Demons of the Dancing Gods (3 page)

needed thee as a witch of the order, but the clouds of Probability

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DEMONS OF THE DANCING GODS

change with events. The first act is done, the curtain is down,

but the play is far from completed."

Marge felt a little better on hearing this. "Then—whatever

I'm becoming—is what is needed next?"

The ancient witch nodded. "It is clear now."

"Then—why? What must I face?"

"That is unknown to all save the Creator," Huspeth told

her. "The future is not fixed but is all probabilities. One highly

skilled in the arts may see that a thing is needed while not

knowing why, or when, or how. But it is now clear that the

curtain must rise on the next act of our play. A conference of

the Sisterhood was already held. Thy vows are lifted, as they

must be. Thou art free."

Marge frowned. "Just like that?"

Huspeth laughed softly. "Just like that. And why hot? For

all the magic of the initiation which confers the power, a vow

is a vow and not a spell. It is not a command but a contract.

Thou hast not broken thy vow, so there is no dishonor. Release

is needed and granted freely and willingly. The war against

the forces of Hell needs thee." She sighed. "But stay the night

with me. Enjoy the Glen Dinig. In the morning, perhaps, we

shall visit the unicorn and say thy farewells. Then shalt thou

ride forth to a new destiny."

Marge was almost overcome with emotion, and tears welled

up in her eyes. "May I still—return? For a visit?"

"At any time, my daughter, for my daughter thou shalt

remain always. The Glen Dinig shall sing whenever thou dost

approach, and here thou mayest always find rest and comfort."

That made it much better, much more bearable. "Mother—

what shall I do now?"

"Travel to the east along the Rossignol," Huspeth told her.

"Ten days' comfortable journey will bring thee to the tributary

called the Bird's Breath, and so thou shall follow it to a forest

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called Mohr Jerahl, a place much like this one. There shalt

thou find the fairy folk called the Kauri, who will complete

the process and instruct thee in thy nature. Thou art bright, and

so it will take some doing inside thee to trust thy feelings at

all times, even over thy head, but this is the way of fairy folk,

and they live lives far longer than humankind."

"What about Joe?" Marge asked. "Can he come with me?

I think I'd like some moral support."

Huspeth gazed off into space for a moment, seeming not to

hear, then turned back to her visitor. "He may accompany thee

to the edge of Mohr Jerahl, but he must wait there for thee.

There is mortal peril for a human to enter the home of a fairy

folk; should he enter, he will almost certainly have to kill many

Kauri or be consumed by their power. It would not be good

to begin thy relationship with thy new people with death, for

the fairies do not age as humans do, but exist in their soulstate,

and death for any fairy, including thyself, is the true

death, not the transition of the humans. If he must come, then

make him wait. Time to the fairy folk in their own land is not

like time elsewhere, so his wait will not be long, no matter

how long dost thou tarry."

"These—Kauri. What are they like?"

"An ancient folk of great power over mortal flesh, which

is needed to safeguard their fragility. Their nature is quite

elemental and is best experienced firsthand. Don't worry. Thou

wilt find peace and confidence as one of them."

CHAPTER 3

A NICE LITTLE BUSINESS TRIP

For a barbarian, image is the most important thing.

—Rules, LXXXII, 306(b)

THE MAN WALKIN® ACROSS THE CASTLE'S INNER COURTYARD

would have stood out in any crowd. He was a huge man, well

over six feet and so totally muscled that those looking at him

generally expected him to crash through stone walls rather than

be bothered to walk around them. His face, which he himself

described as vaguely Oriental—a meaningless term in Husaquahr

but not back in his native Philadelphia—was handsome

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JACK L. CHALKER

DEMONS OF THE DANCING GODS

15

and strong, with piercing eyes that seemed almost jet-black,

the whole thing set off by a thick crop of truly jet-black hair

that hung halfway between his shoulders and waist. His skin

was tanned a magnificent bronze and looked tough enough to

deflect spears. He wore only a flimsy white loincloth, hung

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from an ornate hand-tooled leather belt, and a hat, made to his

specifications by the milliner in the nearby town of Terdiera.

It was a cowboy hat, brim sides turning up in starched salute,

and on the front was a strange symbol and the word, in English:

"Peterbilt." The hat, which had shown great utility in deflecting

the elements, had been widely imitated in the land around Castle

Terindell.

He approached a low building separated from the castle

proper and knocked at the wooden door. It opened, revealing

a tall, sinister-looking elf whose thin-lined face, penetrating

eyes in perpetual scowl, and cold manner were in stark contrast

to the small, happy groundskeepers always working on the

castle itself. This was a warrior elf, an Imir, a professional

soldier and deadly fighter.

"Hello, Poquah," the big man said cheerily. "Is he in?"

"Downstairs, working on cataloguing his sculpture collection,"

the Imir responded. "Come in—the lady is already waiting

inside. You can go down together."

Joe entered, having to bend his head slightly to clear the

door, and looked around the familiar study of the sorcerer

Ruddy gore, its sumptuous furnishings complementing the walls

of red-bound volumes that seemed to go on forever—the Books

of Rules, which governed this entire crazy world and were

constantly being amended.

Marge was standing there, just looking at the huge books

as she always did, probably wishing she could read them.

Although the trading language they now used routinely as a

first language bore an amazing resemblance to English, at least

in many of the nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, its written form

was pictographic, like the Chinese of their old world, with over

forty thousand characters representing words and ideas rather

than letters. It took an exceptional mind to learn it, starting

from childhood. Total literacy meant power and position, no

matter from what origins one came; but there was far too little

time to leam it, once one was an adult.

She looked around as he entered and gave him a mild wave,

then turned back to the books. "You know," she said, "they

still remind me of the U.S. Tax Code. Thousands of years of

petty, sorcerous minds constantly making Rules on just about

everything they can think of. And every time there's a Council

meeting, there's another volume of additions, deletions, and

revisions. I bet nobody knows or understands it all, not even

Ruddy gore."

He just nodded and shrugged. The whole world was nuts,

but people still acted like people, and that meant nutty, too.

He'd long since stopped being amazed at much of anything in

this world and just accepted whatever came. "So how are you

doing?" he asked her, trying to start a more normal conversation.

She turned and shrugged, and he couldn't help but reflect

how she seemed to get more beautiful and sexy every time he

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saw her. "Not bad. You?"

"Bored," he said honestly; "The first time I bent a threeinch

iron bar into a pretzel, I was like a little kid and I went

around bending all sorts of stuff, lifting horses, wagons, you

name it. But now it's all just nothin'. I mean, it's no big deal

any more."

Nothing, in fact, was any big deal any more. He was used

to stares and people scrambling out of his way—so used to it

that he pretty well took it for granted now. Just going into a

town was an experience only for those with him for the first

time—the women all gaga over him, no problems with service,

conquests, you name it. There wasn't even any fun in claiming

that he could outdrink and outfight anybody in the town. Hell,

he could and he knew it. In the two months since the battle,

he'd become totally bored, jaded, and itchy for anything new,

even if it was risky. Just a couple of days before, two thieves

from out of the area had attacked him in a back alley. One had

hit him over the head with a club while the other had swung

a board into his stomach. Both the club and the board had

broken on impact—and so had the two thieves.

Just now he'd come from the practice field down by the

river where several trainees had tried to shoot arrows into him.

Without even thinking about it he'd twisted, turned, and knocked

those arrows that still would have hit him down in midair.

Gorodo, the huge, nine-foot, blue, apelike trainer of heroes

and military men, had asked him for permission to have trainees

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DEMONS Of THE DANCING GODS

try to kill him any time. So far, none had shown the least

promise. He feared no man and no physical threat; only against

sorcery was he powerless and, even in that department, he'd

used his brains and quick reflexes to dodge most of it.

That had been the plan, anyway, since the start of all this.

He would be the brawn and Marge would deal with the magic,

aided by this Huspeth she always talked about and by Ruddygore,

of course. They made a near-perfect team. But since

the Dark Baron's defeat, there had been little to do.

Poquah appeared—he had the habit of doing that, without

any sound or sign until he spoke up—and said, "The Master

says to come down. He's in the middle of the catalog and he

doesn't want to lose his place."

Marge joined them, and they walked out a back door and

down a corridor which led to the sorcerer's magical laboratory.

They were not going there, though, but to a basement beneath

the main hall and study, where Ruddy gore kept many of his

more personal valuables. She looked up at Joe and whispered,

"Ever seen this collection?"

He shook his head negatively.

"Don't crack up or make jokes when you see it," she warned

him. "He's pretty sensitive about it."

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Before he could ask any questions, they were in the basement

and surrounded by what she was talking about. For a

moment he looked around, trying to sort out the collection from

the junk—but it didn't take him long to realize that the junk

was the collection.

There were thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of them—

in every size, shape, color combination, and in just about every

style. It was, he had to admit, the largest grouping in one spot

of tacky plaster sculptures short of a Hong Kong factory. Here

they were—the monkey contemplating the human skull while

sitting on a plaster book labeled "Aristotle," plaster dogs, plaster

cats, pink flamingos, lawn jockeys, and just about every

other expression of the tacky art ever "won" by contestants at

Beat-the-Guesser stands and fire carnivals the world over. The

souvenirs were there, too—the plaster Statues of Liberty, the

U.S. Capitols, even ones with a foreign flavor like the seven

Eiffel Towers, half a dozen Big Bens, and three different Mannekin

Piss statues from Brussels, one of which had a definitely

obscene corkscrew imbedded in its painted plaster.

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JACK L. CHALKER

He was about to say something when a shaggy head popped

up from the midst of the statuary that virtually filled the room,

looked at them, and beamed. "Marge! Joe! How good of you

to drop in! How do you like the collection? I daresay it's the

finest of its type on any world!"

Joe was about to make a comment on just what he really

thought of the junk when Marge kicked his shin. "Um, I'll

agree that nobody else has a collection like this one," he managed,

trying to sound diplomatic.

Throckmorton P. Ruddygore got up slowly from the floor,

where he'd been working, then started looking for a way to

get out of the pile that surrounded him without breaking anything.

This was no mean task for him, since the sorcerer looked

like nothing so much as the classical depiction of Santa Claus,

although, at a height of more than six feet, his proportionate

bulk was certainly over four hundred pounds.

Joe and Marge carefully helped to make a path for him by

moving statuary where they could, and at last the sorcerer was

able to reach the entry way. Usually dressed in fine clothes or

majestic robes, he allowed few people to see him in the gigantic

T-shirt and Bermuda shorts he was now wearing.

After greeting them warmly, he looked at Marge with his

piercing blue eyes and asked, "What is it you want, my child?"