Changer's Daughter Page 5

  Frank MacDonald’s easy tones penetrate her shame: “The gelding at whose hooves you are reclining, my dear, is an old friend of the Wanderer’s. In fact, the Wanderer is responsible for Tugger not accidentally giving away the athanor secret to his owners.”

  Shahrazad rolls onto her feet, trying (and failing) to give the impression that her wilderness-honed reflexes rather than fear had dictated her surrender before the dapple gray plow horse who now studies her with his mild brown eyes.

  The Wanderer pours grain into a horse’s feed bin and takes up the story: “Back in the mid-eighteen hundreds, I had a tinker’s route up through New England. That was in a male incarnation, of course. In Massachusetts, I always stayed with a particular farming family, descendants of a French mercenary and a local Boston girl. They’d done well for themselves, mostly through hard work and perseverance, but as the years went on they started giving more and more credit for their luck to the fact that one of their plow horses never had an off day.

  “When some sickness wiped out a quarter of the horses in the area and ruined about half of the survivors, Tugger didn’t even sniffle. The worst that ever happened to him was a bout with colic and—funny thing—he seemed to understand what had made him sick. I think it was an overindulgence in clover.”

  “Apples,” Frank corrects in response to a “brr-hmm-pph” from Tugger.

  “Apples, then. He stayed away from them afterward.” The Wanderer leans back against a partition, her eyes half-closed as she remembers. “Tugger was smart, too. Learned how to draw a plow real steady, and would stop as soon as the blade hit something that had to be grubbed out by hand. Though he wasn’t pretty—sorry fellow, but you’re not a carriage horse—the Beaumonts got so fond of him they’d tie ribbons in his mane and have him pull the family to church on Sundays. Mistress Beaumont swore he liked the hymn singing.

  “All this was fine at first. Tugger had been bought at a public market, and the fellow selling him had been a shady type who hadn’t been too certain about his age. From his teeth, they’d figured him for a young horse, though. The thing was, Shahrazad, Tugger stayed a young horse—a horse in his prime. At first the family just regretted that he’d been cut so they couldn’t breed him. After a while, when the children who had ridden him were starting to have children of their own, some folks started to comment on this horse that didn’t age.

  “The Beaumonts weren’t stupid, and they were fond of Tugger. They stopped bringing him to church, saying that he was too old for that sort of work, but they couldn’t bear not to use him for the spring plowing. By then he was so savvy he could plow twice what any other horse could do. And people noticed.

  “Now, Massachusetts was past its days of witch burning—or so it claimed—but it was still pretty nervous about things that weren’t normal. The Beaumonts were torn. On the one hand, they didn’t like the way their neighbors were looking at them and shying from them when they met at the market or in church. They didn’t like the whispers that followed them either, or the fact that no one was coming to court their two younger daughters, even though they were as pretty as any girls in the land.

  “On the other hand, Tugger was their luck. They felt that deep down inside. They couldn’t just sell him, and they certainly couldn’t send him to the knacker, but it was beginning to look like they couldn’t keep him either.

  “Well, I’d been watching this situation develop, and I suspected that Tugger was like me, but that, being a horse, he didn’t have the smarts to hide it.”

  This brings an indignant snort from the dapple grey gelding, which Frank refuses to translate.

  The Wanderer grins and continues: “Now, I had a lucky charm that I’d bought from a wisewoman who lived in the region that’s now Bangladesh. I knew it was lucky, but it was small enough to fit in a small box or be hidden somewhere in a house where no one could see it. Privately, I spoke with Madame Beaumont and offered to buy Tugger, saying that I’d throw in this lucky charm and that she should hide it away, but that she should let no one, not even her own children or husband, know of it until her death.

  “We haggled for a while, then she haggled with her husband, but the long and short of it was that I bought Tugger. When we were out of that area, I rechristened him ‘Bob,’ dyed his coat a nice dull brown, taught him to walk with a bit of a limp so that no one would covet him. Under different names and different colors, Tugger pulled my wagons for the next fifty some years. We moved our route out of the Beaumonts’ area soon after, as I was living out the usefulness of that identity. When cars started coming into use, I put Tugger out to pasture, first on my own nickel and later with Frank.”

  During the story, which she heard mostly as the comforting rise and fall of human voices, Shahrazad has forgotten her embarrassment. Sitting on her haunches, she scratches busily behind one ear, examining Tugger and trying to decide whether he is as interesting as the Wanderer and Frank apparently think. She decides to take the matter on advisement, wondering with a great deal more intensity what might be for dinner.

  “What,” says the Changer, his gravelly voice breaking the comfortable background music of equine chewing, “ever happened to the Beaumont family?”

  “As I said, the charm I traded to Mistress Beaumont was a real one,” the Wanderer says, “for the family had been good to me from her grandfather’s day forward. When she died, she passed on the word of the charm to her son, who had taken over the farm by then. He passed on the information to his daughter, but she dismissed it as the ravings of fever. Still, her family did well as long as they stayed on the farm.

  “When she was getting on, the decision was made to parcel up the land and share out the profits among her children. I lost touch with them around then. A few years later the house was torn down, and the charm lost. I was traveling at the time and didn’t hear until it was too late to save it. A subdivision stands there now. I think they call it Lucky Acres, but I doubt that it’s any luckier than any other piece of land.”

  The conversation shifts then to lucky pieces, protective enchantments, and the like. Shahrazad drifts behind the human form as they finish feeding the OTQ residents, absorbing nothing much from their conversation, mostly hoping that they will not forget that a few mice are nowhere near enough dinner for a growing coyote.

  Loverboy>> Hey! Hey! We have the word! :) Lil’s agreed and Tommy’ll be playing in our area. Who wants to go to the show?

  Monk>> Sounds like a plan. Can we get a discount on tickets? Those arena shows aren’t cheap!

  Demetrios>> More importantly, will the disguise charms be ready in time? We’ve only seen sample tokens, and the one I was sent was flawed. Made me look like a goat—not a human!

  Loverboy>> Who cares about disguises? We fared fair at the Fair! Let’s sally forth in pants and boots. I want to go dancing with the toots!

  Rebecca>> Georgios, when did you take up rhyme? Demetrios is right. We need to find out when the charms will be ready. I’ll e-mail my aunt. She’s down from Alaska and is helping Lovern at his Academy.

  Monk>> OUR Academy. Lovern shouldn’t be permitted to perceive the new Academy as his own personal kingdom. He is already arrogant enough, and his creation of the Head shows that he is not worthy of such power.

  Rebecca>> Does it matter what we think about him? :( He’s Arthur’s wizard and in charge. Everyone’s forgotten the Head. After what happened...

  Demetrios>> I haven’t forgotten it. Monk has a good point. Let’s press to have our charms in time for Tommy’s show. We lobbied back in September for the simple right to do things like go to a concert. Besides, if Lovern’s busy filling our orders, he won’t have time for more black-magical creations.

  Monk>> I’ll second your motion.

  Demetrios>> I’ll send Lovern a formal request that our charms be finished on time for the California show.

  Loverboy>> I’ll e-mail Tommy. He’ll get us that discount and seats near the stage! It’s gonna be great! :)

  Bill Irish, reviewin
g the latest from the theriomorphs chatroom frowns, and drums the desk top with the rubber eraser on the end of his pencil, a quirk that, unconsciously, he has picked up from Arthur.

  The theriomorphs’ site is no longer a strict secret, as it had been a few months before when the theriomorphs had been planning their rebellion against the policies of the Accord, but it is still shielded from all web-browsing programs, and the address is a closely guarded secret. Therefore, it remains used mainly by the theriomorphs, and they tend to forget that their discussions can be monitored.

  Given that Rebecca Trapper had been his entry into the world of the athanor and was directly responsible for his current lucrative and fascinating job, Bill feels rather bad about spying on her, but that is Arthur’s command.

  Neither he nor Chris is to log in to the chatroom for discussion; instead they are to “ghost” the site, downloading the discussions every couple of days and reviewing the material for evidence of dissatisfaction or a return to rebellion.

  Arthur may have come to understand the theriomorphs’ point of view, even to sympathize with it somewhat, but that has not altered his awareness that of all the athanor the theriomorphs would find it easiest to reveal the presence of their kind to the world at large.

  The works of a sorcerer might be dismissed as magicians, tricks à la Copperfield or Houdini, the claims of a human form immortal as a scam, but if the sasquatches, fauns, or satyrs want to convince the human world that the weird and wonderful still exist, all they need do is walk down the street.

  So Bill faithfully follows Arthur’s orders and reviews the chatroom talk. Until today the discussions have been mild, even boring (once one dismisses the fact that the creatures typing away are real monsters). Today, though...

  Bill thumps the pencil a few more times, saves his file, zaps a copy to Arthur’s e-mail, and then goes to find his employer. He may be jumping the gun, but perhaps the King should know about this before it goes any farther.

  The bar is dark, though the day outside is sunny enough: sunny, hot, and windy. Inside, just enough light comes through the imperfectly sealed walls and open front door to give color to the decorations on the wall. These are posters mostly, advertisements for beers and wines. Smiling white people hold the long-stemmed glasses or elegantly shaped bottles, enjoying themselves on beaches or in elegantly furnished rooms the like of which most Nigerians will see only on television, if at all.

  The bar’s sole occupant, other than the bartender who stands in the doorway chatting with some of his cronies, grimaces at the posters and drinks a bit more of his warm beer. There had been a time when he didn’t mind his beer warm, but fresh from America he does mind and resents being forced to sit here drinking warm beer. Perhaps palm wine would taste better. They had nothing like it in America, so his taste for it should not have been ruined.

  “You!” he calls to the bartender, knowing that he is being rude but already too drunk to care. “Do you have palm wine?”

  “I do,” the man says affably, trading a soft-voiced comment with his buddies before coming inside and rooting around behind the bar. “You want a glass of it?”

  “Do you have a bottle?”

  “Of course.”

  “Give it to me.”

  The bartender insists on payment in advance, naming an outrageous amount in naira. The drinker knows that he is being overcharged but doesn’t deign to barter, just slides the amount across the table, moving carefully to avoid knocking over the palisade of beer bottles that he has erected between himself and the world.

  Seeing the money, the bartender hastens across the room, bringing the bottle of palm wine with him. He sets it down, then gathers up the money and stuffs it in his pocket.

  “And pick up some of this mess.”

  “Right, boss.” The bartender sounds respectful. He whistles, and a small boy dressed only in a pair of ragged trousers scampers in from the street.

  “Pick these up and wash them,” the bartender tells him, “and don’t break any like last time.”

  “Yes, Pa.” The boy starts gathering up the bottles.

  “And when you’re done, come to me.” The bartender jingles the coins he has dropped into his pocket, and the boy’s sullen expression vanishes.

  “Yes, Pa!”

  The customer hardly hears this conversations, is slightly more aware of the muted clinking of glass on glass as the boy carries away the bottles. He is busy studying the bottle of palm wine. It is clearly home-brewed—tapped would be a better description—for palm wine is tapped directly from the top of the tree.

  In the old days it would have been stored in a keg or perhaps even a gourd. He should remember, but his head is too fuddled to be certain. All he is sure of is that palm wine did not always come packaged in a glass bottle that had once held something else—soda, he thinks or maybe grape wine—that it was not always closed with a makeshift stopper and sealed with candle wax.

  He pours some of the palm wine into a glass that the bartender had brought him with his first beer and which he had ignored. Holding up the glass to one of the shafts of light that penetrate the slatted wooden walls of the bar, he studies the contents. The palm wine looks rather like dirty dishwater.

  He sips. Maybe it’s the beer numbing his tongue, but it tastes rather like dirty dishwater, too. Still, the warmth doesn’t trouble him as it had with the beer. He continues drinking.

  He had arrived in Monamona a few hours before and had checked into the hotel under the name Ogunkeye, an àbíso name meaning roughly “The god Ogun has gathered honor.” It was one of many cultic names referring to the god Ogun: Ogunlola, Ogunrinde, others. In the old days they had been given to the child by a wise man, a babalawo. Today, if they were used at all, they are most frequently used in the same fashion as a first name is among the Europeans.

  The hotel keeper had expected him to supply a surname, and in a fit of insanity the man had told him “Hunter Smith.” The fellow hadn’t even blinked.

  “Ogunkeye Hunter Smith,” he had repeated, writing it down in his ledger.

  Remembering, the man drinks more palm wine.

  “I might as well have told him Dakar Agadez for all it meant to him,” he mutters into the glass. “Dakar Agadez.”

  Caught in memories new and those awakened by the taste of the palm wine against his tongue, he does not notice that two men, one thin, one stocky, have walked up to his table. Then the stocky one speaks:

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he says, pulling out a chair and seating himself without waiting for an invitation, “how you came to use that name. Aren’t both Dakar and Agadez the names of cities in this area?”

  “But farther north,” the thin man agrees and Dakar/Ogunkeye vaguely recognizes him as Anson A. Kridd, otherwise known as trouble and nuisance in a sometimes human form.

  He growls something, realizes he is inarticulate, and begins again, addressing the stocky man.

  “I was drunk,” he says with careful enunciation. “I had been in trouble, and I needed a name. Fast. There was a map on the wall. So...”

  He shrugs, somewhat shamefaced, aware that he is drunk again but too tired to get belligerent about it.

  “I was drunk,” he repeats.

  “It happens,” the stocky man says in a tone of voice that adds wordlessly, “Far too frequently where you are concerned, don’t you agree?”

  Dakar props his head on his hand. “Who th’ hell are you?”

  Anson A. Kridd chuckles. “Don’t you recognize our kinsman? You stayed at his house until just a few weeks ago.”

  Dakar recognizes that he is being baited and simply glowers. It is the same glower that stares out of the faces of all those wood or iron or plastic figures glued onto the dashboards of automobiles and lorries racing along the streets outside. It is the glower of a god who does not like being made angry. Anson relents and lowers his voice, although this is hardly necessary since they are alone.

  “It is my good friend, Eddie Zagano. He ha
s come here to see Nigeria and to get away from his too-demanding overlord.”

  “He’s black!” Dakar says, stating the obvious.

  “Lovern’s work. It is still Eddie.”

  Eddie’s new face shows white teeth in a weirdly familiar grin. “Shall I whisper secrets from your file? Tell you what you asked for the last time you called Pendragon Productions? I can prove I am who I say...”

  Dakar stops him with an abrupt gesture, reflecting that several days in the company of that obnoxious trickster has done nothing good for Eddie’s manners.

  “I believe you.” He is about to offer them some of the palm wine, notices that the bottle is nearly empty, and frowns. He draws breath to shout for the bartender when Anson places a hand on his arm.

  “I have an idea. Let’s go and find something to eat. We need to lay the groundwork for our business and...” It is his turn to frown. “Some new troubles have developed that I must tell you about. Can you walk?”

  “Of course”—Dakar surges to his feet—“I can.”

  He staggers a few steps, then pitches forward. There is a dull thud as he hits the packed-earth floor.

  Eddie kneels and rolls Dakar over, finding him completely passed out. He shakes his head as he looks up at Anson.

  “He can walk all right, just not very well.”

  “It’s like binary,” Aduke thinks as she watches the babalawo casting palm nuts for his client.

  She and Oya have come to the Grove of the Gods, seeking answers to her many questions. Now they stand in the doorway to one of the diviner’s shelters, watching the babalawo cast the palm nuts for another client.

  The casting falls into a rhythm like a dance, though the Ifa diviner remains seated. First, he tosses the sixteen nuts between his hands. The rhythm is rapid, rather like ceremonial drumbeats. Thus, this stage is often called “beating” the nuts.

  When the nuts have been beaten sufficiently, the babalawo attempts to pick from his left hand as many nuts as he can with his right hand. If one nut remains, he makes two marks in the smoothed wood dust held in the divining tray set on the mat before him. If two remain, he makes one mark. Any other end result—three nuts or no nuts, for example—calls for a repeat.