Changer (Athanor) (30 page)

If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

—New Testament
 Romans XII, 20

D
emetrios
>> They’re building a freeway off-ramp near my place to serve a new subdivision.  There goes the neighborhood!

Rebecca
>>  Will it hurt your dancing field?

Demetrios
>> About a quarter of a mile farther south.  Will ruin “my” field, though.  Privacy will be shot.  I’m thinking about moving again.  Pity.  I’ve been here fifty years.  Guess I shouldn’t gripe.  Would have had to move in ten or twenty anyhow.

Monk
>> Even the human-form have to move time to time.  It’s getting harder to transfer assets, too.  I understand that there’s going to be a workshop about it at the Lustrum Review.

Rebecca
>>  Of course, none of us would ever have to move if it wasn’t for this stupid policy of secrecy.

Monk
>>  I know.  I go back and forth.  Have you ever read Heinlein’s
Methuselah’s Children
?

Rebecca
>>  No.  Don’t go much for sci-fi.

Monk
>> SF or Science Fiction, please!  Seriously, Heinlein dealt with the question of how the normal humans would feel if they suddenly learned of people among them who were much longer lived—and his “methuselahs” weren’t immortals.

Snowbird
>> Or “monsters.”

Rebecca
>> I think that it’s wrong for you to classify yourself as a monster, Uncle Snowbird.  We’re just different types of people: more fur, different-shaped heads, bigger feet…

Demetrios
>> No feet.  I mean, I have hooves.  Still, Monk has a point.  Humans don’t even like different humans.

Snowbird
>> I’m happy being what I am.  Why shouldn’t I call myself a monster?  I’m certainly not a human.

Rebecca
>> Demi, maybe humans would like us more if they knew how
really
different we are.  Maybe if it wasn’t just a question of life span, but all the other stuff.  Look at all the religions on the web.  People
are
searching for Truth…

Monk
>> Or maybe it would be like one of those movies where humanity unites once there is an outside danger.  I don’t really want to be cast in the role of the alien threat.

Demetrios
>>  So I move.  Big deal.  I’ve moved before.  Lots of times.  Lots of countries.

Monk
>>  I want to respond to Rebecca’s comment about religions on the web.  Lots
are
“advertising” there—all flavors and textures.  I’ve been trying to decide how some of them would react if they got OUR take on history and theology.  I mean, Jesus wasn’t one of US but so many of the other religions/ mythologies owe something to US.  What would that do to Faith?

Snowbird
>>  Really help—some would say “See, here’s a guy who can tell us what Jesus was like; he knew him.”  Really hurt— some would say “If this guy was both Frey and Gilgamesh and now he’s just a business exec, how can we believe in any God?”  Not have any effect because for some faith is completely personal.

Demetrios
>>  I think it would threaten organized religions for a while.  Some would go under.  Old campaigners like the Catholic Church would hold on.

Rebecca
>>  As many reactions as there are types of people.

Demetrios
>>  The more I think about what will happen if we reveal ourselves, the more vast the implications grow.

Rebecca
>>  Are you losing belief in the Cause??

Demetrios
>>  Maybe a little.  I have trouble believing we can change things for the better—or that we should.  Do we really want all the attention we would get?

Monk
>>  Nothing important is gained without cost.

Rebecca
>>  We don’t have to get attention.  We can be left alone if we want to be.

Demetrios
>>  Sure.  Tell that to any movie star who has tried to live a private life.  Some of us are sure to become tabloid fodder.  The human-forms and shapeshifters won’t.

Snowbird
>>  True enough.

Rebecca
>>  Wouldn’t it be better to be tabloid fodder with the facts straight than to be misrepresented like we are now?  If I see another Bigfoot article!!

Monk
>>  I resent the comment that shapeshifters cannot understand your plight.  We are all in this together.  At least I thought so.

Snowbird
>>  Maybe the highway construction is just getting on Demi’s nerves.

Demetrios
>>  Maybe.

She digs beneath the bush that no longer smells so fragrant, deepens her hole so that she can hide.  Part of her knows that she is growing big for such hiding.  She is not a ground squirrel, not a rabbit; nonetheless, part of her is fearful.

The Big Male is gone.  His yellow eyes are still strong in her memory, along with his assurance.  But he is gone, and she feels vulnerable.  Mother vanished and never returned.  The others who had squirmed and bit and played in the den and the sunshine with her are also gone.  So is the Not-Mother Female.

The coyote pup called Shahrazad by well-meaning not-coyotes misses her father without knowing what missing is, only knowing that she feels less safe.  Her nose has sorted the other humans.  There is the Female and the others.  She knows by scent they are males, but Arthur might be chagrined to learn that to her nose his majesty does not set him apart from either Eddie or Anson.

She also knows that one of the Lesser Males (her name for all males who are not the Changer) has been wounded.  He does not move often and sweats sour when he does.  That he is unfailingly kind keeps her from fleeing him as wild things often do from illness, but his hurt intensifies her lonely fear for her father.

The lilac bush sways alarmingly as she weakens its roothold on the sandy earth.  Shahrazad stops digging, tries the newly dug earth for size.  She fits.  It will do.

Wrapping her tail (just beginning to show the promise of an adult bush) around her nose, she tries to sleep.  Even as she does, her oversize ears remain perked for the sound of one hoped-for, dreamed-for, prayed-for (if coyotes do pray), voice.

Its curving walls are of coral, its towers decked with pearls, its pennants of seaweed: green, red, and pale gold.  About it, drifting jellyfish glimmer with faint phosphorescence, animate candles or perhaps living embodiments of the stars’ reflection on the waves above.  Set on the top of a sloping hill of white sand, its gardens landscaped with anemones and angelfish, the palace of the monarchs of the seas is far more elegant than Arthur’s hacienda in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Following a glittering white narwhal, the unicorn of the oceans, the Changer and Lovern have come here, dolphin and man.  The arched entryway to a great hall opens in a cloud of bubbles.

Brown seals, their large, liquid eyes infinitely sorrowful and almost human, join their escort, their lithe swimming slowed to match Lovern’s stubbornly human pace.  

The Changer maintains his dolphin shape, knowing from the presence of the seals that there is magic in this place to enable air-breathers to subsist on the oxygen trapped within water.  He wonders if Lovern realizes this, decides that even if he did, the wizard would not trust another’s magic over his own.

There is light here, light that is an intensification of the sea’s own power to give its deepest dwellers lanterns to carry.  It is pale and mysterious compared to the light of the sun, but rather than seeming weak, it makes the sun seem garish.

In this ocean light, the hoards of gems, gold, carved ivory and marble, carpeting the sandy floors and hanging from the lacy coral walls, shimmer faintly.  The shadowed faces of the broken statues regard them with ancient sorrow.

“Magnificent,” Lovern murmurs, his tones so soft that doubtless he expects to go unheard.  However, magic to enable conversation is in place.  His words carry to the couple enthroned at the far end of the great hall.

“Thank you, wizard,” says Duppy Jonah.  “We are pleased.”

The Sea King has changed from his Midgard Serpent shape and now is a triton to complement his wife.

Like hers, his skin is pale with pastel nacreous undertones.  His long hair is dark green.  Where she is slim and pliant, however, he is broad and powerful.  Both monarchs embody their realm.  She is its invasive, subtle self: death in a teacup.  He is the hurricane, the crashing tsunami, the earthquake.

Like Poseidon, Duppy Jonah holds a trident in one hand—the traditional scepter of the ocean’s lord.

Lovern is too old a conniver to show surprise at being overheard.  When he reaches the supplicant’s dais at the foot of the thrones, he bows. “Your Majesties, thank you for granting me audience.”

“We are always pleased to receive embassies from the dry lands,” Duppy Jonah replies, “and more so when my long-landed brother accompanies them.”

The Changer cannot bow in his current shape, but he whistles his thanks.

Mother Carey’s smile reveals teeth, which are, unsuprisingly, like pearls.  “We have considered the terms on which you will be permitted to bear from our realms in safety the thing which you have secreted in our keeping.”

Lovern bows again.  “I await your ruling.”

“The Lustrum Review,” Duppy Jonah says, “comes soon.  Our desire is that you escort my queen to the Review.  Sea-born as we are, we have never attended in person.  Long ago my brother and I toyed with landed shapes, but only he exploited them.”

“I,” Mother Carey says sadly, “have never managed the gift.  Even the shapeshift that permits the selkies to go between the sea and water is not mine.  Although I cannot imagine forsaking the waters, I would like to go upon the land as land folk do.”

“And I,” Duppy Jonah adds, “would like to have my queen represent our Realm.  For too long we have needed to trust to minions or to mechanical devices.  As trusted as the former may be, they cannot debate policy with the full freedom of a ruler.  The mechanical lacks intimacy.”

Lovern strokes his grey beard thoughtfully.  “I could work such magics, but they would take time to design.”