He suddenly froze, a cold chill going through him to the bone even though it was as hot as ever. He looked around for the girl but found her sitting just behind the mainmast, cross-legged, looking forward at the huge swells exactly as she’d been when he’d locked the wheel. And, yet, and yet…
Wet and crumpled, his hat now sat atop the topmost spoke of the ship’s wheel.
Itus
“I understand that we have something in common,” one of the twin centauresses said to Julian in heavily accented English as they entered the hotel room.
“Yes?” was all Julian could manage, still startled both by the unexpectedly diminutive appearance of Mavra Chang and by the startling if imposing twins who seemed to have stepped out of Fantasia.
“You were a human male, were you not? And so was I. Not so Anne Marie, who was my wife.”
“I’m afraid Tony is having a very difficult time with this,” Anne Marie put in, her voice absolutely identical to the other’s but with a definitely softer and gentler, almost “sweet” tone, while Tony seemed much firmer, almost aristocratic. There were clearly two different personalities inside those mirror-image heads, not to mention the fact that Anne Marie’s accent was very British.
“I will survive the shock,” Tony commented, as if reassuring herself as well as Anne Marie. Tony was in fact looking at the very feminine, pastel-colored, and four-breasted Julian and already seeing how much worse things might have been.
Mavra walked over to Lori and stood looking at him. While she had always projected the feeling of someone much larger, in fact she now barely came up to the middle of his chest, heeled boots and all. She gave a low whistle.
“Man! The Well outdid itself on this batch! The two guys become girls, one of the girls becomes a guy, and the other girl becomes the exact identical twin of her husband. Boy! Talk about screwing around with people’s psyches!”
Lori was as stunned by the twin centauresses as Julian had been. “I thought you said two entries to the same species was just about unheard of,” he said to Mavra. He left unsaid that he was startled to be “hearing” the centauresses in Erdomese in spite of the fact that since Julian could understand them, they were most likely speaking English. Was that, he worried, a price of the translator? That it translated even languages one knew! He wondered for a moment why he hadn’t noticed this with Julian, then realized that they had uncharacteristically spoken only Erdomese to one another since his return the previous afternoon.
Mavra nodded at Lori’s comment about same-species conversions being uncommon. “They are. Sex changes—no, they happen all the time. The reason generally is to maintain the balance in the hex, since you can’t add territory. Dillians—that’s what this pair is—tend to mate only a couple of times a year and have long gestation periods. I know the race well myself. The result is that they often have periods when there are fewer births than normal, so they’re a natural to add to during one of those times, and newcomers are almost always females there because with that long gestation, they’re not necessarily going to increase the population before the Well can balance things out. It would also be most common to be female if you got put in Erdom, as Julian was, since they have a lot more females than males. Lori, I think you were the exception for reasons we discussed. On the other hand, if you had come through first, you’d undoubtedly have been female, and Julian wouldn’t even have wound up Erdomese. Hard to say. For my selfish purposes, anyway, I’m glad it worked out the way it did. Happy to have you both aboard.”
The twins, as it were, were stunning creatures on both the “human” and nonhuman halves. Both stood about 215 centimeters tall, with thick, billowing strawberry blond hair that cascaded from their heads and went down the back like a mane, out of which stuck two very equine ears that seemed to be able to pivot independently of one another, and big green eyes set in an exotically beautiful face that contained elements of classical European but had other influences from many races. The complexion was a golden brown, although it was difficult to determine if it was tanned or naturally that way. The breasts were rather large and seemed designed more to hang down when the torso leaned forward, suggesting that centaur young nursed standing on all fours; otherwise, the figure was close to perfect, going down to a very small waist at the point where the humanoid torso merged into the equine half just about where a horse’s neck would begin, so that the entire humanoid torso seemed to be slightly forward of the main body.
The lower half was not quite horse, either, but rather an equine extension of the torso, clearly having a single, supple backbone that ran from the humanoid shoulders all the way to the tail. The pony like body tapered in just forward of the rear thighs and was covered with short golden hair, ending in a large, bushy tail of the same strawberry blond as the hair on their heads. They were for all that almost supematurally supple; the backbone had to be able to flex effortlessly in almost any direction. They could bend the humanlike torso down so that they were able to actually touch the ground without bending at the knees, turning it almost backward, while swiveling the rear hips around to reach their own tails. It was in form a masterpiece of beauty and functional design.
They were the sexiest-looking creatures Julian had ever seen or imagined, all the more so because, while bipedal, she shared some of the equine look herself. She found herself thinking, Now, that’s the way it should be done!
Lori had much the same reaction and was somewhat amazed and embarrassed to discover that he was becoming turned on just looking at them. He decided he’d better sit down.
The room, which had seemed large, was pretty cramped with the two centaurs inside, but they made do as best they could. “We ordered some coffees and teas,” Julian told them. “It was all we could think of since we did not know the nature or needs of your companions.”
“Tea is fine with me,” Mavra told her. “Tony, being a native Brazilian, will probably complain about the coffee, but he won’t drink much else. Anne Marie, being British, is self-explanatory.”
“I feel like I should help you, dear,” Anne Marie said apologetically, “but I’m afraid I haven’t gotten used to all this excess baggage on my rear end in rooms like this yet. Both of us have already made some frightful messes knocking over things.”
“No, no. You are our guests,” Julian told her, and went into the corridor to the bath and prepared the drinks, then brought them back out. The sight of the two centauresses standing there holding cups and saucers was almost funny.
Anne Marie looked at Julian as if studying a sculpture. “You know, I always fantasized about becoming what I am now, but I do believe that had I known of or imagined your form, I should have preferred it. You are so pretty and combine much of the best of both human and animal form.”
“I think you got the best of it,” Julian told her. “The status of females in Erdomese society is that of objects. It would be unthinkable for one or two females to travel alone even there, let alone to other lands.”
“Oh, yes, I’m afraid Mavra has told us about that. What a shame for you, poor dear! At least you are fortunate to be married to someone from your own culture. I will say that Dillian society is quite comfortable and relaxed. Oh, the men like to show off their strength and do a lot of man things like drinking heavily and boasting and competing in all sorts of games and silly contests, but women are equal on the councils and in education. The people are all quite civil, so there’s not the fear and pressure there is back home. I can—and did—walk the trails alone at night with no more worry than that of tripping over a log. There’s quite a lot of stock taken in family. Not much privacy, but you can’t have everything, after all. It’s quite pleasant, really. More than I hoped for and much less than I feared.”
Julian looked over at Tony, who seemed in general a bit less happy about the situation, but she decided it was a matter for later, more discreet discussion.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Mavra told them, her sharp, penetrating voice more than compensating for
her tiny size. “We’ve got passage on a cross-country train this afternoon that will take us directly to the Ogadon border. Ogadon’s a water hex, so that means taking another ship.” She unfurled a map on the cushions, and they all looked at it.
“There are some places here I’d rather not revisit if I can avoid it,” she continued. “Makiem is definitely one of them; dealing with an absolute monarchy of giant toads with little love for their own kind, let alone others, is not something I want to do. Parmiter is a whole nation of professional thieves and scoundrels, I’m told. I have a fondness for Awbri, but it’s not much for trade and few ships stop there, and since they’re fliers, there are no roads or even trails to speak of. Agon is the most likely jumping-off spot and about as far as I think I can afford. Trouble is, once we’re ashore, we’re in totally foreign territory for me. I’m much more familiar with the regions north and particularly east of here.”
“Then why not go north through that one, there?” Lori asked her, pointing to Wygon and wishing she could read the scratches that served for writing on Mavra’s map. “Or even hop a ship east? There are lots of those.”
“Well, several reasons,” Mavra told them. “For one thing, while the Wygon are good folks, we’d be heading up to this point here, the Yaxa-Harbigor border. I don’t know how the Yaxa are now, but I doubt if they’re any nicer or dumber than they were, and they were not people easily tangled with. That route is also mostly overland; we’ve got no flying races in our group and will be walking or riding blind. In fact, this is the first time I ever had this big a party with me and only two races represented! As for water, it damn near broke me getting Anne Marie and Tony here from Dillia, which is not an easy hex to get out of, not to mention the bribes I had to spread around Aqomb to reach the two of you. If all I could get us back to was Zhonzhorp, we’d be as far from any possible goal as we are now and dead broke. I think I can get us a deal to Agon. Not fancy, maybe, but it’s only four days’ sail. We’ll also need supplies before we take off into unknown country. You can’t assume anything about climate, edible food, or much else when you go overland, and in a lot of places you can’t use money even if you have it. I’m not going to go over our exact route now; I’ll wait until we’re well away from here and in a place where I’m not certain I’m being recorded and examined. Any questions I can answer right now?”
“Yeah, one,” Lori said, staring at the map. “What do you need us for, anyway?” Mavra had said more words in one gulp since entering the room than she’d spoken altogether in all that time in the Amazon. Her whole manner was as domineering and pushy as ever, but now it was accompanied by nonstop talking, as if she were making up for all those years of near silence.
“Basically, because it’s between difficult and impossible to get any distance here by traveling only overland,” Mavra responded. “You really have no idea yet. And also because somebody—either hired by Nathan or on their own or a combination of both—definitely doesn’t want me to get up there, or at least not to get there first. If Nathan gets in before I do, the first thing he’ll do is take me out of the Well master system. That’ll mean I’ll be processed just as you were, forced to go through a Well Gate and come out as something else. I’ll also become just another mortal. I know that’s my problem, but it means you guys will be stuck far from even your new homes with nothing to show for it. If, on the other hand, I get in first, I can pretty well call my own tune, and yours as well. You can’t believe what power I can have inside there, and more important, if what I think is true really is true, I may well be able to take some of that power out with me. You can get whatever you want—the race and sex of your choice, riches, power, or, if it turns out that what I suspect is true, you can come with me and travel the whole damned universe.”
“That sounds exciting,” Anne Marie said with typical understatement. “But is it really as dangerous as you make it out to be?”
“There are things worse than death here,” Mavra Chang warned. “Once I was captured and transformed halfway into a donkey. Human torso, donkey legs, ears, and tail. No hands, just legs, and unable to raise my head. Then, getting away like that, I fell into the land of the Wukl, who decided to ‘perfect’ my design. I spent many long years as a fat pig-like creature, always looking down at the ground. And that wasn’t the only experience I had. No, you never know what’s going to get you here, and with every evidence that somebody somewhere is trying to get me, there’s more safety in numbers. Besides, I like the company.”
There were passenger trains across Itus, but the kind of passengers they were designed to carry were built quite differently from the party of travelers. The result was that they had the choice of riding in the Itun equivalent of a boxcar—which looked as if it would easily heat up enough to fry eggs no matter how many hatches were open—or the same equivalent of a flatcar, with some thin but strong metal fencing, a meter or so high, placed around the edges. They chose the latter.
After watching the increasingly boring countryside go by, Lori decided to try to nap; Anne Marie—at least Julian thought it was Anne Marie—went over and spoke to Mavra, and that left Tony down on the other side of the flatcar staring off into space. Hesitantly, Julian made her way over to where the centauress who had said that they had much in common but had otherwise said little was standing. Julian wasn’t really sure how to approach either of them or even if she should, but it was worth a try. Still, she stood there, waiting to be noticed.
For a few moments the centauress continued to stare vacantly to the side, but then she said in that same accented English, “I think you are even more unhappy than I, are you not?”
“I—I’m not sure. You are—Tony? Is that right?”
“Yes. And you are—Julian? Is that right?”
“Julian Beard. Or so I was. Lori-Julian now. I can understand how it can be tough on you, winding up the identical twin of your wife, but I still envy you. I would trade places in a moment, except I couldn’t do that to anybody.”
“Yours is one of those medieval cultures where women are chattel, I gather.”
“Pretty much, yes. Sort of like some of those Middle Eastern societies back on Earth, only worse. This culture is built into the genes. The fight, the aggression just sort of drains out of you. Not all at once, but little by little. I was a hell-raising bitch like they’d never seen when I first woke up there, but over time it began to dribble away. The body chemistry, brain chemistry, whatever, just takes over. It’s not that you like it—even the ones born this way mostly don’t like it—but you just can’t help yourself. I was able to keep a little of my old self, enough for my self-respect, so long as Lori was remembering his own former self and giving me some room, but lately he’s been acting, well, as badly as I think I used to act when I was a teenager. I was a handsome guy—triple-letter athlete, honor student, you name it. The girls used to fall all over themselves trying to get my attention, and I was so macho and so full of myself, I pretty well treated them like toys. I admit it. Even after I got married, I cheated. Hotshot air force officer, poster boy, often away from my family.”
“You were married?”
“Divorced.”
Tony paused. “I see. But this Lori, she was on the other end of such behavior, was she not? Growing up, I mean. And now the tables are turned. Are you Catholic?”
“No. Not much of anything, really, although my parents were Methodists.”
“I was just curious. I have many differences from you and your life, but in one way I find a certain sameness. I feel as if I am in purgatory, that I was not that bad a man, but the angels have found the one way to show me my sins and crumple my pride. Perhaps that is what this is. Purgatorio. Not as Dante imagined it but the same in the essentials. For Anne Marie it is different, because she never even had much chance to sin. For her this is a wondrous fantasy, and she is amused but not overly upset by my own state. One would think it would be more difficult to deal with having four legs and the bottom half of a horse than with chang
ing to a woman, but I am a Latin and I was raised in a culture where this is simply unthinkable. I believe that if it were not for my love of and duty to Anne Marie, I would have killed myself.” He hesitated. “No, that is not true. The nuns did too good a job on me for me to take my life. But I would have left alone and wandered this world until I died, a hermit to my own kind. This now I cannot do, so I must learn to deal with it. In a Latin culture, macho means more than merely what you Americans would call being a ‘male chauvinist pig.’ In fact, it should not even mean that at all. It is a code of behavior, a set of duties and responsibilities for men, a way of thinking and approaching life. Not that there are not millions of womanizers, but I was brought up too well to be one of those. I respected women and loved them, but as a man. Even though we could never have sex, I was never unfaithful to Anne Marie.”
“You could never have sex?”
“She was badly crippled when we met. I was a pilot for Varig, and I was blinded in an accident. At one stroke my passion and livelihood were taken from me forever. It was while recovering in an English hospital that I met Anne Marie. She was so much more battered and broken than I, yet she was not there as a patient but as a giver of care and love. Other than her mind and soul, which shone through anything, even my darkness, the only other thing that worked perfectly on her was her eyes. So, together we became one person. She provided my eyes and my soul, and I provided the body and strength she never had. It was a love beyond anything you might imagine, and sex had virtually nothing to do with it.”
Julian was absolutely amazed at hearing this. “I think that’s an amazing story! My God! And you came through together and wound up the same species and still together, too.”
“I fully admit to never quite believing the whole story until we went through that gateway in the fallen rock,” Tony admitted. “Even then I did not believe that we were truly in another place, on another world. I was not sure that we had not died, except that I was still blind and my knee hurt from falling on that hard floor. Anne Marie almost did die; her wheelchair did not arrive with us, and the shock of being flung onto the floor was almost too much for her. Captain Solomon, as we knew him, led me as I carried her to the place where they gave us comfort and what is, I suppose, the standard briefing. Still I did not quite believe. I thought that it must be some sort of dream or trick, or a hallucination, that we had begun our suicide pact or perhaps that I had gone mad. Still I clung to her, afraid to let go, and they decided we should go through without delay because of her failing state. I thought she was at least unconscious, but just before we leapt, she whispered, ‘Centaurs. There are centaurs here, Tony. I saw one! Hold me tight and leap and think of me and centaurs!’ And I was so desperate that it was all I did think of, down to my core. At that moment, and only at that moment, I found myself believing it, believing all of it, and the thing that I was horribly afraid of was that we would be separated, that we would be separated forever by distance and perhaps by species itself. That we would become monstrous to one another. With all of that in my head, I went forward… And I awoke in a forest glade as you see me now.”
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