Changer (Athanor) (16 page)

The Changer is not thinking, just flying, enjoying the aerial game of snatching windblown tortilla chips from the dirt of the vacant lot.  There are another half dozen ravens with him, unmated juveniles, all learning to survive before they complicate their lives with responsibility for territory, eggs, and mates.

One young male is a particular clown, a perfect, elegant acrobat, capable of soaring dives and wide-winged recoveries that the Changer would be proud to have mastered.  It is with this one that the Changer falls into competition.

Resisting the urge to reshape his wings for slightly better maneuverability, the Changer targets a large triangular tortilla chip scudding like a sail without a ship beneath the wind’s encouragement.  His playmate targets this one as well, performing a daring barrel roll that permits him to come in just under the Changer’s breast feathers and seize the prize.

The youngling rides the wind higher, his plumage lit with purples and blues by the brilliant sun, his triumphant croak muffled by the tortilla chip grasped in his beak.

Then his breast explodes in a splatter of scarlet, blood splattering wide enough to coat the Changer’s right wing, momentarily crippling his own power of flight.

The shapeshifter loses altitude, thick, clawed legs extended to take the shock of a forced landing.  The young raven’s corpse hits the ground next to him, a few crumbs of tortilla chip still flecking his gaping beak.  Eyes that had been brilliant moments before are dulling now, but the Changer has no time to waste in sorrow.  He must get to safety.

There is not much cover in the open lot over which the ravens had sported—a few scraggly cottonwoods and elms, a low clump of squat junipers and four-wing saltbush, tufts of blue grama and Indian rice grass.  The terrain itself is flat, with only the tiniest dunes sculpted by the winds.

Those winds give the Changer some courage.  What felled the young raven was clearly a rifle, probably nothing more than a twenty-two.  Even an excellent shot would have difficulty bagging a raven taking wing when the winds are strongest.

Long experience has taught him caution against changing shape in the presence of an unknown, a caution that modern technology has only reinforced.  He believes he can achieve safety while remaining a raven and that airborne he has the greatest chance of spotting his foe.

Shapeshifting slightly, just a ripple through the feathers of his right wing, removes enough of the young raven’s blood that he can fly with minimal difficulty.  Waiting for a violent blast of wind, the Changer again takes flight.

Dark wings spread, he lets the gusting air carry him aloft, beating those wings hard to gain the most favorable currents.  His new vantage at first grants him little more than a view of the remaining ravens fleeing from a playground become killing field.  Later they may return to dine on their fellow’s corpse.  Then again, they may not.  An urban raven needs to be more cautious than the norm.

Soaring higher, subconsciously braced for another shot, the Changer scans the ground for sign of his enemy.  A glint shows him the twenty-two, leaned against the trunk of one of the elms.  He is so busy searching for something the size of a human that he nearly misses what comes screeching toward him from above.

It is a golden eagle, a type of bird found in New Mexico, although uncommon near cities.  The Changer has no doubt that it is his enemy, eschewing the rifle for more personal means.

The eagle is larger than the raven, equipped with a wicked hooked beak and curving talons that show the raven’s claws as small and pitiful by comparison.  It is also the stronger flyer, but the raven is the more flexible.

Dodging the eagle’s first dive so closely that he loses a few feathers, the Changer heads for the cover of the scraggly elms.  The eagle pulls up short, soars to gain altitude once more.  Between green gaps in the wind-tossed leaves, the Changer can see it circling in a lazy, energy-conserving fashion that conspires with the winds.

Momentarily, the Changer toys with the idea of shifting human and turning the rifle’s power on its owner.  He dismisses the idea as foolish.  Not only isn’t he sufficiently skilled, but the sight of a naked human standing in a vacant lot taking potshots at an eagle is certain to attract attention.

Although he is safe for now, the Changer is not complacent enough to believe that he will remain so.  His opponent has already shown a willingness to shapeshift without regard for potential witnesses.  Without knowing who he faces, the Changer cannot guess what shapes his opponent possesses.

The eagle dives once more, pulling up short of the treetops, his screeching taunting, calling a coward the great black bird who perches just out of reach.  A natural raven would take some comfort in knowing that for the moment it is safe, but the Changer hears the mockery in the eagle’s cries and the feathers at his neck fan out in anger.

He strides up and down the length of the branch, prudence and fury warring within him.

There… There…  Just a few wing strokes away is the one who slew his family, who has dared assault him.  To let this opportunity to know his enemy pass would be madness indeed and an invitation to assault him further.

Walking to the end of a branch, the Changer takes wing when the eagle’s circuit offers him the best clearance.  Furiously striving for altitude, he rises above the eagle.

The mind within the golden eagle’s body is not the small, instinct-driven mind of the hunting bird, but the Changer well knows how the instincts of the body can shape the thoughts of the canniest mind.  An eagle knows itself to be without peer in the skies, and so the rising of a solitary, black-winged scavenger bird does not trigger the panic that it should.

Almost lazily, the eagle alters its course, seeking the wind that will carry it above the arrogant raven.  The Changer, however, is neither merely a raven nor prone to overlooking the effects of body on mind.  He channels the raven’s instinctive territoriality, the same instinct that bands ravens together to harry owls and hawks.

True, he does not have a flock or a mate to assist him, but the Changer thrusts that doubt from him.  His harsh, deep-throated “cr-r-ruk” summoning assistance from his kind, the raven/Changer comes in behind the eagle.

His beak may not be curved and scimitar sharp, his feet may be clawed, not taloned, but with a four-foot wingspan and startling aerial dexterity, a raven can effectively harass an eagle.  Moreover, his calls have summoned the ravens who fled the gun.  They return to challenge this, to them, unconnected threat.

For the first time, the golden eagle realizes its danger.  Its attempts to rise above the raven, where it can bring its natural weapons into play, end as it flees.  Heading toward an artificial canyon formed by a cluster of apartment buildings, the eagle dives.

It vanishes into an alleyway.  By the time the Changer has soared over the same space, it is gone.  He longs to dive after, but in those narrow spaces the raven’s greatest advantage would be lost.  Nor does he dare to shapeshift, not when his enemy has chosen the turf.

Quorking angrily, he rises to where he can survey the complex.  His fellow ravens are scattering now, returning to their scavenging, pleased at having driven the eagle away.

The Changer watches for a long while, but either his enemy has patience as great as his own or he has departed in some subtle shape that the his aerial observer cannot recognize.  Nor does anyone return for the twenty-two.

When dusk falls, the Changer takes the risk and lands near the weapon.  He approaches it cautiously, hopping and flapping his wings as a raven does when testing if something is truly dead or perhaps only shamming.

The rifle, unsurprisingly, does not move.  He considers.  The weapon might provide a clue, most probably would not.  Leaving it here is the best course of action.  Any form he could take to carry it would attract attention.

He settles for knocking the rifle over and scratching dirt and elm leaves to cover it.  Then he takes wing.  Ravens do not commonly fly at night, but he doubts that anyone will notice the anomaly—any, that is, but his mysterious enemy.

Given how he feels, he would welcome another confrontation.

He is anxiously awaited at Arthur’s hacienda.  When he emerges from his room, human-form once more, his daughter flings herself into his arms.  The others are scarcely more decorous.  Eddie, Lovern, Vera, and Arthur all wait in the courtyard, openly relieved to see him present and intact.

“Changer!” Arthur beams.  “We had all but given up on you!”

“So I gather,” the Changer replies, looking around the arc of smiling faces.  “How did you know to worry?”

“We didn’t… don’t, not precisely, or we would have sent help,” Arthur says confusingly.  “Dinner is long past, but we saved something for you if you wish.”

“I do, but only with an explanation as the sauce.”

“It will,” Arthur promises.  “Bring the kid if you want; we can talk in the kitchen.”

Gathering up the puppy, slightly bemused at her adoption by this august group, the Changer allows himself to be swept off into the kitchen.  The puppy is set on the terrazzo tile floor and given a beef bone to worry.  The others take seats around an oval table surfaced with hand-painted tiles depicting a herd of horses galloping around the table’s circumference.

Eddie sets out a cold chicken and trimmings, which the Changer begins to demolish.

“You must have had quite a time,” Arthur comments.

“I did.”

“Could you tell us about your day before Lovern tells you about his?” Arthur asks. “I’m very interested in those events in light of today’s other occurrences.”

“Sure.”

Vera listens, frowning, making occasional entries into a notebook computer.  Lovern sits impassive, nodding from time to time as if he finds some deeper meaning in the incidents.

Only the puppy does not listen, content to chew on her bone, polishing the tile floor with its greasy knob, and growling softly as she strives to crack the end.

“So the rifle may still be there,” Vera comments as the Changer finishes his story.

“That’s right,” the Changer says.  “I couldn’t very well carry it in any but human form and I lacked both clothing and a desire to make myself vulnerable.”

“We should try to retrieve it tonight,” Vera says.  “I already know Lovern’s part of the story.  I’ll go.”

“Be careful,” Lovern cautions.  “Our enemy may very well expect some such action.”

“I will,” Vera says, “but I’d welcome a chance at the bastards.”

“Let’s hope you don’t get one,” Lovern says dryly.  “They seem formidable.”

“Perhaps too formidable for Vera to deal with alone,” Eddie says.  “No insult intended, but whoever this is has given both the Changer and Lovern a run for their lives.”

Vera nods slowly.  She hasn’t acquired her reputation for wisdom for nothing.  “You’re right.  Should I wait until morning or is someone free to come with me?”

“If Arthur can spare me,” Eddie says, “I’ll go.”

Arthur makes a gesture of agreement as old as his first kingdom.  “Go, then, both of you, but be careful.”

“We will.”

While they talk, the Changer looks around the kitchen, admiring the indirect lighting, the thick, rough-hewn beams from which polished iron and copper cook pots hang.  Painted tiles border the wall above the countertops: bright red chilies whose shape suggests a red dragon, round yellow onions, fat turnips set on their points like shields.  Even here, Arthur’s decorating reflects the dream of Camelot.

When the Changer retakes his seat, his daughter drags her bone across the floor and comes to sit on his bare feet.  Her subvocal growls as she chews are channeled through his flesh to mingle with his blood.

“So, I gather that Lovern also had an adventure this afternoon,” he says.  “Tell me about it.”

Lovern’s  thin, nervous fingers shred a paper napkin.  When he speaks, his words are breathy and hesitant.

“I went out to Old Town this afternoon, shopping for fetish carvings and other oddities.  The trip was made on impulse.  I told no one but Vera—Arthur and Eddie were busy with some problem that had cropped up.  So I just went out, I didn’t even take a car.  I felt like walking, and I knew that if I got tired, I could call for a ride back.”

“I don’t recall where Old Town is from here,” the Changer admits.  “Is it a long walk?”

“Long enough.  As I said, I felt like walking.”

The Changer nods.  He knows the impulse, but he suspects that for Lovern, the desire to travel under his own power is differently motivated.  In ancient days, Merlin’s magic had been inhibited by iron.  Although cars contain less metal than once they did, traveling within one might make Lovern ill.

“So you walked to Old Town… and?”

“And I walked around, bought some fetish carvings, talked to a silversmith about a commission, had lunch, visited the Albuquerque Museum, did some other shopping.  And all the time I was walking, I kept a touch of awareness watching my back.”

“And?”

“Nothing.  Peaceful.  Sunshine and nothing more.”

Lovern finally notices the mutilation he is performing on the napkin and stops.