The Changeling Read online

  “Humph,” the horse said.

  “Well, Wormling,” Watcher said, “yours tell only what the horse does. You might as well call him Apple Eater.”

  “Well, what do yours mean?”

  “Bertwin means ‘shining friend.’ See how his coat glistens? And he is certainly your friend. Redmund means ‘red-haired defender,’ and—”

  “His hair’s not red.”

  “His mane is if you look at it from this side and the light shines just so.”

  “Humph,” the horse said.

  “Gwilym means ‘resolute guardian,’ ” Watcher said, “and I think it fits best.”

  “Wait, what does Wormling mean?” Owen said. “ ‘The one who carries the worm’?”

  “Oh, dear,” Watcher said. “How awful not to know what your name means. Wormling means you are the keeper of the worm, yes, but it also carries the meaning of sacrifice—that you would lay down your life for your King if called to. Those who speak of you years from now will call you a champion of good.”

  “Words that should be reserved for the Son.”

  Watcher smiled. “Can you believe there will one day be a wedding our world will never forget?”

  “The Book of the King describes it as a feast and a party,” Owen said, “to which everyone will be invited.”

  “It sounds glorious.”

  “But we have to find the Son first,” Owen said.

  “Then what?”

  “He finds the princess.”

  Watcher’s eyes gleamed. “And the Son will unite both worlds, and there will be no more Dragon, no more sickness, disease, or death. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Owen could tell she was becoming emotional, so he changed the subject. “In the Highlands, I was known as Owen.” He spelled it for her and sounded out the letters. “I got teased a lot for it.”

  Watcher furrowed her brow. “I don’t know why. It means ‘young warrior.’ ”

  “I mostly ran from fights.”

  “Well, when you return there, you will be much stronger—of heart and of muscle.”

  “What about you?” Owen said. “What does Watcher mean? ‘Cantankerous, opinionated, talkative one who watches . . .’ ”

  Watcher’s eyes narrowed.

  “ ‘. . . and who has a very small sense of humor.’ ” He laughed and put his hands on her shoulders. “To me it means ‘good-hearted friend; a constant companion with a fire in her heart for the King.’ ”

  Watcher looked down. “It just means ‘one who watches.’ ”

  “No, it means so much more. It means ‘one who follows diligently, ferociously, unceasingly, and wholeheartedly.’ ”

  “Humph,” the horse said.

  “Wait,” Owen said. “What does Humphrey mean?”

  “ ‘Lover of peace,’ I believe.”

  “Are you a lover of peace?” Owen said to the horse.

  The horse stared back at him until Owen pulled an apple from his pocket and sliced it with his sword. “Perhaps you are a lover of a piece of apple?”

  “Humph,” the horse said, crunching the apple halves.

  Watcher laughed. “Humphrey it is.”

  The village of Yodom teetered at the base on the back side of the White Mountain. Shacks and buildings clung to the earth, and trees stood at weird angles, looking as if they could fall at any moment. Haggard people walked the trails, some carrying food for dinner, one hauling water up a treacherous hill. Children wearing threadbare clothing earnestly tossed rocks onto a massive pile.

  Villagers seemed to eye Owen and his companions with suspicion. Perhaps they feared strange faces that could mean robbers or diseases that might wipe out the whole village.

  Owen stopped a woman carrying a load of wood and straw, her face deeply lined and her hair covered by a tightly-wrapped bandanna. She appeared to have three good teeth: one in the middle on top and two spaced unevenly on the bottom. She looked like the old woman with the poison apple in Snow White.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Owen said. “We’re looking for someone known as the Scribe.”

  One gray eye clouded over; the other darted. Her voice was like fingernails on a blackboard. “Come to spy on us, have you?”

  “Spies?” someone else said.

  Word spread quickly, and children came running, chased by worried-looking mothers and men with pitchforks and long wooden spikes.

  “The Dragon sent these three,” the old woman said. “I can feel it.”

  “No,” Owen said. “We come in the name of the King.”

  “He is a Wormling,” Watcher yelled. “We seek the King’s Son.”

  Three men menaced with their pitchforks. “If he is the Wormling,” the leader said, “let him show us his magic.” The man was brawny with bushy sideburns. “I’ve heard since I was a youngling that a Wormling could fly.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I heard he can hover,” another said. “Can you hover?”

  “If I could, I wouldn’t be walking, would I?”

  The farmer sneered.

  “Wait,” the first said. “Can you make fire come from your armpits?”

  Children drew closer, studying Owen. Others called for him to spin a web between trees, turn the sky green, and spit Wormling juice.

  “I don’t know where you heard these stories,” Owen said, “but they’re not true. I did come here from another world. I read from The Book of the King and—”

  A gasp arose from the crowd, and the old woman pointed a crooked finger at him. “You can read?”

  Owen nodded.

  “Prove it!” She waved, and the farmers moved toward him.

  Watcher growled and stepped in front of Owen, but he put out a hand. “It’s all right. They’re just confused.”

  The men took Owen to the center of town, where houses encircled a clearing. One of the men took Owen’s sword and held it up to the sunlight.

  “It’s the Sword of the Wormling,” Owen said.

  “I can see what it is,” the man said. “I just don’t know how you got it. Did you kill the Wormling?”

  “I am the Wormling. Why won’t you listen?”

  “Because the Wormling is ten feet tall with arms the size of tree trunks,” the old woman said.

  “Listen to him,” Watcher said. “He is the Wormling. We have traveled—”

  “Silence!” a farmer thundered. “Give him the scroll.”

  Another collective gasp. A young, round-faced girl handed a roll of parchment to Owen, her brown eyes melting his heart. All the children seemed frightened and unkempt.

  “Read,” the farmer said.

  Owen opened the scroll, but it was in a different script. “I can’t read this.”

  “Kill him!” the old woman said. “I told you they were spies!”

  A roar rose from the crowd again, and the farmers moved toward Owen.

  “Stop!” Owen said. “I can’t read this, but I can read from The Book of the King. One portion says, ‘Anyone who greets you on the path and offers so much as a cold drink of water will share in your reward. Kindness breeds more kindness.’ ”

  “Where did you hear that?” the old woman said.

  “He told you,” Watcher said. “From The Book of the King.”

  “And where is this book now?”

  Owen sighed. “The Dragon took it from me.”

  “I told you he was a spy!” the woman yelled. “He does the Dragon’s bidding in exchange for this cursed book!”

  “Listen to me!” Owen said. “For too long you’ve lived in fear of the Dragon, of demon flyers, of losing your families to the vaxors, who kill and steal and destroy. But the King wants you to live. He wants to bring you freedom and wholeness. He wants to bring you victory over the Dragon through his Son. I must find him, and I need the help of the Scribe.”

  The people stared at Owen, appearing surprised at the authority in his voice.

  The old woman shuffled forward. “How do you know the Scribe lives here?”

/>   Owen mentioned Mordecai, and the old woman glanced at the farmers as they moved away. “We esteem Mordecai here almost as much as the King,” she said. “Did he tell you that he came through here and helped us many years ago?”

  “No, but he did mention the Scribe lived here—”

  “The Scribe is old and confused,” a farmer said.

  “The Dragon got to his mind,” the old woman said.

  Owen’s heart fell. “Still, I would like to talk with him.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” the brown-eyed girl said. “I believe him.”

  The crowd grumbled, but soon everyone let the three pass.

  Owen knelt and looked the girl in the eye. “The Book of the King says, ‘You will enter the kingdom when you become like a small child, free of pride and willing to listen.’ Thank you, little one.”

  Owen and the others followed the woman up a narrow path, where she pointed them toward the Scribe’s home. “We protect him. He rarely comes out. Don’t be surprised if you have trouble understanding him.”

  “What happened?” Watcher said.

  She paused, her tongue passing over her three good teeth. “He was returned here one day by the demon flyers. A few of us helped nurse him to health and still keep an eye on him. Try not to upset him. He tends to throw things.”

  Owen thanked her and watched her amble down the mountain. They continued to where a shack sat in the branches of a tall tree. Owen climbed planks nailed into the trunk past limbs full of leaves and smelled something strange and wonderful. Someone was humming inside when Owen knocked tentatively.

  The humming stopped, and a wizened old man stuck his head out and looked down at Watcher and Humphrey. “What a strange-looking animal,” he said, squinting through thick, homemade glasses. Then he stared at Owen. “My son!”

  Oh, you’ve come back to me,” the Scribe said. “And just in time for dinner. Didn’t you hear me calling? Have you been down to the water again? I told you not to go swimming.”

  The old man stuck out a wrinkled hand, and Owen grabbed it, pulling himself up and into the tree house.

  The man’s great, bushy eyebrows had grown so long that they hung over his eyes. His arms were spindly with loose skin hanging. He wore a tattered white T-shirt that exposed his bony shoulders. His head was turtlelike, with bug eyes and a sharp, poky mouth.

  The man hugged him, and over his shoulder Owen saw a thick, grayish stew bubbling and steaming over a fire.

  In one corner lay a pile of sticks and firewood. In another, a pile of clothes heaped up as a bed. The rest of the place was strewn with trinkets and looked more like a child’s room than a grown man’s.

  “Did you meet any friends at the water, Son?” the Scribe said.

  Owen hesitated. “I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but I’m not your son.”

  The man’s face grew ashen, and he ran a hand through Owen’s hair. “You didn’t dive on a rock, did you? I’ve told you not to. It is quite shallow.”

  Owen gently took the man’s hand. “Mr. Scribe, I’ve come here on the recommendation of a mutual friend—Mordecai. Do you remember him?”

  The man’s eyes glazed, as if he were looking to a faraway place. “Mordecai . . . Mordecai . . .” He snapped his fingers. “Was that the youngling inside the scrumhouse when you pushed it over?” He tilted his head back and laughed. “I’ll never forget his face. My sides hurt just thinking about it.”

  The man took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. “Now please, let’s eat before the soup gets cold.”

  Owen moved to the table. The stew seemed to be jargid meat mixed with fresh vegetables and boiled eggs. His stomach turned when the man stirred up an old sock from the bottom.

  “I wish I could remember all your shenanigans,” the Scribe said, dishing out a bowl for Owen.

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve been gone all day.”

  The sun was setting, and golden light glinting off the leaves gave Owen a warm but sad feeling. He was desperate to find the Son, but he couldn’t help that this poor Scribe was a dead end.

  Owen choked down a slice of jargid meat and smiled. “Good. You’ve outdone yourself tonight.”

  The man’s eyes lit up. “I have, haven’t I?” He laughed and clapped and stomped back to the pot.

  With the man’s back turned, Owen opened the door and poured out the soup, quickly turning back before the Scribe sat.

  “Well, that was tasty, and I thank you,” Owen said, rubbing his stomach. “But I have to be leaving.”

  “So soon?” the man said. “I thought you would stay and tell me stories like when little Mordecai reached into the jargid hole and pulled out a snake.”

  Owen smiled, pretending to remember. “We had good times, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, yes,” the Scribe said, slurping his soup. “That’s all I have now—snatches of memories.” His face scrunched in pain, and he put a fist against his forehead.

  “It’s all right. Remember the good times.” Owen patted the old man and gave him a hug.

  “Will you be back?” the Scribe said, his eyes cheerless as Owen opened the door. “Everything changes so quickly. There is nothing in this world I can count on.”

  Owen recited from The Book of the King: “ ‘The skies above and the earth below shall slip away, but the King’s words will never slip away.’ ”

  Owen climbed down to where Watcher was wiping her mouth with a foreleg. “The stew was good,” she said, “but it had a strange aftertaste. What’s it called?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “What did the Scribe say? Do you know where the Son is?”

  “He’s all mixed up. We should go.”

  “No clues? But we’ve come so far.”

  Dejected, Owen walked into the twilight, trying to find a place where he and his friends could sleep away from the threat of demon flyers and vaxors—like a cave or perhaps a hidden ravine. When he heard footsteps behind, tromping along the rock-strewn path, Owen pulled Watcher and Humphrey into a stand of trees.

  However, Watcher’s stomach growled, and the footsteps slowed and stopped. Owen grabbed his sword, and when the branches parted, he thrust it near the face of the Scribe.

  “You’re not my son, are you?” the old man said. “You’re the Wormling.”

  Owen couldn’t believe the change in the Scribe. His eyes were bright, and his face shone. Gone was the scattered look.

  “When you said that, about the King’s words, something snapped—a memory returned, and the jagged places of my mind seemed to come together. You must tell me more.”

  The Scribe took Owen and his companions to a secluded cave near his tree house. A strange odor made Owen think of a mix of jargid musk and oily gas from a filling station in the Highlands. The Scribe said it was runoff from inside the mountain.

  He settled on a rock and began his story. “I remember getting an engraved invitation to the castle from the King. It was such an honor I went a day early just to make sure.” He put his hands on his knees. “My, it’s wonderful remembering things. Well, the King asked me to show him my handwriting. He then dictated words that I wrote down carefully. After he studied my writing, he asked if I would be willing to come each day to work on a project.”

  “The Book of the King,” Watcher said.

  “Yes, though I did not know its title then.”

  “What was the King like?” Watcher said.

  “Mysterious. Kind. Wonderful. No matter what was going on in the kingdom, he always had a smile for me and a gentle touch. He would stand behind me, reciting. I simply wrote. He would often comment after a passage, something like, ‘That will help them, don’t you think?’ And I would say, ‘Yes, certainly,’ but I didn’t know who he was talking about.”

  The Scribe wrinkled his brow, and Owen worried the man’s memory was fading again. But the Scribe looked up. “The King told me you would come. Isn’t that something? He knew one day you and I would meet
.”

  “How could he know that?” Watcher said.

  “How could he know what to put in the book? Every story, every wise saying simply flowed through him to my pen.”

  “Did you meet the Queen?” Owen said.

  “She would occasionally enter to talk with her husband. She was despondent.”

  “About losing her son,” Owen said.

  The Scribe nodded. “Of course. And it broke his heart as well, but something about him was always positive. He genuinely believed he would see his Son again.”

  Owen took a breath. “Do you have any idea where the Son is?”

  “I gathered he was imprisoned. I have no idea where.”

  Owen bit his lip and turned away.

  “Of course,” the Scribe said. “That’s why you’re here. The Wormling searches for the Son. How I wish I could help you. I worked with the King every day for three years. I had to return to finish the missing chapter, but—”

  “Chapter?” Owen said. “I heard there were chapters.”

  “There is a place in the book for an addition. Someone might think there are more than one because of the size, but there is only one.”

  “Tell me about it,” Owen said.

  “Just before the King disappeared, he asked me to come back and write it.”

  “What was it about?”

  “That I cannot tell you. I did not write it in the usual way. I copied it from a special glass, and I carved it on a sheet of paper so hard it felt like metal.”

  “I don’t understand,” Watcher said. “Could you not read this chapter?”

  “I’m sure someone could but not I,” the Scribe said.

  “What happened to it?” Owen said.

  The Scribe winced and rubbed his temple. “That’s . . . a good question. . . . I . . . you see, the Dragon did something to my mind. . . . I don’t understand. . . .”

  “ ‘Throw every worry and concern on the King,’ ” Owen said. “ ‘He cares for you and wants you to be free from the burden of your thoughts.’ ”

  The Scribe’s face broke into a wide smile. “Thank you. Those words wash over me like a mountain stream. What was the question again?”