Horrors of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  There was no reply for a while as Poquah's legendary control was tested to the hilt, but as he was about to say something, there came the sound of huge crowds and rhythmic chanting that seemed to emanate from farther inside the valley. The friction within their company was forgotten for the moment.

  "That's from that structure they have been building," Poquah said. "It sounds like thousands of voices all gathered in some ritual."

  "I'm getting mighty curious about that structure," Marge told them. "I think I'm going to have a look at it from the air, from a spot where elevation will prevent me from having to get too close. Set up your camp. I'll be back!" And with that, she lifted off into the air and was soon lost beyond the treetops.

  Irving gave a low whistle. "She's sure changed. Cold and sexy at the same time, but dangerous-type sexy. The only thing I can see of the old Marge is the Texas accent." Poquah thought a moment. "I am inclined to move, since who knows what will happen if she's captured, but she is correct. We'd have to work our way through this in total darkness, and for all its sense of ancient power, it is not a true faerie wood." He sighed. "I warned Master Ruddygore that this would happen, but he dismissed it. Now we shall all have to hope that it works out."

  "What did she mean, none of us could stop her from doing anything?' Irving asked him, an odd thought occurring to him at that moment.

  "No matter what we were originally or behaviorally, we are all sexually male," the hair noted. "With great concentration, skill, and magical protections, we may well be able to stave off the power of a Succubus and not succumb to her, but we could never hope to reverse it. We can defend but not attack. It would take a true woman to do that—beg your pardon, Larae, but you know that does not include you—and even then, she is not defenseless. The primary difference between a Kauri and a Succubus is that one cleans up small messes while the other is an out-and-out predator."

  "That's kinda what I thought she meant," the boy replied. But he couldn't help wondering about that curse, that on-again, off-again curse that he had been assured by a true demon, minor or not, would work on all females who could and did cohabit with human males. That certainly would include a Succubus, a far more minor and elemental being under Hell's domain. If she could not resist him and he could not resist her, what would happen if they went head to head? He couldn't help but wonder—and hope that he didn't have to find out.

  ****

  Marge broke above the treetops with effortless ease and looked around at the spectacular setting they had not been able to see on arrival. The menacing presence of Mount Doom loomed over all else, tall enough that it seemed to make its own weather at the top, including dense clouds that interacted with the hot steam and lava in the caldera to produce local thunder and lightning storms around the top of the mammoth structure.

  It was in slow eruption from a flank volcano, but the lava stream was headed away from the valley and toward the ocean of the south coast not too far beyond. This valley was more on the inland side, which seemed at the moment to have least volcanic activity.

  It did, however, have activity of a different kind. Over alone the far side of the valley the forest had been cleared away, and a well-built road cut into the heart of the forest, ending at that central structure.

  It was a large rectangular affair, well lit by huge limelight arrays that bathed the central area as if it were daylight Startled, she realized that the two structures on either side were bench-type seats filled with living creatures and that they were moving in unison, one side and the other, but to different chants and in different rhythms, and that that was where the sounds were coming from.

  If she didn't know better, she thought, frowning, she'd swear... No, that was ridiculous! She had to know more, and that meant getting close enough to see just what was actually going on down there. The skies were not safe or unguarded; large creatures with bat wings and lizard faces rode night gaunts around and around in lazy patterns, but they were few, far between, and regular, easy to avoid. They were looking for bigger game and more dangerous menaces than she would appear to them in any event, but they seemed pretty calm and almost bored. Clearly they did not expect anything there, not so close to their heart.

  Slowly, cautiously, she approached; as she did, the chants from the two sides of the structure came to her in waves, and she was able to some extent to separate them.

  "Id! Cthulhu!

  Block that kick!"

  "Yd! Ed! Yog Sothoth!

  Hold that line!"

  As Marge watched openmouthed, she saw denizens—creatures—lining up on one side of the field clearly defending a goal before an opposing line of even more loathsome things. They quivered, they gibbered, they dripped, and they slimed, but they moved forward against each other for the prize, a prize that was terrified and very much bloodied but alive.

  One team seemed very much at a disadvantage; its creatures seemed to have oozed out of the sea and were very much off balance on land, lacking the coordination to battle the other side, whose own monstrosities appeared to be far more comfortable on land and in the immediate air. Just as defeat was staring them in the face, however, there was what could only have been a time-out, and when play resumed, the land-bound side was suddenly faced with a massive, countless horde of goatlike things chomping and slobbering their way forward almost in a wall.

  "Shub Niggurah! Shub Niggurah!" the Cthulhu crowd chanted, apparently delighted at the appearance of an ally.

  Marge turned away and decided to check out the rest of the valley while the creatures were preoccupied. How she was ever going to get the others to believe this, though, was something she didn't even want to think about.

  All this couldn't have been about building some stadium for some stupid, loathsome game, could it? Or did those names have other meanings? Were those in the stadium not perhaps merely playing games but goofing off, relaxing after a hard day's work?

  Certainly, from more of a distance, she could see and even feel what was too omnipresent to pick out closer in: the massive cloud of bizarre evil that seemed to be centered there, to be oozing from that point out to the whole of the world.

  Right from the center of that stadium, almost like one of those steam vents on the volcano over there.

  So the stadium wasn't just a stadium. Or perhaps it was more than a stadium. At night they goofed off, but by day they built, and a fissure in space-time opened there in the middle of the field and stayed open, spewing forth its evil ectoplasmic ichor.

  It wasn't all that clear whether there was any other development anywhere in the valley, though, and all those creatures, as loathsome and horrible as they were, were recognizable as having once been far more normal-looking and probably native to here. If there was an entity—something new, special, and not of this universe—it had yet to show itself. If it was still in the valley, though, it was hard to figure how it could hide from faerie sight, if only by a sudden cessation of it.

  She tried to remember the map of the valley they'd gotten from Macore. Over there, on a line from the stadium and then just a wee bit farther up. Up inside the rocks, that very different grove of trees—that was it! She looked back toward where Poquah had made camp and scowled. So cautious and so limited!

  She flew just above treetop level in hopes of attracting no attention and went over toward the spot where she was certain the McGuffin lay. It would take a mortal to get it—she understood that—but if she could spot it and scout a decent route, they might be able to do this in nearly record time. It was beginning to look like a real piece of cake in spite of it all.

  She recognized the tree almost immediately. It was set off from the rest, and it had its own sort of meadow completely surrounding its vast, thick trunk. The local trees even seemed to bend in just slightly toward it as if deferring to its age and rank, and it was certainly old.

  It was unlike any other tree in this forest or in fact most other trees anywhere, but she had seen its kin. Not exactly the same, but you could tell the relat
ionship. This tree, even in darkness, exuded multiple metallic bands of color on the faerie level, glimmering beautifully as it displayed the entire spectrum. Closer in, the trunk seemed almost golden, the leaves like copper or bronze, and the fruit, the perfect fruit, like .. .

  Little green apples.

  Once she'd seen the Tree of Life. Now she was in the presence of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

  One bite, she thought bitterly. One lousy crunch and it screwed everything up for everybody. She couldn't help but wonder what would happen to anybody who had a second bite of the fruit. It wouldn't matter. It had stained the souls of all creation and brought death and judgment to humankind. The knowledge of good and evil ...

  It had cursed the faerie, too. Some in the Garden had failed to prevent the disobedience or even had egged it on. So the faerie had been cast out of Heaven as well and condemned to lose to mortal humankind on Earth and be driven here to await the final judgment.

  Somewhere within sight of that tree was the Great McGuffin. She looked around, seeing at last a lava extrusion in back of the tree at the edge of the grove, going up and blending into a rise. It looked a bit like a stage and a bit like an altar as well, but it didn't look like the hiding place for anything important.

  Still, it had to be there, and they were, oh, at worst, under five miles from their final destination.

  She suddenly felt a strong pang of real danger, not from above but from below, from the grove! What? Who? she wasn't sure, but it was very strong and very menacing; it was alive, and it was down there.

  And something about it was hauntingly familiar.

  She was being probed! Something horribly evil down there was checking her out! She decided to get the hell out of there immediately and sped off as quickly as possible back toward the camp.

  Her new confidence shaken, she regained most of her composure before she got back to the others after she determined that whoever or whatever had discovered her was not following.

  Of course not, she thought nervously. It knows we either have to come to it or give up, and either way it wins. Poquah wasn't going to like this at all, either.

  ****

  He didn't, but he seemed more relieved at her return and her report than concerned about it.

  "As you say, it suggests an easy task," he agreed. "Why should they trouble themselves with a heavy defense, manhunts, and the rest when they know we must come to them? How much of a force do you think they have around there?"

  "Impossible to say, but I didn't sense anybody. That one was more than enough. I don't remember ever feeling that kind of power or that strange and alien a sensation from it, either, but the funny thing is, I did find something familial there. I just can't put my finger on it!" She suddenly stopped, frowned, and looked around. "Where is Joel Thebes?"

  "What!" Poquah shot around and surveyed the scene, looking for auras, and he found two where there should have been three. "I thought it smelled better here, but I couldn't be certain!"

  "He said he was going to take a leak," Irving noted. "That was quite a while ago now, but I guess I just didn't think about it."

  Marge surveyed the whole area. "Well, he's gone now. You want me to try and find him? I might be able to put the come-hither on him if he still has anything between his legs."

  "No," the Imir replied. "However, it does mean that we can no longer stay here under any circumstances, and that means you must lead. Whether he is a traitor or simply blunders into one of them, he will betray us all. Get us closer to this grotto, and we will see what we might be up against"

  "You're not going to try it tonight!" She was appalled at the idea. "You haven't experienced that—thing—out there."

  "Not tonight, no," Poquah agreed. "However, close to dawn is a different story."

  "What have you got in mind?" she asked him.

  `Think about the situation. This entity obviously knows that we must make a try for the McGuffin. It must also be assumed that it has at least a reasonable idea of who and what we are by this point. The most important thing is that the McGuffin is still there. It hasn't been used, nor is it currently in anyone's hands. That means the entity can't get at it, either. Possibly all those on his side, even the mortals, get so corrupted with this alien plasma that it prevents them from picking it up as well. I do not think they will stop us. I am not even certain they will try to capture us, although I could be wrong in that. They want one of us, probably Irving, to pick up the McGuffm. Then they will move without giving him time to use it."

  "And you're still going for it? Now?"

  "Yes. The entity must be cursing itself right now. It made a mistake in probing, in betraying its location and its power to you. Now we know it is there. What is the commonsense approach?"

  "Lay off. Try and figure a way in. Sneak in, if possible."

  "Exactly. It will not, I hope, be quite so prepared for us rushing straight in as quickly as possible. We will gain nothing by putting it off. We need to act. Now, tell me about what you saw at the structure and the entities you heard as exactly as you can while we gather up what we have here and make ready to shift position."

  "You aren't gonna believe this."

  "Perhaps. What were the names?"

  "Forgive my pronunciation problems. One sounded like Cath-oo-loo."

  "Cthulhu. Ancient master of all the waters. Yes."

  "Yog something or other."

  "Yog Sothoth. Master of the Air, the Lurker at the Threshold. He will be first through, for he and his followers alone have the key and power to punch through. Any more?"

  "Shub somebody."

  "Shub Niggurah. The Goat with a Thousand Young. Yes, very consistent. The seed of this one, that pantheon's symbol of fertility, bears careful watching. You won't be just a pleasure nymph under her. You will be used to help breed what they require. Remember that!"

  "If she's a goat who has all those kids, why does she need me?"

  "Regardless of form or attitude, you were never stupid before, so please do not start now. The goat is often associated with fertility, as are the rabbit and the egg, the symbols of Ishtar upon which your own cult originated. Likewise the satyr, the male nymph, Pan, half-human and half-goat and all the time on the make. It is difficult to say what kind of creations she would make of such as you, but you would not be pleased."

  "I get the idea. So, as usual, we're all the way here with no hope and everything against us, huh?"

  "That about sums it up," he agreed.

  "Figure the entity needs the McGuffin to complete his opening, right? That's why it picked here. Something has blocked him, probably something in the Rules, which it's still stuck with until the takeover, right?"

  "Yes."

  "So somewhere there's a way for us to win. The Rules demand it."

  "That is certainly true," the Imir agreed. "However, finding it simply can't work every time ..."

  Chapter 15

  The Entity Strikes Back

  Old enemies are more likely than new enemies to be at the root of plots.

  —Rules, Vol. VI, p. 297(a)

  There was more activity in the woods than there appeared to be from the air or from their initial base not far inside.

  Proceeding through the dense thicket, they found a honeycomb of well-developed trails, some obviously quite recent. 'Now and again there were users of those trails as well, causing the four companions to scramble for cover and hold their breaths—and occasionally their noses—until the creatures were long gone by. They included a small corps of the fish-eyed monsters Marge thought of as cousins of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, looking very much out of place there, as well as furry man-sized things with drooling mouths and hideous laughs and cries and others too indescribable and unimaginable to handle.

  Clearly many, if not most, had once been human or faerie and had paid a price for crossing over to this third side, a price they were now too insane even to realize they had paid. Perhaps they had seen what no mind could conceive; per
haps it was a rite of initiation. The fact remained, they saw a great many creatures as they went those few miles in, and at no point did they see anything remotely familiar.

  Because of their nature and their insanity, however, those creatures did not keep order and discipline well, as predicted. Only one group, in fact, seemed to maintain any semblance of military bearing as it marched past, and those looked like a cross between trolls and minor demons. They did, however, have a good snappy march and could be heard singing as they passed nearby.

  "Now Sauron had no friend

  To help him in the end;

  Not even an orc or a slave.

  It was dirty Fordo Baggins

  What kicked his little wagon

  And laid poor Sauron in his grave!"

  "Haven't they got the wrong mythology?" Marge whispered to Poquah.

  He shrugged. "Perhaps. Perhaps they changed sides. Perhaps all such denizens of the Sea of Dreams think they're going to emerge victorious."

  "Not much farther now," she told them. "Just up here. I don't see or hear much in front of us, so maybe they'll only have a token guard on the place."

  "Don't bet on it," the Imir responded. "This is the one place they know we must come. Irving, you cannot hesitate. You know the words. The moment you have the McGuffin in your hands, you must say them no matter what happens, no matter who pops out, no matter who gets threatened or killed. It is our only hope."

  Irving nodded in the darkness, although he was feeling less and less sure of himself on this.

  They reached the edge of the meadow, well within sight of their goal, and Marge put a finger to her lips for absolute silence, then pointed.

  Even in the darkness it was easy to see the area. The Tree of Knowledge gave off its faerie glow, and all of them had faerie sight; beyond, they could see the outcrop, and Irving saw something more.

  "Right there," Irving whispered very quietly. "In the hillside in back of the flat rock, there's some kind of recess with something in it. I bet that's it."