Read Changeling for Free Online Page B

are nameless, without claim or call upon this
House. Begone. Begone." His voice broke, steadied.
    "Begone."
    Ren Zel stood at the small side of the table,
staring out over the roomful of his kin. All the faces he saw were
solemn; not a few were tear-tracked.
    "Begone!" snarled Jabun. "Die,
child-killer!"
    In the back of the ballroom, one of the
smallest cousins began to wail. Steeling himself, not daring to
look at Chane, nor anywhere, save his own feet, Ren Zel walked
forward, down the three steps to the floor; forward, down the thin
path that opened as the cousins moved aside to let him gain the
door; forward, down the hallway, to the foyer. The door stood open.
He walked on, down the steps to the path, down the path to the
gate.
    "Go on!" Jabun shouted from behind. Ren Zel
did not turn. He pushed the gate open and walked out.
    The gate crashed shut behind him and he spun,
his heart slamming into overaction. Shaking, he flattened his palm
against the plate, felt the tingle of the reader and--
    Nothing else. The gate remained locked. His
print had been removed from the House computer. He was no longer of
Obrelt.
    He was dead.
    * * *
    IT WAS FULL NIGHT when he staggered into the
Pilots Guildhall in Casiaport. He'd dared not break a cantra for a
taxi-ride and his clan-credit had proven dead when he tried to
purchase a news flimsy with the headline over his photograph
proclaiming "Pilot Dead in Flight Negligence Aftermath." His sight
was weaving and he was limping heavily off the leg that had been
crushed. He had seen Lai Tor in the street a block or an eternity
over, raised his hand--and his friend turned his face aside and
hurried off in the opposite direction.
    Dead, Ren Zel thought, and smiled without
humor. Very well, then.
    A ghost, he walked into the Guildhall. The
duty clerk looked up, took him in with a glance and turned her face
away.
    "You are not required to
speak to me," Ren Zel said, and his voice sounded not quite ...
comfortable ... in his own ears. "You are not required to
acknowledge my presence in any way. However." He pulled his license
from its secret pocket and lay it face down on the reader. "This
license--this valid
license --has a debt on it. This license
will not be dishonored. List the license number as "on call," duty
clerk. The debt will be paid."
    Silence from the clerk. No move, toward
either the license or the computer.
    Ren Zel took a ragged breath, gathering his
failing resources. "Is Casiaport Guildhall in the practice of
refusing repayment of contracted loans?"
    The clerk sighed. Keeping her eyes averted,
she turned, picked up the license and disappeared to the back.
    Ren Zel gasped, questioning the wisdom of
this play, now that it was too late, his license possibly forfeit,
his life and his livelihood with--
    The clerk reappeared. Eyes stringently
downturned, she placed a sheet of printout and his license on the
countertop. Then she turned her back on him.
    Ren Zel's heart rose. It had worked! Surely,
this was an assignment. Surely--
    He snatched up his license and slipped it
away, then grabbed the paper, forcing his wavering sight to focus,
to find the name of the client, lift time, location.
    It took him all of three heartbeats to
realize that he was not looking at flight orders, but an invoice.
It took another three heartbeats to understand that the invoice
recorded the balance left to be paid on his loan, neatly zeroed out
to three decimal places, "forgiven" stamped across the whole in
tall blue letters, and then smaller blue letters, where the
Guildmaster had dated the thing, and signed her name.
    Tears rose. He blinked them away,
concentrating on folding the paper with clumsy, shaking fingers.
Well and truly, he was a dead man. Kinless, with neither comrades
nor Guildmates to support him. Worldbound, without hope of work or
flight, without even a debt to lend weight to his existence.
    The paper was folded, more or less. He shoved
it into his jacket pocket, squared his aching shoulders