From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison)
Subject: [P8] Pieces of Eight, part 7: Short Course in Justice
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:18:31 GMT


They drew attention.  It was inevitable, and somewhat intentional.  There
simply weren't that many circumstances where one would expect to see three
such spectacular women, unveiled and blatant, especially considering that
their escorts were so clearly inadequate to the task of protecting them.
And in Rameshan, they would need protection.  There were already four or
maybe five slavers aching for the opportunity to waylay and capture them.

They made such a pretty set, too.  The raven-haired woman, her amber eyes
smoking as she brazenly scanned the marketplace crowd, wore green watered
silks and looked more wanton than if she had been naked.  The saffron-haired
woman, with piercing, deep blue eyes, and such cantaloupes of delight, wore
little more than a gauze of sheer color, held in place by intricately and
realistically fashioned dragons in miniature.  She seemed uncomfortable, a
bit shy, and rather rebellious in her manner.  Taming her would be well worth
the effort.  The red-headed wench, lithe and well-constructed, wore a more
concealing collection of barbaric leathers, still leaving little to the
imagination, but leading the onlooker to imagine more.  Her green eyes
flashed in anger or threat, when she met the openly lustful expressions
of the men in the crowd.  Such a firebrand would make a worthy slave.

Their escorts were nothing - two young men, barely past boyhood, not even
wearing armor, and an older man, tall, commanding, with the fire of the
prophets in his eyes, wearing the garb of a holy man of the desert.
Holy perhaps, but without weapons; the slavers would have them as soon
as they left the protection of the marketplace.  Even the horse that
pulled the carriage containing the women, would be fine enough to sell
for a good price to one of the Shaheran's many sons.  Of course, the
blue eyes were a sure sign of madness, but such spirit, it could sire
many fine stallions.

But they did not leave the marketplace.  They went, instead, to the
palisade of the slave-peddlers, to the side entry to the barns of one
Akhoud id adhajj.  Akhoud's guards closed the doors behind them, and
they did not come out.  There was disappointment among the peddlers of
flesh - Akhoud id adhajj sold most of his wares in other markets.

----

The immense craft resembled a sailing ship, but it moved in ways unlike
any sailing ship that Akhoud id adhajj ever saw.  For one thing, it was
sailing in the desert, and there was no water, and the desert was parting
before it and closing after it, as if untouched.  For another, it had
something other than sails, something that hurt his eyes to look at too
long, a web of bright light that twisted in and out of focus.  The craft
came closer, and he saw that it was clad in metal, highly reflective,
and then he realized that it was gold, hammered out thin, and laid out
over the surface of the jet-black wood of the ship's hull, which was
visible at the prow and along the railings, almost fifty feet above him.
It stopped, and a long plank came down to touch the ground, an anchor
made of some dull, colorless substance lowering to the ground on either
end of the craft.

A man walked down the plank, accompanied by four massive, armored figures,
ten-foot humanoids but with no skin, hair, or even eyes visible from outside
their tanklike plating.  They bore immense and razor-sharp spikes over their
forms, the staining of blood and fluids around them kept as badges of honor,
or at least, of success in battle.  Akhoud had seen them fight, once, and
did not relish the thought of ever seeing it again.

The slaves were waiting.  Akhoud had collected a dozen dozen of them, the
cream of the fighters and the lesser mages of Rameshan, of Generica, of
the Specificas.  The best he could lure with promises of treasure, of great
adventure, of lost cities and ancient crypts of the kings of long ago, and
then they were drugged, or taken by stealth or trickery, and once they had
donned the amulet of servitude, their wills were his to command.

And all this a gift of his benefactor, the man who had raised him from a
street urchin and established his elaborate trade in flesh - but then, he
had himself been responsible for the greater part of the successful trade,
and his benefactor had been well rewarded by his investment.  Akhoud bowed,
deeply, when the man came close.

"Esteemed and trusted steward of my master, the cargo awaits in the tent
at the oasis.  My costs were less than usual this time.  This is the amount
which was left after the gathering."  He held out a pouch.

"Our master bids you keep it as a reward for your faithful service.  His
next visit will come in four years time.  We will send the usual harbingers
to alert you.  Are there any special needs or unusual situations that you
need to bring to our attention?"

"No, honored one.  The usual unrest, the Shaheran sits uneasy, the cult
of the mage-killers still flourishes, as planned."

"Good.  Continue in peace and prosperity, Akhoud."  The steward led the
armored figures to the tent.  Inside, the new slaves stood in close rank
and file, all in a semi-trance.  Each wore the black pearl amulet of
enforced servitude, touching its flesh somewhere.  The steward spoke the
words of binding and loosing, and they filed forth, in a line, up the ramp
and into the ship.

The ramp retracted, and the anchors pulled in.  The sands parted, again,
as the light-web sails caught some unseen wind, and the ship vanished from
sight, leaving only the unmarked sand behind.  Akhoud returned to his tent,
and at his gesture, his personal slaves began the task of packing the camp
for the four-days trek back to the desert towns.

----

The shipboard life settled into routine, within a week.  The three women
and the three men who had gone into Akhoud's tent were clad in the uniform
of the servants of Shipmaster Othreik dur Hebendrauk, owner of the ship
and all who rode on it.  There were at least five thousand people on board,
and hundreds of other things, exotic monsters and animals and even some
sentient plants.

The new slaves were taken by the steward to the third deck, and given
clothing appropriate to their station, and tasks to do.  All obeyed
without question, without even considering that there was anything at
all odd about this - the black pearl amulets compelled them with a subtle
and deeply fixed sense of the Rightness of what they did.  All obeyed,
that is, except for the six, to whom the amulets were a useful mask for a
different purpose.  For now, they blended in.

A'ree, her own armor carefully packed and stowed on the white horse (now
a cat, hunting mice in the ship's hold), wore a simple chain shirt under
her outer jacket, just as all the fighters were attired.  Her duties were
to train with other fighters and to stand watch when required.

Father Harold and his apprentice, Kachin, wore the abbreviated garb given
to those who practiced martial arts, and simply trained constantly.
Kachin, when they were alone, complained that he was losing feeling in his
fingers from all the sand-strikes, but he was secretly pleased at how his
strength and skill had grown.  Harold, for his part, just tried to convince
Kachin to pray more.  The blond man who accompanied them, Rafe, was set to
doing much the same thing, although he was set to teaching instead of just
practicing with the others.

Lady Ale had been outfitted in a tight leather uniform, for shipboard.
Her own special skills were more usually applied to operating covert
organizations, but they could be, and were, adapted by the steward to
managing the ship's supply operations.

Leah's situation was more perilous than the others - her wild magic powers
were both dangerous and conspicuous.  She was forced, by the nature of
those powers, to keep at least two of her dragonets around her, to eat
the stray emanations of that wild magic, lest it get out of control and
do irrevocable harm.  But that particular style of magic was distinctive,
and highly identifiable.  They had prepared for this to an extent - she
carried Rafe's staff, shod on either end with silversteel, and prepared
with seven general spells in its pattern store.  It had been sufficient,
until now, to keep her from suspicion.  The dragonets passed as pets, or
familiars, so far.

They waited, and watched, for some clue and hint.  They met only one
of the others at any time, and only casually.  Their speech was innocuous,
carrying its meaning entirely in a code of insinuation and veiled
reference.  Over the second week, they learned four things of interest.

The ship was a Spelljammer design, using the Crystal Spheres model to
transit between worlds.  But its recently increased mobility indicated
that the enslavement of ar'Elya had been for a purpose - it had begun
going to places that the Spelljammers couldn't reach.

The slave amulets were linked, but in parallel cascade.   There was no
single linchpin to the spell.  A single group of slaves could be freed,
in one stroke, but this would not free the others, and they would still
be far outnumbered.

Shipmaster Othreik did not rely on his slaves alone - he had the guards,
and a number of servant creatures, who were not under amulet's compulsion,
and he had his own considerable magical and psionic prowess to bring to
bear on his enemies.

And finally, the crystal core of ar'Elya was imprisoned in the navigator's
instruments, providing impulse to the otherwise random drives that carried
the ship through the ins and outs of reality.

They knew it was time for a plan.

----

Rafe had drawn, briefly, on the knowledge he'd taken from Ilya.  The old
man had been expert in spells of compulsion and control, and with the
younger man's knowledge of magical devices, they had decided that the
proper way to handle the problem was to turn the servant spell back on
its casters.  Leah had actually done the work, a wild magic calling at
a time when the ship passed through a sphere of turbulent magic.
Harold and Kachin had, together, called on the power of the gods to shield
them from discovery, and the calling had worked.  Soon a sort of pestilence
spread on the ship, a rash, spread by an insect bite, which afflicted the
entire crew before it was abated by the Shipmaster's spell of insecticide.
The rash subsided, but left behind it the trace taint needed for the next
step in the plan.

Lady Ale had applied her skills, insinuating a cumulative, multi-part
poison into the food intended for the higher ranked crew.  The poisons
had no immediate effect, in fact, added nicely to the flavor of the food,
until enough of them were ingested.  Then, all that was needed were the
trigger-word and excitement.  The Shipmaster unwittingly provided that.

After almost two months of sailing, they had left the Nexus and gone
to a more magical cosmos.  The place was another crossroads, more
heavily travelled, a place where magical travellers plied cross-cosmos
trade.  After the turbulent crossing between Nurture and Freedom, they
had sailed across the elements, first Fire, then Air.  They came into
the Great Crystal Sphere at the center of this cosmos; its enormous
central sun was pinioned in place by spikes of orichalcum and adamant.
The Ship slid gracefully through the nothingness, rippling sails as it
tacked across the ether to the huge collection of ships and debris that
made up Gnome Central Station.

Adrenalin was high as they approached the Dock.  The high-ranked crew,
the overseers and navigators, found themselves becoming increasingly
excited and increasingly nervous.  All the elements of the poison
were in place, and tension ran high.  The sails furled full for best
control at final approach, they slid slowly into their berth.  And
then it happened - six voices, simultaneously, spoke a Word that
resounded throughout the ship, and the poison took effect.  Spasms
and dizziness assailed the ships officers.  A second Word resounded,
triggering the latent spell on those who were slaves to the black
pearl amulets.  The servility-trance inverted suddenly.

First one, then ten, then thirty, then nearly all those who had been
spell-driven slaves, found themselves waking from the common trance of
obedient service.  Fifty overseers grovelled, semi-conscious with
unthinking servility, on the decks.  The ship stopped - in this place,
objects in motion tended to come to rest - but in stopping it struck
the Dock at barely a foot per second, collapsing the Piling in on itself,
and cracking the outer timbers.  The sails vanished with a flash, the
lightweb collapsing into nowhere as the ship's integrity was breached
by the Station's magic-blocks.

Peculiarly, there were no deaths among the crew, at least, none caused
by the collision.  A few overseers died in the stampede.

The gangplanks locked.  Nearly five thousand people flooded out of
the foundered vessel, escaping to the inner corners and passages of
Gnome Central Station.  Shipmaster Othreik was incensed, raging up and
down the decks - each attempt to dominate his crew was deflected by
the altered magic of the amulets, and nobody was able to answer his
commands as his trusted officers fell frothing to the decks, suffering
from grand-mal siezures as their adrenalin combined with the poisons in
their nerves to block all neuroinhibitors.

In the navigator's cage, the six met.  Rafe gathered the others near,
and in a sudden maelstrom of colors, they dissolved and were absorbed
into his essence.  He took the crystal carefully from the lamp, as
the door slammed open.  The Shipmaster stood, framed in the entry.

"You're too late, Traveller," he said.  He drew his staff and prepared
to launch the spell of destructive partitioning.

"She's part of my ship now, the rest of her is dispersed over the planes."

Behind him, a white horse with black mane, hooves, and tail, reared
up, its brilliant blue eyes blazing fury.

--NOT QUITE ALL--- it answered, as its hooves struck the back of the
Shipmaster's neck.  Lightning erupted where the blow landed, and the
man staggered aside, falling to the deck.  His staff rolled across the
floor and out of his reach.

<<Be quick!>> Rafe said, and a sphere of ordered chaos manifested in
his hands.  The lantern fell apart, and the crystal at the center
began drifting up.  The horse-shape blurred and leaped, and a white 
hawk caught the glittering gem before it could vanish.

The hawk collided with Rafe, and the vortex of colors erupted again.
When it subsided, two people stood where the one had been, a blonde
man in his early twenties, tanned and athletic, and a brown-haired
woman in travelling attire.

"Rafe, you did it!"  She smiled, and the room lit up.

"WE did it, Raye,"  he answered, "but we're not quite done yet."
He nodded towards the door where the Shipmaster had escaped.

"Right.  If you keep the rabble away, I'll do the honors."

The Shipmaster was crawling away from the door, dragging his dead
and unresponsive body with his right hand, clasping at a horn with
his left.  Nearby, the four armored figures stood, waiting for orders.

"Hold it, Othreik," came a woman's voice, authoritative.

He stopped, and tried to lift the horn to his lips.  He couldn't wind
the thing, it was too hard to inhale.  He gasped a command.

The armored figures advanced to stand between him and the woman.
The Travellers' peculiar sight saw at once that they were automatons,
golems animated by bound demonic spirits.

<<Mine, Raye.>>  The man moved forward from behind her, a staff in his
hand.  Two of the armored figures moved to intercept him, and he put
the staff up into a reaching position.  <<Rust_o_rama>> he whispered,
as the first figure grasped the end of the staff.  It staggered back,
and with an unearthly shriek, the metal bands that crossed around its
form corroded into red powder.  It collapsed.  The second, more wary,
found the staff weaving in and out around it, blindingly.  It tried
not to touch the end, and couldn't get inside the guard.  The end of
the staff touched its chest.  <<RediMix QuickSet>>  whispered the man,
and the armored figure staggered back, slowly freezing in place as
its hollow body was filled with fast-hardening cement.

Rafe returned his attention to the other two guards.  There, standing
over their bisected forms, was the huge-muscled fighter H'Ro, his black
crystalline runeblade humming happily as it sucked up their magical
energies.

<<Impatient?>> Rafe asked, and H'Ro smiled a deadly smile and stepped
past the fallen guards.  There was a momentary flicker, and Sister El'n
stood over the struggling Shipmaster.  She spoke, in a conversational
tone, hands clasped before her.  She carried a stainless steel ruler.

"According to our law, when one of us is assaulted by an outlander,
we have the right to defend ourselves."  The Shipmaster tried again
to wind the horn, and cursed as she slapped his hand with the steel
ruler, knocking it away.  A steely glare silenced his tongue, and
he felt peculiarly ashamed for using the vulgarity in her presence.

She continued, slapping the ruler absently in her hand.
"If there is just cause, we have the right to kill in self defense.
Otherwise we are ordered to comply with the rules of the realms we Travel
in.  Pay attention! *whak*  Othreik, your society permits slavery, but it
does not permit murder of sojourners.  When you attempted my murder, you 
violated your own law.  When you succeeded, you violated my law as well."

Othreik attempted to speak, but thought better of it as the ruler moved.

"Furthermore, your society forbids private citizens enslaving others, and
permits only the purchase of already enslaved persons.  I will forgo the
invocation of that law, even discounting your quaint little business in
stolen lives operating from Rameshan in Nexus, since the murder charge is
much more serious.  Your law sets the penalty for murdering a sojourner
as involuntary servitude for a period comparable to the expected lifespan
which you have destroyed, and makes no allowance for leniency in the event
of a resurrection.  My expected lifespan was seventeen thousand years of
your time, and I've only lived four hundred of those years.  However,
Traveller law says that we can set the punishment we feel appropriate."

"So tell me, Othreik, which do you choose?"

The Shipmaster gasped, "hell with you, bitch" WHAK "aar."  He felt
on his face, where the welt raised by the steel ruler still stung.

"You will answer me now.  In the name of the power that creates I
command you."  She took his head in her hands and forced him to meet
her gaze.  His resistance crumbled like a castle of sand before a wave.

"your law - I don't want to be a slave forever."

"Very well.  Since you knew that my death would be slow and agonizing, a
matter of fragmentation and dispersal across the worlds, yet you planned
it and accomplished it anyway, I pass the following sentence.  You will
not die before death comes for you, you will not be a slave by my hand,
but you will find yourself always in dispersal, always fragmenting, always
losing parts of yourself, physical and spiritual, which you must then
attempt to recover.  If you fail within the course of a year that part
will be lost to you forever.  By the right of house ar'Elya and by my
power and by the power of the greater and lesser Servitors of those
One Who Are Creators, your fate is now bound.  Begone to exile away from
the realms where magic serves, and live out your miserable life."

There was a frenzied swirling  and  colors  and   lights   and   dark

The Shipmaster found himself lying face-down, naked, on the deck of
a boat, which was rocking up, down, nauseatingly.  He pushed himself
up, there was nobody around, he was alone.  He was uninjured, intact,
even healthy, except for the spinning sense of seasickness.  He reached
for the tiller, then realized that he had no idea of how to steer.
He'd lost that skill.  He'd lost his sea legs.  Then he lost his lunch.

***

Aboard the SpellJammer, Rafe and Raye began looking for their fellow
ex-slaves.  Nexus and Generica was a fair ways away from here.