Songs of the Dancing Gods

who will become Joe.”

“I? Joe? Mistress, it would be obscene!”

Boquillas grinned. “I know. That’s why I like it. At least you’re easier to do. That protective spell Sugasto gave you includes what I call a soul-puller mechanism. My own powers aren’t up to creating one, but since he’s kindly provided one, it should be simple. We’ll still need Sugasto to complete the process with me, of course. Until he returns, you shall attend me as my slave and not leave my side, and you shall begin telling me those details I need to know. And stop that confounded blubbering! You’re going to have to learn to be a man, not a swishy wimp!”

Tiana obeyed, but she couldn’t stop the tears. Joe was dead, and, no matter who she was, she loved him. Even now, knowing the truth, her memory fully restored, she knew that she’d remain this way forever if she could only have him back.

This wasn’t the way things were supposed to work out, not at all. Joe was gone, she was a helpless captive of the powers of Darkness, the chief villain immune to harm or malignant sorcery herself by virtue of tying her fate to the survival of the world. This just wasn’t the way things were supposed to be.

But hadn’t Joe been magnificent in that final fight! If love meant anything, if sacrifice meant anything, and if evil could be that sloppy, there had to be same way, somehow, to stop this foul plan.

“I don’t believe it!”

Macore nodded sadly. “I saw it myself, from my perch in the tower room. He went out fighting like the greatest heroes of old, and when hundreds of them surrounded him, he got a bunch more by hurling the sword and then jumped in. Even the villains will tell stories of that great fighter to their grandchildren!”

“I thought—somehow, this time, I had that feeling, but I thought it would be me,” Marge said, feeling empty inside and fighting back tears.

Neither Macore nor Marge were caught yet and there was a question as to whether or not anyone even suspected they were there. Everybody had gone after Joe and Mia, as Joe had predicted, should one side be exposed.

Macore had spent the better part of the day asleep under one of the already made-up beds in the royal tower; Marge had used her own resources to do the same. Neither had abandoned his or her friends, although both felt as if they had. When it was clear that the other two had been caught, they retreated to the empty part of the palace and decided that there was no chance of their doing anything in the way of a rescue until nightfall. Macore had heard the commotion and wound up with a windowseat on the great fight and sacrifice. Marge had already been out somewhere and only now got the details.

“So what do we do now?” Macore asked her. “Joe’s dead, which means Mia’s enslaved to somebody, probably the Baron, and beyond being just plucked out. We’d have to kill the Baron to free her now. There’s nobody left now capable of destroying the bodies, either. And, to top it all off, I can’t get my gear back because I’d have to fight off dozens of enraged zombies!”

“There’s got to be something we can do for her,” Marge told the little thief. “If I know Boquillas, he’s vamping right now, picking her brains to get all the details he can. She still knows an awful lot about palace routine, palace personalities, and Tiana’s own habits and quirks. Maybe enough.” She started thinking furiously. “Where’s his sword?”

“Still out there in the center court. It seems to have a life of its own for real. It won’t let anybody pick it up. It’s stuck partway into the rocks itself and just won’t budge.”

“Excalibur,” she responded.

“Huh?”

“The Sword in the Stone—an old Earth legend about another such sword. It won’t budge until it accepts a new owner, and that’s the only one who’d have the right and ability to pull it out.”

“Who would that be?”

“Beats me. Irving, maybe. Poor kid. If it’s true, he’s not only gonna be stuck here with no dad, he’s gonna wind up the great mercenary Irving with his great sword Irving.” She sighed. “Normally I’d think that was humor; but under the circumstances, I don’t feel all that funny.”

“Neither do I. They almost certainly know how we got in here now, so I’m not at all sure how we get out,” the thief commented. “One thing’s for sure—we can’t do anything, not to help her, not to help ourselves, unless we have a lot more information. Even if we somehow get out of this, which looks unlikely, what’s the use, except temporarily to save our own necks? If there’s any information that we could take with us, that would make at least some of this trip meaningful. Right now, the only thing we’ve got is bad news and worse news, and one of those items is that the Baron was throwing spells right and left out that window.”

“Is that the bad or the worse?” she asked. “Wait a minute! I’m thinking!” She snapped her fingers. “Maybe there is a way. Suppose there’s some way for me to talk to Mia.”

“So what? You’re now the enemy, right? She couldn’t do anything against the Baron’s interests, and that would include helping you. At least she doesn’t have to volunteer information, or they’d be scouring this dump for us now.”

Marge nodded. “Sure. But doing something against a master’s interest is a knowing act. Suppose she didn’t know she was giving us information?”

“How you gonna do that? Your mind-tricks work only on guys, right? And both the Baron and Mia are girls.”

“No, for short periods I can make anyone see me as I wish, so long as I’m female in the illusion. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to move around on Earth, let alone move around this place. You know that. I have no power over women, it’s true, but if she thought she were talking to someone else, maybe unburdening herself, it might work.”

“Risky. If Boquillas has her powers back, it’s not gonna fool him or her or, what the hell, I’m getting dizzy with all this!”

“You work on an exit,” she told him, “and stay close to here and out of sight so I can find you again. I’m going to try something. It’s better than just sitting here.”

It wasn’t unusual to see the various female slaves who serviced the place at any point in the palace, day or night, and neither the human guards nor the Bentar gave a particularly small, very young-looking slave the slightest notice as she walked into the magician’s tower and scampered up the stairs.

Boquillas had kept Mia close to her, but there were times when the slave was alone and miserable on the living quarters floor, told to wait while her mistress went to tend to something or other.

The very young slave waited, pretending to clean something in the hall, men went over to Mia, who sat, looking miserable in one corner of a sitting parlor.

“You are new here,” the very young slave commented. “Do not take it so hard. After a while, you come to accept things, and you find it isn’t so bad.”

Mia looked up at her, her eyes still red, but all cried out at this point. “It is for me. I was not bom a slave, but high, and the master whom I loved and served is now burned in the fire pit.”

“High?”

She nodded. “I did not know myself until today. It was hidden from me. Once I was a mighty ruler, Queen to the one who is gone. Now I am less than you, for I am to become him in a mad scheme of my new mistress. Yet I would remain this way forever if I could but bring him back.”

I knew it! Marge thought triumphantly. She is Tiana!

“That is very strange,” Marge responded. “You are to become the man who died today? How is that, if he is dead and his body burned?”

“There is another body above. Already my mistress commands me respond only to the name of Joe.”

Marge thought a moment, hoping to plant a thought. “But if you are put in this man’s body, you will no longer be a slave.”

“No. But I can do nothing or try nothing. To kill my mistress is to destroy the world.”

“What? How?”

“I do not know. Somehow, if she dies, the volcano goes off, melts the horrible place out there, and