Songs of the Dancing Gods dg-4

by Jack L. Chalker

  Joe was Joe again. He let out an ecstatic “Yippee!” and banged one fist into the other. He turned to them and said, “If I’m gonna go, I’d rather be as me. It looks like his snare spell just scrambled the curse for a night, which is a real relief.” He looked over at Mia. “First things first. I have to get some clothes on, and then we’ve got to find a bolt cutter.”

  “Huh?”

  “The spell gave me the ring but not the collar. Sugasto saw me—Mia—without it. In fact, he decreed them off right then and there. If she’s got one on when we meet him, that’ll be a tip-off right away.” He turned to Mia. “Remember, for some reason he took a real fancy to you. Play it cool but don’t overdo it. I don’t want him to order me to hand you over to him.”

  The idea alarmed her. “What would I do, Master, if he did?”

  “Almost anything’s possible this afternoon. If he does, then go. We’ll find you. Hell, if I could get us both up there, on him, I’d do it and save us a real journey. But I’d rather we do it together, and not as prisoners of the enemy.”

  “I’d think, once you get that collar off, you’d better try and get some sleep,” Marge grumbled.

  “The hell with sleep. He’s expecting a man just getting over food poisoning anyway, and he knows Mia was up and about most of the night.”

  “Yeah, but it seems to me that you need a clear head.”

  “Very little sleep is needed during the were periods. It’s as if you slept while the other form was awake. Don’t ask me about it—look it up sometime.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “You’d best sleep outdoors today. Let them come in and do routine things in the room. They might well send somebody to search it anyway. If we don’t come back, you can’t do much. Return and tell Ruddygore. If we do, come again at dusk. We’ve still got one more night of the moon.”

  “Well, I don’t like it, but okay. In case moonrise comes before you get all the way back, but it’s clear, come to the back window as whatever you are. I’ll figure it out. If they take you, they’ll come and get all your things and I’ll know: If nobody comes, not even the hotel people, I’ll know that, too.”

  He nodded. “Good enough.”

  Getting the collar off was a hell of a lot harder than he thought it would be and took the better part of two hours and a lot of finagling to do it without cutting, burning, or strangling Mia.

  He got ready in his new buckskin outfit, even though it was still mild out. It had the best image, and an image, with the beard and other disguises, different from the one they’d be looking for. Thanks to the Rules, all people here tended to categorize folks much stricter than they did even back on Earth.

  As they rode out toward the camp, though, he was more worried about himself than about Mia. She’d shown time and again how cool she could be under pressure and she wasn’t under the same kind of cloud that he was. Mia had proved herself last night; now Cochise was on trial.

  Although he’d always thought of the Bentar as birds of prey, they looked more dinosaurlike in the full light of day. He presented his old pass to them from the entry station. They glanced at it, then nodded. “You are expected. Straight on to the flagpole, then the second building on your right.”

  And now, in the full light of day, they rode straight into the heart of the enemy force.

  The building wasn’t hard to find, and they were actually early. He thought it better to be early than late. A nervous-looking human officer told them to wait outside until called, and they did so.

  Mia sat, looking at all the activity, then suddenly frowned, then got up, somewhat excited. “Look, Master! A flying horse with wings!”

  He looked where she was pointing and, sure enough, there it was, all stately-looking, right out of the old myths and legend books. A huge, pastel pink stallion, not too different in coloration from Marge, with enormous birdlike wings, circling to land. Its rider appeared to use no bridle and, indeed, sat back a bit, almost tied on, feet straight out across its back so as not to interfere with the wings. It didn’t look comfortable to Joe.

  “Impressive,” he said to her. “I’ve never seen one before, except in the picture books and on gas station signs, but I guess they had to exist somewhere around Husaquahr. Everything else does.”

  “That is the sort of steed we need for a journey such as ours, Master,” she noted. “Far better to have wings, but if we cannot, that would do.”

  He agreed with that. He had actually considered making time by traveling during these three nights of the moon as a Kauri, but Kauris weren’t very strong, and they could have taken little with them—nor, indeed, could any of them have so much as touched Irving. The iron in the great sword would have burned both him and Mia severely and would have killed Marge.

  Still, he wondered how many of the flying horses were around here and if they served a primary military function. Many of the more experienced officers and noncoms here would have been on the losing side at Sorrow’s Gorge, and he didn’t remember any there.

  The door opened behind them, and he and Mia arose and turned, expecting to see the office flunky calling them in. Instead, it was the Master of the Dead himself, followed by his Bentar flunky, the latter looking much the worse for wear. Joe knelt, and took his sword, still in its scabbard, and touched the hilt to his forehead in salute.

  “Come, come! Get up, sir!” the sorcerer said, the wind catching and rippling his black robes. “I’m not the king, and it’s a beautiful day.” He breathed in and out several times. “Good, fresh air and sunshine. I get so little of it these days that I want to savor it when I can. You are…?”

  “Cochise, my lord,” he responded. “Cochise of Tsipry.”

  “Ah! You are Valisandran by birth, then.”

  “Yes, my lord, by birth but not for a very long time. I was orphaned young. There was a sickness that went through my tribe, and many of the young children were sent south in hopes of avoiding it. Truly, I have not been back since, which is one of the reasons for this journey.”

  “Hmmm… Interesting.” He turned to the aide. “Any Tsipry here?”

  The Bentar shook its head negatively. “No, my lord.”

  “You seem certain of that.”

  “My people may be the sickness he recalls as a child. The artu of the Bentar had a bit of a disagreement with them fifteen or twenty years back. I remember it well; I was very young at the time. I would say that there are very few Tsipry anywhere now, sir, and most would be like this one.”

  Always nice to have your inquisitors back up your alibis, Joe thought.

  Sugasto cleared his throat. “I see. Sorry to bring up old wounds on such a pretty day. Does the colonel’s presence here trigger hostile feelings?”

  “No, my lord,” Joe responded smoothly. “It is a sad chapter because it was personal, but I have been in the position of his people in other cases, so I cannot judge. I fought for Valisandra and the Baron alongside his people as well as my own at Sorrow’s Gorge.”

  “Indeed? I was there myself, but I don’t recall you.”

  “Uh, pardon, sir, but I do not recall you there, either, but it was a very big battle.”

  “Uh, yes,” Sugasto admitted. “And I was a horse of a different color there, at that.”

  A black stallion, if memory serves, Joe thought, but he said nothing.

  “How is your health today?” the sorcerer asked him.

  “Better, sir, but I am still being careful today while my full strength returns. Once my body expelled the offending food, I could sleep.”

  “Come, walk with me a bit in this nice air,” the sorcerer invited. “I was going to offer a complete cure, but it seems you don’t need such services. The sun and fresh air aid recuperation better than most other things anyway. Stroll with me, and we’ll reminisce a bit as two old comrades at arms meeting once again.”

  And that’s exactly what he wanted to do. Joe knew, of course, that this was also a test, but he couldn’t figure out why Sugas
to was being, both so friendly and so conventional in his interrogation. But, of course, he was a master sorcerer, and he would assume that anybody from Ruddygore had been as blocked as he’d block his own people from enemy powers.

  Since Joe had indeed fought at Sorrow’s Gorge, it was an easy test to pass.

  They walked along, the Bentar, then Mia following, and Joe got almost as much of a kick out of the reactions of the folks they encountered as they walked as Sugasto obviously did.

  “So, how come you aren’t on our team now?” The sorcerer asked at last “We can always use good men like you.”

  “I hope my lord doesn’t take offense,” Joe responded, “but I am a professional mercenary. I chose the Baron back then not out of old loyalties to king and country, but because I like the work and, if you are on the winning side, it pays well. The Baron lost.”

  “Only because of that damned dragon and some treachery on the part of the Council.”

  “Indeed, it looked to me at the time like a can’t-lose situation. Since then, I have taken only small commissions from stable local authorities, and done, I admit, some less than honest work between jobs. The girl, there, for example, was booty from a little pirating I did downriver.”

  “And in spite of all this, you don’t think we’ll win?”

  He shrugged. “It appears as impressive as before, and I have heard of your legion of the dead, which would have been quite useful in the old days, and your powers are legendary. But the Baron was the best in his day, yet not a good gambler in the end. His less than dependable political maneuverings, as you mention, were part of his undoing, and he allowed himself to be beaten by a lesser power who was better at psychology.”

  Sugasto stopped and looked at the mercenary with some respect. “That’s an excellent analysis. It is a reason why Boquillas works for me now. Did you know that?”

  “No, my lord. I thought he was dead.”

  “Not dead, no. Different, I’ll allow, but still with that amazing mind. I am not even certain that Boquillas can die. Consider, he has rejected and fought against Heaven, and he has betrayed Hell. When the soul has no refuge, it remains. The only relevant fact is that I have that mind and that knowledge at my disposal because there’s nowhere else to go. As to the rest, we can fight if we have to, and Ruddygore, alone, won’t find me the sort of ivory tower academic the Baron was—I know him far too well. But I prefer imagination first. I can say nothing more at this time, but if my plan works, we can conquer without war and perhaps without even a face-off, since the chilled livers of the Council would back any victory already won. There would be localized fighting, resistance, and pacification, of course, but no great war.”

  “This interests me,” Joe told him, “but what if your plan fails?”

  “Then tactics change. We lose nothing. That is the beauty of it. Uh—by the way, speaking of Ruddygore, how does it happen that your girl has one of his rings in her nose?”

  He’d thought long and hard about that question. “I haven’t the vaguest idea,” he responded. “And I’m afraid you’d have to ask her original owner in Hell. I had no idea whose it was, only that she’s mine now.”

  “Ah, that explains it, then. The old fart always was a real hypocrite. Have you ever met him?”

  “Once, my lord. He was an impressive sort of man, as I recall.”

  “Indeed he can be that. He could have ruled all Husaquahr and probably would have, had he not that trick of escaping into the Other World for his pleasures. It diverted him from greatness into moralizing and preaching, only it is he who determined what is good or bad according to his present moods. To him, this is all just a game, and everyone other than himself is just a game piece, to be toyed with, played with, even sacrificed. He is so ancient now and has played these games so long that he plays now for the game’s sake, without any goals or purposes in mind. I could never accept that sort of thinking. One plays a game to win. Don’t you agree?”

  “I do not fight to lose, my lord,” he responded.

  Sugasto laughed. “Well said! Ah—I know your stomach may feel its bruises, but will you risk lunch with me?”

  “In truth, sir, I feel like a starving man.”

  They went to a huge tent pavilion where a galley had been set up. It was full of officers when they arrived, but, to the mutual amusement of Joe and Sugasto, almost all of them miraculously finished eating and got out of there when they entered.

  “Now that’s the fun of it.” The sorcerer chuckled. “If your own side isn’t terrified of you, what right have you to expect that your enemies will be?” He paused, then stared straight at Joe. “But you’re not scared of me, are you?”

  “There is fear, which is unreasoned, and that I do not have,” Joe lied. “But there is also respect, which is both reasoned and earned, and that I have for you in great abundance.”

  The answer really pleased the man in black. “You are delightful! In truth, sir, you are the first nonmagical human being I have been able to talk to like this in years! Ah, let us eat. Take care, sir, that your stomach not rebel, but eat with confidence. Either my armies eat only the best or they eat the cooks!”

  “My stomach has survived worse than a bad piece of meat,” Joe responded. “I will not let it cheat me of a decent meal.”

  Sugasto laughed. He looked over at Mia. “Girl, come over and sit on the ground beside me here a bit.”

  Mia looked nervously at Joe, who nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Yes, Master,” she responded, and went around to Sugasto’s side of the table.

  It was unusual for a sorcerer, male or female, to take much interest in sex except as another, sometimes required, tool of the trade. Joe couldn’t figure out whether that was it, or whether it was the personal slave concept itself that turned the man on. It might just have been that, having had Boquillas around in Mahalo’s body for so long, he just wanted a woman around who was always respectful, obeyed orders, and kept her mouth shut. Joe could see by Mia’s eyes that she was far too terrified to have such thoughts herself.

  The meal was not merely good, but excellent, and Joe had to wonder if this sort of fare was what the officers usually got. Somehow, the day the general showed up for inspection, you always got filet mignon instead of old army boot.

  “So you are on your way to Tsipry,” Sugasto said over wine. “A pilgrimage, of sorts, I take it?”

  Joe nodded. “Yes, sir. I have funds at the moment, I have no pressing need of employment, and I always promised myself that I would do it. I have no memories of it that I can call true and I want to see it once.”

  “That’s in the Upper Lakes district, if I remember,” the sorcerer replied. “Cold up there, even this time of year. With summer waning, autumn on its way, and the need to divert resources, I’ve been playing with a little spell. Boquillas worked it out for our own people, but it’s rather simple, once you know it. It insulates against weather, sort of in the same way much fairy flesh does it for them, yet, like them, you can’t see it or know it’s there. The only problem is, it seals in what is there as well, so you can’t add much of anything, either, and it plays hob with hair. Not practical for most people, I fear, but slaves like your girl, here, are perfect. We’re going to distribute it and have all the slaves treated this way. It dispenses with the need for those idiotic hafiids even in subzero cold and for sun protection in the tropics, reducing the cost to food alone. With your permission, I’ll do you a favor.”

  Joe could hardly refuse in any event. He watched as the sorcerer turned the kneeling Mia toward him, then made a few hand passes and ran his hands over some of her body at a very slight distance.

  “There,” Sugasto said. “Now, within the normal extremes of nature, she’s as protected as a nymph. Just keep her like this and all you’ll need do is feed her. In fact, you’ll have to. As our experiments with this on some of our undead show, the spell rejects anything not within its field. Otherwise, there are no side effects. A little gift, in hopes that once you make you
r pilgrimage, you’ll return and sign on with us.” He snapped his fingers and the Bentar aide, who had not eaten—they were, if Joe remembered right, eaters of carrion and sometimes freshly killed prey—snapped to attention.

  “Give me some paper and a stylus,” the sorcerer instructed, and it was quickly gotten. Sugasto scribbled something on the paper, then made a pass over it. The writing, which, although in the ideographic Husaquahrian alphabet, had been rather primitive scrawls actually seemed to wriggle around on the page as if composed of tiny snakes, forming then absolutely perfect characters that looked like woodcuts. He made another pass, and Joe recognized the seal of Hypboreya when it faded in in sort of a gray color. The paper was then handed to Joe.

  “Take that with you,” the sorcerer told him. “It is a safe conduct good for sixty days throughout my realm. It should ease problems in travel and make things easier. It will also get you better food, I suspect. After that, I hope we will learn that you have joined us completely. I believe we can offer a very high commission to one like you. You could wind up a military governor someday. I wish I could offer you quick passage to the Lakes, but little goes to and from that area, and we have other needs.”

  “I thank you, my lord, for your extreme, unexpected, and unwarranted generosity,” he responded, hardly able to contain himself. This was better than he could have hoped. “I admit, though, to looking longingly at one of the flying horses you have. Why weren’t they in our old battles?”

  “The pegasus? They’re tough to tame, hard to ride, and fragile as all hell. There’s less there than meets the eye. They wouldn’t last minutes in a battle. We use them to speed orders and maintain communications links around the empire. They’re not good for much more. Sorry—there’s only two in this entire military district.”

  “I was not trying to impose, just commenting.”

  “Well, I understand. It’s a long, long way to Tsipry,” he noted. “Now, it has been a genuine pleasure, sir. I have much to attend to and you must excuse me, but I feel certain that we will meet again.”