Riders Of The Winds

by Jack L. Chalker

  Sam sighed. "You're right, Boday, and that's probably exactly what they will do. Damn it, they're not after you, Charley, or the girls. They're only after me. The rest of you are in danger only because of me. They couldn't care less about the rest of you."

  "Yeah, but they think I'm you," Sharlene "Charley" Sharkin, the butterfly girl, responded. "Even that sorceress or whatever she was thought so. You're the quarry but I'm the target!"

  The Akhbreed sorcerer Boolean had arranged it so that Charley, who bore a superficial resemblance to Sam before the weight gain, had come to look, sans butterfly tattoos, precisely like her friend. And a combination of a long wait, depression, and Boolean's pet demon had caused Sam to become more than merely fat, so that one would have to be a very good observer and look very close to take Sam and Charley as virtual twins. The idea, to make everyone chase Charley instead of Sam, had worked well—to Charley's dismay. They didn't know if Boolean's demon and the monstrously beautiful but evil sorceress who had vanished while in combat with one another were still alive somewhere else or in another plane or had destroyed one another. If not, then the enemy for whom that sorceress worked had given a pretty accurate description of Charley to her master, and with Boday's butterfly tattoos Charley wasn't exactly easy to disguise.

  Charley knew, too, that the others were still somewhat in shock and that the day's labors had helped put off the inevitable horror within the others. Sam, Boday, and the two girls, Rani and Sheka, had been tied down by a marauding gang of animals in the shape of men and brutally raped; the two girls had further been subjected to the loss of both their parents and probably their two brothers in the flood. Charley, with some help from the girls' dying father, had managed to rescue them and eliminate the gang, but she couldn't know just what they had been through and because of the language barrier she couldn't lead them. She could only lead Sam, and then only to a point.

  The two girls had barely spoken all day, and Sam was clearly on the edge. Boday seemed normal for Boday, but the artist and alchemist was more than eccentric, and even rape and torture might not have affected that very bizarre mind; but for the same reason Boday was the last person Charley wanted in charge of anything. The only control now was that love potion Boday had accidentally consumed that had caused her to fall madly in love with Sam, the first person she saw after coming around, but even that wasn't as absolute as it always seemed in the fairy tales. When somebody who was both mad and dangerous was passionately in love with you, you had to watch yourself even more than otherwise, as they had discovered more than once.

  Boday called a halt and pointed to their left. "Up in the rocks there, darlings! Looks like enough room for us and the animals, at least, and there's high ground overlooking the only trail in these parts."

  Sam looked up at it. "Might be rough getting all the animals up there," she said worriedly.

  "Perhaps. But it will be just as difficult for anyone else to get to us."

  It wasn't easy, and the final solution was to walk each of the animals up by leading them and not falling down themselves. All of them were exhausted, all had pushed themselves beyond their limits, and as soon as the horse blankets were converted to beds by laying them out on the hard, uneven ground most wanted only to sleep, although they did have hardtack-type biscuits and invaluable canteens and small casks filled with water and wine.

  Charley got out the single-shot shotgun and a box of shells. "I'll take the first watch," she told them. "You get some sleep. When I can't take it anymore I'll wake you up, Sam, and then Boday can finish off the night."

  "No," Sam told her. "I'll go first. I don't think I can sleep right now. We at least got some rest thanks to that damned spell or whatever that thing put on us. I'll be okay. I got to do some thinking anyway."

  The sun was still up and casting long shadows against the forbidding landscape when most dropped off into states more approaching unconsciousness man sleep, but for Charley sleep just wouldn't come. She was overtired; she knew that. She also ached in every muscle in her body including some she had never even suspected before, but that only made it harder. She lay there, looking over at Sam, who was just sitting there staring vacantly into the distance towards the setting sun. She finally gave up, got up, and went over and sat beside her friend.

  "I can't get off to steep," she told Sam. "Maybe I should take the watch anyway."

  Sam shook her head negatively. "Uh-uh. lake some of the wine. It's not great but it's pretty strong."

  "Maybe. The way the animals went at that keg of water, though, I think we should save any liquid until we just have to have it." She sighed. "It's been rough so far, hasn't it? And we only just started."

  Sam nodded. "I been thinking about that, and a lot of other things. I just don't know how much more of this I can stand, Charley. Right now I feel—dirty. Those filthy, murdering scum playing with my body, getting inside of me, getting off inside me, and there was nothing I could do! Nothing! I'm still matted up down mere with dried prick juice. And her—that—that thing—laughing and cheerin' 'em on. I think she was gettin' off on it herself just watchin' 'em."

  Charley sighed. "Yeah, I can imagine how you must feel. At least, though, we learned one thing from it all. We learned just what kind of people and creatures work for this bastard out to get you. Somehow I just can't picture this Boolean being real cozy with that dragonfly queen. You didn't get to see her full, I guess, like I did. Half beautiful woman, half some monstrous insect. Nobody's born like that, not even here. You remember your changewind vision? Of the boy changed into a monster by one of those winds?"

  Sam nodded absently.

  "Well, I think this one was another like that, only maybe only part way, like part of her was covered and part wasn't and somehow it made a new whole. You can almost see how somebody like that is made. A pretty woman like that, changed into half what she was and half monster. Maybe that is the only way she can get satisfaction herself now—by watching it. Maybe she's just gettin' even with everybody, 'specially girls, who can still have what she can't. Even so, she worked for the guy with the horns. She told me so. He might look human, but inside he's gotta be an inhuman bastard, worse than she was.

  Imagine this whole place, all of it, dominated and run by ones like the dragonfly queen."

  Sam shook her head in wonderment. "Maybe. I think I could have stood it for me, but those children!. How could anyone defile kids like that? I wanted to do much worse than kill them. I wanted to roast them, live, over a fire and take 'em apart piece by piece."

  Charley looked over at the sleeping girls. "Yeah, and they been so quiet. The little one is so full of hate, though, you can feel it, and the big one—you can't tell about her at all. And while I'm glad we saved 'em, I wish I knew what we'd saved them for. They're gonna slow us down and we'll have to have extra supplies for them and protect them in a fight. It's not good, Sam."

  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 t
o 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 alli
es 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."