The Changeling

by H. P. Mallory

  We had to stop for a minute to get used to the perspective shift.

  “I thought this looked so much easier than the rock climb,”

  murmured Damek, his head between his knees. “But this is worse.

  My brain feels like it’s in a tumble dryer and I think I’m going to be sick.”

  I was not feeling much better myself, though I said nothing. I had to keep reminding myself why I was doing this—for Bryn and for our baby. Let Gaia turn the world upside down—she could put it on spin cycle for all I cared—I was not backing down, and I was not stopping. I would find her.

  “Come on, we have rested long enough.”

  I took a step forward, and the world changed again. I seemed to sink into a soft cloud, falling, but slowly, as if through cotton candy. Before my eyes, colored lights danced, whirling around each other; dancing, splitting, coalescing, then vanishing off into the ether. I heard a rushing in my ears, like the distant ocean. From the mists surrounding me, hands took shape—

  insubstantial at first, then becoming more solid as they reached out to me, touching me, taking hold of me and passing me between them. Several of them took my outstretched arms and legs, dipped me once, then flung me so I soared up in a lazy arc only to be caught again. It never occurred to me to struggle—my mind too seemed cushioned by pink haze. I could not think clearly and was only dimly aware of the fact. Again, I fell, and the cloud dispersed so that I fell into darkness. I needed to think, but what of?

  Bryn.

  The name seemed to arrive out of the darkness, rushing up to meet me. I had to help her; I had to get out of here. I flailed about as I fell, but there was nothing to catch hold of, nothing to cling onto. Was there a bottom to this drop? Or was I destined to fall forever with no company but the name ‘Bryn’ and the knowledge that I had failed her.

  I cried out, my ragged voice vanishing in the rushing wind that accelerated around me.

  “Sinjin!”

  I hit the ground and the impact seemed to shock my eyes open.

  “Sinjin?” It was still dark, but through the gloom I could make out the faces of Damek and Dayna hunched over me, looking worried.

  “Are you alright?” asked Dayna.

  “Where am I?”

  Damek shrugged. “Good question. Where were you?”

  “I…” Where had I been? “I am not sure. What happened?”

  “We lost you,” replied Damek.

  “I didn’t think we were ever going to find you.” I now saw that there were tears in Dayna’s eyes.

  “How long?”

  Damek shook his head. “Hard to tell. Time here is weird. Like really weird. Like really weird.”

  “Maybe two days?” said Dayna.

  “Two days?” I could not believe it! I had been falling for two days? And they had spent that time looking for me.

  “If we can find our way back,” said Damek, hopefully, “then there’s a way out.”

  “What?” I was still struggling to drag my unwilling mind back into reality—or what passed for reality here.

  “After you disappeared…” Dayna began.

  “And you just dropped out of the world,” Damek put in. “You were there and then you weren’t.”

  “… We started looking for you,” Dayna went on. “And we found a flight of steps. Leading back down the mountain.”

  “Didn’t look so high from there,” commented Damek.

  “We could see right back to the plain where we came in with Hero,” said Dayna.

  “And you walked away from it?” I asked.

  “Well, we had to find you,” said Damek with a shrug. “We might be able to find it again. That is, if we can’t find the way on to Gaia.”

  I smiled, sitting up from where I had been lying on the ground.

  “I do not think you shall be able to find it again.”

  The first trial had ended when I had let Damek and Dayna rest at my own expense. My hunch was that the second was about to end now that they had given up their chance of escape, because they were not willing to leave me behind.

  I stood up, and the darkness was replaced by the shifting unearthly sky. We were still on the plateau where we had woken up the morning after climbing the cliff.

  “Look.” Dayna pointed back to a rock on which there was a pictogram that read ‘The Second Trial’. We had moved barely six feet since starting this trial.

  “Oh, hell no!” Damek was not impressed. “Don’t tell me we’ve still got more of this damn trial to go.”

  “I think not,” I reassured him. “I hope not. Come on. We can walk until evening.”

  We continued across the plateau. Everything was now real and solid again. The landscape stayed where it was put and perspective remained normal, which was a tremendous relief. By the time the colors of the sky started to fade to darker hues, we reached the rocks at the far side of the plateau. Above us, new peaks loomed, fractured and uneven, throwing jagged shadows across the sky like a row of broken teeth.

  “We can camp here.”

  As soon as I said those words, the approach of night sped up, and I had no doubt that if we had continued to walk, evening would have continued until we stopped. Time here wasn’t real time; it was as pliable as the landscape.

  “Do you think it matters that Dayna and I didn’t really complete the second trial?” asked Damek. He looked genuinely worried.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well… when we reach Gaia, I don’t want her to refuse to help Bryn because only you had to go through the second trial. I don’t want it to be like we cheated.”

  “I think we will be fine. Besides, I am the one who is asking the favor.”

  I decided not to tell him that he and Dayna had completed that trial by turning down their chance of escape. If he knew how the tasks seemed to work, then tomorrow he might try to figure out the third task. With this sort of thing, it was best not to try to be clever, because the person setting the tasks was cleverer

  than us. And given my superior intelligence, that was really saying something!

  Was Gaia watching us? Or did the trials run automatically? She did not strike me as a being one who took much interest in the younger more ephemeral creatures like us.

  It was strange to think of myself in that context. I would be willing to admit that a healthy dose of arrogance was part of what made me, me. Master Vampire Sinjin Sinclair was proud of being Master Vampire Sinjin Sinclair. And why not? Master Vampire Sinjin Sinclair was a remarkable individual with many extraordinary traits, skills, and gifts. He was charming, strong, devastatingly handsome, intelligent, incredibly handsome, brave, witty, well-endowed, and overwhelmingly handsome. It was hard not to be arrogant when all the facts were in your favor.

  But up here, none of that stuff meant a damn thing. Gaia’s trials were stripping away all that I loved about myself and revealing the person beneath, the Sinjin Sinclair I barely remembered. It had been centuries since I had to face that person and, cards on the table, I was still pretty impressed by what I saw. Master Vampire Sinjin Sinclair remained a remarkable individual.

  But what might tomorrow bring? How would I see myself then?

  “I shall take the first watch.”

  THIRTEEN

  Bryn

  “I can’t be sure…”

  Under Mathilda’s care, Klaasje swiftly recovered. She’d taken a bad blow to the back of the head, though she didn’t know, and we couldn’t tell if such had been how she was attacked or if she’d hit her head when she fell. Either way, she had been attacked.

  Once she was conscious again and speaking more clearly, and once she and Dureau had had a touching reunion, it was the first question she was asked.

  “Someone took me down, from behind.”

  “Who?” asked Rand, urgently.

  “I can’t be sure…”

  “We know who,” snapped Dureau, venomously, slamming his fist down onto the table.

  “ I don’t know who,” said Klaasje,
sharply. “So, you don’t either. Unless you know something I don’t.”

  “You were found near the Daywalker encampment,” said Dureau.

  “Hardly ‘near’,” I added.

  “Nearer to their encampment than to anything else.”

  “Where were you when you were attacked?” asked Jolie, gently.

  Klaasje frowned; the memories were all there and intact but seemed to have been shaken up inside her head, so recalling them took a moment. “Mathilda’s copse.”

  “That’s a distance from the cairns,” said Jolie.

  “Why move her?” asked Audrey, who stood by the door.

  “To make her hard to find,” said Dureau, firmly. “And to kill her. They needed somewhere that would be exposed to the sun with no hope for cover.”

  “If it were the Daywalkers,” said Jolie, “why would they choose somewhere near their camp?”

  “I thought it wasn’t near,” sneered Dureau.

  “You know what I mean,” said Jolie. “There are less suspicious places that are just as exposed.”

  “They had to carry Klaasje,” Rand pointed out. “To take her to any other place, they would have had to carry her through the settlement. They’d be spotted. To carry her to the cairns, they only had to go past their own camp.

  Damn him . Jolie’s voice arrived in my mind. That makes sense.

  If someone was trying to frame the Daywalkers, then it would still make sense .

  Is that what you think happened?

  I don’t know .

  “I think,” said Rand, loudly, “with due respect to my wife, the Queen, that a conversation that affects all of us should be had in the open.”

  It was the first time anyone but Sinjin had complained of Jolie and I talking telepathically. Things were definitely changing at Kinloch Kirk.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us, Klaasje?” asked Jolie.

  There was an edge of desperation to her voice.

  “Not much,” the vampire admitted. “But whoever it was, was strong. They hit me like a freight train.”

  Vampires are strong by nature and Klaasje was a strong vampire.

  Even with the element of surprise, an attacker would need serious strength to take her down in one hit. They would have to have moved quietly as well.

  “Do you think Adam had anything to do with it?” Jolie asked.

  Klaasje’s eyes went wide. “No! Of course not!”

  “And you didn’t hear anything?” I asked.

  Klaasje shook her head.

  A group of Daywalkers would be strong enough . I spoke quickly to Jolie. But not quiet enough. No way.

  “Bryn!” Dureau shot me a dark look. “You talk to all of us or not at all.”

  I met Dureau’s anger, unphased. “If that’s what you prefer.”

  I turned and walked out. I wouldn’t be spoken to like that by Dureau. If I wanted to speak to my sister alone, I would damn well do it! I didn’t need and didn’t want anyone telling me what to do!

  I badly wanted to go home and sleep, but there was one stop I had to make first. The thought of it sent an eerie shiver across my skin and it was partly due to that reaction that I felt obligated to make it stop.

  Again, as I approached the Daywalker encampment, I felt people looking at me. Were they hostile looks? I was the one who’d saved them from Luce and brought them here. But maybe some of them were having second thoughts about that being a good thing?

  Adam answered his door when I knocked.

  “Bryn! How is she?” Word had been put out that Klaasje had been found alive, but no details had yet been revealed.

  “She’s going to be fine. She took a bump to the head, but vampires heal fast.”

  “How did it happen?” For all his puppyish qualities, Adam was no fool.

  “We don’t know yet.”

  He looked at me, grimly. “I can guess what people are saying.”

  “What some people are saying, Adam. Not everyone.”

  Adam snorted. “Yes, I’m sure you’re just rushing to defend us.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  He looked hard at me. “How sure are you, Bryn? I mean, you know I wouldn’t hurt Klaasje, but how sure are you of Stephen? Or Jakob?

  There’s over a hundred of us here and you’re telling me you trust every single one of us?” He kicked at the ground disconsolately.

  “I trust you, and Klaasje trusts you,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Adam asked, eyeing me narrowly.

  “When Klaasje was asked if she thought you could be behind it, she immediately said no.”

  “Well, thank fuck for that!” Adam said as he shook his head.

  “Adam, language,” I answered, even as I realized how silly it sounded. I wasn’t his mother even if it seemed he needed some mothering. Damn these maternal hormones flowing through me!

  “Damn it, Bryn, even I don’t trust them all. We were brainwashed by Luce and maybe that dies harder in some than others. Maybe a Daywalker did do this.”

  “That doesn’t mean we judge all Daywalkers,” I tried to reassure him.

  “Maybe not ‘judge’ but…” he shrugged. “You think we don’t notice the change in everyone around here? Even you’ve been nervous around us. After the Games, it seemed like everything was fine, but then there was the fire and now this.”

  “Adam,” I started, but he shook his head.

  “If one Daywalker is guilty, and you don’t know who, then we’re all going to suffer. That’s the way it’s going to be, Bryn. I know there are conversations going on in your council.”

  “Yes…”

  He nodded. “Well, you should know that we have our own council here. I’m trying to keep it calm but after what Dureau said last night…”

  “He was panicked. Worried about Klaasje.”

  “I know,” Adam nodded. “I’m just saying, this situation could get out of hand really fast if we let it.”

  #

  The exhaustion of the past few days caught up to me, and I was able to sleep for a few uninterrupted hours until lunchtime when I woke up ravenously hungry.

  I was just washing the dishes after lunch when there was a knock at my door. I opened it and found Klaasje standing outside.

  “Should you be out of bed?” I asked.

  “Vampires heal fast, and I wanted to speak with you.”

  “Come in.”

  We sat together in the lounge, and I wondered what this might be about.

  “I wanted to thank you, Bryn, and to say sorry for the other day.”

  I waved away both thanks and apology. “Things are tense at the moment.”

  “Yeah, but I know there’s nothing but friendship between you and Dureau.” Klaasje shook her head distractedly. “I don’t know what got into me the other night. I’m not like that. I know you’d never cheat on Sinjin; I know Dureau would never cheat on me, and you and I are friends. But right in that moment…” She paused.

  “Honestly, Bryn, as soon as Odran told me he’d seen you two together, it was like something took over me.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I was just so relieved to know there was no permanent damage done between us because she was right—we were friends and always had been.

  “Thanks for understanding.” Klaasje shook her head again.

  “Everyone’s on edge.”

  “That’s true.” I sighed. “Since I came here, I’ve just found it a really calming place to be. Like a haven. Whatever’s been going on—and there’s been some serious shit going on—I felt safer from it here. But now…”

  I tailed off, but Klaasje nodded fervently. “It’s like there’s something in the air. Just a bad feeling.”

  “I wish Sinjin was here.” I’d been thinking it a lot, and it felt nice to say it out loud. “I feel like he’d know what to do.”

  Klaasje grinned. “Even though the two of you don’t exactly agree on the Daywalkers?”

  I thought about it. “You know what? E
ven though all this stuff happened since Sinjin left, I’m not convinced he would be against them.”

  “No?”

  “He’s suspicious and super-protective, but I think he’d have some questions about it all. About why and how and who.”

  “He’d be suspicious about his own suspicions.” Klaasje nodded. “I think you’re right. Sinjin might be a lot of things but one of those is that he’s fair.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She grew quiet and looked down at her hands where they rested in her lap. “What do you think’s going to happen, Bryn?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  Because the whole settlement now seemed to be under some sort of threat, my specific concern had slipped from the front of people’s minds. But my primary concern remained my baby, and I didn’t think attacking the Daywalkers or Luce himself was going to be any help there.

  The council meeting, which now had to happen, was going to be a very interesting one.

  #

  “The word is out,” said Rand, as he addressed the council. “A decision has to be made.”

  No one outside of the council knew about what had happened to me—

  that secret we’d managed to keep, because however loose-lipped certain council members could be, they could also exercise self-control when it came to something so personal.

  The fire at Mathilda’s, however, had started rumors running through the general population, and after Klaasje’s disappearance, those rumors had snowballed. Somehow, the suspicions about the Daywalkers that had started in this room had made their way out of it. People were looking to their Queen to act, one way or another.

  “And that decision will be the Queen’s,” Rand stressed. I guessed he and Jolie had some words behind closed doors, and they would now be presenting a united front—which meant Rand standing with her. “But she wishes to hear the opinions of others before making that decision.”

  I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the meeting to come.

  I had a hunch this wasn’t going to be easy. Tempers were already running hot, fingers being pointed, sides being taken. I had to try to keep my cool—I didn’t want to make things any more difficult for Jolie than they already were.