02. Riders of the Winds (3 page)

The large woman nodded. "I know, I know. You don't know how I want to give in to Boday, find someplace away from it all and just rot there in peace. But, you're right—we've now seen what the enemy looks like and it's not pretty. If stopping them means I got to reach Boolean, then I got to reach Boolean. Bad as this Akhbreed rule over all these colonies is, when I think of guys like the ones we killed rulin' over all the little kids . .

Darkness fell quickly as they sat and talked, bringing a hot, dry wind with it as the temperature cooled down to merely intolerable.

"It's a long way from the mall," Charley sighed. "You ever think about home?"

"Lots. Particularly Mom and Dad and what my disappearance has to have put them through. I think I could take this better if there was some way to contact them, tell them I'm still alive. And I dream of warm showers in comfortable homes and cars and mall hopping and all the rest. God! For high school dropouts we sure dropped out farther and lower than anybody else."

Sam gave a dry chuckle. "I guess that's right. The funny thing is, though, I don't think of home too much. Oh, yeah, I'd like Mom and Dad to both know I'm still alive, too, and I kind'a have this crazy hope that maybe my vanishing act brought 'em back together or something, but every time I think of home I also think of here. Where the hell was I heading? I can see myself as some butch dyke on the make with some job sellin' shoes or maybe a waitress. I dunno. I kind'a think I was on my way to poppin' a ton of pills one night or drinkin' myself to death. So here I am a really gross fat girl hooked up with a flaky nutso cross between an artist, a madam, and a pharmacist, stuck out in the middle of nowhere and bein' chased by who knows what—and no matter what I feel like I'd pick here over there. I guess
I am
nuts."

"No, I think I can see it," Charley told her. "You got a few things here you never had back home. Thanks to that potion you not only have somebody who cares about you but one you know isn't gonna back stab you later on or hurt you. And you don't hav'ta get anorexia or do anything to attract other people. And you got a purpose here. No matter what, you're important. In a way, all the powers of Akahlar are tryin' to get you to Boolean or keep you away from him. That may not be safe or comfortable, but it sure as hell is a big deal."

"Maybe," Sam responded, "but, deep down, I really wish you were really the one that was important, the one they wanted. I really don't want this. It's too heavy for me. I think I could'a been happy just stayin' with Boday in Tubikosa, cookin' the meals, doin' the laundry and cleaning, and running the studio and household. It's crazy. What most girls won't have no part of anymore back home was all I really ever wanted. Only trouble was, I never wanted to do it with a guy. I didn't want to admit that, even to myself. It'd kill my mom. Hell, even I thought it was evil, one of the big sins. It ain't until you're tied down and stretched out naked while a bunch of dirty, slimy bastards play with your body that you see how dumb that is, what real evil and sin is all about."

"Poor Sam," Charley sympathized. "No matter where you wind up there's something you can't control lousing things up."

"Well, at least likin' girls don't bother me no more. I'm comfortable with it. That's one thing last night did for me. No more lies, not to nobody, not even to myself. If other folks can't handle it that's their tough luck. And if I'm okay with myself as a fat slob, then that's all right, too. Hell, all them fantasies about me bein' a glamour queen and what the hell would it get me, huh? I ain't never gonna be my mom, so I might as well just be me."

"I guess that's the best way to think about it," Charley told her, "Me, I never figured on any of this, but I
do
like the men. Jeez! Could I use a good fuck right now! Not like what you had," she hastened to add. "I mean a good one."

"I still need you, Charley," Sam said seriously. "Not as a lover but for your strength. Maybe that's why I was so attracted to you all that time. You're more like my mom than I could ever be. Supermom. Lawyer, activist, mother, church deacon—you name it, she's it. Maybe we had the wrong parents. Maybe they switched us when we were babies or something."

Charley chuckled. "Good trick since we were born two thousand miles apart. I'm not sure I ever wanted to be superwoman, but I sure had ambition, that was for sure. I was gonna be a businesswoman, that was for sure. M.B. A. and all. Maybe create a chain of stores or some kind of design business. Maybe even an architect. I spent so much time in malls I could design the perfect one in my sleep. So I wind up a painted courtesan selling myself for money here. No citizenship, no rights, no nothin'. Can't even speak the cockamamie language except in words and gestures. And chased around while everybody thinks I'm you. At this point all I'm interested in is getting you to the big boy so I can get the heat off me. I can't think beyond that right now,"

Sam sighed. "Boy, are we screwed up!" She reached down and started scratching her inner thigh. "Tell you one thing I'd kill for from home, though. Some kind of lotion. I've got chafing like mad from thighs to crotch and under my tits. I sure wish Boday had her kit at least." She looked out in the darkness. "That's odd," she said suddenly in a tone quite different than the one she'd been taking.

"Huh? What?"

"It's glowing over there. Many miles away. Like towns glow on the horizon in the dark anyplace. But there ain't supposed to be no towns in this hole! See it?"

Charley shook her head. "Sam, I was trying to keep this from everybody, but I can't see well at all. I've never had perfect eyes—you remember I needed glasses or contacts to drive—but after watching that magic duel it got suddenly worse. I can't say if it's a little better, a little worse, or just the same now, but with you riding just in front of me today I could see you, only blurry. I could tell it was somebody on a horse but if you paid me I couldn't say if it was really you or a total stranger. After you was nothing but a blurry fog. Maybe six or eight feet clearly, then double that very blurrily, and after that I'm blind as a bat."

Sam gave a low whistle. "I didn't need to hear that. You're in the best shape and you're the only decent shot we got. Damn!"

"You're telling me? Without company I'd be dead meat out here now. Of course, now that it's black as pitch it doesn't make much difference. Maybe when we can get to some civilization it can be fixed, maybe with glasses or something. In the meantime, I'll take the shotgun. You don't need to see much to hit with a shotgun."

Sam turned back and looked at the glow on the horizon. "I'd sure like to know what that is," she said at last. "If it's some kind of small town or mining camp we might be able to contact the authorities. If it's an enemy encampment I'd like to know just what we're facing."

"Most likely some bandit camp," Charley replied. "That's who supposedly lives out here, isn't it? Refugees, exiles, and changelings. At least we have some bargaining if it's bandits. The jewelry and stuff from the train they looted plus we know where a bunch of Mandan gold blankets are hidden. They seem to be worth lives around here."

It was for the Mandan gold blankets that the marauding bands of the enemy was stalking and attacking trains, for they were rare and valuable and the only things that could protect you in a change wind. Why Klittichorn and his minions wanted and needed so many was unknown, but clearly it was a high priority. They would have liked to bring the cloaks in the rock arch with them, if only for protection for themselves, but they were far too heavy to carry on horses that also needed to carry riders, and with all wagons broken or destroyed and only one narga healthy and untouched enough to carry a load, they had to sacrifice the blankets for more water and wine casks. They had managed to haul them a ways, though, and more or less bury them under rock and debris away from the main camp.

"Yeah, but most of that type of person or thing or whatever would be just as likely to enslave us and turn it all over to the enemy," Sam pointed out. "After all, he's playing it as the champion of the colonials and the outcasts. No, let's try and slip by 'em and get to someplace where we can slip across the border into someplace cool and rainy where they never heard of you or me."

"Maybe. But if I could see better I'd sure as hell like to take a peek at them. If they're off a ways, then it's even money we'll be camping tomorrow pretty near them if we keep going that way."

"We'll see. We can't go back—they're sure to be sniffin' all around there by now. We can't go to the border—that's a sure way to get caught out in the open. And if we go inland we don't know where we're goin' or what the hell we're doin' and we run out of water fast. Boday's in pretty good shape. Maybe she'll be our scout."

Charley suddenly felt dizzy. "I think it's finally caught up to me. I'm going to try and get some rest. You remember to wake somebody up when you feel it yourself."

"I promise. Get some rest now. We got another day of that sun tomorrow."

Charley went off and Sam turned back to the lookout. The glow was small and subdued, but it remained constant, not like someone or a body of people on the move and certainly larger man a camp. They had money, but no place to spend it, and little else. She scratched again. God! How she could use a long, hours, long, bath! A real soak. They were all dirty, sweaty, itchy, and smelled like warmed-over turds. Right about now they needed some allies more than anything in the world.

"I still don't like the idea of that camp or whatever it was over there," Sam said over what passed for breakfast. She was stilt dead tired, ached like hell, and felt like she hadn't slept at all—but she knew that she didn't feel any different than the others. "If mere's no fork later on, this road seems to be heading right for it."

"Boday is for cutting back a bit and making for the border now," the mad alchemist put in. "There will not have been enough time to bring up a force capable of covering the whole border area and we are certainly beyond the rain and bloom period of those
ghastly
plants. If we continue south, on this trail, we might or might not run into whoever is over there, but we would certainly be easy to find from above, either by something flying or even sentries on the high points. To go by night is suicide. To go by day is suicide. To go in any direction is suicide. To stay here is suicide. Let us make for the border!"

Charley listened to the arguments and finally said, "Well, it's clear we can't stay here but we don't dare go back. Somebody's sure to be hot on our trail. I say we go on, now, as soon as possible, before the sun's full up and there's maximum heat, but if there's a fork or anything that takes us towards the border we go that way. I'd rather know what I was facing and shoot my way through than keep
this
up and die of thirst or worse."

Rani looked up at them and spoke in a dry, soft voice. "I know we don't have much say in all this, but I got to tell you that we won't let nobody, no men, no freaks, take us again. We can shoot. I never was sure I
could
shoot nobody before, but I'm sure now."

Charley didn't feel comfortable, particularly with that comment about "freaks." It was hard to remember these were Akhbreed children, born and raised to be masters of the colonial empires. "Just don't you both go shooting
everybody
you see, and everything," she warned. "The odds are most folks we'll meet are not our friends, but not all will be enemies, either. Wait for one of us before firing."

The girls stared at her sullenly, but said nothing.

"All right, then," Sam said firmly. "We go both ways. North and towards the border first chance if it's a trail that looks like it has even half a chance of being able to take horses. Let's pack up and get moving. No matter what, I think we got to stop at midday and find some shade, for our sake and the horses', so the earlier the start the better."

As they rode along, Charley eased up close to Sam. "Sam—-just in case, I think we oughta make clear that we're all heading for Boolean. If, somehow, we get split up and can't find each other, that's where we head."

Sam nodded. "Okay by me. I'm not so sure, though, that we're likely to get split up. Killed, maybe, but not split."

After only a few hours it was as if someone had turned up the thermostat to "broil." If anything, it seemed worse than before, and shade more nebulous and not much help when they could find it. Still, they covered quite a good distance before it was clearly time to stop and take some kind of a break. It was hard even to think under these conditions.

Suddenly Boday called out, "Look, loves! The trail splits, and one of it goes down into a canyon. We dare not hope for water but it looks deep enough for cool shade."

They made for it, feeling in no condition to argue, although Sam noticed almost casually that the. fork into the shade was going in the wrong direction. Anything right now for relief, she decided.

It was clear very quickly that this was no ordinary canyon, but a long and relatively straight side break to a much larger formation. The ground seemed to drop away to their left, leaving them with a very narrow trail to navigate through many switchbacks on their somewhat nervous and very tired and thirsty horses. Charley couldn't see much past the edge but she could see to it, and what she saw made her almost glad she couldn't see just how far a drop it was.

But it was all in the shade, at least for now, and as they descended it really did seem to be getting just a little bit cooler, with a slight breeze hitting them from the side.