Horrors of the Dancing Gods

'No, no,' the girl managed, feeling the bruise of that blow. 'These are held by spell. I can feel it.' She managed a sitting position, and Joe went over and looked at them. There were tiny little bands of color, like spiderwebs of varicolored light, all over the things.

'You're right,' the nymph said, sighing. 'Unless you've got the knowledge to untangle that mess, I guess you're stuck until we can find somebody who does.'

'I probably could, if I could see it, but I cannot,' the girl responded. 'It's all right, though. It is not as important as it seems.' She paused a moment. 'My father — he is dead?'

Joe was startled by the question; somehow the idea that this might be a father-daughter pairing just hadn't occurred to her. She went over to the well-dressed man and scanned him.

'I'm sorry. He's gone,' the nymph told the girl. 'I think it's just you and me right now. And an audience of stunned fairy folk of all sorts peering out from the bushes.'

The girl sighed but resisted breaking into tears. 'I–I suppose I knew that the moment I saw him fall. He — he was a good man.'

'I'm sorry I wasn't here to help him when you first got attacked, but I didn't even know anybody was ahead of me until I heard the sounds of battle.'

'It — it's all right. I owe you a great deal for what you did do. More than I can ever repay. My father — he'd been a knight and a soldier once, and I think this is the way he would have wanted to go, if it hadn't been for me, anyway.' She stared at her savior in the darkness, so obviously using faerie sight 'My goodness! You really are a wood nymph!'

Joe smiled. 'I, too, was a knight and a soldier once, and this is definitely not the way I wanted to go, but I'm stuck. Call me Joe. I use other names now and again, but that's the one I prefer.'

The girl ignored or hadn't comprehended the oddity of a wood nymph stating that she'd once been a knight and a soldier and concentrated on the pragmatic. 'All right — Joe. I am Alvi. Short for Alvida Zwickda of Month Keep, which is too big a name for anybody, anyway, and never really did fit me, I guess.'

'Morath Keep? That's not anywhere I've heard of before.'

'It is a land beyond the Western Dark, as it's called here. A very long way away by land and sea.' She sighed. 'Not far enough away, though.'

'Farther than I've yet been, and I thought I'd really seen this world. Huh! Who were they? The other two seem like common cutthroats, but that leader there, he was a pro. And they weren't out to ravish you like I thought at first. He was taking you somewhere and to somebody.'

'Yes. We've been running, you might say, for a very long time.'

Joe didn't press, not right then, but looked around to see if there was anything else of hers to be gathered up. She spotted the boots, carelessly tossed to one side by the chief attacker, went and got them, then brought them back. 'At least we can put you back together,' she began, then suddenly noticed the girl's feet. They weren't like any feet the nymph had seen before, not on anything or anybody. Long and somewhat broad, with downward- curving claws for nails; more like the feet of some animal than any human.

'You're faerie!' Joe exclaimed.

'No, I — oh, what's the difference now? I'm so sick of hiding and pretending anyway. The truth is, I'm pan faerie.' Joe suddenly understood. That certainly explained the long cloak and hood in this climate. 'A halfling! Well, don't worry. You're among friends here.'

Halflings were the offspring of humans and faerie, two groups not really intended to mate but in some cases close enough that it was possible to do so and have offspring. Such creatures were of both worlds and neither and tended to be what might charitably be called monsters. The laws of most lands said they were to be killed at birth, but it was very hard to kill your own kid, no matter how misshapen or distorted it might be. The vast majority were caught when very young, anyway, or died in infancy, unable to sustain themselves in a form not intended to be sustainable, but occasionally one was not only stable enough but also resourceful enough to stay hidden among society and grow to adulthood, where at least halflings were no longer subject to death.

Still, they had little status and few rights and tended to live lonely and often bitter lives.

Alvi sighed and nodded. 'I have spent my whole life disguising my curse. As a child, my life would have been at stake; as an adult, I might have to forfeit any inheritance. Not that any of that matters now.'

Joe arose and checked the dead. Her father had quite a purse on him, which Alvi perhaps would need; there was also a large signet ring on his right hand that she pried off. Something to remember him by, perhaps.

The highwaymen had less of interest. A few coins to be added to the small treasury, little else of value. She did retrieve the bronze dagger and a folded sheet of paper from the knapsack of the head man that contained mostly the chicken-scratch type of writing used there that Joe had never learned and almost certainly wouldn't, but that also contained a fairly decent sketch of both father and daughter.

It certainly was no official 'wanted' poster; there were no official seals, symbols, or such on it. This was a private matter; someone had hired mercenaries to track them down.

'Can you get to your feet?' Joe asked her. 'We'd be better off moving into the trees and away from here a bit, if only because of what these bodies will attract in short order.'

Alvi managed to get to her feet rather handily, almost as if somebody had pushed her from behind. Joe was becoming curious at just what she did look like under all those clothes.

Still, this wasn't the place or time for details. It was best that they move well away from there, and Joe led Alvi off into the very dense, dark grove of woods.

When they were well enough in, protected and away from the likelihood of discovery, Joe found a soft area well protected by trees and broad leaves and, very much in her own most comfortable element, told the stranger to settle there.

'Thank you,' Alvi said sincerely. 'It has been a very hard day. Let me rest here for a little while. Then…'

Joe nodded and replied, 'Rest all you need. I will be here when you wake up.'

After all, there certainly wasn't anything better for her to do or any hurry to do much of anything at all. The day had proved to be dangerous and very painful but also very interesting.

It was the most fun she'd had since she'd wound up in this situation.

Alvi slept well into the morning, and Joe only tried to ensure that they were undisturbed. Someone had found the bodies and the remains of the fight; that much was certain from the commotion off toward the trail, but she didn't bother to investigate. It didn't sound like much that couldn't have been expected, and they wouldn't know about the girl, anyway.

It was enough to discuss the situation with the local faerie, who would do little or nothing to save or protect a halfling but had just as little to gain from doing it harm, either; also, they were willing to give a little to Joe. In fact, all the creatures, no matter what the race, seemed to hold the strange wood nymph in mixed fear and awe; a faerie immune to iron was not someone you wanted to cross.

Alvi looked quite ordinary in her dress and cloak and hood, with a pretty heart-shaped face that seemed very innocent and very sweet with just a tuft of straw-colored hair peeking out from the center. She seemed taller than Joe, perhaps five-one or — two to Joe's four-eight, more toward average for a mortal woman of the land, and there was certainly nothing in her face or hands that said 'faerie' to any onlooker. But her face was too thin and too normal for that bulk.

The hands, though, did tell a few things about her. They were quite smooth, unblemished, the nails not so much shaped and polished as professionally manicured. Likewise, her facial complexion was perfect, without blemish and with little sign of weathering or stress. Whoever she'd been, she'd been brought up in a wealthy household and protected against all elements both natural and sentient.

Joe guessed her age as no more than the mid-teens — perhaps sixteen, certainly not much older than that — and certainly still a virgin. No faerie or one with' faerie sight could fail to sense that right off. Virginity was in fact a handy condition in civilization but pretty dangerous out here, a red flag that would draw predators like flies to honey.

Alvi finally stirred, yawned, stretched out her body, and brought herself awake. Only when she tried to bring her arms out for a full stretch — to find them still cuffed behind her — did she suddenly become fully alert. She looked startled, perhaps a bit scared, and sat up. She spotted Joe sitting on an exposed tree root and sighed. 'Then it wasn't a horrible dream.'

'Afraid not,' Joe told her. 'Welcome back to reality, such as it is.'