Changeling

by William Ritter

  “Me?” Fable’s eyes flashed to her mother. “Am I magic, Mama?”

  The queen took a deep breath.

  “Ya daft girlie.” Kull shook his head. “Didja think ya were human?”

  Fable’s eyes bored into her mother.

  The queen sighed. “Maybe you could be,” she said, “once and for all—like I never had the chance to be. Things come to an end, child.”

  “Stop it,” Annie said. Her jaw set and she drew a long, determined breath. “You’re all talking as if my son is gone, but he’s not! He’s in there! He is right in front of us!” She jabbed a finger at the bramble. “Tinn is alive in there somewhere, and he needs me, and I am not leaving this forest without him!”

  The Queen of the Deep Dark regarded her thoughtfully. “I am with you, Annie Burton. My heart is with you. The whole forest is with you. But what would you have us do?”

  “Otch. Blast it. I’m goin’ in.”

  Both women turned their eyes to Kull. He did not have Annie’s fury, but he wore his resigned determination like an itchy uniform.

  “Bramble needs a body. Iffin I can find him, it can have mine. It’ll pay a bit of my debt, at least. Clear some red ink outta my ledger after all these years. Iffin I can’t find him, well . . .” He swallowed. “It’s the same fer me in the end either way, innit?”

  “Wait,” said the queen.

  Kull looked up at her. “Dinna try an’ stop me.”

  “Of course not. You are the obvious and most expendable choice. Besides, goblin hide is tougher than human skin. You will make greater distance in less time, however, if I throw you into the center rather than let you wade in from the edge. Hold still.”

  Fifty feet away, a great commotion erupted out of the thickest part of the bramble. Fluttering shadows rose in drifts like ashes from the vines, and then a bubble of pure, smooth darkness began to coalesce. It swelled, inflating like a great ebony balloon, until it was as tall as a house. The darkness was so absolute, it was like a hole in the forest.

  “Maybe,” said Fable, “we should go check out that thing before we toss anybody into the middle of the stabby death vines?”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Tinn’s arms burned from a hundred tiny cuts as he half ran, half fell through the shrinking tunnel of thorns. Escape was his only thought. The Thing followed with deliberate slowness. It filled the thorny corridor behind him. When the corridor expanded, the Thing expanded. It was always just as close whenever Tinn dared to glance back, its body shrouded in tattered shadows, its face hidden in darkness.

  Feelings swelled in Tinn’s chest. There was fear, of course—his heart pounded with it. There was sadness—it welled up in his throat. Anger, desperation, panic—

  And cold.

  The unnatural cold washed over him and through him. His fingers were numb. His whole body ached. It was an empty ache of unfeeling, which was somehow worse than pain. Little by little, the numbness crept into his skull. Tinn tore through the vines ahead of him, no longer feeling the sting of their barbs or the pull of the cords at all. His vision blurred and his head ached. It was becoming harder to focus, harder to think. Bones crunched and crackled beneath his feet. Terrible words that had been hiding at the back of his mind grew louder and louder, until soon they were echoing in his mind like cannon fire.

  I don’t belong.

  I will never belong.

  I am alone.

  The Thing was inside his head. The thoughts were his own, Tinn knew—he had kept them buried within himself for many years—but it was the Thing that was pulling them out of him. He glanced backward. It was right behind him.

  With his lungs burning from effort and panic and the biting cold, Tinn made a final desperate leap and found himself bursting free of the nest of vines at last. The thorny brambles fell behind him, and Tinn tumbled to the open ground, panting. He was free. He was finally free.

  So why was it still so dark? Had night fallen? Tinn pushed himself up. Above him hung a dome of perfect darkness, an empty, starless void. He wasn’t looking at the sky at all, he realized with a heavy weight in his chest. He was in the center of a bubble of inky black. It didn’t matter that he had escaped the vines—he was still completely trapped.

  OF COURSE YOU ARE TRAPPED, the voice echoed in his mind. YOU HAVE BEEN TRAPPED FROM THE MOMENT YOU SET FOOT IN THIS FOREST. THIS IS HOW IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO END, CHANGELING. I AM YOUR PURPOSE. I AM YOUR ANSWER.

  Slowly, Tinn turned around.

  The Thing was there, sliding out of the bramble, unhurried.

  “Why are you doing this?” Tinn screamed. “Why let me run at all? Why are you just toying with me?”

  I WAITED FOR YOU, the creature answered, calmly. NOW I AM SAVORING YOU. HOPE IS SUCH A TANTALIZING TORMENT.

  The shadows danced and bobbed across the creature the way moonlight ripples across water. It was difficult to tell where the Thing ended and the dark dome began. There was light, light enough to see the earth at his feet and make out the edges of the creature, but where the light was coming from he could not guess. Before he could give the matter much thought, the words thundered in his skull again.

  I am alone.

  The force of the thought made Tinn’s head hurt. His legs gave out and he sank to his knees.

  I am alone. I am alone. I am alone.

  YES, said the Thing. YOU WERE ALWAYS ALONE.

  “Shut up,” Tinn said, but his voice sounded small and far away.

  THEY ARE DELICIOUS, THESE FEELINGS, said the creature. AND SUCH POWER BEHIND THEM. The Thing breathed in deeply. I MISS THE MAGIC.

  “Maybe there would still be magic around if you didn’t go eating everybody!” Tinn managed.

  IT IS TRUE. THE FOREST IS DYING. I PLAYED MY PART IN THIS. The Thing’s voice was dry and emotionless. THE MAGIC OF THIS PLACE WILL END, AND I WILL END WITH IT. BUT SO BE IT. I WILL SAVOR EVERY MOMENT OF ITS PASSING.

  The air felt thin as Tinn tried to catch his breath.

  YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE. NOR ANYWHERE. YOU HAVE NEVER HAD A PLACE IN THIS WORLD—NOT WITH THE GOBLINS WHO ABANDONED YOU.

  The Thing moved closer. Tinn’s legs felt weak.

  NOT WITH THE HUMANS WHO DESPISE YOU.

  It was circling him, but Tinn could not find the energy to follow the creature any longer. He let his head sag and let the Thing’s voice wash against him like waves against a ship.

  The creature sighed. In a twisted way, its sigh reminded Tinn of the way his mother sighed when she took fresh bread out of the oven and breathed in the sweet, warm smell of it—a contented sigh, a hungry sigh—and that happy memory stung his heart even more.

  AH, YES, breathed the creature. FAMILY. PRECIOUS FAMILY. YOU HAVE ONLY EVER BROUGHT SUFFERING TO THE PEOPLE YOU CALL FAMILY, AND THEY WERE NEVER REALLY YOURS, WERE THEY? YOU HAVE NEVER HAD A HOME. YOU HAVE NEVER HAD A REAL MOTHER.

  Tinn’s lungs were slowly turning to ice.

  YOU HAVE NEVER HAD A REAL BROTHER.

  The world was tipping. Tinn felt sick. He couldn’t tell if he was falling or floating or not moving at all. He shut his eyes tight.

  SHE HAS ALREADY FOUND HIM, YOU KNOW, the creature taunted. Tinn could feel the wet breath of the Thing on his neck. THEY WILL LEAVE THIS FOREST TOGETHER AND LEAVE YOU BEHIND. YOU ARE ALONE, CHANGELING.

  “She found him?” Tinn said. Inexplicably, the spinning world ground to a stop. Tinn opened his eyes.

  The creature was inches away from his face now, but Tinn did not flinch. He took slow, deep breaths as he surveyed the Thing. Up close, the shadows that made up its cloak looked more like smoke than solid fabric.

  “My mother found Cole?” Tinn asked again. His voice didn’t sound quite so far away anymore. “They’re together? They’re safe?”

  The creature hesitated. SHE DOES NOT WANT YOU. HE DOES NOT NEED YOU.

  Tinn took a slow, deep breath. Had the creature backed away a few paces?

  YOU ARE LOST, it said, angrily. YOU ARE ALONE!

  “Yeah,” said Tinn.
“I suppose I am.” And in spite of himself, in spite of everything, Tinn smiled. “But it’s nice to know that my mom and Cole are not.”

  Above them, the creature’s shell of living shadows cracked.

  Tinn squinted as white light poured through the fractures in the Thing’s dark dome. He smelled pine needles and wet earth, and for just a moment he heard birdsong and felt a warm summer breeze on his face.

  Behind Tinn, the Thing made a strangled, angry noise. The shadows that formed the obsidian dome slid and scrambled over themselves to seal the gap and keep out the blinding light, but it was too late. Tinn’s eyes had already begun to adjust, and just beyond the bubble he had seen them. The queen was there in her furry cloak. On one side of her stood Fable and on the other a small man with floppy, pointed ears. And there, not twenty feet away from Tinn, were Cole and his mother, hand in hand. Tinn’s heart pounded against his ribs.

  The light dimmed and the image vanished as the shadows flung themselves desperately over the gaps. They were thin, wispy things, and light still crept through them. The sunbeams grew dim and choked, but they were unyielding. From within, the globe no longer looked pure, inky black. It was gray, etched with myriad splintery cracks, like glistening spiderwebs.

  THEY CANNOT REACH YOU HERE, the Thing intoned, but its voice had lost its cold confidence. The cracks in the bubble were widening, and the shadows holding it together along the seams were stretched nearly transparent in their effort to keep the dome intact. YOU ARE ALONE.

  Tinn turned back to the Thing. Was it smaller? He watched with fascination as shadows peeled off the Thing’s cloak to feed the faltering dome. For just an instant, as the inky layers shifted, he saw something deep inside the cloak of shadows shudder.

  “Of course I’m not alone,” said Tinn.

  YOU ARE LIKE ME. YOU DO NOT BELONG. YOU ARE ALONE. YOU ARE ALONE. YOU ARE ALONE.

  “Like you?” Tinn said. “Wait. Are you lonely?”

  Tinn’s fear began to slip away.

  At that moment the Thing—tired and hungry and, yes, profoundly lonely—decided to just eat the brat quickly and get the whole thing over with.

  Tinn’s vision went black.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Annie held tight to Cole’s hand as they all approached the enormous orb together. Kull reached out a finger and touched it. “Otch! Hard as iron, that is, an’ cold as ice.”

  “It is a complete dome,” the queen announced, walking the perimeter. “No holes or windows, except perhaps where it overlaps the vines.”

  Fable had already become a cub and was burrowing at the base of the dome where it touched down on the forest floor.

  “Fable, be careful,” her mother chided. “Don’t get so close.”

  “Goes way down,” Fable announced when she was a girl again. “I couldn’t feel a bottom. It’s really cold. I don’t like it.”

  “Do you hear that?” said Cole. “Everybody stop talking! Listen!”

  The group fell silent. For several seconds the only sounds in the forest were distant birdcalls and the steady shuffle of the wind blowing through branches. Annie squeezed Cole’s hand. And then the dome before them shuddered, the cracks sealing themselves as quickly as they had appeared.

  “He’s there!” Annie shouted. “He’s inside!”

  “You’re sure?” The queen had seen something within the globe. It might have been a boy, but it had been as shadowy as the dome itself.

  Annie threw herself at the dome, pounding and scratching, but she might as well have been attacking a glacier. Her hands tingled from the impact of each blow and the icy cold of the obsidian wall. In another moment, the great grizzly was beside her. She felt heat radiating off the queen’s flank as the bear reared up and raked the dome with her massive paws. Not a mark remained.

  “Argh! It’s no good,” Annie cried. “It won’t budge.” She kicked the wall, and the impact only sent a shudder of pain up her leg.

  “No, look!” called Cole. “Something’s happening! You’re doing it!”

  Annie took a step back. “I don’t think we did that.” Above them, the inky surface was swirling and rippling angrily. “Back away, kids.”

  Before any of them could move, the entire dome burst like an enormous bubble. Shreds of shadow fell to earth like freshly shed snakeskins. Where the ghostly coils touched the ground, the grass turned to ash. Within the perimeter of dead earth stood two figures, each covered in a matching fabric of darkness.

  “Tinn!” Annie cried.

  Tinn did not turn toward the sound of his mother’s voice. The shadows that had hung above his head were now dangling off him, clinging like a tattered, wet sheet. The Thing had traded Tinn’s high-domed prison for a suffocating funeral shroud. Tinn struggled, his hands reaching and grasping blindly, but the blanket of blackness completely enclosed him.

  “Let him go!” Annie shouted.

  IT IS TOO LATE.

  “Like heck it is!” Fable launched herself forward.

  The Thing made the faintest motion with one hand and the fallen strips of shadow littering the earth took on a new life, swelling and coiling as they became living vines once more. The nearest cord snatched Fable off the ground midstep and hung her, kicking and struggling, in the chilly air.

  The bear-queen was at her daughter’s side in an instant, snarling as her talons tore at the reborn briars.

  THE GIRL WILL BE THE NEXT TO DIE, a voice echoed across the forest.

  The bear bellowed with rage.

  Annie had already jumped into the mess, ducking and dodging the slithering vines as she tried to make her way closer to Tinn.

  Cole pulled the penknife from his pocket and darted after her, but the thorns caught him by the feet and pitched him forward onto his hands and knees. The knife bounced away across the charred earth. “Mom!”

  Annie froze, turning back to Cole. In her moment of distraction, the vines caught her around her waist, pinning her halfway between her sons.

  The voice laughed darkly. YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST.

  Kull bit his lip, shifting from one foot to the other at the edge of the circle. The children were all caught. The woman had buried herself in the nest of thorns, and even the bear, for all its terrible strength, was scarcely able to keep itself free of the vines, let alone rescue anyone. What good could Kull possibly do?

  In the corner of his vision, a tiny, flickering light appeared. He paid it no attention until it was joined by another, and another. Finally, Kull tore his eyes from the vines and looked up. Emerging from the trees came one bald head and then a second, two bushy beards, and a third. A dozen glowing candles. Twenty. Fifty.

  “The hinkypunks,” gasped Cole, as they began swarming through the trees to surround the circle of dead earth and slithering shadows. Where their candlelight touched the darkness, the vines shrank back.

  Dangling sideways from the vines, Fable shook the hair out of her eyes. “Hey! The hinkypunks came back!”

  Cole stood up. For just a moment, he ceased kicking at the cords around his ankles and watched the figures filing in.

  “Na just the hinkies,” Kull whispered.

  Behind the crowd of hinkypunks came flittering wings and the sound of heavy footsteps that shook the earth.

  A familiar face emerged from the throng. Candlebeard nodded solemnly as he stepped up to Cole. Silently, the hinkypunk plucked the candle from his chest and held its flame to the dark vines at the boy’s feet. The cords shuddered at the sudden heat, and the moment they slackened, Cole jumped free from their grip.

  “No more,” Candlebeard said. “I let it take so many of them. I will not let it take another. Not one more hinkypunk, nor human, nor goblin, nor bird, nor beast. No more.”

  On every side, the forest was abuzz with sound. Cole could see creatures of all shapes and sizes emerging from the shadows: feathers and fur, horns and halos. He blinked up at a tremendous eagle, a snow-white stag so pure it seemed to glow, and a muscular man with the lower body of a stallion. They h
ad all come back to reclaim the Wild Wood. The forest itself seemed to shiver at their return.

  Kull watched with a lump in his throat as one last faction crested the ridge. Chief Nudd and the rest of the goblin horde clambered over the rise like a tidal wave, every one of them dressed for war. He could see his kinfolk, Brynn and Gubb, swinging the dwarven axes he had traded them in exchange for rare scrolls. Runty little Pall was wearing her prized boar-skull helmet. Kull smiled. He had helped Pall fell that pig decades ago. That was when she had still been speaking to Kull, long before he had doomed them all with his stupid mistake. Chief Nudd pushed through the crowd, and for a tense moment Kull braced himself for the usual crippling reprimand.

  Nudd put a hand on Kull’s shoulder. He spoke only four words: “We’re with ya, idjit.”

  The knot in Kull’s throat tightened, and bubbling up in his chest he felt a warmth he had almost forgotten he could feel. He nodded, his eyes watering. We. It had been a long time since Kull had been part of a we. Without speaking, he turned toward the thorny chaos ahead of him. At the center of it all, his changeling needed him.

  Annie pulled in vain against the vines. Cole was free. That strange bearded man had released him. For the moment, her only concern became reaching Tinn. Making sense of a world in which the myriad figures emerging from the trees were real would have to wait until after her son was safe.

  Tinn was still there in the center of the circle, still struggling against the shroud of darkness, but his movements had become slow and weak. Over his shoulder stood a horrible, hooded figure. Its cloak melted into the vines stretching out all around them and into the shadows that were choking her son. Annie shivered.

  Vines as tough as iron chains had wrapped themselves around her wrists, her waist, her legs, and the harder she tugged, the tighter they clung.

  To Annie’s left, a half dozen little men with big bushy beards were busy with Fable’s rescue. The great bear was beneath the girl when the vines gave way under the heat of the candle flames, so that Fable landed safely on her mother’s back when she fell. To Annie’s right, a flurry of motion erupted as Kull and a dozen goblins came bursting through the briars.