s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

and, down here, with this crowd, what the hell were they going to do and where
could they go, anyway? The crowd was like something out of a bad horror movie,
with shouting and screaming figures dressed mostly in rags or patchwork stuff
and many looking and sounding only vaguely human. They were pawed and pushed
as their guards made way for them to walk through to the marketplace, and it
was pretty unpleasant. There was almost a sense of relief when they made this
little platform in a kind of square surrounded by broken-down stalls that was
clearly the center of commerce, such as it was. The crowd was jovial enough,
but somehow both women felt more like the unwelcome guests of honor at an
execution than the objects of an auction.
Far back in the crowd, an unassuming figure in a full brown robe, looking much
like an out-of-place friar, stared at them, then did something of a
double-take and stared some more. The cut of his robe marked him as a
magician, but its color and design did not denote high rank. He had a pudgy,
boyish face, although he was more stocky than fat, and rumpled, thin brown
hair to his shoulders that compensated only slightly for his massive but
natural bald spot atop his head.
He was there almost as an afterthought; captives and slaves weren't of any
real interest to him unless they were somebody important. In fact, he hated
this crowd and would have timed his visit differently had he remembered about
this, but here he was, and as he'd needed to purchase some essential charms at
the bazaar he wasn't about to go back and make a second, later trip. This
would be over soon enough.
At first he'd thought the two women an odd pair. The tall one with all those
tattoos over her body was at once mean-looking and singularly unattractive;
the small one, though, looked so frail, a courtesan far from her element,
helpless and afraid.
That courtesan looked damned familiar. That long hair and those eye tattoos
took away from it somewhat, but he was knowledgeable enough to see through
them and overlay the familiar on her feature and form. Yes . . . Trim the hair
and
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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20Changewinds%202%2
0-%20Riders%20of%20the%20Winds.txt restyle it, remove the tattoos, add maybe
fifteen or twenty halg to the weight
...
By the gods, they've captured one of Boolean's simulacra! Perhaps the very one
Zamofir had spoken of when he was through here!
Suddenly it all made lots of sense, but what to do? He couldn't deprive this
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mob of their show, that was for sure. Halting the auction at this point was
out of the question, and he certainly had little with which to outbid those
here.
Calming himself, he got control of his thoughts and knew that there was no
time to do anything here and now. The best he could do was to note the buyer
and then get that information back to Yobi as fast as possible.
You could tell the Grand Auctioneer in an instant. For one thing, he was
clean, well groomed, and dressed in a fine togalike garment and shiny leather
boots and definitely had a lot more than most of this mob. For another, he was
clearly in his element in front of the crowd and very much the businessman. He
was accompanied by a woman who had once been beautiful, but her face and her
silver hair told of a life where fate had been less than kind, and while she
was clean and well dressed herself she walked with a pronounced limp. As she
came up to the platform, Charley could see that the woman had two fingers
missing on her left hand, and a small brass or copper ring through her nose.
She also carried a small book and stylus with her, and propped herself to one
side of the platform.
The Grand Auctioneer came up to her and said something that the crowd noises
made it impossible to hear, and she nodded. Then the auctioneer mounted the
platform.
He turned, faced the crowd, and with exaggerated hand gestures pleaded for and
men finally achieved a level of quiet.
"All right, all right!" he said in a penetrating, professional voice that
seemed to cut through all noise almost as if amplified, yet not shouting at
all. "Now, we don't have much today, but what we do have is well worth the
wait. I know most of you can't afford either of mem, but you can sit there
quietly and drool and pretend you are. The serious bidders and their agents to
my right, please.
Let them through! Thank you, thank you!"
About a dozen people made their way to the designated spot. All were better
dressed and obviously more affluent than the masses in the crowd, although
many were as strange in, their own ways as the rest here. Most were men, but a
few were women, and perhaps two-thirds of them also wore rings in their noses.
"Ah!" said the Grand Auctioneer with satisfaction. "All set? Very well, then.
You've seen this pair on display now, so you know pretty well what you're
getting physically." He turned to Boday. "Do you have a name and any skills to
recommend yourself?"
She glared at him. Boday always expected to be recognized, even here.
"You see before you Boday, the greatest alchemical artist of the age, and one
of her finest creations!" she bragged.
The crowd roared, mostly with laughter, which seemed to infuriate Boday even
more. She glared at them and they seemed collectively taken aback at the
glare.
"There you are!" the auctioneer told the crowd. "An alchemist and artist of
the body. Two for the price of one, ladies and gentlemen! A slave such as this
can be most useful! Can I have a starting bid, please?"
Charley stared out at the crowd in wonder. Why were they all here and making
so merry at mis? These were the poor, the misshapen, the dregs of this
underground society. Looking at the real bidders, it was clear that even
slaves of such people would be better off than most of this lot.
And then it hit her. That was it, wasn't it? These were the losers, the dregs
of the lowest society of Akahlar. The accursed and misshapen, without hope,
without anything much at all.
But they were still better than slaves.
So long as there were slaves in this society, they were not the lowest, not
the bottom of the ladder. So long as there were slaves there was always
somebody to look down on, somebody so you could always say to yourself, "Well,
I may be at my rock bottom but at least I'm not a slave." And if the slaves
were pure
Akhbreed, so much the better. She and Boday represented to these people that
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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20Changewinds%202%2
0-%20Riders%20of%20the%20Winds.txt which had shut them out and cast them out,
and just to see them sold into bondage was a sort of vicarious revenge.
The auctioneer was going well now, occasionally going fast enough to make a
singsong chant in numerical units, although units of what wasn't clear. Surely
money as such meant nothing to these people; there had to be some alternate
value system here that was represented by the numbers.
The bidding slowed at eleven hundred and fifty, and the auctioneer began
cajoling the bidders, alternately flattering and insulting them, trying to get
another bid. It was now like pulling teeth, but he got another two hundred and
then started his close.
"Thirteen fifty . . . once! Twice! Three times! Sold!" He pointed to a huge
pale man in a white toga whose head was shaved and who looked almost like a
marble monument. The man had a ring in his nose.
Boday was told to step down off the platform and stand by the woman with the
ledger, and the auctioneer brought Charley front and center.
"The girl speaks no Akhbreed!" Boday shouted to the auctioneer. "She knows [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]