01. When the Changewinds Blow (46 page)

She decided not to tell them, not just yet, but to wait and hope that vision returned. She could fake it for a while, considering her condition. They all had enough problems without her going blind. The crazy thing was, a good eye doctor and a decent pair of glasses would probably restore her vision to better than theirs, but the only eye doctors were in places where girls like her couldn't wear them, and there seemed a real lack of medical help in the Kudaan Wastes.

Later, when all were awake, they held a council to decide what to do. The kids were a bit withdrawn but not nearly as much as Charley thought she might have been at their age going through what they'd gone through. It was also sort of embarrassing to discover that, to them, she was some sort of incarnate superwoman. She could easily have had the default leadership role if only she spoke the language. It fell to Sam to coordinate, with Charley kibbitzing.

"We should all turn 'round and go back," Boday suggested. "The loft is still ours."

"Yeah, and Kligos ready to take us all out," Sam noted sourly.

"Kligos!" The artist spat. "After Asterial, what is such a pimple to us? Boday is in her element there in any event. We have papers there. We are recognized, known."

"Yeah, but we'd have to get back through that damned desert with the creepy crawlies all alone," Sam pointed out, "and after that we'd have to cross who knows what land to get back to Tubikosa. No navigator, no Pilot, no choice."

"Oh, we might have to wait a dangerous day," Boday admitted, "but all we would need is one with a proper border post. The tickets, the passage, included insurance, darling! We make contact with a company train and we get a new wagon, new provisions, all of it. Or a free ride home on the first train going that way and a settlement."

"Yeah," Sam sighed. "And we're right back where we started from again. Maybe I don't have no demon pushin' me, but I didn't get fat and lazy 'cause of no demon. I did it to myself. This insurance works both ways, don't it? I mean, if we can make it farther on to some outpost it's one and the same. Maybe a little wait for the documents to be sent and catch up but that's all."

"It may be more complicated than that," Boday responded. "Besides, it would be hundreds of leegs yet to anything approaching civilization. We are no army and these are dangerous lands. Many days we would have to go without so much as clothes to protect us or anyone to guide us or warn us of the dangers."

"Yeah, there's never a mall around when you really need one," Charley commented sourly. Sam did not bother to translate.

"And who knows the level of corruption?" Boday pressed. "Two women, two children, and a courtesan, naked and without means but with large claims on a powerful company liable for those claims. Far cheaper to delay, stall, misdirect those papers, let us rot at some isolated army post. And have you not forgotten that we were raped by men with near magical capacities? What if one or more of us is with a rapist's child, stuck there in the middle of nowhere without resources snared in bureaucrat's tape? We must go back, Sam! It is the only reasonable thing to do."

Sam looked at Rani, the oldest girl and one of those who might well have that problem on top of being orphaned and brutalized. "Rani-what do you and your sister want to do now? What can we possibly do for you?"

"We want to stay with you," the girl responded unhesitatingly. "If we go back, you see, we will be-unclean. Our families will disown us. We would have nothing and no one."

Sam was appalled. "But you were attacked and
raped
through no fault of your own, damn it! Surely they can't hold that against you!"

Boday broke in, conscious that while Rani had grown up a great deal in forty-eight hours she still wasn't adult. "They are colonials, but they are all that is left of the colonial branch where they were," she tried to explain. "From what I gather their parents became colonials because their clan is strictly Traditionalist. Their bad fortune would be considered then the wrath or curse of the clan gods. Desecrated as they were, they would be expected to commit ritual suicide so that they could be cleansed and then be reborn pure. Not all clans are that strict but the ones that are have a lot of volunteers to be colonials."

Sam looked at Rani. "That right?"

The girl nodded somberly. "We have no family now, and no clan. If we were to get out of this hellish place we would be forced to sell ourselves or die."

"Die," said little Sheka firmly. "Ain't no
man
ever gonna touch me 'gain. I hate 'em! I hate 'em all!"

Charley stepped in. "Remind her that her father was a man. And one hell of a man, too. He gave more than he imagined he could give for them. Tell her to remember that."

Sam did. It didn't immediately illicit a response, but after a while it was clear that Sheka was softly crying.

Sam sighed. "For what it's worth, you have one, maybe three new mommies as of this moment and I have two daughters."

Rani gave a slight gasp, then got up and practically threw herself at Sam, hugging her, and Sam returned it. Finally the new mom asked, "But there's some things you got to know, too. About Boday and me, for instance."

"We know," Rani replied. "Mom-our real mom-sort'a told us. It don't matter. You want us and we want and need you."

Well, that settled that part of it, and it was up to Sam, with some help from Boday, to explain exactly who they were and what was going on as best they could, at least on the level of one wizard bringing them here and then losing them, the other trying to kill them. She also spared nothing in explaining what Boday had done for a living and what sort of underworld they'd lived in and which Boday was urging a return to. It wasn't clear just how naive they might be, but they seemed to get the general picture.

"And if we get to this Boolean, what then?" Rani asked her.

"I don't know. All I know is that we'd be among rich and powerful people who have a stake in keeping me alive and maybe the power to really do it."

"I think I know, Sam," Charley said, forgetting until now that she was the only one. "I think he wants to train you. Make you a sorceress, a mistress of the storms. This horned guy that they all worked for, the same one who tried to get you-he has this sorceress he's trained who can do what nobody else can. Control or influence the storms, maybe even the change winds. He's gonna use her to try and take over, first here, then every place. Become like a god. The only other one with that kind of power is you, Sam-but it's raw, untrained. This Boolean wants to train you like the other guy trained
her,
and when the war comes set you against her. Asterial told me-when she thought I was you."

Sam thought it over. "Well, it's something, anyway. Now I know the power's real and why this all happened. Don't do much good, though, 'less I can figure what to do about it. I figure we got three options, no more. We can go back-but that might make us sittin' ducks if Zamofir's around or Asterial's still alive and maybe even if they're not. It'd also turn these two kids into the bastard daughters of a pair of dykes. You and I know how they'd wind up in a culture like that. And I'd wind up a fat, corrupt, brainless vegetable. And that's if Zamofir and Kligos and Asterial and all the rest would leave us alone."

"I know," Charley replied, nodding.

"Or we can keep on going to Boolean and probably get the girls and maybe the rest of us killed or worse-now I know there
is
worse. Or we can say the hell with all of 'em and try'n find some quiet place where nobody knows us or cares and where we can live our own lives."

"Until Horny launches his war," Charley pointed out. "And we-all of us-will be targets just because we're Akhbreed. And you'll be sittin' there watching him make himself a god, the kind of guy so evil that things like these guys here and Asterial actually
work
for him, and know maybe, just maybe, you could'a stopped it."

"But this whole fucking system's so
evil
right now," Sam noted. "It's a different kind of evil-nicer, maybe, and quieter, 'cause we're all on the ruling side, but evil just the same. And if I
could
stop this thing, I'd be cementin' this evil in place for many lifetimes. Charley-what do I do? It ain't fair to be offered a choice of evils. You're tellin' me that if we get out of here and if we live through all this and if it all comes out right I get to choose between killin' millions or permanently enslavin' like
billions.
It just ain't fair, Charley."

"I know it isn't, kid, but that's what there is. Five naked broads stuck in the wilderness and we got to decide it for 'em no matter what. Me, I'd just like to find out why all the damned magicians here speak English. Why not French or Chinese or Hindu or something we never heard of? It's been drivin' me nuts. So I guess I got a stake in this, sort of. And there's tons of little worlds out there filled with people and things we never would guess. We've seen so little of this crazy world I think I want to see more before I give up on it. Besides, until you're secure someplace I'll never be. I'm target number one."

Sam gave her an odd half-smile. "We've come such a long way already," She noted.

Charley nodded. "And we got such a long way to go. . . ."

Sam got up and turned and looked out at the trail and the sun-parched but colorful landscape beyond. "Well, everybody, it's time we got going," she said.

"Where?" asked Boday.

Sam pointed. "Out there. Someplace. Until we find a mall, or a good motel, or Boolean. Whichever comes first."

Somewhere, far in the distance, something shimmered and changed, and the changewinds shifted and bounced and flew about in new and unexpected patterns as if a new randomness had been introduced that they were keen to follow.

Far away, in his spacious Palace tower quarters overlooking an exotic and beautiful city, a man wearing a green robe who also had a strange, pea-green monkey-like creature perched on his left shoulder, sensed it, and gave a slight smile.

"Well, Cromil, it might work after all," he said softly to the little creature. "It just might work out in spite of the odds."

"More likely she'll just get her ass blown off or worse," responded the green creature in a shrill, nasal voice. "She'll never make it here and you know it. Look how long it's been already!"

He sighed. "If she cannot make it here then she has no hope against the powers of Klittichorn and no prayer of countering the Storm Princess. We take what we can get and make of it what we must, my friend. When she started she was a frightened, ignorant, vacuous schoolgirl with the active intelligence and self-confidence and ego of a carrot. If she makes it here, then she will already have developed the confidence and skills and toughness required to make her one of the most dangerous survivors on this planet.
That
is someone I can take and revolutionize the world. If she does not-well, she is not the only one, as you know. Relax, Cromil. We will still all probably lose out and die I know, but, just for now, just this once, let
Klittichorn
do a little bit of stomach-churning."

And, half a world away, inside a great castle set into and partially cut from a towering purplish snow-capped mountain peak, a tall, gaunt figure in a crimson cloak was walking down a hall when he suddenly felt a sudden and mysterious chill. He stopped, frowned, and tried to figure out what it was, but failed. He didn't like it, though. He didn't like it at all. He continued walking and went into the Council chamber, unable to shake this new and, for now, merely unpleasant chill. "Alert all agents and commands," he ordered crisply. "Something very odd just happened and I don't know what. Until I do and we remedy it, spare no effort in finding and isolating it. And triple the magical guard on Boolean. If he scratches his ass I want to know it."

"At once, sir," responded the Captain General. "Uh-sir? Any idea what we are looking for?"

He shook his head. "A random equation seeking a definite solution. It floats, seeking its own answer. I prefer not to solve it." He went over to a blackboard and picked up a small object. "The easiest path is to erase it. Find it, Captain General. Find it and erase it before we all catch our death of cold."

The
Changewinds
saga continues with
Riders of the Winds.