Vengeance of the Dancing Gods (19 page)

Audra's statue shimmered, then changed color, and the rock seemed to fade into a pleasant green complexion.

For the first time in almost a day, her leg was down and her body in a totally relaxed position, with a peaceful expression of sleep replacing the slightly surprised look she'd had frozen onto her.

"Well, that went well," Agie said, satisfied. "I don't believe we will be needed anymore. Captain. Oh—this process has effectively divorced the nymph from her boat, by the way. She should be independent, at least until and unless she mates with another tree..

"Can the bullshit and let's blow this joint," Magie said suddenly. "I need a belt..

And, with that, the two ambled out.

Marge took the opportunity to sleep the rest of the day, knowing that the sleepers wouldn't awaken any time soon, perhaps not until late in the next day, and knowing, too, that Kolos's crew was busy both at pumping out the water to refloat the yacht and going over everything with a fine- 128 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS tooth comb for any clues to the one who'd bought or chartered her.

By the time Marge awoke, somewhat after sundown, the ship had been refloated and was actually underway back up the river to the small town from whence they'd come.

Marge allowed Captain Kolos to take advantage of her, and in so doing she fed and renewed her strength. She Page 99 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods had a strong feeling she'd need it when those folks finally woke up.

Through the next day, the troops came to several conclusions: first, that there was nothing clearly identifiable with any specific individual aboard the Master's ship itself; and, second, he had both good and expensive taste. They would trace the registry, of course, but it would have been through so many blinds that the actual identity of the Master might not be known by even the one who eventually turned it over to him. It would take many long days just to catalog the boxes taken from the swamp redoubt, and weeks before anything concrete could be gotten from them.

They had been told that the longer it took for the restorees to awaken, the more likely it was that they had been badly mixed up. When night fell for the second time and none had yet awakened. Marge and the others feared the worst.

About two hours after nightfall, Joe stirred, rolled slightly, then opened his eyes, and looked very confused.

Suddenly he got up to a sitting position, looked around, and saw Marge sitting there. Just from the expression and the carriage. Marge had a sinking feeling.

"Hi," Joe said, in a soft, effeminate voice.

Oh, boy.', she thought, her heart sinking. "Which one are you?.

"Why, I'm Audra, of course. Who did you think I was?.

Marge pointed, directing Audra's eyes to the end of the sleeping figures. Eyes followed, and the former nymph JACK L. CHALKER 129 gasped. "If that's me, then who am /?" She looked down at her body, then stood up and kept staring. "Oh, oh, o/i!.

"I'll explain it all when the others wake up," Marge told her. "That'll save time and maybe my sanity. You won't be the only one..

After a while, Audra seemed to be able to think about other things and came over and sat in a chair at the table.

It was really strange to see that huge, muscular figure swiveling its hips and walking almost daintily.

Finally, though, Marge got the story. She had been gone barely half an hour when the Master's forces came. There must have been many of them, but Audra saw only the Master of the Dead, who'd apparently been nearby much of the evening. Marge suspected that he moved when he did because he saw her take off; he was worried about her destination, and also concerned that he was going to lose his prey one by one. It had been simple, and quick.

Biy had been taken while asleep topside; Macore when he went on deck for some air. Then the Master himself had burst into the cabin below, where Audra and Tiana had been talking, and had held up his hand before the big Page 100 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods woman had been able to do anything at all to counter him and all had gone blank—until the awakening here, on the ship.

Tura suddenly stirred, opened her eyes, and sat up, wide-eyed. "It is a wizard!" she screamed. "It is the enemy! Take—" Suddenly she seemed to realize that this was somewhere else, and she saw the pair at the table. "Joe! Marge! Thank heaven! What... what has happened? Why do you stare?.

The accent was unmistakable, slightly Germanic.

"Tiana, I presume," Marge said disgustedly. "Take hold and prepare yourself for a big shock..

Tiana took it quite well, certainly. She took her own metamorphosis into mermaid, in fact, far more matter-offactly than she accepted the very swishy and effeminate Joe.

130 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS JACK L. CHALKER 131 One by one they awakened, and a pattern emerged.

Macore and Biy had changed bodies; Tiana and Tura had changed bodies, and Audra and Joe had changed bodies.

The sight of the beautiful but delicate nymph walking and talking like a—well, a male truckdriver—was almost as incongruous as the reverse.

Tiana stared at the nymph. "Joe? You mean I am now married to a nymphV "Yeah, I got the same problem being one," Joe grumped.

"Oh, I don't think it's so bad," Audra commented. "It's the first time I've ever been able to see myself, and I wasn't bad at all, if I do say so..

Macore's tail knocked over an empty chair. "You think you got problems!.

"What's wrong with that body?" Ely demanded angrily.

"It's a hell of a lot more versatile and tough than this..

They all started talking and yelling and complaining at the same moment and it took some time with Marge yelling at the top of her lungs to settle them down. Even so, they kept getting each other confused, and that took continual correction and adjustment.

Finally, Marge was able to send for food for them, since they were all starving and also tremendously thirsty—the wine was going fast—and then to explain to them the Page 101 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods events that had brought them to this point and the news about their present conditions.

"I'm convinced that Ruddygore can unmix you all,.

Marge told them, "but he seems tied up at the moment.

One thing is clear—he won't talk with us again until and unless we see the Oracle, and the longer you all stay that way, the worse it will be. That means we should proceed downriver with all speed and get to the Oracle as fast as possible..

"I agree," Biy added. "However, this will take some getting used to for all of us. I still have hands and feet and I can still sail anything that floats. For organizational purposes, I suggest that certain duties are essential. We need a pilot, and Tura is no longer able to do the job as fully as it can be done. That means you. Madam—" He gestured to Tiana "—must do the water work while under Tura's direction. Tura knows how to handle the boat; she'll be able to spell me, allowing us to travel both day and night, if we have adequate river conditions and reports.

We will stop only for supplies, and just long enough to take them aboard, providing we need no more repairs.

Marge, you will have to fly ahead to make these preparations and do some night time lookout work as well..

It sounded reasonable. "What about me?" Macore asked.

"I will find a lot of work for you to practice in that body. I know that body and its capabilities well. Everyone will do his or her part, because we all have a strong stake in getting this done and over with. Audra, you're going to have a hard time getting used to that body and that freedom, but we'll find uses for you. No one knows every inch of the ship better than you..

"That leaves me," Joe noted. "What can / do in this body?.

"Somebody," replied the captain, who was still the captain no matter what body he wore, "has to do the cleaning and cooking..

Joe looked horrified.

"When do you intend to get underway. Captain?" Marge asked him.

"As soon as we can reprovision the entire ship. I trust neither water nor wine nor anything else. Not a moment longer, though. If things start going our way, which I tend to doubt, we could easily make three hundred miles a day.

That will put us in Marahbar in four days, perhaps five, depending on weather and currents. From there it is a day's sail over open ocean to the island we must reach.

Hopefully, Ruddygore will reach us upon our return to Marahbar. If not, sailing upriver is far slower than sailing down. Four days down is easily thirteen days back, with optimum conditions..

Page 102 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods That was almost three weeks, not counting the time 132 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS spent on the island. Marge noted. And that was if everything was perfect.

The first two days and nights were slower than expected, as they tried to ease their way into their new tasks. Tiana, in particular, was critical to Biy in spotting ever-changing hazards, and while she took to the water as if bom a mermaid, thanks to instinctual skills and reflexes that came with the body, she had a lot to leam about hazards, and particularly what was and was not important to the captain.

Biy, for his part, seemed more than mollified despite his body switch. Before, he was simply getting paid a big bonus to deliver his passengers; now he was told that, by the laws of Marquewood, the Master's former yacht, after it was tracked down and registry cleared, belonged to the victims of the man who had owned it. The others quickly agreed to give their shares to him in exchange for limited use. Biy stood, in a few weeks, to become a very wealthy, independent businessman.

Late in the morning of the third day, however, the wind picked up radically and began blowing almost due north, making progress nearly impossible; soon after the skies darkened and they were in the midst of a strong and terrible storm that forced Biy to put in along a sheltered part of the riverbank and wait it out. Marge suspected more foul play, but Biy dismissed it. "These storms are not uncommon this time of year," he told her. "The trouble is, they can last a long time as they sweep in from the ocean and across the flood plain and then strike these mountains..

Tiana, for her part, seemed to be relishing her new freedom after more than five years as a pampered symbol and believed a mermaid's tail was a very small price to pay for it. The rain and wind hardly bothered her. Marge had been both careful and curious in talking to each of them, looking for how things were or were not changing.

Certainly, the first day or so, they had all gone crazy 133 JACK L.CHALKER addressing each other by the wrong names, but that seemed to have quickly passed as the personalities inside the bodies tended to dominate.

"It is most interesting," Tiana told her. "My wizard's powers are way down from what they were, yet my new abilities, particularly the sonar, are amazing. I have also been looking at myself and the others, and have discovered some very strange things..

Page 103 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods The storm tossed and battered the small boat in spite of the shelter. "Like what?" Marge asked, a bit nervous at this acceptance.

"Curses. The were curse remained with the body, as I suspected, as it is a physical curse, which means that I, Tura, and Audra now have it, but not Joe. On the other hand, some other curses, such as my own curse of death in childbirth, are also basically physical, although linked to the metaphysical. It seems to have remained with my old body as well..

For Tura's part, she was relishing the fact that she was human and that she had legs. "I was an outcast to my people," she told Marge, "and now I can walk, freely, on dry land!.

"You don't miss the water world?" Marge asked her.

"It's odd, but I don't. I keep dreaming of—mountains..

Macore now managed to get around without being clumsy, and had even begun to practice a bit with the prehensile tail, but he still clearly called his form his "rat suit" and had no use for it as a permanent thing.

The storm dragged on for three more days, and it seemed that, each time they slept and then awoke again, the victims of the Master seemed more and more at ease with what they were, although the two most extreme cases, Joe and Audra, were unmistakably mismatched.

Joe, however, found that, rain or not, he needed to lie out on deck at least a few hours a day. The nymph needed water and light and very little else to survive.

"How do you feel, Joe?" Marge asked him.

134 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS "I'm going nuts," he complained. "I've been turned from a king into a slave at one swipe of a spell. Everybody demands I do all the cooking for them on their different schedules, then they complain about what I cook and how I cook it—as if I wanted to eat it. Food just sort of, well, turns my stomach or whatever's in there. Then it's always change the beds, clean and polish the insides, dump the garbage. It's boring, demanding, and it never ends!.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of being a housewife,.

she commented. "I did it for years, you know.

Maybe this will give you an appreciation of what the people who do the work have to go through..

"Yeah, I guess, but it's a pain anyway. Poor Irving's having an identity crisis as bad as ours, too. The sword can't decide if Audra or me is really me. If it comes to a fight, I hope it picks Audra, though. That sword has a life of its own in a swordfight so it won't be a slaughter, but I couldn't even lift it..