Riders Of The Winds

by Jack L. Chalker

  She nodded. "Okay, but I want to keep myself up as well. I don't want these muscles to go, 'cause once they're gone I got an awful feelin' they'll never come back. I'm gonna lift weights and put myself through a pretty damned hard routine and stick to it. And I want some training from you, too."

  His eyebrows rose. "Training?"

  "You're a pretty big guy. I seen the swords back there, and the rifles and pistols. I want to learn how to use a sword. I want to learn how to shoot and hit what I aim at. I want to know about and practice with just about every kind of weapon and defense thing there is. If it's gonna be months, then we have time for some of it. We ain't gonna be movin' all the time."

  Crim liked the idea. "If you're really serious, I can run you through swords and other heavy weapons every morning before we start out. Give you as much as I can. Don't expect to be a master—you haven't the height or agility for it—but maybe I can have you hold your own. We'll do some horsemanship, too, and everything else time permits. Kira— she can teach you as well. Pistol shooting is a close-range thing and she's good at it. She can also fence, which is something I never had the control for, and she knows a number of ways for somebody relatively small and weak like she is to throw a heavy attacker across the camp. It'll be frustrating for a while and it'll take practice, but if you really want to learn it's a very good thing. If anything happens to me or Kira, or if there's any kind of a fight, you'll be much more valuable."

  She nodded. "I was just thinkin' 'bout what you said about these worlds only touchin' at narrow strips and us havin' to go through the hubs at the gates. I mean, the enemy's gotta know that, too, right?"

  He nodded. "And that's why we have to turn you into someone else as quickly as we can."

  9

  On Dangerous Ground

  They had a pretty good head start but it was a very long distance across the null to the colonial boundary, far more than you could expect a horse already well traveled to make with maximum effort.

  Still, Dorion, Boday, and Charley did not have quite the pressure of an armed mob after them. Some had been close enough to the border to see the Stormrider destroyed or whatever they did to him and it had a major effect. There had been no immediate pursuit, and when the rest of the gang had gathered and been told how the Stormrider had been defeated and possibly killed, something considered impossible up to then by anyone, there was a lot of debate and hesitation about going after them. Anyone who could take on a Stormrider and win had powerful magic, and what were guns and swords to that sort of power?

  Still, nothing builds courage like greed, and a few of them were still game for the chase no matter what. Perhaps they didn't believe the large number of witnesses, or perhaps they had little to live for unless they got a very big score, but finally a half dozen men broke ranks and galloped off into the null.

  By this time, however, the fugitives had built up a lead of more than two miles, and Dorion, thinking as fast as he could, had angled them well off the straight-line path to the colonial boundary. He knew well that at some point the horses were going to need a rest, and if they were out of sight then the null became a fairly large place indeed to hide in, one also shrouded in dense electrical fog and covered by incessant heavy clouds and occasional rain, and in which darkness was a great ally. Charley rode like she had always ridden this way, with confidence in spite of limited vision. In fact, her vision was far worse here than it was back in the hub, since the magic of the null spread out all around her and obscured somewhat Dorion's own form. It was fortunate that his aura or whatever it was was a different and contrasting color, and that it seemed to float over the mists. For a while, though, it was nearly too bright, as Dorion took them for a long stretch at right angles to the boundaries and thus created the mist ahead of her as far as anyone could see, sighted or not.

  Finally, after an interminable number of zigs and zags and a lot of all-out riding, the magician slowed and shouted for them to stop.

  "We'll stop here and rest the horses," he told them. "Boday, stay on guard in case those bastards somehow spotted us, or start this way. I think we can relax for a little, though. Feels like it's going to rain through here any minute, which will discourage them and cool off the horses, and we won't be easy to spot in here until daylight."

  Charley slid wearily off her horse. "I said I wanted a bath, not a storm," she noted tiredly. "Still, I prefer anything to those men or that thing. It went so fast I can't be sure what happened to it, though."

  Dorion shook his head in wonder. "How in the world did you get the idea of grounding it?"

  She shrugged. "Well, you said they were gonna power the fence with some kind of magic energy, so when Boday said her bolt just went right through it I figured the thing had to be made of some kind of magic energy. Magic energy, I figured, had to work kind'a like regular energy—electricity and all—because of the fence."

  "You were most certainly right," he responded, still not really believing it. "I wonder why no one else has ever thought of it, though?"

  "Maybe 'cause nobody else happened to have a mile-long roll of copper wire handy when they met one," she suggested. "It's not exactly something you keep around for the right occasions. We were damned lucky there to have it."

  He nodded, mostly to himself. "Lucky—or something else. Maybe that's why Yobi was fairly confident we'd make it."

  "Huh?"

  "Destiny. It is a difficult concept to explain to anyone not versed in the magic arts and probability theory as well, but I'll try and boil it down. Everything, not just life but mountains and flowers and air and fire and water, is or contains energy. It—you, me, Boday—is a collection of mathematical equations that make us what we are and who we are. From the moment we're born, perhaps even conceived, this energy construct interacts with everything and everyone around it."

  "I can't figure if you're talking astrology or genetics," she responded honestly.

  "Neither. Both, sort of. But we each have a thread, a destiny, that we follow. It is layered, from primal to inconsequential. Some people just seem to be naturally lucky; others seem to always have a little black demonic cloud over them causing them untold and undeserved misery. It is not dependent on intelligence or courage or anything else, or its lack. That's why so many rotten people get all the breaks and so many good ones still suffer. Your destiny pattern is randomly assigned by so many factors that one can only influence a few of them. Magic is really an attempt to alter or change some of those patterns. The more powerful the magician, the more factors for more people or places or things he or she can influence."

  She thought about it and didn't much like it. "You sound like we're actors going through somebody's script, only we don't know and can't really read the script."

  "Well, it's not quite that bad," he told her, "but that is one way of looking at destiny. You 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."

  She was fascinated, but felt a bit uncomfortable at the idea nonetheless. "And you're saying that it was our destiny to beat that thing and its destiny to die or dissolve or whatever? That it wasn't chance or even somebody's design but destiny we just happened to show up where th
e wire was and I figured out how to use it?"

  "Not quite. What Yobi felt, what the others might be learning now, is that it is your destiny to survive. You are a survivor, and probably your friend, too. That's what attracted Boolean to your friend in the first place. In fact, it makes sense. If she's created genetically the same as the Storm Princess, then the two probably share much of the primal parts of destiny as well, and the Storm Princess is a true survivor. It means that you will always have the means of a way out. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have the will to take it, but it is there. Consider that flood that destroyed your wagon train as an example. Most died, yet all three of you survived. The rest, for the most part, were killed later—but not you three. You survived. You fell into the wrong hands but somehow eventually fell into just the right ones. They do their worst against you, and you are still going. You see? That is what Yobi could see. That is why the copper wire was there, and that was why you had the knowledge to put it together."

  "Damn!" she sighed. "And here I was feeling real good about how clever and smart I was to come up with that."

  His tone softened. "But you were! I—I can't tell you how— impressed—I am. To have been so cool and calm and analytical under such pressure, to have put it all together—it was brilliant. You are a very remarkable young woman."

  He said that sincerely, and she liked the sound of it a lot better than that destiny crap. She was brilliant, he said, and brave, he said, and she was also every heterosexual guy's wet dream to boot. What more could you want? For a minute it might turn your head and take your mind off the fact that you're starting to get rained on in the middle of literally nowhere, you have guys with guns looking all over for you, you're effectively blind, and you're a hell of a long way from anyplace safe.

  "Hey! Magician!" Boday called, and the other two tensed, wondering if she heard something. "Boday caught your half of that discussion. Her destiny is unknowable so Boday does not think about it. If one is ignorant of it, then what good is it? But if you magicians can see even a bit of it, then why are we cowering here in this shower afraid of a bunch of brigands? Why did we all wind up in such a spot to begin with? Where are your powers? Why is it that you cannot whip a spell up that would curse our enemies and protect us all?"

  It was a fair question, but not one Dorion liked talking about. He cleared his throat nervously.

  "Well, uh, it's true I know the stuff and it's also true I have a fair amount of power, but my powers are a bit—odd—and restrictive," he replied uncomfortably.

  "So? If those hordes of men show up now Boday can take only a very few with her. She would need your magic or all is lost."

  He sighed. "I'd use it if I had to," he said carefully, "but not unless I do."

  "Your power is not great?"

  "Oh, it's great—potentially," he admitted. "It's just, well, 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."

  Charley, too, was interested now. "Harm?" She paused a moment, sensing his embarrassment. "It's all right. We should know, and we won't tell."

  He thought a moment, trying to figure out the best way to explain. "I was born the child of magicians and a grandchild of a great sorcerer," he told them. "The power in me is strong. And I know how to use it. Really, I do. That's what is so tough about it. The ability to tap magic is inbred; you are either born with it or you're not. But it's not enough. You also have to be able to use what great power and energy you can draw, and that means you have to have a tremendous mathematical mind. There are set spells, simple things, that anyone with the power can learn to do, even me. And if you have the memory and years of study, you can memorize even huge spells and make them work. I know a couple but I was never that good at rote memory. I get bored too easily. An acolyte is one with the power who can work the simple spells. Third Rank knows enough of the big ones to demonstrate it and get his or her ticket. Those are the craft ranks. Second Rank, like the Akhbreed sorcerers, are mathematical genuises who can size up a situation they've never been in before and create complex spells in their head and impose them, improvising as they go. Me, I knew enough to reach Third Rank, but just barely, but I can't help improvising and it just doesn't work right."

  Boday shrugged and Charley looked blank.

  "Look," he tried, talking to Boday, "you're an artist, I understand. If somebody learns enough to copy great paintings and sculptures perfectly, they have perfected their craft but are they artists?"

  "Of course not!" she huffed. "Art is not something one learns, it is something one feels."

  "Okay, so I'm a barely talented craftsman but I have the urge of an artist. I keep improvising in spite of myself, even with the simple stuff. I had to take a hypnotic drug to pass the Third Rank tests. Only I don't have the mathematical ability to build equations into infinity on the fly. Even if I work 'em out, or have time to, somehow they don't stay that way when I use them."

  "You mean your spells don't work?" Charley prompted.

  "No, no! I've got great power, but no control. The mathematics is wrong, or fuzzy, or incomplete. The spells work, all right—they do incredible things. But they don't do what I designed them to do or want them to do. Sometimes they only half work. A spell to take us all to a desert island might take us to a desert instead. A spell to make us invisible or invulnerable might well make everyone 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."

  Charley's head shot up. "Boolean? You know him?"

  "All too well," Dorion admitted sadly. "How do you think I got to know English? Several of the newer Akhbreed sorcerers are English speakers. For a long while, before my time, it was something called German but they're pretty well gone now. Boolean speaks English and German and a lot of other languages, too, and not all by spell, either, but he thinks in English and he's most comfortable using it, so everybody around him has to learn it."

  "There's a world of Akahlar, then, that speaks English?" Charley asked him. "That's why he does?"

  "Uh-uh. There's thousands of tongues, and probably a few close to English or one of the others, but none that really speak it. Boolean and many of the others, they aren't originally from Akahlar. They're Outplaners, like you. Some of the best are Outplaners. They were born with the power but either never knew it or were too far away from the Seat to really use or draw on it or something, but they were whizzes at mathematics and real geniuses. They get here and put it together in a flash and do in a few years what it takes ones like Yobi hundreds of years to attain. Boolean says that it's because Outplaners don't have to unlearn a lot of the crap and mysticism that we're brought up with. That they have a different perspective. Maybe. How could I know?"

  Charley's mind flashed back. Long ago, so long ago now, in the maelstrom that brought both her and Sam to this place, Boolean had saved them from Klittichorn, had stalled the horned sorcerer to get them past and out of his clutches. She hadn't understood Akhbreed at all at the time, not having Sam's mysterious link to this world, but she realized now for the first time that she'd understood that exchange between the sorcerers. They had spoken in English!

  Boolean—from the Outplane, maybe from her own world or one very much like it. And maybe this Klittichom, t
oo? Jeez! To be dropped here, suddenly, and find that somehow you could learn to have godlike powers . . . No wonder they all went nuts!

  Dorion was obviously uncomfortable discussing his own magical past and abilities and she decided not to press it. Still, it gave him a more human dimension. He was a pretty nice guy, and smart, and he sure had guts. His guilty secret, his embarrassment, was actually kind of sweet.

  Dorion sighed. "I think we've gotten wet enough," he told them. "Let's mount up and make our way carefully over to the colonial border. If those guys didn't spot us by now then they're not going to."

  Boday nodded. "Still, if Boday was in their saddle, she would have men riding up and down the border area hoping to spot us, and if she couldn't prevent us she could at least signal the others to get into the same world that we did."

  "Right, and so we're still going to have to be careful," the magician agreed. "You can only take this destiny business so far. Maybe Charley will somehow get through, maybe destiny will take you in sight of the goal only to thwart you—we can't know. But even if it's your destiny to reach Masalur, it might not be mine. I'm not taking any chances."

  They rode along in relative silence for more than an hour. Dorion had to bring them in a bit; they had wandered so far north that they risked the true null point, where they might well fall into the void or into a netherhell. Only a strip of each world was touching Akahlar, and all those worlds were round. There was a point where the curvature of each earth rolled off and another rolled up and on, and in that region many things were possible, none of them desirable.