Changer's Daughter (39 page)

“Some fruit. Some candy.”

“Good.” Munching noises, then. “Regis protects himself well. If I bring you weapons, will you assist us from within?”

“Yes. My sword...”

“I will look for it. Do you have any allies?”

“Maybe one. Teresa.”

“Ah!” The sound is full of pain. “Poor child. We must rescue her, too.”

Katsuhiro decides that now is not the time to tell Anson that rescue may be too late for Teresa.

“Get her to look for the sword.”

“I will try. I have not seen her since the wind wall came. I have not seen Regis either. Did you call the wind?”

“No.” Another long pause, this one clearly for thinking as the food is gone. “There is one called Oya who claims the honor.”

“Oya?”

“That’s all we know.”

“And the wall?”

“Meant to keep the sickness in.”

“Good.”

“I must go, so I have some darkness for scouting. Next time, I will bring a weapon for you.”

“A gun.” (The Mycenaean lacks the word, so what Katsuhiro says is “A metal slug thrower").

“Very well. Save me some food.”

“I will.”

“And look for the sword. Demand to see Regis. Be difficult. The more demands on his attention, the better.”

“Yes.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

Katsuhiro sees something depart via the open window, something far smaller than a man. A monkey, probably. For a long time, he stands by the window, listening for an alert, planning what he would do if there is, but there is no disturbance.

With the dawn, he returns to his bed, composing himself for a few hours sleep. A warrior is responsible for being well rested before entering into battle.

The Changer had forgotten how relaxing the green underwater world could be, had forgotten because it has been millennia since he has lived there. True, he came here not long ago as guide and guard to Lovern, but then there was tension, a sense of looming crisis. Now he is living day to day, much like a fish or seal, much like he would when in animal form.

The Changer realizes that he is happy.

Guilt has never been something he has carried with him, so, although he misses Shahrazad, he does not feel bad about enjoying himself in her absence. Nor does he worry about her. He has left her in good keeping. If there is a problem, Frank will call him. No call. No problem.

Triton form suits him here. In it he can talk with Vera, who does not understand the bubbles and fin postures of fish talk, and who cannot interpret any but the broadest of scent words. It also makes him an ornament to his brother’s court, a court that is flourishing with those gathered to build Atlantis.

There are far more sea-athanor than most of the land or island-born realize. Many of those late-born land folk think that merfolk are only a shapeshifted form of another creature, rather as selkies doff their skins and acquire a human form. Those older or more knowledgeable know that once there were communities of merfolk but think that they have gone the way of the dragons.

The truth is between these. Certainly, there are fewer merfolk now than there were when the seas were open and unfished. However, there are far more than just the selkies. Many, like Duppy Jonah, whom they honor as their ultimate sire, are shapeshifters. They spend much of their lives in one form, swimming with a pod of whales or a school of fish, but can take other forms. Most have learned the mermaid or triton form because hands are useful things, just as most have learned the octopus form because lacking bones can be useful, too.

Vera had certainly been surprised to learn of the merfolk’s numbers, but grateful, too.

“I had thought,” she tells the Changer one day, a week or so after his arrival, “that I would be trying to build Atlantis with my bare hands and what help I could import from above. Why is Duppy Jonah so secretive about the size of his kingdom?”

“My brother,” says the Changer, backing water with his tail as he sets in place sections of what will be a corridor, “has not told me. However, I suspect that he and his people view their numbers as their own business and none at all of the land dwellers’. You are, you know, a minority on this Earth.”

“I know,” Vera says, the trace of impatience in her voice indicating to the Changer that he is far from the first to tell her this. “Eighty percent water, twenty percent land.”

“I suppose,” the Changer continues, deliberately baiting her, “that Duppy Jonah just figures that common sense would tell anyone that there must be a good number of folks living on something like three-quarters of the globe.”

“Oh, you!” Vera grins at him, suddenly aware she is being teased and welcoming the joke.

She has certainly learned to relax,
the Changer muses.
I wonder how much is due to Amphitrite’s influence?

“If the seafolk are so scornful of the land,” Vera asks, sealing the sections he has set in place, “why would they be working so hard to build a refuge for the land people?”

“I never said they were scornful,” the Changer says. “That’s your twist on it. Some of them, you know, don’t quite believe in the land. It’s a fairy tale to them. Others do, but they are rather pitying of those who live there in the dry.”

He pauses, noticing that once again Vera is making him more talkative than is his wont. Aware that she is waiting politely for him to continue, he finds words for concepts he hasn’t bothered with for a long time.

“Others are rather fascinated with the idea of land folk coming among them. Commerce has tended to be the other way—seafolk finding ways to investigate the land. They like the idea of getting a chance to meet the land folk without leaving their own element.”

“Like in a zoo?” Vera says, slightly repulsed.

“Consider it more like a...” the Changer gropes for the words, his distance from human affairs crippling him somewhat, “a home-court advantage.”

Vera nods. “I understand. Amphitrite was certainly at a disadvantage when she came to Arthur’s for the Review.”

The Changer swims to where the prefabricated sections are stacked and, when he has brought one back, Vera has another question.

“Arthur,” she says, “has e-mailed to ask if next time I’m home would I let Lovern test me for magical potential. Apparently, demand far outstrips the supply. Many of the athanor—the theriomorphs especially—are becoming impatient.”

She pauses. A pair of octopi jet by, pause to study their work, and then jet off again. The Changer watches them go, fully aware, even if Vera is not, that the multiarmed creatures are making jokes about the limitations of the human-formed upper torsos. He does not comment, knowing that all shapes have their limitations, and that most have their strengths.

“Arthur didn’t ask,” Vera continues, “if you would go by.”

The Changer nods. “True.”

“And the Ocean Monarchs are, of course, beyond such solicitation. What just struck me is that Arthur didn’t ask about
any
of the sea folk. Do you know if they do magic?”

“Many do,” comes the mild reply. “Perhaps more than on land, since many are my brother’s children.”

“But they couldn’t come on land to be tested.” Vera’s grey eyes grow thoughtful. “Of course, Lovern could come here!”

“Would he?” the Changer says. “He has long been on bad terms with my brother.”

“True. Still, it’s worth asking about. Magic...” Vera shakes her head. “For the last couple of centuries, technology has made abilities we once needed magic for so easy: long distance travel and communication especially. Now, all at once, we need magic for everything.”

“Especially to overcome that same technology,” the Changer comments. “And once where there were mountains, now there is ocean, and where once there was ocean, there is land. Such shiftings are the way of the world.”

Vera looks at the shapeshifter, realizing he is not using a metaphor. Suddenly, she feels very shy. Remembering the changes through which he has lived, the ancient working alongside her seems far more alien than the fish that dart and glide around her in the water. For him, geologic ages must have been like the shifting of the seasons.

She shivers.

“How do you bear it?” Her voice is a whisper, yet she can hardly believe that she has spoken aloud.

“Change is the way of the world,” he replies, “the one great constant, and I am the Changer.”

15

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

—Author unknown

I
t is a game, playing hide-and-seek about the stable yard, a game given spice because Frank has told her in no uncertain terms to make herself scarce whenever he has visitors.

Still, Shahrazad cannot help herself—or more accurately, she does not want to help herself. Yesterday she had been so clever, tagging right at the heels of both the cow man and Frank. Neither had known she was there. At least she’s pretty certain they hadn’t known.

She places the blame for her scolding that evening squarely on Stinky Joe. She had seen the big golden tomcat watching her from a hayloft, the broken tip of his tail twitching back and forth, just like Arthur drumming on a table with a pencil eraser. He must have told on her, him or one of the unicorns. Her friends would not have, having grown philosophical—or perhaps merely inured—to her risk-taking.

Now she skulks along, the difficulty of her game increased in that there are three men today, not just two: Frank, the cow man, and the cow man’s man. Coyotes are not the sticklers for hierarchy that wolves are, but she understands well enough the difference between alpha and beta.

Wayne is alpha, Jesus beta. Frank is not part of their hierarchy, but, judging from his behavior, Wayne wants to dominate Frank. He speaks in short, barking bursts, waves his hands about, pushes through doorways.

Jesus is clearly accustomed to Wayne’s need to assert himself, and with dips of his head or lowerings of his gaze he constantly signals his submission. Frank doesn’t appear to notice, though Shahrazad is certain that he knows perfectly well what Wayne wants.

In the little dominance games that almost all animals play, Frank is a master. He can face down a dog or wolf, put a restive stallion into line with a single word, and even convince a cat that he’s worth listening to. If he chooses not to dominate Wayne, there must be a reason.

Instead, Frank smiles and nods, soft as water and as hard to push against. Wayne becomes frustrated and pushes harder. Shahrazad is reminded of the time she waded into a pond and suddenly the bottom dropped out from under her feet, leaving her paddling furiously. This time Wayne is doing the paddling.

Eventually, the three humans go into the house. Using one of the dog doors, Shahrazad slips in after. Her route takes her past the ever-closed door. Remembering her nightmares, she walks faster, slowing only when the click of her toenails against an uncarpeted section of the wooden floor threatens to give her away.

When she hears footsteps coming closer, she slips under a small table set in a corner. She curls into a ball, pretending to be a sleeping dog. Her ruse is for nothing. The man walking past doesn’t see her.

“Where’d you say the john is?” Wayne calls to Frank.