“Dig in, boys!,” he says. “Then I’ll take you out to the ball game. You’ve done a good job for me.”
Better, he adds silently to himself, than you may ever know.
“I,” Vera states happily, poling the raft along, “am one solid mass of mosquito bites.”
Amphitrite stares at her from where she is kneeling at the bow of the raft, spear in hand. “Remind me to invite you to visit. I’ve some Portuguese man-o’-wars you’d just love.”
“I’m just feeling lucky,” Vera says. “I was feeling miserable, then I remembered that I am immune to malaria and a host of other diseases that a mosquito bite can transmit. What could be a death sentence for even a native of this region is nothing but a source of discomfort for me.”
“I’m beginning,” Amphitrite says, choking out the words between bouts of laughter, “to understand how you got your reputation for wisdom.”
Vera shakes back her tangled hair. Unlike Amphitrite’s, it hadn’t been long enough to braid, but she’s tied it under a strip of cloth torn from the hem of her shirt.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Pollyanna, but there’s something about being on edge that makes me appreciative.”
“I keep going by imagining what I’ll do to those three when I get my hands on them,” Amphitrite says with soft menace.
“That’s it?”
“Well, sometimes I imagine how they’d feel if Duppy Jonah gets to them first. When I want variety, I imagine the looks on their smug faces if they go back to that grove where they stranded us and find us gone.”
Vera nods and wipes her forehead with a grubby arm. “I’ve thought of that too. The great thing about the forest canopy is that if we stay near the riverbanks, we’re invisible from above.”
“That does make it easier for the ants,” Amphitrite says, scratching one thigh vigorously.
“True. How’s the fishing going?”
“I scared a pirarucú off when I started laughing.”
“Want me to be quiet?”
“Probably be best. Still, that one was a bit big for just the two of us.”
“I don’t know. I’m as hungry as a shapeshifter.”
“I’d guess it was at least a hundred and fifty pounds.”
“That is a bit big. Do you have the spear line anchored?”
“Yep. Wish I could handle a bow like you can.”
“Wish I could make something with a bit more pull. It’s hard without seasoned wood and sinew.”
“Yeah.”
“Still, I could try to get us a monkey.”
“Not yet. I can’t stand the accusing look in their eyes.”
“Nothing likes to die.”
“Fish don’t look the same,” Amphitrite says, “or maybe I’m just used to killing them.”
“I don’t mind eating fish.”
They fall into easy silence. During the day and a half that they have guided the Pororoca down the Amazon, there have been many of these silences and as many bouts of conversation. Despite their shared heritage, they have been enough separated by environment to be strangers.
Vera finds Amphitrite’s naïveté regarding life on land fascinating; the Sea Queen is touched by Vera’s almost human point of view on many issues. One bound by human shape, the other a shapeshifter currently clinging to a shape alien to her experience, they would enjoy their voyage if the circumstances were not so dire.
This near to the equator, daylight is not the limiting factor on their traveling, but even athanor grow weary, especially two immortals guiding a raft hour after hour.
Coming beneath the protecting shadow of a broad-leafed tropical tree, unknown to both of them, except that they do not find it listed among those plants that they are to avoid, they haul the Pororoca close to the bank.
As they did the night before, they will sleep with the raft roped to the shore, letting it drift from the bank once darkness provides cover. While there is still daylight, they need to forage for fruit, firewood, and take care of other necessities.
“I wonder how far we have come?” Vera says.
“What does it matter when we have no idea far we must go?” Amphitrite asks reasonably. “O Rio Mar is four thousand miles long.”
“At least we didn’t start in the Andes,” Vera says. “Certainly we don’t have more than a few hundred miles to go.”
“If we aren’t in a tributary,” Amphitrite says. “There are times I wonder if we should even think about progress—only about staying alive.”
“And I’m the wise one?” Vera smiles fondly. “You’re right, of course. For now, we’re alive. Let’s forage.”
They carry their irreplaceable valuables with them. With these they can protect themselves if the need to make another Pororoca arises.
Later, richer by various pieces of fruit, some dubious nuts, and, best of all, some reasonably dry wood, they trudge back to the Pororoca. Ever distrustful of ants, they kindle the fire aboard, insulating the deck with a thick pad of wet mud and leaves. Amphitrite has speared a smaller pirarucú that they cut into chunks and cook impaled on green sticks.
“Hey! It’s Fourth of July.” Vera laughs self-consciously. “All over the United States, campers are roasting hot dogs over campfires. I wonder what they’d think of our repast?”
“Exotic tropical fish and fruit?” Amphitrite says. “They’d envy us, of course.”
“Of course.”
“At least the smoke keeps the mosquitos away.”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder if anyone is looking for us?”
“Sure they are.”
The fish sizzles over the fire. In the jungle, a monkey shrieks an unintelligible protest. Something large slips into the river, drawn by the smell of cooking, frustrated by the unfamiliar raft. Ants troop mechanically down the tie rope, knowing only that something edible is in that direction.
Duppy Jonah emerges from the waters near the isolated tupa wherein Louhi dwells. Huge and vaguely human in form, he has taken the shape by which Finns in ancient times had known him, the Great Durag, the monstrous, often capricious King of the Sea.
He has sent his calling card before him, a rumbling herd of the white-maned horses of the sea, waves that froth against the pebbled shore and make sounds like the rattling of dead men’s bones on All Hallows’ Night.
And Louhi is strolling the shore, her pale hair and white skin seeming as if the fog that crowds the shore has taken a mind to grow flesh and blood.
“Greetings, Great Durag,” she says, her voice tinkling with laughter, a brittle sound like crackling icicles. “Welcome to these empty shores.”
“You have knowledge I desire,” he says gruffly.
“Ka! Why am I not surprised?” she answers. “Perhaps because we do not call upon each other with any frequency? Perhaps it is because your Amphitrite is missing?”
“How do you know?”
“What type of sorceress would I be,” she says in tones light and mocking, “if I could not learn of such momentous events?”
Actually, her source is the Head. Although it had been affected by Oswaldo’s weakening of Lovern, it has not been as severely debilitated as it had claimed.
“Don’t you agree that I am powerful?” she purrs. “Now, what do you wish of me?”
“I have claimed Lovern as hostage until my queen is returned,” Duppy Jonah replies. “You alone of all our people have held him prisoner. Tell me what I must do to keep him.”
“You do not think he will honor his duty to his King?” Louhi says coolly. “Ka! Perhaps he will not. His honor is a flexible thing. What payment do you offer me for my knowledge?”
“Pearls, gold, diamonds, jewels of all sorts are mine to give,” Duppy Jonah answers, casting a chaplet of pink pearls and gold wire at her feet. “I also can retrieve many things that the sea has claimed. Would you have statuary from Thera? Incan gold from Atahualpa’s ransom? Temple archways carved of porphyry and jet retrieved from island kingdoms lost to the memories of hu
mankind?”
“I live a simple life,” Louhi says, gesturing back at the tupa. “Where would I put a grand statue? How in this modern world would I explain a sudden fortune? My situation for this identity is a simple one.”
“There are ways to do this thing,” Duppy Jonah says impatiently. “If you do not covet a fortune now, let it be put by for a future life where you may not choose to live so simply.”
Louhi picks the chaplet from the sand and caresses its delicate weaving, spinning the pearls between her fingertips.
“A pretty thing, this,” she says. “I am not foolish enough to tempt the wrath of the Great Durag, especially when his kultani has been taken from him. First, let me tell you that the spell by which I once held Merlin prisoner will do you no good in this circumstance.”
She raises a slim hand when the waves begins to stir angrily. “The spell takes time to cast, more time to gather the elements needed for the weaving. You need something that will work quickly.”
“I have servants all over the seas and some free to travel the land,” Duppy Jonah protests, his tone a low roar. “Anything I desire can be collected within hours.”
“Yes, but some must be gathered only under certain circumstances,” Louhi says. “Dew from the cup of a saffron crocus on a morning when the moon is waning. A feather from the tail of a blue jay that has just sung its first spring carol. Water melted from snow gathered in Stonehenge on midwinter’s night. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Still, there are other, less complicated ways to incapacitate a wizard. If I teach you some of these, I will demand a great price, for I am teaching you things that might be used against me in turn.”
“Ah…” The sound is the groan of waves pulling back from the shore when the tide is ebbing. “I may know of these ways,” Duppy Jonah says guardedly. “I am as old as the seas.”
“Then we are at an impasse. I will not offer my knowledge without a promise of a price paid, and you do not wish to promise to pay without knowing what the wares will be.”
“Precisely.”
They study each other. Somehow, the slim figure standing on the shore is the stronger, for Duppy Jonah concedes first.
“I will give no blanket promise of service,” he says. “I am no fool. Nor will I promise any of my get or of my wife’s getting for your taking.”
“Would you promise inaction?” Louhi asks. “Promise that one time of my choosing you will not interfere, even if called on by Arthur himself?”
Duppy Jonah frowns, beetling brows of dank seaweed. “I might, but not if my Amphitrite was in danger nor if you were trespassing in the rights that are mine as Sea King. I would not provide you the key to my kingdom.”
“No.” She laughs her icicle laugh. “I did not think that you would.”
“Nor would I promise inaction indefinitely.”
“A year?”
“No. That is too great a time, even for athanor.”
“Half that?”
“I know various ways to imprison a wizard, Louhi, and I do not believe you can breathe water indefinitely. As you commented earlier, my patience has been sorely tried.”
“Ka! Perhaps a day?”
“A day—define it as twenty-four hours in sequence and I will make this pact.”
Louhi pauses to think. “If you add that you would not take revenge for acts done during those twenty-four hours, I agree.”
The waves rumble: “As long as those deeds do not violate the other provisions I have stated, yes, I can agree. I am not such a fool as to think that you would need my inaction if you believed that I would approve of what you might do.”
“You are too clever, Great Durag.”
“Then we have a deal.”
“One where you have gotten the better of me,” she agrees.
Louhi looks hurt, so hurt that Duppy Jonah casts a small, locked box onto the shore near her feet. “It holds a pretty brooch of emeralds and golden topaz. Call it my gift, sorceress. Now, tell me what I wish to know.”
Sitting gracefully on a boulder that has been rounded by the caress of sea and sand, Louhi begins.
“Of course you know that cold iron impedes the use of magic, but what many do not know is that the ingesting of mineral supplements containing nutritional iron can have a similar effect. Essentially, the wizard finds his own blood becomes his enemy. Incidentally, this is why wise sorceresses know (despite male-propagated lore to the contrary) that they are most powerful at the time when their menstrual blood is ebbing…”
She continues speaking, and Duppy Jonah listens, nodding, frowning, smiling, and, at last sinking beneath the waves, satisfied that he will know best how to hold Lovern and how to weaken him so that, if his death becomes necessary, the wizard will not be able to prevent it.
Louhi bends to pick up the bracelet of moonstone and jade that washes onto the shore as Duppy Jonah vanishes. It is a lovely thing, scooped from the bottom of the China Sea. Slipping it onto her wrist, she smiles and bows to the salt spray.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she says.
She waits until she is safely within her tupa to release the triumphant laughter she has caged beneath her breast.
Just shy of dawn’s first light on the fifth of July, while Arthur still sleeps the uneasy sleep of a king who hears the rumbles of war and Sven Trout sleeps the uneasy sleep of one who has eaten far too many ballpark hot dogs, three figures depart the palatial house in Belém.
They drive directly to the small airfield where they keep the airplane Caiman, unaware that clinging to the roof of their all-terrain vehicle is a sturdy capuchin monkey, or that a resplendent red-and-blue-feathered macaw soars over them, pacing their vehicle with preternatural ease.
Cleonice assumes the pilot’s seat, running the small aquaplane through preflight checks. Isidro unlocks the hangar’s bay doors, pushing them back on tracks that cry metallic protest.
Oswaldo stands some distance from all this massed metal; red vegetable dye is brushed on his face in ornate patterns, and a short staff topped with feathers and shells is in his right hand. His feet are bare and he stamps the damp ground at the verges of a runoff channel, muttering strange phrases and frowning at the omens he reads in the jungle sounds.
“We’re going to run into trouble,” he says to Isidro, rinsing off his feet before donning his sandals. “Lots of trouble. I do not see either Vera or Amphitrite; moreover, something dark hovers over the entire picture. I see Death reaching out her long-fingered hands.”
“For whom?” Isidro asks, trying to sound casual and failing.
Seduced by the success of terrorist politics in the human world, Isidro had forgotten that the athanor governed themselves by different rules. Anansi’s hints that they were in danger of being declared outside of Harmony had shaken him so badly that he had neither slept nor eaten since. Now his eyes burn with something far more dangerous than fanaticism—raw terror.
“I can’t tell,” Oswaldo says, “but Death rides with us.”
“Death,” Cleonice says, padding out to them as silently as if she were already in jaguar form, “has always ridden with us. I think the proximity of all this metal has thrown your magic askew, Oswaldo. Or are you like Isidro, too terrified to act?”
“You are insane,” Oswaldo comments calmly.
“Arthur says that we are outside of the Accord and in danger of being declared out of Harmony,” she answers. “What is insanity to that? Come, the Caiman is ready. We will have more concrete answers within a few hours.”
They board the plane, unaware that the vehicle already holds two stowaways. Not wishing to be vulnerable, the Changer has taken the shape of a jaguar.
His hope is that Cleonice will think any trace of the scent is a remnant of her own. Normally, this would be ridiculous risk, but with the odors of gasoline, oil, metal, and human sweat to cover his own, he permits himself hope.
Anson has remained a monkey. Together they crouch in the small cargo area behind th
e last few seats, one fighting an impulse to kill, the other fighting an impulse to flee.
It is not a particularly comfortable ride, and it lasts longer than the stowaways had believed it would. Clearly, the South American contingent had not settled for depositing their prisoners a few miles from Belém but had taken them far inland.
When at last the Caiman splashes to a landing in a broad section of the river, Cleonice motors parallel to the shore.
“I don’t like this,” she says. “No sign of them. We’re going to have to go ashore. Get the raft, Oswaldo.”
Suddenly, the Changer and Anson realize what they have been crouching behind. Anson scrambles under a seat. The Changer shifts into a slender snake, not worrying that it is a type once found only in Asia and now extinct for several thousand years.
“Coming ashore, Cleonice?” Isidro asks.
“Yes.”
“Very well, come along.”
“I don’t,” Cleonice says with a hard-eyed glare, “need your permission.”
Oswaldo raises his hand in a gesture both weary and tense. “Let’s wait to tear each other up until later.”
He hasn’t washed the red dye from his face, and his expression is unfathomably grim. The other two cease their bickering and the raft is readied with experienced efficiency.
When the three rebel athanor are on the water, the Changer slithers to the open door. Slipping into the water, he shifts into a sizable caiman alligator. Then he drifts, waiting for Anson to take his hint and hitch a ride to shore. The monkey does so, chattering nervously. The Changer might be said to be smiling if the long-jawed alligator mouth did not always smile.
Once ashore, Anson takes to the branches. The Changer considers. Given the many shapeshifts he has performed that morning, he is growing quite hungry, but the caiman is not swift on land. Two of his three potential opponents are not shapeshifters; Cleonice, as far as he knows, is restricted to the jaguar form.
Still considering, he creeps forward where he can better hear the rebels’ conversation. They have stopped in a clearing bearing the marks of human habitation, although the rain forest is already effacing those marks beneath vines and new growth.
Changer (Athanor) Page 36