Songs of the Dancing Gods

thousand years had grown kinda old, so we did it. The hippogryphs are not tame. They’re partners.”

Joe thought some reply to that was called for, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t think of one. Finally, Tiana commented, “It’s nice to see some independent businesswomen here for a change.”

As soon as all the fares were collected, the nymphs melted into the water, and, true to their word, the water itself began to drain out somewhere, until the deck was as dry as a bone.

From what was now the front came a series of splashes and an eerie, hypnotic siren song, and the boat began moving in earnest.

Although the crossing should have taken no more than twenty-five or thirty minutes, it was tricky in the crosscurrents of the big river, and there were constant adjustments this way and that.

Finally, Joe muttered, “What I want to know is what they do with their money.”

“Perhaps it is best not to know that one,” Tiana replied. “Even nymphs might like pretty baubles, and who knows how they live under the water, but what and where does a hippogryph go to spend it?”

Irv just shook his head in wonder. Maybe this place wasn’t so much like home after all.

He went over and jumped up on some of the side-bracing so he could look out at the passing scene. The ferry landing was already receding in the distance, and they Were about to clear the bend and go out into the mainstream of the river itself.

As soon as they did clear, he could look back and up and saw, or thought he saw, the point near the next bend where they’d spent the night. Looking the other way, Marquewood still wasn’t much, although, beyond the trees, he thought he saw the roofs of some buildings that perhaps marked the town.

The river itself was amazing, both as a main highway for the entire continent and for supporting lives and livelihoods of both humans and nonhumans. It had an abundance of fish; he’d watched some being caught from small jerry-built piers near the landing, and while the fish looked, well, pretty strange, they were still fish and it was still pretty much what would be expected.

Just in front of them, a small school, or whatever they’d call them, of mermaids popped up out of the water and shouted and waved, not to him or the passengers, but to the strange nymph who was both captain and teamster up ahead. Up close, the mermaids’ skins did have a rather bluish cast not evident from shore, and their hair was a much darker blue, but they still looked remarkably like a bunch of schoolgirls out in the river for a swim.

Part of the reason the trip took so long was the number of small islands that had been built up by the river’s deposits near the bend, forcing them to thread their way through small inlets separating the mounds. And yet, even the small islands were covered with trees and bushes and the nests of exotic tropical birds. Some mermaids were sunning themselves on a big rock at the end of one of the islands, and on shore a number of dark shapes seemed to writhe and then go into the water. Alligators, maybe? Or something else as weird as barking, bearded fish.

Here and there some water nymphs would rise to the surface and seem to walk on or even slightly above the water, shouting things in their operalike singsong voices to those handling the boat. Somehow, it drove home just how vulnerable land-dwelling humans like him were on this thing. Not only did this river have all the dangers of any tropical river or even any deep river, except maybe the ton of pollution Earth added, but it was also home to a number of races as intelligent in their own way as humans were, but as different as night and day from humans as well. There might be whole civilizations living beneath these waters, with who knew what powers and what kind of lives?

Finally, they began to come in to the opposite shore; the one they left now seemed eerily lost in a late morning mist. The town itself was still mostly masked, starting on a bluff well up from the river landing and sheltered by thick, almost junglelike vegetation.

He wanted to see how they came in, but a yell from Joe ordered him down and he reluctantly obeyed. He quickly saw why; the bumps and jolts of the operation might well have shaken him off the side or, if he’d leaned too far forward, into the river itself.

“We’ve still got a little money,” Joe told him, “so we’ll catch a bite to eat here and get what news we can of the route. I want to find out if there’s anything nasty between here and Terindell.”

“We’re not stayin’ here tonight, then? I figured it might be time for another dance,” the boy responded.

“It might be, but it’s still fairly early, and we can make it halfway there, if we keep on, and all the way by tomorrow night. Five or ten miles north and I’ll be in country I know well, which helps a lot.”

“You still worried ’bout that zombie guy, huh? He’s way over on the other side now.”

“He’s on both sides—bet on it. And he’s been down farther than this and a little inland before, so I don’t want to take any chances. Not too many years ago, a demon-led army was literally at the gates of Terindell, and not too long ago, some of the towns between here and there were under Sugasto’s control. If he had to pull back because he was reaching his limit, then we’re still within his limit now. I don’t underestimate the S.O.B. I keep doing that and almost dying or worse as a result. And he’s got a particular set of scores to settle with us, just as we do with him. Last time he controlled things; the next time I want to set the conditions.”

The town, like the vegetation, was rather different than the High Pothique ones he’d been in, but the basics were the same. Gone was any trace of adobe; buildings here were of stone and wood, with thick straw or bamboo or even, in a few cases, red slate roofs. The people seemed a bit more prosperous, although that was like going from zero to almost one on a scale of ten, and had a different look about them. It wasn’t a big difference, but the folk of High Pothique looked more Arabic, while these looked more European, their complexions more tan than olive, their features more like die typical white folks he knew back home.

The men tended to wear white cotton in a uniform, baggy style, often with soft leather boots, and about half tended to wear broad-brimmed, rounded white hats. The women, on the other hand, made those of High Pothique seem almost overdressed, most of them wearing little more than varicolored cotton string bikini bottoms or petite cotton loincloths. They tended to be fatter, or chunkier, on average than those of High Pothique, and most all of them wore oversized earrings, bracelets, and the like of bone or copper or something else, and almost all of them tended to cut their hair real short, almost in a man’s trim cut. Like those of High Pothique, they tended to carry huge amphoras or boxes on their heads, and, also like High Pothique, most seemed to be pregnant, carrying babies as well, and having lots of naked kids around.

It didn’t smell much better, either.

Most of the small cafes were just preparing for lunch, though, so it was possible to get hot, thoroughly cooked food, which always made Irving feel a bit better. Cooking still killed little nasties that wanted at your insides. As usual, he let his father order, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know what some of the stuff was. At this level of cooking, anyway, it all tasted pretty much like whatever it was cooked in, anyway.

Joe picked up his tankard and looked at them. “Two days to real beds and decent food,” he said. He gestured in a sort of a toast. “To the end of the road,” he added, and drank.

The proprietor, over here a man, told them that they’d have to clear border entry at the crossroads; the only road out of town led to there, so it was the border station, to avoid crimping the town’s economy more than any other reason. Travelers who cleared the border here might tend to hurry on past; those who knew they would yet have to usually stopped and spent something. And, of course, going the other way, travelers to High Pothique tended to come here and spend the night before the journey.

The border people would have information on all the roads and routes.

Unlike High Pothique, which seemed pretty loose about its guards and such, this station was almost like a small military stockade built of formidable stone. The blue-and-gold flag of Marquewood flew atop a large pole, and the bordermen were dressed more like soldiers, in uniforms that matched the flag.

Irving looked over next to the flag and tried unsuccessfully to suppress laughing. Standing just beneath it was a huge marble statue of a nude man and woman, bigger than life, looking back at them.

“No wisecracks,” Joe warned. “Besides, we’re going to have enough problems remembering that we’re suddenly nobodies here.”

A soldier, with a trim, brown mustache and military bearing, came up to him. “Do you have any papers?”

“No, sir, although we are all citizens of Marquewood. Although my parents were from a far-off place, I was