Fey 02 - Changeling (91 page)

"Found you?" Adrian said. "You're the one who found us.
 
We didn't even know you were here."

"We can't even see you," Coulter said.

"Well I can see you," the voice said, "and, unless I miss my guess, you're either Doppelgängers or Spies sent to flush me out."

"We're Islanders," Adrian said.
 
"You can check our eyes or touch us.
 
If I remember right that should prove to you that we aren't Fey."

"You're hiding from the Warders too?" Coulter spoke softly, almost hesitantly.

"Evil, evil creatures those Warders," the voice said.
 
"They have no value for life.
 
I'm not even sure if they know what life is."

"Really?" Adrian said.
 
He wasn't sure if he should keep going.
 
He didn't know if this was a trap.
 
Maybe it was a trap, or a way to force Adrian and Coulter to hurry across the fallen bank, and plunge to their deaths.

"Really," the voice said.
 
"They experiment on living people.
 
Try to get those people to die for their spells.
 
They figure anyone without magic isn't a person, so it doesn't matter.
 
I say it does."

"I have magic," Coulter said, his voice small.
 
"But they experimented on me."

"Sure you have magic, kid.
 
You have as much magic as I do."

"I do," Coulter said.
 
Adrian squeezed his shoulder to silence the boy.
 
Something about this meeting wasn't right.
 
If the voice's owner knew about the Warders and spoke Fey, then Adrian would have to assume the speaker was Fey.
 
But the bitterness that came out over the Warders and the lack of magic sounded distinctly unFey.

"That kid has quite a complex," the voice said, apparently addressing Adrian.

"You would too if you had grown up among the Fey," Adrian said.

"Oh, trust me.
 
I understand completely."
 
The voice chuckled and the sound carried across the river.

"Shhh," Adrian said.
 
"I don't know how close they are."

"I do," the voice said.
 
"They sent a contingent down the main path and another to Daisy Stream.
 
They haven't figured out yet that you're too smart to travel on the road, but it will only be a matter of time.
 
They'll probably send out Gull Riders for you and you won't even know you've been spotted."

This conversation was growing stranger, and it was making Adrian very uncomfortable.
 
He pulled Coulter even closer.
 
"Thank you for your help," Adrian said.
 
"But we need to continue.
 
I hope to make Jahn by morning."

"Not at the pace you're going," the voice said.
 
"And the Riders will be out by then.
 
Beast Riders, Gull Riders, some soft furry little Rider, anything that you won't notice.
 
They'll snatch you back up and bring you to the safety of the Shadowlands in no time."

"You sound very knowledgeable about the Fey," Adrian said.

"Well, by the Powers, what do you think I am?"

"Nooo!" Coulter cried and pushed himself hard against Adrian's leg.
 
Adrian lost his balance and nearly fell off the bank.
 
He grabbed a tree branch and held on, heart pounding.

"Well," Adrian said, trying to sound calm, "if you're going to take us back, you'd better do so now."

"Take you back?" The bushes rustled. "Why would I do that?"

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do?
 
Follow your orders and return us to Shadowlands?"

"I haven't followed orders in years."
 
The bushes rustled some more and a little man emerged from them.
 
He was just a few inches taller than Coulter, and built very square.
 
His skin was dark though and his features were Fey.
 
He looked like a Fey inexpertly carved from a tree stump.

"You're a Red Cap," Adrian said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.
 

"I was a Red Cap," the little man said.
 
He held out his hands and pirouetted.
 
"If you'll notice, no smell of decay, no dead flesh hanging off the skin, no blood coating the garments.
 
I have been clean since Caseo's death and I plan to stay that way until I die."

Coulter had brought his head up.
 
He was staring at the Red Cap as if he had never seen one before.
 
Adrian must have been staring the same way.
 
Neither of them had seen a clean Red Cap.
 
Caps were usually tending the dead --those killed in battle --pulling skin and blood off them.
 
When they weren't doing that, they were doing similar duties for the Domestics, taking the place of Butchers (whom Rugar had not brought along) by butchering the animals for meat.

Adrian frowned.
 
He hadn't heard of a missing Red Cap, except, of course, for the ones that died during the Invasion.
 

And the one who murdered the head Spell Warder.

"You killed Caseo," Adrian said softly.

The Red Cap shrugged.
 
"A man has to do a good deed at least once in his life."

"You killed someone?" Coulter asked, his voice breathless.
 
Red Caps were forbidden to kill people.
 
Such actions were punishable by death.

"He was trying to kill me.
 
Seems only right, don't you think?"

Coulter didn't answer.
 
Adrian didn't want to address the question.
 
"You've been hiding ever since?"

"It was either that or let them kill me."
 
The little man glanced toward the sky.
 
The moon was directly overhead.
 
"They're going to start searching the woods soon.
 
Tell me, boy.
 
Are you folks running from Warders?"

Coulter nodded despite Adrian's grip on his shoulder.

"Good," the little man said.
 
"Then come with me."

"I'm sorry to question you," Adrian said, "but where would you take us?"

"To my home," the little man said.
 
"We'd better hurry."

"And why should we trust you?"

"Because I hate Warders, same as you."

"There's no proof of that."

The little man crossed his arms and grinned.
 
"There's no proof that you folks are running from the Fey either, but I figure you wouldn't be here otherwise.
 
Now, why would I be here?"

"Because you're looking for us.
 
Because you expect some sort of accolade for finding us," Adrian said.

"As if they'd pay any attention to a Red Cap.
 
Bet you never even heard my name.
 
Bet as far as you're concerned my name is That Red Cap Who Killed Caseo."

Adrian's cheeks grew warm.
 
He was glad that the Red Cap wouldn't be able to see that in the dark.

"I'll bet most of them don't know my name either.
 
I bet my name is long forgotten."

"What is your name?" Coulter asked softly.

"See?
 
If I were anything but That Red Cap Who Killed Caseo, the boy would know."
 
The Red Cap crouched in front of Coulter and stuck out his hand, Islander fashion.
 
"I'm Scavenger.
 
Nice to meet you."

Coulter gave Adrian an uneasy look.

"Take his hand," Adrian said, "and introduce yourself."

Gingerly, the boy slipped his hand in the Cap's.
 
"Coulter," the boy said.
 
"And Adrian."

"Well," the Cap said, "Now that the social niceties are over, I suggest we get out of the light."

"Where is your cabin?" Adrian asked.

"Through the woods," the Cap said.
 
"Someone else built it for me, but I fixed it up.
 
And I've been wanting company for a while."
 
He ducked under the bushes.
 
Adrian stared at the hole for a moment, uncertain what to do next.
 
If the Cap were actually working for the Fey, he would take them back to Shadowlands.
 
But the little man's arguments sounded convincing.
 

"Is he linked?" Adrian whispered to Coulter.

Coulter frowned, then shook his head. "Not anywhere," he said with a bit of surprise as if that were unusual.

The little man poked his head out of the hole.
 
"If you're going to come," he said no longer sounding quite as friendly, "come now."

Adrian shot another glance at the tree.
 
Crossing those roots in the dark, with Coulter so afraid of the air around him, was probably not a good idea.
 
They couldn't backtrack, so they would have to try these woods anyway.
 
Better to have someone lead them through.
 
It was still two against one.
 
If the Cap looked as if he were taking them to Shadowlands, they would run for it.

"Well?" the Cap asked.

"We're coming," Adrian said.
  
The Cap still sounded close, a bit too close for Adrian's comfort.
 
He wanted the opportunity to warn Coulter not to discuss his own magic.
 
Magic was a touchy subject with the Caps.
 
They had none of their own --the only Fey with no magic and no possibility for it.
 
The Fey said it was in the Cap's size.
 
If they were small, they were magickless.
 
All the Caps Adrian had seen bore this out.

"Do we have to go in there?" Coulter asked.

Adrian nodded.
 
"I'll be right behind you," he said.
 
He wanted to promise the boy they'd be safe, but he couldn't.

He had no idea if the Red Cap would hurt them or help them.

But he would find out.

FORTY-NINE

Matthias dreamed he was on the Cardidas River, on the barge the Fey and Islanders had built together for Nicholas's wedding.
 
The spray was up, the air chill, and the sun a faint haze through high clouds.
 
The water was choppy.
 
The wind buffeted the barge, hitting the sides of his face like a slap.
 
He wore his long ceremonial robes, and he stood off to the side, watching Jewel in her inappropriate green, her long black hair flowing down her back.

Rugar talked with her, pleaded with her, but it didn't matter.
 
She insisted on marrying the Islander.
 
Fool that she was.
 
Wasting the Fey blood and Fey heritage on such an inferior being.