Horrors of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

He jumped in, falling on the wooden floor, Larae spilling out of his grasp to his right. Poquah jumped aboard and pulled the sliding door shut while the approaching menace was still a good ten or fifteen feet from the car. The Imir looked around, saw an official-looking cherubic fellow in a blue uniform and brass buttons standing there beside two wooden levers, and shouted, "If you can get moving now, we might have a chance!"

  "Welcome aboard, neighbors," the conductor responded in a cheery voice totally inappropriate to the situation. Marge was reminded of an animatronics figure at Disneyland. "The Borgo and Donner Pass Transit System welcomes you to what we hope will be a pleasant experience. Please have your tickets ready for collection after we start. Otherwise, I'm afraid you will be dumped overboard and fall a few thousand feet to your death, and we wouldn't want that, now, would we?"

  The zombies had reached the car and were pounding on it furiously. One found a weak spot in the wood and punched through, a grisly arm dripping hunks of flesh emerging and grasped around for something to get hold of.

  Larae screamed and pointed, and Poquah severed the limb with his sword. The arm, drawn laboriously by its hand, continued in motion.

  "I'm sorry," the conductor said, eyeing the moving arm. "No pets are allowed on the line. I'll have to open the door—"

  "The hell you will! Get us out of here!" Irving shouted at him, putting the sword almost at the conductor's throat "We'll make sure it doesn't make the trip!"

  "He's one of those stupid character critters!" Marge shouted. "He isn't gonna break character unless— Hey! Look! They're leavin'!"

  Irving and the others looked and saw that she was right. The zombies had suddenly ceased their assault on the cars and were now shambling back in a fair semblance of a line toward the old town. Poquah stuck the severed but still living arm with his sword, impaling it, threw open the door just a bit, and, with a strong motion of the wrist, sent it flying. Closing the door quickly, he turned to the conductor.

  "I do not know what manner of creature you are," the Imir said in that cold but very frightening tone he used when he was very angry, "but if you fear iron, you will get some, and if a wooden stake is more to your taste, you will have that, too. Or we can just get moving. It is your choice. And if you are some sort of infernal mechanical device, we will find a way to run it ourselves. It is not as if we can get lost on this."

  The conductor's smile never wavered, and he never looked directly at Poquah or showed the slightest sign that he'd heard or understood anything at all that had been said to him, but after a few seconds' pause that seemed much longer, he suddenly announced, "All those with no business aboard should be off. Now leaving. Please take seats or stand holding firmly to a rail."

  Almost before Poquah could sheathe his sword, let alone get into one of the remaining wickerlike twin seats bolted to the floor, the conductor reached up, threw the first lever and then the second, then reached up with both hands and pulled them both back down again.

  The car shuddered; then, silently, it began to move. The speed was not great, but it was certainly adequate; the ground was soon far behind, and the clouds and dark rock wall seemed to approach with dramatic speed.

  Marge looked out at the deepening vista. "Gonna be dark soon and up in the clouds, too. Hell of an opportunity for someone who could fly at that altitude."

  "Don't invite trouble," Thebes cautioned her. "It finds us enough as it is." He turned to Poquah, who was sitting there frowning, staring straight ahead. "Are you all right?" he called to the Imir.

  "Huh? Yes, quite all right. I was just trying to think ..."

  "Yes? Sorry if I interrupted."

  "No, no. It wasn't coming anyway, and when it does not come immediately, then it is best not to dwell on it but let it simmer. It was just that when I opened the door, I could hear music of some sort in the distance, back toward the boat. Very strange music but something I have heard before, although not recently. I just cannot place it."

  "Didn't hear much of anything myself, but I wasn't listening for it," the little man replied.

  "How long does this trip usually take, Thebes?" Marge called to him.

  "Oh, two and a half hours, give or take. It is, after all, mechanical energy."

  She nodded as they entered the cloud bank. "Then we'll be at the top at about dark."

  Just at that moment they emerged again on the other side of the first layer, and she gasped at the sight of a bird the size of a small plane flying by just above them. Its sheer size and proximity bathed them in the vibrations set up by its wings and the rest of its anatomy as amplified by the rock walls, and it did seem also to be making a series of sounds.

  "My God! That thing's huge!"

  Thebes nodded. "Yes, it is a hard rock roc. Don't worry. So long as you remain inside, it won't bother us. The only problem you might have is if we meet one of its brethren, one that feeds on creatures with a high mineral content, particularly iron. They have been known to weaken or knock cold various faerie just by flying nearby unless you are prepared for them."

  "Yes," Marge sighed, wondering just how much of a comedian Thebes thought he was or if he was actually serious about this. "I can see that heavy metal roc would take some getting used to."

  Larae had straightened her skirt and managed to get herself feeling at least a bit more comfortable, but she was beginning to feel oddly chilled and wondered if her bag had made it.

  "I'll go check," Irving said, but discovered that not much had made it on that wasn't already in their hands. Marge had no luggage and carried nothing, nor would she have been strong enough, anyway. Thebes was supposed to take the two small suitcases, but now it was clear that he'd dropped them and just sprinted for the open car door in a panic.

  Poquah's small satchel with the money bag and whatever introductions and magical stuff he'd brought along was safe and on board, but there was not much else. Everything they'd bought of a tangible nature had been left behind.

  That bothered Larae a lot more than it bothered Irving. "Then this is all I have? Not even a comb or a brush, let alone a change of clothes?' She sighed and looked very unhappy.

  "Getting kinda chilly up here," he noted uncomfortably, "but other than that, I can stand it, particularly if it's this hot most of the rest of the way. Poquah can buy you the few things you need."

  "If we find another place with real people and stores," she retorted, then sat back and sighed. "I don't know. Perhaps I have been all wrong from the start on this, trying so very hard to keep my own sense of self-identity. If it wasn't for these," she added, touching a breast, "I'd be better off simply accepting it, cutting my hair very short, and simply deciding to become a boy. Then I could stop worrying so much about such things."

  Irving looked at her. "I don't know. There's too much about you of who and what you were—and in effect-still are—to ignore, even if that one thing is there."

  "You speak as if it were a trifle, like a mole or a deep voice. All I am saying is that the true curse isn't that being there so much as what you say—that I am almost wholly of one sex with the organ of the other. It is strange somehow, but do you know that I actually have been in some ways more comfortable this way?"

  "What!"

  She nodded. "I do not fear rape, since the rapist will only get an ugly joke on him, yes? I have had no period in almost a year now, with all that implies, and I cannot be made with child. There is a confidence in being male that you would not understand; you were born that way. There's certain freedom, a sense of independence and power that as a woman I was without."

  "Would you rather have been born a guy?"

  "Perhaps. I am still undecided on that. Certainly in my culture and in the others I have seen so far, the human ones, anyway, it is preferable if one ever wishes to break out and become someone important, do adventurous romantic things, and take chances on life. And of course, had I been born a boy, I would not exactly be sitting here now, would I? The curse was on the firstborn girl."

  "Is that w
hat you'd wish for, then?" he asked her, feeling a bit distanced from someone he was growing to like an awful lot no matter what her problems. "To have been born a boy or to become one fully?'

  She shrugged. "I do not know. That is the truth. Your prize is within the Rules. It may have powers to destroy worlds, but it might well not have the power to dissolve a demonic contract. We shall see. We will have to get there first."

  He nodded. "That was some maneuver you pulled back there with the zombie. Where'd you learn that?"

  "All good girls who wish to remain good girls take some sort of self-defense training in my homeland," she told him. "I am not very good with weapons, but at defending myself with my own body I am not at all bad."

  The cable car reached the top of the range, and there was a tremendous lurch and a sound as if the whole roof of the car were being marched upon by an invading army. A number of the car's occupants were thrown right out of their seats, and others were badly bounced around.

  "Nothing to worry about, folks," the conductor told them. "Just switching through here to be ready for the down side."

  That was reassuring, because the sun had set and they were surrounded by total darkness.

  Well, not quite total. In fact, for the first time in this land, and in full splendor, the sky was full of stars.

  Even Marge found the stars both friendly and familiar. They were essentially the same stars and constellations as on Earth, for this universe was in many ways a minor image of Earth.

  Now they cleared the tops of the peaks, and as they did, they passed the other car going back to where they'd come from. It was surprisingly lit up and seemed to be filled with ordinary-looking people standing and sitting and reading papers and looking tired like commuters on a subway heading home. Marge looked over at the "mechanics" on their car and realized that those others were more of the same. Fresh clichés were replacing tired old ones.

  Now they were on their way down, but there were few clouds in sight on this side of the mountains. Instead, there was a vast sea of blackness below, broken only here and there by solitary lights whose origins could not be guessed. From that height it wasn't unlikely that they were seeing eighty or a hundred miles, but if there was any city or town over there, it certainly was hiding itself well.

  It didn't appear that much weather of any sort made it over the mountain wall; all below, as far as the eye could see, was one vast desert.

  Larae's adrenaline and excitement had worn off, and she drifted off to sleep after a while, her head sinking over onto Irving's shoulder. For some reason it bothered him, as if it weren't right somehow now that he knew she wasn't all a she, but another part of him was torn by his respect for her. He really liked her in spite of it all, and it wasn't as if her situation were her own fault. With a very light sigh, he lifted his arm and put it around her.

  Damn it! I know what I would wish for if I had that thing, he thought in frustration, and it wasn't a true-blue boyfriend.

  It could be worse, he supposed. She could still have kept her old form down there, but with that demon adding teeth. Whoa! He had a sick feeling just thinking about that one. If he was going to start thinking like that, maybe it was time for him to take a nap, too.

  Marge looked at them and smiled. They did make a great couple, except for that one little detail that shouldn't matter but did. She'd been brought up too much one way, and Irving in another. Still, wouldn't that be the final nail in Joe's coffin if he saw this and knew all the facts!

  She went over to Poquah and gestured toward them. "Any hope for her?'

  "Difficult to say," he replied. "I do believe she is correct in that her initial situation is tied up in both a bargain and a curse. With the Lamp, which was a product of the djinn universe, it would not be a factor, but the McGuffin is within the Rules and was fashioned by artisans of our own space-time continuum. Remove the curse, and the original bargain is back in force and she becomes a sacrifice and property of the demon. You cannot wish away the bargain; that was sealed in blood with Hell on their continuum. I am not even certain she can very much change the way she is right now. The moment the wish is made and the original Lothar curse dissolves, Hell will enforce it, even if it is for mere nanoseconds. About the only thing that might be lifted is the geas, since that was imposed, not a part of the original bargain, and in our continuum."

  "So they're stuck?"

  "Well, she certainly is. Irving is still the same as always and has other options."

  "But you can see the attraction."

  "Yes, just looking at them, one can see many threads of common destiny linking one to the other. Of course, this isn't a fatal disease, since such threads are broken all the time by divorce, death, infidelities, and even plots, abductions, accidents—well, you know. His nature, fortified by his own views of his father and his father's condition and reactions, though, makes it almost inconceivable that he could find happiness in what would be essentially a homosexual relationship. She could, but not Irving. It simply isn't in him."

  She nodded. "And it's eating him alive." She sighed. "I guess there's always wishes to change some things, huh?"

  "Not for the likes of them," the Imir commented, "unless of course we can solve that Hell's bargain conundrum. Master Ruddygore is actually pretty good at that sort of thing, but there are many such that have no answer. I want no one thinking of this as a wish-at-a-time reward system. First of all, we haven't gotten it yet, and second, if we had it, we don't really know how to use it. It is supposed to be rather tricky. I have been given one wish, one statement carefully crafted by Master Ruddygore, and that is the only one allowable."

  She looked at him with a knowing smile. I wonder how you are going to enforce that, considering it's not you but most likely Irving or even Larae who'll set hands on it, if anyone does.

  She got up and went over to a window and looked out. Although it was very dark inside the car, by her own night vision and faerie sight she saw her reflection in the glass, and she didn't like what she saw at all.

  She was taller, thicker built, and more of a sexual bombshell than ever. She was also taking on a golden glow, and the reds in her skin were beginning to darken uniformly. She was far more than halfway across the line from Kauri to Succubus; it was almost impossible to see her old self anymore. It was something that should have angered and repelled her as the sight of such creatures always had before, but ...

  It didn't.

  She began to wonder if she could even try a legitimate tryst with Irving, whether she dared do so. The very idea she still had reservations about that provided some encouragement, but it didn't answer the question. Would Irving help her, or would she harm him irreparably?

  She stood there, studying that reflection, wondering how she could solve this problem, or, worse, if she really wanted to.

  ****

  Shortly before midnight they reached the other station. It wasn't much different from the one they'd left, except it had no zombies, no jungle, no old houses, no ... well, not much of anything, period.

  The welcoming committee consisted of one very large, very tall fat guy who spoke and was dressed like something out of the Arabian Nights and had that method of speaking where you could virtually see the exclamation marks.

  "Welcome! Welcome, effendis! Please accept my humble greetings to you all on getting this far! Come! Come! I am Ali ben Hazzard, your host for this next and final leg of your journey! Please! Come this way! We have tents over here, and sweet teas and fine coffees,, and a way to relax and get some sleep!"

  They all looked at Thebes. "Is this guy legit?" Marge asked him.

  "Oh, yes. He manages the prepaid expeditions to and from here," the little man assured them. "Why do you ask?"

  "Well, um, hasn't anybody told him that for a guy named Ali ben something who talks and dresses like that, he's not an Arab or a Persian? That in fact he's a Mongolian, or so it seems?"

  "Oh, yes, that. He knows. He just hopes you will not notice. I think there pro
bably was an Ali ben Hazzard many, many years and a number of owners ago. He is actually an improvement over the last one I knew here. He was a snake man with a nasty complexion and big reptilian eyes and all the rest. Made it next to impossible to believe anything he said. He kept saying everything with a forked tongue."

  Marge let that one pass.

  Hazzard's setup, virtually invisible from the air, was actually quite elaborate. Big tents, thick rugs, and silken coverings, all the comforts of a nomadic home.

  There was good stuff there, too: not just the teas and coffees promised but wines as well, and sweet rolls and a savory stew that ben Hazzard assured them had nothing more sinister in it than Iamb.

  "I didn't think there was anybody this straight and up and up on this whole continent," Marge commented to Thebes.

  The little man gave his Lorre-like chuckle. "Oh, he is one of those who is more or less the dishonest side of Yuggoth, really. You see, he offers absolutely safe and honest service at an incredibly exorbitant price."

  "What's dishonest about that?"

  "Why, I would think that it is obvious. What is a criminal enterprise? It is there to supply those things, regardless of cost, that society has deemed illegal or immoral but that the people want anyway. Here, everybody cheats, so you pay through the nose for honesty. It is that simple."

  Marge shook her head as if to clear it. "Yeah. Simple as calculus. Never mind."

  Ali ben Hazzard was a good host, and after they had eaten and drunk their fill, he took them to a large trough where there was actually tepid water for washing off, then showed them their small tent. It was big enough for them all but wasn't exactly built for privacy.

  "It is too late to make the journey tonight, so rest!" their effusive host told them. "Tomorrow you will rise, eat, and have a fairly easy day on your own, and then we shall set off after an early dinner while we still have some sun but the shadows begin to cool."

  "We're not going to travel tomorrow during the day?" Irving asked.

  He chuckled. "You must be joking, young sir. It is about as cold as it gets right about now and will remain this way until about dawn! Within an hour, the temperature will climb several degrees an hour and will not begin to decline until the sun is very low. At midday this desert is hot enough to fry brains!"