Wizard World 1: Changeling

IX

After knocking and waiting--several times--she had just about given up on his being at home. She had also tried the door and found it to be secured.

She was tired. It had been a long walk up to the place, after an absolutely horrible night. She leaned against the door frame, eyes sparkling, but she simply did not feel like crying. She drew back her foot and kicked the door as hard as she could.

"Open up, damn you!" she cried, and she heard a click and the door swung inward.

Mor stood there, wearing a faded blue robe, blinking at the light.

"I thought I heard someone scratching," he said. "You seem familiar, but I don't--"

"Nora. Nora Vail," she told him, "from the east village. I'm sorry I--"

Mor brightened.

"I remember. But I thought you were just a little girl ... Of course! Excuse me. It flies." He stepped back. "Come in. I was just making some tea. Don't mind the litter."

She followed him through one curiously furnished room and into another. There, he cleared a chair for her and turned his attention to a boiling pot.

"It's terrible ..." she began.

"It will wait until tea is ready," he said sternly. "I do not like terrible things on an empty stomach."

Nodding, she seated herself. She watched the old sorcerer, as he put out bread and preserves, as he brewed the tea. There was a trembling in his hands. His face, always deeply lined, was now unnaturally pallid. He had been correct, though, in that he had not seen her for years--she had been but a small girl when he had last stopped by for dinner, on his way to or from someplace. She recalled a surprisingly long conversation....

"There," he said, setting a plate and a cup on the table beside her. "Refresh yourself."

"Thank you."

Partway through the meal, she began talking. The story poured out in disjointed fashion, but Mor did not interrupt her. When she looked at him, she realized that some color had returned to his cheeks and the hand that held his cup seemed steadier.

"Yes, it is serious," he agreed when she had finished. "You were right to come to me. In fact--"

He rose and slowly crossed the chamber to stand before a small, dark mirror set within an iron frame.

"--I had best look into it immediately," he finished, and he passed his fingertips near the glass and muttered softly.

His back was to her and his right shoulder partly blocked her view of the glass, but she saw images dance within the exposed portions, and something like a section of a strange skyline appeared in the upper right quadrant, a vaguely disturbing silhouette circling above it. The entire prospect seemed to rush forward then, and she could not tell what it was that Mor was now regarding. Changes in lighting seemed to indicate several more scene shiftings after that, but she could not distinguish the details of subsequent images.

Finally, Mor moved his hands once again, across the face of it. All action fled, and darkness filled the glass like poured ink.

Mor turned away and moved back to his seat. He raised his teacup, sipped, made a face and dashed its tepid contents into the fire. He rose and prepared fresh tea.

"Yes," he repeated when he had returned and served them. "It is very serious. Something will have to be done about him. ..."

"What?" she asked.

He sighed.

"I do not know."

"But could not you, who banished the demons of Det--"

"Once," he said, "I could have stopped this changeling easily. Now, though... Now the power is no longer in me as it was in the old days. It is--too late for me. Yet, I am responsible in this."

"You? How? What do you mean?"

"Mark is not of this world. I brought him here as a babe, after the last great battle. He was the means whereby I exiled Pol Detson, the last Lord of Rondoval, also then a child. It is a strange feeling--knowing that the man we got in exchange is now a far greater menace than anything we had feared. I am responsible. I must do something. But what, I cannot say."

"Is there someone you could ask for help?"

He touched her hand.

"I must be alone now--to think," he said. "Return to your home, I am sorry, but I cannot ask you to remain."

She began to rise.

"There must be something you can do."

He smiled faintly.

"Possibly. But first I must investigate."

"He said that he would come back for me," she persisted. "I do not want him to. I am afraid of him."

"I will see what can be done."

He rose and accompanied her to the door. On the threshold, she turned impulsively and seized his hand in both of hers.

"Please," she said.

He reached out with his other hand and stroked her hair. He drew her to him for a moment, then pushed her away.

"Go now," he said, and she did.

He watched until she was out of sight amid the greenery of the trail. His eyes moved for a moment to a patch of flowers, a butterfly darting among them. Then he closed and barred the door and moved to his inner chamber, where he mixed himself powerful medicines.

He took a quarter of the dosage he had prepared, then returned to the room where he had sat with Nora.

Standing before the iron-framed mirror once again, he repeated some of his earlier gestures above its surface, as well as several additional ones. His voice was firmer as he intoned the words of power.

Some of the darkness fled the mirror, to reveal a dim room where people sat at small tables, drinking. A young man with a white streak through his hair sat upon a high stool on a platform at the room's corner, playing upon a musical instrument. Mor studied him for a long while, reached some decision, then spoke another word.

The scene shifted to the club's exterior, and Mor regarded the face of the building with almost equal intensity.

He spoke another word, and the building dwindled, retreating down the street as Mor watched through narrowed eyes.

He gestured and spoke once again, and the glass grew dark.

Turning away, he moved to the inner chamber, where he decanted the balance of the medicine into a small vial and fetched his dusty staff from the corner where he had placed it the previous summer.

Moving to a cleared space, he turned around three times and raised the staff before him. He smiled grimly then as its tip began to glow.

Slowly, he began pacing, turning his head from side to side, as if seeking a gossamer strand adrift in the air....