For example, she realized that she really loved men. Not in the sense of being heterosexual; it was a more encompassing, even generic sort of love. Oh, she liked those cute little asses and there were some that were simply gorgeous, but it wasn't just that. She liked them young, old, tall, short, fat, thin—you name it. She couldn't explain it, but she knew what her ideal was and she missed it. That wasn't alchemy; it was deep.
And she loved sex. Not just the screwing, although that was the hot fudge on the sundae, but all of it. She had liked it the first time, back home, but it had scared her as well, perhaps because she had liked it so much and it had dominated her fantasies and daydreams. Now she couldn't get enough of it, not anymore. It wasn't enough that she got off; she had to give as well as get in equal amounts. Now, having done it so much with so many, there were no inhibitions left, only a deep craving. Something that had always been there had been loosed by circumstance and now here it was.
She began to understand what Yobi had said to her. It didn't mean that she wasn't smart, or that she didn't want independence and control of her own life. She was proud of that rescue operation, and if she could somehow get this ring out of her nose she'd be overjoyed. She didn't want a husband; she wanted twenty years or more of one-night stands that would make her also wealthy and totally independent of others.
She wasn't gonna let this blindness hold her down, either. She missed her sight, sure, but it was only one sense and not the most important. She was already learning quickly how much she could do. A lot of it was just plain common sense, like putting your thumb inside a cup where you want the fill line to be and pouring until it reached that point; others were trial and error, or just doing things a bit slower and more cautious than before.
She liked Shadowcat, and appreciated what he could do for her, but she was sparing in using him. Dorion, after all, understood English, which left Boday out rather than her, and she'd much rather talk to Dorion than Boday anyway, so she didn't want that telepathic thing unless she needed it. And when the cat was let free to roam, she discovered quickly how you didn't really want to see what he was doing. The first mouse and insect kills kind of cured the romance right out of her. But it was convenient to be able to look over a campsite and memorize it, or to check on things when she had to. But she was determined from the start not to use him as a crutch.
Blind, she could saddle and unsaddle a horse and ride with confidence. She could prepare her own food and drink to a fair degree on the trail, and she could attend to her own personal needs. She managed her own sleeping bag from unpacking and setting it out to repacking her gear. She would rather have her sight back, but she wasn't about to give up living because it was lost or wallow in self-pity waiting for it to somehow miraculously return. It would be nice to have it, but it was something she could live without.
Perhaps this Boolean could restore it, although they said that most all magicians and sorcerers lost real sight so if they could get it back they would. Dorion was a bit vague on it, admitting that his eyes were shot and yet he could see with remarkable clarity better than he had with them. He was not blind, but his methods were those of sorcery denied to her.
The strange things she could see puzzled her. Why was Boday nonexistent save for that odd and fragile red strand, and the horses and the landscape a seamless deep gray, but Dorion this strange, fuzzy red blur and Shadowcat that lavender blob?
"Your eyesight, like mine, has been shifted, not canceled," Dorion told her. "It is very hard to explain to a lay person, but you can read a lot into the shapes, colors, and types of patterns you see. You are seeing perfectly well, but in dimensions beyond the capability of normal eyes to ever see. It is like being in a haunted house and being able to see the ghosts but not the house they haunt. Still, if you could see fully into those other dimensions you would probably go mad. Only that which is in this world but gives off radiations into the others is visible, and that's for the best. Some things of the magical world are best not seen, but you might see them. Be prepared for it, but control yourself as well. It is better to see those who would do you harm from that realm than to be at their unseen mercy." On the third day they rejoined the main road very near the border of Mashtopol, but Dorion decided to camp yet again in the Kudaan before going through. "Best we move still by night, at least for a while," he told them, "and be fully awake and alert going through there."
"Boday does not understand what risks there might be," the artist noted. "Surely this pig Zamofir is behind us, and after all this time those still alerted for us must be mere hired hands and ruffians, not the sort who will keep a steady watch or be difficult to fool."
"Yeah, perhaps," Dorion responded, "but it's best to take no chances. Zamofir has birds and other means of communication that are far faster than we, and he has access to a magical network with near-instant communications. We have to assume that they're expecting us. From tomorrow until we're clear of this place we're going to have to depend .on all aspects of the disguise, including our cover."
"You mean the slave business," Charley said, nodding.
"Yes. You will have to be total slaves and act the part at all times, even when it seems as if no one is around. Charley, you're going to have to be the slave girl Yssa, the total and uninhibited sex slave who's also subservient and docile to my will—and mute unless I say otherwise or unless we need to be alerted to a danger, since you can't speak the language. And you, Boday, will be Koba, and you will have to be different. Do not use your name at all except to answer 'Koba' if asked what it is. If you must speak in the third person, then use humble and self-deprecating terms like 'this unworthy one' and 'this humble slave.' I know that will kill your ego but it's essential. You are our defender, a warrior slave. If anybody asks too personal or specific questions just tell them it's not permitted for you to answer or that your past life has been wiped out. In all cases you are my slaves and there will be no references to others."
"Boday has spent her life seeking recognition," the artist noted. "This will not be easy for her."
"You don't have to be inconspicuous, but you must eat, sleep, think, act the part at all times," he told them firmly. "Only if we are discovered and unmasked are you on your own, using your own discretion. And I will have to treat you as my slaves, too, acting my own part. I'll apologize later. I never liked this slave business, and I'm uncomfortable with it."
"Use us as you must," Charley told him, "and don't worry or feel guilty. We have already been through so much, and what you ask me to be is a role I very much enjoy playing."
The Kudaan exit station was unusually crowded, with a number of tough-looking men about, mostly armed, and to no apparent purpose, but both the officials and the men spent most of their time looking at Charley and not very much looking at the documents or anything else. She gave them a good show, lounging sexily on the saddle and doing offhanded obscene things in a playful way. They would remember her, all right, but not a one of them seemed to entertain the slightest thought that she was anything more than she appeared to be. In fact, you didn't have to read minds to know pretty much all the thoughts those guys had.
She couldn't see them, of course, but she didn't have to. The comments and the sounds and the panting and the many attempts to bribe Dorion for a little while with her said it all.
Shamelessly, she loved every minute of it. In a way, this was a different kind of power and no less real for all that.
And beyond the gate was what looked like a great yellow wall rising from ground level as far up as the eye could see. It looked amazingly solid, and imposing.
"Each null zone has a shield like that," Dorion told her. "It is a great shield of an Akhbreed sorcerer, and it prevents any but Akhbreed from going through it to the land beyond. In that way all non-Akhbreed, all changelings, all the ones who don't fit the definitions, are prevented from ever moving from world to world. It's not absolute because you can't ever be smart enough to write a spell that covers everything, but along with the ent
ry gates it keeps things so manageable it may as well be impenetrable to all others."
Maybe not as impenetrable as they think, Charley reflected, remembering that when she'd first entered this world there had been a centauress hiding out in a cave within a hub itself. But, as Dorion had said, nothing couldn't be beaten, but that centauress was hiding out and would have been killed instantly if discovered.
For them the boundary was paper thin; they passed through it with no sensation at all and went into the null zone itself, and that was something else again for her. She could not see the ever-present thick white mist, but she found she could see the massive spurts of energy that had previously looked like occasional sparks here and there. It was a forest, a fairyland of color and light and constantly shifting patterns, and there seemed to be a kind of yellowish rain connecting it to the unseen clouds above.
As they entered and passed through it, they interacted with it, causing the area around them to become intensely more active and to constantly change colors as well. This was the beauty and wonder of the magic sight. Outlined against the darkness of her conventional blindness, it was breathtaking.
There was no magic to see beyond, in the hub itself, but far off in the distance, she couldn't guess how far, there seemed to rise a single pencil-thin beacon of brilliant gold, like a searchlight beacon breaking the night.
"That comes from the city," Dorion explained. "It emanates from the royal Akhbreed sorcerer himself. We're going to avoid that and try and stick to the borderland, although we can't avoid some civilization. All roads really lead to and from the capitals, and the crossroads are intended for local use only and we'll have a very crooked path to follow because of it."
Dorion worried about Boday, no matter what the commands, but he wondered about Charley. He was the first to admit that he never really understood women, not even if they were six hundred years old and built like a cross between a crone and a slug. Charley was bright, resourceful, adaptable, everything—and yet he got the very strong impression that if she were free of him, of the ring, and of all obligations she'd become a full-time professional whore, a seller of her flesh. She wasn't just acting back there; he had the distinct impression she would have been delighted had he taken any of those men up on their offers. Yobi had said as much and had seemed to find nothing wrong with it. You never argued with Yobi, but it sure as hell seemed wrong to him somehow.
Both Charley and Boday were relieved to reach the Mashtopol entry station. Finally, at last, the Kudaan was behind them, with its merciless heat, its strange denizens, and its bizarre risks. It had taken so long to get through it that it was only by great luck and a hairsbreadth that they'd not wound up spending the rest of their lives there.
The duty officer at the entry station found both women fascinating, but he was also far more officious and more steadfast in his duties.
"Indentures, huh? Permanent?"
"Yes, sir," the magician responded. "Neither originally to me, though. I was in the service of a great sorcerer who saved the tall one's people from a demonic attack and got her because the old boy outgrew his need for servants. The other, well, you see her. I had to pay a high price in spells and services to talk her owner out of her, as you might guess, but you can see why any price was good enough."
The duty officer looked at Charley and nodded. "Yes, I can see why you would want her, but not why anybody'd sell her."
"She's blind. That made her inconvenient to her old owner, but there's no problem with what I wanted."
The officer tsk-tsked. "Too bad. So pretty. What about the cat? We have to check on all animals, you know."
"I have it on the documents here. The cat is mine and used with some of my magic, but it's just a cat. The girl took a real liking to him, though, and he to her, so they stay pretty well together when I don't need one or the other."
The duty officer sighed. "All right, sir. All in order. Big festival in the city the end of the week, you know. Lots of folks in town, so you might have trouble finding rooms if you haven't already booked them. Also, this time of year, there's a lot of the bad element creeping in to take advantage as well. Been some girls disappearing here and there, and some murders. You watch your pair there, sir."
"I will," he promised. "But in Koba's case they better watch out for her."
The officer stamped the documents, and Charley wondered just how easily those things were forged and just how few were real that came through these stations, anyway.
"All in order, sir," said the duty officer, handing back the papers to Dorion. "You're cleared for as long as you wish to stay, exiting either here or at the Northwest Gate. Have a pleasant stay."
Dorion thanked him and remounted, and they were off into Mashtopol. Charley, in fact, felt suddenly very relaxed. When they had gone about a mile inside the hub city, Dorion stopped and drew them close and gave Charley permission to speak this once, since she seemed dying to anyway.
"Master, there is no danger here to us," Charley noted. "Could we not take a room with a bath and perhaps purchase more useful clothing? I should like to feel and smell the life of a city after all that time in the Kudaan."
"Sorry, no, it's not that easy. We have problems," he told them. "I just didn't think of it, but if Zamofir talked to Hodamoc he knows you both came in together and that you were both auctioned and enslaved. I don't think the word's gotten here yet, or that officer would have taken us on some pretext, but it's sure to draw the wolves in a day or so. There's not much open country but we're going to have to stick to the side roads if we can stay out of any real civilized areas. They'll have all the gates covered, and the odds are good they'll have the nulls covered somehow as well. With everybody drawn to this city festival we might make it across okay, but we might just face a fight in exiting. I'm afraid your bath and city feel will just have to wait."
For two days they traveled through the outer periphery of the Mashtopol hub without much incident. There were some curious farmers and some negotiations for overnight camping rights, but clearly they were keeping well off the main drags. There was also a lot of curiosity and some very high-moral-tone commentary about the two women; the conservative farmers and small-town types weren't at all anxious to have those kinds of women around, and they were forced to buy what they needed and move on fast—which suited them just fine.
Shadowcat was delighted with the region, where the rodents were very tiny and apparently pretty stupid and the bugs were big and crunchy. She let him roam and have some fun, knowing he would not stray far and that somehow his link with her would call him back if they needed to pick up and move. She was even getting used to the occasional tiny prick he might make to get just a small bead of her blood to lap up and renew that link. He was good to take it unobtrusively and take only the minimum required, and while it stung for a second it healed over in a matter of minutes, almost as if when he lapped up the blood drop he somehow also undid the hole.
And maybe he did. This was magic now, in a land where the difference between black and white magic was strictly in the motivation of the magician. If the magic of Akahlar had any coloration, it was gray.
But the land was not rife with magic, even though the locals thought it was, for she could see magic if nothing else and, aside from the magic in or attached to her companions, there wasn't much here.
It was a pleasant land, though, for all that. It smelled of flowers and new-mown hay and the sun was comfortably warm rather than broiling hot, and when on the second day they ran into a brief shower it took an order by Dorion to get either woman to take shelter. It had been a long time since they had seen rain or felt it fall on them, and it was wonderful.
Here was the magic that all could see and few ever did. The sound and smell of a gentle rain on field and forest were true magic and life and full of promise and wonder.
By the third day out, even Dorion was beginning to think he was being overly paranoid. No secret agents were about, no attacks had been made, and there was no sign o
f any real pursuit. It was only because he was beginning to relax that Boday, in particular, got worried. When things went too well in Akahlar, you'd better watch out, something was lurking there ready to bite you.
"We will have to exit by night through the fence," he told them. "I don't want any record of us exiting at any exit station along here. There will be patrols, but it won't be any big deal I don't think. Once in the null, though, we'll have to be patient and pick and choose with care. If I do a Navigator's trick and force a world on my own at this point, it'll be noticed by everybody and they'll have a perfect trail. We're going to have to sit and wait out there and hope something decent comes up that I either know or can handle and cross at that point. If we can cross a colonial wedge undetected and cross from there into Quodac, there is no way they can find us except by luck. If Klittichom had enough agents and wealth to cover all the possibilities he'd be in charge already, and Quodac's officials aren't nearly as corrupt as Mashtopol's. Quodac means a breather, and then we can plug in to some of Yobi's muscle." They approached the border with little trouble, but Dorion didn't want to cross at any point close to civilization. He suggested that, after dark, they move a considerable distance from the gate along the border until the land would no longer support the horses without having to turn inland or force them into the null zone.
It was an eerie sight for Charley, who could see all along her left side the enormous power and energy of the null while all elsewhere was dark nothingness to her. They rode for about thirty minutes, and then Dorion called a halt.
"Construction equipment here," he explained. "They appear to be building a fence completely around this region. Wonder why?"
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