Changer (Athanor) by Jane Lindskold Page A

hear the wrought-iron front gate opening and two cars coming up the gravel driveway.  The door to the kitchen swings open a few moments later and Vera enters.
    Dark-haired, brown-skinned, with high, rounded cheekbones and almost oriental eyes, she appears to be a classic Navajo woman in her mid-thirties.  Even her speech is touched with an Athabascan accent: the even tones sometimes sounding flat, internal “r’s” softened, the final “g” in a syllable often dropped completely.  The only jarring element in this portrait is her large, grey eyes.
    Grey-eyed Vera had not sprung full-grown from the forehead of her father as legend said, but such a tale might have helped a father explain the appearance of a rather too precocious young woman who was quite clearly his daughter.  
    Arthur had not known well the man who had sired Athena, later called Minerva, and currently known as Vera, but he had been one of the rare ones who not only was potent, but whose children carried his gift.  He had died in the latter days of the Roman Empire, inadvertent victim of the persecutions of the Christians.  His death had been slow and grisly; that it had ended up with his being made a Christian saint had doubtless been some small comfort to his daughter.
    She had drifted from place to place, nation to nation, for a time, giving rise to a host of virgin saints and other such inspirational figures.  That her celibacy was a matter of inclination rather than sacrifice did not bother her a whit.
    “We cannot choose how people interpret our actions,” she had said more than once, “and I will not behave as a slut merely because it would please some.”
    Arthur rather suspects that Vera’s aversion to sexual congress is a reaction to her late father’s promiscuity, but he does not care to address the point with her.  That she might have inherited her father’s prepotency along with his other gifts is a matter for quiet speculation when he and Eddie discuss such matters, but neither of them cares to bring up the matter with Vera.  Her earliest identities had not been warrior maidens for nothing, and she had a tendency to take umbrage with a ferocity that recalled her legendary enmity for the people of Troy.
    Instead they chose to let the grey-eyed girl take up residence with them, her formidable talents for organization and her solid common sense (on matters other than sexual congress) assets that helped Arthur’s organization to thrive.
    At this moment, she looks less than tranquil.  “I have directed the Changer to wait for you in the courtyard.”
    “You told an ancient to wait outside?” Arthur asks, surprised.  
    Normally, Vera is the soul of propriety; a fan of Miss Manners and Emily Post, she knows to the smallest margin precisely how much hospitality a guest is due.  The Changer, despite his tendency in bird form to leave white droppings on polished doors and expensive carpets, has always been accorded the honor of a first place.
    Vera looks momentarily uncomfortable, well aware of the breach of courtesy she has committed.
    “He did not complain,” she explains.  “In fact, he seemed grateful for the opportunity to let his daughter out of her box.”
    “Daughter?  Box?” Arthur actually stammers.
    “His daughter,” Vera answers woodenly, “is a coyote pup no more than a few months old.  She is apparently terrified of everything and shows such by wetting copiously.”
    “Oh, my,” Eddie says, chortling.  “We should have guessed.  The Changer hasn’t been human for at least fifty years, and I don’t believe he fathered any children during that incarnation.”
    “That we know of,” Vera says stiffly.  “It is not easy to know what that one has been doing.  He has also acquired an old sedan with doubtful registration.”
    Eddie nods.  “I can straighten that out.”
    “First,” Arthur says, “let us hurry to greet him.  If we must entertain him outside, at least the weather is