of the early-spring midmorning sun.
Roel paused and watched her walk away; then he resumed his cut and thrust at the air. He had just dispatched the unseen foeman when as from a distance he heard Avelaine faintly call, “Roel.”
He turned to see her standing there, now nearly all the way ’round the ruins. Pale, she was, almost ghostly, and she reached a hand out toward Roel as if pleading.
Just behind and to the left stood a tall, black-haired, black-eyed man in an ebon cloak limned in scarlet. Over his left arm something draped, as of wispy dark cloth featherlight. A sneer of triumph filled his dark aquiline features as he gazed at Avelaine.
Roel shouted and raised his sword and rushed forward, but in that instant the man embraced Avelaine and whirled ’round and ’round and ’round and vanished, taking Avelaine with him, and when Roel came to the place where they had been, he found nought but empty air.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” demanded Laurent.
“She and the man both vanished,” said Roel.
“Did you not engage him in battle?” asked Blaise.
“Even as I went for him, he spun like a dervish and disappeared and took Avelaine with him,” said Roel, on the verge of tears. “I searched and searched, but they were truly gone.”
“Well, if I’d been there,” said Laurent, “I would have-”
“Oh, leave the boy alone,” cried Lady Simone, again bursting into tears, even as she stepped to Roel and embraced him.
But Roel would have none of that, and he disengaged his mother’s arms and defiantly faced Laurent. “You would have done no better than I.”
“Pah! You little-”
“Laurent!” snapped Sir Emile. “Enough! We are here to deal with the problem and not to dole out blame.”
“But what can we possibly do?” cried Simone, wiping her eyes with her kerchief and then using it to blow her nose.
Emile knitted his brow, pondering, and then said, “I do not know, my lady. Mayhap Avelaine is lost forever, for it is clear that a powerful being has abducted her, most likely the Elf King, for ’tis said he captures mortals by stealing their shadows from them. No doubt he has taken her to Faery.”
“Faery!” exclaimed Simone. “Oh, what a horrible place!” Once more she broke into tears, and Emile embraced her.
Roel took a deep breath and said, “Sire, we can consult with Geron the Sage. Perhaps he will know what to do and where to go.”
Emile nodded. “Ah, you have hit upon it, my boy. One of us must seek him out.”
“I will go, Father,” said Roel.
“Pah! You?” sneered Laurent. “You are nought but a child, a mere squire. I will go instead.”
“No,” said Blaise. “I will go.”
“I am the eldest,” said Laurent.“Hence it is mine to do.”
“I will not accept this blame,” said Roel. “I am the one to find him.”
Emile called for quiet and said, “Laurent is right. He is the eldest, so he is the one to go.” The next morning, arrayed in his fine armor and armed with the best of weaponry, Laurent mounted up on his caparisoned steed and said, “No matter what Sage Geron tells me, whether he has any aid or not, still will I seek Avelaine. It might be a lengthy quest, yet surely will I find her.”
Roel paused in his telling and took a long sip of tea.
Celeste remained silent and waited for him to continue.
Roel then set his cup down and said, “With tearful au revoirs, we watched Laurent ride away, my brother the knight quite magnificent on that great horse of his.” Roel sighed and said, “But then three years passed, and we heard nothing of Laurent or Avelaine.
“By that time I had won my own spurs in the lists and in one-on-one combat as well as in the melees. Then war came, and over the next months both Blaise and I acquitted ourselves with honor on the fields of Valens.
“But when we returned home, Blaise set out to find Laurent and Avelaine, and he rode for Sage Geron’s cottage to seek advice. I would have gone with him, but my sire was in ill health, and there were yet foemen wandering the land. So, to guard my sire and dam, I stayed behind at the manor.
“Another three years passed, and there came no word of Blaise, Laurent, or Avelaine. My sire had recovered his health, and now I would go to find my missing kindred. Mother objected tearfully, for she would not lose all her get in a futile search. My sire, too, was reluctant to let me go, yet in the end he acceded, for I was a true knight, and he could not, would not, gainsay me, his third and last son, in this honorable quest.
“As did my brothers before me, I set out to seek the advice of Sage Geron, and a moon or so later I arrived at his cote, there nigh the edge of the mortal world, the cottage but a fortnight from the twilight walls of Faery.
He invited me in and made tea, and we sat at his table and spoke. . ”
“I’ll tell you what I told your brothers,” said Geron.
“Contrary to popular myth, ’twas no Elf King who took your sister, but the Lord of the Changelings himself. Ah, he resembles the Elf King, yet is another altogether. He stole Avelaine’s shadow, cut it free from her, he did; hence he captured a key bit of her essence and has her in his thrall.”
“Then my sire was right about someone stealing a shadow,” said Roel, “but was wrong about who did it.” Geron nodded.
“Then that was what he had draped over his arm?
Her shadow?”
Geron nodded again.
Roel sighed. “I thought it but a wisp of dark cloth.” The sage shook his head. “Nay, lad, ’twas her shadow, stolen away. The Lord of the Changelings at times seeks out a fair demoiselle to capture, and he does so in this manner.”
“Speak to me of this Changeling Lord.” Geron replenished his cup of tea and offered some to Roel, who with a gesture declined. The sage took a long sip and set the cup aside and leaned back in his chair. “Though they are rather Elflike, these beings are not true Elves, but a race set apart, a race called Changelings.”
“Changelings,” said Roel. “I’ve heard of them: babes exchanged at birth for another child.”
“Oh, non, non”-Geron shook his head-“that’s but part of the truth. You see, Changelings are not only babes, but adults, too. And there is this, my boy: they are called Changelings for they can alter their shapes.”
“Shift into something they are not?”
“Non, shift into
“Say on, Sage.”
Geron took another sip of tea. “Just as the Firbolg and the Sidhe, or better yet the Seelie and the Unseelie, there are two factions of Changelings, in appearance difficult to tell apart. Yet though they might be different from one another, they are closely akin. Regardless as to whether it is one race or two, both factions take humans for their own, for now and again they need the strength of mortal blood to restore the vitality of their kind.”
“Mortal blood? You mean they mate with humans?”
“Oui. Only in this way can they remain a vigorous folk.”
“Tell me of these two factions.”
“One is ruled over by a queen, and she is proud and terrible.”
“Terrible? Evil, wicked, you mean?”
“Non, non. Terrible in her power, in her abilities, and she does not gladly suffer the follies of humankind. E’en so, it is she who lures men unto her bed. She does not steal shadows to do so, but uses her charms instead.” Roel nodded. “I understand. What of the other faction?”
“Ah, they are ruled by the Changeling Lord, and he is also terrible, not only in his power, but in his wickedness as well. It is he who steals shadows of those he would bed.”
“He would lie with my sister?”
Geron sighed and nodded.
Roel jumped up and began pacing. “My sister will never mate with that evil being.”
