Changer (Athanor) (61 page)

Doubtless, he overpays.

While Anson and the Changer are dealing with these mundane arrangements, Vera drives a panel van to an isolated stretch of beach.  There, she backs close to the water.  Then she wades out to open the doors and set a ramp in place.

Amphitrite slides off the ramp like an otter going down a mud slide.  When she is in water deep enough to cover her fishy lower half, she looks back at Vera.

“Thanks.”  The Sea Queen is feeling a conflicting mixture of emotions: eagerness to be away, relief at coming home at last, and a sharp realization that she will miss Vera.  “You will come visit, won’t you?”

“I’ll need to learn how to breathe water,” Vera says, wiping what might be sweat, but might be tears, from her cheek with the back of her hand.  “But as soon as I have that under control, I certainly will.  We can still talk on the phone, right?”

“Right!”

“And I’ll try to do something about getting you folks onto the Internet.”

“Great.  Talk with you soon.”

“Have a safe trip.”

“I will.”

And, waving once more, Amphitrite dives beneath the waves, heading to one who would have destroyed the world in grief over losing her.  Vera watches the empty water for a time, wondering at such passion.  Then she packs the ramp, closes up the van, and heads to the airfield.

Noontime finds Vera, Anson, and the Changer on their way to New Mexico.  They chase the day across the oceans, unaware that the rest they each believe awaits them is as much an illusion as the movement of the sun about the world.

22

To be excellent when engaged in administration is to be like the North Star. As it remains in its position, all the other stars surround it.

—Confucius

M
onk
>>  Hi!  Sorry, I’ve been out of touch for a while.  Me and some buds decided to do the tourist bit in Albuquerque.

Rebecca
>>  Tourist!  Lucky!  Tell!!

Monk
>>  Well, we went to a ball game on July 4.  Doubleheader.  Home team won one, lost one.  Ate way too much.

Demetrios
>>  King Arthur go?  He’s a baseball fan.

Monk
>>  Didn’t see him.  Think there was some admin trouble he was busy with.  Wouldn’t have been with him anyhow.  We went with Sven Trout.  He and Arthur aren’t exactly buds.

Rebecca
>>  Sven Trout.  Loki?  Brrr…  What’s he like?

Demetrios
>>  Sven Trout?  Never felt comfortable with those fire-types.  Doesn’t blend with earth and water.

Loverboy
>>  Lucky stiff!!  Sven knows how to party hearty!  He knows about a hot time on the old town tonight!!

Monk
>>  Sven’s okay.  He likes to shake things up, that’s all.  Loverboy, you would have gotten into this party.  We ate and drank until we were sick.  And babes!!!!  Albuquerque goes for pretty fine bimbos.  Fuck-me pumps.  Skirts up to… and necklines down to… :)!!!!

Rebecca
>>  Ah-hem! :(  This is a family site!

Monk
>>  Sorry.  Just playing to the crowd.  I can’t help it.  There’s lots of genteel action, too.  The ballpark has a place where families can picnic with their kids during the game.

Demetrios
>>  Do you think we could have brought in the non-shifters at this time of year?

Monk
>>  You might have managed if you were willing to wear a cap, baggy pants, and boots, but the heavy-wear that the sasquatches and yetis will need would have really been uncomfortable, not to mention noticeable.  We’ve been looking to see what styles might fit them best.  There’re some far-out religious groups in New Mexico.  There’s a colony of Sikhs who all wear turbans and white clothes, but they don’t cover their faces.  Men often are bearded, but ladies don’t wear veils.

Rebecca
>>  I guess I should be the one to say it, but lady sasquatches don’t look much like lady humans, even when bundled and veiled.  Maybe we should dress as Sikhs.  The turbans would hide our more pointed head shape.

Demetrios
>>  Nothing will hide the height.

Rebecca
>>  So we brazen it out.  Aren’t the Sikhs warlike?

Demetrios
>>  Don’t know.  Time to research.

Monk
>>  And I’ll see what I can do to learn about the local Sikh communities.  You’d need to know enough but not too much.

Loverboy
>>  Tell us more about the babes and the beer!! :( This stuff bores me!

Monk
>>  Sorry.  Don’t want to get tossed off the site by the Moderator.  Use your imagination.

Loverboy
>>  !!! That good!!  Oh, baby!!

Arthur greets with mixed emotions the news that Amphitrite and Vera are found, and that his emissaries are returning.

“We might have time to find Shahrazad while they tie up loose ends there and fly back,” he says to Eddie.

Eddie nods.  “I’ve called all the Humane Society and Animal Control locations.  No one has taken in a puppy that matches Shahrazad’s description.  I didn’t precisely say ‘coyote,’ but I think at least Animal Control twigged.”

“And they still didn’t have her?”

“No.”

Eddie continues, “I checked with the neighbors.  No one has seen anything peculiar.”

Picking up a pencil, Arthur begins to drum the eraser end on his desk.  After a moment he stops, pencil poised in mid-thump.

“Now that he has Amphitrite back, Duppy Jonah will return Lovern to freedom.  We can ask him to scry or dowse or something and find her!  If we hurry…”

He picks up the phone and punches in Duppy Jonah’s phone number.  Patiently waiting while it rings several dozen times, the King is rewarded by Duppy Jonah himself answering the call.

“Yes?”

“Duppy Jonah, this is Arthur Pendragon.  I’m calling to make certain that Amphitrite returned home safely.”

“We met off the coast of Brazil a few hours ago,” Duppy Jonah says, his severe tone softening.  “She is well enough except for welts on her shoulders.”

“Welts?” Arthur envisions the lovely woman being beaten by her captors and frowns.  “Was she tortured?”

“If you do not count being stranded in fresh water, surrounded by poisonous beasts and insects, and hunted by homicidal maniacs as being tortured, no, she was not tortured.  She obtained the welts towing Vera, who could not swim with impunity in the Amazon, to safety.”

“What courage!”

“Yes.  Now, what do you want?”

Arthur draws in a deep breath and chews on his mustache with his bottom teeth.  “Now that you have Amphitrite back, you will be releasing Lovern.  I’d like to make arrangements for his return.  If you’d tell me when I can expect him in Florida…”

Duppy Jonah cuts him off.  “I have not released Lovern, nor do I have any immediate plans to do so.”

“But!”

“He gave himself as guarantor of Amphitrite’s safety.  As I have made amply clear, I do not think she was kept safe.  That she is alive at all is no thanks to him.”

On his side of the conversation, Arthur refrains from stating that Lovern could do very little to help Amphitrite while kept hostage himself.  Instead, he lets Duppy Jonah rant.

“I am considering keeping Lovern hostage for a time, long enough to give him ample opportunity to meditate upon his incautious behavior—perhaps a decade for every day that Amphitrite was lost, perhaps a century.”

Arthur quickly ticks off days on his fingers.  Five days or six, depending on how one counts, and he suspects that Duppy Jonah will be liberal in his counting.  Far too long, even if Duppy Jonah settles for decades rather than centuries.

Keeping his tone level but commanding, Arthur says, “Lovern is important to me and to my administration.  I would prefer that you found another way to make your displeasure known to him.”

Duppy Jonah bellows like a bull seal.

“You prefer?  
I
reign in my kingdom, Arthur.  These past centuries, I have worked with you, but I will not subject my justice to your whims.  Lovern gave his oath willingly in order to retrieve the toy he had hidden within my ocean…”

Ah, that old crime still rankles,
Arthur thinks despondently.

“…Now he must live with the consequences of his actions.  For too long has he lorded his connection with you over his betters, even when he would have been wiser to have not.”

Arthur swallows a sigh.  “I quite understand.  I shall not trouble you further on this issue.  If you reconsider…”

“Then
I
choose.”  Duppy Jonah’s tone leaves no doubt that he considers the interview over.

“As you say, Your Majesty.  Do tell Amphitrite how delighted I am that she is safe.  Her captors will be duly punished.”

Duppy Jonah guffaws.  “That has been taken out of your hands, Arthur.  Isidro Robelo and Oswaldo Barjak are already dead.  Cleonice Damita has fled.  I wish you the pleasure of finding her.  Perhaps I would trade her head for Lovern’s freedom.  Then again, perhaps I would not.  Good day!”

“Good day.”

With a limp hand, Arthur hangs up the phone.

“I gathered some of that,” Eddie says.  “Duppy Jonah will not release Lovern?”

“No.  Isidro and Oswaldo are slain.  I assume by Anson or the Changer.  Had Amphitrite or Vera managed it, I believe Duppy Jonah would have boasted.”

“Cleonice?”

“Fled into the rain forest.”

Eddie rubs a hand over his five-o’clock shadow.  “Well, they would almost certainly have been executed in any case.  This saves us some trouble.”

“But raises all sorts of other problems.  I can’t have my subjects believing that I would send assassins out against those who would question my decisions.”

“You didn’t.”

“The events could be so distorted.  I had better speak with Jonathan Wong and get his counsel on this matter.  Is he here?”

“He has gone to see if he can trace the ladder.  It’s a slim hope, but he was growing restless.”