The Changlings (The New Earth Chronicles Book 2)

by J. J. Thompson

  “Maybe...maybe I did change, a little,” she conceded. “I guess I grew up a bit, or became harder. Trauma can do that to you, according to the books.”

  She waved at the shelves around them. Over the past decade, both of them had read, or tried to read, almost every book in the place. And they had added more tomes that they found in their travels. They would even quiz each other about things they'd learned. Sarah believed that it broadened the mind. She suspected that Bobby only went along with it to humor her.

  “It wasn't long after that happened that we met the wizard, right?” he asked thoughtfully.

  “Simon. Yes, that's right. Lucky for him that I always carried an extra enchanted stone or two with me at the time.”

  “You saved his life, you know.”

  “I know,” she said with a brief nod. “But he repaid us big time. We learned that he killed Madam and her horde of zombies. I didn't believe that at first. But since she disappeared at the time, and her undead army as well, it must have been true. See? Helping others can be rewarding.”

  Bobby watched with interest as she began to scratch a rune on the first round stone.

  “You see,” he said seriously. “You did change. You never cared that much about helping others, especially strangers, before Cindy and Patrick's tragedy. I doubt that you would have helped that wizard before it happened.”

  She stopped her work for a moment and met his eyes.

  “I might have. There was something about Simon; something...special. Besides his mismatched eyes, that it. He seemed so innocent then, just walking back into Ottawa as if he didn't have a care in the world. Imagine that. He was lucky that he was wandering around in the daytime when Madam found him or that would have been the end for him. And for us.”

  “Us? Why us?”

  “Bobby, how long do you think we could have eluded the lich and her undead servants? Months? Years? No, eventually we all would have ended up like Cindy and Patrick. Or even worse. Plus, Simon led the war against the dragons. Magnus told me that, and I believe him.”

  She resumed her etching, careful to make each line precise. One mistake and the stone would end up useless to her.

  “Maybe,” Bobby said dubiously. “I don't know what a spirit animal is or how they work, so when Magnus claims that his brings him news of the world outside of the city, I'm a bit skeptical.”

  “Open your mind,” Sarah said as she squinted at the stone. “A closed mind is an empty mind.”

  “Mr. Wells again?”

  “Yep. He was always good with the quotes.”

  Bobby watched Sarah work for a while and then fetched a book at random from the shelves and sat back down to read.

  “Tomorrow, I'm going to find some new clothes,” Sarah announced after she had finished working on the first stone and started on a second one.

  “Um, excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  She looked at the old rags covering her and then smiled at Bobby.

  “Without my head coverings, these things serve no purpose. I want real clothes from now on, not rags. And not dresses either. Ugh. Maybe jeans and a t-shirt. Something like that. We found all those boxes of clothes wrapped in plastic at the old mall just south of us, years ago. Well, they're still there, so that's where I'm going tomorrow.”

  She nodded at Bobby's mismatched outfit.

  “You'd do well to do the same. That shirt doesn't match the wrappings that you're wearing from the waist down, you know.”

  “Oh, I agree. I was going to go looking on my own, actually. I didn't realize that you wanted to change completely.”

  Sarah leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Yes, I think so. Something's happened, Bobby.” She frowned. “Something has changed out in the world. I don't know what, except that the magic is back and stronger than ever. And we have to change too. If we don't, I have this horrible feeling that we'll all be swept away by whatever is coming.”

  “Coming? What's coming, besides the goblins, that is?”

  “I don't know, Bobby,” she replied with her eyes still closed. “Something dark, wicked. Simon the wizard is gone from the world and somehow the world knows it. We're defenseless against powers that we don't even know about yet. It's a storm. A storm in coming, but what is coming with it? I can't say.”

  Bobby watched her with wide eyes. Sarah was suddenly as pale as milk and her voice was breathy and thin. He'd seen her like this a few times in the past, back when the magic was working properly. Now, it seemed, it was happening again. The Sight, that's what some of the other Changlings called it, and Sarah was the only one who had ever been touched by it. It worked too. They had found the wizard, Simon, because she had somehow known that he was in the city, and had led Bobby and a couple of the others right to him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked nervously.

  “Hmm? Oh yeah, I'm fine.”

  She opened her eyes and blinked a few times.

  “Well, well, that hasn't happened for a while.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing clearly. Just a wall of smoke. It was meant as a warning, I suppose. But where the warning came from is anyone's guess.”

  “The gods?”

  Sarah snorted.

  “Gods? There are no gods, Bobby. There's you and me and the others. And the rest of the world. That's it. Please don't get all metaphysical on me; I hate that.”

  “You don't want to continue the great debate?” he teased.

  The two of them had spent a lot of nights discussing many topics over the years. One of the most contentious was Bobby's belief in beings greater than themselves. Sarah always scoffed at such ideas, and their debates sometimes devolved into arguments. It was one of the few things that they did not agree on and probably never would.

  “I don't feel like yelling right now,” she joked as she scratched the surface of the stone in her hand. “And that's what these 'debates' always turn into, shouting matches.”

  “Not always. I'm not religious, you know that. I just think that all of this, this magical stuff, the attacks by the dragons, all of it, has to have had a source. It wasn't some natural occurrence, Sarah. Even you have to admit that.”

  “Magic isn't natural?” she scoffed without looking up from her task. “What is it then? Special effects?”

  Bobby had to grin at her comment.

  “No, it's supernatural. And the supernatural has to come from somewhere, and it's not from nature. I'll never believe that zombies and liches are 'natural'.”

  Sarah stopped and looked at him thoughtfully.

  “Now that is a good point. Why haven't you ever said it that way before?”

  “I thought I had.”

  “Not like that you haven't. So, if we follow your logic, magic came back from somewhere and set everything else into motion? Is that what you're saying?”

  “Absolutely. And so the root question is: where does magic come from? I say the gods, because that is the only term that I have. And I don't mean beings with halos and wings or whatever. I mean beings greater than ourselves. Call them aliens or demons or creatures from another dimension for all I care. The term isn't all that important to me.”

  Sarah nodded slowly.

  “Well, what do you know. We've finally agreed on this subject. Sort of.”

  She began her etching again.

  “But in the end, does it really matter? Magic is real. Dragons were real, until they were all destroyed. And so we're back where we started from; trying to survive in the world that we were given.”

  “Yeah, that's about it,” Bobby agreed.

  He opened his book and began reading. Then he burst out laughing and Sarah looked at him in surprise.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Bobby held up the heavy, leather-bound book.

  “I randomly picked a book to read. And it turned out to be War and Peace. Ironic, don't you think?”

  Sarah chuckled and kept working.


  “Appropriate, actually. Go ahead and read it again. We might need some of its insights soon.”

  Chapter 9

  Sarah woke up in the middle of the night and lay in her sleeping bag staring up into the darkness. Bobby was snoring gently on the other side of the room and she listened to his breathing for a few minutes. He was obviously over the effects of the goblin trap and she was grateful to Magnus yet again for his help.

  Why am I awake, she asked herself. What is the problem?

  Apart from Bobby's snoring, their rooms were quiet. There was the usual creaking of the earth settling around them, but it was such a constant background noise that they just ignored it now.

  Other than that, Sarah could hear nothing out of the ordinary. But then, why wasn't she sleeping?

  She closed her eyes and waited to drift off again, but it didn't work. After a few minutes of restless tossing and turning, she unzipped the sleeping bag and quietly stood up. Her enchanted stone was buried inside of the pile of wrappings next to her on the floor and she fished it out and allowed it to begin glowing. A quick glance over at Bobby assured her that he was still asleep and she quietly walked out into the living room.

  She used a match to light a few candles on the coffee table and sat down on a couch. For the first time in years, neither she nor Bobby had worn their rags to bed. Instead, she only wore a long shift and briefs that served her as underwear. Her breasts had never developed enough that she felt the need to wear a bra.

  Bobby had worn shorts to bed and was still shy enough that he'd insisted she turn her back while he undressed and slipped into his sleeping bag. She had found his embarrassment endearing.

  For her part, Sarah just didn't care anymore. With her face revealed, she felt free enough to let go of the rest of her inhibitions about her body. Neither she nor Bobby had ever been attracted to each other physically and she didn't really care if he saw her practically naked. Granted, she would take care that he didn't see everything, but that was more for his comfort level than for hers.

  She curled her legs up underneath her and stared at the barely glowing embers in the fireplace. The room was warm enough without a blazing fire, so she didn't bother building it up again.

  Why am I awake, Sarah asked herself again. I'm tired from all the walking yesterday, and we'll have to do it all over again in the morning, so I should be sleeping.

  She had made sure to complete the task of creating her communication stones before going to bed. She and Bobby intended to get them to all of the camps as soon as possible, before the goblins got lucky and caught or killed one of her people or, even worse, found one of their homes. The stones would be crucial to the future plans of the Changlings when it came to avoiding their enemies and possibly moving against them.

  The eight small stones were sitting on the coffee table and Sarah reached down and picked one up. She rolled it around on her palm, watching the oddly-shaped rune on its surface change in the candlelight. She had almost forgotten to make a stone for Magnus, but fortunately Bobby had reminded her. She was very grateful to him for that. The shaman had been too good to them for her to forget to make him one as well.

  She still had no idea what the markings actually meant. The dream that had taught her about them and what they did had come to her such a long time ago that she barely remembered it now. She knew that she had been sleeping and had woken up with a start. Well, she thought that she was awake. She had sat up, picked up a random stone and started cutting a pattern into its surface. It had felt as real as if...

  Sarah's eyes widened and she jumped to her feet, looking around wildly.

  Wait a second. Am I really awake right now?

  She looked down at herself and saw nothing out of the ordinary. She squeezed the stone in her hand and felt its hard, rough surface. She even pinched her arm, hard.

  “Ouch!” she exclaimed. “That hurt.”

  Yep, I'm definitely awake.

  But just to be sure, she put the stone back on the table and walked into the bedroom with her glowing rock. And stopped dead in the doorway.

  Bobby was still sleeping and snoring on his side of the room. And on the other side...

  “Oh my God,” Sarah muttered. “It's me.”

  In the blue glow of the stone, she could see herself lying on her side, with just her head sticking out of the sleeping bag. Her hair was almost covering her face, but it was definitely her.

  “Yes, you are sleeping, child.”

  Sarah spun around, dropping her stone as she did so. When it hit the floor, there was no sound at all and it rolled away silently into the shadows.

  In the living room, in which every candle and lamp was suddenly alight, a woman sat on the couch on the right side of the room. Sarah stared at her, so shocked that she was unable to move for a moment. The last thing she expected to find was another person in her home, especially a stranger.

  The woman was beautiful, with fine features and wide, blue eyes. Her wavy hair, as silver as the pure metal itself, cascaded down past her shoulders like a cloak. She wore a long white gown buttoned primly up to the neck and a single teardrop diamond on a chain.

  “I...I'm dreaming?” Sarah finally managed to stutter.

  “Oh yes, absolutely,” the woman replied in a pleasant, rather husky voice. “I find it so much easier to speak with others while they sleep, you see, than to actually travel to their location physically. It's more efficient.”

  “It is?” Sarah asked blankly.

  “Certainly. Now, why don't you come in and have a seat. We need to talk.”

  Without any other option, Sarah numbly walked back through the living room and sat down on the couch across from the stranger. She stared at the woman, unsure of what she should say or do. The only thing that kept her from total panic was the knowledge that none of this was real and that she was actually still asleep in the next room.

  “Who are you?” she blurted out.

  The woman smiled gently and Sarah felt a rush of warmth cascade through her body, pushing away her fear.

  “Straight to it, I see. Very well. My name is Esmiralla. And you are Sarah Whitman, yes? It is a pleasure to meet you, child.”

  “Um, thank you. So what are you doing here? I have no idea why I'm dreaming about someone that I've never met before.”

  “Ah, but this is a very special dream. You see, it is not actually your dream at all: it's mine.”

  “Yours? I don't understand.”

  “Allow me to explain. When a human dreams, even a Changling such as yourself, it is mostly just their subconscious mind enjoying itself. The dream does not really mean anything, in and of itself. But when I dream, I can control and direct that dream to travel the Earth and, if I wish, to communicate with others while they sleep. Just as we are doing right now.”

  Sarah frowned as she tried to follow what the woman was telling her.

  “So you are saying that, while I am actually asleep right now, this is not really a typical dream? That it's real?”

  “Oh yes, it is quite real. I am not a figment of your imagination, child. I exist and we are actually communicating.”

  The woman's smile widened.

  “So you might want to consider your words before you speak.”

  Sarah had no idea why it would matter what she said. Who was this person anyway?

  “Okay. So, what can I do for you, um, ma'am?”

  “Interesting,” Esmiralla said as she stared intently at Sarah. “No prevarication. Straight to the most important question of the moment. You know something, young lady? I believe that I like you. A very rare thing for me so soon after meeting someone new. How refreshing.”

  “Thank you, ma'am. I like you too.”

  As soon as she said it, Sarah realized that she meant it. For whatever reason, she immediately liked this person, even as she recognized that the woman could not be human.

  The strange visitor appeared to be delighted at her statement.

  “How lovely,” sh
e said. “I have very few friends, so it is nice to meet someone who connects with me so quickly.”

  Esmiralla crossed her legs and her brilliantly white dress shimmered in the candlelight. She folded her hands and rested them on her lap.

  “Now, let us get down to business, shall we? This form of communication can be sensed by dark forces and so I must be brief.”

  “Dark forces? You mean the goblins?”

  The woman laughed lightly.

  “Those vermin? Hardly. The goblins are only a symptom. The Darkness that created them is the actual disease.”

  Sarah shuddered. Esmiralla's tone was ominous and she wondered what the woman could be referring to.

  “Can you tell me what this Darkness is?” she asked tentatively.

  Esmiralla sighed delicately.

  “We really do not have much time, but yes, I suppose you have the right to know.”

  She smoothed out her dress and refolded her hands. Sarah noticed that the woman's fingernails looked like metal; silver and very sharp.

  “The universe that you see around you is quite old. I am sure that you are aware of this. And from the beginning, the power of creation that brought this universe into being set guardians to watch over it. You might call these beings gods.”

  “Gods? You mean there are actually gods? They exist?”

  Sarah was flabbergasted. Bobby had been right!

  “I said that you might call them gods. I certainly do not. And neither do they. At least, not all of them. Try thinking of them as ancient beings whose powers have grown over billions of years to the point where they might seem to be supernatural creatures. Call them guardians, as I do. It makes them seem more approachable, don't you think?'

  “Um, sure.”

  “Good. Now, over time these guardians split into two factions. On one side, there was the group that were true to their calling. They attempted to keep the universe running that way that it was meant to, and they watched over the human race when it appeared on this planet and began to evolve. Let's call these guardians the lords of Order. And then there was a second group, who broke away from their brothers and sisters as they grew more and more powerful. These beings began to believe that they actually were gods, and they tried to order the universe in the way that they thought was best. We can call these guardians the lords of Chaos.”