by Lionel Fenn
"All I wanted to do," Gideon yelled, "was change my sister back into a woman again. Is that so much to ask? And what do I get, huh? What do I get for something so simple a stupid child could do it in his sleep? I get attacked by real dragons, phony dragons, man-eating cows, porcupines that look like eels, spiders that look like beetles, giants, women, ivy, cats, and a goddamned volcano!" He glowered, he poked the spit at Thong's stomach, he shook the bat at Chou-Li, and he saw against the near wall Botham bound and gagged next to Red, who was lying on his side with his eyes closed. "And what the hell happened to them, for Christ's sake?"
No one answered.
The volcano rumbled.
Then Thong shrugged her indifference. "They got in the way, that's all. They are not dead either."
"Wake them up," he ordered.
"I cannot."
Wondering why the hell he had to do everything himself, he stalked over to the blacksmith and sliced the ropes away with the spit, reached for the gag when the man stirred, and changed his mind; he didn't need the man going on about his lover just now. Not ever, if the truth be known, but all things considered that was too much to hope for.
Then he knelt beside the unmoving lorra; Red was still alive, but there was a nasty swelling between his eyes that suggested a sharp blow from a blunt instrument. There was no blood that he could see, however, and he stroked the silken hair for several seconds, whispering, encouraging, finally leaning away and taking a breath. A look over his shoulder brought Abber running; a nod had the grey man working feverishly and in silence; a grunt as he stood again and stared at the sisters, who had been whispering to each other behind upraised palms.
He started toward them.
Thong looked from Chou-Li to him and back again.
Chou-Li looked from Thong to him and back again.
Grahne took out her dagger and tapped it thoughtfully against her lips.
"I want to know," Gideon said, "what you've done to the soil in Chey."
"Nothing," Thong said.
"Not much, anyway," Chou-Li amended.
"I want to know what you did and how to stop it," he said. "Don't waste my time. Just tell me."
They shook their heads.
"If you don't tell me, I'll kill you."
"If you kill us," Thong said smugly, "then you won't know and you will not be able to stop it."
"I'll find a way."
Chou-Li laughed merrily. "Never, hero. Even if you threaten me with bodily harm and illicit delights, you will never learn how to stop it. And besides, it's too late."
He stopped.
Thong nodded her agreement. "By now, all is gone. Ruined. Dead. And it is ours."
Gideon slipped the spit into his waistband, pulled it out quickly, and slipped it under his belt. "If it's dead, as you claim and I don't believe you anyway, why do you want it?"
The sisters exchanged ominous chuckles.
"Lu," said Thong simply.
"Oh, wow, the Wamchu?" Grahne said, awed now by the powers of darkness with which she was faced. "The big guy with the blond hair?"
"The very same," Thong told her. "Although he is not as big as he looks. It is the black clothes and that ridiculous cloak and the heels on his boots."
"Wait a minute," Gideon said.
"Red would be more effective," Abber called, his work on the lorra yet unfinished.
"He prefers the black. He says it fits his coloring."
"Well, I think black is spooky," Grahne said. "You wear black and no one can see you at night, right?"
"Hey," Gideon said, glaring at Grahne to shut her up, glaring at the sisters to remind them they were being held at bat-point to discuss the future of the world, not the fashions of a villain.
"I cannot see him at any time," Thong said in disgust. A blush tinted her cheeks. "But that is now changed. Now we are in control, and we will not be denied."
"What," Gideon said, "does he have to say?"
The cackling that filled the cavern made his heart think twice before beating again.
"That two-timing freak," Chou-Li spat, "will not know how fragile his position is until he has lost it. And then we will be the rulers of Choy. We will have the power. We will decide who shall live and who shall die."
"Really?" He smiled mirthlessly at Grahne, who smiled back and blew him a kiss. "And what about Agnes? You remember Agnes, I hope. Wamchu's third wife?"
"It is too late for her, too," Thong said, though Chou-Li allowed herself a shudder of brief doubt. "Soon, all this will be ours, do you understand, hero? Ours!"
"That's silly!" Grahne said in restrained pique.
The sisters turned toward her as one, and for a moment Gideon thought they were going to charbroil and fast-freeze her before she took another breath. But Grahne's indignation evidently amused them too much, and they returned their attention to him and became grim.
"Enough," Thong said.
"I agree," Chou-Li said.
"Blue isn't bad either," Abber called over his shoulder. "A little soft, but pleasant to look at, don't you think?"
"Prepare to die, hero," Thong said, and lifted her palms, on which he could see swirls and sparks building fast to a boil.
"Whoa!" he said.
The fireballs gathered.
"No," he said, shaking his head and wondering where he had lost the advantage.
"And why not?" Thong asked, her lips apart in a humorless grin that recalled Socrates' expression just after he'd taken his last drink.
Gideon looked to Chou-Li and pleaded silently with her.
Chou-Li only smiled. "Do it, sister," she whispered. "Do it now. Slowly."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gideon, who had had just about enough drama, action, and wrenching emotion for one day, stared at Chou-Li's premature betrayal in disbelief. "Well, damnit," he said. "I thought we had a deal."
She nodded. "We did."
"And?"
"I have not gone back on my word."
"My arms are getting tired," Thong said.
"The hell you haven't," he argued heatedly, not bothering to remind her that she hadn't given him her word at all, not exactly, though her agreement was so close in his mind as to be one and the same.
"You must remember," she said calmly, "that you were going to tell me when you were going to trick me so that I could trick you first."
"That's right," he said, feeling righteously indignant.
"Nice," Thong muttered.
"Then how can you complain, little hero, if I am keeping to our agreement? That does not make sense, even from a Wamchu's point of view."
"The volcano was ready to blow again," he said sourly. "We didn't have time to worry about the finer points."
"You should have thought of that before."
"I just said I didn't have time, didn't I?" Christ, he thought; think fast, Sunday, or you're tomorrow's frozen dinner.
"Time is of no concern to us now."
"But damnit—"
"My arms are falling off," Thong complained. "Do I use them or not, sister?"
"Keep out of this," he snapped, and turned back to Chou-Li. "Look, time or not, fine points or not, we made a deal, and I think you ought to stick to your end of the bargain."
"But I am," she said.
"You are? How?"
"Well," she said, "as it happens, I decided to trick you first so that when you decided to trick me by not telling me when you were going to trick me, I would not have a problem trying to find out when you were going to trick me."
A low growling and a stamping of hooves told him Red had finally come around and had gotten to his feet. A muffled curse told him Abber had had the sense to keep Botham's gag on.
"My arms," Thong said impatiently.
"That's a dirty trick," he said.
Chou-Li nodded.
"But Jesus, woman, you just can't—"
Suddenly, the massive skull and horns of a spiritually departed benst appeared over Thong's head. Before she could react to
the amazement in Gideon's eyes, it crashed down, shattered, and sent her sprawling to the cavern floor.
Chou-Li immediately whirled around with a fierce look that sent Jimm Horrn slamming into the wall, his hair contorted to upside-down icicles, his face lightly coated with pale grey frost. The diversion, however, enabled Gideon to shake off his fear and bring the bat to bear. She backed away immediately, hissing and spitting, her fingers hooked into claws, the silk of her blue dress rippling with agitation.
"The spell," he demanded. "I don't want to hurt you, so just tell me how to undo the spell you've cast on Chey."
"I don't fear you," she said.
"The spell!" he said again. "There's nothing you can do now, not against all of us."
Then he closed his eyes and thought, shit, you and your big mouth.
Chou-Li measured the anger and potential capabilities of his friends, sneered, and narrowed her eyes, with a sharp wave of her arms instantly locking herself and Gideon within a vast, white, translucent shell in which snow swarmed in a furious blizzard, in which the air itself felt like the brittle first ice of autumn, and outside of which a puzzled Grahne and an infuriated Red circled helplessly, butting and kicking and pounding on the barrier with screams and roars that he barely heard; to Gideon, they were little more than shadows, and with no more promise of assistance than any shadow could give.
The shadow within, however, was real enough, solid enough, deadly enough.
He had no idea how she had done it, whether this was a real shell and storm from her arsenal of spells or another one of her psychic illusions, which were real in their own way, without need of explanation. But it didn't matter. They were here, and they were alone, and he knew even if he hadn't read any books that only one of them was going to leave this place alive.
Chou-Li's vote was obvious; he only hoped he would have a chance to confound the odds and return to the cavern where the fire was still burning.
Slowly, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the dim light whose source he could not locate though it appeared to come from the storm itself, he turned to look for Chou-Li. With a hand he waved the flakes from in front of his face, then pressed it against his brow in an ineffectual shade. He sneezed. He felt the bat's handle grow warm in his hand. He took a few steps forward and froze when he saw her.
Through the spinning, stinging snow she was circling warily, her eyes sparkling with delight, her lips dark and quivering; nimbly she dodged a swing of the bat when he lunged, dodged again the other way when he tried a clumsy backhand, laughed and shook her head, and burned his shoulder with a lance of bitter cold.
After several minutes during which he estimated the size of the shell's arctic arena as somewhat closer to the Great Plains before the onset of civilization as he knew it than to his living room at home, he stopped chasing her. It was futile and frustrating, and he was as much out of his element here as she would be in a steam bath.
She sneaked up behind him and froze his left sideburn.
He whirled and caught a flap of her dress with the tip of the bat, blackening it and making her cry out in anger.
He permitted himself a brief smile; if he could remain patient before he froze to death, he might be able to surprise her and pull it off. Of course, she'd be dead and wouldn't know it save for that one moment when she would know it, just before she died.
He smiled a second time, whirled when she tried to get his other sideburn, and scorched the hemline in back.
When she backed away, he followed; when she moved faster, so did he; when she raced into the clouds of snow, he raced after her and fell, got up, and fell again, got up and wondered why it was so damned hard to breathe.
She stood quite still in the midst of the contained storm, taunting him until his temper broke and he chased her, slid and skated, and finally skidded to a halt.
Dumb, he thought, dumb.
He gasped, panted, tried to keep himself from shuddering as the cold intensified; he stumbled and nearly fell, righted himself with the bat's blunt end, and staggered away from the roaring steam that rose in a dense cloud from the floor; and when he saw her again, he felt a weight lowering onto his shoulders, along the length of his spine, across the width of his hips. A weight he had experienced once before. But this time there was no Lu Wamchu to call her off and spare him.
He swung the bat again, feebly.
Chou-Li laughed, and the snow fell harder, the wind screamed and rebounded off the barrier's walls.
He could feel it then—the pressure inside, the dry and vampiric cold that crept through his mind and numbed the orders to his legs, to his arms, to his hand that dropped the bat; the cold that deepened and began to burn, scorching his flesh from the inside out as his blood began to boil and his lungs began to tear and his knees finally gave way and he fell with a whimper.
Then the pressure eased, and he rolled onto his back, gulping for air and swallowing the tears, shifting to his side to see her dancing between the flakes that stung his face like wind-blown sparks from a fire without flame.
She laughed.
He rolled to his hands and knees.
She came up behind him and kicked him hard on the rump, sending him sprawling onto his chest and curling into a ball in case she tried for his groin.
And the cold as she toyed with him; always the cold, and the wind, and the snow that clung to his shirt and jeans and made the soles of his boots slick and finally promised him in gentle whispers a weariness that was far better than what he experienced now, far better because he could escape it by sleeping. Just sleeping, nothing more, and there would be no more pain.
With a groan, he rose and kneeled.
A jagged piece of ice sliced across his cheek.
Another struck his head and sent him down again.
The cold. He couldn't stand the cold and he didn't want to sleep and if she didn't stop her laughing he was going to tear out her throat.
She kicked him again, in the side. He rolled into the steam and over his bat. He gasped and grabbed it tightly, held it to his chest, and closed his eyes to the warmth that was too warm, too stinging, and he swayed to his feet while the wind took the steam and turned it to snow.
"You will not stop me," she taunted, crooking a finger at him and winking grotesquely.
He had no strength to answer.
She set the pressure on him again, driving him instantly to his knees, where he pressed his forehead against the bat's handle and squeezed his eyes shut against the cold ache within and the warm ache without.
And a second time she released him, her laughter no longer mocking but cruelly promising, and the best he could do as the snow thickened and the wind increased was grasp his weapon in his right hand and hurl it as hard as he could in her direction.
She seemed to sidestep it easily, but the wind spun it into a wheel and the knob slammed against her shoulder. She screamed and fell, writhed on the ground, and grabbed her upper arm. Gideon wanted to run, could only crawl to her, pick the bat up, and hold it over her like a spear.
She begged him with doe-like blue eyes that turned the shell's storm into a vow of eternal spring; she threatened him as she tried to sit up with a disdainful sneer and a baring of her suddenly sharpened teeth; she tried to bargain with him by reminding him how snugly her silk dress fit over her hips, her chest, and how easily it could be torn from her had he the will and the courage.
He shook his head.
She reached for his throat.
And he drove the end of the bat into her stomach.
—|—
The storm howled as he pulled the bat free.
Chou-Li howled louder as her hands groped over and into the cauterized hole in her midsection.
Gideon shuddered and turned away, ducked his head against the wind, and hoped she wasn't going to take too long to die.
She didn't.
Less than a minute after her carefully wrought plans for world domination had been punctured full of holes, she gave a lusty gasp
, a strangled cry, and expired with the name of her husband on her lips; when he turned back there was nothing left but a shard of blue silk that made an obscene gesture before it vanished as well.
Then the storm died, the snow melted, and the shell disappeared before he could get up on his feet to search for the way out.
—|—
Not giving a damn for heroics, he passed out.
He dreamed that a duck was licking his face and a lorra with huge wings was fanning his cheeks.
There was no sign of Ivy, so he decided he might as well knock it off and wake up.
—|—
"Tell me," he said to his sister, "that this is all a dream, it's really Halloween, and you're going trick-or-treating with your Hollywood friends in a duck suit."
"It's Halloween," she said, "and I'm going trick-or-treating in a duck suit with my Hollywood friends."
"Thank you," he said, and kissed her beak.
"I lied."
—|—
He was propped against the cavern wall, a fur blanket over his legs, the bat at his side. There were puddles all over the floor, and Red was going from one to another trying to find something decent to drink. Tuesday was on his left side, Grahne on his right, and Abber was sitting by the fire with Jimm, eating benst ribs and humming.
"God," Gideon said, and covered his face with his hands.
"She's dead," Tuesday said.
He nodded, rubbed his eyes and his cheeks, and lowered his hands to his lap. "I think so, anyway. She certainly looked dead in there. Jesus, it was horrible."
Grahne was too overcome to speak; she could only pat his leg and look at him with an expression incestuously akin to worship as she flipped her hair nervously back and forth over her shoulders.
"Are you all right?" he asked the duck.
She snapped her beak once. "A headache, that's all. Those dragons hit first and ask questions later. God, are they ugly!"
A chill struck him like lightning and he pulled the blanket to his chin, waiting for his teeth to stop chattering. "You should have come inside," he scolded lightly.
