Changer's Daughter (25 page)

“You did,” Arthur reminds him gently, picking up a pencil and drumming it against the arm of his chair, “nearly get yourself thrown out of the Accord when the rest of the athanor learned about the Head.”

That moment, when Sven Trout had confronted Lovern with the result of his—well, not exactly black but certainly at least dark grey—magical experimentation, had been one of the worst of many bad moments during the recent upheaval. Lovern looks momentarily angry at the reminder, then he sighs.

“Yes. I did. But that’s over now. The Head is residing in a hamster cage on Frank’s ranch, and I’m forced to cope without my most potent magical tool.” Lovern points to a pile of handwritten notes on his desk. “I haven’t even had time to finish transcribing my spells.”

“Aren’t you using the computer we sent you?”

“Yes, to do the final draft”—Lovern pulls at his neat beard—“but I can’t compose sorcerous prose on a computer. I just can’t!

“And,” he continues sulkily, “I don’t type very well.”

Arthur swallows a smile. That Lovern had resisted learning to type when typewriters had been made of steel had been understandable, but the advent of computers made mostly of plastic had not changed his resistance. Only recently had the King learned why. Lovern had possessed something far better than a computer.

Back in the days remembered as Ragnarokk, Lovern had grown himself a second head. When he separated it from himself, this truncated homunculus had become his organic computer and a repository for all his spells.

Although Lovern had kept the Head hidden for millennia, Sven Trout—once known as Loki—had located it and seduced it from its allegiance to its maker. But their rebellion had ended in defeat and, just as the rebels were about to be led away for punishment, someone had changed them into rodents.

One, the red rat who was Sven, had managed to escape, was missing, and, by the optimistic, presumed dead. The other two—a white mouse who had been the sorceress Louhi, and a ground squirrel who had been the Head—were indeed living in cages at Frank MacDonald’s Other Three Quarters Ranch.

“Did you ever learn,” Arthur asks, “who turned the three rebels into rodents?”

Lovern shakes his head. “I haven’t. We’ve tried, but we come up with nothing but dead ends. These days I know the personal signatures of the mages who were present to cast the spell as well as I know my own: Swansdown, Lil, Tommy, the Cats of Egypt.”

“I thought you said the signature had vanished by the time we’d stopped the critters from escaping?” Arthur asks suspiciously.

“The immediate signature was gone.” Lovern waves his hand in the air, leaving behind a glowing rainbow trail. “However, one can uncoil a spell and learn from it—especially one so powerful that it won’t disintegrate under the pressure.”

“I understand,” Arthur says, and does.

“Currently,” Lovern continues, “my belief is that the Head was responsible. That would explain why I didn’t recognize the signature. It would also explain the choice of shapes. He wasn’t very worldly.”

“No,” Arthur agrees and thinks:
You made certain of that, didn’t you, old friend?

“So, until given other data—and more time to consider the question—that’s my answer.”

“Thanks.” Arthur clears his throat, uncomfortably aware that he’s about to add to Lovern’s burdens. “Have you been following the developments with Tommy Thunderburst’s new
Pan
tour?”

“Enough,” Lovern scowls. “Swansdown’s niece, Rebecca Trapper, has called her aunt repeatedly for advice.”

“Tommy doesn’t want to recruit
her
now, too!” Arthur exclaims, panicked that such a development could have occurred without his knowing.

“No”—Lovern strokes his beard—“but Rebecca is very close to the fauns and satyrs—you know she was one of the ringleaders of their movement. She wanted her aunt’s advice as to what course they should follow.”

“Did Swansdown encourage them?” Arthur asks, curious despite himself.

“Not that I know. Of course, I don’t know if she discouraged them either.”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there.” Arthur clears his throat, drums a rapid tattoo with his pencil eraser, and charges in. “The latest development is that I have convinced the faun Demetrios Stangos to take the job Lil Prima offered him as manager of the fauns and satyrs.”

“You convinced him to
join
them?”

“I can tell which way the wind blows. At least some of the satyrs were going to take the job no matter what I said. I’ve gotten to know Demetrios quite well. He’s steady, reliable, and, unlike some of his fellows, not in favor of their surging into society all at once.”

“He wouldn’t be,” Lovern agrees. “He’s the one who has protected the dryads all these centuries. He knows the risks.”

Arthur sniffs slightly at the mention of dryads. Something hardheaded and practical in him resists the idea of sentient trees, despite ample evidence of their existence.

“Demetrios agreed to take the job on the condition that”—Arthur sighs—“that I add even more to your burdens, old friend. He insists, and I must agree, that he must have a way to
make
the theriomorphs appear human—at his will, not theirs.”

“Does he have any idea how impossible that will be!” Lovern wails, his customary dignity vanishing for a moment beneath sheer panic. “Unwilling shapeshifts are among the hardest spells to work—even Math the Ancient could only work a couple, and those were on his kin.”

“Louhi didn’t seem to have any problem,” Arthur says, deliberately pricking the tension between Lovern and the woman who has been his lover, enemy, and rival. “Or was that just part of Circe’s myth?”

“No,” Lovern agrees grudgingly. “She could do it. I never knew how—she wouldn’t share
her
secrets. I wondered after a while if it wasn’t an innate talent, closer to a unicorn’s ability to neutralize poison than to a true spell.”

“Ah.” Arthur lets the matter rest. “But Demetrios doesn’t want the power to shapeshift his charges, only to disguise them. Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“It might be,” Lovern concedes.

“Our problem is,” Arthur explains, “that whether or not your crew here can make disguise amulets for the satyrs and fauns, some of those satyrs and probably a few fauns—the New England contingent is less influenced by Demetrios than are his California brethren—are going to be part of Tommy’s stage show. My human advisors...”

Arthur pauses, well aware that Lovern considers Bill and Chris little more than useful errand boys, but the wizard says nothing.

“Chris and Bill assure me that during the show most of the audience will rationalize what they’re seeing as special effects. Where we’re in danger is between shows—especially—well, if the female element enters the picture.”

Lovern cocks a brow, for beneath his reddish gold beard Arthur is blushing.

“You mean that fauns and satyrs are well-known for their fondness for sex.”

“Well, yes.”

“And that if some nubile groupie eager to have bragging rights about a novel conquest flings herself at one of our theriomorphic brothers, he isn’t likely to have the willpower to resist.”

“That’s it.”

“Arthur”—Lovern chuckles, his tension easing for a moment—“for a man who has had as many wives and lovers as you have had—and especially given some of the tales that have survived about Gilgamesh—I am astonished to find you a bit of a prude.”

“I’m not!” Arthur protests. “It’s just the satyrs are so...”

“Earthy?” Lovern offers, still chuckling.

“That. And graphic. Georgios, the one who calls himself Loverboy, can imply more without resorting to obscenities (which Rebecca Trapper has ruled out-of-line in their chatroom), in more detail, than I ever imagined. I almost admire him. He’s wasted as a computer programmer. He should be writing smut.”

“I think he did,” Lovern says, “back in the sixties, before pornographic videos replaced dirty books. However, to address your request... You want me to come up with some sort of ‘instant illusion’ that Demetrios can use if things get out of hand.”

“Basically.”

Lovern chews a fingernail. “And this on top of the illusion or shapechange amulets that several of the theriomorphs have requested so that they can attend the
Pan
concert.”

“Right.”

“And that in addition to the magics that Vera is requesting for Atlantis.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And that on top of the routine magics I was doing before this—wards for your household and other sensitive areas, permanent shapeshifts for athanor whose identities must be changed, communication spells for those who are traveling where they will be out of contact, and the rest.”

“That’s it,” Arthur agrees.

Lovern shakes his head. “The problem remains the same. We don’t have the human resources.”

A thin, somewhat nasal voice, interrupts Arthur’s reply.

“And that way of thinking, Lovern, is and always has been your greatest weakness.”

There is a dull thump, and a cat lands amid the papers on Lovern’s desk. She is Purrarr, queen of the Cats of Egypt.

Sitting up straight and tall, tail wrapped to encircle neatly aligned paws, Purrarr is a perfect match for one of the many statues of the Egyptian goddess Bast, right down to the gold hoop in her right ear. Her sleek, short fur is a reddish tan ticked with black, similar to the coat of a purebred Abyssinian.

Fixing her greenish hazel gaze on Lovern, Purrarr repeats:

“That way of thinking, Lovern, is and always has been your greatest weakness. You think of magic as a human thing, but it is a force far older than you hairless newcomers believe.

“Humans”—and now the cat shifts her attention to the King—“are so amusing that way.”

Except for a slight tendency to lose her plosives, the cat’s speech is quite clear, m’s forming neatly despite the absence of lips.

I wonder,
Arthur thinks, not for the first time,
if that is because we expect a cat to be able to say an ‘m’? After all, in how many languages does a cat say ‘meow’ or some close variant?

“What,” Lovern says to Purrarr, “are you talking about? Right now, I have a yeti working with me and all of you cats. I’m not restricting my resources.”

Purrarr looks smug, something that is not difficult for any cat and is innate in one of the Cats of Egypt.

“Oh, yes,” she says. “You have been so generous letting us come here and help.”

“Don’t tease,” Arthur pleads. “You were a good advisor to me when I was Amenhotep. Tell us what we’re overlooking.”

The cat licks the tip of her tail, toying with them as much as one of her mortal kin might play with a mouse.

“You know that I am very old,” she says, drawing out the “r” so that “very” becomes “verrr-i.”

“Yes,” Arthur prompts. “You were in Egypt before my time.”

“The Egyptians were onto something,” Purrarr continues, “as were those traditions that linked a mage with a familiar animal. Both acknowledged the magic we handless ones have.”

Lovern nods stiffly. He has never bothered with a familiar—although some might argue the Head served a similar purpose—and has already learned that this is a sore point with the Cats.

Purrarr fixes him with her unblinking hazel gaze before continuing, “What I’m saying is that old Stinky Joe back at Frank’s ranch has more magic in the broken tip of his tail than do most of the human-form you’ve been testing for potential. Yet, even though you have been to the OTQ several times these past weeks, you have not tested even one of the animals.”

Lovern glowers at her. “If the other cats have so much potential, why didn’t you tell us?”

“Why didn’t you test them?” Purrarr retorts. “They are as athanor as Arr-thurrrr or Eddie, who you did test. You only brrr-ought us here because we talk and so our magic cannot be ignored.”

Opening his mouth to argue, Lovern snaps it shut with an audible pop, his blue eyes very cold.

“Why have you been holding out on us?” he says at last.

“Prree-cisely what we might have asked you,” Purrarr says. “We think it is because we lack hands. What do you think?”

Arthur interrupts this professional bickering.

“Are you saying, Purrarr, that Frank’s barnyard cats have the magic the Academy needs?”

“I am saying that it is possible.”

“Like batteries?”

“Not quite, nor so easy to use.” She washes her shoulder for a moment, then continues. “Some of the others thought I should not tell you this, but I overruled them. We, too, are athanor and would not see our nonfeline kin suffer in these modern days.”

Purrarr jumps from Lovern’s desk and stalks from the room before either of the human-form thinks to stop her.

“Arrogant, isn’t she?” the wizard says dryly.

Arthur chuckles. “She always has been. I forget, sometimes, that you were not with us in Egypt. I know that you read hieroglyphics, but do you speak the language?”

“Not well,” Lovern admits.

“You may have mistaken ‘Purrarr’ for a cute kitty-cat name,” Arthur continues, “but it is derived from ‘per-aar,’ her name in ancient Egypt—a name, mind you, that she was called by humans and cats alike.”

Lovern looks confused.

“Per-aar,” Arthur explains, taking mercy on his counselor, “can be translated as ‘from the great house’ or ‘from the palace.’ It made its way into modern English as ‘pharaoh.’”

“Oh.”

“Yes. That little puss is the last surviving Egyptian pharaoh and don’t think she ever forgets it, not even for a moment.”

“I won’t,” Lovern says. “Now that I know this, I think I can work with her. I have much experience getting what I want from kings.”

Now it is Arthur’s turn to look rueful.

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

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