Haven Magic (25 page)

Corbin’s face twisted. Brand saw a much darker emotion, that of murderous intent, on his cousin’s face. After all, it had been the Faerie who had just caused him to send his brother into the floods.

Moving with quite intensity, the two paced apart and moved into the trees in the direction of the sounds. If it was one of the Faerie having a bit of fun, they were talented. They came to a thick towering pine that rustled in the breeze from the cliffs. Each circling around the tree in a crouch, they came upon that which they least expected to find.

It was an infant, kicking and crying weakly in the dust at the bottom of the tree. The child had few clothes on. They stared down upon it, and felt pity in their hearts.

“Where did you come from?” asked Brand kneeling beside the child. It looked at him curiously.

Corbin did not kneel. He eyed the woods around them suspiciously.

Brand took off his cloak and wrapped the child in it. Could someone have abandoned it here, hoping that their family would take care of it?

“Maybe you ought not touch it, Brand,” said Corbin.

“Why not?”

“Have you thought this through? The Pact is freshly broken. Never before have we found a babe in these woods, but after a very strange night, we find our first today.”

Brand looked at him in growing concern. He jumped to his feet. “By the River!” he shouted. “If this is a changeling, I’m shocked by how convincing they can be!”

Corbin snorted. It was his turn to kneel and study the child…if that’s what it was.

“They could hardly be successful at their business if they weren’t highly convincing,” he pointed out reasonably. He leaned forward and spoke to the thing wrapped up in Brand’s cloak. “If you are a changeling, know this, foul creature. You will regret this trick for a long while!”

He took up a stick and moved as if to prod the child.

“That will be quite enough!” said Telyn, appearing on the instant and surprising everyone. She slapped Corbin’s wrist and frowned at him. She studied the baby closely.

“He looks human enough to me,” she said.

“Where did you come from?” Brand asked her.

“Where did you get lost in the woods?” she asked. “That’s what I asked myself when I realized that you hadn’t followed us for an extended time. I came looking, and it was a good thing. Here I walk up and find Corbin about to poke an infant with a sharp stick.”

“We’re not sure—” started Corbin.

“Yes, yes, I know, you think it’s a changeling. Only, this isn’t how they usually operate, is it?”

The child, while they talked about it, took a great interest in Corbin’s stick and gripped it, chewing hungrily on the offending point.

“Think about it, Telyn,” said Brand, “is it not the perfect plan? Aunt Suzenna has just suffered the loss of her son, how better to gain her trust than to appear here now, in her moment of weakness, as a replacement child?”

At this, a tiny chuckle was heard by all of them. Everyone looked up, into the branches of the great pine.

Dando stood upon a thick branch over their heads. He leaned nonchalantly against the pine’s thick trunk with one hand. He looked down at their gaping faces and tsked at them.

“My, I had not thought River Folk were so suspicious. Poking babies with sticks after a single bad night, is it? But I must say, that scheme you laid out boy, capitalizing on a woman’s grief, that’s genius! I must pass that one on.”

They all glared at him. Telyn slipped her bow off her back.

“Have a care, girl!” Dando said, putting a stopping hand out to her. “You all should be thanking me.”

“For what, manling?” asked Corbin, “for burning down my house and slaying my brother?”

Dando gave his head a vigorous shake. “I had little to do with either. But this babe, that was indeed my doing.”

“So, you admit to stealing a child? Did we thwart your vile plans by coming out to this remote spot?” asked Telyn, nocking an arrow in her bow.

“Hold, hold! Allow a hero to explain himself!”

“A hero!” said Corbin, he snorted, scandalized.

“More a hero than you, babe-prodding lout!”

Brand put up his hands to stop his friends before things got out of control.

“Dando, please explain yourself without baiting us further, or things might not go well.”

Briefly, Dando explained that he had come upon one of his own kind stealing a babe for his own purposes, and who had planned to cast the child into the river at this very spot, with one tiny foot weighted. Telyn gasped in outrage at this, while the boys glowered.

“So you helped out a changeling,” said Brand.

“No, I saved a child from the Berrywine,” he said. “Perhaps I misunderstood your kind, but I was under the impression you protect your own young.”

“Of course we do,” hissed Telyn. Corbin had the child in his arms now and the two of them were trying to quiet it. Corbin offered it a bit of cheese from his pockets, but the baby only squeezed that to mush and cried harder.

“Why did you return the child to us?”

“Recall what I once told you, man-child. Friendship must be earned, not given.”

“So,” said Corbin, ticking off points on his fingers as he spoke, “you steal a child and return it, insult us all profusely, and expect us to be grateful? Are we such moon-calves? Why don’t you light my boots on fire and then offer to extinguish the flames? Surely, that would make us close confidants!”

“You do me a disservice, fat one.”

“Fat one!” exclaimed Corbin in annoyance.

“Shush, let him speak,” interrupted Brand.

“Yes,” said Dando huffily. “I want you to know, I have taken no offense at your rude remarks. I, of course, did not steal the infant. I rescued it from where it had been abandoned in the woods.”

“I see. And who did steal it then?”

“Why, the changeling who lies even now nestled in its mother’s loving arms, of course.”

“So, you deny that
you
are a changeling?”

Dando shrugged. “I deny that I can take the form of a human, infant or otherwise. There is another of my kind, a less civilized fellow, who has usurped this child’s cradle.”

Now that they knew it was a true babe, they carried it back toward Froghollow to look for something to feed it. Dando followed them, staying safely up in the trees, of course.

“No gratitude? None at all?” he demanded.

“Dando, we are warily grateful,” explained Corbin, “But you must understand we don’t know your motives yet. Why did you return the child? If it was to gain our trust, then perhaps you simply stole it with this scheme in mind.”

“Diabolical, but I can prove my good faith.”

He explained who the babe was, where he had gotten it, and exactly what they would find in the crib eating the child’s lunch.

“Okay, we will investigate,” Brand told him, “I can see you are trying hard to earn our friendship. Might I ask why?”

“Because, you and I have great futures ahead of us.”

“You and I?” Brand smiled. He found it hard to think that any two creatures had less in common.

“Yes, just so,” said Dando seriously. “Right now, neither of us appears to be important to anyone. We are just going through our daily routines in life. We are not notables. But, some know the truth. Like those that burned you out of house and home.”

Brand frowned and blinked. He really didn’t know what to make of what the manling was saying, but he couldn’t deny that someone out there thought he was important.

“And so, I think that two individuals like us, two who are rising stars, so to speak,” said Dando, beginning to strut back and forth upon a high branch as he spoke. Brand was reminded of proud rooster at dawn. “Such folk might be in a position to help each other. Such folk may well find common cause.”

“Okay, so why are we so important?” asked Brand.

Dando smiled at them all with a very broad smile. “I believe that will become evident in time.” With that, he tipped his hat and bid them farewell. He bounded off into the woods. Just as he was about to vanish from sight, he caused a brilliant blue flash that lit up the forest. Then he was gone.

They walked back to Froghollow. Corbin muttered distrustfully of magical midgets and eyed every branch on every tree as they went. Arriving at the smoking remains of the farm, Aunt Suzenna did indeed make a fuss over the baby. They soon began packing up what they could in the cart, having decided to head to Riverton to return the child and find lodging. There was little left for them at Froghollow. They couldn’t reasonably hope to begin rebuilding until spring.

While the others prepared to leave, Brand wandered off into the forest to rest against the great oak tree that had been cut open by Ambros the Golden the night before. He plucked at the fallen leaves there, deep in thought. He found disturbing truth in Dando’s words. It seemed clear to him now that the Dark Ones wanted to slay him. Why else would they have come here in numbers? Nowhere else in the Haven had they attacked in such force, although rumors abounded of changelings and fairy rings that had led away young folk. It did seem to him that he had indeed somehow brought a great curse to his clan and to all the River Haven. What had Oberon said? That he was both a great potential ally and enemy at the same time. He couldn’t understand how this could be, but that mattered little. If the Dark Ones believed it, then they would keep coming until he was dead—or worse.

Gudrin came out among the trees with him and sat upon an old weathered stump. She took out her bearhead pipe and puffed on it. “Your thoughts are troubled, boy.”

Brand nodded. “I think I must leave Stone Island. I can’t understand it, but somehow my presence is threatening all the River Haven.”

“And why do you think this?”

“The dark bard followed me first. Oberon and Dando both hinted that Herla has some dark purpose for pursuing me. The attack last night was too much. That was far more than sour milk and the like. Tylag says that no attacks of such ferocity have occurred anywhere else on the island yet. What if the Wild Hunt had arrived? Would we all have perished, impaled on their boarspears?”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” said Brand, but even as he said it, he was stricken with a thought. “No, I do know. I will accompany you to find Myrrdin and beg him to help reinstate the Pact. That is, if you and Modi will have me.”

Gudrin took a moment to tap out her pipe and refill it. She relit it and took a puff. Blue smoke wound up like a transparent snake into the sky. “We’d be honored to have you, but what of your family and friends?”

“I will go alone,” said Brand. “It was me that Voynod came after each time he appeared. Oberon has indirectly confirmed this. I’m the source of the trouble, my friends are blameless. I wouldn’t want to lead them into danger, that is the whole reason I’m leaving.”

Gudrin nodded sagely. “Don’t you think you should ask them about that?”

Brand frowned, then heard a twig snap behind him. He turned and saw that Corbin was perhaps a score of yards away, listening and trying to sneak closer. He was about to yell at him for eavesdropping when he felt a tap at his shoulder. Telyn was there, she had been hiding behind the oak’s trunk.

“How long have you been there?” he asked in exasperation.

She laughed. In spite of his displeasure, he had to grin a bit at her. It was good to see her laugh.

“If Corbin hadn’t come crashing nearer, you might have written your will right here and caused me to burst out laughing.”

Brand made a half-hearted grab for her, but she danced away.

Brand looked to Gudrin, and her eyes were shining with amusement. “I feel like a fool,” he said, sitting back down. “But I must do it, I must leave the island. And I won’t be going back to Rabing Isle, either.”

“Then you will take us along,” said Corbin. He took this moment to come forward and join them. “We are all in this together, Brand. It was my brother who was killed.”

“But I am the source of the trouble. Why follow the source? Why not stay home and be safe with your families?” argued Brand. “Telyn, you could answer the muster. Corbin, your family needs you to help rebuild Froghollow. If you follow me, you are placing in danger two of the people that I most want to protect by leaving!”

“I believe it’s true that the dark ones last night were out to destroy clan Rabing, and have come primarily for Brand,” said Gudrin, and all their eyes swung to her. “But this will not be the case for long. The Pact is broken, and the old dark times of the past have returned. It will not take long for the ancient ones to recall their ancient ways. Changelings will again appear in cradles. Crops and livestock will again be hexed, the fairy rings will abduct the young and the trusting. Worse things, too, such as the Shining Lady and the Wild Hunt will come.”

“But why me?” asked Brand in exasperation.

“I’m not sure on this point. I do know that Myrrdin has always thought very highly of your clan. I know too, that among his captains of old, some of his greatest champions were known by the name Rabing.”

“You mean our ancestors were important?” asked Corbin.

“Of course,” said Gudrin. “Did you not all hear my tale? You are all descendants of Myrrdin’s original army. Clearly, the Enemy recalls the name Rabing from those days.”