Songs of the Dancing Gods

She chuckled and shrugged. “Beats me. I, of course, recharged the batteries with a spell to see what someone had on those tapes. I was astonished when I saw what was on them, of course, and, even more, I was absolutely stunned to discover that it seemed to draw every zombie in the palace like a magnet. So far, I haven’t worked out an effective method for turning it off. The spell provides continuous power, and, so far, the zombies will do nothing except prevent anyone from shutting it down. It is a fascinating thing, is it hot? Sugasto will have to take care of it when he returns tomorrow. Inconvenient, but little else. It’s even handy to have something to block Sugasto’s powers a bit. I suspect it’s some broadcast frequency interference that’s acting like a drug to them, but it may be that a zombie retains just barely enough intelligence that it simply entrances them.”

Joe hoped the technical explanation was right. Although he wasn’t feeling all that smart right now, he’d watched the show in the old days now and then himself and found it occasionally funny. He didn’t want to think about what that might say should the second explanation be true.

“Take his sword and lock him in the tower room!” Boquillas ordered the Bentar. “And watch him! He can be tricky and quite resourceful. The one who lets him escape shall feel my anger! The girl I will keep here. She has much to tell me.”

The lead Bentar reached for the sword, then withdrew. “My lady, we cannot take that sword! It’s iron! And so, too, is the belt lined with it!”

Boquillas sighed. “Details, details. Oh, very well.” She withdrew the rest of her spells from him, then walked over to him and began playfully undoing the belt. This is it! he thought.

Joe struck the sorceress with a strong blow, knocking her senseless halfway across the room, then had Irving in his hand in moments. Mia—Tiana—struggled against her magical bonds, still in force, but could not help him.

Suddenly he was in the midst of roaring, howling Bentar and was in a fierce duel. In spite of their numbers and ferocity, the Bentar did not press in, facing the only thing that they were truly afraid of— iron!

He pressed them back and got to the open door, but now they were between him and Mia—Tiana. “I’ll be back!” he shouted and ducked out the door.

Boquillas struggled to get up from the floor, feeling her jaw. “After him, you idiots!” she screamed. “I want him alive! Better to risk iron than me later!”

Joe undid the swordbelt and let it drop. He was naked and exposed, with just Irving in his hand, but it gave him total freedom of movement. The bronze swords of the Bentar had cut him in several places, but he was beyond feeling pain. He tried to head up the stairway, hoping at least to get to the bodies, but the stairwell was filled with troopers armed with swords, knives, maces, and other unpleasant stuff. He’d never make it up through that mob, damn it! He had to get clear, wait until he could think!

He bounded down the stairs, leaping the railings, and came eventually to the main entry hall. All the forces he hadn’t seen coming in seemed to be flowing out from all directions except the inner circle. Slash! Hack! Cut! Men and Bentar screamed, limbs flew. Although his body now bled from a hundred wounds, he was still on the go. He made the circle corridor and started to run, but, just past the first archway out to the crater, he faced a horde of men charging toward him. Turning back, he saw the others coming down the hall in a full rush.

He ducked back through the arch and down to the crater walk.

Man! It was hot! Even the stones around the narrow walkway burned his feet.

He started to run one way, then another, but soldiers of all kinds seemed to be popping out or blocking just about every exit he could see! The only possible exit was where those blank-eyed monsters were watching television, but he couldn’t get to that! He suddenly felt like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz, trapped on the battlements with great forces all around and no bucket of water to throw.

Boquillas poked her head out of one of the upper tower windows. “You can’t win, Joe! Those human soldiers there—see their lances and bolts? Silver-coated, Joe! I know the secret of your longevity! Give it up! Give one of them the sword and surrender! This time there is no way out! Who knows, you might always escape from the tower, right?”

’He took his eyes off the closing forces for a moment and saw her up there, and suddenly from that tower window flew red and yellow magic strings, aimed right at him!

He jumped up on the side of the low crater wall, barely six inches thick, and watched the spells hit right where he’d been and explode with a big puff of smoke.

“Give it up, Joe, and come down from there!” Boquillas yelled to him. “There is no way out! There is no escape this time!”

He looked at all the forces around him, saw the silver tips, then saw that Boquillas was readying yet another bolt, while, behind him, the heat and terrible, almost choking sulfurous fumes rose from the bubbling and churning two-thousand-degree lava far below, and realized that Marge had been right, but that the Rules were often cruel.

Holding Irving almost like a javelin, he hurled it with full force into the mob of soldiers, where it penetrated and speared two Bentar and one human soldier before it came to rest.

Then, as Boquillas’ new spell left her hands, he took a deep breath, and jumped backward into the pit.

Not trusting his sudden horrible scream of anguish, cut off in midsound, they all rushed to the edge of the pit and looked down.

There was nothing there. Nothing, and no one, except the bubbling, hissing lava.

CHAPTER 13 THE END OF THE WORLD BLUES

No conclusion of an epic saga is complete without a wizard’s battle.

—The Books of Rules, XV, 397(a)

The small ring in Tiana’s nose suddenly crackled a bit, and she felt an irritating, slightly painful tingling there that soon passed.

Boquillas stared out the window at the sight she’d just witnessed, unable really to believe it. “He’s dead,” she muttered, amazed to her core. “He really killed himself.”

“Noooo!” Tiana cried, even though she knew from the reaction in her nose ring that it was true, and tears began flowing down her face.

Boquillas sighed, turned away from the window, and came back to Tiana. “Somehow,” the sorceress said, almost to herself, “I never thought he was the martyr type. Stupid! I would have made him a demigod.”

“He’d already been a demigod,” Tiana reminded her defiantly through her tears. “And he hated it.”

Boquillas sighed. “Well, when Plan A goes a little off, you have to improvise a bit.” She reached out and touched the slave ring in Tiana’s nose in the same two-fingered manner Joe had used. “You’re mine, now, and you’re all I’ve got, so you’re going to have to do, my dear. A bit of a letdown for me, but a considerable come-up for you. He’s gone, so you’ll have to replace him. Same script, just different parts, that’s all. At least you won’t blow it by killing yourself, too. The little bit I just added there compels obedience. You’re my property now, all legal and proper, and you cannot act against my interests.”

It killed Tiana to call Boquillas by any term of respect, but she had no choice. “Then, Mistress, you will restore me to my old body and rule as Joe?”

“No, no. Joe had no magical powers. Never did. Were I inside him, the whole Council, with Ruddygore leading the pack, couldn’t give me what I need, and that cursed sword would never accept me in any event, which would queer everything. No, my dear, it’s obvious. I shall still become Tiana; now it is you