Changer's Daughter

by Jane Lindskold

  It is the taste of the power that flows within her, but now that power is seasoned and spiced by the emotion that roused it.

  The first time Shahrazad had raised the power, she had been furious, but her anger had been righteous in that she was angry that those who had harmed ones she loved should go free with so little penalty.

  The second time, her anger had been anger not only that Louhi should escape, but that Shahrazad herself could do so little. Then her power had shown her how she could do something, how she could change herself and pursue the fugitive.

  This time, however, the anger is spiced with pride. Shahrazad is angry not that Louhi should go unpunished—for certainly spending time as a mouse is punishment—but that any but she should dare alleviate that punishment.

  Shahrazad’s haunches hit the floor with an ungraceful thump as she recognizes that the bitterness that chokes her is loathing for herself... no, not precisely for herself, but for what she is becoming. Each time she has grown angry, her power has been easier to tap. Soon she will only be able to tap it through anger. Therefore, she will find more excuses to be angry.

  Yet, the temptation to learn to use the power easily, to have no more barriers... Even as Shahrazad contemplates this, the bitterness in her mouth becomes somehow succulent.

  In her mind’s eye she sees herself, free of fear, free of weakness, free to use her great potential. She is as big as a wolf or griffin, sparks fly from her fur, and when others speak to her their voices drop in deference and respect.

  But does she want this? Shahrazad isn’t at all certain. She remembers those she has best loved, most admired. Anson the Spider, with his ready laugh and tickling hands. Gentle Frank, who speaks to rabbit and wolf as if both are worthy of his attention. The Changer, who, though powerful, is like a great pool of water, sustaining as well as potentially annihilating. Hip and Hop, who romp with her.

  Were she to become the anger-power she envisions, all of these would be cut off from her. She would be more like those she does not admire. Lovern, so confident in his power yet so occupied with making everyone know he is important. Lilith, who can only love as she destroys. Cold Louhi. All of these have power and all of these have traded something of their souls to gain it.

  Shahrazad crouches on the floor, thinking harder than she has ever thought in the many months of her life. Coming to a decision, she raises her nose to the ceiling and howls.

  The talking stops (and a small part of her mind views this as a great improvement). Eyes in many faces turn to look at her. Wagging her bushy tail, Shahrazad trots to the front of the room. When she faces the audience, she is smiling.

  Aduke is amazed at how efficiently Oya and Eddie have arranged to have the Grove of the Gods cleared in anticipation of Shango’s meeting with his fellow athanor. A few words to the Grove’s keepers, a liberal distribution of naira, and both inner and outer Grove is are emptied of those who had come to worship, sacrifice, or consult the diviners.

  The keepers lock the gates around the inner Grove and promise to patrol the unfenced perimeter of the outer garden, letting through only those who are on the short list that Oya recites for them.

  There will be those who slip past the keepers, of course, drawn by rumors that something odd is happening in the sacred precincts, but this has been anticipated. One reason the Grove has been chosen as a meeting place is because several of the athanor fear what they evasively refer to as “anomalies.” Within the Grove, anomaly will be translated to “miracle” on the lips of any unwanted observers.

  Looking high to where she can see the swirling curtain of the wind, Aduke wonders what would seem anomalous to her any longer. So much has changed these last weeks. Once again, she touches inside herself, probing the place in her soul where Taiwo should be. There is nothing, not even the dull throbbing sensation of loss that has replaced her sharpest grief over Baby’s death. She doesn’t even feel betrayed.

  Oya’s voice interrupts Aduke’s reverie just as the human is trying to decide whether her numbness is a sign of shock or not.

  “The Changer!” the wisewoman says, hastening to unlock the gate. “Are they coming?”

  The strange white man pulls his long black hair out of his robe as if he had just donned the garment a moment before coming to the Grove. Aduke wonders if he just might have.

  “Anson says they are,” the deep gravelly voice answers. “I have told Katsuhiro and Dakar that it’s unlikely they will need to break the Spider out of Shango’s keeping, and so they should arrive here shortly.”

  “Good. Did you study Shango?”

  “I didn’t even try.”

  “Ah.” Oya shrugs. “I was wondering how far he is going to have to be pushed.”

  The Changer mirrors her shrug. “Anson was in there some time. Either Shango is very confident or very nervous.”

  Eddie comes to join them, giving Aduke a faint smile by way of greeting. “We are set then?”

  “As set as we can be,” Oya answers. “I hate leaving this to Katsuhiro’s best judgment—he is known neither for diplomacy nor balance.”

  “But he is clever,” Eddie reminds her, “and if we did not give him this opportunity to gain some redress for the wrongs Shango has done him, there would most certainly be a vendetta, if not a full blood feud.”

  “They are here,” the Changer says quietly.

  Aduke hastens over to unlock the gate for Katsuhiro and Dakar. (How had she not seen the Changer arrive? The surrounding bush offers only slight cover). Excitement ripples from the two warriors as they enter the Grove. Aduke feels it, like the pull of static electricity. Katsuhiro even seems to shed sparks.

  “At last!” he says. “Did you bring my hakama and gi?”

  “They’re in the keeper’s office,” Eddie answers. “Don’t yell at me if I didn’t set the stuff out in the right order. It’s been a long time since I worried about the formalities of kenjitsu.”

  Another of those small mysteries, Aduke thinks. Oya’s associates are revealing more and more of themselves now that they trust her.

  Last night the Changer had gone out, returning late with a sizable portion of both Taiwo and Katsuhiro’s luggage. Aduke had helped carry the bundles down from the roof, determinedly not asking either how the Changer had gotten into Regis’s guarded compound to obtain it or why had he brought it to the roof instead of through the door on the ground floor.

  Doubtless another one of those “anomalies.”

  Katsuhiro is emerging from the diviner’s shelter dressed in a black-and-white outfit like something out of a kung-fu movie when Aduke hears the crunch of footsteps on the gravel path leading into the Grove’s main entrance.

  “Oya,” she calls softly, “they are here.”

  “Let them in, child,” Oya replies, then she crosses to where she can speak to Aduke in a whisper. “And you may wish to take this opportunity to depart yourself.”

  Aduke, working the great key in the iron lock, makes a puzzled sound. “Now?”

  “This will be more than summoning the wind,” Oya says. “After this, moving backwards into innocence may only be done at a great sacrifice.”

  “I have no innocence,” Aduke replies, “no longer. He”—she indicates Katsuhiro with a toss of her head—“challenges the one you call Shango, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Shango is among those who tempted Taiwo, so in a sense Katsuhiro fights to avenge me. I wish to see that fight.”

  “It will not be what you expect.”

  “How do you know?” Aduke grins at her strange mentor, suddenly feeling light-headed, as if she has drunk too much palm wine. “I have great expectations, for both of them.”

  Oya chuckles and shakes her head. “Stay, then. You have helped summon the wind, after all.”

  Aduke nods firmly. “I have indeed. Now, I think I shall see the lightning flash and hear the thunder’s complaint.”

  As she is swinging the gate shut and refastening the lock, Aduke thinks she sees
motion off to one side of the path between the inner garden and the outer. She watches carefully for a long moment, but sees nothing and the byplay unfolding in the central plaza is far more interesting than nothing.

  There beneath the gazes of the long-headed stone carvings of the great Yoruba gods, Katsuhiro is confronting Shango. The Minister for Electricity of the city of Monamona looks so very tired, so very vulnerable that Aduke thinks that these athanor must be mistaken, he cannot be one of their own.

  “You have taken liberties with me, Shango,” Katsuhiro says, apparently not at all uncertain who he faces, “and my honor demands satisfaction.”

  “If you want an apology,” Shango says meekly, “you have it. I’m sorry I had you kidnapped, terribly sorry. Look what it has brought me!”

  He gestures, and his gesture encompasses not only himself but the situation around them, even the wind wall surrounding the city, and the troops dispersed around the perimeter.

  “I am very sorry,” Shango repeats. “I had been convinced”— he glowers at Regis—“that I had the means to coerce you, and that coercion was the best way to get you to understand my way of thinking.”

  He shrugs. “I was wrong. I should have waited until you would have had no choice but to do things my way, but I grew impatient, and the money from the oil sales would have made things easier.”

  As Shango speaks, he grows cockier, until he flings off the last—and all the deaths and sorrows attendant upon it—as if everything had been nothing more than a prank.

  Aduke, who had to that point been rather awed by his titles—both governmental and deific—now begins to rather dislike him. Katsuhiro seems equally unimpressed.

  “That isn’t much of an apology,” he observes dryly.

  Shango spreads his hands. “It’s the best I have.”

  “You have bent—if not broken—the laws of our Accord.”

  “How?”

  “You have involved yourself in the lives of nonathanor in a fashion that endangered our secret.”

  “I’d enjoy a chance to discuss that in front of a jury of our peers,” Shango says, with the air of one who has already considered this point. “With some of the recent adjustments to the Accord I think I could make some persuasive arguments.” He looks falsely modest. “Like our Vera, I have been known for my sense of justice.”

  “Don’t,” rumbles Dakar, “get confused with your own myth. Oaths are sworn on iron.”

  Shango raises a brow. “Now who is getting confused with his own myth, brother?”

  To Aduke’s surprise, Dakar, does not lose his temper or bellow. All he does is glance first at Anson, then at Shango.

  They have something in mind they’re not talking about, she thinks and a glance at Oya confirms this guess, for Oya looks expectant, not concerned.

  Katsuhiro steps forward a pace as a reminder that he, not Dakar, is the one Shango needs to be concerned with.

  “Shango, don’t fool yourself. Whatever the recent modification to the Accord, your releasing smallpox to fight for you will disgust most of our kin.”

  “I,” Shango says haughtily, “was not the one to first release smallpox. In fact, you should be grateful to me. When I initially encountered Regis, he planned to seed the disease in all the major cities—starting with Lagos. I convinced him to restrict his base of operations to Monamona.”

  “You could,” Katsuhiro says hotly, “have stopped him.”

  “I had the greater good of my people in mind,” Shango answers. “A few deaths here would have meant great benefits for the survivors throughout the country. Generals throughout history have been praised for similar decisions.”

  “With the fires of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in my eyes,” Katsuhiro answers, his level tone more furious than his outspoken anger of a moment before, “I am the wrong person to offer that argument.”

  Shango smiles nastily. “But all athanor are not Japanese.”

  Katsuhiro glowers. “I have no wish to wait for my satisfaction until we can drag you before Arthur.”

  “That dragging might be a bit difficult, wouldn’t it?” Shango replies with a toss of his curls. “Given that Arthur is in New Mexico and we are here.”

  “Details have been worked out,” Katsuhiro answers with a glance toward the Changer. “But I have an alternative for you.”

  “I’ll listen,” Shango says, suddenly serious. Apparently he, too, respects the Changer.

  “Since, like you, I am a member of the Accord,” Katsuhiro continues, “if you appeal to its justice, I must permit you to go before its tribunal or be in violation myself.”

  “True.”

  “And, as I have said, we have made arrangements to get you to Arthur, far more rapidly than you might imagine.”

  “There’s also,” Eddie adds, “the possibility that a panel of judges could be sent here. Then you must come before them or invalidate your own request. So don’t think that escaping from us would relieve you from your responsibility.”

  Shango nods stiffly. “I am not newborn.”

  “Ah,” Eddie says, rubbing the stubble of his beard, “but as you yourself said, there have been recent alterations to the Accord. I didn’t want to you think this had also been changed.”

  Shango nods, but his gaze has already drifted from Eddie back to where Katsuhiro stands.

  “And your alternate offer?”

  “A duel, not to the death, simply to my satisfaction. The Accord does not smile upon athanor who deprive Harmony of one of our kind, and we have taken losses enough of late.”

  “I would take a terrible risk if I dueled with you,” Shango says, but Aduke notes that he glances toward a raincoat-wrapped bundle on the ground.

  “Would you?” Katsuhiro replies. “We have ample witnesses. They could make certain that my just wrath does not rob you of your life.”

  “But you are a warrior; you have always been a warrior. I”—Shango affects humility—“have lately been naught but an administrator and politician.”

  Aduke is not at all surprised to hear Anson chuckle. The rest of them look quite serious, especially Regis, who is in the uncomfortable position of finding that his protector is quite prepared to reject him.

  “You have the advantage in that we are on your land,” Katsuhiro says calmly. “Other than what weapons we use, our talents are similar.”

  Shango shakes his head in self-deprecation, but Aduke is certain that no one misses the light that flashes in his eyes as he nonchalantly fingers the earrings in his right ear.

  “What would be to your satisfaction?” Shango asks.

  “Hold your own against me for five minutes,” Katsuhiro replies promptly. “If I win, you agree to take part in a proposal that will be put to you. If you serve us well, I will consider myself recompensed for my suffering. If you win, you are released from any obligation to me for the kidnapping. You may still listen to the proposal, but you are not obligated.”

  “That’s it?” Shango sounds surprised.

  “I,” Katsuhiro says smugly, “do not expect to lose, and I firmly expect to make you suffer greatly during those five minutes. Just because I do not plan to kill you doesn’t mean that I will not hurt you.”

  “I have heard legends,” Shango frowns, “that wounds caused by Kusanagi’s blade cannot be healed other than by magic.”

  “That isn’t true,” Katsuhiro replies, “but since you raise the question, why don’t we agree to live with our scars as a reminder for fifty years or so?”

  Shango looks genuinely nervous yet strangely tempted. Aduke wonders at the source of this temptation until she realizes that he is envisioning half a century of bragging rights for scarring the Japanese warrior.

  “Let me consider,” Shango says slowly. “A proposal is one thing, but you’ve just raised the stakes.”

  “So you expect to lose?” Katsuhiro taunts. “Then let us appeal to the Accord. Somehow, I don’t expect you to escape with just a few scratches when they are done with you.”

&nb
sp; “Let me consider,” Shango repeats.

  “You have five minutes, no more.”

  After three minutes, during which he speaks to no one, not even to Regis, who seems rather put out at this slight, Shango turns to his accuser.

  “Can I name the master of the lists?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dakar then.”

  Aduke, recalling the apparent rivalry between Dakar and Katsuhiro, suspects that Shango seeks to annoy Katsuhiro, but the Japanese only nods and says:

  “Just the man I would have chosen myself. Let Eddie be the timekeeper.”

  “I agree—to Eddie as timekeeper and to your offered duel. Let the other Accord members stand witness.”

  There are muttered agreements from all but the Changer. Once again, Aduke fleetingly wonders just what his relationship is to the others. Then Oya summons her to help mark the lists.

  As they do so, Katsuhiro recites the terms of the duel: “There are to be no seconds. We may use any weapon that we can lay hands on. The purpose is to defeat the other without killing him. If the master of the lists thinks that either duelist has lost control, he may halt the duel for the purpose of permitting that one to regain his balance.”

  “If the duel is halted,” Shango asks, “will it recommence from that point or from the start of the five minutes?”

  “From that point,” Katsuhiro says, “but don’t think of this as a way to chop the duel into small segments with rests in between. We will swear on Dakar’s iron, thus he will have no trouble telling feigned fury from genuine.”

  “Very well,” Shango says.

  “Wait!” Regis steps from where he has been standing to the side, growing increasingly nervous. “What about me?”

  “You?” Katsuhiro glances at him, then at Shango. “You are just Shango’s tool.”

  “But I was the one who kidnapped you. I was the one who held you prisoner.” Regis seems frantic for recognition, or perhaps he is simply terrified about his fate if his protector loses the duel. “What happens to me? Will you challenge me next?”