“I cannot leave without my sword.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah.” A long pause, then. “Do you have anything to eat?”
Without wasting words, Katsuhiro rises, goes to his dresser, where he has stored away from the omnipresent insects the least perishable parts of his dinner. He realizes that the only way Anansi could have come to him was in another shape and that the Spider’s body makes greater demands on him than most.
“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 aski
ng 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
It 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.
Frank calls concise directions.
Peeking over her flank, Shahrazad watches. According to her unwritten rules for the game, she has just won a point. She’ll win another if she changes position and Wayne still doesn’t notice her.
The clouded leopard, asleep on a high shelf bordering the living room, winks a green eye, silent scorekeeper. When Wayne has gone into the bathroom, Shahrazad listens, marks the rise and fall of Jesus’s voice in the kitchen, Frank’s soft reply, the clatter of plates.
Having placed them and knowing by the continual stream of urine hitting water that Wayne is still occupied, she uncoils and comes out from under the table. A few feet away, there is an overstuffed chair—a very daring hiding place, since Wayne will pass within a few inches of it on his way back to the kitchen and dining room. Wanting the points this will win her in the clouded leopard’s estimation, Shahrazad ducks under the chair and resumes her sleeping-dog pose.
She settles just as the stream of urine stops. Wayne emerges, buckling his belt. Reaching behind him, he closes the bathroom door. Shahrazad is tensing for the moment he will pass her hiding place, when, to her surprise, the man glances around the living room then walks briskly down the hallway leading toward Frank’s bedroom, office, and several unused bedrooms.
He stays there only a moment, then emerges, glances again toward the kitchen. Listens to the rise and fall of conversation, and then heads down the other corridor. Here his snooping is baffled, for all the doors are kept closed. Most lead to storerooms or unused bedrooms, a thing Wayne learns with a quick opening of the door and peek inside. One door, however, is the locked one.
Wayne tests the knob, finds the door locked, tests it again, and then, with a curious expression on his face heads back up the corridor toward the living room. Pausing again to listen to the conversation in the kitchen, he is apparently satisfied that he has been unobserved.
Returning to the bathroom, he flushes the toilet, then makes a much less stealthy exit. He passes the hiding coyote without noticing her, even though in her puzzlement she has raised her head to watch him go by.
“Sorry to be so long,” Wayne says in his loud, aggressive, alpha-male voice. “Had to take a crap.”
Shahrazad doesn’t listen to Frank’s reply. Coming out of her hiding place, she glances up at the clouded leopard. The wild cat blinks at her.
“Humans!” the look says.
Shahrazad can only agree.
Once again the computerized voice of the international operator informs Chris that all lines into the city of Monamona are busy now.
He groans softly. The lines have been busy for the past twenty-four hours. Yesterday evening, before he left work, he told Arthur he had been unable to get through and had promised to continue trying from his home until he went to bed. Arthur had actually been pretty calm about it.
“I don’t need to reach Anson to inform him of any crisis,” he had said, “so don’t stay up late on my account. Phone service to these third world countries often goes out.”
Chris had taken the King at face value, making his last attempt at eleven before climbing into bed. He’d been certain that he’d get through this morning, and the recorded message is beginning to sound like a personal insult.
Bill wouldn’t be in for a while, having an early class or something. Chris debates whether or not to report his latest failure to the King, decides against it—the situation is unchanged since his last report—and tries to get ahead of some of his other duties.
After three more encounters with the recorded message, pushing the redial button on the phone begins to seem like a Sisyphean task. Arthur will be certain to ask questions when they have their usual informal lunch meeting. Chris realizes that he doesn’t want to admit that all the effort he has made in his assignment is to punch a single button on the phone.
He starts his new investigation by calling the number of the hotel in Lagos where Eddie and Anson had stayed. That call goes through. Heartened, he asks the clerk for the number of their branch hotel in Monamona, thinking that maybe there has been some change in the number or the area code. The number he is given, however, is the same as the one scrawled in his notebook.
; “Can you transfer me somehow?” Chris asks, willing to grasp at straws.
“Sorry, sir,” the clerk says, his accent very strong but subtly different than that which Eddie had demonstrated when showing off his Nigerian persona. “All lines to dere is out.”
“Out?”
“Weatha conditions, sir.”
“Weather conditions?” Chris repeats the phrase distinctly, positive that he could not have heard correctly.
“That’s right. All phone is out.”
“Thank you for your help,” Chris says, and hangs up.
He tugs at his nose as if that will help him think.
“Weather conditions. Right.”
Turning away from his telephone, he logs on to the Internet. In a few moments, he has found a site dedicated to worldwide weather, complete with constantly updated satellite maps. Zeroing in first on Africa, then on Nigeria, then on the southern portion of the country, he finally locates Monamona. The city is completely occluded by a reddish brown mass that the web site’s key politely informs him indicates the presence of high winds.
Going for more detail, Chris learns that the wind resembles a cyclone or tornado, but is stationary.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” he mutters.
There is nothing more he can learn here, so he tries hot links to various sites, hoping for a more detailed discussion of the phenomenon. He learns little, but the little that he learns is quite interesting. He sums it up for Arthur when, about a half hour later, he goes to report.
“Monamona has, to all intents and purposes, become the roosting place for an anomalous windstorm. Most of the meteorologists who are studying it agree that it is not merely an intensification of the usual harmattan wind pattern.”
He pauses in case Arthur needs (as he himself had) a definition of this term. Arthur, however, has experienced the harmattan and simply nods for Chris to go on.
“The dominant theory is that the Monamona windstorm is caused by the harmattan encountering some other factor that has made the wind cycle back onto itself. The two most common guesses as to what this other factor might be are increased temperatures generated by the city itself or the height of the city’s buildings creating something like an artificial mountain range.”
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