Changer (Athanor) (64 page)

Eddie, long accustomed to Arthur’s distrust of Anson, does not bother to defend his friend, but his shrug is eloquent.  
Take the Spider as he is
, it says.

“Don’t be angry with me, Eddie,” Arthur pleads.  “I can only speak honestly to you.  I am made furious by my inability to act.  The Changer deserves better from me than to act in my service and then be consigned to a sorceress’s shambles.”

“I know.”

“Perhaps if I called Duppy Jonah…” Arthur muses.  “He might act for his brother.”

“Does his brother need acting for?”

“A strong force camped within sight of neutral ground has oft swayed the course of negotiations in the past.”

“True.  Make your call, then.”

Arthur punches buttons and after several rings a human-seeming voice with an Irish accent answers.  “Who would you be wishing to have speech with?”

“Duppy Jonah.”

“And who may I say is calling?”

“Arthur Pendragon.”

“One moment, sire.”

Arthur cups his hand over the lower end of the receiver.  “I’m on hold.  Nice music.  Waves on the beach.  Whale song.  We might want to try something similar here.”

Eddie frowns.  “Certain parties might chose to misinterpret it as a sop to powerful allies.”

“Hm.  True.”

The music stops and Arthur raises a finger to Eddie.

“This is Duppy Jonah.”

“Arthur Pendragon.”

“We seem to speak more frequently these days, Arthur,” the Sea King says gruffly.  “What do you want of me?”

“To tell you that the Changer is in difficulty.”

There is a rough sound, like a strangled exclamation.  Then, “Does this trouble involve Louhi, perchance?”

“It does,” Arthur admits, amazed.

“Then tell me no more.  I…  I have taken oath not to interfere in her business at this time.”

“You have…  Oh.  Very well.  I thought…”

“Although I consider informing me just and courteous, King Arthur, I should not know what I have been asked to overlook.”

Arthur is too familiar with the business of trading favors and the like not to guess something of what has restricted Duppy Jonah’s actions.  He tugs at his beard, trying to think of a way to enlist the Sea King’s aid if the need arises.

“I appreciate your position, sir.  If there is anything you would care to know…”

“No.  I will call if I need information.”

“Then if there is nothing I can add, let me at least ask after the well-being of my wizard.”

“Lovern?”  Duppy Jonah’s tone becomes distrustful.  “Is this all some ploy to get me to release that scrawny-shanked troublemaker into your keeping?  I swear to you…”

“No, Your Majesty, no, nothing of the kind,” Arthur says swiftly, though he realizes that something of the sort
had
been lurking beneath his conscious mind.

“The wizard lives and breathes and is taking lessons in the wisdom of manipulating those who may one day be in the position of remembering and acting on those recollections.”

Arthur smiles grimly.  “A lesson we all should recall, don’t you think, Duppy Jonah?  The Wheel of Fortune turns steadily and those on the top are the ones who have the farthest to fall.”

“An apt metaphor, King Arthur, one for all of us to remember,” Duppy Jonah replies, undaunted.  “Lovern has fallen to the depths of the sea.  From here, he can only hope to rise.”

“Give him my greetings, if you would, good King.”

“I shall.  And my thanks for the courtesy of your call.”

“My pleasure and my duty, sir.”

The connection ends, and Arthur shrugs, his sigh eloquent.  “I expect that you followed all of that, Eddie.”

“Easily enough.  I wonder what keeps Duppy Jonah from interfering against Louhi?”

“Some promise given, who knows how long ago or for what trifling service.  He regrets it some now, will more so if the Changer comes to lasting harm.”

“I expect so.  There is nothing we can do but wait.”

“I know.  I’d better visit Shahrazad.  I should grow more familiar with her.  Carpets be damned!  She’ll sleep in my room.”

Eddie chuckles.  “You might be wiser to sleep in the courtyard.  She is but indifferently housebroken, and coyote urine reeks!”

“No matter,” Arthur says.  “The courtyard lacks a roof.  I would have at least that between Shahrazad and having to answer again to the Changer for not keeping her safe.”

“Wise.”

Together they depart, flipping off lights as they go, both wondering about one whom they imagine to be in darkness.

After watching the van drive away, the Changer follows his captors into the house.

“Since you’re here of your own free choice,” Sven says, his voice as cordial as if he is discussing the menu for dinner, “I don’t see any reason for you to be imprisoned.  Do you, Louhi?”

Louhi nods stiffly.  She has yet to look squarely at the Changer.

“We have another colleague with us,” Sven continues.  “I doubt that you have actually met.  He’s lived a life of rather enforced isolation.”

The Changer refrains from guessing who this other is, although he has strong suspicions.  Still, to voice them would be to play Sven’s game, and that is something he wishes to avoid.  Obediently, he follows Sven down the stairs into the living room and faces the Head hanging there by its lank grey hair.

“Hardly a comfortable seat,” the Changer comments.

Before speaking, the Head sips from a straw that has been rigged so that it can drink without help.  Despite its care, water trails down its chin, emphasizing the dryness of the skin.

“Wizard-wrought wight, basely born but baseless,” Mimir’s Head replies, “’til remedies woven by witch and woe will bring forth a body to bear me.”

“I understand,” the Changer says, “and does Lovern know that you are gone?”

“Lovern,” Louhi snaps, “is still captive to Duppy Jonah.  Even if he knows—which I sincerely doubt—he is in no position to act.”

Without asking permission, the Changer crosses to a beige sectional sofa and slouches among the cushions as if at his ease.  He isn’t, but nothing is gained by letting his captors know.

“A bit of luck for you, then,” he says, “that the South Americans did what they did, or did you have a hand in that, too?”

“Regretfully,” Sven says, taking a seat at the other end of the sofa, “I did not, except for encouraging them in their sense of righteous indignation.  They were helpful, but we had contingencies planned to keep Lovern from interfering.”

The Changer nods.  Louhi still stands at the top of the stairs, looking down from the kitchen.  He can almost hear the argument she is aching to begin.

How can you love a dog more than me?  Why didn’t you care for me as you did for her?  Aren’t I a daughter of whom to be proud?

His answers—that he does not believe she is his daughter, that even if she is, she is clearly capable of caring for herself, and that he does not find her particularly admirable—would not help matters, so he lets the argument rage: unspoken, unresolved, unresolvable.  He only regrets that he will suffer from her unrequited desire for acknowledgment.

Since Louhi will not speak, and he does not care to, conversation cannot thrive.  Sven’s attempts at banter fail, as do the Changer’s attempts to gather some knowledge of what their plans are beyond his impending mutilation.  At last, Sven reaches for a remote control and they watch television reruns.

Half an hour before midnight, Louhi descends from her room.  She wears a black-silk robe embroidered in silver thread with arcane devices.  It caresses her slender body as she walks, hinting that the robe and her suede slippers are all she wears.  In one hand, she holds a slim velvet band, also embroidered in silver, a hammered-silver crescent moon stitched onto its center.

“Sven,” she says, her voice soft yet carrying, “I’m having trouble getting this on straight.  Would you please tie it on?”

With notable alacrity, Sven springs to his feet and fastens the headband about Louhi’s brow.  Watching the redhead trying to slip his hand inside the sorceress’s silk robe, the Changer decides that the two are not lovers.  He also notes the expression of lust and envy that ripples across the Head’s features and files that knowledge away for the future.

“Changer,” Louhi says peremptorily, “come with me.”

He follows her up a short flight of stairs, twin to those leading down from the kitchen but across the living room, and into what proves to be a palatial bathroom.  The fixtures are dove grey and the tile vaguely art deco.  The dominant feature is a large, deep bathtub, freestanding on its own pedestal against a backdrop of windows curtained from prying eyes by climbing roses.

Louhi has modified the room for her own purposes.  Set at a right angle to the tub is a high platform, which he recognizes as a hospital gurney.  It is oriented so that one end protrudes over the bathtub.  A bracket, just the right shape to hold a human head, has been attached at this end.  A basin has been placed within the tub beneath.

With a barely concealed shiver, the Changer realizes these tools’ purpose.  He swallows hard and waits to be told what to do, fighting back contradictory impulses to flee and meekly to place himself where he knows he will end up.

Louhi studies the arrangement.  Then she places a few glass vials etched with arcane symbols on a broad part of the tub meant, doubtless, to hold such things as bath oil and soap.  Finally, she shakes out over the gurney a cotton cloth beautifully embroidered with yet more symbols.

“Undress,” she commands, “then lie down there with your head over the tub.”

“Why does he need to strip?” Sven asks from where he lounges against the doorframe, trying unsuccessfully to hide his discomfort at the situation.  Perhaps it reminds him overmuch of a time when he resided in like confinement.  “Can’t you get what you need just from his upper body?”

“I can and I cannot,” Louhi says, and refuses to say more.

The Changer knows that arguing would be undignified and, ultimately, useless.  Moreover, he does not share the frequent human psychological reaction that equates nudity with vulnerability.

He obeys Louhi’s command and, once he is in place, begins the physical restructuring he has delayed until now lest some small action of his give it away.

Reaching inside himself, he numbs in both eyes and their vicinity the nerves that carry sensation.  Next, he stimulates his bone marrow to build replacement blood.  This is more tricky, since the body normally does so only after a crisis, rather than in anticipation of one.  He knows, vaguely, that some human athletes “blood dope” themselves before an event, but without knowledge of the details, he had not wished to attempt any such with so little time to prepare.

Louhi sets out various pieces of vaguely surgical equipment on a wooden TV table that has been covered with red velvet.  She makes no move to sterilize them or to create a sterile environment.  Doubtless, she trusts the Changer’s own resilience to keep him from infection—or she simply may view the risk as his own to take.

With the portion of his attention he can spare from keeping his heart from racing, the Changer notices that Sven has retreated, closing the bathroom door behind him.  Louhi also notices this, and her lip curls in scorn.

Glancing at a portable alarm clock set on the washbasin counter, she tightly straps down his arms and legs.  Obscurely, the Changer feels grateful.  He cannot disgrace himself by struggling overmuch.

Then she assumes a parade-rest pose and glances down at her victim.  “You may wonder,” she says philosophically, “why I don’t knock you out either magically or chemically.”

The Changer does not trust his voice to remain steady, so he keeps quiet and hopes she takes silence for stoicism.

Louhi smiles.  “I could do so, if you must know, but my tests show that either type of anesthesia seems to retard the processes that I am working toward.  It is as if the magic knows that sensation has been deadened and perpetuates that lack of sensation in the new host.”

Dread emanates from the Changer’s heart as he realizes in what direction this speech is heading.

“We are but a few minutes before midnight, at which time I would like to begin my work.  The time, however, is only a matter of esthetics.  I can work at a later hour.  What that means to you, however, is a prolongation of suspense and pain.”

She raises a hand in which she holds a pinch of something white.  “This is fine-ground salt.  To it, I have added some citric acid.  I am going to sprinkle it in one of your eyes…”

The Changer winces despite himself.

“You understand my purpose.”  Louhi’s tone is gently lilting, like a little girl explaining to a doll why it must be spanked, reveling in having power over someone.  “If there is no reaction, I must convince you to alter your physical composition until the nerves react as they should.  My methods of persuasion will not be verbal.”

She raises her other hand, showing a scalpel.  “And will make clear to Sven why your nudity was preferable.”

Even as she speaks, the Changer has been shifting his nerves back to full sensitivity, never once doubting that the sorceress will do as she has indicated.  A threat is not a threat when there is every intention of turning it into action.