Fey 02 - Changeling (60 page)

"But not Gift."

Rugar shook his head.
 
"None of us knew of the boy's link to Jewel.
 
Not even the Shaman.
 
Had she known, she might have stayed here to care for the boy.
 
She was doing her best to save Jewel."

"You should know," Niche said.
 
"You're the Leader of this pitiful troop.
 
You should know about Links and you should See what will happen next. You didn't even warn me that Gift might die.
 
I could have used warning."

"I didn't know," Rugar said.
 
"I can't know everything."

"You should know," Niche said.
 
"My son is alive because of luck, nothing more."

"Your son?"
 
Rugar glared at her.
 
"Your son?
 
My
grand
son, woman.
 
You care for him because of my good graces.
 
Not because of any blood tie."

"My son," Niche said.
 
"And you're right.
 
I care for him.
 
You do not.
 
You took the Shaman, the Domestics and the Healers with you that day.
 
If Coulter hadn't been here, Gift would have died.
 
Wind and I certainly weren't able to help him."

"Coulter?" Rugar put out a hand to steady himself.
 
The anger that had held him dissapated with the shock of the name.
 
Burden's words came back to him.
Have you ever wondered what really saved him?
 
The Shaman thought your grandson died.

Died.

Rugar sank onto a cushion and sat there for a moment, his heart pounding hard.
 
"Coulter?" he asked again.
 
"The Islander child?
 
The one Solanda stole?"

Niche nodded.

"What could an Islander do?"

"He wrapped him in strings of light."

A chill ran through Rugar.
 
"You were here?
 
You saw it?"

Niche was standing over him.
 
She smelled of a fresh breeze blowing off the ocean.
 
"I saw it all," she said.

"Was there a Vision?
 
In the light?
 
Did you see something other than light?"

She frowned, as if she hadn't expected him to ask that question.
 
"I saw both boys as men standing on the Cardidas river."

Rugar closed his eyes.
 
The contents of his stomach churned.
 
He wondered if Burden knew of this or if Burden would have known what to make of it if he heard.
 

The Islanders don't have magic,
Rugar had said when Solanda told him of the child.

This one does,
she had replied.

This one does.

She had known.
 
She had known from the beginning.
 
Which was why she took him and brought him here.
 

We can't use the powers of a baby to fight a war,
Rugar had said.

Not yet,
she had replied.

Rugar swallowed, and opened his eyes.
 
Niche was watching him, her features furrowed in concern.
 

"Are you sure that Gift didn't do this himself?" Rugar asked.

Niche nodded.
 
"He was screaming, his eyes rolled in the back of his head, and …" her voice faltered a bit "… and it smelled like burning, like someone had poured that poison on him.
 
He couldn't have done anything."

"Are you certain?" Rugar said.
 
"The boy has powerful magic."

"Coulter came in," Niche said.
 
"When I wouldn't move, he pushed me aside.
 
That's how my wings broke.
 
I was watching.
 
The light came from him, and cradled Gift.
 
He saved Gift.
 
He did.
 
I saw it."

Rugar shook his head.
 
"It's not possible."

"It happened."

"But the boy is Islander."

Niche shrugged.
 
"Gift is part Islander, and you say he's powerful."

"But that always happens when Fey breed with outsiders.
 
The magic runs truer."
 
Rugar looked away from her.
 
The fire was burning high and bright, the flames orange with a blue center.
 
The wood glowed.
 

An Enchanter.
 
Only Enchanters could do that sort of spell.
 
Shamans had all sorts of talents, from healing to Visions, but they could not do light or fire spells.
 

Enchanters could do everything.

"What does Gift think of this?" Rugar asked.

"He asked for Coulter when he woke, and Coulter came to the door.
 
They seem closer now."

They would.
 
They were bound.
 
Gift wouldn't be free until Coulter let him go.

An Enchanter.

An Islander Enchanter.

This made everything different.

"Do you know where the boy lives?"

"Coulter?" Niche asked.
 
"I thought the Domestics cared for him."

"I need to find him and discover what he's done."
 
Rugar stood.
 
He started for the door, then felt Niche's light hand on his arm.
 
Her expression was fierce.

"Coulter saved Gift's life.
 
Don't do anything to reverse that."

Rugar put his hand on hers.
 
She flinched at his touch.
 
"Believe me, woman," he said, "I would never harm my grandson."

"You have before."

He gripped her hand just tight enough to threaten her hollow bones.
 
"Gift belongs to me.
 
I can take him any time I want."

She nodded.
 
"He may be your blood, but he loves me."

"Love is worth a bucket of piss in the end."

"A bucket of piss is worth a fortune in a drought."

He had no answer for that.
 
One of the reasons he had chosen her to raise Gift was the fierceness she showed now.
 
He had thought it would protect the boy.

Maybe it had.

"I will not harm Gift," Rugar repeated.

"Perhaps not intentionally since he is all you have now," she said.
 
"But if he needs those cords to survive, and you cut them, you will hear from me --and from all the others.
 
Coulter said that Gift lives because Coulter lives.
 
Remember that.
 
Don't harm my son."

"Have a little faith," Rugar said.

She pulled her hand from beneath his. "Even a little faith is difficult given your record," she said.

THIRTY-TWO

The Warders stared at each other across the long table.
 
From Touched's point of view at the foot of the table, their bald heads looked identical, their long robes costumes they put on when they became Warders.
 
Due to his youth and inexperience — in six years as a Warder, he had yet to develop a working spell — he sat nearest the fire.
 
Sweat ran down his forehead and dripped off his chin onto his cowl.
 

Rotin was supposed to lead the group, but more and more often, she ground her herbs, placed them on her tongue and lost herself to the ecstasy.
 
Warders were forbidden any sexual contact and the herbs mimicked the experience.
 
When Touched first became a Warder, Rotin did her herbs in private.
 
Now she did them whenever she felt like it, and she didn't care who watched her round face go red and her eyes glaze.

The remaining Warders, the dregs of the Warding group, would wait until her spasms were done, then continued as if nothing happened.

More often than not, nothing would happen.

Four years before, a Red Cap had murdered Caseo, the most talented Warder who had come to Blue Isle.
 
No one knew who the Red Cap was, only that Caseo had challenged him. Red Caps had no magic, and Caseo believed that the Islanders' poison would not work on someone who lacked magic.
 
He demanded that the Cap take part in the experiments.
 
The Cap had fled.
 
When he returned later, he murdered Caseo.

Red Caps were unimportant Fey.
 
They tended the dead during and after battles, and no one paid attention to them.
 
The Warders knew that the Cap who had killed Caseo was named Scavenger, but they didn't know any more about him.
 
He looked like any other Cap, short, squat and ugly.
 
Magickless.
 
A search of the forest never revealed him.
 
He got away after the murder, and no one really cared.

Except Touched.
 
Touched was startled to discover he missed Caseo.
 
They had been at odds when Caseo was alive, but at least Caseo had led the Warders.
 
Rotin did not.
  

They still worked in the same cabin, and still had a few vials of poison to experiment with, but they had ceased using the poison in the experiments two years before.
 
They never took the skin and blood from the last battles out any more either.
 
And Rotin only called group meetings once a week.
 
Most of the Warders had gone their own way, trading tiny spells with the Domestics in exchange for extra food or a private cabin.

Touched felt that he alone remained focused on the poison, and even he was going nowhere.
 
Rotin didn't teach him the discipline as she should have — a new Warder always apprenticed to the senior Warders — and he had only his talent and his experience to draw on.

His talent was considerable — it was what made him a Warder in the first place.

He had no experience at all.

The Warders cabin was one of the larger cabins in Shadowlands.
 
It had several rooms off the main one, most of them filled with Red Cap pouches from the honored dead.
 
Pouches that should have been used in experiments but were mostly forgotten.
 
There were also beds and equipment even Touched didn't understand.
 

The main room had the long table, enough chairs for all the Warders, and a fireplace.
 
Caseo had kept the fire burning constantly, but Rotin had allowed it to burn out on many occasions.
 
Touched suspected that the loss of the original fire also interfered with the Warders abilities.