The Changeling

by H. P. Mallory

  “Moves quick for her age, doesn’t she?”

  “Think she went back?”

  “No. She’d be afraid of running into us.”

  “Look, footprints.”

  Up the slope they went, and I grinned from my hiding place as one slipped up in the mud and fell on his face. Another tried to help his friend; he slipped as well, and soon both were skidding back down the slope like a Three Stooges routine. Finally, they reached the rocks.

  “Guess she went up.”

  I waited for them to start climbing, then scampered off into the darkness on tip-toes, back towards the settlement.

  In the exhilaration of the chase, I’d almost forgotten everything else that was going on, and I picked up my pace as it all came back to me. The good news was that war, in general, is pretty damn loud, and I couldn’t currently hear anything that sounded like war, so that was something.

  On the other hand, if Mathilda had been able to fix things, then the celebration would also be pretty loud, and I couldn’t hear anything jubilant either. In fact, the night was still and quiet and tense. It was the calm before the storm, and I could feel in my bones that the storm was still to come.

  Jolie? Are you there? I reached out to my sister.

  No reply. I ran faster.

  She would be fine. Jolie was strong, the strongest person I knew (besides Sinjin). If anyone could put herself in the middle or a war and survive, it was my sister. She was probably just too busy to answer me. Stopping a war took concentration, and she wouldn’t have time for me right now.

  Skirting the edge of the wood, I was brought up short by the sight before me. To my right, clinging to the fringes of the wood, were the Daywalkers, Adam standing out in front of them like a skinny Napoleon. Standing opposite, facing them, were the massed ranks of Rand’s army, with their hastily elected leader flanked by Dureau and Klassje, their faces seeming to burn with a revolutionary zeal that bordered on madness.

  Rand’s force had the advantage of numbers and weaponry, but the Daywalkers had the cover of the woods and the advantage of the high ground. There was an almost palpable tension between the two groups, like a bowstring drawn taut, waiting to be released or to snap. And the person currently holding that bowstring was the figure standing between the hostile armies, completely alone.

  “Get out of the way, Jolie!” yelled Rand. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

  “This trick of yours isn’t fooling us, your Majesty,” called Adam, mockingly. “Sending Bryn didn’t work and this won’t work either!”

  Beyond all this, where no one else was looking, down in the bay, I could just make out a slim, ethereal shape, silhouetted against the moonlight bouncing off the water. It was Mathilda, getting into position.

  “We won’t let you stop us from getting what we want!” Adam went on.

  Jolie, I spoke to my sister, Mathilda thinks she can fix this.

  Can you buy her some time to get set up, and don’t draw attention to the bay .

  As soon as I mentioned it, Jolie automatically started to turn to look to the bay.

  I said don’t draw attention to it!

  Maybe it was my imagination seeing what it wanted to see, but I thought Jolie now stood straighter, knowing I was nearby.

  “And what do you want, Adam?” she asked in a calm voice.

  “Freedom!” yelled Adam, sounding like a less Scottish Mel Gibson.

  “We want to walk out of here.”

  “They can’t be allowed to leave!” Dureau barked from the opposing ranks.

  “They are the creatures of Luce,” agreed Rand. “They will run back to him and report all of our weaknesses.”

  Jolie laughed. Standing between two armies, apparently possessed with a desire to kill each other, she laughed. I’d never seen anyone braver in my life.

  “Our weaknesses, Rand? Do you know how foolish you sound?”

  Even in his current state of not thinking for himself, Rand still looked embarrassed at his wife calling him foolish.

  “Look at us,” Jolie spread her arms wide. “We don’t need Luce to destroy us, we’re doing it ourselves.”

  “These are not our people!” Dureau shot an angry look at the Daywalkers.

  “Nor would we want to be!” Adam fired back.

  “A month ago,” Jolie mused, sadly, “you both would have been horrified to hear such words coming from one another. Now I’m not sure either of you can even remember the men you were back then.

  I don’t know what’s happened to you, but these aren’t the words and actions of the people I know and love. If you do this, if you fight now, then you’ll regret it in a way you’ve never regretted anything before. Don’t do this to yourselves.”

  It was a moving speech, but even as I watched, I could see both sides were now too far gone for Jolie’s words to have any effect on them. They heard her, but they’d lost the ability to understand.

  “Stand aside, Jolie,” Rand growled.

  I looked desperately towards Mathilda. It was so hard to see what she was doing. Was she ready? She didn’t seem to be doing anything, just standing with her back to the sea and her hands clasped before her.

  “I can’t do that, Rand.” Jolie smiled as she spoke.

  “Stand aside or face the consequences.”

  Jolie shook her head. “I wish I could do something to spare you what you’re going to go through after I’m dead by your order.”

  Rand raised his hand. “Attack!”

  Jolie! My mind screamed.

  Everything seemed to happen at once. As Rand issued his order, Adam did the same and both forces started towards each other. As they rushed forward, I was already moving, heading for Jolie, not sure if I could do anything to protect her, but determined to try. Jolie turned to face Rand. I couldn’t say why. But as all this happened beside the wood, something else was taking place on the beach.

  The aura I always saw haloing Mathilda, seemed to expand from her in a swift pulse, stretching and growing as it traveled, broadening to encompass the landscape beneath it. Along its length, it crackled with power like living magic, twisting and shimmering, at once there and not.

  A brilliant light shone from it, white and gold, rose pink with ice blue highlights, streaming from the old Fae and driving towards the two armies. As the line of power hit them, each person glowed for a second, the magic working on them before letting them go and leaving them standing dumbfounded. I was still running for Jolie as it passed through me, but I skidded to a halt as I came out the other side. Everything was the same, I’d lost no memories and I was the same person as before, yet I felt as if I’d reclaimed some part of myself that I hadn’t even known was gone.

  That small voice within me, urging me to fight, to pick a side, to attack my enemies, had gone. I now wondered how I could have ever entertained some of the thoughts I’d had in the last few weeks. Had that really been me who had suspected the Daywalkers?

  “Bryn!”

  I looked up to see Jolie running towards me.

  “Are you alright?” I asked, urgently, as we embraced.

  “I’m fine. How about you?”

  “I’m…”

  “Jolie?”

  We looked up to find Rand behind us. He dropped to his knees to look up at his wife with tears in his eyes. “I… I… I don’t know what happened to me. What I was thinking.” He gulped uncomfortably. “All those things I said…”

  “Weren’t you,” Jolie knelt beside her husband.

  I left them to it. Across the whole of the settlement, there would be apologies to be made, but maybe it was easiest to just consider them as having been made already. We’d all been mad.

  Suddenly, a thought grabbed me, and I looked toward the beach. In the next instant, I was running again. Mathilda was on the ground.

  TWENTY

  Bryn

  There was no movement from the crumpled heap of clothes. The surf lapped around Mathilda’s body, soaking her dress and washing over her legs. Her
fingers had curled into the wet sand as if she were clutching at something. I’d never seen her looking smaller or older. Suddenly shorn of her otherworldly powers, she looked like an old lady who had washed up on a beach. She seemed a fragile husk of the vivacious woman I knew.

  “Mathilda…?” I was afraid to touch her. I didn’t want to know if she was dead. “Mathilda.”

  I was shivering as I knelt down in the wet sand beside the elderly Fae. Dimly, I was aware of the sound of footsteps pounding the sand behind me as others approached. Stretching out trembling fingers, I touched Mathilda on the shoulder, finding her thin skin cold and clammy.

  “Mathilda…”

  A sudden shudder passed through her body, making me draw my hand back sharply. She was alive!

  “Mathilda!”

  I gathered her tiny form to me, lending her my body heat. With her chest pressed against mine, I could just feel the faint bird-like beat of her heart. I turned her face to mine and was overjoyed to see her eyes stutter open. The halo of her aura began to shine again, weakly at first, but growing stronger, and I realized I was crying with relief.

  Her mouth opened. “Did it work?”

  I smiled back at her. “Looks like.”

  “Then we have a lot of work to do.”

  #

  But first there was the confusion of apologies and recriminations and explanations and affirmations to be gone through. Everyone seemed to owe everyone else an apology, everyone wanted to know

  what had happened to them and what had happened to everyone else and why none of it seemed to have happened to me.

  Rand and Jolie had retreated to Kinloch Kirk to be with Emma. I felt sorry for Rand, he hadn’t been responsible for his actions, but knowing him as well as I did, I was well aware that he’d never forgive himself for what he’d said, what he’d done, and what he’d come horrifyingly close to doing. Dureau and Adam fell over each other in babbled sorrys, and I took a moment to smile at the fact that this had, in fact, brought the pair closer.

  They’d never really liked one another, but almost killing each other had given them some unlikely common ground—they’d both been prey to the same attack.

  Soon after, Dureau sought me out. “Bryn…”

  “You don’t need to say it.”

  “But I’d like to.”

  I sighed. “Well if it makes you feel better.”

  Dureau looked irritated. “You’re making me feel like I’m being selfish by apologizing.”

  “Sorry.”

  “That doesn’t help.”

  “Sorry.” But this time I said it with a smile. “Go on.”

  “I’m sorry, Bryn. I know I wasn’t myself but… I don’t know.

  Perhaps If I hadn’t been so against the Daywalkers from the start, I wouldn’t have been such easy prey for whatever it was that got inside my head. I guess the fact that you were so much more fair-minded helped you keep your mind.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe I had help.”

  I escaped the chaos and found a quiet corner away from everyone else.

  Please talk to me. I reached out to the child in my womb.

  But still there was nothing but silence.

  “Bryn?” Mathilda had changed clothes and dried her hair and now looked like she was almost back to her old self again.

  “Mathilda.” I tried to hold back the tears and pretend nothing was wrong. I just didn’t want to add to the stress that was undoubtedly already weighing her down.

  “Whatever this was,” she started. “It wasn’t affecting your baby,” said Mathilda, softly. “I’m afraid I still have no ideas there.”

  I tried to force a smile. “Well, at least you didn’t try and fail. Sinjin will be back soon. He’ll have an answer. I’m sure he will.”

  “So am I.” One great thing about talking to Mathilda was that she was always an optimist.

  “So,” I wiped my eyes dry and changed the subject—no sense dwelling on something I couldn’t fix, “what the hell happened to us all?”

  #

  When the council reconvened that morning, it was as if a weight had been lifted. Lately, these meetings had been dark and angry, but that atmosphere had evaporated. There was lots of embarrassment in the room, but Jolie did her best to dispel it from the start.

  “No one’s been at their best in the last few weeks, but I’m here to tell you no one will be blamed for their actions. So let’s put all that behind us and move on.”

  “That’s mighty kind o’ ye,” said Odran, expansively, and it occurred to me for the first time that I hadn’t seen him the previous night. That was odd; at time of war, Odran was the type you’d have expected to find on the front lines, waving a flag and making inspiring speeches about imitating the action of the tiger, stiffening the sinews, summoning up the blood and so on.

  “We need to respond to this as we would any other attack,” Jolie continued, “starting with identifying who is at fault. Mathilda?”

  Mathilda stood up to address the council. “I can’t give you a name of the person or persons who are responsible, but I can tell you what happened. We were all under a living curse.”

  “A what?” asked Klassje, frowning.

  “A normal curse does its job and dissipates,” Mathilda explained with a shrug, “it takes away your sight, makes you sterile, kills your pets; that sort of thing. A living curse is a rare and old form of magic; a curse that evolves with the situation.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” gasped Dureau.

  “Ah have,” said Odran, darkly. “Boot Ah nae thought to see ooich a thing ever agin.”

  “The curse lived inside us all,” Mathilda went on, “like a parasite, feeding off our pre-existing negativity, which is why it affected people differently, some worse than others, and why some were able to fight it off.”

  Rand, Dureau and a few other members of the council suddenly seemed to find something of intent interest on the floor between their feet.

  “What was its purpose?” asked Jolie.

  “It was a curse of discord,” Mathilda replied, as her gaze landed on her queen. “Again, a living curse can grow in different ways.

  It found different sources of tension between us and exploited them awhile before honing in on the main issue of the Daywalkers.”

  I recalled how Klassje had been suddenly and inexplicably jealous when Odran told her he’d seen me with Dureau.

  “At first the curse fostered that disagreement,” continued Mathilda, “turning it into an argument and then into an obsession. Most insidiously, it made all this discord seem quite natural, so we didn’t even know it was happening to us. It took all of my skill to lift it.”

  “And if you hadn’t,” Dureau’s voice was flat and cold, “we would have killed each other.”

  “And, at the time, you would have been convinced killing each other was the right thing to do,” Mathilda nodded. “Then, I suspect, the curse would have lifted and we would have been left to face the aftermath—knowing what we’d done, but not knowing why.”

  “Mathilda, we owe you a debt that can never be repaid,” said Jolie.

  Mathilda raised her eyebrows. “My Queen, I think you and your sister deserve as much credit as I do.”

  Jolie waved this off. “Can you tell us anything about who might have done this?”

  One name hovered unsaid in the air between us all.

  “The spell itself could not have been Luce,” said Mathilda, causing a round of questions.

  “Anyone else getting’ a sense o’ déjà vu ?” asked Odran, and there was a murmur of nervous laughter.

  “The magic is beyond Luce?” asked Jolie.

  Mathilda shrugged. “Luce is constantly surprising us with his capabilities. I would guess this magic is beyond him but, more importantly, this is Fae magic.”

  There was an intake of breath from around the table. Was there a traitor among our own people?

  Odran leaned forward in his seat. “Are ye sure? Ah cannae believe an
y o’ mah people would be responsible.”

  But Mathilda was adamant. “There is no question. I know Fae magic when I feel it. This was well hidden, so closely woven into the fabric of reality, even I couldn’t sense it until the curse reached its peak last night. But once I could feel it, it was unmistakable.”

  Odran shook his heavy head, his long, blond hair waving. “Sooch magic hasnae been practiced in Faery for many a long century. Ah know o’ few who could perform it, an’ Ah would wish to tangle with nae o’ them.”

  “Old magic, powerful magic,” Jolie spoke again, “am I the only one who remembers us having a similar conversation about Bryn?”

  She was not. I was way ahead of her, and my hand had stolen to my belly during the conversation, taking comfort from the feel of the baby moving within.

  “What happened to Bryn,” Mathilda went on, “was not related to the curse. Nothing has changed there, I fear. But I would be astounded if the two magics did not come from the same practitioner. We have been visited by an old and powerful Fae, who for some reason, has decided to torment us.”

  “Could such a Fae be working for Luce?” asked Rand.

  “Never!” cried Odran defiantly.

  “For?” Mathilda pulled a face. “I doubt it; this being has power that Luce can only imagine. With? That is a possibility.”

  “The Fae have never had any truck with Luce,” Odran argued.

  “The old ones have never had any truck with us,” replied Mathilda.

  I had always thought of her as an ‘old Fae’; to hear her use the phrase made me wonder how old she might be talking. Ancient was my guess.

  “The elder Fae consider us at the level of mortals,” Mathilda went on. “Toys to be played with. I don’t think there’s anything Luce could offer a Fae to buy their allegiance, but if he were to offer them some fun—a game to be played—then they might accept.

  And some of the old ones have a very cruel taste in games.

  They’re like children burning ants with a magnifying glass, and we are the ants.”