Changer's Daughter

by Jane Lindskold

  “I can hardly believe,” Shango says, shaking his head so vigorously that the heavy gold hoops in his earlobes swing, “that one person could have raised this wind and maintained it for five days. Do you believe her?”

  Anson shrugs. “We have no reason not to do so, but I admit, I don’t know her. None of us do, eh? That’s why we have moved our dwelling so we can keep a better eye on her.”

  Eddie feels only slightly unhappy about misleading an ally. Shango’s report had been less than satisfactory, especially to someone who has spent millennia giving and taking reports. There were lacunae, bits of vagueness, and other times when Eddie had been certain that Shango was lying.

  Maybe those lies were meant only to protect an informant or human ally, but they make him uncomfortable and less inclined to trust the other.

  Eddie is not the only one with concerns. After he leaves the meeting, Shango goes to his office and summons his three key henchmen to him. One of these is Paul Aafin, the mayor of Monamona. One is Otun Maluu, the chief of police. The third is Regis.

  “We must move soon and quickly,” Shango tells them, “if we are to see our plan come to anything.”

  After the other three have acknowledged his statement, Shango continues, modifying the truth to fit their knowledge of the situation.

  “This windstorm must be bringing Monamona to the government’s attention more quickly than we had hoped. When the wind falls, we must be in full control of the city.”

  “We are,” answers Police Chief Maluu. “The wind has been a great help in that. Most of the citizens now rely on us for food and fresh water. Communication has been limited to word of mouth. We have suspended internal postal delivery for the duration of the crisis.”

  “Good.” Shango nods approvingly. “This is important, but more importantly we must be prepared to move on the national government as soon as the wind falls.”

  “My contact with our allies has been limited,” Mayor Aafin protests. “I cannot reestablish it until the wind falls.”

  Shango deliberately says nothing reassuring—although truly Paul Aafin is not at fault. To him the Mayor has always seemed the weakest member of their group, the one with the most to lose and so the most inclined to vacillate.

  Paul Aafin’s political connections are vital, however, so Shango has worked with him. If all goes according to schedule, Mayor Aafin will last long enough to become President Aafin and to name Shango his vice president. Then he will become ill and Shango will be president, first in fact and later in name as well.

  The succession will be completely legal and will be the means by which Nigeria publicizes its newest tragedy to the world—the epidemic of smallpox, an epidemic that should bring in foreign funding, sympathy for the new government, and a reluctance to interfere with local politics.

  Shango rubs his hands together gently as he studies Regis. Technically, the Chief General is no longer as vital as he once was. The smallpox virus is prepared, as is a good supply of vaccine. The knowledge on how to make more is available.

  But Regis is like a pawn that, having plodded its way across the chessboard is suddenly transformed into a second queen. Although Shango has made his own arrangements for dealing with Regis, he cannot ignore how the men have come to identify Regis with Shopona, an identification that gives Regis an intangible power more difficult to deal with.

  Even those gone to’s, educated abroad, who know intellectually that smallpox is only a virus—albeit a deadly one—fear the curse of the King of Hot Water. Regis can threaten the curse without the need to follow up with the illness, and with his laboratory skills he can cultivate other viruses to serve Shango’s needs.

  No. Peculiar though he is, Regis is still useful.

  The Mayor’s protests penetrate Shango’s musings.

  “...but I cannot contact any of them, even those I am certain will support us. Who knows what has gone on in almost a week? If only we knew when this wind will fall!”

  Shango smiles urbanely, thinking of the woman Oya who claims to have raised the wind. When he had told his allies about her, one and all had dismissed her as a local crank—although Chief Maluu had looked rather nervous. Shango, who knows that magic does work and that lightning and wind can be summoned by one who knows the art, had encouraged them to mock the woman. Better that they not worry about a goddess in their city.

  Now, however, in response to Mayor Aafin’s unhappiness, he thinks of Oya and his urbane smile broadens into something fierce and warlike.

  “The wind will fall,” Shango says to the Mayor. “When it does, speak with your contacts and report to us. We must be ready to adapt our plans, then to act almost at once.”

  Mayor Aafin continues to protest. “How do you know the wind will fall?”

  “I know,” says Shango, for once letting the other see the commanding force of his personality, a brilliance he normally veils lest they realize the level of his ambition. “Be ready.”

  The Mayor nods stiffly, remembering that if he is to be president, he must act like a president.

  “I will expect you to deliver,” Aafin says sternly.

  “I shall,” Shango purrs, mock-humble. “I shall.”

  When his fellow conspirators have departed, Shango rubs his hands together.

  Tonight, he thinks, I shall extract this Oya from her stronghold, and when I have her, the wind will fall and she will either join me or fall with it.

  Creeping through the barbed-wire fence to do some more scouting on MacDonald’s land is the work of a moment for Wayne Watkins. He’d come up here right after finishing their business lunch, and he’d come back today as soon as he could, drawn there by the image of the wolves he would hunt, the kill he would make.

  The land he’s running his cattle on is to the east of the OTQ. He figures that if he’s going to find wolves, they’ve got to be farther west, on the far side of where the two pieces border. That’s only good sense speaking, since if the wolves were denning closer, there would be more evidence of them bothering his herds.

  So Wayne has worked his way west, staying in the cover of the rocks and trees whenever possible, though Wayne figures that if MacDonald sees him, he’ll say that one of his dogs had strayed and he’s looking for it. How’s MacDonald to know the difference?

  The November air is cool, crisp, just enough to make every blood cell in his veins feel alive, as if they’ve nipped a bit of extra oxygen and are feeding it directly to his brain. Moving with a stealthy grace of which he is extraordinarily proud, Wayne glides like a ghost across the land. Not even the blue jays or the crows comment on his passing.

  A rabbit grazing on a patch of browning grass seems not to see him at all. Wayne is tempted to creep up to it, to wring its neck with his bare hands like some Indian in an old Western, but he opts to be prudent. He’s after bigger game than rabbits.

  As the rancher turned hunter glides over the land, his eyes alert for any sign of his prey, he reviews possible ways to get MacDonald away from the OTQ. He has to be gone. Otherwise, there is too great a risk that he will interfere.

  Wayne pauses, sniffing the air, realizing that he’s never seen a ranch hand about the OTQ. There must be some, since there’s no way that MacDonald could maintain the place single-handedly, but maybe they’re on vacation or only come in a couple times a week. He makes a mental note to check that there’s no one else on the OTQ when he opens hunting season.

  Coming up on a dense copse of trees, Wayne inspects the duff for wolf sign. No tracks, no convenient tufts of fur hanging on low-lying tree limbs. Searching with that preternatural alertness that has been with him ever since he crossed onto the OTQ today, Wayne finds the partially eaten carcass of an elk.

  Leaves and branches have been dragged over it. Wayne isn’t such a tyro as to touch them with his hands. Using the toe of his boot, he lifts enough to get a good look at the tooth marks.

  Triumph surges in him. Here are his wolves. He’s certain. He doesn’t bother to ask himself why there ar
e no foot marks, why the carcass is so well concealed. Joy that he knows where to find his prey fills him.

  Next step: Get MacDonald clear of the place.

  Smiling, Wayne trots east, eager to get back to his own land, his mind busy making and discarding plans to deal with the human element of his problem. In the end, the plan he comes up with is so simple, so elegant, that Wayne can hardly believe his own cleverness.

  After meeting Jesus, MacDonald had agreed to sell Wayne three of his quarter horses and two other horses that, while good enough cow horses in themselves, lacked the pedigree of the other three. That provided both mounts and remounts, since much of the work would still be done in the pickup trucks.

  One of those horses would be the bait. On the day Wayne chose to go hunting, Jesus would phone MacDonald from the farthest of Wayne’s holdings in the area. He’d tell MacDonald that one of the horses was acting strange, like it was sick. Then Jesus would beg MacDonald to come and look at the horse.

  MacDonald would go, of that Wayne had no doubt. The trip to the holding would take an hour, probably more. Then he’d have to look at the horse. Jesus would have orders to keep MacDonald for as long as possible.

  Meanwhile, Wayne would be hunting wolf with no one to interfere with his fun. With what he’d learned on his scouting trips, he should be in, out, and gone before MacDonald returned.

  The one weakness in the plan was that the horse, of course, wouldn’t be ill. Wayne toys with the idea of giving the horse something to make it sick, then decides against it. Even the two nonpurebreds hadn’t been cheap. He doesn’t care to risk wasting his money.

  Besides, so what if the horse wasn’t sick when MacDonald arrived? Jesus wouldn’t dare say anything, neither would the other greasers. They had their legal situation to consider. That just left the horse and, hell, the horse wouldn’t be talking!

  “This first day’s search has been a bust, baby,” says Tommy Thunderburst in his calm, laconic way.

  Though Demetrios would have been more tactful, especially with Lil Prima scowling as she stares into a bowl of water, the faun essentially agrees. Morning had turned into afternoon and afternoon is fading into early evening. A hotel suite has been transformed into command central, and the athanor members of the Pan tour have been working overtime, but the satyrs remain missing.

  Demetrios would never have believed this would be the case when, after hearing his nervous report at nine that morning, Lil Prima had made a queenly gesture and ordered her scrying bowl brought to her.

  Scrying might seem like a foolproof way to locate someone. All the scryer needs is a bowl of water or some other reflective surface. Mirrors work; so do crystal balls. Depending on the talent of the person doing the scrying, additives can help. Lil puts oil into her scrying bowl. Since she is trying to locate someone specific, she has also put in a fine powder made by grinding some of the missing satyrs’ hair (there had been ample in their currycombs) in a mortar and pestle.

  But scrying just shows a picture of the person or people being sought. In this case, what Lil sees is a nice hotel or motel suite equipped with two queen-size beds and a bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub. That is it.

  The window curtain has been drawn, so they can’t guess where the hotel is from the landmarks outside. No hotel stationery is visible on the bedside tables, at least not under the litter of wine bottles, pizza boxes, and discarded clothing. The telephone shows only an extension number on its base, no phone number. If the hotel provides guidebooks to the hotel or the surrounding area, these are also buried in the considerable litter created by three rutting satyrs and their molls.

  Conversation between the three satyrs and their six girlfriends has been limited to three categories: sex, drugs, and food. Where the first is coming from there is no doubt. None of the girls looks at all interested in leaving. Some of the combinations the three satyrs come up with would fascinate the makers of blue movies, but none of the participants protest.

  A supply of drugs, mostly marijuana and cocaine, had apparently been laid in before someone Georgios referred to as “the driver” had been dismissed. Food is delivered by room- service waiters who leave the cart outside of the door. Given the size of the orders, doubtless their tip is added automatically to the bill. Booze (mostly wine, though Stud shows a lamentable taste for cheap beer) is acquired this way as well.

  Quite possibly, one of the nine inhabitants of that suite has said something that would have pinpointed their location at some time or another, but even Lilith cannot maintain a constant scrying. The best she can do is to check in periodically and hope for a change in location or some newly revealed clue. Thus far, there has been nothing.

  Following Demetrios’s initial report, rehearsal had been canceled for the day. The three remaining satyrs refuse—even under threat of being fired—to help in the search for their buddies. Doubtless Lil would have had no qualms about resorting to torture if she thought it would help, but, like Demetrios, she believes them when they insist they know nothing beyond the most general elements of Georgios’s plan—getting laid and getting laid again.

  Therefore, the three remaining satyrs are locked in their suite with a rotating shift of fauns guarding them—and some of Lil’s magic added in just in case one of the fauns feels a pang of sympathy for his fellow theriomorphs.

  With Phoebus’s help, Demetrios has spent hours on the phone, trying to learn anything that would limit their search. He has just finished calling all the taxi and limousine services, asking if anyone had picked up a fare at their hotel who answered the description of Georgios and his pals. Thus far, he’s learned nothing. The suspicion that many of the transportation companies would routinely lie rather than risk annoying a former customer keeps him from believing that negative information is information at all.

  “Doubtless,” he sighs, hanging up the phone and rubbing his pointed ear, “the satyrs are using a credit-card to pay for their debauchery, but the credit card company is not going to tell us where those charges are being made.”

  “No. We’d need to be the police or FBI to get that kind of cooperation,” Phoebus agrees.

  “And we’re not,” Demetrios says. “Nor is any athanor listed in the Accord’s files.”

  Tommy Thunderburst, comparatively sober and very, very mellow, shambles over and drapes his long-limbed frame over one of the desk chairs.

  “What athanor’d be a Fibbie?” he asks. “Man, they print you, blood type you, piss test you, and check your background from here back to conception. You’d need to be a wizard to pass all of that and what for? Any athanor with that much power can get what they want without being a cop.”

  “True,” Demetrios sighs. “But it sure would be useful now.”

  “What we need,” Phoebus says, “is a diviner. A really good one who could use Lil’s image as a start and then divine where the satyrs have gone.”

  “Good idea!” Demetrios says. “Tommy, can Lil divine?”

  “Lil,” Tommy says with is broad grin, “is divine. But it’s beyond me if she can divine.”

  He leans back, laughing at his own joke, then calls to where the elegant witch is once again leaning over her scrying bowl.

  “Hey, baby. Furry-legs here has a good idea. Can you divine?”

  Lil is seated in a corner of the room, bent over a bowl set on one of the hotel’s writing tables. With her golden hair falling like a straight, solid curtain between her face and the rest of the company gathered in the room, Lil seems so isolated that it is something of a shock when she lifts her head and turns to Tommy.

  “Divine, mon chèr?” She frowns, a cupid bow pout that clears. “I had considered that, certainement, but there are too many people in this city for me to isolate three. There are too many hotels, even.”

  “Oh,” Phoebus slumps, and Demetrios reaches and pats his arm. “Darn.”

  “But divining may be our best course,” Lil says, showing uncharacteristic kindness. “Demetrios, we must limit our search.”

&
nbsp; “Yes’m.”

  “Call hotels. Ask if they have rooms with Jacuzzi tubs. Then ask if they have rooms with two queen-size beds.”

  Demetrios smiles. “Done, my lady, done.”

  “Bon.” She sighs. “I am tired, but this cannot wait. I shall go and refresh myself, then I shall have one of the roadies drive me from hotel to hotel, seeking our lost stallions. Demetrios, can you prioritize that list a bit?”

  “I’ll do my best,” he answers, nervous about the responsibility.

  “And Tommy”—Lil turns those emerald eyes on her sometime lover, sometime charge—“you shall call Lovern. Tell him we are so angry that he has not sent to us the promised amulets. Tell him to come here at once.”

  “Baby!” Tommy protests. “It’s late afternoon—hell, it’s evening! Lovern lives in the boonies now. He might not be able to get a plane until morning, and you gotta have found them by then!”

  Lil Prima shakes her head. “I do not ‘gotta.’ I am tired. I have been doing this scrying all day. Now I divine all night? I do not think so. Get Lovern here. There are many flights between Albuquerque and Las Vegas. He may even be able to get one this evening.”

  “I’ll try,” Tommy says, “but I don’t promise.”

  “Get him,” Lil repeats fiercely, and strides from the room.

  Tommy looks after her, his expression rueful. “I guess I’d better get him. I know that look. It means ‘or else.’ Sure hope Lovern doesn’t have any plans for the evening.”

  Shahrazad is puzzled. All morning she has kept coming across human scent, as faint and wispy as if it is very old, but her memory tells her that it was not here when she hunted in this area in the hills above the ranch house a day or so before.

  Sitting on her haunches, the young coyote vigorously scratches her right ear and tries to think. It isn’t easy. Even with cold weather prompting many of the rodents that are her usual prey into hibernation (or at least torpid retreat), the air is alive with interesting scents. She wants to track them, to dash around, to feel the winter thickening of her coat push back the cold, but she can’t stop worrying about those scents that shouldn’t be there. It’s rather frustrating.