Changer (Athanor)

by Jane Lindskold

  “A day,” he says, “perhaps two.”

  “I will leave as soon as the stone is ready,” the Changer says. “With Vera as a guide, I need not waste more time.”

  This time when he rises, he is clearly weary of conversation. Arthur does not attempt to hold the feral ancient.

  “We will keep you apprised of the situation,” the King says, allowing those words to stand in the place of a formal dismissal.

  “Thanks.” The Changer bends and picks up his daughter. “I’m taking her to the bosque. She needs to learn to walk on a leash if I’m going to be taking her out into the human world.”

  A few nods of agreement answer him, most relaxed because the interview has gone much more smoothly than they had hoped. Eddie, however, hears the edge in the Changer’s voice.

  “You plan to keep her in the human world?”

  “Of course,” the Changer says. “She’s too young to survive in the wilds and, if you’re right and Lilith is innocent, then I may have a much longer search in front of me.”

  Arthur frowns. “I don’t suppose that you would consider turning the preliminary investigation over to us, would you?”

  The Changer’s smile is more a baring of fangs. “No. Someone has involved me. I plan to stay involved.”

  “I thought,” Arthur says when the Changer is gone, “that we were making things better. Now, for some reason, I have a feeling that they have just gotten much, much worse.”

  “You’re just being pessimistic again,” Eddie says, but his tone holds no conviction.

  Vera rises. “I’d better go and check the hours of Lil’s gallery and Tommy’s show schedule. I’d hate to take the Changer to Santa Fe and find them on the road. The ancient is quite likely to put that pup in a carrier and hop the nearest plane.”

  “Or camp in Lil’s bedroom,” Lovern agrees. “I had better prepare the amulet.”

  “Aren’t you just going to give him the one from your ring?” Arthur asks, curiously.

  “No.” Lovern grins sardonically. “I don’t know how much attention he pays to such things, but I don’t care to have the issue of our testing him raised after the crisis is past.”

  “And we”—Eddie turns to Arthur—“need to go and review today’s messages. Just because the Changer has descended upon us doesn’t alter the fact that we have duties to perform. Anson is just back from Nigeria and may be up to some new mischief.”

  “Tricksters!” Arthur almost spits, he himself being the antithesis of these chaotic, creative types.

  Eddie is more tolerant, at least of Anansi, who is a particular friend. Their shared fondness for professional wrestling has bridged the gap between their lifestyles.

  “On a less individual front,” he soothes, “we have a formal protest from several of our kinfolk who reside in South and Central America, noting that if the athanor do not act to affect the environmental abuses in those regions, they will intervene.”

  Arthur rubs his palms against his eyes. “I almost wish I could let them. We’ll work out a compromise.”

  “Are we adjourned then?” Vera asks, already halfway to the corridor toward her office.

  “We are indeed,” Arthur says. “At least for now everything is under control.”

  He taps the teak chair on which he had been sitting.

  “Knock on wood.”

  5

  “For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

  —Rudyard Kipling

  Demetrios>> I’ve been thinking about this summer trip to Albuquerque.

  Moderator>> Not getting cold feet, are you?

  Demetrios>> The opposite. Isn’t the weather really hot in Albuquerque in the summer?

  Moderator>> Fairly.

  Demetrios>> I’m not sure that summer is a good time for some of the theriomorphs to go there. The sasquatch and the yeti have lots of fur… and my legs aren’t exactly hairless.

  Moderator>> Wear slacks.

  Demetrios>> That will do for me, but what about the others?

  Rebecca>> I’ve been “listening.” Demi has a point. I don’t think I could stand being bundled up at summer temperatures. And humans wear a lot less in the summer! Wouldn’t we stand out more if we were wearing long pants and shirts and hats and all??

  Loverboy>> Babes in miniskirts!! Hot pants!!! Shorts!! :)

  Demetrios>> Yeah, bud. Think of what you’d look like in shorts! They couldn’t miss your horse’s legs.

  Loverboy>> That isn’t what they’d be looking at, not once they got a look at my…

  Moderator>> Sorry to interrupt, but this is a “G” rated site. Watch your language. There are ladies present.

  Loverboy>> Prude! :(

  Monk>> The Moderator has a point. So does Demetrios. I think we had better move the date to later in the season.

  Moderator>> Not too late! If we do that, then those in colder climes may miss because we won’t be able to fly them out.

  Demetrios>> How about Halloween? That would be appropriate.

  Moderator>> Well… Denver often has snow by then. I may need to use their airport.

  Rebecca>> How about some time in September? We should have good weather.

  Demetrios>> Daytime temperatures can still get pretty high, as I recall, but given the altitude, it does cool off at night.

  Moderator>> I can work with September. It gives me a bit more time to get things into gear.

  Loverboy>> I can get it into gear anytime!

  Demetrios>> Rebecca, how are things going with Bronson?

  Rebecca>> Not so good. He’s still pretty adamant. Won’t even discuss it, really.

  Demetrios>> Oh. Sorry.

  Loverboy>> If Bronson won’t give his bride a GOOD TIME, I’d be happy to oblige. Huh baby?

  Logged off: Rebecca

  Loverboy>> What do you think, babe?

  Demetrios>> She’s logged off.

  Loverboy>> Some girls!

  Demetrios>> You really need to consider restraining your urges if you’re going out in public. All we need is you getting arrested on an assault charge.

  Loverboy>> Not you, too! I don’t recall you being so prudish in the days of yore.

  Demetrios>> These aren’t the days of yore and there aren’t likely to be days like those again if we don’t pull this off.

  Loverboy>> Maybe I should just stay home. :(

  Monk>> Sulk if you want, satyr, but, remember, we’ve got our future in our hands. If we back out, hope dies with our retreat.

  Loverboy>> Pretty poetry doesn’t win dames, not anymore.

  Monk>> No, but our moderator’s plan may put us in the position to do so once more.

  Loverboy>> Position… heh, heh…

  Forced log-off: Loverboy

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the Changer says after he and Vera have been driving for about a half hour. His hand rests lightly on his daughter, who sleeps on his lap.

  Vera is startled, both by the comment and that the Changer is actually making conversation. “Yes, I think it is,” she says at last. “I think it’s the sky that wins one first. The horizons go on forever—like over an ocean. Clouds, sunsets, thunderstorms… They all seem bigger here and yet somehow more intimate than they do at sea.”

  The Changer grins. “Almost makes you understand those stories about Father Sky and Mother Earth f– … meeting and engendering all creation.”

  Vera realizes that the Changer’s statement as he had first framed it would have been far more earthy, that he has edited his words out of respect for her tastes. She smiles warmly.

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Have you ever lived out here?”

  Her hand leaves the wheel to gesture at the surrounding terrain. The Changer nods.

  “Not specifically here for centuries, I think. I was raven, then. Wings are good things when there is so much emptiness between meals and water.”

  Vera bites her lip, aware that her next question violates etiquette. “Don’t answer if you don’t care to,”
she begins, “but are there certain animals you prefer taking the shape of?”

  The Changer stretches, long arms brushing the roof of the Ford Explorer. His daughter rouses enough to make a few little noises and flip her brush of a tail over her closed eyes.

  “Yes, I do,” he says after a time. “The survivors appeal to me more than do the victims or the great predators. I also prefer those who mate monogamously and raise families. Years ago, after losing a beloved mate, I spent a year as a grizzly bear. I thought that the respite from dependence, from fear of loss would be a pleasure. Yet, by the next spring, I could hardly wait to assume a more social form and go courting. I like having someone to care about.”

  “Then you actually love your…” She pauses, looking for a word. “Wives?”

  “Each one,” the Changer agrees. “Furred, finned, or feathered.”

  “But…” Vera gestures wildly with the hand not occupied by the wheel. “They are so short-lived, even compared to humans. How can you love a being that will die in an eye blink?”

  “Love,” the Changer answers, his rough voice holding something that is almost a chuckle, “doesn’t come with preset time limits. Only athanor continually live without dying. A human or, for that matter, a coyote or raven or wolf or eagle, selects a mate on the blind hope that the other will continue to survive. Death could come the next day or in half a century. From what I’ve observed, the former can be kinder.”

  “And your children?” Vera asks. “Do you…”

  “Preserve them?” the Changer offers, and when she nods, continues. “No. I do them a parent’s duty as is defined by the natural ways of that species. For some that is a season, for some—like the coyote—that may extend into two years. Then I let them go.”

  “And when they die?”

  “If I know, I mourn. What father wouldn’t? But it is a poor father of any species who would keep his children imprisoned merely to keep them safe. Parents give life; they also must realize that for that life to be truly given they must let their children go.”

  Vera shifts gears, for the great climb of La Bajada is beginning. Before modern roads, this stretch was so formidably steep that at least once a miracle had been needed to achieve the ascent. Today dynamite and asphalt have made travel routine, but even modern vehicles respect the great hill.

  “Were you born knowing this,” she asks, deciding to take advantage of the Changer’s talkativeness, “or did you learn it?”

  The Changer laughs. “I learned. Long and hard that learning was, but I learned that the only way I could love was to let go.”

  “And the little one on your lap?”

  “When she wishes, she, too, may go her way. I will try to take her to a place unfrequented by humans, but I will let her go.” The Changer’s hand ruffles his daughter’s downy grey baby fur. “She is a pup now, and my parent’s duty to her holds.”

  “Yet wild creatures often lose their mothers,” Vera says. “Aren’t you somehow acting against nature in protecting her?”

  Vera’s eyes are on the road, but she can feel the fierce gaze the Changer levels on her and deep inside she shivers.

  “My daughter,” he says, and there is a slight emphasis on the “my,” “lost her mother, but not her father. Both parents in a coyote family raise the young—as do older siblings. I wear a human form, but I am still her father.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t think. You seem so…”

  She stops, aware that she had been about to be tactless once more, wondering where her much-vaunted wisdom has gone. The Changer, however, has caught the drift of her sentence.

  “Human?” he says, and, to her relief, he chuckles. “I am old Proteus, Athena. A shape is a shape, nothing more. I own all shapes and so am no one shape. I try to respect the custom of the shape I am wearing, that is all.”

  “I am human-born,” she says, by way of apology, “and all my shapes are human shapes.”

  “A logical bias on your part, then,” he says, accepting the apology. “Is that Santa Fe below us?”

  “Yes,” she answers, relieved at the change in the conversation. “It is. Blends in quite well, doesn’t it?”

  “Remarkably, for a human city of that size,” the Changer agrees. “I don’t believe I have been there for fifty years.”

  “You’ll find it much different,” she says. “That’s all I ever hear from the people who have lived here for ten or twenty or more years—how changed it is.”

  “Change,” the Changer says, “is natural. What many forget is how much a part of that changing they themselves are. Where will we find Lil?”

  “Her gallery is off the Plaza in the older part of the city,” Vera answers. “We should be there in about a half hour.”

  “I can hardly wait,” comes the reply, and when Vera glances to one side, she sees that the Changer is not smiling.

  Despite Vera’s warning, downtown Santa Fe astonishes the Changer. When last he had been here, the streets had mostly been dirt or gravel, the stores largely devoted to the daily necessities of the people who lived and worked in this sleepy little capital city. Now, most of the stores are art galleries, jewelry shops, or expensive boutiques. The majority of the people who stroll the narrow sidewalks are clearly tourists rather than residents, or even legislators.

  “Amazing,” the Changer comments. “If it wasn’t for the Palace of the Governors and a few other buildings, I wouldn’t recognize the Plaza at all. As for the side streets…”

  “Lil’s gallery is off San Francisco Street,” Vera says. “I’m going to put the truck in a parking garage. Will you leave your daughter there?”

  “Certainly.”

  Strolling along the narrow streets, neither one spares attention for the kachina dolls, velvet skirts, and silver jewelry displayed in the windows. Tourist season has not quite begun, so they can walk side by side.

  “Down there,” Vera says, gesturing. “You can just see the sign.”

  The Changer grunts. Swinging out over a doorway halfway down the next block is a carved oval sign painted red and gold, embellished with a single word: “Prima!”

  After the brilliance of the New Mexican sun, the gallery’s indirect lighting is welcoming. Glass cubes displaying jewelry and sculpture in their interiors are scattered with artistic perfection about the room. Paintings and hand-woven rugs cover the pale cream walls.

  Music, contemporary, but with hints of compositions far older in its instrumentation, throbs like an excited heartbeat from concealed speakers. The subliminal impression is that here is a place where treasures are to be found.

  “She hasn’t lost it,” the Changer mutters. “Supreme manipulator.”

  “No,” Vera agrees, and she might have said more but they are interrupted by the tapping of shoes on the polished wooden floor.

  “May I help you?” says the sultry voice that claims the honor of womankind’s first seduction and first disobedience.

  The words are clearly routine, nothing more, for after the first few Lil’s inflection alters as she recognizes Vera and, quite possibly, the Changer.

  Her scent is the same, and by that the Changer knows her. Her appearance, however, is as different from the shape he had first known her to wear as could be and still be human.

  Then she had been short, voluptuous, darkly tanned, with a fall of night black hair to her feet and eyes like jet. Now, she is tall, slender, elegant, and golden blond. Her eyes are brilliant green and her skin peaches and cream. She wears a stylish dress of mint green; her jewels are jade and silver.

  There is no doubting who she is. When the Changer sees her he knows that if human males had hackles, his would rise.

  “Vera!” Lil greets the other woman. Her accent is French and her tone mockingly friendly. “How delightful to see you and our ancient brother.”

  She turns that hard, emerald gaze upon him. “Bonjour, Changer. When did you decide to come slumming? Last time I heard, you were still doing it doggy style in the mounta
ins.”

  Her taunting has the perverse result of relaxing him. He bares his teeth at her in a coyote grin.

  “I came to learn if I need to hurt you, Lil. Consider my personal attendance an honor due to your great age.”

  She gives no sign of fear. “And is this honor for any particular reason, or have you simply decided that this is someone’s day to suffer?”

  Vera intervenes. “Someone has murdered the Changer’s family. All the evidence points to you.”

  “Evidence?” Lil pulls out a cigarette as long and slim and she is and lights it, scenting the air with cloves.

  “Phone number, handwriting, car,” Vera says.

  “Even description,” the Changer adds, “now that I see you, rather than scenting your distinctive bouquet on the breeze.”

  “Why would I kill the Changer’s family?” Lil asks. “We don’t love each other, true, but there is no vendetta between us.”

  “There is now,” the Changer says, “one that will continue unless I get proof that you did not arrange for my family’s deaths.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Lilith says bluntly. “It would be senseless.”

  “Would you say that before a truthstone?” the Changer asks, causing Vera to wince. She prefers honesty as much or more than most traits, but certainly there are more tactful ways to introduce the subject!

  What Vera doesn’t know is that the Changer has already been using the truthstone. It rests in one of his trouser pockets (a pocket his hand has not strayed near since their arrival in the gallery), part of its surface touching his skin through a hole he had clipped in that pocket earlier that morning. Manners can make only so much of a demand on him.

  “Oui, you can use a truthstone to confirm my honesty,” Lil replies calmly. “I have nothing to hide—at least not on that point. And I have too much respect for your power, Changer, and for your temper, to spite you on such a small matter of etiquette. However, if I permit you and am proven innocent, I do expect an apology.”

  “Formal and direct,” the Changer agrees.

  He pulls the truthstone from his pocket and holds it flat on his palm. Wanting to avoid any suspicions that the Changer’s own honesty had been tested by means of a similar amulet, Lovern had used a broad oval piece of agate as a spell receptacle. Tan and brown, with slim lines of red, the pattern in the stone suggests a landscape rendered in the abstract.