Changelings at Odds Read online

  “Then perhaps you should try it,” returned Merrywhistle. “How else can you be sure you wouldn’t like it?”

  “No thanks. I already know.”

  “In any case, you are not hunter this night but hunted. You’ve got to move. I’m trying to warn you!”

  “But Merrywhistle! How did you get here?”

  “There’s no lock on the door,” replied the faun, now pacing frantically back and forth, “and that’s chiefly the problem.”

  “No. Not that. How did you get here from Avalon?”

  “Never mind that. Mind this: you are in terrible danger. Get up! Throw on your cloak. We’ve got to go!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Indeed, I left you last in that same condition. I see you haven’t changed a bit. Never will, I suppose. Danger! D-A-N-G-E-R! People are going to try and kill you! You aren’t safe here.”

  Merrywhistle tossed James’ cloak at him, but James reached for his jacket first.

  “Hurry up!” shrieked the faun, cocking his head to listen. “They’re already at the foot of the stairs!”

  James didn’t know what to do. The little room had only one door and it let out onto the top of the staircase.

  “You’ll never get past them like this,” Merrywhistle said, indicating the antlers. “Now would be a good time to put on some kind of a, you know, a glamour…”

  “I can’t do that,” James said. “I don’t know how.”

  “Why does this not surprise me?” The little man rushed toward the window and threw up the sash. He looked down. He turned back to James. “Can you levitate down?”

  James did not answer.

  “Of course not.” Merrywhistle leaned further outside the window. “I think you can make it anyways. Just hang down by your arms and drop the rest. It’s only a few feet. You’ll be fine.”

  James didn’t see any other alternative. He scrambled out onto the ledge and took the plunge. The ground was soft and a bit muddy down below the window and he managed to avoid turning an ankle. For the moment he was snug in a little alley between the inn and one of the factories, but he did not think it wise to remain. His pursuers would probably find him quickly enough. He tarried a moment to see if the faun would follow him down but found himself apparently on his own. He crept toward the mouth of the alley. At this late hour all was quiet on the street, the central square deserted.

  “There he is!”

  “Filthy blight! Nixie!”

  The confines of the narrow alley no longer seemed at all comforting. James had no choice but to step out onto the curb. Four angry men confronted him.

  “My name is James Grayson,” he said. “I am no danger to you.”

  “Filth!”

  “I am not even a faery, sir.”

  He held his hands out, demonstrating that they were indeed empty.

  A small stone struck him a glancing blow on the temple.

  “Owww! Please listen to reason.”

  The four men closed in. One man, brandishing a pitchfork, lunged at his belly. James realized the time for reason had passed. He made a break for the square. Another stone, this one more sizable than the last, thudded painfully between his shoulder blades. At which point, someone threw a rope at him. The loop caught in his antler and yanked James backward, bringing him down like a buck in the woods. He hit the cobblestone street hard, twisting at the last to avoid striking the back of his head. The fall forced the breath from his lungs.

  He turned over slowly, getting ready to make another run for it. As he turned, he saw something that chilled him to the bone.

  Hanging from a makeshift gallows in the town square was a tall, thin figure. Even in the dim moonlight the identity of the corpse was unmistakable. Edwin Theobard.

  “Oh, no,” said James mournfully. Any remaining struggle ran out of him like water through a sieve. “Oh, why?”

  As answer to his question he received a boot in the face. After that he could offer little resistance as the men kicked and beat him. His wrists were bound together and, from a rope slung over the gallows, he was hoisted up alongside Edwin Theobard.

  His wits slowly returned. He ached from a dozen bruises and his shoulders felt as if they were being torn apart. At least he’d been suspended by his wrists, not a noose around the neck like Theobard. They hadn’t killed him, at least not yet. But what were they planning to do to him?

  A few more people joined the throng of jeering onlookers, but no one seemed to be in charge. A brazier had been set up close by the gallows, the handles of a few iron pokers sticking ominously up from the glowing coals.

  There was nothing for him to do but dangle and wait, and brace himself for the worst.

  Chapter 5

  “So, you didn’t kill him?” sneered Rainbird.

  Pox didn’t like the look of insubordination in her eyes, nor the challenge inherent in her tone. He dare not show weakness in front of the others but, looking back at the incident with Meadowlark, he was sort of confused about what exactly had happened. “He talked me out of it.”

  Bluebell slammed her hand on the table. “I’ll go and kill him myself.”

  “You will not!” raged Pox. He needed to make clear to each of them just exactly who was in charge here.

  He scanned their faces. Ragwort hadn’t yet said anything rebellious and stood firmly behind Pox as usual. Rainbird, a pre-eminent member of the Hunt, was the most disrespectful. She was a dangerous fighter—compact, agile and vicious. But Pox had no fear that she would ever challenge him directly; she could never best him in combat. Bluebell was the most dangerous of all. With a deadly poison kiss, she made the perfect assassin. All his fighting prowess was useless against her. And she clearly had designs to be the next Dark Queen. She looked the part already—dark indigo hair cropped short, pale skin and poisonous blue lips. He should kill her. But she was a useful tool. Slap the table, will she? He growled ferociously, throwing the entire table over. There! How about that?

  “We can’t just kill ‘King’ Meadowlark,” he said. “We need him.”

  “He’s a fool!” spat Ragwort.

  “An imbecile,” said Rainbird.

  “He’s an idiot!” said Bluebell.

  “Agreed,” said Pox. “But the idiot happens to be right. If we eliminate Meadowlark too soon we’d be left having to deal with an empowered Theodora, and she’d be ten times as dangerous as he is.”

  “Dangerous,” muttered Rainbird. “None of them are dangerous. They aren’t warriors. They aren’t fighters.”

  “The Summer Court outnumber us five to one,” said Ragwort.

  Rainbird’s eyes burned like hot coals to match her fiery red hair. Her face flushed; she was seething. “Doesn’t matter. They are all weak.”

  “A military coup is not the way,” Pox announced. “Not yet.” He suddenly felt foolish, the four of them in his apartment sitting around a nonexistent table. He poked Ragwort on the arm. “Pick up the table!”

  Ragwort did as he was ordered.

  “Listen to me,” Pox said. “The Winter Court will take control of Everbright. And I will rule.” He gave Bluebell a sharp look. “You all know I am the one. Herne wills it! This is what he wants. Don’t ever doubt it. But Mother Moon runs through Everbright’s veins. Love and acceptance, and all that rot. In order for us to win—you all know the answer—it’s quite obvious.”

  Ragwort sputtered dumbly. He was an ugly brute. A pair of yellowed tusks protruding from his lower jaw left his mouth perpetually open in a dumb expression. “I don’t… really…”

  Pox glowered back at him. “We don’t kill them. We change them.”

  Bluebell and Rainbird reluctantly nodded their heads.

  Pox took a deep breath. “Trust in me. I was meant for this.”

  “Agreed,” said Bluebell, grudgingly, “But they have the sword.”

  “Meadowlark doesn’t know where it is,” Pox said. “If he did, he’d be prancing around with the damned thing on his damned hip.”

>   “He’s a fool,” spat Ragwort.

  “An idiot,” said Bluebell.

  “Theodora must have it,” Pox concluded.

  “We always come back to Theodora,” grumbled Bluebell. “I’ll kill her.”

  “You tried that once, and failed,” Pox reminded her.

  “She doesn’t know it was me.”

  “Doesn’t she? Bluebell poisoning? Really?”

  “I won’t fail the second time.”

  “You won’t do anything!” snapped Pox. “Not until we find out where she’s got that damned sword hidden. Keep on her. She’ll lead us to it. Until then, we keep to the plan.”

  Mutterings of mutual agreement filled the room.

  “Now get out,” said Pox. “Leave me alone. All of you.”

  ***

  After they had gone, Pox lingered at the table for several minutes. The craving was strong, but he held out. He struggled against it, shoving it down deep inside. Yes, eventually he would go and feed the beast, but not until he proved himself its master.

  He spun round slowly, bringing his gaze full circle around the empty apartment. Shabby little apartment. Shabby, empty little apartment on Snowdrop Street in Everbright’s Southern quarter. A solitary stew-pot hung over a tiny hearth set into the wall, whose grate had belched ash and coal-dust out onto the floor. A linen cot stuffed with old straw. The walls were bare, soot-stained plaster except for a wooden plaque Pox had carved himself, featuring a crude depiction of Herne, the Horned God, Lord of the Hunt. The figure was rendered in rough strokes, half lost in shadow. One horn rose noticeably higher than the other, making the bull-like face decidedly lopsided. What did it matter? He was no artisan; he was a warrior.

  A sad little hovel! This was his place in Everbright. All while Theodora and Meadowlark lived high in luxury in the West Tower. The ‘Royal Couple’ had taken Dresdemona’s quarters, with its gilded doorframes, artisanal woodwork, giant poster bed with silk linens and feather pillows. Hah! He didn’t want any of that anyway. Feather pillows! Soft things for soft people. He only wanted one thing. Blood.

  Actually, he wanted something else as well, the empty, scrabbling hand in his gut reminded him. He put it off for another minute more.

  He wanted it, but he could wait. Hold. Steady. Breathe in and out. Steady. Count out the seconds. Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. And now, it was time.

  He rose from his chair and stomped across the little room, opening the bottom drawer of a weather-beaten writing desk. He nearly yanked it out of the socket. Too eager. Too eager. He forced himself to wait another two minutes, standing stock still before the desk. He willed himself not to reach toward the little drawer. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face.

  Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. Long enough. No more games.

  Pox probed the empty space beneath the drawer, running his fingers frantically around for a moment when he couldn’t immediately find what he sought. At last he withdrew a small packet wrapped in an oiled olive leaf pouch. So small. He hadn’t remembered…

  He placed the packet on the table and unwrapped it very carefully. Very little of the dull gray mushroom remained. He hadn’t remembered running so low. He would have to make a trip to Deepgrave to get more, and soon.

  Three little pieces left. Only three. He put them all in his mouth. No use taking less than he needed—less than he wanted, he corrected himself. He chewed the mushroom fragments rapidly and expertly, squeezing every drop of bitter juice from the husks. Then he swallowed the pulp in one gulp, and leaned back in his chair.

  The drug hit him fast. His heart beat hard in his chest, getting louder and louder in his ears by the second. It felt as if someone was punching him in the chest. He wanted it to stop.

  His head spun dizzily. His hip hit the floor. He’d tumbled out of the chair.

  But the floor wasn’t hard, it was soft and rubbery and warm.

  He strained to see his surroundings but a gauzy haze obscured his vision and there were only weird flashes of light—sky blue, dark blue, yellow, dark blue, emerald green. He drew in a sharp breath but found no air, only an oily fluid sucked into his lungs. But he did not sputter or cough. The fluid soothed him, warmed the inside of his chest. The panic died down, withered, faded away. Instead he felt an extreme chest-bursting joy. He knew where he was.

  He was an infant again, safe within the confines of Mu’urcala, his caretaker mushroom. His guardian, his guide, his lover. He heard Mu’urcala’s hideous voice inside his head. Mu’urcala sang him a mushroom song, a low moan that stretched and strained, somehow carrying him through past and present. “Be happy, silent, still. Sweet sleep softly drowns, down, drown in the dark.”

  And in just that way, Mu’urcala took away all of his cares and worries.

  Faery children did not know their parents. They were conceived in the silvery waters of the Moon Pool and transferred to the caretaker mushrooms immediately after they were found, swimming like little tadpoles in the crystal waters.

  For the first eight years of his life he had slept and dreamed, cradled in the protective flesh of Mu’urcala, as the caretaker nurtured and sustained him. Its psychedelic secretions expanded his consciousness, opening Pox’s mind to the world around him. But Deepgrave mushrooms fed only on the dead soil beneath the cemetery. And his guardian’s thoughts turned often to death and destruction. Despite the superficial bliss the mushroom brought him, Pox had always been aware the Winter Court faeries were hiding from the human Purge, secreted away beneath the crypts and headstones. Even as a child he could not escape the sense of fear and dread that surrounded Mu’urcala on every side. She could have protected him from these harsh truths—she should have. But Mu’urcala reveled in them. Hiding. Danger. Blood. Death.

  Other faeries spoke glowingly of their early years, describing their incubation as pleasant and full of joy as they communed with their caretakers. Pox did not remember it that way.

  His childhood nights had been filled with dreams of war and killing, and his days always haunted by an undercurrent of uneasiness, not the blissful communion those others had experienced. As they matured and grew, the incubating children sometimes picked up stray thoughts from others nearby. The child-Pox had taken advantage of the situation, silently taking the measure of the others. He noted their every weakness, their fears, their un-named horrors. Mu’urcala directed him not to interact with them directly. He could use this information later, she said, to his great advantage.

  But he was no child now. He did not want to be a child ever again. For now, he had one simple demand. “Give me what I want.”

  “Sweet happy sleep, while thy people moan and weep. Death waits for thee, for me, and all.”

  “No,” said Pox. “Not that!”

  He looked down and found his body shrunken to the proportions of a child again. A mass of glowworms slithered in the hazy ooze surrounding him, caressing his skin as they crawled along his arms and chest, searching about, raising their heads occasionally to look him in the eyes. “The garden is filled with graves,” said Mu’urcala’s thick, grainy voice in his head and Pox noticed the worms had become agitated, as if sensing the presence of predators in their midst. Something was always waiting in the wings, ready to pounce. A handful of shiny black beetles emerged from the folds of his skin and began eating the worms, their tiny pincers nicking Pox’s flesh as the bright neon juices ran from the worms. Pox swept the beetles away. He crushed them in his little hands.

  “Give me what I want!”

  The mushroom’s mad laugh was a wet, slimy gurgle. “Our souls shall be seen, echoing across the green, our sorrows all felt, before snow’s melt. Thy Maker weeps for thee, sweet child.”

  “You’re not my maker!” roared Pox. Why didn’t she just give him what he wanted?

  The lights went out. Pox was left alone in the dark, sealed within the mushroom in his mind. No way out. No! No, not this! Panic welled up. He had to get out! But there were no walls to pound against, only soft yielding fles
h. “You vicious old bitch!”

  Mu’urcala did not answer.

  Pox panted furiously, drawing the warm fluid in and out in a huff, his heart pounding in his chest. But there was only darkness. “I’ll kill you, you fuck!”

  Mu’urcala did not answer.

  She wasn’t going to answer. The silence grew maddening, the darkness impenetrable. The moment stretched, threatening an eternity of emptiness. She could keep him here, in the dark, forever, if she wanted. Time had no meaning inside the mushroom. It was a matter of perception only, Mu’urcala’s to distort and control. She had left him like this—alone inside the Dark Room—she had punished him like this so many times.

  He was helpless. And alone. No use in railing against the caretaker. He knew what he had to do.

  “Give me what I… need!” he sobbed. “Please, Mother. I need… I need you.”

  The change was so abrupt Pox nearly screamed. At last the mushroom provided what he so craved, a little touch of that sweet psychedelic juice that opened his mind to the wider world. Pox’s consciousness blew apart into a million fragments, each aware and alive, scattered across all of existence, each piece perceiving a kernel of ultimate truth, arranging and rearranging, adding and building to a blissful, blinding whole. He was swimming in joy. It was heavenly ecstasy. It burned like fire.

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  Chapter 6

  Theodora stepped into the lift cage of the West Tower, the Scrying Pool still on her mind. When Moonshadow had used the pool to contact the Effranil, the fabled faeries of Avalon, they had taught her a method of ‘walking between the timedrops’ in hopes of helping her to defeat Dresdemona. The plan had failed, but only because of Moonshadow’s gentle nature—she had hesitated to kill her enemy, offering instead a second chance. Dresdemona had not been so generous.