Changeling (Illustrated) (2 page)

“It is over,” he said, after a time. “We’ve won . . . .”

“So it would seem,” Mor said.

“There are still some of his men about—to be dealt with.”

Mor nodded.

“ . . . And the dragons? And his other unnatural servants?”

“Disorganized now,” Mor said softly. “I will deal with them.”

“Good. We—what is that noise?”

They listened for several moments.

“It could be a trick,” said one of the sergeants, Marakas by name.

“Choose a detail. Go and find out. Report back immediately.”

Mouseglove crouched behind the arras, near to the stairwell that led to the dark places below. His plan was to return to his cell and secure himself within it. A prisoner of Det’s would be about the only person on the premises likely to receive sympathetic treatment, he had reasoned. He had succeeded in making it this far on his journey back to duress when the gate had given way, the invaders entered and the sorcerous duel taken place. He had witnessed all of these things through a frayed place in the tapestry.

Now, while everyone’s attention was elsewhere, would be the ideal time for him to slip out and head back down. Only . . . His curiosity, too, had been aroused. He waited.

The detail soon returned with the noisy bundle. Sergeant Marakaswore a tense expression, held the baby stiffly.

“Doubtless Det planned to sacrifice it in some nefarious rite, to assure his victory!” he volunteered.

Ardel leaned forward and inspected. He raised the tiny right hand and turned it palm upwards.

“No. It bears the family’s dragon-mark of power inside the right wrist,” he stated. “This is Det’s own offspring.”

“Oh.”

Ardel looked at Mor. But the old man was staring at the baby, oblivious to all else.

“What should I do with it, sir?” Marakas asked.

Ardel chewed his lip.

“That mark,” he said, “means that it is destined to become a sorcerer. It is also a certain means of identification. No matter what the child might be told while it was growing up, sooner or later it would learn the truth. If that came to pass, would 
you
 like to meet a sorcerer who knew you had had a part in the death of his father and the destruction of his home?”

“I see what you are getting at . . . ” said Marakas.

“So you had best—dispose of—the baby.”

The sergeant looked away. Then, “Suppose we sent it to some distant land where no one has ever heard of the House of Rondoval?” he asked.

“ . . . Where one day there might come a traveler who knows this story? No. The uncertainty would, in many ways, be worse than a sureness of doom. I see no way out for the little thing. Be quick and merciful.”

“Sir, could we not just cut off the arm? It is better than dying.”

Ardel sighed.

“The power would still be there,” he said,”arm or no arm. And there are too many witnesses here today. The story would be told, and it would but add another grievance. No. If you’ve no stomach for it yourself, there must be someone in the ranks who—“

“Wait!”

Old Mor had spoken. He shook himself as one just awakening and moved forward.

“There may be a way,” he said, “a way to let the child live and to assure that your fears will never be realized.”

He reached out and touched the tiny hand.

“What do you propose?” Ardel asked him.

“Thousands of years ago,” Mor began, “we possessed great cities and mighty machines as well as high magics—”

“I’ve heard the stories,” Ardel said. “How does that help us now?”

“They are more than just stories. The Cataclysm really occurred. Afterwards, we kept the magic and threw much of the rest away. It all seems so much legend now, but to this day we are biased against the unnatural tech-things.”

“Of course. That is—”

“Let me finish! When a major decision such as that is made, the symmetry of the universe demands that it go both ways. There is another world, much like our own, where they threw away the magic and kept the other. In that place, we and our ways are the stuff of legend.”

“Where is this world?”

Mor smiled.

“It is counterpoint to the music of our sphere,” he said, “a single beat away. It it just around the corner no one turns. It is another forking of the shining road.”

“Wizards’ riddles! How will this serve us? Can one travel to that other place?”

“I can.”

“Oh. Then . . . ”

“Yes. Growing up in such a place, the child would have its life, but its power would mean little. It would be dismissed, rationalized, explained away. The child would find a different place in life than any it might have known here, and it would never understand, never suspect what had occurred.”

“Fine. Do it then, if mercy can be had so cheaply.”

“There is a price.”

“What do you mean?”

“That law of symmetry, of which I spoke—it must be satisfied if the exchange is to be a permanent one: a stone for a stone, a tree for atree . . . ”

“A baby? Are you trying to say that if you take this one there, you must bring one of theirs back?”

“Yes.”

“What would we do with that one?”

Sergeant Marakas cleared his throat.

“My Mel and I just lost one,” he said. “Perhaps . . . ”

Ardel smiled briefly and nodded.

“Then it is cheap. Let it be done.”

With the toe of his boot and a nod, Ardel then indicated Det’s fallen scepter.

“What of the magician’s rod? Is it not dangerous?” he asked.

Mor nodded, bent slowly and retrieved it from where it had fallen. He began to twist and tug at it, muttering the while.

“Yes,” he finally said, succeeding in separating it into three sections. “It cannot be destroyed, but if I were to banish each segment to a point of the great Magical Triangle of Int, it may be that it will never be reclaimed. It would certainly be difficult.”

“You will do this, then?”

“Yes.” 

At that moment, Mouseglove slipped from behind the arras and down the stairwell. Then he paused, held his breath and listened for an outcry. There was none. He hurried on.

When he reached the dimness of the great stair’s bottom, he turned right, took several paces and paused. They were not corridors, but rather natural tunnels that faced him. Had it been the one directly to the right from which he had emerged earlier? Or the other which angled off nearby? He had not realized that there were two in that vicinity . . . 

There came a noise from above. He chose the opening on the extreme right and plunged ahead. It was as dark as the route he had traversed earlier, but after twenty paces it took a sharp turn to the right which he did not recall.

Still, he could not afford to go back now, if someone were indeed coming. Besides, there was a small light ahead . . . 

A brazier of charcoal glowed and smoked within an alcove. A bundle of faggots lay upon the floor nearby. He fed tinder into the brazier, blew upon it, coaxed it to flame. Shortly thereafter, a torch blazed in his hand. He took up several other sticks and continued on along the tunnel.

He came to a branching. The lefthand way looked slightly larger, more inviting. He followed it. Shortly, it branched again. This time, he bore to the right.

He gradually became aware of a downward sloping, thought that he felt a faint draft. There followed three more branchings and a honeycombed chamber. He had begun marking his choices with charcoal from the body of the torch, near to the righthand wall. The incline steepened, the tunnel twisted, widening. It came to bear less and less resemblance to a corridor.

When he halted to light his second torch, he was aware that he had traveled much farther than he had on the way out earlier. Yet he feared returning along the way he had come. A hundred paces more, he decided, could do no harm . . . 

And when he had gone that distance, he stood at the mouth of a large, warm cavern, breathing a peculiar odor which he could not identify. He raised the torch high above him, but the further end of the vast chamber remained hidden in shadows. A hundred paces more, he told himself . . . .

Later, when he had decided not to risk further explorations, but to retrace his route and take his chances, he heard an enormous clamor approaching. He realized that he could either throw himself upon the mercy of his fellow men and attempt to explain his situation, or hide himself and extinguish his light. His experience with his fellow men being what it had been, he looked about for an unobtrusive niche.

And that night, the servants of Rondoval were hunted through the wrecked castle and slain. Mor, by his staff and his will, charmed the dragons and other beasts too difficult to slay and drove them into the great caverns beneath. There, he laid the sleep of ages upon everything within and caused the caverns to be sealed.

His next task, he knew, would be at least as difficult.

II
.

He walked along the shining road. Miniature lightnings played constantly across its surface but did not shock him. To his right and his left there was a steady flickering as brief glimpses of alternate realities came and went. Directly overhead was a dark stillness filled with steady stars. In his right hand he bore his staff, in the crook of his left arm he carried the baby.

Occasionally, there was a branching, a sideroad, a crossroad. He passed many of these with only a glance. Later, however, he came to a forking of the way and he set his foot upon the lefthand branch. Immediately, the flickering slowed perceptibly.

He moved with increased deliberation, now scrutinizing the images. Finally, he concentrated all of his attention on those to the right. After a time, he halted and stood facing the panorama.

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 tied and we’re late.”

He sighed, put down the pencil and switched off the terminal. “All right,” he said, rising to his feet and fumbling 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.