Demons of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  The market is excellent for just about anything, Joe told her. And, right now, we're on Ruddygore's expense account.

  She nodded. Good, then. I am also starved. Will you show me this market? Then we can perhaps get something to eat.

  Joe got up and she did, as well. Again there was an eerie sensation in him at her size. Delighted, he responded, trying to sound as Continental as possible. Shall we go?

  They walked out the door, leaving Macore sitting there. Durin chuckled from the kitchenette. Left you alone, huh? I guess you're just not big enough for her.

  Macore got up, walked over, took some of the fabulously rich iced pastry from the tray, and, without a word or a wasted motion, pushed it into the fairy cook's face.

  Joe was absolutely delighted with Tiana. Although of this world, she had some knowledge of a different comer of his and she was certainly a fascinating person indeed. It was also a relief, after all this time of putting up with Marge's vegetarianism, to find a woman who obviously enjoyed real meat.

  Slowly, over the meal, he told her more about himself and about his doings since arriving in Husaquahr. Gradually, the rest of her story came out, as well.

  Her father had been of royal blood, but a third son with no chance of inheriting position or title. His obvious talent for the magical arts, however, had taken him in the direction of the Society in the same way that second and third sons of European nobility during the Middle Ages had gone into the Catholic church. He also married a wealthy noblewoman he'd known since childhood, and they were very much in love. In due course, they had a daughter, Torea, but she died mysteriously in infancy of some disease or spell her father was powerless to do anything about. They tried again, of course, at about the time Hapandur won the Council seat and became ranking sorcerer in Zhimbombe, but the pregnancy was well along before he discovered that his first daughter's death had been due to a strange and powerful curse laid on his children by someone unknown who hated him very much. Just who was unknown.

  The curse was so well constructed that he could not dissolve it, nor find its key, but he did manage to unravel it at the comers, as Tiana cryptically put it. The result was that her mother was able to make the decision—either her life or her child's—and she made it. The distraught wizard pleaded with her, but she had taken the death of their first daughter very hard and she was adamant.

  What my father did was complex, Tiana told Joe. Basically, though, my birth was a magical event of sorts. The soul, I am told, enters at the first commands to the body to give birth. My father, or so it is said, blocked that process, against my mother's strong wishes, so that I might be stillborn, but so strong was her resolve that she died at the moment of my birth. My father would never speak of it, but others have told me that her soul, because other will to bear me, entered me instead of another.

  Joe was startled. You mean you're your mother?'

  She shrugged. I do not know. But it is certain that I have always had strange dreams, and memories of people and places that I have never seen, and I have always been told by those of Morikay that I have my mother's mannerisms, habits, and even turns of phrase. Physically, I resemble more others on both sides of the family than her, but it does seem, sometimes, when I look into a mirror, that another, different face should be there.

  Still, her father never remarried, nor, as far as anyone knew, ever even looked at another woman sexually; but he doted on his daughter, to whom he gave his dead wife's name. She had a very spoiled and pampered childhood, she freely admitted, and was totally unprepared for what came after.

  Kaladon, a handsome young man with a great deal of talent, became apprenticed to her father and proved a more-than-worthy adept. He was treated as a member of the family—in fact, as the son the old man had never had. She liked him at the time, considering him an older brother, and she had no idea that, even back then, he was arranging for her to get as little education or training as possible, particularly in the magical arts.

  Then came the great convention, at Coditz Green in Leander, where we knew Kaladon would challenge for a leadership position. How proud we were of him—the son of a pig! He was so trusted and so close that it was a shock when he challenged my father, and an even greater shock that he won.

  You mentioned that he cheated, Joe noted.

  She nodded. Later I was told how it was done. He had drugged some of the food my father was served. He could easily do this, because he was a household member and very trusted. It was also a very light drug, one that you would not even know you had taken, but it was enough to slow my father's thinking and speed of action and reaction. After he won, while still at the convention, the usurper's true nature came out, and we knew that we were in the hands of and at the mercy of the blackest of black magicians.

  Joe hesitated a moment before asking the obvious question, but he really was interested in the story and anxious to know. Uh—what happens to the losers of these challenges?

  She gave a slight shudder. Horrible things. That is why even very powerful magicians do not challenge for the Council. True adepts, not going for a position but simply testing themselves, are prevented by the umpires of such matches from going too far, and so there is no penalty; but if a councillor is deposed, he or she must be utterly reduced so that no rechallenge is possible.

  Your father is dead, then.

  She nodded sadly. Yes, but not by Kaladon's hand. They do not work like that, particularly the black magicians who dominate the white, nor, in fact, the white who dominate the black, but my father had many friends and one was merciful.

  He whistled. Are these contests open to the public?

  If you mean can you see one, the answer is that you can see as many as you wish here, but it can be a very dangerous thing to watch. The forces involved are tremendous.

  He could understand that. Still, I think I'll see one of Ruddygore's matches if I can. I should know everything I can about the kind of people I'm actually facing here. The fact is, except for some of Ruddygore's stuff with me, the fairies, and the magic Lamp, I've seen very little real magic here. Not the kind they talk of the sorcerers having, anyway.

  Then you should see one, in fact, she agreed.

  After the coup she was returned, a pampered prisoner, to

  Morikay, entirely in the hands of her father's betrayer. Kaladon began a purge of all those, human and fairy, loyal to the deposed sorcerer, but some had gotten the word and arranged for escape routes. Two winged elves from Marquewood, who had worked at landscaping in Morikay, managed to flee with Tiana, as well.

  It was a harrowing, risky escape, the material for an epic or two, but finally she was passed along from fairy race to fairy race until she reached Castle Terindell. It was Ruddygore who took her in; when he realized that she would be a virtual lifetime prisoner inside the castle as long as Kaladon lived, he took her across to Earth. Ruddygore, it seemed, had a major interest in a bank in Switzerland, and, since that was where he was heading, that was where she wound up, with loyal guardians in his employ taking her in and providing an identity for her as the daughter of deposed Romanian royalty killed later by the communists there. Having been magically prepared by Ruddygore, she took to languages easily, quickly acquiring a fluency in German, French, Italian, and even Romansch. Her tutors were both of Earth and of Husaquahr, imported for the occasion by Ruddygore on frequent visits, and it was during those years that she threw herself into her studies with but one long-term object in mind—revenge.

  By this time, though, Kaladon had fallen in league with the Dark Baron, whose demonic master could talk to and deal with the demons of Earth, and it was as a bribe to Kaladon that the Baron had the demonic forces seek her out and find her. A well-financed Satanist organization in western Europe then was called in for the actual deed, and again she barely escaped back to Husaquahr.

  Ruddy decided that, if they could find me once, they could certainly find me anywhere, now that my appearance was known. As you might have guessed, I had grown and turned
from girl into woman.

  She had, in fact, been a fairly normal-sized girl, but with puberty came tremendous growth, far beyond anything in her ancestry. Ruddy has a theory that it was the diet, eating such a different balance of things in Switzerland from what our bodies are used to here. I believe it was probably a spell of some kind put on me before I left Husaquahr, although by whom I am not sure. It might have been my father, of course, or any one of the fairy races who aided me, or a combination of those things. It does not matter, because this is how I am and this is how I like being.

  I certainly see nothing to complain about, Joe told her honestly. You are certainly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

  She smiled. That's very nice of you.

  I mean it, too. She sat back a moment, holding a slight grin. You know, because of my size I have been very intimidating to men. I wonder if perhaps Ruddy is not engaging in a bit of matchmaking.

  He wondered that himself. If so, he hoped that she had the same attraction for him that he felt for her. It certainly was a very convenient meeting, just after his troubles with Marge, and it had been arranged by the sorcerer. Well, if so, it was the best thing the old boy had done for him, even if it didn't work.

  Tiana's history for the past eight years had been far different from her earlier life. It was only among the barbarous nomadic tribes of the far reaches of Husaquahr that she could blend in, somewhat, with the large, burly denizens of those places, and it was only among them that she could feel relatively safe from Kaladon's spies and the threats of civilization in general.

  At first, she had rebelled at the primitive, hard existence, and there had been a period of tremendous adjustment until she'd learned to accept it. It was a kind of existence that Morikay and Basel had not prepared her for, and she was flung into it much as Joe had been flung into his existence. She had been taken under the wing of some very powerful warriors who owed Ruddygore a favor. She became, however, strong, powerful, and athletic and, because of her size and conditioning, she trained with swords and took the tests of a warrior usually, but not exclusively, reserved for the men. She had excelled at all of it in the end, particularly when she saw the value of it in having some personal freedom in Husaquahr and, perhaps, one day leading a rebellion in the south.

  She also trained in, and worked on, the magical arts with the help of Ruddygore and knowledgeable ones he sent to her, first in Basel and later in the northern wastes. She had her father's talent, of that there was no doubt, but she began formal training very late in the game and on an intermittent basis. It gives me an edge, but not more, she told Joe. It means, also, that I can often ward off or undo some spells, but the more complex spells are still beyond me, for I have not had the mental training for it. She could, however, read the pictographic language fairly well, and with the proper volume and section of the Books of Rules open in front of her, she could probably do very well indeed. It is, you might say, the difference between being a good cook and being a chef. A great chef does not need recipes.

  They finished, he paid the bill, and they made their way back into the market. There were several leather shops selling whips, and she tried one after the other, impressing the hell out of him, the proprietors, and the passers-by with her skill, but rejecting whip after whip until, at last, in a small secondhand store, she found one that seemed just right to her. With the others I can do many things, she explained, but with a whip of perfect balance such as this one, I can work miracles.

  She looped it on her belt, on the same side as the sword, in a clasp apparently designed for the weapon, and they walked back to the hotel.

  No shoes or other clothing? he asked her. She laughed. It is odd, but I have been with the barbarians so long that most of those things feel unnatural. If I need furs, I will buy them, but for now I am enjoying for the first time in a long while a comfortable climate. It is not easy to explain, but in order to survive in the wastes, something had to be killed inside me, and that was my sense of civilization, you might say. I find myself preferring to be a barbarian woman, thinking like one, acting like one. All this which was once my own sort of world seems now so soft and decadent. The sword, the whip, and a good horse are all that are really needed, and all that I have or intend to have.

  You seem pretty cultured and civilized to me. Because I want to be. That is my veneer, my coat which allows me to go anywhere and do anything. It is the inside that matters, and I have proof of my conversion, as it were. The applicable parts of the Books of Rules that apply to me now are those governing barbarian women; before, they were of the civilized classes. Even the Rules recognize my change, you see.

  But if you depose Kaladon, you'll have to rule Zhimbombe, he pointed out. That will take more of a change.

  I think they deserve a barbarian queen. We will face that if it comes about.

  He noted that she had used the word if instead of when and nodded to himself. Just how realistic her dream was, even in her own mind, was in question. She had as much as admitted that she could never be the equal of Kaladon and, unless he was finished off, she had little hope of having any kind of control over the country. Kaladon, of course, had probably intended just that—she would be his puppet queen and consort, by which he would consolidate the country and its popular old families and his own rule as both sorcerer and temporal ruler. Joe decided that he'd like to meet, or at least see, this fellow at close range. Certainly, if nothing else, Kaladon would be one of Ruddygore's prime suspects for the Baron's true identity. How easy it would be to pretend to ally with the Baron for favors when actually he was the Baron—and Zhimbombe was the first nation of Husaquahr to fall prey to the Baron's forces. A prime suspect indeed. If Joe's suspicions were so, there was a chance through Kaladon's elimination to give Tiana a crack at control by clever politics, sword, and whip.

  They reentered the hotel, which was teeming with crowds of people of all shapes and sizes, garbed in every imaginable way. Shall we register? Tiana asked him. He nodded. Might as well. She thought a moment. You are called 'the Golden,' is that not correct?

  Yeah. Mostly because my last name's de Oro. And I am Uma of the Golden Lakes. It gives me a thought. We are both dark-skinned giants, you might say, and we certainly look as if we belong together.

  He wondered what she was driving at and just nodded. Kaladon will not expect a pair. Let us, at least for disguise purposes, register as mates.

  Huh? It took him aback, mainly because he'd love it that way, but he hardly wanted to risk alienating her by suggesting it. He just wasn't used to women this aggressive.

  You don't wish it?

  Oh, sure. I think it'll be fun, he answered hopefully.

  Let's go.

  It was like waking up from some really strange dream, although she knew it was no dream at all. She wasn't physically tired, but she'd come back up to the room for a little break and found herself just sitting back, relaxing and thinking, and she realized thinking was something distasteful. She certainly hadn't been doing much of it over the last few days, that was for sure.

  It was funny how this reaction had hit her, like something out of the blue, but suddenly, after being almost frantically active, she no longer felt the desire. She walked over to the mirror in the room and looked at herself. It was still strange to see the fairy reflection there, to understand that this unnaturally sexy, kittenish, winged figure was herself. But it wasn't the exterior that was troubling her; it was what had happened inside to her head and heart.

  She'd been to every bar and bistro in the city, she felt certain, but they all blended into one. And the men—so many of them—all blended into a faceless crowd as well. Not a single one stood out as a real human being. Instead, they were objects, things, nothing more. She went over to a dresser and pulled out the top drawer. It was crammed with junk—small items of jewelry, ornaments, little carvings, even toys. She was afraid to count them and slammed the drawer shut and went back to the bed to think.

  Had she enjoyed acting that way?
Yeah, she had, she had to admit to herself, but it wasn't really her; at least, not the way she always saw herself. Her whole body still tingled, and on that level she had never felt better in her whole life. But was this what she was to be for the rest of her life? How long did a fairy live if not killed? Until Judgment Day, it was said, and nobody knew how long that could be. Hundreds of years, perhaps. Maybe thousands. All like—this?

  She remembered the magic time when she had emerged from the volcanic fires as a Kauri and she remembered her sisters of faerie. At the time, they had seemed radiant, magical children at play, but they didn't seem quite so exciting or magical any more. Instead, they now seemed like what they must be—permanent fourteen-year-old girls, locked forever in the state of irresponsible and irrepressible adolescence and freed of all inhibitions; a female version of the Lost Boys, without even Peter Pan, let alone Wendy, to give them any sort of control or direction, and each one more or less exactly like the others. Even she had become exactly like them, and that bothered her only because the Kauri didn't know any other existence or any other way, had never faced or understood responsibility or had a single serious thought in their playfully empty heads. She had, and that alone set her apart from them.

  But she had been that age once and had been frustratingly restricted by her mother, the school, and the rest of those forces that kept folks in line. Still, life had been unhappy enough since adulthood that she had grabbed onto the chance to return to that state of not-so-innocent grace, to become again that giggly adolescent without any rules or restrictions whatsoever. Who wouldn't love that sort of chance—but as a chance, a lark. It was only now that she realized that this wasn't some' second chance but rather a permanent condition.

  Already she had hurt poor Joe, the first man in years to be a real friend, the one whose kindness and pity gave her this second chance in the first place. She'd not only hurt him, she'd mocked him, and that was far more painful. Her practical jokes and funny exercises of her strange powers had frightened rather than amused or reassured him. Worse, she knew deep down that she might not have the self-control or willpower to keep those impulses from dominating her again and that each cycle would make them even easier and more natural to accept. The more she lived as a Kauri, the more she would become one inside as well as out. This she knew, although not really from any faerie insight, but just from knowing herself. Conditioning did work—as Pavlov's dogs had proved—particularly when there were no alternatives and an endless future of such conditioning. The Earth Mother knew this, and counted on it.