“Out! Out! Get out quickly or you won’t stay even!” the alchemist shouted, oblivious to his discomfort. He managed to lift himself out and stood there dripping on the floor.
Mia brought him a towel and he wiped his face and eyes and opened them, then looked around. “Well?” he asked, then looked down.
For the first time in his life, Joe de Oro was truly golden. Not bright gold, but the natural kind, the kind you saw in those California and Hawaiian surfing films.
“I want to do the hair before the solution dries,” the alchemist said, busily mixing. “Here. Just soak your hair completely in this bowl, then come up and we’ll dry it off.”
He was suddenly forced over a large bowl full of foul-smelling stuff, rotten egg stinking stuff, and his head was dunked in it. The doctor used a small ladle to apply it to areas that couldn’t be totally submerged, then said, “All right, out. Take this towel and dry your hair as thoroughly as you can. Quickly now! Delay too long and your hair will lose all its color.”
That got him moving, with Mia’s help. His whole scalp tingled, and it wasn’t comfortable at all.
“That’s sufficient,” the alchemist pronounced. “Now come sit in this chair. Girl, you take those scissors and comb and trim his hair nicely in back!”
“Can you do a haircut, Mia?” Joe asked nervously.
“I shall do my best, Master,” she told him.
“Go to it, then.”
The alchemist was still moving fast. “Wait. Before you cut, let me put these drops in his eyes. It will sting a bit. Close them, and keep them closed until I tell you to open them. In the meantime, I’m going to apply the hair paste.”
The guy was as quick and good with drops as an eye doctor, Joe had to admit, but that stuff burned. Not the paste that was being applied over a lot of his face and to his arms, chests, and legs, though. That itched like crazy instead, but every time he went to scratch at it Doctor Mujahn slapped his hand.
Mia’s combing wasn’t too great, either. Actually, it wasn’t so much her as it was the tangles he obviously had in abundance. She kept running into them, trying to comb them out, and, in most cases, wound up cutting them out. It felt as if she were doing a lot of cutting back there, and that made him almost as nervous as Doctor Mujahn did.
“Open your eyes!” the alchemist ordered, and he did.
“Blurry as hell,” he said.
“That will pass. Close them again, though. Not quite there yet.”
Now he felt the itching paste being washed from his body with very warm water. The water felt good, but the itching didn’t stop.
“Open your eyes again!” Mujahn ordered. He did, and it was even blurrier. The alchemist studied them, frowning, then he nodded. “All right. Stop the haircut, girl. I’m going to wash his eyes.”
He was given another set of eyedrops, and was told this time to keep blinking. He did, and, slowly, his eyesight began to clear. Mujahn gave him two more flushes, men pronounced himself satisfied.
“Finish the hair now, girl! Well, big fellow, how do you feel?”
“Itchy,” he responded.
“Quite natural. You’ve never had hair there before. Give it a few more days and you’ll have several month’s growth. There! My own mother wouldn’t know you now!”
“Your mother is not the one I’m worried about,” Joe responded. “Mia, how much longer is it gonna be?”
“It is mostly done, Master. I hope you will be pleased.”
“I want to see what I look like, damn it!”
Poquah looked him over. “Actually, since I know your visage well and watched the process, I recognize you, but I doubt if anyone who did not look very closely and very well with great suspicion would, sir.”
“Damn it, Mia, when will you be done? I’m not going to the ball, you know.”
“Just another minute, Master.”
“That’s what you said before.”
“Not too much longer…”
“Finish it, damn it! Now!”
She stiffened, then did two more snips and a comb. “Yes, Master.”
The very instant he regretted the tone he also realized that this was exactly what Ruddygore was talking about. An apology was stopped before it began. You never, never apologized to a slave.
He got up and stalked into the other room, which was a dressing room of sorts and had a full mirror. He stopped, looked at himself, and hardly believed what he saw. Yeah, okay, his face and body weren’t really changed. He was still the same guy. But the changes, all entirely superficial, were as dramatic as a sorcerous transformation.
The most startling were the azure blue eyes. Geronimo had blue eyes, it was said, but he’d never expected to see it. The hair was thick and slightly curly, more beach-bum stuff, and a sandy reddish brown. The eyebrows were a slightly darker brown, probably because he’d wiped his eyes, but it looked natural at least. And the complexion change, for all its discomforts, was actually quite subtle, which made it, in combination with the rest, all the more effective.
But most dramatic was his face. He actually had a thick stubble! Not the occasional wispy hair he’d known, but whiskers. Not yet a beard, but certainly even now at the stage where most white men would be if they hadn’t shaved in a week. Nice and full, too. And hair was also growing over much of the rest of his body! He hadn’t had this sort of hair since he’d returned from that body Ruddygore and his pet demon had formed for him long ago, the same body he was now supposed to destroy.
He turned and saw Mia standing there, looking at him. ”Well? Am I a new man or not?”
“The change is—dramatic, Master.”
“You don’t approve?”
“It is not for me to approve or disapprove. But it wears well on you, Master. No enemy is going to recognize you now.”
And that, of course, was the real point.
“It’s a very good haircut,” he told her, unable to resist.
She was about to respond when Doctor Mujahn came in. “Would you like your voice altered? Wouldn’t be much of a problem to raise or lower you an octave, you know, since your baritone’s about in the middle range. Give you a sore throat for a few days, but after that, fine.”
“No, this is more than good enough, Doctor. In fact, it’s positively brilliant. My apologies for doubting you.” He hesitated. “Ah—this beard and body hair is growing at a fantastic rate. It will slow down, won’t it?”
“Oh, of course. Give it a week and you’ll have enough to trim. After that, trim it every couple of days for another week, then it will have slowed to the normal body rate of about a quarter of an inch a month. The body hair will reach its own length and pretty much stop, but it won’t be replaced very quickly.”
“But it won’t fall out, or the colors wear off?”
“Oh, over many years, perhaps, but not otherwise. After about a year, the hair will have a tendency to go gray, but it can always be dyed. The rest—no, not without more treatments from me.”
He nodded. “Mia, fetch me my barbarian outfit and let’s go meet the critics.”
Marge was absolutely stunned. “It’s perfect!.” she assured him. “And when the beard comes in, you could go up to Bo-quillas himself and spit in his face and he wouldn’t know you!”
“That, my dear, is the whole idea,” Throckmorton P. Ruddy-gore put in. “I have had my staff work up a past history for you, by the way, as a cover story. It will hold up if you practice it. We’ve also worked out a route, of sorts, although circumstances might alter it. I’ll discuss it with you later.”