"Well, all I can say is that I don't see the world as quite as nasty as you," Alvi noted. "I'm sure that's all part of it, but there's so much more. It's kind of pretty here on the river, with all those creatures in the water, all the boats big and small, the colorful costumes—I am really getting to like it in spite of how mean some of 'em can be." She sniffed. "I have to admit, though, its smells leave something to be desired right now." She discovered that any exposed part of her that touched any part of the ship got covered in some thick, foul-smelling black stuff. Joe was not immune, either, but chuckled.
"It's peat, I think. They take it out of bogs up north, and it's burned for heat. It's cleaner than the dung, but it's no winner."
"They cook with it?" Alvi was appalled.
"No, they don't usually cook with it," Joe told her. "They use wood for that, if and when they can find it in condition to be properly burned. Sometimes oils. It's used to heat their houses. It gets extremely cold up north, I can tell you."
Alvi thought that over. "I—I think I know what you mean, but I don't remember ever being so cold that I had to heat the inside of a place. Is that where they make the snow?"
'Well, it's not made, it just falls. Temperature gets cold enough, it snows instead of rains. It's all water. They pack a lot of snow and ice in special boats now and use preserving spells to sustain them all the way downriver here so the rich folks can have chilled wines and store meat and fish for several days or even weeks."
"That's the only way I ever saw it," Alvi acknowledged. Do you think we'll get to anyplace that's really cold on this trip?"
"Not for a while, I hope." Joe laughed. "We're in the tropics and heading south into more of them. Where from there, though—that's what we have to find out. I hope we stay warm. I can take the cold, but not for long periods, and it can slow me down. If I freeze, I can be stiff for years, centuries, maybe forever, until I'm thawed out. And if you freeze, you're dead. I had enough cold stuff the last time, in the place where I wound up like this. I think I'm owed the heat."
It took about ninety minutes to make the full downriver crossing to the very small town of Azkim, and by that point and with scrambling to get out of the boat, both of them were black as, well, pitch.
"Now what?" Alvi asked Joe.
"First, I think we find a shallow river access and wash this crap off us. Then we'll find a place for you to buy something to eat, and we'll camp somewhere close. Too late to do much more today. Tomorrow we'll continue south, on this side of the river. Down to the Coast Highway, then west to the Leander border. If we can keep going at this pace more or less, we should make it to the jumping-off place for the Marmalade Islands and their resorts in maybe ten days to two weeks. If we're lucky, my old friend will still be doing three-hour tours ..."
It was slow going once they veered off the River of Dancing Gods and took older, rarely used trails to the south and southwest, but that suited them both just fine. It made it easy almost to forget that Husaquahr existed, that there was hatred and bigotry and violence all around, and instead made it almost seem to be an extended and entertaining picnic.
It had been a long time since Joe had allowed herself to get friendly with, let alone close to, anybody else, and it was very strange: the longer they traveled together, the less odd Joe thought Alvi looked. In this world, where everybody seemed more than a little off, familiarity bred acceptance more than anything else.
Alvi, too, had the same reaction toward Joe, the first real friend and confidant outside of family members and close servants she'd ever known and somebody who seemed very wise and fascinating. The idea that Joe was a wood nymph hardly mattered; if Alvi had any prejudices toward the more elemental faerie, they surely didn't apply to Joe.
Several times they actually stepped behind cover when encountering parties of travelers, particularly humans; it was tough to know who was who and what was what in that unfamiliar region and whether anybody had yet caught on to who that six-armed halfling had been.
Joe did in fact try teaching Alvi a little of his fencing skills, but it wasn't anything serious. Alvi's body wasn't designed for finesse; clearly it would be better off with short swords, cutlasses, or possibly sabers, since a cut and slash would be most effective with all those arms. Joe wasn't that much better; the short reach, a lack of really fast reflexes, and easy tiring of the arm muscles just made swordplay ridiculous, and unlike mortals and perhaps halflings as well, all the exercising and workouts in the world wouldn't change a faerie body that was already predefined.
Shortly after reaching the coast, they came upon a small town sitting on a bluff above the wide ocean, and Joe was suddenly a bit wary. "You never know what's happened when you're out of circulation awhile," she commented. "Let me go in alone and snoop around and see if there's any kind of hue and cry for you. If there is, we'll bypass as much as we can. If not, we'll use the main road here and make a little time. I also want to get an idea of how far we still have to go."
Alvi didn't like it. "We been partners since we started; I hate to see you go in there alone. I mean, there's no trees, bushes, nothin' out there but grass and sand and this chalky dirt. You've got nothin' to defend yourself with if you need it. and wood nymphs don't travel much beyond where they live, do they? You're gonna stick out in your own way as much as I do."
"I'm used to that," Joe assured her. "Don't worry. Besides, I have nothing, so there's nothing for anybody to steal; I want nothing except some conversation, so they either talk to me or they don't. And I long ago swallowed my pride and decided to let the nymph part work if I have to. Just take it easy and use the fields here to get around to the other side, like that bluff with the gumdrop-shaped bush on it over there, and wait. I shouldn't be too long."
Alvi was strangely hesitant. "Okay, but—I dunno. I just get a really strange feeling when I look at that little place there. I don't think I ever felt anything really like it before. It's—weird?"
Joe knew that such feelings weren't to be taken lightly in Husaquahr. "What kind of feeling? Queasy? Shivers? Chills?"
"Nothin' like that exactly. I—I said I can't describe it. Like—like whoever's up there already knows we're corning. Like we're expected for dinner or something."
Joe frowned. "Well, if you're getting that kind of feeling, maybe concealing you isn't the best way, but I don't think we should give them both of us at once if it is something unfriendly. Trust me on this one. Easy, casual walk up the road and into town, but keep an eye out and play it by my signals. I've been in bad spots before."
It was Alvi's turn to doubt "It could just be my imagination ..."
"Probably not. Particularly when you start to doubt yourself. That's probably in the Rules someplace. Just be on guard and proceed slowly with me. No weapons. Unless we're attacked or you or I get a strong feeling of serious danger, we might just be spooking somebody unnecessarily."
It certainly didn't feel like an ambush. The tiny town of a half dozen ramshackle wooden structures looked to have seen much better days and to have survived mostly because the breeze off the land wasn't quite strong enough to blow it over the cliff. Once it had clearly been a way station for weary travelers on their way to and from the City-States and the Leander ocean resorts, but commerce, for some reason, had passed it by. From the looks of a boarded-up well and dry troughs, it appeared either that the well had run dry—unlikely in that climate—or that it was contaminated by something that had doomed this as a rest stop. Across the road were the remains of stables, now little more than boards on crude rock foundations.
As they drew close to the tiny town, Joe began to get the distinct impression that this was no ordinary town in a number of ways. The ramshackle buildings weren't close to the sort you'd find anywhere in Husaquahr, for one thing; for another, the signs were disturbingly out of place.
ALCOA PARA EL ALQUILER announced the faded sign on one half-falling-down building. EL ALIMENTO BUENO said another, weathered but clear enough for Joe to read. Inside was an ar
row painted on one of the buildings that pointed to the wreckage across the road with the faded words LOS ESTABLOS. Below it, in a graffitilike scrawl, were the words "Por un llamatio bueno de tiempo Tina, 555-3721."
"Sure looks weird," Alvi commented.
Joe nodded. All the weirder because it was so familiar in many ways—but only to Joe.
A sudden wind came off the land as they actually crossed into the tiny ruin, its whistling sounds almost but not quite masking the sounds of the breakers on the cliff far below.
On the creaking porch of the old hotel sat a figure in a rocking chair, going slowly back and forth almost in time to the wind. It was wrapped in a colorful serapelike garment that looked to be perhaps Navajo or Hopi; the figure's head was down in its chest, masked by a huge sombrero.
As they cautiously approached, Alvi's hand went instinctively to the bow on her shoulder, easing it down in spite of what Joe had said. Now, quite close, the enigmatic figure, still rocking slowly, raised its head. The big sombrero came up, and inside was nothing at all, nothing but two glowing red eyes.
"Faith and begorra!" the apparition swore in a thick Irish brogue. "Ya needn't be fearin' me much this trip! Put away yer weapons and be at ease!"
"You've got the wrong accent for the clothes and setting," Joe noted, still wary, eyes on the thing, whatever it was.
"Oh, one's as good as the other, really, isn't it, now?" the thing responded. "Spanish, English, Husaquahrian, or Navajo, what's the difference?"
"I'm an Apache," Joe pointed out. "Not much relation with the Navajos."
The thing shrugged. "Again, what's the difference? A priest's a shaman and a shaman's a priest, and ya talk yer talks in whatever's understood. Take this spit of a ghost town. Never was much to it in its heyday, and there's even less now. The Earth didn't even miss it when it got rotated out, now, did it? Now 'tis neither here nor there, y' see. The mortals, they be so blind, it don't even exist for 'em in either plane, except when they camp here or just glance back outa the corner of one eye and like that. Only them that's got faerie blood can truly see it."
"But not you," Joe noted.
The thing hesitated a moment. "That's me own dear choice, y' see. It kinda limits what I can do, but it's a good deal safer. Lets me see and hear them what's linked without bein' really there to be noticed. And as fer the Apache, I never did see a green Apache of your likes!"
"This isn't exactly—"
"Oh, I know, Joe de Oro. I knows just who you were, but ya ain't no more, are ye?'
Joe was startled. "So you know who I am! Then this isn't just an accidental encounter."
"Faith! Nothin' I do is accidental! Strictly within the Rules, though, I be. Yes, strictly within the Rules. Not like some."
"Everyone's bound by the Rules here!"
"Indeed, 'tis so, but perhaps not for much longer. They're coming, you see, and it's not likely they can be stopped."
"Who is coming? What's all this about?" Joe asked.
"Well, there's Heaven and there's Hell, and then there's the other place. The place of the pretenders, those gods and demigods who may or may not have held sway for a while in one place or another but who in the end did not make it, you see. Kind of a dustbin of the gods, you might say. They are some of the worst things ever to have come out of creation. Individually, each could be vanquished. Even as a class, perhaps. But together—ah, together they create a new power. They were tossed where they were because their egos were such that there was no conceivable way they could combine forces. But they are combining now. They have their own unique definitions of good and evil and grudges against both Heaven and Hell. Surely you have felt them, felt how close they are to becoming real once more."
Joe nodded. "So that's what it is. But surely both Heaven and Hell can handle them."
"They could," the apparition agreed, "but they won't. Heaven may be so disgusted with everything, it'll just take its remainin' folk out and leave the rest to these bastards. Hell—well, Hell only wants what Heaven desires, y' see. And besides, if such concentrated evil was to really overrun all this universe, then it'd pollute the very Sea of Dreams, bringin' nightmare to Earth and perhaps the battle Hell really wants. It's willin' to give up this place, then, to gain the bigger prize—but y' see, since most of the folks that'll be left if these creatures break through and rule are already in Hell's pocket, they're not too terribly pleased by the prospect. They're just too bloody evil to work together against the usurpers and treacherous enough to make separate deals and stab one another in the back."
Joe began to see, and he did not like it one bit. "And what happens if they do break through and take over here? To us, I mean."
"There's far worse than death. Surely ya knows that much. They'll apportion for a while and remake all in their own images, but eventually they'll start to devour one another. Who can say? They don't look or act or think like anything or anybody ya knows."
Joe sighed and shrugged. "Why tell us this? What can we do about it?"
"Not 'us,' just you," the apparition responded. Joe turned and saw that Alvi was just standing there, frozen, unblinking as a statue.
"What did you do to her?"
"Nothin'; don't worry. We're just on a kinda plane that she's not ready for. She'll not know any of this has passed, but she doesn't need to. In the end it will all come down to you. That's what ya were brought here for, wasn't it?"
"For the last battle. I've done my bit! I've paid my price! Too much, if you ask me! I shouldn't have to do anything more. I don't even know how I could."
"I don't, either," the creature admitted, "but it's still in your lap because it's not finished. You jumped into that lava knowin' what would happen, but you had little toime to think about it; you hated the Baron far more, and you had no idea of the long-term price ye'd pay. Now you know the price and you got vulnerabilities including your friend here and your own son, who you drug over, subjected to all this, and then abandoned. Now you got to think—would you do it again? Would you save the world if it meant you'd always be as you are now, period, and if it might cost the life of your son as well? Or would you go over to 'em and let billions perish and their souls become darker'n pitch, including your own and those you save?"
"I don't know. I hope I never would, at least on those terms," Joe answered honestly. "Why me, anyway? I'm small, slight, physically weak, unarmed: not suited for much of the kind of battle you set up. With all the sorcerers still around here, I'm not a sane choice even to do this."
"Three reasons for starters," the creature replied. "For one, it's what you were brought here to do. It's your job.
For two, you alone among the creatures of faerie and men in all this world are immortal. They cannot kill you or touch the Tree that gives you this great power—unless you let them. And most compelling of all, at the end of what she seeks is that which you will find most irresistible to fight. If you continue with her, you're in. If you do not go with her, then become the nymph in the tree and forget all else, for you'll never change until the end of toime and you'll never adventure again and you will sit and watch him win at last."
" 'Him'? What are you talking about?"
"Your destiny and those of others are intertwined. You have not yet completed your grand commission. Until you do, you can claim to win only battles, not a war. That evil which you feel growing and which threatens to pervade and engulf all of Husaquahr is partly of your doing. You must complete the task or, no matter how many victories you can claim, you will still lose it all."
Joe's mouth opened in shock and surprise. "Now, wait a minute! I had nothing to do with this—whatever it is. I know what my own task was, and that was accomplished when the Dark Baron fell into the lava and was consumed, and the great sword with him. If there is a new source of ultimate evil, that is for another. I know that much about the Rules!"
"And did not you, too, fall into the same lava? Did not you, too, find yourself consumed in fire? Yet, if this be true, who stands before me now?"
Joe had a sudden very sick feeling. "You're not telling me—"
"He had to get his powers back somehow. The way was through faerie. Unlike you, he really did die in that molten magma, but he was a bit better than that. He had long ago planned ahead. He went neither to Heaven nor to Hell but instead into the very Sea of Dreams, where the Beings of Power dwell forever, and what eons could not accomplish, he did in the blink of an eye. Now followers of things more evil than Hell itself have opened the way back for him, and he prepares the way for the others."
DG5 - Horrors of the Dancing Gods Page 7
