They both nodded, and he continued.
“All right, then. Those Laws should be sufficient for everybody. They’re very general and very universal, but they’re all we really need. Unfortunately, several centuries ago, when this castle was an outpost in a major war, a new bunch of sorcerers came to the Council who were, let me say, rather pedestrian.
All the really powerful magicians of the time had either perished in the wars or gone on to higher planes. This new Council was made up of pretty petty men it was all male then, although that’s changed who decided that the Laws contained a large number of loopholes. They weren’t specific enough. They didn’t address modem problems. With that, the Council ceased being the guardian of the Laws and the integrity of magic and our way of life and became, alas, a bureaucracy. Oh, it was a creeping little thing you never really noticed it, it was so agonizingly creeping but, after a while, what we had were the Books of Rules to cover everybody’s pet idea, theory, moral code you name it. Anything they could get a majority of the Council to consider and pass on. Every generation of sorcerers brings some new stuff, and that’s what you see behind me here.
As long as none of the Rules break any of the Laws nobody can do that they are as binding and restrictive as any law of nature.”
“Sounds like income tax,” Joe commented sourly. “They started with a simple little tax, I’m told, on just the very rich, and got to the point where there were hundreds and hundreds of books of tax laws. I never could know ‘em. Last year I had to pay over two hundred bucks to have my taxes done. And even the guys at the IRS admitted nobody really understood the whole thing. It was just too much of a big mess.”
Ruddygore smiled. “Exactly! That is exactly it! I doubt if anybody anywhere understands all that’s in those volumes. Fact is, you just live in the world and you aren’t even aware that what you live with is one of the Rules. It’s just the way things are. And they’re constantly being revised and rewritten. Biggest mistake we made was forming a subcommittee to look over the Rules and throw out the bad and resolve some of the basic contradictions that came up. Instead, the fatheads just increased the amount of Rules.”
“It’s the tax code, all right,” Joe said agreeably.
“Only it’s worse, since what’s in there affects everything and everybody,” Ruddygore pointed out. “You have no choice in the matter. And you have no idea yet just how petty it can get. And how silly. In fact, that’s one thing we will have ,to attend to right away with the two of you. Right now you’re aliens in this land and still pretty much outside the Rules. If we don’t attune you to them before you leave Terindell, all those dumb things will fall on you at the same time, and the Creator alone knows what sort of terrible things might happen to you. Poquah, is the lab in good shape?”
“Excellent, sir,” the creature replied, and both Joe and Marge almost jumped out of their chairs. Poquah was standing there with a service cart filled with pitchers and tankards for how long he had been present, they couldn’t say. There hadn’t been a sound from either him or the service.
Ruddygore chuckled at the two. “I admit Poquah takes some getting used to. He is my closest aide and boss of this place, second only to myself in authority. However, he is an Imira race distantly related to those elves you saw, but very distantly. The Imir are large, as you can see, and a warrior race if there ever was one.”
Poquah served the tankards to the three of them in a good, professional butler manner, but then poured a fourth for himself and took the last chair. He still looked something like a stickman, bending only at right angles.
The Imir took a swallow from the tankard and put it down on the carpet. “We deny relation to elves,” he said proudly.
“Except, perhaps, the other way around. We have little in common, elves and Imir.”
“His people have a basic gift of faerie; though,” Ruddygore told them, “honed in the Imir’s case to a fine edge. You simply will not see or notice them until and unless they want to be seen or noticed. It is a trait many of the magical folk have, but in their case it is a defensive one, triggered by startlement, apprehension, or fear. In the case of the Imir, they can turn it on and off at will a very handy thing for warriors.”
“I can see that,” Marge agreed.
“Well, Poquah, what do you think of our two new recruits?” the sorcerer asked.
Poquah looked over at the two of them, those red eyes surveying first Joe, then Marge. “Interesting choices,” he said at last. “But as a pilot project, they may do. I am surprised at the presence of the woman, but it adds symmetry to the entire affair.”
Ruddygore smiled. “The Imir are not known for tact and diplomacy,” he told them. “They tell you exactly what they think.”
“Diplomacy and tact are basic dishonesties developed by races who can not fight,” the Imir responded casually. “They are unnecessary to the Imir.”
Ruddygore sighed and got up. “Very well, then. Let me get a change of clothes, and we’ll see to making a proper hero and heroine out of the two of you.”
Chapter IV
How To Make
A Good Appearance
All persons brought from other universes must be physically acclimated to this one and bound to the Laws and the Rules.
- XX, 210, 116(a)
What Ruddygore called his laboratory was a strange cross between a real lab and something out of the Middle Ages.
There were compartments, basins, beakers, and flasks very much like those in a school chemistry lab, and there was even a source of natural gas with small Bunsen burner type nozzles on flexible hoses. There was drainage in the basins, too, although water was strictly a hand pump affair from several locations. Other parts of the place, though, were what Joe called “strictly voodoo.”
There were open areas with all sorts of mystic and cabalistic designs on the floors; long candelabras and incense burners in the shape of odd and demonic idols stood about. Here, too, were braziers and all the other paraphernalia one would expect of an ancient court magician or high priest. There was even an area with an unpleasant looking altar set into one wall.
Even in the modem part, with its hundreds of little drawers and compartments, things were less than usual. Bat’s blood, a jar of eyes of newts, and other things even less pleasant revealed themselves when Joe opened a few compartments out of curiosity. A drawer full of live spiders, quickly slammed shut again, ended his meddling in a hurry.
Ruddygore entered from the rear, near the altar, looking quite different from how he had looked earlier, resplendent now in flowing robes of sparkling gold and wearing a skullcap of the same material.
He smiled and nodded to them, then went over to one of the clear areas near the altar and glanced down in disgust.
“Damn. Have to get a mop first and wait for the floor to dry.
Damned adepts with their love spells...”
Still grumbling, he got a fairly ordinary looking mop out of the base of an exotic offering stand, pumped out some water from one of the well basins, soaked the mop, and quickly erased the designs on the center of the floor. Replacing it all, he wiped his hands on a towel and came over to them.
“I’ll have to wait for the whole thing to dry,” he said. “I need to sketch out a few new designs down there.” He sighed.
“Well, we can use the time a bit to discuss your future.”
“That interests me a lot,” Joe told him, and Marge nodded.
“Well, let me start with you, Joe. Did you ever imagine yourself off in some other time and some other place as the hero of a big epic? You seem fond of show business, by your remarks. Ever imagine yourself as one of those big, strong heroes?”
Joe thought a moment. “Not really. Not from movies or TV, anyway.”
“Not even when you were a kid?”
He thought a moment more. “Yeah. I guess so. I’m more than half Native American, you know, mixed with Seminole and whatever part of Puerto Rican is from the old days. I used to like to hear th
e old folks’ stories about how it was before the white man. You know, the great civilizations of the past.
A lot of times I saw myself as the great warrior chief, riding down with super power and wisdom, turning back the white man and saving the old ways. Kind of silly for a kid from South Philly, I guess, whose idea of wilderness was Fairmont Park, but it does something to a kid when all the other kids are playing cowboys and you know what you are.”
Ruddygore nodded thoughtfully. “I can see that. Can you think back to it clearly? I mean, can you visualize that warrior chief? What he looked like?”
Joe considered. “Yeah. I think I can. Sort of.”
“Okay, then. Just hold that vision and don’t let go.” The sorcerer turned to Marge. “And you? Any super cowgirls?
Beautiful princesses? Amazonian warriors?”
She smiled wistfully. “Yeah.”
“Which one?”
“All of ‘em.”
The sorcerer chuckled. “Well, if you had to pick one, some vision of yourself perhaps as the warrior queen, gutsily defending her splendid golden castle...”
She thought it over and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Yeah. I can think of a dozen novels I’ve practically lived again and again.”
“All right. Just keep that vision in mind.” He looked over at the floor. “I see it’s dry now. Let me make my preparations.”
He reached inside the mouth of a hideous bronze idol set in the wall and took out what proved to be a piece of thick, soft chalk. Working rapidly, he positioned first Joe, then Marge, about eight feet apart in the clear area, then started drawing around each of them on the smooth slate floor with the chalk.
The designs were identical. Pentagrams, clearly and solidly drawn, and outside each pentagram a six pointed star. He got up from the floor and said, “Now, neither of you move. Not an inch outside those pentagrams not until I tell you. Understand?”
Joe looked nervous and uncomfortable. ‘The real conjure stuff,” he murmured uneasily.
The sorcerer nodded. “The real stuff, Joe. You in particular should understand that you stay where you are at all costs.
Marge, you take it seriously, too.” He backed up a distance from both of them, then drew a new, larger pentagram around the two recruits, this time with Ruddygore inside. From a small valise also inside the outer design he removed candles and long candlesticks, which he proceeded to set at each of the five points of the outer pentagram. He lighted each candle in turn with a long stick which was burning at one end, being careful at no time to cross the outer pentagram. Then, stepping back, he proceeded to draw the same design around himself as around the other two, so that he was equidistant from them and facing them. He checked everything visually to make sure it was all to his satisfaction, nodded, and took a deep breath.
“It is a simple spell. Child’s play, really. But you get to be an old sorcerer not only from long study but also because you never take even the easy ones for granted. Now, don’t be startled by anything that happens from now on. Take it as a show, a magic trick, but for the sake of your souls, do not break your own pentagrams!”
“You gonna conjure a demon?” Joe asked uneasily.
“That’s about it,” Ruddygore agreed. “A very minor one of little importance, but it owes me. It will appear between us, so I warn you about that right now. It may look fearsome; but as long as you remain totally within your pentagrams, it can not touch you, let alone harm you. It may also sound very decent and civilized, but don’t let that fool you, either. At this level, the demons are more raw emotion than intellect and have just about no self control. If you break your pentagram, it will almost certainly eat you and carry your soul to Hell as its eternal slave. There would be nothing I could do about that understand?”
They both nodded, and Marge couldn’t help thinking over and over, My god, this isn’t a dream or a joke it’s real. As for Joe, he’d had no doubts from the beginning.
“All right,” Ruddygore said, taking a deep breath. “Here we go.”
With that he closed his eyes and began chanting, softly, in a language neither of the other two could comprehend. It was an ancient tongue, though, seemingly of some race that far predated humanity, and it was not designed for the human vocal system.
It’s no wonder sorcerers also go in for all sorts of potions, Marge thought, hearing it. They all have to have chronic sore throats.
For a while, nothing happened, and the newcomers began to think that nothing would occur. Then, quite slowly, they both realized that the light level was sinking ever so gradually, the torches and lamp flames shrinking in intensity. It was growing, abruptly, quite dark; within four or five minutes, all light sources in the lab were out, except the five candles at the outer pentagram points. Again a minute or two passed with nothing else happening, but the air grew thick with expectancy.
Suddenly, in the space between Ruddygore and themselves, there was a disturbance in the air. It began as a few silver and gold sparkles, but slowly, about three feet from the floor, the sparkles increased in number and intensity and started to swirl, forming after a time a sparkling whirlpool or galaxy shape which quickly widened, took a new shape, and outlined a grotesque figure in its tiny flashing pattern. The sparkles suddenly vanished, and the shape became solid and real before them.
It was a terribly ugly creature, round and squat, in some ways resembling a toad but with a face that was more pig like than anything else, complete with two big, curved, boar like tusks and lots and lots of teeth. It was hairless, naked, and stood on two birdlike feet. Its eyes were round and bright yellow with black dots in the center, like the eyes of a fish, and, like them, seemed lidless. The skin itself was mottled, gray and greenish, the color of death and mold and it stank up the place to high heaven.
It looked up at Ruddygore being only three feet high and gave a nasty grin. “You don’t mind if I check you out?” it rasped in an unpleasant, grating voice. “Even the best slip up now and then.”
“Be my guest,” the sorcerer responded.
With that the creature waddled around, checking the designs around each of the three humans, then walking the length of the outer pentagram. Finally satisfied, it returned to the middle of the three and again looked at Ruddygore. “They’re good enough to restrain me,” the demon admitted without sounding in any way surprised. “Wouldn’t hold an elemental or anything stronger, though. You’re slipping in your old age.”
Ruddygore smiled. “It doesn’t need to hold anything stronger.
You still owe me, Ratzfahr. You know that.”
“Yeah, yeah. Damn. Ask a little favor just one time and they never let you forget it,” the demon grumped.
“One! You want the list?”
“Aw, okay, okay.” Ratzfahr turned his head completely around without moving his body and looked at the other two, then swiveled back to Ruddygore. “They smell funny,” the demon noted.
“So do you,” the sorcerer retorted, “but I’ve never let that come between us.”
“This is some nutty language you got us talkin’, too,” the demon went on. “Where’d you get these two, anyway?”
“Earth Prime,” Ruddygore told him. “Where else?”
The head swiveled again. “Well, I’ll be a cherub! Earth Prime! Been a long time. You figurin’ on screwing up the neighborhood?”
“No, but I have need of them,” Ruddygore said. “So don’t you try any tricks on them, Ratzfahr. They’re my guests.”
“Guests.” The demon chuckled evilly. “I’ll bet. Still, what’s your pleasure?”
“Acclimatization. The works. Physical. Language. No soul, though. That stays Prime.”
“Aw, for cryin’ out loud!” the demon protested. “C’mon, you old windbag! That’s a hell of a lot! You ask too much.”
“No matter what, you must return to Hell,” Ruddygore reminded the creature menacingly. “It wouldn’t do for everyone down there to know the Profane Name by which you were formed!”
The demon looked genuinely shocked. “You wouldn’t!”
“You bet I would! And you know it!”
The demon sighed. “All right, all right, you got me where it hurts. You sure about the soul, though? They’ll stand out like magnets to them that got the Power.”
“I have my reasons,” the wizard told him. “Just do as instructed.”
“Okay, okay. What language you want?”
“Makti, of course. Unless you’d like to give them ‘the Gift of Tongues.”
“You gotta be kiddin’,” Ratzfahr scoffed. “You know what that would take out of me.”
“I do, which is why I ask rather than demand. Makti it is, then.”
The demon suddenly floated up two feet in the air, turned, and looked at the man and woman critically. “Yeah, I can see they need work,” he commented idly.
Both Joe and Marge were tempted to return the insults, but were a little leery about saying much of anything. The demon was certainly not what either of them had expected, but Ruddygore’s warning had been seriously taken.
Ratzfahr gave a low whistle. “Wow. They really have high opinions of themselves, don’t they? Oh, well. Here goes nothin’!
Raddis on the frabbis! Freebix on the Clive! And with those cryptic remarks he started spinning, picking up speed very fast until he was only a whirling blur of motion in the near darkness.
Suddenly from him emanated two columns of gold and silver sparkling rays that touched and then seemed to engulf the two humans’ pentagrams.
They both felt a sudden falling sensation, as in a fast descending elevator, and a tingling, like electric shock, only all over their bodies. For a moment, it was all either could do to remain standing in the pentagrams, and each had a fear of falling out and into the clutches of the demon; but while both wavered a bit, they held steady.
There was sound all around, too, now: the cacophony of thousands of discordant voices shouting and competing with what seemed like ten symphony orchestras all playing nonsense and out of tune. It grew and grew inside their heads and all around them until they thought they could stand no more.
The River Of Dancing Gods Page 6