Changelings at Court

by Ken Altabef

  Then, since he thought it a very merry jape indeed, he pulled the King’s trousers down around his ankles and carried him into his private water closet. He flipped open the cover of the royal privy-stool and sat the King upon his final throne. George slumped forward, his head hitting the tiled floor.

  Meadowlark had just enough strength for one more illusion. He put on the appearance of Jacob Schroeder one final time, straightened his imaginary suit of rough black linen, and charged from the room.

  “Help! Help! I beg anyone who can hear. I fear the King is dead!”

  Chapter 25

  Eric hurried down Pall Mall, pushing through the crowd that clogged the street. The uproar was intense. The excited chatter of so many people swelled into a lion’s roar; the bells at St. James’s, pealing madly, could not tame the beast.

  The constabulary struggled to hold the riot back from Kensington Palace lest the mad crush topple the place, but Eric cut across Cleveland Street and round the back of the carriage house. He crossed the courtyard. Beneath the watchful eye of the huge equestrian statue of King George I, resplendent atop his marble pedestal, a line of carriages stood waiting at the east gate.

  “Mister Pitt!” Eric cried. “Mister Pitt! A moment, sir.”

  He caught the first minister ascending the step of his carriage of state. Pitt waved him away, “Not now, Grayson.”

  One of the Horse Guards moved to intercept him but Eric would not be brushed aside. “What did he say to you? Last night? What did he say?”

  “I’ve no time to talk. Our new majesty arrives this afternoon. Get away.”

  “He agreed to my proposal.” Eric shouted above the din of the crowd and the madly pealing bells.

  William Pitt leered down from his lofty perch. “Did he?”

  “Certainly he must’ve told you.”

  “You’re pathetic, Grayson. Our sovereign lies dead, and you manufacture lies to further your seditious cause. Go back to your estate while you still have one. If not, I’ve a cell reserved for you in the Tower…”

  “You should honor his wishes. He agreed with me!”

  Pitt stepped down from the carriage so that they might lower their voices. “And just where did this fabled conversation occur?”

  “Marylebone. The pleasure garden. His coachman was there.”

  “He will bear witness?”

  “He didn’t hear us, directly.”

  “Of course. We have only your word, which is proven less than worthless. Good day, sir.”

  Eric grabbed the minister’s arm. “I must speak with our new King George. You can do that much at least.”

  Pitt scoffed. “Not likely. Our new majesty has much to do. Too many matters to attend.” He yanked his arm away. “And besides, he detests faeries.”

  Chapter 26

  A few days later, on All Hallows Eve, the Wild Hunt raged across Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

  It started, as it always did, with Aldebaran. It started as a tiny flare, ignited by a spark of malice struck off the piece of unyielding flint that was his soul. He sat alone in the open courtyard at the center of Deepgrave’s main cavern. Empty space stretched around him on every side, crumbling stone block seats untenanted all the way to the raised dais at the front, absent its terrible Queen. No one else was there. As the spark ignited, Aldebaran’s eyes began to smolder with the fires of hell.

  With a series of deep breaths, he fanned the tiny fire in his chest, his lungs working like a pair of infernal bellows. The heat grew stronger, spreading out from his innermost core along the branching lines of arteries and veins, flowing like lava until it reached all the way out to his fingers and toes, filling his entire body with intense warmth. Soon each breath became as an exhalation of boiling smoke. He sat there, burning with it, as if he were once again immersed in the lake of fire at the center of the earth. He had not traversed that hellish domain in many years but each time the Hunt came upon him it felt like a little bit of home.

  His wild black hair and beard rippled with an unearthly breeze, whipping the bases of the black horns that curled from his forehead. His fine purple jacket bulged at the shoulders as thick plates of rock-hard armor grew from his skin, creeping along his shoulders and chest.

  He let the heat spread outward through all of Deepgrave in a wave of dark emotion. It called others to join him, rousting them from their beds in the dead of night. His faithful, his lieutenants, the lucky chosen ones. The call radiated from him, catching them up, drawing them in, whipping them into a frenzy of hatred. Neron came and Ragwort and Ogon, leading their war horses, armed and spurred and ready for the Hunt. Ragwort chattered nonsensically, spittle flying from his mouth between jagged teeth. He held nothing back—showing his true form tonight—all mottled gray skin, bald head, hooked nose, and sharp pointed ears. Ogon sounded his horn and the dogs appeared. A dozen bull mastiffs, their fur as dark as Aldebaran’s skin, their eyes burning with the same fiery embers. Not a word was spoken.

  It was All Hallows Eve, a liminal time when the boundaries between the worlds thinned, making a mass exit from Deepgrave possible. They came together—faeries, horses, and dogs—as a mass of swirling hatred boiling up the slope of the tunnel that led to the surface world. The hunt emerged into one of the crypts in the cemetery above, blew the padlocked door off its hinges, and raced out into the night.

  As it ran the Hunt drew other dark spirits from the graveyard. Floating unseen through the air, lifted up by the clamor of the faery horns and the howls of the dogs, and carried aloft by the seething tempest of impending violence. The angry dead. Aldebaran felt them join, adding to the spell he had cast, fueling the fire. He rode at the center of the horde—his was the exhilaration of the Hunt—in all its malice and destructive power. It would go where he commanded.

  The Hunt raged through the woods, igniting dry branches and fallen logs in its wake like tinder. Streams of tidal fire, a brilliant comet’s tail, blazed their passage through the night.

  The first victim of the Hunt was an old man, sitting on a stump by the shore of an un-named inland lake, enjoying a bit of late-night carp fishing. One moment he sat unsuspecting, listening to the croaking of the bullfrogs and the buzzing of crickets and the next, a horde of coal-black hounds were braying all around him. He tried uselessly to run, managing only three steps on rickety legs, before the dogs pounced upon him. Before the faeries could even draw their steeds to a stop, the hounds had torn the man’s entire skin from him. Ragged, bloody patches flew through the air. Aldebaran called the dogs to heel. It was a clumsy business. Too bloody and too quick. The old man hadn’t even a chance to cry out, not even a single prayer screamed into the night before the dogs ripped his throat out. He had not gotten the chance to beg. Where was the fun in that?

  “Heel!” Aldebaran cried. The dogs circled in a guilt-ridden frenzy, their heads held low, their snouts dripping blood.

  Aldebaran drew in a slow languid breath of the woodsy air, sizzling with death and smoke.

  “Onward!”

  Next, the faery host came upon a farmer from Newcastle, walking along the stony road high up on the moors, heading back home to his village. This man was caught up in the thundering charge, but Aldebaran held the murderous instincts of the hounds in check. The dogs circled their prey as the leader of the Hunt worked at his mind. The farmer stared blankly at the faery horde, his mind wiped clean as he became yet another follower, trailing the hounds in a mad dash toward the village. He scrambled along on all fours, prodded by an angry snout or snapping jaw when he failed to keep up.

  They came to a lonely farmhouse on the outskirts of town, a place the captive man knew very well. Aldebaran felt the hot shock of his memories, the delicious tang of his fear. He signaled the horses to stop.

  The faeries pulled up; the huge and ferocious dogs circled in a snapping, growling pack. Aldebaran bade the man to step forward. He felt the prisoner’s mixed emotions. He wanted very much to run to the house in false hopes of finding safety there, but he also knew h
e had loved ones to protect, people who were dear to him. Innocent children asleep in their beds. Sweetmeats.

  Aldebaran pulled his strings like an infernal puppeteer. The farmer knelt on his lawn, his hands forced down at his sides. His eyes bulged. His mouth gaped.

  “Come out. Elizabeth! Timothy!” the words caught in his throat as he tried to resist, but the spell held him fast. The last name was a withered croak, “Patricia!”

  The cabin door creaked open. A young boy, no more than fourteen years old, emerged, rifle pressed to his shoulder. His mother stood behind him, her knitting still in her hand, and a very young girl at her knee dressed in a fluttering white nightshirt.

  The boy whipped his gun furiously about, its trembling barrel bearing down on one faery and then another. Eventually he settled on Aldebaran. “Let him go!”

  The farmer waved him closer. “Come!” he croaked.

  The boy fired his shot. The ball struck Aldebaran in the shoulder, but spanged harmlessly away after striking the thick armored plate beneath his jacket. His ammunition spent, the boy rushed forward to aid his father with the butt of his rifle. The woman took a step from the doorway, crying out after her son.

  The dogs hissed and snarled but Aldebaran held them at bay as the boy embraced his father. The dark emotions of the Hunt rose to a fever pitch all around the little clearing, whipping up a flurry of acorns and dried leaves and twigs, the spirits of the dead howling. Aldebaran tasted the feelings of desperation that ran from man to boy and back again. Delightful.

  With a snap of his fingers he took control. The man’s strong hands closed around the boy’s throat. The fingers squeezed. The boy flung away the rifle and tried to pry himself loose, eventually striking out at his father’s face, bloodying his nose, but the man held on, squeezing, squeezing, his face flushed, the veins straining at his neck and temples. Even the dogs grew still, watching the grisly spectacle before them.

  When the man let go, his son was dead. He looked down upon his handiwork and screamed.

  Aldebaran drank it all in. He jumped down from his horse, his blood hot, his face dribbling spittle as its shape changed. His snout stretched and protruded, his black mane spread to a shaggy coat as he transformed into a gigantic black dog the size of a bull, teeth dripping saliva, lips pulled back in an inhuman snarl.

  Neron joined him and Ragwort and Ogon, each transforming into huge black mastiffs. The horses whinnied and bent their heads; their shoulders bulged with new muscle, their teeth curled, their hooves grew fur as they grew into strange creatures, a combination of horse and dog.

  The wife fell to her knees, but Aldebaran had her as well. She did not even try to resist as he made her raise the knitting needles and put her eyes out, one after the other. The strain was too much for her. Blood running down her face, she screamed and fell into the dirt.

  The little girl in the nightgown remained in the doorway, motionless, silent, still clutching her favorite doll.

  The pack rushed forward, running madly for the house, but Aldebaran called them off with a savage bark. Ogon blew his horn.

  “Onward!”

  Meadowlark swam in an ocean of pure joy.

  Dresdemona laughed.

  He had no idea what she could possibly be laughing at. And that was impossible. They had joined soul to soul, making love in the way of the faeries, and she was as naked to him as he was to her. Wasn’t she?

  His body completely forgotten, his spirit swam in the essence of the Dark Queen. He already trembled on the verge of sweet release. He could hardly contain himself. After all, she was the most exciting woman he’d ever met. Her breath was warm honey, her touch electric, her fingertips molten silk, the strokes of her tongue spectacular. Every scintilla of his being was immersed in shimmering delight.

  He could hardly believe his good fortune. Just a few minutes ago he’d been lying alone, passing the night restlessly on a makeshift bed with a thin horsehair mattress. The faeries of the Winter Court had put him up in a spare little room above the stables. Really, he had returned from London expecting better treatment than that, or at least some type of reward or acknowledgement—after all, he’d just murdered the reigning King of England! But the Dark Queen would not see him and everybody else seemed hard pressed to merely tolerate him. Such tremendous ingratitude! The faeries of the Summer Court laughed at his japes at least, but these people were so grim all the time, always looking over their shoulder. They had even forgotten to feed him. He’d have starved to death, if not for a few crusts of flatbread he’d pilfered from the ovens. Well, he thought, at least I am not held in chains. Barbarians!

  So he’d been lying abed, forgotten and alone, pangs of hunger clawing at his belly, when he suddenly felt the call.

  The call to the Wild Hunt was a seething mass of black emotion. He’d never experienced anything like it before. Certainly it must be compelling to those for whom it was meant, but it was not meant for him. It rolled over him like a wave, leaving him breathless. Below his room, the horses went wild in their stalls. They smelled blood on the air.

  The mounts kicked themselves free of their stalls, nickering with anticipation as they sped off toward the center of Deepgrave. Meadowlark felt a brief yearning to run alongside them, naked and free, desirous only of bloodlust and death, until the wave passed.

  Some short time later, a message slid beneath the crack of his door. Intrigued, he picked it up. The parchment was so dry and thin it crumbled in his hands, but not before he’d read the message. “When the mice are away, the cat does play.”

  It was a twist on an old human saying. When the cat is away the mice do play. Meadowlark chuckled to himself. There was only one person in Deepgrave who would consider Aldebaran and the Wild Hunt as mice to her cat. And what did she mean by play? He soon found out.

  In the coital joining of souls nothing was held back, and that was the beauty of it. There could be no embarrassment, no pretenses or secrets. Anything was allowed and all was forgiven. No act or thought was indiscretion no matter how violent or terrible. The faeries allowed themselves any perversity their hearts desired, with no greater goal in the joining than to discover what the other liked and to supply it in order to please them. Any fantasy, any dream was made real and any number of them were allowed, all at once if possible. To please and be pleased, to know another’s heart entirely and completely. That was the faery way.

  Meadowlark had never cared much for sex with human women. There was no spirit in it, only physicality, and even that was offered on but a limited scale. Humans were so guarded and secretive, so afraid to show their real feelings, so contrived and posey, so false. It was like rutting with animals. The fey folk, who were tricksy by nature, were totally honest when making love. No judgements were rendered. Nothing was taboo.

  Meadowlark was so eager to experience the Dark Queen’s spirit he surrendered himself immediately, a soul bared, all secrets completely open. Well why not? That’s how it’s done. Always.

  But not this time.

  Oh, she probed him to the core, and he experienced ecstasy at her touch, but her inmost secrets? Not hardly. He saw only what she chose to show. Only fleeting images of her past. He saw her exile from her original band of faeries that lived far to the north, a young girl with tear-stained cheeks and a heavy heart. But he did not see why she had left them, or been made to leave. He did not see Aldebaran, nor how they had met, and not who or what he really was. He saw her strength, her devastating power. He saw that she knew exactly how to wield such power, that she was always in control of herself as well as everyone else. Held next to such power and grace, he was nothing. A mere plaything. A toy.

  She could do whatever she wanted with him, but that had never been in question. He’d been on the point of release from the very beginning, could envision himself coming over and over again if she would only nudge him just the tiniest bit farther. If he could let go just a little, but she had forbidden it. Wait a bit longer, she said, and her word was law. He struggled to co
mply.

  She continued teasing and cajoling, tickling, stroking, slapping, biting. She took him to the brink over and over and he gave her all that he was, all that he held in his heart, his mind. Everything.

  Still, the mingling was not complete; she kept her secrets even during this comingling of souls. Pleasure became confusion. How is this possible? What is real? Does it matter? Did anything matter except for the fiery caress of her fingernail along his spine? He was helpless.

  The fact that she held so many things back only made him want them more and more—want her as never before. It was a vicious cycle, spinning him like a hanged man on a neckline.

  She spoke to him in a silky whisper, “What would you do for me?”

  His answer was immediate. Anything. He would do anything for her.

  He suddenly thought of Theodora. He shoved the fleeting thought quickly from his mind like a pig-cart flung from a high cliff. Why think of her now? Why? He was confused. She saw it. She saw everything. But said nothing.

  He felt an intense pain, a psychic slap that tore him asunder. A streak of white hot pain that dissolved into warm pleasure. Washed away in a new wave of bliss, that left him once again longing for release.

  “Not yet,” she commanded, and though he strained at the point of ecstasy he could not finish. “I need to know I can trust you.” Her slow, fiery drawl set him on edge.

  Anything, he replied, as fast as he could. Let me have my reward. I can not wait.

  She laughed again, and he felt suddenly like a little child caught doing something forbidden, something shameful.

  “I’m not convinced.”

  She pulled away, leaving him unfulfilled. Reality snapped back. His body snapped back. They were lying, naked, on an immense feather bed. Meadowlark felt a chill. The intense sensations of a few moments ago, all out of reach now. He lay panting, out of breath. His soul begging for more.

  “Not now. Maybe later.”