Changer (Athanor) (55 page)

Keep your course. Wax fat.  Dishonor justice.
You have power—now.

—Aeschylus

S
ven Trout walks in the main door of Los Cuates restaurant.  Outside, the snap and bang of the occasional firecracker reminds everyone in earshot that today is the Fourth of July.  He likes Independence Day: fireworks, loud parties, drunks, barbecues, hot weather, and a sense of undeserved holiday.  

After all, none of these fools had done anything to earn “American” independence.  In 1776, New Mexico was a Spanish possession that wouldn’t become a state for years to come and, even today, its people cling with great pride to that history which predated adoption into the Union.

Yes, he likes Independence Day.  That is why he has arranged to meet Monk and his two
tengu
buddies for an early lunch.  After lunch they’ll head off for Dukes’ Stadium to watch some minor-league baseball.  Later, there will be fireworks.

Sven has a way with fire, and he plans that this show will contain no duds, that every cherry bomb will be an ear-blaster and that every multicolored rocket will burst with exceptional brilliance.  Yes, he is looking forward to this evening.

He’s even mailed Arthur a few complimentary tickets, representing them as a freebie from the King’s bank.

Looking around, he locates the three
tengu
sitting in a row on the wooden bench along one wall of the entry foyer.  They look rather like slightly wild Japanese teenagers, all clad in white tee shirts and blue jeans.  Monk even has a pack of cigarettes rolled in his shirtsleeve.

“Have you put us on the list to get a table?” he asks.

“Sure have,” Monk says.  His tee shirt is one of those you only see in Japan; English words are boldly printed in red and black.  They look cool, but they don’t make much sense.

Sven reads aloud: “‘Apple. Pizza. Love. Gotta Have It!’  Interesting.”

The
tengu
casts a critical glance over Sven’s own sartorial splendor and evidently finds the dark purple cotton trousers and lavender button-down sport shirt lacking
panache
.

“Hey, it beats most of what I’ve seen here.  If I see another shirt printed with a soulful ‘Native American’ cuddling up to a couple of wolves, I think I’ll flip.”

Sven nods and politely turns his attention to the other
tengus’
attire.  Laughing Enemy (he uses the name “Roy” in conversation) wears a shirt emblazoned with a wide-eyed girl done in classic
anime
style.  She wears nothing but a yellow-striped bikini and tiny horns poke out of her mass of green hair.

Joyful Wrath (or “Hiero”) apparently doesn’t share Monk’s dislike for southwestern style.  His shirt is airbrushed with one of Catlin’s depressed Indians, a pink-and-orange sun symbolically setting behind him.

The waitress calling out “Monk” saves Sven from the need to comment.  Instead, he motions his guests in front of him, feeling vaguely as if he is meeting with a
yakuza
sponsored JV gang.

When they are seated in a booth, Sven orders frozen margueritas all around, along with an appetizer of guacamole.  The
tengu
study the menu with solemnity.  Food is always an important issue.  If the waiter is surprised at the magnitude of their order, he is too harried to remind them that Los Cuates believes in generous portions.

The background hubbub is loud enough that Sven feels quite safe discussing business.  “So, are you having fun with Arthur?”

“We were having plenty,” Hiero says.  “Then he stopped answering the phone.”

Monk clarifies.  “We were serenading him at all hours with a humbling composition of our own making.  Without Lovern around, we could even spy on him from the balcony and check his reaction.  Apparently, he forgot to reset the wards’ exclusivity programming after the Review.”

Sven loads a chip with red-chili salsa.  “Why did you stop once Arthur didn’t answer the phone?  If you could sneak into the hacienda…”

Laughing Enemy titters.  “We did, a little, but he didn’t even notice us.  Something big was going down.”

“Huh?”

Monk clarifies.  “A couple of days ago, the hacienda started resembling a war room.  I snooped and gathered that something had happened to Vera and Amphitrite.”

“Not really!” Sven exclaims, surprised to learn of mischief not of his making.

“Really,” Monk continues.  “Lovern came back from Brazil alone.  Later, Eddie and Anson went out past midnight.”

“Did you follow them?”

“No,” Monk grins, “but we know where they went, anyhow.”

“Where?”

“They came back alone in the morning, but went out again midmorning to fetch the Changer and his pup.”

Sven’s eyebrows vanish in his hairline.  “But you told me that they’d left for the hills!”

“They did.  Apparently Arthur needs the ancient’s help.”

Thinking of blood, Sven asks, “Is he still there?”

“Didn’t see,” Hiero replies.  “We stopped bugging them.”

Sven is aghast.  “You did what!”

“We stopped,” Roy repeats.  “It’s one thing to harass a bureaucrat so he doesn’t get too full of himself, but Arthur was concentrating on helping a couple of our people.”

Seeing that Sven is still surprised, Monk cuts in.  “We tease to keep people humble, but if our teasing is going to hurt Vera and Amphitrite by distracting Arthur from his work…  Don’t you get it?”

Sven, who has much less wholesome reasons for his tricks, manages to nod and smile.  “Of course.  You did just fine.”

Sven’s mind is whirling, and he feels an almost physical pain that he doesn’t know enough about the situation to exploit it.  Still, he cannot suddenly depart without making his too-clever tools suspicious.  

With mock heartiness, he applies the edge of his fork to the fiery
carne adovada
burrito the waitress sets before him.

“Dig in, boys!,” he says.  “Then I’ll take you out to the ball game.  You’ve done a good job for me.”

Better,
he adds silently to himself,
than you may ever know.

“I,” Vera states happily, poling the raft along, “am one solid mass of mosquito bites.”

Amphitrite stares at her from where she is kneeling at the bow of the raft, spear in hand.  “Remind me to invite you to visit.  I’ve some Portuguese man-o’-wars you’d just love.”

“I’m just feeling lucky,” Vera says.  “I was feeling miserable, then I remembered that I am immune to malaria and a host of other diseases that a mosquito bite can transmit.  What could be a death sentence for even a native of this region is nothing but a source of discomfort for me.”

“I’m beginning,” Amphitrite says, choking out the words between bouts of laughter, “to understand how you got your reputation for wisdom.”

Vera shakes back her tangled hair.  Unlike Amphitrite’s, it hadn’t been long enough to braid, but she’s tied it under a strip of cloth torn from the hem of her shirt.

“Don’t get me wrong.  I’m no Pollyanna, but there’s something about being on edge that makes me appreciative.”

“I keep going by imagining what I’ll do to those three when I get my hands on them,” Amphitrite says with soft menace.

“That’s it?”

“Well, sometimes I imagine how they’d feel if Duppy Jonah gets to them first.  When I want variety, I imagine the looks on their smug faces if they go back to that grove where they stranded us and find us gone.”

Vera nods and wipes her forehead with a grubby arm.  “I’ve thought of that too.  The great thing about the forest canopy is that if we stay near the riverbanks, we’re invisible from above.”

“That does make it easier for the ants,” Amphitrite says, scratching one thigh vigorously.

“True.  How’s the fishing going?”

“I scared a
pirarucú
off when I started laughing.”

“Want me to be quiet?”

“Probably be best.  Still, that one was a bit big for just the two of us.”

“I don’t know.  I’m as hungry as a shapeshifter.”

“I’d guess it was at least a hundred and fifty pounds.”

“That is a bit big.  Do you have the spear line anchored?”

“Yep.  Wish I could handle a bow like you can.”

“Wish I could make something with a bit more pull.  It’s hard without seasoned wood and sinew.”

“Yeah.”

“Still, I could try to get us a monkey.”

“Not yet.  I can’t stand the accusing look in their eyes.”

“Nothing likes to die.”

“Fish don’t look the same,” Amphitrite says, “or maybe I’m just used to killing them.”

“I don’t mind eating fish.”

They fall into easy silence.  During the day and a half that they have guided the
Pororoca
down the Amazon, there have been many of these silences and as many bouts of conversation.  Despite their shared heritage, they have been enough separated by environment to be strangers.

Vera finds Amphitrite’s
naïveté
regarding life on land fascinating; the Sea Queen is touched by Vera’s almost human point of view on many issues.  One bound by human shape, the other a shapeshifter currently clinging to a shape alien to her experience, they would enjoy their voyage if the circumstances were not so dire.

This near to the equator, daylight is not the limiting factor on their traveling, but even athanor grow weary, especially two immortals guiding a raft hour after hour.  

Coming beneath the protecting shadow of a broad-leafed tropical tree, unknown to both of them, except that they do not find it listed among those plants that they are to avoid, they haul the
Pororoca
close to the bank.

As they did the night before, they will sleep with the raft roped to the shore, letting it drift from the bank once darkness provides cover.  While there is still daylight, they need to forage for fruit, firewood, and take care of other necessities.

“I wonder how far we have come?” Vera says.

“What does it matter when we have no idea far we must go?” Amphitrite asks reasonably.  “
O Rio Mar
is four thousand miles long.”

“At least we didn’t start in the Andes,” Vera says.  “Certainly we don’t have more than a few hundred miles to go.”

“If we aren’t in a tributary,” Amphitrite says.  “There are times I wonder if we should even think about progress—only about staying alive.”

“And
I’m
the wise one?” Vera smiles fondly.  “You’re right, of course.  For now, we’re alive.  Let’s forage.”

They carry their irreplaceable valuables with them.  With these they can protect themselves if the need to make another
Pororoca
arises.

Later, richer by various pieces of fruit, some dubious nuts, and, best of all, some reasonably dry wood, they trudge back to the
Pororoca
.  Ever distrustful of ants, they kindle the fire aboard, insulating the deck with a thick pad of wet mud and leaves.  Amphitrite has speared a smaller
pirarucú
that they cut into chunks and cook impaled on green sticks.

“Hey!  It’s Fourth of July.”  Vera laughs self-consciously.  “All over the United States, campers are roasting hot dogs over campfires.  I wonder what they’d think of our repast?”

“Exotic tropical fish and fruit?” Amphitrite says.  “They’d envy us, of course.”

“Of course.”

“At least the smoke keeps the mosquitos away.”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder if anyone is looking for us?”

“Sure they are.”

The fish sizzles over the fire.  In the jungle, a monkey shrieks an unintelligible protest.  Something large slips into the river, drawn by the smell of cooking, frustrated by the unfamiliar raft.  Ants troop mechanically down the tie rope, knowing only that something edible is in that direction.

Duppy Jonah emerges from the waters near the isolated
tupa
wherein Louhi dwells.  Huge and vaguely human in form, he has taken the shape by which Finns in ancient times had known him, the Great Durag, the monstrous, often capricious King of the Sea.

He has sent his calling card before him, a rumbling herd of the white-maned horses of the sea, waves that froth against the pebbled shore and make sounds like the rattling of dead men’s bones on All Hallows’ Night.