Vengeance of the Dancing Gods (6 page)

—Motto of the Thieves' Guild of Husaquahr NONE IN THE LONG AND VARIED HISTORY OF HUSAQUAHR had ever seen Throckmorton P. Ruddygore move this fast or be this angry. He had spent four days on the island recovering and relaxing from his unknown ordeals, then had headed off for his great castle Terindell in Marque- 36 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS wood as Joe and Tiana ruefully headed back to their own duties elsewhere.

As usual, Ruddygore always checked the seals, and when he discovered that no less than three attempts on the vault seemed to have been made in his absence, a new record, and one of them by Macore, he blew up. Of course, the staff was only guessing at this—they knew that all three had entered, two who thought they were surreptitious and Macore through the front gate—and that none had emerged again, but none could be absolutely certain that the vaults had been the cause of it.

Ruddygore was certain, taking only a cursory glance at the front door of the vaults and taking a reading from the memory in the wood. "How dare they!" he stormed to Poquah. "Particularly Macore! Well, they all got what they deserved. Let's go down and see what damage is done..

What had taken hours for the greatest of thieves to figure out Ruddygore did in a quick series of motions, so automatic that one would not have even guessed the traps were there. He pulled down the door, stepped in, went immediately over the bridge that seemed not to be there, then down the stairs, rapidly, skipping just the right steps and ducking at just the right points. Poquah, who knew the route as well as his master, did likewise, at least until the hall of mirrors. The mirrors would attack anyone without Ruddygore's full reflection in all of them, so the sorcerer had to wait a moment there until Poquah was with him and under his protection. He took the opportunity to read the walls, and found signs of two thieves gone to Hell in there between checks. Poquah was the only one of faerie, other than the dwarves, who would not be Page 27 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods instantly killed by the iron in the vault, and that was only because of a spell that interacted with Ruddygore only when Ruddygore was present.

Two thieves. That worried him. Two, not three—and neither of the two were familiar.

"I don't like this, Poquah," he muttered darkly. "It is 37 JACK L. CHALKER absolutely impossible for any, be they human or fairy, to pass this point unless with me. Even a false visage won't do it, since the mirror sees and recognizes such spells.

About the only type of creature capable of passing through here would be some sort of vampire, and Macore is not one of those. Well, come on. Let's see just how far he got..

The Imir walked before him now and through the center mirror as if it wasn't there, as indeed it was not. It was an illusion, reflecting the others. An immediate bright, searing light hit them, hot and intense, but there was no sign of any remains or essence to show that anything had ended its life here.

"Definitely no vampiric spirit," Poquah noted. "It would have been destroyed at this point..

Ruddygore again took the lead, pressing the keystone in the wall that was invisible in the brightness of the light to ordinary eyes, insuring that the spring-loaded, stakefilled walls beyond would not close on them. Down another few stairs and around a curve, they broke through a complex sonic pattern that was impossible to avoid and well above the threshold of even an animal's hearing. The sorcerer went up to a small wooden box, flipped it down to reveal a numeric keypad, then pressed a nine digit combination that prevented the alarm box from going off, triggering all sorts of signals above and even nastier traps below.

They entered the main chamber and faced the seven identical doors, like those to bank vaults. Each had different and complex spells and locks on them, and there was no way to tell which one was real and which were the decoys.

Ruddygore and Poquah stood there, puzzled. Still none of the signs showed any trace of a recent visitor. This wasn't unusual if one just passed through, but death imprinted the inanimate objects surrounding it with a specific and retrievable set of signals.

"Clearly, either Macore did not come down here, or 38 JACK L. CHALKER 39 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS Page 28 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods he succeeded in entering the vault," Poquah noted in his dry, flat tone.

"No, if Macore had succeeded in getting all the way, he'd have returned upstairs, either to prevent any suspicion from coming his way or simply to taunt me about his feat in breaking my elaborate system," Ruddygore responded.

The Imir walked over to the second door from the right and examined its spells and locks. "Nevertheless, someone not only was here but managed to choose the correct vault. It is an amazingly skillful job, but the seals have certainly been tampered with..

Ruddygore strode quickly over, looked, and saw that it was true. He frowned worriedly, not liking this at all.

"Not even the Dark Baron and his demon prince succeeded in breaking into these vaults. I don't care who it was, Macore is simply not this good. This is serious indeed, Poquah. I smell the hand of Hell in all of this, for only they would know enough of these vaults to bring someone this far..

"Still, the doors are scrambled randomly every few hours. How could even Hell know the correct one at that particular moment?" .

"I don't know. But all these attempts by all these master thieves in the last couple of years, which I'd foolishly taken as just chance and the wages of being famous in dull times, I now suspect is more than that..

It would have taken the best of wizards many hours to unwork any of the spells on any of the doors, which were at the heart of the final security system. The true vault shuffled magically between the doors randomly, but at least once an hour; none could undo the spells and pick the locks in less than two, not even a member of the Council itself, which meant that even someone who got this far would be forever picking the lock to what would be the wrong door.

The only one who could undo the spells in sufficiently fast time to get into the right one was the maker of the spell, and it still took Ruddygore better than ten minutes.

He rarely visited the vaults, or even checked them. He only checked to the last point where the thief was destroyed.

The spell undone, he had effectively frozen the vault shift and now took a great key from his waistcoat pocket and placed it in the lock, then turned it in an elaborate series of moves. The lock was, in fact, a nine number combination lock, and it had to be done just right, including removing the key before attempting to open the door.

He did so, then pulled up on the handle and the great metal door swung away.

Page 29 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods The vast treasure trove of Ruddygore's went back for what seemed to be miles, but he didn't try and walk the corridors and check every little thing. It was all keyed to him and to a personal inventory spell, and it took him almost no time at all to determine that the only things missing were fifty-one pounds of gold—real, not fairy, although the fairy gold would have been a better prize— and one of his American Express cards. The gold one, naturally.

There was, of course, only one way to get someone and that much gold back out, and he immediately walked far back along the corridors of the vault until he came to the Lamp. He was more than a little surprised to find it still there.

The Lamp of Lakash had been formed in the earliest days of Creation by the great powers who created the world. It looked, in fact, the way it should have—an ancient oil lamp that had once reminded Joe of an antique gravy boat with a top on it, sitting atop a rounded stand.

It was originally designed as a fudge factor by the early Creators, since it could, within some strong limitations, violate or alter the laws of science and magic and grant a wish. Hell had made a stab for it, and it had been lost in the turmoil for eons afterward, even existing at various times on Earth as well as here, and giving rise to both worlds' legends of magic wishing lamps and genies. Rud- 40 JACK L. CHALKER 41 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS dygore picked up the lamp and rubbed it gently, trying to remain calm and mark his words well while he held it.

No matter what legend said, none were entitled to more than one free wish on the Lamp. Make two and, while the second was granted, the wisher changed places with the genie, becoming the slave of the Lamp in place of the one now there. Ruddygore had no desire to pay the price he would have to pay if he, even inadvertently, made a wish.

When it had been recovered by Joe and Marge, it had contained Dacaro, the evil wizard and former pupil of Ruddygore's, who had taken refuge in it against the demon prince Hiccarph.

The genie of the Lamp appeared, and Ruddygore sighed as he saw who it was.

"It's not my fault!" Macore the genie protested.

"I should have known," Ruddygore said disgustedly.

"First tell me why you did it, then how..

"The why of it I only now fully understand," Macore replied, and proceeded to tell the story of the gem, the Page 30 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods snowstorm, and the demon. Now that he had completed the geas the demon had laid upon him, he remembered all the details.

"So, anyway," Macore continued, "I was set up to do it. I had lots of information from the demon—he ducked down You Know Where and talked to Hiccarph, who, it seems, is currently shoveling shit and hating it. With the information he planted, added to my knowledge of you and my own skills, I did it. I can tell you, it wasn't easy, even with that..

"I can see getting to the mirrors. Many have done so.

But how did you get past them?.

"Simple. The mark the demon laid on me was to have no shadow or reflection. The mirrors saw nothing. I, of course, saw the mirrors and deduced the gimmick, so that meant you had to have something to kill vampires beyond.

Way back when, I lifted one of those pairs of sunglasses you had made for Marge, on the idea that it might come in handy, so I put 'em on and saw the keystone plain as day..

"But the sonic alarm—that's battery-powered! Earth technology! How did you come up with the combination?.

"I didn't. The young punk of a black wizard I traded the gem to gave me several spells in return, one of which was a blocking spell. Allowed me to go through spells that only activated when you broke their web because it kept the spell's energy lines intact as you passed through them. I figured that spells are just energy, and so is an alarm system, so I cast the spell several times, including there, as a precaution. I broke the sonic beams, sure—I didn't know about them until you just told me—but the spell kept the signal from being transmitted back to your box..

Ruddygore nodded gravely. What happened when the sonic beams were broken was that a simple transmitter was interrupted, causing it to send a strong signal to the alarm box. Macore's spell simply kept the current stable even when he passed through, so the box received no wrong signal. "And how did you guess the correct door anA pick it in so short a time?.

"Oh, I'll admit that took me the better part of a day, and I damned near died of thirst and starvation taking all that time, even with my supply kit. I sensed the movement and figured out the gimmick, so the first problem was deciding on how to figure out which door held the vault at any given moment. You have a lot of fairy gold in here and every decent thief who's any sort of a pro has a diving spell for fairy gold. The iron in the doors was a big problem, but I've practiced at finding an ounce or less in some dutchess' necklace, so with several tons to work with even the iron couldn't block it out. Once I figured that part, I had to work on undoing the spells on the door, and that took damned near forever. Eight, maybe ten hours at least. It was hard to know just how much time had passed. Picking the combination was a piece of cake— Page 31 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods 42 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS it's my job, after all, and these are commercial vault doors, even if they are antiques..

By this time Poquah had joined them, and was listening intently. "I can follow this far," the Imir commented, "but I cannot understand how you could pick the lock and know that the vault would be beyond when you opened it..

Macore laughed. "See? That's how thieves make their living. Even the best wizards think like wizards, not like thieves. You see, once I figured out that the thing moved around every hour or so, it didn't matter which door I cracked'. All I had to do was crack it but leave the key inside the lock and then sit back and wait until my spell for the gold detected that the true vault was behind the door I'd already opened. Then I just took the key out, opened the door, and walked in. Simple..

"Simple," Ruddygore repeated glumly. "Yes, when you had Hell's knowledge of the map of the place, a good knowledge of my habits and electronics, and when you cast no reflection and have all the right spells to counter these things! This is far more serious than simple robbery and escape. This was plotted and planned by Hell, with the plot coming from Hell's highest level and through official channels. When the Demons saw that they had you in their power, they set it all up, having failed with their own thieves. The young black magician certainly was expecting you, and was certainly told just what spells to provide you. So, come—give us all the bad news. You are the genie; hence, you made two wishes..

Macore sighed. "You're not gonna like this.....

Macore had rubbed the Lamp, and a rather surprised Dacaro, still darkly handsome and in the black leather uniform of the Baron's forces, had appeared. As a practiced wizard, it was quickly clear to Dacaro that the thief who'd freed him was not wholly himself.