Chicks - Chicks 'N Chained Males Part 17

"Kerrik!" I whispered. "Do you know me?"

Was that a nod, or merely a horsey head-toss? "Wait, wait, let me get the halter off-"

No. The sudden blaze of broken magic would surely bring Kundin rus.h.i.+ng in here. Warily, warily, I slid open the latch on the stall door, praying that it wouldn't squeak, then warily, warily pulled the door open, praying that it wouldn't groan. Kerrik worked his careful way out, placing each hoof delicately so that it wouldn't clop, following me as closely as a dog. The guards were still engrossed in their game . . . we were going to make it . . .

No, we weren't. As we left the barn, every mage light in the vicinity blazed into life. And there, dramatic as an actor, stood Garrith Kundin, dark cloak like a shadow about him and eyes amused.

What could I say? "You knew."

"Oh, from the beginning. Don't!" he added sharply to Kerrik, who was edging forward, teeth bared.

"Move, and she's dead. In fact," the sorcerer added with a thin smile, "she's dead anyhow."

And with that, he was a great brown bear, and lunging. I had no time to drag off Kerrik's halter; he was still stuck in horse form. So I drew my sword and slashed at him. Ha, yes, got him- No. No, not with that thick ursine pelt. I'd just cut off some fur, which would probably translate only to a sc.r.a.pe on human hide. And he, with an equally quick slash of claws, tore the sword from my hand.

So much for that. I abandoned all pretense of being a warrior woman and s.h.i.+fted away from him, leaving my clothes and leather armor in a heap on the ground and racing off as a slim-legged doe. Sure enough, the bear followed, swiping at me with claws like knives.

d.a.m.nation! There were sorceries like this, allowing the non-s.h.i.+fters to change shape-keep their clothes in the process, too, curse it-but the spells took power, a lot of power. Where Kundin was getting so much strength . . .

Those missing employees. Yes, and the dull anger of everyone here-he was slowly draining their lives!

Ridiculous time for a revelation. The bear's teeth clashed shut, almost on my haunch, and I put on a new burst of speed. We raced over the ground-ha, yes!

A little closer,I told him. And I- s.h.i.+fted to cat, going flat to the ground. Sure enough, the bear rushed right over me, then stopped so suddenly he went head over heels. I leaped up, s.h.i.+fted to wolf, lunged for his exposed throat- And found myself face to face with a great serpent, the type that crushes its prey. He did his best to crush me, a loop of his muscular body coiling about me and squeezing, but I- s.h.i.+fted to bird, flapping frantically free. He followed as a hawk, talons s.n.a.t.c.hing for me, and I- s.h.i.+fted to human, dropping with a thud, right at Kerrik's hooves. As the hawk desperately backwatered his wings, I s.n.a.t.c.hed up that discarded leather armor and swung it with all my force. I connected with the hawk so hard I heard him give a human "oof," and knocked him sideways out of the air. As the sorcerer fell, Kerrik reared, and his jaws snapped shut on the hawk's tail feathers. The hawk gave a very human yell and- Suddenly was Garrith Kundin again, hanging ignominiously by the seat of his finely cut pants. A stallion's jaws are strong, and his neck muscles are like rock: without much effort, Kerrik held the sorcerer dangling helplessly.

"Give up, Kundin?" I asked, scrambling back into my warrior's garb. "All Kerrik has to do is s.h.i.+ft his grip just a little bit to the front, and close his teeth with just a little bit more force, and-"

"Don't!" he gasped. "I surrender!"

"Wise," I said, and went hunting for rope. Iron does a fair job of binding magicians' powers, too, so I used two of those iron-studded halters to bind Kundin. "All right, Kerrik, drop him."

Kerrik did, snorting and trying his best to spit. Kundin lay in a furious heap.

"I won't forget this," he snarled.

Beyond us, his workers were gathering and, for a moment, my heart lurched. But the expression on all their faces was hardly that of love for their employer, so I merely smiled. "That's good, Kundin. You can think about this night all the time that you're in prison. Bend your head a little, Kerrik . . . ah, there."

I pulled off the cursed halter. The stallion blurred, vanished, and my husband stood, stark naked, in its place, looking dazed, relieved, and d.a.m.ned chilly. I s.n.a.t.c.hed Kundin's cloak from him and wrapped it about Kerrik. His arms closed about me, and for a long, long while we could do nothing but cling to each other as though we'd never let go.

But Kundin was raging. "This is criminal! Criminal! You have no grounds-"

"Oh, I don't know about that." Letting go of Kerrik for the moment, I ticked off the sorcerer's crimes on my fingers. "Wrongful imprisonment. Imposing of unnatural shape on a s.h.i.+fter. Draining of life force from employees. Yes, and I suspect that if we nosed about a bit, we'd find a few bodies, too. . . . "

We didn't. Warkan's forces did. They didn't find any more s.h.i.+fters being held against their wills; I don't want to think about how many of the horses on that farm might not have been born as such.

Well now, you can't s.h.i.+ft the past. It's comforting to know that Kundin's former employees testified, as did the families of the deceased. He's not going anywhere again. Not in human form, anyhow: The punishment for what he did is permanent s.h.i.+fting into . . .

He makes a very pretty frog.

Now, back to Kerrik and me. Back to our happy little home, and me raging at him. "And what if I hadn't gotten there in time? You would have been a horse forever!"

"Oh, I would have found a way-"

"No, you would not!"

"I would." "Would not!"

I'll spare you the rest of that. In fact, even I couldn't stand it, and flounced off to bed.

But Kerrik . . . well now, my infuriating, incorrigible and utterly dear-to-me husband s.h.i.+fted into a coverlet.

And what happened after that, dear reader, I leave to your imagination.

Whatisan editor to do with a writer who reports having studied "too much Sanskrit, not enough Hindi, and just the right amount of Telegu"? I don't know if there's much call for any of the above where he now lives (New York, with his wife and no kids, pets, or plants), but my word, does this man know how toshop! All is forgiven.

May/December at the Mall

Brian Dana Akers

Katya crouched under a palm tree in the food court of the Mall of Alternate Americas. She had picked a two seater with an excellent field of view. Her triple cheeseburger was history; just a few fries left. It was lunchtime and the court was filling up. Someone would be asking for the other seat soon. She merely had to pick the right wildebeest.

A teenage boy with a hopeful smile wearing a leather jerkin approached. Katya glared at him and dropped her hand to her hilt. He wisely pivoted ninety degrees. A fat abbess got the same treatment.

Then Katya saw a tall, thin, older man-not anold man, just suitably older than Katya-holding his little orange tray and looking for a seat. She gave him a big smile and motioned him over.

"Have a seat," said Katya.

"Thanks." The man sat down. He had a veggie burger, salad, and some kind of fruit drink.

"Wow," said Katya. "Veggie burger and salad. You really live on the edge." She crinkled her nose.

He gave a little shrug. "There are old travelers, and there are bold travelers, but there are no old, bold travelers."

"A traveler? You're sure you're not an accountant?" asked Katya.

"I'm a survivor. Only the prudent survive."

"Oh, let's all be prudent. That sounds like lots of fun!"

He frowned and bit into his burger. Travelers from every era were filling the court: knights in self-s.h.i.+ning armor, damsels distressed by impossibly thick sandwiches, samurai discussing hara-kiri techniques, and Aztecs preparing to sacrifice combination platters to their own personal stomach G.o.ds. Katya slowly bit another fry. She tried not to be too obvious. "I'm sorry. Here I am teasing you and we haven't even introduced ourselves. My name is Katya."

"Reimann."

"Where are you from, Reimann?" She batted her eyelashes.

"Just got back from seventeenth-century China. Picked up some incredible silks. A few paintings.

Statuary. Vases."

"Are you a merchant?" Katya could practically see the words "sugar daddy" tattooed on his forehead.

"I'm a . . . conservator," said Reimann. His shoulders sagged. "Some time streams get the h.e.l.l pillaged out of them. They're not healthy. I'm trying to save some of it." He stared at his burger. "I'm just one person."

She paused to process that. "You're very dedicated."

"Mm," said Reimann. He glanced at her and forked his salad.

"No, really. A lot of people wouldn't shoulder that burden. They would just go with the flow. People like me." She winked and laughed.

"It's hopeless. I just feel way out of it. Too much looping through time. I'm out of phase and time-lagged." Reimann frowned and stabbed his salad again. His eyes got that thousand-year stare.

Katya looked down and concentrated on her fries. This was a bad turn. She had dealt with guys in futures shock before. They became so distant and detached that they weren't good foranything . She would have to snap him out of it, quick.

"You know a great time to kick a.s.s? The late Roman Empire. Tops. They're all a little slow from the lead poisoning." She pulled her short Roman sword out of its scabbard and clanged it down so hard on the table that Reimann jumped in his seat. The food court went dead silent for a moment as everyone a.s.sessed the risk of a fight. Katya's face flushed. She fixed Reimann in the eye.

"You old guys keep thinking it's going back to the way it was. It's not. Loosen up. Have some fun."

Reimann focused on her and gave a dry laugh. "Girls just want to have fun."

"Now those are words to live by!" said Katya. "Want to hear a few more? Let's go shopping!"

Reimann laughed louder. "Okay, kiddo, whaddiya say we go and buy you some new chain mail?"

Katya's eyes sparkled. "Kiddo? Kiddo? You're callingme kiddo? You're notthat much older than me.

At least, I think you're not."

Katya popped the last fry in her mouth. Both stood up, dumped their trays and stacked them on top of the trashcan. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it playfully.

"Just follow me. You're not married, are you?" "No, I'm young and virile and on the prowl." Reimann laughed again. Katya laughed too. It was such a cute thing for prey to say. "And you're a blonde with brains, b.o.o.bs, baby fat, and ebullience. Just my type."

Katya laughed. This was more like it.

"Which store?" asked Reimann.

"Definitely Cleopatra's Closet. Definitely." Katya waited for him to object. Either he didn't know the store, or he had money.

They strolled through the mall, getting to know each other. The kiosks that used to sell flight insurance now sold temporal insurance. Reimann growled that it was a scam-time-line arbitrage that was helping screw everything up. When they pa.s.sed a T-s.h.i.+rt store, Katya had to stop and read each s.h.i.+rt.

"Hey, this one's for you: ' OLD AGE AND TREACHERY WILL TRIUMPH OVER YOUTH AND INEXPERIENCE.' ".

"I'm not treacherous. I'm sweet." He grinned.

She smiled and held his hand. "This is great. 'When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.' That's my philosophy."

Reimann laughed. "You and everyone else. That's why this place is a neutral zone."

"Neutral zone?" asked Katya.

"For R and R. For sh.o.r.e leave," said Reimann. "Agora . . . bazaar . . . market . . . mall. There's always some place like this in every time stream. Always someplace to shop."

Katya had never heard it put quite that way before. The Muzak just made the mall seem so ordinary.

"Do you understand how it all happened?" she asked. "Every explanation I've heard sounded like a lot of arm waving to me."

Reimann looked thoughtful. "Not really. What's the first cause of anything? Somehow temporal streamers weakened the tensegrity of our old unitary s.p.a.ce-time and frayed it into all these strands."

Katya let him talk. Maybe talking would help him get it out of his system.

"Sometimes I can almost feel immense loops of time coming into the mall, like the ribbons of Earth's magnetic field. For these few decades, Minnesota is important. For other times, other places.

"Oh, you know, speaking of other places, someone from the twenty-fourth was telling me Da Lat is a cool little town."

"Never heard of it. Where is it?" asked Katya.

"Vietnam. Central Highlands. During the American phase of the war, all parties had a tacit agreement to spare the town. In fact, officials from both sides, from time to time and without knowing it, rented villas side by side. I want to check it out sometime. Come with me?" "Da Lat. Right. I'm sure." She rolled her eyes.

"Hey, here we are. Cleopatra's Closet. Isn't it cool?" said Katya. They admired the window displays.

"Very authentic looking," said Reimann. "h.e.l.l, it probablyis authentic."

"The real thing? Great! Let's go!"

The store wasn't exactly Egyptian-more like the boudoir of a Moorish princess. Clothes were tucked away in a fantastic collection of armoires and chests. Browsing there was like rummaging through her private affairs. The atmospherics simulated a late afternoon in Spain. It was elegantly done.

A saleswoman sized up the situation instantly. "Welcome to our store. My name is Serafina. What would the young lady be looking for today?" She lowered her voice. "When not in Rome, don't do as the Romans do. Youneed new chain mail."

"Don't I know it!" said Katya. "Which way to the heavy-duty battle stuff? I want a complete suit."

Serafina was thrilled to oblige.

Katya squealed when she opened the giant armoire. "They have everything here! Everything!"

"I can put together some very attractively priced ensembles for you, too," said Serafina. "We have all the major patterns-birdcage, oriental six-on-one, Persian three-on-one-and most of the minor ones as well. It's all done in the latest synthetics. Strong and very light." Reimann sighed and sank into an overstuffed leather armchair.

Katya darted into the dressing nook with a chain-mail bra.s.siere. The cups were a little small, making her look quite ample. She tucked and jiggled and bounced and wiggled. She threw her hair back. Time to give Reimann a quiz.

She stepped out and asked (in all apparent innocence), "Do I look fat in this?"

Reimann fixed her in the eye and said, "Absolutely not. That one looks great on you. If anything, you're too thin. You're ravis.h.i.+ng. You're stunning."