Songs of the Dancing Gods

CHAPTER 7 ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Saying farewell to Irving was gut-wrenching, but joe at least had the honest conviction that the boy had not been in better hands in his life.

They were barely out of sight of Terindell, though, taking the northern river route, when he realized how much he missed the rest of the old company and how, for the first time, really, on one of these missions, he was essentially alone. If it weren’t for Marge’s happy appearance, he thought, it might drive him nuts, but the Kauri wasn’t any company to speak of during the day. Instead, she just sprawled out on top of the bedrolls on the packhorse, sound asleep, mostly concealed under a thin wrap so that the sight of one of the fairies out cold didn’t attract too many curious stares or, worse, give the wrong impression.

The road went almost immediately inland, skirting places like the Circe’s lair and the Glen Dinig, domain of the great witch-queen Huspeth, heading first to the city of Machang on the River Rossignol, from whence roads went in all directions.

Joe missed most of all the company of the old Tiana, who had been more than wife, but also companion and equal, lover and confessor. The change in her had bothered him about as much as it had seemed to bother her, and now he couldn’t keep from wondering just how much of a change there was and how much he’d overlooked. Even in the months in the High Pothique wilderness, he’d been preoccupied with Irving and had tended to overtook things that now seemed to leap out at him. He’d blamed much of it on the Rules, of course, but now other things started bothering him. How had she learned to dance so well so quickly? Even he had needed to be trained by Gorodo; only the fairies got their skills by instinct. The fact that he was inclined to enjoy swordplay and combat skills hadn’t meant he hadn’t had to learn them and practice, practice, practice. Tiana had always been clumsy, even at formal dances; who had taught her those erotic moves and gyrations? For that matter, she’d lately shown some skill as a seamstress, barber, maid, and other such jobs that she’d never shown any knowledge of or interest in before.

The Baron had Tiana briefly on Earth, hadn’t he?

The thought came almost immediately, and he could not get it out of his head. What if this girl really wasn’t Tiana at all?

For Mia, riding behind him on her horse while keeping the packhorse in the rear in line, the same logic and questions had gnawed even further at her. More bothersome than the skills she did have were the memories she did not. Tiana had gone to school on Earth, in Switzerland, one of the countries there, but she had no memory of the schooling, or the country, or even where it might be. She didn’t even remember being a mermaid, as they’d reminisced, or anything between the palace life and the night they defeated the Baron. Even the palace memories were odd, as if she were someone else, watching Tiana rather than being her.

Memories long suppressed, strange memories but familiar ones, now came to the fore. Of all those kids jammed in a one-room hovel, of playing naked with other dirty kids in a town square, of running away at age eleven when her mother died in childbirth, determined that it would not happen to her. Of reaching a big city and being befriended by a man who was at the start very nice, but who later taught her to dance with the other girls for crowds of leering men, renting out her young body to some of them, and, finally, being arrested, where a kindly woman Procurator listened sympathetically to her life story and sentenced her to be a slave, ward of the state, and trained as a maid… Of being in the palace after Joe and Tiana left, of men in black who’d seized her, to awaken in a strange place on a strange world… Of seeing her Highness helpless, in some room…

It hit her all at once with a force that almost knocked her off the horse. By the gods! I have been mad! I am not Tiana! I am the slave Mia!

After the initial shock wore off, though, the realization brought not horror and regret but a sense of peace in her mind. She was not forced into slavery, she was simply now returned to her proper role and self! It was all right, then! No more inner struggles, no more anguish. Instead, she felt great pride in herself, that she, a mere ignorant whore turned slave, had managed to fool even Joe into thinking she was of the blood royal. And, for those few months, she’d had him, essentially as an equal, something beyond even the most impossible, wild dreams of one such as her. It was over now, she knew, but if she died tomorrow, it still would be enough.

The trouble was, how to tell him! She decided that she could not; it would embarrass him. But, if he suspected at some time, if he asked, then she would admit the truth.

It took ten hours to reach Machang, a pretty big city by Husaquahrian standards, teeming with life and busy people, its huge bridge at the northern end dominating the skyline and marking the end of navigation on the Rossignol.

They selected a low-rent hostelry near the riverfront for their night’s lodging, first going into a back alley and awakening a still slightly groggy Marge, telling her where they’d be, and letting her manage to fly up to the rooftops to finish her slumbers.

Mia helped unload, then unpacked, got the room ready as much as she could, then went back down to arrange to stable the horses. She felt buoyant, giddy, almost supercharged, like a whole new person, free to act and think like a teenager again.

Joe plopped down on the bed, feeling tireder than he knew he should, simply because of the monotony of the ride. And there were weeks and weeks of this to come, with the climate, both real and political, turning worse as they went.

Marge tapped outside his third-story window and he got up and raised it fully to let her in. He was glad to see her. “Any trouble finding me?”

“Naw. Really freaked out a couple folks who saw me peekin’ in, but most of ’em were doin’ anything but lookin’ out the window.” She grinned evilly. “You may be the only person in this joint who’s here to sleep.”

“I think I’d be a little too conspicuous staying in one of the fancy places. Besides, I couldn’t even dress for dinner.”

“Mia’s not back yet?”

“No, she just left to stable the horses a few minutes ago.”

“You’re down in the dumps about something, I can tell. Just what’s ahead?”

“Well, that, but not really. I just never really been this alone on a long trip since I drove a truck, and then I had a CB and the stereo.”

“What you’re really saying is that you can’t relate to Mia as you could to Ti and you can’t just take Mia as Mia.”

He nodded. “That’s part of it.”

“Joe, I think maybe I oughta tell you something. I checked it out last night after Ruddygore told me and it holds up, but it’s a big shock. I wasn’t supposed to tell, but I’m exercising that judgment the old boy thinks I have.”

“I’m listening.”

She told him the whole thing, beginning to end, including how she’d run into this lonely half-baked magician in Terdiera who’d looked up the literacy thing in the Rules for her and confirmed it. Joe listened with so little expression, saying nothing even after she’d finished, that she had to prompt him. “Well?”

“I—I was beginning to suspect as much, but it’s still a shock to find out the woman you thought was your wife is some sixteen-year-old slave girl I don’t even remember. It also means I’ve been had and living a lie for many months, and, most of all, it means Ti’s really gone.”

She hadn’t thought of that last one. “Oh, Joe. I’m so sorry! Damn me!”

“No, no. You were right to tell me. It’s better to know. The question is, does she know?”

“I think so, now. Fairy intuition, maybe. This was supposed to take a week to kick in, but I can’t stand it. Ask her when she gets back. Ask her if she knows the truth about herself.”

“And if she does and admits it? What then?”

“Then I’d tell her it’s okay, that it’s good to know, and that it’s closed. And then I’d blow out the light and make love to her. Not as Joe and Ti, but as Joe and slave girl.”

“Huh?”

“Trust me. Do that and all the ice will melt. After that, you can relate to her and she to you as people in their relative positions. The feminine fairy nose knows. How would you guys ever survive if you didn’t have women to tell you what to do?”

And, it turned out, she was exactly right.

The next day dawned as clear and warm as the one before; good traveling weather. Mia was like a different person—which, in a way, she was—up and about before dawn, getting things packed and ready before he awoke and without awakening him, somehow even finding hot water for the basin and giving him a morning wash. To himself, guiltily, he had to admit grudgingly that he liked such treatment and could easily grow used to it. She refused breakfast, saying she’d eat something later, and, while he ate at a dingy riverfront cafe, she went and settled the livery bill, got the horses and packed things away, then brought it all to him.

“That’s a hell of a girl you got there, Mister,” the grizzled proprietor of the cafe noted as she arrived. “You want to sell her?”

“Never,” he responded. “She’s absolutely essential to me.”

They picked up Marge in the alley, and she crawled in her “hidey hole” as she called it and was soon off to dreamland, but feeling a little smug. She still didn’t care for this slave girl bit; it went against her grain. But if she had to see it, then it was a lot easier to accept a little slave girl raised to this level, at least, rather than a Tiana sunk to it. After all, Tiana hadn’t given a thought to slaves waiting on her hand and foot, both male and female, as being anything other than her due. That didn’t make it right, but Marge had been around long enough to lose, if not her ideals, at least her hopes that one could cure the evils of the world without also inventing totally new ones.

Mia was still rigorous about her exercises and her running, but she also begged for some regular training in defense that might be useful, and Joe stopped at least once every day in a relatively uninhabited spot to help her out. She was really good with a knife, and could handle a bow at relatively short distances, but what surprised him was her karatelike kicks, which, with her powerful legs, dancer’s agility, and toughened feet, managed to break a small log in half.

“Where’d you learn those moves?” he asked her, genuinely impressed.

“Irving taught them to me, Master,” she responded. “It was a new kind of fighting, perfect for me to defend myself.”

“Huh! And I thought he was just play-acting out Kung-Fu movies. I’ll be damned!”

Mia was pretty good as it was, but much was improvised. If she could only have taken classes in it, he thought, she’d shoot to black belt in no time.

They stopped at a roadhouse just before the Valisandran border. By now Joe’s facial hair had developed into a full, thick beard, and it so dramatically altered his looks while retaining his image that he was willing to overlook the few gray streaks. It gave the beard character, aged him gracefully, and spoke of hard-won experience. Although he never got used to getting stuff in a mustache, or found a way short of regular trims not to eat some hair, he wasn’t about to get rid of it, particularly after the roadhouse.

Mia came up to him quietly while he relaxed outside. She had a paper in her hand, and said, “Master, I think you better look at this.”

He took it and immediately saw what she meant. He couldn’t read a word of it—in fact, none of them could—but the two woodcuts, while somewhat crude, were unmistakable. Lean, hard face, high cheekbones, long black hair… It wasn’t very flattering, but, when taken with what was probably a physical description, it was recognizable. The other cut wasn’t nearly as much help; he knew it was supposed to be Mia, but it could have been about every fifth girl in Marquewood, and the picture certainly had no slave ring, the one thing about her face that everyone focused on almost immediately.

At the bottom was a symbol that resembled a nasty, black falcon’s head, only a falcon out of the dark side of faerie, superimposed over the outline of a crest that appeared to be a cyclops on one side and a dwarf on the other. “The Hypboreyan imperial seal, I’d bet,” he commented. “I wonder if I can find anybody inside to read it to me?”

“Oh, no, Master! You can’t!”

He grinned. “Sure I can. Just remember, those aren’t pictures of us! Who knows, we might come across this pair and collect a fat reward. Don’t worry. I want to know whom you deliver them to if you capture them. Who, and where.”

The barman looked at the flyer and frowned. “Says this pair are fugitives from a treason charge in Hypboreya—not that that’s unusual. Seems like most anything over there’s treason now. They must want them pretty bad, though. The usual’s ten gold pieces a head. These are ten thousand a head!” He whistled. “And twenty-five thousand for both! Man, I’ll settle for just one of ’em, guilty or innocent. With ten thousand I’d walk away from this place, get myself a yacht, and just sail the river and loaf.”

“That’s why I wanted the details. What happens if you catch one or both? What do you do then?”

“Bring ’em here and I’ll split with you!” the innkeeper responded. “No, seriously, it says they must be alive, but condition’s not important, and to notify any Hypboreyan legation or trade representative, or to notify the Witches’ Guild!”

“Surely all witches and warlocks aren’t working for Hypboreya,” Joe responded. He knew some pretty nice folks who were witches—and, of course, a ton that made the fairy-tale ones look like saints.

The barman shrugged. “Who knows? You figure they got somebody in almost all the locals. Probably got some kind of magical reward for them as a processing fee the likes of this cash so that few witches could turn it down. Most any of ’em around here are in league with the Dark One anyway. It was real creepy when this was occupied territory, you know, but they pretty well left us alone. Too busy pushing south then. They’re still around, though. Just kind of low key, if you know what I mean.”

“You do business with them?”

He shrugged. “I ain’t never.been very political. Besides, it’s a long ways to the nearest Marquewood army, and, with Ruddy-gore off the Council, we ain’t got the privileged position we once did. I guess we got enough strength to protect the big cities, which is why they ain’t done nothin’ more and made the truce, but that don’t cut beans around here. Where you heading?”

“Valisandra for now,” he replied. “Still, I figured there might be some work coming up for somebody in my profession.”

“Yeah? How come them instead of south?”

Joe tapped the paper. “Because they pay better, for one thing. And because I’ve seen the south and tested the winds, and I like to be on the side,of the winner. Winners pay. Losers run or hang.”

“Yeah, well, there’s something to that, I guess. Still, this bunch could stab you through the heart and then you’d still fight for ’em—for free!”

“Those zombies are formidable,” he agreed, “but you can’t win a war or even a major battle with them alone. There’s no substitute for thinkers; men who can hold their own in the midst of battle and instantly size up the situation and the move and countermove. They’re okay as infantry, but a good fire line could destroy them and have them marching in to be consumed before they could get the order to turn. Then your cavalry could leap right through and behind them and get at the ones who direct them. Remove the controllers and the zombies are just so much rubble.”

“You sound like you know your business, all right, Mister ah-”

“Cochise.”

“Interesting name.”

“All barbarian mercenaries have interesting names,” Joe responded lightly. “Book Fourteen, page one hundred and sixty-one.”

“Well, you just watch your back, Mister Cochise, when you cross that border, ’cause over there the blackest sort of magic rules unchecked.”

“I fought with the Baron at Sorrow’s Gorge,” Joe responded menacingly. “It’ll be just like coming home.”

He only wished he’d meant that.

“You get many going north these days?” Joe asked him, curious.

“Some. Salesmen, tradespeople, officials, that kind of thing, and some I’d rather not discuss. Been a ton of real mean fairies headin’ in, too, I hear, but most don’t come near here. A few nuts, too. Had one guy through, not long ago, crazy as a loon. Said he was on some kind of epic quest. Little guy. Just kept singin’ this dumb song in some foreign tongue. Claimed he was lookin’ for some desert island. Desert island! In Valisandra! Can you beat that?”

Joe grew suddenly interested. “How long ago did that little fellow come through? ”

The innkeeper shrugged. “Couple weeks back, I think. Glad to get rid of him. Gave me the creeps, he did.”

Marge, like all faerie, recognized no human borders and particularly not their formalities. She flew over to Valisandra that night, arranging to catch up with the other two when they cleared and were well inside the country.

The border crossing looked pretty standard, if a bit more elaborate than most; the uniforms were different, the accent on the border guards was a bit off, but it hardly seemed the gateway to Hell. They were a lot more officious, though, and they did more touching of Mia than a border guard should.

“She’ll have to get down and come inside,” he said at last.

“Huh? Why?” Joe was suddenly defensive and suspicious and his hand almost went to his sword.

“She’s got to have her head shaved,” the guard said. “It’s the law here, no exceptions.”

Joe was surprised that Mia didn’t recoil from that. He sure did. “How long has that been the law?”

“It used to be a custom among certain of our people and those of Hypboreya,” he told them. “Now it’s the law. Absolute. No exceptions.”

Joe looked at her long, beautiful hair. “And if I refuse?”

He shrugged. “Then she don’t get allowed in. It’s your decision, Mister. She’s your property. I don’t make the laws, I just have to enforce them.”

Be cold, be tough, he reminded himself. “Okay, but only in my presence.”

“Okay with me.”

She got down and went inside and sat in the chair they indicated. One of the guards brought these big, sharp scissors and started cutting. It didn’t take very long to have a mound of hair on the floor and a scraggly mess on top. Getting the scraggly mess down was more involved, but finally they had it very short. Then they literally shaved her with foamy soap and a straight razor. He was surprised when that wasn’t the end of it; they shaved her underarms, her arms, legs, even her pubic hair, leaving only her eyebrows. Then they finished it by applying a greenish liquid over not only her scalp but every place they’d shaved. But for the brows, she was totally hairless. It looked very strange, with her bald as a cue ball, but she did have the head for it, and it made her look rather exotic, statuesque.

Joe felt his own still unfamiliar beard and said, “I guess I’m going to have to buy a razor.”

“No, the potion we finished with kills all the roots,” the guard said casually. “I’d get her a hafiid as soon as I hit my first town… A collar with loop is also required. Until then, the earrings, bracelets, and anklets are okay, but she can’t wear anything else. Understand?”

“Uh, yeah,” Joe responded, still in a state of shock. They walked back outside.

Finally, the head man tore off a piece of paper and handed it to Joe. “Can you read?”

“No.”

“All right, then. This is a conditional entry into the country for you and your property. Carry it with you at all times and don’t lose it. You’ll be asked to produce it for almost anything, from purchases to rooms to even using the roads. Failure to produce it can result in immediate arrest. It’s good for seven days and must be renewed at a constabulary every seven days to remain valid. Travel only on main roads and only in daylight. Use or entry to any posted road or building is prohibited. Camping is prohibited without permission. That’s for your protection, believe me. You understand?”

Joe nodded. “Yeah. What, you don’t want me to give blood every day, too?”

“Don’t be a wise ass. That’s the way to get in real trouble here.”

“Take it easy! I’m just looking to see if there’s any work for my talents up here.”

“Yeah, well, could be. That’s up to you. Go along, now.”

They went through the border and entered Valisandra. Almost instantly the landscape seemed a little meaner, a little more threatening, and the atmosphere seemed thick and menacing.

There was no real physical difference, nothing you could put your finger on or put into words, but it was tangible none the less. There was the smell of evil about, and it was unmistakable and unpleasant. Even the horses sensed it and grew a bit more nervous.

“Jeez! I’m as pissed off as you are about the hair,” he told her.

“I am only sorry you no longer find me pleasing to look at, Master,” she replied. “I was warned of this back in Terdiera, when I suggested to the Imir that the alchemist might wish to dye my hair in disguise as well.”

“You knew? Why didn’t you say something, then?”

“There was no purpose to it. We had to come, so it was inevitable.”

“Well, for the record, I don’t think you look bad at all. Incredibly different, but I guess I’d look different with all my hair off, too. But it makes you look sexy and exotic. On some people it would be a disaster.”

“You are kind to say so, Master.”

“I can see that it bothers you, though. When we get back, we’ll have the good Doctor Mujahn put it back as good as before. If he can grow hair on an old Injun like me, he can sure do it for you.”

“Thank you, Master. I do not know how it looks, but it makes me feel, oddly, naked in a way I have not ever felt before.”

“Well, we’re going into colder climates pretty quickly now. The only direction other than north is up. What the hell is the hafiid they talked about? Sheesh! Seems to me like you’d want more hair in a place like we’re going, not less!”

“I believe the idea is to insure a slave is always under control,” she responded. “The hafiid is a garment, much like a robe, usually of wool, and a headdress of sorts. One wears it with boots or barefoot while outside. There is also a mask and gloves for when it is very cold. When a slave enters a warm place, she surrenders it to her master, or to the person in charge of the place, and gets it back when she leaves. You are unlikely to go outside or into places you should not when you are like this and it is cold out.”

“Huh! What do they do with the guys?”

“I, too, was curious about that. Much the same, although they are allowed a codpiece. Their garment is a hooded black woolen robe, tied at the waist.”

“Huh! They get shaved, too?”

She nodded. “All over. The same. They are often, but not always, neutered as well. I believe when Valisandrans speak of geldings they are not speaking of horses.”

He felt a twinge in the vital areas there. “This has been a custom in Valisandra?”

“No, Master. It is a custom in most of the tribes of Hypboreya, the only land left in all Husaquahr where the child of a slave is a slave as well. Some of the same tribes lived across the river here and practiced Hypboreyan customs. Clearly those customs are now becoming the law here, until both countries are the same. What you see here is what would be extended to Marquewood as well, if they win, and High Pothique, and then all Husaquahr.”

“Well, it certainly puts-new juice to do the job and do it right here.” He shook his head. “And they call me a barbarian!”

In most of Husaquahr slaves were always regarded as people; they were just legally domestic animals. Here, or at least in the customs that had dribbled over and were now law, slaves were. regarded as animals, not human at all. Somehow that sounded like a nice distinction, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Maybe it was mostly in the fact that in southern society slavery at least wasn’t inherited.

Of course, back home once, millions of men fought a bitter war to end slavery and they won, so now the descendants of slaves had the right to sharecrop a farm or get hooked on drugs or live in squalid ghettos as welfare wards, right? And high-sounding academic types could go on talk shows and blabber about liberation and equality while thousands more kids got hooked on drugs or put in a pimp’s “stable” and forced to work the streets, and those high-sounders could forget that most of the rest of the world lived not much different than Husaquahr. Maybe it was only different by degree after all. He broke off that reverie since it got him nowhere and did nobody any good. But, man, it was tough not to get real cynical when the good guys weren’t really good, they just weren’t as all-out bad as the bad guys.

At least they’d passed the first hurdle, the first real test, and if the truth about Mia hadn’t come out, both of them would have flunked, and he knew it. Tiana, no matter what, would have killed herself rather than allow them to do to her what was just done to Mia, and he’d have turned around and said the hell with it rather than sit back and watch it done.

“How’d you find out so much about this?” he asked her.

“I, too, had my briefing, Master,” she replied.

“Oh, yeah? Anything else you know that you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing of importance.”

He looked around. “I wonder where Marge is? It’s pretty late for her to be up, but I hope she didn’t go to sleep in that forest waiting for us. There’s something just, well, dangerous about this place.”

Marge, however, finally did appear, sleepy but aware. “Oh, boy!” she said, looking at Mia. “They really do a job, don’t they? Hey, it doesn’t look so bad! Just wear the big earrings to set it all off.”

“What took you so long?” Joe asked. “I was beginning to get worried.”

“When I saw you hung up at the station, I took the time to do a little scouting of the land. It’s real oppressive. Can’t you feel it?”

He nodded. “You can cut it with a knife.”

“Even the forest’s ugly. The trees are starting to grow weird and twist around, and there are lots more ugly weeds.”

He stared emptily into the trees for a moment, then said, “It’s because the wood nymphs are sick. They can’t do their job properly. If this keeps up, they’ll eventually die, and the satyrs who husband the animals will turn wild and vicious.”

Now, how did he know that? Not by learning, but instinctively. And he felt it, the nausea from the trees.

Marge frowned, knowing how he knew what he did. “So maybe there really is such a thing as an evil wood. If this is the way it is just inside the country, and a country that’s only controlled by the bad guys, I’m not anxious at all to see their land.”

He nodded. “You watch it. There’s a lot of evil fairies ascendant in this land. Maybe as bad or worse than evil humans. And some of them can fly, too.”

“Uh-huh,” she responded, settling in for her sleep.

Mia looked around. “It is as if there is a great shadow on this land, darkening all that live within it,” she said. “Is that not what we are to try and lift?”

“Yeah, that’s the idea, but we’ve got a long way to go.”

Just a few miles farther on, though, came the second test. Someone had built an ersatz gate of logs across the road, and that someone was six of the meanest-looking guys he’d seen in a long time.

He came up to just in front of the gate and stopped. “What is this about?” he demanded to know.

Their leader, a big man, dressed in black jerkin and leather boots and carrying a crossbow under his arm stepped forward. Joe could swear he could count the fleas on the man.

“This here’s a tollgate,” he said in the light tone of a man who is totally in charge. “You got to pay a toll to go on.”

“I see. And you are with the government?”

Several of the men sniggered at that.

“Yeah, we collect for the guv,” the leader responded, and there was more sniggering.

“Uh-huh. And how much do you collect?”

“All we kin git,” one of the others said, chuckling evilly.

Joe slid off his horse in a casual way, at one and the same time shifting his swordbelt to the proper position.

“Now, why don’t I believe you?” Joe mused aloud, almost taunting.

“You can believe this, foreigner,” the leader responded. “There’s six of us and you got just you and the bitch.”

Mia slid off her horse to the other side, coolly reaching into a saddle pocket and picking up a small throwing knife, which she deftly palmed. Even this naked, without even the hair, it was possible to hide things if you just stood right and moved right.

Joe looked them over. The leader was fairly near; no problem. Three of the other five looked pretty relaxed; they would waste precious time bringing any kind of weapon to bear. The one with the loaded crossbow aimed straight at his chest was the immediate problem. He calculated position, trying to insure that he had the proper angle and that nothing else would be in the way. Mia had moved closer to the men but out of the line of fire and stood there kind of sexily, but tense.

“Six is a problem,” Joe admitted. “Five is much simpler. But, of course, you give me no choice. It is give you everything and live, or refuse and die.” He had his hand on the sword hilt now, and he could feel Irving’s anticipation, its energy, even sheathed, feel its power uniting his arm and its dwarf magic.

“That’s the choice.”

“I think I choose that you all die,” Joe responded, and the answer caught the leader off guard for a precious fraction of a second. Joe leaped and the great broadsword sang and sliced clean through the leader’s neck, sending his head, still with a bewildered look on its face, high in the air.

At the same moment, Mia smoothly threw the knife into the chest of the man with the cocked crossbow. He screamed and bent over and the bolt shot harmlessly into the ground several feet from anybody.

Reacting to a two-pronged attack, the remaining four split, three fanning out against Joe, swords drawn, while one, with a maniacal leer, came right at Mia. She waited patiently for him, then, at almost the last second, leaped and kicked him straight in the chest, sending him backward while she whirled and retained her balance. The man she’d struck was hurt badly, probably with crushed ribs, but he was getting to his feet. She ran at him and gave him a kick to the side of the head; then, spying the crossbow bolt in the ground, she reached down, pulled it out, and plunged it into the man’s neck.

Joe faced the trio, waiting for one to get brave enough to close.

“Come on, come on,” the big man invited them. “I haven’t got all day. I want to be in town by dark!”

“Big talk!” one snapped. “There’s—”

”Three of you now,” Joe finished. “We’re halfway done and I haven’t even had any fun yet. If you stay like this too much longer, my girl’s going to have an easy time plugging each of you in the back and I won’t even get to fight!”

There was a sound like a giant rubber band being sprung at high tension and the middle man screamed, then pitched over, a bolt in his back.

The other two backed up nervously. “Okay, Mister, okay! Call it off!” one of them cried. “No toll for you!”

“You don’t get off that easily,” he told them. “You insulted my girl. She doesn’t like anybody calling her a bitch but me. And I don’t like ragtag bandits.”

They both threw down their swords. Mia, who’d had enough time to reload and recock the bow, looked very disappointed.

“All right! All right! We give up! Just let us go!” one of them pleaded.

Joe sheathed his sword but called, “Mia, keep them covered. Shoot the first one who so much as scratches his fleas and I’ll have time to take the manhood from the other one!”

“Your wish is my command, Master,” she responded, never enjoying that line more than now.

Methodically, never taking his eyes completely off the pair, he rifled the headless corpse of the leader, coming up with two small bags. Straightening up, he quickly looked into them and found, as he’d expected, one had coins, the other gems. He turned to the pair. “Now, the first thing you are going to do is tear down that barricade,” he told them.

“Yes, sir! Yes, sir!” they both said, going to it with a vengeance. Within minutes, they had it reasonably cleared.

“Now—where are your horses? Your horses! Where?”

They pointed to the trees, and he went over to Mia and took the crossbow. He never liked them; one shot and then you had nothing, but if he couldn’t take one of these idiots barehanded he didn’t deserve to be out here. “Mia, go get the horses and any belongings you find that won’t have to be burned,” he ordered. She went, and soon came back, leading the horses two at a time.

“See if you can tie off all six to ours,” he told her.

”You ain’t gonna leave us with no horses!” one of the robbers wailed. “We couldn’t get no place afore dark on foot!”

“Two grown men afraid of the dark,” he mocked. “If you’re that scared, you can make the border before sunset with a good pace. Do you good. And, by that time, you’ll have no problems thinking up a good story for the nice men there. And it’ll be a doozy, I bet. Take off all your clothes!”

“Why, you can’t ask us to do that! It’s against the Rules or somethin’!”

“Ain’t fair,” the other agreed.

He laughed. “You boys want a code of honor, you better head way south,” he told them. “Haven’t you got it yet? I am robbing you!” He uncocked the crossbow almost inviting them to come at him, and tossed it away, then went again to his sword. “Now, which is it? Your clothes or your manhood? I wonder if a man could make it back to that entry station that way without bleeding to death?”

They raced each other to get it all off.

He gestured at the two men, who looked even worse in the buff than they looked in those clothes, then at the road back the way they came. “Now, run!” he ordered. “I’m going to count as high as I can, then I’m gonna pick up that crossbow and fire it right down that road.”

“How high kin you count?” one asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s see, I got one finger, two fingers…”

They were off like a shot, making a hilarious sight running down that road, and even Mia laughed at them as they quickly were out of sight.

“Anything but the horses?” he asked her.

“Saddlebags, Master. A couple of crossbows, extra bolts, and a fair amount of Marquewood silks. Also two dead men. It appears we were not their first victims of the day.”

He nodded. “Well, pack up what you can. Can you tie up the horses so we can take them all in? They’re pretty average looking but they ought to bring some money.”

She went to do that and he looked around at the four dead bodies. He felt terrific! His old confidence was completely back. And yet, he realized, he’d only been responsible for one of them directly and another by misdirection. Mia had done most of the work and as good as any fighter he’d ever seen.

Mia was soon back. “All set?” he asked her.

“But for one thing, Master,” she responded, running to the first man she’d killed and removing the knife, then cleaning it on his tunic.

“You were amazing,” he told her honestly. “Tiana could not have done any better.”

She beamed. “I was sure about the first one, Master, but not the second. It is very odd, but I had never been able to do that sort of kick before. I think my hair always got in the way or threw me off. This time I did not have to allow for the hair. Perhaps this is not such a tragedy, after all.”

“Well, don’t get too cocky!” he warned. “These guys were dangerous, yes, but they were common thieves. Professionals would have reacted without thinking, and they would not have taken you for granted.”

She spat on the ground near a body. “That sort of man always takes girl slaves for granted, Master.” She ran lightly back and jumped atop her horse, then gathered what reins she could and tied everything off. They looked now like horse-breeders on their way to market.

Joe mounted his own horse and started past the former barricade. “On the road again,” he sang. “Can’t wait to get back on the road again …”

Marge stirred from under her tarp and peered out fuzzily. “Huh, wuzzit?” She looked around and suddenly saw a whole lot more horses around her. “Where’d they come from?”

Joe laughed. “Poor Marge! Go back to sleep! A robbery and a fight can’t wake you up, but my singing does it every time!”

Marge peered blurrily at the horses, then at Mia and Joe, frowned, shrugged, and crawled back under her tarp.

It wasn’t much of a town, but it was clearly seeing better days because of the proximity of military units. There had been a lot of new and obviously slipshod construction along its one main street, probably to serve the military forces who had first passed it by, then returned in the truce and remained nearby.

The stable manager was taken aback at the number of horses. “They’re for sale,” Joe told him. “Cheap.”

The livery man, a stout, middle-aged man, with gray hair and mustache dressed in brown, who looked and smelled as if he’d been born in the stable, looked them over. “Ain’t much,” he commented. “Serviceable, though. You got clear title?”

“The men who owned them won’t be coming to claim them, if that’s what you mean,” Joe answered. “They made a serious mistake of trying to rob me.”

“Well, I’ll be swaggered! I thought that was Stirt’s horse there!”

“Scruffy man, fleas, dirty gray clothes?”

“The very one!”

“If he returns, he’ll be carrying his head under his arm,” Joe told the liveryman. “If he does and still wants his horse, I’ll refund your money.”

The liveryman looked suddenly frightened. “You shouldn’t oughta joke like that, son. Not ’round here. It ain’t all that improbable!”

“Was he a friend of yours?”

“Nope. Real backstabber. Bad from the start. It’s just that he owed me money. Not that I was gonna get it anyway, but…”

“Thirty for the lot and you put up my three for the night,” Joe told him.

“Ain’t possible! I’ll be lucky to resell the lot for twenty-five afore some nosy somebody from the military district comes in and confiscates them as necessary for the defense. Ten plus the board and feed of yours.”

“I’ll sell them on the street for more than that.” They went back and forth in traditional fashion, finally settling on seventeen gold pieces and the livery service. With the still uncounted booty from the thieves’ stash, he was beginning to take a certain liking to Valisandra in spite of its rottenness.

“The military are near here?” he asked the liveryman.

“Couple miles. Lots of train in’ and stuff, lots, of noise and marching and all that other soldier crap.”

“All Valisandran?”

He nodded. “All except some of the officers. I ain’t sure what they are. Might not even be human for all I know. There’s a Valisandran Volsan detachment, too. Big suckers.”

“Volsan—they’re of the centaurs, right?”

“Yep. Wouldn’t want to face any of them in a fight. Kinda all in one cavalry. Drink harder than a thievin’ barman, too. Mostly humans be in tonight, though. Full pack workday; won’t be many. You up here to sign up?”

“I am up here to see if there is anything worth my while to sign up for,” he replied. “Any of the stores open? And how available is the hotel?”

“Most of the stores’ll be open for a while yet, just in case the soldiers come in and want something. Used to have lots of folks here on their way to deal with the dwarf lords in the mountains. Even some tourists, believe it or not. Now, it’s just soldiers. If they hadn’t come back and stuck here, we’d ’a dried up and blowed away. Hotel’s always half or better empty because of it. The guv puts soldiers up.”

Joe nodded and left the stables. Mia joined him. “Let’s get you your whatever it is,” he told her.

“Hafiid, Master.”

“Yeah, hafiid. Best to pick up what we need now.”

The general store wasn’t exactly overflowing with hafiids. “Not much call for ’em down here, at least ’til fall,” the proprietor told him. “Still, got one or two.”

The hafiid turned out to be a loose-fitting, pleated robelike garment of beige-colored wool that was essentially of a single piece, with a neat knitted hole in it and two sleeves. It was essentially a one-size-fits-all kind of thing that came down to her ankles. The loose, robelike sleeves were much too long, but could be trimmed to fit. The other part was a burnoose thing the same color, made out of stretch wool, and had a six-inch flap that hung down the back. Optional was any pair of boots, midcalf or lower, that were some shade of brown or tan. She tried out a few, clearly uncomfortable with any kind of footwear, but settled on a midcalf model that wasn’t that easy to get into or out of but, she said, provided the most support.

“She will also need a neck collar,” the proprietor said. “Another of the new regulations, I’m afraid. The next thing you know, they’ll require them to have leashes. It really has gotten that odd.”

She picked a bronze collar that pretty well matched the bracelets, anklets, and earrings she already had, but with evenly spaced oversized rivets that came to broad points spaced around it. In place of one rivet was a loop through which something, perhaps a chain, could be attached. Maybe the proprietor wasn’t far from the truth. The proprietor fitted it carefully, then put a protective leather patch in between it and the back of her neck and pulled a series of tiny seals. There was a hissing and some smoke rose from the collar, making her flinch, but none got through and he soon removed the patch. The collar was fused, as if welded.

With the complete outfit on, Joe thought she looked like a slightly punk, tan-colored nun.

“Used to be we saw no slaves down here, and the ones we saw were all Marquewood, and there was never any problem,” the storekeeper told him apologetically. “Now, though, you can be declared a slave for spitting on the boardwalk. It hasn’t happened yet, but the rumors are all these new slave regulations are in preparation for making just about all the lower classes slaves. The government denies it, but you can’t trust them these days to tell you much. Even many of the fairy races are being rounded up and forced into work gangs. It’s not like it used to be.”

“I can see that,” Joe responded. He could see Sugasto’s grand social vision clearly and it made him sick. The masses would be enslaved to the state, fed, cheaply clothed, and housed en masse, forced to do all the menial labor at the end of a lash until they dropped. Otherwise, there would be soldiers, a trading class to supply the necessities and maintain trade and commerce, but a rather small one, and, of course, the top one percent who would control everything. It was an ugly picture, but it explained all the harsh slave measures.

Only a small percentage of people could be truly of the slave class anywhere; he knew that. The Rules mandated it, and the ways you reached that status, and what sorts of labor were under it. If Sugasto and his cronies turned their domain into nothing more than a slave state, they wouldn’t really be within the Rules but rather outside of them. Since the masses wouldn’t be true slaves, bound by the Rules of slaves like Mia, they would always be a potential danger. You couldn’t really turn your back on them. Hence, the collars, the chainings, all the rest. The hairless rule was equally obvious; if any of those ersatz slaves had the opportunity, they might escape. Dressed in uniforms or some such or foreign clothing, they might well cause a lot of harm. If you were hairless, though, you kind of stood out in the crowd. Back in the earliest Colonial days in the US, he knew, blacks had often been treated the same as indentured servants. They became permanent slaves because their skin made it easy to spot them anywhere. The false justifications came later.

This place felt on the verge of being the victim of a grandiose and evil experiment. Indeed, this might be regional, only one of many such, to test out what worked and what didn’t and sort of get the bugs out. The one that had the highest gain and least losses and problems would be the eventual fate of all Husaquahr.

Mia took charge of helping outfit him, suggesting a buckskin sort of outfit with dark brown fur trim and a droopy, broad-brimmed leather hat. Her eye was perfect; she unerringly seemed to choose only the things that fit him.

Almost on impulse, he added a forked leather bullwhip. He used to be fair with one, but hadn’t bothered with it much. Somehow, though, it fit the image.

They left for the hotel, Mia carrying her boots and, in fact, her slave outfit. She would wear them when she had to.

“I want a room, directions to a decent meal, and arrangements for a bath,” he told the clerk.

“Just the one night? Heading south, then?”

“No. North.”

The clerk stiffened. “Then you will be with us longer than that.”

“Why? Problems?”

“You don’t know! The zombie masters are gathering on the plains just north of here for the next three days and nights. I wouldn’t go a hundred yards north of this town for at least one day longer!”

“Zombies, huh? Sounds like something’s up.”

The clerk shrugged. “These days, sir—who knows?”

He signed in and had Mia square things away in the room, then went over to the cafe. They were short on food, shorter on cuisine, but they remembered the days when wealthy Marquewood merchants would pass through on the way to the dwarf lords, there to negotiate for the exquisite craftsmanship only dwarf magic could create. They often brought their personal slaves along. There was no objection at all to Mia serving her master, and then eating anything he left on his plate. Of course, there war a slight hitch.

“I’m sorry, sir, but everything’s rationed these days,” the waitress apologized. She was one of the typical cafe-types, short, fat, and brash. “We’ll soon be out of business if they don’t let us get some regular deliveries back. All the ranch produce has been pretty much taken by the army, and nobody makes deliveries from Marquewood no more.”

He was sympathetic, and managed, with serrated hunting knife, to cut what was supposed to be a steak and get it down. They were doing the best they could. At least the strictly vegetarian Mia could have her fill; local gardens were deemed too minor for the authorities, and so the locals at least had some vegetables for now, even pastries of beet sugar and bran, although they weren’t sure what would happen when winter came.

If the steak was representative of the future, though, he might well go vegetarian himself, he thought, a sour taste in his throat.

Marge was waiting for them when they got back.

“It did look pretty hairy out there,” she admitted. “I’m really tempted to try and see what’s going on up there.”

“You watch it!” he cautioned. “You don’t know what’s around here, including things that might fly and eat Kauris for dinner.”

“I’ve always been able to take care of myself,” she replied confidently. “You worry about yourself. Still, I noticed this evening that this might not be a bad time for a few days’ break.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I’d say the moon will be completely full sometime tomorrow evening.”

The curse! He’d been so preoccupied that, even though he was usually very good about it, he hadn’t given it much thought.

He started thinking hard. “You know, it is tempting, in light of that, to see just what’s what. You keep away from the dangerous parts tonight, but maybe tomorrow night we’ll be able to work something out.”

“What’re you thinkin’ of?”

“Taking a few risks. The fight today made me realize that Gorodo was right: I have been soft, not in the body, but in the mind.”

She shrugged. “Okay. It seems like we’re gettin’ nowhere fast doin’ what we been doin’, anyway.”

She left, and he knew she’d not be nearly as cautious as he wanted her to be, but, as she said, she had proven herself capable before.

There also had to be a way to speed this up, somehow; she was right about that. It would be possible to hug the river almost to the Golden Lakes district. The River of Dancing Gods wasn’t all that navigable that far north, with lots of falls and cataracts, but he actually considered something like a canoe, finally rejecting it as making him too vulnerable. And, of course, horses would be harder to come by the farther in they went. Still, there just had to be a way to make better time. They were barely inside enemy territory, and he was impatient, and there was still such a long way to go.

He had to wonder, though: if this was the sorry state that Valisandra was reduced to, then what in hell must Hypboreya be like?