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Of Elves & Men:
CHANGELING
By
Nikki Watson
© copyright by Nikki Watson, January 2008
Cover Art by Kat Richards, January 2008
ISBN 978-1-60394-101-3
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
The village that had once been Aisling became a town named Blessings, and in more time, became a city called Dominion. Magic still pulled to magic. There were no elves left now. Production had loped down the last of the glade where the elves had once prospered. Lack of belief had made the magic weak for a time. Then had come the resurgence, a time when those who had thought themselves merely human realized they had a power that could not be challenged unless by others of their own ilk. The city was ruled once again by the magic that had seen it in its humble beginnings.
A council had always existed behind one or another façade where the village of Aisling had once stood. So many generations had sat around this table, with its edges now smoothed from hands of elves, magicians, and men. It was pulled out again and used as though never forgotten. Of the humans there, most of them had elvish blood, and if not that, then being descended from a magician was almost as good. Magicians were the humans to whom the elves had gifted the magic to so long ago. All that remained of those truths was what had been written in scrolls by bards and by others who had had the magic in the centuries before them.
They called themselves changelings, somewhere between human and ‘otherworldly’ as the myths of the same name. At the head of the council of changelings there was an obvious leader, one who had proven himself to have both elf and magician blood running in his veins. But, as in all cases, power corrupts, and those who wielded the power, and held power in the council, were seen to be the most corrupt.
Prologue
Shane caught sight of Mark for the first time across the hall in the middle of a changeling meeting that he had helped organize under Samuel’s leadership. Mark was a changeling who came to the magic too soon, and without the assistance of those who could have helped him. It happened. Despite their efforts to bring the community closer together, there were still some of those who slipped through the cracks and were only found out about later.
Mark was found earlier than others. Realizing his own power, quite without the help of a changeling council, coming to realize that he was different had had the unfortunate effect of making Mark see that he was clearly superior to all those who had come before him.
Shane extended his hand to shake with the other changeling. “I’m Shane.”
“Mark,” the other changeling said, instantly measuring himself up to Shane. He couldn’t have been much older than him. Mark’s hair was fairer, but there was hardly the space of inches to separate them in height.
“Well, Mark, have you come to meet any of the other changelings who have come today?” Shane turned his attention to the rest of the hall. The hall was a tall ceilinged room, with logged-wood for walls and polished wood grain floors. There were refreshments on a table by the wall diagonal from the double door entrance. Very little separated changelings from their human counterparts except the sense of them. The hall was filled with magic tonight. However, although Mark’s eyes swept over those assembled there, he found no one among them who impressed him.
“If this is your first time here, I’ll let you start to meet some others.” It wasn’t a dismissal. That was standard practice for changelings to their magic or new to the community itself. There were enough young changelings here that Shane had not the time to spend all of his time on a single changeling. When Shane turned to walk towards another new addition to the changeling community, Mark blinked, as though something very important had been overstepped in Shane’s regard for him.
“I’m not just another changeling. My magic is strong.”
Patiently indulged the younger changeling, Shane agreed with him. “You’re right. That’s a very important part of realizing you’re a changeling. Next comes realizing the good you can do with your gift. It has been given to you for a reason.” The smile Shane gave him was encouraging, but still he moved off to Dahlia. As he approached her, Mark glowered at being left behind.
With his back turned, Shane hardly noticed. His smile was ready for Dahlia, who in turn looked happy to see him. She was a changeling who had only just realized what she was, and Shane had been the one who had brought her into the fold.
“How has this week been for you?” he asked her warmly.
Dahlia nodded. “Only one case of fire trauma this week,” she answered. Although she smiled and tried to laugh it off, it was obvious to Shane that she still felt a little embarrassed about the event. “It was toast. I was rushing to get to work, and .…” She shrugged, as though the rest of the story should tell itself on its own.
“It happens to all of us,” Shane assured her gently.
“What, even to you?”
Shane shook his head and laughed, but before he could answer her either way, Samuel, the leader of the changelings, called for his attention, and as Shane was considered second in command, he could not help but obey.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Shane requested, at his most gallant.
Knowing from previous conversations that Shane already had a girlfriend, even if she didn’t attend these meetings, Dahlia didn’t take the flirting as anymore than the fun in which it was intended.
“Of course. Go on. You can hardly deny his request!”
Nodding his head in accent, Shane turned away from her. He strode towards the leader of the changelings, and Samuel, in that position waited with confidence.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Shane asked.
Shane was young, and he was eager to please. It was one of the things that Samuel liked about him. He saw his own youth in the eyes of this changeling; that desire to do good, and to make the changelings into a race that would defend, not take advantage of, the lesser race of humans. Years of being the leader of the changeling council had changed some of his ways of seeing. He was less idealistic now, but the memory of where he had come from was not something Samuel would willingly give away.
“Shane, my boy, there are always many things you can help me with.” Samuel’s hand lifted up to Shane’s back, and the two changelings moved from the council room to a place where they could speak more privately. Shane respectfully nodded to various changelings that he recognized along the way.
As Samuel closed the door behind them, Shane turned his full attention the leader of the changeling council. Although Samuel had been voted in as their leader, he didn’t lord it over them as some might have. Instead, Samuel extended his hand towards one of the many chairs in the room.
“Please, sit,” he said, and only after Shane had done so did he cross the room to do the same. “There’s quite a show up here today.”
“It’s fantastic. The more of us we’re finding, the more we don’t have to worry that they are coming to it on their own.” Shane’s interest in helping this project along was obvious.
Samuel’s fingers steepled on top of his desk. “It is indeed fantastic.” His eyes drifted so that it was clear that he was thinking of some other matter besides the fact that gathering so many of them together was clearly a good thing. “Still, the fact that there has been such an influx of us causes me to wonder…” Again Samuel made eye contact with Shane. “Fifty years ago, we were dying out. Our powers were barely in evidence then.”
“You don’t think it’s a good thing that that’s changed?” Shane questioned.
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think only… why?”
* * * *
Shane held Dana’s hands up in his own. His expression was beseeching, but Dana just kept on shaking her head.
“Please. Come with me. It will mean the world to me.” Shane’s expression held no guile to it. After Samuel had discussed the increasing number of changelings with him, he informed the younger changeling that he had had another reason for taking Shane out of the hall.
“You have been considered my second in command for long enough. It is time to make it official.”
Shane could see that Dana was softening even as he spoke to her. The look she gave him said that while she could see why this situation was different, she still didn’t like the way he was coercing her to go.
“Okay,” she finally told him. “This one time.” She took her hands out of his and lifted a finger up in front of him. “But this doesn’t mean I’ll start going to them regularly.”
“Wouldn’t dream it did,” Shane said. He grinned at her, before continuing to get ready. When she didn’t move behind him, Shane turned and then leaned closer to her for a light hearted kiss that left Dana knowing she couldn’t stay angry at him. She pulled a rueful expression at him because of it.
“Well, just so long as that’s clear,” she said archly, before beginning on the process that would get her ready for a night out also.
When they arrived at the hall together, they looked a striking couple. A few people eyed Dana up and down, not recognizing who she was and why she was standing there with Shane, who many of them recognized very well.
Out of all of those there, it was Dahlia who approached the two of them first.
“You must be Dana,” she said, extending her hand and smiling at both of them. “I’ve heard so much about you from Shane. I’m so happy that you decided on coming tonight.”
“Well, decide has such a broad term of meaning,” Dana replied, though her smile never slipped and she quite pleasantly allowed herself to get caught up in Dahlia’s general high spirits.
Happy that the two girls instantly got along, Shane removed his hand from the small of Dana’s back. With a murmured apology, he left their side to speak with Samuel.
“Another big turn out,” he said, as a way of getting the other changeling’s attention.
“Oh yes,” Samuel replied. He turned away from the changeling he had been speaking to and gave Shane his entire attention. “Well, are you looking forward to stepping up in the ranks this evening?”
“How could I not be,” Shane asked, “when you put it like that?” Gazing over Samuel’s left shoulder, he saw that it was Mark that the leader of the changeling council had been speaking to. “It’s good that you came,” he said to him.
Mark just inclined his head silently, before walking away. Samuel’s eyes stayed on his for a moment longer. “He is a strange one,” was all he murmured aloud.
Shane didn’t even give him that much thought. “I have brought Dana with me this evening,” he said, then turned in the direction he had left her with Dahlia. “I would be honored to have you meet her.”
“Of course,” Samuel said. “Lead the way.”
When Shane and Samuel drew alongside Dana, Dahlia was no longer standing with her.
“She said she needed to use the bathroom,” Dana said, by way of explanation, before turning her face to be introduced to Samuel. She recognized him, of course, and gave him the proper respect.
“You must be proud this evening,” Samuel said to her.
Dahlia stepped out of the bathroom. When she started to head back in the direction she had left Dana standing in, someone reached out and snagged her arm, stopping her. Curiously, she looked around, and smiled at one of the other new changelings to this company.
“Hello. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Dahlia,” she said.
Mark’s thin lips pulled out in a charming smile. He half glanced in the direction that she’d been walking, in the direction Shane was now standing. He wasn’t Samuel’s second in command. Not yet.
“I take it you know Shane rather well,” he said, instead of saying his name.
“Oh yes. He’s the most wonderful man,” Dahlia replied. “Do you know him as well?”
“Not as well as I’d like,” Mark replied, and that was yet another thing that could be placed as Shane’s blame.
Dahlia smiled at him again. “Well, it was very nice to meet you.”
Mark shifted slightly, just enough to put himself in her path and make her uncomfortable. “Oh, were we finished talking?” he asked.
“Um…” Dahlia took a breath. She could still see Shane and Dana over Mark’s shoulder, and as long as she was in this crowded hall, she was convinced that she would be fine. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Oh. I didn’t.” He grabbed her arm again. His body blocked the hold from the view of people around them, and with the toilet doors, and the wall right behind them, there wasn’t anywhere left for Dahlia to go.
“Let go of me,” she hissed at him quietly. She was still more affronted than scared at this point.
“You’re a changeling. Make me,” he dared her.
With his face in such close proximity—and something in his expression that said he doubted that she could do anything at all—Dahlia was unwittingly coaxed into using the power she knew she had yet to gain full control over. Glaring at him for putting her in this situation, she felt her body temperature rise, which was the first sign of bringing forth the fire magic she possessed. She could do this. She could prove to him that she was just as worthy a changeling as he.
Mark dropped his gaze from hers as he felt the skin beneath his hand warming quite significantly. Before it rose to a burn, Mark ripped his hand away from hers. The slight widening of his eyes was the only outward sign that what he was watching in front of him affected him at all.
Dahlia gasped. “Help me,” she said, in the instant before she started shaking, and actual fire pulsed from her fingertips.
From across the room, Shane saw the spectacle at the same time as those closer to her were beginning to become aware of it.
“Oh god,” he said, in the instant before he darted across the room. Samuel was not half a step behind him, but Dana stayed frozen in place. The image of what was happening was too close to what lay in her own past to allow her any freedom of movement to help.
Shane reached Dahlia’s side and tried to grab her in order to bring her back to herself, to calm her down so that she could begin to release the magic that was right then killing her. She was already too hot to touch. Shane tried reaching her with words.
Behind her, as Shane went on in this fruitless task, Mark murmured to Samuel, “This is the best your second in command can do?”
Samuel glanced sharply towards Mark, but in no other way reacted to him. Eventually, he stood in. The magic was too far gone; Dahlia would not be saved.
“Shane, step away. If you don’t, the fire will consume you as well.” Just as with Dahlia, the spoken words were not enough. Samuel had to reach out to bring Shane away from the younger changeling girl. Shane shuddered as the last of her ability to fight dissolved. Dahlia dropped to the ground. The fire went out.
“Dahlia,” Shane whispered. That stillness of shock only lasted a second, before Shane wheeled around. “Somebody call an ambulance!”
“Shane, it will do no good,” Samuel said, but for the first time, Shane shook off Samuel’s advice and stepped away from him. He continued calling out.
“Somebody call an ambulance. Now!”
That, at least, was something that Dana could do. Pulling out her mobile phone from her small, black handbag, Dana dialed the emergency number. Her eyes linked with Shane, and they met each other halfway, just as Dana phone call was connected.
“Yes, hello? There’s been an emergency. A young girl. Third degree burns.”
Shane turned back to look at the girl on the ground. As his glance rose to the man standing beside her body, Shane met Mark’s face. His jaw stiffened.
He strode away from Dana and back to Mark.
“You were close to her. Why didn’t you help her?”
Mark just smiled, and said nothing. “I saw the measly help you managed to give. You think I could have done better?” His voice held interest, and there was nothing in voice or gaze that spoke of the horror that the changeling had just been so close to. Shane realized the only thing this man wanted was for Shane to tell him that Mark was better than him.
Dana came up behind him. “They are on their way,” she said.
Shane didn’t look at her. He didn’t look at Samuel either. The image of Dahlia’s broken form on the floor of the hall was imprinted on the back of his eyelids. He turned and strode away from the gathering of changelings.
* * * *
“What, you’re going to run away? Don’t you see that that’s exactly what Mark wanted you to do?”
The words weren’t getting through to Shane, bouncing off him as though he took no more notice of them than of the fact that she was standing there behind him. Images of what had been done to Dahlia still ran through his mind as he furiously packed his clothes away. Mark had definitely met with others, that was for sure. He had been the one who’d encouraged Dahlia to fully embrace her magic instead of backing away from it with caution. She hadn’t been ready for that. By now, she was in hospital seeking help for third degree burns that the doctors weren’t even sure she would live through.
“Where will you go?” Walking around him so that he would have to see her face if he didn’t turn away, Dana tried another tactic. “What about your sister? Are you just going to leave her here too?”
Shane lifted his eyes to meet Dana’s, and in that moment, the manic light of desperation was in those eyes.
“If I’m not here,” he said, as he finished packing one suitcase, “they’re not going to have any reason to go for her.”
“So you think.”
“So I know.” Shane slammed down the lid of the suitcase. It bounced on the mattress of the bed and Shane’s eyes were tortured. “Nothing would have happened to Dahlia if I hadn’t been here.”
“You don’t know that,” Dana said, trying to reason with him.
Instead of trying to make his point with more words, Shane grabbed tightly onto Dana’s arms. She looked down at them as his fingers pinched into her skin, but she didn’t say anything.
“If I put her into foster care, they’ll have no way to find her. If I go away, just until Samuel finds some way to put a cap on Mark, then no one else will get hurt because of me.” Shane leaned in to kiss Dana, and that kiss was full of pain. Dana hated to see him in so much pain. Her eyes latched onto him, and suddenly she didn’t want him to let her arms go, even if it was hurting her.
“Where will you go?” she asked him again.
Shane shook his head, though this time, he answered. “Somewhere… somewhere else that has a changeling community. Somewhere I can learn more about myself, about what we are.”
The words were unspoken, but they hovered just above both of their heads.
Somewhere that he could prepare for just in case Samuel couldn’t find a way of keeping Mark down on his own.
Part One
Chapter One
Omniscience, Dominion.
Contemporary Time.
The nightclub called ‘Omniscience’ sparked attention like nothing else around it on Friday and Saturday nights. The line for entry was very long. Even at ten p.m., people rounded the front of the club, and peeled around the corner, talking in quiet tones of the previous times they had been there, what they had seen, what had been done to them. For every person outside of the club, ‘Omniscience’ had a reputation for the sadomasochistic lifestyle elements.
Shane made his way past the hopefuls in the line, cutting to the front, where he was fairly certain he would gain instant admittance. Years before, he’d left Dominion with memories of cruelty that went beyond acceptable sadomasochism still sharp in his head. He had known only that he needed to break ties with the council that had tried to tie him down. They had wanted his strength. He had wanted to ensure that what he’d seen done to a young changeling girl never came to pass on his sister.
Before his leaving, he made sure that his sister was put into a foster home, with parents who had no awareness of the culture they had sprung from. That this would also leave his sister was bereft of that awareness was a something Shane had been quite willing to face up to.
The crowd had changed notably since his last time here. From what Shane could remember, ‘Omniscience’ hadn’t been such a publicized venue around the time he had left. However, despite his blatant cue jumping, he was not turned away when he reached the front. His entry was granted, no cover charge required.
The interior of the club had also changed since he’d left. Shane couldn’t quite pin the sense of difference down, not with the number of people inside blocking his view of anything but them, the stage, and the bar. Where before, the club had been a site shrouded in mystery, whose intrigue had kept more people outside than in, ‘Omniscience’ now seemed to invite all sorts. Shane stopped trying to walk through the crowd at a touch on his arm.
Humans were allowed inside the club now.
Looking around him, Shane extended his senses to see if what his eyes were telling him was actually true. He estimated the ratio of humans to changelings were at least about two to one. Perching on a bar stool, Shane watched the club with an intense eye. Those humans he could see were dressed in black, in chains, in not very much at all. For each human fawning about in their scant attire, there was a changeling manipulating them with fingers and lips, inducing them to higher places of pain, pleasure, and debauchery. Shane wondered how many of those here were even conscious of what happened to them within these walls, and the disgust he felt showed him exactly what that answer was likely to be.
He growled for a double scotch when the bartender tried to get his attention, but never took his eyes from the dance floor. Such open abuse of their magic. Did none of them care who saw?
“Good to see you back, Shane. Can’t say I expected to see you here. The call of home too much to keep you away forever, huh?”
The voice grabbed his attention and finally held it. Dragging his gaze away from the dance floor, Shane looked into the eyes of a changeling whom he had much liked before going away. Trying to shake off all that was happening around him, Shane tried to smile in a way that was not too forced. He reached out toward the double scotch that was already sitting on the bar in front of him. The changeling was good at his job.
“Thanks,” Shane said, pushing the word out from between lips stiff with the effort of his smile.
Allan waved his hand and nodded toward the rest of the bar. “Takes a bit of getting used to, it does,” he said, as though he understood Shane’s consternation. “Don’t worry, a couple of drinks helps with that. Just let me know when you need a top up, okay?”
Shane nodded silently and held his agitation in check while Allan, still smiling, turned to the other side of the bar in order to serve someone else. Knowing it would not help as Allan had said, Shane took a swig of the scotch anyway. Coming back to Dominion, it had been too much to expect that things had gotten better in his absence. He could only guess at how much worse the city itself had grown outside of ‘Omniscience’.
Putting down his unfinished drink, Shane didn’t look at Allan again. He would have left just as soon as he’d come, perhaps, had not a familiar figure—the last Shane had been wanting to see—strode directly into his path.
Lifting his head, Shane’s eyes shone with pride. He would not be cowered by one such as this. On his travels, he had met many men who felt better only by bringing others down. A great difference was that most did not use magic to do it.
“Hello Mark. I would have thought you employed people to carry you across rooms by now.” There was no veiling the sneer in both words and actions. Shane had not the slightest amount of respect for this man, and begrudged even this time being held back to talk to him.
By contrast, Mark appeared convivial, a state only in part brought around by the amount of drinking the younger changeling had no doubt imbibed already this evening. Mark liked to be everybody’s ‘friend’. His methods in making that happen were just another thing Shane disagreed with.
“Why Shane, I’m hurt. After all this time apart, I would have thought you’d let the past go, at least a little bit. Let’s sit down with a drink and catch up over old times. My treat.”
The offer seemed generous on the surface, but the way Mark was looking at Shane made his gracious words a lie. Mark wanted to know why Shane was back and for how long. He wanted to know whether Shane intended on resuming the post that had been his before he had left.
No need to let his plans be made obvious.
“Well, if it’s your treat.” There was no softening on Shane’s features as he agreed. Having not finished the scotch from before, Shane was in no danger of losing his senses before this conversation was had. He watched very carefully as Mark ordered then delivered their drinks, keeping an eye especially out for anything Mark might think to slip into his drink as a special surprise.
The two men sat opposite each other, amidst the flurry of half clad bodies walking back and forth around them, to the right side of the stage.
“What brings you back, friend? After you disappeared without a word, none of us knew what to think.” Mark’s eyes were half closed. Anyone watching his posture would have called him lazy, but they would have been stupid to think so.
“My business is my own. You need only know I’m back now.”
“Indeed,” Mark murmured, his eyes grazing up and down Shane’s body in a quick sweep. “And in one piece.”
Shane nodded slowly, taking a short swig of his drink and never drifting his eyes from Mark’s form. He had not had a direct plan in coming here tonight, though now he knew that all hope of a quiet return back into the city was gone from him. By sunrise, news of his return would be all over the changeling community within Dominion.
His eyes flickered from Mark’s form for the first time at the approach to their table made by another changeling. What they said between them was too soft for Shane’s ears to pick up. From the way the unknown changeling’s eyes lifted toward Shane with uncertainty, this was not an accident made of the music and the people in the club around them. After a few moments, Mark nodded and waved the changeling away. His smile, when he faced Shane again, was perfectly in place.
“Business?” Shane asked, not above trying to pry information out of him when the situation presented itself.
“Of course. I have risen in the ranks since you were last here. It is well you are aware of that,” Mark said, as though doing Shane a favor.
Shane took the words in the light they were meant, a statement of power, Mark’s power. Shane took another drink of his scotch.
“Hm. Is that so?” he asked mildly.
“Oh yes. The power in Dominion shifted significantly after Samuel resigned his post.” Mark’s eyes gleamed behind his glass. There was no doubt in the world that Mark took a lot of pleasure in sharing that information.
“Resigned, or was put down?” There was no part of that sentence that was spoken with aggression, yet still, Mark looked down at Shane as though it had been a threat. Shane sat back comfortably. “So you are now head of the council in Dominion,” Shane recognized, connecting all the dots. As Mark nodded, Shane added, “Interesting. I suppose that explains the reckless changing of ‘Omniscience’. What else have you changed during your brief stint in power?”
At Shane’s blatant refusal to accept Mark’s obvious power, Mark’s eyes flashed his anger.
“What I have changed, I have changed for the better,” Mark growled. He put down his glass. “Samuel was a fool who did things by half.”
“Of course,” Shane said, hiding a smile behind a sip of his drink. He wondered that there had truly been no other choices to make for the council’s head position if Mark had been the one chosen in Shane’s absence. Not that the post was one Shane had held ambitions toward. “My apologies, Mark, I of course did not mean to offend.”
Mark narrowed his eyes at Shane suspiciously, as though suspecting the lie. “No harm done,” he replied eventually. Standing, he looked down at Shane, while Shane contentedly remained sitting. “There are, of course, others who I should speak to. Excuse me.”
Shane dropped his false smile in a second after Mark’s stiff stride had taken the other changeling out of clear line of sight. He shook his head and stood up also. This time, instead of leaving the glass unfinished, he took the dregs of it in a swig. He’d need a lot more than that if he wanted to clear himself of the fears that something might have befallen his sister especially given this new information.
* * * *
Having rented nothing more lasting than a hotel room in the middle of nowhere, Ivy packed away the clothes she would need for the next city they would travel to. She didn’t own a lot, and her packing consisted of piling clothes out of temporary draws and shoving them into her backpack. The only thing she had in her possession that wasn’t an item of clothing or a bus ticket was an address written in neat black pen on the torn corner of a white sheet of paper. She had an address for where she was going, which was more than what she had sometimes.
Pulling the ends of her backpack together, Ivy used strength that she had been trained in to drag the zipper across so that her clothes wouldn’t be found all over the luggage compartment in the bus when she pulled into Dominion. Of course, there was no guarantee that the bag would not give way and explode as the bus ran over a pot hole; it was a very old bag after all.
Hefting the backpack onto her shoulders, Ivy turned and left the room without looking back at the key she had left on the bed. As she went down to ground floor in the elevator with two other people, she did her best to look the part of an eager tourist. As she left the hotel, not to return, she did her very best to look like she was not someone who hadn’t paid.
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