Songs of the Dancing Gods

CHAPTER 6 DON’T IT MAKE MY BROWN EYES BLUE

“I haven’t done this spell in, oh, seven, eight hundred years,” Ruddygore commented. “Had to look it up, in fact. The Rules allow more latitude than normal on how a slave is marked, with at least three dozen possibilities. However, the ring method is the only one recognized internationally and throughout Husaquahr, since it’s the only one with permanence. You see, once the ring is inserted and the spell given, it cannot be removed or altered by anyone—the Rules are quite strict on that.”

Joe frowned and looked at Ti, who had actually asked for this to be done prior to their journey. He didn’t like it, not a bit. “You sure about this?”

She nodded. “Master, it is the only way I can gain any real freedom, as odd as that may sound. It marks me instantly, not only as property, but as your property. It is the only security I may have.”

“She’s right,” the sorcerer assured him. “If she’d had this, she wouldn’t have had to have been accompanied into town to pick up things for you, tend to things, that sort of thing. Theft of a registered slave is punishable by reduction to slavery status yourself almost everywhere, and purchase of a stolen one the same. Nor can she be transferred to another without the owner’s consent and be bound to serve. You might as well just kidnap and imprison any lowborn. It’s not worth the risk when there’s so much easier stuff to lift, and she becomes nearly impossible to market.”

“Yeah, that’s true here, now, but when we get into Hypboreya, what will they care?”

“Oh, you’ll find that an evil regime is even more a stickler for law and order than a benign one, as a rule, since they trust no one and are inherently paranoid. Indeed, there’s nothing poor and oppressed people seem to like more than having slaves about. It’s a cruel streak in human nature, but, the fact is, no matter how poor, how miserable, and how oppressed you are, you can always point to a slave and say, ‘At least I’m not a slave.’ That attitude also serves the ruling regime’s interest, obviously, since no matter how much they lay on the people, there’s one lower rung. No, she’ll probably be safer than you, although, my dear, even the common folk will treat you like dirt.”

Joe shrugged. “Okay, then. Go ahead. What do we do?”

Ruddygore removed a small bronze-colored ring from a box. It looked quite ordinary, and had an opening which, with a bit of flexing, fit into her nose. “This will sting for just a moment,” the sorcerer warned her, grasping the ring between two fingers. He then shut his eyes a moment, and there was a surge of energy into the ring that went around it and into her nose. She flinched, then relaxed. Ruddygore opened his eyes, examined his work, nodded to himself, and then actually moved the ring around. There was no sign of a hole or joint, but it wasn’t in stiffly. You could turn it, as if she were born with it and with the proper hole inside her nose.

“Hmmm… Yes, blood from the incision mixed with the ring quite well. A pretty fair job, if I do say so myself. It actually looks quite… exotic… on you, my dear. The only problem I know from one of these is head colds. It’s hell to blow your nose with one of them in. But, of course, I’ve already given you both enough immunization spells to cover anything I could find in the books.” He turned to Joe. “Final phase. Take the ring like I did. Yes, that’s it.” He reached out and put his fingers on Joe’s, and the big man braced for a shock or something, but nothing happened. “That’s it,” the sorcerer said, letting go. “You can release the ring now.”

“I didn’t feel anything,” Joe said, thinking something went wrong.

“You lose thousands, maybe millions of cells, every day,” Ruddygore told him. “Only a couple are needed here and the few off your fingertips were plenty. The ring now has, well, for want of a better word, your genetic code in it. You alone can alter the record. Anyone touching it with you will know instantly she’s yours. A transfer can only take place if you do what we did with someone else, your fingers where mine were, and you tell it you want to transfer title. It’s quite elegant. The same system is used on prized livestock all over the world. Bigger rings, of course.”

“What happens if we’re separated? Or if the worst happens and, well, you know.”

He nodded. “If the worst happens, and you do not get the chance to make a transfer, the ring’s memory will clear. The first person to hold it as you did will own her, just as you can claim unbranded cattle on the range. On the other hand, if you’re merely separated, no matter by what distance, but your body still lives, it holds. She’ll either be on her own initiative to find you, within her class limitations, or she’ll be taken as a ward of the state and put to work, pending your location, if any. Since nobody ever looks, then the initiative’s on your shoulders to find her.”

Ruddygore looked at Ti. “You’re dying to see what it looks like, I know. Go ahead. There’s a mirror over there.”

Joe nodded, and she went over and looked at herself. It didn’t look ugly or disfiguring, as she’d feared. She’d seen some rings in some slaves that were awful. In fact, it really locked in the exotic dancer image. And she really did feel much better with it in. She was now defined to the world, and she felt oddly as if chains that had been holding her were suddenly cast aside.

“Master, may I go back down into town?” she asked Joe.

“Why? Just want to test it out?”

“Partly. But I also beg permission to buy something I saw earlier. There is a merchant in the marketplace who has among his wares castanets. I have been dying to try some dances with castanets and without the drums… Please?”

He shrugged. “All right, go ahead,” he said, then thought of something. “Wait a minute! From this moment on, and forever after, until I tell you different, if anybody demands to know who your master is, you tell them you are owned by—” He thought a moment. “—the great warrior chief Cochise, who won you in a fight. Got it? Get used to calling me that, even in private. We won’t know who’s listening and we don’t want the name ‘Joe’ to pass either of our lips if we can help it.”

She grinned. “Yes, Master,” she responded. “Can I go now?” He nodded, and she was off.

“She’ll do,” the sorcerer said. “The one thing that didn’t change a whit about her was her drive for self-perfection. Even in her situation, she wants to be the perfect dancer, the perfect slave. The only thing I did yesterday was to give her some armor, so she can take all the crap that will be dished out to her. She still won’t like it, but she’ll be able to handle it better. She’s got more self-confidence now, too. She spent time this morning before she went into town down in the armory, practicing leaps and jump-kicks. She’s also got quite an eye with a knife at short range, and might well handle some other weapons she was previously good at. Not swords, or battleaxes, but, well, what some call ‘women’s weapons.’ And I’d hate to be on the receiving end of a kick from those runner’s legs! Her carrying a weapon is out, both for propriety and for her own protection, but I’d keep some at hand just in case.”

“That’s good to know. Marge is the best scout and spy I can think of, but she’s only good in a fight as a diversion.”

“There’s one more thing, and I think perhaps it should be reinforced with Ti and explained to Marge as well, who might not understand. You’ve made a good start in letting her call you ‘Master,’ which, by the way, she doesn’t mind, and which is natural to her, said without thinking about it, and your idea of using a pseudonym, even in private. The thing is, you’re going to have to go even further. You’re going to have to stop thinking of her as your ex-wife and think of her totally as your slave and property, no matter how unnatural that feels on personal and moral grounds. And I mean think that way, not playact. You may have to reign her in harshly, even treat her roughly, and I mean that. She has the absolute best possible disguise to go into that country. As I said, even the Baron, who knows her appearance and might, just might recognize her, although I think even there the chance is slight, would disbelieve his own memory at seeing the mighty Tiana as Ti the slave. Still, if he’s at all involved in this business or going to be and gives a description, that’s where the attitude you display toward her becomes most important. They’ll be looking for a wedded couple—partners. They’ll see a slave. They must believe that’s all she ever was, and that part’s up to you. Your lives and others depend on it.”

“You mean yell at her? Make her grovel? Beat her if she doesn’t do something? I’m not sure I can. The whole idea of slavery is repugnant to me.”

”Remember, once inside enemy lines, you must be what your son would call a ‘badass’ or ‘tough dude.’ The one thing an evil society does best is spy on itself. There will be eyes on you constantly, sizing you up.”

“I’ll try. I hope she understands.”

“Joe—there is no way she can get her old body back. Even if, by some impossible good fortune, you secured it, there’s no way to get it back alive and no way in any event I could do it. And even if, by some unbelievable occurrence, you got the spell as well, you couldn’t make hide nor tail out of it, let alone remember its complexity. Not even Dacaro could, and he’s a pro.”

“Maybe if you’d use the Lamp to wish for the formula, I’d risk it anyway,” he told the big man.

“Joe, it wouldn’t help. The Lamp’s magic is djinn magic. It can no more tell me how to do it in this universe than it could suddenly give you a total grasp of quantum physics. That Lamp’s a curse, because those who see what it can do assume it is somehow godlike. It’s not. If it were, I could use it to become a god and end all this foolishness. The only way is the hard way, Joe. Face it.”

It was impossible to argue with the logic. The bodies had to be destroyed.

“And, I’d suggest a new name for Ti as well. It will not only remove the last link in the identification chain, but it will help you divorce the woman that was from the girl that is. Tell her no longer to answer to ‘Ti.’ She won’t. It’ll be gone. Then tell her to answer to and think of her name only as ‘Mia.’ Got it? Mia.”

“Mia?”

Ruddygore nodded. “To protect her from having her old self revealed, I told you I took elements from her. Her second, rudimentary slave personality and background I took mostly from her own memories of a palace maid whose name was Mia. If you tell her that’s her name, it will seem to her as if it really is. Understand? It’s consistent.”

“Yeah, okay. Mia. That closes the disguise on her, but everything you say makes me the weakest link in this. Not just how I behave and how I treat others, but we know how these things always go. Somehow, sometime, I’m going to bump into the Baron, even if he’s not involved, and probably at the wrong time. If he’s got any freedom at all, he’s probably given those descriptions out just for revenge. I might not last ten seconds up there, and you know it.”

Ruddygore nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. And he knows you’re an Amerind, which is rather distinctive here. I cannot transform your body or do much magic on it. You’re locked in as a twenty-year-old Joe. We can, however, make use of the Baron’s knowledge that you’re what they call back on Earth an Indian or Native American. That’s why I asked Doctor Mujahn to drop by this afternoon. He’s the best alchemist Hu-saquanr ever produced—he actually has turned gold into lead.”

“I thought the idea was to turn lead into gold.”

“He’s halfway. Don’t knock it. Pure science is often unprofitable. At any rate, I want to see what he can do for you. Strictly chemicals, potions, and nostrums, of course. But he can do some startling things in cosmetology, and they stick, unless you have the antidotes. And,” he added, “he’s so absentminded in day-to-day things he won’t remember he was even here, let alone you, ten seconds after he leaves.”

“Uh—I assume he has the antidotes to anything he tries on me? That he’s not so absentminded that he’ll forget how to reverse things?”

“I assume so, too, yes.”

“Well, if he can do anything, I’ll try it. I want to come back alive from this one if possible. What about Marge, then? Sugasto’s seen her, and a man and woman traveling with a Kauri will strike a few folks as familiar.”

“I doubt if that’s a real problem, if you and Ti aren’t recognized. All Kauri look absolutely identical except to another Kauri, the same as all members of the nymph family. Remove her wings and color her leaf-green and she could be any wood nymph in the world—sorry. But you get the point. It’s only by your total familiarity with her personality and manners that you know it’s her and not another. I’m not concerned about her being recognized at all.”

Doctor Mujahn looked like a bumbling, middle-aged accountant in dark brown monklike robes, complete with small mustache and thin, slicked-down hair and glasses. He also looked like the kind of man who’d forget his head if it wasn’t attached.

He poked and probed and took some skin and blood samples and cooked up a whole bunch of weird stuff, and he often had to be reminded that a subject was there and he wasn’t doing research in his laboratory.

“Bleaching the skin is out, but we can tint it, going from the more olive cast to bronze,” he muttered, not really to anybody else but himself. “We’ve got endless options on the hair, but because of the skin bath I’d recommend a medium brown. Poor contrast but it’ll have a slight reddish tint, and it can be cropped and thickened, yes. Hmmm… Brown eyes… Let’s see, let’s see.” He fumbled through a case full of vials. “Red… bloodshot… black… pinkeye… Ah! This one! Can’t tell for sure what exact color will come out, but it should be somewhere between emerald and turquoise.”

“Wait a minute. You can even change my eye color?” Joe asked him.

“No problem. Simplest of all, really, except for making everything black or albino. That’s child’s play.” He puttered around some more and came up with a vial that seemed made of polished obsidian. “Ah! Yes, the final ingredient! I find it fascinating that your people don’t have much in the way of facial or body hair.”

“What is it? Hair-growing formula?”

“Yes. We looked to give one fellow a hairier chest once. Poor man looked like an ape at the end. Tsk-tsk. Blew my demonstration. Oh, don’t worry! It was a simple mistake—I used one part per thousand when it should have been one per hundred thousand. I was always better at working out formulas than following them. Once baked a loaf of bread that rose so dramatically it blew the roof off the house. Not as bad as the fireworks mixture I did once. You can still see the crater where the town used to be… Hmmm… All right. Now I have everything worked out for you exactly correct. At least I hope I do.”

Joe felt much like Irving had felt being introduced to Gorodo. All he wanted was out of there.

He had Ti—no, Mia now, he’d have to remember that—in the room with him. Poquah was also there, looking over the alchemist’s shoulder, and that was the only reassurance he had. The Imir was one of the few known adepts who was of faerie, and he was pretty damned good. Ruddygore said he’d never be as good as a human adept with the same talent, simply because he was of faerie, but that he was already the most knowledgeable and powerful of the elf family in all history. The Imir were also one of the rare warrior races of elves, and were great in a fight. But Ruddygore had proclaimed that his adept was needed here, particularly if Joe failed.

First the alchemist used a bathtub that could only have been Ruddygore’s—it was the largest even Joe had ever seen—and, after elf servants filled it with water, he began mixing and stirring various potions in there. Joe grew more nervous when he saw that no exact measuring devices were being used; it was a pinch of this and two drops of that.

Finally, Doctor Mujahn proclaimed the mixture correct. “You must get in and submerge completely,” he told Joe. “Eyes and mouth shut, but once under, turn your lips out in a pucker, as if about to give a big kiss. That’s quite important. Don’t worry if you swallow a little bit. The worse that will do is turn your urine green for a few days. Stay under until I tap you on the head. Then you can come up. That, too, is important.”

“Uh—you’re sure I’m not gonna come out purple or something?”

“Reasonably sure. Of course, I could always test, I suppose, but it’s such a waste of time.”

“Test!” Joe ordered.

He sighed. “Very well, very well. Let’s see. Ah. This leather patch will do fine.” He picked up a small patch of dark brown leather, stuck it to the end of a pair of pliers, and dipped it into the bathtub. Then he waited, and waited, whistling a bit as he did so.

“Hey! How long does this take?” Joe asked nervously. “I have to breathe, you know!”

“Oh, almost done. Another little bit… yes… there!” He pulled the patch up.

The leather was a yellow orange and most unattractive.

“I don’t want that color!” Joe protested.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s matched to your current skin color. Naturally, it’s going to have a different, but predictable, effect on ordinary brown cow leather. It will work. This is the expected result. Come, come! Your turn!”

Joe sighed. “All right, all right. If it goes too wrong Ruddygore will have to cancel this whole thing and send other people.” He slipped off his loincloth and sandals and went over, hoisted himself up, paused a moment, took a deep breath, let it out, then took in another and held it, then slid into the tub. He submerged all the way, eyes shut, as instructed, but only at the last minute did he remember the pucker. A little did come in. It tasted like cream soda.

His whole body tingled, and he was very uncomfortable. Besides, the water might have been nice and warm when they poured it, but it was at best lukewarm now. He began to fear his lungs were going to burst, and he could hold his breath a pretty long time. As long as he had to pucker, why the hell didn’t they give him a breathing straw? Just when he decided he could hold it no longer, that he was coming up anyway, he felt a none too gentle blow on his forehead and he immediately broke through the surface, gasping for air and coughing.

“Out! Out! Get out quickly or you won’t stay even!” the alchemist shouted, oblivious to his discomfort. He managed to lift himself out and stood there dripping on the floor.

Mia brought him a towel and he wiped his face and eyes and opened them, then looked around. “Well?” he asked, then looked down.

For the first time in his life, Joe de Oro was truly golden. Not bright gold, but the natural kind, the kind you saw in those California and Hawaiian surfing films.

“I want to do the hair before the solution dries,” the alchemist said, busily mixing. “Here. Just soak your hair completely in this bowl, then come up and we’ll dry it off.”

He was suddenly forced over a large bowl full of foul-smelling stuff, rotten egg stinking stuff, and his head was dunked in it. The doctor used a small ladle to apply it to areas that couldn’t be totally submerged, then said, “All right, out. Take this towel and dry your hair as thoroughly as you can. Quickly now! Delay too long and your hair will lose all its color.”

That got him moving, with Mia’s help. His whole scalp tingled, and it wasn’t comfortable at all.

“That’s sufficient,” the alchemist pronounced. “Now come sit in this chair. Girl, you take those scissors and comb and trim his hair nicely in back!”

“Can you do a haircut, Mia?” Joe asked nervously.

“I shall do my best, Master,” she told him.

“Go to it, then.”

The alchemist was still moving fast. “Wait. Before you cut, let me put these drops in his eyes. It will sting a bit. Close them, and keep them closed until I tell you to open them. In the meantime, I’m going to apply the hair paste.”

The guy was as quick and good with drops as an eye doctor, Joe had to admit, but that stuff burned. Not the paste that was being applied over a lot of his face and to his arms, chests, and legs, though. That itched like crazy instead, but every time he went to scratch at it Doctor Mujahn slapped his hand.

Mia’s combing wasn’t too great, either. Actually, it wasn’t so much her as it was the tangles he obviously had in abundance. She kept running into them, trying to comb them out, and, in most cases, wound up cutting them out. It felt as if she were doing a lot of cutting back there, and that made him almost as nervous as Doctor Mujahn did.

“Open your eyes!” the alchemist ordered, and he did.

“Blurry as hell,” he said.

“That will pass. Close them again, though. Not quite there yet.”

Now he felt the itching paste being washed from his body with very warm water. The water felt good, but the itching didn’t stop.

“Open your eyes again!” Mujahn ordered. He did, and it was even blurrier. The alchemist studied them, frowning, then he nodded. “All right. Stop the haircut, girl. I’m going to wash his eyes.”

He was given another set of eyedrops, and was told this time to keep blinking. He did, and, slowly, his eyesight began to clear. Mujahn gave him two more flushes, men pronounced himself satisfied.

“Finish the hair now, girl! Well, big fellow, how do you feel?”

“Itchy,” he responded.

“Quite natural. You’ve never had hair there before. Give it a few more days and you’ll have several month’s growth. There! My own mother wouldn’t know you now!”

“Your mother is not the one I’m worried about,” Joe responded. “Mia, how much longer is it gonna be?”

“It is mostly done, Master. I hope you will be pleased.”

“I want to see what I look like, damn it!”

Poquah looked him over. “Actually, since I know your visage well and watched the process, I recognize you, but I doubt if anyone who did not look very closely and very well with great suspicion would, sir.”

“Damn it, Mia, when will you be done? I’m not going to the ball, you know.”

“Just another minute, Master.”

“That’s what you said before.”

“Not too much longer…”

“Finish it, damn it! Now!”

She stiffened, then did two more snips and a comb. “Yes, Master.”

The very instant he regretted the tone he also realized that this was exactly what Ruddygore was talking about. An apology was stopped before it began. You never, never apologized to a slave.

He got up and stalked into the other room, which was a dressing room of sorts and had a full mirror. He stopped, looked at himself, and hardly believed what he saw. Yeah, okay, his face and body weren’t really changed. He was still the same guy. But the changes, all entirely superficial, were as dramatic as a sorcerous transformation.

The most startling were the azure blue eyes. Geronimo had blue eyes, it was said, but he’d never expected to see it. The hair was thick and slightly curly, more beach-bum stuff, and a sandy reddish brown. The eyebrows were a slightly darker brown, probably because he’d wiped his eyes, but it looked natural at least. And the complexion change, for all its discomforts, was actually quite subtle, which made it, in combination with the rest, all the more effective.

But most dramatic was his face. He actually had a thick stubble! Not the occasional wispy hair he’d known, but whiskers. Not yet a beard, but certainly even now at the stage where most white men would be if they hadn’t shaved in a week. Nice and full, too. And hair was also growing over much of the rest of his body! He hadn’t had this sort of hair since he’d returned from that body Ruddygore and his pet demon had formed for him long ago, the same body he was now supposed to destroy.

He turned and saw Mia standing there, looking at him. ”Well? Am I a new man or not?”

“The change is—dramatic, Master.”

“You don’t approve?”

“It is not for me to approve or disapprove. But it wears well on you, Master. No enemy is going to recognize you now.”

And that, of course, was the real point.

“It’s a very good haircut,” he told her, unable to resist.

She was about to respond when Doctor Mujahn came in. “Would you like your voice altered? Wouldn’t be much of a problem to raise or lower you an octave, you know, since your baritone’s about in the middle range. Give you a sore throat for a few days, but after that, fine.”

“No, this is more than good enough, Doctor. In fact, it’s positively brilliant. My apologies for doubting you.” He hesitated. “Ah—this beard and body hair is growing at a fantastic rate. It will slow down, won’t it?”

“Oh, of course. Give it a week and you’ll have enough to trim. After that, trim it every couple of days for another week, then it will have slowed to the normal body rate of about a quarter of an inch a month. The body hair will reach its own length and pretty much stop, but it won’t be replaced very quickly.”

“But it won’t fall out, or the colors wear off?”

“Oh, over many years, perhaps, but not otherwise. After about a year, the hair will have a tendency to go gray, but it can always be dyed. The rest—no, not without more treatments from me.”

He nodded. “Mia, fetch me my barbarian outfit and let’s go meet the critics.”

Marge was absolutely stunned. “It’s perfect!.” she assured him. “And when the beard comes in, you could go up to Bo-quillas himself and spit in his face and he wouldn’t know you!”

“That, my dear, is the whole idea,” Throckmorton P. Ruddy-gore put in. “I have had my staff work up a past history for you, by the way, as a cover story. It will hold up if you practice it. We’ve also worked out a route, of sorts, although circumstances might alter it. I’ll discuss it with you later.”

Joe nodded. “I just wish I could stop this damned hair from itching so much!”

“Oh, when it comes in full, that stops,” Ruddygore assured him. “Then it’s simply a matter of a trim. You’re just out of practice.”

Irving was even more amazed by Joe, not even recognizing him until the big man spoke.

“Oh, wow! You look like Conan of Hawaii!” he exclaimed. Then his face fell. “I guess this means you’re goin’ soon.”

“We leave tomorrow morning,” Joe told him. “I wish more than anything you could come with us, Irv, but it’s just not time yet.”

“I know. I just… well, I just have this crazy…Oh, damn, I’m afraid you won’t come back!”

“If I’m alive, I’ll come back. That I swear,” Joe assured him. “But there’s always that possibility. There was that possibility every time I climbed into a truck for a run or crossed a street.”

“If they get you, I’ll get them,” Irving said firmly. “I promise you that.”

“Then you think you can stick it out with Gorodo?”

The boy grinned evilly. ‘Oh, him and me are gonna get along real fine. He don’t know ’bout karate!”

Joe laughed and hugged him and held him close.

It was dark; they had all eaten, and Marge had gone into Terdiera for her own needs with a promise to be back by ten. Kauri were by nature nocturnal; they could function in daylight, but always in a slight stupor, almost a jet-lag feeling of being up at the wrong time. But nighttime was when they needed a flying sentinel most in any event.

Joe was spending the last hours with Irving and would also not be up until the meeting. Mia was going around, seeing to the last minute details, and was now heading out to the courtyard to practice a dance with her new castanets.

In truth, she still worried Ruddygore the most. He had gotten the report from Poquah of her reaction to Joe’s anger, and he knew she was hurt, that she’d conveyed that hurt wordlessly to Joe, and he’d softened because of it. The half measures he’d taken clearly weren’t adequate. Only a clean break, at the risk of her ego, would do the trick after all. There was no other way open to him.

He stepped out quickly from behind a pillar just in front of her and she jumped a bit, startled. “I—I am sorry, my lord. I did not see you mere.”

“My fault entirely,” he responded, then lifted his hand. She immediately stiffened, in an immediate trance.

“Mia,” he said softly, “I am going to tell you some things about yourself and you will believe them and know that they are true.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“You are not, nor have you ever been, the highborn and demigoddess Tiana,” he told her. “The memories you have of the parents and siblings of Mia are true. You were, however, Tiana’s maid and slave in the palace. All of your memories and impressions of that life, of Joe and Tiana, come from that. The Dark Baron had you kidnapped and brought to Earth in order to learn intimate details of his enemies, Joe and Tiana, and, as you were under his power, you did so. When he captured Tiana, he first interrogated her, and from that you learned the other details, and then he killed her. Then he cast a spell so that you believed that you were Tiana. He was going to use you to get at us, but he was defeated and so could not use you and his hold on you was broken. You returned as Tiana, and basically fooled yourself that you were really Tiana, the details you knew and your own worshipful devotion to Tiana making you refuse to admit that she was dead and, thanks to the new body and the Rules that gripped you, convincing even Joe that you were really Tiana.

“But when you returned to Husaquahr, you became the slave Mia once more, since that is who you were and the only person you can be. You love Joe, have since your days in the palace, but you know you can never be more than his slave. You now truly realize that you can never keep up the pretense of being Tiana and you are going to abandon it. But you won’t stop loving Joe, no matter how cross he is, no matter if he even beats you, no matter if he has a hundred other women. To be Joe’s slave is your highest aspiration. You are proud to be his slave and proud that for so long you were taken as Tiana’s equal. That is the true source of your own pride. You now know that, were you not a slave, you might have been her equal. You have proven as smart, as tough, and as resourceful as she was. But even as you know your duty, you will ever after know and accept your status and your place.”

He paused, sorry it had come to this. If she survived this—if he survived this, if they couldn’t pull it off!—and if he ever figured that body-switching trick, he promised himself that he would make it up to her, get her out of this body and into one commensurate in status with her intelligence and skills. Until then, this would have to do.

“You remember that you once told Tiana that you did not mind being a slave, that it was better than many alternatives you could think of, and that it was honorable and necessary work,” he continued. “As the truth that you are truly Mia comes to you, you will remember that and believe it all the more. You are proud of being the slave of the greatest of Husaquahr. To serve such a noble one in such a noble cause fills your heart with joy. To be a slave on such a great quest and perhaps aid in its outcome gives you pride, meaning. In a crisis, when you are needed, you will do as Tiana would have done, had you truly been her.

“These things will not come upon you all at once when I let you go, but you will suspect them, feel their truth deep down, and, over the next few days, you will know and understand all of them and it will actually make you happy to know that you are truly Mia, the best and luckiest slave girl in all Husaquahr.”

Once she made that leap, and truly believed that she was Mia and had never been Tiana or anyone else, her mind would sort itself out. All pretenses of Tiana, including particularly the pride and her sense of shame, would go as well. She would accept herself entirely as Mia; her whole ego would be redirected.

He raised his hand and she suddenly came awake.

“I am sorry, my lord! I did not see you there!” she said.

“That’s all right, Mia. My fault entirely. Go wherever you were going. You’ve got a big day coming tomorrow.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, doing the partial bow and slight knee bend and then continuing on her way. She was glad that he didn’t need her for anything and that she had no more duties for now. She was all mixed up in her mind and she needed to sort things out, and dancing really helped do that.

Ruddygore watched her go, then reached into his robe and took out a huge old gold-encased pocket watch with Great Western Railway, Ltd. written upon its face. He flipped it open and saw that it was just after nine. So much meddling to do, so little time…

He caught Joe just as he was coming up the stairs from the armory area and had him in the same sort of trance in seconds.

“Joe, what I’m going to tell you is true and you will believe it is true.” Quickly he sketched much the same scenario as he had for Tiana. “You will not know this immediately, but will come to suspect it, and she will finally tell you, if you ask her,” he concluded, spelling out a few of the implications.

Joe, too, would not remember the encounter nor the conversation, but by the time he had his beard he would believe it, and he’d interact with her accordingly. Not as his former wife and love, but as this little slave he’ll now vaguely remember. She would then go from being someone he still considered his equal and for whom he retained, no matter what, some real love, to a near total stranger, and a masquerader, however unconsciously, at that. He would still never consider selling her; the sorcerer had seen to that. But the master-slave status would be absolute, convincing, and believed and accepted by both.

If, of course, Marge didn’t screw it up.

Marge was late, but only by a few minutes. Ruddygore had anticipated it, but also knew she could go out afterward, and that, while it took some time to walk or ride to the town, she could fly it rather quickly.

Joe was already there, looking over a map with Ruddygore and Poquah.

“I’d head north across the Plain of Shadows,” the Imir, a military advisor at this meeting, told them. “Cross into Vali-sandra, which our reports say is not under Sugasto directly but is scared enough of him that he essentially has them neutralized and in no way interfering. Trust no one, rely on your cover story. You really did fight at the Battle of Sorrow’s Gorge, and you truly do have the sort of experience you will be claiming, including a knowledge of the Dark Baron no one who hadn’t met him and been with him for a stretch would have. As a mercenary among so vast an army, there is no one who could tell that you were on the other side.”

He nodded. “I like that. I particularly like using the Dark Baron, curse his seemingly indestructible soul, as a way in. It’s justice, somehow.”

“So long as the Baron doesn’t actually show up,” Marge pointed out. “For sure, he wouldn’t know or remember you at all, and it would take him about an hour mentally to undo the disguise and finger you. And if he fingers you, we’re all undone.”

Ruddygore sighed. “I hesitate to say that the odds of you two meeting the Baron again are one in a billion because I know damned well that your destiny has been entwined with his and what the implications of that really are. The only thing I can say is, you Ve both been in his clutches before and you Ve both beaten him more than once. If it’s his destiny to find you, then it’s yours to keep screwing him up. Frankly, after all the previous adventures, if I were the Dark Baron, and J figured out who you were, I’d run like hell.”

“But he won’t,” Marge noted. “And there’s a question of how many times we can screw up that kind of power and not pay a real price for it. I know how this crazy place works now. Somewhere down the pike there’s a cashier we don’t want to meet.”

Joe looked up from the map at her. “Cold feet? Sorry you came now?”

“Cold feet, yes. Sorry, no. Not yet, anyway. Hey, what’s the fun of being in a world of swordplay and sorcery if you can’t have thrills once in a while? Besides, I really want to get this bastard. I’ve owed Sugasto a knife in the back since that first business with the Lamp. Now it turns out that the slimy, double-crossing weasel is the Master of the Dead and that he’s gonna make a grab for the whole ball of wax. Uh-uh. We Kauris make love, not war, but we Texans have a different idea!”

“Bravo! Well said,” Ruddygore approved. “Remember the Alamo and all that!”

She looked up sharply at him. “Everybody died at the Alamo and the bad guy won. No, remember San Jacinto, and Santa Ana found skulking under a bridge disguised as a peasant. Oh, no. I’d rather be a live Houston than a dead Bowie.”

“Point taken,” the sorcerer responded a bit apologetically. “I’m not totally versed in the fine details of the history of your native lands.”

“At any rate,” Poquah said with some irritation, “I’d use Valisandra to find out all you can about the conditions and situation in Hypboreya. Cross when you have to or when the door of opportunity opens, not before. Get an invitation. You might well have to prove yourself to do it, but be resourceful.”

“And the bodies?”

“Here, beyond the Golden Lakes, in this somewhat blank expanse known as the Cold Wastes,” Ruddygore answered. “It’s vast and glacial, and this region is essentially uninhabited. This area here, in the shading, was the site of a mammoth battle of ancient times, the times of heroes and legends. It’s sixty miles across and your most dangerous area, since that war threatened the very existence and stability of Husaquahr. There is a legend that the powers of Heaven and Hell convened while it raged, and decided that it was so terrible a thing and had such a disastrous potential, that they agreed to halt it, freezing the entire battle and both forces, from great sorcerers to majestic warriors and fairy kings of old. There they allegedly remain to this day, under the ice. People are scared to cross it because they believe that they’re still somehow alive down there and can influence those who come near.”

Joe looked him in the eye. “Is it true?”

Ruddygore shrugged. “I haven’t the vaguest idea, but it sounds wild enough and the story has lasted long enough to have at least a grain of truth in it. Just beyond is this area, an oddity caused by volcanic activity. It’s warm and lush and essentially inaccessible. It’s where all the royalty of Hypboreya is crowned and is their retreat and fortress. Now, if you were Sugasto, and you now ruled Hypboreya absolutely with the royals as mere puppets and virtual prisoners and you had two bodies that would be instantly recognizable throughout Husaquahr and you couldn’t blow your plot or their existence until you were ready to unveil them, where would you put them? Where would you train them? Almost any other place you can think of on this continent risks premature exposure, and then you’d have armies marching on them with religious fervor to free their captive deities from the clutches of Hell. Any other continent would remove his trump cards too far from easy access. No, they’re there.”

“You’re sure they actually exist?” Marge asked him.

“Now I am. It was hard-won information, I assure you. I actually had to free a demon who was bound to me indefinitely to get it.”

Joe frowned. “Then that means Sugasto’s probably been tipped that you know. Oh, boy!”

“We have to assume it. At least, a few days ago the word started going out to find and capture you and Tiana at any cost and offering any reward. You can see why I’m so paranoid about you avoiding all detection. The fact is, though, they’ll soon be combing every home and tree for you down here, while you’ll be up there. That is one reason I decided that it might as well be you that goes for it. That, of course, and the fact that you have the long-standing grudge and are the best qualified. And you alone really have the right to do what must be done. Remember, the Rules bind bodies, not souls, as we all know. Higher law applies in that area. Even though the souls are wrong, the bodies stolen, this is still regicide.”

He had a point. If Ti was a slave because her body said she was, and he was a warrior-mercenary for the same reason, then whoever was Tiana’s body really was a highborn, qualified to be a monarch! As was the guy wearing his old body, by right of marriage and deed.

“He’ll think of that, too,” Joe pointed out. “And he’ll know that nobody entitled to ice them is capable of it, except us.”

“Sugasto won’t think of it,” Ruddygore said. “He’s always been sloppy on that sort of detail.”

“But the Dark Baron would think of it,” Marge noted.

“Yes, he would. But, remember, the Baron betrayed him the last time they formed an alliance. I feel certain that Sugasto would never trust the Baron again. Not on equal terms, anyway. Can you imagine Esmilio willing to subordinate anything, let alone something as monumental as this, to anyone?”

“He’d be plotting to overthrow the little twerp and take over this operation himself,” Marge agreed. “Okay. Point granted. But I still don’t like him loose.”

Joe yawned. “I think we pretty well have what we can get at this point. I’d better get some sleep if I want to make any time tomorrow.”

“Yes, Joe, good-night,” Ruddygore said in a clear dismissal.

“I’m heading back for town,” Marge told them. “Joe can protect me tomorrow morning!”

Ruddygore caught her eye and gestured for her to linger. She understood, nodding, and they wrapped up everything. First Joe, then Poquah, left. Marge went over and closed the door behind them, then turned to the sorcerer. “So what’s the conspiracy?”

“No conspiracy—now. I’m afraid I’ve just had to undo one in a good cause. What would you say if I told you that Mia is not Tiana? That Tiana actually died at the hands of the Baron back on Earth?”

“I’d say you were feeding me baloney to try and keep Joe and me from being pissed off at the destruction of one of the neatest women this world ever produced.”

He sighed. “I can prove it to you rather simply. Tiana could read Husaquahrian. Not merely the formal language, but many of its dialects and several other languages as well. She also was schooled, as you may remember, in Switzerland. She spoke, read, and wrote German, French, and Italian with ease and English rather well, too. Mia is totally illiterate now in any tongue, has a reasonable speaking knowledge of English because that was supplied in the plot, but none of the other languages, and she can’t really read English, either.”

“Big deal. The Rules account for that.”

“No they don’t. Ask anyone. Not just my staff, anyone. Marge, there is no Rule prohibiting slaves from learning to read or write. Some, although not very many, can. And Mia was illiterate from the start—she couldn’t handle looking up the relevant passages on herself shortly after they returned here, long before even the Rules would have wiped it out, if such Rules existed. Mia doesn’t know how to read or write or any of those other languages or an awful lot that Tiana knew because Mia is not Tiana, she is really Mia, a former palace slave to Tiana.” Quickly, he sketched in the same scenario that he’d given to an unknowing Mia and Joe.

“Wait a minute! She sure as hell seemed like Tiana to me back on Earth, and she sure convinced Joe!”

“I know. I’m afraid I was partly responsible format. I spotted it right away, of course, and in the course of removing the Baron’s nasty little time bombs inside her, I realized that she could pull it off, allowing for the nature of Husaquahr and the Rules. I warned at the start that she’d be a dancer or courtesan, the former usually and the latter always slave jobs. I knew even then that the moment she returned to Husaquahr the Rules would take the path of least resistance and return her to her former status. Everything else they would blame on the Rules. Even she thought she was Tiana, and I helped that out a bit. Joe needed the time, he needed Tiana, for the wilderness period with Ir-ving. Now I have started the unraveling. Within a few days, a week at most, both she and Joe will realize the truth.”

“But—why!”

“Because at this point Tiana is the last person Joe needs. Not merely to avoid slipups, but suppose they do have a chance at the bodies? Could Joe really destroy the body of his wife, the woman he loved? Could she! There was no other choice. I’ve been letting it come off in stages, and I held off the full impact of the Rules with her as long as possible, but what was once a positive is now a negative. She is a very bright, talented, capable woman who is still an asset. But she is not the one anyone, even she, thought she was.”

“Wow! If you’re not pulling another of your scams, that’s heavy stuff!”

“Marge, I am not. I just wanted you to know ahead of time. It will make things easier later.”

“Yeah, well… Wow!”

“Remember, too, by the way, that she’s still a were. They both are. Joe saw to that. They had it on the road. I understand that Irving was, in his vernacular, pretty ‘freaked out.’ That’s an occasional problem, but, as you know, a valuable tool if used.

Keep it in mind. Joe will have enough to handle, so I’m counting on you as guide and adviser.”

She nodded, still stunned. “Yeah, I’ll do what I can, as always. Still, I said we couldn’t get away with it forever. Now you’re telling me that Ti’s paid the bill, and Joe’s got his own curse down the pike. Why does that make me feel like target number one in this business?”

Ruddygore shrugged. “These things pile up over time, but things like that are not inevitable. You have the same odds now you always did. You know about Joe, then?”

She nodded. “He told me. I guess he had to tell somebody.”

“Well, he might not have told you that, if and when it happens, he wouldn’t lose his mind and his memory any more than you did. It’s not as bad as that. It won’t be like the last time.”

“Yeah, but a big macho male stuck as a wood nymph isn’t gonna have a happy time. At least he’ll do damned near anything to stay alive as he is.”

“But that is also his Achilles’ heel. He might hold back, he might hesitate when he should strike. That’s another thing to watch out for.”

“Boy, you’re really loading the dice on this one, aren’t you?” she said glumly. “And, it seems to me, you’re loading it against your own side.”