02. Riders of the Winds (14 page)

_{way
down, on the farm. "I'm sort'a all mixed up inside my head." He nodded. "That's understandable. Hopefully it'll sort itself out over time. In the meantime, do you know who I am and where we're heading, sooner or later?"}

_{his
language. One of them, anyway."}

_{do
you remember clearly?" he asked her, probing a bit.}

_{She
has more experience with that than you do and she's got a sorcerer right next to her to use that energy and send things through."}

_{I
could speak to her at all and that she could be somewhat understood. This was particularly important because the language here was an illegal one. A number of the younger and newer Akhbreed sorcerers had taken to using it as a sort of standard for some reason. It was thought that some knowledge of it might prove useful."}

_{I
was havin' identity problems!"}

_{very
quick. But we, all three of us, luck willing, will be with each other for quite some time. Months, probably. It's a long way to Masalur."}

_{do
touch, they are worlds touching round worlds—so that actual point of overlap is very narrow. Kudaan is a world, not a desert. This is the Kudaan Wastes, a large desert on the planet, but not all of the planet is this way by any means. If we go outside that narrow overlapping strip then we'll simply wander the face of Kudaan and never intersect a hub. The only way to go is along the strips and through the hubs. We're being a little roundabout in our routing, but we're still going to head for the border of Mashtopol and we have to go into and through that hub to go farther. There are no short cuts, for anybody. At least there I have a number of contacts. We'll get you new identity papers—as Misa, I think, a colonial peasant of Kudaan whose services are bound to me by your liege lord as a favor because I'm short some experienced animal tenders. That won't be citizenship or anything—you'll be little more than a bound slave I can't sell but that's about the only restriction—but it'll explain your appearance, ways, speech, and the like."}

₉

_{On Dangerous Ground}

_{thing.
It went so fast I can't be sure what happened to it, though."}

_{grounding
it?"}

_{can
change some things, of course, and the fact that your destiny is so complex that no one can ever completely figure it out gives things a certain amount of spice, but basically the script idea is valid. Magicians can read a few lines and directions of the script; sorcerers can read whole pages or scenes. But no one can grasp it all. The First Equation, which set all else in motion and created the universes and all they contain or will contain, created the complexities of everything's destiny. If you believe that was the product of an intelligence, then that is your religion. If you believe that it was random, then you're not religious. Religion has little really to do with magic for all its trappings. Even the gods and devils and spirits are creations, like us, of that destiny and not lords of it. Only the changewind, being of the same sort as the First Equation, can actually alter those equations. It's the random factor that keeps everything from becoming scripted, so to speak."}

_{brilliant.
You are a very remarkable young woman."}

_{"Oh,
unpredictable."
He sighed. "All right, then, I guess I may as well tell you. It's control. Some say concentration. Some have said I've got some kind of brain damage or something that makes it happen. Others, well, they have been less kind. That's why I was out there in the Wastes with Yobi and a few others. I was scared to get back into civilized company where I might do more harm."}

_{improvising
and it just doesn't work right."}

_{learns,
it is something one
feels.
"}

_{but
us invisible or invulnerable. No matter what I try or how careful I am, it goes wrong. I work a spell and gold is transmuted to lead. I once accidentally turned a handsome young fellow into a toad. Stock spell, but not the one I was trying to do. Rather than try to undo it I decided on the usual remedy, got a pretty girl to kiss him. She turned into a toad, too. I am a danger and a menace. I've been exiled by many governments for their and my own good. Don't you see, I don't
dare
use any magic if I can help it. Particularly when it involves Mashtopol. I only hope Boolean will understand my service without killing me first."}

_know
him?"

_{thinks
in English and he's most comfortable using it, so everybody around him has to learn it."}

_{They
might hide, but not the horses, and without the horses their chance of crossing a strange colonial world undetected was much slimmer.}

_{his
fantasy . . .}

_{how
Charley did. Boday was right—the pool was fairly chilly relative to the air, but the water seemed clean and smelted okay and there was enough of it. She might have liked some soap, and particularly some shampoo, but even as basic as it was it was
wonderful.
Somehow it made her feel human again, even though she wondered if her hair would ever dry in this humidity. Not only that, but she could wash out her really smelly, filthy clothes, although again the drying would take time. For a while, all she'd have was the never-before-used cape, which was kind of sexy without anything under if a potential modesty-preserver. Any saddle sores that might develop in the interim had developed long ago; she was pretty toughened now to riding bare-assed in the saddle.}

_{try,
but I'd probably wind up with a sea monster working for Klittichorn. I don't think it's going to be as bad as you say, though, and there's always the age-old method of bribery." He sighed. "Well, let's saddle up and see if we can find this town or port or whatever it turns out to be. We can't know how to solve our problems until we find out what the problems are." He thought a moment. "There were some lights last night farther on up the coast where we're heading. Not enough for a town, but maybe some private dwellings, maybe even native. Just stay loose and relaxed aad we'll see if we can find somebody to give us the information."}

_{too
different. I'm not sure that mouth could form Akhbreed words or sounds if it knew it. Still, no harm in trying."}

_{"Please,"
I
know you can read my thoughts with this spell although I cannot read yours. We axe strangers in your land and we are lost. We seek the main road and perhaps a place to get passage west. Is there any way you can help us? We do not know your language, but while you can understand me we have no way of understanding you by speech, 1 fear. Can you help us?"}

_{they
were, and there was the coast, and there was a road or trail or something leading inland a bit farther on. It appeared that this was some sort of peninsula, and that the town was on the opposite side and a bit before the point.}

_{thinking
them," Dorion responded worriedly. "I hope after this world we'll be able to keep in areas closer to Akhbreed types, though. Keep a sharp watch, too. Remember, we're Akhbreed and we aren't exactly the most popular folks in the colonies to the colonials no matter what our personal opinions are. It was probably being legitimate and nice, but you can't tell when one of them will direct you right off a cliff."}

_{were
able to spot it by going slow and having Boday check out every likely access, and they were able to use it single-file, although Charley had some tough time avoiding low-hanging branches and the like that she could not see ahead of her and which were low enough to unhorse anyone not ready. Finally, after falling off and getting bruised, Dorion took her horse as a lead while she climbed onto Boday's mount, riding behind her doubled up in the saddle. It wasn't very comfortable and made her aware of her limitations more than she liked, but she preferred that to breaking her neck or even getting permanent rips in her face and body.}

_{dreams about her, thinks about her all the time. It is real. It is now a part of Boday, the most important part. All those husbands, and all those lovers—male, female, and other—over the years, and Boday never really loved any of them, nor felt any love really from them, either. It made her heart cold, her art surface and cynical. Now Boday both loves and suffers. One day she will create art that none will deny is great and glorious and immortal—if she lives. The potion was perhaps part of Boday's destiny." She paused a moment, reflecting. "You, however. You have never loved. You have lusted, as Dorion lusts for you, but never loved."}

_{both
of us if he wanted to, and you know it."}

_{her
of doing. Seeing only the surface and never looking beneath. Her two-level personality she had mostly taken for granted as, like Boday's love for Sam, it was alchemically induced. At least, she'd been telling herself that all along. But was she kidding herself, really? It wasn't magic, it was drugs of some kind, permanent or not. Wasn't that really the difference between magic and alchemy? Magic created and destroyed; alchemy only enhanced or depressed what was already there.}

_{melagas,"
she tried, fumbling for the word for "aura" and settling for the one for "soul." She had stared at little else for quite some time now.}

_{was
small; a bar and back kitchen area opened onto a relatively tiny room with just five round tables. There was no electricity or other modern conveniences; even by Boday's standards this place was pretty primitive. In back and opposite the bar was a steep wooden staircase and rail leading upstairs. If the top floor wasn't any bigger than the bottom, then the four rooms up there were pretty small and the bathroom had to be in the back of the place.}

_{The good old Akhbreed colonial mentality strikes again,}

_{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.}

_{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.}

₁₀

_{Some Self-Reevaluation}

_{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.}

_{there,
alone, with the wagon, and I go through on the side, here, by cuttin' through the fence and meet up with you out in the misty zone. I know there's bound to be a border checkpoint wherever we're goin', but there's a pretty long distance between the hub and the colony."}

_{I
won't get across in daylight at the speed I can go with this rig, and I can't stall much in bringing up Briche, which is the land we're going to use. You must be there when I get there. Understand?"}

_{that
one to be out of the way.}

_{My god, it's all mouth!}

_{something else
before sheets of pouring rain hit her.
There were things up there!
Things with great, leathery wings and heads on long necks that looked like chisel-points, with glowing coals for eyes, atop which were strange, wraithlike giants in saddles riding them as if they were horses. The riders were transparent, outlined by pulsating borders of energy that seemed to form both body and some semblance of armor.}

_Stormriders!

_{rain was still driving, but the lightning was no longer striking the ground but rather seeking out those great black things with their ethereal riders, who grew brighter and more horrible as they absorbed each bolt.}

_{things
up there would instead look down and spot her with those cold, empty outlined eyes. Above, there came the noise of horrible screeching that pierced even the noise of the storm as the ghastly black mounts screamed their defiance of storm and all else in creation.}