"An eye… Dorion, you mean?"
"Of course not. Shadowcat. Like me, your familiar existed both in this plane and in his native one. There distance and even duration are meaningless. He and I discussed everything. We agreed that you should not betray your true self to Halagar lest he beat or possibly kill you. You were far safer when you appeared to have no mind and presented therefore no threat. He truly liked you, which is rare for a familiar— Perhaps too much. He was not supposed to kill Halagar. Boolean would have retrieved you upon his return from seeing what was done to poor Masalur. It caused much consternation that you had vanished, and we overstayed there seeing if we could pick you up on the impulse to come to him. Because of that, Zamofir got there first and all the bloodletting was made necessary. Again, it worked out, as those with true destiny tend to do, but that was the way it was. Because we were late Sam learned duty and sacrifice. Because you finally reached a point where you would rather die, naked, blind, and alone, in a foreign wood than return to being a slave and object in the camp, you learned much, too."
"You make it sound so cold, so calculating, so callous," she said, shaking her head. "Like we were pieces of meat with no rights and no say. Just dolls to make over and play with and never mind the suffering and pain and degradation. Our lives, our minds, really meant nothing to your master except possible means to his end. And he got just what he wanted, which grates on me. I sit here, fat and ugly and miserable, surrogate mother to somebody else's baby. and Sam's going smiling Into maybe worst than death. Somehow, text really pisses me off."
"That's how wars are fought these days. Maybe they have always been fought that way, with the little folks being ordered to charge into the enemy lines. If they don't they get shot as traitors. If they do, they get shot by the enemy, all so their body can be used as a shield and step-stone by the next guy to get another couple of yards. Yours is an interesting race, that climbed from the muck by little murders, and as you grew in power and experience they became bigger murders. Now you have reached the point on many worlds where you can murder your whole species in a matter of a few - minutes and that makes you the zenith of human civilization. Here a madman and there are always madmen in a society built on murders to scale—intends to install himself as master and then as god. My race has sat back and watched, occasionally intervening over the years to get a better view, in utter fascination at this, and some of us spend eternity arguing the a points you people raise. You object to being a tool, an object, pushed, shoved, and manipulated by powerful forces beyond your comprehension in the cause of stopping something horrible. Yet if those powers did not do so, would we not be guilty of allowing the greater crime to happen to the greater number? It is a fascinating point. Even your gods reflect this. You are pawns of omnipotent beings. You pray for mercy, for forgiveness, for victory in battle, and the death of your enemies. You sacrifice to them, either really or symbolically, widi blood and ritual cannibalism. You are born pawns. It is in your nature. It is only when you notice that you are that you object."
She looked over at the tiny figure in the darkness. "Just what are you, Cromil?"
"An alternative reality. One from a universe so different that you could not even comprehend it, where the very laws of nature are so different as to be madness to you, as yours is to us. In the long distant past, we learned to use the weak points created by the out-rushing Changewind, and, being curious, we tagged along. We need form here, so we take form here; otherwise it is all incomprehensible madness to us. We deal with the powerful, the high priests or sorcerers or whatever. We give some service, they give some things we want. It's worked out pretty well over the years."
"And what do creatures like you want from us?" she asked it. "To satisfy curiosity? To explore? More knowledge? Blood? What?"
Cromil's answer stunned her and stung her and she reeled from the impact of its words.
"Amusement," it said.
For a while she said nothing more to the creature because there was nothing more to say. Who was whose god, and who was whose plaything? Who pushed who, and for what motives? Was anybody, even Boolean, even Klittichom, really free, really a master of fate, really in control?
"You going to tell anybody any of this?" Cromil asked curiously.
"Maybe. Maybe not. It's not exactly what Sam needs to know right now, and your own feelings I suspect are pretty well known to the sorcerers."
"Oh, yes."
"Tell me—does Klittichom have a familiar?"
"Oh, they all do. It's kind of necessary to the higher functions of magic. We're very loyal to whichever side we happen to be on, you see, but we tend to stay out of the showdowns. We prefer to watch."
"I'll bet." She yawned in spite of herself. "Well, you've depressed the hell out of me, anyway. I guess, for everybody's good, I ought to try to sleep."
"Your role in this, except for mother, is about to end," the amiliar told her. "The big show is about to begin now. We are actively wagering on the outcome."
She picked up a rock and threw it at him, but it missed.
* * *
To Charley's surprise, they flew next to Masalur, but only Boolean and Cromil went to me hub; me rest, under Etanalon's powers, went east, where she and Dorion had thought of going, and into a colony world that seemed peaceful and virgin. They flew out over a broad, sparkling blue, tropical ocean, landing eventually on a good-sized island, perhaps thirty miles across and twenty miles wide, the largest of a string of isolated volcanic islands. The place looked like those pictures in the magazines of tropical paradise; of coconut palms and virgin sandy beaches, with banana and mango and other tropical fruits or reasonable cousins there of growing wild all over. It was a gorgeous place, the only inhabitants of which appeared to be birds and insects.
There was one structure on the island; a small but comfortable-looking beach house overlooking a picture postcard tropical lagoon. Inside they were surprised to find two bedrooms with big, comfortable, modem beds with spring mattresses, plus a living room and dinette area and something of a den over-looking the lagoon itself, all comfortably furnished if not with me best, then with homey touches appropriate to die setting and decor. Rattan chairs, that sort of thing- The bathroom was an outhouse—somebody had even carved a half-moon in the door—showers were available at a pretty tropical waterfall about a hundred yards into the Jungle, in back of the house. There were oil lamps, storage places, and an outdoor covered grill. No electricity or immediate running water, but it looked like somebody's idea of a perfect tropical hideaway.
Boolean arrived about six hours behind them; by then they'd already round the ponds that trapped the fish at low tide, and were feeling quite pleasant. The sorcerer, however, was not alone.
The two creatures were both almost cartoons of extremely erotic girts, but they were not—at least not me way Charley and Sam and the Akhbreed thought of girls. For one thing, they were absolutely identical twins. For another, they had incredibly smooth pea-green skin that seemed almost to lack pores, and glistened a bit in the light, with lips of darkest green and emerald eyes in a sea of pale olive. What appeared to be thick if short dark green hair had the consistency and solidity of brambles, not hiding at all ears like delicate, tiny seashells; and their feet each had three wide, webbed, almost birdlike toes. They had four thin arms that seemed a bit more rigid than human arms and ended in three long identical fingers that closed on things almost claw-like, but were soft and as dexterous as human fingers, and the lower set appeared to be on ball joints, able to reach forward or back equally, and four small but firm breasts, the top pair looking normal but hanging just slightly on the lower pair. And, odder still, they had thin, prehensile tails that did not come out of the spine but out of the point between the vagina and the rectum, about a foot long and ending in a structure that looked like a… well, penis.
They were the objects of a lot of attention, and it was good they were not self-conscious about things. Everyone had the same thought: so these were what the C
hangewind made of the Masalurians….
"Folks, these are Modar and Sobroa," Boolean told them. "Don't ask me which is which now, but you'll tell when talking to them- Modar used to be six-two and all male, and Sobroa was about this size and the best-looking female adept I ever came across. They were among the small staff who volunteered to maintain the shield and defenses and remain at their posts."
"If our form shocks you," said one, in a strange, two-toned kind of voice, "think of what it was for us to suddenly find ourselves this. I hope you will get used to us, because we have not yet gotten used to us and we learn more every day. I fear it will be years before we learn everything."
"What matters," Boolean told them, "is that Sobroa was a trained healer and a midwife. She has no powers now, but she has delivered a lot of babies and she knows basic first aid and medicine. Modar was my librarian and something of a romantic and dreamer on the side. He found and mostly designed this place, and there's nothing about it he doesn't know."
"Do you like it?" asked the other one, in a voice that was identical to the first yet somehow different in tone and accent.
"It's beautiful." Sam responded. "Was this a kind of retreat?"
Boolean nodded. "When we had to get away—me or any of the staff—we came here. There's no shipping to speak of on this world, and the population is concentrated in the less tropical climate zones for reasons that would be obvious if you saw them. These islands are a thousand miles from anyone and are likely to stay that way, at least for a number of years. Food, water, all the basics almost fall into your lap. But since it's a Masalurian colony, I highly doubt if anybody would look for you here. Anyone here now is welcome to remain here. Charley, you, and Dorion, of course. Just remember that you are the guests of Sobroa and Modar, they're not your servants. We will be leaving in the morning, and we won't be back until it's done."
It was tempting, really tempting, but first Boday, then Crim, talked to Boolean.
"Boday has not found her Susama to once more give her up. She will go, and if she can be of help to the last she will do so! And if, by miracle of miracles, she survives, she will immortalize the greatest battle in the history of the cosmos!" "Just not knowing would drive us nuts," Crim told him. "Maybe we can do nothing, and maybe we're crazy, but I want to be there at the end, and I feel inside that Kira does as well. We already almost died for this."
"You both are welcome and may be useful," Boolean told them. "But, remember, if it's you or the enemy, you'll be left to the fates. And if it turns out that you can do nothing, then stay out of the way. Now get some sleep."
The goodbyes were tearful, with Charley doing a lot of hugging and kissing and crying and breaking up Sam and Boday as well, but then it was time. They who would remain watched the others climb on their enchanted saddles, rise up into the burgeoning sunrise, take one last loop around, and then become tiny specks and vanish in the warm light of day. Dorion looked at Charley. "You wish you were going with them, don't you?" he asked her.
She just smiled and didn't answer.
"Well," he sighed, "so do I. May the gods who brought us all to this point be with them still."
High in the air over the sparkling blue ocean, Sam felt her breakfast remaining lumped in her throat, but she looked ahead, not back. She hadn't slept much, but she felt very wide awake, very keyed up.
My god, it's really happening, she told herself. Here we go!
12
The Citadel at the Edge of Chaos
WHEN KLITTICHOM HAD dubbed himself the Horned Demon of the Snows he wasn't just doing it to make himself sound colorful.
All her time in Akahlar, Sam had spent in the subtropical or tropical belt, until she'd almost forgotten there was any such thing as winter or that cold meant like the inside of a freezer, not merely a bit of a chill after an intense rain.
Their journey northward had turned steadily if slowly colder by degrees as they passed each border or hub. Boolean was able to put in a perspective she could somewhat understand by asking her to think of Tubikosa as perhaps northern Australia or New Guinea; Masalur would be somewhere around northeast Africa, maybe Egypt, although with a lot better rainfall. Klittichom, however, had his domain in the equivalent of northern Sweden or perhaps even Iceland or Greenland, up near or on the Arctic Circle.
It was hard for Sam to think of Akahlar as a planet like Earth—in fact, the planet Earth itself. It was too different, too exotic, without the land or sea or other areas to make any comparisons. The intense pull and hold of the Seat of Probability, like a giant sun on a different and lower dimensional plane, held Akahlar where it was, and had also slowly, over the millennia, pulled the other Earths "nearest" to it down so that they intersected for short periods, one atop the other. The hubs and nulls were the only places where, because the worlds were round, the intersection did not take place, and, as such, they were the only parts of the real world of Akahlar that had been able to develop.
Other than the increasing cold, the other thing Sam noticed as they travelled northward was that the intersection points, the parts of the colonies that overlapped Akahlar's reality, grew shorter and more irregular, often much longer on one side of a hub than another. Beyond the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, there was virtually no overlap, just ice and snow and occasional nulls to nowhere in patches here and there. It was for this reason, as well as its hostile environment and remoteness, that Klittichom had chosen it. Almost no one lived there; just about no one wanted to go there.
But in the region he had picked there were high volcanic ranges providing unexpected warmth among the glacial ice, and the means to tap geothermal heat and power. In a small valley surrounded by glacier-clad volcanic mountain peaks, he had built not just his home and laboratory but a small city, populated by those who were the outcasts of Akhbreed society. Here the political malcontents, the magicians with grudges, real or imagined, the disgraced soldiers and criminal classes, could gather with absolute immunity and safety and with a level of comfort and protection that a similar area like the Kudaan Wastes could not provide. Here resided the cream of the outcasts; not merely Akhbreed but colonials as well, picked up by Klittichom or his agents from their own worlds and brought here to help their master plans.
Klittichom's great, dull-red castle, with its menorah-like eight towers, dominated the scene. It was not merely his own home and base, but the workplace for many of the people. Below it, on the valley floor, stretched the comfortable and hyper-insulated houses of the people (heated by geothermal steam which also provided their hot water and even their cooking medium) stretching out on either side of the central greenhouses wherein were raised the best food crops adequate for all their needs. Beyond, the massive herds of reindeer and other arctic animals provided the sources of meat as well as the work animals for the society. Just viewing it from the air, as frigid as it was, the region impressed the hell out of all of them. None, not even Boolean, had seen it before.
There were six of them now; all were clad in layer after layer of heavy furs, gloves, you name it, to withstand the bitter cold, but while it was enough to keep them alive and out of harm's way from the elements, it didn't make any of them feel warm or comfortable.
Yobi had joined them in the air over Hanahbak, a thousand miles to the southeast, her great lower bulk covered with a tremendous fur cloak. She looked as if she were just floating there, a being who was her own craft, and if she used a saddle or other conveyance they had not seen it.
"Is that it? Is that where we have to go?" Sam asked, now used to being able to talk through muffled layers and masks and still have the same power of speech as if they were all sitting together comfortably around a fire inside a snug lodge.
"No, I just wanted to take a look at what he'd built," Boolean replied. "I think we're all impressed, although it doesn't really surprise me. He never did anything halfway."
"The scale of it surprises and shocks me," Yobi put in. "I had this picture of a frigid castle redoubt in the middle of wastes,
not a somewhat grand city. Didn't you say the fellow was from a tropical place?"
"He was, but humans are very adaptable," the sorcerer responded. "He could never have accomplished all this in the south, not with all the people and politics and the Guild snooping about. Besides, look at the steam slowly rising from the ground all around. There's plenty of heat available here for almost anything you need. I bet inside those places, even the castle, it's as warm as Masalur. And if you look at the way the heat shimmers go, the odds are you can get from almost anyplace to anyplace using heated underground tunnels there. Unless you're into skiing or herding reindeer, you might never have to go outside or feel the cold."
"Then where is the man himself?" Crim asked.
"Not far, but better hidden and independent," Boolean told him. "In fact, I think we'll find a reasonable place to make camp here, and then send you and Boday to check it out for us."
"Why not everybody?" Sam asked him.
"I think he knows we're near, or coming," the sorcerer responded, "but I don't want to give him any free shots at us. He has monitoring spells all over here to detect people like us, but he feels he has nothing to fear from ordinary, nonmagical people. Not that there won't be some guards, so care will have to be taken, but to present the three of us to him within sight of his headquarters would be to draw targets on ourselves and give him a few free shots. No, let's keep him guessing as to our strength and location and true nature."
"You don't think he'll panic just by the awareness that we are close?" Yobi asked, concerned.
"Not so long as the Storm Princess knows and feels the presence of the child half a hemisphere away, no. He seeks godlike powers, but there is no way he can have godlike omnipotence. I think our little trick with the switch will fool him because it's too subtle and too unprecedented. I know the way his mind works as well as anyone, at least on the surface level."
Changewinds 03 - War of the Maelstrom Page 34