The priest nodded. “It would require a transmitter on this end, I fancy.”
Rod’s head snapped up, staring.
Then he hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Of course! What’s the matter with me? They just set up a transmitter, and didn’t worry about who was going to stumble in here, as long as all of us did!” He shook his head, feeling the anger boil. “Can you believe how callous those futurians are? What do they care if a hundred peasants get torn away from their families, just so long as they get the ones they’re after!”
“I take it you have enemies,” Father Uwell said carefully.
“You might say that, yes.” Rod smiled sardonically. “Enemies with time machines—so I was thinking of Doc Angus’s time machine, which can pass any amount of material, and which can pull you back out of whenever it lands you. I forgot that the man at the controls has to want to pull you back.”
“Which your enemies obviously don’t,” Father Uwell agreed. “So they gave you a one-way ticket here, you might say.”
“You might, yes. So getting home will be something of a problem, won’t it? Well, you’re welcome to poke around in my subconscious all you want, Father, if that’ll help get us out of here—but frankly, I can’t offer much hope.”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” the priest said, with a faint smile. “But how were you planning to get home?”
Rod looked at Gwen. “Well, at the moment, our best bet looks to be one Lord Kern, who’s got the title of High Warlock.”
“Your title.” Father Uwell frowned. “Interesting.”
“Is it? But it seems that magic works, here; I’m sure you’ll find Lord Kern oodles of fun, if we ever get to him. There are definitely faery folk here, I’ll tell you that—we just escaped from a bunch of them. They had some interesting tricks, too.”
“Really?” Father Uwell’s eyes fairly glowed. “You must tell me about them—when you have time. But as to Lord Kern—how do you plan to persuade him to help you?”
Rod shrugged. “I expect Gwen and I’ll have to fight on his side in a little war, first, to earn it—unless he’s, grateful enough just for our helping his child-King ward escape to him. Father Uwell, meet His Majesty, King Elidor…” He turned toward the boy—and frowned. “Elidor? Gwen, where did he go?”
“Elidor…?” Gwen’s eyes slowly came back into focus.
“Oh! I’m sorry, dear!” Rod’s mouth tightened in self-anger. “I didn’t mean to break you off from Gregory. I didn’t know you were still in contact.”
“I was not.” Gwen bowed her head, forlorn. “I but sat in reverie, some while after the touch of him faded…” She straightened up, forcing a smile. “I must bear it; surely his touch will come again. What didst thou wish, mine husband?”
“Elidor. Where’d he go?”
“Elidor?” Gwen glanced about quickly. “My heaven, I had forgot! Elidor! Where…”
“Mama!”
It was small, bald, and wizened, with great luminous eyes and pointed ears. Its mouth was wide, with loose, rubbery lips, and its nose was long and pointed. It wore a rusty-brown tunic and bias-hosen, with cross-gartered sandals.
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?”