Sprite
Chapter 81

“There’s trouble coming this way.” One of Earl’s scouts, with a breathless Ronald right behind him, reported tersely. “Hunters. A lot of them.”

“How far off?” Earl asked, already moving towards the center of this newest village.

“We have time,” the scout said. “They’re headed in this general direction but they’re not being quiet about it. They passed the place where Pup was staying.”

“The village?” Ronald’s friend with the unfocused eyes pushed his way into the conversation. “Do you know what happened?”

Earl stared hard at the mutant he’d recently been saddled with. “You don’t seem too surprised,” he drawled slowly, his brows coming together. Will had told him to watch out for those two. It seemed Will was right about them.

Ronald, who had accompanied the scout on his rounds, shook his head soberly. “The village was deserted,” he said. “No one was there.”

“That’s it—pack up! Everybody!” Earl gruffed out, standing with his arms folded as his people, used to moving at a moment’s notice, immediately broke down their dwellings and separated into prearranged groupings, to melt into the forest and meet up again later at a spot they had designated for just this contingency.

Philip was unsure of what to do until a mutant girl—changelings, they called themselves—pushed an armful of blankets at him and whispered, “Come with me.” With a worried glance at Ronald, who had been assigned to a different group, Philip obeyed.

These changelings certainly knew how to move about the forest. Philip did not see or hear anyone else except the girl who had been assigned to him. They traveled for what seemed like hours, until finally the girl announced that they had arrived. There was nothing to indicate that this place was any different than the other places they had passed by during the course of the day. The girl helped him move some low branches aside and sweep out an area just large enough for the two of them. “We sleep here tonight,” she told him. “Tomorrow we’ll build a better place.” Reddening with embarrassment as he realized she meant to sleep there with him, Philip settled down for the night, acutely aware of the silence and the darkness. He was glad for the girl’s company.

The next morning, Philip was astonished to discover that they were not alone. Other changelings from Earl’s village had made it to the same area, and were just now crawling out or climbing down to start the work of building their new village. Around mid-morning, they had a visitor. The guards Earl had set to watch while the villagers set about reconstructing their hidden village—and now Philip understood why it was called ‘hidden’—did not sound an alarm, although one guard did escort their visitor to Earl.

A teenage boy wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off trousers eyed Philip and Ronald curiously. He continued to talk to Earl, however. “I was in the area and bumped into some of your scouts. They told me you were moving your village. Is it safe? Do you want me to let Jim know what’s going on?”

“Jim’s not my boss,” grumbled Earl, quickly drawing the younger boy aside to talk in private.

“Who’s he?” Ronald whispered to the scout he had accompanied the day before.

“He’s a changeling from another village. His patrol just stopped to exchange news.”

Ronald glanced skeptically at the strange changeling. He seemed awfully young to be leading a patrol. Ronald wondered where his companions were.

The boy came back later and flopped down at the cooking fire next to Philip and Ronald. “Hello. I’m Jordy,” he said with a friendly smile.

Philip stared. Jordy’s hair was uncut and he was none too clean, but he had no visible mutations that Philip could see. “Are you a Normal?” he asked, incredulous.

“I’m a Sprite,” said Jordy in affront.

“But you’re normal!”

“So?” Jordy stared them down.

After eating a small meal with them, Jordy got up to leave. “I’ll tell Will what you’ve told me,” he said to Earl. “Send someone to us if you need help.”

Earl nodded curtly and turned away, already busy with some other task. Jordy disappeared into the underbrush, leaving Ronald and Philip staring after him in confusion.

“How is it possible that a Normal can live out here among you mutants?” Philip wondered out loud.

Earl gave him a disgusted grimace. “There’s more of ’em than you think,” he muttered. “And they all want to be changelings—and Sprites.”

Philip couldn’t tell if Earl was disgusted with him, or with those Normal changelings.

X x X x X x X x X x X

Avery halted in the middle of the road and stared at the woods.

“What’s the hold-up?” One of his men grumbled, before he realized who it was who had stopped.

“We’re meeting someone,” Avery replied just as Neistah stepped out of the woods, his arms spread wide as if in welcome.

“A mutant?” The man who had complained burst out. Then his eyes narrowed. “Isn’t this the Sprite you captured a while back, the one who got away?”

Neistah grinned and gave a mocking bow while Avery sat complacently astride his horse. “That’s all in the past now,” he said smoothly. “Why, we’re practically family, isn’t that right, Alan?”

Avery’s eyes bulged as he tried to fight the compulsion Neistah had placed on him, but he finally grated, “That’s right. The Sprite is here to help us.”

His grin widening at the astounded looks from Avery’s men, Neistah leapt up behind Avery, looking almost childlike next to the larger man, though no child’s eyes ever gleamed so maliciously. Avery clicked his heels and the horse broke into a trot. After a moment’s hesitation, his men followed.

As the compulsion died down after several hours without renewed eye contact, Avery hissed, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Neistah smiled blandly, knowing the human couldn’t see. “I’m helping you. You want to stop Atwater’s men. So do I.” Neistah’s voice turned grim. “I’m doing this for Norah—my daughter,” he reiterated. “Make no mistake. None of this land belongs to you. Norah holds the land. The sooner you realize that, the better off we will all be.”

They clattered up the man-made road. Neistah’s back prickled as they passed by a lone red flower, planted beside a tumbled down pile of smooth, round rocks that might, ages ago, have once marked a wall. He jumped lightly down, badly startling horse and rider both. There was a gate nearby. Neistah shuddered to think how close the humans had come to it with their heedless road-making, although without a sprite to activate it, they could have built right on top of the gate and still never known it was there. His shudder was for Norah, who inadvertently triggered gates too often for comfort.

“Go on without me.” He waved Avery’s escort past him. “I’ll catch up.”

Without his continued compulsion, Avery just might remember Neistah was his enemy, but Neistah would have to deal with that when the time came. He waited until the horses had drawn ahead, then carefully turned and turned again as he approached the red flower. The harsh clarity of early Autumn muted into warm sunlight. Norah’s hold on the worlds was stabilizing. The transition was easy this time.

-Mother?- Neistah sent, replaceing and following the pathway that led unerringly to Anais’ secluded pool. How much longer would that be, he wondered idly, pushing through a final screen of greenery.

The pool was empty. Neistah sensed that the moment he slipped beneath its cool, green depths. Sooner than I thought, he realized with a twinge of regret. Although he no longer wore the golden trunks made of Anais’ own sun-bright hair, she was still his mother, and precious to him.

That avenue was now closed. Neistah shook water off him and turned to follow the gateway back to the mortal world. Norah and the others were there. They needed to know about Anais.

He emerged at the place where he had entered, near the spot where Rellan had slaughtered the human road-builders, and where Avery now awaited him. Avery’s men, thanks to Rellan, had run out of road. The forest grew right to the edge of a swift-moving river, not Datro’s river, but a sizeable one nonetheless. If Neistah had chosen to follow it up its course to where an even smaller tributary joined it, he would replace the secret tunnel which led back to Black Pond on Hanan’s lands.

Neistah had no intention of doing so.

Avery paced very close to the river—looking for him? Neistah smirked, and shouldered his way through the guards Avery had posted, silently daring them to try and stop him. They didn’t. “Do you intend to swim the rest of the way?” he asked, startling Avery so badly he nearly fell in the river.

The man scowled at him though he rapidly stepped away from the edge so as not to give Neistah any temptation. “No,” he answered shortly, free for the moment of Neistah’s compulsion but not of the memory of their previous conversation. “Your damn Sprites stopped my road crew from finishing the road that would have cut straight across to my daughter’s place. The old road from Datro takes three times as long. I was hoping to get ahead of Atwater’s men—half of those are my men anyway—before they got that far.”

Neistah’s smirk faded. “They’re heading for Hanan’s place?”

“What did you think? That little mutant camp that Atwater set up is only the beginning. That son-in-law of mine is the one thing that’s standing between Datro and the rest of the forest. He openly harbors mutants and supports the ones who rob our supply wagons, making it nearly impossible for Datro to trade profitably with city-states on the other side of the forest. You don’t help matters either, whatever it is that you are. The council decided to rid themselves of the problem once and for all.”

“And get themselves a couple of sprites to help them gain the upper hand over their fellow city-states at the same time,” Neistah said shrewdly. “How did the council come to believe sprites had any powers beyond what any of the mutants have?”

Avery glared resentfully at Neistah. “It’s your fault as much as it is mine. The city is buzzing with it—Datro’s Sprite—Datro’s Sprite spirits the mutants away, Datro’s Sprite appears and disappears as if by magic.”

“But I’m not Datro’s Sprite.” Neistah’s voice was low and deceptively calm.

Avery grimaced. “I know. It’s Norah.”

“Is that why you intervened?”

Avery sighed and sat down on the bank of the river, drawing his knees up to his chest. “I wanted the old man’s lands. I controlled the council. I would have protected them and never let it get this far. Finding out about Norah was a shock, but after what you did to me, I was able to see things from her point of view, and in the end, she’s still my family. They all are, although I think they’re fools for choosing to go against Datro. Old Man Hanan was eccentric, but even he would not have openly supported the mutants like they do. Nevertheless, I could not stand by and watch them all get slaughtered.”

Neistah dropped down so that he could look Avery in the eyes. Avery turned away. Gently, Neistah touched the man’s chin, watching him blanch as Neistah’s webbing came in contact with his skin. “Where are Atwater’s men now?” he asked intently.

“My men,” Avery muttered, fighting the compulsion. He had no chance. “Some of them went to round up the mutants their trap caught, and to take care of the rest. It didn’t work as well as they hoped it would. I could have told them as much, but by then they didn’t listen to me anymore.”

“And the rest?” Neistah tightened his grip on Avery’s chin, forcing his eyes to lock with his own.

“To Hanan’s place. They should be there the day after tomorrow. I have to get there first. I can stop this. They’ll listen to me.”

“And why would they do that? You told me the council stopped listening to you when Atwater took over. What has changed?” Neistah asked, although he had a feeling he knew what the answer would be.

“Atwater’s no longer in the picture,” Avery replied with a smirk of his own. “I killed him back at the farmhouse.”