Demons of the Dancing Gods (18 page)

"But now you're back, and in the same hotel as this Kaladon,"

Macore pointed out. "Why? Are you ready to take him

on?"

"No, I do not believe that I am ready for him yet. One day

I will be and I will reclaim what is mine by rights. I was

summoned here by Dr. Ruddygore, and, considering what I

owe him, I could not refuse. It makes no difference. Kaladon

had found me out, anyway, and killed many of those who were

closest to me."

"Then you are in great danger here," Macore suggested.

"Kaladon will know you are here."

"He dares do nothing at the convention unless he wishes to

challenge Dr. Ruddygore," she told him. "And that he is not

up to doing under any circumstances."

"Quite true," came a voice behind her, and they all turned

to see the great sorcerer enter the room, resplendent now in

his golden robes. "He has already been informed that any move

against Tiana will make in me an enemy he can not avoid in

this public place."

"Ruddy!" Tiana cried out joyfully. In a flash she'd gotten

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up, turned, and actually jumped over her chair, finally reaching

and embracing the sorcerer, who, if he'd been of lesser size

and bulk, would certainly have been bowled over.

Joe looked at Macore. "Ruddy?"

The little thief tried to suppress a laugh, and it was clear

that Ruddygore was not amused. Still, he tolerated the display

and attempted to pass it off. "Tiana, it is good to see you once

again. I must be going downstairs to find out my schedule, but

I can spare a moment. Come—sit just a bit."

She moved obediently back to her chair and settled there.

Joe bet a bundle to himself that nobody else could ever get

such meek obedience from her. Ruddygore did not sit, but

stood facing them all. "That spell I sent you—I gather it

worked?"

She smiled and nodded. "Very well indeed. In fact, I passed

the usurper in the lobby here and he never recognized me."

Macore looked crestfallen. "You mean she really doesn't

look like that?"

Ruddygore chuckled both at the question and at the mean

look Tiana gave the little thief. "Oh, my, yes," the sorcerer

assured them all. "The spell is a particularly powerful and

undetectable one, since it's tailored strictly to Kaladon and

affects no one else. To him, and to him alone, Tiana looks

quite different, although still rather striking. Basically a blond,

blue-eyed, and fair-skinned priestess from the northern wastes,

if I remember correctly. It's just enough of a change so that

she is definitely not Tiana to him in looks, voice, or habit, but

close enough that the reactions of those around him will be

consistent with what he sees. It's a thin disguise at best, but I

don't expect him to crack it easily, since he's very confident

that no one can put an undetectable spell over on him. Don't

rely on it too heavily, my dear."

"I am not worried about him," she said confidently. "Not

with you around, anyway."

He just shrugged. "Well, I must get down there. Tiana, I've

had you preregistered as Uma of the Golden Lakes, just as an

extra precaution. Why make it any easier on him, after all?

I'm also curious to see how long it's going to take him to find

you out."

"That is fine with me," she told him. "I will see you later,

then."

With that, Ruddygore turned and, accompanied by Poquah,

left the suite.

"Have you any luggage coming?" Joe asked her.

She shook her head. "None. I travel as light as I possibly

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can. You leam that most of all after eight years in hiding.

Always I carry my sword with me, and in the belt is a hidden

compartment in which there are some coins and gems. The

only thing I don't have with me is my bullwhip. I was forced

to abandon it a few weeks ago, so I will have to get another

here."

"The market is excellent for just about anything," Joe told

her. "And, right now, we're on Ruddygore's expense account."

She nodded. "Good, then. I am also starved. Will you show

me this market? Then we can perhaps get something to eat."

Joe got up and she did, as well. Again there was an eerie

sensation in him at her size. "Delighted," he responded, trying

to sound as Continental as possible. "Shall we go?"

They walked out the door, leaving Macore sitting there.

Durin chuckled from the kitchenette. "Left you alone, huh? I

guess you're just not big enough for her."

Macore got up, walked over, took some of the fabulously

rich iced pastry from the tray, and, without a word or a wasted

motion, pushed it into the fairy cook's face.

Joe was absolutely delighted with Tiana. Although of this

world, she had some knowledge of a different comer of his

and she was certainly a fascinating person indeed. It was also

a relief, after all this time of putting up with Marge's vegetarianism,

to find a woman who obviously enjoyed real meat.

Slowly, over the meal, he told her more about himself and

about his doings since arriving in Husaquahr. Gradually, the

rest of her story came out, as well.

Her father had been of royal blood, but a third son with no

chance of inheriting position or title. His obvious talent for the

magical arts, however, had taken him in the direction of the

Society in the same way that second and third sons of European

nobility during the Middle Ages had gone into the Catholic

church. He also married a wealthy noblewoman he'd known

since childhood, and they were very much in love. In due

course, they had a daughter, Torea, but she died mysteriously

in infancy of some disease or spell her father was powerless

to do anything about. They tried again, of course, at about the

time Hapandur won the Council seat and became ranking sorcerer

in Zhimbombe, but the pregnancy was well along before

he discovered that his first daughter's death had been due to a

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strange and powerful curse laid on his children by someone

unknown who hated him very much. Just who was unknown.

The curse was so well constructed that he could not dissolve

it, nor find its key, but he did manage to unravel it "at the

comers," as Tiana cryptically put it. The result was that her

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mother was able to make the decision—either her life or her

child's—and she made it. The distraught wizard pleaded with

her, but she had taken the death of their first daughter very

hard and she was adamant.

"What my father did was complex," Tiana told Joe. "Basically,

though, my birth was a magical event of sorts. The soul,

I am told, enters at the first commands to the body to give

birth. My father, or so it is said, blocked that process, against

my mother's strong wishes, so that I might be stillborn, but so

strong was her resolve that she died at the moment of my birth.

My father would never speak of it, but others have told me

that her soul, because other will to bear me, entered me instead

of another."

Joe was startled. "You mean you're your motherT'

She shrugged. "I do not know. But it is certain that I have

always had strange dreams, and memories of people and places

that I have never seen, and I have always been told by those

of Morikay that I have my mother's mannerisms, habits, and

even turns of phrase. Physically, I resemble more others on

both sides of the family than her, but it does seem, sometimes,

when I look into a mirror, that another, different face should

be there."

Still, her father never remarried, nor, as far as anyone knew,

ever even looked at another woman sexually; but he doted on

his daughter, to whom he gave his dead wife's name. She had

a very spoiled and pampered childhood, she freely admitted,

and was totally unprepared for what came after.

Kaladon, a handsome young man with a great deal of talent,

became apprenticed to her father and proved a more-than-worthy

adept. He was treated as a member of the family—in fact,

as the son the old man had never had. She liked him at the

time, considering him an older brother, and she had no idea

that, even back then, he was arranging for her to get as little

education or training as possible, particularly in the magical

arts.

"Then came the great convention, at Coditz Green in Lean-

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JACK L. CHALKER

99

der, where we knew Kaladon would challenge for a leadership

position. How proud we were of him—the son of a pig! He

was so trusted and so close that it was a shock when he challenged

my father, and an even greater shock that he won."

"You mentioned that he cheated," Joe noted.

She nodded. "Later I was told how it was done. He had

drugged some of the food my father was served. He could

easily do this, because he was a household member and very

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trusted. It was also a very light drug, one that you v/ould not

even know you had taken, but it was enough to slow my father's

thinking and speed of action and reaction. After he won, while

still at the convention, the usurper's true nature came out, and

we knew that we were in the hands of and at the mercy of the

blackest of black magicians."

Joe hesitated a moment before asking the obvious question,

but he really was interested in the story and anxious to know.

"Uh—what happens to the losers of these challenges?"

She gave a slight shudder. "Horrible things. That is why

even very powerful magicians do not challenge for the Council.

True adepts, not going for a position but simply testing themselves,

are prevented by the umpires of such matches from

going too far, and so there is no penalty; but if a councillor is

deposed, he or she must be utterly reduced so that no rechallenge

is possible."

"Your father is dead, then."

She nodded sadly. "Yes, but not by Kaladon's hand. They

do not work like that, particularly the black magicians who

dominate the white, nor, in fact, the white who dominate the

black, but my father had many friends and one was merciful."

He whistled. "Are these contests open to the public?"

"If you mean can you see one, the answer is that you can

see as many as you wish here, but it can be a very dangerous

thing to watch. The forces involved are tremendous."

He could understand that. "Still, I think I'll see one of

Ruddy gore's matches if I can. I should know everything I can

about the kind of people I'm actually facing here. The fact is,

except for some of Ruddygore's stuff with me, the fairies, and

the magic Lamp, I've seen very little real magic here. Not the

kind they talk of the sorcerers having, anyway."

"Then you should see one, in fact," she agreed.

After the coup she was returned, a pampered prisoner, to

Morikay, entirely in the hands of her father's betrayer. Kaladon

began a purge of all those, human and fairy, loyal to the deposed

sorcerer, but some had gotten the word and arranged for escape

routes. Two winged elves from Marquewood, who had worked

at landscaping in Morikay, managed to flee with Tiana, as

well.

It was a harrowing, risky escape, the material for an epic

or two, but finally she was passed along from fairy race to

fairy race until she reached Castle Terindell. It was Ruddy gore

who took her in; when he realized that she would be a virtual

lifetime prisoner inside the castle as long as Kaladon lived, he

took her across to Earth. Ruddygore, it seemed, had a major

interest in a bank in Switzerland, and, since that was where he

was heading, that was where she wound up, with loyal guardians

in his employ taking her in and providing an identity for

her as the daughter of deposed Romanian royalty killed later

by the communists there. Having been magically prepared by

Ruddygore, she took to languages easily, quickly acquiring a

fluency in German, French, Italian, and even Romansch. Her

tutors were both of Earth and of Husaquahr, imported for the

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occasion by Ruddygore on frequent visits, and it was during

those years that she threw herself into her studies with but one

long-term object in mind—revenge.

By this time, though, Kaladon had fallen in league with the

Dark Baron, whose demonic master could talk to and deal with

the demons of Earth, and it was as a bribe to Kaladon that the

Baron had the demonic forces seek her out and find her. A

well-financed Satanist organization in western Europe then was

called in for the actual deed, and again she barely escaped back

to Husaquahr.

"Ruddy decided that, if they could find me once, they could

certainly find me anywhere, now that my appearance was known.