Riders Of The Winds Page 9

  The other three now entered, and he closed the door and went over to a desk, while his female assistant took a chair to his right. The two buyers stood in front and were not offered seats.

  "You have full payment?" the autioneer asked them.

  "I have a draft bill, open," said the big man with the shaved head in a surprisingly soft and high voice. "Your client may redeem it at my master's place any time after it is registered." He reached into a hidden pocket in his toga. "I also have a draft for credits at any establishment you choose in the name of yourself, so there is no problem with the fees."

  The auctioneer nodded and looked at the small, hooded one. "And you?"

  The little one produced similar papers. "Pretty much the same, but the amount is high enough that you will have to dun the seller for your fees."

  The auctioneer sighed. "Irregular, but, then, a percentage of that . . .I'll take the bill. The seller is Lakos in both cases, as you probably know. Best he not get his hands on this until he has settled with me. I understand that won't be difficult. He made quite a score otherwise in that raid. I'm selling much of the rest tomorrow. Yes, these will do. You may claim your merchandise. Vica—give them receipts and final bills of sale."

  "Yes, Master Arnos," the gray-haired woman responded, and for the first time Charley realized that all of these people except the auctioneer himself were slaves as well—the ledger woman with the limp belonging to the Grand Auctioneer, and who knew whom these two belonged to? Who—or what?

  The auctioneer went back to them. "Go with these agents," he told them. "Do whatever they say. Do not mistake the fact that they are slaves as some sort of license. They are bonded to their masters and have the power to do anything with you that they wish as if they themselves had bought you."

  They both nodded and got up and went back out into the alley with the two strange slaves, but they didn't go far. There was a small arcade just before the next street and they were led into it and immediately into an establishment that clearly sold unusual merchandise. From the burners and dolls and strange designs and odd bric-a-brac both knew they were in a magician's shop.

  It occurred to Charley that she'd actually seen little magic in this world beyond her own change into a semblance of, or maybe an idealization of, Sam, and Sam's own summoning of the storm. Almost everything she'd seen had been drugs and chemicals and maybe hypnosis, really. Oh, some of them did all sorts of wild things, like grow a foot of hair in minutes or make you fall in love or stuff like that, but it wasn't anything she was sure couldn't be done back home by some smart somebody. These kinds of shops with all the magic charms and incantation books she couldn't read and that kind of thing just hadn't looked like more than scams, and this junky place didn't look any different.

  The proprietor, though, was something of a surprise. It was a woman, dressed in a brown magician's robe, perhaps fifty or so, with very short gray hair and deep lines in her face. There also seemed to be something odd about her eyes and her head movement, but it was hard to tell for sure. "Yes?" she asked them.

  The big man pointed to Boday. "She's enslaved to Jamonica. The other one belongs to Hodamoc. Both require bonding."

  The magician nodded. "Very well. You have something I can use for each of them?"

  The little one in the black hood and robe pulled out what looked to be a small, irregular stone and handed it to the magician. The big man reached in and removed a tiny box like a ring box that contained what appeared to be hairs. The magician examined both and nodded. "These will do fine. Wait here, and send the small one back first. Working from animate relics is far easier."

  "I know, but Jamonica don't give no relics to nobody," the big man with the soft, high voice responded.

  The magician smiled knowingly. "I understand." She pointed at Charley. "Come, little one. In back."

  Charley hesitated, then followed, still in that somewhat detached state. The back of the place was a real mess, making the actual store look organized. There were all sorts of things around, making it look part chemical laboratory and part junk shop. She watched while the magician went into a drawer and took out a box containing a number of small bronze-colored rings. For the first time, Charley felt some panic. Oh, no! You ain't putting one of them up my nose!

  The magician worked quickly and professionally. She took the hairs and put them into a small metal bowl, then began to add several other unknown substances, stirring and heating the mixture until it was a dull and sickly green paste. She then walked over to Charley and before the woman could say or do anything, the magician reached out, grabbed Charley's right hand, and she felt a sudden sharp sting.

  "Ow!" she said, and tried to pull away, but the magician was surprisingly strong and had clearly done this a lot of times before. Charley's hand was pulled over the mixture, and her thumb squeezed enough so that two drops of blood fell into the bowl and green scum—and it sizzled. When that happened, Charley was released and stepped back, sticking her thumb in her mouth to stop the bleeding.

  Now the magician took the ring and put it into the mixture, and more heat was applied, but this time the magician closed her eyes and began to wave her hands over the bowl and chant something in a low tone over it.

  Suddenly there was a crackling and then a strange white light, about the size of the magician's thumb, appeared in the center of the bowl and began to pulse a bit, bulging in the center. As Charley watched, the little thing moved, going 'round and 'round the bowl in lazy circles, each one a bit smaller than the one before, and as it did the sickly liquid seemed to be pulled up into it, as if the pulsing white energy were some sort of straw bringing that crap up to some invisible mouth—and maybe it was.

  In less than a minute there was nothing left in the bowl but the ring, looking good as new. The little energy thing winked out with a zapping sound, and the magician nodded to herself, turned off the heat, and removed the ring from the bowl and put it aside, perhaps to cool. She reached over, found a small gourd, uncorked it, sniffed it, then nodded and handed it to Charley. "Drink some of this. One or two swallows, anyway."

  Charley hesitated and wouldn't touch it, and the magician understood.

  "I am a magician, not an alchemist. Unfortunately, most magic involves pain of one sort or another, and the last step is painful. Can you understand what I am saying?"

  Charley nodded, but didn't like the message.

  "It will be done either with or without your drinking it. You have no abnormal auras about you. I could freeze you where you stand with a simple spell but then you would feel everything. Two swallows of this and you will feel very little pain for just a few minutes. Go ahead."

  Charley drank it. It wasn't at all like the alchemical concoctions—magic potions tasted like medicine. She handed back the gourd and the magician put it back on the table, then picked up the ring. She turned and faced Charley, very close, and suddenly made a sign of something with her left hand. Charley saw the right, the one with the ring, move up to her face and she tried to step back, but she could not. She was frozen stiff as a board.

  There was a sudden sharp pain, like some needle being shoved through her nose, but it was dampened down almost immediately and she felt only a numbness there.

  The magician made the reverse of her previous motion and this time with her right hand. Charley could move again.

  "The spell now holds you but you are not yet truly bonded," the magician told her, taking on the same clinical manner as a doctor explaining a treatment to a patient. "It is quite loose and you will soon get used to it but do not allow it to be removed. You remember that little bit of pain you felt? If you remove it, that pain will be back, in full, and it will not go away over time. The spell compels obedience. At the moment, because you are not yet bonded, it compels obedience from anyone at all, instantly. Stand on your right leg only!".

  Immediately Charley found herself standing storklike on one leg. She hadn't thought about it.

  "All right, put it down and stand normall
y. Don't worry, you're not at everyone's mercy. In a moment Hodamoc's slave will touch your ring, and since he is bonded by the same spell you will then be attuned to it and will obey only those with the same spell. Once brought before Hodamoc, he will touch the ring and it will recognize him as the controller and then you will be obedient only to him. Control is transferable, but only by a master's command. If the master dies, control passes to his or her nearest of kin. It enslaves only your body, not your mind and soul. Accept it. Even a master cannot free you. From this point on, you, and soon your companion, will be someone's property for the rest of your lives."

  That was a very chilling thought.

  "Stand there and do not move," the magician ordered. "I will fetch the slave."

  The little one in black entered, and when he looked at her she could see an oddly oblong face, huge, round nose, and beady little recessed eyes against a small mouth and lantern jaw. On him, the ring in his nose was barely noticeable, and she could understand immediately why he liked to wear the hood all the tune.

  He reached out and touched the ring in her own nose, and she felt suddenly a bit dizzy. It cleared almost immediately, though, and he let go.

  "Good," he said in a thin, reedy little voice. "Now hear and obey our master's commands. Until you are bonded you shall obey all who are bonded to our master as if any of us were he himself and no others. You shall harm no one, not even yourself, unless ordered to do so, nor cause another to suffer harm. You shall not be out of sight of another bonded to our master or our master himself at any time until you yourself are bonded. You shall undertake no action on your own without permission. Slaves, even those above you in rank, will always be addressed as equals. All others will be addressed with high respect as superiors no matter how low their station. But only Hodamoc shall be addressed as Master, and only Hodamoc and those bonded to him or designated by him shall be obeyed. These are the orders of our master Hodamoc. Hear and obey."

  Well, she didn't feel any different, except that her nose felt funny, for all that.

  "Now, follow me," said the little man, and she found herself turning and following him by a few steps back out to the front of the shop and then back- out into the arcade, past Boday but unable to stop or signal or say a word. Charley found herself fixated on the little man, always keeping him in sight. Somewhere back there Boday would be getting the same treatment for her master, and boy! Would she ever hate that!

  Charley didn't like the situation, but something deep down inside her liked that image of Boday. It was about time that somebody who turned lots of poor, trusting girls into mindless sex machines without a qualm got at least a taste of her own medicine. There was some small measure of justice in that.

  For Boday, maybe, but what about her? Who or what was this Hodamoc, anyway? What was going to become of her now? A courtesan to the likes of Redbeard's crew, maybe? God, that was repulsive to think about! Now she was being led away to a strange place and people, severing her last link with anyone or anything in Akahlar. No more Sam, or even Boday, to fall back on. And, unlike Sam, nobody, least of all Boolean, even gave a damn about her.

  Hodamoc lived well in the exile community, and he had good reason to be a major player in the underworld. It was said he'd been a general in the army of Mashtopol, assigned as commander of the Imperial Guard, one of the highest honors a soldier could attain and one of considerable political as well as military power and influence. He was of royal blood, but untitled, and those usually became either soldiers or magicians or other top secular positions of authority.

  He had, however, overreached himself at last, as such people sometimes do. Imperial succession often had less to do with who was firstborn than which son of the king was the most cutthroat politician, and alliances for such things were formed early. The seven wives of the old king had borne him twenty-nine children, of whom fifteen were boys, and of whom six were well into their twenties when the old boy passed away. Hodamoc, with visions of a conferred title of Duke or Lord and perhaps a cabinet post, had picked and backed the son who appeared the strongest, and he'd chosen wrong. His boy had not taken into account just how insane Warog, the Imperial Sorcerer, was, and when promised magical support did not materialize for anyone's side, it was over.

  Barely escaping the purge that inevitably followed a new ascension to the throne, but smart enough to have hedged some of his bets just in case, he had fled to the Kudaan to reorganize and perhaps, one day, return in force and teach those bastards a bit of a lesson.

  In the meantime, he and some of his loyal staff had set themselves up fairly well in the Wastes, using his influence with his bleeding-heart cousin, Duke Alon Pasedo, the Governor of the region, to broker between the outlaw and legitimate elements. The outlaws laid off Pasedo's own estates and people, and in exchange the Duke, via his cousin, transferred some products he had that were worth more than gold in the Kudaan Wastes.

  Hodamoc, former General of the Imperial Guard, was now the fruit-and-vegetable king of the underworld.

  It was a somewhat humiliating position for him, but it gave him great power and influence. His underground estate was in a fairly large cavern of its own with its own underground water source, and by harnessing some of that power he had a water-driven elevator of sorts that could take him and his people up to the surface, where his main house was built of and into the rock but was also open to the outside.

  He proved to be a tall, strikingly handsome man in his fifties, with gray-black hair, intelligent brown eyes, and a trim graying moustache and goatee, who almost always wore his full general's uniform around the place. He ran it like it was his headquarters and he was still in the army, too, and all but slaves called him "sir" or "General." He also had the military man's mania for order and cleanliness, and while his household included some who were either not quite human or very strange, in his free staff he played no favorites.

  Charley wasn't sure she'd ever be comfortable with this slave business, but she was becoming accustomed to it and had accepted it. There was no use resisting, anyway, and she knew that she could be far worse off than this. She no longer even thought about the ring in her nose and was only absently aware of it. She discovered, though, that its magical properties were quite strong. Once you were given an order, it stuck.

  She had relative freedom of movement around the place, subject to a few areas which were forbidden to her, but there was no way she could leave its clearly defined boundaries. She had to work hard to get a bunch of Akhbreed phrases correct, because she was required to ask permission of whoever was in charge of her to do most anything, including taking a bath, taking a walk, eating something, or even going to the bathroom. It soon went from being resented to being automatic, and it sure as hell kept you in your place.

  She had thought that for the money he'd paid—in good credits, as it turned out—she would be his personal courtesan, but that wasn't the case. In fact, after that first brief time when he'd touched her ring and she had been bonded to his will, she'd seen him very little and always from a prostrate position as he passed. She had wondered at first why a man like him hadn't had a family, but the constant companionship of young, good-looking junior "officers" around him, some of whom were gorgeous, told the story.

  She was not for him or his boys, but rather for various others who came and went. All were Akhbreed, many were older men, and she got the distinct impression that most of them were old friends and potential allies still within the royal structure. The General still had some power, and maybe even eventually some hope of a comeback. Kings had been known to be assassinated in these lands by brothers and cousins and the like.

  Charley was ambivalent about these liaisons. In one way she looked forward to them because there was very little else for her to do, and she did mostly enjoy it, although a few of these guys were really kinky. But they were also active big shots in Mashtopol; as such, they could hardly be aware of the Storm Princess and the search for ones who resembled her, and that made each new liais
on a potential threat as well. She just kicked into Shan mode as much as possible and hoped that the personality obscured any sense of the familiar.

  The problem was, though, it was mostly boring. She'd be brought out a couple of times a week to "service" VIPs, and the rest of the time she was just, well, left. Her lack of any command of the language precluded her making any close friends or confidants or even having someone reasonably friendly and secure to talk to. Her restriction to the immediate grounds made it impossible to try to contact Boday or even gain any knowledge of what was going on in this crazy world. Nor was she expected to do anything but be handy if the General needed her for a guest.

  She did get to wear some exotic and sexy clothing for a change, play with makeup and jewelry and all that, but there was only so much of it and nobody seemed to think she required any more.

  If she could just get down to that underground town once in a while she felt she'd be okay. Go through those exotic bazaars and shops and all that. She wouldn't need money; shopping was far more fun than buying anyway. The answer, though, was always the same. She was far too valuable to risk in that city of scoundrels and ruffians, and the Master wanted no harm to come to his property. The tough and the ugly went to town, but never wearing the Master's precious gems. She was a one-of-a-kind possession, and, to Hodamoc, that's all she was.

  Worst of all, her vision had continued to deteriorate. She spent as much time as possible up on the surface in the open air of day because she could see there. Darkness was total for her now, and even within the house she needed a bright light source to see anything more than dimly, and then only straight ahead. Her peripheral vision was shot to hell as well. The household knew of this, but didn't much care. You didn't have to see to do what she was there to do.

  She was growing more and more tempted to see if she could summon Shari and leave her permanently in place and in charge. Shari, perhaps, could handle it, empty-head that she was. Charley, though, was hanging on through force of will but it was becoming harder and harder to hope for anything.