Demons of the Dancing Gods (19 page)

As you might have guessed, I had grown and turned from girl

into woman."

She had, in fact, been a fairly normal-sized girl, but with

puberty came tremendous growth, far beyond anything in her

ancestry. "Ruddy has a theory that it was the diet, eating such

a different balance of things in Switzerland from what our

bodies are used to here. I believe it was probably a spell of

some kind put on me before I left Husaquahr, although by

whom I am not sure. It might have been my father, of course,

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or any one of the fairy races who aided me, or a combination

of those things. It does not matter, because this is how I am

and this is how 1 like being."

"/ certainly see nothing to complain about," Joe told her

honestly. "You are certainly the most beautiful woman I've

ever seen."

She smiled. "That's very nice of you."

"I mean it, too."

She sat back a moment, holding a slight grin. "You know,

• because of my size I have been very intimidating to men. I

wonder if perhaps Ruddy is not engaging in a bit of matchmaking."

He wondered that himself. If so, he hoped that she had the

same attraction for him that he felt for her. It certainly was a

very convenient meeting, just after his troubles with Marge,

and it had been arranged by the sorcerer. Well, if so, it was

the best thing the old boy had done for him, even if it didn't

work.

Tiana's history for the past eight years had been far different

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from her earlier life. It was only among the barbarous nomadic

tribes of the far reaches of Husaquahr that she could blend in,

somewhat, with the large, burly denizens of those places, and

it was only among them that she could feel relatively safe from

Kaladon's spies and the threats of civilization in general.

At first, she had rebelled at the primitive, hard existence,

and there had been a period of tremendous adjustment until

she'd learned to accept it. It was a kind of existence that Morikay

and Basel had not prepared her for, and she was flung

into it much as Joe had been flung into his existence. She had

been taken under the wing of some very powerful warriors who

owed Ruddygore a favor. She became, however, strong, powerful,

and athletic and, because of her size and conditioning,

she trained with swords and took the tests of a warrior usually,

but not exclusively, reserved for the men. She had excelled at

all of it in the end, particularly when she saw the value of it

in having some personal freedom in Husaquahr and, perhaps,

one day leading a rebellion in the south.

She also trained in, and worked on, the magical arts with

the help of Ruddygore and knowledgeable ones he sent to her,

first in Basel and later in the northern wastes. She had her

father's talent, of that there was no doubt, but she began formal

training very late in the game and on an intermittent basis. "It

gives me an edge, but not more," she told Joe. "It means, also,

that I can often ward off or undo some spells, but the more

complex spells are still beyond me, for I have not had the

mental training for it." She could, however, read the pictographic

language fairly well, and with the proper volume and

section of the Books of Rules open in front of her, she could

probably do very well indeed. "It is, you might say, the difference

between being a good cook and being a chef. A great

chef does not need recipes."

They finished, he paid the bill, and they made their way

back into the market. There were several leather shops selling

whips, and she tried one after the other, impressing the hell

o,ut of him, the proprietors, and the passers-by with her skill,

but rejecting whip after whip until, at last, in a small secondhand

store, she found one that seemed just right to her. "With

the others I can do many things," she explained, "but with a

whip of perfect balance such as this one, I can work miracles."

She looped it on her belt, on the same side as the sword,

in a clasp apparently designed for the weapon, and they walked

back to the hotel.

"No shoes or other clothing?" he asked her.

She laughed. "It is odd, but I have been with the barbarians

so long that most of those things feel unnatural. If I need furs,

I will buy them, but for now I am enjoying for the first time

in a long while a comfortable climate. It is not easy to explain,

but in order to survive in the wastes, something had to be killed

inside me, and that was my sense of civilization, you might

say. I find myself preferring to be a barbarian woman, thinking

like one, acting like one. All this which was once my own sort

of world seems now so soft and decadent. The sword, the whip,

and a good horse are all that are really needed, and all that I

have or intend to have."

"You seem pretty cultured and civilized to me."

"Because I want to be. That is my veneer, my coat which

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allows me to go anywhere and do anything. It is the inside that

matters, and I have proof of my conversion, as it were. The

applicable parts of the Books of Rules tliat apply to me now

are those governing barbarian women; before, they were of the

civilized classes. Even the Rules recognize my change, you

see."

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DEMONS OF THE DANCING GODS JACK L, CHALKER

103

"But if you depose Kaladon, you'll have to rule Zhimbombe,"

he pointed out. "That will take more of a change."

"I think they deserve a barbarian queen. We will face that

if it comes about."

He noted that she had used the word "if" instead of "when"

and nodded to himself. Just how realistic her dream was, even

in her own mind, was in question. She had as much as admitted

that she could never be the equal of Kaladon and, unless he

was finished off, she had little hope of having any kind of

control over the country. Kaladon, of course, had probably

intended just that—she would be his puppet queen and consort,

by which he would consolidate the country and its popular old

families and his own rule as both sorcerer and temporal ruler.

Joe decided that he'd like to meet, or at least see, this fellow

at close range. Certainly, if nothing else, Kaladon would be

one of Ruddygore's prime suspects for the Baron's true identity.

How easy it would be to pretend to ally with the Baron for

favors when actually he was the Baron—and Zhimbombe was

the first nation of Husaquahr to fall prey to the Baron's forces.

A prime suspect indeed. If Joe's suspicions were so, there was

a chance through Kaladon's elimination to give Tiana a crack

at control by clever politics, sword, and whip.

They reentered the hotel, which was teeming with crowds

of people of all shapes and sizes, garbed in every imaginable

way. "Shall we register?" Tiana asked him.

He nodded. "Might as well."

She thought a moment. "You are called 'the Golden,' is

that not correct?"

"Yeah. Mostly because my last name's de Oro."

"And I am Uma of the Golden Lakes. It gives me a thought.

We are both dark-skinned giants, you might say, and we certainly

look as if we belong together."

He wondered what she was driving at and just nodded.

"Kaladon will not expect a pair. Let us, at least for disguise

purposes, register as mates."

"Huh?" It took him aback, mainly because he'd love it that

way, but he hardly wanted to risk alienating her by suggesting

it. He just wasn't used to women this aggressive.

"You don't wish it?"

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"Oh, sure. I think it'll be fun," he answered hopefully.

"Let's go."

It was like waking up from some really strange dream,

although she knew it was no dream at all. She wasn't physically

tired, but she'd come back up to the room for a little break

and found herself just sitting back, relaxing and thinking, and

she realized thinking was something distasteful. She certainly

hadn't been doing much of it over the last few days, that was

for sure.

It was funny how this reaction had hit her, like something

out of the blue, but suddenly, after being almost frantically

active, she no longer felt the desire. She walked over to the

mirror in the room and looked at herself. It was still strange

to see the fairy reflection there, to understand that this unnaturally

sexy, kittenish, winged figure was herself. But it wasn't

the exterior that was troubling her; it was what had happened

inside to her head and heart.

She'd been to every bar and bistro in the city, she felt certain,

but they all blended into one. And the men—so many of

them—all blended into a faceless crowd as well. Not a single

one stood out as a real human being. Instead, they were objects,

things, nothing more. She went over to a dresser and pulled

out the top drawer. It was crammed with junk—small items

of jewelry, ornaments, little carvings, even toys. She was afraid

to count them and slammed the drawer shut and went back to

the bed to think.

Had she enjoyed acting that way? Yeah, she had, she had

to admit to herself, but it wasn't really her; at least, not the

way she always saw herself. Her whole body still tingled, and

on that level she had never felt better in her whole life. But

was this what she was to be for the rest of her life? How long

did a fairy live if not killed? Until Judgment Day, it was said,

and nobody knew how long that could be. Hundreds of years,

perhaps. Maybe thousands. All like—this?

She remembered the magic time when she had emerged

from the volcanic fires as a "Kauri and she remembered her

sisters of faerie. At the time, they had seemed radiant, magical

children at play, but they didn't seem quite so exciting or

magical any more. Instead, they now seemed like what they

must be—permanent fourteen-year-old girls, locked forever in

the state of irresponsible and irrepressible adolescence and freed

of all inhibitions; a female version of the Lost Boys, without

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JACK L. CHALKER

105

even Peter Pan, let alone Wendy, to give them any sort of

control or direction, and each one more or less exactly like the

others. Even she had become exactly like them, and that both-

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ered her only because the Kauri didn't know any other existence

or any other way, had never faced or understood responsibility

or had a single serious thought in their playfully empty heads.

She had, and that alone set her apart from them.

But she had been that age once and had been frustratingly

restricted by her mother, the school, and the rest of those forces

that kept folks in line. Still, life had been unhappy enough

since adulthood that she had grabbed onto the chance to return

to that state of not-so-innocent grace, to become again that

giggly adolescent without any rules or restrictions whatsoever.

Who wouldn't love that sort of chance—but as a chance, a

lark. It was only now that she realized that this wasn't some'

second chance but rather a permanent condition.

Already she had hurt poor Joe, the first man in years to be

a real friend, the one whose kindness and pity gave her this

second chance in the first place. She'd not only hurt him, she'd

mocked him, and that was far more painful. Her practical jokes

and funny exercises of her strange powers had frightened rather

than amused or reassured him. Worse, she knew deep down

that she might not have the self-control or willpower to keep

those impulses from dominating her again and that each cycle

would make them even easier and more natural to accept. The

more she lived as a Kauri, the more she would become one

inside as well as out. This she knew, although not really from

any faerie insight, but just from knowing herself. Conditioning

did work—as Pavlov's dogs had proved—particularly when

there were no alternatives and an endless future of such conditioning.

The Earth Mother knew this, and counted on it.

Kauri awoke ^ with the setting sun. Kauri played games,

danced, sang, flew around, and soared through the skies playing

tag, then went to their toy box and played pretend with their

pretty toys. At sunrise. Kauri went to sleep and dreamed only

happy dreams, awakening again to do the same thing with minor

variations the next day and the next. If they felt like it, on

impulse or whatever, they ventured out of their faerie Never-

Neverland and played with the boys in the real world that was

still nothing more than an extended playland to them, with the

inhabitants merely toys like those on the scrap heap.

Kauri didn't need to think. In fact, thinking was something

that was an absolutely bad thing for them. Oh, they needed to