Horrors of the Dancing Gods

today. I suggest we camp out right around here somewhere and wait until dawn.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Meeting other people without concealing anything about yourself,' Joe prompted.

She nodded. 'Yeah. I've got to tell you, after the first one or two, I just sort of stopped being afraid. It was crazy. I started getting a kick out of it, out of the way they would make signs to ward off the evil eye or mutter incantations or in a few cases guys actually just kind of stared at all these fits. The thing is, nobody did anything. I mean, if anything, they were a lot scareder of me than I was of them. Scared of me just because I looked wrong to them. Well, who's to say they don't look wrong to me?'

'That's a good attitude if you can keep it,' Joe told her. 'People can be extremely cruel, and I'm afraid that's one area where the faerie aren't that much different.'

'Well, it's not exactly something I can do anything about, is it? I think I decided long ago that this was me and I might as well accept it. It is other people who have trouble with it. I only wish I had the kind of freedom you have with your own form. It would be nice if I had the same.'

Freedom… Well, appearances were always for other people, Joe reflected, and no matter what they said, what you looked like defined an awful lot about you to other people, whether those definitions were true or not. Still, Alvi had a point, Joe hadn't been limited to anywhere in terms of going about the whole of the world; she hadn't been denied entry into any of the places of human or faerie where she'd really wanted to go, and she'd never had to worry about carrying supplies, even money or other mediums of exchange. The only thing she wanted, or so she thought, and didn't have was her old form back. Listening to Alvi, it didn't sound like a bright thing to wish for, and for the life of Joe, she wasn't at all sure why it would be such an advantage here, either. Had she been so depressed because she was no longer the mental and physical image of Joe's upbringing, or was it because her current form seemed so limiting? When it wasn't boring, when you were off to new places and on a new quest, it didn't seem all that much of a problem.

She cut that train of thought off almost as if it were dangerous. That way was the way of assimilation, the way to a sort of death, from her point of view. If she ever completely accepted this wood nymph incarnation and found it totally comfortable and natural, then she would truly be a wood nymph. She would cease to want to be what she was and have problems understanding why she'd once wanted anything else, and that would be that. Joe, the old, original Joe, would be dead, and she'd be somebody else.

'But you'd also grow old, and infirm, and eventually die,' a voice inside her whispered. 'You already missed out on being a parent; you hardly know your son and wouldn't have much in common. Beyond that, you would lose your health, your skills, and your ability to pursue adventures. Why do you want to be a man again? You liked it enough at the time, but you haven't met many men you've liked since becoming like this, have you? You think of men now and you see aging, leering assholes. Face it — you really can't remember what you liked about it, can you?'

Get out! Get out! Change the subject! Think of something else! Don't start arguing or thinking too deeply. Think of something else! Think about… Alvi.

The halfling's problems were quite different. She was trying against very tough odds finally and for the first time to be her real self. I wouldn't want to be her; Joe thought sincerely, not because of the grotesqueness of the form, which might be quite comfortable, but because it would be tough to be one of a kind and, worse, to be ostracized, cut off from much of this world. Getting Alvi an acceptable form was essential; otherwise she faced a life of quasi-exile in the lousy places of Husaquahr, along with a lot of other monsters, either eking out a subsistence living somehow or becoming practically enslaved to get the essentials. Right now, with Joe providing food and guidance and shepherding her through the region, she could see only the wonders.

Could this Great McGuffin, whatever it was, really change her into a real human woman? And Joe, perhaps, back to a youthful, muscular barbarian hero? Perhaps a restored Joe and a humanized Alvi together, barbarian warrior and consort, would go roaming the land in search of adventure.

That was a vision worth holding on to, if she could.

THE PATH OF THE McGUFFIN

Mysterious all-knowing strangers with mystical powers may be used only to ensure that heroic types remain in conformance to other Rules in terms of behavioral choices.

— Rules, Vol. CXI, p. 67(c)

^'DON^'T GET TOO COCKY WITH THIS NEW FREEDOM STUFF,' Joe warned Alvi as they made their way down to the Great River Road. 'Remember, a lot of people will hurt what they don't like, even kill it, and we need some cooperation.'

Alvi nodded, but she was really gaining confidence fast, even to the point of altering her long-used straight-up pose, letting the tail extend out stiffly, and bending forward while walking, which appeared to increase her stability vastly and give her not only a strong and confident forward gait but an easy way to break into a run. Joe hoped she wouldn't, though; wood nymphs weren't built for speed, and Joe had not found any reason to rush.

On the River Road even Alvi's odd appearance was a matter of culture and knowledge more than anything else, considering the vast number of very strange faerie races that were all around as well. There were ones with butterfly wings, ones with gossamer wings, ones with little birdlike wings, and a lot with no wings at all. Near the bank were hippogryphs, mermaidlike Virgans, powder-blue water nymphs with their transparent skin flaps like lace and the somewhat unsettling illusion that if you stared at them hard enough and close enough, you could see their insides, and lots, lots more. More faerie folk, in fact, than humans, who were there in good numbers as well, both on the river in small sailboats and barges and along the shores.

The humans themselves were a variety of their own races, with skins from near black through all the shades of brown and tan and orange-yellow, very tall and extremely short, covered in every conceivable color and style of hair or with no hair at all. In and around them were various elves, their colors and tunics showing their origins and tribal natures. The more elemental the creature, the less the fashion; nymphs tended to be unclad, needing little, while many other fairies were even more costumed than the humans.