The Changeling (10 page)

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?”

“The missing chapter,” Owen said.

“Yes, yes. The King presented the missing chapter to me for safekeeping. He wanted it kept separate from
The Book of the King
because . . .” A look came over him.

“Because?”

“He said one day the book would be stolen.”

“He knew even that?” Owen said.

“Amazing,” Watcher said.

Owen told the story of Mr. Page's coming to see him in the Highlands. The Scribe seemed astonished that Owen lived in a store filled with books.

“Where is this missing chapter?” Owen said.

The Scribe scratched his head. “I hid it. I know that. It was the one thing I was able to keep from the Dragon when he took me away. He did awful things. He poked around in my mind so that I could no longer think clearly. But by concentrating on the King's words, I was able to push that information far enough away that he could not discover it. But I pushed it so far that I can't remember.”

“Think!” Watcher said.

The Scribe suggested they go back to his home. “It has to be there somewhere,” he said.

Watcher's ears went up. “Someone is coming.”

“Invisibles?” Owen said.

Watcher shook her head. “Human. And greatly concerned.”

A light flickered outside, and someone carried a candle to the entrance of the cave. It was the old woman they had met earlier. She stared at the Scribe with frightened eyes. “I looked for you at your home!”

“I was helping these new friends.”

She looked closer, turning his face with a hand.

“What?” he said.

“Where's the crazy man I knew? What's happened?”

“It's the most wonderful thing. I can remember. . . .” He paused, then looked deeply into the woman's eyes. “Rachel?”

They embraced and the woman wept. “Ever since the Dragon took him away, he's been unable to remember his family, his friends, any of us. For years I've brought him food and supplies, but it was too painful to stay. His mind was so clouded. But now . . .” She looked to Owen. “How did it happen? How did he regain his mind?”

Owen told her how simply reciting from
The Book of the King
had changed the man.

“I'm remembering things I haven't thought of for years,” the Scribe said, “but I can't remember where I left the missing chapter.”

The woman smiled and touched his face. “The important thing is that you've come back to me. My husband.”

The two seemed to drink each other in with their eyes. The Scribe pulled away and looked wildly at Owen, then back at his wife. “No, I can't just put it out of my mind. The missing chapter is too important. The King gave it to me to safeguard from the Dragon—”

“And so you did, my dear,” the woman said. “It is safe.”

“You know where it is?” Owen said.

The woman nodded; then her face fell. “But I'm afraid you'll never get it back.”