Jack Chalker - Horrors of the Dancing Gods

"But we just came up from there! It's thickly populated. Not much jungle or forest cover. And if everybody in creation's got one of those broadsides…"

"Your nerve and your self-control will be all that's needed," Joe told her. "First remove anything from any pockets or compartments in those clothes, and then we'll weight them with stones and sink them in the lake." "Sink them! But what will I wear?"

"Nothing. As crazy as it sounds, naked is your best disguise. Put on clothing and you'll call attention to your face. Then let me survey the plants around here. Many secrete very effective dyes. Repeating that wonderful pattern on your face and torso would be great, but I don't think I have either the materials or the artistic skill to do it. Blocks of color, though — that should be easy."

"You — you really think my pattern is wonderful?"

"Oh, yeah. It's beautiful, honey. Trust me. That, the arms, the whole thing will be what people look at first and will remember, too. Trust me. Let me see what I can do."

By soaking various small cuttings and leaves in water, Joe had managed to come up with several interesting colors. She chose a dark green for the stomach area, applied it carefully with some grasses used as a brush so as not to overlap the natural coloration of the hips and the area below, then extended it around to the back and up so that two rounded areas on the back went up and met at a point right at the small of the back. Next a golden yellow for the lowermost breasts and arms, again layered to a point design on Alvi's back. The middle arms and breast area she made a pink color, the topmost a pale blue that extended to the upper shoulders, neck, and face. The hair, cut as short as possible with the knife and some stones, turned a much darker blue when touched with the same dye. Joe thought that bald would be better yet but knew that Alvi was already going to be as self-conscious as hell.

Then the wood nymph mixed several of the dyes together, added more water, poured the resulting dark mixture into a gourd, and said, "Now, the finishing touch. Take some of it, swish it around the inside of your mouth, all over your tongue, you name it, then spit it out."

Alvi looked uncertain but did as she was told. She made a face when she spit. "Tastes awful!"

"Yep. Now open wide. Uh huh… Very nice. The whole inside of your mouth, including your tongue, is purple except your teeth, which remain pretty much white." She stepped back. "I can guarantee you that you are now as colorful as I can paint you and that people will look at everything except the details of your face first."

"This stuff — it comes off, though?'

'Well, not right away, but eventually, yes." The truth was, Joe had no idea how long it would last, but she knew that the chemicals she'd used on normal human skin were as indelible as permanent ink. It would dull long before it washed off, which was just what Joe wanted. "The question is, do you have the guts to walk straight down a road like that?"

"Oh, my God! I don't know if I can!"

'Well, you've got to, that's all. You just do it. We'll take it easy, but you've got to get used to yourself as completely exposed, as you are, and to hell with the rest of the world. Now, people are going to look at you. They're going to stare, frankly. Some of 'em will make signs to ward off evil when they see you and rush their kids inside. Others will be mean, cruel, call you all sorts of names, tease and heckle you. It'll get you for a while, but sooner or later you just have to decide that this is who and what you are, and if others don't like it, they can just shut up and get out of your way. I'm going to be along the whole time, with you and right beside you. I went from being a man — tall, muscles, heroic type — to looking like this, and it was pretty damned hard. I never have fully come to grips with it, so in a way I've got nobody, either. I have nothing in common with my sister wood nymphs except my looks, and everybody else treats me like a brainless piece of elemental ass, so no matter what happens, there'll be at least me to regard you as a person and treat you like one. Clear?"

Alvi nodded, uncertain but also atoned "You were really a guy once?'

"Uh huh. Born and raised a mortal male, father of a male child, teamster and barbarian hero at different points. A crazy bit of magic turned me into this, and since then I've been wandering this world alone, looking for a way out. You and me, we got the same damned problem, really."

"I think I'd rather have your problem," Alvi noted.

"Maybe. Maybe you just haven't discovered how little anybody thinks of wood nymphs — a reputation mostly deserved, by the way. It is true that you'll be an unwanted halfling, considered a monster by most, if a harmless one, but when they discover that you are a monster with money, some things will be possible. Right now we clean up and find you something to eat. I'm afraid it's going to be all fruits and veggies around here for now, but we may be able to do better on the road."

"That will be fine," she assured Joe. "I–I only hope that I can do it."

That, of course, worried Joe as well. Hell, it'd been weeks before she'd had the nerve to go out by herself, and that had been after a lot of unknowing preparation as a were in the time before the old body and its curse had been destroyed in the lava fires. Alvi could use a little were curse now, but it wasn't exactly something you picked up at the market.

Finding a good meal for Alvi, however, was even easier than going to the market — for a wood nymph. In fact, within a wood nymph's narrow range were some astonishing built-in abilities, including being able to communicate and in many cases use plants the way she'd used the clinging vines against the knife wielder and a kind of instinctive knowledge about plants and plant capabilities — even about plants she'd never seen before, in places she'd never been. She had known instantly which of the surrounding plant juices would make dyes and had been able to extract what was needed without harming the plants themselves. Similarly, there were drugs that could be extracted from others, drugs that healed, others that made you high or were anesthetics, all sorts of things like that. Once she identified them, she needed only merge with the plant to extract a safe amount, then hold it within her until she wanted to excrete it.

There were, of course, limits. Wood nymphs were hardly biologists, let alone biochemists; she had no idea how to mix anything if the raw stuff wasn't there. And it might be that Alvi's constitution wasn't nearly as human as she assumed. But the odds were that it was.

Now, was there anything possibly around here that might help the halfling over the initial jitters? Self-confidence would be important to her disguise; with a hue and cry out, they could hardly wait long or people would start looking more closely into things, and maybe those Consuls would start describing Alvi a bit more fully.

There seemed to be nothing around that was in the nature of a really strong hypnotic, although such plant substances did exist and always seemed to be handy when the bad guys needed them. The best she could find was a kind of mild substance that dulled the mind and made you a little euphoric but also uninhibited and open to a degree of suggestion. Risky in that it might cause Alvi to do something that might betray her, but it was better than nothing. It would be easy enough to remove from the leaves and place within the fruit, although finding the dose that was needed would take experimenting.

After Alvi ate, they got rid of the clothes as Joe had suggested — not without some regrets from Alvi — and, using some vines, Joe made her a kind of belt with loops that would allow the purse and the dagger to be attached and easily carried.