The River Of Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  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 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 Ruddygore 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 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, I 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; 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 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.”

  Ruddygore’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...”

  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.”

  “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.”

  “Urn. Well, sir, we broke a plow, and Cohom village had no spares, since it was very old, and they sent me to get a new bracing custom made for it.”

  “Hmmm... A good liar, too. Come, now what was it, really? Women? Drink? Dishonesty? Or just plain oath breaking?”

  The goat sighed. “Not as bad as all that. We was out workin’ in the fields, and a friend of mine, Druka, got caught up in a runaway plow team. Got pretty tore up. Well, this highborn son of a bitch rides over, jumps off his fancy horse, and starts screaming that we’ve screwed up the production schedule and loused up a good master plow. Loused up a good master plow!

  With Druka there all cut and bleeding to death! So I slugged the bastar
d. Felt good. He looked real surprised and went down like a sack of meal. Then I dragged Druka out. Finally I saw he was dead. Chain had broken and snapped back, probably broke his neck. Well, sir, I knew what would happen if that fellow came to, him more concerned about plows than men and all. I figured I either had to kill him or cut and run. He wasn’t worth killin’ like that, and I’d hardly get a fair fight, so I cut and ran. Bummed around for a while, took odd jobs, and finally applied for work at the old bat’s place.”

  Ruddygore nodded. “I see. And now you want what? To be restored and returned to Cohom?”

  “Oh, no, sir! There’s no time limit on hittin’ a highborn.

  Uh uh. I’ll be happy to join tip, work for you or whatever, but if you’re gonna send me back or turn me in, you might as well leave me a goat.”

  The sorcerer laughed. “Well said, sir!” He turned to Joe.

  “He meets with your approval?”

  Joe nodded. “He has real guts, I’ll say that. I don’t know what you two have been saying, but this fellow sneaked in, got that wand. and didn’t panic. I think I’d trust him at my back.”

  “Then that is where he should be,” Ruddygore replied. Again he made a series of signs in the air; suddenly a spindly, knock kneed fellow with a light beard appeared, on hands and knees.

  He looked uncertain, almost wondrous, as he made his way unaccustomedly to his two feet. He looks like a young Uncle Sam, Joe thought.

  Next the sorcerer looked at Macore the rooster. “And you, sir?”

  “A tradesman. I sharpened and serviced household gadgets door to door and farm to farm. I picked the wrong customer, that’s all.”

  Ruddygore turned again to Joe questioningly.

  “Macore was the first to agree to the plan and talked the others into it,” Joe explained. “He also had almost all the information we needed.”

  “Hmmm... Macore, huh? Seems to me I heard of a Macore a few years back from someplace in Leander. Funny. He was in the same business you were. Only he had a reputation for leaving with more things from the various farms than he should have. You wouldn’t be any relation to him, would you?”

  “No comment until I’ve seen a lawyer,” the rooster responded.

  Ruddygore laughed and turned back to Joe. “What the fellow was, actually, was a common thief. Not even a fancy one.

  Pretty good, though. He would have valuable skills for us but I wouldn’t trust him too far. He is too clever to have to steal for a living he did it because he liked the work.”

  “I’ll take the chance,” Joe answered. “Besides, I owe him that much.”

  Again the sign, and now Macore was revealed a small, slightly built man with a large hawk nose and tiny, deep set black eyes. For once Joe wondered about the choice of animal the Circean had made. Macore looked more like a weasel than a rooster.

  Next was Grogha. That pig looked up expectantly at the sorcerer and eventually told his story about the shrewish wife and mean kids. Like Houma, he was willing to do anything in the service of Terindell, but, rather than go home, he’d remain a Pig Ruddygore had no problem with him, and the Circean pattern was once again revealed to be fairly consistent. He was a middle aged, fat man, short and stocky, with a round face and an enormous wide mouth.

  Next came Posti. Joe fold Ruddygore about the hesitant horse, but emphasized that Posti, once committed, had acquitted himself well indeed.

  “So you would like to be restored and join our Company?”

  the sorcerer asked. “I detect some hesitancy in you.”

  “I I’m not really sure what I want,” Posti admitted. “I know I was a pain back on the farm, and I know, too, that I came along mostly because I was damned bored. I wanted to see more of the world, get in a little more real living. But I ain’t too keen on bein’ me again, either. I wasn’t no beauty.

  I had a club foot and a cleft chin and I mostly did the haulin’ and dirty work, anyway. So y’see, sir, why I was torn. On the one hand I wanted to feel like I saw something of this life, more’n most folks, but, hell, sir, I mean, I’m a really pretty horse. Strong, too.”

  Ruddygore thought a moment. “Do you understand what we are doing here? We are fighting a war.”

  “Aye, sir. I’m willin’ to do my duty.”

  “Suppose... Just suppose... Suppose we keep you a horse?

  A horse for one of these men? We’d have a horse with your courage and the intelligence of a man, and you would participate and do your part. You would also get the travel and adventure you seem to crave. How about that?”

  “I was kind of thinkin’ along them lines myself,” Posti admitted. “But I sorta thought it would sound crazy.”

  The sorcerer grew thoughtful once again. “Still, we must have a way for you to speak, and you just don’t have the equipment for it nor can I really give it to you without changing your nature. However, I think perhaps I have a spell for it.” Again the mystic patterns in the air. “There. Now you will be able to communicate with anyone who sits upon your backand only that person under that circumstance. You will, of course, retain your present ability to talk to others similarly bewitched and to some of the fairies. What about it?”

  “I think that will do fine, sir,” Posti answered.

  Ruddygore turned at last to Dacaro. The sleek black stallion with the odd aura had remained silent and apparently disinterested in the proceedings until now. The head came up, looked down at Ruddygore, and Dacaro said, “Hello again, Ruddygore.”

  Ruddygore frowned. “Well, I’ll be damned! No wonder that aura was familiar. Dacaro, isn’t it?”

  “You know it is.”

  “I had clean forgotten that you were exiled to the Circean’s care! But I have not forgotten why,” Ruddygore added darkly.

  “I did not think you had,” the horse responded.

  Ruddygore turned to the others, who, except for Posti, could follow only the sorcerer’s part of the conversation. All knew, though, that something was wrong. “This man did me a great disservice once,” the sorcerer told them. “He alone was there by force, not by accident.”

  “He was helpful to us, though,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, and he could read, too,” Grogha added.

  “Still, this presents a problem,” Ruddygore told them. “Dacaro was an adept here at Terindell several years ago. I’m afraid he had the talent but not the self discipline for the arts.

  On his own, he opened the gates of Hell and almost destroyed this place and me. I was faced with a deep breach of trust and faith and also with the fact that he knew far too much of the darker side of necromancy to be allowed simply to go. He was too ambitious and too easily seduced. He would right now be with the Dark Baron, had I let him leave.”

  “That’s not true!” Dacaro shot back. “In fact, that is the only reason I joined in on this breakout, and certainly the only reason I returned here, to you of all people. You forget I have looked into the face of the ultimate evil that sponsors the Dark Baron. Were you right about me, I could have easily cut and run to him after the escape.”

  Ruddygore thought about it. “What you say has merit, I admit. But I look inside you, Dacaro, and see your tragedy.

  It is a tragedy I do not think you yourself understand or, at least, will admit to yourself. What you say is true but there is inside you something that draws you wrong. You have the makings of a Dark Baron yourself, Dacaro. He really doesn’t think he’s evil, or controlled from Hell. He has fallen completely into self delusion, which the seduction of ultimate power brings. It’s inside you, too.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Obviously. And yet my original judgment stands. In your present condition, your powers are somewhat limited, although still there as is your considerable knowledge. But I simply can’t take the chance of restoring you. Not now, particularly.

  After this is over, perhaps. But not now.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “Still, I’m not about to throw you into the arms of the Dark Baron,
either,” the sorcerer continued. “What say you to the same deal I gave Posti there? Joe can use your magical knowledge and your language abilities. The whole Company can.

  Will you join the Company of your own free will?”

  “As a horse?”

  “As a horse. For now, anyway.”

  Dacaro thought it over for a moment. “All right. For now, anyway. But I do not wish to die a horse.”

  “You have my word. Prove yourself once more, and perhaps something can be worked out. Deal?”

  The black stallion sighed. “Deal.”

  Ruddygore again made some signs, this time showing obvious concentration.

  “What are you doing?” Dacaro asked nervously. “I need no spells from you to communicate!”

  Ruddygore kept on, and Dacaro saw ribbons of gold and blue and yellow flow from the finger of the sorcerer and weave the signs in the air the only one there, other than the sorcerer himself and Poquah, who could see such things.

  “You are bound by a stronger spell than the old one, which was so easily broken,” Ruddygore told him. “I wish you to face your choices squarely. None but one of the Council could undo my spell.”

  Dacaro thought about it. “I see. You expect me to run to the Baron in the end.”

  “Self discipline is the key to your growth or corruption,”

  Ruddygore said. “Let’s see who is right.” He sighed and turned to the others. “Now we are almost complete. Joe, Dacaro will be your mount, and you will be able to communicate with him.

  Listen to him. He has enough of the art to keep you out of some trouble or advise you on the rest.”

  “Glad to have him,” Joe responded.

  “Posti, I’m going to give you the last member of the Company as your rider.”

  “Last member?” both Joe and Posti said.

  Ruddygore nodded. “Have you forgotten, Joe, that you didn’t arrive here alone?”

  The big man snapped his fingers. “Damn! I really I had just about forgotten! How is she?”