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been happy here. For
    the first time in my life since I was a kid, I've been happy. I
    really like this place. And now, somehow, I'm afraid again.
    This—whatever it is—is forever. What if I don't like it? Or
    what if they don't accept me? What if I change into somebody
    you and all my other friends don't like or can't relate to? It
    seems that every time I have something right, it goes wrong."
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    He squeezed her hand tightly. "Don't worry so much. You'll
    have a real home here, with people you can call your own.
    None of the people of faerie I've met are any kind of holy
    terrors if you just treat 'em as people. Besides, Ruddygore said
    we were gonna be a super team, and he wouldn't say that if
    we couldn't stand each other, right?"
    She smiled and kissed him lightly. "You're right, I guess.
    But I can't help worrying."
    She was able to go to sleep after that, but she started him
    thinking in odd directions, some of which he didn't like. He
    wished for one thing that he were as confident of this changeling
    thing as he made out. He really cared for her, and that made
    her special in more than one way. He also valued her because
    she was his only link back to Earth, to the world in which both
    of them had been born and raised. Oh, sure, Ruddygore went
    back and forth all the time, but he was still a man of this world,
    not of the other, and he was hardly around all the time. Joe
    needed Marge, he knew—she was the one link he had to all
    that had been his world. He couldn't help but fear that she
    would have no such need of him—not after this.
    No matter how he sliced it, after tomorrow she would be at
    least as much of this world as of their native land, and she
    would have roots, family, tribe, grounding. Not he. Even here
    he was the outcast, the outsider, the barbarian from a far-off
    land that didn't really exist.
    The Kauri would be her new roots, her anchor, he knew—
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    Chalker, Jack L - Demons of the Dancing Gods
    but she was the only family he'd ever have here. He wasn't
    like her. He'd never read all those books, dreamed those fancy
    romantic dreams, the way she had. He hadn't wanted to be
    here and had never felt at home here.
    He wondered what all those trainees who watched him knock
    their arrows from the air and all those people who cleared the
    streets for him would say if they knew that this big, hulking
    brute of a muscleman was scared to death.
    CHAPTER 4
    BECOMING AN ELEMENTAL SUBJECT
    Faerie seats of power may not be invaded by mortals without
    permission without exacting severe penalties.
    —Rules, XIX, 106(c)
    THEY REACHED THE BIRD'S BREATH, LITTLE MORE THAN A
    creek at this point, about midday. The air was hot and thick
    and insects buzzed around them in constant frenzy, setting up
    a cacophony of buzzing sounds. Marge halted and turned to
    Joe.
    "This is where we split up," she said a bit nervously. "Make
    camp somewhere along here and wait for me." She turned back
    and pointed to a dark grove of trees beyond the small river.
    "That is the start of Mohr Jerahl."
    He stared at it, but could tell no difference between the
    forest they'd been traveling through and the one on the other
    side. Still, he knew, there was little to distinguish the Glen
    Dinig from the surrounding countryside, either, and it was
    certainly a real and, for him. deadly place. "I still think I should
    go with you, at least as far as I can," he argued. "You don't
    know what's there, really."
    "No. Absolutely not. First of all, you remember Ruddygore's
    warning. That's magic over there, Joe—a place of enchantment."
    "If you remember, Irving and I have done pretty good against
    enchanted places and things. As for Ruddygore—he's not my
    father, whom I never listened to, anyway. I paid my dues to
    the fat man; he don't own me any more—just rents me for a
    bit."
    She grew alarmed at his stubbornness, remembering Hus-
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    DEMONS OF THE DANCING GODS
    peth's very dark scenario. As