01. When the Changewinds Blow (26 page)

"Yeah, and what does it cost to go there?"

"Cost? Precious, it does not
cost!
Only a graduate or a fully ranked sorcerer can send you. Then you must do him service if and when he or she needs it."

"She? There are female sorcerers?"

"Oh, of
course,
darling! Not many in the hubs thanks to this foul male-dominated system, but many indeed. But why talk about it? It would take probably five thousand to get there at all. How much money do you have now?"

Sam removed the change purse and handed it to Boday, then gave a running translation of what was going on. "So how much we got?" Charley asked.

"That's what I'm finding out."

"Find out how much
she's
worth, too."

"You have four hundred and twelve sarkis, two ilium and seven pillux. A nice sum but it would not even get a Pilot. All that is Boday's is yours, dear one, but money has never been something she has been terribly good at keeping. The filthy pigs of art critics have always insulted her sculptures. The ones here are priceless, of course, but they would bring little money so long as Boday lives. When she dies they will discover her, though, and then they will be priceless treasures. This place is leased, paid up in advance for a year, but no refunds, and subletting a place like this would be very difficult. I have, perhaps, two thousand cash, and another thousand in jewelry and chemicals, but those would bring little if sold in haste or desperation, perhaps a quarter of their worth."

"So we're only halfway if we went to this university or whatever it is," Charley noted after hearing the translation. "And it's south and Boolean's north. So whatever they teach us, if it isn't how to fly we'll wind up dead broke with most of the distance yet to go."

"So you think we shouldn't head there? I mean, that's where Boolean wanted us but it's also not only out of the way but where Ladai might be watchin' and waitin'."

Charley sighed. "We probably
should
go. Somehow I feel it's bound up in all this. And he said we'd be safe there from all enemies, which would be real neat. But we don't dare go broke. Without that extra thousand then when they kick us outta there we're like up shit's creek."

Sam nodded and turned back to Boday. "Stuck again. Not enough money to go most anywhere, it seems. Five thousand for this university, ten thousand to get to Boolean, and fifteen thousand for both. It's a
huge
amount of money, I know. We can't go, and we can't stay here."

Boday looked at Charley. "Boday gets perhaps two, three commissions a month. Kligos is not likely to use us again for a while, so there would be at most two. Even if she is frugal, that is at best a thousand a month less two hundred or so for expenses." She sighed and looked at Charley. "It is a pity that Boday cannot complete her creation on this one. Kligos was right-a hundred a night easily, perhaps more. Satisfied customers have been known to double or triple the payment, and clients of Boday creations are
always
satisfied."

Charley looked at Sam. "What did she say? Come on-I want it all. I saw her looking at me."

"She said at the rate she's doing her girls it'd be one to two years before we'd have enough. She said-well, she said it's too bad you can't be put to work, you might say. Kligos said you was worth a hundred a night minimum, and Boday says, well, there's tips."

Charley looked amazed. "A hundred a
night? Me?"

"I guess it's true. I mean, Kligos was willin' to shell out a thousand to Zenchur for you and another five hundred or so to Boday. He don't do that 'less he figures you'll make back lots more."

Charley was incredulous. "A thousand to Zenchur and five hundred to Boday? You mean I'd be worm fifteen hundred of these
sarkis
just on my
potential
as a
whore?
That's ten percent of all the money we'd need?"

"Damn it all, you're lookin'
pleased!
We're talking men paying money and you sellin' your damn
body!"

"Yeah," she responded, still sounding more amazed than shocked. She realized how terrible she sounded, but she had never been considered pretty or glamorous before, and she had always thought of herself as something of the Ugly Duckling that grew up and turned into the Ugly Duck. The last time she'd gone to bed with a guy she'd gotten a Big Mac, fries, Coke, and mountains of fear and guilt the guy didn't have to deal with at all. The idea that men would pay her, and big, was too ego-boosting for her to dismiss even though she knew it was wrong. Jeez! Kligos shells out fifteen hundred and makes it back in-what?-fifteen days? Impossible. Then he has her for, like,
years.

Boday couldn't help but interpret Charley's reactions, and smiled. "She is impressed, yes?"

"Yeah," Sam growled, feeling
very
uncomfortable. Damn it, she thought she
knew
Charley, and first this thing about killing and now she's actually impressed by her price. "But to just sell your body ..."

"Oh, it's not merely
that.
Sex is cheap!" Boday noted. "Boday's creations are no common
tramps.
Not
her
creations! It is an
evening,
with men, perhaps one, perhaps several. Impressing and entertaining business clients, you see. You receive them, prepare and serve a meal that they pay for additionally, then you might entertain-sing, dance, whatever. Make them feel good, feel important. Your client might wish to be bathed, or massaged. Whatever. If he wants sex, you give it to him, whichever way he wants it. He might not even want it. He might just want a sympathetic ear to tell his problems to who'll treat him with sympathy and respect. In the end, he pays you the hundred, maybe more-sometimes much more- if you gave him just what he wanted. It is never quite the same."

"Sounds like Japanese geisha girls," Sam noted. "Still, it's a form of slavery, damn it. Selling your
body
and mind and soul, doing whatever they ask. . . .It's
degrading.
It's bad enough with all them damned potions but at least they don't know what they're doing. Charley would."

But when she translated it all for Charley, the girl with the butterfly eyes nodded, lips pulled in, thinking. "Two hundred days," she said, more to herself than to Sam. "Eight months, tops, and we'd have more than enough without starving-if this guy Boolean's in no hurry."

"Charley!
Stop thinkin' like that, damn it! You gone completely nuts? Did she give you some of that brain potion anyway?"

Charley stared at Sam. "So what do we do? Hide out in some miserable safe place for two years waiting for your girlfriend there to turn enough new innocent young girls into love slaves so we can go on their blood money?"

"Yeah, if we have to. I mean, they're lost balls anyway."

It was Charley's turn to be appalled. "Listen to you! And
you
called
me
hard!" She took a bream and calmed down. "Look, I'm not sure deep down that I like the idea, either, but you got a better one? If it could be done without this Kligos getting involved . . ."

"Charley! Do you know what you're
saying?
You, the big feminist? Do you know what it'd
mean?
Are you really thinking about that? You're talkin' 'bout servin' and scrapin' and bowin' and maybe
fucking
up to sixty different guys! Maybe gettin' gang banged or worse!"

"Yeah, I know. But it's no feminist thing. I mean, it's a service industry and the money I earned would be for me-for us, not for some corporate pimp. And it's not like getting raped or anything. I mean, it's
my choice.
Maybe I'll hate it. Maybe I'll regret it to the end of my days. Maybe I'll come back and beg for the drug that makes you forget you're even human. But you got a better solution?"

"It's out of the question! It's-
indecent!"

"Hah! Look who's talking! You just figured on letting
her
turn like a couple dozen girls into this against their will and for life! Sam-she's nuts but she'll do anything you say. You can save lives with a word, but if you do-then what?"

That stopped Sam for a moment. Finally she said, "But you don't know how. Or have a place, or a wardrobe, or whatever."

"I have a feeling Boday could mix up potions to do temporarily what the others do permanently, and she can teach me. If it came down to it, you could use that thing to hypnotize me, so I'd be just right, and it'd be willing so there'd be no problems with my head gettin' permanently screwed up. And if ten thousand will buy all that, I bet your two or three hundred would buy all the wardrobe I needed."

"I think your brain's pretty screwed up now. Damn it, do you realize what you're almost
begging
me to let you do?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I do. And I can't believe I'm actually arguing it this way. But-what other way is there? You gonna rob a bank with your magic jewel? I bet they have spells you wouldn't believe on those banks, and it's sure a neat way not to draw attention to yourself. What kind of job you gonna get honest? You may look like a real strong boy but you ain't. I know what you can do. Look at me.
Look at me!
What the hell else can I do in this crazy place? I can't ever play 'respectable' in this burg. Even if one of them robes or dresses or saris covers my body my butterfly eyes and permanent jewelry mark me. I saw the way they looked at me and treated me just in that small town we stopped at. And even if I could somehow mask it, I don't speak the language! I don't speak any language around here. I'm like stuck in ancient times, and the only way I can be a plus and not a minus is like those early ancient women did in the mighty hunter, male-dominated societies. Charge 'em for the only thing I got that has any value."

"I-I can get some kind of job. Anything's better'n that."

"Yeah? What kind of job? We already agree you can't do heavy work, and while you can speak the language you can't read or write it. This may look like a cross between Shakespeare and Robin Hood but it ain't, pal. It's as modern in many ways as where we came from. You don't read or write or have a skill you're up the creek. What's the next idea? Have Boday make up some real strong drugs you can sell to kids?"

"Charley, I-"

"You can go anyplace in this big city. I'm 'beauteous property' wherever I go, and just one look says it. Face it, Sam! We ain't going nowhere without the money and I'm the only one in this group who can get it without exploiting innocent people or stealing it. Maybe I'll be disgusted. Maybe I won't be able to go through with it. I don't know. But right now it's the only thing we got."

Sam, appalled and confused, appealed to Boday for help and alternatives, but she wasn't much good.

"Face it, lover. Why fight it? If she wants to pull in the money then there is more time for
us.
Boday can manage it. It would be nice to see the complete work, too. But if you say no, then it's no."

Sam didn't know what to do but she was still looking for excuses. "She couldn't work out
of here,
or even this district! Kligos would be bound to find out!"

"Oh, piss on Kligos. Boday has many friends and an lovers among the merchant and even noble classes. Many of them would
love
this sort of thing but don't want to be seen down here or are just too scared to come. So we set her up in a nice apartment in a good neighborhood. Boday will decorate it just so. She has often been pressed by people who know her who are upset at enriching the likes of Kligos and his ilk to do something like this but up until now she was not interested in money or business, only art. I will teach her the Short Speech which anyone can learn. It is all they expect a courtesan to know-in speech. Kligos will probably never know, but even if he finds out he will think it is someone at the Palace's doing. And you will stay here with me and we will check on her."

Sam, grudgingly, told all this to Charley, adding, "But you'd be a prisoner in this place. You'd be there, night and day, for months, and I don't think they invented TV here even if you could understand it. And we can check on you and keep you supplied but for safety's sake we'd have to be here, not there. You'd be alone and not even able to call me for help."

"I'll survive," Charley responded. "It's better if we separate. No ideas putting us together. And the time we need should work out, too. Nobody keeps a roadblock and teams of searchers on for months. They'll figure we got out by them somehow and the search will be elsewhere. It's the only way, Sam, considering the circumstances."

Sam sighed. "All right, but I got a bad feeling about all this. Damn it, it's
me
they want. I feel like it should be
me
doin' this if anybody does. Go back to bein' a woman and let Boday do her thing on me."

Charley smiled. "You're just jealous. No, Sam, it's because they want you that it's gotta be me. And if I'm ever gonna get home again, or even back to me again, then I got to get to that sorcerer, too. This isn't just for you, Sam. It's my only way out."

The next few days seemed more unreal than real to Sam, although she spent much of it sleeping and regaining strength. The knot on the head went down, until there was only a slight scar from the sapping on the street, and the Jewel of Omak reported that its power was back up to strength, which gave her a real sense of security. Just where it was getting its power from she never thought to ask.

Boday continually attempted to seduce her as well, and she was a pretty easy mark for it considering how she felt. The mad alchemical artist was in fact an artist in all things, including that, although some of the things Boday came up with were more bizarre man anything Sam had imagined. She simply gave up and gave in, partly out of guilt over Charley and partly because she just needed
somebody.
She was getting to be fairly experienced in sex, though, and she still had never had a man and had no idea what it was like. She wondered if she might be gay, but she reserved judgment until the opportunity arose, if ever, to find out if she was or not. She certainly hadn't met very many sexy or attractive men so far.