“Yeah, okay. Mia. That closes the disguise on her, but everything you say makes me the weakest link in this. Not just how I behave and how I treat others, but we know how these things always go. Somehow, sometime, I’m going to bump into the Baron, even if he’s not involved, and probably at the wrong time. If he’s got any freedom at all, he’s probably given those descriptions out just for revenge. I might not last ten seconds up there, and you know it.”
Ruddygore nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. And he knows you’re an Amerind, which is rather distinctive here. I cannot transform your body or do much magic on it. You’re locked in as a twenty-year-old Joe. We can, however, make use of the Baron’s knowledge that you’re what they call back on Earth an Indian or Native American. That’s why I asked Doctor Mujahn to drop by this afternoon. He’s the best alchemist Hu-saquanr ever produced—he actually has turned gold into lead.”
“I thought the idea was to turn lead into gold.”
“He’s halfway. Don’t knock it. Pure science is often unprofitable. At any rate, I want to see what he can do for you. Strictly chemicals, potions, and nostrums, of course. But he can do some startling things in cosmetology, and they stick, unless you have the antidotes. And,” he added, “he’s so absentminded in day-to-day things he won’t remember he was even here, let alone you, ten seconds after he leaves.”
“Uh—I assume he has the antidotes to anything he tries on me? That he’s not so absentminded that he’ll forget how to reverse things?”
“I assume so, too, yes.”
“Well, if he can do anything, I’ll try it. I want to come back alive from this one if possible. What about Marge, then? Sugasto’s seen her, and a man and woman traveling with a Kauri will strike a few folks as familiar.”
“I doubt if that’s a real problem, if you and Ti aren’t recognized. All Kauri look absolutely identical except to another Kauri, the same as all members of the nymph family. Remove her wings and color her leaf-green and she could be any wood nymph in the world—sorry. But you get the point. It’s only by your total familiarity with her personality and manners that you know it’s her and not another. I’m not concerned about her being recognized at all.”
Doctor Mujahn looked like a bumbling, middle-aged accountant in dark brown monklike robes, complete with small mustache and thin, slicked-down hair and glasses. He also looked like the kind of man who’d forget his head if it wasn’t attached.
He poked and probed and took some skin and blood samples and cooked up a whole bunch of weird stuff, and he often had to be reminded that a subject was there and he wasn’t doing research in his laboratory.
“Bleaching the skin is out, but we can tint it, going from the more olive cast to bronze,” he muttered, not really to anybody else but himself. “We’ve got endless options on the hair, but because of the skin bath I’d recommend a medium brown. Poor contrast but it’ll have a slight reddish tint, and it can be cropped and thickened, yes. Hmmm… Brown eyes… Let’s see, let’s see.” He fumbled through a case full of vials. “Red… bloodshot… black… pinkeye… Ah! This one! Can’t tell for sure what exact color will come out, but it should be somewhere between emerald and turquoise.”
“Wait a minute. You can even change my eye color?” Joe asked him.
“No problem. Simplest of all, really, except for making everything black or albino. That’s child’s play.” He puttered around some more and came up with a vial that seemed made of polished obsidian. “Ah! Yes, the final ingredient! I find it fascinating that your people don’t have much in the way of facial or body hair.”
“What is it? Hair-growing formula?”
“Yes. We looked to give one fellow a hairier chest once. Poor man looked like an ape at the end. Tsk-tsk. Blew my demonstration. Oh, don’t worry! It was a simple mistake—I used one part per thousand when it should have been one per hundred thousand. I was always better at working out formulas than following them. Once baked a loaf of bread that rose so dramatically it blew the roof off the house. Not as bad as the fireworks mixture I did once. You can still see the crater where the town used to be… Hmmm… All right. Now I have everything worked out for you exactly correct. At least I hope I do.”
Joe felt much like Irving had felt being introduced to Gorodo. All he wanted was out of there.
He had Ti—no, Mia now, he’d have to remember that—in the room with him. Poquah was also there, looking over the alchemist’s shoulder, and that was the only reassurance he had. The Imir was one of the few known adepts who was of faerie, and he was pretty damned good. Ruddygore said he’d never be as good as a human adept with the same talent, simply because he was of faerie, but that he was already the most knowledgeable and powerful of the elf family in all history. The Imir were also one of the rare warrior races of elves, and were great in a fight. But Ruddygore had proclaimed that his adept was needed here, particularly if Joe failed.
First the alchemist used a bathtub that could only have been Ruddygore’s—it was the largest even Joe had ever seen—and, after elf servants filled it with water, he began mixing and stirring various potions in there. Joe grew more nervous when he saw that no exact measuring devices were being used; it was a pinch of this and two drops of that.
Finally, Doctor Mujahn proclaimed the mixture correct. “You must get in and submerge completely,” he told Joe. “Eyes and mouth shut, but once under, turn your lips out in a pucker, as if about to give a big kiss. That’s quite important. Don’t worry if you swallow a little bit. The worse that will do is turn your urine green for a few days. Stay under until I tap you on the head. Then you can come up. That, too, is important.”
“Uh—you’re sure I’m not gonna come out purple or something?”
“Reasonably sure. Of course, I could always test, I suppose, but it’s such a waste of time.”
“Test!” Joe ordered.
He sighed. “Very well, very well. Let’s see. Ah. This leather patch will do fine.” He picked up a small patch of dark brown leather, stuck it to the end of a pair of pliers, and dipped it into the bathtub. Then he waited, and waited, whistling a bit as he did so.
“Hey! How long does this take?” Joe asked nervously. “I have to breathe, you know!”
“Oh, almost done. Another little bit… yes… there!” He pulled the patch up.
The leather was a yellow orange and most unattractive.
“I don’t want that color!” Joe protested.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s matched to your current skin color. Naturally, it’s going to have a different, but predictable, effect on ordinary brown cow leather. It will work. This is the expected result. Come, come! Your turn!”
Joe sighed. “All right, all right. If it goes too wrong Ruddygore will have to cancel this whole thing and send other people.” He slipped off his loincloth and sandals and went over, hoisted himself up, paused a moment, took a deep breath, let it out, then took in another and held it, then slid into the tub. He submerged all the way, eyes shut, as instructed, but only at the last minute did he remember the pucker. A little did come in. It tasted like cream soda.
His whole body tingled, and he was very uncomfortable. Besides, the water might have been nice and warm when they poured it, but it was at best lukewarm now. He began to fear his lungs were going to burst, and he could hold his breath a pretty long time. As long as he had to pucker, why the hell didn’t they give him a breathing straw? Just when he decided he could hold it no longer, that he was coming up anyway, he felt a none too gentle blow on his forehead and he immediately broke through the surface, gasping for air and coughing.