“I can’t, either,” Joe replied. “We need to get closer, and, right now, that would set off every alarm they have with them outside. Man! What I wouldn’t give for a telescopic rifle right now! Just a couple of shots and it would all be over!”
Marge wasn’t listening. “Whoever that girl is, she’s hanging all over Sugasto. Funny, I never thought he’d be interested in that kind of thing. I—oh, my God!”
It was said so sharply that it almost triggered the other two’s escape instincts. Joe calmed down, noting that a Kauri heart beat just as hard as a human one when scared. “What?” he managed.
“That girl with Sugasto! It’s Mahalo McMahon!”
“Can’t be,” Joe responded. “The Dark Baron was—” It hit him. “—in the body of Ma— Oh, my God!”
“They are together!” Marge added, stating the obvious. “For some reason, the Baron’s still in her body!”
“Could be he no longer knows how to get out of it,” Joe suggested, staring. It was the Hawaiian’s body. That was clear now. “Maybe Sugasto thinks it’s in his interest to keep the Baron like that, too. Who knows what Rules came into play?”
“Perhaps,” Mia suggested, “the Dark Baron has found that he likes being a young and attractive woman.”
“The Baron had as much interest in sex as a grapefruit does,” Joe replied. “But if that’s still him in that body, then it doesn’t matter about the rest, just as it doesn’t matter if the old bastard’s a coequal, Sugasto’s mistress, or his spiritual advisor. What it does mean is that the best mind in the history of sorcery is coupled with an incredibly powerful sorcerer. And our two most hated enemies are united and we’re walking right into their lair!”
“Uh-oh! Watch it!” Marge yelled, and all three took off as suddenly a beam of blinding yellow light emerged from the black-robed sorcerer and headed right for them.
The ledge on which they’d been standing a fraction of a second earlier exploded with a loud bang, throwing fragments of rock all over the place.
They weren’t waiting around to find out what came next, plunging rapidly over the other side toward the lowlands below.
“Look out behind and above!” Marge warned them, although they could barely hear her. From behind them, over the cliff wall, emerged a shimmering web of gold and crimson magic strings, woven tightly like a net, yet expanding like some gigantic firework. It descended rapidly now, continuing to fan out as it did so, and none of the three were sure they were going to make it when the thing finally got to their level.
Joe felt a burning sensation on his feet and legs but the thing barely brushed him, then dropped on past. Still, he felt suddenly terribly weakened, drained of energy, and was forced to the ground. He looked around, suddenly exhausted, and watched it drop just behind him and contract, singeing the ground a bit as it did so.
The other two were ahead of him; they had to have cleared it. But, man! What a hell of a piece of sorcery that was, and all extemporaneous! That guy has gotten good! he thought angrily. Too good. He looked down at the petite Kauri leg that had been just missed and saw an angry-looking welt, the kind he’d get from pressing his real leg against a hot stove.
That was the one trouble with the were curse, he thought grumpily. Only silver could really kill you, but whatever was tried still felt like the real thing and hurt like hell.
He tried to fly, but made it only a few yards before coming down again. He just didn’t have the energy. That thing, whatever it was, had drained him. He tested the leg, but even though it hurt like hell, he thought he was able to walk. How far was that place from town? Twenty miles, maybe, but that was air miles. And how far had they gotten away? He looked back at the cliff. Maybe four, five miles as the Kauri flies, tops. A long walk, and Kauris weren’t built for walking. Worse, some kind of alarm would be raised, if only because the Bentar at the roadblocks and on patrol would have seen the net spell as well and guessed the rest.
It was a vast area and he was now quite small, but if they brought in some aerial patrols of those creatures near the army camp, his pale passionate pink glow wouldn’t be hard to differentiate from the rest of the landscape. The best thing to do, he decided, was to find some cover and just lie low. Come sunup, he’d be himself again, stark naked and still grounded, but in much better shape to handle that kind of journey. He worried most about Marge and Mia. When he didn’t show up, they might well assume he got captured in the net. That would impel Mia, at least, to try and find him. He hoped that Marge could keep her from doing that.
There was the sudden sound of leathery wings high overhead, and, despite the pain, he ran for the cover of a nearby small stand of trees. The same wings that made flying so wonderful were real inhibitors in a run, catching the air and nearly pulling him off balance, but he made it. The real question was whether or not he’d been spotted from the air before he did.
This is ridiculous! he thought to himself: I’m a guy whose mortal flesh was changed by a curse into a Kauri and I have the fairy soul of a wood nymph! All that, and here I am huddling in the dark.
Wait a minute! Was there something that one of those perverted oddities might give him? There were a ton of Kauri tricks, if he knew how to do them. Unfortunately, these bodies didn’t come with owner’s manuals.
Currently, he was all fairy, and wood nymphs and Kauris were closely related. If he still had the wood nymph part, then maybe he could mate with one of these trees. It was a perfect. hiding place, but even if it were possible and he knew how to do it, there were real problems with it. Suppose it really worked and he was stuck forever as its nymph? Or worse, suppose he mistimed things and the sun came up and he changed back into Joe? Either thought was pretty ugly.
He heard horses and the shouts of men and Bentar, and there was still the sound of wings above, and they were coming closer. He tried to think, and realized that thinking what Joe would do was the wrong way to go. Joe was mortal and had quite different attributes. The real question was, what would Marge do if it were her here instead of him?
Marge, he realized suddenly, wouldn’t do anything. She’d let go, relax, clear her mind completely and with discipline keep it that way, letting the fairy part take complete control.
“Check those trees!” a Bentar snapped to subordinates, who galloped toward him.
Go blank, go blank, let instinct take over…
Slowly he pressed back into the nearest tree, backing up against the hard, tough bark.
Something gave, and the bark seemed almost spongelike, enveloping him just as the first Bentar reached the grove.
“Beat all the bushes and check those treetops!” the Bentar sergeant ordered.
“Uh—you mean climb ’em?” one of the soldiers asked.
“No, I mean flap your arms and go up and tweet like a bird!” their chief responded sarcastically. “Of course I mean climb ’em!”
Joe was enveloped in a cocoon of darkness, yet he could hear them clearly. Suddenly he felt little, painful pricks and felt a tremendous itch. With a shock, he realized that he was feeling what the tree was feeling, and the Bentar was using its clawed hands and feet and climbing! He could feel the creature on the branches above, but it was like a monkey on an elephant in comparison. The Bentar soldier poked and probed, but finally shouted down, “There’s nothing up here, sergeant!”