Jack L. Chalker - The Dancing Gods 3 by Vengeance of the Dancing Gods

Author:Vengeance of the Dancing Gods [Gods, Vengeance of the Dancing]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-15T01:12:27.761000+00:00

CHAPTER 11

RETURN TO EARTH

From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no life lives forever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne

THEY HAD COME OVER ON A FERRYBOAT AND NOW THEY returned on what looked like a miniature May flower. All sails were set, of course, and out of the gunwales great oars protruded and pushed the ship on. Whoever or whatever rowed below was something none of them wanted to see, and, indeed, all but the deck and upper cabins were closed to them. Inside quarters were quite cramped, but well-stocked with food, water, wines, and the rest of the best. Macore had one small beaten-looking Earth-type suitcase which he'd gotten from Ruddygore, and they had brought Irving, but otherwise they were going over cold. The sorcerer had promised that all they would need they would get at the other end.

There was also a small medical kit, with which Tiana continued to treat Joe. He had a number of bruises, what looked like a black eye, and several superficial but painful cuts.

"Damn it, ouch!" he started to say when she dabbed a particularly painful small cut. "At least you could have wished me to appear immediately in front of you!"

Tiana couldn't suppress a smile. The idea of a party of businessmen all seduced by a voluptuous nymph suddenly finding that nymph turning into a tall, dark, husky-looking man was pretty funny, considering how easily he'd managed to overcome mutual confusion, then mutual embarrassment and outrage, and fight his way out of there. Only slightly worse was the wound to his pride in having to march down to the front desk stark naked and demand to know if a Kauri and a mermaid were staying there, and angrily get into another fight when they hesitated to tell him.

Better for him was the fact that he had no memory of anything after being taken by the Master and no memory of the nymph experience at all. It hadn't been intended that way, but that had been the way the wish had been worded. He accepted the story, of course, because they were all there and confirmed it, and it certainly explained the changes in him; but if either Marge or Tiana said what a cute, sexy nymph he'd been one more time, he was going to slug somebody.

He really didn't look all that different. At six two he was a bit shorter than his barbarian form, but still a tall man; and at a fairly muscular two twenty, he was actually in pretty good shape. He looked a bit more Mexican and a bit less Amerindian than he had, and certainly his body was no longer the Mr. Universe machine it had been before, but he really wasn't changed radically. He'd been in good shape when he was twenty, after all. He'd been in the Marines at the time. Sexually, though, he was

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