“Tea is fine with me,” Mavra told her. “Tony, being a native Brazilian, will probably complain about the coffee, but he won’t drink much else. Anne Marie, being British, is self-explanatory.”
“I feel like I should help you, dear,” Anne Marie said apologetically, “but I’m afraid I haven’t gotten used to all this excess baggage on my rear end in rooms like this yet. Both of us have already made some frightful messes knocking over things.”
“No, no. You are our guests,” Julian told her, and went into the corridor to the bath and prepared the drinks, then brought them back out. The sight of the two centauresses standing there holding cups and saucers was almost funny.
Anne Marie looked at Julian as if studying a sculpture. “You know, I always fantasized about becoming what I am now, but I do believe that had I known of or imagined your form, I should have preferred it. You are so pretty and combine much of the best of both human and animal form.”
“I think you got the best of it,” Julian told her. “The status of females in Erdomese society is that of objects. It would be unthinkable for one or two females to travel alone even there, let alone to other lands.”
“Oh, yes, I’m afraid Mavra has told us about that. What a shame for you, poor dear! At least you are fortunate to be married to someone from your own culture. I will say that Dillian society is quite comfortable and relaxed. Oh, the men like to show off their strength and do a lot of man things like drinking heavily and boasting and competing in all sorts of games and silly contests, but women are equal on the councils and in education. The people are all quite civil, so there’s not the fear and pressure there is back home. I can—and did—walk the trails alone at night with no more worry than that of tripping over a log. There’s quite a lot of stock taken in family. Not much privacy, but you can’t have everything, after all. It’s quite pleasant, really. More than I hoped for and much less than I feared.”
Julian looked over at Tony, who seemed in general a bit less happy about the situation, but she decided it was a matter for later, more discreet discussion.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Mavra told them, her sharp, penetrating voice more than compensating for her tiny size. “We’ve got passage on a cross-country train this afternoon that will take us directly to the Ogadon border. Ogadon’s a water hex, so that means taking another ship.” She unfurled a map on the cushions, and they all looked at it.
“There are some places here I’d rather not revisit if I can avoid it,” she continued. “Makiem is definitely one of them; dealing with an absolute monarchy of giant toads with little love for their own kind, let alone others, is not something I want to do. Parmiter is a whole nation of professional thieves and scoundrels, I’m told. I have a fondness for Awbri, but it’s not much for trade and few ships stop there, and since they’re fliers, there are no roads or even trails to speak of. Agon is the most likely jumping-off spot and about as far as I think I can afford. Trouble is, once we’re ashore, we’re in totally foreign territory for me. I’m much more familiar with the regions north and particularly east of here.”
“Then why not go north through that one, there?” Lori asked her, pointing to Wygon and wishing she could read the scratches that served for writing on Mavra’s map. “Or even hop a ship east? There are lots of those.”
“Well, several reasons,” Mavra told them. “For one thing, while the Wygon are good folks, we’d be heading up to this point here, the Yaxa-Harbigor border. I don’t know how the Yaxa are now, but I doubt if they’re any nicer or dumber than they were, and they were not people easily tangled with. That route is also mostly overland; we’ve got no flying races in our group and will be walking or riding blind. In fact, this is the first time I ever had this big a party with me and only two races represented! As for water, it damn near broke me getting Anne Marie and Tony here from Dillia, which is not an easy hex to get out of, not to mention the bribes I had to spread around Aqomb to reach the two of you. If all I could get us back to was Zhonzhorp, we’d be as far from any possible goal as we are now and dead broke. I think I can get us a deal to Agon. Not fancy, maybe, but it’s only four days’ sail. We’ll also need supplies before we take off into unknown country. You can’t assume anything about climate, edible food, or much else when you go overland, and in a lot of places you can’t use money even if you have it. I’m not going to go over our exact route now; I’ll wait until we’re well away from here and in a place where I’m not certain I’m being recorded and examined. Any questions I can answer right now?”
“Yeah, one,” Lori said, staring at the map. “What do you need us for, anyway?” Mavra had said more words in one gulp since entering the room than she’d spoken altogether in all that time in the Amazon. Her whole manner was as domineering and pushy as ever, but now it was accompanied by nonstop talking, as if she were making up for all those years of near silence.
“Basically, because it’s between difficult and impossible to get any distance here by traveling only overland,” Mavra responded. “You really have no idea yet. And also because somebody—either hired by Nathan or on their own or a combination of both—definitely doesn’t want me to get up there, or at least not to get there first. If Nathan gets in before I do, the first thing he’ll do is take me out of the Well master system. That’ll mean I’ll be processed just as you were, forced to go through a Well Gate and come out as something else. I’ll also become just another mortal. I know that’s my problem, but it means you guys will be stuck far from even your new homes with nothing to show for it. If, on the other hand, I get in first, I can pretty well call my own tune, and yours as well. You can’t believe what power I can have inside there, and more important, if what I think is true really is true, I may well be able to take some of that power out with me. You can get whatever you want—the race and sex of your choice, riches, power, or, if it turns out that what I suspect is true, you can come with me and travel the whole damned universe.”
“That sounds exciting,” Anne Marie said with typical understatement. “But is it really as dangerous as you make it out to be?”
“There are things worse than death here,” Mavra Chang warned. “Once I was captured and transformed halfway into a donkey. Human torso, donkey legs, ears, and tail. No hands, just legs, and unable to raise my head. Then, getting away like that, I fell into the land of the Wukl, who decided to ‘perfect’ my design. I spent many long years as a fat pig-like creature, always looking down at the ground. And that wasn’t the only experience I had. No, you never know what’s going to get you here, and with every evidence that somebody somewhere is trying to get me, there’s more safety in numbers. Besides, I like the company.”
There were passenger trains across Itus, but the kind of passengers they were designed to carry were built quite differently from the party of travelers. The result was that they had the choice of riding in the Itun equivalent of a boxcar—which looked as if it would easily heat up enough to fry eggs no matter how many hatches were open—or the same equivalent of a flatcar, with some thin but strong metal fencing, a meter or so high, placed around the edges. They chose the latter.
After watching the increasingly boring countryside go by, Lori decided to try to nap; Anne Marie—at least Julian thought it was Anne Marie—went over and spoke to Mavra, and that left Tony down on the other side of the flatcar staring off into space. Hesitantly, Julian made her way over to where the centauress who had said that they had much in common but had otherwise said little was standing. Julian wasn’t really sure how to approach either of them or even if she should, but it was worth a try. Still, she stood there, waiting to be noticed.