Jack L. Chalker - Changewinds 2 - Riders of the Wind

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Jack L Chalker - RIDERS OF THE WINDSRIDERS OF THE WINDS

e-book ver. 1.0

For Ted Cogswell, and Polly Freas, and Bea Mahaffey, and Alice "Tip" Sheldon,

and too many other old friends who left this outplane while I was writing this.

I owe you all, but too many of you are

missing when I return to this reality, and contrary to

natural law, there are far too many vacuums where

once special brightness dwelt.

PROLOGUE

The Shape of Things

When the changewinds blow, out from the Seat of Probability and across the

worlds they themselves created, they are capricious things, at once random and

consistent, yet they obey their own spectral meteorology.

The Changewinds' breath touched the formative Earth when it was but a cooling

mass of molten rock, its own formation caused by a previous storm hitting in the

void, and within that mass was sufficient moisture to cause the great clouds

formed from condensation. The winds had less to draw them, then, so they let it

alone for thousands of years. It was one hell of a rainstorm.

The Changewinds returned to touch the new Earth when it was still soup, and the

conditions arose for the joining of acids and proteins just so. It was not

planned that way; it simply had to happen someplace under the laws of

probability, which are the only laws the Changewinds recognize.

Later Changewinds, far weakened this far from the Seat of their origin, none the

less gently caressed the still-developing mass sufficient to create the early

creatures of the sea and establish the developmental pattern that led in the end

to the vast jungles and the reign of great reptiles and amphibians. Another,

perhaps stronger, storm dismissed them as coldly and capriciously as they had

been made masters of the world, and allowed for the rise of mammals.

Why did the ape line develop better than the rest? Why did one branch develop

intelligence and tools and eventually civilization of sorts? Well, why not? It

might as well have been them as anything else. And the same sort of thing had

happened on a large number of probable worlds between the Earth we know and the

Seat, creating both the same sorts of creatures and very different ones. Our

world is far from the Seat, and younger; the others developed earlier, as ones

beyond developed later than we, but those vast civilizations and worlds which

developed in between created a buffer between the younger worlds and the Seat,

increasingly dense, protecting our world as mountains and jet streams and seas

and air masses protect us from weather, absorbing much of the energy.

A great storm moves across the land wreaking havoc as it comes, until it hits

the mountains, the great, impressive barriers of nature. Crossing those

mountains requires ten, a hundred, a thousand times the energy of crossing vast

plains and oceans. A stubborn, particularly violent storm might make it, but if

it does it will be so weakened that it will be quite ordinary to those living on

the far side of the range. Or it might be diverted, attempting to go around the

mountain barriers, and hitting elsewhere or spending itself in a long, futile

journey.

So, too, the Changewinds are weakened and diverted by the worlds between, thus

aiding the new humanity from suffering as capriciously as the dinosaurs sudden

and terrible extinction. We owe the dinosaurs a debt, for we might have been

first, when protections were weaker, and they come later.

But though the storm that crosses the mountains might be a pale shadow of its

former self, it is still a storm. It still wets or whitens the ground, changes

temperature and humidity, causes slippery roads and accidents and changed plans,

or perhaps causes a crop to be saved or a drought to be ended. Even though it is

not large or grand, it still might have far-reaching effects, if you must drive

on that rainy day on some slippery road instead of on dry asphalt under a

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comforting sun and blue sky. Without the storm you might not have lost traction

on that hill, might not have hit the post or the oncoming car, or been in the

path of another, causing a tragic chain.

One little storm, no matter how tiny it may be, can have great repercussions.

A great Changewind storm was a mere ripple in the mathematics of probability by

the time it touched Troy, but Troy fell just the same when it succumbed to a

pretty ridiculous trick. Another ripple placed Alexander where he could conquer

the known world, and took him from that world too young to do more than that.

Just a tiny whisper, a slight rippling in the leaves, but Caesar dies because

all goes exactly right, and the assassins then are beaten because nothing does.

Just a mere sigh of the wind chimes, but a carpenter turned rabbi, one of

hundreds of self-proclaimed prophets and messiahs of the times, becomes a force

that lasts for thousands of years because everything, even his death, goes

right. Such things can happen, even to a single holy man among multitudes in

India or an illiterate nomad near Medina in Arabia. For every one that founded a

great religion and affected millions there were thousands who did not. Why them?

Were they what they claimed, or not? It makes no difference to the Changewinds,

except to remember that they worship probability alone, and so any one of these

just might have been for real . . .

The winds are like that.

Wars, and peace; revolution and reaction; darkness and renaissance; invention

and ignorance . . . all are the same to the Changewinds, and one is just as good

as the other. Causes rarely win or lose on their merits, but on the smallest of

things.

"For want of a nail the shoe was lost . . ."

The Changewinds touch the ordinary and make them great, and touch the great and

make them failures. A Corsican officer becomes Emperor of France. A Hainanese

librarian unifies mainland China under a communism of his own unique design. A

German Jewish economist believes he finds the key to human history and dominates

radicalism but never controls it. The son of a superintendent of schools, a

former seminary student, and a Russian Jewish scholar unite in the name of the

proletariat they never were and bring a new order to Russia in the name of a man

who said that communism might never be possible there. A failed painter of

Viennese postcards moves to Bavaria and becomes the leader of a ragtag

collection of disaffected radicals and old soldiers and in ten years is

acclaimed dictator of a new Germany. The probability of this, all things

considered, is next to none, but so long as it is not zero the winds might

manage it.

There are still impossible things when the Changewinds blow, but nothing is

improbable.

And everyone who lives a life is eventually touched by at least a small one,

some many times; if not in day-to-day life then in dreams, mythologies,

fantasies, gods, and demons, which are echoes, remnants, of those lands through

which the winds must pass.

All the universes created by the winds exist in time and space distanced enough

so that the creatures of those universes live in egocentric ignorance of the

nature of their true birth and that which touches and shapes their large and

small destinies. This infinite stream of universes rarely touches another

reality and even less often overlaps. It does happen, of course. Benjamin

Bathhurst walked around a horse in full view of a dozen men and was never seen

again. A wild wolf-boy appears mysteriously as a young teen in a German forest.

How came he there, and from where? One place has a sudden rain of frogs, and

another has a solid churchman explode and burn while sitting in his easy chair

reading the paper. From whence came the bolt that ignited him, for there is no

hole in the roof? These and many other puzzles do happen, but they are rare

enough that rational men might dismiss them as folklore, old wives' tales, or,

even when stumped for the most farfetched of rational-sounding solutions, fall

back on, "There must be a logical explanation!"

Down, though, close to the Seat of Probability, the gravitational force of the

First Cause pulls the worlds ever closer, ever more densely packed together.

There might, that close in, be hundreds, even thousands of universes all so

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densely packed that what is the rare and bizarre overlap in the far-off

universes of the rational folk is commonplace there, and one might walk from one

universe to the other while hardly realizing it.

This region, the closest in to the Seat that will support any son of life as we

might know it, is called by its rulers Akahlar. The Akhbreed fell here, a

remnant of a powerful tribe, perhaps, in ancient times, from some world farther

out, but they were first and they learned to live in and adapt to this land.

Their understanding and mastery of the arcane laws that govern such a madhouse

gives them their power over all the others who have fallen since and over those

universes that have the bad fortune to overlap. The Akhbreed sorcerers weave no

magic in the true sense; they simply have mastery over physical laws and powers

bestowed by afar different universe than our own. They maintain the rock-steady

loci, great lands held fast by the sorcerers for their kings and people, and

they milk the produce of a colonial empire extending over so many worlds that

none of the greatest imperialist dreamers could have hoped for such power and

domains. Between the loci kingdoms, though, is anywhere and anywhen for

countless universes and lands. The Akhbreed navigators can pick their lands and

universes and routes, but for the rest it is random, making revolution

impossible and resistance futile on any large scale.

There is only one thing that even the Akhbreed fear, and that even the Akhbreed

sorcerers must yield before, and that is the Changewind, which blows far more

frequently and with far greater severity through Akahlar, since no Changewind,

however diminished, could reach the outer universes except first it pass through

Akahlar.

For countless centuries those people who must pay tribute to the Akhbreed and

place those masters first before their own interests have dreamed and hoped for

a deliverer.

For countless centuries the Akhbreed sorcerers have dreamed of the ultimate

power, of control and direction of the very Changewinds themselves, a power that

would truly make them gods over all the universes everywhere.

This is a tale of a choice of dreams, and a choice of nightmares, down, deep,

where the Changewinds blow . . .

A Choice of Bad Roads

Clouds were rare in Kudaan Wastes; its blasted appearance, orange, furrowed

hills, and deep ravines and lack of much that was the green color of life

attested to that. To have two storms in a matter of days was not only unheard

of, it was a prescription for disaster, since such parched lands had ground

baked so hard it would run off and the flash flood might ensnare anyone or

anything anywhere.

This was a small storm, forming with suddenness as such storms usually do,

perhaps over some cool spot where sufficient moisture from the last rain had

collected and begged to be evaporated by the harsh sun. The clouds swirled and

thickened and seemed to take on a life of their own. Small flashes of energy

built up within, and from the darkest part of the building thunderhead shone two

tiny, deep depressions that illuminated a crimson red from the charges within,

as if the cloud indeed was the protective shield or shroud of some dark and

loathsome monster.

The Sudog drew its strength from the storm and took control of it, blazing eyes

looking down, scouring the land. There was little wind that it did not create

and little variation in the heat of the day except where its shadow fell, and so

it had a relatively free hand.

It swung first west, until it found the main road leading into the Wastes,

taking care not to get too close to the border where the interaction between

wedges could cause unpredictable and perhaps fatal weather effects. The desert

floor that was usually so flat and featureless was in full bloom, with great

blood red flowers hanging from strong green vines that shot out of the soil and

into the air and tried to do all that they had to do in the days perhaps even

hours, before the moisture dried and they were forced once again into dormancy.

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The Sudog wasted none of its energy on them, nor any of the water that kept it

cohesive. If floated well over the growths and towards where the road went down

deep into a canyon with steep walls and isolated bluffs, its dull red and yellow

and purple rock layers thus exposed leaving part of its depth forever in shadow.

There were the clear signs of a disaster here: broken wagons, half-eaten and

rotting corpses of animals and some people, partly crumbled rock walls and

ledges, showing what a true heavy rain on the down-sloping plain above could do

to anyone unlucky enough to be trapped here.

The Sudog floated overhead and looked down for a distance, until the wreckage

and remains ceased, then it floated back, away and to the north, back out again

over the Wastes themselves where roads were mere trails through colorful

desolation.

Twisting, turning, following the trail it discovered a great rock arch on the

downward side and there the remains of more violence, this of a far different

kind. A new grave on the rim opposite the arch and overlooking it, and much

scorching of the very rock itself. Below, some animals, both nargas and horses,

and the remains of burnt-out wagons, and a number of bodies of more recent

vintage than those in the canyon had been, bodies not drowned but bloodied and

mutilated by shot and shell.

It began to follow the trail, but its energy was nearly spent; it was next to

impossible to withstand the low humidity of the surrounding air and the

scorching heat of the desert sun for long. It felt itself first weakened, then

almost coming apart. The eyes faded, the sliver of crimson that might have been

a mouth grew dull, then merged with the clouds, which were already turning from

dark to white. Its last impression was the mere hint of life farther on, of

horses, possibly, and riders, but no details. It was sufficient, however, for

the Sudog's master.

There were four horses farther on, had it been able to get just a little bit

closer, four horses but with five very different riders. Also along was a narga,

a four-footed beast of burden that somewhat resembled a cross between a

no-humped camel and a mule, laden with packs.

One was a very fat young woman, looking because of her weight older than her

years but still with youth in her face and complexion, with short black hair.

The second was a strikingly beautiful young woman in possibly her late teens

with long strawberry blond hair and a perfect figure, her eyes painted or

possibly tattooed with the flowing lines of sapphire blue butterfly's wings, and

a similar, if much more grandiose, design on her chest from her breasts down to

her crotch. The effect was neither grotesque nor overdone, but rather exotic.

The third was an older woman but in very good condition, extremely thin and very

tall, certainly over six feet in bare feet. Her hair was black, her facial

complexion very dark, but little more could be said, since almost all of her

body was covered with colorful and exotic designs that seemed to flow into one

another and made her appear outlandishly dressed even if she were nude, which in

fact she basically was. In fact, they all were.

The final pair sharing a horse were very young, one in her early teens who was

thin and fairly plain, the other, no more than nine or ten, almost insufferably

cute. They looked grim and tired, though, as did the others, and their faces

reflected experiences that had aged them as none of their tender years should

have aged, inside.

They had clearly made what they could out of what they had. The two youngest

wore what were obviously pieces of blankets with crude holes cut in their

middles to give them basic serapelike protection from the sun. Much the same had

been done with a full blanket for the fat woman, white the butterfly woman wore

a shorter length tied at the neck like a cape. The tall one with the tattoos

wore nothing at all save double pistols on a cut-down gunbelt. Both the big

woman and the butterfly girl also were similarly armed.

There was some thunder in the background and the big woman stopped and turned to

look back. "They're looking for us," she said tensely. "I can feel it. We have

to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and this place as fast as

we can." Her voice was very low and gravelly, almost a distinctive and not very

melodic young man's voice, straddling the octaves between male and female. She

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spoke in the nonetheless melodic language of the Akhbreed, but the butterfly

girl answered in American English.

"Sam, we're all dead tired, and the girls most of all. We've been through a lot,

and there's maybe only a couple of more hours of sun left. We can only push

ourselves so far and God knows where the next water is. If they find us then

they'll find us, no matter what kind of distance we make today. Best if we're

all at our best. I say we look for a campsite that seems safe." She sighed.

"What a mess. No guides, can't use the main trail, and, considering the horses,

maybe two days' worth of water tops. And we can't go back to the border 'cause

all of those things are blooming."

The plants now flowering on the plain were not placid creatures. They had

crushed and eaten people, horses, even wagons that had the bad luck to spill

some moisture on the plot of ground above them, and who knew what they were like

thick, aboveground, and in full bloom?

Samantha Buell, the large woman, did not bother to translate for the others.

Charley could understand the Akhbreed language, or enough to get by, but

speaking it was beyond her. There was no need to translate; why get the others

more depressed than they already were?

"All right," Sam said, "we'll look for a safe place to camp. I think tomorrow,

though, we have to track north until we can find some clear way back to the

border. With all those wedges changing all the time if we can get someplace

else, anyplace, they'll have a real tough time finding us then."

"Do you think those who seek you won't also have that in mind?" the tall,

tattooed woman asked sharply. "Even now they will be sending their minions to

patrol the length and will use their pet monsters to deter or discourage us from

trying it until they can get there. There are always storms on a border, even

one such as this, to breed them. Were Boday your enemy she would keep you in the

Wastes and off the roads, running, jumping, and hiding, until the water ran out

and the horses died; and, afoot and thirsty, all would be as easy to pick as

flowers in a garden."

Sam sighed. "You're right, Boday, and that's probably exactly what they will do.

Damn it, they're not after you, Charley, or the girls. They're only after me.

The rest of you are in danger only because of me. They couldn't care less about

the rest of you."

"Yeah, but they think I'm you," Sharlene "Charley" Sharkin, the butterfly girl,

responded. "Even that sorceress or whatever she was thought so. You're the

quarry but I'm the target!"

The Akhbreed sorcerer Boolean had arranged it so that Charley, who bore a

superficial resemblance to Sam before the weight gain, had come to look, sans

butterfly tattoos, precisely like her friend. And a combination of a long wait,

depression, and Boolean's pet demon had caused Sam to become more than merely

fat, so that one would have to be a very good observer and look very close to

take Sam and Charley as virtual twins. The idea, to make everyone chase Charley

instead of Sam, had worked well—to Charley's dismay. They didn't know if

Boolean's demon and the monstrously beautiful but evil sorceress who had

vanished while in combat with one another were still alive somewhere else or in

another plane or had destroyed one another. If not, then the enemy for whom that

sorceress worked had given a pretty accurate description of Charley to her

master, and with Boday's butterfly tattoos Charley wasn't exactly easy to

disguise.

Charley knew, too, that the others were still somewhat in shock and that the

day's labors had helped put off the inevitable horror within the others. Sam,

Boday, and the two girls, Rani and Sheka, had been tied down by a marauding gang

of animals in the shape of men and brutally raped; the two girls had further

been subjected to the loss of both their parents and probably their two brothers

in the flood. Charley, with some help from the girls' dying father, had managed

to rescue them and eliminate the gang, but she couldn't know just what they had

been through and because of the language barrier she couldn't lead them. She

could only lead Sam, and then only to a point.

The two girls had barely spoken all day, and Sam was clearly on the edge. Boday

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