Changeling Read online

  It might almost have been easier without the lantern, he thought, back there. And that slab . . . He did not remember that broken slab at the cave mouth.

  He thought back upon the scene he had witnessed immediately after awakening. The man acting almost as if he were talking with that monster, then mounting it and flying off, fortunately leaving his lantern behind. Who could it have been, and what the circumstances?

  He turned right at the next branching, remembering his way. There seemed to be no sounds, other than those of his own making. Rather peculiar, in the aftermath of such a battle . . .

  When he finally reached the foot of the huge stair, he left the lantern. He moved soundlessly through the darkness, toward some small illumination above. When his eyes just cleared the top step, he halted and surveyed the hall.

  “How long have I slept?” he asked of, perhaps, the tattered tapestry.

  But he did not wait for a reply.

  As the sun pinked the eastern corner of the sky, Moonbird descended slowly to land upon the last steady tower of Rondoval. Pol dismounted and slapped him upon the shoulder.

  Good morrow, my friend. I will call you again soon.

  I will hear. I will come.

  The great dark form leapt from the tower and drifted across the sky, heading for one of the hidden entrances to the caverns. A green strand seemed to connect its shoulder to Pol’s still upraised hand. It faded soon to join the other strands of the world, drifting everywhere.

  For several moments, he watched the stars fading in the west, wondering at the strange flying things Moonbird had destroyed earlier, wondering even more at the beast’s comment, They had troubled my dreams.

  Turning, with a glance to the sunrise, he entered the tower, to make his way down and around within it, returning to the library which had come more and more to feel like home. He hummed as he walked, occasionally snapping his fingers. He finally felt that he belonged—a member of the magic-working, dragon-riding family which had lived here. He wanted to take his guitar into his hands and sing about it, watching the dust depart the surfaces in each chamber through which he strolled, the furniture move itself about, the debris roll into heaps in corners, the strands of power which controlled these operations attaching themselves to, resonating with, his instrument. Rondoval did actually feel more his at this moment than it had at any time before.

  When he reached the library, he moved to pour himself a drink, to celebrate. He was surprised to find the bottle empty. He had thought that several inches still remained within it. For that matter, he had thought that some food also remained, though the serving board was now empty.

  Shrugging, he headed for the stair. He would charm more out of the pantry. He was ravenous after the night’s adventures.

  XIV

  He had threaded them all through Rondoval; and now, as the day slackened, he was resolved to lie in wait, to learn whether they worked, to see what they snared.

  In a small sitting room he had not previously frequented, he seated himself at the center of his web and waited. He had set himself no other chore than thinking during this period, but that was all right. Fine, in fact.

  The strands lay all about him, silver-gray, taut. He had strung them throughout Castle Rondoval that afternoon, like a ghostly series of trip wires. He could feel them all, knew where each one led.

  By now, he had come to the conclusion that they were not visible to other people under normal conditions. Summoning them, noting them, using them, were all a part of his power—the same power that had led him to this place he now knew to be his home. The others who had dwelled here had also possessed it, along with other knowledge and aptitudes—things about which he was still learning. He wondered about them . . .

  Mor had taken him as a baby, the old man had said, and exchanged him for the real Daniel Chain. If he had been born here and removed at the time of the battle which had so damaged this place, then these depredations had occurred a little over twenty years ago—presuming that time behaved in approximately the same fashion here as it did there. Such being the case, he wondered concerning the cause of the conflict and its principals. All things considered, it would seem that his parents had been the losers and were doubtless now dead.

  He wondered about them. There were intact portraits in various rooms, one of which could have been that of the Lord Det, the author of the journals, the man he judged to be his father. The portraits were untitled, though, and he had no idea at all as to his mother’s identity.

  His wrist tingled slightly, but there were no signs yet from the strands he had laid. He watched the hallway darken beyond the door. He thought of the world in which he now found himself, speculating as to whether he might have been able to see threads in his own, had he known to try. He wondered what it would have been like to have grown up here. Now, now he felt a proprietory attitude toward the place, even if he did not understand its full history, and he resented the presence of the intruder.

  For an intruder there was. He knew it as surely as if he had seen him lurking about. Knew it not just from the fact that everything edible and drinkable which he left about had a way of disappearing, but from dozens of small telltales—suddenly bright doorknobs which he knew to have been dusty, minor rearrangements of articles, abrupt scuff marks in unused hallways. It added up to a sense of the presence of another. Irrationally, he felt as if Rondoval itself were passing him warnings.

  And he had worked this spell out carefully, partly by intuition, partly from hints in his father’s books. It seemed that everything had been done correctly. When the visitor moved, he would know it, he would act—

  Again, the tingling. Only this time it did not pass, and his finger jerked toward a single strand. He touched it, felt it pulse. Yes. And this one led to a ruined tower to the rear. Very well. He caught it between his fingers and began the manipulations, the sensations in his wrist increasing as he worked.

  Yes. A moving human body, male, had disturbed his alarm. Even now the thread swelled, pulsed with power, was firmly fixed to the intruder.

  Pol smiled. The workings of his will flowed forth along the line, freezing the man in his tracks.

  “ . . . And now, my friend,” Pol muttered, “it is time for us to meet. Come to me!”

  The man began descending the tower stair, his movements slow and mechanical. He tried to resist what he realized to be a spell, but this had no effect upon his progress. Perspiration broke out over his brow and his teeth were clenched. He watched his feet proceed steadily down the stair, then along a hallway. He tried catching at door frames and pillars as he passed them, but his hands were always torn free. Finally, they vanished beneath his cloak.

  Moments later, he held a long climbing cord, which he hurriedly knotted about his right wrist. He attached a small grappling hook to its farther end and cast it up and out through a high window. He tugged several times upon it, saw that it held. Seizing the cord with both hands then, he began to pray to Dwastir, protector of thieves, as he threw his weight upon it.

  Pol frowned. He realized that the other’s progress had ceased. He increased his efforts, but the intruder was no longer coming toward him. Rising with a curse, he walked out into the twilit hallway, following the filament, candles flaring as he neared them. It only occurred to him after he had gone some distance that the other might also be some sort of an adept. How else could he have halted in the midst of such a summons as he had received to walk in this direction? Perhaps he should simply call Moonbird, to overwhelm the intruder with sheer force . . .

  No. This act of defense, he decided, should be his own, if at all possible. He felt a need to test his powers against another, and the defense of Rondoval seemed as if it should be a personal thing now that he and the place had claims on each other.

  He might have missed the small, darkly clad man, had not the angle of the silver-gray strand directed his attention upwards. There, he saw the kicking feet, as if they still strove to walk, as the figure dragged itself upward usi
ng armpower alone.

  “Amazing,” Pol observed, reaching out and touching the strand again. “Halt all your efforts to flee me. Climb back down. Return. Now!”

  The man ceased his climbing and his boots grew still. He hung for a moment, began to lower himself. Then, at a point about ten feet overhead, in full if not proper obedience to his order, the man let go the cord at a certain moment of its sway and, heels together, dropped directly toward him.

  Pol leaped backward, struck the wall with his shoulder, spun aside. The man struck the floor nearby, fulfilling the order, then began to run.

  Recovering, Pol manipulated the strand so that it slipped and caught like a lariat about the other’s ankles. The man sprawled.

  He moved to the other’s side, maintaining the tension upon the filament. The man rolled, a knife appearing in his hand, thrusting toward his thigh. Pol, already alert, danced away, a loop appearing in the strand and twisting itself about the other’s wrists, tightening.

  The blade fell to the floor and skidded a great distance along it, vanishing from sight in the far shadows. The man’s wrists were drawn together as tightly as his ankles. His pale eyes now found Pol’s and regarded him without expression.

  “I must say you are extremely imaginative in executing an order,” Pol remarked. “You take me literally when you choose to and take advantage of every loophole when you do not. You must have some legal background.”

  The other smiled.

  “I have at times been very close to the profession,” he said in a soft, almost sweet voice, and then he sighed. “What now?”

  Pol shook his head.

  “I don’t know. I’ve no idea who you are or what you want. My security as well as my curiosity require that I find out.”

  “My name is Mouseglove, and I mean you no harm.”

  “Then why have you been sneaking about here, stealing food?”

  “A man must eat—and my own desire for security demanded that I sneak about. All that I know of you is that you are a sorcerer and dragon-rider. I was somewhat reluctant to come up and introduce myself.”

  “Reasonable enough,” Pol observed. “Now, if I knew why you are here at all, I might be in a better position to sympathize with your plight.”

  “Well, yes,” said Mouseglove. “I am, as they say, a thief. I came here for the purpose of stealing a collection of jewelled figurines belonging to the Lord Det. It was a commissioned thing. I simply had to deliver them to a Westerland buyer, collect my fee and go my way. Unfortunately, Det caught me at it—much as you’ve trammeled me here—and had me confined to one of the cells below. By the time I managed to escape, a war was in progress. The castle was under attack and the besiegers were about to break in. I saw Det destroyed in a magical contest with an old sorcerer, and I decided that the safest place for me was back in my cell. I lost my way below, however, and wound up in a cavern, where I slept. I was awakened to the sight of you flying off on a great dragon. I left there, came up here, was hungry. I couldn’t get at the food in the pantry.”

  “I don’t understand why you remained around at all.”

  Mouseglove licked his lips.

  “I had to check,” he said finally, “to see whether the figurines were still about.”

  “Are they?”

  “I couldn’t locate them. But from the growth of the trees hereabout, I began to realize that more time than I’d thought had passed while I slept . . . ”

  “About twenty years, I’d guess,” Pol said, freeing Mouseglove’s legs. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  “So am I. Let’s go and eat. If I release your hands, will you use them to help me carry food, rather than try to knife me?”

  “I’d much rather knife you on a full stomach.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Pol untwisted the final loop.

  “I’d give a lot to know that trick,” Mouseglove said, watching him.

  “Let’s go to the pantry,” Pol said, “and on the way, I want you to tell me how my father died.”

  Mouseglove rose to his feet.

  “Your father?”

  “The Lord Det.”

  “There was a baby,” Mouseglove said.

  “Twenty years,” Pol replied.

  Mouseglove rubbed his brow.

  “Twenty . . . That is hard to believe. I don’t see how it could happen.”

  “You were trapped in a grand sleep spell, along with the dragons. I must have released you when I awakened Moonbird. You had to have been asleep nearby.”

  They began to walk.

  “There were dreams of dragons, now you mention it.”

  He turned and regarded Pol.

  “I first saw you in your mother’s arms. She burned me when I tried to touch you.”

  “You knew her?”

  “The Lady Lydia . . . Yes. Lovely woman. I suppose I’d best start at the beginning . . . ”

  “Please do.”

  They obtained food and drink from the pantry and returned to the library, to spend most of the night talking. When they had finished eating, Pol strummed his guitar absently and listened to the other speak, occasionally pausing to sip from his wineglass. At one point, he struck a chord which made Mouseglove’s hair rise and set his teeth on edge.

  “They killed my parents?” he said softly. “The villagers?”

  “I guess there were other people in the army besides villagers,” Mouseglove replied. “I even saw centaurs among them. But it was another sorcerer who actually fought Det—Mor, I think he was called—”

  “Mor?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Go on.”

  “I think your mother was in the southwest tower when it fell. At least, that was where she was headed when I saw her with you. You were discovered alone outside the entrance to it. You were taken to the main hall. The troops wanted to kill you. Mor saved you, though, by exchanging you for another child from another place—or rather, he claimed that he could. Did he?”

  “Yes. They killed my parents . . . ”

  “Twenty years. They’ll be older now—perhaps even dead. You could never locate all of them.”

  “Those who stoned me had the proper mentality—and their recognition of my dragonmark says something.”

  “Pol—Lord Pol—I don’t know your story—where you’ve been, what it was like, what you’ve been through, how you came back—but I’m older than you. There are many things of which I am not sure, but one that I’ve had more opportunity than most to learn. Hate will eat you up, will twist you—more so, perhaps, if there is no longer, really, a proper object upon which to vent it—”

  Pol began to speak, but Mouseglove raised his hand.

  “Please. Let me finish. It’s not just a sermon on good behavior. You’re young and I got the impression on the way up here that you had just come into your powers. I’ve a feeling that this may be a pivotal point in your life. Looking back on my own, I see that there were a number of such occasions. Everyone seems to have a few. It looks to me as if you have not yet given thought to the path you intend to follow. Old Mor seemed, basically, a white magician. Your father had a reputation as one of the other sort. I know that things are never really black or white, pure and simple, but after a time one can usually judge from a preponderance of evidence in which direction a great power has led a person, if you see what I mean. If you start looking for revenge after all these years, at this time in your life—using your newfound powers to do it—I’ve a feeling you may in some ways be twisted by the enterprise, so that everything you touch later on will somehow bear its mark. I tell you this not only because I fear turning another Det loose upon the land, but because you are young and because it will probably hurt you, too.”

  Pol was silent for a time. Then he struck a chord.

  “My father had a staff, a wand, a rod,” he said. “You mentioned earlier that Mor broke it into three parts. Tell me again what he said he was going to do with it.”

  Mouseglove si
ghed.

  “He spoke of something called—I believe—the Magical Triangle of Int. He was going to banish each segment to one point of it.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Do you know what it means?”

  “No. Do you?”

  Pol shook his head.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “What do you think of my assessment of your position?”

  Pol took a sip of wine.

  “I hate them,” he said, as he replaced the glass. “Perhaps my father was an evil man—a black magician. I do not know. But I cannot learn of his death by violence and be unmoved. No. I still hate them. They responded like animals in their ignorance. They treated me badly when I meant them no harm. And I recently heard the story of another man, who meant them well and perhaps went about things incorrectly, but who suffered greatly at their hands. It is not so easy to forgive.”

  “Pol—Lord Pol. They were afraid. You represented something they must have had good cause to fear if its memory lingered this long, this strongly. As for the other man, who knows? Could there have been some similarity?”

  Pol nodded.

  “Yes. I understand that he tried to force something new upon them—new, yet like something which had been rejected long ago. I suppose you are right. Have you more to tell me?”

  “Not really. I would like to hear your story, though. It seems only a few days since I saw you as a babe.”

  Pol smiled for the first time in a long while. He refilled their glasses.

  “Very well. I would like to tell someone . . . ”

  Daylight was trickling into the room when Pol opened his eyes. He had slept on the sofa. Mouseglove was curled up on the floor.

  He rose and soundlessly made his way downstairs, where he washed and changed his garments. He headed for the pantry to load a breakfast tray. Mouseglove was up by the time he returned, grooming himself, eyeing the food.

  As they ate, Mouseglove asked him, “What are your plans now?”