Lady Changeling

by Ken Altabef

  “Neither have I,” he said. “After Griffin’s death—or should I say murder?—no one ever saw them ever again. And yet your father, in his infinite wisdom, seems convinced they caused the Rot. Why should they cause trouble so many years later? Out of the blue?”

  “My father doesn’t always make sense. After all, your parents called off the Purge. If anything, the faeries should have been grateful for that. Really, can’t we talk about something else? So much death and violence. That horrible iron bell. I don’t want to think about it.”

  “The bell? You sound as if you’ve heard it with your own ears.”

  She brought her fist up to cover her mouth. Her reaction seemed entirely out of place. That chapel bell had never rung in her lifetime. Why should she act this way?

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she said. “Imagination is bad enough. Why don’t you take it down?”

  “It’s just a bell.”

  “It just seems so ugly to me. It always has. Oh, look at me. I think I’m catching your sense of dread, Eric. I think maybe we’re both just thrown off by that pirate, that’s all. Who wouldn’t feel uneasy with Draven Ketch locked up in their cellar?”

  “Maybe you’re right. And that’s got me thinking. What if he has a nasty companion or two lurking about? I won’t take any chances. If you have to go visiting, I’m sending an escort with you.”

  “Fine,” Theodora said.

  In point of fact, she thought the situation was anything but fine. Armed men accompanying her through the woods. She couldn’t imagine anything worse. Some of the faeries who would be posing as her relatives weren’t quite as adept as she at maintaining illusion. Up close, one of Eric’s men might notice something. She thought in particular of Meadowlark’s comical portrayal of Finnegan Stump. He couldn’t help himself from playing jokes. It was going to be a problem.

  “Maybe your men would find better use guarding your prisoner, Eric. I have six brothers, you know. My family will keep me safe.”

  “March can handle the prisoner. You’ll be taking two men with you.”

  “Fine.”

  She turned away from the fountain so that he might not see her face lit up by moonlight reflected off the water. It had been a long day and she struggled to maintain the glamour. She only wanted a bit of rest, though sleep offered hardly any relief at all these days. She had to maintain her illusion even while asleep.

  She heard a chittering from one of the trees. A monkey? Here? No, it was no monkey. She saw an odd shadow shifting in the canopy above. Are they watching me? Even now, even here?

  “I’ve got a sudden chill,” she said, snuggling close to Eric. “Let’s go inside. Let’s go to bed.”

  She purred that last syllable in a softly seductive tone, an open invitation to her husband. Eric put his arms around her, but his embrace felt distant and mechanical. She clasped her hands behind his back, teased them slowly down toward his buttocks. Following the nape of his neck, her kisses traced a path up to his earlobe and she whispered, “Let’s go to bed, darling.”

  He pulled back slightly, then planted a dismissive kiss on her forehead. “It’s been a long day. We’ll do best just to get some sleep.”

  His icy tone worried her but she was too tired to press any further. She followed him back to the house in silence. She was much too tired for play-acting tonight anyway, so his lack of interest left her with a strange mix of emotions. She felt both worried and relieved.

  Eric, on the other hand, was just plain worried.

  Chapter 8

  Theodora called upon Amalric Signi de Francavalla in the early hours of the next day. The alchemist had an apartment and laboratory in one of the guest cottages to the rear of the estate. His little sitting room was cluttered with a variety of odd-looking instruments, calipers and prisms of all types, beakers, glass tubes and haphazard stacks of paper. A life-size wooden manikin with a painted face was strewn in the corner. As always, Amalric was primped and ready to receive her. It was his habit to rise well before the dawn in order to make astrological calculations from the starry sky.

  Though he was Italian, Amalric always dressed in Parisian high fashion. He wore a bright yellow silk chemise under a black velvet waistcoat whose sleeves folded all the way back to the elbows with huge ruffles of embroidered lace. Shimmering silk handkerchiefs blossomed from pockets at either breast. A complex pattern of breechwork in folded gathers and fine skirtlets trailed out from under the coat to meet tight black stockings at the top of his calves. His high-heeled shoes were polished to an annoyingly bright sheen and crusted with bows and buckles. His head was adorned with a voluminous white powdered wig heaped with tight curls, his cheeks and lips rouged, his thin mustache elegantly curled, and a black spot glued to the corner of his mouth, on either side.

  He greeted her with an excess of effete cordiality and a deep courtly bow.

  “Dear lady.” Amalric spoke with a pronounced lisp. Seven years ago, he had suffered a terrible abscess of the mouth after a barber in Brussels had removed a rotten tooth. The subsequent infection required application of hot irons to cauterize the area, an operation which had left a gaping hole in his upper palate.

  An attempted peck on her cheek brought his scent a little bit too close, and his perfume assaulted her nostrils with its reek of lilac tainted by sour chemicals. Theodora thought this man was entirely preposterous and quickly dispensed with the formalities.

  “What have you learned, Amalric?”

  “Many things M’lady. That a beam of light is a spectrum of distinctly colored rays, that distance is a function of both speed and time, and several irregularities in the orbit of the moon.”

  “Really Amalric, you try my patience. Have you any new measurements to relate? The stars?”

  “Ah the stars. ‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.’ The bard puts forth a beautifully poetic notion, but perhaps not entirely accurate in our case.”

  “And?”

  He paused to run the palm of his hand down along the tube of a complex telescope poised at the window. “It’s coming. Andromeda turns and Orion bats his eye. As Venus descends on the meridian, the tell-tale glow is ever brighter. And a sorry tale it tells, my dear.”

  “How long?”

  “Till the end of the world? Nostradamus prophesized we’ve another century at least. But that contradicts our current situation. Well, what can you expect from a Frenchman?”

  “Forget Nostradamus. What do the stars tell you? Now?”

  “They say that everything turns, that this world is just a mote of dust, that this life is just a moment’s passing.”

  “I don’t have time for these games. When will it happen exactly?”

  “Can’t say.” He cocked an eyebrow at her, an expression which caused the white powder dashed upon his forehead to crack slightly. “But time is pressing indeed.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, “and I don’t know what to tell them.”

  “Ah, yes, Midsummer’s Eve. Has it come so soon? It’s good you brought me here when you did.”

  “Good for you. A few days later and your neck would’ve been swinging at the end of a rope in front of the Bastille. Or do they burn alchemists in Paris these days?”

  “Only witches my dear. Only witches. I am a man of science.” For some reason he laid a hand reverently to his breast.

  “Look here,” he said, stepping close to his workbench. All sorts of colorful crockery cluttered the long wooden table, mortars and crucibles caked with the residue of previous experiments that had bubbled over and spilled down to leave the table burnt and stained with chemicals. Yellow sulphur, pale green copper and lustrous antimony had splashed a lively mosaic across the pitted surface. Amalric pushed aside a smattering of yellowed parchments full of astrological sigils and anatomical diagrams. He tweaked a valve and struck flint to light a spirit-burner. He scooped a handful of brown powder onto a metal plate.

  “A common ore, scratched out from veins grow
ing in the earth.” He held a chunk up to the light. “It’s mostly quartzite, ugly and useless in any real sense but there is a small modicum of silver inside. A small wonder that only needs to be coaxed a little, then birthed into a truer form. You see, I add a bit of water salt and copper residue and what do we have?”

  The solution was thick and so dark it was almost black. “It looks like mud to me,” Theodora said.

  “A fine mud it is.”

  He roasted it over the burner for a few seconds more, then tilted the plate into a collection of glass piping and beakers. “This distills the essence into its component parts. There they go.” He watched intently as liquid flowed sluggishly down the tubes. “One of them is quicksilver, my dear.” He held up a small vial to the light for her inspection. The liquid within had condensed into a small dollop of mercury.

  “The blood of the gods,” announced Amalric just an instant before he upended the vial and drank it down. He smacked his lips with such satisfaction one of the black dots pasted to his cheek fell off.

  Amalric drew in a huge breath and then released it slowly. “A life-giving substance that penetrates and cleanses even the tiniest organ of the body.”

  “Speaking of tiny organs, isn’t quicksilver also used as a treatment for the French pox, which you no doubt contracted from some whore in Versailles.”

  Amalric smiled wanly. “That too. Speaking of whores, how is your progress?”

  Theodora flushed crimson. “I don’t answer to you, alchemist!”

  “No, but you will have to answer. In the woods. Midsummer’s Eve.”

  “I’ve no progress, if you must know. None at all.”

  “An uncomfortable homecoming, then.”

  Theodora turned to go. “That’s my problem.”

  “Indeed.”

  “He won’t speak of it,” she added. “Sometimes I think he won’t ever tell me where it is, no matter what I do.”

  “Perhaps not willingly…”

  She turned back. “If you had him…” She almost couldn’t bring herself to ask the question. “If you had him, could you find it out?”

  “There are other ways of uncovering secrets besides the use of feminine wiles. Better ways. I have methods that can’t fail.”

  “What methods?”

  “Better you don’t know, my dear. But believe me when I tell you: if he knows where it is, I can get it out of him. Has it come to that?”

  “I hope not,” she said. “I truly hope not.”

  Chapter 9

  From the window of the upstairs library Theodora had an expansive view of the courtyard below. As soon as her ‘relatives’ arrived she would run downstairs, ask the porter to haul out her baggage and dash forward to meet the cart. If she moved quickly enough she might get away without Eric’s armed guards in tow. That would be a blessing.

  The men were probably still at the stables seeing to their mounts. Her chances of a quick getaway would have been greatly improved if only she could’ve waited downstairs on the driveway, but it would have been unseemly to appear too anxious. She couldn’t afford to arouse any further suspicion. Eric suspected too much already. Had he dispatched armed guards to protect her or to spy on her? How deep did his distrust go?

  The front courtyard was in fact the very spot where the faeries had murdered Eric’s grandfather Griffin Grayson forty years ago. Theodora had been no impartial observer to that event. She had been one of its principals. Griffin Grayson, the stern and unyielding Puritan, had spent the day hunting and murdering faeries. How many had he killed that day? She remembered his sword rimed with magenta faery blood, his chest splattered with purple-black ooze, the hooves of his horse covered in blood, brains and entrails.

  He had killed Swallowtail, the cause of much of the grief for fairies and mortals, that very day. The dogs had sniffed out the little faery and Griffin had torn away the moss and twigs she’d used to conceal her earthy burrow. Without a second’s hesitation, Griffin drove the point of his sword straight through her neck, nearly cutting her head from her shoulders. He hadn’t even known she was the one who’d caused the death of his daughter. Swallowtail, who had laughed with Theodora in the Fen, who had played the flute with such tender heart and soul and delighted in dancing naked in the moonlight. Swallowtail, an adventurous spirit who had shared Theodora’s bed on more than one occasion. He hadn’t known any of that. She was just another faery to him.

  Yes, it had been a very good day for Griffin Grayson. Theodora had heard his heaving sigh of satisfaction as he reined his mount to a stop on the cobblestone courtyard. Home again. But not as safe and sound as he might have believed. Faeries lay in wait all around him, disguised among the brambles and trees. It was a simple thing for them to hide from mortal eyes, but the hunting dogs smelled them at once and began to yap.

  Griffin suspected something was amiss. The old bastard could probably smell them too. He directed his retinue of a half-dozen mounted men to stand on alert. “Something’s wrong,” he croaked.

  Griffin swung down from his saddle with his accustomed swagger, keen eyes scouring the surroundings as if they could brush aside the obscuring foliage by sheer force of will. But he could see nothing.

  Theodora and the others kept their focus on the dogs. It was a simple thing to project a glamour spell to hide themselves, a skill at which every faery was adept by the age of three or four, but it was another matter to project a glamour onto Griffin, to be seen by the eyes of the dogs. Only by working together could they do it. There were seven of them in hiding and seven was a significant number, an important faery number. Seven dogs and seven faeries, all flush with power from the full moon.

  Theodora concentrated hard, forcing her will upon the mind of one of the hunting dogs. Her attempts at soothing and cajoling the beast did no good. She felt its pulsing heartbeat, its excitement at the prospect of a renewed hunt, some fresh new blood sport. The dog had the scent of faery thick in its nostrils; it was already driven half to a frenzy after a day of ripping and tearing faery flesh and tasting faery blood. The plan was simple enough. Give the beasts what they wanted most.

  The faeries cast their glamour spell upon Griffin Grayson. They made it seem to the dogs as if he was the biggest, baddest faery of them all.

  The dogs growled and foamed at the mouth, tensed and waiting, but they were too well trained to attack without their master’s order.

  “They’ve got the scent all right,” he said. “But I don’t see anything at all.”

  His men admitted they could see nothing as well.

  “They’re here. Somewhere.” Griffin laughed dryly. “Well, have at it then.”

  With a sharp motion of his gloved hand he gave his dogs the order to attack. And they fell upon him, the man whom they believed to be their grandest enemy. A pack of seven dogs. A magical number. The men hurried to their Lord’s defense, tumbling from their horses, swords drawn. They killed four of the dogs. But by then it was too late.

  The dogs came at Griffin from all sides, leapt upon him, tearing and biting. He drew his sword but it was too close quarters to use it. He drew his pistol but couldn’t get off a shot before it was snatched away in a dog’s mouth. He didn’t scream. Not at first. The tough old bastard stumbled backward, still trying to punch and kick as the dogs swarmed over him.

  The dogs shredded his cloak and coat, then took his fingers and half his throat. As he went down under the snouts of the vicious beasts there came a point, one precious moment, when he realized he had lost, probably realized how it had been done, and at that moment he let out his one and only scream. A cry of horror and utter failure. A bitter cry indeed.

  Theodora knew the death cry of Griffin Grayson very well. Even now, whenever a faery was out late on a cold dark night, crossing the moors, they could still hear the dogs howl and Griffin’s ghostly scream. Everlasting torment? He deserved no less.

  For a moment Theodora imagined she heard Eric scream, saw a vision of her husband on hands and knees upon the cobbles
tones, a mad pack of hunting dogs ripping him apart. No, she thought. No! It can’t end that way for him.

  Griffin had been a hard man, as cold and unloving as iron, as sharp and deadly as steel. Armed with his relic lens he had burned his enemies and sent them running scattered before him. He had completely underestimated them as well. He’d been a callous, brutal fool. Eric was unlike him in every way.

  Theodora had lived a hundred years and she’d known quite a few lovers in that time, mostly fey but a few mortal men as well. Lovemaking among the faeries was an exceptional experience, a meeting of souls, an unrestrained frolic full of wonder and music and magic. It rarely led to romantic entanglements. It simply was. And that was the joy of it. Most of the time. She had made love to Meadowlark several times—both with him as a man and as a woman—and either way the result had been less than satisfactory. He was much too self-absorbed and manipulative to please his partner properly.

  All in all, sex with faeries was intense and flashy but lacked substance. Sex with human males had been just the opposite, rather bland and pointless, and laden with false importance.

  But Eric was different on all accounts. When she’d first met him he’d seemed just another mortal boy, brassing out a confidence he did not possess, intent on impressing her with his status and wealth. But underneath that uncertain veneer she’d soon found a thoughtful and gentle young man who truly cared for her.

  Theodora recalled one of their secret meetings. Eric had been so very excited to show her something on his property. He’d whisked her away from Graystown on a tall roan horse late at night, taking the back trails so no one might see. She snuggled warmly against his back as they rode, uncourtly behavior to be sure, but their midnight trysts strayed far outside normal convention in any case. Eric led them around the rear of Grayson Hall into a fenced enclosure just behind the granary. He wouldn’t tell her just exactly what they had come all this way to see.

  He dismounted and opened a whitewashed wooden fence. Theodora could see something rising up behind the fence but she couldn’t be sure. It was a dark night, with only a crescent moon. Inside the enclosure was a strange type of machine. At its center was a tall wooden pole supporting a wide circular canopy. Beneath this awning was a series of wooden horses painted in garishly bright colors.