In terrible pain, mad as hell, but ever the pragmatist, he gasped, "No, no! A good soldier always knows when his cause is lost! That's why I'm alive here instead of dead in Mashtopol. You spoke of a deal ..."
"Deal's off, doll. I told you we were a lot alike. You know you wouldn't offer a nice deal like that again after somebody turned you down and then put you to all this trouble."
"I paid thirty-one fifty for her! At least I demand a refund!"
Yobi held up the doll and went into a mocking version of the auctioneer's chant. "How much am I offered for a foot? An arm? How about the pride of the male? Do I hear a thousand? Two?"
That got his temper going and she suddenly realized she'd overplayed the scene. "Bitch! Do what you will! If you bring her to me I will order her to destroy herself! You cannot stop me, and I will follow in death no matter what torture you first mete out!"
Yobi thought fast. "Very well, General. I'll give you thirty-five hundred, a more than fair profit on the deal, and I'll also fix both your foot and the floor."
His hatred almost overcame him, but he saw a way to salvage his honor and bring things back to a more even keel and make the best of the situation.
"Not enough. I want the doll as well. And spells of protection so that my body and my home can never be so easily violated again."
She realized the opening and took it unhesitatingly. "Deal. But you forget all about this girl. Forget she was ever here, that you ever had her. Tell any guests who sampled her that she died or was killed and dismiss it. Betray the bargain and the spell that seals it will become undone. Time will curve, and we will be back here, as we are, and I will hold the doll. Be true to it, and it is done."
"All right. I will send for the girl."
"No need," said the sorceress. "I can handle that."
Charley was up top, on the surface and outside, just lounging in the sun and daydreaming about people and places far away, ignorant of all that was taking place. Suddenly she felt dizzy, and the whole outdoor scene seemed to blur, the heat of the sun to vanish, and in a moment she was inside a strange room beholding a strange and terrifying sight. First she spotted Hodamoc and started to drop to the required genuflection position, but then she first felt, then turned and saw, Yobi just behind her, and even though the sight was terrifying the other automatic part of her slave programming took over. Someone was hurting the Master. Attack!
She rushed at the sorceress, but Yobi simply put up her palm and Charley felt as if she'd run into a brick wall and then fell to the ground, stunned. Still, she could not violate her standing commands and started to pick herself up, searching now for a weapon to use.
"No!" Hodamoc shouted. "Leave the creature alone and come to me!"
She immediately stopped, all standing instructions overridden, and turned and came to him. Or, rather, she tried to. When she reached a certain point on the floor very close to him she found herself unable to move another step.
"The slave bond can't move across the pentagram, dummy," Yobi noted, forgetting her spirit of reconciliation for a moment. "Have her bend down."
"Kneel and lean in as far as you can," Hodamoc instructed her, and she did so. He moved, painfully, and then reached out and touched the ring in her nose.
"Thy bond is transferred by my free will," he intoned. "That is Yobi. You will obey her as Mistress as you have obeyed me, and bond as she instructs. You are now her property, not mine, and all prior instructions and loyalties to me are canceled. Obey Yobi."
She felt dizzy once again, and then fell back a bit, but she also felt as if something of a weight had been transferred from her mind. She no longer regarded the man in the uniform as anyone special or unusual.
"Girl! Stand, turn, and face me!" Yobi instructed, and she did so with a sudden thought of Here we go again!
"Your former Master and I have some last-minute details to cover to seal the bargain. You will leave this place when I tell you, exit in the lower cave level, and at the boundary you will seek and find a magician in brown robe. His name is Dorion and he will introduce himself as such and then state that he is from me. You will go with him and obey him and no other as Master until we can modify that spell of yours. Now—go!"
She found herself walking to and then out of the door to do as instructed, closing the door behind her.
Yobi turned back to Homadoc. "Now, I fulfill my end of the bargain. I keep my bargains, General. I expect you to keep yours. The monetary part will be on deposit in town within the hour." With that, she lifted the cowl back over her head and began a chant, gesturing as she did so.
It was suddenly as if everything had been placed in reverse. Yobi sank into the floor with an odd sound, and the floor itself came back seamlessly to its original state. Hodamoc found the pain in his foot suddenly gone and looked down to see it whole, although he still had to put his boot back on. He did so quickly, then got up, unsteadily, and made his way out of the pentagram and over to the desk. It was another couple of minutes before he could get complete hold of his senses, and then he looked down. On top of the desk was the small, crude doll that Yobi had been holding.
He wasted no time in finding a copper bowl and then some lamp oil. Placing the doll in the bowl, he poured the lamp oil upon it and then used a flint to ignite it. The blaze was something fierce but localized, and when it was done there was nothing left in the bowl but a puddle of melted wax and some bits and pieces of things, charred and burned beyond recognition. That hold on him, at least, was now gone.
But his pride had been wounded by the encounter, and he was very bitter. Nobody, nobody, did this to him! Particularly in his own home and in his own quarters! First he would arrange for his protections and be ready for any retaliation, although it would take a bit of time. No more ninety percent here. Then, one way or another, he was going to find out just what was so valuable about that little whore, and then he would use all the influence he had to make certain that any value she might have would accrue only to him.
Dorion waited for her just outside the boundaries of the main cave of Hodamoc. She came swiftly, and he couldn't help but get something of an erotic charge just watching her approach. Her every move was unconsciously erotic, and he had never seen someone so totally sexual before who was a real person and not some sort of demonic succubus a good magician knew to avoid. She was wearing a beaded outfit; the lower part hung on her hips and formed a multicolored beaded loin covering in front, and another elaborate set of beads shaped and highlighted but didn't really conceal her breasts. Otherwise she was naked, and might as well have been anyway for all the good the beads did.
She stopped just at the entrance to the cave, the first time in weeks she'd been even a few inches outside of Hodamoc's territory, and began looking for this magician.
Dorion stepped from the darkness of the cave and approached her. "I am Dorion acting for Yobi," he said, sounding a bit nervous. "Obey me as you would her."
"Yes, Master," she responded in a really soft, low, sexy voice.
For the first time Dorion realized that she would have to obey anything he commanded. Somebody like that was completely under his power . . . God, he was so turned on, he only wished he had the nerve to take advantage of it.
"Take my hand and come with me," he instructed. "We have a very long walk and we're going to have to take the back ways to avoid running into anyone we don't want to meet. I am told that you can understand but cannot speak Akhbreed. What tongues do you speak?"
"English, Spanish, and the Short Speech, Master," she responded.
"English, huh? Well, we have something in common. I've never been able to manage to speak English so anyone else can understand, but I can understand it pretty well. So you speak English to me and I will speak Akhbreed to you and together we might understand each other. All right?"
She felt almost a flood of relief. Somebody who understood her! "Yes, Master," she responded in English.
"You are from one of the Outplanes, I guess. Brought here by Boo
lean?" he asked as they began to walk in what looked to her to be total darkness.
"Yes, Master. Almost two years now, I guess, although I have no way to judge the time." She didn't like admitting that—there was no way of knowing if this guy was a nice fellow or if he was one "of Klittichorn's boys. That thing in Hodamoc's office wasn't reassuring. That Yobi looked like a horrible version of the creature who had captured the others and almost gotten her as well after the flood. However, there were certain default conditions as it were built into the slave spell. All could be countermanded, of course, but they existed unless that was done. The first was total unthinking obedience whether you wanted to or not, of course. The second was an automatic subservience to anyone who could order you around. One did not speak unless spoken to and one answered just what was demanded—and absolutely truthfully. You couldn't lie, cheat, or steal something from a controller unless told to do so, and like a planet in its orbit you needed your controller as the planet needed its sun. There was no running away. It simply was not an option.
It was because of this that Yobi had been forced to act so quickly after Hodamoc had turned down the initial offer. She hadn't been able to afford even a questioning of the girl by her then Master, or it all would have come out.
It was quite a walk, and, again, she couldn't have retraced it if she tried, nor did she figure out how the magician knew the way himself, but eventually they emerged outside and relatively high up in the mountainous crags of the Wastes. From that point it was a narrow trail that wound around the top of a ridge until eventually it entered a cave originating in the floor of the rock itself and leading down a bit.
The place stank, kind of like the way Boday's lab had often smelled in the old days. Lots of odd odors and unpleasant fragrances, which identified it as a dwelling of either a magician or an alchemist. There were several small chambers and then a main one which looked, to put it bluntly, a mess.
A central pit was in the chamber, in which much was obviously cooked, and over which a kind of metal web was built on which could be sat large pots and bowls or from which you could hang kettles and tureens. There was a pot of something on, simmering, and from its look and smell Charley prayed to herself that it wasn't dinner.
Most of the rest of the cave was taken with shelves filled with all sorts of boxes, gourds, glass jars, you name it, as well as apparently embalmed bats and lizards and such and even a shrunken head and skull or two. There were also books—lots of books, all huge and old and moldy looking. The only area of the walls other than the entrance not so covered with bric-a-brac had an old and faded patterned rug hung on it right down to the ground.
"Not exactly comfortable looking, I know, but it's a lot better than most sorcerers' lairs," Dorion noted. "Just sit on the floor there. I'm sure Yobi won't keep us waiting long."
And she didn't. The rug suddenly flew up and the great sorceress entered the chamber, revealing an ancillary cave beyond that had to be her private quarters. Although Charley had glimpsed her back at Hodamoc's, it was not under the best of circumstances, and part of the sorceress had been stuck below the floor, as it were, out of immediate sight. She had not, for example, realized until now just how large the old one was, or how totally inhuman were her lower quarters, obscured as they were by a specially designed black robe. The face, though, was easy to remember. It kind of looked like the wicked witch from "Snow White," only without the redeeming qualities.
Yobi looked over at her with eyes that seemed glazed and blind, yet Charley knew she was getting a thorough examination on several levels.
"Shit!" the sorceress muttered. "All that trouble and all we got was a decoy. I thought you were better than that, son."
Dorion looked surprised. "A decoy?"
"Sure. Any fool can see that she's got Boolean's trickery written all over her aura. How the hell did you wind up looking like the Storm Princess wished she looked, child? You can speak English. I have been forced to learn the foul-sounding tongue."
"It is a long tale, Mistress, but it is as you say. The sorcerer Boolean did it by remote-control magic."
That struck Yobi as funny. "Remote-control magic! Wonderful. Well, speak, child. Tell us who you really are and how came you to this point. Take as much time as you wish—we are in no immediate hurry right now."
And, in general detail, Charley told them the whole story. Of how she'd been a friend and schoolmate to this rather odd girl in her own world and land, and how quite by accident and by not believing in this sort of magic she had wound up getting sucked down to Akahlar with Sam. She told how Boolean stepped in to save them from Klittichorn in the journey, in the process revealing himself as an active enemy of the horned sorcerer and making himself a target. How they'd been picked up and then betrayed by the mercenary Zenchur, but not before Boolean's magical device had caused her to appear to be an identical twin of Sam's.
And she talked of being sold to Boday, who gave her the beauty as well as the markings of the blue butterfly and changed her into a true courtesan, and how in rescuing her from Boday's clutches Sam had unthinkingly grabbed and made Boday drink a love potion that made the alchemical artist fall madly in love with Sam. And how Charley had volunteered to raise the money for the trip to Boolean by actually being a courtesan, and how Sam had grown fat and lazy and domestic under Boday. And, of course, how they'd finally made the money to get there not by selling herself but by creating and selling the patent to women's undergarments common back on their world.
How, then, they'd been attacked, and Sam's use of her power to summon storms to save them at the cost of a flash flood that had destroyed the train and killed many, with most of the survivors being captured, raped, and tortured by others of the gang led by Asterial, and how the demon prisoner of the Jewel of Omak had eventually saved them all. And, finally, how they had become separated and wound up where they did.
Both Yobi and Dorion listened intently, occasionally nodding but only rarely injecting a question to clarify a point they didn't understand. When she was done, she knew that her life, and Sam's, were now squarely in the hands of this pair.
Yobi was silent for some time, thinking it all over, and then she sighed and said, "Well, now we know where we stand, anyway. I'm afraid I'm going to have to get this Boday as well, which might be easier or tougher depending on Jamonica's mood and whether or not she's really of use to him. He's a trader and he buys and sells everything, unlike Hodamoc, who's a damned collector. The gods save us all from collectors! He does not use relics, however, so it'll cost, damn it." She sighed again. "From what you tell me, you should have been the one and not your friend. You have the spirit and temperament for it. But, we must deal with what we have, not with what we want. In the meantime, I sense that much troubles you. I would like to know what, one at a time, please."
"Well, Mistress, I do not like being a slave."
Yobi cackled. "Why, we are all slaves, child! We only kid ourselves if we pretend otherwise. Why, Akahlar itself is a source of massive power and wealth and nearly limitless resources, yet ninety percent of its people are at subsistence level toiling for the few. The ones that are leftover are subject to monarchies and governments in which they have no say even when some of those governments pretend that their citizens do have some say, and under a series of religions that oppress them even more. Wars and revolutions are always fought in the name of the dispossessed but always seem to really be about which side of a small elite shall be the oppressor. I envy you if you were born and raised in a different sort of place where this is not true. It must be strange indeed."
"Mistress, my land valued personal freedoms and liberties, although most of my world was as you say."
"Indeed? So your land was rich in a poor world, and so mere citizenship in it made you a member of the elite. Sounds like the Akhbreed here. Oh, there are poor Akhbreed, of course, but even the poorest in the hubs and colonies is better off than the average of all the thousands of races who inhabit the worlds they loot."
She wanted to protest that it wasn't really like that, but slaves weren't permitted debates with their controllers. But she remembered the visions of the migrant workers, the illegals from Mexico, who worked the fields in the Southwest, and the huge population of Mexico just out of sight of the tourist villas and fancy hotels. And how much say did anybody have in an election, anyway? Anybody could run, but only the ones with people and money and party support stood a chance. You got to pick between two people who were basically picked for you. And the seamy underworld neighborhood of Tubikosa where Boday had lived was not unlike that in any major city back home, nor, in fact, did pimps and prostitutes lack for business. Maybe it wasn't so great after all, but it was comfortable. And, for over a hundred years anyway, they didn't keep slaves.
"What would you have done, or thought you might have done, if you'd stayed ignorant of all this?" Yobi asked her, giving her some clearance for an answer.
"Graduated from high school and gone on to college," she responded. "Most women aren't chained to families and child-rearing there because of easy birth control. I was going for a degree in chemistry, with the hope of getting into the cosmetics industry."
"Indeed? Wonderful liberation, that. Learn all that so you can better your fellow woman by making her look prettier. Lots of money, no commitments, total pleasure-seeking off the job. Perhaps an occasional march or donation to ease the conscience now and again. So long as you can live well and have fun, what the hell. I've got mine and that's all that matters. If you've got the brains, and the talent, and the connections, and not many scruples, anyone can become parasitic royalty. I'm surprised you don't all die young of pleasure potions and venereal disease. Or don't they exist, either?"
"They do, Mistress. Drugs, alcohol, and many kinds of VD. One was around when I left that was always fatal. It was scaring a lot of people. I have worried about whether such things were here as well."
"Of course they are, you ninny! You don't have to worry about those kinds of diseases, though. What alchemy can't create here magic can eventually control, or, if such a disease is created in the changewind, as has happened, the Akhbreed move to—sterilize—it. You're immune to the hundred or so venereal diseases we have now, so don't worry about it. That's what makes courtesans worth so much. Of course, the general population isn't so lucky, but it keeps the populations under control and in check. But even the highest of the Akhbreed can become addicted to the pleasure potions. That's Jamonica's real trade, and why he'd pay so much for an alchemist slave. And that's Hodamoc's hope for eventually controlling Mashtopol. Addict so many of the pleasure-loving and decadent royalty and the bored movers and shakers that he will enslave them in a way just as effective as he enslaved you. Do not feel so bad. That ring tells the world that your situation was forced upon you and not self-inflicted, and there is no dishonor in that. I sense you have a question on it anyway. Go ahead."
Riders Of The Winds Page 14
