Songs of the Dancing Gods

hairless, though, you kind of stood out in the crowd. Back in the earliest Colonial days in the US, he knew, blacks had often been treated the same as indentured servants. They became permanent slaves because their skin made it easy to spot them anywhere. The false justifications came later.

This place felt on the verge of being the victim of a grandiose and evil experiment. Indeed, this might be regional, only one of many such, to test out what worked and what didn’t and sort of get the bugs out. The one that had the highest gain and least losses and problems would be the eventual fate of all Husaquahr.

Mia took charge of helping outfit him, suggesting a buckskin sort of outfit with dark brown fur trim and a droopy, broad-brimmed leather hat. Her eye was perfect; she unerringly seemed to choose only the things that fit him.

Almost on impulse, he added a forked leather bullwhip. He used to be fair with one, but hadn’t bothered with it much. Somehow, though, it fit the image.

They left for the hotel, Mia carrying her boots and, in fact, her slave outfit. She would wear them when she had to.

“I want a room, directions to a decent meal, and arrangements for a bath,” he told the clerk.

“Just the one night? Heading south, then?”

“No. North.”

The clerk stiffened. “Then you will be with us longer than that.”

“Why? Problems?”

“You don’t know! The zombie masters are gathering on the plains just north of here for the next three days and nights. I wouldn’t go a hundred yards north of this town for at least one day longer!”

“Zombies, huh? Sounds like something’s up.”

The clerk shrugged. “These days, sir—who knows?”

He signed in and had Mia square things away in the room, then went over to the cafe. They were short on food, shorter on cuisine, but they remembered the days when wealthy Marquewood merchants would pass through on the way to the dwarf lords, there to negotiate for the exquisite craftsmanship only dwarf magic could create. They often brought their personal slaves along. There was no objection at all to Mia serving her master, and then eating anything he left on his plate. Of course, there war a slight hitch.

“I’m sorry, sir, but everything’s rationed these days,” the waitress apologized. She was one of the typical cafe-types, short, fat, and brash. “We’ll soon be out of business if they don’t let us get some regular deliveries back. All the ranch produce has been pretty much taken by the army, and nobody makes deliveries from Marquewood no more.”

He was sympathetic, and managed, with serrated hunting knife, to cut what was supposed to be a steak and get it down. They were doing the best they could. At least the strictly vegetarian Mia could have her fill; local gardens were deemed too minor for the authorities, and so the locals at least had some vegetables for now, even pastries of beet sugar and bran, although they weren’t sure what would happen when winter came.

If the steak was representative of the future, though, he might well go vegetarian himself, he thought, a sour taste in his throat.

Marge was waiting for them when they got back.

“It did look pretty hairy out there,” she admitted. “I’m really tempted to try and see what’s going on up there.”

“You watch it!” he cautioned. “You don’t know what’s around here, including things that might fly and eat Kauris for dinner.”

“I’ve always been able to take care of myself,” she replied confidently. “You worry about yourself. Still, I noticed this evening that this might not be a bad time for a few days’ break.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I’d say the moon will be completely full sometime tomorrow evening.”

The curse! He’d been so preoccupied that, even though he was usually very good about it, he hadn’t given it much thought.

He started thinking hard. “You know, it is tempting, in light of that, to see just what’s what. You keep away from the dangerous parts tonight, but maybe tomorrow night we’ll be able to work something out.”

“What’re you thinkin’ of?”

“Taking a few risks. The fight today made me realize that Gorodo was right: I have been soft, not in the body, but in the mind.”

She shrugged. “Okay. It seems like we’re gettin’ nowhere fast doin’ what we been doin’, anyway.”

She left, and he knew she’d not be nearly as cautious as he wanted her to be, but, as she said, she had proven herself capable before.

There also had to be a way to speed this up, somehow; she was right about that. It would be possible to hug the river almost to the Golden Lakes district. The River of Dancing Gods wasn’t all that navigable that far north, with lots of falls and cataracts, but he actually considered something like a canoe, finally rejecting it as making him too vulnerable. And, of course, horses would be harder to come by the farther in they went. Still, there just had to be a way to make better time. They were barely inside enemy territory, and he was impatient, and there was still such a long way to go.

He had to wonder, though: if this was the sorry state that Valisandra was reduced to, then what in hell must Hypboreya be like?

CHAPTER 8 ZOMBIE JAMBOREE

All important matters of evil sorcery shall be done at midnight whenever possible.

—The Books of Rules, XIX, 12(a)

“Are you really a slave? A real slave?”

Mia looked up at the young soldier who was gawking at her and thought, No, of course not. I’m naked and hairless and wearing this ring in my nose just to make a fashion statement. But, aloud, she replied, “Yes, my lord.”

“My lord,” several of the young soldiers responded, giggling, and the boy said, “I ain’t never been called no ‘lord’ before.”

“My lord, since all people are above me in status, you are as worthy of respect as a prince or king. There is no difference to a slave.”

“You mean—you got to do what we say?”

“My lord, all people are my superiors, but I have but one master.”

These weren’t actually bad kids, she thought to herself, somewhat surprised. They were quite typical of the kind of young men you’d find anywhere in a city or an army. Young men from typical peasant and worker backgrounds who were probably away from home for the first time in their lives. It was in some ways a disturbing concept for her. You always thought of the “enemy” as something mean and nasty, an evil force composed of evil men. Instead, they were very much normal folks, just as on the “good” side, who were either in the service of evil or the tools of it, with no more choice in the matter than she had. Nothing more brought home what a waste wars truly were.

“How’d you get this way?” one of them asked. Being from the poorer classes, they had never really seen a slave up close before. “You do something really bad?”

“My lords, my crime was to have been born too poor and to have fallen into evil company. The only proper way to make a slave is if it actually makes things better for that one.”

“That ain’t the way the Hypboreyans do it,” one of them remarked. “They breed