Vengeance of the Dancing Gods (38 page)

That left O'Grady, who was feeling frustrated and humiliated, standing there stark naked and covered by beautiful women with nasty rifles. "Take him upstairs and lock him in a secure room," the Baron ordered. "And— give him three or four bottles from the liquor cabinet. Our friendly lush will take himself out of the game, I think..

"I'm still a little uneasy," Dacaro noted. "That Kauri's got to be around someplace, and she's got real power until dawn..

"So what? Why do you think I made certain that all the household guards were women? Kauris have no power over women, and they have no power over you or me, thanks to our own protective spells. I expect she's hovering about right outside now, or perhaps perched atop the building." He suddenly brightened. "Why, yes! I believe we can come up with a spell for that." He walked back, past the iron cage and the vault. In his small office, he switched on the light. He sat down in his office chair and turned on his computer, then played with it for about five minutes. Dacaro saw a lot of numbers, then watched as the screen transformed itself into a multicolored pattern of enormous complexity. "There!" said the Baron. "Think you can cast that on the house in a couple of minutes?.

"Yeah, I think so, but I don't understand it..

"If she is either on the house or touches it while this is in force, she'll stick to it like glue. She and no one else—it's attuned to Kauris only, and she's probably the only one on Earth. Do it and then go to bed. Tomorrow is a big day, and some time this morning we'll pick her stuck and comatose body off the house and take care of her, too..

"I'll do it, but I still smell something else going on.

Even if they had that seal in place, they wouldn't have stopped us, just slowed us down. And I'll bet you a fortune that only the fairy folk in this mob know what else is going on—and we can't selectively drag it out of them before they die..

"I know. We'll have to be on alert, but cast that spell first—now. It will give us one less thing to worry about, and we can deal with the rest comfortably, knowing it's our only problem..

Joe and the two women had had a miserable night, but they managed to drift into sleep off and on, huddled together for warmth in the cold and antiseptic vault. They were even more miserable when they awoke, however, hungry, thirsty, stiff, and, as Mahalo pointed out, with no place to go to the bathroom.

Joe began to suspect they'd been forgotten, but finally the vault door opened and both Dacaro and the Baron Page 204 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods were there, looking very dapper in suits, ties, and patent leather shoes. With them was a tall and strikingly beautiful blond bombshell, dressed quite well but not too revealingly.

Joe guessed that she would change later, hooking on sex appeal those that Dacaro couldn't.

"Good afternoon," the Baron said cheerfully. "May I introduce the Baroness de Boquillas?.

Joe had the sudden urge to rush them, but he knew it was futile. Dacaro had the power to stop him with a wave of the hand, and behind them were the Ministering Angels, now wearing nice powder blue robes but otherwise just as well armed and determined. He remembered Poquah's command that they were to stay alive at any cost and 262 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS hope that whatever was being worked by others was going to save them.

Boquillas pointed to Mahalo McMahon. "That one is yours, my dear. I'm sure we can make her into a wonderful Ministering Angel..

The woman smiled evilly and beckoned to the Polynesian to come out. "Perhaps so. If not, we can always give her as a gift to old fang-mouth in there," the Baroness said. "Come." It was said simply, but there was no question that it had the force of a spell behind it from Mahalo's look and her instant obedience.

The Baron snapped his fingers, and two Ministering Angels appeared with handcuffs and leggings. "I had these prepared a week or two ago, just in case," Boquillas told Joe and Tiana. "They are ordinary, but are silver-plated.

I would not suggest struggling in them, because they will cause permanent damage, even to you..

Dacaro took them and fastened the cuffs on behind their backs, then snapped on the leg irons, which were essentially handcuffs for the feet. Even the handcuffs were really manacles, with a few inches of chain—enough to allow some movement, but hardly very much. Neither of them was likely to hit anyone or run very fast, that was for sure.

Joe looked up at the iron cage and saw it was empty.

"What did you do with Poquah?.

Dacaro grinned. "Wish I could take you up and show you the upstairs entrance hall. Got two beautiful marble statues up there, facing each other. One's a nude of an elf warrior, the other's a beautiful female winged fairy creature. Got 'em cheap, too..

Joe struggled in his rage but to no avail. Finally he calmed down. "So you got Marge, too, huh? So where's the souls?.

Page 205 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods "For all the good it will do you, the only thing Dacaro had available were two of Father O'Grady's used whiskey bottles," the wizard said, chuckling.

263 JACK L. CHALKER "How can one man be so despicable?" Tiana wanted to know.

The Baron looked at Joe. "Follow me into my little office, Joe. I wish to speak with you alone for a moment..

He saw the alarm on Dacaro and the Angels, but quieted them. "It's all right. Tiana's out here with you, and he's quite encumbered. Come..

With some difficulty, Joe managed to follow him, then stood there while the Baron closed the door. Joe just stared at him for a moment. "Just what kind of a creature are you, anyway. Baron? How can a man be so charmingly evil without showing signs of total insanity?.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence in my sanity,.

Boquillas replied, sitting on a comer of his desk. "You see, Joe, all my life has been devoted to mathematics. It sounds dull and ridiculous, but it's really the most practical of all things because everything is mathematics. Not just spells, not just dry and abstract formulae, but real.

You are mathematics, Joe, and so am I. The beauty of a leaf, the falling rain—all mathematics. That's how spells work—by altering the mathematics in some way to achieve a new balance. The more I studied, the more I looked at the world, the more I realized that there was but a single great random factor that kept human society from also being mathematically balanced. Human societies—all of them—were somehow structured in a nonlogical, nonmathematical way. That's the true punishment of original sin, you see. Eve, in perfection, was not perfect. She made a single irrational, illogical decision, and Adam went along with it. Don't you see, Joe? This all-wise, allknowing, all-powerful, omnipotent Creator blew it. Adam and Eve were both imperfect from the start, yet they were regarded as perfect creations.

"And that, of course, was Satan's point of view. Either the Creator intended perfection and failed, or he wanted all this misery to happen and is therefore punishing human beings for no reason at all except his own perverse pleasure.

He created Satan and the others, too, don't forget.

264 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS JACK L.CHALKER 265 It is a terrifying vision to a mathematician, yet the conclusion is inescapable on the face of it. The Creator is insane! We have a root random variable at the core of our being that comes from that insanity..

Page 206 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods "Ever think your problem was in thinking of Him as human, as natural? That maybe He's so far beyond anything we can comprehend that He's beyond our understanding at all?.

"I considered it, but it is actually an irrelevant point.

What isn't mathematically balanced is insanity. Such a being is, therefore, insane, and I refuse to be a party to serving one who is not the heart of all logic and mathematics..

"And the Devil is?.

"Well, the Devil's got his own problems, I admit, considering the record; but taking the long view, Satan's fight is my fight because he is battling the Creator, and for the same reasons. Look at this world! I thought ours was bad, but it pales by comparison to the Creator's chosen and personally created own! The world is a madhouse in which the bulk of the population at any time is in slavery or subjugation, starving or in other miseries, and Hell is allowed to run roughshod while all the good and saintly of this world are killed. A world that worships martyrdom above all else, that equates good with dying for a good cause, is a world that is so mad it is unbelievable. Out of this, I have the means to create a single, worldwide, mathematically balanced society. I have the tools. I might well fail; if I do, the world will be destroyed. But if that happens, it will be because it deserves to happen. Better to end it than to bring into being generations yet to be born to suffer all the more!.

"I'm no priest. Baron, or theologian. I can't give you the answers, if there are the kind of answers either of us will understand. All I understand is that, by the prophecies of the Oracle ofMylox, your plan will lead to Armageddon, unless it is stopped, and I think these people should have the right to blow themselves up without your interference..

Esmilio Boquillas smiled wanly. "Joe, what can I do with you? I like you, but you and I will always be enemies.

Marge and Poquah are in two whiskey bottles on my bedroom mantel. On Tuesday our drunken priest may go his own way—I'll even have some of his superiors under my control. He is headed for the madhouse and we both know it. He is no threat. But you are a threat. Something watches over you, Joe. Something protects you. I can't put my hand on it or find it, but it's true. All the others, including Tiana, I can handle, but you always seem somehow to slip out of every total and absolute trap that is laid and cross me up..

"What do you plan to do with Tiana?.

"I will remove her from that odd mermaid's body that Sugasto somehow stuck her with and place her soul in the body of one of the Angels. That will rid me of the were curse, and restore the undisciplined power that the mermaid condition suppresses. She will be under my control, but a good mate for Dacaro..

Page 207 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods "You mean your surrogate and life insurance. You don't trust Dacaro, once this is too far along, anymore than I would. She's stronger than he is—if she's fed the spells..

"Exactly. But, you see, Joe, I can't do the same for you. No matter where I stuck your soul, somehow it would go wrong for me. If I transformed you into a monkey or a toad and removed all your memory, it would somehow be brought back. I stab you through the heart, my men shoot you three times in the back with a .44 Magnum, and here you stand, healthy as a horse. You were even a horse yourself once, and that didn't stop you..

"So if you're going to kill me, let's get it over with.

One of those silver bullets ought to do it..

"That would be quick, easy, and relatively painless.

I'll certainly give you thatoption. Quick and painless, or very drawn out and very ugly. It is your choice..

266 VENGEANCE OF THE DANCING GODS "What the hell are you talking about?.

"Dacaro rightly pointed out that your actions wouldn't stop us, just badly inconvenience us. There's something else afoot, something more serious and permanent going on, and I want to know what it is. I want the text of what the Oracle told you, and I want to know your interpretation.

You know what I'm doing here. Somehow, you've all figured it out. I want to know what counters are being taken by others..

Joe chuckled. "I don't know them. Baron. They wouldn't tell me or Ti and you understand why. A wave of Dacaro's hand and I'd spin my guts. What little I did know was erased by a spell so complicated it would be tomorrow morning before you could solve it and then dismantle it..

"I don't have any proof of that, Joe. All right—-we'll go the hard way..

It proved to be a big cellar. Joe was suspended in a small room with a high ceiling, the chain of his hand manacles secured by iron bolts to an overhead beam, so he dangled in the air. It was painful and somewhat dizzying at the same time.

Beneath him, perhaps three feet below, was a small tub in which had been placed a very large number of nastylooking snakes. They were not, however, ordinary snakes, but ones modified by spell.

"The snakes' venom is a compound of silver nitrate,.

the Baron explained. "It is almost five now, and sundown is at six thirty-three today. No one will disturb you, Joe, but at sundown the only thing close is going to be those Page 208 Chalker, Jack L - Vengeance of the Dancing Gods snakes. You'll turn into one of them and drop, as you did with the rats in my old dungeon. They cannot climb beyond the slanted screen barrier, so neither will you. If they don't bite you repeatedly when you drop in, they will all bite when you change back at dawn after a thrilling evening as a snake. Angels will be armed with silver bullets outside the door, and someone will keep an eye on you JACK L. CHftLKER 267 from time to time. If you get any good ideas, just yell the information and someone will shoot you, if it's of value to us. Otherwise, the snake pit. Believe me, Joe—the door cannot be opened from this side, and there are no windows or other exits big enough to admit anything of value or to use as an escape. No matter what, they'll shoot you, in whatever form, if you try that." He sighed.

"Good-bye, Joe. I go to my destiny. Too bad you couldn't come along..