Changer (Athanor)

by Jane Lindskold

  Vera, wiping sweat from her forehead, nods. Amphitrite, unsurprisingly, is unaffected by the humidity, but Lovern looks sour and wilted.

  “Beyond charming poet’s hearts,” Oswaldo adds with a self-depreciating smile, “there are plants with medicinal value. As the fanatics are fond of saying, perhaps the cure for cancer is being burned away so that some farmer can grow cattle for the American hamburger chains.”

  Isidro nods solemnly. “But we have not brought you here to inundate you with details you could learn by a quick trip to the library. We want you to see for yourself the surrounding beauties. Lovern, won’t you stop scowling long enough to admire this princess earring?”

  He indicates a red flower that dangles from its parent plant. It does not take much imagination to envision this floral beauty swinging from the ear of a dusky-hued jungle princess.

  Lovern steps toward the flower and almost immediately crumples as if he has been hit solidly in the gut. He staggers a few steps then falls to his knees, and from there to the damp ground. When Vera and Amphitrite move to assist him, Oswaldo pulls a handgun from the bag he has been carrying.

  “Please stay where you are, ladies.”

  They halt. Oswaldo’s round face is no longer vague and jovial, but filled with ruthless purpose. There is no doubt that within the poet the Mongol warlord has smoldered.

  “We would prefer to have you alive,” Oswaldo continues, “but people die by violence every day in Brazil. You came into the country without official notice. You can die without official notice as well. One of the problems of our particular Accord is that Arthur will be reluctant to search too publicly for you lest he endanger the secrecy to which he is so devoted.”

  Vera grabs Amphitrite’s hand when the Sea Queen rages forward a few steps, but she cannot still the other’s words.

  “You dare! I sympathized with you! Know that the seas will never be safe to you again.”

  “I am prepared to take that risk,” Oswaldo says, “as are the others. Your sympathy is not enough, Your Majesty. We came to the Review with heartfelt pleas and ample evidence of our serious need. Instead of help, we got a committee. We must do more to draw attention to our need.”

  “Killing us will not give you what you desire,” Vera says coldly. “It will only get you removed from the Accord.”

  “We do not plan to kill you.”

  “And Lovern?”

  Oswaldo does not remove his gaze from them, but asks Isidro, “How is the wizard?”

  “Out.” Isidro rises from where he has been binding Lovern’s wrists and ankles with cold-iron manacles. “And disabled. The plane ride almost certainly weakened him more than we realized. Your shamanistic charm has dropped him into a coma.”

  “What do you plan to do to us!” Vera exclaims.

  Isidro lifts Lovern into a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. “We are going to strand you here. If Arthur will agree to certain of our policies, we will notify him where you can be found. We will even come to retrieve you ourselves.”

  Amphitrite spits at him. “Bring a gun or three, or I will have your eyes!”

  “I will so remember, Your Majesty.” Isidro’s slight bow is mocking. “If he does not agree, you will be left here and Arthur can deal with the fury of Duppy Jonah and of all those who have come to respect and admire Vera.”

  “And what is to keep us from taking vengeance on you once we are free?” Vera asks. Her face is full of cold fury, reminding them all of the pitiless maiden goddess who would not forgive Troy her slighting by one nearly forgotten prince.

  “We are prepared to accept some risks,” Isidro says. “Our Cause is greater than ourselves.”

  Oswaldo nods and gestures with his head toward the shore. “Take Lovern to the boat. Cleonice is waiting.”

  “And I’ll bring back the supplies,” Isidro agrees.

  Vera and Amphitrite are too aware of the delicacy of their situation to attack Oswaldo once he is alone. Even if they managed to fell him, they would still need to deal with both Isidro and Cleonice. Lovern, incapacitated as only an ironbound wizard can be, has become hostage to their good behavior, as they will be to Arthur’s.

  When Isidro returns, he has two small packs slung over one arm and a gun in his free hand. From one pocket he takes a piece of rope.

  “Over to that tree,” he says, gesturing to a tree. “Put your backs to it and your hands toward each other.”

  “Why?” Vera says angrily.

  “Because I will shoot you in the foot if you do not.”

  Amphitrite glances at Vera, who shrugs. They walk to the tree and stand as ordered.

  “I will tie your hands,” Isidro says, looping the packs over a branch, “in such a fashion that you should be able to work free within a few minutes. I merely take this precaution so that Oswaldo and I will be able to make our departure.”

  “Bastard,” Vera mutters.

  “Aren’t we all,” he agrees. “There are knives and other survival tools in the packs, including lightweight hammocks. I do not suggest that you sleep on the ground. Moreover, there is a short guidebook listing the most dangerous plants and animals as well as a description of various things that you can eat. If in doubt, I suggest that you try something else.”

  “My husband will kill you,” Amphitrite says coldly.

  “Your husband never leaves the water,” Isidro answers, “and we are prepared to avoid his domain.”

  “Good luck,” Vera growls.

  “Enough talk,” Oswaldo says shortly. “We need to get back in time to make our calls. The longer we delay, the longer these ladies need to remain in discomfort.”

  “I am just finishing,” Isidro states. He gives the rope an experimental tug. “There. That should do just fine.”

  Oswaldo speaks into the radio. “We’re on our way.”

  “I understand,” Cleonice says.

  The two men sweep genteel bows and retreat. In the near distance, the sound of the Caiman’s engine creates an uproar among the waterfowl. Neither Vera nor Amphitrite pays any attention. Their fingers are busy with the ropes.

  In Belém five o’clock has just struck. Cleonice, Isidro, and Oswaldo have returned to their estate, showered, and dealt with all the little problems with servants and such that always crop up when one is away from home for an extended period.

  “Do you think Arthur will ransom Vera and Amphitrite?” asks Oswaldo, his ruthlessness vanishing as the poignant image of the two women stranded in the rain forest touches his poet’s soul.

  “I certainly hope so,” Isidro replies. “Our entire valiant gesture could be misinterpreted otherwise. Still, this is war, and in war there are casualties. If we will not take risks, who will speak for the voiceless ones of Mother Earth?”

  “Yes, yes,” Oswaldo says, suddenly weary of the other’s revolutionary rhetoric. “When will you call Arthur?”

  “I thought that I would try now—they are four hours behind us. We should find Pendragon Productions open for standard business hours. Cleonice is dropping our message bottle in Duppy Jonah’s waters even as we speak. I want Arthur to realize that the Sea King’s anger is of our making.”

  “Wise.”

  Isidro lifts the telephone receiver and places the call to Pendragon Productions in Albuquerque. After a delay and several rings, the King’s recorded voice says: “This is Pendragon Productions. No one is available to take your call, but if you leave a message, someone will get back to you.”

  The beep sounds and Isidro hangs up.

  “Well,” he says in response to a questioning glance from Oswaldo, “I couldn’t very well leave a message saying ‘We have stranded Amphitrite and Vera in the Amazonian rain forest as a means of making our continued dissatisfaction with your ecological policies heard. We also have taken your pet wizard prisoner. Our number is…’”

  “No,” Oswaldo says, grinning slightly. “I guess you couldn’t.”

  “I’ll try again in a few minutes. Perhaps they are at an early di
nner or something.”

  Several hours later, the phone has yet to be answered.

  “Damn!” Isidro slams down the receiver.

  Oswaldo sets down the book of Borges’s verse from which he had been reading. “Do you have Arthur’s private number?”

  “Of course not!”

  “How about Eddie’s?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.” A few minutes later Oswaldo again sets down his poetry volume. “How about leaving an e-mail message?”

  “For something as important as this?”

  “I was just making a suggestion.”

  “I want to hear Arthur’s voice when I tell him.”

  “Childish. You might as well say you want to see his face.”

  “No. I don’t want to do that. He’s still Gilgamesh the Wrestler under that effete exterior.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. People do change.”

  “I don’t want to be the one to find out he hasn’t.”

  “Very well.”

  Eight hours later, Oswaldo is asleep with his book in his lap. Isidro scowls at the phone.

  “I suppose I should just wait until tomorrow. Certainly they’ll be answering the phone then.” He shoves Oswaldo awake and repeats his statement.

  “Certainly.” The tail of the word is lost in a smothered yawn.

  In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Arthur Pendragon notes that the Pendragon Productions phone has stopped ringing. He smiles. He’s beaten the bastards at their own game. It feels good. He returns to the baseball game he has been watching, relaxing as it heads into extra innings.

  Out in the North Atlantic, a blue bottle, stoppered with a cork and sealed with heavy red wax rises and falls with the swells.

  Set in the red-wax seal is an amulet made from moonstone and gold, an amulet that emits a siren song meant for only one person, a person who is certain to be swimming in those waters, for his love and his wife is visiting those shores. The moonstone gleams like a particularly solid reflection of the starlight in the dark heavens above.

  A great bull elephant seal, eight thousand pounds of rubbery flesh, amazingly graceful for all that mass, swims nearby, tasting the faint freshwater taint of the Amazon as morose lovers throughout time have savored some fine liquor to soothe their bruised hearts. The amulet’s call reaches out to him and, surprised to find his solitude so broken, he heeds it.

  He does not locate the bottle instantly. Even within a limited range, the ocean’s waters are still vast. When at last he finds it, he swims over to the bottle, nudging it with his heavy, trunklike nose.

  Immediately, his mournful thoughts leave him, for the amulet informs him that the bottle contains a message intended for none but him. His first thought is that the communication is from Amphitrite, but he banishes that hope instantly.

  She would telephone or, if that would not work, command Lovern to do her bidding and make sorcerous contact. In any case, she lacks the sorcery to create what he senses here.

  Shifting shape into a handsome triton, Duppy Jonah unstoppers the bottle, unconcerned about the effect of the salt water on the contents. Whoever has sent this will have proofed the missive against water. A spill of what appears to be heavy parchment falls into his webbed and finned hands.

  Unrolling it, he reads glowing violet and silver letters:

  Arthur’s minion has failed to protect your consort—even as the King’s policies have failed to preserve the planet that is our joint heritage. Amphitrite lives, but is lost. If you join us in our efforts to change the world, we shall return her to you.

  Isidro Robelo

  (for the South American Contingent)

  A typhoon of fury rises in Duppy Jonah’s broad chest. Howling in primal fear and rage, he stirs the ocean with his hand. Unheeding of the consequences, he releases a swirl of fury that will beat itself out as an impossible pororoca within the broad mouth of the Amazon River.

  Then he dives. He must speak with his land-born counterpart. Things have gone too far.

  18

  God gave burdens, also shoulders.

  —Yiddish proverb

  Resting in hammocks strung between broad-leafed tropical giants, Amphitrite and Vera awaken on the first day following their marooning. Thus far, they have stayed near the spot where they were left. The minimal supplies left by their captors had not inspired a desire to roam.

  In addition to the promised guidebooks there had been the hammocks, a first-aid kit, two machetes, a box of electrolyte-replacement powder, some water-purification tablets, two filled canteens, and two neatly packed meals.

  The meals more than anything else had encouraged them to remain where they were, for they seemed to speak of a limited expected duration to their stay. After the two athanor had untied themselves and made certain that they were indeed stranded, they had inspected their packs. Their first step was to string their hammocks—Isidro’s stories of the native ants were still vivid in their imaginations.

  Their anger had been intense, but not to the extent of making either of them foolish. Dakar Agadez or Katsuhiro Oba might rage at injustice. Practicality and responsibility were more typical traits of the women once hailed as a goddess of wisdom and the Queen of the Sea.

  As dawn is announced by a booming chorus of unseen howler monkeys, some of this calm is giving way to worry.

  “How long do you think it will be until someone comes for us?” Amphitrite asks.

  “I don’t really know,” Vera admits. “Isidro…” She spits at the name. “Isidro planned to contact Arthur. I had thought we would have heard something by now.”

  “Maybe I frightened them,” Amphitrite says, not looking at all unpleased by the thought, “when I threatened them.”

  “Maybe.” Vera doesn’t look precisely dubious, but she sounds far from certain. “Still, Arthur may have insisted on coming himself—or at least sending an emissary like Jonathan Wong to handle negotiations. Even if Isidro called Arthur as soon as they returned to Belém, there could be a delay.”

  Amphitrite frowns. “I hope not too much of a delay. Lovern’s spell will grant me these legs only for another week or so. I’d hate to be stranded as a mermaid…”

  Vera swings upright in her hammock. “Can you change back and swim to the ocean for help?”

  “I can change back,” Amphitrite says, “but I have no idea how far we are from the ocean or if there are any blockades. A waterfall, a series of rapids, or even an unusually shallow or marshy stretch could leave me, well, like a fish out of water.”

  Neither of them smiles at this feeble attempt at a joke.

  “Can you summon a sea creature to carry a message to Duppy Jonah?”

  “I’m not Aquaman,” Amphitrite says sourly. “In the ocean we have our servants and sworn followers, but we do not command everything that swims.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “No. It was a good idea.”

  “Is there any water left?”

  “Just a swallow. We’re going to need to purify more.”

  Vera grimaces. “I can’t stand the taste of those tablets.”

  “Better than amoebic dysentery,” Amphitrite says, “as you reminded me. At least I’m not as thirsty here as I was in New Mexico.”

  “True. I wonder how long these packets of electrolyte solution will last? Should we ration them?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not terribly well informed about the limitations of a land-based life. How much danger are we in?”

  “I’m sweating a lot—or maybe the humidity is just so high that I never dry off. We are hardier than the usual mortal, of course, but…”

  “What you’re saying is that you don’t know.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Then let’s use half of what is recommended as a daily supplement. How many days does that give us?”

  “A little over a week.”

  “After that we’ll have an entirely new set of problems,” Amphitrite says, thoughtfully gazing at her legs
. “And I cannot imagine that Duppy Jonah will remain patient for that long. I typify the ocean’s more tranquil, food-giving nature. He is storm and tempest.”

  Vera smiles. “Do you really believe that?”

  Amphitrite shrugs. “Why not? It provides something like a division of responsibility. Of course, mermaids have also been accused of luring sailors to their doom. I’m not completely without my menacing aspect.”

  “I’m amazed,” Vera says. “On land, most of us have given up identifying with anything larger than self-identity.”

  “Oh, really?” Amphitrite says dryly. “After meeting Arthur, I cannot precisely believe that.”

  “His self-identity,” Vera answers, floundering, “is King.”

  “As mine is Queen.”

  “But he has,” Vera chews her lower lip, searching for a term, “updated? his image. He now sees himself as an administrator rather than a monarch.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Vera shrugs. “It’s not worth arguing about.”

  “No, not really, but it does illuminate a particular problem we have. How is Arthur going to respond to this issue? Will he act as a friend or as a head of state? If he acts as head of state, we may not be ransomed at all.”

  “Yes.” Vera looks shamefaced. “I had been hoping that you wouldn’t think of that.”

  “I am a queen. And Duppy Jonah and I have followed politics for a long time. If Arthur ransoms illegally taken hostages, then he creates a precedent of astonishing ramifications.”

  “True. And if he does not…”

  “Then Isidro and his allies must either back down or act in a fashion to show that they are not to be trifled with.”

  “The easiest way to do that,” Vera says bluntly, “is by killing one or both of us.”

  “If I die, Duppy Jonah’s fury will be merciless,” Amphitrite says. Her tone is neither smug nor self-satisfied. She is merely stating a fact.

  “There is no one to avenge me with such wide-ranging repercussions,” Vera says calmly. “Perhaps friends will refuse to treat with the South American contingent, perhaps someone will declare a vendetta, but that is all.”