Free Horrors of the Dancing Gods by Jack L. Chalker Page B

filthy trio was nonetheless bigger than bears and looked twice as mean.
     
    Alvi seemed entranced by the prospect of crossing the big river and oblivious to most of the unspoken parts of the deal, but standing on the rail near the bow as they pulled away from the dock, she seemed excited and relieved.
     
    "It's a good thing you are ahalfling and me a wood nymph, considering this," Joe noted sourly. "I have a good idea that if we seemed to have any value ourselves, we'd wind up being tied up and sold down in Yingling."
     
    "Really? They do that?"
     
    "Sure. Back where I came from they called it 'Shang-haiing' somebody, after a city way off on the other side of the world where the ships would often be headed in ancient days. Unable to get sailors to go on those long and risky but very profitable voyages, they just hired men to find people in the bars, drug or knock them out, and they'd wake up well out at sea, where they either signed on as crew or got tossed overboard with lead weights. Most of 'em signed. The women, well, they were sold as domestics, field workers, prostitutes, you name it. Not much different here. There's still things like slavery here, too, handy if you have a need for planters and pickers and such back in those huge jungle plantations. That's why most of the good guys here travel in groups. The bad guys, too, come to think of it."
     
    "Well, all I can say is that I don't see the world as quite as nasty as you," Alvi noted. "I'm sure that's all part of it, but there's so much more. It's kind of pretty here on the river, with all those creatures in the water, all the boats big and small, the colorful costumes—I am really getting to like it in spite of how mean some of 'em can be." She sniffed. "I have to admit, though, its smells leave something to be desired right now." She discovered that any exposed part of her that touched any part of the ship got covered in some thick, foul-smelling black stuff. Joe was not immune, either, but chuckled.
     
    "It's peat, I think. They take it out of bogs up north, and it's burned for heat. It's cleaner than the dung, but it's no winner."
     
    "They cook with it?" Alvi was appalled.
     
    "No, they don't usually cook with it," Joe told her. "They use wood for that, if and when they can find it in condition to be properly burned. Sometimes oils. It's used to heat their houses. It gets extremely cold up north, I can tell you."
     
    Alvi thought that over. "I—I think I know what you mean, but I don't remember ever being so cold that I had to heat the inside of a place. Is that where they make the snow?"
     
    'Well, it's not made, it just falls. Temperature gets cold enough, it snows instead of rains. It's all water. They pack alot of snow and ice in special boats now and use preserving spells to sustain them all the way downriver here so the rich folks can have chilled wines and store meat and fish for several days or even weeks."
     
    "That's the only way I ever saw it," Alvi acknowledged. Do you think we'll get to anyplace that's really cold on this trip?"
     
    "Not for a while, I hope." Joe laughed. "We're in the tropics and heading south into more of them. Where from there, though—that's what we have to find out. Ihope we stay warm. I can take the cold, but not for long periods, and it can slow me down. If I freeze, I can be stiff for years, centuries, maybe forever, until I'm thawed out. And if you freeze, you're dead. I had enough cold stuff the last time, in the place where I wound up like this. I think I'm owed the heat."
     
    It took about ninety minutes to make the full downriver crossing to the very small town of Azkim, and by that point and with scrambling to get out of the boat, both of them were black as, well, pitch.
     
    "Now what?" Alvi asked Joe.
     
    "First, I think we find a shallow river access and wash this crap off us. Then we'll find a place for you to buy something to eat, and we'll camp somewhere close. Too late to do much more today.