Demons of the Dancing Gods (31 page)

"Hey! Let go and push me up!" he shouted. She did, and

Irving came down again and again, slicing through the vines

and causing the bush to issue loud, high-pitched screams. Sud-

JACK L. CHALKER 167

denly all vines were withdrawn, and he managed to get to his

feet. Only Tiana prevented him from rushing in to take the

sword to the bush itself.

"There are too many of them!" she shouted at him, and he

calmed down and saw that what she said was true.

"Let's get over to the road," he suggested nervously.

"Marge—take the high road as far up as you can without getting

into the trees. Better they not see you until they have to."

Marge nodded and rose into the air, then paced her companions

there as they limped out to the road. Joe found he had

some fairly nasty welts where the vines had grasped him, but

they began to fade almost immediately. Tiana looked at them

and said, "Perhaps it is well after all that you have this curse.

The poison those things have is often strong enough to paralyze

a horse."

"I'll be all right," he assured her, standing and stretching.

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"But anybody we meet on the road, I'll face with the sword,

I think. I don't like those green uglies."

With Marge softly humming, "We're off to see the Wizard,"

they started nervously down the road.

Joe felt better after a while and chuckled dryly. "You know,

here I am surrounded by sexy naked ladies, and the only thing

I can think of right now is that I haven't eaten anything since

we left that damned boat. Must be really getting to me, though—

I could swear I smelted something cooking right now."

Tiana sniffed the air. "You are not imagining things. It

seems to be coming from just over there. Let us see what this

could be."

They walked over and saw a small path through the trees

and brush leading back to what looked like a fairly large, twostorey

Victorian house. Or, rather, it looked like a cast of one.

It was perfect in every detail, but clearly it was a solid block

of some dark brown substance. They approached it cautiously;

then Joe went up to the front steps, sniffed, and said, puzzled,

"Gingerbread?"

Both Tiana and Marge approached and checked it out, then

they nodded. "Gingerbread." Marge giggled. "It really is a

huge gingerbread house."

"Yeah, but for whom? First time I saw two tons of gingerbread

in my whole life," Joe noted.

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Tiana was the only one who did not find it amusing. "This

is one of Esmerada's famous creations. It appeals to her warped

sense of humor."

"Huh?"

"She creates these things, then sentences those taken for

crimes to work on them. Soon there will be prisoners here,

forced to eat according to their offenses."

"Forced to eat? You mean it's not poison or something?"

Tiana shook her head. "No, not poison. But do not take it

so lightly. For a major crime, you could be sentenced to eat

out an entire living room, parlor, and two bedrooms. With a

minor witch inducing a spell of gluttony, you could literally

stuff yourself to death. It has been a traditional punishment

with her ever since her great-grandmother was killed by a pair

of bratty kids."

"Hmmm... Well," Joe said, "I don't know about punishment,

but I feel hungry enough to eat out a room or two myself.

Shall we try it from the back? They'll never miss it."

Tiana shrugged. "We must have something. Why not? Marge,

will you watch, just in case the prison gang approaches?"

Marge did, not being able to suppress a bad case of giggles,

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and they had gingerbread for breakfast. It wasn't very nutritious,

but it was filling, and a small creek that ran through the

clearing provided a little water with which to wash it down.

"I suppose that somewhere around are the poisoned apple

groves," Marge commented when they were done.

"They are to the north," Tiana told her matter-of-factly.

"Not all are poisoned, though. There is one, for example, that

is the most powerful aphrodisiac known. A fair amount of

business is done by selling those throughout the region."

"Sounds like fun," Joe remarked.

"Esmerada has been known to feed them exclusively to

people in adjoining cells of the tower dungeon, within sight of

each other but just out of reach. They kill themselves trying

to get at one another."

"Pleasant character. Was she here when your father was on

top?"

Tiana nodded. "Oh, yes. Witchwood was then essentially

a buffer, and it was simply regarded as an autonomous region.

The road was guaranteed, HI exchange for Esmerada's having

JACK L. CHALKER

169

her own way in the balance of the place. Once this was the

seat of power for a great region and the place of learning for

all black arts witches, but my father more or less limited her

activities. Still, he thought they were as friendly as two great

powers ever get, and there was a general compromise. She

gained the Council with his help and support, as part of the

deal which protected her and her order from others in Husaquahr.

And look at how she repaid him!"

"Well, let's see how—oops! Somebody's coming!" Quickly

the three of them checked out the brush, picked their spots,

and barely got under cover in time. Joe hoped fervently that

there were no more nasty vines around or other unpleasant

surprises.

The big surprise was what was passing along the road. They

had expected an occasional Bentar patrol, but this was a fairly

long column of twos, all human and obviously very military,

yet all wearing ordinary clothing and carrying standard knapsacks

or bedrolls on their saddles. With varying growths of

hair and beard, they looked very much like the sort of people

who might be met anywhere in this world, despite their bearing.

When they had passed, the trio emerged from hiding. Joe

scratched his head and frowned. "Now what the hell was thatT

"There is no way to tell," the big woman responded, "but

clearly they are heading for the river and are in disguise. Something

is going on, I will say that."

"Do you suppose it fits with the shortage of boats on the

River of Sorrows ?" Marge put in. "The pirates caused the delay

upstream, but we had to wait almost a week for ours from

Zhimbombe. The Marquewooders just about said that the Bar-

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ony was in league with the pirates. They have all this, so it's

not the cargo they were really after. Maybe it's the riverboats

they want."

"Now why would they want riverboats?" Joe asked her.

"They'd have to take 'em apart and shove them overland to

get them to any place useful to them."

"That may be, but it's still an idea. The Zhimbombean boat

looked just like a wom-out Marquewoodian one. Maybe they're

using their own boats for something else, huh?"

"Yeah—but for what?" he mused. "Something's funny here."

They pressed on, speculating but unable to add anything to

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the mystery. They still lacked too many pieces of the puzzle,

and that was supposed to be Ruddy gore's problem, anyway.

They had other jobs.

They finally found a spot concealed from the road that

seemed safe enough to use as a camp and got some sleep. Joe

stood first watch, then Tiana, and finally, as shadows fell again

upon the wood. Marge took her turn. It was well into the night

before all were rested enough to continue, and the two humans

were feeling very, very hungry.

As they made their way again along the road. Marge suddenly

called, "Joe—look out! Above you!"

He stopped, turning and drawing his sword at the same time,

and saw a menacing black shape leap at him from the treetops.

Marge's warning had been well timed, and the thing missed

Joe's dodging form and virtually impaled itself on his sword.

It twitched a few times, then was still, and they all stared

at it. "An impaka," Tiana told them. "It is a vicious, meateating

rodent."

. Joe looked around nervously. "Do they hunt in packs?"

"No, they are usually solitary hunters. This one is a male

and is probably a forager for a den. We might meet others,

but we might not. Still, this is a very good omen for us."

"How's that?"

"They are tough and gamy, but they taste very much like

a cross between rabbit and squirrel."

Joe looked at its nasty snout and dirty black hair and wondered

just how hungry he was. Still, with Marge's scouting,

they found a safe-looking spot and some branches for a crude

spit. Tiana, using a spell she called a very simple thing, made

a fire and then instructed Joe in the proper skinning and mounting

of the beast.

Although they were nervous about the fire being seen and

reported, both Joe and Tiana were too hungry to care at that

point, and the thing yielded close to eight pounds of meat.

Marge found a plant with a bell-like flower that was stiff and

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permanently open, it seemed, and managed to locate and fill

two bells with water and fly them back to the camp.

Satiated, they proceeded along the road once more through

the night, occasionally having to dodge an isolated patrol. They

were aware of strange sounds within the wood and odd chants.

Once in a while, white ball-like things floated through the trees

deep inside the forest.

Although they went mostly by night and slept most of the

day, Tiana showed an uncanny ability near dawn and sunset

to become perfectly still, often for up to an hour, waiting for

a small animal or bird to come near, then quickly pounce and

capture it. She came up with several rabbits, squirrels, a few

unfamiliar but edible small animals, and even two fair-sized

birds. When Marge and Joe asked about it, she simply told

them to spend several years among the barbarian tribes of the

north. There one learned such things or one starved.

After more than three days of this, they reached the center

of Witchwood and the Dark Tower. It lived up to its name in

every respect and seemed not only ancient but downright sinister.

The fortification surrounding it was shaped like a five-pointed

star and rose about ten feet from the ground. There were gates

in the wall at each of the inner angles, but it was clear from

the paths to them that only two were actually in any sort of

use these days. The walls themselves were patrolled by nastylooking

Bentar sentries and by what sounded like a roving pack

of equally nasty guard dogs. The tower itself stood in the center

of the fort, rising over three hundred feet into the air. Here

and there, windows were occasionally lighted with an inner

glow.

Marge tried flying up to the top and approaching the uppermost

window, but she found that, as soon as she got to the

start of the fortification part, there seemed to be an invisible

wall that was impenetrable by living beings of any sort. This,

then, was the sorcerous barrier that could be crossed only with

the permission of those inside.

Joe sighed when told the news. "So what do we do now?

Go up and knock?"

"She is much too clever to fall for that," Tiana responded.

"Our identities, or at least our descriptions, must be known to

them. She would understand in a moment our objective if we

did that."

"That would go for being taken prisoner, too, then," Marge

put in. "So what do we do?"

Tiana suddenly had a thought. "Joe—how long has it been

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JACK L. CHALKER

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173

since you were bitten? The moon looked almost full last night."

He thought about it. "Let's see... Two days later, we were

still in Sachalin, then three days down the lake, another three

laying over in Zichis, then four down to Tochik..."

"Seven more stuck in that hole, then five downriver," Marge

continued the count. "How many is that?"

Twenty-four," Tiana told them. "And we have now been

five more in this land. Tonight will be the first night of the

full moon, then. Marge—can you not see the curse coming

forward?"

Marge looked at Joe, and, sure enough, in the bottommost

part of the magic band, there was a faint but discernible black

pattern. "Yeah. What have you got in mind?"

"First we spend the day here, within sight of the tower. Let

us see who and what goes in and out of those gates. When we

know that much, we can better make our plans."

They did as she suggested, finding an uncomfortable but

adequate concealment near the gate facing them, while Marge,

grumpy about being kept up all day but nonetheless curious,