The Changlings (The New Earth Chronicles Book 2)

by J. J. Thompson

  “We can talk about this after you deal with the wound,” he told her.

  Sarah blinked several times and focused on Eric again.

  “Yes, of course. Lie back, Eric. I'm going to try a healing. It may hurt.”

  He chuckled as he lay down again.

  “It's been hurting all night. A little more isn't going to matter. Go ahead.”

  Sarah carefully removed the bandage from his wound. Then she untied the thin rope around her waist and slipped the wand off of it. She closed her eyes and the yellow gem on the end of the wand burst into brilliance, as if sunlight had found its way into the room.

  Eric gaped at it, forgetting his pain while Bobby watched in amazement.

  Sarah held the tip of the wand over the wound and murmured something under her breath. Both young men stared in disbelief as the gaping lips of the wound began to close. It was a slow process but Eric didn't seem to be feeling any pain. Either that or he was too enthralled by the process to notice it

  “Almost there, Eric,” she muttered softly. “Almost there. We're nearly done.”

  “I'm okay,” he whispered. “Don't worry about me.”

  At that moment, Jeremy and Fani came back into the room. They stopped still just inside the doorway and watched in wide-eyed wonder.

  With a final flash of piercing yellow light, the gem faded and everyone was let blinking away the after-images. Bobby leaned forward to look at the wound. All that was left of the injury was a ragged red line that looked like a months-old scar.

  “Wow,” he said. “That's the best healing I've ever seen you do, Sarah.”

  Eric pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at his leg.

  “My God, Sarah. How did you do that?”

  She stood up and twirled the wand between her fingers.

  “My new favorite toy helped.” She slipped it into her waist band. “And before you ask, we can talk about how I got it, and how Bobby got his sword, later. You need to sleep now, mister.”

  Sarah walked across the room to a side table, picked up a glass and motioned to Jeremy.

  “Give Eric some water, please,” she told him as she handed him the glass. “And then let him rest. Bobby? Let's go for a walk. We have to talk.”

  “Sarah?”

  She looked back at Eric.

  “Thanks,” he said with a grateful smile. “You saved my life.”

  Sarah shook her head and pointed at Fani, who was still standing by the door holding a bucket of water.

  “No, he saved your life. I just healed your leg. Sleep, Eric. That's an order.”

  He grinned at her.

  “Yes ma'am. I'll do that.”

  Sarah led Bobby out into the hallway, holding up her stone to light their way, and the two of them walked away from the rec room until they were out of earshot.

  “So, what do you think happened with Miesha?” she asked abruptly.

  “What do I think?”

  Bobby stared at her in confusion.

  “You're the lady with the magic powers, not me,” he continued. “I have no idea. My best guess would be that a goblin spell-caster somehow sent you a false message. I don't know how they could do that, or even if it's possible, but that's all I can think of. What do you think?”

  “Me?”

  Sarah cupped her stone in her hands and stared into it.

  “I doubt that the goblins had anything to do with it,” she said slowly. “How would a goblin mage, or whatever, know Miesha's name? Or Jeremy's? Or mine for that matter? They wouldn't. Magic doesn't make someone all-seeing or all-knowing, not even wizards. Add to that is the fact that most goblins don't speak English or the Common tongue. How everyone who Changed came to know how to speak a common language, no matter where they came from, is a mystery to me, but they can. The goblins cannot. No, something else sent me that false message. Which leads to two major questions: who and why?”

  Bobby nodded as he listened to her reasoning. She was right, of course. It couldn't be a goblin. But then...

  “Who could do that?” he asked.

  Sarah looked at him and shrugged.

  “I'm actually less interested in who did it and more interested in why? What does it accomplish to convince us that Miesha and the others are alive and Jeremy is dead? I mean, what's the point? Yes, we're all fond of him, but would telling us that he was killed change anything?”

  “It might.”

  Both of them turned around to see Jeremy standing just a few feet away in the darkness.

  “Jeremy!” Sarah exclaimed. “I didn't hear you following us. Sorry, we were just talking about...”

  “I know what you were talking about,” he said in a subdued voice. “You're wondering why you were lied to about my death, right?”

  “Right. Any ideas?”

  “Maybe. I mean, I'm guessing that you, Bobby, were kind of happy when you found me in the forest and realized that I was alive. Weren't you?”

  “Of course I was,” Bobby exclaimed. “I was thrilled, actually.”

  “And you couldn't wait to get me to safety.”

  “Well, sure. Who wouldn't, after what you went through?”

  Sarah was watching Jeremy keenly. She was frowning at him and Bobby wondered what was wrong.

  “So there's your answer,” Jeremy told him with a secretive smile. “Someone wanted me hustled into this refuge quickly, during an emergency when Sarah was paying more attention to the enemy than to me.”

  “But why?” Bobby asked, feeling bewildered. “What would that accomplish?”

  The smile on Jeremy's face widened, giving him a slightly maniacal look in the blue glow of Sarah's stone.

  She moved back involuntarily and Jeremy giggled.

  “It would allow me to get closer to her.” He looked at Sarah. “You're a nexus, do you know that? The others here; Eric, Fani, me, even Bobby, are not really important. But you? You have a destiny, a role to play in the battle to come. That makes you special.”

  His voice had changed, becoming lower and more hoarse. Sarah moved even further away from him and Bobby cautiously put his hand on his sword hilt.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked Jeremy.

  “Doesn't matter. All that matters is that removing a nexus is like removing the cornerstone from a building. The building cannot stand without it and it will come crashing down.”

  Jeremy chuckled and, without warning, leaped straight at Sarah. A knife appeared as if by magic in his hand and he slashed at her unprotected throat.

  Sarah stumbled backwards, falling to the ground with a cry of pain, and Jeremy fell on top of her. She shoved him off and scrambled away, but he didn't follow. When she pushed herself to her feet, Sarah could see why.

  Bobby was staring down at the body of his friend, his sword drenched in blood for the second time that day. Sarah looked down at Jeremy and gasped in horror. His neck was almost completely severed and his head was only connected to his body by a few strands of skin and gristle.

  They heard someone shout and both Eric and Fani came racing out of the rec room.

  “What's going on?” Eric asked when they reached Sarah and Bobby. His eyes were bright with exhaustion, but he didn't seem to be in any pain. “We heard a commotion and... Oh my God. Jeremy? What happened?”

  “He attacked Sarah,” Bobby said, his voice devoid of emotion. “With that.”

  He nodded at a curved dagger that was lying next to the body.

  “But why? Why would he do that?”

  The four of them suddenly backed away from the body as a cloud of thick steam rose from it and it crumbled into a bubbling stew of rotting flesh and bone.

  “What the hell?”

  Sarah coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. The steam smelled of rotting flesh and made her feel sick to her stomach.

  Eric quickly dodged around the remains and pulled her away from them.

  “Don't breathe that,” he said urgently. “It could be toxic.”

  “M
aybe. Come on, everyone,” she told them as she avoided looking at the remains. “Let's go back to the rec room. We need to talk about this and I don't think whatever that is,” she gestured toward the body and shuddered, “is going anywhere.”

  The three young men followed her back into the room and they pulled up four chairs and sat down in a circle. Bobby still had his sword in his hand and he looked at it in distaste as he walked over to a cupboard and grabbed a small hand towel.

  “More blood on it,” he said flatly. “It's had a big day. I don't know...”

  Bobby rejoined the others and sat down. He lifted the towel to clean off the blade and stopped abruptly. He frowned down at it and examined it more closely.

  “There they are again. The same weird markings that I saw in the blood of the goblin when I cut its arm off. I don't understand what they mean.”

  Sarah leaned forward with her glowing stone and looked at the blade.

  “It's writing, Bobby. Why is there writing on the sword?”

  His eyes widened and he looked at her in surprise.

  “Maybe it's that silly little poem, the poem that Esmiralla quoted to me.”

  Fani looked confused.

  “Who's Esmiralla?” he asked.

  “Wait. You spoke to Esmiralla?” Sarah asked him sharply. “When was this?”

  Bobby ducked his head sheepishly.

  “Um, when you were sleeping. She's the one that told me about our people coming toward the bunker and suggested that I leave while you were resting to go and help them.”

  “That's why you left?” Sarah said in astonishment. “Because of Esmiralla?”

  “Yeah. She said that you needed to sleep and had to remain safe to coordinate communications between all of the leaders.”

  Sarah made a sound of disgust and he hurried on.

  “I know, I know. It sounds lame now. But at the time, it made sense. Anyway, we can talk about it later. But it's the poem that's I'm more interested in right now. How did it go? Ah, I remember. 'To know my soul and use my strength, then feed me well along my length. I only answer to my name and render death when once I'm tamed.'”

  “Okay, no offense, Bobby, but that's a terrible poem,” Eric said with a crooked grin.

  “Must lose something in translation. I couldn't figure out what it meant, until now. 'Feed me well along my length' obviously meant that it wanted blood. Which is pretty gross if you ask me.”

  Fani shrugged his skinny shoulders.

  “Makes sense though, doesn't it? What else would you feed a weapon with, except blood? An apple? Pizza?”

  Eric chuckled and even Sarah smiled at Fani's attempt at humor.

  “True, I suppose,” Bobby agreed. “But I still can't read what it says.”

  He held out the sword so that everyone could examine it.

  “Looks like, I dunno, Egyptian writing or something, doesn't it?” Eric told him. “I remember a book I read once about the ancient pharaohs. It had some stone tablets with lettering like that, I think.”

  Sarah tucked her hair behind her ears and gestured for Bobby to give her the sword. He hastily offered it, hilt first, and she took it and put it down on the floor. Then she pushed her chair back and knelt down on the ground to examine it more closely.

  “Hmm, this looks familiar somehow,” she mused. “The letters are actually glowing a bit, did you notice that? I'm not sure why they're green though. Maybe it's because of the blood.”

  The three guys remained silent and watched her intently.

  “Eight letters? Right, eight,” Sarah muttered absently. “Let's see. Nilkanos? No. Um, Nilkhana? Hmm, closer. Aha! I've got it.”

  She looked at Bobby and smiled triumphantly.

  “Nillanos. That's what it says.”

  She picked up the sword and gave it back to him. He accepted it and looked at it dubiously.

  “Okay, so it says Nillanos. What the heck does that mean?” he asked as he used the small towel to clean off the blade.

  “Vengeance,” Sarah replied as she stretched and then sat down in her chair again. “Please don't ask me how I know that, but I do.”

  “But what language is it written in?” Eric asked her. “Egyptian?”

  Sarah closed her eyes and rubbed them weakly.

  “No, definitely not. I think that it's written in Draconic. Again, I don't know how I know that, but there you go.”

  “I've never heard of that one before. Is it older than Egyptian?”

  She smiled faintly at Eric and watched as Bobby sheathed the sword again.

  “It's older than any language,” she told them. “It's the language of dragons and it's as old as the world itself.”

  Chapter 17

  “Hang on a minute,” Eric said to Sarah. “What do you mean, the words on Bobby's sword are written in the language of dragons? How could you possibly know that?”

  She shook her head in bewilderment.

  “I have no idea. Look, the thought just popped into my head, all right? I didn't even know that dragons had a written language, or that I could read it, but apparently I can. It's the magic, I suppose. Maybe it helps me read other languages? I really don't know.”

  “Well, that's weird,” Fani said as he looked around at the others. “Isn't it?”

  Bobby stood up slowly, his fatigue starting to weigh heavily on him.

  “Look, this is fascinating, but we can talk about this some other time, guys. I'd personally like to get some sleep, but we still have to figure out why Jeremy attacked Sarah. And we have to dispose of his... his remains, somehow.”

  He was too tired to even feel much grief at this point, but Bobby knew that it would come. Jeremy had been a close friend and now he was dead. Really dead, this time. And he had been the cause. It just felt too surreal to accept, even now.

  Sarah got up and went over to him. She gave him a quick hug and a gentle smile.

  “You're right, Bobby. All this talk of swords and ancient languages is, I think, just a way to put off the inevitable. Come on, everyone. Fani, grab a torch, would you? Whatever that gas was that was released when Jeremy died, it's probably gone by now. Let's go back and try to figure out what happened.”

  None of them really wanted to approach the body again, but it had to be done and so, as a group, they left the room and walked down the hallway to where the remains lay.

  It was an even more grisly sight now that the vapor had dissipated. The body had begun to dry out and seemed to be decomposing at an accelerated rate.

  “How is any of this even possible?” Eric wondered. “The body looks like it died weeks or months ago. Jeremy was alive and well yesterday. Wasn't he?”

  Bobby forced himself to kneel down next to the body. He gestured for Fani to hand him the torch and he held it out over the remains.

  Jeremy's left hand was lying close to his knee and Bobby glanced at it listlessly. The skin was tight to the bones, as if all of the liquid had been drained from the body. Something odd caught his attention and he brought the torch down closer.

  “Son of a... Guys, this isn't Jeremy,” he stated flatly.

  “What? What are you talking about?” Sarah asked in surprise. “We all knew Jeremy, Bobby, and it was definitely him.”

  Bobby shook his head decisively and pointed at the back of the left hand.

  “Jeremy had a scar on his hand, a big one. I should know; I was there when he got it, here in the bunker. We were horsing around once, play-fighting, and he fell against a metal table and slashed his hand open. When it had all healed, it left a crescent-shaped scar across the entire top of his hand. Well, look here. No scar, see?”

  Everyone got closer and stared at the back of the hand. There was no scar there.

  “But then, who is that?” Fani asked as Bobby stood up again. “And where's Jeremy?”

  Bobby could only shrug.

  “I have no idea. All I know is that I didn't kill the real Jeremy, which means that he could still be alive!”

  Sarah looke
d at him sadly. She didn't want to be the one to say it, but Bobby was getting his hopes up again and she doubted that it would end well.

  “Bobby,” she said hesitantly. “If Jeremy was replaced somehow by a doppelganger, and it looks like he was, then the odds of him still being alive are, well, slim at best.”

  He scowled at her and she returned his look calmly. After a moment, he nodded reluctantly.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know, Sarah. But until we know for sure, I'm going to hold out just a little bit of hope.”

  “We all will,” Eric assured him. “At least we know that the real Jeremy didn't actually betray us.”

  “So what do we do with the, um, body?” Fani asked distastefully.

  Bobby gave him back the torch and began walking back to the rec room.

  “I'll grab a sheet and we'll wrap it up and lock it away in one of the rooms at the far end of the hall,” he said over his shoulder. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  “Great,” he heard Fani say weakly.

  While Bobby and the others disposed of the body, Sarah returned to the rec room and sat down on her bed. She stared blankly at her stone and went through everything that had happened since she and Bobby had escaped from the city.

  How had their enemies found them in the bunker? Had they actually been able to listen in on the conversations she'd had with the others via the stone? Was that how they'd found Jeremy and somehow replaced him? And who were they? The goblins? The dragons? Or was there something else out there bent on killing off the Changlings? She had no idea.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” she said softly, staring at the glowing stone. “Should I try calling Caroline? She was supposed to be getting closer to the bunker, but how do I know that I was speaking to the real person and not something impersonating her? What do I do?”

  If Sarah was waiting for inspiration from the lump of rock, she was disappointed. It simply glowed steadily, bathing her in blue light.

  “Well then, I suppose it's up to me,” she muttered.

  She slipped her legs underneath her and clasped the stone in both hands.

  If there's one person that I'm pretty sure can't be duplicated, it's Magnus, she thought. So let's see if I can reach him.