Changer (Athanor) (26 page)

At Arthur’s hacienda, Vera sets the telephone in its cradle and stares with disbelief at the Yellowman painting on the wall opposite her desk.  The peaceful tepees offer her no answers, so she gathers herself and walks out to the courtyard.

The Changer is there with his daughter, Lovern, and Anson.  When Vera enters she is greeted by cordial nods.  The puppy drops a rawhide chew toy on her foot in an invitation to play.

Idly picking up the toy and tossing it into the no longer flowering lilac bushes, Vera says, “I’ve done it again.”

“What, Lady of the Owls?” Anson asks.  “What horrible thing may you have done?”

“Sven Trout just called asking for a room in the hacienda during the Lustrum Review.  I checked and saw that we still had a few—more people are attending electronically this year—and told him that we did.  He’ll be here the twentieth.”

Lovern and Anson both look concerned, but the Changer, intercepting his daughter before she can drop the toy on Vera’s foot again, shakes his head in confusion.

“I’m afraid I don’t remember which one of us is calling himself Sven Trout.  Is it a new name?”

“New since the last Review,” Vera confirms.  She takes a deep breath.  “It’s Loki.”

“Oh.”  The monosyllable gives nothing away.

“You did what you must,” Lovern says comfortingly.  “By policy, the King’s hospitality must be open to all in the Accord except for both members of a sworn and publicized vendetta.  In the latter case, the first comer has precedence.  Sven falls into neither of these categories.  He may be trouble, but it is long since he declared any enmity to the King.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Vera says, pulling out one of the teak chairs and sitting.  “I wonder what Eddie would have done?”

“The same thing,” Anson assures her.  “If the King plays favorites, then he is in a mess.  Who is to know whether Sven had a truthstone or the like to detect if you were lying?  If that had been the case, then we would have had a pretty kettle of fish, not just a single Trout.”

“Odd name for him to chose,” the Changer says.  “Doesn’t legend say that it was in fish form that he was caught after one of his transgressions?”

“Yes,” Lovern says, “it does, but most of those involved are gone now.  I don’t remember what happened precisely.”

Vera pours herself iced tea from the common pitcher that stands in the center of the table.  “Odd, isn’t it?” she says.  “We live for so long, but despite our abilities we still can forget, still can fear, still can make mistakes.  What good is longevity if it doesn’t lead to something like perfection?”

“That is a question for the philosophers among us,” Lovern says.  “I have often wondered if there is any purpose to anything at all, whether instigated by humans or by ourselves.  Perhaps we each work within our individual bubble of time and nothing much lasts.  Certainly I have seen enough of what I thought would be permanent vanish into nothing.”

“As we all have, eh?” Anson agrees.  “Lady, did your sojourns within convents not give you some answers?”

Vera shakes her head.  “No.  Some of the devoted sisters had visions of heaven.  Cynics might say it was just a mental aberration, but I know that these women persistently held to a higher ideal despite the contradictions offered by the world.  I wasn’t so lucky.”

Anson turns to the Changer, who has been listening while playing tug-of-war with the puppy.

“How about you, ancient?” the Spider asks.  “You have been around longer than even I.  What have you learned?”

The Changer’s face is veiled by the fall of his dark hair, but they can hear the smile in his voice.  “I have learned thousands of shapes, many long gone from this earth.  I have learned that change alone is constant.  I have learned that, for now, death has spared me, but whether that sparing is from purpose or from chance, I cannot say.”

“Is that all?” Vera’s tone, surprisingly, is pleading.

The Changer sits up and gathers his daughter into his lap where she promptly begins gnawing at his callused hand.  “Vera, I have worn so many shapes that I have lost all belief in a constant truth.  What is right and just to the rabbit is antithetical to what the coyote believes.  Neither is right.  Both are right.  The same can be said for any opposition.  Rarely is one side completely wrong.”

“What about Hitler’s atrocities?” Vera challenges.

“I would not have cared to be one of those in the prison camps; that is why I am so rarely a prey creature.  I cherish this life, despite its length.”  He meets her eyes.  “However, consider, would the state of Israel be so strong now without the memory of Hitler’s atrocities to bolster it?”

Lovern strokes his beard sagely.  “Our people have the advantage of seeing good come out of apparent evil…”

Anson interrupts.  “Or evil from apparent good.  Consider how ‘good’ actions like the damming of rivers for irrigation and better food production lead to evil when the stagnating waters breed creatures like the snails that carry schistosomiasis flukes or malaria-bearing mosquitoes.”

“And even that,” the Changer adds levelly, “could be said to be good for the snail or the mosquito, although it has been a long time since I considered either of those shapes particularly advantageous.”

Uncertain whether he is joking or not, the other three let this pass.  A silence arises, broken only by the playful growls of the puppy.

Reaching across to stroke her, Anson says, “When are you going to give her a name, Changer?”

“A name?”

“We can’t go on calling her ‘the puppy’ for much longer.” Anson chuckles as the pup looks up at him, long ears perked.  “She is all ears, eyes, and tail now, but to these eyes she’s clearly a coyote. And she knows when she’s being talked about.”

“True.”  The Changer studies his daughter.  “In all my long life, I have never met this particular challenge.  Animals know each other by scent, by established precedence.”

“What did you call your coyote wife?” Vera asks curiously.  “The one who just died.  You were together a long time.”

“Five years,” the Changer agrees.  “Long enough.  I called her ‘Mine’ or ‘Darling.’”

He laughs at Vera’s expression.  “She called me about the same.  It wasn’t really words.  It was attitude.  The pups were simply ‘Ours’ or ‘Mine’ as opposed to anyone else’s.  As they grew, I suppose we gave them names of a sort: Big Male, Second Male, Weak Male.  Female pups often stay with their parents for eighteen months rather than six, but that didn’t change things.  The female who died with her mother was simply ‘Biggest Girl.’”

“Where did this one fit in the pecking order?” Lovern asks, moving his handmade leather boot away from the puppy’s jaws.

“Runt,” the Changer says bluntly.  “She probably wouldn’t have lasted the summer.  Unless her larger siblings met with accidents, she wouldn’t have been able to compete for as much food and would have stayed small.  That would have made her vulnerable to owls or bobcats or even dogs.  There are lots of things that kill little creatures of any species.”

Anson looks at the leggy young canine.  “She certainly can’t be called Runt now.”

“No.”

There is a thoughtful pause as the athanor study the puppy.

“We could call her ‘Goldy,’” Vera suggests, then shakes her head.  “No, too much like a pet.  She’s your
daughter
.”

“Don’t some humans use that name?” the Changer asks, slightly puzzled.  “I’m certain I’ve heard it.”

“True,” Vera agrees.  “Still, it doesn’t seem quite right.”

“Call her Shahrazad,” Anson offers, “of the long tail.”

“Shahrazad?” Lovern says in disbelief.

“After the lady who told the stories in
The Thousand and One Nights
,” Anson says.  “She was clever and brave—as coyotes are supposed to be clever—and she lived a long and, ultimately prosperous, life.”

“She even had an uncertain start to that life,” Vera adds eagerly, “like this little one.  What do you think, Changer?”

“Shahrazad…”  The shapeshifter tries out the name as if tasting it.  “I like both the sound and the portents.  If the pup will answer to it, then let it be her name.”

“Another advantage,” Lovern says, joining the game, “is that it sounds like nothing else in English, so she won’t become confused.”

“Shahrazad, daughter of the Changer,” Anson says.  “Yes, I like it.”

The puppy, hearing the repetition and sensing that she is somehow at the center of it, happily wags her tail.

11 

Tact consists in knowing how far to go in going too far.

—Jean Cocteau

T
he following day, Eddie comes home from the hospital amid, as Anson notes, “much rejoicing.”

Later that same day, Jonathan Wong arrives.  He is a small, rather rotund Asian man.  Despite the general informality of Arthur’s household, he is attired in a charcoal grey suit, white shirt, and muted red tie.

Anson, who has come first to the door, embraces him.  Jonathan squeezes back with surprising strength.

“I am delighted to see you, Spider.”

“More than the King is,” Anson says.  “I make him nervous, but he will be oh so happy to learn you have arrived.  Do you want to go directly to his office?”

“That would be best.”

Arthur greets Jonathan with a handshake.  “How are things in Boston?”

“Quite good.  I have closed down Yu Tz’u’s enterprises and can concentrate on this life’s law practice.”

Arthur nods, knowing that it has been a decade at least since Jonathan gave up his identity as Yu Tz’u, Hong Kong exporter.  Still, such slow carefulness is typical of the man once known as Confucius.

Born in southern Shantung, in the year 551 b.c., Jonathan had become famous under the name K’ung-Fu-tzu.  After his “death” in his early seventies, Confucius had changed his name and gone into another province.  Unlike many athanor, he had never believed he was alone in his immortality.  The same logical and analytical mind that had shaped a philosophical code that would evolve into the next best thing to a religion would not permit such arrogance.

Methodically, Confucius had begun looking for indications of other immortals.  In one village he found a pet bird whose owner insisted that it had been passed down from family member to family member for six generations.  He remained in that village for forty years.  At the end of those years, the bird was still thriving, although those who had introduced it to Confucius were now all dust.

Leaving the bird (which had achieved the status of a local god and so was assured of good treatment), Confucius continued his travels.  In time, he found what he sought—other athanor.  Some of these were arrogant and brash, like the self-proclaimed “god” Susano of Nippon.  Others were more interested in living quietly and well.  Each gave him useful advice for surviving in societies where he would outlive those around him.

Armed with this advice and his own good sense, Confucius continued to dwell primarily in the Middle Kingdom and to prosper.  Among athanor, his talent for rational judgment was something of a legend.  Along with Vera, he had often served as a judge in athanor tribunals.

Remembering this, and details from Jonathan’s other lives, Arthur is heartened.  There is nothing like tending to daily business to distract one from problems.