Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [AU] [Housebreaking] Tripping Out Message-ID: References: <1993Jul14.180410.9807@data-io.com> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 20:36:11 GMT [ADMIN] This happens after Liralen's "Rock Steady" post. It contains the work of several folks, but it was long enough ago that I no longer remember who all of them were for sure. 'Raf stuffed a few more things into the saddlebag. Four more bags of oats, a sack of apples, a camp cook set from the kitchen storage shelves. A large canteen of water. "You really want me ta carry all dat?" The kid sounded dubious, and the golden satyrlion laughed at the dolorous voice. "Clyde, you're a centaur now, remember? You can carry as much as a horse, no problem. Besides, you wanna eat, don't you?" "Well, yeah, but..." The young stal shrugged his human-shoulders. "Then c'mere." The saddlebags went over the young centaur's bodyjoint, and a second pair over his hindquarters. "Not bad, eh?" The satyrlion pulled the strap tight and showed him how they fastened, uptop, where he could adjust them himself. "Wow. I woulda thot dem bags would weigh a ton." "You're a lot stronger now." 'Raf clapped the stal on his back, and he turned around to face the satyrlion. "Right, I forgot. Hey, you sure it's okay dat we goes out lookin' for Jake an' da 'corn lady, I mean, Ol' Man Heartwell sez I can go wit' ya?" "He liked your story on the satyr band, didn't he?" 'Raf cinched the saddlebags a little tighter around Clyde's barrel. "Exhale, this has to be tight, don't want it chafing you." "He (oof) changed da words around. But he said I gots promise." "Good. We'll work on your writing then." "Thanks, 'Raf. You's a good teacher." Clyde flushed a little, red against his palomino-blonde coloring. "You really want to be a reporter, it's the least I can do." "So to speak," came the voice from the doorway. Kardia was there, walking carefully so as not to stress the bandage around her chest. "Oooh, m'lady, that looks right painful," 'Raf said, wincing in sympathy. "I can vouch for that," came a mellow baritone from behind her. Karl walked into the room behind her, holding his side ruefully. "I didn't realize this empathy thing would work both ways." Wearing her neutral form, ar'Elya walked in behind, laughing quietly. "You should have seen, 'Raf. He tried his usual line on her this morning, and as soon as he touched her he fell over." "Well, I was just being friendly." Karl grinned. "Besides, you wouldn't let me flirt with you, and Kardia is almost as cute." "You don't know what you'd be getting into, lad." ar'Elya smiled, and scratched him behind the right horn. "Oh man." The satyr leaned into her hand, moaning. "Karl, you remember the exercises yesterday?" 'Raf said, amusement in his voice. "Do your centering exercise now." "Hai, sensei." The satyr breathed deep, exhaled. "Hey, the pain went away. Why is that?" "You just teach that exercise to Anna and the twins, you're going to need to be able to keep out other people's sensations sometimes." "Sure thing. Hey, I wanted to visit Dougl today." "Ask Lex to work the gates for you. And wear the tunic, man." 'Raf's lion-tail twitched, as he glanced up and down at the nearly naked satyr. "Sure thing. I'm not gonna walk into the St. Cuthbert Academy in just a thong, 'Raf, I know they'd toss me out on my ear." He grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and trotted out into the hall. "Are you sure you're up to the walk, Kardia?" Kardia nodded. "We really should find Andrea and Sheryl, and once that newspaper article showed up about unicorn hunters, well. I'll be fine, I've gone farther with much worse injury when I had to." ar'Elya examined the Kardia's posture, then shifted to the habit of Sister El'n. Clyde shied a bit at the sight. A younger woman in the same habit came into the room, carrying a pack labelled with a red cross. She handed the pack to Sister Eln', smiled and left. 'Raf stared at her, one eyebrow raised. "Nice effect," he said to himself. "Good role discipline." Sister El'n gave him a warning glare and opened the medical pack. "Kardia, come over here and let me examine that dressing. You gentlemen, just go about your business now, give her some privacy. No need to gawk." She waited til they had turned away before she lifted Kardia's loose shirt and removed the bandage, blinking back a silent tear at old whip scars on Kardia's back and sides. The crease over her ribs from the mage-guild bullet was healing well, the hardpack dressing had dissolved during the night, so the Reverend Sister applied a sterile antibiotic and then a clean dressing. "If you feel pain, we have a mild local anaesthetic but I'd prefer you not use it if you can avoid it. There's some ibuprofin in the kit too, but it might interfere with the complete operation of your implant eyes." "Thank you. I'll avoid it." She grinned wryly, shrugging her shirt back down around her body. "I'm not really all that skilled at horseback riding. Will this work with all the jolting and exertion?" "No problem, we're gonna be hoofin' it." 'Raf grinned, showing his feline dentalwork. "If it gets too rough I'll just drag out the hoverboard and you can sky ski, but I think the walking will do you good. You need to get into better shape if you want to be a better fighter." "A better fighter?" Kardia looked hesitant, and 'Raf smiled to himself. "All I want is to be a weaver." 'Raf nodded. "Uh huh. And not feel helpless when you don't need to and not be bothered by it when you can't help it." "Well..." Kardia frowned for a moment and then she smiled, "Yes, you're right." "Which means being a competent fighter in this town. And besides you need to be more fit anyway, and this should go a ways towards helping with that problem. Exercise, y'know, increase the pumpitude? Or at least stretch the legs." "Uhm. Yes, I guess walking would do that," Kardia said, flexing her gold foot introspectively, "Now that I can walk properly. This is still kind of hard to believe." "Hey, you look at the world with robot eyes and you think a foot prosthesis is hard to believe?" 'Raf blinked, catlike, and handed her a loaded backpack. "Well, with the eyes I started nearly blind, went through six months of interface training and adjustment. After that, this," she pointed her left toe and chuckled, "is unbelievable." She hefted the pack experimentally - 35 pounds. Not bad, and the straps were adjusted so they wouldn't pull on her shoulders much. Much better than her old leather travel sack. "I'm gonna go give some last minute instructions to Karl and the band, since Lex promised to keep his training on course while we're gone. See y'all by the travel-door." 'Raf left in the direction that Karl had gone. "I think this body is a bit old for the kind of travel we're going to be doing," ar'Elya observed, and with a kind of shake, she suddenly stood about four inches taller and had long copper hair in a braid down her back. She smiled and slung a knapsack across her right hip, a quiver of arrows on the left hip, and a bow-and-sword scabbard across her back. "Shall I bring my bow?" Kardia wondered. "Try out the draw position, if it hurts you probably shouldn't." She extended her left arm, then pulled back her right to her chin - the stretch wasn't really painful but she could feel it. She shook her head. "Better not. Oh well." "You _will_ want an alpenstock though." ar'Elya pulled a long pole with a hook on one end and a metal cap on the other, out of the knapsack. Kardia raised her eyebrows. "Is this more of that virtual matter, or is it real?" "Real, in this case. The knapsack has a dimensional sorter in it, so it can carry a goodly amount of stuff. The real thing is much more sturdy should we run into trouble." She checked their gear and nodded. "Time to go, daylight's wasting." 'Raf was waiting by the travel gateway outside by the garden. He had shifted shapes again, this time taking on a form something like a centaur, but still strongly leonine. He grinned at Clyde's expression of surprise. "Hey, how can I teach you about being a centaur without getting into it myself?" He adjusted the strap holding his pack on, and extended his staff to alpenstock length. ar'Elya snapped fingers, and the gate blurred in the middle. "The portal's set to take us to the northern gates. According to the guards, a pair of unicorns went out that way at incredible speed, about a week and a half ago. Have you got the scanners?" 'Raf picked up a polished wooden staff about six feet long from where it was leaning against the wall by the gate. "Clyde, you'll be carrying this one. It's designed to use as a weapon in an emergency. Right now, I want you to hold it in the middle, here, and keep it perpendicular to the ground." "What's dat mean?" "Like so, at right angles." "Ok, can do. So, what's it for?" "Well, once I turn on my staff you'll see. First we go through the gate." 'Raf bent down and stepped through the gate, followed by Kardia and a somewhat hesitant Clyde. ar'Elya followed last, closing the gate behind her. "Dis is great," Clyde grinned, looking out over the broad expanse of fields and empty spaces. Generica inside her walls was crowded, with buildings and people visible almost anywhere you looked. But out here, it was different. Houses still visible, and small towns around the steeples of their grange halls and temples, but there was so much empty space between things. The road led north and east. "OK, Clyde, you hold out your staff like I said." The centaur stal complied, and 'Raf matched the position with his own staff, and a curtain of pale green light appeared between the two staves. "Look at dat, wow," Clyde said, half-awestruck. "Dere's tracks showin' up dere on da ground." Indeed, looking through the curtain, green light outlined two sets of tracks, one larger than the other, but both the unique semi-split hoof shape of unicorn tracks. They went almost straight north. "I've got the next checkpoint identified," ar'Elya said quietly, and 'Raf tilted his staff slightly, making the green light vanish. They walked for several hours, following the tracks, stopping every six to eight miles to re-verify the trail. After about the second mile, Kardia found herself falling into a comfortable ground-eating loping walk that vanished the numb ache in her hip from the long months of having to hobble to protect her truncated left foot. She grinned at ar'Elya, who was matching strides. "Good thing she stuck to the road so far," the 'kan woman said, just in time for the trail to diverge off to the east through a forest. "Careful in here," 'Raf said, whiffing the air gently. "Clyde, do you smell that musky aroma?" "I... Yeah. Like old boots, kinda sour an' sneezy-feelin'." "That's goblin. But they'll leave us alone, if we don't get in their faces, so stay on the path. Raye, what's the standard toll here?" "Feels like ... three coppers, I think." "Great. Leave a silver wheel here at the start of the trail, and then let's go through very quietly." They made it through with no disturbance, though Kardia felt eyes on her from time to time, and the smell of goblins made Clyde sneeze once or twice. They passed through the small forest just in time to make camp in a small meadow, and ar'Elya went hunting, accompanied by a white-furred wolf that had joined them in the forest. She returned as the sun was setting, with four fat rabbits, which she efficiently cleaned and skinned. Meanwhile 'Raf had set up a dome-tent with walls, explaining it as a yurt; there was no natural way for it to fit into the place where he'd stowed it but he still insisted that it wasn't magical, and Kardia saw no lines of power running through it, other than the slight tagging that was visible on all of their packs and equipment. "If it ain't magic, how did it fit inside a' dat tiny pack?" Clyde said, skeptically, as 'Raf set up the campfire and ignited it with an old-fashioned flint and steel. "It's just fine fabric and a complicated armature, really," 'Raf protested. "You saw me open it up." "Synthetic spider silk and monocrys armature," Kardia muttered, disgusted. "Roughing it, he says. Airspaces sewn in for insulation. Metallized cloth backing. Real rough life." "Hey, I'm not gonna risk your getting sick," 'Raf replied, as the hunters returned. "Hi, Raye, good, you got fresh meat." He grinned and licked the fur on his hand. "Okay, Clyde, you go watch how she cleans the rabbits, and at lunchtime tomorrow I show you how to use a bow. Mandatory for centaurs." A somewhat portable pot from ar'Elya's knapsack was set up on the campfire alongside the coffee pot, and 'Raf got out his pipes and started playing quietly as the sky darkened. Kardia listened while she spun thread onto her bronze supported spindle. The smell of rabbit stewing in the pot with fresh vegetables was almost unbearable, and Clyde gave Kardia one of his apples. "I gots ta eat stuff all da time now, I guess dat bein' part horse makes me hungry as a horse too." He fidgeted. Kardia looked up from her loose kneeling posture as Clyde figured out how to get down into a sort of sitting position, his horse-half lying on the ground while his human torso was sitting up. He swatted at a bug, then 'Raf set up a yellow-oil torch with a sweet-citrus smell and the mosquitos abandoned them in droves. "Yes, that makes sense." Kardia returned the spindle and thread into her work bag and replaced it in her nearby pack; the light was getting too bad to use, even with the low-light setting of her eyes. She took a bite out of her apple, and after chewing it asked, "How did it feel, Clyde?" "What?" "Being changed, into a centaur." She settled, crosslegged, to listen. "Oh." He blushed. "It was really hot, sweaty-hot, from all da folks in da square, an' no breeze or nuthin'. I remember we was dancin, me and dese two fox babes dat came wit' us to da lighthouse. We all got naked, 'cause it was so hot, an' da fox babes was teasin' me about, uh, bein' so big, guy-wise, an' bein' so young, an' dey dragged me over ta where Raffi was playin' da pipes." He turned to look into the fire, his Low Town accent getting a little thicker. "Well, dey whispered somethin' in his ears, an' he din't stop playin' but den he changed da music, an' Karl was makin' dis gallopin' sorta drumsong. So Raffi gives me a drink a da wine outa his wineskin, an' tells me dat I can be a centaur, if I wants. An' I likes horses, an' da fox babes is teasin' me wit' dere tails, an I says yes. So den Raffi gives me dis big long tongue kiss, an' da fox babes is both lickin' in my ears, an' den I uh, gets all bothered, an' I wuz so drunk dat I, uh, kinda pass out, sorta. Den I comes to, an' Raffi is givin' me another drink a da wine, an' da fox babes is sittin' on my back, only dey's on my horse-back. An' I feels kinda like I was made outa fire, really light an' hot, an' da fox babes dat was bigger den me, dey is both littler, an' I goes out in da crowd an' dey, uh, dances wit' me an' wit' da fox babes on my back. An den you an' da vampire guy comes in an' turns Raffi back inta 'Raf, an' da really wild stuff happens wit' da rest a da magicians. So den in da early mornin' after da band is done playin', we helps dem move dere stuff ta da lighthouse." "Are you happy like this?" She smiled, seeing the places where the young stal had made his story more polite than she suspected it really had been. "Would you want to change back to human?" "He said he'd fix me back if I wann'ed but it din't sound good ta me. Before I was just a Low Town kid, sellin' papers, now I be hangin' wit' a'venturers an' helpin' da band, an' Ol' Man Heartwell sez I gets ta do field work like Jake an' 'Raf is teachin' me ta write news stories." "You could still do that as a human." "Yeah, but da fox babes likes me bein' half-horse. 'Sides, I like it, it's fun bein' stronger den da guy dat runs da press at da Examiner, an bein' able ta run fast, it's great." He got a wistful faraway expression. "Dey's fine babes, an' I like dem a lot, but dey just wants me as a stud, not as a friend, an' dat's not good enuf. I need ta find other centaurs." Kardia nodded. "I like being able to run," she said, changing the subject to something where she felt a little more secure. "Yeah, I see'd you gots da gold foot. Is dat real gold?" "I think so, 'Raelf made it with gold." She rubbed the join where the skin above her ankle blended with the gold of the foot, trying to feel the slight difference in sensation. After today's walk, there was none. It even felt warm like her skin. "Wow. Ain't you afraid dat some thief'll try ta take it?" "I wear shoes and socks mostly, and it doesn't show. I don't know what would happen if someone tried to steal it, really. The gold is just a very thin layer over the top of the foot." "Y'oughta be careful anyway. Parts a da Low City is pretty harsh." "Thanks, Clyde. I'll be careful." "Howcome you got dat foot anyway?" "Oh, I was captured, by slavers I think, a while back. They cut off the front part of my foot so I couldn't get away." "Nasty. Was dey Rameshanders?" "I don't think so. They were just locals, from around the same place where I found refuge, eventually. Anyway, when I came to Generica, one of the people I met was 'Raelf, and he offered to replace my foot in trade for me breaking a curse for him." "Oh, you's a magician?" Clyde looked suddenly more respectful, and Kardia suppressed a giggle as she nibbled the last of the apple around the core. "Not really. I weave. If I do it right, the weavings make magic go away. So I'm really kind of an UnMagician." Clyde grinned at the idea. "Dat sounds cool. Hey, is dat why you been askin' me if I really wanna be a 'taur? Cause I don' want dat you make me turn back." Kardia looked at him with the sight that saw magic. There was some faint tracery, like all living things had, and a faint trace that seemed like 'Raf, but no trace of anything resembling a human aura, except for the young stal's human torso, which was different in many details. If she hadn't known he wasn't always a centaur, she wouldn't have been able to tell. "You're a centaur for good and proper, Clyde. I think that if you wanted to change into something else, it would be fairly hard to do." She tossed the very thin apple core into the fire. Clyde nodded happily. "Good. Hey, you still hungry?" He looked around, seeing the campfire and the food cooking, but no sign of the centaurlion or the red-haired woman. The big white wolf was lying beside the fire gazing out into the field, his black ears tipping up to catch the sounds of early night. "Where's 'Raf an' da lady wizard?" "I don't know," Kardia replied. "They were here a moment ago." She rose fluidly, and went over to the campfire. The wolf had devoured most of the rabbit bones and excess. The pot contained what looked like a fairly good stew, bubbling gently. There were four large tubers lying in the embers, and the water in the steaming coffepot was hot. A pair of cups had been set by the stones, with a dark powder in the bottoms. It smelled familiar to Kardia - aka miso. She poured hot water from the coffeepot into each cup. A roll of tinfoil revealed two large-sized chunks of a french bread stick. She saw two more on the other side of the fire, so she handed one of the bread sticks and a cup of miso to Clyde. "Drink this, it's a kind of soup." "Sure." Clyde's nose wrinkled, "Gee, smells kinda like fish." "I think dried fish are one of the ingredients." "Not bad, I guess." He chewed thoughtfully on the bread. A roar came from the distance, and birds startled. Kardia strained to hear what it was. The wolf, though, just sat there, grinning his lupine grin. "You will let us know if that's going to come eat us," she said to the wolf. He thumped his tail twice and resumed listening. After about ten minutes, 'Raf and ar'Elya returned to camp, her riding on his back. "Smells like the food's ready," she said, and slid down. "Good, you found the first courses. If you feel like you're getting too hungry, let us know, we have a tendency not to eat when we get doing something." "Must be a useful trait," Kardia observed. 'Raf just grinned and stroked ar'Elya's hair. The next morning 'Raf had them up and moving almost before the air was warm. Kardia's legs ached, but not as much as she thought they would, and the crease on her side over the cracked rib was almost completely healed. "Good," the Reverend Sister said as she examined the injury, "It's very close to healed. I'm quite pleased. Now listen, Kardia." The weaver looked in her eyes, but the reflections were quiet today. "You've learned to focus your ki, your spirit. Remember to keep it feeding life into that area. Your mechanisms can interfere with the course of normal healing, but if you remember to do your ki focus, it will overcome that interference without causing your body to reject the machinery. And remember, discipline the body or it rules you. Rule the body, and it will do almost anything for you." "Thank you," Kardia said, as the stern countenance gave way to the more open smile of the red-haired hiker. "Isn't she awful," ar'Elya said. "I don't know why being her makes me act so stodgy and sour." "She's just repressed," 'Raf said, grinning. They crossed a plains, fording several streams. Finally, at the end of the day, the tracks were plain enough that the magical scan wasn't required to see their traces. And then Sheryl poked her nose out of the waist-high grass and snorted a hello at them.