Horrors of the Dancing Gods (7 page)

"This stuff—it comes off, though?'

'Well, not right away, but eventually, yes." The truth was, Joe had no idea how long it would last, but she knew that the chemicals she'd used on normal human skin were as indelible as permanent ink. It would dull long before it washed off, which was just what Joe wanted. "The question is, do you have the guts to walk straight down a road like that?"

"Oh, my God! I don't know if I
can!"

'Well, you've
got
to, that's all. You just
do
it. We'll take it easy, but you've got to get used to yourself as completely exposed, as you are, and to hell with the rest of the world. Now, people
are
going to look at you. They're going to
stare,
frankly. Some of 'em will make signs to ward off evil when they see you and rush their kids inside. Others will be mean, cruel, call you all sorts of names, tease and heckle you. It'll get you for a while, but sooner or later you just have to decide that this is who and what you are, and if others don't like it, they can just shut up and get out of your way. I'm going to be along the whole time, with you and right beside you. I went from being a man—tall, muscles, heroic type—to looking like
this,
and it was pretty damned hard. I never have fully come to grips with it, so in a way I've got nobody, either. I have nothing in common with my sister wood nymphs except my looks, and everybody else treats me like a brainless piece of elemental ass, so no matter what happens, there'll be at least me to regard you as a person and treat you like one. Clear?"

Alvi nodded, uncertain but also atoned "You were really a
guy
once?'

"Uh huh. Born and raised a mortal male, father of a male child, teamster and barbarian hero at different points. A crazy bit of magic turned me into this, and since then I've been wandering this world alone, looking for a way out. You and me, we got the same damned problem, really."

"I think I'd rather have your problem," Alvi noted.

"Maybe. Maybe you just haven't discovered how little anybody thinks of wood nymphs—a reputation mostly deserved, by the way. It is true that you'll be an unwanted halfling, considered a monster by most, if a harmless one, but when they discover that you are a monster with money, some things will be possible. Right now we clean up and find you something to eat. I'm afraid it's going to be all fruits and veggies around here for now, but we may be able to do better on the road."

"That will be fine," she assured Joe. "I—I only hope that I can do it."

That, of course, worried Joe as
well. Hell, it'd been
weeks
before she'd had the nerve to go out by herself, and that had been after a lot of unknowing preparation as a were in the time before the old body and its curse had been destroyed in the lava fires. Alvi could use a little were curse now, but it wasn't exactly something you picked up at the market.

Finding a good meal for Alvi, however, was even easier than going to the market—for a wood nymph. In fact, within a wood nymph's narrow range were some astonishing built-in abilities, including being able to communicate and in many cases use plants the way she'd used the clinging vines against the knife wielder and a kind of instinctive knowledge about plants and plant capabilities—even about plants she'd never seen before, in places she'd never been. She had known instantly which of the surrounding plant juices would make dyes and had been able to extract what was needed without harming the plants themselves. Similarly, there were drugs that could be extracted from others, drugs that healed, others that made you high or were anesthetics, all sorts of things like that. Once she identified them, she needed only merge with the plant to extract a safe amount, then hold it within her until she wanted to excrete it.

There were, of course, limits. Wood nymphs were hardly biologists, let alone biochemists; she had no idea how to mix anything if the raw stuff wasn't there. And it might be that Alvi's constitution wasn't nearly as human as
she assumed. But the odds were that it was.

Now, was there anything possibly around here that might help the halfling over the initial jitters? Self-confidence would be important to her disguise; with a hue and cry out, they could hardly wait long or people would start looking more closely into things, and maybe those Consuls would start describing Alvi a bit more fully.

There seemed to be nothing around that was in the nature of a really strong hypnotic, although such plant substances did exist and always seemed to be handy when the bad guys needed them. The best she could find was a kind of mild substance that dulled the mind and made you a little euphoric but also uninhibited and open to a degree of suggestion. Risky in that it might cause Alvi to do something that might betray her, but it was better than nothing. It would be easy enough to remove from the leaves and place within the fruit, although finding the dose that was needed would take experimenting.

After Alvi ate, they got rid of the clothes as Joe had suggested—not without some regrets from Alvi—and, using some vines, Joe made her a kind of belt with loops that would allow the purse and the dagger to be attached and easily carried.

"What now?' Alvi asked the nymph.

"Overland, I think. If we can head west for a while, we should come to a secondary trail going pretty well south, which is where we want to go, and intersecting the great River Road. Come, my beautiful spider. Put your hand and hand and hand in mine and I'll lead you through the back country. No pain yet."

Alvi laughed. "Your
what?"

"Beautiful spider. Eight limbs, all the colors of the world, a walking work of art!"

The halfling laughed again. "I like that! Why don't you call me that, then? It'll be a name between us."

"Huh? What?"

"Spider. You can't very well keep calling me Alvi, or what's the good of all this?"

"Hey! Why not? Joe and the spider lady off through the jungle! Sounds pretty good to me. Sounds like the start of another great adventure long after I'd decided that there'd be no more great adventures for the likes of me! Yes, indeed. This could very well be the start of a
be-you-fi-ful
friendship!"

The trail was just where Joe had said it would be and about the right distance. Alvi was impressed. "How do you know this area? Are you from here?'

"No, just a knack. You memorize all the main routes when you haul freight." But it was more than that, although the rest was beyond easy explanation. Somehow the trees always knew where they were in relation to every other growing thing on the planet, and if
they
knew, she could find out. Put
that
on top of the memorized routes, and she almost always knew where she was to a matter of a few yards.

Alvi was fine until they heard some traffic coming the other way. Then she suddenly froze, and Joe could see and feel the tension in her.

"Come on, let's break for a snack over there," she suggested, and Alvi put up no argument. It was, Joe thought, time to see if this stuff worked and test it out before they got into heavy traffic as they neared the great river.

There was no apparent effect, at least not in the few minutes after eating, and Joe wondered if she'd vastly underestimated the dose needed to do much of anything. However, when Alvi started to get up, she seemed suddenly dizzy and a little uncertain, then gave a silly laugh. "Must be tired, or my tummy's upset. Got a little dizzy."

"Come, Pretty Spider, let us be off. There's a fair amount of daylight yet today, and we want to get into a better area by nightfall."

"Pretty Schpider. I
love
it when you say that." More tittering, but they walked out side by side.

"You just tell yourself that's who and what you are, over and over," Joe prompted. "Just think like that and enjoy the walk."

And, interestingly, after some initial slight hesitancy, Alvi
did
manage actually to face and then pass a
small party of humans heading north. It wasn't that hard to do; one look at her and they gave ground and just stared, and Alvi acted as if they were staring in admiration rather than being totally appalled.

Joe relaxed a bit. Maybe by the time something hypnotic was available, it wouldn't be needed.

Traffic was quite light most of the day on the trail, which was not one of the major mutes in any event and basically serviced some feudal estates and small plantations in the legion, linking them with the river. It was in fact what folks back in Joe's native world and land had once known as a
"rolling road," designed to be fairly straight and basically downhill and just wide enough so that barrels or sledges could be transported from the places where they had been harvested to the river piers.

Alvi was a bit tipsy but somewhat emboldened; at least she didn't shrink when they met the occasional person or take offense at some of the muttered curses, exclamations, and religious exorcisms performed as she passed, either. She was basically oblivious, and there weren't enough people to really worry about.

Near the end of the day they emerged from the jungle and looked out over a
vast floodplain and the monstrous meandering river that was the land's heart and soul as well, the River of Dancing Gods.

By that time Alvi's intoxication had pretty well worn off, and she gazed out at the tremendous display in front of her, set off in a combination of light and shadow from the low sun in the distance, and gasped.
"Wow!"
she breathed.

"You've seen the river before, surely," Joe commented.

"Not really. Not like
this.
I mean, we came in from the cast and went through these big cities on the ocean and along this dirty flat region. Nothing like
this."

"Well, that 'dirty flat region' and that plain out there are the reason so many creatures can live here," Joe pointed out. "All the good stuff that makes things grow and all the fresh water from countless rivers and streams far off to the north all come together here, washed down and deposited. You can look out from here and see all the river traffic, all the faerie colonies and such, and all the human towns, cities, and settlements as well. The really
big
cities are still to the south, but even from here we're probably looking at between a half million and a million souls as well as many times that in plants and animals. Thousands of kilometers north to here—that river
is
Husaquahr."

She was surprised at her own feeling at the scene and the sense of the great river as somehow hers and a part of her as well. Maybe she was getting more assimilated than she thought.

"It's so
wide!
How are we going to get across it?"

"Too wide to swim or bridge," the nymph agreed. "We'll have to be ferried across. We've got money, and there are many such boats along here, almost all run by some sort of faerie. We'll have to go down to the Great River Road, then walk south until we find someone who will take us. Not today, though. We've done enough for today. I suggest we camp out right around here somewhere and wait until dawn."

"I—I admit I could use it," Alvi told her. "I'm not used to this much walking, and I have been feeling a little sick for some reason."

Joe looked at the sky. "Looks like we might have some rain coming in tonight, so pick a sheltered spot and we'll relax. I should be able to find you enough to eat around here, and I'm afraid drink won't be a problem."

"What about you?" the halfling asked. "Don't
you
ever eat?"

"Not really," Joe told her. "Long ago I did, and enjoyed it, too. Now—well, all I need is sunlight and water and/or some healthy trees. I
can
drink and occasionally enjoy it, but that's about all. Just call me
very
low maintenance."

Somehow, for some reason, it seemed more like a boast than a liability even to Joe. That was definitely a change.

The storm held off, if it was coming at all, but the spot under some large trees that Alvi had picked out and Joe had approved was pretty damned dark. Off in the distance there were lights—thousands of lights, like fireflies congregating in swarms—representing many of the inhabitants of the lower valley, and beyond, a strong glow on the horizon betrayed the even grander City-States built along the river's massive delta. But right on the hill it was
dark,
and only faerie sight would do.

"You know," Alvi said softly, "all those years growing up, basically imprisoned, all I could do was dream about just this: being out here, free, looking over the whole of the world."

"And now that it's happened, you're seeing that the velvet-lined prison wasn't all that bad?"

"Nope. I'm seeing that I was
right.
I was never meant to live a lie. Besides, what good is all that if you can't enjoy it? No, the only thing was, I never was sure if
I
could really
make
it out here. I'm still not, but today got me through a lot of it."