Wizard World 1: Changeling Read online

  He moved his staff into a position before him and the progression of images slowed even more. He watched for several heartbeats, then leaned the tip of the staff forward.

  A scene froze before him, grew, took on depth and coloration....

  Evening... Autumn... Small street, small town... University complex...

  He stepped forward.

  Michael Chain--red-haired, ruddy and thirty pounds overweight--loosened his tie and lowered his six-foot-plus frame onto the stool before the drawing board. His left hand played games with the computer terminal and a figure took shape on the cathode display above it. He studied this for perhaps half a minute, rotated it, made adjustments, rotated it again.

  Taking up a pencil and a T-square, he transferred several features from the display to the sheet on the board before him. He leaned back, regarding it, chewed his lip, began a small erasure.

  "Mike!" said a small, dark-haired woman in a severe evening dress, opening the door to his office. "Can't you leave your work alone for a minute?"

  "The sitter is not here yet," he replied, continuing the erasure, "and I'm ready to go. This beats twiddling my thumbs."

  "Well, she is here now and your tie has to be retted and we're late."

  He sighed, put down the pencil and switched off the terminal. "All right," he said, rising to his feet and fambling at his throat. "I'll be ready in a minute. Punctuality is no great virtue at a faculty party."

  "It is if it's for the head of your department."

  "Gloria," he replied, shaking his head, "the only thing you need to know about Jim is that he wouldn't last a week in the real world. Take him out of the university and drop him into a genuine industrial design slot and he'd--"

  "Let's not get into that again," she said, retreating. "I know you're not happy here, but for the time being there's nothing else. You've got to be decent about it."

  "My father had his own consulting firm," he recited. "It could have been mine--"

  "But he drank it out of business. Come on. Let's go."

  "That was near the end. He'd had some bad breaks. He was good. So was Granddad," he went on. "He founded it and--"

  "I already know you come from a dynasty of geniuses," she said, "and that Dan will inherit the mantle. But right now--"

  He shook himself and looked at her.

  "How is he?" he asked in a softer voice.

  "Asleep," she said. "He's okay."

  He smiled.

  "Okay. Let's get our coats. I'll be good."

  She turned and he followed her out, the pale eye of the CRT looking over his shoulder.

  Mor stood in the doorway of a building diagonally across the street from the house he was watching. The big man in the dark overcoat was on the doorstep, hands thrust into his pockets, gazing up the street. The smaller figure of the woman still faced the partly opened door. She was speaking with someone within.

  Finally, the woman closed the door and turned. She joined the man and they began walking. Mor watched them head off up the street and turn the corner. He waited awhile longer, to be certain they would not be returning after some remembered trifle.

  He departed the doorway and crossed the street. When he reached the proper door he rapped upon it with his staff. After several moments, the door opened slightly. He saw that there was a chain upon it on the inside. A young girl stared at him across it, dark eyes only slightly suspicious.

  "I've come to pick something up," he said, the web of an earlier spell making his foreign words clear to her, "and to leave something."

  "They are not in just now," she said. "I'm the sitter. ..."

  "That is all right," he said, slowly lowering the point of his staff toward her eye level.

  A faint pulsing began within the dark wood, giving it an opalescent hue and texture. Her eyes shifted. It held her attention for several pulsebeats, and then he raised it slowly toward his own face. Their eyes met and he held her gaze. His voice shifted into a lower register.

  "Unchain the door now," he said.

  There was a shadow of movement, a rattling within. The chain dropped.

  "Step back," he commanded.

  The face withdrew. He pushed the door open and entered.

  "Go into the next room and sit down," he said, closing the door behind him. "When I depart this place, you will chain the door behind me and forget that I have been here. I will tell you when to do this."

  The girl was already on her way into the living room.

  He moved about slowly, opening doors. Finally, he paused upon the threshold of a small, darkened room, then entered softly. He regarded the tiny figure curled within the crib, then moved the staff to within inches of its head.

  "Sleep," he said, the wood once again flickering beneath his hand. "Sleep."

  Carefully then, he placed his own burden upon the floor, leaned his staff against the crib, uncovered and raised the child he had charmed. He lay it beside the other and considered them both. In the light that spilled through the opened door, he saw that this baby was lighter of complexion than the one he had brought, and its hair was somewhat thinner, paler. Still...

  He proceeded to exchange their clothing and to wrap the baby from the crib in the blanket which had covered the other. Then he placed the last Lord of Rondoval within the crib and stared at him. His finger moved forward to touch the dragonmark....

  Abruptly, he turned away, retrieved his staff and lifted young Daniel Chain from the floor.

  As he passed along the hallway he called into the living room, "I am going now. Fix the door as it was after me--and forget."

  Outside, he heard the chain fall into place as he walked away. Stars shone down through jagged openings among the clouds and a cold wind came out of the east at his back. A vehicle turned the corner, raking him with its lights, but it passed without slowing.

  Tiny gleams began to play within the sidewalk, and the buildings at either hand lost something of their substantiality, became two-dimensional, began to flicker.

  The sparkling of his path increased and it soon ceased to be a sidewalk, becoming a great bright way stretching illimitably before and behind him, with numerous sideways visible. The prospect to his right and left became a mosaic of tiny still-shots of innumerable times and places, flashing, brightening and shrinking, coming at last to resemble the shimmering scales of some exotic fish in passage by him. Overhead, a band of dark sky remained, but cloudless and pouring starlight in negative celestial image of the road below. Occasionally, Mor glimpsed other figures upon the sideways--not all of them of human form--bent on tasks as inscrutable as his own.

  His staff came to blaze as he picked his way homeward, lightning-dew dripping from his heels, his toes.

  III

  In lands mythical to one another, the days passed.

  When the boy was six years old, it was noted that he not only attempted to repair anything that was broken about the place, but that he quite often succeeded. Mel showed her husband the kitchen tongs he had mended.

  "As good as Vince could have done at the smithy," she said. "That boy's going to be a tinker."

  Marakas examined the tool.

  "Did you see how he did it?" he asked.

  "No. I heard his hammering, but I didn't pay him much heed. You know how he's always fooling with bits of metal and such."

  Marakas nodded and set the tongs aside.

  "Where is he now?"

  "Down by the irrigation ditch, I think," she answered. "He splashes about there."

  "I'll walk down and see him, tell him he was a good boy for mending that," he said, crossing the room and lifting the latch.

  Outside, he turned the corner and took the sloping path past the huge tree in the direction of the fields. Insects buzzed in the grasses. A bird warbled somewhere above him. A dry breeze stirred his hair. As he walked, he thought somewhat proudly of the child they had taken. He was certainly healthy and strong--and very clever....

  "Mark?" he called when he had reached the ditch.


  "Over here, Dad," came a faint reply from around the bend to his right.

  He moved in that direction.

  "Where?" he asked, after a time.

  "Down here."

  Approaching the edge, he looked over, seeing Mark and the thing with which he was playing. It appeared that the boy had placed a smooth, straight stick just above the water's surface, resting each of its ends loosely in grooves among rock heaps he had built up on either side; and at the middle of the stick was affixed a series of squarish--wings?--which the flowing water pushed against, turning it round and round. A peculiar tingle of trepidation passed over him at the sight of it--why, he was not certain--but this vanished moments later as he followed the rotating vanes with his eyes, becoming a sense of pleasure at his son's achievement.

  "What have you got there, Mark?" he asked, seating himself on the bank.

  "Just a sort of--wheel," the boy said, looking up and smiling. "The water turns it."

  "What does it do?"

  "Nothing. Just turns."

  "It's real pretty."

  "Yeah, isn't it?"

  "That was nice the way you fixed those tongs," Marakas said, plucking a piece of grass and chewing it. "Your mother liked that."

  "It was easy."

  "You enjoy fixing things and making things, making things work---don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Think that's what you'd like to do for a living some day?"

  "I think so."

  "Old Vince is going to be looking for an apprentice down at the forge one of these days. If you think you'd like to learn smithing, working with metals and such--I could speak with him."

  Mark smiled again.

  "Do that," he said.

  "Of course, you'd be working with real, practical things." Marakas gestured toward the water-spun wheel. "Not toys," he finished.

  "It isn't a toy," Mark said, turning to look back at his creation.

  "You just said that it doesn't do anything."

  "But I think it could. I just have to figure what--and how."

  Marakas laughed, stood and stretched. He tossed his blade of grass into the water and watched the wheel mangle it.

  "When you find out, be sure to tell me."

  He turned away and started back toward the path.

  "I will ..." Mark said softly, still watching it turn.

  When the boy was six years old, he went into his father's office to see once again the funny machine Dad used. Maybe this time--

  "Dan! Get out of here!" bellowed Michael Chain, a huge figure, without even turning away from the drawing board.

  The little stick figure on the screen before him had collapsed into a line that waved up and down. Michael's hand played across the console, attempting adjustments.

  "Gloria! Come and get him! It's happening again!"

  "Dad," Dan began, "I didn't mean--"

  The man swiveled and glared at him.

  "I've told you to stay out of here when I'm working," he said.

  "I know. But I thought that maybe this time--"

  "You thought! You thought! It's time you started doing what you're told!"

  "I'm sor--"

  Michael Chain began to rise from his stool and the boy backed away. Then Dan heard his mother's footsteps at his back. He turned and hugged her.

  "I'm sorry," he finished.

  "Again?" Gloria said, looking over him at her husband.

  "Again," Michael answered. "The kid's a jinx."

  The pencil-can began rattling atop the small table beside the drawing board. Michael turned and stared at it, fascinated. It tipped, fell to its side, rolled toward the table's edge.

  He lunged, but it passed over the edge and fell to the floor before he could reach it. Cursing, he straightened then and banged his head on the nearest corner.

  "Get him out of here!" he roared. "The kid's got a pet poltergeist!"

  "Come on," Gloria said, leading him away, "We know it's not something you want to do...."

  The window blew open. Papers swirled. There came a sharp rapping from within the wall. A book fell from its shelf.

  "... It's just something that sometimes happens," she finished, as they departed.

  Michael sighed, picked things up, rose, closed the window. When he returned to his machine, it was functioning normally. He glared at it. He did not like things that he could not understand. Was it a wave phenomenon that the kid propagated--intensified somehow when he became upset? He had tried several times to detect something of that sort, using various instruments. Alway unsuccessfully. The instruments themselves usually--

  "Now you've done it. He's crying and the place is a shambles," Gloria said, entering the room again. "If you'd be a little more gentle with him when it starts, things probably wouldn't get so bad. I can usually head them off, just by being nice to him."

  "In the first place," Michael said, "I'm not sure I believe that anything paranormal really happens. In the second, it's always so sudden."

  She laughed. So did he.

  "Well, it is," he said finally. "I suppose I had better go and say something to him. I know it's not his fault. I don't want him unhappy. ..."

  He had started toward the door. He paused.

  "I still wonder," he said.

  "I know."

  "I'm sure our kid didn't have that funny mark on his wrist."

  "Don't start that again. Please. It just takes you around in circles."

  "You're right."

  He departed his office and walked back toward Dan's room. As he went, he heard the sounds of a guitar being softly strummed. Now a D chord, now a G... Surprising, how quickly a kid that age had learned to handle the undersized instrument... Strange, too. No one else in either family had ever shown any musical aptitude.

  He knocked gently on the door. The strumming stopped.

  "Yes?"

  "May I come in?"

  "Uh-huh."

  He pushed the door open and entered. Dan was sprawled on the bed. The instrument was nowhere in sight. Underneath, probably.

  "That was real pretty," he said. "What were you playing?"

  "Just some sounds. I don't know."

  "Why'd you stop?"

  "You don't like it."

  "I never said that."

  "I can tell."

  He sat down beside him and squeezed his shoulder.

  "Well, you're wrong," he said. "Everybody's got something they like to do. With me, it's my work." Then, finally, "You scared me, Dan. I don't know how it happens that machines sometimes go crazy when you come around--and things I don't understand sometimes scare me. But I'm not really mad at you. I just sound that way when I'm startled."

  Dan rolled onto his side and looked up at him. He smiled weakly.

  "You want to play something for me? I'll be glad to listen."

  The boy shook his head.

  "Not just now," he said.

  Michael looked about the room, at the huge shelf of picture books, at the unopened erector set. When he looked back at Dan, he saw that the boy was rubbing his wrist.

  "Hurt your hand?" he asked.

  "Uh-uh. It just sort of throbs--the mark--sometimes."

  "How often?"

  "Whenever--something like that--happens."

  He gestured toward the door and the entire external world.

  "It's going away now," he added.

  He took hold of the boy's wrist, examined the dark dragon-shape upon it.

  "The doctor said it was nothing to worry about--no chance of it ever turning into anything bad...."

  "It's all right now."

  Michael continued to stare for several moments. Finally, he squeezed the hand, lowered it and smiled.

  "Anything you want, Dan?" he asked.

  "No. Uh... Well--some books."

  Michael laughed.

  "That's one thing you like, isn't it? Okay, maybe we can stop by a bookstore later and see what they've got."

  Dan finally smiled.

  "Th
ank you."

  Michael punched his shoulder lightly and rose.

  "... And I'll stay out of your office, Dad."

  He squeezed his shoulder again and left him there on the bed. As he headed back toward his office, he heard a soft, rapid strumming begin.

  When the boy was twelve years old he built a horse. It stood two hands high and was moved by a spring-powered clockwork mechanism. He had worked after hours at the smithy forging the parts, and on his own time in the shed he had built behind his parents' place, measuring, grinding and polishing gears. Now it pranced on the floor of that shed, for him and his audience of one--Nora Vail, a nine-year-old neighbor girl.

  She clapped her hands as it slowly turned its head, as if to regard them.

  "It's beautiful, Mark! It's beautiful!" she said. "There's never been anything like it--except in the old days."

  "What do you mean?" he said quickly.

  "You know. Like long ago. When they had all sorts of clever devices like that."

  "Those are just stories," he said. Then, after a time, "Aren't they?"

  She shook her head, pale hair dancing.

  "No. My father's passed by one of the forbidden places, down south by Anvil Mountain. You can still see all sorts of broken things there without going in--things people can't make anymore." She looked back at the horse, its movements now slowing. "Maybe even things like that."

  "That's--interesting..."he said. "I didn't realize--and there's still stuff left?"

  "That's what my father said."

  Abruptly, she looked him straight in the eye.

  "You know, maybe you'd better not show this to anybody else," she said.

  "Why not?"

  "People might think you've been there and learned some of the forbidden things. They might get mad."

  "That's dumb," he said, just as the horse fell onto its side. "That's real dumb."

  But as he righted it, he said, "Maybe I'll wait till I have something better to show them. Something they'll like...."

  The following spring, he demonstrated for a few friends and neighbors the flotation device he had made, geared to operate a floodgate in the irrigation system. They talked about it for two weeks, then decided against installing it themselves. When the spring runoff occurred--and later, when the rains came--there was some local flooding, not too serious. They only shrugged.