Chapter 18: Where the Air is Fresh...

"The men are grumbling at the pace that's been set, Sire," one of Arragin's aides reported as the sun rose toward midsky.

"Keep them moving. If I can march this fast, so can they. Tell them they'll get double rations, both tonight and tomorrow morning, and a mug of ale apiece with each meal. We'll easily reach Chammar before tomorrow's nightfall if we can keep up this pace."

Arragin was well back from the head of the column, surrounded closely by men of his personal guard. His welltrained army had far outdistanced their baggage train, marching at top speed along wellmarked trails through the forest. The heavily loaded pack beasts, guarded by a smaller force of his soldiers and accompanied by his army's camp followers, had been left to catch up as best they could.

"... Where the air here is fresh and clean," Jewel sang softly to herself, echoing the refrain of an old 'Three Dog Night' song. Blue sky arched overhead, masked somewhat by sparkling green early summer foliage, and she wondered if the leaves of these strange trees would turn to familiar shades of red and gold as winter approached.

She hoped that she would never find out for herself. Not this trip, anyway. This was a lovely world, she thought, but she would be very glad to return to Earth. She mused lovingly over thoughts of pantyhose, hot tubs, fine restaurants, indoor plumbing, electric lights, computers, fine foods and the multitude of conveniences that she'd always taken for granted. Neal looked marvelously lean and fit, what little excess bulk he'd started out with whittled down by short rations and replaced by solid muscles built up by lots of walking and other heavy exercise. His hair and beard had grown long, starting to curl in a way that made her want to run her fingers through them. They were still shot with gray, but she'd be willing to swear that the roots were coming in darker all the time. What had been in that drink that the Elder Sister had brewed up for them... ?

"You love him too, don't you?" Amy's voice was low, audible only to her as they walked along side by side.

"Love him? Of course, but..." She looked more closely at Amy, surprising an identical pain mirrored in her vivid blue eyes. "Yes, I love him. As much as you do. Amy, what are we going to do? I need him! And he needs me, if he would only admit it. Or else, he needs you. One of us, anyway. He's forced himself to think of us as daughters, taking the place of the children he lost all those years ago, and I don't know how to change that. All that he lets himself see is the difference in our ages, telling himself that he's old enough to be our father."

"He just may be in for a surprise." Amy chuckled, wryly. "Remember the drink that the priestess gave us at their ceremony?"

"I was just thinking about it, yes."

"Me, too. Wondering, and remembering old tales. The priestesses of the MotherGoddess are rumored to be ageless. Always, when one begins to grow old she moves on to another temple. Her place is then taken by a younger woman. Yet, you never see any really young or really old priestesses."

"That could explain why Neal is looking so much younger," Jewel exclaimed softly, smiling. "And, why all three of us have been so healthy throughout all of this. He could just be losing his strongest argument against us. Against one of us, that is. But, which one will it be?"

"He will have to be the one to decide that." Amy managed a smile, but it took an obvious effort. "In your world, one man and one woman is the law. Of course, in this land there is no such law."

"You would actually be willing to share?" Jewel was startled by the thought. She hated to admit that it had already secretly occurred to her several times during the long watches of the night, foreign as it was to all of her upbringing. Though she still remembered the stories they told about her Uncle Hamid...

"Not willingly, of course," Amy admitted, shrugging her shoulders. "I would much rather have him all to myself. Who wouldn't? He's a lot of man. But if that could not be, well..."

Jewel shook her head, studying anew this blond girl who had somehow become the sisterfriend she'd never had. "I'm not sure that I could, even with you. Not that I expect to have the chance. I've seen how he looks at you when he thinks he isn't being watched."

"Me?" Amy's laugh was a tinkle of infectious mirth, tinged though it was by a darker undercurrent of irony and pain. "Don't be silly. You're the one he looks at that way, when he thinks that nobody is watching. I wish it was true, but what chance does someone like me have? To him, I'm nothing but a peasant girl, raised in a little farming village away out in the backwoods of a backward world. I'd never even heard of such things as airplanes, or printed books, or a thousand other things until you rescued me and took me to your world. Why would he want to choose me?"

"Because you're young, you're beautiful, you're intelligent... and you're white!"

"Yellow hair is as much of a handicap on Khamus as black skin is on Earth," Amy reminded her.

"Neal is from Earth, from America where blondes are all too often the standard of beauty. 'Black is Beautiful' is still just a joke to too many white men. Their idea of integration is strictly horizontal, between someone else's sheets."

"And is Neal really like that?"

"Noo, I don't think so. Not that I've ever noticed, anyway. But he'll need a wife who can help him, not one who will be a drag on him."

"Not Black like you, you mean. Not a pretty, ignorant child like me, either. If that's the truth it would let both of us out, and I'm not going to accept that until I have to. What he really needs is both of us." Amy thrust an errant blond curl back under her headband, straightening her shoulders and taking a deep breath. "We're alive, we're healthy, we're together and we're not in jail. That will have to satisfy us for today. When tomorrow comes, we'll worry then about any new troubles it brings."

Jewel shook her head, watching with mingled affection and exasperated envy as Amy trotted gaily ahead to exchange barbed comments with Jal and Donnesh. Maybe she was right. Enjoy today, and don't worry too much about tomorrow. Too bad she couldn't be that way. Or, could she... ?

No! She could have felt that way once, but now she could see much too clearly the probable consequences of all their actions. The effects of whatever they did here would go cascading down through tomorrow after tomorrow. Their very presence on this world had swung events out of their normal course, however slightly. The history of Khamus, the lives of the Khamusani would be changed, even if the three of them vanished this very instant. Neal's dream of 'World Traders, Inc.' would have to be nurtured very carefully, lest it bring disaster down on more worlds than one.

Warned by its scouts, the fastmarching column ground to a halt at the edge of a large clearing. In the center of the open space a green pennant fluttered from a slender staff, a flag of truce.

"Send out more scouts," Arragin had ordered. "Make sure that this is no ambush. Tell the men to be ready to fight. They may be seeking to delay us, to gain time to ready their defenses."

Jewel stood among those watching from the edge of the clearing. She could see that the group under the truce flag was made up of six soldiers and a diminutive priest. Not Dalliktan, but a senior one of his blackclad subordinates. Arragin, flanked by six men of his personal guard, advanced to meet them. They were plainly exchanging formal greetings, but a slight breeze carried their voices away from the watchers. Even her keen ears could only make out a word or two here and there.