Riders Of The Winds

by Jack L. Chalker

  "How long does that take?"

  He shrugged. "It varies. There's the age—the less to forget the faster—and various psychological and physiological factors. Those girls who came in with her, for example. They're happy here now, they're placed with loving families, and they are much better off. By now both are probably irretrievable. Your girl—I don't know. She's young, which works against her, but she's also from the Outplane, which makes it an unpredictable factor. You might well get ail, or at least most, of the memories back to one degree or another, but the personality—that is a different matter. She had a very weak ego and self-image before; she has a very strong one now. I can only guarantee she will be different."

  Kira nodded. "That's all right. I was asked to bring her in, not turn back any clocks." She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. "You have been a big, big help. I won't forget it."

  He stood up. "I'll need to have an alchemist in on this. We keep antidotes around but none of the strong potions, for safety's sake."

  She stood, too, went back to the bag and pulled out another small card. "I think this will silence any alchemical questions. I trust you to be able to fake any convincing reasons that might also be needed."

  He looked at it. "Some sort of chemical formula. Not my line. What is it?"

  "A compound that can be made from common materials. It hardens and can be colored and then molded into flesh, and while there is no feeling I am told it will make the biggest scar look and feel like a tiny scratch—and it can be permanently bonded to skin, even breathe like skin."

  He gave a low whistle. "Yes, that will be most—helpful. But there is one more condition to my doing this for you."

  "Yes?"

  "All of them upstairs saw us together, saw us leave. The porter saw us enter together. Please—could we just—pretend—that something happened here?"

  She gave him her sweetest, sexiest smile. "It'll be our little secret," she whispered.

  "That's her?" Kira asked as she peered into the low and primitive adobe clinic used by the field workers from a safe office. Layse nodded.

  The young woman they were watching was the proof that both short and large could be used to describe the same person. She was certainly quite fat, and no area from the face to the hips, thighs, ass, stomach, and breasts had escaped excess. And yet she was certainly muscular—the arms took very little work to exhibit an amazing set of muscles, and the legs when they were tensed showed much the same.

  Her face and skin were burned almost black by the long periods of hard work in the sun, and the skin also had an almost leatherlike toughness to it, as most of the peasants had. It also seemed that her lips had been sun-bleached to an unnatural pale, almost colorless point like her nails, but that might have been just the contrast. At least something in her ancestry had protected her from the most dangerous horrors of this climate, at least for now, but no one who had been out that long could remain totally unaffected.

  She had long, straight dark hair down below her shoulders, which did in fact give her a more impish appearance and make her look more human. It was not well trimmed and curled up at the ends, but the sun had created an odd and shifting pattern of light streaks in it that might well be white.

  "Nobody grows that much hair in three months," Kira noted.

  "A potion. It's a common one and harmless, since if it doesn't work you can always cut it again. It's one of a number of innocent things we allow them to think they're stealing or lifting from us that does no harm and makes them happy. The rest is natural, a consequence of spending over a thousand hours in the sun. You can see it on the others, too."

  She nodded. What a life, she thought sadly. Still, "She certainly seems bubbly and outgoing," she noted.

  "Yes. She was rather quiet and somewhat withdrawn with us before, and I suspect with everyone she didn't know well, but without pressures and with a large tribal family she's been quite extroverted and extremely uninhibited. Physical differences aren't a minus here, you see, and there's no pressure on her. She's strong as a bull, too, which gives her complete self-confidence. My people have seen her hold up the end of a wagon while a wheel was fixed for quite some time without breathing hard, and at Endday she picked up a big, bruising fellow built like a stone tower and head and shoulders bigger than she."

  "How'd you get her in here?"

  "Slipped a small powder in the field drink today that gave her a nicely timed case of the runs. The treatment potion she'll be given as soon as the last of the other patients leaves is the hypnotic. It will cause some dizziness and she'll be told to lie down. Then I'll dismiss the staff."

  She nodded. "We must get her out tomorrow. Zamofir is certain to be around somewhere, just more circumspect, and we have our heavenly host to consider as well."

  Layse went over and opened a small case and removed two sealed containers, each with a label on it. "This gold one is the antidote," he told her. "The marks on it represent degrees of recovery. Half dose will represent the more classic hypnotic trance, where the subject, is aware but suggestible. All of it should be swallowed for complete recovery, although she will go into a very deep sleep for a couple of hours while it flushes out the remnants. The light red potion is about forty percent of the dose of the amnesia potion that she received. Don't let anyone drink it and particularly not her. That kind of dose on top of the one she had would probably produce a childlike individual with no memories, no self to speak of. Basically an animal."

  "Don't worry. We're not out to steal your formula or use or abuse it. We just want a means of getting her back without harming her."

  "Where will you take her?" he asked, curious.

  She smiled. "That is something it is better for you not to know." She looked back out through the peephole. "I think everybody else is gone. She's taken her medicine like a good girl and they're helping her over to a cot."

  Layse nodded and was out the door. Timing was crucial here; there was no sense in having to convince the medic here that there wasn't anything untoward going on. He and Layse talked in animated terms for a while, then seemed very chummy, and finally the medic picked up a file on his desk and handed it to the Director, who went through it absently, then told the man to go, he'd take care of this.

  The medic looked uncertain for a moment but didn't really want to argue for more work. It had been a long day, and he had staff privileges at the residence. He left, and Layse sat looking through the file intently, almost forgetting Kira. She waited patiently; no sense in showing up and then have the medic or somebody come back because they forgot something and see her.

  Finally he sighed, put down the folder, and motioned for her to come in. She did so, then looked over at the young woman who was out cold on the cot, dead to the world. "Anything the matter?" Kira asked him. "I saw you studying the folder."

  "Medical history. Environmental adjustments were the first priority so we didn't do much of one when she joined us, just the usuals to make sure she could stand the work and was as healthy as she seemed. There was supposed to be another one, a more thorough follow-up, a few weeks later but she seemed to be adjusting so well and the case load is huge, so it wasn't done. This was the first physical she had. She's gained eleven and a quarter halgs, which sounds high until you realize it's all muscle and some of it is fat into muscle conversion as well. If that's not allowed to go back to fat it won't be serious.

  "Enough for me. I only weigh forty-three myself. Even Crim weighs only ninety-two. It's a good thing we won't have to lift her. Any medical problems we should know about other than that?"

  "Only one, but it is really going to complicate your situation if you have a very long journey."

  Her eyebrows rose. "Yes?"

  "She's three months pregnant."

  That was a stunner. "Oh, greatl" Kira muttered. "Just what we needed. Does she know?"

  "I doubt it. If she underwent any morning sickness she didn't report it, and who would notice any of the other minor symptoms out in the fields? It
probably won't start to show until the end of the sixth month, and who's going to notice a bigger belly on her until it's well along? But it will weaken her, slow her down, there will be biochemical changes, that sort of thing."

  "Yeah, but what you're telling me is that I've got six months or less to get her where she's going." She sighed. "Any idea whose? Somebody here, perhaps?"

  "Possible, but doubtful. They don't usually take advantage of newcomers here, and it's normally a few weeks before there's any real social activity. From what you say it's unlikely she had any earlier male trysts on the move, so that leaves the rape."

  Kira sighed and looked at her. "Poor kid. No way to get rid of it?"

  He looked a bit shocked, but recovered. "Urn, not without lots of work and recovery, no. Not safely, anyway, and the other, cruder methods at this stage risk infection, even possible death. If you take her tonight, either your sorcerer has to come up with something or she's going to have the kid."

  The woman nodded. "Well, I'll let Boolean decide that one." She turned. "Think she's ready now?"

  "Oh, yes. And the loose bowels was a one-time thing, really. Just a super laxative. However, she'll have no bladder control in this state, so remember that. Have her try going often."

  Kira turned and walked over to the unconscious woman. She had come in directly from a day in the fields and she was filthy and smelled like shit. There was no way around that for now. "Misa, open your eyes, sit up, and sit on the side of the bed." The eyes opened, but they were blank, as if still asleep, and she did exactly as instructed.

  "Now listen to me," she said carefully. "You will hear only the sound of my voice and no other voice, so my voice is all that you will obey for now. Tomorrow, a man will come to you and say the words, 'I am Crim, obey me as well,' and you will hear him say that and then obey him as well as me and hear either his voice or my own but no one else's. Do you understand that? Answer."

  "Yes," she replied dully, in a voice that was startlingly low.

  "All right, now stand up. You will follow me, three paces behind me, and whatever I do you shall do until I tell you different. If I sit, you sit. If I walk, you follow. If I stop, you stop. Understand? Answer."

  "Yes."

  Kira checked to see that she had the antidote and the sample. "Does she have anything to wear except those filthy black panties she's got on?"

  Layse shrugged. "Sorry, not here. Back in her room, yes, but there's no way to unobtrusively get to it now."

  "All right, all right, I'll have to make do. Getting out of here is the only real priority right now, and putting some distance between us and the forces above. Can you put out all the lights?"

  "Of course, but it will be pretty dark if I do."

  "I am a creature of the darkness," she told him. "Still, there's enough residual light from other sources for her to see me. Do it."

  He killed the lights, and she waited for Misa's eyes to grow accustomed to the dark.

  "Misa, can you see me now? Answer."

  "Yes."

  "Then follow and obey."

  Kano Layse suddenly had a thought. "Wait! What about the missing variable in the formula?"

  "You have it now. It is on the same paper as the rest of the formula. If we leave this jurisdiction the variable will fade in and be like the rest of the ink. If we are betrayed, or caught while still in the district, the paper will burst into flame. That is fair enough."

  Layse sat back down in the dark, disgusted. He had every intention of betraying them on this. He felt like a traitor to the Duke in this matter, but that formula—when he saw it, and knew what it was—was, well, irresistible. Tomorrow he'd go down to the labs and start tinkering. In a couple of weeks he'd come up with it, and his star would really shine and his position would be quite secure. But the price he paid still made him feel guilty. Creating Misa was the right and moral thing to do; he was still convinced of it. And while restoration was theoretically possible, he had never seen or done it, and no one he had known could do it, either. The gods knew what poor Misa would become now.

  Getting out of there had been the easy part, although finding a shipping crate that would fit her without harming her was a real pain. The next morning, just at dawn, Crim had the caravan put together and everyone was ready to move. The cases of the Duke's private wines provided nice cover, and would bring a decent profit at some point.

  Crim was not yet ready to feel safe, but as the mileage built up between him and the Duke he began to feel a little bit better.

  They followed the river trail, as they always did, at neither a faster nor slower clip than anyone would expect, but with an eye to the canyon walls and particularly to side canyons and old slides which might hide ambushers. Thanks to agreements between the wilder denizens of this area and both the Duke and the Navigators, there was generally little risk so long as you were known and official and all that, but there was always the chance of newcomers and some of the folks in this country were just plain crazy.

  By nightfall they were camped at one of the safety zones, a campground that was agreed to be neutral territory of sorts and thus safe. It was only a theoretical safety, of course, and they would have guards and spells and all sorts of things for insurance, but in all these trips they'd never been hit anywhere in this area. Anybody inclined to violate this place would also be too afraid of Yobi to actually do it. Only the crazy, and Klittichorn's bunch, might try it, and the latter only if they suspected something.

  They were about thirty miles from the Duke's now, a fair distance in these parts but not really comfortable, not when the Duke's son flew with ease over great distances by day and there were Stormriders about at night. The latter was not strong without a storm from which to draw energy, but they could see well enough and if one could get a message off, they had a mistress who could whip up a storm of any fury desired. And even though the canyon now was broad, nobody on the caravan wanted to think about a real gully washer in the area.

  Kira couldn't risk going out alone into this in search of who she wanted. Not even Crim would be really safe in this place, not alone, or not particularly with the girl.

  They had checked on her from time to time. The crew knew better than to ask questions about such things; they all had hands in one shady thing or another now and then. Every once in a while Crim would climb on the wagon, crawl back to her, open the side of the crate, check her condition, have her eat and drink, and, using a bucket as an ersatz chamber pot, have her go if she could as well. They didn't catch that last need every time, and she was getting pretty gamy in there, but there was no way around it. To command someone to hold it invited forgetfulness, and you could cause a kidney to rupture or bowel blockage by doing so.

  Now, Kira could only wait, although she decided to take the risk and attend to one matter. She brought her obedient woman to the river, and commanded that she remove all clothing left and discard it and then bathe completely. "Misa" was no work of art when she was done, but at least she didn't smell so bad.

  Everyone was fast asleep except for Kira and one other guard, both of whom kept pistols on their hips and rifles at the ready nearby just in case, when someone came. It was the guard who first saw or heard or felt something, drawing on a near-sixth sense born of long trail experience. Kira had expected someone, but not old Yobi herself, who never left her cave. Yet, here she was, with two very inhuman attendants, slithering in, long ears twitching, pulling herself with the aid of two strong-looking canes.

  Kira looked over at the rather stupefied guard. "It's all right, Garl. I know them and I've been expecting—someone."

  Yobi came straight for her, and stopped when she saw "Misa" apparently asleep under a tree. The dark woman was hard to see in the shadows, but Yobi didn't use the same sight as normal people did.

  "So," she rasped. "That is the source of all our machinations. My, but there is little that hasn't been done to that poor girl. I see the demon spell, with its inhuman mathematical insanity, and the marriage bond as
well, thin as it is, trailing like a spider's web. And the potions, layered this way and that. The hypnotic is easy, then the memory one. Oh, my! That's a nasty one, that is. And under it all, what strange and unnatural power lurks! The threads that run wispily to the north are firm. Yes, yes, she is definitely the one, poor soul."

  Yobi sighed and looked up at Kira. "Kid, this one's gonna be a real bitch to do."

  Kira stared at her. "Do you think you can bring her back?"

  "Not me. Mister Smartass Greenpants, maybe, with my help. You have the sample and the antidote?"

  "Yes, in my bag. I'll get them."

  "Bring that idiot sorcerer's calling stone, too. We're gonna have a long night here."

  "You think it is wise to do it here? This close?"

  "Of course it's not, you silly, blithering idiot, but if I can't recover from old Horny the Fart and his minions as long as I need I don't deserve to still be here!"

  7

  Stormrider

  "The time has come to run swiftly and well," Yobi said to Dorion. "Just today that little shit Zamofir is due at Hodamoc's. Once the moustachioed twit hears the description of Charley and all that transpired, the full hue and cry will be out. They will even come to me to try and make a deal or somehow threaten me if they think they can. I'm pretty well invulnerable, I think, but they can cause a lot of trouble."

  "We've worked on the disguises pretty well," the magician responded. "It's a delicate thing to figure out something that's effective but not too effective. That crazy one, Boday, is also pretty good with many kinds of weapons, including the whip and crossbow. Charley, of course, is much more limited, but she'll make it."