CHANGELING: Book Two in the Weaver Series Read online

  “I know his game now, Silver. That won’t work anymore. He can’t bully me.”

  I made our face smile until I could see the ghost of our bunched cheeks on the bottom edge of our vision. Mez returned it without a clue to our thoughts or inner conversation. “No worries, Sister. This is a game he can’t win. Even in play, I won’t have anyone be a wedge between us—Bindao or not.”

  Cass was mollified at my strong response. There had been a small worry she tried to hide but a wisp of it leaked out. She’d been concerned that I would grow distant and become so absorbed with Mez that our chimerism would make me resent her. Softly I grabbed the nebulous, baseless fear and lobbed it back to her with the word, “Never.”

  Kal clapped his hands, drawing us out of our head and into the world. “Pay attention. I said no talking, that means even in your mind, Cilda. You will now be with the wogs tomorrow.”

  He’d called us children. We were acting like it a little but it’d been a stressful day. It was harsh but we’d been warned and if we whined he would make the punishment worse somehow, guaranteed. Kal could always force us to tan hides with Jaz and that was something we didn’t care to repeat—ever. The surface may have been more dangerous but it smelled better. They’d probably assign us the duty of spotting aerial predators. We put on the properly contrite expression and finished our food. Mez saved himself trouble by following our example.

  After all the plates were cleared away and being cleaned in the red light alcove, Kal motioned us back to the table. He seemed uncomfortable and stiff.

  “A meeting of the minds was called between cities. The Imini have decided that they will stand firm against the Aniy but not seek war. They will allow Jaz to have a trial if it is required but they will not allow her separation from our society. Mez, you must have equal time in Denu and the upper levels at your old residence. The Imini cannot be seen as hindering a blood bond, especially between the Fid of Bleo and her son. You have already been included in our walls and now have free passage in any Imini city.”

  Mez opened his mouth to protest then completely closed down. It was scary how the vibrant nature of Mez’s being vanished under rigid formality as he spoke through barely mobile lips to Kal.

  “I understand, Eam. My majority has not been reached. It will be endured.”

  The legend of the seasons in Greek mythology sprang to mind. Our mother would have instantly drawn the connection since it had been her favorite field of study. I was Hades and Mez was Persephone. Our stolen groom would have to spend six months of the year or the equivalent thereof with Mommy Dearest—aka Fid Tal. That wasn’t an exact match though because he thought of the upper levels as the undesirable place to be not Denu.

  Kal rubbed a hand over his face in a drawn out pass from his forehead to his chin. He snapped his fingers at Mez when he saw his nephew’s near complete withdrawal. “Listen to me, Mez. If I could have you here with me at all times I would welcome it. The world is thrust upon us at birth and at times change comes too slow for our needs and wants. Your childhood will end and then you will be a man with hard decisions and regrets. Be glad your modor is your worst problem right now.”

  I slid one of our feet over the top of Mez’s foot and he wiggled his toes. He was still alive and kicking in there. We would survive.

  Kal smacked the table making us jump. His black eyes looked mean and our foot shrank away from Mez’s foot in reaction. We usually smarted off to most people but Kal mattered. Gaze intense, as if a gamma ray burst was about to explode from the dark stars over his cheeks, Kal held us prisoner without words until he was ready to speak.

  His voice was quiet but steely. “When I tell you to wait for me next time you had better. You both could have died and now Baelc will target you harder than ever. This is two attacks by the rebels you have survived. They have a reputation for leaving no survivors and you are ruining it. You will learn to respect my wishes. In light of that, I have changed my mind about your punishment. The surface is too dangerous. You will stay below and help tan hides.”

  Mez stealthily slid his foot on top of ours and its warmth was bolstering.

  I turned our mouth down at the corners before lifting our hair off the back of our instantly clammy neck as Cass said, “You’re just full of good news today, Kal.”

  Our guardian leaned back in his chair and snagged the waist of his jeans through the thin material of his untucked shirt. His cowboy boots stretched under the table to land squarely where Mez’s foot overlapped ours. Mez’s wince of pain confirmed Kal wasn’t gentle about it.

  Tone sarcastic, Kal said, “The afternoon is yours to do with as you please as long as you stay in Denu. Do try to avoid trouble.

  Chapter Seventeen: Priorities

  We went in search of Lil. Mez didn’t know where we were going and he followed us like he was afraid to get lost. After the third time he stepped on our heel Cass spun us in an abrupt about face to plant a stiff arm ending in a gloved fist into his gut. His ‘oomph’ of surprise went right over our head as he bowed his back to lessen the impact.

  Long dark brown fingers curled around our wrist in reaction. The tips of his fingers were rough not smooth and they tickled the inside of our arm. Cass was ignoring my attention to the physical sensations. I knew she wanted to make a point so I sat back to watch. Mez smiled as he twisted our clenched fist down and away then released it.

  “Why do you seek to cause me harm, Sustor Cor?”

  Our jaw jutted forward and our head tilted back as Cass harrumphed. “Why are you calling me that? I’m not your ‘Sister Heart’ or whatever. I have one sibling and that’s all I need, Butthead. You better get it straight that I’m not going anywhere. Silver comes with extra’s—there’s no ifs ands or buts about it. I know you can tell us apart. Stop trying to annoy me out of the way.”

  A few passers-by were beginning to stare. Mez looked around curiously then spied a girl with a beautiful topaz colored headdress and a basket of produce. He gave her a jaunty wave and a grin. She blushed and put a hand to her mouth like a fan to hide her small smile then hurried away. When it became apparent we weren’t really going to come to blows our limited audience drifted back on their way toward the bazaar. Cass let Mez drink in the view of the departing girl’s backside then stomped on his left big toe for attention.

  He pushed us on the shoulder. “Quit being mean and I will share how I tell you apart.”

  That got us both intrigued. Cass cocked our hip to the side and rested the base of our palms on either side of our waist. I could feel the muscles in our forehead flex with our expression of expectation.

  “We’re all ears, Mez. Dazzle us.” Cass’s tone gushed smart-assery.

  Mez mimicked our pose and looked utterly ridiculous, which could mean we did, too.

  “Nah, you know we make everything look good, Silver. It’s called style.”

  “Silver’s voice is slightly deeper. She also is not as comfortable in your body so her mannerisms are less practiced. Cass has no thought to movement but my Leoght Cor thinks through the smallest gesture before it is attempted. No one else might notice but I can see it in your eyes. It is very confusing when one is in charge and the other only takes over one function, like speech. Combining and coordinating control of your body is the only instance when I cannot tell you apart. Also, if I fail to feel a physical attraction then I know you are combined physically or Silver is not in charge.” He waved his arms animatedly as he spoke.

  Mez’s face was lit with excitement like Sil’s sometimes was when he discussed a breakthrough in a new field of study. We’d already known about the voice thing and if I concentrated I could mimic my sister’s cord pattern exactly. I was less graceful than my twin but that would likely fade with time and practice. Cass was simultaneously heartened and disgusted regarding Mez’s last sentence about attraction. We agreed that it probably had something to do with the Bindao and left it at that. Coexisting was a delicate balance of consideration and politeness that we didn’t al
ways accomplish. We were both strong willed and intense in our goals—that made for interesting arguments and new efforts of compromise daily.

  Cass didn’t respond to Mez’s offered intel about our modus operandi. She gave a grunt and started us back on our way. Lil was usually top-side during the daylight hours but with the ‘goings on’ of today she might be off her normal schedule. We could have easily found her in the Web and asked her where she was but Cass wanted to show Mez around Denu without advertising we were being nice. Plus, we needed time to think.

  We’d gotten Pez past the Imini safeguards to deny Aniy passage by bending and I imagined Vel would be asking more questions. Any person could walk through an arch with no restrictions while they were open in the day but no one was supposed to be able to teleport in or out unless they were registered in the stone. The Aniy weren’t the only group that might become alarmed that someone could wade through established security measures like water. If they found out what Cass and I could do, would we be truly welcome anymore?

  Cass increased our steps to match two for every one of Mez’s. Speaking almost under our breath she mumbled out of the side of our mouth, “How come the Aniy aren’t worried about the Imini entering their tiers without permission? The Aniy DNA protocols are artificial imitations of what the Imini can do naturally. Technically the Imini could bypass any signature right? What’s the difference between us and them?”

  Mez stopped us with a hand on our arm. “The difference is, in all the years of the alliance, thousands, the Imini have never broken the covenant. Their word is inviolate. The Elders may be about power and control but they also revere Annis and pursue what they perceive as Her will. They recognize that same pursuit in the everyday life of the Imini. There is comfort in that. You, on the other hand, are an unknown element that serves no one and is bound by nothing.”

  I broke in to object. “That isn’t true, Mez. What about the Bindao?”

  He tugged playfully on a strand of our hair and tucked it behind our ear. “That is loyalty to one, not the Aniy as a people. If you had to choose between the survival of Earth or my death, what would you do?”

  Cass made us shrug and I answered with truth, “I would have to serve the many over the one. It might break me forever but I can’t see how keeping you alive at the cost of a whole planet wouldn’t be self-serving.”

  He looked sad but unsurprised by our answer. “If Axsa threatened Earth’s existence and you had to choose, what would you do?”

  We turned our whole body away from Mez without answering.

  His murmured response hit our ears like a slap. “Exactly so.”

  The rest of our walk was silent. Mez pretended to be absorbed with the sights or maybe he really was. It was his first excursion into an Imini city and his face was lit with curiosity and interest. We took a circuitous route to find Lil and made sure he got to peruse the bazaar. Watching him explore new things was so entertaining my sister and I soon forgot the serious nature of our earlier conversation.

  Mez conned some fruit off of a vendor with his charm so we got a free snack, which we ate while sitting on the cushiony blue moss around the children’s play area. The afternoon buyers were mostly after food stuffs and dinner supplies. One vendor, a stocky man just under six feet tall with arms as thick as oak trees and rough hands big enough to palm a basketball, was cracking coconut-sized piths open and selling the tasty treats inside. Smells, some pleasant, some not, assaulted our noses. Cass and I hadn’t caught on to all the delicacies of Axsian seasoning—we still couldn’t fathom the appeal of some herbs since they flat out stunk to our nostrils.

  Eventually, we drew a crowd of warm, tan Lilliputian bodies clad in miniature versions of their parent’s gray attire. One sweet girl had the same fiery tresses as Jaz but a much more timid personality. Her smile was cherubic and her big eyes made her expression impossible to not adore. She never spoke but when another child asked Mez to bend somewhere her widening lips revealed missing teeth and the cuteness quotient went up two hundred percent.

  Apparently, Mez wasn’t immune, either. The next thing I knew, he dissolved to reappear in a handstand on the highest reaching loop of the molded rock in the playground’s center. Granted it wasn’t that high up but I still tensed our body. A laugh ripped out of our throat as we realized he was bending light around himself from his waist to his ankles to prevent flashing everyone. Mez didn’t attempt reality—brilliant waves of undulating rainbow coated his legs and other more private parts. Squeals of delight erupted around us and the little devils swarmed toward Mez like a school of fish on land to yell for more. Some of the parents working at selling their wares stopped mid-haggle to smile at his antics.

  Our heart stopped as Mez appeared to lose his balance and topple backwards only to blink out mid-fall and reappear on another rock loop, this time on his feet, waving his arms wildly as if he might still topple to the ground. He looked like an alien Charlie Chaplin. There certainly wasn’t an aversion to being the center of attention in his personality.

  Cass remarked, “He’s quite the performer.”

  I smiled and felt my twin’s echo of our amusement. “Indeed.” It could have been a trick of perception because humans are fallible in their senses but our face felt like it should shine with the unification of our pleasure in this small moment.

  Mez crooked a finger at us. We stood and walked forward but he waved us to a stop and pointed impatiently at the loop his gigantic bare feet rested on, then back at us. He wanted us to ‘port up. Immediately we became uncertain. Mez wasted no time with words at our expression of doubt. He appeared at our side, looming over us like an avalanche of flesh and bone. To our credit we didn’t jump in surprise and Cass retreated from our body completely, leaving me in charge. Mez grabbed the hand closest to him and pulled off our glove with delicate tugs to stuff it in our sash.

  Hands intertwined, skin to sweaty skin, he pitched his voice so it wouldn’t carry to little ears, “The worst that can happen is that you fall and give the younglings a good laugh. You must learn fast about bending, Leoght Cor. Kal and I will teach you. Consider this your first lesson.”

  With no more warning than those words, we were off. We did slip and tumble—a lot. The spongy moss absorbed most of the shock but there would still be bruises. Cass and I came up with a game plan after the fifth frustrating fall. I controlled the ‘port and visualized where we would ‘land’ while she kept our body in balance upon arrival. By the end we weren’t yet to the level of handstands like Mez but our skill was much improved—enough that we caught an admiring glance from our instructor a time or two.

  Mez jerked his head at the outskirts of the play area and we materialized to bow in unison to our miniature army of admirers. When they made as if to rush us I held out both arms then pointed away with a stern expression, “Show’s over, go play.” Moans and groans followed that announcement but they reluctantly obeyed.

  Strong fingers trapped our arms to our sides as our body was lifted in the air. Mez brought our face even with his and searched it. Cass retreated, ready to flee to the Web, in case he tried for a kiss but his expression didn’t look romantic, it seemed puzzled.

  “Why was that so effortless for you?” His words tangled as if they resisted being spoken.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mez. Were we having the same experience or what? Did you not see us fall almost half a dozen times?” Our legs were hanging awkwardly and I needed to do something with them or I’d decide to kick him for holding us aloft like this. If we wrapped them around his middle our legs would be exposed and that was hardly appropriate in public. We could cover them in light as Mez had during his handstand but it felt wrong or bad somehow to be so physically close to him in front of children.

  A devil got in Mez’s eyes at our response and he tossed us in the air like he was releasing a bird into the wild. I pulled the image of us standing on the moss and pushed us there as Cass made sure our body was in the proper position for whe
re I ‘ported us. Our body trembled in reaction to his dirty trick.

  Cass ground out through our teeth, “Why did you do that?”

  He stayed still, legs spread, arms crossed over his puffed out chest as he answered with all seriousness, “To prove a point. Kal says you just developed this skill yet you react and adapt as if born to it. Aniy children need at least a decade to master the art of bending. Instinctively, you are learning what a race born to this skill-set takes years to absorb. Again, I ask how?”

  Mez’s tone was filled with genuine perplexity. To give us time I concentrated on sliding our missing glove back on our hand. When that was done, we still didn’t have an answer, so I pulled the sash at our waist tighter and ignored him completely. Sometimes silence was a better answer than ‘I don’t know’ and it would make him think we were hiding something which couldn’t hurt. Mez was altogether too cocky. Cass closed our eyes and we searched out Lil. Her Web essence was a softly glowing orb of effervescent pink as if cotton candy and Pepto-Bismol had a baby.

  Sharp edged and impatient, Lil’s voice rang out. “What now? Have you gotten in trouble again already?”

  A little hurt, we contracted. “No trouble, Lil. Just looking for our best friend.” It was scary how much she sounded like Jaz. Too late, Cass realized we’d broadcast that observation.

  Puffs of steamy pink vapor came away from Lil. “I am still that, Min Druta. At this moment I am not so happy with either of you, though.”

  We deserved that.

  Cass asked, “Care to talk about it in the baths? Mez is with us. We can explain how it’s done and ditch him in the boy’s pools. Do the Aniy have bathing coliseums, too?”

  Lil gave a mental dart of capitulation. “Do you think the Aniy are barbarians? I will meet you there. Don’t go in without me.”