The River of Dancing Gods (20 page)

"I told you it was all for nothin'," Posti grumped.

"Listen, you hawk-faced overgrown elf!" Joe snapped. "I'm Joe de Oro, damn it, and I don't think Ruddygore wants me to stay like this!.

The Imir seemed thunderstruck for a moment. Then, suddenly, his granitelike face began to quiver, as unaccustomed muscles were brought into play. And, slowly, Poquah did the one thing none who had ever known him would believe possible.

Poquah laughed.

Suddenly aware of how his demeanor had broken down, he got himself under quick control and stared at the bull. "ReallyT' he managed.

"Yeah. Really, damn it..

"I must admit we never expected this," the Imir said. "We had the whole river region staked out as well as the Valisandra Road. Gorodo must be having fits out there right now." He stood back and shook his head wonderingly. "Actually, you are much improved this way in all except disposition. I assume you decided to cut cross-country and ran into that old witch with her shaping-stick. Yes. It makes sense. Stupid, but it makes sense in your context..

"Well, save your opinions and get Ruddygore!" Joe snapped.

"I want release. My friends here, too. I couldn't have busted out without 'em and I owe them..

"That will be up to the Master," Poquah responded. "Remain here and I will see if he's in and prepared to receive you..

"You can also tell him that I won. Fair's fair. I passed your little test..

That, too, seemed to rock the Imir. "You won9.

Joe was starting to enjoy this. "Sure. I was to get back here, inside the castle, with no time limit, before anybody from the castle caught me. Well—here I am!.

"A highly unprecedented method," Poquah said, "but you may have a point..

"Just go see about Ruddygore..

"As you wish. I am not quite certain how he is going to take this." He turned to go, then paused and turned back to them. "The Master may not be in, or he may be otherwise occupied. Just stand around and munch grass, or whatever it is you do. He will attend to you in his own good time..

"Thanks a lot," Joe muttered, absent-mindedly munching grass.

Page 100 Chalker, Jack L - The River of the Dancing Gods JACK L. CHALKER 117 CHAPTERS BUILDING A COMPANY IDENTITY Companies must be composed of no less than seven individuals, at least one of whom should not be fully trusted.

—XXXIV, 363, 244(a) THE DARK HOST WAS IMPRESSIVE IN ITS ORDERED MARCH AND fairly dripped of evil. Ruddygore, in astral form, looked down upon the enemy forces from his high vantage point and was amazed at their number and organization. How many? Ten thousand, surely, if there was one. The multitude of races, both from Husaquahr and from realms far beyond, was also startling.

When the Dark Baron conquered, he gained forces and additional loot with which to hire the best from afar.

They were a sinister bunch, but even evil had its beauty, which was one reason it was so attractive. Huge, beaked tarfur in their great flowing robes of black and gold perched atop swift, multiwinged suggoths. Behind were the bat-winged gofahr and at least two small legions of hoglike uorku and the horned riders of far Halizar. There were elves and men as well down there, the elves biologically identical with the gardeners of Terindell, yet were somehow rough, hard, and ugly, with eyes either burning or empty. The humans ran the gamut from tall, fierce-looking barbarian mercenaries to professional soldiers, opportunists, and obvious conscripts.

The Dark Baron had doubled his forces since the start of the flood season, and more were coming day after day. Ruddygore knew. Everybody feared a winner, and the Baron certainly looked like one. Queasy leaders in a dozen places were making very certain that they would be positively remembered if the Baron's forces conquered all of Husaquahr—and beyond. He knew that many of those far-off leaders, with their own evil forces and marching armies to face, understood that the Baron was merely an agent for the same dark powers that moved all of the others on this huge world of sorcery. Across the mighty oceans, on far-away continents and in countries unknown in 116 Husaquahr, other dark and powerful leaders were also pressing, as they always were; in many cases, the leaders of those forces were the only ones who fooled themselves that they were not tools of a greater master of evil, one forbidden for the past two thousand years to vie directly for control of the worlds, who instead had to use the egomania and greed and lust for power of more worldly agents to do his evil work.

And he and they did it very well indeed.

In the great tent city that was in the process of being struck, the generals plotted their strategies and awaited orders from their supreme commander, whose identity even they did not know, as to where to march next.

Page 101 Chalker, Jack L - The River of the Dancing Gods Yet already here in Zhimbombe, the legitimate authorities had been reduced to living in caves in the eastern mountains, those who had not broken and caved in to the dark power.

But even those still defiant were refugees. They had been beaten, and the enemy spent the flood season in and around the Zhafqua and in the ruins of the formerly beautiful capital of Morikay.

With the flood plain now drying, the enemy forces were preparing to march, certainly to the River of Sorrows and the border of Marquewood. Would they now flank to the east, or perhaps attempt a second line by crossing the River of Dancing Gods.

They had a hundred miles to the River of Sorrows, which would buy Ruddygore some time. Some, but not much. A bit more time to construct some sort of temporary bridge across the receding but still swollen Sorrows, or work out some way to cross the Dancing Gods in force. That would be some trick— between the Sorrows and the Dabasar, the Dancing Gods was already two miles or more wide and over forty feet deep in mid-channel.

East? West? North? East was slow, mountainous, and would leave their supply lines long and ugly, while they would be fighting in the best areas for Marquewood to defend. North lay the Valley of Decision, named for an earlier great war's climactic battle, when the invader of that time was forced to channel his forces through a narrow and uneven valley with gorges at two points. Sorcery or not, anybody at the bottom was going to have a pretty nasty time, and those hills and ledges were hollowed-out castles and fortifications, running for 118 THE RIVER OF DANCING GODS JACK L. CHALKER 119 miles and built right into the hillsides. But west he had to cross the River of Dancing Gods. Easy going all the way to Stormhold that way, but—how to cross? And how to supply his armies if they crossed? The wealth and booty of Leander was far to the west, and High Pothique was poor and treacherous.

Still, the sorcerer who called himself Ruddy gore reflected, the Baron would have to cross the Dancing Gods and count on supplies by river from the City-States.

The time to hit was during that crossing, when the Baron would be weakest and most vulnerable. Either that or abandon all until Stormhold and equal turf were reached. Valisandra and Marquewood, he decided, needed a navy and an air force.

He was about to withdraw from the scene when he felt a presence, a crimson force, in the headquarters tent. Drawn to this strong feeling of power, he peered down and saw the Dark Page 102 Chalker, Jack L - The River of the Dancing Gods Baron himself.

The crimson aura was incredibly strong and visible only to those well versed in the Arts, yet it was not a distinctive, personal aura as much as part of the mask; had it not blotted out the Baron's true aura, Ruddygore could have instantly identified the evil leader.

His temporal disguise was also impressive, cloaked as he was in shining black armor from head to foot, his head masked by a demon's-head helmet whose eyes burned with an inhuman yellow light.

The defenses, both magical and temporal, were perfect, as always. Although the figure towered at far greater than seven feet, it was impossible to guess the true height or build of the sorcerer inside, or even the gender. More than once, Ruddygore had suspected that the disguise hid far more than mere aura and features, but there was no way to know for sure.

Ruddygore stared down at the massive, giant figure and thought, angrily, / know you. I have eaten and drunk with you, perhaps exchanged jokes and tricks of the craft. You have been my guest, my friend, my rival in the world we both pledged to serve, not destroy. Which one are you? Who are you, who has sold his body and soul to Hell? In whose name do you rationalize the violation of your most sacred trusts? Damn you! I will know you one day! I will know you and be present to witness and participate in your total destruction—I swear it! The force of his hatred and his will seemed to penetrate to the huge dark figure standing below. The demon's mask looked upward, as if searching him out. A right hand came up, and a gloved index finger traced a searing orange pattern in the air, a pattern which, when completed, suddenly sped up toward Ruddygore, growing and blazing intensely as it approached.

Unwilling to face the Baron with a strictly astral form, and not wanting to give that evil one the satisfaction of knowing that there was somebody really watching, Rudddygore rapidly withdrew, making sufficient countersigns to divert the blazing pattern. Nothing clear, nothing obvious. A quick retreat. Let the Baron wonder if it was real or only nerves, the sorcerer decided.

He was quickly back at Terindell. After a brief glance around to make certain he was not followed by anything, he floated over the castle walls. The center quad looked like a barnyard, he noted curiously. He would have to see what was going on.

Still, one horse there—an aura of pale greenish blue in a pattern that was vaguely familiar to him. A horse with an aura.

He decided not to investigate until back in human form once more. Some animals could see astral bodies, and he didn't trust that horse with the aura at all.

His own body lay on his bed in his inner chamber, protected by the strongest of spells, apparently asleep. Quickly he approached and merged with it. The body yawned and stretched; Page 103 Chalker, Jack L - The River of the Dancing Gods the eyes opened. He was starving, he realized. Astral projections always did that to him. He looked around, found a couple of pounds of chocolate-topped butter cookies, and tore into them. They would be just about right as a snack while he undid enough of the door spell to get out.

It was a little more than half an hour before Ruddygore emerged from his building inside the compound and approached the animals there. The ever-attentive Poquah followed slightly behind, and had obviously briefed the sorcerer of Terindell.

For his part, Ruddygore seemed somewhat amused.

He looked them over critically. "Hmm... Not a bad spell for the old bat. Still, she probably had to use some of that stinkwood. She's going to be very unhappy and vulnerable without it." He turned to Joe. "So—you claim you have won?.

Joe looked up at him and tried to see him clearly with his 120 THE RIVER OF DANCING GODS poor vision. "Sure I did. Nothing about shape or form was in the rules one way or the other..

The sorcerer nodded. "That's true. But nothing said we had to change you back, either. Still, you're right. I didn't go through all this to have you go out making cows happy, and your very survival and return here show that you have the three qualities I counted on you to have. The first is luck—blind, dumb luck that gets you out of jams. Don't sneer at it. It's essential, to be anybody around here. The second is self-confidence, which you have aplenty, it seems, or you wouldn't have returned here no matter what. Finally, you use your head— when it would have been easy to accept your new lot in life meekly, you wasted no time in planning and organizing the opposition and carrying your escape off. I approve. I think, too, you've learned a valuable lesson here—that you can trust nothing and no one, and that almost everyone is out to get you in one way or another." He sighed and looked thoughtful. "I'm tempted to leave you a reminder of all that. The tail, perhaps, or the horns. But—no. This is too serious a business..

Ruddy gore's hand came up, and he made a series of apparently random signs in the air. Joe suddenly felt himself restored. He was there in the pasture, on his hands and knees, a clump of grass still in his mouth. He spat it out, sputtered, and got to his feet, looking down at himself and feeling all over just to make sure. "Hey! I'm really back!" he couldn't help exclaiming.

Ruddygore nodded and smiled. "We'll get you some food and clothes and a good night's sleep. After that, we'll talk..

Joe made no move to go, but instead just stood there, looking at the sorcerer and the remaining animals. "Uh—what about them? They helped me. I couldn't have done it without 'em..

He cleared his throat a little embarrassedly. "I, uh, kind of promised....

Page 104 Chalker, Jack L - The River of the Dancing Gods The sorcerer nodded. "You promised what you couldn't deliver and suckered them into helping you, and now you want me to bail you out. That's about it, isn't it?.

"That's about it," Joe agreed a little sheepishly.

"I knew it," Houma sighed. "He's going to leave us stuck..

"Not necessarily, my homy friend. Who might you be?.

Ruddygore asked.

"Houma. Formerly a farmer on the lands of Cohom..

121 JACK L. CHALKER "Uh-huh. And how did a farmer from Cohom happen to wander onto that farm and get turned into a goat? That's a hundred miles or more from Cohom..