Riders Of The Winds

by Jack L. Chalker

  "Thank you, that will be fine," Dorion assured him. "Have you seen my friend?"

  "The courier? Yes, sir, he went out a little while back to check on the shipping and just take a walk down by the water, he said. He'll be back at any time." As Dorion predicted, things began to work out, at least for a little while, in their favor. Dorion decided to try for the clothing problem first, while the bath situation was percolating, so to speak, and one of the wubs came after a while with a bunch of keys on a ring and led them to a door in the side of a big warehouse and then into the structure. At the rear was a separate room containing clothing, shoes, hats, boots, you name it. Most were in men's and boy's sizes and clearly were designed as replacements for clothing of the Akhbreed who lived and worked here and perhaps who lived and worked on the ship or ships. The women's clothing was mostly the sack-like dresses and, as slaves, they weren't allowed to don "respectable" clothes, something that distressed neither of them.

  Nothing really fit Charley, but they found that large men's cotton T-shirts came down almost to her knees and they provided some protection and improvement over the bare nothing she really had. Boday found a couple of pairs of boys' black work pants that were okay at the waist although the legs weren't long enough. She decided the effect was all right, and went with them plus the same kind of shirt situation as Charley. Since Boday was so tall, the shirts were large and baggy but didn't come down nearly as far as they did on Charley, which made things work out.

  "We will win no fashion awards, but it is acceptable," Boday pronounced.

  The baths were crude but compared to the lack of them for so long Charley was not about to complain. With water a bit cooler than she liked it but with a big bar of soap she managed pretty well on her own, impressing the innkeeper's wife with her ability to manage without sight very well indeed. She didn't really want to get out, but considering that it was also Boday's turn she reluctantly did, now recapturing what it was like to actually have towels to dry off with once more. There was no doubt about it; no matter what else she was, Charley wasn't the wilderness-trail type. If there wasn't a good hotel every night, decent food, and the other creature comforts, she really wouldn't be happy.

  As expected, there wasn't any indoor plumbing, but the inn's lone toilet was inside and reminded Charley somewhat of the port-a-johns back home. It had a regular seat and seemed to be made of metal, and it had a tank of something that kept it from smelling up the place and which took the crap to a holding area. She had the uneasy feeling that the contents of that tank wound up fertilizing the local gardens from which the inn and others got their fresh fruit and vegetables, but she didn't want to think on that very much.

  Finding the cotton shirt acceptable and after then spending some time walking about and memorizing the general layout of the place she had it down pretty pat. She knew that many people might have a terrible time with this sort of thing, but somehow she just had this unsuspected talent. Give her an hour and she knew a place at least well enough to navigate if need be. Of course, with chairs moving, things changing as other people went in and out, and the like, you had to be cautious, but if need be she felt that she could leave her room, make her way down the stairs, find the john in back, do her business, and return to bed without help.

  Dorion was right on the food. It wasn't all that great, but after what they'd been eating it seemed like fancy cuisine. Charley decided that her inclination to vegetarianism served her well here; the fruits and vegetables and even some nuts were quite good and fresh, leaving Dorion to grumble and Boday to sigh when eating the cooked parts. Charley did try a piece of the pie, but it was gummy and far too sweet and she didn't eat much of it.

  They were just about done when Halagar entered the inn. Boday immediately saw what Dorion had meant in his description of his friend: Halagar was tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, and extremely handsome. He carried himself with the confidence of a professional soldier and officer at that, and what age and experience had added to his face and hands had only added to the effect. He was clean-shaven, with thick, black hair perfectly cut, and dark complected but not deeply so. His rich, baritone voice was just what you expected, and it had a melodic, almost hypnotic quality about it. This was the sort of man heads turned to see whenever he entered a room, and who was automatically the center of attention. Boday thought him perhaps the most attractive man she had ever seen, and immediately made a note never to turn her back on him for a moment. He might be all right, but people like this were always dangerous.

  "Well, Dorion! Returned, I see, and with your two lovely charges!" Halagar's twinkling blue eyes fell on Charley and he paused for a moment. "And you vastly understated the little one's beauty," he added in a low, appreciative tone.

  Charley felt suddenly very strange. She couldn't see what he looked like or get the effect Boday got by looking at the man, and yet she felt him, felt his gaze and sensed his instant attraction, and his voice just seemed to reverberate through her. There was something indefinably magnetic about him that instantly drew her attention and to some extent turned her on. He'd spoken perhaps twenty words in the minute or two since he'd entered the room and yet already that other side of her was in control, the irrational and emotional one, and she was thinking of nothing but him. She'd been horny as hell for a couple of weeks and something in this guy just tapped that and drew it out.

  Halagar walked over, took a chair, and leaned back. "The wine here isn't fit for salad dressing," he muttered. "Innkeeper! A tankard of dark draft, if you please!"

  "Yes, sir! Coming up, sir!"

  As the tankard was delivered, Halagar sighed again. "What a pity that such beauty can not gaze upon itself, even in a mirror," he said, sounding totally sincere. "Her very manner is—magical."

  Charley felt a tingle go through her. It was only the hold the slave ring had on her that kept her from responding or seducing him right on the spot.

  "She is not magical," Dorion assured the man. "No powers at all. Some alchemical enhancements from when she served her trade, but that's all."

  "Incredible."

  She could feel him staring at her even though she could not see.

  Dorion cleared his throat. "Both of you go up to the room now," he ordered. "Wait for me there."

  There was no argument even though Charley in particular wanted very much to stay. They got up, said, "Yes, Master," and made their way upstairs. Once there, however, Boday exploded.

  "Just when Boday thinks you might be learning something you turn back into the silly, immature sexpot again! You know nothing of this man and he is potentially as dangerous to us as the devil monster we slew!"

  Charley sighed. Without Shadowcat around she could only be lectured to, not respond herself, but she did not feel apologetic. I'm what you made me, Boday, she thought angrily. It's what I am. It's who I am. It's also the one thing I can be good at here.

  Dorion entered not long after. "I saw how you reacted to him," the magician said to Charley. "And I sure saw how he reacted to you. He asked me—well, whether or not you could be with him tonight."

  "You refused, of course," Boday responded sharply.

  "No. I have to think of the objective. I can't let my own feelings or anyone else's get in the way. Free, safe passage all the way to Covanti, and connections once we're there. He knows he can't have you forever—he's well aware of the fact that you belong to a high Akhbreed sorcerer and nobody crosses them. He doesn't know which and won't. If you hadn't been so damned hot there, I might have said no, but if you want him and it helps us then I can't see how I can't go through with it."

  Charley didn't hesitate. "It would please me very much. Is he as good-looking as he sounds?"

  "Yes," Dorion sighed. "Damn his soul. Go to him, if it's of your own mind and will to do so. He's two doors down. But don't let him pump you for information. Be dumb and ignorant. Short Speech only. You understand?"

  "Yes, I understand." She turned and went to the door. "Do not worry, either of you. This wi
ll be strictly—physical."

  She walked out, knowing that Boday would probably have to be ordered into silence but not caring. She felt down the hall—one door, two . . . Here it was. She made to knock, and suddenly there was a strange, eerie, inhuman voice in her mind, saying the one phrase she firmly believed that only she and Sam knew in all of Akahlar.

  "Charley be gone," said the inhuman voice in perfect English as she knocked. And, in that instant, Charley ceased to exist as an active or accessible personality in her mind, leaving only Shari, the girl of pleasure, who knew nothing but service and wished to know no more.

  From the darkest part of the hallway, two unhuman eyes watched as the door opened and Halagar bid her enter. For a moment the light caught the eyes, causing them to reflect it back and making them shine, but it was not noticed, and soon the door closed again leaving the watcher in the darkness it preferred. Satisfied, it crept silently to the top of the stairs, then went down to the inn. It went over to the open window, judged distance, then leaped up to it, then went out into the small port town.

  Shadowcat had a lot to learn about this place.

  10

  Some Self-Reevaluation

  It had taken some adjustment to get used to the idea of Crim and Kira, but the actual changeover was a letdown. Oh, Crim would make camp before sunset and then slip out of his buckskins and into a robe, but even if you watched real close it wasn't any spectacular thing. One moment Crim was there, the next it was Kira in a robe now very oversized. The same thing happened in reverse at sunrise.

  It was also difficult to accept that this was no transformation; they really were two entirely different people, and had they been able to walk side by side you would have thought them a near-perfect couple but hardly each other. Crim had literally given half his life to Kira, and that's the way it was. They shared some sort of existence, but they described it as dreaming; each "awoke" at his or her appointed time with vivid yet dreamlike memories of what the other had experienced. But the innermost thoughts and feelings of each were separate and closed to the other; they had information, but were not merged.

  The hardest thing for Sam to get used to was that they never slept in the usual sense of the word. Even so, it made Sam sleep a little better just knowing that Kira would not. Still, there was a feeling of guilt in going to sleep on her out on the trail. This was a very lonely existence for her. In the towns and cities, Crim was often frustrated that he could do the heavy work but not partake of the night life, and Kira, so pale even here, longed for the feel of the sun now and then and more of the day-to-day activity and friendships that would not come with this kind of life. Each had clearly paid a price for the bargain, but it was also clear that neither regretted the price and thought it was well worth it.

  There had been many rumblings in the sky, particularly at night, as they traveled circuitously around the Kudaan Wastes to the main road once more very close in to Tubikosa. Sam had managed a measure of clothing using one of Crim's undershirts, and it was casual enough to get them through the checkpoints, but as soon as they actually entered the hub Crim had arranged for them to be put up at a roadhouse while he used his contacts to get what was needed.

  For all the bureaucracy, so long as yon met the basic physical requirements for being called Akhbreed you could get hub documentation. The small black passportlike folder said she was Misa, an indentured field servant of Count Bourgay, Prefect of Allon Kudaan, which was within the rough boundaries of Duke Pasedo but far from the canyon regions and far to the north and east of the refuge. Allon was an oasis built around a solitary but fruitful well where water from streams far underground made its way to the surface and provided an arid but workable farm environment. The Count was actually a warlord of unquestioned criminality and highly questionable nobility whose alliance with Pasedo had allowed him some measure of respectability and kept the law off his back, but he was not a popular man in the region and was rarely seen and little known, which suited their purposes just fine.

  For cover purposes, the story was that Bourgay, who was on Crim's regular route, had "loaned" Misa to the navigator while he broke with the train to do some business in the northwest. This wasn't an altogether unusual arrangement when Navigators were off on their own, since it was assumed that the trains must keep their schedules and to take a paid—highly paid—member of the train crew would be ridiculous. In effect she was a slave, expected to do the cooking and washing and tend the horses and nargas and even drive the wagon if Crim wanted to sleep. The peculiar nature of Crim and Kira was not public outside his regular areas, since such a thing would have disqualified Crim as an Akhbreed and prevented access to the hub and produced an instant loss of citizenship at the very least. By now, Crim and Kira were pretty adept that keeping their duality a secret. Sam's certification as an Akhbreed was necessary for hub entry at all, and unless you were Akhbreed you couldn't go from world to world at all, leaving the colonials isolated and separated and thus helping maintain the system.

  Sam not only acted the part, she enjoyed it. She was a quick and eager learner, and had no trouble learning how to cook over an open fire, what things would keep—and how—and what would not, how the animals were cared for, hitched, and unhitched, and even elementary carpentry and mending of the wagon area. Her strength surprised and delighted her, and she was eager to keep it up. The broadsword that Kira could hardly move seemed rather light and easy to manage when Sam picked it up, and she worked out a regimen using heavy iron pieces used in the wheels and other things picked up along the way to keep those muscles. By rarely riding in the wagon but mostly walking or running beside it her leg strength and endurance not only maintained itself but actually increased, providing she had some oil on her inside thighs to keep them from rubbing themselves raw.

  The practice sessions with Crim each morning and with Kira each night didn't turn her into an expert swordswoman or marksman or a great archer, knife-thrower, or martial arts expert, but they helped. She had the feeling that if she worked on any one exclusively over many months she could become pretty damned good at it, but for now all she wanted was a working general knowledge for defense. As Crim was fond of pointing out, the vast majority of people who used such weapons and techniques weren't very good at them, either— but they were far better than those who knew nothing.

  The most frustrating part, at least from Kira's point of view, was Sam's continuing inability to relearn English. She had much from that period, including a habit of using archaic English measures like pounds and feet and miles even in Akhbreed, yet she had no clear-cut, specific memories of her old home world, only major, usually traumatic, scenes from there. After a while, Kira got the idea that Sam was actually fighting it; that the old memories and old life might be there, at least most of them, but that Sam unconsciously or otherwise didn't want them to come back, didn't want to even think of that place.

  Although there was lots of paperwork and connections with Crim's underground friends, they stayed well clear of the Mashtopol hub's capital city and even camped outside of the small towns. This didn't prevent either one from going into those places when and where necessary, but it was thought best to leave Sam in a less obvious, less exposed position just in case. This was partly because Mashtopol was the most dangerous point, theoretically, until they reached Masalur, since if the enemy suspected that she still lived and was hunting her, as seemed obvious from Zamofir's comments back at the refuge, then here was where there would be a plethora of spies, mercenaries, and opportunists mobilized to look for anyone new or suspicious. Also, while Mashtopol looked to Sam to be physically a carbon copy of Tubikosa, its government was far more corrupt.

  In Tubikosa, only "bad" women would go about without the long, baggy dress and bandanna on their heads, and only "wicked" men would be seen not fully and formally dressed at all times. There were some like that in Mashtopol, particularly in the small towns, but the majority of people were far more casual, with women casually wearing colorful print skirts
hanging on their hips and comfortable tops, and men in more casual pants and shirts, usually of dark, somber colors, and wearing vests of various colors over their shirts. Hats, however, seemed to be out of fashion for either sex inside the hub. Social norms still hadn't progressed here to the point of seeing women wearing pants, but it certainly was a lot more casual than back "home" and some of those skirts were hanging pretty low and some of those tops were pretty damned tight. It also beat those stretch outfits that always felt like they were cutting her and grabbing her in all the wrong places.

  The Kudaanese fashion, though, which Sam was expected to wear for consistency, was for light solid colors in the skirt and a halter-type top, sometimes set off with a matching blanketlike cotton garment that had a hole in the center for sticking your head through, but there was also a small pocket on just one side that contained a pull-out integrated hood with tie strings. Wearing it that way you had your head pretty well covered and the rest became something of a cape. The light colors, design, and all-cotton nature reflected simple attempts at dealing with the horrible sun of the Kudaan region. Sam's hairy legs and underarms were also reflective of a colonial origin; most hub women shaved them.

  The last touch wasn't so much fun but made the most dramatic change in her. Kira had mixed a nearly alchemical mixture of foul-smelling chemicals and had thoroughly and repeatedly treated Sam's now long black hair with it. It had taken most of the color right out of the hair over repeated rinsings, giving Sam what she thought of as "dingy gray" hair. Kira called it silver and tried to be nicer about it. Still, Sam's sun-darkened complexion and weathered look combined with the long and full "silver" hair to provide a striking change in appearance. Only Sam didn't like it, but she preferred it to meeting Klittichorn face-to-face.