Changer's Daughter (62 page)

“Aduke?”

“He turned into a monkey,” Aduke says, bending to pick up the clothing from the ground. “Like something from an old market woman’s tale. Amazing!”

Oya hugs her around the shoulders, wordlessly congratulating the human for her calm. Then as one, they return their attention to the duel.

23

And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, “I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did—to yourself?”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

K
atsuhiro hears the gunshots from one corner of his mind, but he cannot spare any attention. Fighting for his honor—and quite possibly for his life—Shango is giving the Japanese the best battle he has had in several centuries.

At least two minutes remain, and Katsuhiro is having a wonderful time.

He chases a fresh lightning bolt down Kusanagi’s blade, but Shango catches it with the broad part of his axe, dispersing the electricity into the elaborate runes etched in the middle. They sizzle and fizz blue-white, and Katsuhiro fully expects his own power to be sent back at him.

Shango, however, absorbs it into himself, growing stronger and perhaps a bit larger, then dances back a few steps out of the range of Katsuhiro’s sword.

Expecting another lightning bolt, Katsuhiro is taken aback when his opponent breathes fire. He drops and rolls to avoid being burnt. True to his samurai training, though, Katsuhiro rolls toward Shango rather than away. Shango’s next blast passes over him. When Katsuhiro come out of his roll, he is nearly touching Shango’s legs.

About a minute left,
Katsuhiro thinks.
Time to end this.

He surges to his feet and back a step or two. Again Shango breathes fire, this time directly into Katsuhiro’s face. Ready now, Katsuhiro beats back the fire with a blast of his own storm wind. There is a smell of burning hair as the fire gutters out, and Shango belches like a boy who has swallowed air.

Now!

Katsuhiro makes a quick slice, and Kusanagi lays open the left side of Shango’s face—not a pretty cut like a dueling scar, but an ugly thing that exposes the bone, leaving meat and skin hanging in a palm-wide swatch.

Shango screams and Katsuhiro feels blood patter like warm raindrops against his skin. Without pausing, he brings Kusanagi down in a hard, sweeping cut. All the power of his formidable strength is behind the sword as its blade shears through skin, muscle, bone, and tendon, severing Shango’s leg cleanly through the middle of the right thigh.

Katsuhiro freezes, breathing in smoke and a fine mist of blood, sword poised to defend.

For the merest instant, Shango stands balanced upon the severed member. Then, greased by the blood that gushes from severed veins and arteries, the thigh beneath the sword cut slips loose and the lower leg tumbles, knee bending in grotesque parody of homage, falling slow motion to the sodden ground.

Shango wails. Lightning crackles from the sky, a single white-hot bolt that cauterizes the wound. Then, reeking of cooked meat, the defeated athanor collapses to the blood-soaked earth.

Louhi cringes as she sees the tawny red coyote trotting down the aisle toward the front of the room. Gods! After everything they’ve discussed, don’t these people realize that the little beast is dangerous? Why are they letting her run free? Why doesn’t someone stop her!

She squeaks despite herself, trembling where she sits on the table in front of Arthur. Her bowels release, leaving a little puddle of urine and a few brown flecks on the towel they have set her on. Embarrassed, Louhi flicks her tail nervously, but still they let the coyote approach. She takes little comfort in the fact that the gathered Cats of Egypt are watching closely. Who can trust a cat to guard a mouse?

But Shahrazad stops a few feet away from the table where Louhi trembles and gradually Louhi realizes that the lolling jaws are not a sign of her imminent demise, but a canine smile. Everything looks so different from this perspective.

When Shahrazad turns her amber gaze on Louhi, her eyes are as big as those of a dragon. Then, to Louhi’s surprise, she hears a voice in her head. It is feminine but not female, the inflections of one quite unaccustomed to speech involving words—even thought words—rather than scents and ear flips and little noises. It is, she realizes, Shahrazad’s voice.

“
So, do you like being pissed off all the time?
”
Shahrazad asks.

Louhi bristles at the importunity of such a query, then realizes that the coyote is not being insulting. She’s just calling the shots as she sees them.

“
I didn’t know I was,
” Louhi counters, also using thought speech. “
Right now, I’m just scared.
”

“
You’re not,
” the coyote says confidently, “
not deep inside. You’re angry. Angry you’re a mouse, angry you’re little, angry you have to ask for favors. Angry. Do you like it?
”

Louhi considers. No one else can hear this conversation and if she keeps the little beast talking, maybe someone will grab her and lock her up.

“
I never thought about it,
” she offers.

“
You should try,
” Shahrazad returns. “
I did. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be angry at you, even though you scared me, even though you hurt the Changer.
”

“
He hurt me!
” Louhi’s reply rises too quickly, always a problem with mental conversations.

“
How? He’s a good parent, even when he bites.
”

“
He bites?
”

“
Of course, how else is he going to tell me when I’m wrong?
”

“
He could explain.
”

“
To a pup?
” The coyote’s voice fills with merriment. “
Pups don’t think. I still don’t think, much...
”

“
The Changer bites you.
” The thought is a new one. Louhi had always known that the Changer bit, that he was dangerous, but somehow she’d always imagined Shahrazad’s upbringing as an idyll.

“
Yep. Bites, thumps. When I wouldn’t hunt, he let me get hungry until I learned stillness.
”

“
So he gets angry,
” Louhi says, steering the conversation back to Shahrazad’s original gambit.

“
No. Not at me.
”

“
But he hurts you.
”

“
That’s not the same.
”

“
He left you when you were bad.
”

“
That’s right,
” Shahrazad sounds abashed. “
You know about that. Yeah, he left me. I think it was a new type of biting. I kept waiting for him to pull me out of trouble, like he always did before, even when you hurt him for it. I had to learn to be careful. Did hurting him make you feel better?
”

“
No.
” Louhi is surprised by her own honesty. It doesn’t make her feel any better, either. In truth, it makes her feel rather sick. “
No, it didn’t, but he never cared for me like he cared for you. I wanted him to.
”

“
So you bit out his eye and made him bleed.
”

“
Yeah.
”

“
I guess that makes sense,
” Shahrazad says, memories of many times that coyote love made her bleed, “
or would if you weren’t angry when you did it.
”

“
You know. I almost get your point.
”

“
They’re going to turn you back into a human. Did you know that?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
And you’re going to work with Lovern for a year. You used to be angry with Lovern a lot, too. Are you going to like working with him?
”

“
Not really, but it’s the best deal I could get.
”

“
So you’ll stay angry.
”

“
I never said I was angry!
”

“
Then why are you shouting?
”

“
Okay. I’m angry. I’ve been angry for a long time. Why shouldn’t I be? My father abandoned me. I don’t remember my mother. I’ve had power, but men only use me for it and go their way. So I learned to make deals, to gather more power, to make enchantments. I had the Head for a while, then even he enchanted me and I still want to vomit when I think how he used me.
”

“
Vomiting is good when it gets the bad stuff out. You just keep it inside. No wonder you’re always angry.
”

Louhi twitches her whiskers. “
It must be great being what—six months old? Everything must seem very simple. I don’t think I ever remember being six months old.
”

“
I’m seven months old.
”

“
I’m more than seven thousand times seven month old.
”

“
That’s more than I can count,
” Shahrazad responds, awed. “
And you’ve been angry all that time?
”

“
Leave off the anger, would you?
”

“
I was just wondering.
”

“
Why should you care?
”

“
Because,
” says the coyote with a happy wag of her tail, “
I’m going to turn you back. I think you have a point about not wanting to be a mouse, and if you don’t want to work with Lovern for a year, I don’t see why you should have to.
”

“
You’re going to turn me back?
”

“
That’s right. Get ready to grab that towel, okay? I can’t do clothes and humans are funny about these things.
”

“
But I’m your enemy!
”

“
Why?
”

The simple question floors Louhi, leaving her mentally silent, not just speechless.

“
Because you turned me into a mouse!
” she answers at last.

“
No, you were angry before then. I remember how you glowered at me in the yard of that place where you tied me to a tree. You were angry at me before you met me.
”

“
I suppose I was angry at the Changer.
”

“
For not biting you when you were small.
”

“
I...
” Louhi frowns. “
I still think he is my father.
”

“
Then I’m your sister. You can’t be the Changer’s daughter unless you’re Shahrazad’s sister.
” The coyote tail wags. “
My sisters are dead now. I think I’d like to have one.
”

Stubbornly, Louhi persists in what Shahrazad must be made to recognize is deep and abiding anger. “
I still think a father owes his children something.
”

“
Do they?
” Shahrazad twitches an ear. “
Depends on the animal, I think. The Changer cared for me because coyotes do, but if I had been born a fish or something, he might have tried to eat me. What were you born?
”

Louhi starts. “
Human, I think.
”

“
Then someone must have cared for you because human babies are even more useless than mice. Do you know he didn’t?
”

“
No.
”

“
And why aren’t you angry at your mother?
”

“
I don’t know who she is!
”

Shahrazad wags her tail. “
You have more knots in your thinking than I have in my coat. Be angry if you want. All I can do is make you not a mouse.
”