The River Of Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  It was surprisingly luxurious inside. There was a roaring fire in a large, conventional fireplace and a thick rug on the floor. There was also a wall of books, including some perhaps ten or fifteen of the Books of Rules.

  It was, in fact, rather warm and cheerful. Joe wondered idly where the chimney came out.

  The drink was strong, but it tasted good to both Joe and Marge after the chill on the ledge, and the fire was particularly welcome.

  Finally feeling relaxed, Algongua took a stiff drink and sat in front of them. “Now, then what’s this all about? You’re not here for your health. Not from Malthasor.”

  “Who?” Joe responded.

  “Ah Ruddygore, I think you said he was calling himself now.”

  Marge grew interested. “I’ve heard another name for him, too, but it wasn’t that one. How many names does he have?”

  “Probably hundreds,” the hairy man responded, cackling a bit. “None of them his real one, of course. Sorcerers never tell their real names to anybody it can cost them. But he’s basically a good man and a strong wizard as well.”

  “You knew him well?” she pressed.

  “Long ago, as I said, we both had the same er employer, let’s say. That was long ago and far from here. Soif I may be so bold where are you headed in his service?”

  Joe thought about his answer. He didn’t want to alienate the strange man, but he had only Algongua’s word that they were on the same side and, come to think of it, the Old Man had never as much as said that, either. Only that he knew Ruddygore. “We go up the Vale of Kashogi,” Joe said at last.

  “There is something in Starmount that was stolen from Ruddygore and which he wants us to retrieve.”

  The hairy man whistled. “Starmount! I’m sure the Xota will not be pleased. I wouldn’t like to take an army into there!”

  “The Dark Baron might he wants what we want,” Marge put in, sensing Joe’s caution and understanding it. “We are a small Company we hope to sneak in.”

  Algongua laughed. “Sneak in! Well, perhaps it can be done.

  But this Baron, you say, may march on it? That should be most interesting.”

  It was obvious he had no idea who the Dark Baron was, and Marge decided to tell him, giving as much detail as she herself knew.

  The strange man sighed. “Always another arch villain! The Dark This and the Black That and the Prince of Something Else. They’re all the same. Ridiculous. No sooner do you beat one than another comes along. I long ago gave that up as nonproductive. I am beyond these petty temporal battles and wars.” He sighed. “But that doesn’t help you, does it? Herelet me think a moment. Starmount... hmmm... Yes, I think I can remember a few things.”

  “Can you tell us what the Xota people are?” Marge asked him. “That alone would be a great help.”

  “They’re a degenerate race of fairies. Ugly brutes, with bat’s wings. More animal than anything else. Expect no mercy or quarter from them! They’ll eat people, other fairies, even themselves. They sacrifice to primitive, bloody gods. Still, my dear, I’d kill myself if I were you, rather than let them capture me.

  You they won’t kill. You’re a halfling, and they’ll just complete the process and keep you as a slave and they do terrible things to women slaves.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she assured him. “Still since we’re on the subject, you said they’d ‘complete the process.’ I’m a little curious and nervous as to what I’m turning into even now. Can you tell?”

  He looked at her with his big eyes and cackled again. “Too soon to tell, really. Depends on what your fairy parent was. I gather you don’t know.”

  She decided not to go into her true origins or Joe’s. “No, I have no idea. It began when I served an apprenticeship with the witch queen Huspeth.”

  “Huspeth!” He made a sound that was definitely derisive and sounded something like bleah. “Who knows, indeed? But, I assure you, she didn’t start the process, Halflings are born, not created and remain human, and occasionally ignorant of their nature, unless heavily exposed to faerie or given to dabbling in sorcery. Since I see you’re well along and he certainly is human enough, I assume you’re an adept of some sort.”

  “A rank beginner. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been surprised in the hotel tub, knocked out, and carried out to that overlook.”

  “Still enough. From your looks, I’d say you were probably in the nymph family, which is common for changelings, but there are a hundred types and tribes of nymphs, all different.

  Well, you’ll find out soon enough.” He thought a moment.

  “Starmount. Hmm...” He got up, went over to the bookshelves, opened an old book and took out a small piece of yellowed paper, then returned to them. “This is, if memory serves, a map of the Vale and the Starmount Gateway.” He unfolded it. “Yep. As I thought. There’s an old high trail. Real narrow single file for horses a lot of the way, and a long way down if you slip but at the three thousand foot level most of the way. See?”

  He laid it out for them and they looked at it. They couldn’t read the script, but the trail and many natural features were well marked.

  “Once you’re in Starmount you’re on your own, but this should get you there if you’re plucky enough to use it. Also, I can’t vouch that the trail’s maintained at all. This map’s two hundred years old. But you have a fighting chance if it is.”

  Joe felt a sense of excitement rising within him. What was it Ruddygore had said? Luck rode with the barbarian hero.

  And here was just what they needed handed to them.

  “I don’t want to be ungrateful, but we’d better be getting back,” he told the strange hairy man. “We’ve had a long travel day and a longer night and no sleep as yet.”

  “Of course, of course. I was just enjoying conversation again. But how well will those meddling fools receive you down there?”

  Joe thought about it. “I don’t know. They can’t be too friendly after all, I did beat up two of ‘em and take one’s hand off right in the hotel lobby. But they kidnapped Marge.

  I figure they better hadn’t do anything.”

  “Come, then. I have a small complex of caves here that tie into theirs. I’ll get you back.”

  He was as good as his word, although the route was even more tortuous and confusing than Joe’s had been on the way out. Still, once more they stepped into the bath level of the hotel. When they turned around to thank Algongua, he was already gone.

  “Wait a minute,” Marge told Joe. “Let’s see if they left me my clothes.” They checked the bath room, but it had been drained and cleaned. There wasn’t a sign of anything that was hers. It wasn’t just me clothes her kit had been there as well.

  “So they even steal my stuff!” she stormed, sounding really angry. She took off Joe’s coat, which had almost reached the ground on her, and gave it back to him. “Well, I hope they’re easily shocked!” And with that, stark naked, she marched up the stairs into the lobby, Joe following, curious to see what she was going to do. He was by no means certain of their reception and put his hand on his sword.

  There was a new clerk and a new concierge on duty when they came up, and the mess from the fight had been cleaned up completely, but there was no question from the shock both men on duty showed at the sight of them that they knew full well whom they were facing.

  She marched up to the concierge. “You! You’ll get me my clothes and have them cleaned, neat, and ready when I call for them in the morning!” she commanded, then whirled on the clerk. “And you we will be staying one more night. All five of us. On this hotel. That’s just for starters. If you don’t agree, I will cast a spell on this place that will make it fit only for worms like those miserable creatures who run it!” And with that, she stormed up the stairs.

  Joe looked around, noted that neither man had so much as breathed during that, grinned, and said, “If anything is out of place while we’re here, this hotel and all who work for it will be destroyed. Even so, I assure you its rep
utation for what was done tonight will be spread the length and breadth of Husaquahr.” He sniffed. “First class, indeed!” Then he followed Marge upstairs.

  There were snores coming from the room of the other three, so they didn’t disturb them, but Marge insisted on putting a full protection spell on the room she and Joe were in. She collapsed on her bed and sighed. “Oh, god! I feel as if that dragon did eat me! Don’t wake me, no matter what you do.”

  “Don’t worry I won’t,” he assured her and blew out the light.

  The events of the previous evening were the talk of the town by morning. After the fight in the hotel lobby, there had been no real way to keep anything secret. Most of Kidim sympathized completely with the men who’d done the deed, but were now acutely embarrassed by it, particularly since it hadn’t worked. A merchant and trade city like Kidim fed on reputation, and its reputation was for honorable transactions and a totally safe and secure haven in the midst of a barbaric country.

  Thus, while Macore, Houma, and Grogha had no idea what had gone on when they awakened, dressed, and went down to a late breakfast, they were more than pleasantly surprised to discover they could not pay for anything at all whatever they wanted was theirs, with hopes that the “incident” would not be held against the whole town. They were so pleased by the reception that they took full advantage of it for several hours before they could find somebody to tell them what it was all about.

  Joe and Marge did not appear until midday. Marge was delighted to find outside the door both sets of clothes the old ones laundered and neatly folded and all her belongings from the bath. She donned the brown skin outfit and packed away the skimpy green one for better weather.

  Grogha had come up every hour or so to check on them, and so they were just about ready to go out when the portly man, seeing the clothing taken in, had pounded on the door.

  He quickly told them of their treatment by the town, which pleased Marge no end.

  “Just remember, they’re only being this way because they aren’t sure they could kill all of us,” Joe warned. “But I think they know it won’t bottle up forever, regardless.”

  They had a large brunch on the hotel and noted that they were being stared at again and again by various townsfolk.

  This would be one those people would tell their grandchildren.

  They decided to spend one more night, simply to get their systems back in order, and they supplemented their supplies and weapons on the house, of course. Marge even had another bath the next night although with full protection spells around this time. Joe, too, took advantage of the bath and got his meager regular clothing cleaned as well. The other three couldn’t see the sense of it.

  Still and all, the town was mighty happy to see them go the next morning.

  “Maybe we should have told them that the dragon was no threat to them before we left,” Marge suggested.

  “No!” all four men responded in unison, then looked sheepish. “Ah, that is,” Macore added, “they don’t deserve it. Let ‘em worry. I doubt if they’ll try this kind of trick again.”

  “Besides, finding out it was no threat might lose us our status which is pretty nice while increasing their sense of guilt,” Joe continued smoothly. “They deserve to sweat.” He was, however, amused by the frantic reactions of the other three. So he hadn’t been the only one to have a full night, it seemed.

  They reached the point where Algongua’s map said that the higher trail branched off, but it took them a half hour to find what they hoped was it. It was overgrown, worn, and weathered and only hinted that it was a trail but it went west at roughly the three thousand foot level, and that was what the map claimed.

  There were several rocky stretches where any semblance of a trail just gave out, and they spent some time hunting to pick it up again, but it did not prove in the early going too difficult to follow. As it thinned and hugged the granite sides of the mountains, it became more definite. But a trail that was no more than three or four feet wide on the side of a sheer cliff and that had a drop on the other side of more than fifteen hundred feet at the minimum was by no means comforting, and parts of it had been weathered uncertainly, while small streams and waterfalls crossed it and wore deep grooves in the face.

  There were actually some clouds below them, but after a while they disappeared, and the main road up the Vale of Kashogi to Starmount and beyond could be clearly seen. It looked pretty deserted, but Macore thought at one time he saw the dust of some riders far ahead. It might have been a wisp of cloud or some optical illusion, he admitted both to them and to himself. But the enemy forces had been conspicuous by their absence so far, and there had been no real sign in Kidim, although even Ruddygore had thought they would be thickly represented there.

  “Perhaps they were,” Dacaro suggested to Marge. “Those are merchants and bankers, and most are educated men. Who stirred up the dragon fears? Who could read the Rules and only those parts on dragons guaranteed to scare the hell out of people? And who suggested they do what they did to you? I suspect more than meets the eye there. Evil is often best when it is the most subtle, reasonable, and invisible.”

  “But they failed if in fact it was them at all,” she noted.

  “That means we have to expect another try.”

  “Yes. More of a brute force one, I would suspect. They won’t have any easier time with the Xota than we, if that’s any comfort. And they may not know about this trail although they’ll draw some conclusions when we fail to show up down there. We will have to take things as they come. The enemy may even be at the cave already.”

  She didn’t like to think of that. Not after all this. She did, however, tell Dacaro about the Old Man of the Mountains and his comments on her.

  “I don’t know who or what he is,” the equine adept told her, “but he is certainly correct in that halflings and changelings are not made. Not by Huspeth, anyway. It is something that, considering your unique origins, I did not take into account before. But, yes, Ruddygore himself must have cast you like this and let Huspeth take the heat for it.”

  “But why?”

  “Only a guess. He saw that you had an aptitude for the art, but also understood that you had not the time, nor the ability, perhaps, to leam the complexities of the spells. And certainly your lack of reading ability as an adult is also limiting. So he took the path of best advantage for him. As one of the fairy folk, you would have natural, instinctive uses of magic and total sensitivity to it.”

  “Algongua said I would be a nymph, I think he called it.

  I know what the old legends are on nymphs, but not what that .means here. Can you tell me?”

  “Well yes and no. Basically, a nymph is a race of faerie, all members of whom are female. They are closest to human in size and general form and are quite often extremely oversexed in all senses of the word. A nymph has the ability to mate with any male of any species, whether fairy, human, or animal you name it. Her progeny, then, are always halflings themselves, generally human in form, but if they become involved with fairies or in the an, as you are, then they will change into their fairy form. The results can be quite bizarre. Satyrs. Centaurs. The small winged ones. Strange amphibians. Depends on who and what the father was. Whole new races of faerie have been created in that way. Of course, if the child is female, it has a fifty fifty chance of being another nymph, so the race doesn’t die out. As to kind, there are wood nymphs who live in and are linked to trees, field nymphs, water nymphs, all sorts. You name it. But I still sense the potential for wings in you, so you may be an aerial of some sort. We will see, won’t we? It should be interesting to discover what happens if the transformation is completed.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “As primarily human, your powers gain with celibacy. As those of a full nymph, your powers will gain with the opposite type of conduct.”

  “What! You mean...”

  “Precisely. Since the magic of faerie is innate the potential is there and develops automatically
under certain circumstances rather than having to be learned the more times you do it with anybody, the stronger you will become.”

  She was silent for a while. Finally she said, “You’re amused by that, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, but I must admit I am. Don’t be too angry.

  Would you rather have your problem or mine?”

  There really wasn’t much of a comeback to that.

  They camped out early in the evening, at the first area they came upon, with enough room, not wanting to chance being on this trail after dark with no place to turn into. It was damned cold, but a small waterfall provided water, and there were some scrub bushes for the horses. It was still a cramped evening and a nervous one that high up and in the cold.

  The next day dawned cloudy, but they were anxious to get going. During the morning they made good time. Early in the afternoon the clouds descended to the trail level, and travel became something of a nightmare. With so little tolerance, they soon were chilled, wet, and unable to see the tail of the horse ahead of them. It was sheer luck that they came upon another wide place narrower and even less comfortable than the previous night’s, but enough and found themselves having to stay the afternoon and through the night. Quarters were really close then, and they had to be careful simply not to step in and slip on the horse droppings, but they had to stick it out and remain through the second night.

  The third day showed not much improvement, and they feared that they would be stuck yet another full day in that cramped space. But after a couple of hours, the sun broke through and burned off the fog. Not all the way still, the cloud level was a hundred feet or more below the low points of the trail. While there was no guarantee of safety, they were all willing to chance it. Dacaro, with his bulk, was particularly uncomfortable and offered a fog dispeller spell if need be rather than remain there any longer. He didn’t normally want to risk any spells until he had to the enemy below might be sensitized to such things.