Wizard

He stopped and turned. Behind him was a light brighter than any he had seen in ... he had no idea how long. There was a low rumble that he realized had been on the edge of his hearing for quite a while. There was the sound of a distant explosion.

"What's that? Is it-"

"Hush. No questions yet. I ... Valiha, get him down behind that rock. Stay as low as you can until-"

Suddenly a voice was speaking through an amplifier. The echoes distorted it almost beyond recognition, but Chris heard his own name and Valiha's. More flares burst and floated gradually down on little parachutes, and the roaring became the familiar sound of helicopters. The voice was Cirocco's. She had come for them at last.

41 Entry of the Gladiators

The dancing man met them again as they stepped from the elevator. He was just as elegant and just as enigmatic as he had been the last time, his face in shadow, a dazzling shine on his shoes, with white leather spats, cane, top hat and tails. Robin stood silently with Chris and watched, not daring to interrupt. The dancing man executed a series of pullbacks with easy aplomb, went into a twirling motion whereby his head seemed locked in place until a flicker of motion brought it completely around.

"Well, I don't understand the cathedrals either," Chris sighed when he was gone.

Robin said nothing. She recalled from her last visit the kind of song and dance Gaea would do as she manipulated people for her amusement. Everything would have significance, and she did not expect to understand it all. The dance had left her cold; she was going now to listen to the song.

"I keep having this dream," she said. "We sit down with Gaea, and the first thing she says is, 'Now for the second part of your test.'"

He looked askance at her. "At least you've kept your sense of humor. Did you bring your novelty palm buzzer?"

"Already packed in my luggage."

"Too bad. How are the feet? You need any help?"

"I can manage, thanks." She had already noted that she did not need the crutches here in the hub. Her feet were still bandaged, but walking on them in the low gravity caused no pain. She and Chris made their way through the jumble of stone buildings, this time without a guide.

Heaven was just as she remembered it. There was the same monstrous rug, the scattering of couches and elephantine pillows, and low tables heaped with food. There was the same air of gaiety rubbing elbows with blank despair. Gaea sat in the middle of it, holding perpetual court for her retinue of idiopathic angels.

"So the soldiers return from the wars," she said by way of greeting. "A bit subdued, a little the worse for wear, but, by and large, intact."

"Not quite," Chris said. "Robin is missing some toes."

"Ah, yes. Well, she will find that has been taken care of if she wishes to remove her bandages."

Robin had been getting strange feelings from her feet all during the walk but had thought it was the phantom awareness she already knew well. Now she lifted her feet and felt through the bandages. They were back, all ten of them.

"No, no, don't thank me. I can hardly expect your thanks when you would never have lost them without my interference in your life. I took the liberty of correcting what I took to be a slip of the tattooist's needle when restoring the bit of snake that formerly adorned one missing digit. I hope you don't mind."

Robin minded a hell of a lot, but she said nothing. She would find the change, she swore, and have it lasered out and put back the way it had been. Gaea was right to say she was subdued-during her first visit she would have shot Gaea for such a suggestion-but she still had enough pride to resent tampering.

"Have seats," Gaea suggested. "Help yourselves to food and drink. Sit down, and tell me all about it."

"We prefer to stand," Chris said.

"We were hoping this would not take long," Robin added.

Gaea looked from one to the other and made a sour face. She lifted a drink from the table beside her and tossed it down. A sycophant hurried up and put a new one in the wet ring left by the first.

"So it's like that. I should expect it by now, but I'm always a little surprised. I'm not denying you took risks you would rather not have taken. I suppose I can to some degree understand your resentment for having to prove yourselves before receiving my gifts. But consider my position. If I gave the things I have the power to give for free, I would soon be swamped with every mendicant, solicitator, fakir, conjuror, sponger, and just plain bum from Mercury to Pluto."

"I don't see the problem," Robin could not resist saying. "There are plenty of chairs, and you've made a good start already. You could form a choir."

"So you still have a sharp tongue. Ah, would that I were human so its delicious lash would sting properly. Alas, I am indifferent to your contempt, so why waste it? Save it for those who are weak, who desert their comrades in time of need, who weep and soil themselves in the depths of their fear. In short, for those who have not proved themselves as you have done."

Robin felt the blood drain from her face.

"Did anyone ever tell you," Chris put in quickly, "that you talk just like the villain in a cheap murder mystery?"

"If you are telling me so now, you are the twelfth this year." She shrugged. "So I like old movies. But I tire of this. The second feature of the night begins in a few minutes, so-"

"What was the dancer about?" Robin blurted. She was surprised as soon as she asked it, but for some reason she felt it was important.

Gaea sighed.

"Do you people cherish no mystery? Must everything be made plain? What's wrong with a few minor enigmas to invest your lives with a little spice?"

"I hate mysteries," Chris said.

"Very well. The dancer is a cross between Fred Astaire and Isadora Duncan, with a few pinches of Nijinsky, Baryshnikov, Drummond, and Gray. Not the actual people, mind you-though I'd love to rob a few graves and sift bones for genes suitable for cloning-but homologues made from the records they left in life, written up in nucleic acids by yours truly, and given the breath of life. The dancing man is a very adept tool of my mind, as this meat is also a tool," Gaea paused to thump her chest-"but he is a tool nonetheless. In a sense, both he and this speaker dance in my brain; this one for talking to ephemeral creatures, he for a purpose I will get to in a moment. But first, I would expect that despite your distaste, you are curious to know the answer to a certain question, namely: did you or did you not grab the golden ring? Will I send you home as you are or cured?" She lifted an eyebrow and looked at each of them in turn.

Robin, though it pained her to admit it, was all ears. Part of her said that it was all right, that she had not set out to play Gaea's game, and if she had done something along the way to earn the prize, it would be monumental stupidity to refuse it. But something deeper whispered treason. You did not fight very hard when invited on this geste, it said. You always wanted the prize. But she would not let Gaea see her eagerness.

"I always like to get your own opinions first before a

"No opinion," Robin said promptly. "I don't know how much you know of the things I did or failed to do. I might as well assume you know it all, down to the blackest secrets of my heart. This is an interesting reversal, I guess. Before, it was me who scorned your rules and Chris who was fascinated by them-or at least I thought he was. Now I don't know. I've thought a lot about the things that happened. I'm ashamed of many of them, including my inability when I got here to admit any human weaknesses. Whatever you do or don't do to me, I've gained something. I wish I knew exactly what it was, and I wish it didn't hurt so much to have it, but I wouldn't go back to what I was."