Lady Changeling

by Ken Altabef

  Ketch crept slowly along the side of the path, moving in a low crouch that kept the top of his head just beneath the row of bushes. There was a man patrolling the upper story balcony of the mansion house and another loitering at the east corner.

  Having studied their positions, Ketch could skirt the guards easily enough. The men posted here were a far cry from professional soldiers. They fidgeted, they smoked, and fell asleep at their posts. Sloppy and poorly trained. I’ll have to give them a poor recommendation to the Lord of the manor.

  Dim candlelight flickered from a few of the upper story windows but it didn’t seem like his lordship was burning anything down inside the house at the moment. Perhaps Lord Eric had stopped for a bath in a tub of perfumed water. Or perhaps something much more ominous had happened. Ketch wondered if he’d have to go inside and rescue the little princess from his own household staff. Penetrating the house would be a bit trickier than avoiding inept picket-men out in the darkness, but not too difficult. He might have to kill someone, or a few someones. And the lord of the manor wouldn’t like that very much.

  From his position across from the east side of the courtyard he saw a lone figure departing the garden exit of the house. He crept around and to the side, moving swiftly and silently. He recognized Theodora Grayson. The lady of the house was a faery spy, or so he’d been told. He caught a fleeting glimpse of her face in the moonlight. She looked worried. Now where was she speeding off to in the middle of the night?

  He decided to follow her and see. The house could wait.

  Ketch moved across the grassy lawn alongside the garden path. He didn’t dare get too close to the lady. Faeries could see particularly well in the dark and their noses were quite keen as well. He’d not be surprised if she smelled him long before she saw anything amiss. He gave her a good head start. She wasn’t even trying to hide. No doubt he’d be able to keep up and remain undetected as well.

  “Hey!”

  Ketch spun round. Damn, he’d been spotted. Not ten yards away a slim figure walked toward him with a carefree, jaunty stride. A boy? No, a woman. With fine features and short red hair. She was dressed too much like a corsair for his taste, wearing tight leather leggings and a tanned vest that showed bare, muscular arms.

  Her sword unsheathed with a gentle ringing sound. The all-too-familiar note pricked Ketch’s nerves to high alert. He raised his own sword even before he saw her blade glitter in the moonlight just inches from his face. He was just fast enough. She came at him hard, wasting no time on threats or warnings.

  Her speed was incredible. She sprang forward, aiming a thrust at the hollow of his neck. Ketch parried the stroke but was not completely prepared for what followed next. The assassin launched a series of powerful slashing blows from one side and then the other. Retreating slowly before her licking steel, he was driven back fifty paces. He employed a French defense, using short strokes with the hilt angled high. He was satisfied to merely deflect the blows rather than counter their power. Despite her small size, each stroke was forceful enough to take his head off.

  His sword arm was kept too busy defending to strike back, but at the first opening he planted a boot in the little devil’s belly. His foot connected with a solid thunk and the assassin was sent stumbling backward. But before Ketch could capitalize on this brief opening she turned her retreat into a backflip with a twist in mid-air followed by another backflip. On the second backflip she loosed a throwing knife straight on target for his throat. He deflected it with the hilt of his sword, his hand clearing his line of sight just in time to see another short blade following in its wake. He caught the second knife by its handle in mid-arc.

  “Learned that in Tibet,” he said, laughing. “Ever been to Tibet? I suppose not. I passed through there once, on my way to Hell and back.”

  The assassin didn’t bother to answer. Nor was she the least bit disturbed by his gruff, intimidating tone. She ran at him again, launching another fiery attack. Now he wielded the sword in his left hand, the short blade in his right, as he had seen the Janissaries do on the coast of Algiers. Blow after blow rained down at him. And each was turned aside. She slashed at him from the right and he angled her blade off the back of his own sword. She countered from the left and her stroke met the dagger.

  The faery moved with a combination of dashing ferocity and lithe agility such as he had never seen. She was a wildcat, turning round him twenty times, changing her guard and her ground at each turn. It required all his skill just to keep her at bay. He’d never faced an adversary as agile and energetic as this one but neither could she exhaust his patience. Ketch was very fond of his skin, as well as the vital organs contained therein, and was determined to keep them all intact.

  The shifts of his footing were as fluid and adept as her own. He parried each stroke calmly, with as much method as if he’d been practicing at a high-brow fencing school. Fencing school? His school had been the roiling deck of a galleon under siege by Cathay savages from all sides.

  Even so, he wasn’t able to keep the tip of her sword from scoring a point now and again. The faery’s blade had a slightly longer reach than his Scottish backsword and she drove it like a whirlwind. Within a few minutes she’d cut both his shirt-sleeves to ribbons and etched half a dozen red lines on his leading shoulder.

  “You’re a fine swordsman,” Ketch admitted. His adversary did not answer. Perhaps a little test might do. “I thought Lord Grayson killed you…”

  “Killed me? From a holding cell?”

  Ah, so that’s what’s happened.

  This information was bought at the cost of another searing slash at this left shoulder. The tip of her sword glided like a serpent beneath his blade and scored a thin red line into his flesh. His shirt sleeve finally fell away at the shoulder. None of these wounds were serious but he noticed a pattern to the cuts. Looks like an ‘R’. She’s branding her initial into my flesh, stroke by stroke, toying with me!

  Her precision was remarkable. Ketch was thankful that at least there was no poison on the blade.

  She’s over-confident, even a bit cocky. Let’s see how long she can keep this up. He countered purely and simply, maintaining a steady defense. He kept an eye out for any weakness in her form but she fought like a Turk, so vicious on the attack there was no chance for counter play. Usually such an opponent would tire themselves out quickly, but the faery showed no signs of any such weakness.

  Ketch changed his style, abandoning the cool proficiency of the French defense for the more unpredictable footwork of a Hessian duelist. The change of tactic took her by surprise. He gained a momentary advantage by knocking her sword aside on a backswing. He had his opening at last.

  As their swords crossed, Ketch put an arm around her waist and pulled her in close. He leaned down and planted a firm, wet kiss on her lips.

  Scowling, she pushed him away.

  “Mmmm,” he said, licking his lips, “still tastes the same.”

  “Get your hands off me, you filthy animal.” She spit at his face. With cool reflex he blocked the gob on the wide hilt of his sword.

  “That’s not what you said to me in Tortuga.”

  “You!”

  “Me. Hah-heh! One and the same. And sorry about the clap.”

  “You filth!”

  This exchange had an unexpected result on the faery, proving even more damaging than any cut with the sword could have been. She was furious at his insolence and, her passions enflamed, came at him with twice the rage and half the swordsmanship as before. Perfect!

  Instead of playing games with his shoulder she now seemed intent on another target. She was trying to cut off his balls. Ketch resumed his solid French defense. Of all his organs, his balls were particular favorites. The French apparently had similar preferences, keeping their sword tips low and close to center.

  The faery’s blade slithered and clanked but could not break his guard. But really, he felt his own sword arm tiring and the weapon growing heavy. This is getting serious. She fi
ghts just the same as she fucks. I can’t keep up. Good thing the circle is almost done.

  He drew the last handful of iron filings from his coat pocket and cast them on the ground, closing the circle. Well, maybe not exactly a circle. A bit lopsided but it was a closed figure just the same. It hadn’t been easy, sprinkling the iron filings in a distinct pattern as he fought for his life. Maneuvering his opponent, playing defenseless, not taking chances. She’d thought him merely hard-pressed. She’d thought she was winning. All the time he’d been playing on her overconfidence to complete his trap.

  She sensed the closed circle at last, pausing in her attack to sniff like a hound at the evening air. Her eyes flashed.

  “What did you do?”

  “Evened things up. All those faery tricks you didn’t use. Too late. It’s one thing to have a little cold iron scattered on the ground, but surrounded… inside the circle… How’s that feel?”

  She kicked at the grass, trying to disrupt the circle but it was too dark and she didn’t know exactly where the iron lay. Let’s not give her too much time to work it out, Ketch thought.

  “If I started winnin’ you’d bring out your faery tricks, wouldn’t you? But not if I was losin’. Nah. Then you’d want to win fair. But you’d still have those tricks at the ready just in case.”

  “I’ll kill you!”

  “Shoulda done when you had the chance. But now it’s just you and me in the circle. Unless you want to run?”

  “Come on!”

  She charged again. This time, he pushed back. Now he was free to be more aggressive with the sword. He switched the weapon to his right arm. With the same deliberation that he had used in his retreat, he calmly advanced, slowly but surely, foot by foot.

  He chose a wild Malay-style attack, one he had learned in the jungles of that far land. Surely this was something the assassin had never encountered before, all sweeping arms and frenzied misdirection. In fact, from her rigid style choices he was dead certain she’d never fought anyone besides Englishmen before.

  Redthorne was weakened by the iron, but still dangerous. She seemed anxious to put an end to this duel. Rebounding from the heavy impact of the pirate’s new unpredictable attack, she grew more and more desperate.

  Ketch passed his sword back to his left hand. The faery was growing tired, but he felt a renewed strength both in body and fighting spirit. The balance of power had shifted. He had turned the tides. He was going to win. He advanced with an uncanny assurance. The faery checked each lunge with a flash of her blade that grew less reliable each moment the battle wore on.

  He thought she might actually turn tail and run. She’d be wise to flee the circle and return to plague him another day. That would have been fine with him. He hadn’t asked for this fight and stood to gain nothing by it. He had other things to do.

  He hoped she would leave. But he had seen pride lead to the downfall of a man too many times before and this gal had too much of it for her own good. No, she wouldn’t just leave.

  Now that she was not so tireless, they had a fair fight. Almost fair. There came a moment when she drew very near in a clinch and Ketch felt her pull at him. Their faces close, too close. Her lips so plump and juicy, he wanted to steal another kiss. Her eyes were so passionate and alive, her skin so soft. How soft? What would it be worth to find out? Everything? He felt his insides melting away.

  “Do you still want me?” she purred.

  She still had that one certain charm, iron circle or no. Ketch could not deny it. Even after all these years the answer was still the same.

  “Yes.”

  She stabbed him in the chest. He grunted with the pain. He hadn’t even seen her draw the dagger.

  Even so, the dagger had only scraped his ribcage. He locked his fingers around her wrist, twisting so violently she dropped the weapon. He used her own weight against her and in an instant had her turned around, her arm pinned back, his sword laid across her throat.

  “That’s Tibet too,” he explained. “Guess you really have never been. You should get out more. See the world.”

  She swung her legs upward, knocking his sword away and nearly kicking him in the face as she turned a tight somersault. She touched lightly to ground and rushed at him again but he swept her legs out from under and she went down in a clumsy backward sprawl and he was on top of her, his knee planted firmly on her breast.

  He placed the tip of his sword directly above her heart.

  “This is the part where you beg for mercy,” he said.

  “What for?” she returned. “There’s no mercy in you. Only tricks and lies.”

  “Aye, just like a scumsuckin’ faery.”

  He passed his sword through her chest.

  She struggled right up until the end but he held her down. The sparkle in her eyes was as beautiful as ever. Yes, he remembered that too. So beautiful. He watched them mist over as the life ran out of her.

  Sorry to do it?

  Nah. I guess one night was enough for me, too.

  Chapter 46

  Eric strained at his bonds until his shoulders felt like they would pop out of their sockets. No matter how hard he tugged, he couldn’t break the back of the chair. Sturdy oak. A remnant from Griffin Grayson’s age. Strong and unyielding.

  And now he was firmly caught up in his grandfather’s legacy. There seemed no escaping it, no escaping these ancient stone walls or the Creeping Gray Rot. Beneath his shirt, the skin on his arms was itching as if thousands of mites were digging under the surface. He felt the disease crawling across his chest. An itch so intense it inevitably drove men mad. Maybe he was already crazy. His whole life had been turned upside down. He was living a nightmare. He remembered waking up in the morning, thinking his wife was a monster. When had that been? This morning?

  How many times had he dreamt that same dream and then forgotten, or been made to forget? Now he was surrounded by monsters on all sides. Ghosts from the past. Faeries changing shape, running wild through his house. The itch. The itch!

  He was so hungry and lightheaded, he wasn’t thinking straight.

  He kept seeing the face of that tall dark faery—the one who’d played the role of Finnegan Stump. So smug, so arrogant. He’d been fooling Eric for years. Had that been his true face, revealed at last, or just one more disguise? Leering at him. Sniffing around at his wife. More than anything, he wanted to break that bastard’s neck.

  Eric tugged one last time at the ropes holding his hands behind his back.

  He heard a mocking voice from the doorway, “So tell me. How do you like it, tied to a chair?”

  He didn’t bother to look. Couldn’t bear to see that bastard’s face again. Or even worse, he feared he would see no one. Perhaps the miserable faery wasn’t really there at all.

  “Go away! If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to break your scrawny neck.”

  “Is that to mean you don’t want the rescue?”

  Eric looked up to see Draven Ketch standing in the doorway. “Ohhh!”

  “Not a very lordly response,” said the pirate.

  Eric let out a deep breath. Regaining his composure, he said, “Mr. Ketch I am very glad to see you.”

  Ketch smiled a yellow-toothed smile. “Warms the heart, that does. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that sentence said to me before. Not one time.”

  Ketch cut away Eric’s bonds.

  Eric rubbed the raw skin at his wrists. Wait a minute. What’s this?

  He pushed his shirt-sleeve up. There were no Gray Rot lesions on his skin. There never had been. Just another faery trick.

  “I take it you lost the lens?” asked Ketch.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I see. Can’t say I’m very much surprised. So how many of these mound maggots am I goin’ to have to kill to get my ship?”

  “I don’t know. We can start with that tall, dark, lanky one. You haven’t killed him yet have you?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “I’ll do it mys
elf, but we need to get that weapon back. The lens. It always comes back to that.”

  “Whatever you say, squire. Let’s go. It’s goin’ to be a rough night’s work.”

  “Hang on.”

  “What?” asked the pirate impatiently.

  Eric could not be sure. What if—what if this too were some faery trick? “You never told me what happened that night. Out on the reef.”

  “Reef?” Ketch looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Now isn’t the time.” He cast a wary glance at the heavy stone walls and the lone door. He was a man who’d spent his entire life looking over his shoulder for the assassin at his back. “I don’t mind tellin’ you, I don’t want to get cornered in here. It’s too easily a trap.”

  “Now!” said Eric. “Or I don’t step out of this room.”

  Ketch shook his head. “You’re crazy as a soup sandwich.”

  “Tell me what happened. It’s important.”

  “We were cruisin’ just west of Nassau with a boatload of stolen coffee in the hold, doin’ no harm, just tryin’ to keep out of the way of His Majesty’s Royal. It was the third watch of the night. I went up on the quarterdeck to take a new set of bearings. Ever navigate the Atlantic? No? I didn’t think so. Ursa Major. That’s the first one you look for. The Big Bear is easy to spot. And so on to Cassiopeia and Andromeda. I was usin’ a new lookin’ glass I’d taken off a Turkish brigantine. It had a nice thick lens on it. I could see all the stars.

  “And then I saw it. A red flash near Orion’s belt. And then the stars all movin’ and changin’ colors like I was lookin’ through a kaleidoscope. It hurt a little too, as though some sliver had got in my eye. But I kept lookin’. As I watched, somethin’ happened, somethin’ appeared from behind the Bear, some thing a damn sight larger than the Bear. For all the world it looked to me like it had the shape of a woman.

  “I let down the ‘scope and dropped it. I heard it shatter on the deck. But when I looked up again that thing was still there, growin’ larger and larger until it filled half the sky. It spoke to me. It drew me. I’ve had tropical fevers before and know how the overheated mind plays tricks, flashes of light, colors, faces even. Seein’ things that couldn’t be real. But this was… It was!