Jack Chalker: Horrors of the Dancing Gods

There was no hair anywhere except on the head or any obvious sign of female genitalia. If it was there, then it was lost in disguise in that riot of color and shape and form, although Joe reflected that anything fairly small might well be anything but obvious in that riotous yet attractive mass.

"You kept — this — a secret even from part of a household? And from anybody around?"

She nodded. "It's not as hard as you think, and I was used to it, raised to control it. Growing up, they used to tie my lower arms to my sides all the time so I wouldn't reflexively move them, and my tail got lashed to my leg for the same reason. That was tougher. I always had to walk really slowly and deliberately because I couldn't use it for balance. The hands, too, were a problem, mostly if I lost my balance or something. Your instinct is to use everything you have to break a fall. I spent a lot of time in my quarters, alone or with the two serving maids whose folks had been with the family for generations, just to be free of those despicable straps and my tent dresses. I yearned to be outside like this, free, able to run and stretch and not pretend. But it never happened."

The tremendous difference in Alvi would have made any sort of medical solution more grotesque than the social one her father had adopted. Still, if a big, ugly Injun truck driver could wind up a nymph, surely there was something that a rich guy like her father could summon up from the magical arts. Joe didn't really know all that those Books of Rules contained — except that it was far too much — but surely in them was one of those universal laws: the rich could buy themselves out of almost anything. She raised the point in more delicate terms.

"It was not even an issue," Alvi replied. "There were occasional sorcerers as guests, of course — I told you that my father was friends with many powerful ones. They knew of my condition; it could hardly be hidden from them. I am certain that I was examined, perhaps without my knowledge, on magical levels many times, but nothing was ever done. The few who so much as alluded to it — none of them ever came right out, at least in front of me — suggested that there was some kind of curse, that whatever might be done by magic for me would only make things much, much worse. I never understood it. Many times my father started to tell me— I knew he truly wanted to — but each time something held him back. I was never sure if it was part of the curse or some promise he made, like to my mother, or what, but he couldn't, not even in these last few months on the run."

"This is beginning to sound very much like a curse," Joe agreed, considering her story so far. "Come, though. Get into the pool and wash off the grime. You'll find the water's warm and clean, and the bottom's basically stones."

In the water Alvi leaned back and enjoyed the warmth and clean feel — and only her neck showed. Joe wasn't very worried; of all the people she'd ever met anywhere, Alvi seemed absolutely drown proof.

"You're not coming in?" Alvi called to her.

"Sorry. My race is very good for showers, even better for being out in the rain, but baths are risky. If I absorb too much water without any sort of drain, I can become heavier than gold. Take your time, though, and enjoy. I've got absolutely nothing else to do and nowhere else to go."

"That's all right. I just feel bad because this is so nice. I finally have a tub that fits me!"

Joe let her enjoy herself for a while, then asked casually, "Just out of curiosity, what race was your mother? Do you know?"

"A mortal human and very pretty," Alvi responded. "What? Now, wait a minute! I saw your dad, and if your mother was human…"

"That's not exactly the way it seems," the girl told her. "I always knew that he wasn't my real father, but he was the only one I ever knew, and he was very good to me and to my mother. They had been betrothed, lovers since they were very young, but before they could many, something happened. I don't know what. Neither would really talk about it, but my mother went away for a while. After she came back, my father insisted that they marry anyway, and she agreed. He really did love her, and he was her whole life. They tried to have another child, one for both of them, but it didn't work out. The child was born dead, and the result…" It was the first time Joe had really heard any sincere emotion from Alvi about her parents and background. "It — it killed her. Not right off, but she was sick and never really got better. I was four or five years old, but I remember it. I remember all of it."

An interesting picture was emerging in Joe's mind. It might be completely off, but it fit the facts. Young, handsome nobleman is betrothed to the daughter of some wealthy local monarch or one of the landed gentry, the dowry most likely the estate itself. That was how things worked there. Everything set, going normal, when suddenly something happened, something that threatened the marriage, caused her to go away for a bit, and forced everything to be put on hold. What?

Alvi was what. Was it actually an illicit human-faerie affair? Some adolescent caprice that caused her extreme guilt ever after? Or was it perhaps some sort of a rape? Not all the faerie were nymphs and fairies and elves and other cute characters. Those bat-winged creatures who'd come for Alvi and her father, for example. Forces of the real father come to claim his child? The fact that she had no characteristics of such creatures meant little: in perhaps the majority of cases among the faerie, the male and female were so different, they might well be mistaken for different races or species entirely. Nymphs were a good example and by no means unique — satyrs for wood nymphs, those Boyfriends from the Black Lagoon for the water nymphs, you name it. The colorful lower body patterns would be the key; it seemed too complex and too natural to be a one-shot affair and was almost certainly some sort of racial characteristic. But which race?

The mother had refused to kill the daughter even though it was most certainly a monster and a creature of rape. The father had probably agonized, then agreed to take them in and protect the girl as well as his own child. Things would have been arranged so that Alvi would be presented as a child born of the father but before wedlock; married, there would be no stigma, yet that child would be a constant worry and a reminder of the initial problem. Six arms and the lower part of a lizard weren't exactly something you could overlook even if, incredibly, you really could hide it.

He must have loved the woman very much.

But there was more to it somehow, something still missing in the puzzle. Why did they want Alvi now? Who could want her? Of what possible value could she be to anyone: neither of human nor of faerie and considered monster by both? What was the bargain that had bound the old boy's lips from even his adopted daughter's ears, and with whom had it been made, and why?

Damn it! I never watched soap operas!

"Alvi, did those creatures in black armor come close to a birthday or anniversary?" Joe asked her. "That is, close enough to some event?"

She shook her heal.

"When was your last birthday? And how old were you?"

"I must be almost seventeen now. I was sixteen before they came, but it wasn't anything close. I mean, it was maybe a couple of months earlier."

Joe suddenly realized that the question meant nothing. Even if there was some sort of bargain or curse having to do with Alvi's sixteenth birthday, they would probably not celebrate the real date, in any event. In fact, it might not even be known, and whoever came to claim his or her or its prize might not be on a clockwork calendar schedule, either. There was, however, something that had been nagging at Joe, particularly since Alvi had awakened, and when the halfling emerged at last from the pool and lay down to dry off, Joe felt she had to bring it up.