Horrors of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  Thebes nodded to confirm this. "It is probably about thirty now—ninety-two or so Fahrenheit. Tomorrow, forty-five, even fifty is not unheard of, and fifty-five is common farther inland. Is that not so, friend Ali?"

  "Indeed it is, effendi! Not for nothing is the Great Rift often called the Worse Than Death Valley! So sleep!"

  And after a while they did. After the discomforts of the ship's deck and its eternal wetness and hard sacks, the rugs and silk over sand were a blessed relief.

  Marge, of course, did not sleep but wandered outside. The heat made no difference to her; she felt neither cold nor warmth in any measure, and once you've jumped into liquid lava a few times, the kinds of temperatures bandied about for this desert didn't seem all that big a deal.

  She was simply trying to decide .what to do.

  It took a couple of hours, with late half-moon rising well in the sky, before events made her decision for her.

  Someone stirred, then slipped as silently as possible out of the tent, probably too troubled to sleep or perhaps just overtired. Marge was surprised to see that it was Larae.

  A thought suddenly struck Marge, and she found it quickly maturing into an irresistible impulse, and she'd been faerie too long to resist one of those.

  She went up behind Lame as the girl stood not far from the tent, looking at the moon. Suddenly she heard someone and turned and saw not Marge but Irving there. Only it wasn't Irving, not exactly. It was some kind of dream Irving, some idealized Irving from her own mind and fantasies ...

  Although very real, the cleansing eventually would lead Larae back to sleep, in which she'd have more peaceful dreams and awake refreshed, unsure of any true action but remembering it as a kind of fantasy pleasure.

  Larae had certainly been in need of it, and Marge was quite pleased that she'd been able to control it and limit it to the old ways. Not long ago she could have gone a week or more before feeding again from a load of guilt like that, but after this she was still hungry. She might be able to restrain herself, pace things, if Irving didn't present an opportunity, but Marge knew she'd find it next to impossible not to follow through if Irving should walk out of the tent at some point the way Larae had.

  It was worse than she'd thought. She was becoming insatiable ...

  Within twenty minutes a disturbed-looking Irving came outside to look at the moon.

  ****

  The heat of the day fully lived up to its billing, and the current Ali ben Hazzard still lived up to his effusive hospitality, although Poquah found himself paying for all sorts of extras that might well have been considered essentials. Guaranteed wholesome food, for example, was horrendous; no guarantee, well, that was pretty cheap, but you use those grungy pots over there. Water? No problem! Oh, you want a cup! Well, that's different!

  Irving and Larae both slept very late and awoke quite close to each other. It was very strange how he felt this morning, the boy thought, but damn it, she seemed somehow ten times more attractive than before—and he'd been attracted to her since his first glimpse of her back on the big boat.

  But it was wrong, damn it! He couldn't get around that. He couldn't do what he really wanted to do with her, even though somewhere in the back of his mind was a nearly perfect sensation that somehow they'd done exactly that, impossible though it was. They could be friends, but how could they truly be lovers?

  Larae felt no such reservations even though she had exactly the same sensations and vague half memories that must have come out of dream but still seemed so real. She would try very hard to break down that conflict within him; it had bothered her only culturally before, and somehow it troubled her not a bit now. Still, if this mad expedition somehow succeeded, she knew that one way or another she'd get her hands on that thing they were seeking long enough for just one wish. One wish she'd thought of that would solve it all.

  They had a midday siesta, then a substantial dinner with the sun perhaps ten degrees above the horizon. Finally it was time to move.

  Irving looked around. "I don't see much in the way of camels or horses," he noted. "What are we supposed to do? Walk?"

  Ali ben Hazzard looked at him with those almond eyes and grinned. "Of course not, effendi! How would we ever get anywhere with mere camels in conditions like this?" He removed what seemed to be a panpipe from a pocket in the folds of his robe and blew a series of notes on it

  Three broad Persian-style rugs approached and braked to a stop.

  "Ohmigod!" Irving exclaimed.

  "Very good models, effendi, among the best!" Ali assured them. "Now, I want each of you to get a bit of practice before we go. I would not want to lose you out there in the middle of nowhere!"

  "Flying carpets?' Marge yawned. "Fascinating. No handholds, though, I note. Doesn't bother me, but I'm not too sure about the rest of you."

  "Oh, you will need them as well, madam!" ben Hazzard assured her. "I do not think that anyone flies this fast. Your destination is more than a thousand kilometers that way!" he noted, pointing to the south and slightly west. "If all goes well, we will make it, with one brief stop, in about eleven hours. Now, come! It does take a bit of practice, you know, and if you fall off and survive, we will lose time. We do not want to be aloft in daylight!"

  It appeared that flying carpets weren't quite as easy to handle as in the old tales, that was for sure. For one thing, the speed was quite good, but balance was the key, and that meant lying pretty well flat and making certain that anything you did was balanced by what someone else did.

  The first carpet was to have the "mechanics," along with some freight. After some balance tests, a couple of the vacuous fairies were shifted to ben Hazzard's carpet.

  Irving, Larae, Poquah, and Marge were on the second, or middle, carpet, arranged pretty much to balance out the weight. Again, some small boxes and such were placed in the center, along with a supply kit. The general rule was, no matter what you did, you held on to the carpet, and you never stood up.

  Ben Hazzard himself, along with Thebes and the leftover "mechanics," made up the third and final carpet, along with probably the most freight.

  The first carpet seemed to have kegs rather than boxes, and a hopeful Thebes asked what the kegs contained.

  "A yellowish dye, effendi! I have an order for it, and it is quite rare! Very difficult to get! You need to go into the dark jungles and find a particular giant insect, a member of the tick family but one which feeds on certain very large plants rather than animals. It is very lazy, and it simply lies on the plant and drains its juices slowly over time. Inside its stomach, the interaction of plant and tick juices can, if the tick is removed and cut open, result in a very good dye! Different plants produce different colors, but those are yellow, one of the rarest colors!"

  It was still not quite dark, but Marge, hearing this outrageous explanation, shook her head and wondered just how little inhibition of any sort she had left. It was so very, very tempting ...

  "How do we go to the bathroom?" Irving asked ben Hazzard.

  "If you cannot hold it until the break, use the container in the back. Yes! That squared wooden one there! Just remember how fast you are going and always be the last one to the rear of the carpet, eh?"

  Irving looked at it and sighed. "Yeah, okay. So I guess it's time now, huh?"

  They got on their carpets, lay down, got one more set of cautions from ben Hazzard, and then it was time. The caravan master played a series of notes on his pipes, and slowly, ever so slowly, the carpets rose up into the air until they were lined up in the light of the setting sun about thirty feet above the desert in the order ben Hazzard had determined.

  "Ready?" the man with the panpipes called. "All right, then! We go! Hold on!"

  He played a few notes, and slowly the first carpet, then the second, and finally the third moved out in a direct line toward the south-southwest, accelerating as they did so, the wind picking up and blowing against them as they went faster and faster.

  Marge couldn't stand it anymore. Not at a
ll worried and stuck like glue to the front of the carpet, she sat up and pointed.

  "Okay, everybody. Follow the mellow tick woad!"

  If any of them got it, they didn't give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

  Chapter 13

  Castle Rock

  Always be respectful to the King of Horror or you will be eaten alive by lawyer birds.

  —Rules, Vol. RIR, xiv, advice in Preface

  It wasn't difficult to see castle rock, the heart, soul, and center of Yuggoth. It rose up out of the vast, basically flat desert floor like a gigantic black monolith, dominating all it surveyed.

  Everyone was impressed, and Irving's eyes narrowed. "Hey! Those look like lights up there! Earth-type lights!"

  Poquah nodded. "I believe you are correct. I never expected to see such a thing here. It is against the Rules."

  "Not right there," Irving shouted over to them. "I remember that from the Rules volume before creepy pants dropped it! The reigning monarch of Yuggoth has a dispensation: almost anything he or she wants, as long as it's limited to this area and only this area. This is real power, the kind even Ruddygore can't do!"

  "He doesn't have to," Poquah noted. "He can go to Earth any time he chooses, and he still chooses to live here."

  "What happens when we get there?" Lame asked them. "I mean, I thought you already knew where you were going."

  "True, but nobody else knows that," Irving explained. "Besides, it'll be easier with the passes and blessings from this character."

  "Be respectful to the King if you should get into his presence and remember to remain respectful about him while in his immediate area. Remember, everybody up there works for him and is totally dependent on him for their present and their future. Anyone who can reach this status has enormous power, at least the equal of the continental powers of all the other great Council members, and in addition, just like them, undoubtedly has a somewhat well-deserved ego. You don't get and keep such a position without it. Just let me do most of the talking and keep a low profile otherwise! We have come very far in a very short period of time. It wouldn't do to screw it up now, and I have the very strong impression that this fellow almost doesn't care if Hell or the invaders win. He's apparently so powerful, he can work with either one! He's doing this strictly as a favor."

  Marge had the most brilliant night vision, and she stared at the great rock in wonder. It did look like a gigantic castle on top, a function not only of buildings there but also of the rocky spires and prominences, but the rock itself was very odd, too, and amazingly regular. In fact, if she didn't know better, she thought, she'd swear that it was a gigantic Earth beer can. It was almost as if she could see the label on it. S-T-R—nope. Couldn't make out any more.

  Had to be her imagination, she told herself. That was absurd. Good lord! Was that a lighthouse on top? In the middle of the desert they needed a lighthouse?

  The top did in fact resemble a rocky coastline, except that the drop was sheer and there were buildings all over the place, mostly old and Victorian style, which brought back unpleasant recent memories of a similar if smaller place at the end of the jungle. Fortunately, this was well lit, looked nicely maintained, and had what were clearly mostly real people going to and fro on top. She wondered how they got up there and where they came from.

  Well, at least there isn't a gigantic pull tab, she thought with some relief.

  The carpets slowed, turned, banked slightly, and began to settle down in a nice pattern on a broad grassy area right in the center of the mountaintop.

  There was a welcoming committee of several serious-looking men and one or two women all dressed as if they shopped at L. L. Bean. It was kind of like landing at a heliport except that there weren't any engine noises or down-draft from rotor blades.

  A man of about fifty with a graying beard, long-sleeved work shirt, faded jeans, and boots came up to them, a corncob pipe puffing in his mouth. "Howdy!" he greeted them in a clipped, straightforward accent that sounded of extreme New England more than of this world. "Welcome to Castle Rock! Name's Latimer. I'm the first secretary here. What brings you out here?"

  "I am Poquah, an Imir in the service of Ruddygore of Terindell," the elf responded, standing in relief and bowing slightly. "My companions are Marge, a Kauri; Master Irving, Ruddygore's ward; and Larae Ngamulcu, who has joined us and, um, proved quite useful. The fellow coming over now from the other carpet is Joel Thebes, who might already be known here."

  "Yeah, I know him," Latimer almost spat. He clearly knew him in a way that most people didn't want to be known. "How'd you get hooked up with the likes of him?"

  "He is in our employ. Native guide, as it were. The rest of why we are here I shall have to discuss with His Majesty if it is at all possible and with the utmost urgency. I believe he has been expecting us."

  Latimer nodded. "Could be. I'll have to contact him and see. He's asleep right now, but he should be up in a few hours. In the meantime, why don't you all come with me. We have a nice hotel here, the Overlook, which has spectacular views by day and all the amenities."

  Poquah looked uncomfortable. "Um, I fear that friend ben Hazzard has managed to deplete our fortunes far more than we anticipated."

  "Oh, there's never a charge for our guests. Not at the Overlook," Latimer assured them. "However, the rules are quite different here from the whole rest of the world, and we tend to assign some regular staff to newcomers until they can get used to things here."

  "If you mean electrical power, we are pretty well familiar with it," Poquah assured him. "I have been to Earth many times with Master Ruddygore, who can do it whenever he wishes, as you might know, and the lad was born there and probably remembers enough. Even the Kauri is from Earth; she is a changeling. Of them all, only the lady there is native; so as long as she remains close to us, I see no problems."

  "From Earth, eh? So am I, in fact. So are a bunch of folks here. I'm from Portland myself, a long time back."

  "I'm from a small town in west Texas nobody ever heard of," Marge told him. "The boy's from Philadelphia."

  "You don't say! Small worlds, I suppose. Outside of the Rock here, you usually run into Earth types only after they've been dead a while. Stay away from the folks in the fourth-floor west wing of the hotel, though. They're all from Hollywood, and you ain't seen sleaze until you set down with some of 'em." He looked around. "You see how the machinists work, so I don't have to tell you their limits. Boss wants some maids, he materializes some maids. Right impressive, but that's all they are. You probably won't have much of a problem, but you always got to watch people and things round here. Boss has a stray thought, almost anything can happen."

  "Comforting," Irving muttered.

  Latimer thought for a moment "You know, young feller, come to think of it, you ain't the first one through these parts from Philadelphia."

  "Huh?"

  "Yep. Never got to Castle Rock, of course, but we pretty well know who comes through the land round here. Didn't see her myself, but she was some kinda changeling, too."

  Irving felt his stomach knot slightly. "A wood nymph?"

  Latimer shrugged. "Could be. Didn't get that much detail. Lost track of her a few weeks ago, though. She went down toward the south. You might have heard we're havin' a bit of a disturbance down them parts lately."

  "I've heard," the boy responded. "But we've been looking for hi— her, and you am the first one in quite a while to report that she got this far. She's a relative. It's my hope we can find her."

  "Lots of luck if yer headin' down that way," Latimer told him. "Me, I'd rather stick with the usual demons, vampires, ghosts, that kind of thing. Even the boss thinks that way, although he's so damn brainy, he still wants to see what in hell comes through. Me, I say leave 'em."

  "Us, too," Marge assured him.

  Joel Thebes yawned and stretched. "It is amazing how doing nothing for hours and hours can make you more tired than running many miles," he commented. "Come, friends. The hotel is the fines
t on this world and perhaps the finest anywhere, and its bar is like no other as well. They will tell His Majesty about us when he wakes up. Let us relax and enjoy what may be the only luxury we have left this trip. I have a feeling that once we leave here, it is going to be very rough indeed."

  That at least made sense. "Lead on," Marge told him.

  ****

  After breakfast they got word from the hotel that the King would indeed receive them and that a messenger would come to take them over. The messenger proved to be a small boy with a very pale complexion even in the daylight.

  "He's pretty busy right now," said the strange little boy, who said his name was Sammy, at the door of the King's palace, "but I think he'll fit you in. Just follow me. We don't stand on nearly the ceremony here that most folks expect, but you do have to have a good stage setting to keep the locals impressed."

  He led them to a large tower on the far end of the top of the rock. Around the sinister-looking spire, sitting on black ledges, were huge birds of a kind none of them had ever seen before. Each was the size of a man and had the face and neck of a vulture, yet they all wore dark humanlike suit jackets, top hats, and glasses and clutched battered leather cases in their hands. Every once in a while someone would come to an open window and call, and the nearest of the huge birds would come over, take something from the person at the window, stuff it into the case using its feet, and fly off.

  "Lawyer birds," Sammy explained kind of nonchalantly. "We need a ton of 'em around here, both goin' after others and defending ourselves. Seems like it never ends. Hey, here we are! Come on in and enjoy the show!" With that he opened a large wooden door, revealing a vast and otherworldly corridor.

  The great entrance corridor that took you into the presence of the King of Horror looked like nothing so much as a Grand Guignol version of the Wizard's palace in The Wizard of Oz movie. The motifs were blood red and sickly green streaked with blacks and browns, though not emeralds, and the statuary and tableaux along the way were gruesome in the extreme.