The Last Changeling (13 page)

SNAIL LEARNS SOME BRUTAL TRUTHS

W
hen Snail and Odds had settled in his room, he'd gestured her to a small chair. She sat and started to protest, but he waved a hand to silence her. Then he reached out to a kind of bellpull by the side of his desk and gave it a yank, which seemed to start a bunch of creaks and groans in motion.

Alarmed, Snail asked, “What's that?”

“Setting the stage,” Odds said mysteriously. “Stage craft and craftiness. All in a night's work.”

She nodded as if she understood what he meant, but as the creaks and shouts and groans went on, she actually figured it out. She'd seen such a thing before, though never on such a grand scale. The wagon would be turned into the players' stage.

“You said I have a role, sir . . .” she began.

He sat down in his big chair, which made him tower over her. “You do, indeed.” He smiled at her and there was no comfort in it.

Snail waited for him to speak, then waited some more. At last she said, “Is it a secret?”

“It's not, though you seemed unaware of it. However, it's nothing to beware of. It's who you are.”

Now she was confused. “I'm Snail, a midwife's apprentice of the Unseelie Court.” She stopped. “Or at least I was a few days ago. Now I seem to be an actual midwife in the Seelie lands, running from two armies and . . .”

Odds held up a hand. “And yet none of what you just said is the truth.”

“Well, of course it is,” she told him, thinking that in fact it was the first time since meeting Odds she
had
told the truth. That he should say otherwise made her furious. She started to glare at him as she stood up.

“Have you never wondered why you were different from the other apprentices? Why your eyes are . . .”

“Two different colors, you mean?”

“Not just that. They aren't the pure blue of the fey folk.” He looked at her. “Your hair . . . ?”

“Red.”

“No fey has red hair. Your parentage?”

“I was brought up by Mistress Softhands, the midwife and . . .”

He leaned forward, “Not just brought up. In fact, you were adopted as a child, yes? And you're more awkward than your friends, with less magical ability, yet you did that puzzle I set you quickly, which I can assure you none of them could have done.”

“I didn't finish it,” she admitted, blushing, remembering how she'd put it aside. Almost slammed it down in frustration, actually.

“I saw how quickly you got it undone. With a bit more time . . .” His grey eyes seemed to glitter.

“You were
spying
on me!” Now she really glared.

“Of course,” he said, less an admission than a boast.

“But . . .” She sat down heavily in the chair again.

“But me no buts, and butter me no bread,” he said. “I'll not give you an oily answer but a plain one. Have you looked at your fingers?”

She sighed. “Even when you say you're going to speak plainly, you riddle, Professor Odds.”

“Look at your fingers,” he repeated. “Your middle finger is longer than the rest. Yet a fey has hands where all the fingers except the thumb are the same height.”

She bit her lip. She knew that was true but had thought it only strange, not something that defined her.

“You're skarm drema, child. A human girl, stolen by the fey to do their bidding and to be used eventually as a tithe to their dark gods.”

She wanted to tell him he was wrong. She was fey, she knew she was. Why, she could even do a few small spells. But, oddly she couldn't argue with him, because—as if a burning torch had just illuminated her life—everything suddenly made a kind of sense.

Only not entirely.

“A human child?” she breathed, not quite believing it.

He nodded.

She leaned forward and said shortly, “Then who are my parents?”

“That I don't know.”

“Then how do you know they're human?”

“Because
you
clearly are.”

“Can I find them?”

“No. It's not possible.”

“Why not?” This time when she stood up, she began to pace in front of him. “If the fey brought humans here, surely there is a door back into the human world? A gate? A crossing place?”

Odds didn't answer, but she could see the answer in his eyes.

“There is, isn't there?” she said, almost begging.

This time he nodded.

“Show it to me.”

“It doesn't matter. Entering from this side will age you beyond your years before you even land in the human plane.” He shook his head. “And it's not always open. Only on the blue moon.”

Now she knew he was lying, had been lying all along. But why? But instead of tasking him with it, she sneered. “The
blue
moon? I've never
heard
of a blue moon. Or seen one. Moons are yellow or gold or, once in a while, orange.”

“That's because they're not actually blue and only occur as the third full moon in a month of four.”

“Then why call it blue?”

“A human conceit,” he admitted. “And being human, not always understandable.”

She remembered the other word he'd used. “Month? What is a month?” She was totally at sea now.

“It's the human way of counting days in a season,” he said. “They have four seasons: spring, summer, winter, autumn.”

“Only four of them?”

“Only four.”

Snail thought four a paltry number. The fey seasons were nine in all: Springtide, River Spate, Rosebay, Trout Rise, Berrybreak, Leafmeal, Hailstone, Snowfall, each ending in a Solstice celebration. And of course the moveable season of Change, which came and went in a rhythm only wizards fully understood. How could there be only
four
seasons? It made human life a small, stunted thing. She didn't want to be human. She was fey. She'd always been fey.

She said so, and Odds laughed.

“Humans are smart, cunning, inventive,” he said. “They're the storytellers and clock makers, playwrights and poets. Without them, the universe would be a less interesting place.”

She had no idea what a universe was, but remembered what she'd been taught by her mentor, Mistress Softhands, and told Odds. “Humans are useless, puling, short-lived, ugly, a rough copy of the fey,” she said angrily. “They live hard, die young. I'd
know
if I were human!”

He stood up all at once, looking very tall, very powerful. Like a wizard, she thought suddenly, fear a heavy stone in her belly.

“
I
am human, child,” he said, his voice suddenly soft. “And you are, too, whether you fully comprehend that or not. What I'm about—what you
need
to be about—is saving all those human children who over the years have been stolen, used, abused, kept in slavery by the wicked fey. What
skarm drema
truly means is ‘freedom for the slaves.'”

Snail burst into tears; she wasn't sure why.

He waited until she was done sobbing and only snuffling up the last of the nose drips. Then he said, “This is your part to play this evening. You'll go through the crowd and whisper the words
skarm drema
. To those who answer
drema skarm,
you will hand one of these special tickets.” He gave her a packet of greenish cards. “Only a human will be able to make out the writing, which is a map to our meeting six days hence. And there, we will lay our plans to finally become free.”

“But . . .”

“But me no buts. You owe it to the other humans, to your human parents, to yourself.”

The cards felt cold in her hand. They felt like a ticket to a foreign place. To a world in which the seasons were four and the people, though walking about, were dead. She had no more connection to that world than to the Unseelie kingdom, which had played her false and was now trying to find and kill her. Nor did she owe any allegiance to the Seelie kingdom, which was doing the very same thing. She'd thought she'd found a home with the professor and his players, but that, too, had turned out to be false.

Still, she had to make the professor think she'd accepted this new role until she could figure out her way through all that he'd just told her and plan her escape.

“Now, take this cloak and wrap it about you. Then go out into the audience. Keep your focus on the people who look a bit odd, a bit out of place, not the brownies or the hobs, not the trolls or the little people. You'll know the human folk. They'll be the oddest of all. More importantly, they'll know you.”

“I thought you said that the changelings were all slaves.”

“These are the brave ones who've made their way out of the Unseelie lands, along the night paths to freedom. Or bought their way across the water to the freer lands of the Seelie folk, where they have used their gifts to make themselves a better life.”

Odds said this as if it were a speech he'd given before. But it was all new to Snail, and she had many more questions to put to him.

“But professor . . . ”

He put up a hand to stop her. “No more time for talk.”

She stood, put on the cloak, let him push her out of the door. Anything to get away from him and the geas he'd laid on her, that magical proscription, the
skarm drema
spell.

Walking outside into the waiting crowd, she whispered to herself, “I'm
not
human. I
won't
be human. I
can't
be human.”

The people in the audience ignored her mutterings. They only had eyes for the stage. Mouths agape like frogs, they stared straight ahead.

Snail couldn't help herself. She turned and watched the stage as well, just as Aspen came out, looking as miserable as she felt.

When he opened his mouth to say his first words, he seemed to freeze. She knew the opening speech, could have shouted it out to him.

I am and am not the Princess Eal.

And none of you knows how I feel.

For I've been stolen for to slave

Inside a dragon's dark, jeweled cave . . .

For the first time, the words struck her, as hard as the force of a troll's cudgel. If Odds was to be believed, and humans were the storytellers and poets, then a human had written the play about Princess Eal.

“Skarm drema!” she whispered. “‘For I've been stolen for to slave inside a dragon's dark, jeweled cave . . .'”

By her left side, a woman with orange hair and a turned-up nose looked at her, not at all startled, and whispered back, “Drema skarm. Time to leave the cave, sister.”

Without questioning it further, Snail handed her one of the cards.

ASPEN PLAYS HIS PART

T
he sun went down, the stage lights went up, and Maggie Light pushed Aspen onto the stage. Where he immediately forgot his first line.

Instead, he was mesmerized by the multitude of faces in the audience: elven soldiers, lower-caste fey, mud-folk peasants, the odd middle-class merchant or laird come to the fair for a bit of low entertainment. They all shared a certain expectant look, as if they believed they might actually be about to see a magical world where brave princes fought mighty dragons to rescue beautiful princesses, though of course everyone knew that dragons no longer existed. Except in stories. Or plays. Or the occasional song.

He supposed that once upon a time, he'd looked at the stage like that: mouth agape, expecting magic.

But there will be no magic tonight, folks,
he thought bitterly.
It is all colored lights, ropes, and a whole lot of bad acting. A prince in a dress, a dwarf dressed as a prince.

He looked out at the faces of the shopkeepers, farmers, day laborers, and other menials who did the actual work of his father's kingdom and thought about the tiny magicks they wielded. He even saw Snail making her way through the crowd, a magicless, lower-class girl.

But braver than any prince I have ever known.

He included himself in that number.

Suddenly, a trapdoor cleverly concealed in the grains of the wooden floor popped open in front of him. It was only a crack, but as if to prove how much braver Snail was than he, he nearly startled right out of his massive costume.

First a nose and then a beard poked out of the trapdoor and Annar hissed,
“I am and am not the Princess Eal.”

“Oh, yes. Right.” He cleared his throat, looked over at the audience, and began.

I am and am not the Princess Eal.

And none of you knows how I feel.

For I've been stolen for to slave

Inside a dragon's dark, jeweled cave . . .

That was not half bad,
he thought, before looking back at the onlookers. They stared aghast and he suddenly realized that he hadn't spoken in a falsetto, as Maggie had reminded him to, but instead had used his normal—and quite male—voice.

Oh. No.

He tried to redo the lines in a girl's voice, but squeaked the first line and coughed on the second and, to his eternal horror, the crowd started laughing. He stopped before repeating the third line, and tried on a smile.

Maybe we
can
play this thing for laughs.

Then he turned to see Dagmarra making her entrance. She looked every inch the brave and martial prince, though those inches were rather few.

And she was staring daggers right at Aspen.

So,
he thought miserably,
we shall
not
be playing this for humor.

With a great deal of emotion—and, Aspen had to admit, a fair amount of thespian skill—Dagmarra began to deliver her lines:

I am Ollm and Ollm I am,

Prince of fey and beast and man.

With sword and shield and magicks, too,

I have come to rescue . . .

But neither Aspen nor the crowd got to hear what Dagmarra was going to do with her sword and shield and magicks, because just then one of the soldiers in the crowd let out a howling scream.

There was a black arrow sticking out from under his arm, the one place the breastplate did not protect. He pawed at it ineffectually for a moment and then fell. There was the briefest bit of silence, as the crowd tried to figure out whether this was part of the play or not. But when more arrows flew into the crowd, hitting soldier and peasant alike, everyone began screaming.

Snail!
Aspen thought.

He looked over to where he had seen her last, but the crowd was stampeding now, the night closing in, and it was impossible to make out one small redheaded girl in the bubbling ocean of frightened folk.

What he
did
see were fell creatures wading into the crowd now, black and green, with too many teeth and not enough limbs. But what limbs they did have were clawed or taloned or holding black knives. More creatures followed behind them, warty and short, and tall and hairy, and dark and smoky, as if they were only halfway here in this world. He knew them of course. They were drows and boggarts and bogles and bogies. They were leshies and lycants, kelpies, and members of the Wild Hunt.

“Unseelie!” someone shouted. Aspen thought it might have been him.

And I'm standing onstage in a dress.

Arrows thunked into the stage now, and Aspen drew his dagger from the folds of the dress. He thought about cutting the costume off with it, rubbing his face free of the woman's makeup, but realized there was no time. He would have to fight as he was.

“But not in these shoes!” He realized belatedly that he had shouted the lines as he kicked off the silly things and dove off the stage.

Seelie folk were desperately running this way and that, not sure of where the attacks were coming from or which way to go to get away. Some of them had fallen and were being trampled by friend and foe alike.

Aspen thought he might be trampled as well, but he began a swimming motion that pushed people away from him while moving him through the crowd. He felt hobbled by the dress and hated it, but he kept going, glad the shoes at least were gone.

Once, he had to stop his swimming motion to avoid stabbing a brownie child, and while that was the noble thing to do, he was immediately buffeted, then knocked sideways.

A black-clawed hand swung at his face and he cut at it wildly with his dagger. He must have scored a hit because he heard a squeal and the hand disappeared.

Catching a brief glimpse of a redhead that he thought might be Snail, he tried to push toward her, but the sheer press of people was carrying him along now. He was a piece of driftwood with its hair standing on end.

With its hair standing on end?

CRAAAAACK!

Aspen was blinded by a blue light as the smell of lightning and burnt flesh filled the air. He and the crowd members nearest him filled the air, too, unaccountably lifted up and flung back toward the stage. They landed in a heap of broken limbs and bleeding skulls. Aspen hit the ground and then desperately kept rolling because his dress had caught fire from the lightning spell.

I guess we
will
see magic tonight.

Standing up at last in the burned rags of his costume, head ringing, half-blind in one eye, he found he'd lost his dagger, but at least he was back by the stage, which meant he was out of the crowd a bit.

The lower-castes were still running about mindlessly. They had no idea how to fight a battle.

If someone does not lead them soon
, he thought,
it will be a complete slaughter.

He turned to look up at the stage, all the while thinking,
War
should be fought soldier to soldier, not like this
.
This is the cutting down of cattle; this is simply fish pulled up in nets.

There were children lying bleeding against the stage, women with red wounds blossoming on their breasts. Farmers and shopkeepers torn in two. The area in front of the stage was running red with a river of blood.

The stories he had loved as a boy, the minstrel songs, the great ballads of both Seelie and Unseelie kings, all celebrated heroism and heroic deaths in battle. Even the Border Lords came back from raids joking about their scars.

But this
, Aspen thought,
no one ever sings about
this
. No tales talk of such destruction on the large scale or the small.

Meanwhile, the Seelie soldiers were trying to recover, but they were badly outnumbered. As they called out to one another to regroup, to find their leaders, the black and green Unseelie monsters were being reinforced by Border Lords in their plaids, swinging huge swords that cut down anything near them: men, women, brownies, selchies, hobs, children. The children, he thought, were the hardest to bear. Why had he never thought of children in war?

He looked at the Border Lords, in their orderly lines.
Like bloody farmers scything the crops
, he thought.
They may be berserkers
,
but they are disciplined ones
.
No one will escape this harvesting
. He shuddered.

One of the Seelie officers, of obvious noble blood, was trying desperately to rally his troops by flinging spells wildly, hitting friend and foe alike.

Aspen could feel the magic calling to his own, and he felt a rage rising inside him. He tried to suppress it, hold it in. Using his princely magic would alert every wizard in two kingdoms where he was. But here, whatever he thought of it, was true battle. The magic would not be denied.

Blood calls to blood
, as the old Seelie saying went. His blood, his noble blood, was being called out.

“I am the Bright Celestial!” he shouted, barely able to keep from naming himself. “I am Ruire of the Tir na nOg!” He raised his empty hands and saw that they were ringed with fire. “And you shall regret interrupting my performance!”

The magic exploded from him, shooting flames from his fingertips. It washed into a row of kelpies and they screamed and withered to ash and crumbling seaweed.

A dozen Border Lord archers notched arrows and turned to face this new threat. The remaining kelpies nickered and neighed as they swung away from the fleeing crowd to surround Aspen.

They have
, he thought wildly,
very sharp teeth for horses
.

Boggarts howled, drows made a jubilant ululating sound. The lycants growled so loudly, it sounded like thunder. Aspen managed—but only just—to keep from putting his fingers in his ears.

Not far from the stage came the sound of goblins in the bushes.
Probably mixing something explosive,
Aspen thought.
Perhaps that war cry was not my best idea ever
. But even as he thought that
,
he knew it was not something he had chosen to do: Blood called to blood.

Gathering flames around him, a shield and a weapon as one, he prepared to charge to his certain—though quite princely—doom.

But at that very moment, the back of the wagon split open and Huldra—baby Og now strapped to her back—roared out of it, immediately stomping two bogles into the ground. Blood and bones and loosened bowels were ground into the churned-up dirt. She stopped to swallow a third bogle whole, then roared out a belch that shook the ground around her. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so frightening.

A sword was pressed into Aspen's hand and he looked down at three very angry dwarfs holding axes and looking grim.

“Beware!” Dagmarra growled at him, then glanced over her shoulder.

Aspen peered over her shoulder as well.

From behind the wagon came the giant metal spider that had set up the stage. Only this time it was plucking up Border Lords and kelpies, leshies and lycants and tossing them impossibly high into the air. Its legs must have been cold iron because every Unseelie who tried to rush it was burned at the touch. Arrows plinked off the spider's sides as its enemies fell broken onto the ground.

Looking more closely, Aspen saw that the spider carried a strange addition to its iron carapace. Someone was riding the spider as if it were a gigantic steed.

“But that's . . .” Aspen said.

“Odd, isn't it?” Annar pointed out.

Aspen couldn't even smile at the wordplay; there were still enemies before him. And though they were shaken by the sudden appearance of so formidable a foe, they did not look ready to run.

Yet.

Giving a thin grimace to his companions that someone might mistake for a smile, Aspen turned and fired a gout of flame from his fingers into the ranks of his enemies. Then he followed the flames in, sword at the ready, with Professor Odds's players swooping in from behind to lend him their support.