Charon (24 page)

 
For a few minutes nothing moved except a couple of the poor devils shot but not killed by the troopers near the street intersection. Obviously the ray hadn't gotten that far. The troopers themselves were mostly ugly messes, smeared over the nicely whitewashed walls.

 
But then, carefully, shapes began moving into the square—or what was left of it—starting with two nasty-looking things that flew down from the rooftops. Strange creatures covered with what appeared to be both fur and feathers of gold and brown. Their batlike wings did not fold into their bodies but instead semi-accordioned on their backs. Their heads were nasty, somewhat birdlike with large eyes and beaks but capable of an almost humanlike expression. They were horrors, and for a moment I feared they were some new kind of Charonese creature come to feed on carrion. But the deliberateness of their moves and their very human manner in going through and checking the unconscious and the dead showed them to be changelings. I was not really surprised at the changeling involvement, but to see two of them that looked like the same creature was more than interesting.

 
Huge, clawlike hands gestured beyond my line of sight, and from all four main streets they entered—a nightmarish parade of creatures that had never evolved except in the human mind. Shaggy, apelike things, things that crawled, things on four legs, walkers, hoppers, amphibians—the collection of human horrors seemed endless and terrible, all the more so because you could see in their movements and gestures, and sometimes in their features, the humanity that lay deep within them.
But they were not all repulsive— some were quite beautiful and graceful, exotic creatures out of mankind's myths and- imagination, as well as its nightmares.

 
I looked around for some sign of Zala or, perhaps, Tully Kokul, but neither were anywhere to be seen. I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I was very much alone in that square, the only whole and conscious human being and not marked by the spell as a friend or ally. I began to think better of the idea and edged back along the wall toward the door once more, whereupon a couple of creatures, one tentacled and snakelike, the other a gray thing like a crude stone carving noticed me and pointed. I froze, and some of the others turned in my direction. There seemed little I could do—they had the guns—so I just stood up straight, walked away from the wall, and put my hands up.

 
"Wait! Don't shoot!" I called to them. "I'm not a bad guy. I'm Zala's husband! You know—Zala.
One of your people!"

 
A creature that looked something like a walking tree turned to the tentacled, snakelike thing and said something I couldn't catch. The tentacled creature said something back. I saw some shrugs and indecision from several of the more humanoid ones around as they stopped for a moment from their task of identifying those with horns and carrying them off.

 
The frog-man came up to them and said, clearly, "He's the T.A.—the government man here. Get rid of him!"

 
One of the winged creatures nodded, pulled its pistol, and aimed it at me.

 
"Hey! Wait a minute!" I yelled, but then something hit me real hard and I lost consciousness.

CHAPTER NINE - Changeling

I came to, slightly, but felt dizzy, weak, and my head hurt as it never had before. I know I groaned, but I was only semi-conscious and still not really thinking. I was aware, though, that I was on a stretcher or litter of some land and that I was being carried someplace very fast. I managed to open my eyes and was shocked to see that it was dark. How long had I been out?

 
I heard a sharp command and the stretcher bearers slowed, then stopped and put me down. There was very little light and I was in no condition to see straight, but I couldn't help thinking that the front bearer was a giant caricature of a big bird of some kind.
Caricature.
That was a good word for most of the changelings I had seen. The image of the white, feathered head with its huge eyes and wide, flat orange beak finally penetrated by still-foggy brain enough for me to realize the obvious—they hadn't killed me but had, for some reason, taken me with them! The game was back on track—if my head ever reassembled itself.

 
The bird-thing poured something into a cup from a gourd around its waist "Drink this," it rasped in a guttural, nonhuman voice. "Go on—it'll make you feel better."

 
I managed to grab the cup and bring it, with the help of a humanlike white hand, to my lips. It burned a bit, but tasted much like a fruit brandy. My mouth was dry and parched and I badly needed something. I spilled a little, but only a little,
then
dropped back down on the stretcher.

 
"He'll be all right," the bird-man said to a companion I hadn't yet seen. "That'll keep him until we get to the Old

 
Woman."

 
"That's all I want," replied the other, a woman's voice that sounded vaguely familiar but wasn't one I could easily

 
place
.

 
"Zala?"
I managed weakly, voice cracking.

 
"Forget her," the voice responded, and then we were up

 
and
off again.

 
My head didn't really clear very much for the remainder of the journey, although the pain subsided into nothingness. I was semiconscious, but not really able to move or say much of anything, and the whole world seemed to have a fuzzy, dreamlike quality. I had enough wits to realize that I'd been given a drug containing a light sedative, but whether to lessen my pain or to keep me from recovering—or both—I couldn't be sure. Nor, in fact, did I much

 
care
.

 
Time had little meaning for me, but it was still quite dark when we slowed and approached what appeared to be a cave from which a dull fireglow shone into the blackness. Thunder sounded in the distance, and told us all that the inevitable Charonese rains would soon be upon us once more. But the cave was the destination, and they managed to carry me into it before the heavens opened.

 
The cave itself had a small mouth but opened into a single large chamber, although exactly how large I couldn't tell. A fire burning in the center of the chamber was the source of light. Its smoke was rising straight up, indicating some kind of air vent. If it was hot outside, it was really broiling inside, and if I had been in anything other than a drugged condition I would have gotten out of there. As it was, I could only lie there, sweating profusely, visions of being roasted on a spit dancing through my fevered brain. There was someone else in the cave—a very old woman, it appeared, dressed all in black cloth that virtually bid her entire body, which appeared to be extremely large.
She
doddered up to us using a crooked stick as a cane and gestured for them to put me down where I was, which they did. Bird-man turned to the one in back of me, "All right, we're even now, Darva. I hope this is really
What
you want."

 
Darva! I'd almost forgotten about her. I hadn't really seen or talked to her after that first time, although I'd looked for her when I was out at Thunderkor. Even in my drugged state, it made me feel a little better to know that I had yet another friend among the others, one who had probably saved my life.

 
She moved around to where I could see her, near the old woman. Darva towered over the woman in black, who had pretty good bulk herself, although she was almost certainly human.

 
"I bring you my heart, Grandmother," she greeted the old woman.

 
The woman stood back and looked at her with ancient, dark eyes. "It is good that you are well," the old one responded in a voice cracked with age and experience. "I feared the loss of many lives."

 
"There were twelve of us killed," Darva told her. "That is less than we thought
And
almost two hundred of them."

 
The old woman nodded. "That is well
But
they will bring down a terror now beyond knowing or understanding. All are even now scattering to the winds and will not regroup for many weeks in special places far away.
And what of you?
What will you do?"

 
Darva sighed. "You know Isil is dead and his masters flown."

 
"I know," the old woman replied, a tinge of sadness in her voice. "You are a changeling forever, and no old changeling may ever return to Bourget."

 
"I know," Darva told her. "But what I did, I did for revenge, not out of some loyalty pledged to ones I don't even know."

 
"You will not join the others, then, at the appointed time?"

 
She shrugged. "I haven't decided as yet, Grandmother." The old woman looked over at me. "He is the one of whom you spoke?"

 
Darva nodded. "He was kind to me when no one else would be. He is not like the others. I ask you now for a last favor, Grandmother."

 
Still fogged and semi-comatose, I could only follow the conversation, not analyze it or join in.

 
"Does he consent?" the old woman asked.

 
Darva turned and pointed to me. "See how they have hurt him? They were about to shoot him when I stopped them. Without me he would be twelve hours dead. Does that not give
me
the right?"

 
"Under our sacred law, it does," the old one agreed, "but he may not be the kind of person you think if your will is imposed."

 
"What choice will he have?" She paused.
"Besides—if not he, then who?
It is my reason to live."

 
The old woman gave a sympathetic smile. "Then that is more than reason enough." She waddled over to me and examined me clinically, like a doctor before an operation. "That's a nasty crack on the head.
Skull fracture, some concussion."

 
Darva came over and looked down at me. She was still exotically beautiful, even the light green skin and dark green of lips and hair served to make her even more alluring. For the first time though, I noticed the nonhuman touches of the now-dead creature artist who had remade her: small pointed ears that twitched this way and that through the dark green hair, and hands that were far rougher and more beastlike than I remembered. That sharp, curved horn, perhaps fifty centimeters long, was actually a curved bone, layer upon layer presenting a sense of concentric rings leading to its sharp point. "You will be able to repair him?" she asked, worriedly.

 
The old woman nodded. "Oh, yes, yes.
Although the blow's a serious one that would have killed many men.
He has a very, very strong will to live. Good
wo
,
strong wa, already rushing within him to repair the damage. We will help the wa."
"When?"

 
"Why not now?
He is quiet. He has been given
osisi,
I perceive. That is good. He is heavily sedated, but conscious. It
helps,
his being awake." She turned back to Darva. "A spell of the mind will be hard. He is protected by the town sore from such meddling. I could give you potions, though . . ."

 
She shook her head. "No. That will be all right I wouldn't want it to be like that anyway."

 
"That is good. I will have enough problems reworking parts of bis body functions, reflexes, balance centers, that sort of thing, without having to worry about the conscious mind as well." She sighed. "Well, let's get it done."

 
Again, I can say little about how much time passed, or exactly what was done. I know that the old woman chanted and meditated over me for a long while, and occasionally seemed to knead various parts of my head and body. I also seemed to have a bad fever, with all sorts of strange, surrealist visions passing in and out of my mind. I would come down with chills, then hot flashes, and even oddly erotic sensations ran through my whole body. They had remarked on how bad off I was, and so I didn't fight any of it. Finally, I just lapsed into an incredibly deep sleep where no odd creatures, f eelings, wizards and witches penetrated.

 
I awoke still feeling groggy, although with no pain. It was some moments before I perceived
a wrongness
, somehow, about myself. I looked around the cave, but aside from a now tiny fire and a sliver of light coming in through the opening indicating it was day outside I saw nobody and nothing unusual. I fought to clear Jhe cobwebs from my brain, and, at last, I realized a couple of things right away. First of all, I was standing up. That was really odd, since there was no way I could imagine myself rising in the dark—unless it was part of the witch's healing spells or whatever. Second, I no longer felt the least bit hot. In fact, I felt a little chilly, which was ridiculous in a cave with the fire still going.

 
I was suddenly very wide awake and with a very bad feeling about all this. I raised my hand to rub the last bits of sleep from my eyes and saw what I feared.