Changeling Read online

“A little vengeance, I think,” Pol replied.

  “I was afraid of that,” said the other.

  Pol shrugged.

  “It’s easy for you to say, ‘Forget it.’ They didn’t try to kill you.”

  “I spent time in the hands of your father’s jailers.”

  “But you admit to attempted larceny here. I wasn’t doing a damned thing to them, except providing a free floor show. There is a distinction.”

  “You’ve made up your mind. There is nothing more I can say—save that I would like to leave, if it is all right with you.”

  “Sure. You’re not a prisoner any longer. We’ll make you up a food parcel.”

  “Just these extra loaves here, and some of those other leftovers would be sufficient. I like to travel light.”

  “Take them. Where are you headed?”

  “Dibna.”

  Pol shook his head.

  “I don’t know it.”

  “A port city, to the south. Here.” He turned and drew an atlas from a shelf. “There it is,” he finally said, pointing.

  “Fairly far,” Pol remarked, nodding “A lot of dead country between here and there. I’ll take you, though, if you’re game.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dragonback. I’ll fly you down.”

  Mouseglove paled and gnawed his lip. Then he smiled.

  “Of course you jest.”

  “No, I’m serious. I feel indebted for all the information you’ve given me. I can postpone burning a few fields and barns for a day or so. I’ll take you to Dibna if you’re willing to ride with me on Moonbird.”

  Mouseglove began to pace.

  “All right,” he finally said, turning on his heel and halting. “If you are sure he’ll permit the company of a stranger.”

  “He’ll permit it.”

  They sailed south on the massive back of the coppery dragon, the sun still low to their left, the cool winds of the retreating night making human conversation difficult.

  I wish you had brought the musical instrument.

  It’s a little crowded for it.

  That human is somehow familiar. From dreams, I’d say.

  He was trapped in your sleep spell, nearby in the cavern. He dreamt of dragons, he tells me.

  Strange . . . I almost feel as if I could talk with him.

  Why not try?

  HELLO, HUMAN!

  Mouseglove started, looked down, smiled.

  You are Moonbird? he asked.

  Yes.

  I am Mouseglove. I steal things.

  We slept together?

  Yes.

  I am glad to meet you.

  Likewise . . .

  The small man relaxed noticeably after that, leaning back at one point to remark to Pol, “This is not at all as I’d thought it would be. He seems awfully familiar. Those dreams . . . ”

  “Yes.”

  They watched the countryside dip and rise beneath them, green wood, brown ridges, blue waters. They passed an occasional isolated dwelling, traced a track that turned into a road. There were several orchards, a farmhouse. To the left, where the land sloped, Pol saw the cluster of stones where he had slept. His mouth tightened.

  Follow the road.

  Yes.

  The village would be coming up soon. Might as well take another look, during daylight hours, he decided. Might even be able to frighten a few people.

  Below, he saw a centaur on a hilltop, staring upward. What was it Mouseglove had said? “I even saw centaurs among them?”

  Dive. Give him a good look.

  They dropped rapidly. The centaur turned and ran. Pol chuckled.

  “It’s a beginning,” he remarked, as they climbed again.

  Ahead, Lord. More of the flying things. Let me smash them.

  Pol squinted. The dark metallic shapes were circling over a small area. He looked below.

  Aren’t there more of them on the ground?

  Yes. But those in the air will be easier to get at.

  He felt Moonbird’s body grow warm beneath him.

  But isn’t there someone—human—down there with them? It looks like a girl.

  Yes.

  Even from this height, he could see the color of her hair . . .

  Let’s go after the ones on the ground. Be careful not to harm the girl.

  Moonbird sighed and wisps of a grayish gas seemed to curl from his nostrils, to be immediately dispersed by the winds.

  Humans always complicate things.

  Suddenly, they were diving. The scene below enlarged rapidly. Pol was certain now that it was Nora, at the center of a triangle formed by three of the flying things. These seemed more elaborately constructed than those he had encountered in the night. They had landed and were moving—hopping and crawling—along the ground, closing in on her. She, in turn, was using the rough terrain to keep them at a distance, maneuvering so that rocks and stands of shrubbery barred their ways, as she worked her way toward the fringes of the forest. Once she got in among the trees, he decided, she might well be able to elude them. Still, she might not.

  He smelled an odor of rotten eggs now, as the results of some internal chemical reaction of Moonbird’s seemed to fill the air about him.

  Suddenly, Moonbird’s wings were extended and his body was assuming a more upright position as he slowed. Pol braced himself. Mouseglove, seated before him, did the same.

  The landing was even worse than he had anticipated—a spine-jolting crash that nearly threw him loose from his position. He squeezed with his legs and his knuckles tightened. It was several seconds before he realized that they had come down directly atop one of the devices.

  Then Moonbird belched—a moist, disgusting sound, which was accompanied by an intensification of the odor Pol had detected during their descent. Immediately thereafter, he appeared to be regurgitating. A great stream of noxious liquid spewed from his mouth to drench the second machine nearby. It fumed for several seconds after it struck, then burst into flame.

  Pol sought Nora. She now appeared to be retreating as much from them as from the final machine. Suddenly, however, she recognized him.

  “Pol!”

  “It’s all right!” he called back, just as Moonbird advanced and began striking at the device which was now bounding about as if attempting to take flight.

  The first blow damaged its right wing. The second shattered it completely. By then, however, two more had descended and a third was diving but pulled up and began to circle.

  Moonbird belched again and another began to flame. The final one launched itself toward his face.

  Pol crouched low, as did Mouseglove, but not so low that he could not see what followed.

  Moonbird opened his mouth and raised his forelimbs. There followed a crunching sound, and then he was tearing the wings off the flier.

  . . . Not at all good to eat.

  He spat. The remains fell before him and began to smolder.

  Pol looked up. The one remaining bird was climbing higher and higher.

  Chase it?

  No. I want to help Nora. Wait.

  He climbed down and threaded his way through the wreckage.

  “Hi,” he said, taking hold of her hand. “What happened? What are they?”

  “They’re Mark’s,” she replied. “The same sort of thing that came to save him. He sent them for me . . . ”

  “Why?”

  “He wants me. He said he’d come for me.”

  “And you don’t want to go to him?”

  “Not now.”

  “Then I think we’d better go see him and straighten this out. Where is he?”

  She looked at him, at Moonbird, back at him.

  “South, I believe,” she finally said, “at a forbidden place they sometimes call Anvil Mountain.”

  “Do you know how to find it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Have you ever ridden a dragon before?”

  “No.”

  He squeezed her hand and turned.r />
  “Come on. It’s fun. This one’s named Moonbird.”

  She did not move.

  “I’m afraid,” she said. “The last dragons anyone saw were Devil Det’s . . . ”

  He nodded.

  “This one’s okay. But let me ask you whether you’re more afraid of this Mark guy and his gadgets or a tame, housebroken pet I just rode in on.”

  She shook her head.

  “Where did you find it? How do you control it? Is it true about your being related to the House of Rondoval? You said you were a traveler—”

  “Too much. Too long to tell you now.”

  “ . . . .Because, if you are of Rondoval—as they said—then that probably is one of Det’s dragons.”

  “He’s mine now. But I won’t lie to you. I didn’t before, either. I just didn’t know then. Yes, I’m related to that House. I’d like to help you, though. Will you show me where this guy lives? I want to talk with him.”

  She studied his face. He met her eyes. Abruptly, she nodded.

  “You’re right. He means harm. Perhaps we can reason with him. How do we mount?”

  “Let me introduce you first . . . ”

  As the ground dropped away beneath them, Pol leaned past Nora and told Mouseglove, “There’s going to be a little detour on the way to Dibna. I want to visit the person who controls these things.”

  Mouseglove nodded.

  “You postponing your revenge, too?” he asked.

  Pol reddened.

  “Revenge?” Nora inquired. “What does he mean?”

  “Later,” Pol snapped. “Tell me about forbidden places.”

  “They are areas containing leftover things from the old days when people still used that sort of equipment.”

  “They are supposed to be haunted,” she added.

  “I’ve heard similar stories,” Mouseglove put in. “Seen some artifacts too, in my line of work. The day you were taken away, I heard Mor speak of some sort of balance. Our world went the way that it did, the one he was taking you to went the other way. The two ways seem basically incompatible, and attempts to combine them are dangerous. I got the impression Det might have been doing something along those lines.”

  “So Mark could be a greater menace than is immediately obvious?”

  “It seems that way.”

  Pol shaded his eyes and stared ahead, locating the tiny dot the bird-thing had become.

  “We seem to be headed in the same direction.”

  “What revenge?” Nora said.

  “I’m not sure. Let it go, huh?” He glowered at the small thief, who smiled back at him. “An intention is less than a deed,” he said, “less even than an attempt.” His gaze grew unfocussed. He seemed to pluck at something in the air. “You’re a fine one to preach,” he added, long moments later, as the smaller man clutched suddenly at his chest, “when you’ve got my figurines inside your shirt.”

  Mouseglove blanched, then fell into a spell of coughing “I’ll deal with you later,” Pol said. “I doubt you’ll be running off in the meantime. Right now, though, I think I’m beginning to see what Mor meant about a menace when he was bringing me here.”

  “I can explain—” Mouseglove began.

  “Old Mor is the one who brought you to our land?” Nora said.

  “Yes.”

  “That is very interesting. For he is the one I told about Mark when it happened. He seemed ill at the time, though.”

  Pol nodded.

  “He wasn’t well.”

  The character of the land began to shift beneath them. The forest grew thinner. A large river which had followed roughly parallel to their course in the west narrowed, finally passed beneath them and vanished into the southeast. Exposed areas of land were lighter in color now, shading over toward yellow.

  The dark speck that was the surveillance flier disappeared from Pol’s sight far ahead. It was not until afternoon that they encountered more of them. They first saw several wheeling at a great height for ahead. They dipped lower and moved in their direction, half a dozen of them.

  Pol felt a sudden tension in Moonbird’s neck and it seemed that the dragon began to grow warmer.

  More to smash . . .

  Wait, Pol instructed. They don’t seem to be attacking. I think he has sent us an escort.

  Smash escort.

  Not so long as they keep their distance.

  . . . Some time later.

  Wait.

  They continued on until the shape of Anvil Mountain appeared low on the horizon in the afternoon light. Their escort had maintained a regular flight about them for hours, unvarying. As they drew nearer, they saw that more of the birds patrolled the skies above the flat-topped height. Below, the land had assumed a bleaker aspect—yellow, streaked with red, dotted with gray and russet outcrops of stone; jagged cracks ran in dry, unpatterned profusion, as on a dropped, earthenware pot; small, scrubby bushes, wind-twisted, clung to the slopes of hills.

  The mountain stood larger now, and they could make out a skyline atop it—white, green, gray, a reflecting backdrop to many movements. Pol looked about as they drew closer and he felt Moonbird stiffen, then change his course slightly to conform with the movements of the dark fliers.

  Go where they take us, for they are surely taking us to him, he ordered.

  Moonbird did not reply, but altered course several times as they neared the city on the rock, rising and swinging to the west, beginning a gradual approach to the great flat-roofed building near the center of the complex. Peering downward, Pol saw a tall, red-haired man standing upon a terrace outside what appeared to be a penthouse dwelling. A flying machine of unusual design rested upon a gridded landing area behind the structure. A number of man-sized machines of unknown function moved about in the vicinity.

  “More magic,” Mouseglove muttered.

  “No,” said Pol. “Not at all.”

  He felt Nora’s hand upon his arm then, gripping it.

  “You know this guy pretty well, don’t you?” he asked her.

  “Know him? I’ve been in love with him for years,” she replied. “But I’m afraid of him, too, now. He’s changed a lot.”

  “Well, we seem to have a landing clearance. Let’s go and talk with him. If you want him to stop bothering you, tell him so and I’ll back you up. If you don’t, now’s your chance to straighten things out.”

  Down, Moonbird. Land in the clear area.

  They descended into a much smoother landing than the previous one. His ears rang faintly as the winds finally ceased whistling about them. He climbed down and assisted Nora to descend. He heard her gasp.

  “His eye! It was injured!”

  Pol turned. The man in the khaki jumpsuit with numerous bulging pockets was now approaching, a peculiar device which covered his left eye changing color as he left the shade, becoming a bright, then deep blue. A vivid scar passed down his forehead above it, emerged on his cheek below it. Pol stepped forward to meet him.

  “I’m Pol Detson,” he said. “Nora wants to talk to you. So do I.”

  Mark halted at a distance of about two meters and studied him. Finally, he nodded curtly.

  “I’m Mark Marakson.” He immediately turned to look at Moonbird. “I’ve never seen a dragon before . . . Gods, he’s big!”

  He returned his attention to Pol, not even glancing at Nora.

  “Detson . . . Magician?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I don’t understand magic.”

  “I’m still working at it myself.”

  Mark gestured suddenly, a sweeping motion of his left arm, apparently intended to take in the entire city.

  “This I understand,” he said.

  “Me, too. There’s a lot of it where I come from.”

  Mark rubbed the scar on his cheek.

  “What do you mean? Where is that?” he asked.

  “We are step-brothers,” Pol replied. “Your parents raised me, in a land much like this place you have restored. Excuse me if I stare
, but you do bear Dad a very strong resemblance.”

  Mark turned away, paced several steps, returned.

  “You’re joking,” he said at last.

  “No. Really. For most of my life, I bore the name you were given as a child.”

  “Which is?”

  “Dan Chain.”

  “Dan Chain,” Mark repeated. “I rather like that . . . But how could this be? I did learn only recently that I’d been adopted, but this—Too much coincidence! I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, it’s true, and it’s not entirely coincidence. In fact—Wait a minute . . . ”

  Pol dug in his hip pocket, withdrew his wallet. He opened it and flipped through the card case.

  “Here,” he said, stepping forward, extending it. “These are pictures of Mother and Dad.”

  Mark reached toward him, accepted the wallet, stared.

  “These aren’t drawn!” he said. ‘”There’s a very sophisticated technology involved!”

  “Photography’s been around for awhile,” Pol replied.

  The lens brightened as Mark stared.

  “Their names?” he asked.

  “Michael Chain—and Gloria.”

  “I—Yes, I see myself in these faces. May I—Have you others?”

  “Yes. I have some more further down. You can take those. Just slide them out. Yes, like that.”

  Mark passed the wallet back.

  “What sort of work does he do?”

  This time Pol made a sweeping gesture.

  “He builds things. Designs them, rather. Much on the order of what you’ve apparently been doing here.”

  “I would like to meet him.”

  “I believe he’d like you. But I was thinking—as I acquired certain recent skills of my own—on the means by which I was brought to this world. It would take more research and some experimenting, but I believe I could learn to duplicate Mor’s stunt in transporting me. It’s occurred to me that a guy like you might not be happy here—especially after the story I heard—and I wondered whether you might be interested in going to the place from which I came. You might like it a lot better there.”

  Mark finally looked up from the photos and inserted them into a small thigh pocket. He stared at Nora as if seeing her for the first time.

  “She told you what they did to me, to my—stepfather?”

  Pol nodded.

  “You have my sympathy. I received very similar treatment myself, for different reasons.”