Vengeance of the Dancing Gods Read online

  "But—our bargain! How will I survive the wastes in this storm? And what mark have you placed upon me?"

  The demon chuckled, not only at the question but at the fact that Macore had already had all memory of the third bargain and geas wiped from his mind. "As for the first," it said, "the storm has already abated, and the town of Locantz is but a half-hour's gentle ride in the slush. You will be able to see the lights of it when I leave. Just head for them. As for the second—no shadow or reflection shall you cast, no matter how polished the mirror or bright the light. That should actually come in handy to one like you. I will take my leave now."

  Macore felt more than a little relieved, but he was a bit suspicious. "Now that the bargain is done, can you tell me, before you leave, Sir Demon, if that town was there at the start of this business?"

  "Of course it was. Fun's fun, after all...." And with that, it vanished, and a sudden cold blast of air hit him. He had been perspiring from Hell's heat—not that Hell was actually flames, but there was some strong reaction, some sort of friction, created when one from the netherworld projected into this—and now it seemed to turn into tiny icicles as he stood there. He erased the pentagram and picked up the gem, which was still quite warm to the touch, and placed it back in his pouch, then climbed quickly back upon his horse and looked around, finding the lights of the town in a moment. He kicked his mount forward, anxious to reach an inn and a warm fire.

  No shadow and no reflection. Not a bad mark, as these things went, and, as the demon said, possibly quite useful.

  He'd have to find some convenient explanation for it, though, as it was going to be a bit obvious to his friends. A curse, perhaps, for stealing the gem in the first place. That sounded right. Considering what the demon could have done, it seemed a small price to pay. Perhaps in the town just ahead he could fulfill his end of the bargain and get rid of the damned stone. He certainly wanted no more of it or Squatty Bigmouth, either. He had had enough adventure to last awhile, he told himself. Perhaps it was time to take a little time off and see some of those old friends again.

  Terindell, he thought longingly. I shall visit the great old wizard at Terindell. He suddenly very much longed to see the place, although he hadn't given it a thought in over five years. He did not, however, wonder why.

  Chapter 2

  The Trouble With Godhood

  Barbarians may make effective monarchs, but will be unable to reconcile their civilised duties with their inner natures.

  —Rules, VI, 257(a)

  THE TWO WOMEN COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE DIFFERENT in appearance. One was small, dark, and incredibly voluptuous, almost in a state of undress, more of her body covered by her long brown hair than her clothing; the other was tall, chunky, with short hair and a stem face, dressed in leather jerkin, trousers, and slick black boots. The contrast was only accentuated by the fact that the one in leather had a toad on her head.

  "Oh, Djonne!" the looker wailed. "Things just haven't been the same in Raven's Lair since little Alee fell into the giant dough mixer while competing in the Grand Husaquahrian Bake-Off!"

  "I know, dear," the tall one in leather consoled. "Just think of my poor Hanar here, turned into a toad just because he left out one little teensy clause in his contract with the demon!"

  "Hmph! You think you have problems? I mean, if Alee had just stayed dead instead of returning as a spirit to this house, that might have made it bearable! Now, though— it's dough, dough, dough, all over the place. You can't sit or walk without stepping in it; and, if you manage for any length of time, she throws it at you. It's gooey and sticky and hell to get out of pile carpeting!"

  "Not to mention those creepy cannibals stalking the place," the one with the toad responded.

  "Wark!" croaked the toad perched atop her head.

  "Oh, don't you worry, dahling Hanar," the big woman consoled it. "They've only eaten humans so far. You're safe as long as you remain a toad."

  The small pretty woman sighed. "Yes. They were reformed cannibals who had been strict vegetarians for years, but they liked the taste of poor Alee so much while judging the contest that they can't rest until they've sampled the rest of the family!"

  "It was silly to enter the bread after the—ah, accident," Djonne told her friend. "I mean—it was that which turned them on."

  "But what were we to do? Without the money from the Bake-Off we would have lost the house, the toadstool groves—everything that makes life worth living! And we won, too! If only Master Gwelfin can duplicate the taste, without having to throw people into the mixing batters, we'll be richer than any in the land!" She paused. "Perhaps it wasn't Alee after all. Perhaps it was the forty-day-old dried mermaid's scales...."

  "Oh, enough of this, Moosha!" Djonne cried. "What's done is done!"

  "You know they say I pushed her in! Always coming around, asking questions! They say that's why Alee's come back with her abominable doughballs!"

  "I know, I know. It's true the top rung of the ladder over the vat was sawed almost through, but I know you weren't the one."

  The pretty Moosha stopped and stared. "You do? Why?"

  "Because during the only time when the rung could have been sawed through, I know you were making it with your brother Mischa. I—saw you."

  "You were peeking into windows again?" Moosha was aghast.

  "It's a hobby. Besides, I know you were only trying to console your brother because of his curse."

  That sobered Moosha. "Yes, yes! That was it! How horrible to have to go through life with a curse like that. You see, someone started to play music outside, and the only way to save him was to involve him so much that he could not hear it."

  "Compulsive tap dancing is a horrible thing," Djonne agreed.

  "Particularly when there were taps in the room but no shoes!" Moosha responded. "Think of the pain! Besides— it was safe. I knew even then that I was pregnant!"

  "What! But—who? You're so chaste that the two-headed dragon went after you a few months ago!" Djonne paused. "Oh, my! It's not..."

  "Yes—he caught me. We've been having an affair ever since. Little did I guess that I had enough fairy blood in me to make something else happen!" She sighed. "Bowser has been so jealous."

  "Your dog?"

  "No, silly—my horse."

  "Will it be a dragon or a human?"

  "Who can say? Oh, Djonne! I'm so alone and afraid! Haunted, stalked by cannibals, pregnant by a dragon! To whom can I turn?"

  Djonne got up, came over, and hugged her. "Moosha, I made a sacred oath when Hanar got turned into a toad that I would love no other man and I have kept that oath. But you I love, my darling Moosha, and I always have loved you."

  They embraced and kissed. At that moment there was the sound of smashing glass. The couple broke and stared into the darkness in panic.

  "It's them! The cannibals! They've found me at last! Oh, what will we do?" Moosha cried.

  "There's no way out!" the other told her. "We must make our stand here for better or worse!"

  "Oh, Djonne!"

  "Oh, Moosha!"

  "Work!" said the toad.

  All went dark. There was sudden, stunned silence.

  And then the audience rose to its feet and clapped and cheered so loudly and so long that it seemed like the very theater would collapse.

  High in the royal box, two giant figures, looking like massive statues, sat and watched impassively. Both were easily ten feet tall and as white as the purest marble, with matching white hair and white robes. Now and then, though, the curious onlooker could see one or another of the pair stir and know that indeed these were great statues come to life. One was a woman of tremendous proportions and radiant, idealized beauty; the other was a man with the face of a stem yet achingly handsome man and the body of all men's dreams.

  They stood suddenly. As the cast came out for their final bows and stared at the great figures in awe, the entire theater fell silent. Then the goddess gave a smile of favor and a nod to the company, and th
e audience gave an audible sigh of pleasure and relief. As the two gods turned and left the box, the roaring cheers started again.

  "You did quite well, my love," the Goddess Eve said to her companion. "I could tell what torture you were going through."

  "I never liked this god business much anyway. You know that," the God Adam responded sourly. "But when it makes me sit through that maudlin soap opera..."

  "Come, come!" she consoled. 'This is only every two years!"

  "Well, that's part of it. I mean, they left a hundred more threads dangling this time than they did before. It never ends. And we have two years until the next chapter, while they play the cities and the boondocks!"

  "Oh, come! Come! It gives the peasants something to talk about during the interim. As for us—well, it is one of the obligations we have in exchange for running things."

  "Huh'. I don't see old Ruddygore showing up at these premieres, and he's now Chairman of the Council of Thirteen."

  "He probably writes them. I have heard it said that he has an entire group over on Earth doing nothing but tape-recording daytime serials for him. Still, it's over now. We can become ourselves once more and not have any further ceremonial appearances until the temple rites on Mid-Day."

  "Yeah. Three whole days. Not long enough to go anywhere or do anything, except get cooped up in that ivory tower of a castle."

  They reached and entered a small dressing room that was strictly out of bounds to anyone, even theater staff, on nights like this. There the Goddess used a now familiar spell to change them both back into their human selves once more.

  They were still both quite attractive and quite large. Joe de Oro was six feet six and two hundred and seventy pounds of pure muscle. Tiana was just a half inch shorter than he and proportioned accordingly. Both were actually classified as barbarians under the complex Rules that governed this strange world. In human form they tended to dress minimally in rough-cut furs and preferred going barefoot. Although they still bore a striking, if less perfect, resemblance to the God and Goddess whose nude statues were everywhere, no one ever made the association when they walked the streets as ordinary folk. The resemblance was occasionally noted, but only that. Part of the reason was a spell, of course, that prevented anyone from making the logic leap, a spell put on by the whole of the Thirteen and thus literally unseeable and unbreakable, despite the powerful wizards who roamed the land, but another part was the fact that they were imposing but, quite certainly, humans; with black hair, brown eyes, and bronze, weathered complexions, they hadn't the supernatural aura of gods.

  Nor, of course, were they gods, although the majority of the people of the nations of Husaquahr thought they were. The evil Kaladon had kidnapped and bewitched Tiana and made her into the Goddess in a plot to take control of the whole of Husaquahr. Joe and others, including, ironically, his sworn enemy the Dark Baron, had disposed of Kaladon, but the old wizard had been clever enough to spread the power about among some of the others of the Thirteen who lived in Husaquahr. They found the legitimacy that their roles as anointed high priests and priestesses of the new cult gave them quite satisfying. Neither Tiana nor Joe liked the deal, but they were not really offered another one. Even a good wizard like Ruddygore had found this new religion a culturally unifying force and supported its continuance. To be sure, it made the emergence of another Dark Baron quite unlikely.

  "I'm just plain bored, that's all," Joe grumped. "I mean, I was always on the move, always going someplace else. I wasn't forced into trucking—I chose it for its freedom, such as it was. Over here, they held out the idea that, once I did a few things for them, I'd be free to roam and see this crazy place. Instead, what do I find? I'm a damned god who has to wait an hour just so he can ride his horse out without getting stuck in traffic!"

  "Do you regret it, then?" she asked him. "It was I who had no choice, not you. You know that you still don't have to do it. You could walk out now, and we'd find some stand-in to pretend to be you during public ceremonies."

  He grew irritated. "Oh, come on—you know better than that. I knew the price coming in, or at least I thought I did. Sure, I'd like to go roaming around and finding adventure, but not alone. Without you, it just wouldn't be any fun. It's just, well—so damned boring. Worst of all, there's really no end to it. All this luxury and power is okay, I guess, but even gods need a vacation once in a while."

  "We can't do much right now, I suppose, but let us talk to Ruddygore. He is due in near the end of the week, anyway. Let us take some time off and go down to the island and get away from it all. Discuss it with him there. He always seems to know when something has to be fixed and how to fix it."

  "Yeah, well, maybe. He hasn't been exactly chummy lately, either. Just ducks in and out every once in a while with a new script to fit something or other he and the Council are doing. I guess that's the other problem. We're the only two friends we got. None of the old gang stops by anymore, not even Marge, and it's been years since we heard from Macore or even Grogha and Houma. No battles, no adventures, no big travels, and no social friends. Who can be comfortable being friends with two folks who are worshipped by a few million people?"

  "I know. Something must be done. I will admit that on more than one of these occasions I have had the urge to say something silly or screw up the ceremonies. The cost, however, would be great to us both, and very unpleasant, as you know. Ruddygore chairs the Council, but he could neither contain nor control them if we messed up their little racket."

  He sighed. "Well, I guess the island's as good as any for a little relaxation, anyway. It's the full moon on the sixteenth through the eighteenth, you know."

  She nodded. "I know."

  The full moon was quite important to both of them. Joe had long ago become the rarest of transmuters, a pure were, condemned on the nights of the full moon to turn into whatever animal or fairy or other nonvegetative creature was nearest. Nor was he alone in this curse. It was inevitable that sooner or later, if only in the intensity of their lovemaking, Tiana would come to be bitten and also get the curse. She had known this before and had accepted it.

  In point of fact, what Joe had originally seen as a terrible affliction now provided both of them with their only diversion. They had the power and authority pretty much to arrange what they wanted to be, and they had been a lot of things—human, animal, and fairy. It also meant that as the fairies feared only iron, they feared only silver, and Tiana, whose magical powers were quite strong, had learned first of all the spell for transmuting silver into some other substance when it was too close to her or to Joe.

  She reached over, took his hand, and squeezed it, smiling. It was surprising to both of them, but without magic, at least as far as either knew, after all this time they were still very much in love with each other and very devoted as well. It was strange, really, but they both still felt like honeymooners. Even stranger was how so nearly perfect a love could still leave them both unhappy.

  "Perhaps it would be different if we could have children," she said softly.

  "Forget that!" he snapped. "You and I know that must never happen!"

  There was, in fact, a curse that went down through her family, a curse levied perhaps a thousand years before on the females of her line. It was said that one of her distant ancestors was a great and powerful sorceress. The details were unknown beyond that point, except that this sorceress in some manner either made a bargain or attained a powerful curse that she would never die. Instead, she would die at childbirth with her firstborn girl, and her soul would then enter the body of the newborn, and so the cycle would continue forever. It was, of course, roughly even odds, boy or girl baby, but that was a pretty severe step to take. Joe wasn't at all certain about the soul business, but he knew that Tiana's mother had indeed died in childbirth while giving birth to Tiana. She had always thought the curse a local one on her own mother, and while she was convinced she had her mother's soul inside her, Tiana had not at the time realized just how continuous this was.
Now, with the records of Castle Morikay, her ancestral home, at her disposal and more time than she liked to have, she found just how far back the curse went.

  Both of them did want children, but there seemed no safe way to get them. Her love was strong enough that she was willing to take the risk for him, but his love was strong enough that he would in no way allow it, no matter what his desires.

  There were, of course, magical ways of determining the sex of a child; but when dealing with a curse as ancient and as powerful as this, such spells could not be depended upon.

  "I think it's clear enough to leave now," he told her. She got up and put on her fur cape, and the two of them quickly left the room and walked down toward the stable area. It had mostly cleared out by the time they got there, and there was no trouble finding their horses.

  He still felt a lot of tension and frustration within him and had no desire to go quickly back to the castle that dominated the city. "I feel like getting rip-roaring drunk and maybe taking apart a bar," he growled.

  She laughed. "Count me in! Lead on!" They galloped off down the street to find a likely victim.

  The riches of Castle Terindell were legend, but few tried to gain them, for Terindell was the home of Ruddygore, his current name of his more than three thousand identifiable ones, and Ruddygore was the Chairman of the Council of Thirteen, the strongest of the strongest among wizards. The great vaults below were made of solid iron, enough to kill any of the fairy folk, save the dwarves, with nothing else added. For humans and dwarves, who had no such weakness, there were other traps, both mechanical and sorcerous. None who had ever tried for those vaults had ever been seen or heard from again.

  Still, more had tried since the war than had ever tried before, and some of them were the very best. Ruddygore believed that it was the peace and quiet in the land that caused the increase. He well understood that, to a master burglar, the challenge was irresistible. There were things in those vaults, however, that no human or fairy should ever have, things even he wished he did not have to have, and the penalty had to be severe and permanent for that reason alone. He almost never went down there himself, except to check that none had indeed been successful and to reinforce the spells and traps.