Changeling

by Sarah Rayne

  But she said, ‘Christian – you aren’t really going to kill me, are you?’

  The moonlight was growing stronger, silvering the stone, and Fael shivered and remembered its legend: other worlds. You would see other worlds through the Stone’s tip. And one legend tells that you could read the ancient chronicles listing the names of creatures bound by the sidh’s dark enchantments . . . . And if you name the dwarf you break his power . . .

  Behind them, a soft voice said, ‘Christian Roscius,’ and Fael felt him whip around. Standing no more than three yards away was Flynn Deverill.

  As Flynn moved forward, the moon came fully out from the bank of cloud and shone directly through the Self-Bored Stone onto Christian.

  It was an extraordinary moment. The moonlight rayed through the Stone’s opening and showered Christian as if it were a cold, pale cloak, showing every dreadful detail of his uncovered face.

  He and Flynn held one another’s eyes as if they had been clamped together, and to Fael, still in Christian’s arms, and to Gilly, still trying to escape her rope-bonds, it seemed as if neither man would ever speak. They’re fighting, thought Fael, suddenly. They’re each trying to impose their will on the other. And then with a sense of unreality, she heard Christian say, on a note of loathing: ‘Flynn Deverill,’ and thought: He’s spoken first. And by doing that he’s yielded something, he’s somehow given way mentally to Flynn. Do they both know that? Yes, of course they do.

  Flynn had felt Christian’s sudden submission, and he had felt the other man’s smouldering hatred as if it was an open furnace. But almost all his concentration was on reaching him and freeing Fael, and he was aware now that Christian was holding Fael to him as if he could not bear to let her go. He either hates her or loves her, thought Flynn. But whichever it is, it’s too strong for him, it’s burning him up. She’s reached something in him that nobody else ever has: something that he’s never let anyone else get close to, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. Oh Christ, the poor sod, thought Flynn, torn between helpless compassion and raging fury.

  But if I don’t do something fast he’ll simply walk to the edge of the cliff and throw her over, and then come back for Gilly, he thought. And I can’t let Fael die – I can’t let either of them die! On the crest of this thought, he shouted, ‘Come over here and fight me, Christian! Let Fael go and we’ll fight it out between us!’

  ‘The final encounter?’ said Christian, mockingly, but Flynn heard the uncertain note in his voice. It’s now or never, he thought. If ever I’m to go for him, I’ll have to do it now. The cliff edge is nearer than I like, but it can’t be helped. He tensed his muscles, and then three things happened all at the same time.

  Flynn sprang forward, knocking Fael out of Christian’s arms, and sending Christian falling towards the cliff edge.

  Car headlights sliced through the darkness, mingling with the cold, eerie moonlight.

  And there was the sudden sound of huge wings beating triumphantly on the air, and there was the vivid unmistakable impression of darting elongated bodies, swooping out of the sky.

  Christian had been half-stunned by the fall, and he had lain for a moment on the ground, trying to regain his senses. He knew he was suddenly and dreadfully vulnerable. Flynn Deverill, he thought. And the two girls – he’s freeing them, I can see him. And someone else is coming – there are car headlights on the road. I’ve got to get away, he thought frantically. I can’t stay here – I can’t be seen, not now they know who I am—

  And then between one heartbeat and the next he caught the silvery ruffle of something on the air and his senses leapt and something deep within his body responded.

  The leanan-sidhe . . . They’re here, he thought with sudden surprised joy, and so deep and so sweet was his own response that he forgot all the other dangers, he forgot that he was lying on the cold ground and that the mask had been discarded. They’re coming out of the heart of the storm, he thought, half kneeling and staring up at the night skies. They’re coming from out of the eye of the tempest because that’s where they live, in all the old stories it’s where they live, and it’s where they draw their power.

  He stood up, no longer aware of Flynn and the girls, neither seeing nor hearing the screech of Liam O’Sullivan’s battered truck as it parked untidily. He was moving in a trance towards the cliff edge, staring out across the wild, white-topped waves of the ocean. Had he heard it in truth, or had it been the wild imaginings of a disordered mind? Voices in the wind, nothing more, said the logical part of him, but—

  But it’s more than that, said the mystical side, the poetical side that Fael Miller had uncovered and that she had drawn dangerously close to.

  And then from out of the scudding darkness and the driving wind and rain it came again and this time Christian knew there was no mistake. Silvery mocking voices, and threading in and out of the voices, music so beautiful and so seductive that you would sell your soul if it would go on and you would barter your sanity if only it would never stop . . . But have I any sanity left to barter with? he demanded. Oh God, what have I left that I can offer them?

  They were coming closer, they were riding towards him through the darkness, breasting the wind and the storm. He was shivering in the biting cold, but he was no longer aware of it. He threw his whole mind outwards to them. Take my mortal soul! he cried silently, flinging out his arms. Take my mortal dreams! Only give me back my birthright! Return what you took and let me be whole! Let me be as other people!

  There was a moment of the most profound silence he had ever known. It seemed as if the wind paused to draw breath, and as if the ocean froze in its ceaseless beating on the rocks. Christian felt something rise up exultantly from the darkness and come towards him.

  And then they were there. Twisting, twining creatures, exactly as he had visualised them, exactly as the old stories described them. They had discarded their goblin carapace in which they prowled and hunted the world of the humans, and they were forming in all their dazzling, myth-drenched beauty. Slender, nearly-formless bodies, round sleek heads, worn smooth by centuries of living in the soft, silken under-water realms. Christian caught his breath, and behind him heard Fael gasp. But there was no room in his mind even for Fael now.

  The leanan-sidhe were drawing him forward, their hands all around him, stroking, caressing. He could feel their tapering, fingerless hands closing around his head, stroking his poor shameful face, cradling it in their boneless arms. Their silvery laughter filled the night, and sweet perfumed breath blew gently into his face. Christian, straining to see them, cried, ‘Will you give me back what you stole?’

  Are you bartering with us, human . . .?

  It was not quite like human speech, Christian was not even sure if he heard them in human words, but there was an understanding, an exchange. He drew in a deep shuddering breath. ‘Yes! Yes, I am bartering with you!’

  But for bartering, something must be given in return . . .

  ‘What?’ cried Christian. ‘Tell me what you want!’

  What have you to give us, human . . .?

  ‘The child! There may be a child!’ He half-turned, trying to see Fael through the darkness. ‘It will be yours!’ he cried. ‘I give it freely and willingly to you as soon as it is born!’

  But it would not be a first-born . . .

  Not a first-born, because she shared that with someone else . . . ‘Must it be that?’ he said, almost humbly.

  Always . . .

  ‘Then there is nothing I can give you.’

  You can give us your soul, human . . . You can give us yourself . . . Do it now, human . . . Come with us now and be ours for all of time . . .

  Body and soul and blood and bone . . .

  And once you have let us love you, human, you will never want human women again, for we are more loving and more passionate than ever you can dream . . . But you must surrender willingly, you must not resist . . .

  ‘All right!’ cried Christian, flinging back his head and hold
ing wide his arms in a gesture of obeisance.

  At once the night was rent with shrieking, malicious laughter that ran eerily in and out of the wailing, driving wind. Blue-green iridescence split the darkness and Christian felt the mood of the night change; he felt it no longer wistful and elusive, but wild and as rapacious as a pack of wolverines. Cold silken arms wound around him, like thin spring water, soft and sensuous beyond bearing. He could see the leanan-sidhe more clearly now – voluptuous beings with beckoning arms, and bodies that burned against the darkness like blue-green flames in a peat fire on a frost-ridden night.

  They swarmed over him, screeching their eldritch delight into the night, twining about his legs and sliding between his thighs. He knew now he was truly mad, because none of this could be happening, these creatures had no reality outside of legend, and their sensuous whisperings did not exist outside of the keening wind. But his body would surely not respond to a legend with such violent arousal, and if the stinging wind was still lashing the darkness, he could no longer feel it. There was only the cool, velvet caresses against his skin, and the silvery voices in his ear.

  We will have it all, human, we will take blood and marrow and juices, and we shall empty your loins, over and over, and you will be ours for ever . . .

  He moaned softly, feeling the smoky incomplete hands stroking him to helpless longing, his body toppling towards a scalding climax. Pain was clawing through his body and the tempestuous night was blurring and dissolving all about him. As the beckoning arms drew him forward, the purest ecstasy he had ever known, white-hot in its intensity and so violent it was painful, began to explode through his body.

  As he walked towards the cliff, he was smiling and holding out his arms. There was a final eldritch shriek that might have been the wind but that might have been something else, and the tormented creature who had believed himself a changeling, who had fought with the strange, dark persona awoken by Tod Miller’s eerie, beautiful musical, and who had cast a mysterious, compelling mesmerism over almost every person who encountered him, walked deliberately over the cliff edge, to the raging seas beneath.

  There was a final cry that might have been triumphant voices, or that might have been an agonised death scream, or that might only have been the wind.

  The moon slid behind a bank of cloud and darkness fell about the Self-Bored Stone.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The power was still off in Flaherty’s Bar, but Flaherty had banked up the fire with thick slabs of peat, and Seamus O’Sullivan had set the oil lamps around the long, low-ceilinged room. Sinead and Flaherty’s daughter had brewed a huge pot of coffee over the kitchen range. Gilly had tried to help but was told to sit down and recover after her ordeal. Did she think they all wanted her passing out on them?

  Seated in the deep inglenook that smelled pleasantly of peat and woodsmoke, Gilly and Fael had finally managed to stop shivering. Thick warm rugs had been looked out and wrapped around them and Liam O’Sullivan had gone back to the farmhouse and routed out a couple of thick sweaters for Flynn.

  ‘I’m warming up a bit, are you?’ said Fael, leaning back, her hands cupped gratefully around the strong fragrant coffee which was liberally laced with whiskey.

  ‘Yes, but I think it’ll take days to feel properly warm again.’

  ‘Weeks,’ said Fael. She thought it was remarkable how well she and Gilly seemed to know one another, and how well they both seemed to know Flynn and the people in this bar. Or was that only the slightly unreal closeness that came from having traversed a danger together? I’m free, she thought. The spell’s wound up and the rough magic’s abjured . . . Buried fathoms deeper than ever did plummet sound . . . And he’s dead. He’s lying out there at the foot of the cliff and if he isn’t drowned, he’s certainly battered to shreds on the rocks . . . and he was my father’s murderer, and I shouldn’t be feeling like this about him . . . She took a deep breath, and across the table met Flynn Deverill’s eyes and was insensibly cheered.

  Father Mack was saying something about it being a sad and solemn night for them all, and Fael thought: Yes, of course he’d see it like that. She heard herself saying, ‘Did you know who he was? I mean that he – that Christian – was the professor’s son?’ The name came out awkwardly as if her mind had flinched from it.

  ‘Well, we didn’t know for sure,’ said Father Mack, who had the kind of calm, warm Irish voice that managed to be reassuring and gossipy at the same time.

  ‘And of course, we never knew his name,’ put in Sinead O’Sullivan.

  ‘But there was always the possibility of some kind of connection. Living in the house and all.’

  ‘Coming and going between here and Dublin and England,’ put in the elder of the two O’Sullivan men. Seamus, thought Fael.

  ‘We all knew the professor,’ said Flaherty, who had fetched out a bottle of Irish whiskey from under the bar. Gilly noticed that Flynn Deverill had accepted a very large measure indeed.

  ‘I’m keeping up the image,’ said Flynn, meeting her eyes and grinning in a friendly fashion.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘We knew the professor quite well,’ said Seamus O’Sullivan. ‘He was a great man altogether. We knew his lady as well. That’s his wife, you understand.’ This was to Flynn.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He found one or two consolations,’ said Liam. ‘Aside from his wife. You’d have to admit that he had one or two consolations, that professor.’

  ‘So it seems,’ said Flynn. ‘Did you know my mother was one of the consolations?’

  ‘Ah. Was she now? Yes, you have a look of the professor yourself,’ said Father Mack, consideringly.

  ‘Ah now, there’s no shame in the odd consolation,’ said Seamus to Flynn. ‘Even though your man there would preach about sin and adultery and God knows what else.’

  ‘I would,’ said Father Mack, to whom this last remark was more or less directed. ‘But I’d have to say it’s not for any of us to judge.’

  ‘I’m not judging,’ said Flynn.

  It was then that Seamus O’Sullivan looked across at Fael and said, ‘You’re very like your mother, aren’t you?’ and Sinead said comfortably, ‘The spitting image, isn’t she?’

  Fael stared at them both. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Your mother. You have her looks. The eyes and the hair.’

  There was an abrupt silence.

  Aine was here, thought Fael. She was at Maise and I never knew. But of course she was here – she had to have been, argued her mind. He knew her. Scathach – Christian. He said so at our first meeting . . . Our first strange and fatal interview . . . And where else would he have seen her, but at Maise?

  ‘She came to stay at Maise a few times,’ said Seamus, and, as if in answer to this, Fael saw Father Mack nodding in agreement and caught Flynn’s sudden sharp attention. Her thoughts veered on to a totally different path. Dear God, she thought, what’s going to be brought out now?

  ‘It would be around twenty years ago,’ said Flaherty. ‘Wouldn’t it? Or was it less than that?’

  ‘It was certainly no more than twenty,’ confirmed Sinead. ‘Because I remember that she’d the little one at home who she wouldn’t leave for long – that’d be you, of course, my dear,’ she said to Fael, who stared at her and tried to take hold of several different whirling thoughts.

  ‘She – didn’t come to Maise before then?’

  ‘If she did,’ said Seamus, ‘it was the best-kept secret of the century, and secrets aren’t kept so very well out here, you know.’ He laughed and everyone joined in.

  ‘Did she come to – visit Professor Roscius?’ Fael was grateful to Flynn for asking this.

  ‘She did,’ said Seamus. ‘I remember it very well, because it had all to do with the writing of a grand musical show. It was called—’

  ‘The Dwarf Spinner,’ said Fael and Flynn together.

  The fire was burning up brightly in the large front bedroom with the patchwork-quilted bed and the flam
es washed the white walls with a rosy glow. Ten minutes earlier Flaherty’s daughter had beamingly brought up a huge copper ewer of hot water, and the firelight reflected fathoms down in the polished surface.

  ‘Will you be all right in here?’ said Flynn, seating himself on the small window seat and surveying the room.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Fael looked round the room with pleasure. ‘Thanks for bringing me. Stairs are still a bit of a problem. They’re putting Gilly next door. She’s still a bit shaken over what happened to Sir Julius.’

  ‘Not surprising,’ said Flynn.

  ‘I’ve taken the room you were going to have,’ said Fael. ‘Haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s all right. I’ll be downstairs,’ said Flynn. ‘Trying to get some well-deserved rest on Flaherty’s under-stuffed sofa.’

  ‘Drinking with Father Mack and Flaherty for what’s left of the night,’ observed Fael.

  ‘That as well.’

  He studied her, apparently waiting for her to speak, and after a moment, Fael said, ‘So my father never wrote Dwarf Spinner after all.’

  ‘That’s not the surprise of the decade,’ said Flynn. ‘Does it matter to you?’

  ‘I don’t think it does,’ said Fael, who had been thinking about this, along with the fact of Tod’s death. ‘It’d be nice if my mother could have had the recognition,’ she said, ‘and it’d be nice if she could have it now, but— No, I don’t think it does matter, not really.’ She eyed him thoughtfully, and then said, ‘She wrote it with your father. I mean – James Roscius.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘And after she died Tod let everyone think it was his own.’

  Flynn said, ‘Just as he let everyone think that Cauldron was his own.’ They looked at one another. ‘I am right, aren’t I?’ said Flynn, at last. ‘You did write it, didn’t you?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  ‘With Christian Roscius.’