Riders Of The Winds

by Jack L. Chalker

  Dorion thought of this, but his thoughts were most of all on Charley. She was unlike any woman he had ever known, even for an Outplaner. She was beautiful, sexually uninhibited, almost every male kid's private fantasy. Only they were just sex objects, not real people, and the beautiful and sexually uninhibited women he'd known were generally ignorant, dumb, broken in spirit, or had a screw loose somewhere. Charley, though, really was brilliant, imaginative, and as strong-willed and independent-minded as a queen or sorceress might be. Slave ring or not, nobody, particularly no man, would ever be her real master, that was for sure.

  Hell, he knew as much about electrical properties as she did, maybe more, and he also knew far more about the nature of Stormriders. He had seen and known about the same materials that she had suggested using, but it would never have occurred to him to use them, or that they were of any use except as a barricade for a last stand. He, and probably Boday, would have stood and fought and died back there, or at best been captured and held by an enemy too powerful to defy. Not Charley.

  She didn't need any magic, or regular sight. Her own abilities were far stronger than that. If she understood that, if she ever saw herself the way she was instead of just a pretty girl with common sense, there was nothing she could not do or have. The fact that she did not realize that her mind was far more exceptional than her body was the only thing holding her back.

  Damn it, he was falling in love with her and he didn't know what to do about it. Hell, he didn't even have any real experience with women. It wasn't for lack of desire, it was just, well, he'd never exactly been handsome or athletic or had the kind of personality that attracted women. Now, here he was—and, as usual, he was a comrade, not a lover. He hadn't had much attraction before, he knew, but now that she also knew his terrible secret about his magic he felt he had no chance at all.

  They were all surprised to find the colonial border essentially peaceful and undefended, not knowing that only six of the small horde of gunmen had gone off in pursuit of them. Still, crossing in this far from the entry station was not without its risks. Roads were deliberately engineered so that they led only to entry stations; people in general were not allowed to live close to a border or have access to it in order to make it more difficult for anyone coming in the back way, and there was much use of natural as well as artificial boundaries to make anyone coming in far from the gates very miserable.

  Dorion was nervous. Knowing all this, he didn't want to take the first reasonable world that came along, but he was also conscious that the longer they remained there, poised at the boundary but still within the null, the more likely that someone would come along. They might hide, but not the horses, and without the horses their chance of crossing a strange colonial world undetected was much slimmer.

  Charley had always been fascinated by the ways the border changed—very abruptly, as if it was a colored slide of some place that just faded out as another faded in—but this scene was no longer possible to enjoy. She could see only the energy part of the null's mists and the fuzzy colored shapes of Dorion and Shadowcat and that wasn't much. She got down off the horse and from her pack located the box with a preservation spell on it in which there was ground meat for Shadowcat. The cat ate like a pig, and even though it wasn't that old she was already running low.

  The cat ate with his usual gusto, then crawled into her lap for a pet, oblivious to the wet conditions. Well, she was wet herself. The cat climbed up so its head was looking over her right shoulder, body limply down and held, and purred like an outboard motor as she scratched and petted him.

  Charley was conscious of the curse of holding and stroking the cat by now. It was nice to be able to project yourself to anyone, regardless of their language, but having your forward, surface thoughts broadcast whether you were trying to communicate or not was unnerving. It was impossible to lie under such circumstances, and at least once already Boday had become offended by a stray thought of Charley's. The trouble, really, was boredom, which had allowed such stray thoughts to creep in, and she found that the technique she'd developed from those nights as a courtesan and refined further during her interminably boring stay at Hodamoc's helped a lot in both regards. She had two personalities inside her head, and by just relaxing she could push her real self well into the background, almost on standby, and allow the simple courtesan Shari to assume forward control. Shari didn't think very much, and she was quite content to just sit there blankly petting Shadowcat and awaiting some order or instruction.

  Dorion watched the slowly changing procession of worlds and tried to stave off boredom once one came up that was obviously unacceptable. High granite walls had greeted their approach. The next two, at roughly twenty-minute intervals, were both seascapes; vast stretches of salt water without land or dock in sight. Even land didn't mean much, really. The average world was three-fifths or more covered with water; it wouldn't do to step out into a fairly nice-looking place only to discover you were on an island. That was a favorite of this particular region as well—islands big and small.

  In a way, it was a tempting fantasy. Marooned, the only man on a tropical island with two women, one of whom was Charley, and both with the enslaving rings bound to him. He knew it was egocentric and self-centered and didn't take the women's interests into account, but, hell, it was his fantasy . . .

  In the end, it wouldn't even matter to the scheme of things or the shaking of events. It was the other one, this Sam, who mattered. It was such a tempting thing, he and Charley, romping naked in the surf of some tropic isle . . .

  He was so lost in his own dreams that he almost failed to notice the sudden change in the colonial tableau. It was speeding up, taking on almost a blurry appearance. After a minute or so he suddenly realized what was happening and jumped to his feet.

  "Mount up fast!" he shouted. "A Navigator's working on the border! That means that whatever comes up will probably have people and some kind of civilization, so we're not likely to get stuck in some monster-infested swamp or another Kudaan!"

  Charley suddenly snapped back to control, jumped up, and with a little trouble found Shadowcat's socklike carrier and slipped him in, then mounted up. She was getting very good at this now, she thought to herself with satisfaction.

  The view that suddenly came up and locked in looked quite pleasant but it wasn't a hundred percent encouraging, either. A wide landscape illuminated by bright moonlight lay before them, covered with thick grasses going down to a white sandy beach and a beautiful bay beyond with some dark areas showing a light or two that might have been islands. The beach wound around the bay, and on both sides there were low rocky mountains that on the right came to a major promontory and on the left seemed to stretch out into the darkness, a few small lights showing that it went for a considerable distance. That meant shoreline, and the possibility that if this was an island it was a damned big one—and it was possibly a main land mass. Hot, humid air struck them.

  "It appears to be the start of an ocean," Boday noted. "Are you certain that this is the one we can use? We will have to cross that, you know."

  He nodded. "We'll have to cross some ocean anyway to get where we're going, so it might as well be where can see a lot of land. Move in now! We don't know how long whoever it is will be able to hold this position!"

  They went forward, and suddenly the air seemed very thick and heavy and there was the smell of salt spray in every breath and the sound of small but steadily advancing waves striking the shore. Somewhere ahead Charley could hear the clanging of bells, possibly markers out in the bay itself or even beyond. She just kept her eyes on the crimson blur that was Dorion.

  Now there was the feel of the horse in sand—fairly hard-packed, wet sand at that, and she could both feel and hear that they were within the reach of the waves themselves.

  This was one of those times when she was really hit by her lack of sight. They were out of the null now, and all was just that deep gray with those few fuzzy colored smudges she'd come to recognize as D
orion and other magical things.

  They rode for quite some time at the water's edge, although at a slow pace to keep the horses from collapsing. She wondered why, and finally shouted the question out to him.

  "I can see the high tide mark, and the tide's coming in," he yelled back. "It's vaguely possible that somebody might stumble on our tracks entering this world, but even now the waves are totally wiping out our new tracks and our direction. If we can find some place, like a shallow stream cut, to go inland with the same effect we'll do so and make camp. We can do with some rest and I think we can risk a campfire for some decent food. I think we want to explore our situation in daylight."

  He eventually found what he sought, and they made their way away from the sea, although not terribly far, the horses making their way in the shallows of a rock-strewn stream, until he found a place with reasonable cover. The ground was fairly hard, but the stream water was fresh and drinkable, and the small fire would not be visible from the beach area and wasn't likely to be observed from the bordering junglelike forest.

  Charley barely touched her food; Shadowcat wandered out after they had finished to explore the area, and she found herself basically wet and grimy and all-around miserable but, most of all, she needed sleep. The bedroll wasn't the most comfortable place on such hard ground, but it didn't matter. She was soon fast asleep.

  The next morning she awoke feeling a bit guilty. She'd slept solidly and well, not being able to share in the duties of being a camp guard which kept the other two from enjoying a long and uninterrupted sleep. It wasn't so much that the blindness limited her activities, since she was learning to deal with that and barely thought about it now, but the fact that it limited her usefulness in such a situation to the others. She checked for Shadowcat and found him curled up sound asleep at the bottom of the bedroll and a little miffed that she had the temerity to wake up and move and spoil his comfortable bed.

  Boday saw her rise and came over to her. "Boday has been exploring the area a bit, and has found a large pool just inside the bush which the stream has dug deep," she told Charley. "It would be breast-high on you, and it is a bit colder than one might like, but Boday thinks you might want to use it as she did."

  Charley did—and how Charley did. Boday was right—the pool was fairly chilly relative to the air, but the water seemed clean and smelted okay and there was enough of it. She might have liked some soap, and particularly some shampoo, but even as basic as it was it was wonderful. Somehow it made her feel human again, even though she wondered if her hair would ever dry in this humidity. Not only that, but she could wash out her really smelly, filthy clothes, although again the drying would take time. For a while, all she'd have was the never-before-used cape, which was kind of sexy without anything under if a potential modesty-preserver. Any saddle sores that might develop in the interim had developed long ago; she was pretty toughened now to riding bare-assed in the saddle.

  Dorion could not wake up without his thick, super-strong coffee that could be smelled a ways off, so Charley had to wait until he and Boday had drunk their fill of the filthy stuff before she could get the pot cooled, cleaned, and boil some water for her tea. Then it was time for discussions on,what came next. "We must go east," Dorion told them. "That's the only way to Quodac and that in turn is the way we must go. It's going to mean a boat, from the looks of it, and that means finding civilization. The main road from the entry gate's got to be no more than thirty or forty leegs tops from here, probably closer. The odds are good that if we can find it it'll take us to a coastal city or town."

  "Well, aren't we gonna be a little conspicuous?" Charley asked him. "Even if they aren't on the lookout for us, which they might well be, three strangers showing up not even knowing what the world is called are gonna raise a few eyebrows. At least somebody'll check and see that we didn't come through that gate. And you said some Navigator called up this place, so they're likely to be there waiting for a boat, too. They got to have heard about all the commotion over us back there, and they'll put two and two together."

  "I know." Dorion nodded. "Still, I can't wave my arms and materialize a boat for us with a knowledgeable pilot aboard. I can try, but I'd probably wind up with a sea monster working for Klittichorn. I don't think it's going to be as bad as you say, though, and there's always the age-old method of bribery." He sighed. "Well, let's saddle up and see if we can find this town or port or whatever it turns out to be. We can't know how to solve our problems until we find out what the problems are." He thought a moment. "There were some lights last night farther on up the coast where we're heading. Not enough for a town, but maybe some private dwellings, maybe even native. Just stay loose and relaxed aad we'll see if we can find somebody to give us the information."

  That somebody was a good two hours' ride away up the beach. It was a strange-looking shack made out of native woods with the design looking like everything had been compromised. Certainly the oddball lumps, deliberately sagging roofs, and very small additions sprouting out from it made it look very strange indeed.

  Stranger still was the creature who peeked out curiously from a trap door in the top of the dung as they approached and watched them come up to the place and stop.

  It was totally hairless, a very pale green in color, with a leathery skin and wide, somewhat webbed feet that ended in very mean-looking claws. Its arms were rather short and ended in hands with three gnarled fingers and an opposing thumb that terminated in a sharp, spikelike nail. Although a tailless humanoid, its face was more reptilian than Akhbreed human, its nose just two indented nostrils above a wide, flat mouth, its eyes bulging from its head and covered with thick, rubbery lids that barely moved. It wore some sort of necklace but no clothing, and yet its sex was impossible to determine just from looking at it. It did not, however, seem afraid of them, merely curious.

  "Uh-oh," Dorion said in a low tone. "Looks like this world has a very different set of natives. Maybe too different. I'm not sure that mouth could form Akhbreed words or sounds if it knew it. Still, no harm in trying."

  "If it does not try and eat us," Boday responded nervously, putting a hand on her pistol but not drawing it lest it provoke an attack.

  "Good day," Dorion attempted, a bit nervous himself. "Do you understand my tongue?"

  The creature stood there a moment without responding, then let loose with a string of sounds that were a cross between a hiss and an impossible collection of all consonants.

  Charley couldn't see the creature and so picked up Shadow-cat who deigned finally to look at the native. Even with Shadowcat's strange vision, the native was something of a shock, as alien a creature to humans as Charley had seen in Akahlar, even stranger than Ladai, the Ba'ahdonese centaur. Suddenly, though, she realized that she could communicate—if one way. She stroked Shadowcat.

  "Please," she thought, directing it at the native, "I know you can read my thoughts with this spell although I cannot read yours. We axe strangers in your land and we are lost. We seek the main road and perhaps a place to get passage west. Is there any way you can help us? We do not know your language, but while you can understand me we have no way of understanding you by speech, 1 fear. Can you help us?"

  The thing looked very surprised. It was amazing how much very human emotion came through that reptilian form, although you never really knew if the reactions meant the same thing. At least it seemed to understand and thought a moment. Then it turned, went back into its house, and returned a moment later with a strange barbed spear, although it didn't seem menacing with it.

  The creature leaned over, smoothed some sand, and began to use the spear point to draw a crude design.

  "A map! It is making a crude map for us!" Boday exclaimed. "How—primitive—the style."

  Dorion got down to study the design, finally having to turn the other way when he realized he was looking at it upside down. Yes, there they were, and there was the coast, and there was a road or trail or something leading inland a bit farther on. It appeared that
this was some sort of peninsula, and that the town was on the opposite side and a bit before the point.

  "I think I've got it!" he told them. "If we can find the trail. Charley, thank him or her for the help and let's be off. I can't tell from the sun how much time we might have left, and I'd rather be in a town used to Akhbreed travelers than in the middle of a strange jungle by nightfall."

  She did so, and they started off, leaving the native standing there and watching them go.

  "At least the language barrier keeps us from being asked embarrassing questions," Boday noted.

  "True, but not from thinking them," Dorion responded worriedly. "I hope after this world we'll be able to keep in areas closer to Akhbreed types, though. Keep a sharp watch, too. Remember, we're Akhbreed and we aren't exactly the most popular folks in the colonies to the colonials no matter what our personal opinions are. It was probably being legitimate and nice, but you can't tell when one of them will direct you right off a cliff."

  While the trail wasn't easy to find and wasn't really designed for people on horses, they were able to spot it by going slow and having Boday check out every likely access, and they were able to use it single-file, although Charley had some tough time avoiding low-hanging branches and the like that she could not see ahead of her and which were low enough to unhorse anyone not ready. Finally, after falling off and getting bruised, Dorion took her horse as a lead while she climbed onto Boday's mount, riding behind her doubled up in the saddle. It wasn't very comfortable and made her aware of her limitations more than she liked, but she preferred that to breaking her neck or even getting permanent rips in her face and body.

  The trail was a bit over eight miles long and slow going, but at last they reached the downward slope and the jungle gave way rather suddenly to thick grasslands and a picturesque view of a second and smaller bay below. The town was easy to spot and not much; one main street, some warehouses, a two-block-long row of facing buildings, none over two stories tall, and, most important, a dock.