—Paul Valéry
The meeting room the next morning is filled with a buzz of satisfied conversation. Even without listening closely, Vera, seated to one side of Arthur at the curved table in the front of the room (it rather resembles half a donut and is, in a sense, the current incarnation of the Round Table), catches fragments:
“I really think that the solution involves taking a direct hand in matters.”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to be responsible for more extinctions. I still feel bad about the passenger pigeons.”
“Until last night I didn’t realize how many of the things we take for granted come from the rain forests.”
Clearly many of the athanor think that the issue has been settled in the informal discussions held the night before. Now she regrets not going to the South American contingent’s party—if only so she could tell Arthur what had been said. A long time has passed since she cared about the opinion of the mob. Only when the Olympians (as they had jokingly referred to themselves) had been the reigning force in the Mediterranean basin had she been part of a ruling oligarchy.
Staying back at the hacienda, walking from guest room to guest room and leaving a basket on the doorstep with fresh soap, towels, a package of candy, and the next morning’s agenda had been more to her liking. And had her absence been much of a loss? No one would have talked freely around her. Certainly Jonathan Wong has reported anything significant to Arthur.
During her rounds the evening before, she had sneaked periodic glances out the windows, trying to see what the Changer was about, but had learned nothing. All she knows is that this morning the gardens look untouched—not as if they had just been host to dozens of wandering conventioneers.
When the meeting begins, Isidro Robelo is recognized first, but his speech is hardly more than a rehash of the previous day’s arguments. Vera hides a little smile, noting that Isidro is losing some of his audience and offending those who are not already of his party with his assumption that they will be swayed by mere repetition. Good.
Her gaze drifts to where the Changer leans against the doorframe. His eyes are mostly closed, his chin against his chest. To any who look his way, he may seem asleep. She wonders if this is so; the ancient cares little for athanor politics. Then Louhi is recognized. At her first words, Vera sees the Changer’s eyes open.
“Eve’s unwashed children,” Louhi says in her cool, precise tones. “In the part of the world where I currently dwell, that is the story they use to explain what they call the huldre folk— the hidden ones.
“I don’t know that tale,” Dakar says, his voice gruff and deeper than usual. He’s never been able to hold his liquor.
“Eve was washing her babies when God came to visit,” Louhi says, as if recounting history. “She hid the children she hadn’t tidied up yet. When God asked if he had seen all her children, she insisted that he had. God asked again. When Eve continued to insist that the tidy children were her entire family, God said: ‘Very well. Those you have claimed will be seen by all, but those you have hidden will remain hidden.’”
Lil Prima’s husky voice is heard commenting softly, “Eve always was a dumb bitch.”
Louhi continues as if there had been no interruption. “I wonder if Arthur considers us Eve’s unwashed children—a disgrace to be hidden from the world. We have called ourselves by all manner of proud names: Aesir, Olympians, Illuminati, but truly, who is more a huldre folk than ourselves?”
Laughter, sarcastic comments, beginnings of argument, shouts to be recognized break out as Louhi finishes. Arthur lets chaos dominate for a moment, then gavels for order.
“Silence! Silence!”
The roar ebbs to a dull hum. Arthur points the handle of his gavel at Jonathan Wong, ignoring mutters of favoritism.
“Jonathan, you are recognized.”
The portly Chinese rises and faces the assembled company. “Louhi has made a fascinating point. However, I wish to remind her that the days when a Sargon or Moses or Momotaro simply could claim to have been found in a basket as a child are gone.”
A deep voice rumbles from the back of the room: “Sargon the mighty king of Akkad, am I. My mother was lowly, my father I knew not. The brother of my father dwelt in the mountains. My city is Agade, which lieth on the bank of the Euphrates.”
Even the murmuring stops then. The speaker, who quietly farms rice in Korea, rises and bows in Jonathan Wong’s direction. “It was easier then,” he says, and takes his seat again.
Next Arthur recognizes Lil Prima.
“I agree with both Louhi and Jonathan,” she says, her small smile acknowledging that she is aware of the apparent contradiction in her position. “We are the hidden folk, but we are hidden for a reason. Today, most nations record even a foundling. Also none of us are children. Even those who can shapeshift have better things to do than put in a twenty-year apprenticeship for the sake of an identity. Thank God (or whoever) for war and natural disaster! Without them, we would be in a great deal of trouble.”
“Why must we hide at all!” shouts someone from the safe anonymity of the crowd.
The orderly meeting dissolves into argument. Frustrated, Arthur hammers for quiet, then orders an adjournment. People flow from the room like the ebb of waters before a tsunami.
The South American contingent desperately try to get attention returned to their pet issues. Others are insisting that neither issue is as important as the matters raised in the seminars scheduled for the afternoon. Dakar and Katsuhiro are shaking fists at each other, blocking one doorway until the Smith, with calm disregard for his own safety, shoves them through.
Vera glances about, hoping to find the Changer. To her surprise, he strolls to stand beside her.
“More trouble than for many years,” he says, surveying the almost empty room. “I wonder, could this somehow be connected to that event which first brought me here?”
His cryptic phrasing puzzles her only for a moment. Seeing her about to speak, he lays a finger against her lips.
“Enough said. Perhaps too much. I refuse to take sides in mere government, but if this is something more…”
She feels his growl, is too aware of the warmth of the strong finger against her lips.
“I will not speak to Arthur,” the Changer says, removing his finger. “You, though, I can speak to unofficially and know that the words will go where they should be heard. Yes?”
“Yes, of course.”
Her voice catches slightly, but she doesn’t think the Changer notices.
“I will be back for the next portion of the meeting,” he says. “Thank you.”
As he leaves, she sees that he is already loosening his shirt. Shapeshifting, then. Spying almost certainly. She feels a momentary regret that he no longer strips in public.
Fear that he is missing something crucial gives the Changer speed. He almost runs down the corridor to his room, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes. When he enters the room, Shahrazad pounces on him, whimpering her happiness that he has returned.
“I can’t stay, little one,” he says in English, “and you cannot come with me unless you grow wings and fly.”
She does not understand, nor did he expect her to do so.
Frolicking, she tugs at the cuff of his jeans as he pulls them off, seizes one of his socks and vigorously “kills” it. Doubtless she associates his removing clothing with his shifting into a shape that will play with her. He regrets that he must disappoint her.
He is about to shift into the form of a common garden sparrow when he notices that Shahrazad has spilled her water dish. Picking the dish up, he unlocks the bathroom door. He may begrudge the time, but in this arid climate he cannot responsibly leave her without water.
As he turns the tap, he feels a sharp pain. Looking at his hand, he sees blood running from two of his fingers and the thumb. A quick shift closes the wound and, after setting down Shahrazad’s dish, he searches for what has cut him.
Behind the cold water tap, he finds
a piece of clear glass, wedged into place and nearly invisible. The tumbler, he notices now, is a different one than the one that had been there that morning. Perhaps Sven broke it and missed this one piece. He might even have swept the shard into its new harbor when wiping up the mess. The angle is consistent with such a scenario.
The Changer does not spare much thought for the accident, but drops the glass shard into the trash can before locking the door. When he glances out into the corridor it is empty. Stepping nude out into the hall, he closes the door firmly behind him and slips the key onto the slight shelf created by the molding around the door. It is not the best hiding place, but it must do. So prepared, he shifts shape into a sparrow.
There is the chance that someone will scent him, but he plans to keep upwind of anyone he is eavesdropping upon. He flies down the hall, through the open door into the courtyard, and into the sky above. Much precious time has been lost, but he still hopes to learn something that will lead him to his enemy.
In the angry tumult that disrupts the meeting, Louhi hurries into the kitchen and up the steps to the residential areas. During her conversation with Lovern the night before she had ascertained which room was his. Now, her heart pounding, her imagination fluttering with various excuses she could make to explain her presence in this area, she moves quickly, but without apparent stealth toward Lovern’s room.
When she arrives on the appropriate corridor, the doors to all four suites are closed. She has seen both Arthur and Eddie downstairs, but there is a chance that one of them—or Anson— might dash up for something during this unexpected break.
Standing before Lovern’s closed door, she focuses her astral sight. A faint aura, rainbow-hued, its power contained into such a narrow band that a less sophisticated practitioner might believe there was no ward at all, gleams along the door, crisscrossing it lightly at the panels.
She frowns. Were Lovern not in the hacienda, she might try working her way through the ward, but this close he is certain to sense any meddling. The Head must wait in his isolation a bit longer. Her desire had been less to gain actual entry than to see what awaited her.
Balked, but not defeated, she returns to the stair by which she had ascended. When she reaches the kitchen, she listens, but doesn’t hear anyone within. However, when she steps out, the room is not completely empty. Vera stands filling a basin with water, her expression thoughtful. She turns as Louhi enters.
“Good morning,” the sorceress says boldly. “Can you tell me which is Jonathan Wong’s room? I want to leave him a note.”
Vera is not convinced, but she answers politely. “He’s in A-4, but you can’t leave him a note short of tacking it on the door. The rooms are locked and the doors fit too snugly.”
“Ah,” Louhi nods solemnly. “Than perhaps I shall slip it into his pocket. Thank you so much.”
She exits. Vera watches her leave and wonders what Louhi was really doing upstairs. She doubts that she could find out and, glancing at a clock, sees that the intermission is over.
Outside the window, a sparrow flits by.
The morning session continues with a return to the South American contingent’s proposal. By the lunch recess, much has been discussed, but nothing resolved. There have also been two fistfights, a broken chair, and a great deal of shouting.
“You would think,” Eddie says to Arthur as they adjourn to the King’s office for sandwiches and cola, “given our ages we would be less fractious.”
“Why?” Arthur says wearily. “We are all accustomed to influence within our daily spheres. Even those with no fixed address, like the Vagrant, have resources beyond the folk they encounter in their daily routine. Such confidence breeds arrogance, and arrogance does not make for quiet cooperation.”
“True.”
“Now, let’s review the order of the afternoon seminars. How did the sign-ups go?”
After promising to meet Amphitrite and a tengu for lunch out in the garden, Sven excuses himself and heads back to his bedroom to see if his little trap caught anything. Unlocking his door, he checks a few routine indicators and is satisfied that the room has not been entered in his absence. Then he opens the bathroom door.
The glass shard is gone from where he had so artfully secreted it. When he fishes it from the trash, a pale pink trace marrs its clear edges. Not enough blood to do him any good, but proof that someone—presumably the Changer—was cut.
The ivory porcelain of the sink is unstained by blood and he curses softly. All is not yet lost. Opening the cabinet under the sink, he finds a small bucket tucked behind the extra washcloths and rolls of toilet tissue.
Rinsing the bucket in the tub, he unscrews the trap in the sink’s piping. A flow of reddish water, slightly foaming from soapy residue, rewards him. The blood has been diluted, but perhaps it will be enough for Louhi to work her spell.
Setting the bucket carefully aside, he reassembles the trap. After washing his hands, he pours the bloody water into a wide-mouthed jar he had brought along for the purpose.
The room does not have a refrigerator, but there is an ice bucket which he fills from the bin in the courtyard. Once his prize is cooling, he glances at his watch. Still enough time to make his lunch date. He can get the bottle to Louhi tonight. Locking the door behind him, he strides down the hall.
The afternoon sessions are calmer than the morning’s for two reasons: They are smaller and the topics are preassigned. From meeting rooms a dull buzz of voices, sometimes raised in question and answer, can be heard. The hacienda might be a small college. For now, the morning’s arguments have been put aside.
Hanging by his hair above the gold, hexagonal box, the Head strains to hear what is going on in the world without.
Even this much freedom had been difficult to gain. Only the threat of absolute silence had won him this concession.
True, without complete immersion in the sustaining ichor, Mimir’s Head is more vulnerable to the vagaries of the world without, but Lovern has rigged a field of sorts to keep away insects. A humidifier helps compensate for the dry air, and the Head feels that chapped lips and tired eyes are a fair trade for the sound of voices and birdsong. Even his pulled-upon scalp has ceased to ache.
Moreover, his gaze can wander about Lovern’s room. He has yet to grow weary of color, light, motion, shadows, and the little details of daily life. He reads the titles of books on shelves, sees for the first time amulets and enchanted gewgaws he had helped to design, and his ambition to be free swells.
Once he hears a set of light footsteps pause outside of Lovern’s door. However, no effort is made to open that door, and he is left to wonder if one of his associates had attempted to visit him. Perhaps the sound had just been Vera dropping off paperwork or one of the guests gone astray while searching for a specific room. No matter, even the conjecture is a pleasant change from the monotony of his dark, cold, aquatic prison.
The Head swings slightly in the breeze from a window he had asked Lovern to leave ajar. He imagines that he is walking, and his grotesque mouth twists in a smile.
The Lustrum Review stretches on for a week. By the end of it, all around, tempers have gone from fervent to thin and frazzled to merely exhausted.
In Vera’s room, Amphitrite sprawls on the bed. Vera sits next to her, rubbing moisturizing cream into the Sea Queen’s suntanned skin.
“I can’t believe you can live in this climate,” Amphitrite says. “The air is so impossibly dry.”
“New Mexico is arid,” Vera admits, “a land of wind and sunlight rather than of humidity.”
“I’ve been invited to visit South America and see these rain forests. Do you think I should go?”
“You might find the heat as extreme a burden as the dryness,” Vera says honestly, “but you wouldn’t need to worry about dry skin.”
“I wonder. I would like to see more of the land than just this Albuquerque, but I miss my husband.”
“Judging from the rash of spontaneous deep-sea storms,” Vera chuckl
es, “he misses you, too. The human meteorologists are even more confused than usual.”
“Can you put some more cream on the area between my shoulder blades?” In a more thoughtful tone, Amphitrite continues, “I forget that humans can now see even what goes on in the vastness of the ocean surface.”
“Not in the depths,” Vera agrees, “not yet, but on the surface. Weather satellites, military satellites, broadcast satellites… Not much on the Earth’s surface cannot be seen. Fortunately, much that is seen is still not understood.”
“Yet Arthur believes that we can hide in plain sight.”
“We have thus far.”
“There have been more advances in human technology in the last two hundred years than in all the time before.”
“That, of course, is a matter of debate.” Vera grins impishly. “As we have heard over and over again this last week.”
“Especially over the meaning of the term ‘advance,’” Amphitrite agrees. “Leaving that aside, humans can see more, record more, analyze more, communicate more swiftly and over longer distances than ever before.”
“And so can we,” Vera reminds her. “These abilities once were the provenance of the rare wizards among us. Now they can be possessed by any of our people.”
“As long as they have money.”
“True. I suspect that Arthur views the good of the whole as sufficient reason to supply those who cannot purchase what they need for themselves.”
“‘Good’ being defined as keeping our existence secret.”
Vera snaps the top closed on the moisturizer bottle. “Yes. As we both know.”
“And have heard debated over and over.” Amphitrite squeezes the other woman’s hand apologetically. “I am sorry. I wasn’t challenging you. I simply… I miss having Duppy Jonah to talk with about such things. Telephone calls are not the same.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Rolling onto her stomach, Amphitrite cradles her face in her hands. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”
Changer (Athanor) Page 25