Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock Unlocked

Gwen screamed, clasping her hand over her mouth.

Rod’s eyes bulged; all he could manage was a hoarse, strangled caw.

The noise woke the children. They sat bolt-upright, eyes wide and staring, darting glances about for the danger.

Then they saw the kobold.

Cordelia screamed, and flew into her mother’s arms, burying her head in Gwen’s breast and sobbing. Geoffrey darted to her, too, bawling his head off.

But Big Brother Magnus clamped his jaws shut around a neigh of terror, plastered his back against a tree, then drew his sword and advanced slowly, pale and trembling.

Rod snapped out of his horrified daze and leaped to Magnus’s side, catching his sword-hand. “No, son! Touch him with cold iron, and we’ll never see him again!”

“Good,” Magnus grated. “I have small liking, to gaze upon such an horror. I beg thee, free my hand, Papa.”

“I said no !” Rod barked. “That’s not just an average haunt who happened by, son—it’s a changeling!”

Magnus’s gaze shot up to Rod’s, appalled. “A what ?”

“A changeling. Theofrin’s faeries must’ve been following us, waiting for their chance—and while you three were asleep, and Gwen was preoccupied with Gregory’s thoughts, and I was talking with Father Al…” His lips tightened, again in self-anger. “…no one was watching Elidor; so they kidnapped him, and left this thing in its place.” He took a quick glance at his own three, to reassure himself they were all there. They were, thank Heaven.

“We must not afright it,” Gwen said grimly.

“Your wife is right,” Father Al murmured, stepping behind a tree. “We must not scare it away, and the sight of me might do just that. I see you know what a changeling is. Do you know that it holds a correspondence to the child who was kidnapped?”

Rod scowled. “You mean you can use it to work a spell that’ll recover Elidor?”

Father Uwell nodded. “And it’s our only link to him. If it leaves, we’ll have no way of regaining him.”

“All right.” Rod nodded. “I’ll bite. How do we use the changeling to get Elidor back?”

“Well, first you take an egg…” He broke off, frowning. “What’s that chiming?”

“Just the breeze in the trees; the leaves rustle strangely here.”

The priest shook his head. “No, beyond that—the tinkling. Do you hear it?”

Rod frowned, turning his head. Now that the priest mentioned it, there was a sound of chiming bells. “Yeah, come to think of it. Strange. What do you suppose it is?”

“Given the terrain and what you’ve told me about the inhabitants, it could be any of several things, none of which would exactly welcome the sight of a priest. I’d recommend you trace the sound to its source. I’ll follow, but I’ll stay back out of sight.”

“Well, it’s your field, not mine,” Rod said dubiously. “Come on, kids! And stay close to your mother and me.” He glanced back at Magnus. “Uh, bring… Elidor?”

“Aye, Papa.”

Gwen caught Geoff’s and Cordelia’s hands, and looked back at the changeling. “Come, then!” She shuddered as she turned away from it. Cordelia clung to her, trembling.

They wound though the silver forest, hands clasped, following the tinkling sound. It began to fall into a tune; and, as it became louder, Rod began to hear a thin piping of reeds, like very high-pitched oboes, underneath it, and, lower in pitch, a flute. Then the trees opened out into a little clearing, and Gwen gasped.

Faery lights wavered over the grove, mostly gold, but with occasional flickers of blue and red. Looking more closely, Rod saw that the air was filled with fireflies, so many that their winking lights lent a constant, flickering glow that supplemented the moonlight, showing a ring of delicate, dark-haired women, supple and sinuous, in diaphanous shifts, dancing to the tune played by a three-foot-tall elf with a bagpipe, and another who sat atop a giant mushroom with a set of panpipes. The ladies, too, couldn’t have been more than three feet high—but behind them, beaming down fondly, sat a woman of normal size.

Of more than normal size—in fact, of epic proportions. She would’ve tipped the scales at three hundred pounds, and kept on tipping them. She wore a mile or so of rose-colored gown, the skirts spread out in a great fan in front of her. A high, square-topped headdress of the same cloth exaggerated her height, with folds of veil framing her face. It was a quiet face, and calm, layered in fat but surprisingly little, compared to her body. Her eyes were large and kind, her nose straight, and her mouth a tuck of kindness.

Rod glanced out of the corner of his eye; the changeling was hanging back in the shadows. Then he turned back to the ample beldame, and bowed. “Good evening, Milady. I am Rod Gallowglass; whom have I the pleasure of addressing?”

“I am called the Lady Milethra, Grand Duchess of Faery,” the dame answered with a smile. “Thou art well come among us, Lord Gallowglass.”

Rod hiked his eyebrows; she knew his title. He decided not to remark on the subject. “Uh, in my company are my wife, the Lady Gwendylon, and our children—Magnus, Cordelia, and Geoffrey.”

Gwen dropped a curtsey, and Cordelia mimicked her. Magnus bowed, and Geoff needed prompting.

The Grand Duchess nodded graciously. “Well come, all. A fine crop of young witch-folk, Lord Gallowglass—and please inform your clerical acquaintance that his tact in remaining unseen is appreciated.”

“ ‘Clerical acquaintance…?’ Oh… Father Uwell. I will, Your Grace. If you’ll pardon my saying so, you’re remarkably well-informed.”

“Prettily said,” she answered, with a pleased smile. “Yet ‘tis not so remarkable as all that; little escapes mine elves’ notice.”

The piper grinned up mischievously at Rod, then went on with his piping.

“Ah—do I take it Your Grace, then, knows of our recent loss?”

“Thou speakest of my godson, Elidor.” The Lady folded her hands, nodding. “Indeed, I do know of it.”

A fairy godmother, yet! And was Rod in for a roasting, or a basting? “Your pardon for our lapse of vigilance, Your Grace.”

She waved away the apology with a lacey handkerchief. “There is nought to pardon; with Eorl Theofrin’s spriggans out to seize the lad, there was little thou couldst do to protect him. Indeed, I am grateful to thee for saving him from the Each Uisge; mine elves would have been sore tried to vanquish that monster.”

Which meant they might’ve had to sweat. “Uh—I take it Eorl Theofrin is the faery lord who had us in his power not too long ago?”

“The same. Now, as bad fortune hath it, Elidor is within his power again, where I may not run to save him. Since thou hast aided him in this wise once already, may I ask thee to aid him so again?”

“With all heart!” Gwen said quickly.

“Well, yeah, sure,” Rod said, more slowly. “But I confess to some puzzlement as to why you should wish to employ us in this, Your Grace. Doesn’t a Grand Duchess kind of outrank an Eorl?”

“I do, indeed—yet there is the practical matter of force. Eorl Theofrin’s forces far outweigh mine—and my rank, of itself, suffices only if there is one of paramount rank to whom to appeal.”

“And Oberon’s out of the country, at the moment?”

The Grand Duchess’s eyebrows rose. “Thou dost know the name of the Faery King? Good, good! Aye, he is afield, in the land of the English, for some time. Some trifling quarrel with Titania it is, over some tedious Hindu lad…Ever did I mistrust that shrewish and haughty demoiselle… Enough!” She turned back to Rod with determination. “There is some hope of welding an alliance ‘twixt some other of the Faery Lords; yet few would wish to move against Theofrin, and all dread the illnesses that a war ‘twixt the Faery demesnes would work upon the land, ourselves, and the mortals.”