Demons of the Dancing Gods (43 page)

Macore had no demonic immunities.

Boquillas slept solidly for more than fourteen hours, but

Marge and Joe finally heard him moving about upstairs as he

breakfasted on leftover pastries from Ruddygore's last meal.

Both Joe and Marge felt pretty good, their only dark clouds

the knowledge that Ruddygore was gone and that Tiana was

still in the hands of Kaladon. That last seemed more unassailable

an obstacle than ever; although Marge could ease some

of the ache, she wasn't able to remove the problem from Joe's

mind.

When Boquillas finally came down, he looked years older

than he had looked the night before—just a tired old man. Joe

reached for his sword, but Boquillas raised his hand wearily.

"Must we still continue to go through this?" he asked. "Please

understand that now I am as much on your side as Ruddygore

would have been, although, alas, without his power."

Joe frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I may have done all the dark things that you say, and I

will surely roast in that pit for it, butwill surely roast in that pit for it, but

what I did, I did for

the most idealistic of reasons. With what happened last night,

things have turned upside down. Is there still a pastry, by

the way?"

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Marge, who no longer felt human hunger, passed him a

gooey one. "What do you suggest, then?" she asked.

"I know Kaladon and some of his plans. I know Morikay,

too, and what's involved there. More than that, I still know

more magic than practically anyone else alive."

"But what good does that do you now?" Marge asked him.

"I mean, you can't use it, you can't practice it, and you can't

even see it or protect against it."

"Quite true," he admitted, "but beside the point. Kaladon

really isn't very good, either. Esmerada helped him rig his

contest for the seat he holds because she wanted a share in the

take, you might say. She's now been badly burned. Ruddygore

had to get a sacred oath out of her to stop the fight, and that

oath certainly removes her from any politics inside or outside

Zhimbombe. We are, then, dealing just with Kaladon, whose

power resides not in himself but in his ward."

"Tiana," Joe said softly.

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237

Boquillas nodded. "Exactly. She has the power, but is totally

under his control. She doesn't even have the knowledge to

break the simple spell that binds her to him, although she has

the power to break half of Husaquahr. So we are in a cul-desac,

as it were. I can analyze the spell and show anyone just

how to break it, but I can't see the spell. Break the spell, and

any half-baked magician could tell her how to fry Kaladon to

ashes. Ruddy gore's fairy adept, for example."

"Poquah! Sure!" Marge responded, sounding enthusiastic.

"Kaladon's bound to make his move very quickly, before

the armies start getting ideas of their own. That means both he

and Tiana will have to come out of that castle, and I can guess

by the way his mind works what he'll pull. It will take a pretty

good adept to resist the spell, and even that will be chancy.

However, that sort of thing won't work on a true fairy, so

somebody of true fairy blood, preferably somebody who can

also fly and defend herself quickly, would have to go there and

examine that spell, sketch it exactly, and bring it back to me."

"I think I'm beginning to see where you're headed," Marge

noted.

"Uh-huh. The trick then would be to get into Castle Morikay,

if need be. Outside the castle, the defenses will be too

much for any but the best sorcerers in the land. That means

somebody has got to pull Ruddygore's trick—get into a castle

you can't get into without an invitation if you harbor intentions

against any of the occupants, invite in Poquah, say, and dissolve

the binding spell on Tiana. Give me a couple of weeks with

him, and I can teach him what he'll need to know. If my

analysis of her latent powers is correct, and I'm sure this is

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what Ruddygore had in mind, the proper spells directed against

an unsuspecting Kaladon could do to him what was done to

me last night."

"You mean—take away his powers?" Joe said hopefully.

Boquillas nodded. "Not permanently, I think. That would

take four or maybe five of the Council to do. But, Joe, if you

had Kaladon unable to use any magic whatsoever for several

hours, what would you do?"

Joe grinned.

"That's what I thought. Now this is going to be tricky, and

I assure you that the odds are very much against it all going

our way, but Ruddygore seems to have picked you two very

well. Somehow, with a superhuman effort, he's matched you

to various arcane bunches of Rules, so that, no matter how

hopeless the situation is, you seem to come through. How

anyone could do this, even in a thousand years, is beyond me,

but he managed it, and I have to go with that."

Marge thought a moment. "You know—Ruddygore was

always going off to Earth at odd times. I wonder if, somewhere

over there, he hasn't got one hell of a computer working for

him."

"Computer? You mean an abacus?" the Count asked, confused.

"One hell of an abacus, you might say," Marge told him.

"Joe? What do you think?"

"I think this is crazy," the big man mumbled. "A couple of

days ago this guy blinded me and chained us both up in a ratinfested

dungeon; then last night he killed the only friend we

had in this world; and now we're working for him\"

"Will you do it, though?" she pressed.

"Oh, sure I'll do it, but..."

CHAPTER 17

...WHEN THE

AND

BATTLE'S

WON

When cults convert more than ten percent of a population, they

are to be considered a religion and are covered by Volume XXVI

instead of Volume XCl.

—Rules, XCl, 494(b)

"IT'S LIKE NOTHING ANYBODY'S EVER SEEN," MARGE TOLD

the small council of war two weeks later. "I've never been so

LOST

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alternately fascinated and repulsed by anything in my entire

life."

They sat there, Poquah, Joe, Boquillas, listening intently.

"First of all, the siege is over. In fact, the war is over for

all intents and purposes. The Barony has been replaced by the

spreading new world of the Goddess."

They nodded, knowing some of this, but not firsthand.

"Morikay has been rechristened the Throne of Paradise and

is the center of this expanding movement. It's an amazing thing

to see it spread so quickly in so short a time. The official line

is that the Dark Baron, who brought Hell to Husaquahr, was

defeated by Ruddygore at the cost of Ruddygore's life. They

made him a saint."

Boquillas chuckled. "It's a wonder he doesn't come back

from the grave over that."

"Anyway, with Hell vanquished, so the line goes, the Creator

sent the Goddess of Husaquahr, a true angel, to watch

over us and see that it never happens again. Three guesses who

the Goddess is."

Joe looked at her and nodded glumly.

"Anyway," she continued, "the Goddess came to banish all

war from the world and to carry out the Creator's plan for us.

She appointed the wise and benevolent Kaladon as High Priest

of the new One True Church and established her seat on earth

at Mori—sorry, the Throne of Paradise. She raised the siege

by merely walking through the lines and letting all the soldiers

see her. They fell down and worshipped her, even the mercenaries

and half-breeds like the Bentar. She has since appeared

in dozens of major towns and cities, including Sachalin, Halakahia,

and other places, and every time it's been the same.

Instant conversion, followed by the immediate establishment

of a temple under a leader hand-picked by Kaladon. There are

already huge statues of her all over the place, all of which

attract crowds of worshippers. By the way, Joe, all the statues

are full nudes."

"Naturally," Boquillas put in. "If she's a true angel, then

she is without sin of any sort, and clothing would be inappropriate."

"If the statues are from life, that means she's changed a

bit," Marge went on. "From what I understand, she's just about

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ten feet tall; and if you thought her proportions were large

before—wow\ Her hair also seems much thicker and about

ankle-length, and she looks, well, smoother. Really angelic in

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the extreme. Of course, I never saw her personally."

"What of the fairy folk?" Poquah asked. "How are they

taking all this?"

"The ones I talked to are mostly divided. Kaladon has sent

emissaries to all the key tribes, offering peace and harmony

and assuring them that the temples will preach a line that they're

the children of God and are to be treated with honor and respect.

Most of 'em seem willing to suspend disbelief and go along.

A few are even debating whether or not the Goddess might be

the real thing. The ones who have seen her haven't fallen down

in worship, but they report an enormously powerful glow of

pure white within her, more than has ever been seen."

"Pure white. Good touch. Perhaps I did underestimate Kaladon,"

Boquillas noted, mostly to himself. "And what of the

distinguished members of the Council?"

"Esmerada has been given her own seat at Halakahia, taking

over from Ruddygore. She seems delighted to go along with

it all and is working to make Terindell a holy shrine, of all

things! Sargash is still fuming over the siege of Sachalin, but

she's decided that the handwriting is on the wall. She's not

helping, but she's not obstructing, either. Word is that Kaladon

and Esmerada have offered to back her candidate for one of

the two vacancies on the Council, and that's bought her off.

Careska's head of the Church in Leander and she's been given

a pretty free hand there, while Fajera is priming Todra for a

visit by the Goddess real soon now. It's all happening so fast."

"But it's been planned for years, perhaps decades," Boquillas

responded. "Kaladon is an incredible politician with an

incredible mind set only on power. With the complicity of the

rest, or at least noninterference, he'll soon have all of Husaquahr

that's worth having under a single theocracy with himself

at the helm. Oh, it will take quite some time to secure it all,

but if the mere appearance of the Goddess can cause instant

conversion and worship, then any time he gets a pocket of

trouble, he just goes visiting. But tell me, what is this new

doctrine like? Surely he has grandiose plans."

Marge nodded. "So far, the grand plan is limited to the

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241

Throne of Paradise, and that's just getting organized, but the

pattern seems clear. Each cooperating sorcerer is more or less

being encouraged to write his or her own holy book for the

locals, tailored to their own aims and conditions, so that keeps

the people happy. Kaladon himself seems to have his own

vision. Whole parts of the city are being torn down by eager

volunteer converts. Parks are being developed, and a style of

building that reminded me of ancient Greece—sorry, I know

most of you won't understand that—is going up. Big marble

temple-style buildings. People work five days on their regular

jobs, then two for the Church for nothing. They also are expected

to go to services each night and get more holy instruc-

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tions and they do. Half of what they earn goes to the Church

and gets poured into the building and developmental programs,

while Church leaders are organizing syndicates for all major

industries, including shipping and farming."

"An integrated economy. Interesting. Continue."

"Well, what he's getting is a world of willing, worshipful

slaves who won't even sneeze without permission, but who

will do anything they are told to do. They also seem bent on

a plan they call 'efficiency of form,' where people are being

willingly turned into other creatures to do their work better.

The centaur population alone is growing by leaps and bounds,

since that's an efficient farm form, and the mermaid and suchlike

population's going to grow under a harvest-the-sea program.

There's a whole winged legion for transportation and

communication, too. It's scary. And remember, I'm an empath

—I can feel these people's insides. They're sickeningly

joyful."

"That's to be expected," the former Dark Baron commented.

"After so much war, suffering, and killing, they were ready

for a savior, and he's given them one. Of course, Tiana's magic