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Authors: Jane Yolen

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BOOK: The Last Changeling
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ASPEN CHANGES PLANS . . . AGAIN

T
hey hate me,
Aspen thought, looking out the wagon's peephole at the hordes of humans in the camp. He told himself this not with sadness, but with a careful thoughtfulness, and not for the first time. He supposed that all the human changelings he'd ever met had probably hated him but had been much better at hiding it. Or he had never cared to notice. But here amongst their own, in numbers Aspen had not known existed, they had no reason to hide their feelings. And because of Snail, he now cared.

Whenever he left the wagon, the humans sneered at him, turning their backs and talking in pointed whispers. Young men gathered in groups and stared angrily at him, and he knew it was only the stories the battle survivors told of the fire he commanded that kept them from setting upon him. Fear kept them away, kept him safe.

But how long will that last? And if they do have at me, do I dare to wield the flame again?

He was no longer worrying about the two courts' wizards finding him. They would be busy with the war that had so obviously started. He guessed that if the wizards had still been searching for him, they would have appeared in the days after the battle, arriving in puffs of smoke, or flying in on giant bats' wings, or riding fell creatures summoned from the void.

And what would I do if they come now?
Aspen wondered. He saw what happened when he drew sword or wielded flame. He could not get the cries out of his head.

A peasant girl screaming . . . a soldier coughing blood . . . a bogle's surprised face when an old brownie is pushed onto his pike by her ally.

He did not know if he could ever go through that horror again.

Aspen watched through the peephole until Maggie Light brought him a bowl of something spicy to eat. He thanked her and choked it down, though it was obviously made for a more
earthy
palate than his own. Would he ever eat hummingbird breast again, crispy rose petals, sugared violets? Would he ever have another cup of honey mead?

He tried one more time to leave the wagon and speak to the humans, tell them that he wasn't there to hurt them or rule them, he just wanted to find his friend—his human friend—and find out if she would still speak to him.

But the men who followed him this time had cudgels and cold iron knives, and he hurried back to the wagon before they were able to get too close. No matter how they dealt with him in camp, none had yet dared to follow him into the wagon. He realized suddenly that if Odds removed his protection, he would not make it through another night. He wondered how long the professor's good will would last.

Or is it good will?
he thought morosely. The man talked in riddles. Perhaps he thought in them as well.

Climbing up the back end of the wagon, Aspen thought,
Odds may not even know what use he has for me yet. Perhaps he sees me as a valuable piece in whatever game he is playing.

Suddenly he had a revelation
. Is that not what I have always been: a valuable game piece—for my father, for King Obs, for Jack Daw?

It felt as if an icy hand was palm down on his back, and he wondered if cold iron was about to sever his neck.

Perhaps
, he thought,
that might be the best way out. At least dead I could no longer be used by anyone.

But his body had its own agenda—and that was to keep itself alive. Without willing it, he had already ducked through the door.

He felt the bowser before he saw it, for it scrunched up and wrapped itself around his knees.

“What if the professor decides I'm not that valuable after all?”
He said that aloud, which caused the bowser to squeeze his knees even more, as if it was afraid to lose him.

It was then he thought that he really had to leave. Even if he never spoke to Snail again, it was the right thing to do.

For her sake.

For his own.

• • •

A
SPEN
SPENT
THE
next day trying to have a quiet word with Snail, but she never approached the wagon. He was sure she saw him waving to her—from the back door, from the dwarfs' driving porch, from the roof—but she never acknowledged him. Never so much as blinked before turning and walking away, usually surrounded by at least a half-dozen well-wishers.

He finally figured out that she was sleeping at the campfires with the other humans, pointedly staying away from the wagon. In his good moments, he thought she might be avoiding Odds. But in his bad moments, he knew she was avoiding him.

That night, he made the actual decision to leave.

It is better that way. She has found her people and should stay with them.
At that moment,
Aspen realized that he no longer knew who his people were.

I'm not a toff anymore, though all here would call me so. And I cannot be one of those here, for I do not know how
. He made a face and told himself the bitter truth.
We do not have the same blood. We do not have the same gifts. We do not . . .

Then told himself the
real
truth.
They would not have me anyway.

So, if he was leaving, he would need supplies for his journey. He would need a new plan. The old one had been useless anyway. He hoped he would need no help, because he knew he would not get any.

• • •

F
AR
INTO
THE
night, he made his preparations. With a waterskin and the watcher's green-and-black cloak he found stuffed under Maggie Light's bed, a traveling pack, three days' worth of waybread stolen carefully from the wagon's stores plus the bow and quiver of arrows he had used to hunt the deer for the troll, he waited for the camp to settle down. There would still be sentries posted, but they would be watching for enemies
approaching
the camp, not leaving it.

He would leave through the back of the wagon, which faced the nearby dense woods. Once into the woods, he could slip on the cloak and fade into the wilderness.

And then where?

He stopped that line of thought immediately. He only knew he had to leave. Everything else he would figure out later.

Or not figure out.

Shrugging, he thought,
It is not as if anyone will mourn me if I wander into the wilds and die.

He had already forgotten his earlier wish to die, and quashed those thoughts.
I need to concentrate on the one obstacle left:
the dwarfs.

He wasn't sure if they had any orders regarding him.
Will they try to follow me? Stop me from leaving? Alert Odds?
He had no idea.

“Only one way to find out,” he muttered, and opened the door of the wagon.

He was two steps out when he heard Dagmarra's voice calling to him. “Where away, popinjay?”

He turned slowly and looked up. Only Dagmarra sat on the driver's perch. Perhaps her brothers were off with the humans. They seemed to have no trouble interacting with them.

“What?” He sounded stupid, even to himself.

Dagmarra pulled a pipe from a pouch in her belt and began searching for a flint and tinder. “I
said
, where away? You seem rather well equipped for an evening stroll.”

Having no other reply ready, he answered with the simple truth. “I do not know.”

“Hrmmm,” Dagmarra said. She'd found flint and tinder and looked at them wistfully for a moment before
not
lighting her pipe. “I'll walk with ye. I don't like yer chances alone with the skarm drema. And your girl will sever my head if I let anything happen to you.”

Aspen felt a strange glow at the thought that Snail would care that much. But he quashed that thought, too. Concentrate, he told himself.

He thought about his chances of walking about the encampment without a guard like Dagmarra. They were better if she was along. But . . . if she realized he was abandoning the camp without the professor's permission . . .

However,
he thought
, it is odd that she would act as my friend of a sudden, as if caring for a child has made her motherly toward me, as well.
It was a puzzle, and he set his mind to figuring it out.

And suddenly he knew what to do.

“I would appreciate your company,” he said, bowing politely. “But are you sure Og should be wandering about on his own?”

“What?” Dagmarra sputtered. “He doesn't walk yet!”

“But I just saw him through the peephole, crawling off toward the fires. You know how babies are fascinated by fires.” He worried that the last confabulation might be a bit too much. He had no idea if babies were drawn to flames. But then, perhaps Dagmarra did not either.

Evidently, she did not doubt him for an instant, for pipe, flint, and tinder rattled onto the wagon boards as she leapt off the far side.

Aspen heard her thump to the ground moments later and hoped she had not injured herself; it was a far longer fall for her than it would have been for him.

But the sound of her footsteps hurrying away from the wagon assured him that while she was clearly unhurt, he had best be long away before she discovered Og still sleeping in the wagon where she'd left him. In fact, the baby's only danger came from the large puddle of drool he was almost certainly leaving on the pillow.

Aspen pulled the cloak out of his pack and wrapped it around his shoulders, trying not to shudder at the thought of how its original owner had died. He could feel the shadows calling to the magic in the cloak and he didn't resist, following their pull quickly and quietly into the dark, concealing forest.

As he walked through the night, Aspen felt safe for the first time in days. Even though he was no night-sighted Unseelie, he was still an elf and the Seelie forests were his ancestral home. The dark was not something to fear but was as concealing as the cloak. He found easy footing and a trail that beckoned him forward.

By the time the sun was rising, he had the feel of the ground underfoot, recognized the call of the birds, and had charted the course of the stars overhead. Only when he felt far enough away from the camp did he rest. By then, he was exhausted.

I will take my chances,
he thought. And wrapping the cloak completely around him, he crawled into the underbrush, falling quickly asleep.

The sun was high overhead when he woke. He broke off a piece of waybread and chewed it while walking again. But oddly the sun did not seem to be moving.

Magic
, he thought, and after an hour of walking through the woods, he realized he had no idea in which direction he was going in.

He gave a short, sharp hough through his nose.
And I do not care. What does it matter?

He thought about his meager supplies.
I shall wander till my food runs out and then I shall hunt.
It was as good a plan as any other.

• • •

A
FTER
HE
HAD
walked for another hour, the sun had begun to move again. Whatever wizards' battle had happened was either won or lost, done or undone. But at least now he realized he was heading north.

The forest was still thick, but he thought it might be thinning as the terrain rose, and he began to wonder what he would see when he reached the top of the long hill he'd begun to climb.

He looked ahead but could not see what lay beyond the trees.
I will know soon enough.

A half hour later, the trees indeed thinned out, and when he reached the top of the hill he had been climbing—he was secretly relieved it wasn't a mountain—he looked out onto a wide plain.

A few miles to his right, he could see the track they had followed from Bogborough to the humans' camp. There was still smoke on the horizon there. Aspen wondered if the town still burned.

To his left, the mountains faded into the plains, and he could see the thin green line of the Welcome Hedge, though it, too, was shrouded in smoke, as if parts of it burned as well.

But it was the plain that riveted his attention, for down below were two huge armies separated still by many miles but moving ponderously toward one another.

The Unseelie army had finally brought his father to battle.

Now he understood why the sun had stood so long in the middle of the sky. The wizards hadn't been warring. They were too evenly matched for that. They had been testing the other army's strength, its generals' commitment to the fight, the battle readiness of the men.

Why fight here?
he wondered.
Here, so far away from either kingdom's seat of power. What brings them to this empty place to decide the outcome of the Seelie war?

He tried to think of the advantages, the plots, the machinations that brought them to this spot, but in his heart, he knew the answer.

Me.

He had not escaped the notice of wizards and spies. When he cast the flames in Bogborough, the wizards
had
seen him. And when he'd drawn his weapon, spies
had
noticed him. Perhaps the cloaked man had even sent a message by pigeon or by hawk.

BOOK: The Last Changeling
13.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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