Changer (Athanor) (58 page)

On the private beach in Florida, Lovern is met by a stocky fellow of freckled complexion, with a very Irish pug nose and mop of red hair.  He wears nothing but a pair of brilliant orange hibiscus-print shorts.

“Himself sent me to take you to Him,” the man says.  “I’m by way of being a selkie.  I’ve brought you my granther’s pelt. ‘Tis just a loan, mind you.”

“I understand,” Lovern says humbly.  He has been watching the news channels, and the destruction caused by Duppy Jonah’s temperamental weather reminds him of Calcutta.

The selkie motions for Lovern to come down to the shore.  Two sealskins have been tucked in a tidal pool.  The waters move them so that they seem to swim of their own accord.

Lovern kneels to help the selkie pull them out.  The wet pelt is heavier than he had expected, but he manages to pull it out without letting it drag on the sand.

“Contrary to what the old mothers would have you believe,” the selkie says, “the pelts last better kept in water. ‘Tis a bit chill when first you’re being about putting them on, but it warms fast enough.”

“Interesting,” Lovern says.  Then, fearing that he sounds haughty, he adds quickly, “What’s your name, sir?”

The selkie cocks a bushy eyebrow at him.  “I’m no ‘sir,’ but the courtesy is welcome as offered.  This life they’re calling me Connel O’Conaill.  Once I was the self-same Conaill.”

“I’m Ian Lovern,” Lovern says.  He does not mention other names he has been called.  With men and women drowned and desperate because of his folly, anything that might smack of a boast is beyond him.

“Ready, then, Ian?” Connel asks.  “Then just set granther’s pelt on that rock while I prepare you.”

Lovern does so.  “Is your grandfather still alive?”

“That’s right enough.  The pelts lose their virtue soon after the owner goes on.”

“Are you selkies born as seals or human?”

“Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”  The selkie’s dark eyes twinkle.  “First, Himself spoke that you should strip off everything about you down to the least bit of jewelry.”

The selkie’s brown eyes are large and kind.  His expression is sweet and a touch mournful, but Lovern has had enough doings with various branches of Celts over the centuries to know how quickly that mild mood can turn to storm.

He strips, feeling self-conscious, for Connel’s gaze never leaves him.  When he has finished stacking his clothes and placing his rings, earring, belt buckle, and bracelet atop them, Lovern takes a deep breath.  He has not been so bereft of supplements to his natural power since he was a small fey boy.

“Now,” Connel says, “will you swear to me that you are indeed without any power but that which you were born to?”

“Yes.”

“Again tell me.  I’ll warn you that Himself will have you flayed and given in gobbets to the sharks if you lie.”

“I have nothing but the natural power that I was born to,” Lovern says firmly.  “I am not lying.”

“You’re a wise one—a wizard.  I’ll be thinking that you know the binding power of an oath.”  The selkie picks up his own pelt.  “Let’s be about this.  You start by draping the skin over your shoulders—make sure it falls smooth or you’ll pinch a fin.  Then lift it over your head.  When it touches your head, be ready to fall forward.  Let the waves catch you.”

Lovern takes the wet hide, some small part of him wondering if he is being toyed with, for the procedure seems so simple compared with his own elaborate enchantments.  The selkie stands with his own pelt over his arm.

“Excuse me,” Lovern says, “but can I store my clothing and tools somewhere?”

The selkie strikes himself on the forehead.  “I’m almost  forgetting.  Himself said the Land King has a safe in the house, and I’m to stow your gear there.  Why don’t you put on the skin and practice some swimming while I run up to the house?”

Lovern complies, quashing his nervousness with reminders of cottages turned to nothing but storm wrack, and land creatures bloating and drowned where the waters had risen.

Almost as soon as he puts the head skin over his own, he feels the tingle of transformation.  His upper body becomes far too heavy for his legs…  No!  Flippers.  He falls forward and the waves rise to catch him.

“There, you’re looking much more fine.”  Connel sets his own pelt back into the tide pool.  “Practice in the shallows and don’t be going too far out.  Himself might just have sent some sharks out to welcome you if you’re after coming out without me.”

Lovern splashes agreement.  What else is he going to do?  He isn’t likely to flee into Duppy Jonah’s own kingdom.  In any case, he doesn’t even know how to take this thing off!

The selkie returns after about ten minutes, already naked.

“Seemed a crime to waste such a fine pair of short pants,” he explains, lifting his pelt and shaking out the kinks.  “So I left it in the mud room.  Even so this pink-skinned ass burns from just a few moments looking back at the sun.”

He slides into his pelt and into the water with the grace of long practice and natural affinity.  When Connel the Seal barks, Lovern understands that he is being told to follow.

Their journey is not a short one.  Each time they surface to breathe, Lovern tries to judge their location by the position of the sun, but, except for being certain that they are swimming east and south, he feels no certainty.  Day becomes night, and that night eventually becomes day again.

Connel feeds him with fish caught along the way, but otherwise does not pause.  The original owner of Lovern’s pelt must be a hale fellow, for all his being a grandfather, for Lovern doesn’t grow particularly weary.

At last they come to a fortresslike cluster of coral and rock.  The sun has been clear above the horizon the last several times they have risen to breathe, but the day is still young.

Wearing the form of a massive triton with dark green hair and brows, from beneath which ink black eyes fix Lovern with a hard gaze, Duppy Jonah greets him.  “I am prepared for you, wizard.  Over yonder you will glimpse a domed cage with bars of iron.  Within those limits, you will be able to breathe and be comfortably warm.  Should you stray, the only question is whether the pressure will crush you before you drown.”

Lovern blinks, hoping that his eyes are as soulful and innocent as those of most seals.

“Go into the cage,” Duppy Jonah says.  “If Amphitrite returns to me and requests that I forgive you, then you may again claim your life above the waves.  If not, the cost to Harmony will be as nothing to me.  You will die.”

Lovern goes.  Once inside the cage, he follows the Sea King’s instructions and removes the selkie’s pelt.  Passing it outside of the bars (taking great care not to touch the iron bars), he bows.

“Thank your grandfather for me, Connel.”

His guide wrinkles his whiskers in agreement or maybe even a smile.  The wizard is miffed that Duppy Jonah has not softened at his cooperativeness.  He’s been everything a hostage should, but damned if he’ll beg for clothing!  With a surge of his great tail, Duppy Jonah swims away.  Connel follows and only an octopus remains.

“I don’t suppose you play chess.” Lovern asks it.  “No, I suppose not.”

He sinks to the sandy bottom of his cage, deciding that Duppy Jonah’s prison is less horrid than Louhi’s.  He takes odd comfort in remembering what he has survived, but it is not enough to banish the fear that this imprisonment will be brief—and terminal.

21

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“T
he phone’s been ringing right out of the cradle,” Eddie says, coming into the doorway of Arthur’s office.

“That’s an archaic phrase,” Arthur says mildly.  “Phones don’t ring anymore.  They bleep and beep and chime.  And receivers are so slim that they don’t really need cradles.”

“True,” Eddie says, “but I stand by what I’ve said.  The damn thing is shaking down the wall.  Listen!”

Arthur winks.  “I’ll do better.”  He lifts the receiver.  “Pendragon Productions.”

He listens.  “Yes, yes, I am aware of the odd weather.  No, no, I don’t think Duppy Jonah is aware that you own property in the Netherlands.  Yes, I am certain that flooding does the tulip crop no good.  I assure you, measures have been taken.”

Hanging up the phone, Arthur smiles weakly.  “Have all your calls been like that?”

“Pretty much.  The humans are treating the odd weather patterns as a mystery.  They have plenty of theories.  The most popular is that El Niño has shifted.  The next is that there is suboceanic volcanic activity.  Jonathan has been up on the Internet flagging the really interesting theories.”

“The one about volcanic activity is about right,” Arthur says.  “Duppy Jonah’s temper
is
volcanic.  The problem with these bloody phone calls is that I don’t dare ignore any call on any line.  It could be Vera or Anson.”

“That’s true.”

The phone begins to ring again.

“Damn!”  Arthur grabs for the receiver.   His tone is calm when he speaks.  “Pendragon Productions.  No, I haven’t had an opportunity to check my e-mail.  I haven’t had my second cup of coffee.  The phone hasn’t stopped ringing all morning.”

He waves a resigned dismissal to Eddie and Eddie departs, going to his office where another phone awaits his attention.  

“We never should have had multiple lines installed,” he mutters, and goes about the business of running a government.

In the courtyard of Arthur’s hacienda, the coyote pup called Shahrazad is digging.  Already she has made a great deal of progress.  Her tunnel loops under a root of the ornamental juniper and is widening.  Dirt showers out behind her, scattering over the patio in a fanlike pattern.

She digs faster, imagining that she is nearing a mouse nest or, better yet, that of a ground squirrel.  There is dirt in her ears and eyes, but she feels none of it, busy envisioning a  successful hunt.  Mice are just a warm, wet crunch, but a ground squirrel is big enough to tear and shake.

Growling, she digs faster.  Yet, as distracted as she is, she hears a faint sound and feels a thump as something drops onto the patio behind her.

Her tunnel is not yet big enough to hide her, nor will she leave her tail facing an unknown threat.  Demonstrating the speed and agility that her father fears has been tamed from her, Shahrazad backs out of the tunnel and turns, protecting her back against the juniper.

Lips curled back from puppy teeth white and strong in a long muzzle, she growls, whimpers in confusion, and growls again.

A man stands on the patio.  He looks as her father does when he takes human shape: lean, muscular, with long, black hair and eyes of coyote yellow.  His scent is wrong, though, and it is that wrongness that turns her whimper back into a growl.

“Easy, kid,” the man says and his voice is the deep rasping voice her father uses.  

Rather than comforting her, the sound deepens her fear.  Shahrazad feels her fur standing out all over her body and she stiffens.  In an adult coyote, the display is quite frightening.  Even on her gawky young form, it is impressive.