The Last Changeling by Jane Yolen Read Free Book Online Page A

keep . . .
    When he had first heard the song, he must have already lived a year in the Unseelie Court, still mourning the loss of his own family. A minstrel had performed for King Obs, a minstrel who had a strange wandering eye. The Border Lords had thrown bones at him and called him misfigured, but Aspen had thought the song pretty and sad at the same time, though he had only understood a small part of it. He felt terrible for the minstrel, who was clearly as out of place at the Unseelie Court as Aspen was. Jaunty had had to explain to him that the song was about the ocean and that a strand was a fancy Unseelie word for a beach.
    Suddenly, he realized that there really
was
no breeze outside. It took him a minute more to realize that the flowers were part of a painting, a clever trompe l’oeil that depicted a window looking out onto a pasture full of blooming poppies.
    Someone nearby cleared his throat.
    Aspen turned his head. The three dwarfs stood by the far wall across from the flower painting, their beards almost hiding the concern in their faces. Plumping a pillow behind him was the stunning woman from his dream, who leaned closer as if to examine him. His heart stuttered in his chest and he looked away. Inside, he was repeating over and over, She is real! She is real!
    There was a grey-eyed manservant hulking in the shadows behind her, probably a clerk by his manner and dress.
    Finally, nearest to the bed and looking down at him, her mismatched eyes sparkling with anger or amusement or relief—maybe all three at once—was Snail.
    â€œHello,” he said, shooting her a weak smile. She nodded and he tried to guess whether they were in trouble.
    Are we captured? Are we among friends? What happened outside?
He did not know which question to ask first, and anyway he certainly did not want to appear panicked in front of the beautiful singer, so instead he tried to sound nonchalant, casual, smooth. “I played a song.”
    More slow than smooth, Your Serenity,
he thought.
Are you trying to live up to the dwarfs’ description of you?
That much he remembered!
Dull as dust and dense as stone?
    But Snail’s face broke into a pleasant grin and she answered him as if he had dispensed the deepest of wisdoms. “Yes, Karl. You did.”
    For a moment he could not remember who Karl was, but when he recalled that was his minstrel name, he smiled back.
    â€œAnd the song was beautiful,” added the stunning woman. “It felt right for me to fit the words to your tune.”
    Her words? My tune?
That was when Aspen fully realized that the dream was not a dream but something that had really happened.
Unless, of course, I am still asleep and dreaming.
    Surreptitiously, he pinched his left pointer finger
.
It hurt. So—he was awake!
    Maggie Light,
he thought suddenly. He was pleased he remembered her name.
    Clambering off the bed, he gave Maggie Light a deep, courtly bow, though his legs were wobbly. “It was a bare collection of notes before you gave it wings.” He knew Snail would say he sounded like a toff, but there was no way to express his amazement at Maggie’s singing in a commoner’s plain speaking. “Your voice is . . . transcendent.”
    The manservant spoke then. “Even magical, you might say.”
    Aspen shook his head. He was born and bred to magic and had sensed no glamour while she sang. And besides . . .“How would you know magic, mud-man. You are a—”
    â€œYes,” the manservant interrupted in a stern voice that somehow stopped Aspen cold.
    Belatedly, Aspen realized that traveling minstrels—unlike royalty—must have to deal with all species of peoples on a relatively even footing. And if those people had just saved his life, the footing was probably considerably
less
than even.
    â€œI . . . um . . . apologize,” he stuttered, unsure of how to do it formally without sounding too