THE CHANGELING
Frem heard the family moving about inside the manor house, and he heard their whispers. He pounded on the door, but they would not open it.
“We have your boy,” said Frem. “The black elves took him, but we snatched him back and caught the elves. Open the door.””
After several minutes of this, with no response, Frem heard a woman’s voice. She argued with her husband. Finally, the man answered Frem.
“Go away,” said the man. “You’re mistaken. My children are all safe. If what you say be true, they took a child from another house. Look elsewhere.”
“We saw it ourselves,” said Frem. “They took the child from the third floor window at the back of the house. A boy, several months old, with blue eyes and black hair.”
Frem heard the wife gasp. “Open it,” she yelled. “Open it. Let them in.”
“What are you talking about?” said Rothmar, her husband. “Ragnar is in your arms. He’s right there.”
“I don’t know,” said the woman. “I don’t know. Just open the door. I have to see.” She was insistent and would not back down. Eventually, Rothmar gave up and opened the door. He stood in his nightshirt and bare feet. Even so, he was tall enough to look Frem straight in the eyes. Chiseled and mustached, with muscles on muscles. He held a sword ready to thrust and a big shield of ornate make. He braced himself against a rush.
“Make no false move or you die,” said Rothmar.
Frem held the baby before him; the child’s little face clear to see.
“What trickery is this?” said Rothmar, a confused expression on his face. “My son is in Helda’’s arms, though this baby could be his twin.”
Helda placed the baby she held in a basinet and ran toward Frem. She looked at the child for but a moment and then snatched him from Frem’s arms, weeping and wailing.
“Do not move from that spot,” said Rothmar to Frem. He backed up, pushing Helda away from the entry, his other children looking on from the stairs. One son, a boy of twelve, stood at the bottom step, holding a sword. The younger ones behind him. Rothmar backed up to the basinet, still braced for a fight. He looked into the basinet. “Aargh!” he said, shook his head, and rapidly blinked his eyes. Then he peered closer. “Ragnar. It is my Ragnar, but for a moment…”
“For a moment, it wasn’t,” said Helda. “I saw the same when I picked him up in his room minutes ago.”
“But not when you looked at the child he brought?” said Rothmar.
“No,” said Helda.
“What did you see in his room?” said Rothmar. “Tell me true.”
“I don’t know. It was only for a moment; just a moment. I don’t know. By Wotan, I don’t know.”
“Tell me what you saw, woman,” said Rothmar raising his voice. “Exactly what you saw.”
Her body shook, as if she were fighting against herself to get the words out. “He had the look of…of an imp, like in the stories. The eyes, those eyes! And the strange, gray skin. I don’t know; it was just for a moment. I don’t know. I don't know what I saw. What could this mean? Has someone bewitched us?”
Rothmar’s jaw hung open. He was uncertain, confused. He turned his gaze on Frem. Frem quickly told him all that they saw in the garden.
Rothmar and Frem stepped outside to look at the elves. All three were hogtied and gagged, one still unconscious. Putnam stood over them, sword in hand, his face pale. Sevare sat on the stoop, his head down.
“They are black elves, indeed,” said Rothmar to his family when he stepped back inside. He engaged the oldest boy to keep the other children inside, for they all wanted to look upon the black elves, creatures they’’d never seen afore, but had heard of in a hundred legends.
“We don’t know that the elves switched our boy for an imp, even if these men speak true,” said Rothmar.
“You saw, you saw,” said Helda, cringing as she looked to the basinet.
“Perhaps the spell they laid makes our boy look like an imp for but a moment when anyone looks upon him for the first time. Perhaps this other child is the true imp. I’ll not take a child from our home and cast it aside for one brought to my door by a stranger.””
“Dear gods, dear gods,” cried Helda as she clutched Ragnar to her chest. “What do we do? Do you speak true?”” she said looking to Frem.
Frem nodded.
“Rothmar, what can we do?” said Helda.
“We must call for the Angel of Death,” said Rothmar.
The crone came down the walk, her boy, and her wolf beside her, Rothmar’s eldest son leading the way.
“You came off The Rose,” she said to Frem. “What mischief have you wrought here?”
Frem didn’t answer.
She stepped close and inspected him. “Look into my eyes,” she said.
Frem did, unafraid.
She stared up at him for some moments, and then patted him on the arm. “Some hope there is, I see. Some hope, indeed. Good man. Now where are these elves and this imp I hear tell of?”
They showed her first to the shed in the yard where they’d put the elves, Putnam still guarding them.
“Black elves, you said,” spoke the crone. “Black elves these be. There be no doubt. A wonder to catch such creatures. You men must know your trade well. Did any escape you?”
“None,” said Putnam. “Of that we’re certain.” He held one hand to his belly and looked as if he was about to puke.
“Certain enough to bet your life, soldier?” said the crone.
“I’ll not bet my life on anything,” said Putnam, “but I’m certain, all the same.”
“Good. But bet your life, you have, whether you know it or not. Best cover their eyes, or mayhaps they’ll beguile you with their elf magic, or worse, pluck out your soul,” she said, cackling. “Souls are funny things, you know. Everyone gets one easy enough, but once you lose it, it’s darned hard to get it back. Elf magic is strong. Beware it; shun it. Oh, and covering over their heads should do wonders for your unsettled stomach,”” she said patting Putnam on the shoulder. “Watch them close until we decide on proper course.”
They led the crone inside. She looked with interest upon the baby in Helda’s arms. Then she looked upon the one in the basinet. When she did, she jumped back and gasped, despite herself. “Dark magic there be on this child. Elf magic. But I must know more.””
She laid some strange paraphernalia on the table and began to chant, her words unintelligible. From a leather bag, she pulled a fist full of small bleached bones and cast them onto the table. She bent over and looked closely, nearly touching her face to the bones. Then she pulled a holy symbol (a strange, bent cross) from beneath her shirt. She held it over the bones and said more words. Then she touched it to the forehead of the baby that clung to Helda. It cried. She studied the child’’s reaction for a moment, and then moved on to the other babe. She repeated her words and held the token to the child’s forehead. When she did, it yowled a high-pitched wail and immediately appeared no longer as little Ragnar, but as a tiny black elf baby, an imp. The crone held the token to the imp’’s head as it thrashed about in the basinet trying to escape her touch. She said more words, some in a language or languages that Frem knew not, but others of her words were in Old High Lomerian. She called on the Norns, on Wotan, the All-Father, and on Donar, his son. She spoke also the names of Baldr, Vindler, and Cyo. When at last she pulled the token from the child’s head, it changed back. It looked again as little Ragnar, face and body. It lay there panting and gasping for breath. An exact twin to the baby Helda held.
“A changeling, it be,” said the crone. “The magic that made it so is dark and strong. I cannot break it.””
“What does this mean?” said Helda.
“It means the child at your bosom is your own, and this one is not,” said the crone. “But know that already you did. That’’s why you’re holding the right one. A mother always knows, though sometimes she cannot admit the truth even to herself.” She turned to Rothmar. “You owe these men a weighty debt, blacksmith. For without their intervention this night, your true son would be gone forevermore. You would never have known the truth, not unless you had the courage to bring the imp to me and then do what must be done. Few have such courage, even after the imp has brought ruin to their household. The truth is often too painful to face.”
“What must be done?” said Helda.
“The imp must die,” said the crone. “And at once. I would have already killed it myself, but the elves would smell its stain upon your home, and they would not rest until you all suffered for it.”
“Black elf or no, it is but a child,” said Frem. “An innocent.”
“A child of Loki,” said the crone, “is never innocent. It’s a changeling. A doppelganger. Had this imp remained in this household, it would have worked its dark magic, its curses and hexes, upon every member of this family. One by one the other children would have died by illness or accident. The family business would have fallen to ruin, as would this very house. Its wood would rot. Its walls, infested with vermin. Lice in every bed; worms in the food, the wine turned to vinegar. And all love would be lost between the parents. That’’s what this ‘child’ would have sown here. I have seen this before, and alas, I will see it again.”
“And the elves?” said Frem.
“They too must die,” said the crone. “If allowed to return to their lairs, they will tell all that they know. We will be blamed for the death of their imp, and rightly so. The elves will seek vengeance on this family, on me, and on you and your ship.”
“Then just let them all go, the imp too,” said Helda. “Then there will be no need for vengeance. They’’ll leave us all alone.”
“You think so, do you?” said the crone. “You’ve done nothing to them so far, I trust, yet they took your child, and did their best to destroy your family. I ask you, have you wronged the elves in any way? Any insult? Think carefully — all of you. You children too,” she said pointing at the children on the stairs. ““Anything? Any slight, however, unlikely?”
Rothmar looked to each member of his clan and elicited a response from each. None admitted any encounter with the elves. None had done them any wrong by word or deed
“You see?” said the crone. “Yet they inflict this evil on you. There is no appeasing them. If we do not kill the imp, if we let it go, the elves will place it with another family to work its evil. Or mayhaps, they’ll return here another night to take your Ragnar. I will not abide that. Nor will I allow such a plague on any other family of Jutenheim. The imp must die. But with its death, and that of the three captured, at least, there will be some uncertainty amongst the elves. The elves will know nothing of your involvement (indicating Frem) or mine. And they may not know which house these creatures went to tonight. It may end here.”
“If it doesn’t?” said Rothmar. “If they come back?”
“Then you must fight them off, blacksmith,” said the crone. “With courage, skill, and whatever aid the All-Father sees fit to send you. Though I think he’s helped you much already,” she said gesturing toward Frem. “And if you survive that struggle, should it come, you must flee Jutenheim at once with all your brood, never to return.”
“This is our home,” said Helda. “We know nowhere else.”
“Then take your chances and stay, come what may,” said the crone. “Perhaps it’s best that you do stay, at least for now, for if you flee at once, they will surmise why. The reach of the black elves is long. They may be able to follow you wherever you go, or else alert others of their kind. Best you stay for now, and hope their kin knew nothing of which home they planned to visit this night.”
“We should question them,” said Frem. “Find out why they choose this house, and this boy. Find out what their true purpose is.””
“You would know the mind of a black elf?” said the crone laughing. “Go and question a bear or a lion. See what good it does you.””
“Animals don’t speak,” said Frem. “The elves do.”
“Black elves speak nothing but lies,” said the crone. “I wish to speak to them more than anyone else here. More than I can say. I’’ve thought of little else since Rothmar’s boy showed up at my door. What secrets I could learn. What truths I could glean. But I will not speak with them. For if I do, they will use their dark magic on us. Even I may not be able to counter it. It may kill us all or twist our minds. And if not, still we cannot trust a single word that they say. They are tricksters, one and all. Born liars. True spawn of Loki. I will debate this no further.”
“This soldier,” she said pointing to Frem, “and the one who guards the elves, and you, Rothmar, will go with me to the base of the cliffs, north of town. There we will drown the elves in the sea and cast their bodies into the water. With luck, the sharks will take their fill of them. But if their kin find any trace of them, they’ll find no wound inflicted by sword or dagger on them. They may conclude that they fell from the rocks and drowned in the night. That may temper their anger and stay their vengeance. It’’s our best chance. So that is what we will do.”
Frem carried one of the elves in a burlap bag as they trudged over the rocks near the water’s edge. The clouds had cleared. The stars and a sliver of a moon gave them just enough light to see by. Rothmar and Putnam each carried an elf in a sack akin to Frem’s. The crone walked beside Frem, her footing sure, despite her age. She held the little bundle that the elves had carried, the imp wriggling within it. The crone’s wolf walked before them all. In the distance behind them, the crone’s boy, her great-great-grandson, waited with the ponies. They walked as far along the rocky coast, and thus, as far away from Jutenheim, as the landscape allowed, which wasn’t far, perhaps one mile and a half, but no more than two.
“Your conscience troubles you, Frem Sorlons?” said the crone.
“To kill a man in battle is one thing,” said Frem. “To drown him — to murder him in cold blood, is another. And to kill a child is unforgivable.”
“Not a child, a changeling,” said the crone. “A thing of evil, created for but one purpose, to do evil for evil’’s sake. And they are not men. They are black elves of Svartleheim. Ancient enemies of mankind. I warned you of what would happen if they lived.”
“I don’t doubt your warnings,” said Frem. “But I do doubt that any child is a thing of evil from birth.”
“Do you? Then take in a panther from the mountains as a pet. Raise it alongside your children. Let it play with them each day; let it sleep beside them each night. Teach it the same values you teach your children, as best you can teach, and as best it can learn. Your children will love it. You will love it. It will be a member of your family, nearly as important and beloved and any other. And still, one day, that panther will bite one of your children on the back of the neck and kill it, or else rip its face off, or disembowel it with its claws — all your love of it notwithstanding. Do you agree that the panther would do this?”
“Yes, probably,” said Frem. “For they are wild animals. Hunters, killers.”
“And yet if it happened to you and yours, you’d ask, ‘why?’ Why has our beloved friend and pet killed our child? The answer is simple and is just as you’ve said: it’s a panther, and that’s its nature —— despite all your nurture. Similarly, the black elves do their evil, because they are black elves — it’s their nature. This imp would have been the death of the blacksmith’’s family. They don’t deserve that. No family does. Let not your heart be troubled, for we are doing the right thing. And in any case, we are doing the only thing that we can do and hope to keep the elves at bay.” She stopped and grabbed Frem by the arm. She looked into his eyes. “Sometimes, Frem Sorlons, one must do something that appears to be wrong, or is wrong, yet serves a greater purpose. I think you know of what I speak.”
Frem nodded but would offer no more.