The River Of Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  Macore rode up beside him and pulled out the map of the region. “We’ll have to cross the Rossignol east of Terdiera,”

  he pointed out. “That’s the only bridge for a hundred miles, and it wouldn’t do to backtrack any more than we have to.”

  Joe shrugged. “So? What’s the problem?”

  “Trolls,” the little thief replied, a sense of distaste in his tone. “Damn them. Only really decent bridge builders in Husaquahr.”

  Joe gave another shrug, and they started off, enjoying the early morning air. As they rode through a not yet open Terdiera, Joe looked around for familiar places and faces and saw more of the former than the latter. Early risers stopped to gape at the five riding through the town center, and particularly at their leader, who thought he looked pretty good in his loincloth and trucker’s hat.

  On the other side of town they departed from the main road, down a narrow side street that quickly became a dirt track when it left the town behind, going down to the river. It was a fairly well traveled path, to judge from the deep ruts and gouges in the road, but there was nobody on it this early in the day.

  The bridge was nothing fancy, but still was impressive engineering for the technology of Husaquahr. A wooden structure supported by thick pylons made from the trunks of hardwood trees, it stretched the thousand yards or more from shore to shore and even curved up in the center to allow barges to pass under. The channel was not wide but was fairly deep. The bridge, also, wasn’t very wide they would have to pass single file to feel safe, since there were no guardrails or other safety devices or guides.

  “Whew! I’d hate to have to drive a wagon and team across that thing,” Grogha noted. “I’m not too sure I feel thrilled riding it now.”

  “The bridge is perfectly safe if you don’t panic but just go straight,” Macore assured them. “However, this is no free ride.

  See!” He pointed and they all looked.

  The sign contained a series of pictographs and accompanying very formal looking text, the former for the mostly illiterate locals, the latter for the unwary traveler who, being most likely a trade or political figure, would be able to read and needed a more detailed explanation. The sign’s pictures fascinated them: Joe frowned. “Now what the hell does that mean?”

  “Dacaro is reading the sign to me now,” Marge told him, but it was Macore who spoke up first.

  “That’s standard picture writing,” he explained. “It says, ‘STOP! PAY TROLL! Pedestrians one chicken each, horse and rider one pig, wagons and drivers one pig per axle or one cow for the whole load.’ What did you expect? It is a trollbridge, after all.”

  Joe looked quizzically at Marge, who nodded. “That’s what the writing says, according to Dacaro, except that the text adds, ‘Or equivalent.’“

  “Pretty steep,” Grogha noted.

  Joe looked at Macore. “So what do we do? We don’t exactly have a barnyard handy.”

  “I’m not sure I like that live pig business,” Grogha added nervously.

  “Oh, you’re not a pig any more,” Houma scolded. “You’d probably be worth a whole wagon as you are.”

  Macore looked back at Marge. “You’re the keeper of the treasury. You have those silver coins Ruddygore gave us?”

  She nodded, reached down on her saddle pack, and removed a heavy sack. “How much will we need?”

  “Well, if a pig’s the fare, we need five pigs. That’d be about eleven of those coins at today’s prices, I think but I’m a little out of touch. May as well go down and find out.” He turned to Joe. “Now don’t panic or start swingin’ that sword when the troll comes up,” he warned. “They’re liars and crooks and really nasty, but even if we took the one or two on this side, they’d have us on the bridge. Better to pay.”

  Joe just shook his head sadly. “Yeah, I know. I’m used to these things.”

  They went down to the bridge itself. There was no structure or sign of life or authority anywhere around, which puzzled Joe. “What’s the matter? They not up yet?”

  At that moment there was a great roaring sound from beneath the bridge, and the water erupted. A gigantic blue creature climbed out, covered in woolly hair, with two enormous eyes and a teeth filled mouth that went the two foot width of the eerie, vicious face.

  The creature looked at the Company hungrily for a moment, then said, in a voice much like an angry bear’s, “You wanna cross?”

  “Why else would we be here at this ungodly hour?” Macore shot back, sounding totally unintimidated. “Five horses and riders. How much in coin?”

  The creature looked over the people waiting and licked its lips with a huge purple tongue. “I’ll take two of the horses and you can all go,” it suggested.

  “Uh uh. No horses. We have a long way to go. Coin. How much?”

  “Twenty five for the lot.”

  Macore sounded shocked and hurt. “Twenty five! That’s robbery! We’ll go back up to the village and buy five pigs when the markets open and save a bundle.”

  “Yeah, but that’s three hours from now.” The creature smirked. “You want special service, you pay the extra freight.”

  Macore sighed. “C’mon. We can kill three hours.” He made as if to turn.

  “Wait!” the creature called to him. “All right. Special.

  Twenty.”

  “Ten.”

  “You rob me! I tell you, little one how about I just eat you and the others go free? What about it, the rest of you? You should be happy to be rid of such a robber and thief as this.”

  “Sorry,” Joe told the troll. “But I think ten is too low for such a fine bridge. How about twelve?”

  The troll roared and splashed the water in very real looking mock anger. Finally he said, “Eighteen! Low as I go!”

  “Split the difference,” Macore suggested. “Fifteen. It’s a good profit. Either that or we wait for the markets to open which won’t be very much longer if we keep this up, anyway.”

  The troll growled and gnashed his teeth and somehow managed to foam at the mouth. They all thought he was going to attack them in rage, and Joe’s hand went to his sword hilt, but finally the great troll calmed down. “Pay me!” he snarled.

  Macore reached back, got the fifteen coins from Marge, and flung them at the troll, who frantically grabbed for them with massive clawed hands. He missed a bunch, and they went into the water.

  “All right, gang,” Macore said. “Now listen closely and I’ll tell you the rules. We go single file and keep a fair distance apart. Take it real show. We’ve met his price, so he and his kin can’t molest us in any way that’s the Rule but they may try some funny stuff to panic us or our horses. If any of us fall in, we’re fair game and they can eat us. Understand?

  So keep real control of your horses, and ignore anything that happens on either side of the bridge. You all understand?”

  They nodded but looked slightly uneasy. “I’ll lead,” the little thief told them and guided his mount onto the bridge past the fuming troll.

  Joe went next, then Marge, then Houma, with Grogha nervously bringing up the rear.

  All went well until Macore reached the point at which the bridge arched sharply upward over the main channel. At just that point the water erupted on both sides of them, with giant trolls growling and screaming menacingly. There seemed to be a dozen or more, all as repulsively ugly and nasty looking as the gate troll.

  Posti gave a start but held, and Macore had firm control of his mount, while Dacaro ignored the commotion, but Houma’s mount reared in shock and he almost toppled in. Grogha, having the same problems, was just a little more in control than his friend in front.

  Macore turned angrily and screamed above the noise, “Get those mounts under control, you two! As soon as you get‘em calmed, everybody dismount. Let’s lead the horses from this point!”

  Both Joe and Marge found it difficult to ignore the roaring and screaming trolls, but Houma got his horse calmed a bit and slid off, followed by the rest.

  M
acore turned to the nearest foaming troll. “Ah! Your mother was a fairy princess!” he yelled derisively.

  The troll roared and foamed all the more and slapped the water.

  “Your father was a fairy princess, too, pumpkin nose!” Macore taunted.

  While this made the troll all the more furious, it had a different effect on the other huge creatures, who stopped their panic acts and started laughing uproariously at the obvious discomfort of the target of Macore’s insults. This, of course, infuriated the target all the more, and it took a swing at the nearest fellow troll. In a few moments, they were all oblivious to the travelers and swinging away at one another.

  Looking smug, Macore led his mount up the center span and down, followed at prudent intervals by the other four. They crossed the rest of the bridge without further incident, the sounds of the fight still clear behind them.

  “Trolls are good engineers and savvy bargainers, but outside of that, they ain’t so bright,” the little man said, chuckling.

  The Company mounted once more and followed the dirt track on the other shore for a quarter of a mile or so until it hit a main road. At the junction was a large sign. “Welcome to Marquewood. Obey local ordinances,” Marge repeated Dacaro’s reading of it.

  “Well, onward and upward,” Joe called. “I’m beginning to feel as if I’m back on the road again!”

  About a mile farther down, the road split into three directions, and there was a roadhouse and inn. Joe looked at the place hungrily, but Macore cut his impulse short. “I think we better make time today. We got seventy miles to the Dancing Gods, and that’s a good two, three days. Best we stop when we have to or we’ll never get there.”

  Reluctantly, Joe nodded, and they rode past to the junction itself, well marked but totally unintelligible to them.

  Marge rode up to the signpost, letting Dacaro do what he wanted, and the black stallion looked at the signs. “The extreme right road is the one,” his voice came into her mind.

  Although they’d talked a bit before, it was still startling to her to hear the horse speak to her. Dacaro was no conversationalist, and she hadn’t had time to get used to the fact that her mount was more than a beautiful, sleek, intelligent animal.

  Marge pointed to the road. “Dacaro says this way. Any objections?”

  Macore looked at his map. “No e. That should be right.”

  They traveled most of the day, and it was past dark when they reached a small inn on the road. Macore cautioned them to say as little as possible about their origin, mission, or destination, “because you never know who’s gonna sell you out, particularly in places like this.”

  Joe nodded. “We better have some kind of cover story, though,” he suggested. “Just to keep it straight.”

  “Hmm... All right. You two “ Macore indicated Houma and Grogha. “ are merchants. Get it?”

  “What kind?” the practical Grogha asked.

  “Anybody asks you, you tell ‘em it’s none of their business,”

  Macore replied. “But you’re picking up some raw materials for clients in Valisandra. We’re your associates, see? You say that and everybody will figure we’re your guards, anyway.

  Don’t pick fights or start conversations. Let me do the talking.

  The less we say the better. Got it?”

  They all nodded.

  “And, lady, you get Dacaro to give you a neat little spell for that money, huh? We need it bad, and they’ll lift it at the first opportunity.”

  Marge nodded and then paused, as if listening to something none of the others could hear. Finally she said, “We’ll take out what we need ahead of time and leave the rest in the saddlebag. He’s got a pretty fair spell for it, and it will be right there in the stable, where he can protect it and raise the alarm if the spell fails.”

  “Good enough,” Macore said. “Take out oh, a dozen, I suppose. I don’t think we’ll need more; if we do, we can always come out and get it. Right?”

  Marge paused again. “He says twenty and forget coming back. It’s a pretty strong spell to undo just to make change.”

  “I’ll go along with that,” the little man told her, and soon they were at the inn and settled down.

  The roadhouse was almost deserted, and the family that ran the place seemed willing to ask no questions of paying guests.

  The night passed uneventfully, which was fine with them all.

  It had been at best a tiring day.

  The next morning Macore was enthusiastic. “We have a little more than thirty miles today, according to the innkeeper, to reach the River of Dancing Gods,” he told them. “Looks like we might be in High Pothique by this evening.”

  “I understand that this High Pothique isn’t really a country at all,” Marge said between bites of breakfast. “Will we have any trouble on the roads there?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about the roads,” the little man assured her. “They’re pretty well traveled. But there isn’t much of a central government in High Pothique too many magical domains and freeholds under minor sorcerers and the like. Right along the river are a few villages that will be okay. It’s when we cross the low mountains into Stormhold that things might start getting a little dicey. It’s kind of a magical free for all, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” she replied, but pressed no further. She began to wonder, though, as had Joe, who had appointed the little thief as leader of this expedition. Still, they were helpless without him his knowledge of the country had already proved itself out with the trolls. Marge just hoped he was as widely traveled as he pretended to be.

  On the trail later that day, she decided to press him a bit on her doubts. “Have you ever actually been to this Stonnhold?” she asked him.

  “On the edges,” he replied. “At the limits of navigation on the Sik, a tributary of the River of the Sad Virgin, which forms the southern border of High Pothique, there’s a town called Kidim.

  It’s something of a trade center for the interior at the river limit and also at the foot of the Vale of Kashogi, which is the only real way into the interior, considering that the mountains are two miles high on both sides. I once got to Kidim.” He looked suddenly thoughtful, then shook his head. “Naw. They’d have forgotten about that by now.” That last was said mostly to himself, but in the same loud tone which he used normally. “At least, I hope so,” he added, sounding a little nervous.

  Joe, who was following the conversation, gave a chuckle.

  “Returning to the scene of the crime, huh?”

  “Aw, it was nothing, really. They’re a bunch of hicks up there. Close knit little community, never go anywhere or do anything solid burgher types. Nice looking gals, though. Still and all, they make all this money brokering among the races and rulers of High Pothique and the rest of the world and they don’t do anything with it. Who can figure them? So I figured I’d liberate some of that dough.” He sighed. “Well, I found out that the one thing they do spend money on is burglar prevention. Those spells were so good I doubt if they can get their hands on it.”

  They rode on to the south, approaching the great river that was the life of Husaquahr. As Macore had hoped, they reached it in late afternoon.

  “How do we cross this one?” Houma wanted to know. “More trolls?”

  Marcore laughed. “You couldn’t build a bridge over the Dancing Gods. Too wide and too deep, that’s for sure. The only way you can cross is by boat. See? There’s the river. I don’t see the fairyboat, though.”

  “Another ferry,” Joe muttered. “I’m still not too thrilled about the last one I took.”

  They made their way down to a landing, actually nothing more than a cleared area of hard dirt, and looked out. Anchored to a piece of solid rock a few feet from the river’s edge was a thick cable that went out into, then dipped under, the river.

  Joe got off, went over, and looked at the cable. “Damn!

  Looks like steelf Macore came over and examined it. “Well, I’m not re
ally sure what steel is, but I can tell you what that is. It’s fairyspun rope, from the forest elves ofMarquewood. It’s incredibly strong and waterproof to boot. You can tell it’s fairy see how it’s actually fused with the rock, not tied to it?”

  Joe nodded, then turned and gazed out at the river. It had been extremely wide around Terindell, but now it was positively huge.

  Two other rivers, the Rossignol and the River of Sighs, had merged with it at this point, along with a hundred minor creeks and streams, and the extra volume had added a mile to the width of the Dancing Gods. Across on the opposite shore, little beyond a green smear could be made out, although behind that smear rose a series of imposing and barren, domelike mountains.

  “Where’s the ferry?” Joe asked nervously. “And why the cable?”

  “Oh, it’s probably on the other side or on its way back,”

  Macore told him. “Don’t worry about it. They’ll be making trips, even at night. As for the cable it holds the boat, of course. If it didn’t, we’d wind up forty miles downstream with this current.”

  They settled back and relaxed a bit, aware that this was the last really calm moment they could expect for some time. Once across the Dancing Gods, with the great river to their backs, they would be in hostile territory.

  “We’ll put up at a coastal inn tonight, I think,” Macore said. “It will probably be dark or a little after when we get across, anyway.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Joe responded. “Say about this boat. Who runs it? Some more nasty critters?”

  Macore laughed. “Fairies run it. Why else would they call ‘em fairyboats?”

  “Um, yeah, uh huh,” was all Joe could manage.

  Grogha stared out at the broad expanse of the river, then frowned and shaded his eyes for a moment against the glare off the water. “Yep! Here she comes!”

  They all got to their feet and looked out. Still far off, they could now make out a dark shape against the waters, approaching with agonizing slowness. Try as he might, Joe couldn’t get a good idea of what the boat looked like.