"Then—Mistress? It is permanent? I can never be free?"
"Oh, no! It's a complicated ritual and a real pain in the ass but any Second Rank sorcerer and even some of the Third Rank can undo it if you have the Master's permission. Finding one that will undo it, however, not to mention a Master willing to let you go, is the trick. Pardon, my dear, but there is no percentage in it. Don't look so crestfallen. You haven't exactly done very well on your own up to now or you wouldn't be under such a spell. Your value was, is, and remains as a decoy. Klittichorn might suspect, but so long as he does not know he can't take you for granted, and that means he must try and hunt you. Your value is to lead them away from your friend— without falling into their clutches, which you both have very narrowly escaped doing up to now. However, before we can make use of you we must first locate and redirect your friend. Since this Boday had the audacity to trick your friend into that marriage spell, she is essential to the task. I fear your friend has fallen into the clutches of Duke Pasedo and is even now happily and ignorantly picking berries somewhere many leegs from here. That we will have to determine. But you have other problems and worries. Speak."
"Mistress, I am still trying to make peace with myself over what this world has made me."
"A decoy?"
"No, Mistress, a courtesan. One who sells her body. In my world it is considered the lowest thing a woman can be."
"And you are bothered by the fact that it sinks you low?"
"No, Mistress. You see, I—I spent over a year at it in Tubikosa, and I liked it. I fear that there is something wrong with me that I did not suspect. That I would rather be a whore than a warrior or a queen or have my own business."
Yobi shrugged. "Many queens and sorceresses have done pretty good jobs. Others have been lousy—-just like the men. We are what our destinies make us. To be otherwise is to be miserable. Most people are miserable. If you liked it, then there's no shame in that. Spend little time thinking of what other people demand that you be and please yourself. Consider—would you rather be a slave and courtesan or would you rather have fantastic power and look like me and live forever with this!"
With that Yobi pulled away the draping cloak, and what was revealed made Charley sick to her stomach. The body was huge, bloated, and deformed, a pulsating and pulpy cream color like some sort of enormous monster insect larva or worm, and bits of slime and old skin hung to it or moved slightly with the pulsations.
Yobi replaced the cloak. "The Second Rank sorcerers are about as free as you can get in this or any other place," she told the still stricken-looking girl. "The things I can see, the kinds of things I can do, stagger even my imagination. I've lived six hundred years and I've seen and done most everything. Pretty soon the madness creeps in, and you begin to think and act like you're some sort of god. It happens to all of us sooner or later. And you begin to chafe at even the minuscule, meager limits still imposed on you. Your ego cannot accept them. First Rank or nothing! And eventually you dare, and you look in those places you dare not look and try those things you dare not try. The last barrier is the changewind, and you go against it. I was lucky. I managed to pull back with only this to remind me, and retaining—perhaps regaining is a better word—at least a hair of sanity. But, sooner or later, I know I will try again. It is inevitable. If one must live forever then one must gain and grow, or death is preferable. But—not yet, not yet."
Yobi sighed, then suddenly snapped out of it and bent down and looked at Charley's face closely. "How are your eyes, child?"
"Mistress, I was always nearsighted, and lately I have been so that my vision is quite poor. In the past weeks it had gotten progressively worse. I can no longer see anything except what is directly ahead, and without the sun or a strong light like your lanterns that I now face I can see almost nothing. I have been quite frightened of it."
The sorceress nodded. "You stood there, helpless, watching a knock-down-and-drag-out between a true demon prince and Asterial. There are—radiations—involved in most magic. That is why all magicians have very poor eyesight and Second Rankers are all blind in the conventional sense. It is unavoidable. But most in the magic arts have other means of sight that are not only as good, they're quite a bit better and more revealing. To be a decent magician, though, you must be born with the talent and also with an apitude for mathematics. It's quite precise or you don't survive long, which is why magicians are often powerful but rarely creative. You have no magic of your own to speak of and without that even a mathematical wizard would be helpless. Yet the dosage you received was probably quite intense. No, my dear, we must find some magical alternative for you. There is no way around it, but there are things that can be done."
Charley's heart sank and she was as depressed as she had ever felt at this. There was no way around it. She was being told that she would always be someone's slave, and, worse, even than that, a blind one.
"Boday is crushed by this!" the tall, tattooed woman grumbled. "First they make her a slave—a slave'.—and set her to work in a happy-potions factory—me! A great artist! Hovering over what is no more than a soulless assembly line!"
Yeah, well, at least you're not blind as well, Charley thought dejectedly. Other than Sam, the only thing Boday ever thought of was Boday.
"And now they bring her here and duck both her and her finest creation into this moldy slime pit," Boday went on, oblivious as always. Charley had hopes that Yobi or Dorion would command her to silence at least but when there were just the two of them there weren't any limits on that sort of thing.
Two gray-robed acolytes, a man and a woman never introduced and so referred to only as Him and Her, entered and helped them out. Yobi, it appeared, had quite an operation here, and more people than had been immediately apparent. Some were students unable to apprentice to a Second Rank sorcerer in the hubs; others were exiles like Yobi and most of the others here.
Both women were now stood straight up and had water dumped on them in great quantities until the last vestiges of the goo was off. It had been worse for Charley than for Boday; for Charley they had prepared a sort of mud pack of the stuff and let it set and harden over much of her face.
Not that it had really mattered, except for the feel and the smell. Charley hadn't been at Yobi's two days before she woke up one morning on her mat and thought it was still completely dark. She had not seen a single thing, not even light and darkness, since.
It had been so gradual up to now that she had some suspicion that the sudden collapse of her eyesight was less natural than Yobi's doing, but she could not be sure and there was no way to ask and get a straight answer anyway. She resented it, but she could understand it. Yobi had wasted no time in having Him and Her begin training as a blind person. It was frustrating and boring and maddening, particularly since, with the slave spell, she couldn't take a break, couldn't give up, couldn't even complain as it went on and on, but it was now paying off. When you are ordered to walk you wind up walking with very cautious confidence after a while. Balance was more of a trick than she'd thought it would be, too, but she managed. You felt your way along the cave walls and you memorized where anything that might trip you up was, and you learned to use your other senses, and your feet as well.
Dorion entered the mud chamber and looked them over. He was still having a terrible mental problem over Charley, whom he was beginning to have wet dreams about, but there was just something inside of him that couldn't take that kind of advantage of anybody. If she was willing, that was one thing, but the master-slave relationship made that tough to figure out for real, and somehow actually having her would make him feel like a rapist.
"We've found your Sam," he told them. "Yobi's set to break her out of the alchemical traps she's fallen into and Boolean's set her up with somebody who's totally trustworthy, but we don't want to spring her completely until you're ready and underway. The trick is, we want them to chase you, but we don't want them to catch you. This is step one. Boday, your work is beautiful, but it's a beaut
y that is made to be seen. Frankly, the pair of you wouldn't last an hour in any hub with those tattoos, so off they come."
Using a thin razorlike instrument, Him and Her worked first on Boday, whose body below the neck was covered and thus was actually easier. Making sure not to cut the skin, they made a series of incredibly delicate incisions, and, thanks to the hours of soaking in the preparation, they then were able to peel off the tattoos from her body in segments. It was quite bizarre; they came off, layer upon layer, like decals, most fully intact, and while Boday was less than pleased with the whole thing she was somewhat mollified that they actually laid the designs on a paper form and managed to preserve most of them. The result, when done, was not that bad, since Boday had natural brown skin.
Charley was more of a problem, partly because the designs were so delicate and intricate with few solids and also because she was naturally light-skinned. Her exposed skin had turned a dark brown with all the sun and exposure, but the tattoos had blocked the rays from where they covered, and now she stood there, mercifully unable to see the result, with the designs somewhat etched in outline in light skin against the otherwise suntanned complexion.
With Dorion they always had a certain amount of freedom to speak, within limits and subject to cutoff, of course. Boday looked over Charley and said, "Boday likes it. It is a fascinating abstract."
"We'll have to fill it in with dyes, I'm afraid," Dorion noted. "We want uniformity. We'll also have to do something with the hair. It's been alchemically lengthened and stabilized, but I'm afraid knee-length hair is not only a sure giveaway, it's not practical in the circumstances. The object remains the same—reach Boolean in the shortest possible time, but by a route totally different than the one your friend will take. Perhaps curled a bit, dyed a lighter color, and tumbling a bit over the shoulders. Boday, we have a different but no less effective set of ideas for you. I know you won't like them but you'd like Klittichom's Stormriders less."
Boday thought a moment. "Permission to ask a question, Master?"
"Go ahead."
"Boday cares not for herself, Master, but—how is her darling Susama and what new curses does she bear?"
Love potions conquer all, Charley thought with amazement.
"Heavier than she was, but a lot more muscle. That curse kept her weight up, which is good—she's nearly unrecognizable as a twin of the Storm Princess—but she's been doing heavy farm work. She could probably lift the both of you and possibly a horse. Her hair's shoulder-length, and thanks to a tough potion she's amnesiac. That's what Yobi will work on. She's been quite happy, though, in her ignorance. And, well, it won't be certain until we see her, but Yobi's initial spells, now that we have her located, suggest—only suggest, mind you— that she might possibly be pregnant."
Both women gasped. "By whom, Master?" Boday asked at last, a bit shaken.
Dorion shrugged. "Who knows? We don't even know if it's true. But if it is and isn't just some byproduct of all those potions she was fed and the kind of life she'd been leading, it must be fairly well along, predating her current situation."
"Those filthy rapists," Charley muttered, then had a thought. "Or maybe it might be that friendly wagon train crewman she seduced out of curiosity. Poor Sam! It would be her luck to get knocked up the first time!" She suddenly caught herself, remembering that Boday didn't know about that one. Well, Boday didn't know English, either. "Please, Master, do not mention that one to Boday, though."
Dorion looked puzzled, but didn't pursue it. Boday, however, was now deep in thought.
"Pregnant ... It could have happened to Boday as well just as easily, or those poor little girls. One wonders what the product of one of those—creatures—and Boday would have been? A great primitive artist, perhaps, or maybe an animist." She sighed. "No, with that mixture it would probably grow up to be a critic. Whatever, Boday will consider the child as her own. Our own."
"Yeah, well, it's just another complication now. We have to move, and fast. The word is old Horn Heart is getting set to pull something big. That's good in that it'll get him out of his citadel, but it's putting a lot of pressure on us. As soon as we get you two set up we have to move. We've been sitting on Hodamoc long enough anyway and it's been no end of trouble. We want to let him go, have him identify Charley as the Storm Princess's double, and draw them here. By that time you have to be long gone."
"Master, how can I do much of anything?" Charley asked him plainly. "I am blind. Totally so. And, out there, totally defenseless because of it. I was lucky once when I could see to shoot straight, but I didn't do really well with both eyes going. Now ..."
"We are going to deal with that as well," the magician told her. "Of course it depends on whether or not you like animals—and whether any animals like you."
Walking into the small room was a strange and unnerving experience for Charley. Unable to see, unfamiliar with the layout, she was nonetheless overcome with sounds. Screeching sounds, scurrying sounds, barking, and mewing sounds. Had she not been commanded, and therefore compelled, to enter, nothing that could be offered would have gotten her there.
"Nothing here should harm you," Yobi assured her. "Pets, strays, mongrels—the animal part of the Kudaan underground. Castoffs, like ourselves. Sit for a while on the floor cross-legged so you form a lap and see what might like you."
She sat, but she didn't like all the implications of that one. A number of the animals approached her, but she tried to remain calm and not show fear. She remembered that animals could smell fear.
Suddenly something small and furry bounded into her lap and then tried to climb up her torso using sharp little claws. She cried out and recoiled and reached out—and knew that she was holding a cat.
Not a big cat, certainly, although it was no kitten. It struggled for a moment, since her blind grip wasn't exactly the best, but then she relaxed and so did it and she put it down in her lap and felt its form and started to pet it. The cat purred.
"It seems you have found a friend," Yobi noted. "That cat is a bit odd, very much like all of us here. It often seems to think it's a great tiger cat, taking on that which it cannot hope to vanquish, and other times it is a forlorn, mewing sort demanding attention. It's a bit scruffy and scraggly, but it is a. tomcat through and through."
The cat seemed to snuggle up to her, purring loud enough to overcome the residual noises in the room. She found herself scratching its ears and stroking it and she liked it. She'd never had a pet before.
"A tomcat . . . Mistress, what color is it?"
"Gray with black stripelike spots, dirty white paws. Very ordinary."
Charley nodded. A typical alleycat, which kind of fit. Still, one thing bothered her. "Mistress—I like him, that is true, but I cannot see how this helps me. I have heard of seeing-eye dogs before, but not cats."
Yobi cackled. "Come. Bring your friend and attend me, and I shall work a little magic with you."
All had been set up ahead of time; the braziers were going, there was incense about, and Charley could feel heat from large candles. The big stuff.
"Bring your friend and yourself forward ten paces," Yobi instructed. "Then stop and wait, but do not let the cat out of your grasp."
The cat, fortunately, didn't seem to want to go anywhere except to scratch some primordial arboreal instinctive itch that made it want to climb up on her shoulders and perhaps her head.
"Many of us use creatures well suited to giving us information, culled from all the worlds of Akahlar," the sorceress told her. "However, they require special handling in most cases, or odd diets, or even controls of a sort you do not possess. For our purposes, the cat is fine."
She began a series of chants and Charley could hear a lot of sizzling sounds and smell odd odors wafting through the cave. Suddenly the sorceress broke into her heavily accented but quite understandable English.
"You shall have eyes once again, of a sort," Yobi told her. "There is also room in this equation for other attributes. Remain still. The
cat will taste of you and it will hurt for a moment, but it is necessary. Do not move or drop it."
Suddenly the cat twisted a bit and she felt sharp fangs drive into her upper left arm. It hurt, and she knew instantly that it drew blood and she began to wonder just what was happening when the cat began to lick that blood from her arm and from the wound it had made.
"Mix, match, mate," said the sorceress. "The cat has become a familiar and shares your blood and a small part of your soul. Half in shadow, not in light, link ye two!"
Charley felt a sudden and uncomfortable hot flush, which took a few moments to fade. She began to see images; strange outlines and bizarre shapes and forms unlike anything she had ever seen or imagined, and, somehow, she was seeing them with her eyes. They were brilliant, dazzling, occasionally scary, as they briefly turned and twisted and for a moment here and there seemed to be not merely colored electrical lines but shapes both monstrous and, somehow, evil. They turned, they danced around her, reaching out, as if trying to touch her or even come inside her, and she was powerless to recoil or defend herself. Then, in a sudden flash that seemed to release all the brilliant and eerie colors at once, all was dark again, but only for a moment.
Riders Of The Winds Page 15
