The River Of Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  They were about the size of four or five month old babies and looked very chubbily babyish, but their eyes were large and old, and they hovered there, a few feet above his head, on tiny, rapidly beating, white wings.

  “Oooo look! He’s naked!” one of them squealed in a playful child’s voice.

  He relaxed and felt a little rush of anger. “So are you,” he retorted.

  “Yeah, but it don’t bother us none,” the small creature said.

  “It kinda bothers you, though, don’t it?”

  “Not for the likes of you” he shot back, then paused a moment. “Uh, just who and what are you, anyway?”

  “Gosh, ain’t you never heard of cherubs before?” one of them asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

  He thought a moment. “Little angels or something, if I remember. You two look like Cupid.”

  They both giggled. “That’s sorta right. I dunno ‘bout the angel part, though. Cupids, though, we been called before.”

  A sudden fright seized him. “You’re not gonna shoot me with love arrows, are you?”

  They both giggled again. “Love arrows? That’s rich. That’s a good one! We don’t need no arrows to play with you mortals.”

  The speaking cherub paused, thought a moment, then said, a playful smile on his lips, “You’re such a big, strong guy. Bet you ain’t scared of nothin’f”

  He frowned. As a matter of fact, he did feel a sudden wrongness, a sudden, nameless fear. Trusting his instincts, he looked around, the feeling getting stronger and stronger. He felt suddenly trapped between the river and... what? The trees!

  The trees were something else! Something plotting to snare him! He had to get out fast.

  Without a second thought, propelled only by the rising, unreasoning fear, he bolted through the thin line of trees back onto the open plain. Once in the clear, away from those menacing trees, he collapsed on the ground, sweating hard and shaking slightly.

  The two cherubs flew out from the trees, laughing uproariously, and approached him. He needed only the smallest glance at them and at their expressions to know he’d been had.

  “You did that to me!” he accused.

  “Awwww... Big, bad barbarian scared of a couple of trees,” one of the sprites jeered mockingly.

  He leaped angrily to his feet, wishing he had some kind of weapon. A stone, anything. Common sense told him that these two, flitting around like hummingbirds, would just play with him if he tried to nab them bare handed.

  Suddenly he remembered his big stick, and was almost surprised to see that he was still carrying it. Taking aim, trying to get control of himself and not telegraph his intent, he looked at the two.

  “Wow!” one of the cherubs exclaimed. “You’re real brave, mister, if you keep holding onto that thing there. It will eat your arm off in a minute!”

  Abruptly the unreasoning fear filled him once again, and with a yell he flung away the stick, which was, indeed, still a stick. They had outguessed him.

  Frustration overcame anger. Less than an hour into the contest, he was already defeated by two sorcerous sprites. “What are you going to do? Torture me all day?”

  “Gosh, no,” one of them replied. “It’s just kinda, well, you know, irresistible.”

  A sudden suspicion hit him. “Did somebody from Terindell send you?”

  They both giggled. “Naw. Nobody sends us no place. But we did kinda get the word that you’d be around.”

  He sighed “I should have known. I suppose everybody between here and there will be on the lookout for me. I knew it was too easy.”

  “Probably, if we got the word,” one of the sprites agreed.

  They looked identical, and it was impossible to tell one from the other. “So you’re in a lotta deep mud, huh?”

  He thought about it. “Could be. But if you’ll let me go, at least I’ll have a crack at it.”

  “Let you go?” One giggled, then flexed a tiny arm. “How are we gonna stop you?”

  “You know how,” he grumbled. “Don’t rub it in. I’m a match for any other man, I think, but I can’t fight magic.”

  “Hey! Well, then, maybe we should go along with you for a while,” one said. “Maybe help you out on that score.”

  “Um. Thanks but no, thanks. Nothing personal, you understand, but you might just get it into your little heads to play some more with me, too.”

  “Hmph! Just for that we will come along. How’re you gonna stop us?”

  “Yeah,” the other one agreed. “We could make you want us, but it’s more fun this way.”

  He sighed. “All right, all right. Maybe you can help at that.

  That is the River of Dancing Gods over there?”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s what all the mortals call it, anyway,” a cherub told him.

  “So Terindell is about fifty miles downstream, then, as I figured,” he said, thinking out loud. “All right. Let’s get going.”

  He hesitated a moment. “I can’t keep calling you ‘hey, you’ if you’re tagging along. You have names?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m Ba’el. He’s Lo’al.”

  Joe gave the trees a nervous glance, then started back for them, not going in but walking along on the plains side. “Okay, Ba’el. You called me a mortal. Does that mean you’re immortal?”

  “Sorta,” Ba’el admitted, sounding uncomfortable. “If you mean growin’ old and croaking, nope. But if we’re not careful, we can get zapped by somethin’ hungry or by sorcery.”

  “You’re both males?”

  They giggled. “That don’t mean nothin’ to us. We got no sex. That’s probably why we find it so much fun to watch you folks.”

  Joe stopped a moment. “If that’s true, how do you reproduce?”

  “We don’t,” Lo’al told him. “Gee, you’re awful ignorant.

  Everybody knows we come from the egg of the tardris flower.

  Where you from, anyway, barbarian?”

  He sighed. “Another world,” he replied. “Another time.”

  Once they decided to tag along, he was almost glad of them, although a bit wary. They seemed intellectually adult but emotionally infantile and easily distracted. He worried mostly about their getting bored enough to start playing tricks with his emotions again. Still, it made sense, particularly when he got out of them that a tardris laid just one egg and then sheltered the cherub at night. A new cherub was born only to replace one that did not return in the evening, thus keeping the population stable. The plant itself was almost immortal, it seemed, and it was well known that anyone cutting or harming one would die as it did, so the plants were tolerated where they grew, along lakes and rivers.

  The cherubs’ tie to their parent flower also heartened him a bit. He wasn’t sure of their range, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t go that far from their home, particularly when Lo’al let slip that they ate only inside the flower, fed by a fluid it manufactured. They were far too chubby to go long between meals.

  The day grew warmer as the sun rose in the sky; within a couple of hours, it was really hot. So far he’d seen or heard no other intelligent beings save his two cherubs, although occasionally in the distance, either from the river or from across the plains, he could hear the sounds of humans calling or yelling or doing something or other.

  It occurred to him, though, that going right along the river was exactly what they’d expect him to do. The cherubs were merely a small nuisance, but they’d already shown how impotent he was against such as they. Certainly Terindell’s nasty little minds had more challenges ahead, particularly if he kept to the course he was now taking.

  Still, if he was to leave the river, he’d need something as a guide. Remembering the map, he recalled that the main road that led from the provincial capital of Machang to Terdiera and Terindell ran down the middle of the little “neck” of Valisandra.

  The road, he decided, would be much safer until he was closer to the castle.

  The cherubs were unhappy at his decision, but didn’t put u
p as much of a fuss as he’d anticipated. He got the distinct feeling that they were already bored with him.

  He headed southeast across the plain, glad to be rid of the threat his two companions had posed, and began an easy run.

  He knew it might be a long distance before he sighted the road, maybe fifteen or twenty miles, but the detour would be worth it. Still, he hoped that he would find some place where he could beg, borrow, or steal at least something to use for a loincloth and some food. It had been a long time since he’d eaten. He also found himself wondering how perfect Eden could have been if Adam had to go to the bathroom the same way as he did. He felt grubby, hungry, and thirsty, and he was ready to do about anything to solve those problems.

  About a half hour inland, he came upon a small lake with some bushes but no tree cover. There were a few birds about, but no animals that he could see, save a couple of long homed cows drinking by the far side.

  He looked at the water suspiciously, but there didn’t seem to be much of a film and it looked pretty clear. Certainly it looked worth risking a drink and, perhaps, a cleansing swim.

  He knelt down by the side of the pond, noting that things were so perfect he was almost looking directly into a mirror.

  He studied his reflection for a moment, still unable to get used to it, then leaned down to sip. The water tasted fresh and clear, amazingly so for such a small pond in such an isolated plain.

  The water rippled where he’d broken it, then slowly settled and re formed once more into his image. But it was not only his image he saw.

  He turned, both startled and embarrassed, to see a beautiful woman standing behind him, fully one of the most beautiful and voluptuous women he’d ever seen. She was also as totally naked as he, which didn’t stave off his initial embarrassed feelings one bit.

  “Oh, I’m sorry I startled you,” she said in a soft, musical voice. “I so seldom get visitors here that I often forget politeness.”

  He gulped. “Uh, um, I’m sorry myself. I didn’t know this was anybody’s land.”

  She laughed. “Oh, it’s not my land. It is my pond. I am Irium.”

  He hesitated a moment, trying to sort it out. For the first time it penetrated that her skin was a pale bluish green, much like the waters of the pond itself. Aside from that and a bit of webbing between her fingers and toes, though, she looked extremely human.

  “Uh your pond? he said questioningly. Something inside him rejected all considerations of her color, webbing, or anything else. She was beautiful... gorgeous... nothing else in the world mattered but her. Considering his nakedness, his emotions were pretty hard to hide from her.

  She smiled at him, and he melted completely. “It’s so nice to see someone again. Few ever venture this way these days except cows, and they are poor company.”

  With that she moved in and closed with him, and all he could think of was her. He didn’t even realize that, as she clung to him, she was also edging him close to and then into the cool pond. Waist deep, then still going in, now neck deep.

  “Hold!” The shout was a woman’s voice, icy, cutting, and commanding. “Bring him to me or, by Sathanas and Doharic, you shall have no pond at all!”

  The threat caused the blue green beauty to hesitate; then slowly, still without his realizing what was happening, they rose to the surface and moved as if on currents of force back toward the shore.

  He was aware only that somebody was butting in, coming between him and consummation with Irium, and this angered him. He let loose his grip from his lady love and turned to see a handsome, striking woman, dressed in long slit skirt and faded brown blouse, standing there, holding a crooked stick of some kind out toward them. “Go away!” he shouted at her.

  “We don’t need you!”

  “We don’t, but you do,” the stranger responded coldly. Her brow furrowed, and she seemed to be looking beyond just his physical appearance. It was done in a flash, but she nodded to herself. “You have been victimized by some mischievous cherubs who almost killed you.” She made a sign in the air, and he felt a sudden deep chill shoot through him. He turned again to his newfound lady love and screamed in horror, pushing away from her and scrambling, splashing all the way, to the nearby land.

  The beauty who had so smitten him was a beauty no more, but an ugly, hideous thing, the stuff of long rotted corpses.

  “Flee, wicked sprite of the water, for you shall not have him!” his rescuer called, and the rotting thing gave a gurgling cry and vanished beneath the waters of the pond.

  Satisfied, the newcomer approached him as he lay gasping on the beach and looked down on him with a mixture of scom and contempt. Although a beauty herself, she exuded a strong, confident, powerful aura that was unmistakable. This was a woman used to command.

  “Wha what was it?” he gasped.

  “A water sprite. She got trapped in here during a major hurricane and flood, and there’s been no getting rid of her.

  She’s really pretty much of an incompetent, anyway she was rushing to drown you without even the preliminaries. You wouldn’t have been such an easy mark if you didn’t have that spell cast on you.”

  He sighed. “Those bastards. Couldn’t resist a parting shot.”

  She shrugged. “It is their nature. They are so childlike they probably don’t even remember you now.” She looked down and sighed. “Well, you’re a real mess. Pick yourself up and come with me. You look as if you could use a meal.”

  He got up, suddenly conscious of some aches and bruises, and followed her meekly.

  Her farm wasn’t far away, and it looked very pretty and well tended.

  The farmhouse itself was set in an isolated grove of trees, r but all around, the land had been cleared and tilled. Over in the far fields he could see large animals, perhaps oxen, pulling plows apparently by themselves. Other animals turned irrigation wheels, while over in an uncultivated pasture cows grazed.

  Animals, he realized, didn’t work without supervision under normal circumstances, but this strange woman had already proved herself a witch or sorceress of some son. He owed her his life, so he decided not to comment or pry.

  The farmhouse was a simple wooden affair with a thatched roof, but it had a good hardwood floor and seemed pretty cozy inside. It was clear, though, that the woman lived alone.

  He was acutely aware of his nakedness once more and apologized for it, but she just laughed it away. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen a lot in my life, and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

  If it bothers you, I suppose I could rig up something, but it would take time. Just sit over there, relax, and I’ll see about getting you something to eat.”

  He sank wearily into the wooden chair offered, finally feeling a little bit more human again. She went into another room and returned with a bunch of home baked pastries, bread, fresh butter, and a jug of cold milk. “This will at least get you started,” she told him, sitting down opposite. He noticed that she never let go of the strange, crooked walking stick she carried, although she didn’t seem to need it and hadn’t used it at all to support herself. “So,” she asked, “how’d you happen to be around the old pond, anyway?”

  He sighed. “I’m a little new to everything around here, it seems.” Quickly, as he wolfed down the bread and pastries, he told her of having been brought from his own world by Ruddygore, then trained and tested. She nodded, taking it all in.

  When he’d finished, she said, “The old boy’s off his block, bringing in outsiders. Nothing personal, but from what you’ve told me just today, you’re no match for Husaquahr. Here most humans fall into two classes: the majority the bulk, reallywho do all the work in exchange for protection from all the magical forces around them; and the few who are smart enough or lucky enough to have the power, so they don’t fear those forces. The few others like you, adventurers and misfits, mostly, who wander around getting into trouble, were born into this world and know their way around the magic and the politics.

  You can’t be taught that
kind of thing you have to grow up with all this. And even if it’s true that Hell can’t handle you which I most sincerely doubt it makes no difference. The sorcery of Husaquahr alone is enough to do you in, in ten minutes on your own.”

  “After this morning, I have to agree with you,” he admitted.

  “Still, what choice do I have? I go along with it or I don’t and if I can’t make it on my own in a simple thing like this, how could I make it on my own anyplace around here?” He sighed. “Brawn and common sense, they told me. Well, my brawn hasn’t done me much good, and I’ve shown very little common sense today, for all the good it will do me.”

  “I think you know you could be of little use to Ruddygore, for all I care of his troubles, but you might be just what I need right now. Come with me outside for a moment.” She got up and went out the door, and he followed, curious.

  She gestured with the crooked stick. “You see the farm here. It runs itself, pretty much. Animals are my field of study and my life. Everything I require is produced right here. The locals steer clear of this place, which is why our friend in the pond over there has so few victims. But there are certain husbandry problems I have. Chickens need roosters to lay regular eggs. Cows need a bull to keep the milk flowing. I lost my prize bull the other day to a stupid accident.”

  He nodded, wondering where she was leading.

  “Tell me have you ever heard of Circe?”

  He thought a moment, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “The legends have Circe as a person, a sorceress. Actually, it is a place. An island, far from Husaquahr. An enchanted island, inhabited entirely by a race of women.”

  “I seem to remember some old stories of places where only women lived,” he told her. “Seems to me they’d die out after a while.”