Horrors of the Dancing Gods

'Get outta the road, you halfling freak!' a gruff man's voice shouted, and Alvi turned and saw a big, bearded man on a horse-drawn cart right behind her. She stuck her tongue out at him and made a face, but when he moved his hand to the whip, she suddenly thought better of it and gave way.

Lesson one, Joe thought.

But she was undeterred generally, and one fellow, perhaps only partly in jest, shouted out a job offer — if she could handle three sets of oars at once. She smiled but declined.

Finding a ferry across the River of Dancing Gods at that point wasn't easy. There weren't that many, since the river here was so wide that only a free-sailing vessel could handle it and so meandering that there was little demand for crossings when you'd have to travel so far along the other side just to cover a relatively short straight- line distance. They had to go south anyway, though, so they kept on, hoping that they'd be able to do it by Yingling, where the river took a wide eastward bend that would take them not only in the wrong direction but toward the major City-States and their very dense and potentially hostile populations.

Alvi, in spite of the attitudes and looks, was having a ball out in the real world without playacting or being weighted down in a massive costume for the first time in her whole life.

'You said you knew the skills of war,' the halfling noted to Joe as they went along.

Joe nodded. 'Yes, although it's been a long time, and at this weight and balance and with these muscles, I probably couldn't wrestle a two-year-old and win. Once, long ago, I fought one of the legendary battles of modern history on this floodplain, maybe twenty, thirty kilometers west of here. A war of armies, human and faerie, and demon princes, dragons — the whole works. Scared the wits out of me then, but it's great to look back now that it's so far in the past. I think that's the way with most great battles and the people who fight them. A time of killing, carnage, death, and terror with you crapping in your pants becomes more and more a glorious and wonderful heroic experience over time. I wonder if I was nearly as good as I think I was.'

'You did pretty well against those guys.'

'Yes, but that was improvising with what I had. Why do you ask, anyway?'

'I was just wondering if you'd train me.'

'Huh?'

'My upper arms are pretty strong, really, 'cause they've done all the work. I often wondered what would happen with maybe a saber or sword in my top right hand, maybe a fencing foil or short sword for the middle, and even a rope or whip for the bottom.'

Joe laughed. 'Could you really handle all that at once if you had them? I mean, you're talking about doing three different things at once with your hands.'

'No problem. It was one of my kid's games I used to practice in my room. I'd play a kind of catch, bouncing a ball and alternately catching and tossing or dropping it hand to hand to hand to hand and so on. Found that on my top and bottom set I'm right-handed and with the middle pair the left works best. You figure that out. I never did. I guess it's just the way it's wired. I always wondered if I'd be good in a duel, but I never had the chance, 'cause nobody was supposed to even know about the other sets, right? And training me with those kinds of weapons wasn't on Daddy's list of priorities. I can do pretty fair with a bow, though, and I wanted to learn the rest.'

Joe considered it. 'Well, I suppose I could teach you the basics, but it's years to get really good with any of them, you know.'

'So? If I can get some decent training up front, I'll get better. How long did you have to train to get to be expert?'

Joe coughed, a bit embarrassed by the answer. 'I didn't — much. A few months, really, with a good teacher. My edge was mostly the fact that I had a magic sword that knew more about the business than I did.'

'Yeah? Where'd you get one of those? And what happened to it?'

'It was given to me by a powerful sorcerer, and where he got it from I have no idea. It — and me, too, I think — was to finish off the most evil sorcerer of our time, and it did. We did — but at the cost of me winding up as a wood nymph and the sword being consumed by volcanic fires. Since then I've been trying to get back to my old self somehow, and you can see the result. Heck, I often wonder if we were bound together, that sword and me, and if neither of us could live as we were without the other. It sure seemed like I lost something inside when it fell, impaling the body of the Dark Baron, Esmilio Boquillas, and consuming him as well.'

'Lost something? Like what?'

'I don't know. I thought I knew, but I'm beginning to wonder if I haven't been wrong, that what I lost wasn't my big hero mode so much as my reason for being around at all. I mean, you're right, it's not all that bad being a wood nymph in Husaquahr if you were born one and raised one and that's all you ever were or were going to be. But it's pretty damned dull and limited if you've been other things and wind up one. I wasn't sure what I had of the old me left until that business in the woods back there. It stirred up something I thought was long dead.'

'If it did, then you must have wasted a lot the past few years.'

'Huh?'

'Well, if you found that feeling of fun, of accomplishment, again, then it was there all the time, right? So maybe if you'd been looking for some adventure and people who needed help and helped them instead of moping around and feeling sorry for yourself and trying to undo what was done, you'd have had a happy few years. Well? I mean, it sure sounds like it.'

Joe thought it sounded like time to change the subject again. 'Never mind about me. What makes you so bloodthirsty all of a sudden?'

'Freedom. This. All my life I've been told what kind of horrible existence I'd have if I ever got discovered and was forced out into the world. Well, maybe I don't know much yet, but I do know that most folks don't give a damn if you don't bother them, not around here, and that what you really need to get along is both a skill or skills and a way to defend your own self and whatever you own. The sword, the bow, the whip — these are the things that give people the feeling of power over others around here. If I have them and know how to use them, maybe that'll give the others pause about making comments or worse about me. I also have faerie sight and some small abilities with minor spells as well as a fair amount of book learning. Put them all together and maybe I stay free.'

It was a real thought.

'All right,' Joe agreed, 'tell you what — if we can find an old, serviceable pair of fencing foils, we can start with that. I think even I can handle one of those, and rusty as I am on skills and totally unconditioned for any such use in this body, I still could probably hold my own for teaching. If you learn to fence reasonably, handle a rapier well, you're one up on a lot of people who only know brute strength defense with a saber or short sword. We'll see how long the money holds out and what we can afford here. Still, it's not a bad idea if you can handle it, and I've seen your nerve in action. I mean, if we go on any kind of adventure together, somebody is going to have to protect me!'

* * *

It wasn't that difficult to find a vendor in one of the towns along the Great River Road who had such a set; secondhand weapons were quite common in the region, particularly well-used ones pawned or lost in gambling by students at the civil and military institutions of the southern City-States. Finding them in any decent condition, well balanced and with the safety caps still present, was a bit harder. Joe also found that her very rusty and virtually never used knowledge of fencing foils wasn't really all that good, either. With the great sword, you just heaved and let it do the work. At Joe's best, as the person she'd once been, there wouldn't have been much of a contest with such weapons — Joe could put up a decent front and show but wasn't really all that good. Compared with someone who knew nothing and had never had any training, however, Joe was an expert.

They were able to make a decent deal on both an older set and a fair bow and quiver of arrows. It actually made Joe feel a little better that they had something to use, no matter how inadequate. This was still a fairly dangerous land and a primitive one, and in much of it life was very cheap. Just having weapons on display kept a bit of the threat away. It was sort of like putting a top burglar alarm on your house. The alarm