Vengeance of the Dancing Gods (28 page)

She was also perhaps four inches from head to foot.

There were many such creatures in Husaquahr, including a fair number in Mohr Jerahl, but they were usually as territorial as wood nymphs. Unless this one had stowed away on the ship coming over, there was no way to explain finding a pixie on an urban rooftop.

The tiny creature stirred, then managed to open her eyes and bring herself to a sitting position. She was instantly aware that she had company and looked up at Marge in surprise. Her voice was as tiny as she was, and, like that of all pixies, was pitched far too high for human ears, so that only the overtones could be heard as a high, ringing sound by those with good hearing, like children.

Marge, of course, could hear it fine, although there were the usual city noises and the rumblings of the storms in the distance that made her bend low to catch it all.

"So what da hell are yow?" asked the pixie, in what sounded like fluent Brooklynese. "And wud'dya starin' at, anyways?.

"I'm a Kauri. I heard your distress cry and came to help if I could..

"A what? Man, oh man! Dey grow deir fairies as big and mean as deir thunderstorms in dis sucking state of Texas!.

Suddenly Marge was struck by a memory chord: with Peter Pan's glow.... "Of course!" she muttered to herself.

"Tinker Bell!.

"Don't give me none ofdat Tinker Bell shit!" the pixie retorted angrily. "Ain't been no end of grief since dat Limey wrote dat play da foist time!.

"You're—a native of Earth, then?.

"Sure! Bom 'n bred in Prospect Pock. Dat's in Brooklyn, you know..

Page 149 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods "I would never have guessed..

"Been dere since da Limeys shot up da place. Made a mess, but we couldn't complain. Because ofdat dey left it as a pock. Prob'ly da only big slice o' green left around dere..

"I've never been there, but I'm more interested in how you happened to wind up here..

"Yeah, well, I ain't too sure on dat, neither. Pact is, I was dumb, dat's all. I mean, dere ain't no place worth livin' outside o' Brooklyn, 'cept maybe New Yawk and dey even mug da fairies dere dese days. Dat's why most of us up and left a long time ago. Me'n a few udders, we stayed on. I mean, if you can't live in Brooklyn, why live at all?.

"But you left..

"Obviously! I din't have no choice. Dey been takin' little bits and pieces of da pock for yeahs and yeahs, and finally it just got so dere was no way to live no more. We need flowers 'n trees 'n all, and 'cause it's so urban, like, the stuff'd die no matter what we did 'less the city came in and helped out. So dey cut the pocks budget again and again until dere was nothin' really left 'cept for trimmin' the battle monument. Dey sent clods out wit' no feelin' for growin' tings, you know? Not only did dey not do da 192 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS job, dey screwed the place up so much it'll take yeahs to get it goin' again. I was da last—maybe da last fairy in Brooklyn.

"Now, what was I supposed to do? Go live in Joisy, for cryin' out loud? So I says, 'Gimlet old goil, you either gotta get planted forever in dear old Brooklyn or make it over to da udder side somehow.' Now, dere's only six places dat even used to be ways over and out, you know.

One's in da Swiss Alps, one's in China, one's in da Amazon, one's in da deserts of Australia, one's somewheres between da Nile 'n da Congo, and one's someplace in Texas. Maybe I got da right spot, since you're here and I don't even ever hear of your kind before, but maybe I'm wrong. That Texas accent of yours is somethin' else..

"Your accent's pretty thick itself," Marge noted.

"What accent? I ain't got no accent. You must t'ink I'm from New Yawk or maybe da Bronx. Dey got accents!.

"Out here, you're the one with the accent and you better hadn't forget it. What happened to you, anyway.

Are you hurt?.

"Got a bruised wing is all. I ain't gonna be able to fly Page 150 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods noplace for a day or two but I'H be okay. Two hundred yeahs of dodgin' storms wit' no sweat at all, and I run into dat baby here and lose my traction! It just tore me loose and spun me around and I come to here. I been t'ru almost as bad but never woist..

"Lucky it did happen, if you're not seriously hurt. I'm with a group from the other side. We're over here doing work, but one of our party can get you over there if he wants to..

"Is he one o' us?.

"Yes, but don't count on that meaning anything. Still, I have a suspicion that you're going to have to be with us a while if you're going over at all. I sense another hand bringing you to us at this time. Come on—you game for a little ride?.

The pixie looked disgustedly around the roof. "Well, I sure could use a better neighborhood..

193 JACK L.CHALKER * * * "And now the company numbers six," Poquah noted.

The Imir seemed far more relaxed than previously and much more self-confident. He even seemed slightly better disposed toward Macore, making the rest of them wonder if the little thief had slipped the elf something when they were out. "Providence will send us the seventh in due course. Then it will be up to us to finish this matter..

"I thought the Rules didn't apply here," Joe noted. "I mean, why do we need seven?.

"The Rules in general do not apply, except to us personally of course," the Imir continued. "But seven is a mystical number with some power, as you must know.

Seven would be good, even if we are not limited to that number..

"It can be at the crap tables, yeah, but you can crap out with that same seven, too," the pixie added.

"Is that so unlike life?" the Imir asked.

The pixie was standing on the top of the television set eyeing Poquah critically. She wasn't used to seeing other fairy races any more than the humans of Earth were. "He looks like Leonard Nimoy," she commented.

"Too short," Marge responded in a whisper.

"I should know from short?.

It was a good point, well beyond argument. Poquah, if he heard the exchange, ignored it, but turned to the pixie. "You understand that there will be no transportation until, and unless, we complete our mission? All travels have stopped until then..

Page 151 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods "Yeah, I get it. I ain't got nothin' better to do anyways, so I might as well string along. Besoides, if dis really is de end of de woild t'ing, what's the difference anyhow?.

"I admire practicality," the Imir commented.

Joe and Macore looked blank as they found themselves cut out of the pixie's end of the conversation. Tiana, to her surprise, discovered that she could hear the pixie, although the accent was bad enough she couldn't make a lot of sense out of the dialogue.

194 JACK L. CHALKER 195 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS With all of them now present, though, Poquah thought that this was a good time for a general briefing, and they sat around Joe's room and listened to him.

"It was expected that we would eventually have to transport a number of people and equipment, and we did not wish to be dependent on motels and other such public places. As a result, we had shipped here a purchase Master Ruddygore made some time ago for his own personal convenience when in this country. It is a masterpiece of comfort and practicality and is very well disguised. It will serve not only as accommodations but as a mobile headquarters..

"This why you need a truck driver?" Joe asked him.

"Yes. I, too, am capable of driving it in a pinch, but I would rather not do so unless there is some compelling reason for it. I am comfortable with its operation but not comfortable on and around the highways of this place. It will be quite effective, with the van, in which I am much more comfortable, being used for local transport when needed..

"Why go from here, though?" Marge asked him. "I assume our destination is California..

"It is indeed. However, as the pixie told you, this is the only safe and secure landing spot in North America with an access to good roads and modem conveniences, for a variety of complex reasons not worth going into right now. Also, the truck is on record with a real interstate trucking line, and so any checks run on it will show that it is legitimate and has reason to be in the areas it will be. This is more credible if we actually make a run from some distant point.

"We will be entering a hostile area in more ways than one. The Baron already has a substantial following, including many of the wealthy and influential. Politicians and corporate presidents get as gravely ill as the common folk, after all, and as desperate. It is a mistake to think of this as a month-old operation that began with Dacaro's arrival. It is not. The Baron has been building this up for Page 152 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods over two and a half years now, and that is a lot of time in a media-oriented society..

"I understand the dangers from the Baron and his lackeys,.

Tiana said, "but you seem to indicate it's not as simple as all that..

"It is not. In addition to his followers and supporters, public and private, he has been very good to a county that is economically one of the most depressed in the West since the logging boom ended. A lot of money is being dropped there—enough so that, even with his backers, he needed the gold from the Master's vaults to pay off the balance of his mortgage. He has, however, adopted a clever, even fiendish, method of assuming control. His substantial following that is on and around the land all registered to vote, and those politicians who did not accept his authority were then recalled and thrown from office, to be replaced with the Baron's people. His cult controls the political levers of the towns nearest his holdings, and some of county government as well..

"Surely he can't be that pervasive," Marge said disbelievingly.

"I mean, maybe it's not a heavily populated county, but it hasn't been a long time, either..

"There is opposition, yes, but this technique has worked before with other religious cults and it works now. It is a flaw in the American system which can be exploited by ones with the following and resources to do so. Local governments control power, water, sewage, police, fire, and all the other services people depend on. They set the tax standards and the tax rates. An irate citizen might have his well inspected and condemned by the county, making his land worthless. There is condemnation and eminent domain. A business picketed by and not patronized by a large mass of people will fail. It is immoral, unethical, and absolutely legal. He is doing nothing that others have not accomplished before him, only he is doing it far faster and far more efficiently. The Baron does his homework well and he is brilliant and analytical. The attempt at foreclosing on him was our doing, of course, 196 JACK L. CHALKER 197 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS and our last legal gasp, as it were, although he'll be tied up in court for years..

Joe couldn't help smiling in admiration. "So your folks put the squeeze on him and he paid off with gold stolen from Ruddygore's own vaults. He must have loved that touch." He paused a moment. "Lord! Is this man incredible!.

The pixie, following all this, looked around the room.

"And a group of bums like dose in dis room is gonna take on and beat dis guy? You're all nutsV Page 153 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods The Imir repeated the comment verbatim for the benefit of the humans, who only nodded somewhat in agreement.

Poquah, however, was not about to grant the point.

"We are not as insane as we might seem, madam," he replied. "First, the magic powers that Boquillas depends upon and which awe his followers and associates are nothing strange to us, nor are we without some such powers ourselves. Second, be reminded that Boquillas himself has great knowledge but no powers of his own—those were stripped from him. The rest around him, with one exception, are Earth psychics of limited abilities and almost no training. I could dispense with them one on one without even straining, and probably even Marge could do so if they tried anything against her. No, Dacaro is the only real threat, the only one we cannot match. Remove Dacaro and we, not they, have the balance of power..

"Yeah, but that's the trick, isn't it?" Joe noted. "I mean, Ruddygore could take him out, and so could most real powerful wizards, but he's blocked any of them from coming.

He is, on Earth, what Ruddygore or one of the Council would be in Husaquahr. The most powerful with no real competition..

"Let us assume, for the moment, that we could take out Dacaro," Marge put in. "It still isn't any piece of cake.

Sure, we'd have the power, assuming old gloomy here survives the battle, but there's more kinds of power than magic. What are we talking about? A hundred people? A thousand? Ten thousand?.

"I fear your last estimate is closer to the mark," Poquah told them.

"Okay—ten thousand, plus a government in his hip pocket, right? The cops with their guns, the followers with who knows what? And demons—the verse said something about demons, too. Even Ruddygore had to run from a demon and got pretty banged up in the process if I remember." She looked over at the little thief. "You've been pretty silent on this, Macore. I'd expect you to be the first one to object to all this..

The thief shrugged. "There's a plan. He knows most of it, I know most of it, and you all don't know any of it.