Oberon's Children

  Chapter Thirteen: Changeling

  I woke a few times, but I remember little.

  I do remember that Ionmar was the one who cared for me. I remember too that Ai’Ilyn came by once, to see me but not to talk. When I woke and saw her standing above me, her expression was veiled, and she had Caelyr silk bound about her wrist and side. When she saw me watching her she nodded and then left. Ionmar came into my vision then and knelt to gently take my arm and send me back into oblivion.

  When I came to full consciousness for the first time, it was only Ionmar who was with me. She was weaving by my side, six of her eight legs tucked beneath her while her human hands and spider forelegs crocheted something so complex it hurt to think about.

  I tried to speak but realized my whole body, everything expect for my eyes, was covered in Caelyr silk. I tried to wriggle back and forth, and I managed enough of it that Ionmar looked up from what she was doing, her black orb-eyes reflecting back an image of me cocooned from head to toe. She reached out a hand and touched the side of my head through the thick silk, slowly stroking me like I’d imagine a mother would.

  “Sleep now,” she said softly. “The answers are coming.”

  When next I woke I was in my nestle, snug beneath the warm, soft blankets I had so often been forced to change and wash. The moonlight was bright, much brighter than I was used to. It didn’t really make sense – the window was at the wrong angle for the light to shine directly on me. What was happening?

  I blinked a few times and realized two things. The first was that the window was in the wrong section of the wall. It was too low, and much too close. I thought for a wild moment that I’d been placed in the wrong nestle, that someone had switched me with someone further down the line, but then I realized that there were no other cut-outs in the floor. The room was much smaller than it should be, and the walls were too close on either side of me.

  And I was alone.

  I sat up and saw that the door was the same odd twisted passage that all the others were, but that the entrance to it was barely a pace away from the edge of my cut-out. I was in a room that was just big enough to sleep in, with no room left over.

  It was the first time I’d been truly alone in three years.

  I stood, letting the soft blankets fall, and realized that my clothing had been changed – I was no longer wearing the blood-soaked shirt and pants from the night I remembered, but instead newly-spun Caelyr silk. It felt cool against my body, and I absently rubbed my chest through the thin layer, pressing it close as if to confirm my own reality.

  I crossed to the window, amazed that it was at the level of my eyes. I slowed and gaped in awe.

  I could see the entire Bower clearing laid out below me: the huge rippling roots and wide field of swaying grass and flowers radiated from the base of the tree. I didn’t understand it – couldn’t understand why or how I was up so high. There was a patch of darkened trees ahead and to the left, and I realized with a jolt that there was the evidence of what had happened the night I last remembered. The burned area looked much smaller than I would have thought.

  I grabbed the wooden sides of the window, wide enough that I could have fit my entire chest through, and leaned out. Everything was in motion – the children were down there, put to work by the Ilyn and the Urden, clearing away more of the field, and some of them were in the darkened section of trees as well, clearing away debris. But only the Urden were deep inside – the children looked to be only on the edges. I wondered what they were doing about the rock, if it was still there –

  “You’re awake – excellent.”

  I cringed instinctively at the sound of Ai’Ilyn’s voice and retreated from the window, ducking my head down and turning, assuming the neutral stance she required.

  “That’s not necessary anymore,” she said.

  Confused, I didn’t move.

  “Look at me, changeling. You don’t need to be afraid anymore.”

  I did as she asked, slowly raising my head so that my long black hair fell out of my face.

  I gasped.

  She was beautiful.

  The Ai’Ilyn I had known had disappeared, and in her place stood a woman with long red-blonde hair that fell down her back in a waterfall of color, with high cheekbones and dark, piercing eyes that had red-tinged irises. That was the only reason I believed my ears, in truth: the eyes were still the same, mocking and watching.

  “Done staring?”

  She stepped forward into the room; I noticed the graceful sway in her walk and the way she wore barely any clothing covering her skin – just as she had as one of the Ilyn. Her chest was still bare, and unlike I’d seen her before, there was certainly evidence of her femininity on display, high and firm on her pale chest.

  Her skin was no longer flaky white and red, but was instead smooth and tight. The short red spines along her back were gone, replaced by a light pattern of scars that had faded almost to invisibility.

  “You have permission to speak freely. You’ve earned it. More than earned it.”

  I swallowed hard, trying to think of anything I might say, but nothing came to mind. She continued to watch me with her haughty smile, but I saw traces of unease beneath it, and flashes of something else around the tight muscles of her jaw.

  “Am I dreaming?”

  Ai’Ilyn snorted. “No – you’re not dreaming. You’ve been asleep for almost a month, though. The iron you found in the forest … some of it was embedded in your hand. We were able to get it out, but not before it did a good deal of harm to you. It took a long time for you to recover – and much help from the Caelyr was required.”

  I realized I was staring blankly at her face, only really listening to every other word. I couldn’t understand.

  “You … how are you …?”

  “We’ll get there,” she said gently – a tone of voice which was much stranger than her change in appearance. “But that only makes sense after I explain the rest.”

  “But you’re still … you’re Ai’Ilyn?”

  “Yes. My name is Ai, and I’m an Ilyn.”

  “Oh … all right.”

  Silence, as she let me absorb this. I found myself looking blankly at a wall, and then the floor, and finally I realized I should be asking more questions. Everything seemed so surreal – was this really happening?

  “You said … iron?”

  Ai’Ilyn’s face darkened, but she responded easily enough.

  “Yes. Iron ore in the rock you found. We don’t know how it got there, but it happens. Iron is … it’s poison. It reacts to Fae blood, making it extremely dangerous for anyone with Fae ancestry. It’s part of how we were driven out of the human world. It’s part of why no humans are allowed here. Iron and fire … they are the workings of men, and they can bind us. Men by nature are physically weak, but they are smart, and they know what tools to use to level the field and even tilt it in their favor.”

  “But how did it get there?”

  “That … is harder to explain. The Bower doesn’t move – it is anchored. It is here and it will always be here. The Erlking did it somehow long, long ago; it was something that had never been done before. But while the Bower stays, the forest changes. Everything beyond the first line of trees comes and goes as it will. The Erlking can control it when he needs to, and the stronger of us can as well, which is how we move about the outside world, but when left alone … the forest moves itself. The world itself is part Fae, at least the older parts, and it is not to be held down as men are.”

  “Oh,” I said lamely. We fell silent for a time and she just watched me and I watched her back, too disoriented to feel fear or much of anything at all. “So then what … happened?”

  Ai’Ilyn nodded but didn’t speak. She took a step further into the room, coming up to the side of my new nestle, and then lowered herself smoothly down onto the edge of it, where she gestured for me to sit across from her. I did.

  “It happens to all of us,” she said with a grim smile. “Al
l the changelings.”

  “The – all of us?”

  “Where did you think we all went?” Her eyes were wide with interest, and I had to look down and away; the intensity of that look was too much, like staring into a bright light. “Really, I want to know – all the new changelings come up with the wildest theories. What was yours?”

  “I – I thought everyone – they all left. I thought you kicked them out.”

  She smiled, revealing straight white teeth, none of which had been filed to a point. But then she became serious and the Ai’Ilyn I remembered was back: Her brow furrowed in the same way and the eyes narrowed.

  “A good number do, but a good number don’t. Each changeling is given a choice. They can stay here, become one of the Ilyn and live with the Erlking under his protection … or they can go.”

  She took a quick breath, and I could see that what she was about to say next did not please her. She looked away from me, pursed her heavy, pouting lips, and then looked back.

  “Those who stay remember everything. We know who we are, we know the Bower. We can travel the forests, can visit the ruins of the world that still remember the Fae, still remember the world before iron and fire, and we can move from shadow to shadow and visit the world of men, if only briefly.

  “But those who choose to leave, forget. Everything. If we step out of the shadows for too long, our memories are taken from us. If you should choose to leave, then everything you’ve been through here will be taken from you. All memory of me, all memory of the other changelings –”

  “And him?”

  She arched an eyebrow at me over the interruption, but that time I didn’t let myself feel cowed. I watched her right back, though I’m sure my face was twitching with the effort.

  “You would forget him too,” she said.

  I swallowed and took a breath, flicking my eyes away from her face and focusing on her hands, which lay curled together in her lap. They were tough and worn, and the nails were red.

  “Then why the Ilyn?”

  “The changelings who stay cannot give the game away,” she said simply, speaking slowly. “Part of staying is to help the others that come. There’s much more than that, but for those of us who can, we help. There are always changelings – the Fae owe allegiance to the Bower, but the changelings that leave still have children, and the Fae who go outside are outside the King’s realm and he can do very little about it. All Fae have sanctuary here if they swear allegiance, but if you leave the forests, if you leave the edges of the world where the moonlight is strong, you begin to forget, and you are on your own.”

  “So all this time,” I said, staring at her in wonder, “you were one of us? You – you treated us the way you did even knowing that –”

  And suddenly I was furious. Rage rose up in me and gripped me by the throat. My vision went sideways and then came back into focus; my hands balled into fists, and blood pounded in my ears. Somehow this was worse, so much worse. This wasn’t what I’d come to understand – these weren’t the rules I knew. We had to obey the Ilyn because they wanted to hurt us, because they were just there like water or fire, something we had to go through, a trial, not people who were like us, people who knew what it was to be in our position, people who understood the pain they were putting us through.

  “You beat us, knowing who we were?”

  All traces of a smile were gone from Ai’Ilyn’s face, and I knew she’d seen the anger flooding through me. Very slowly, she cocked her head to the side, watching me.

  “Yes,” she said simply. “Why do you think I did?”

  I could barely breathe. Somehow the thought entered my mind that she hadn’t invited me to sit with her so that we could talk, she’d moved to block the entrance to the room and make it harder for me to escape.

  “Because you like it.”

  The words left my mouth with a vicious crack, and I was surprised that Ai’Ilyn didn’t flinch under their blow. She didn’t move at all, just continued to watch me with a veiled expression. Those red eyes were just the same – pitiless and hard.

  And then it was happening again. I felt a soaring in my stomach, and everything seemed to go white for a flash of time. The world contracted, and everything came into sharp focus. My forehead warmed and the fever swept over me, consuming me in a roaring blaze that made it hard to see. My thoughts sped up until they were crashing into one another, and I was thinking a thousand things in the space of a second, wondering about what she’d really felt when she was beating us, if she’d liked it, if she was even telling me the truth now, on and on forever.

  The madness was pouring through me, a well that had been only temporarily sealed over when I’d fallen into unconsciousness after Tristan’s death –

  Tristan.

  I was on my feet, stumbling backwards, the images of his body, the way my hands felt as I clawed open his chest, the blood so red and then black, the sounds he made as I beat him, the sounds his body made as I ripped it open to protect the Bower, to keep this place safe –

  I felt a pain in my legs, and my elbow, and then realized the room was at the wrong height. Somehow I was on the floor again, somehow I was staring at Ai’Ilyn’s feet, and the next thing I knew she was in front of me, kneeling there, her flowing red hair tickling my nose as she leaned down to grab me by the shoulders.

  “I know you’re angry, and we can deal with that later. You’re in the grip of the madness – you have to calm it. You have to push it down, you have to control it and make it work for you. Don’t let it control you, don’t let it take you over. It’s like the moonlight – remember how to dance.”

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell me. The words washed over me, meaningless sound, as the fever continued to mount, burning me and hollowing me out from the inside. She was still talking, but now even the sound of it was fading away. The idea of Tristan was what held sway in my mind, not her, not me. I was drowning in fire, going deep inside myself.

  I was losing my mind.

  “BREATHE, CHANGELING!”

  A hand struck my face and instinct took over. The iron-hard voice of the woman who’d run my life for the better part of three years pulled me up and out of the pit into which I’d fallen. I found myself responding to her command even before I knew what I was doing: Air shuddered into my mouth and down my throat, filling my lungs. I gasped, hacking through what felt like a mouth full of phlegm.

  “Good! Once more!”

  But I was falling down again, down the dark hole into the pit –

  “BREATHE!”

  Again the voice, again the sharp pain as she struck my cheek and rocked my face to the side. I obeyed, sucking in a huge lungful of air. A hand caught my chin and pulled me around so that I was looking into a pair of eyes rimmed with red.

  “Stay with me, girl. I will not lose the most promising changeling in my group because you felt like having a hissy-fit.”

  I could understand some of the words, but others didn’t make sense at all; they just flowed around me. I recognized distantly that my elbow was bleeding from where I’d scraped it against the hard wood floor of the Bower. I heard the soft splash of a drop of blood as it fell.

  “Stay with me. Come back – control your thoughts. Remember everything you went through – all those times I punished you or I punished Faolan and you wanted to react, but you didn’t. Remember every time one of the other Ilyn said something to you that you had to ignore. Every time one of the Paecsies struck you for being too slow … remember holding back, remember the breath you’d take to keep yourself from reacting.”

  Slowly my breathing became rhythmic and easy again. The image of her eyes took over and encompassed my mind, and what I’d done to Tristan began to fade away. The memories were still there, but they did not dominate my mind.

  “That’s right, girl. That’s right. We did it to teach you. We did it to keep you sane. All the groundwork is there already; you just have to use it. Remember the moonlight ??
? remembering running through the madness, always moving. Don’t let it hold you down to one spot – let your mind keep flowing.”

  My breathing was normal again, if ragged, and I pushed myself back and away from my former tormentor. My elbow was throbbing and my hip was burning from where I’d fallen to the floor, but I was sane and alive. I could feel the madness still – it wasn’t gone, it was simply contained, in the box that I had used for my emotions, the one I’d used to survive the years I’d been a part of the Bower.

  “That’s why changelings choose to go,” I said, anger still racking me but under control.

  We did it to teach you. We did it to keep you sane.

  “They can’t accept what you’ve done to us.”

  Parts of my body were still out of control: my lips were curling up into a snarl against my will, my fingernails were digging into my palms, and my eyes kept shivering in their sockets.

  “What have we done to you?”

  Ai’Ilyn’s face was still close to mine, and I had to fight back the urge to spit in it.

  “You beat us.”

  “When?”

  “All the time!”

  “No!” Ai’Ilyn growled, shaking her head and grimacing. “Don’t play that game – you were the one who figured it out, you were the first one. You knew all along, I could see it in your eyes. You barely even needed my help – if I’d left you alone you damn well could have gone through the madness yourself! Don’t act like a sullen child, it doesn’t become you. Why did we do it?”

  I remembered how certain I’d been that there had to be a purpose to everything we were going through; I remembered how intensely I had rebelled against Tristan and the others who wanted to leave; I remembered how certain I’d been that we belonged here.

  “You were training us,” I said.

  The words left my mouth and took the last of my anger with them. The tension drained from my body and my muscles relaxed. Ai’Ilyn was nodding.

  “Damn right, girl. I trained you just the way they trained me when I came here.”

  She sat back on her haunches, still watching me closely, hands up and warding as if ready to catch me. I saw again that she was positioned between the door and me.

  “I have questions,” I said numbly.

  “When don’t you?” she grumbled. I ignored that.

  “You did what you did – all these years – you did it to help me?”

  A nod. I swallowed hard, trying to connect the pieces of my reality, trying to come up with a complete picture.

  “If you hadn’t done it, what would have happened?”

  “The details are different for each changeling, but the result is nearly always the same: insanity, rage, and then death.”

  I stared at her in silence for a long moment.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Nine out of ten die if they aren’t brought here,” she said, her voice free from inflection, her eyes never leaving mine. “You could have been the one to survive, but I wouldn’t take those odds if I were you.”

  “They die? How?”

  “They go mad,” she responded immediately, not pausing to collect herself, only trying to answer my questions as quickly as she could. “They go like Tristan, and there’s no one there to stop them. They feel entitled to anything they want, so they try to take it. Some feel entitled to a man or a woman, so they take them. Some feel entitled to power, so they take that. Some feel entitled to kill, so they do that. It’s Fae blood that drives them to it, Fae blood undirected that drives them mad. And then, if they don’t die of exhaustion or lose their mind forever when the fit passes, whomever they’ve wronged takes care of the job for them. It’s why men still tell stories of us … of demons in the night. It’s why if changelings aren’t brought here they go mad and men burn them, or hang them, or kill them in their sleep. Without proper guidance, without the Bower, there’s no way around it. I’ve seen it happen – I didn’t believe at first, so they showed me. They took me through the forests to a land where live Fae that owe no allegiance to the Erlking, and it’s a land of depravity where Fae are cruel and do as they please. It’s … it’s not pretty.”

  When she fell silent, I tried to digest what she had said, but found that most of it simply wouldn’t fit into my head. One thing, however, seemed clear.

  “So you … you saved my life.”

  Ai’Ilyn stared at me for a long time.

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said finally. “But I only do what the Erlking says. We all do – he’s the one who knows when to push us and when to hold us back. They say he’s tried many different ways, and that this is the one that keeps the most of us alive. He’s been here – the Bower has been here – for as long as any of the Fae can remember. He’s done everything he can to help the Fae, and to help the changelings.”

  My mind was slowly working its way back up to full speed, and I kept picking at the tangled mess of my understanding, trying to see what could be pulled loose.

  “The cleaning?”

  “Humility,” she said immediately. “Without it, the madness turns to killing rage – no one is beneath you.”

  “The beatings?”

  “Consequences,” she said, speaking again as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “When the madness hits you feel like there are no rules, that you can do anything to anyone and that you have a right to do it. You need to learn otherwise.”

  “The moonlight?”

  “Ecstasy,” she said. “The pure light induces a mild form of the madness. And also, we need the moonlight. The Ilyn could catch it, but it’s much harder once you’ve gone through the madness. The other Fae need it, too – it’s what helps sustain us. It’s in our water and it’s what we use to grow our food.”

  I fell silent, trying to think of anything else I could ask her but feeling completely wrecked. It felt like even shifting my eyes back and forth between either side of her face was akin to lifting boulders.

  “And what about now? What … happens now?”

  Ai’Ilyn continued to watch me for a long moment, and I knew that she was still watching whatever evidence of the madness was in my eyes to see if I was truly in control. Finally she nodded, just a tiny bob of her head, and then relaxed, sitting back on the ground and crossing her legs in front of her. I imitated her, realizing I was still sprawled out on the ground.

  “What happens now is what happens to every changeling after they’ve experienced the madness. What happens now is you begin to make a choice.”

  I stared blankly ahead, not even trying to meet her eyes.

  “I need you to listen to me,” she said, and I felt the pull of her gaze. “I need to know that you’re hearing me as I say this. Look at me.”

  The tone of command in her final words shook me to anger again, but it was a bright flare that sputtered out even as it kindled. I met her gaze.

  “You’ve made it through the madness, but you are not yet accustomed to it. You will have training, from me and from the other Ilyn, and from any of the other Fae you wish to seek out, if they will have you. Within a year, you should have suitable control over it. I expect that for you it will go much faster. At that point, you must make your decision. A year from today – no more, no less. You choose to stay here, or you choose to go. If you stay, you’ll be a full member of the Bower. No more cleaning, no more cooking, no more hauling food and water or forced bathing. You’ll be a full member of the Ilyn, with equal rights to the other Fae. If you go … you forget, and you live a life apart as a human. With the madness under control, you won’t be a danger.”

  She fell silent and watched me, waiting for questions. I tried to think of one, but I couldn’t. Finally, she stood and moved toward the twisted doorway.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “You will?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Did you never wonder where I went when you were working with the other Fae?” she asked, looking amused. “Chang
elings go through the madness all the time. We’re on constant watch – any of you might go at any time.”

  “Like Tristan.”

  Her face darkened and I could tell that I’d said something wrong.

  “Yes,” she said, almost hissing like her old self. “Like him.”

  “He died because he wasted the training … didn’t he? That’s why he went mad. He couldn’t control it.”

  Ai’Ilyn watched me for a long time, saying nothing, and I realized this time I would get no answer out of her.

  “I apologize for asking, Ilyn,” I said, falling back on the routine I’d learned so well. I hated myself for doing it the moment the words were out of my mouth – what was it for, now that I knew the truth? – but as soon as I’d fallen silent Ai’Ilyn spoke back to me.

  “I apologize that I cannot answer, changeling.”

  She left the room. I sat where I was, staring at where she’d been.