"Will this work?" he asked Rugar in Islander.

Jewel's father looked twice as old as he had that morning.
 
All the power he had carried in his body was gone now.
 
"I don't know," he said.
 
"The midwives do it sometimes when the mother —" his voice broke.
 
He stopped speaking and shook his head.

Nicholas straightened Jewel's head and held it in place for the next spasm.
 
The faint odor of burning flesh wafted around him, but it wasn't as strong as it had been.
 
The Fey woman closest to him was pushing on the womb.
 
A woman below nodded.
 

"I see the head," the woman said in Fey

"Are you sure we have a head?"
 
someone asked.
 
Nicholas didn't see the source of the voice.
 
"It could be shifting."

"There's hair, and a skull.
 
Definitely.
 
The form's holding for the moment."

Sweat was pouring down Nicholas's back.
 
Another spasm shuddered through Jewel.
 
The fire blazed beside them.
 
Even the cat was watching with deep interest.

"Another push," one of the women said.

"Look," the second woman said.

One of the cook's assistants screamed.
 
The others, near Jewel's legs, had their hands over their mouths.

Nicholas craned his neck to see around the Shaman, but he couldn't.
 
Something was wrong with this child too.
 

"Get them out of here," the Shaman said to him in Nye.

"Please," Nicholas said to his people.
 
He wasn't feeling commanding any more.
 
Just drained and lost.
 
"Please leave us."

The chef gave him a look of alarm.
 
Nicholas shook his head.
 
Jewel's fingers were limp.
 
She no longer seemed to feel the pain as another spasm rocked her.
 
Two of the cook's assistants were sobbing, and so was the woman who tended the hearth fire.
 
They weren't crying because of Jewel.
 
They had been shocked by the baby.

"Leave," Nicholas said.
 
"Let them finish here.
 
Please.
 
I'll be all right."

The chef nodded to the group.
 
Then he spoke to Burden in a low voice, pointing at the ovens as he did.
 

"I'll take care of it," Burden said in Islander.

The chef thanked him, then led the others out.
 
Another spasm shivered through Jewel.

"Hurry," the Shaman said.
 

Jewel's skin had turned an odd gray.
 
The melting had ceased, the disfigurement stopping near her nose.
 
He hoped the Fey had a way of dealing with that too.
 
He had never seen an ugly Fey.
 
Not even the ones the Fey considered deformed had ugly faces.
 
Those Fey were just short and nonmagical.

"There!" One of the women between Jewel's legs stood.
 
She held a bloody thing with a human head.
 
Its body was long and thin like an eel's.
 
Blood dripped off the ends.

That was his child.
 
This one probably wouldn't live the night.

"Quick," said the voice that Nicholas couldn't identify.
 
The voice was female, but he couldn't see who was speaking.
 
"Get it shaped."

The other woman took the baby, and its form shivered, compacted, and flattened, like it had been in the womb.
 
Suddenly it was square, with eyes and a mouth in the middle.

"Quick!" the voice said.

The Shaman stood and took the baby, cradling it.
 
Nicholas watched, his mouth open, as the flat creature shifted again.
 
In the Shaman's arms, it became a bloody, naked, squalling baby girl.

"You have a daughter," she said to Nicholas in Fey.

"But what just happened?
  
She looked flat —"

"She's fine," the Shaman said.
 
"She Shifted.
 
She'll be a difficult one."

"Visionaries don't have Shifters," Rugar said.
 
He hadn't taken any steps toward the Shaman.
 
He huddled by himself, looking small and old.
 
"Was it the poison?"

The Shaman shook her head.
 
"There is a wild magic on this Isle.
 
This girl has it.
 
Her Shifting is normal."

"Actually," said the voice Nicholas couldn't identify.
 
"It's too strong.
 
Only one Shift at birth.
 
Not several.
 
That child was Shifting in the womb."

He looked around for the source of the voice, but couldn't see it.
 
The women were crowded around his daughter, cleaning her off.
 
The nurse sat near the fire, Sebastian still cradled in her arms.
 
He looked as if he had fallen asleep.
 
The nurse was pale, with tiny beads of sweat on her forehead.

"The power this young," the Shaman said, "is why we had to act quickly."

Jewel hadn't moved since they let her go.
  
Nicholas inched closer to her.
 
He didn't like the way her mouth just hung open.

"Now," he said, "let's help Jewel.
 
Please."

The Shaman turned to him.
 
The wrinkles softened on her ancient face.
 
She kissed the baby and handed it to one of the women.
 
Then she came over and crouched beside Nicholas.
 
She smelled faintly of mint.

"I can't help Jewel," she said.
 
"I thought you understood that."

"But someone has to help her.
 
She can't be like this forever."
 
Nicholas took Jewel's hand and held it to his chest.
 
"Please.
 
If you don't help her, no one will."

"Young man," the Shaman said.
 
"There are limits, even to our powers."

"But she's your future."
 
Nicholas's voice broke.
 
"She has a child now, a difficult one, you said.
 
And she promised me that she'd be beside me.
 
We need her.
 
You know that.
 
You can't let anything happen to her.
 
We all need her."

The Shaman gently took Jewel's hand from his grasp, and laid it across Jewel's chest.
 
Then she took Jewel's other hand and placed it across the first.
 
She closed Jewel's mouth, and straightened her hair.

Jewel didn't move.
 
She never would move again.
 
With the Shaman's simple ritual, Nicholas finally understood what the others already knew.

Jewel was dead.

TWENTY-THREE

The kitchen smelled of blood, burning flesh, and woodsmoke.
 
Rugar knelt beside his daughter.
 
Her forehead was puckered, her nose almost gone, her hair a flat mass against her scalp.
 
He should have Seen this.
 
Her Vision carried her to the poultice.
 
Not even Gift Saw beyond that moment.
 
But Rugar was here, now.
 
He should have Seen this.

"Did you know she was going to die?" he asked the Shaman.

She was tidying Jewel's dress.
 
She had pushed Jewel's legs down and pulled the skirts over Jewel's feet.
 
The mattress was soaked in blood.

"No one can survive the poison," the Shaman said.

"But you said you saw three outcomes.
 
Three Visions of this day."

The Shaman sighed and pushed her straw-like hair away from her face.
 
She was older than his father, older than any Fey except the Shamans who guided the other divisions.
 
Among them, she was considered young.

"In the first, Jewel did not come.
 
In the second, the Black Robe touched her directly with poison and she died in the Hall.
 
In the third --well.
 
We have lived the third."

"So she shouldn't have come," Nicholas said.
 
His voice sounded thick, as though he had a lump in his throat.
 
"I asked her to come."

The Shaman put her hand on his.
 
Rugar had never seen the Shaman so tender with anyone.
 
She favored this Islander boy, and Rugar could not tell why.
 
"If she had not come, her actions would have ended your marriage.
 
You would have set her aside, and there would have been war."

"You came because of that third Vision," Rugar said.
 
"It's no better than the second."

"It is much better."
 
Even the tone the Shaman used with Rugar was different than the one she used with Nicholas.
 
She spoke to Rugar with a layer of contempt. "We have the child.
 
In the second, the child died."

"So you came here to make certain the baby was born."

The Shaman tugged Jewel's sleeve to her wrist.
 
"I thought it best.
 
Until I realized what you had done."