Changeling (Illustrated) (26 page)

 . . . He turned to look again, having drawn back slightly from the aura of power which surrounded the larger man. Something at the left side of his face clicked against the window’s frame. Raising his hand to explore, he discovered a huge protruberance above his left eye. Immediately, he remembered that it had been there all along. Turning farther, with something like shame, he reached up and touched it again . . . 

 . . . His vision doubled. Beyond the window now, he saw two discrete scenes. Half of the city before him was still bright and beckoning. The other half was gray, drab, the air filled with ashes and yellowish fog-like tentacles. Raucous noises, as of the rattling of heavy machinery rose up on that side of the split scene, accompanied by a wave of acrid odors. Moist, sickly patches of color clung to the buildings. The river was muddy. The ships’ smokestacks poured filth into the air . . . 

 . . . He drew back, turning again toward the big man, to discover that he, also, had doubled. The man to the right stood unchanged; the one on the left was even redder, his face partly shadowed, eyes flashing baleful lights . . . 

“ . . . What is the matter, my son?” he was asking . . . Mark could not speak. He gestured toward the window, turning slightly in that direction, to discover that the scene was no longer split. The left side had superimposed itself upon his entire field of vision. His father merged also at that moment, and only the darker version remained . . . 

 . . . Gesturing frantically, Mark tried to inform him as to what had occurred. Suddenly, a dragon appeared above the skyline, Pol mounted upon its back, headed in their direction . . . 

“ . . . Oh, him,” the shadowy figure at his side was saying. “He is a troublemaker. I cast him out long ago. He comes seeking to destroy you. Be strong . . . ”

 . . . Mark stared as the figure grew larger and larger, until finally it was crashing soundlessly, through the wall, reaching for him. Then there came a knocking sound, growing louder as it was repeated. Everything began to come apart about him, and he was falling . . . 

He sat up in his bed, drenched with perspiration. The knocking continued. He rose and turned on the light, despite the fact that his left eye saw clearly. Throwing his robe about his shoulders, he moved to the door and opened it. The small man drew back, extending a piece of paper. “You asked to see this as soon as it came in, sir.” He glanced at it and lowered it.

“We have Nora, and Pol got away with the magical device,” he stated.

“Yes, sir. They’re already in the air, bringing her here.”

“Good. Notify the force at Rondoval that he may be on his way back there.” He looked out, past his new flier, into the night. “I’d better check on the status of our mobilization. Return to duty.”

“Yes, sir.”

When he had finished dressing, he withdrew the photograph from his night table and stared at it for a time.

“We’ll see,” he said, “who falls.”

*  *  *

Mouseglove was at the controls as they neared Rondoval.

“I don’t see how you can seem so rested,” he remarked, “after such a short nap. Mine didn’t do me that much good—not after that damned shortcut of yours.”

He looked about the messy cabin and wrinkled his nose.

“I seem to be drawing some sort of energy from the scepter,” Pol answered. “It feels as though I have an extra heart or lung or both. That—”

A puff of smoke appeared above the battlements.

“What was that?” Mouseglove asked, as two more appeared.

“It almost seems as if it could be gunfire. Veer off. I don’t want to take—” The ship shuddered, as if from a heavy blow, “—any chances,” Pol finished, bracing himself and seizing the rod with his right hand.

A moment later they were falling, smoke coming into the cabin.

“Is it out of control?” Pol shouted.

“Not completely,” Mouseglove replied, “but I can’t pull it up. I’m trying to miss the rocks, at least. Maybe those trees over there . . . Can you do anything?”

“I don’t know.”

Pol raised the scepter and strands were drawn to it through all the walls. To his eyes, it seemed again as if he sat at the center of an enormous, three-dimensional spiderweb. All of the strands began pulsing in time with the throbbing that rose in his wrist. The ship seemed to slow.

“We’re going to miss the rocks!” Mouseglove shouted.

Perspiration sprang forth on Pol’s brow. The lines between his eyes deepened.

“We’re going to crash!”

A final burst of power fled from the scepter along the strands. Then there were treetops before them, upthrust branches reaching, then breaking. Abruptly, they came up against one which did not yield and they were pitched forward at the impact. The ship was torn open about them, but they were not aware of it. 

Pol came awake with his hands tied behind him and did not open his eyes, as all his recent memories were immediately present within his throbbing head. He heard voices and smelled horses. There followed a sound of retreating hoofbeats. If whoever had shot at them had ridden down from the castle, the fact that they had not killed him immediately seemed to offer some sort of chance. He tested his bonds and found them very secure. He wondered how long he had been unconscious, and he wondered whether Mouseglove had survived the crash. And the scepter . . . Where was it?

He opened his eyes to the barest of slits and began turning his head, slowly.

He flinched, just slightly. But that was sufficient. He had not expected to see a centaur.

“Aha! You are awake!” cried the horse-man, who had apparently been scrutinizing him.

The well-muscled human torso towered above the sorrel horse-body, long, black hair pulled back from the dark-eyed, heavy-featured, masculine face and tied behind the head in something, Pol almost giggled, that he had once known as a pony tail.

“I am awake,” he acknowledged, heaving himself toward a sitting position.

He succeeded on the second try. He saw Mouseglove lying on his side, hands similarly bound, still apparently unconscious, perhaps four meters away, beneath a large tree. The guitar case, apparently unscathed, rested against the tree’s trunk. Pieces of wreckage lay between them, and when he looked upward, he saw the balance of the flier hanging like a giant, squashed fruit among the branches.

“Why have you tied us up?” he asked. “We’ve done nothing to you.”

“Ha!” snorted his captor, executing a small prancing maneuver. “You call murder nothing?”

“In this case, yes,” Pol replied, “since I’ve no idea what you are talking about.”

The centaur stepped nearer, as if considering abusing him. Behind him, Pol saw Mouseglove stir. There seemed to be no other centaurs about, though the ground bore a great number of hoofmarks.

“Is it not possible that you could be mistaken?” Pol continued. “I know of no deaths hereabout—unless a piece of our ship fell on someone—”

“Liar,” said the centaur, leaning forward and glaring directly into his eyes. “You came in your ships and slaughtered my people.” He gestured toward the wreckage in the treetop. “You even kidnapped one of them. You deny this?”

The hoofs were darting and dancing uncomfortably near him as Pol shook his head.

“I do,” he said, staring back, “but I would like to know more about what happened, if I’m to be blamed for it.”

The centaur wheeled and paced away from him, kicking dust into his face. Pol shook his head, which had begun aching more severely, and he automatically called for healing strands to wrap it, as he had for his neck wound. They came and attached themselves to his brow, draining away some of the pain. He thought of his wrist then, but it was partly numbed by the pressure of the cord. He wondered whether he could manipulate strands in more complicated patterns without seeing what he was about, or whether there might be some other way to gain control over his captor.

“The others have gone to fetch a warrior to decide what to do with you,” the centaur stated. “She may wish to talk about these things. I don’t. It should not be long though. I believe that I hear them approaching now.”

Pol listened but heard nothing. A purple strand settled near him, its farther end passing across the centaur’s shoulder. He willed that it come into contact with his fingertips. It passed behind him, and shortly he felt a tingling in his left hand. His fingers twisted. There came a familiar sensation of power.

“Look at me,” he said.

The centaur turned.

“What do you want?”

Pol caught his gaze with his own. From his left hand, he felt the power move.

“You are so tired that you are almost asleep on your feet,” he said. “Now you are, but don’t bother closing your eyes. You can hear only my voice.”

The centaur’s gaze grew distant. His breathing slowed. He began to sway.

“ . . . But you can move about just as if you were awake, when I tell you to. My hands have been tied by mistake. Come over here and free them.”

He rose to his feet and turned. The centaur came up behind him and began fumbling at the knots. Pol recalled seeing a knife at the creature’s side.

“Cut the bonds,” he ordered. “Quickly!”

A moment later, he was rubbing his wrists.

“Give me the knife.”

He accepted the blade, crossed to where Mouseglove lay beneath the tree, watching him.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, as he faced the smaller man.

“I ache all over. But then, I felt that way before the crash, too. I don’t believe anything is broken.”

Mouseglove stood and turned about, raising his hands. As Pol slit the cord, he said, “Must be Mark’s people in your castle. No one else has weapons like that—Uh-oh.”

The sound of hoofbeats now came to their ears.

“Shall we run for it?” Mouseglove asked.

“No. Too late. They’d catch us. We’ll wait and have this out here.”

Pol slipped the knife behind his belt and turned to face the wood. A mental order to the centaur he now controlled moved him off to the right.

Shortly, the figures came into sight—four male centaurs led by an older female. She halted, about ten meters from where he stood, and regarded Pol.

“I was told you were bound,” she stated.

“I was.”

She stepped forward, and Pol started as he saw that she held the scepter in the hand which had been out of sight at her side. She raised it and pointed it at him. He saw a cluster of strands rush toward it. He issued a mental command and the centaur under his spell stepped between them. New spells suggested themselves to him and he summoned strands of his own.

The female centaur’s eyes widened.

“What have you done to him?” she asked.

“Return my rod and we’ll talk about it.”

From the corner of his eye, Pol saw that Mouseglove was edging away.

“Where did you get it?” she asked.

“I recovered it, piece by piece, from the points of the Triangle of Int.”

“Only a sorcerer could do that.”

“You noticed.”

“I, too, have some familiarity with the Art, though only the middle part of this rod will respond to me. Mine is an Earth magic.” She gestured upward. “Why then were you riding in that thing?”

“My dragon was occupied. That vessel was stolen from my enemy, Mark Marakson, who has many such, atop Anvil Mountain. Perhaps you have seen his dark birds, who are not of flesh, in the skies.”

“I know who he is and I have seen such birds. Some of my people were killed and some injured by men who came in larger vessels such as the one you rode.”

The strands came into his hands and Pol felt the power throb in his wrist. Still, he had no wish to face a person who could use even the middle section of the rod.

“Small men, I daresay,” he answered, “for such is the stature of the race which serves him. I have never harmed a centaur and I’ve no desire to. This will be the first time, if you force me to fight here.”

“Sunfa, come forward,” she said, and a smaller male moved from among those to the rear of the group to a position beside her. There was a long gash upon his left shoulder, and he was missing several teeth. “Were either of these men of the party which attacked you that day?”

He shook his head.

“No, Stel. Neither of them.”