27

 

Bad Cove had been well named, Jasbur thought. It could never have been much of place, just a squalid collection of driftwood shacks set amid windswept sand dunes. Putrid and half-clogged with reeds, a small stream emptied into the sea there, and an offshore spit provided uncertain shelter for boats. Any decent storm would sweep the anchorage clean, and there were no boats present now. There were no trees, no signs of life at all except seaweed stranded on the beach and a few wary white gulls. Even the sky’s milky pallor seemed unhealthy.

Star sickness had broken out in Bad Cove about thirty years ago. The inhabitants had fled and had never been replaced—until last spring, when some of the Cursed from Daling had moved in. So Labranza had said, and the inhabitants of the next village had confirmed it. They did not know how many. They did not want to know, and they would have nothing at all to do with the refugees.

There would be fresh water, but what did the fugitives find to eat in this waste? If there had ever been a jetty, it had gone long ago. No boats, no nets, no livestock. The shacks were ruins. Fates have pity!

Labranza had provided horses and a little money, not much. Now Jasbur was following Ordur, cantering along the water’s edge, approaching Bad Cove. The sea rumbled untiringly on their right, the wind rollicked through the wiry grass of the dunes on their left, and the air was rank with the stench of salt. A woman was walking out to meet them.

Months ago, Labranza had sent the two of them to Daling to rescue survivors of the star sickness. They had found three, only three. Then Labranza herself had arrived and learned in a single morning where the rest had gone. It was humiliating. It was quite typical of Labranza. There might be dozens hiding in those ramshackle huts—except that they had sent a woman out to meet the visitors. That suggested that there were no male leaders, and therefore the group might be quite small. It also suggested that Ordur might be able to screw everything up. Ordur thought he was in charge now, and Ordur at the moment did not have the brains of a barnacle. A year ago, Ordur had been writing some of the most heart-rending poetry Jasbur had ever read.

Now they were within hailing distance of the woman, who had stopped to wait for them, standing on the wet sand at the end of a long line of her own footprints. She was tall, solidly built. Her dark hair was cut short, her arms and legs were thick. She wore a grayish smock and what looked like a man’s breeches, well tattered. Her feet were bare.

“Go away!” she shouted, waving her arms. “I am Cursed!”

The horses flinched in alarm at her gesture. Ordur, thank the fates, had the wit to rein in and dismount. Jasbur copied him, and they led their horses closer. When the woman began to retreat, they halted.

“Go away! The star sickness is here.” If that was not madness in her eyes, it would do as well. Her age was hard to determine—perhaps as little as middle twenties, perhaps as much as forty. It would depend how many children she had borne.

“Oh, I expect you’re all better by now,” Ordur said jovially. Tall as she was, he was bigger, a blond hunk of beef without a single functioning brain cell. All he had to think with was flab. “Came from Daling didn’t you? You and others?”

She eyed him with alarm. “What do you want?”

“We heard there was Cursed here. We came to help you.”

Give him his due, Jasbur thought grudgingly, he was making sense so far.

“Help us?” she yelled. “How can you help those whom the fates have Cursed?”

“Quite a lot.” Ordur looked to Jasbur for approval, but then continued on his own. “We come from Raragash. There’s lots of Cursed at Raragash.”

The woman studied him for a moment, and then Jasbur, and seemed to draw some comfort there. She directed her attention again to Ordur, assuming naturally that he was in charge. “I don’t believe you! Do you know what I am? An Awailscath!”

“That’s tough,”

“Tough?” she screamed. “You don’t know the half of it! I was a man before this happened! I had a wife, and sons! Now look at me!”

“You’re not hard to look at,” Ordur said happily. Jasbur wanted to kill him, but said nothing.

The woman bared her teeth. “Fancy a little rape, do you?”

“Naw. I know what it’s like.”

“You can’t know what it’s like!” she yelled. “I tell you, I was a man! Now I’m a woman! We have a man here called Mandasil, and I find myself… Never mind. It’s horrible!”

“It’s quite natural,” Ordur said. “I’m the same as you.”

“You?”

“I’ve been a woman lots of times. Haven’t I, Jasbur?”

Jasbur nodded. It was time to intervene. “Yes,” she told the woman. “And I was a man a few days ago. My name’s Jasbur. He’s Ordur. We’re both Awailscaths like you.”

The woman went ashen pale, staring from one to the other.

“You get used to it,” Jasbur said. She edged forward a few steps, still leading her horse as if its presence would somehow make her seem less threatening. “You’ll be a man again sometimes. Sometimes you’re clever, sometimes you’re stupid. Sometimes you’re beautiful, sometimes you look like a gargoyle, the way I do now. Sometimes you want sex, sometimes you don’t. Awailscaths are never the same people for long.”

The woman hugged her thick arms around herself protectively. “You’re lying!”

“No, she’s not,” Ordur said, his bass voice dominating. “What’s your name, Sweetie?”

She cringed and shot him a look of hatred. “If you’d ever been a woman, you wouldn’t call me that!”

Jasbur said, “He’s not very bright this time, Saj, but he has been a woman, many times. We’re Awailscaths, like you. I’m Jasbur, he’s Ordur. We’re both from Tring, so we got short-changed, only one name apiece.” She smiled, although she knew her smile wasn’t very comforting at the moment.

The woman was still doubtful. “I’m Vaslar Nomith. Or I was.”

“What my friend said was correct, Vaslar. Sometimes he’s a woman, sometimes I’m a man. Sometimes we’re just friends. We’ve been together a long time.”

The woman eyed Ordur with distaste. “How can you be friends with the likes of him?”

“Because he’s not always what he is now. Nor am I—it’s not just the outside that changes. You’re still locked into your old memories of being always the same person, but that will fade after a few more changes. Every Awailscath finds a partner eventually. You build a life together.”

“A life? What sort of a life can an Awailscath have?”

“A varied one. Ordur and I stick together, even when we’re not compatible, because we know that sometime again we will be, and no one else can ever really understand. We never split up, no matter how bad it gets, because the next time we met, we wouldn’t know each other. At the moment, Ordur’s a brainless hunk of beef and all he can think about is—”

“You too!” Ordur shouted.

Jasbur shrugged. “At the moment he goes on top. Other times it’s my turn. It can be good either way, or not so good. We do understand, Vaslar.”

The woman’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears and her shoulders slumped. “You’re not just saying this?”

“No. It’s Jaul’s own truth. Ordur, stay out of this.”

Jasbur dropped the reins and walked forward to put her arms around Vaslar. “There is hope.”

“My wife? My children?”

“No. You can’t expect them to understand. Let them remember you as you were. But there is hope in Raragash. Come back with us. We have people there who can counsel you. We have other Awailscaths. You can find a partner, be part of a couple again.”

Vaslar rubbed her eyes and glanced over Jasbur’s shoulder, at Ordur. “Always twosomes?”

Jasbur felt a pang of fury. The muscle-bound lout was probably making eyes at Vaslar behind her back. “It’s best. Believe me, dear, three is not just a crowd among Awailscaths—it’s murder!” There were other arrangements possible in Raragash, but Vaslar would have time enough to learn about those when she got there. “Now, who else have you got here? How many?” She urged the bigger woman into motion and they began walking toward the hamlet, arms around each other.

Vaslar sniffled. “Six of us.”

Only six! “What happened to all the rest?”

A splash of hooves on the wet sand said that Ordur was following with the horses. Clever of him to have thought of that without being told.

“Don’t know. A lot of them killed themselves.” Vaslar frowned down at Jasbur, undoubtedly registering her simian ugliness. “What are you really?”

“At the moment I’m what you see now. Three days ago I was a hunchback, and a man. Next month I shall be what you see then.” She knew that was the hard part to accept, the absence of a predictable future, the inability to plan anything. That was even worse than the sex changes.

“But originally?”

“Originally I was a child. I was only ten when I caught the star sickness.”

“Boy or girl?”

“What does it matter now? You think it’s hard for you to adjust. Can you imagine what my adolescence was like? I went from twelve to nineteen and back again about a dozen times, I think. Starting a beard one month, having periods the next. Then a kid again.”

Movement caught her attention. Someone had appeared out of one of the tumbledown huts and was staring toward the group approaching along the beach. The wind made her eyes water so hard that the figure was little more than a blur.

“Tell me about the other five.”

“Mandasil. He’s an Ivielscath. Two Jaulscaths—Ephi and Kinimim. They’re just kids. We make them stay away from the rest of us, but they’re company for each other. Our thoughts frighten them more than theirs frighten us, I think.”

Jasbur shuddered. That would certainly be true. “And who else?”

“Tigon—he’s about fifteen. And Shard. He’s older, in his fifties, and he’s taking it very hard. They’re Ogoalscaths. Weird things happen around them.”

Jasbur said, “Don’t bother to go into details.” Untrained Ogoalscaths could be catastrophes.

“There was another, but she sickened, and died. We… I wondered if Mandasil had done that. He wanted her, and she refused him. And then she just fell sick.” The big woman was not openly asking a question, but she wanted denial—which Jasbur couldn’t give her.

“It might have been coincidence.” But not necessarily.

“And now he comes to me.” Vaslar shivered. “I daren’t refuse. I was a man! A father!”

“You’ll be a man again. Actually, being a woman’s not all bad, once you get used to it. It can be quite fun at times.”

“I’m too big!”

“But you won’t always be big. Everything changes.”

“Nothing wrong with being big!” Ordur said from close behind. Jasbur toyed with the idea of throttling him.

“Next time I’m a man,” Vaslar said, “I’m going to kill that young Mandasil bastard.” Her face had taken on a very un-feminine expression.

“I don’t recommend it, if he really is an Ivielscath. Or rather, I mean, you’d better do it quickly.”

“Believe me, I will.”

Jasbur considered the overall problem and felt a lurch of dismay. “How old are the kids?”

“Kinimim’s seven, Ephi’s twelve. Tigon’s about fifteen.”

Fifteen would be all right, but the other two were too young to walk. Six Cursed. Only one young man. One man-woman. Three children. None of them in control of their powers yet, all of them emotionally shattered. An Ivielscath making people sick, Ogoalscaths causing trees to fall down or houses burst into flame, two young Jaulscaths being driven steadily insane by torrents of adult thoughts… How in the world was Jasbur ever going to get such a group to Raragash? Ordur was virtually useless at the moment. He might be better next month, but this sad band did not sound as if it could wait that long.

She was going to have to find help somewhere.