Changeling (Illustrated)

by Roger Zelazny

  “Is that what you mean?” asked the voice.

  “Maybe. I’m not certain.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “Not yet,” he said, “but I intend to. If you will instruct me.”

  “I have the means to provide for your well-being for so long as you wish to remain here. I will instruct you.”

  “I think I may have just fallen into the very thing I sought,” Mark replied. “I’ll tell you about myself, and you tell me about power sources . . . ”

  V.

  Daniel Chain—a junior at State, working on his certificate in Medieval Studies; slim and hard, after two years on the boxing and fencing teams; less than happy at the subtle pressure still exerted by his father for him to change his History and Linguistics major and join him in the business—sat upon the tall stool, thinking of all these matters and others, after the fashion of half-controlled reverie which informed his mind whenever he played.

  The club was dim and smoky. He had followed Betty Lewis, who sang torch songs and blues numbers accompanied by piano rolls and a deep decolletage and who always drew heavy applause when she took her bows. Now he was filling the room with guitar sounds. He played on Saturday nights and alternate Fridays, doing as many instrumentals as vocals. The people seemed to like his music both ways. Right now, he was in a nonvocal mood.

  Tonight was the other Friday, and the place was considerably less than packed. He recognized several familiar faces at the small tables, some of them nodding in time with the beat.

  He sculpted the swirls of smoke as they drifted up toward the lights, into castles, mountain ranges, forests and exotic beasts. The mark on his wrist throbbed slightly as this occurred. It was strange how few of the patrons ever looked up and noticed his music-shaped daydreams hovering above their heads. Or perhaps the ones who did were already high and thought it normal.

  Improvising, he moved an army across a ridge. He attacked it with dragons and tore it to pieces. Troops fled in all directions. Smiling, he upped the tempo.

  In time, he saw an elbow strike a mug of beer. It slowed in midair as he played, twisting upright, retaining much of the beverage. It came to a stop inches above the floor, then descended the final distance gently. By the time its owner found it there and exclaimed upon the miracle, Dan had returned to his world of open spaces and trees, mountains and clear rivers, prancing unicorns and diving griffins.

  Jerry, the bartender, sent up a pint. Dan paused to sip from it, then in a small fit of self-awareness began the tune to which he had set “Miniver Cheevy.” Soon, he was singing the words.

  Somewhere past the halfway point, he noticed a frightened look on Jerry’s face. He had just taken a step backward. The man immediately before him was leaning forward, hunched over his drink and looking ahead. By leaning back on the stool and craning his neck, Dan could just make out the lines of the small handgun the man held, partly wrapped in a handkerchief. He had never tried to stop one from firing and wondered whether he could. Of course, the trigger might well remain untugged. Jerry was already turning slowly toward the cash register.

  The pulse in his right wrist deepened as he stared at a heavy mug and watched it slide along the bartop, as he shifted his gaze to an empty chair and saw it begin to creep forward. For those moments, a part of him seemed also to be a part of the chair and the mug.

  Jerry rang up NO SALE and was counting out the bills from the register. The chair found its position behind the hunched gunman and halted, soundlessly. Dan sang on, castles fallen, dragons flown, troops scattered in the white haze about the lights.

  Jerry returned to the counter and passed the man a wad of bills. They vanished quickly into a jacket pocket. The weapon was now completely covered by the handkerchief. The man straightened and slid from the stool, eyes and weapon still upon the bartender. As he moved backward and began to turn the chair lurched to reposition itself. His foot struck it and he stumbled, throwing out his hands to save himself.

  As he sprawled, the mug rose from the counter and sped toward his head. When it connected, he lay still. The weapon in its white wrapping sped across the floor to vanish beneath the performer’s platform in the corner.

  Dan finished his song and took another drink. Jerry was beside the man, recovering the money. A knot of people had already formed at that end of the room.

  “That was very strange.”

  He turned his head. It was Betty Lewis who had spoken. She had left the table near the wall where she had been sitting, sipping something, and approached the platform.

  “What was strange?” he said.

  “I saw that chair move by itself—the one he tripped on.”

  “Probably someone bumped it.”

  “No.”

  Now she was looking at him rather than the scene across the room.

  “The whole thing was very peculiar. The mug . . . ” she said. “Funny things seem to happen when you’re playing. Usually little things. Sometimes it’s just a feeling.”

  He smiled.

  “It’s called mood. I’m a great artist.”

  He fingered a chord, ran an arpeggio. She laughed.

  “No, I think you’re haunted.”

  He nodded.

  “Like Cheevy. By visions.”

  “Nobody’s listening now,” she said. “Let’s sit down.”

  “Okay.”

  He leaned his guitar against the stool and took his beer to her table.

  “You write a lot of your own stuff, don’t you?” she said, after they had seated themselves.

  “Yes.”

  “I like your music and your voice. Maybe we could work out a thing where we do a couple of numbers together.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “if you’ve no objection to the strange things you say happen.”

  “I like strange things.” She reached out and touched his hair. “That’s real, isn’t it—the streak?”

  “Yes.”

  “At first I thought—you were a little weird.”

  “ . . . And now you know it?”

  She laughed.

  “I suppose so. Someone said you’re still in school? That right?”

  “It is.”

  “You going to stay with music when you get out?”

  He shrugged.

  “Hard to say.”

  “You’ve got a future, I’d think. Ever record anything?”

  “No.”

  “I had a record. Didn’t do well.”

  “Sorry.”

  “The breaks . . . Maybe bad timing. Maybe not, too. I don’t know. I’d really like to try something with you. See how it sounds. If it works, I know a guy . . . ”

  “My material?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay. After the show, let’s go somewhere and try a few.”

  “My place isn’t far. We can walk”

  “Fine.”

  He took a sip of beer, glanced over and saw that the man on the floor was beginning to stir. In the distance, he heard the sound of a siren. He heard someone ask, “Where’s the gun?”

  “It’s a funny feeling I get when I hear you,” she resumed, “as though the world were a little bit out of kilter.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “ . . . As though you tear a little hole through it and I can see a piece of something else on the other side.”

  “If I could only tear one big enough I’d step through.”

  “You sound like my ex-husband.”

  “Was he a musician?”

  “No. He was a physicist who liked poetry.”

  “What became of him?”

  “He’s out on the Coast in a commune. Arts and crafts, gardening . . . Stuff like that.”

  “He up and leave, or he ask you to go with?”

  “He asked, but I didn’t want pig shit on my heels.”

  Dan nodded.

  “I’ll have to watch where I step if I ever step through.”

  The police car pulled up in front, i
ts light turning, blinking. The siren died. Dan finished his drink as someone located the weapon.

  “We’d look pretty good on an album cover,” she said. “Especially with that streak. Maybe I could . . . Naw.”

  The man with the sore head was led away. Car doors slammed. The blinking stopped.

  “I’ve got to go sing something,” he said, rising. “Or is it your turn?”

  She looked at her watch.

  “You finish up,” she said. “I’ll just listen and wait.”

  He mounted the platform and took the guitar into his hands. The pillars of smoke began to intertwine.

  VI.

  The giant mechanical bird deposited Mark Marakson on the hilltop. Mark brushed back the soft green sleeve of his upper garment and pressed several buttons on the wide bracelet he wore upon his left wrist. The bird took flight again, climbing steadily. He controlled its passage with the wristband and saw through its eyes upon the tiny screen at the bracelet’s center.

  He saw that the way ahead was clear. He shouldered his pack and began walking. Down from the hill and through the woods he went, coming at last to a trail that led toward more open country. Overhead, his bird was but a tiny dot, circling.

  He passed cultivated fields, but no habitations until he came within sight of his father’s house. He had plotted his return route carefully.

  His work shed stood undisturbed. He deposited his pack within it and headed toward the house.

  The door swung shut behind him. The place seemed more disarrayed than he had ever before seen it.

  “Hello!” he called. “Hello?”

  There was no reply, He went through the entire house, finding no one. Dust lay thick everywhere. Marakas could well be in the field, or tending to any of the numerous chores about the place. But Melanie was usually in the house. He looked about outside, investigating the barns and work sheds, walked down to the ditches, scanned the fields. No one. He returned to the house and sought food for lunch. The larder was empty, however, so he ate of his own provisions. But he operated the wrist-control first, and the speck in the heavens ceased its circling and sped southward.

  Disturbed, he began cleaning and straightening about the place. Finally, he went out to the shed and set to work assembling the unit he had brought with him.

  It was on toward evening, his labors long finished, when he heard the sound of the approaching wagon. He departed the house, which he had set back in order, and awaited the vehicle’s arrival.

  He saw Marakas drive up to the barn and begin unhitching the team. He walked over to assist him.

  “Dad . . . ” he said. “Hello.”

  Marakas turned and stared at him. His expression remained blank for an instant too long. During that instant, it struck Mark what had troubled him about his father’s movements, his reaction time: he was more than a little drunk.

  “Mark,” he said then, recognition spreading across his face. He stook a small step forward. “You’ve been gone. Over a year. A year and a half . . . Almost two. What—happened? Where have you been?”

  “It’s a long story. Here, let me help with that.”

  He took over the unhitching of the team, the rubbing down of the horses in their stalls, their feeding.

  “ . . . So, when they destroyed my wagon, I had to leave. I was—afraid. I headed south.”

  He barred the barn door. The sun was just losing its final edge.

  “But so long, Mark . . . You never sent us word or anything,” Marakas said.

  “I couldn’t. How’s—how’s mother?”

  Marakas looked away and did not reply. Finally, he pointed toward a small orchard.

  “Over there,” he said at last.

  After a time, Mark asked, “How’d it happen?”

  “In her sleep. It wasn’t bad for her. Come on.”

  They walked toward the orchard. Mark saw the small, rocked-over grave, a part of the shadows and rootwork near one of the larger trees. He halted beside it, looking down.

  “My going away . . . ” he finally said. “That didn’t have anything to do with it—did it?”

  Marakas put a hand on his shoulder.

  “No, of course not. “

  “You never appreciate . . . Till they’re gone.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s why the place is—not the way it used to be?”

  “It’s no secret I’ve been drinking a lot. Yes. My heart hasn’t been in things around here.”

  Mark nodded, dropped to one knee, touched the stones.

  “We could work the place together, now you’re back,” Marakas said.

  “I can’t.”

  “They’ve got another smith now. New fellow.”

  “I didn’t want to do that either. “

  “What will you be doing?”

  “Something new, different. That’s a long story, too. Mother—”

  His voice broke, and he was silent for a long while.

  Finally, “Mark, I don’t think too clearly when I’ve been drinking,” Marakas said, “and I don’t know whether I ought to tell you this now, later or never. You loved her and she loved you, and I don’t know . . .

  “I guess a man should know, sometime, and you’re a man now, and things ’d of been a lot different without you. We wanted a kid, see?”

  Mark rose slowly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not your father. She’s not your mother. Natural-like, I mean.”

  “I don’t understand . . . ”

  “We never had any of our own that lived. It was a sad thing. So when we had a chance to make a home for a baby, we took it.”

  “Then, who were my natural parents?”

  “I don’t know. It was right after the war—”

  “I was orphaned?”

  “I don’t think so. I couldn’t understand all the wizard’s fancy talk. But they couldn’t bring themselves to kill old Devil Det’s lad, so they sent him someplace far away and got you in exchange. He called you a changeling. That’s all I know. We were so glad to take you. Mel’s life was a lot happier than it would have been otherwise. Mine, too. I hope that doesn’t change anything between us. But I felt it was time for you to know.”

  Mark embraced him.

  “You wanted me,” he said, a little later. “That’s more than a lot of people can say.”

  “It’s good to see you again. Let’s go back to the house. There’s some food and stuff in the wagon.”

  After dinner, they finished a bottle of wine and Marakas grew sleepy. Shortly after he had retired, Mark returned to his shed. They should all be circling high above now, he realized, bearing the additional equipment he needed, awaiting the signal to bring it to him. He carried the unit he had assembled earlier to a large, open area, from which he transmitted the necessary orders.

  The dark bird-shapes began drifting down out of the sky, blotting out stars, their outlines growing to vast proportions. He smiled.

  It took him several hours to unload the equipment and convey most of it to the barn. He was bone-tired when he had finished. He sent all but one of these products of his assembly lines flying back to his city in the south. That one he set to circling again, at a great altitude.

  He returned to his shed to sleep, pausing in the orchard a final time.

  The following day, Mark assembled a small vehicle which, he explained to Marakas, drew its energy from the sun. He could not convince him that this was not a form of magic. That he did not wish to explain from where the parts had come only added to this impression. Mark gave up when he saw that it did not seem to matter to Marakas, and he went on with the installation of special features. That afternoon, he loaded it with equipment and drove off along the trail that followed the canal. He returned several times for additional tools and equipment.

  For the next five days, he remained away from the farm. The afternoon that his work was completed, he drove toward the village. He headed the car down its street and halted it at the same spot whe
re his steam wagon had been destroyed. He activated several circuits and picked up the microphone.

  “This is Mark Marakson,” he said, and his voice rang through the town. “I’ve returned to tell you some of the things to which you would not listen before—and many new things, as well . . . ”

  Faces appeared at windows. Doors began to open.

  “This wagon, like the other, is not powered by a demon. It uses natural energies to do work. I can build planting and plowing and harvesting devices of similar design which will function faster and more efficiently than any a horse can draw. In fact, I already have. I propose to furnish these for no charge to all of the farms in the area and to provide instruction in their use. I would like to turn our land into a model of scientific farming techniques, and then into a manufacturing center for these vehicles. We will all grow rich, providing them to the rest of the country—”

  People emerged onto the street. He saw familiar faces and some new ones. If any were shouting this time, he could not hear them above his own broadcast words.

  “I also have things to teach you concerning the alternation of crops, the use of fertilizers and superior irrigation techniques. The water levels here have always been something of a problem, so I have set up a demonstration of how this can be controlled by installing a series of automatic flow-control gates along the ditches at the abandoned Branson farm above the west bend of the river. I want you to go and take a look at this—to see how they work all by themselves—after you have had a chance to think over my words. No demons there either.”

  Stones and pieces of dirt and dung had begun striking the vehicle while he spoke, but these rebounded harmlessly and he continued:

  “I have also fertilized, plowed, tilled and seeded one of the old fields there. I want you to see how smoothly and evenly this was done, and I want you to watch and see what the yield from that plot comes to. I believe that you will be impressed . . . ”

  Four men rushed forward and set hands upon the side of the car. They immediately leaped or fell back.