Changer (Athanor) (39 page)

When she arrives on the appropriate corridor, the doors to all four suites are closed.  She has seen both Arthur and Eddie downstairs, but there is a chance that one of them—or Anson— might dash up for something during this unexpected break.

Standing before Lovern’s closed door, she focuses her astral sight.  A faint aura, rainbow-hued, its power contained into such a narrow band that a less sophisticated practitioner might believe there was no ward at all, gleams along the door, crisscrossing it lightly at the panels.

She frowns.  Were Lovern not in the hacienda, she might try working her way through the ward, but this close he is certain to sense any meddling.  The Head must wait in his isolation a bit longer.  Her desire had been less to gain actual entry than to see what awaited her.

Balked, but not defeated, she returns to the stair by which she had ascended.  When she reaches the kitchen, she listens, but doesn’t hear anyone within.  However, when she steps out, the room is not completely empty.  Vera stands filling a basin with water, her expression thoughtful.  She turns as Louhi enters.

“Good morning,” the sorceress says boldly.  “Can you tell me which is Jonathan Wong’s room?  I want to leave him a note.”

Vera is not convinced, but she answers politely.  “He’s in A-4, but you can’t leave him a note short of tacking it on the door.  The rooms are locked and the doors fit too snugly.”

“Ah,” Louhi nods solemnly.  “Than perhaps I shall slip it into his pocket.  Thank you so much.”

She exits.  Vera watches her leave and wonders what Louhi was really doing upstairs.  She doubts that she could find out and, glancing at a clock, sees that the intermission is over.

Outside the window, a sparrow flits by.

The morning session continues with a return to the South American contingent’s proposal.  By the lunch recess, much has been discussed, but nothing resolved.  There have also been two fistfights, a broken chair, and a great deal of shouting.

“You would think,” Eddie says to Arthur as they adjourn to the King’s office for sandwiches and cola, “given our ages we would be less fractious.”

“Why?” Arthur says wearily.  “We are all accustomed to influence within our daily spheres.  Even those with no fixed address, like the Vagrant, have resources beyond the folk they encounter in their daily routine.  Such confidence breeds arrogance, and arrogance does not make for quiet cooperation.”

“True.”

“Now, let’s review the order of the afternoon seminars.  How did the sign-ups go?”

After promising to meet Amphitrite and a
tengu
for lunch out in the garden, Sven excuses himself and heads back to his bedroom to see if his little trap caught anything.  Unlocking his door, he checks a few routine indicators and is satisfied that the room has not been entered in his absence.  Then he opens the bathroom door.

The glass shard is gone from where he had so artfully secreted it.  When he fishes it from the trash, a pale pink trace marrs its clear edges.  Not enough blood to do him any good, but proof that someone—presumably the Changer—was cut.

The ivory porcelain of the sink is unstained by blood and he curses softly.  All is not yet lost.  Opening the cabinet under the sink, he finds a small bucket tucked behind the extra washcloths and rolls of toilet tissue.

Rinsing the bucket in the tub, he unscrews the trap in the sink’s piping.  A flow of reddish water, slightly foaming from soapy residue, rewards him.  The blood has been diluted, but perhaps it will be enough for Louhi to work her spell.

Setting the bucket carefully aside, he reassembles the trap.  After washing his hands, he pours the bloody water into a wide-mouthed jar he had brought along for the purpose.

The room does not have a refrigerator, but there is an ice bucket which he fills from the bin in the courtyard.  Once his prize is cooling, he glances at his watch.  Still enough time to make his lunch date.  He can get the bottle to Louhi tonight.  Locking the door behind him, he strides down the hall.

The afternoon sessions are calmer than the morning’s for two reasons: They are smaller and the topics are preassigned.  From meeting rooms a dull buzz of voices, sometimes raised in question and answer, can be heard.  The hacienda might be a small college.  For now, the morning’s arguments have been put aside.

Hanging by his hair above the gold, hexagonal box, the Head strains to hear what is going on in the world without.

Even this much freedom had been difficult to gain.  Only the threat of absolute silence had won him this concession.  

True, without complete immersion in the sustaining ichor, Mimir’s Head is more vulnerable to the vagaries of the world without, but Lovern has rigged a field of sorts to keep away insects.  A humidifier helps compensate for the dry air, and the Head feels that chapped lips and tired eyes are a fair trade for the sound of voices and birdsong.  Even his pulled-upon scalp has ceased to ache.

Moreover, his gaze can wander about Lovern’s room.  He has yet to grow weary of color, light, motion, shadows, and the little details of daily life.  He reads the titles of books on shelves, sees for the first time amulets and enchanted gewgaws he had helped to design, and his ambition to be free swells.

Once he hears a set of light footsteps pause outside of Lovern’s door.  However, no effort is made to open that door, and he is left to wonder if one of his associates had attempted to visit him.  Perhaps the sound had just been Vera dropping off paperwork or one of the guests gone astray while searching for a specific room.  No matter, even the conjecture is a pleasant change from the monotony of his dark, cold, aquatic prison.

The Head swings slightly in the breeze from a window he had asked Lovern to leave ajar.  He imagines that he is walking, and his grotesque mouth twists in a smile.

The Lustrum Review stretches on for a week.  By the end of it, all around, tempers have gone from fervent to thin and frazzled to merely exhausted.

In Vera’s room, Amphitrite sprawls on the bed.  Vera sits next to her, rubbing moisturizing cream into the Sea Queen’s suntanned skin.

“I can’t believe you can
live
in this climate,” Amphitrite says.  “The air is so impossibly dry.”

“New Mexico
is
arid,” Vera admits, “a land of wind and sunlight rather than of humidity.”

“I’ve been invited to visit South America and see these rain forests.  Do you think I should go?”

“You might find the heat as extreme a burden as the dryness,” Vera says honestly, “but you wouldn’t need to worry about dry skin.”

“I wonder.  I would like to see more of the land than just this Albuquerque, but I miss my husband.”

“Judging from the rash of spontaneous deep-sea storms,” Vera chuckles, “he misses you, too.  The human meteorologists are even more confused than usual.”

“Can you put some more cream on the area between my shoulder blades?”  In a more thoughtful tone, Amphitrite continues, “I forget that humans can now see even what goes on in the vastness of the ocean surface.”

“Not in the depths,” Vera agrees, “not yet, but on the surface.  Weather satellites, military satellites, broadcast satellites…  Not much on the Earth’s surface cannot be seen.  Fortunately, much that is seen is still not understood.”

“Yet Arthur believes that we can hide in plain sight.”

“We have thus far.”

“There have been more advances in human technology in the last two hundred years than in all the time before.”

“That, of course, is a matter of debate.”  Vera grins impishly.  “As we have heard over and over again this last week.”

“Especially over the meaning of the term ‘advance,’” Amphitrite agrees.  “Leaving that aside, humans can see more, record more, analyze more, communicate more swiftly and over longer distances than ever before.”

“And so can we,” Vera reminds her.  “These abilities once were the provenance of the rare wizards among us.  Now they can be possessed by any of our people.”

“As long as they have money.”

“True.  I suspect that Arthur views the good of the whole as sufficient reason to supply those who cannot purchase what they need for themselves.”

“‘Good’ being defined as keeping our existence secret.”

Vera snaps the top closed on the moisturizer bottle.  “Yes.  As we both know.”

“And have heard debated over and over.”  Amphitrite squeezes the other woman’s hand apologetically.  “I am sorry.  I wasn’t challenging you.  I simply…  I miss having Duppy Jonah to talk with about such things.  Telephone calls are not the same.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Rolling onto her stomach, Amphitrite cradles her face in her hands.  “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

Vera frowns, her gaze fixed on the plastic bottle in her hands.  “There have been a few times that I thought so, but, no, I’ve never been in love in the way you love Duppy Jonah.”

“Few,” Amphitrite says honestly, “love as we do.  We have weathered our storms, learned that we are equals despite his great age and my relative—to him—youth.  Still, I think there are shorter-lasting loves that are no less powerful: Eddie and Tin Hau, for example, or the many among us who have loved mortals despite the knowledge that they would die before us.”

“I don’t know if I could stand that knowledge,” Vera admits.  “There are legends from my birth land of goddesses who loved men and wished them immortality only to see them wither into grasshoppers or sleep forever.”

“All the world has such legends,” Amphitrite responds.  “Some told from the point of view of the mortal, some from the immortal.  Scholars tell us that they are allegories for the risks taken by all who love.  Remember, even in human unions, one partner will usually outlive the other.  Even among our folk, accidents and battles end lives.”

Remembering the litany that began the meeting, Vera nods.  “Yes.  I know.  Why are you talking about this?”

Amphitrite smiles, sits up, puts on a brassiere, then a silk tank top.  “It is well-known that lovers delight in talking about love.  I thought you might welcome the opportunity.”

“Me!”

“I have seen how you watch the Changer, how you find small reasons to seek him out.  I thought that perhaps…”

“No!”

“I apologize, but I don’t think that I am wrong.”