Fey 02 - Changeling Read online

  CHANGELING

  THE SECOND BOOK

  OF

  THE FEY

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Copyright Information

  Changeling

  Copyright © 2011 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

  Published 2011 by WMG Publishing

  Cover Art Copyright © 2011 by Dirk Berger

  Cover Design Copyright 2011 WMG Publishing

  First Published 1996 by Bantam Books

  The Fey Series

  (In chronological order)

  Destiny: A Short Story of The Fey

  The Fey: Sacrifice

  The Fey: Changeling

  The Fey: The Rival

  The Fey: The Resistance

  The Fey: Victory

  The Black Queen: Book One of The Black Throne Series

  The Black King: Book Two of Black Throne Series

  The Place of Power Series: Book One [Coming Fall 2012]

  All of the Fey series will be published by WMG Publishing

  in both electronic and trade paper editions

  in chronological order starting in the spring of 2011.

  Table of Contents

  Start Reading

  Extended Table of Contents

  Copyright Information

  About the Author

  To Aaron J. Reynolds,

  for all the wonderful summers.

  I love you, Kiddo.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks on this one go to Tom Dupree for adopting me; Carolyn Oakley for her enthusiasm; Renee Dodds for ignoring my moods; Nina Kiriki Hoffman for being honest about my writing; Jerry Oltion for reading fantasy; Kathy Oltion for being my guinea pig; Mike Resnick for keeping me on the straight and narrow, and for covering for me; Kevin J. Anderson for being a friend forever; and to Dean Wesley Smith for all the love, faith, and warmth.

  THE THEFT

  ONE

  He put words to the memory years later, when he tried to tell people of it. Some doubted he could remember, and others watched him as if stunned by his clarity. But the memory was clear, not as a series of impressions, but as an experience, one he could relive if he closed his eyes and cast his mind backwards. An inverse Vision. None of his other memories were as sharp, but they were not as important. Nor were they the first:

  Light filled the room. He opened his eyes, and felt himself emerge like a man stepping out of the fog. One moment he had been absorbing, feeling, learning--the next he was thinking. The lights clustered near the window, a hundred single points revolving in a circle. The tapestry was up, as if someone were holding it.

  He turned his head — it was his newest skill, but he saw only the curtained wall of the crib. Voices floated in from the other room — his mother's voice, sweet and familiar, almost a part of himself, and a man's voice -- his father's?

  His nurse sat near the fireplace, her head tilted back, her bonnet askew. She was snoring softly, a raspy sound that sometimes covered the voices. He could barely see her face over the edge of his crib. It was a friendly face, with gentle wrinkled features, a rounded nose, and generous mouth. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, her nostrils fluttering with each inhalation. He reached toward her, but his fingers gripped the soft blanket instead.

  A cool breeze touched him tentatively, smelling of rain and the river. The lights parted to let a shadow in. The shadow had the shape of a man, but it was dark and flat and crept across the wall. He put his baby finger in his mouth and sucked, eyes wide, watching the shadow. It slid over the tapestries and across the fireplace until it landed on his nurse's face.

  He whimpered, but the shadow did not look at him. Instead, it molded itself against his nurse's features. Her hands moved ever so slightly as if to pull it off, then she began twitching as if she were dreaming. Her eyes remained closed, but her snoring stopped.

  His mother's voice penetrated the sudden silence. "You will not give him a common name! He is a Prince in the Black King's line. He needs to be named as such!"

  The nurse's breathing became regular. The twitching ceased. If not for the blackness covering her face, she would have appeared normal.

  "I thought Fey named their children after the customs of the land they're in." His father's voice.

  "Names have to have meaning, Nicholas. They are the secret to power."

  "I do not see how your name gives you power, Jewel."

  The breeze blew over him again. He peered over his blanket at the window. The lights were no longer revolving. They had formed a straight line from the window to his curtained crib. The lights were beautiful and tiny, the size of his fingertips. They gathered around his crib, twinkling and sparkling. Suddenly he was warm. The air smelled of sunlight.

  "I'll agree to the name if you tell me what it means." The voices moved back and forth, near and away, as if his parents were circling each other in the next room.

  "I don't know what it means, Jewel. But it has been in my family for generations."

  "I swear." His mother sounded angry. "It was easier to make the child than it is to name him."

  "It was certainly more fun."

  He turned to the curtained wall, wishing he could see through it, wishing they would come to him. The lights hovered above him. They were so beautiful. Blue and red and yellow. He pulled his finger out of his mouth and raised it toward the lights.

  By accident, he touched a blue light and pulled his hand away with a startled cry. With the smell of sulfur and a bit of smoke, the blue light became a tiny naked woman, with thin wings shimmering on her back. Her skin was darker than his, her eyebrows swept up like her wings, and her eyes were as alive as the lights.

  "Got him," she said.

  His fingers hurt. He snuffled, then looked at his nurse. The shadow still covered her face, and she was breathing softly. He wanted her to see him. But she slept.

  The tiny woman landed on his chest, put her hands on his chin, and looked into his eyes. "Ah," she said. "He's ours, all right."

  Her hands tickled his skin. The other lights gathered around her. With a series of pops, they became more winged people, all dark, all graceful and small. The men had thick beards, the women hair that cascaded over their shoulders.

  They landed around him, their bare feet making tiny indentations on the thick blanket. He was too startled to cry. They examined his features, poking at his skin, tugging on his ears, tracing the tiny points.

  "He's one of ours," the woman said.

  "Skin's light," one of the men said.

  "Lighter," another man corrected. Their voices were tiny too, almost like little bells.

  In the other room, his mother giggled. He moved at the sound, knocking some of the little people over. He reached for his mother. She giggled again, deep in her throat.

  "Nicholas, it's been just days since the babe."

  His father laughed, too.

  The little people got up. One of the men came very close. He squinted, making his small eyes almost invisible. "Nose is upturned."

  "So?" the woman asked, her wings fluttering.

  "Our noses are straight."

  "He has to have some Islander."

  "Rugar said leave him if there is no magic."

  The woman put her hands on her hips. "Look at those eyes. Look at how bright they are. Then tell me there's no magic."

  "The magic is always stronger when the blood is mixed," said another woman.

  In the other room, his mother's laugh grew closer. "Nicholas, let's just see the babe. Maybe we can decide what to call him then."

  The little people froze. His hands were still grasping. Outside the protection of the crib, the air was cold. The little people had brought deep warmth with them.

  "Stay for a mom
ent," his father said.

  "The Healer said--"

  "Healers be damned."

  The little people waited another moment, then the woman snapped her fingers. "Quickly," she said.

  Their wings fluttered, and the group floated above him, as pretty as the lights. He wasn't sure of them. Touching them had hurt, but they were so pretty.

  So pretty.

  They fanned out around him, holding strands as thin as spider webs. They flew back and forth, weaving the strands. The woman stood near his head, outside of the strands, clutching a tiny stone to her chest.

  "Hurry," she said.

  "Nicholas, really." His mother laughed again. "Stop. We can't."

  "I know," his father said. "But it's so much nicer than fighting. Maybe we shouldn't call him anything."

  "Can you imagine?" she said. "He's a grandfather and his friends all call him 'baby.'"

  The strands had formed a piece of white gauze between him and the world. The shadow moved on his nurse's face, lifting away a tiny bit, and glancing over its flat shoulder at the flying people.

  "Not yet," the woman said.

  The shadow flattened out over the nurse once more.

  The gauze enveloped him and his blankets. He felt warm and secure. The little people held the edges of the gauze and lifted him from the crib.

  He could see the whole room. It was big. His nurse sat in one corner, the shadow over her face, her eyelids moving back and forth. A bed with filmy red curtains sat in the far side of the room, and chairs lined the walls. All the windows were covered with tapestries, and the tapestries were pictures of babies--being born, being held, being crowned. Only one window was open--the window the people had come through.

  Floating was fun. It felt like being held. He snuggled into his blankets, and watched the little woman put the stone on his pillow.

  Then the door handle turned. The little woman floated above the crib, shooing the others away with her hands. "Hurry!" she whispered. "Hurry!"

  "We might wake him up, Jewel," his father said.

  "Babies sleep sound."

  "Wait," he said. "Let me find out what the name means. Then we can have a real talk. If it has no meaning, then--"

  "Find out who had the name before," she said. "That's important."

  They were almost to the window. For a moment, he had forgotten his mother. He remembered her now. He wanted her to float with him. He rolled over, making the little people curse. The net swung precariously. He cried out, a long plaintive wail.

  "Shush!" the little man nearest him said.

  The shadow lifted off the nurse's face. She snorted, sighed, and sank deeper in sleep. The shadow crawled over the fireplace toward the window.

  He cried out again. The nurse stirred and ran a hand over her face. His feet were outside. It was raining, but the drops didn't touch him. They veered away from his feet as if he wore a protective cover.

  The nurse's eyes flickered open. "What a dream I had, baby," she said. "What a dream."

  He howled. The little people hurried him outside even faster. She went to the crib and looked down. His gaze followed hers. In his bed, another baby lay. His eyes were open, but empty. The nurse brushed her hand on his cheek.

  "You're cold, lambkins," she said.

  The little woman huddled in the curtain around the crib. She moved her fingers and the baby cooed. The nurse smiled.

  He was staring at the baby that had replaced him. It looked like him, but it was not him. It had been a stone a moment before.

  "Changeling," he thought, marking not just his first word, but the arrival of his conscious being, born a full adult, thanks to the Fey's magic touch.

  He screamed. The little people pulled him outside, over the courtyard and into the street. The nurse looked up, and went to the window, a frown marring her soft features. He cried again, but he was already as high as the clouds, and well down the street. The nurse shook her head, grabbed the tapestry, and pulled it closed.

  "Hush, child," the little man floating above him said. "You're going home."

  THE ASSASSINATION

  [Three Years Later]

  TWO

  The trees near Kenniland Marshes grew tall and spindly, but their silvery leaves were thick and provided excellent cover. Rugar, the Black King's son and leader of the Fey on Blue Isle, balanced precariously on the fork between two branches on the tallest tree near the entrance to the marsh. Fortunately the spring air was warm. He had been in the tree since dawn, and his legs were cramping. He straightened them slowly so that he wouldn't shake the branches, or destroy the tiny opening he had made in the leaves. The arrows in the quiver strapped to his back rustled. The bow slipped from its resting place and he dived for it before it clattered down the trunk.

  Then he froze, breathing softly, waiting for his heart to slow down to normal.

  He double-checked the tiny circle of lights that revolved just above his head. His momentary fear hadn't dissolved them. Good. His escape route remained intact.

  So far, no one had appeared on the road, but he didn't want to take any chances. The Islanders had grown careless in the four years of peace, but he had not. If anything, he had become more wary.

  Rugar had arrived at the Marshes a week before, keeping off the main roads, and feeding himself from the land. A few times he had had to hide in the brush beside the road. Fey were taller and darker than the Islanders.

  He had been surprised to discover that he enjoyed the cross-country trip. He hadn't bushwhacked across Blue Isle before, and he was startled at its varied terrain. The Marshes were at the far south end, and beyond them like the jagged teeth of a Hevish Desert Dog rose the mountain range that encircled the Isle.

  Actually there were two ranges, broken in the center by the Cardidas River. The Snow Mountains covered most of the Isle, from the Stone Guardians in the west to the Slides of Death in the east. The imposing, treeless Eyes of the Roca covered the coastline north of the river, from the Cliffs of Blood on the east to the other side of the Guardians on the west. Because of these mountains, Blue Isle was almost impossible to reach by sea. The mountains were tall and sheer on the ocean sides. The only natural harbor was the mouth of the river on the west, blocked by the Stone Guardians.

  His invasion force had come through the Guardians five years before, using an old map, an enthralled Nye navigator, and magic. The Guardians were tall rocks partially submerged. Ships rammed the rocks all the time. Without a map, a lot of luck, and navigator knowledgeable in the ways of the currents, no one could get through the Guardians. From the day the Fey had invaded Blue Isle, the Guardian watchers stopped working the currents. The Islander King, Alexander, had sent the watchers to the settlements in the Eastern Snow Mountains. For five years, no one had studied the currents. Blue Isle was completely cut off from the rest of the world.

  Rugar would end that soon.

  He settled back on the fork, the smooth bark hard against his thighs. He pulled the bow across his lap and stroked the string. Until he had come to the Isle, he had never used a bow. The Fey had abandoned them generations before, preferring swords and their magical talents to fight wars. He started practicing with the bow and arrow shortly after he had stolen his grandson three years before. This plan had not been in Rugar's mind then; only a knowledge that he should learn the weapon the Islanders prefer. During the Fey's first year on Blue Isle, many of them died when the tip of an arrow dipped in poison touched their bodies.

  He was going to see how the Islanders would like it.

  The marsh smelled of mud and rank, long-standing water. He had been in the tree long enough that thin-legged birds had landed in the water, and were fishing beneath its surface. Grass poked through the wet as did bushes, and more spindly trees. Only the road, purposely built high across the marsh, made the soggy land look any different from the hard ground leading into it.

  There were villages around the marsh, but he had avoided them. So far, he had been successful in keeping himself hidde
n. He was days away from Blue Isle's main city, Jahn, and another day away from the Shadowlands where his loyal Fey remained. To his knowledge, no Fey had ever been this far south, not even the traitorous Burden and the band of deserters who had followed him out of Shadowlands shortly after Jewel's marriage.