Songs of the Dancing Gods dg-4 Page 10

  Irving’s leather outfit wasn’t in very good shape as it was, and she decided that it was time he stopped being the tough guy and suffering with it and maybe trying one of his dad’s loincloths for a while. It would be oversized, but she could adjust it to protect his manly modesty.

  The food was also not in good shape. She got a knife from Joe’s pack and trimmed off some of the mold that was already creeping in, keeping what was edible, and laying it out on a blanket, but, although she was quite hungry, she ate none of it.

  Slaves eat last.

  It was something she’d known, of course, but she’d never thought of that with herself as the slave. Defiantly, she reached out and picked up the stump of a carrot, as if to show that she was still in charge of her life, but, somehow, she just couldn’t bite into it.

  So it had happened. After slowly building one step at a time over a period of months, she was now so thoroughly defined by the major Rules that all the minor ones just tumbled in at once, filling in the gaps.

  She recalled an incident, forgotten until now, when she’d asked one of the maids at the palace if the girl, who was bright and intelligent, resented being a slave. “Oh, no, my lady,” she had responded. “It is much like being a housewife, only you don’t expect your husband to say thank you and, while you owe him your loyalty, you do not owe him fidelity. It all works out. There is nothing dishonorable about being a slave, and it is necessary work. I would certainly rather be living this way, in such a fine place, than as my mother did, living in a small place where meat was a luxury we rarely could afford and her dying of complications in the birth of her fifteenth child at age twenty-eight.”

  It was a sobering thought, particularly when thinking of all those women at the town wells and small cafes.

  There were other compensations. She would much rather be out in the world and in adventurous circumstances than being cooped up in a satin prison. And Ruddygore had estimated the physical age of her body at possibly fifteen, certainly no older than sixteen, which meant she had lost more than a decade in physical aging. Physically, at least, she was closer in age to Irving than to Joe.

  “There is nothing dishonorable about being a slave, and it is necessary work…”

  It would be hard, but that was the way she had to think, had to look at it. As she had told Irving, it wasn’t a matter of liking or not liking it, it was a matter of acceptance and adjustment. The only” alternative was to wage futile war against the reality arid dishonor herself by doing it badly as a result.

  She went over and quietly nuzzled Joe awake. He came to with a sweet smile, stretched, looked around, and saw at once all the work she’d done. “Impressive.”

  “You’re my master now, remember,” she said softly. “It’s part of my job.”

  He looked at her strangely for a moment, then smiled. “That’s the biggest turn-on statement I can think of.”

  At that moment, Irving stirred, spoiling the mood.

  Joe sighed. “Well, it looks like the sun’s coming up and we shouldn’t have much trouble getting out of here this morning. You know, I had the oddest dream last night… “He looked around at the still forest, and let his mind run free for a moment; somehow, in the larger stand nearby, he sensed friendly presences. Or maybe not a dream, he added to himself.

  “I should have taken the watch,” she said flatly. “That, too, is part of my job. If anything had happened to us last night it would have been my fault.”

  “No,” he responded enigmatically, looking at the grove, “we were okay. Don’t ask how, but we were well defended.”

  She wanted to get elaboration on that cryptic comment, but she sensed that she’d get no more out of him.

  Irving arose in the same lethargic fashion characteristic of his father, and said, “Well, I guess we made it, huh?”

  “Yeah, we made it,” Joe replied. “Let’s finish off what’s still edible and hit the road.”

  They finished it off and tossed what was left into the brush, then packed up the last stuff to go. Ti had very little trouble talking Irving into the loincloth, and she managed to get it so that it stayed. It did look more like a giant diaper on him than the romantic he-man image it gave his father, but she didn’t make the comment, and Joe seemed to understand and kept his mouth shut, too.

  They mounted up, and Joe took one last look around, then focused on the small grove and mentally said, “Thank you,” in their direction. And from them, although it might have been the wind in the trees, he thought he heard, “Any time. ”

  If it wasn’t a dream, if it was real, then their information was reliable as well. The dangerous creatures of faerie were mostly of the night, at least around here, but if there was an outpost Sugasto’s people maintained with zombies protecting it, they were a threat any time. He wouldn’t feel reasonably secure until they passed the tollhouse at the edge of Grotom Wood.

  He couldn’t help thinking about his old enemy. “I wonder why Sugasto stopped?” he asked aloud. “Nobody was able to hold him off for long, he had an endless supply of new recruits from among his own victims, and he had enormous power.”

  Ti shrugged. “Possibly he had something more important to attend to first,” she suggested. “Or, perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he still doesn’t feel he’s a match for Ruddygore. Who knows? It is enough for me that he did stop.”

  They came upon the old tollhouse, now a roofless stone ruin encrusted in moss, lichen, and creeping vines, looking like some sinister gateway to Hell, and almost immediately the countryside started to change its character and things brightened considerably. Now there were rolling hills and fields with farms and forests that looked more charming than threatening. To Joe, it felt like home.

  By midmorning they reached Hotsphar, a small town built on a thermal region, with hot springs and hissing holes in the ground the locals used for everything from cooking to bathing. The idea of a hot bath in one of the small bathhouses was irresistible, particularly when it cost only a few coppers. They were running pretty low on money, but they no longer had that far to go.

  They had the place almost to themselves. “The nearby wood still frightens many good folk in these troubled times,” the proprietress explained. “And, of course, it’s the off-season.”

  The bath in the crystal clear water of the hot springs was wonderful, and the thermal-heated sauna not only relaxed but did a nice job of drying out the clothing and blankets. Ti was methodical in getting them washed and even combing their hair. After, she was even able to borrow some scissors and thread and make a decent loincloth for Irving. She was quite pleased with her handiwork and the praise it invoked.

  The change that had come over her was remarkable, Joe thought. She not only had completely stopped nagging and complaining about things, but she actually was doing a lot of stuff on her own initiative that, not long before, she would have thought beneath her. She was solicitous, cheerful, and even deferential. That last was hard to get used to, since it went a little against his grain, but he went with the flow. He felt rotten about feeling the way he did, but, the fact was, he liked it. He just kept telling himself that, if the situation had been reversed, with him the slave and she the mistress, she would have liked it, too.

  They blew the last of their money on a hot meal and some basic snacklike provisions. It was now nearly certain that they would get to their destination by nightfall. Joe was anxious to see Ruddygore again, in any event. The master sorcerer would know the situation on Sugasto and maybe have a job or two for him. He also had another little matter to take up with him in private.

  In the very late afternoon, they passed the trail to the upper ferry and reached the bridge over the Rossignol, a major tributary of the Dancing Gods, at Terdiera. Beyond, overlooking both the town and the confluence of the two rivers, could be seen the massive spires of Castle Terindell.

  It was a troll bridge, of course, and Joe suddenly realized that they were flat broke, and that even the town was across the river from them.

&n
bsp; Irving stared fearfully at the trolls, who seemed to be all big, glaring eyes and sharklike teeth, sort of like Muppets from Hell, but the lead troll recognized Joe.

  “Ah! You are prepaid, barbarian, and your company,” he growled. “Lord Ruddygore’s cadet came down three days ago. Until you showed up, we thought we’d gotten a freebie.”

  They were delighted to hear it, but puzzled- “You say they came down and paid three days ago? But they didn’t even know we were coming!”

  “Obviously they did,” the troll responded. “They know most everything hereabouts before anybody else does.”

  The town looked pretty much as he remembered it, but they didn’t linger there, instead heading straight on up the one additional mile or so to the castle on the point. Joe couldn’t help but think back many years ago to the first time he and Marge had come through these huge outer walls and gates and across the drawbridges. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Like most castles of the region, Terindell was actually a series of buildings, one inside the other, and the interior contained a hollow, rectangular courtyard. Tiny brownies tended to the elaborate gardens that encircled the open area, and elf grooms appeared to help them down and take their horses.

  Irving was awestruck by it all, gaping at all and sundry, but unable to say a word. They walked up to the main entrance as the sun set. Before they could knock, the huge wooden door opened, revealing a slender, dangerous-looking fairy dressed in a gray robe with golden tassels. He was nearly six feet tall, and there was something at once cold and menacing about him. That was the mark of the Imir, one of the few warrior races that the faerie had.

  “Hello, Poquah,” Joe greeted the creature.

  “Jeez! Mister Spock!” Irving muttered under his breath. “What next?”

  “You’re late!” the Imir snapped. “It’s about time you showed up!”

  “I didn’t know we had an appointment.”

  “Humans!” the Imir sniffed. “You probably still think you just got the idea to come here. You were summoned!.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” the Imir responded a bit sarcastically. “Only that the Dark Baron slipped our leash and is free once again and that, perhaps not coincidentally, Sugasto seems to be getting his act together once more.”

  Joe shook his head in wonder and returned a wry smile. “Back to normal,” he sighed. “Nice to see you, too, Poquah.”

  CHAPTER 5

  PLOTS GO WRONG, AS USUAL

  Anyone, whether hero or villain, human or fairy, whose life or death would in any way change the course of destiny, shall always be given a way out, no matter how certain the doom or absolute the trap.

  —The Books of Rules, XXII, 102(b)

  Throckmorton P. Ruddygore looked his old self and none the worse for wear, almost out of place in his grand sorcerer’s robes, which he favored in Husaquahr. Of course, he also looked out of place in his characteristic formal wear on Earth. Frankly, he looked as if he should be wearing a red suit with white fur trim, for there was not one from Earth who met him who didn’t immediately think of him as the perfect, perhaps the real Santa Claus.

  “Joe! Tiana! And, oh yes, the young master Irving as well! Welcome, welcome to my humble abode!”

  Irving looked around the sumptuous great hall, with its ornate gold on almost everything, its finely polished handcrafted furniture, thick, plush rugs, and all the rest that shouted the height of luxury, even back home, and sniggered a bit.

  “Come, now. Have seats! Anywhere at all, please. How was your vacation?”

  Joe took one of the chairs and Tiana sat down cross-legged on the floor to his left without even thinking about it.

  “Restful, until the last week or so, “Joe told him. “Irving’s gotten pretty good on a horse and shows real potential. We had a pretty rough trip until the last day, though. Short on money, long on problems. It was worth it, I think, to get back into some kind of trim, and, of course, to get to know my son a little bit more.”

  The old sorcerer nodded. Irving had just sat down in the plushest, most comfortable chair he’d ever experienced in his whole life when the host said, “But, come, come! I’m forgetting my manners. You must be starved after such a journey! Come, let us sup, and then we’ll have time to talk!”

  Irving was suddenly torn between leaving the most luxurious seat he’d ever sat in and the idea of real, decent food. It was no contest; food won. Besides, he thought, this joint is so big, if I don’t follow them now, I may never find my way out.

  They walked for what seemed like a mile, then entered a huge banquet hall, with a long table and plush red chairs and a kind of screened-off area where, it appeared, the food came from.

  “We’ll just eat in the small dining room tonight,” Ruddygore said almost apologetically.

  Showoff! Irving thought. But the old geezer really did have things to show off, he had to admit that. Now this was the way to live!

  “Take any seat,” Ruddygore told them. “We don’t stand on formality here most of the time.”

  Joe took a seat to one side of the far end and Irving the other. Ruddygore went around to sit at the head, then noticed that Tiana was just standing there. “Come, come, girl! Sit!”

  She looked almost in tears. “I—I can’t. I just can’t, that’s all.”

  The sorcerer got up and walked around to her and looked her over with a gaze so fixed and concentrated that it seemed as if he even looked inside her and inventoried the atoms in her structure.

  “Oh, my! The Rules have been rather vicious to you since we came back, haven’t they, my dear? Oh, my! I must be growing old and senile. That possibility simply never entered my head. Well, there are no slaves at Terindell—fairy folk work for peanuts and have a much lower overhead than humans. And I’ll not have any guest in my house serving here. Tell you what— you go into the kitchen and eat what you like and gossip with the help, and we’ll talk together, you and I, privately later. Okay?”

  She nodded, looked at Joe, who seemed a little confused, but shrugged, and she walked back behind the screen and presumably into the kitchen.

  “What’s that about?” Joe asked him. “We all ate at the cafes together.”

  Ruddygore took his seat and nodded. “True, but that’s a different situation. Those sorts of places are within her allowable social range. In this setting, she could serve us, but she could not join us. How long has she been fixed in this level?”

  “A couple of days. Oh, it’s been little changes all along, but this way, just maybe two, three days tops.”

  “I thought as much. She’s going to have a tough time because she’s smart and strong-willed and used to equality, at the very least. I’ve seen minds snap under that sort of strain.”

  “Can’t you unslave her?” Irving asked him. “I mean, you’re a superpowerful wizard, right?”

  “True, young sir, but I am bound by the Rules just as much as she is. She may not like it, but she understands that as well. The only two ways I know would be to use the most powerful of djinn magicks, which I will not do unless there is no alternative, so dangerous is it, or, alternatively, to switch her soul to another body with different Rules.”

  “You can do that?”

  “No, that’s one outside my knowledge. I could put one into an empty vessel—that’s simple. It’s getting it out, and maintaining the empty vessel, that’s the problem. It’s one that Sugasto somehow solved, or probably either appropriated or got from Baron Boquillas.”

  “I keep hearin’ ’bout this bad dude the Baron. What’s his problem?” the boy asked.

  “He’s a throwback. The most brilliant mathemagical mind in ten thousand years. There’s probably not a single thing we can imagine that he couldn’t figure out how to do if he wanted to do so.”

  “Yeah? So how come you beat him, then?”

  Ruddygore sighed. “The Baron suffers from several flaws without which he would have been invincible. For one thing, he suffers fro
m an admirable lack of imagination. He’s predictable to a degree, and his mind works in narrow channels. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t come up with highly innovative new ways to cause trouble—that television preacher business he tried on Earth was highly creative—but he is obsessed only with Earthly power over others. He is unshakable in his belief that out of Hell can come all of the solutions to all of the problems of the universe. He was taken in by that idea, just as many others were and continue to be taken in by it, and because he knows he is brilliant, he is incapable of believing that he can be taken in. It’s a nasty little mental circle common to megalomaniacs.”

  “And you lost him when you had him?”

  Ruddygore sighed. “Alas, yes. I should have known better, but after what happened back on Earth when he was loosed there, essentially powerless himself, I didn’t dare allow him to remain there again.”

  “Then why not just kill him? I mean, he kills lots of folks, don’t he?”

  Ruddygore nodded. “The Rules again. They gave him his chance, his way out, by seducing me with the idea that I could use and control him to get at Sugasto. It’s an arbitrary Rule, but it’s not one we can hate, either. Your father’s escaped death more than once because of the same regulation.” There was a commotion behind him, and he paused and brightened. “Ah, but I think the food has arrived! Business and hard thinking can wait until we’ve done.”

  And arrive it did. Short, plump fairies who looked like a cross between the Munchkins and the Pillsbury Doughboy began marching out with platter after platter, course after course. It was an impeccably cooked feast for twelve, and even after Joe and Irv had eaten their fill and Ruddygore had eaten six times theirs, there was plenty left over.

  And when they’d protested over and over that they couldn’t handle another thing, Ruddygore signaled the end to it. Finally he got up and said, “Joe, why don’t you take Irving down and show him around? I suspect he’d enjoy the games room in particular. We’ll speak in a little while.”