Horrors of the Dancing Gods (2 page)

Avoiding satyrs was one of her daily goals. The romance of faerie was more than overstated; rather, it was an existence suspended halfway between animal and human, with a mind that could think, could reason, could even learn, stuck inside a body even more constraining than the ones humans had, in which instinct and certain behaviors were beyond thought or resistance. She still didn't enjoy the process, but those flutes were hypnotizing and irresistible.

It was scary to be in a situation that was totally irresistible, to be completely helpless and enslaved to the will of another. As much as ego and self-identity, that fear drove her to try to beat the system that had snared her in this nasty trap.

There had been an Aladdin's lamp once, one that really could grant any and all wishes. Although it was gone, far out of reach—in effect wished out of existence—the mere fact that it had existed gave her hope. Given a nearly infinite amount of time, which she had, there
had
to be something else here, something beyond that one lone lamp that would restore her true form. She had the time; the real question in her mind was whether she'd lose her sanity and her memories before she found the key that she was convinced, against all statements by the magical hierarchy of this world, existed.

She had been wandering some of the world of Husaquahr; it was too painful to remain back at the castle, watching a son grow up without parents but unable to get the nerve to tell the boy the truth. You just couldn't be much of a father when you looked like a teenage boy's bimbo dream.

She'd been away quite a while, searching—or so she told herself—for that magic way back to "normalcy" once again. So far: lots of rumors, lots of legends, nothing real. Not that some of those legendary pieces of magic didn't exist; it was just, well, they weren't exactly on the scale of great devices their press had built them up as being or in
any
way the equal of the Lamp.

The Stalk of Stavros, for example. Now,
there
had been one with real promise, a magical staff, they said, that could turn anything into anything. It had taken some effort to find it and get to it, only to discover it was useful mostly for giving long-distance hotfoots. And as for the Pincushion of Ptolemy—no, that was just too painful to think about, dud though it was from her standpoint. The Owl of Ozymandius had at least known something, but it had been the answer to the question all owls asked.

The Owl of Ozymandius
knew
who was who. That hadn't done her much good, either.

She had no idea how long she'd been out in the land seeking and not finding; she had long ago lost any sense of time beyond day and night. But the worst part was what some sages termed the Curse of the Gods.

It was getting pretty damned boring.

Oh, originally there'd
been
some excitement, but after a
few adventures and risks and losing some life-or-death gambles only to discover that she couldn't really lose, the thrill had vanished. She couldn't die, she wouldn't get hurt, she didn't grow old. The hoariest monsters of the land were in the end helpless to do her harm. When you combined that with a total lack of need for anything—food, clothing, housing, whatever—there really wasn't much left. She'd never been much on school-type learning, and lately it just didn't interest her, anyway. She'd never been much of a collector, either, owning things for their own sake. Besides, where would she keep things if she had them? She could have the scents of any of the plants of nature, so why use artificial things? Even any jewelry would have to be organic so that it would not obstruct her if she chose to merge with tree or bush.

And when you neither wanted nor needed anything at all and there was no risk, no sense of family or attachment, nothing—what was there?

This sense of nothingness in her life, of a gray lack of meaning and purpose, along with the failure of her quest for a way out, was now bringing her back toward Terindell, back toward the only people who meant anything at all to her, now or ever.

But there was also something more, something much harder to pin down, a kind of grayness seemed to be settling in, permeating Husaquahr, almost as if it were some strange sort of vampiric fog, draining the energy from the land. It really wasn't anything you could see or put your finger on; rather, it was something you sensed, felt, lurking there, all around, omnipresent yet just out of sight in the corner of your eye.

It wasn't just faerie sense, or imagination, either. They all felt it, or so it seemed, mortal and faerie alike, although they could no more put it into words than she could. It was as if something ancient were stirring, something none of them had ever known before. Something impossibly old, unimaginably powerful, and of a nature that might be called evil but was something far worse.

It was the kind of gray that made the whole world seem tired, made ambition seem not worth the effort and inhibition a sucker's play. People tended to be surly; violence was up, tolerance was down, and nobody really knew why he or she was feeling and acting this way.

It gave whispered voice to thoughts she didn't want, too.
If Joe survived the lava, no matter how transformed, then why not Boquillas as well?

What about it? What did the damnable Rules have to say about
that?

She shook the dark thoughts from her mind and looked around. It was late; dusk was about to give way to total darkness—not a good time at all to be walking the trails and roads of Husaquahr alone even if life was not threatened. As a wood nymph, the only power she had was with the trees, so she made her way quickly toward a thick stand of massive tropical monarchs that probably was home to quite a colony of her kind. She never felt all that social toward her more limited sisters, but the forest certainly had room for one more, and she could use some rest.

Suddenly, not far ahead, there came the sound of shouts and a woman's terrified scream and then the clang of metal against metal.

It startled her more than alarmed her; she'd been walking half a day on that road and had barely met anyone who didn't live in and around the area of the road. Now she approached the sounds cautiously, carefully, straining to see if this was something she might avoid. With her greenish coloration and in her natural element, she could move with amazing quietness and near invisibility, at least to mortal eyes.

It had been three against two: three big, swarthy bearded men with the look of brigands or worse against a well-dressed and handsome middle-aged man and a chubby-looking young girl horrendously overdressed in a long brown cloak and full dress. It must have looked like easy pickings to the men, but the older fellow had put up quite a
fight. One of the attackers lay, possibly dead, along the trail, and another had a torn jerkin and a spreading bloodstain on the right side of his chest, although it was clearly a superficial wound.

There were, however, too many of them; the one with the wound had grabbed the girl, who might well have gotten him with a dagger of some sort; he held her firmly while she futilely struggled to break free of him. The man who'd been untouched had beaten the old man to the ground with his heavy sword and now brought the blade down hard on the defender's neck.

The girl screamed again, then seemed to lose all will to resist further as blood spurted from the certainly fatal wound to her companion.

Joe looked around, trying to think of some way to help. Physically no longer a match for the pair, although her old self ached to pick up a sword and have at them, she was not without power and resources here.

"Put her down!" Joe shouted as menacingly as she could. "Let the girl go!"

Both of the surviving attackers froze in the deepening darkness; the one with the small wound frowned but kept his grip on the girl.

The other one looked around, trying to get a make on the newcomer, grinning as he thought things through. "Come on out yourself, darlin'! We got enough for two of you!"

"Take what you want but leave the girl here and go," Joe responded, moving around the periphery of the trees and bushes. This would be tricky, but it was makable.

"Well, now, I don't think we kin do that," the grinning man said. "See, we think we want her, too. We got real plans for her, y' see. What's she to you, anyways? You got to be a nymph from the sounds. Hell, this is what you's
built
for! Plenty of room for more!"

The girl, too, was suddenly paying attention. She looked desperate and her eyes were more than a little wild, but clearly she was looking for some kind of opening. Touching the great trees just in back of the man holding her, Joe decided that this wasn't something she couldn't provide.

Vines suddenly shot out from the tops of the trees and grabbed the man who held the terrified woman, wrapping themselves around his neck. While not thick or strong enough actually to do him in, they were enough to cut off his wind and give him a sudden and direct choice between letting his captive go and letting the vines keep wrapping around his neck. There wasn't even a contest; reflex made him let go of the girl and grab for his neck.

The girl dropped to the ground, spied the dagger she'd dropped after stabbing her captor, picked it up, and rushed toward her assailant, who was just pulling the last vines free, his head leaning back so he had room to grab them and break them loose. It was almost as if he were offering his throat, and with a desperate reach and a slashing motion the girl shoved the dagger right into his Adam's apple.

He went down with a
gurgling sound, pulling out the dagger as he fell to his knees, but by then the blood was filling up his air passages, strangling him. He knew it and could do absolutely nothing to stop it.

"You bitch!"
the remaining attacker screamed, grin now gone, and he ran to where the girl was just turning away as if
to
flee. As she turned, he struck her hard on her back and shoulder with the flat of his sword. She cried out once more and fell, crumpling from the force of the blow.

The man stepped back, not wanting to get trapped by vines as his companion had been but also unwilling to abandon either his prize or the possibility of revenge from the still not clearly seen attacker.

He stepped over the girl's still body and put his sword down on her. "All right," he growled menacingly. "Show yourself! Show yourself or I start on the girl here. She's not much, but it can be a little hard to watch, especially if'n she comes to! First a foot, maybe? Then the other'n? So's she won't walk away on us? Then the hands, arms, legs, that sort of thing. What do you think? What should I start with? Maybe this here leg? You got five seconds to try'n stop me!"

The bastard was good; Joe had to give him that. This was no common robber or cutthroat; he knew his business too well. He also had picked a stance and a position where it would be next to impossible to get him with vines, and there wasn't much else around, either, except maybe throwing rocks and sticks—and Joe knew just how little arm strength she had for that sort of thing.

"What would it get you?" Joe tried, hoping to stall while she thought of something.

"Satisfaction," the man responded. "In fact, I don't think I like stalling. You've used up your time, girlie." The sword arm came up a bit, the muscles tensed, and Joe, familiar with the stance and the move, had no doubt what was coming next.

"All right," Joe said, stepping into the clearing but away from the swordsman, out of easy reach. "So now what?"

The man obviously had some faerie sight; he didn't seem at all bothered by the nearly pitch darkness around them, and he stared carefully at the wood nymph. The kind of bravado and guts she was showing, as well as quick thinking, was beyond most nymphs of any stripe, but aside from this one being a bit taller and having if anything an even more inhumanly exaggerated set of proportions than the usual, she didn't look all that different.

"I guess you didn't hear me," the man growled with a kind of confident, even smug tone. "I didn't ask you to come out. I said you had to stop me."

The sword hand moved, and Joe sprang at him without even thinking, leaping over the distance and hitting him in the chest. Since he stood maybe five-ten and weighed a hundred seventy pounds or so, he was a brick wall to her four-foot-eight, perhaps eighty-pound bulk, but it was enough to knock him back and break his sword motion.

To him it had been a solid punch; to Joe it was that whole brick wall and it hurt like hell, and she fell onto the ground, slightly dazed.

He was over her with the sword before she got back her bearings.

He put out the tip of the sword and touched her left shoulder, and there was a
hissing sound where metal met faerie flesh, as if the sword were not solid at all but some kind of horribly caustic acid, and an acrid smell of boiling flesh and a tiny whiff of white smoke came from the wound.

"You know, it's gonna be a shame to kill you," he said, almost sounding as if he meant it. "Never saw a nymph with this much guts. Can't have you doggin' me and threatenin' my back, though, or callin' in some damned army or the cops. Good-bye, girlie," he added, and plunged the iron sword deep into her, making a horrible gash along her entire breastplate, probably all the way down to her back.