The River Of Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  She stared at him, then over at Joe, half in shadow, and caught sight of the pistol in his hand. “Hey what’s this all about?” she called to him, disturbed.

  “The man says I’m dead, honey,” Joe told her. “He says I’m about to have a fatal accident. He says he’s a conjure man.

  Other than that, he’s said nothing at all.”

  Her mouth opened, then closed and she looked confusedly from one man to the other. She was not a small woman, but she felt dwarfed by the two giants. Finally she said to Ruddygore, “Is he right?”

  Ruddygore nodded. “I’m afraid so. Unless, of course, he takes me up on my proposition.”

  “I figured we’d get to the point of all this sooner or later,”

  Joe muttered.

  “Exactly so,” Ruddygore agreed. “I’m a recruiter, you see.

  I come from a place that’s not all that unfamiliar to people of your world, but which is, in effect, a world of its own. It is a world of men and others both very much like and very different from what you know. It is a world both more peaceful and more violent than your Earth. That is, there are no guns, no nuclear missiles, no threats of world holocaust. The violence is more direct, more basic say medieval. Right now that world is under attack and it needs help. After examining all the factors, I find that help from outside my world might have a slight edge, for various reasons too long to go into here. And so I look for recruits, but not just any recruits.

  People with special qualities that will go well over there. People who fit special requirements to do the job. And, of course, people who are about to die and who meet those other requirements are the best recruits. You see?”

  “Let me get this straight,” the woman put in. “You’re from another planet?” She looked up at the stars. “Out there? And you’re whisking away people to help you fight a war? And we’ve got the chance to join up and go or die?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Ruddygore admitted. “Although you are not quite right. First of all, I have no idea if you will die. I had no idea you would be in the truck. And, as an honorable man, I must admit that he might be able to save you if, after returning to the road, he lets you off. Might.

  He, however, is in the situation you describe. Secondly, I’m no little green man from Mars. The world I speak of is not up there, it’s well, somewhere else.” He looked thoughtful for a moment.

  “Think of it this way,” he continued. “Think of opposites.

  Nature usually contains opposites. There is even, I hear, a different kind of matter, anti matter, that’s as real as we are yet works so opposite to us that, if it came into contact with us, it would cancel itself and us out. When the Earth was created, my world was also created a by product, you might say, of the creation. It’s very much like Earth, but it is in many ways an opposite. It runs by different rules. But it’s as real a place as any you’ve been to, and, I think, a better, nicer place than Earth in a number of ways.”

  Far off in the distance there seemed to come a deep sound, like a boat’s whistle, or a steam train blowing off. Ruddygore heard it and turned back to Joe.

  “You have to decide soon, you know,” he told the driver.

  “The ferry’s coming in, and it won’t wait long. Although few ride it, because only a very few can find it or even know of it, it keeps a rigid schedule, for the path it travels is impossible unless you’re greatly skilled and well timed. You can die and pass beyond my ken to the unknown beyond, or you can come with me. Face it, Joe. What have you got to lose? Even if you somehow could beat your destiny, you’re only going through the motions, anyway. There’s nothing for you in this world any more. I offer a whole new life.”

  “And maybe just as short,” the driver replied. “I did my bit of soldiering.”

  “Oh, it’s not like that. We have many for armies. I need you for special tasks, not military ones. Adventure, Joe. A new life. A new world. I will make you young again. Better than you ever were.”

  Something snapped inside the driver. “No! You’re Satan come to steal me at the last minute! I know you now!” And, with that, he fired three shots point blank at Ruddygore.

  The huge man didn’t even flinch, but simply smiled, pursed his lips, and spat out the three spent bullets. “Lousy aim,” he commented. “I really didn’t catch any of them. I had to use magic.” He sighed sadly. The whistle sounded again, closer now. “But I’m not the devil, Joe. I’m flesh and blood and I live. I am not a man, but I was once a man, and still am more than not. There are far worse things than your silly, primitive devil, Joe that’s part of what I’m fighting. Come with me now. Down to the dock.”

  Joe looked disgusted, both with Ruddygore and with the pistol. “All right, Ruddygore, or whoever or whatever you are.

  It don’t make any difference, anyway. I can’t go. Not if I can save her. You understand the duty.”

  Ruddygore nodded sadly. “I feared as much when I saw her in the cab. And for such a motive I can’t stop you or blame you. Damn! You wouldn’t believe how much trouble all this was, too. What a waste.”

  “Hey! Wait a minute!” the woman put in. “Don’t I get to say anything about this?”

  They both looked at her expectantly.

  “Look, if I had a million bucks, I’d bet that I’m still sound asleep in that truck up there, speeding down a highway toward El Paso, and that this is all a crazy dream. But it’s a great dream. The best I ever had. I’m on my way to kill myself.

  I’ve had it up to here. I gave up on this stupid, crazy world.

  So I’m dreaming or I’m psycho, in some funny world of my own. Okay. I’ll take it. It’s better than real life. There’s no way I’m going back to that life. No way I’m getting back in that truck, period. I’ve finally done it! Gone completely off my rocker into a fantasy world that sounds pretty good to me.”

  Ruddygore’s face broke into a broad, beaming smile. He looked over at the driver. “Joe? What do you say now?”

  “Well, I heard her story and I can’t say I blame her. But I’m the one who’s gone bananas, not her.”

  “Dreams,” Ruddygore mused. “No, this is no dream, but think of it that way if you like. For, in a sense, we’re all just dreams. The Creator’s dreams. And where we travel to is out there.” He gestured with a cane, gold tipped and with a dragon’s head for a handle. “Out across the Sea of Dreams and beyond to the far shore. So take it as a dream, the both of you, if you wish. As a dream, you have even less to lose.”

  The pistol finally went down and was replaced in Joe’s pocket. He looked back at the truck. “Maybe we should get our things.”

  “You won’t need them,” Ruddygore told him. “All will be provided to you as you need it. That’s part of the bargain.”

  The whistle sounded a third time, very close now, and Ruddygore turned to face the dark direction of its cry. “Come. Just follow me.”

  Joe looked back at his truck again. “I should at least kill the motor and the lights,” he said wistfully. “That truck’s the only thing I got, the only thing I ever had in my whole life that was real. This ferry I don’t suppose...?”

  Ruddygore shook his head sadly. “No, I’m afraid not. Your truck wouldn’t work over there. The captain would never allow it, anyway, because we couldn’t get it off the boat and it would take up too much room. But don’t worry about it, Joe. It’s not really here, you see. It’s somewhere back there, on your Interstate 10.”

  With that the truck faded and was gone, lights, engine noise, and all, and they were in total darkness.

  The whistle sounded once more, and it seemed almost on top of them.

  Chapter II

  Across The Sea Of Dreams

  Travel between universes shall be difficult and highly restricted.

  - XXI, 55, 44(b)

  The ferry came out of the darkness, floating on a sea of black. It surprised them that it looked very much like the old ferryboats an oval shaped, double ended affair with a lower platform for cars, an
d stairways up both sides to the upper deck, where the twin pilothouses, one at each end of the boat, flanked a passenger lounge of some sort with a large single stack rising right up the middle. The sides of the car deck weren’t solid, but were punctuated by five large openings •on each side, openings without windows or other obstructions, yet the car deck could not be seen through them.

  Each one of the huge, round holes had a gigantic oar sticking out of it. The oars were in a raised position, seemingly locked in place. It was clear from the engine sounds and the wisps of white from the stack that the captain was using his engine.

  “I never saw a ferry except in pictures,” the woman remarked, “but I bet nobody ever saw one with oars before.”

  Ruddygore nodded. “The engine’s in good shape for settling in on this side, but, once out on the sea and to the other shore, that kind of mechanical power just isn’t possible to use.” He paused a moment. “Ah! It’s docked! Shall we go aboard?”

  Joe stood there and stared for a minute. “Funny,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “I swear I’ve seen this thing before someplace. Way, way back and long ago. When I was a kid.”

  He scratched his head a moment, then snapped his fingers.

  “Yeah! Sure! The old Chester ferry. Long, long ago.” He peered into the gloom, but the illumination from the passenger deck allowed him to see what he was looking for. “Yeah. There on the side. Kinda faded and peeling, but you can still make out the words ‘Chester Bridgeport.’ I’ll be damned!”

  Ruddygore nodded. “It takes many shapes and many forms, for it’s shaped from history and from memories, the backwash of the world flowing backward into the sea whence it came.

  It is as it is because of your memories, Joe. But come! I don’t want to keep it waiting; as I said, it has a schedule to keep.” He paused briefly. “You’re not having second thoughts now, are you? Either of you?”

  Joe looked at the woman, and she shrugged and gestured ahead with her hand. “Guess not,” Joe replied dubiously. As Ruddygore led the way, first she and then the trucker followed, still more than a little uncertain of it all.

  Even stepping onto the ribbed metal of the car deck, they both felt an air of dreamy unreality about the whole thing, as if they were in the midst of some wondrous dreaming drug or, perhaps, comatose and in some fantasy world of the mind.

  Still, both looked in at the cavernous car deck and saw nothing. Nothing at all. It was totally and completely dark in there, with not even the other end of the boat showing.

  Ruddygore led them to the right stairway and saw them peering into the dark. “I wouldn’t be too anxious to see in there,” he cautioned them. “The ones who row this ship are best not seen by mortal human beings, I assure you. Come.

  Climb up to the lounge with me and relax, and I will try to answer your questions as best I can.”

  Hesitantly, they both followed him, still glancing occasionally at the total dark that masked whoever or whatever could manage oars that had to weigh a ton or more each.

  It was quickly obvious that they were the only passengers, and the lounge, as Ruddygore had called it, was deserted but they had obviously been expected. A number of wooden chairs and benches were around, looking a bit shopworn but not too bad; in the rear, around the stack and its housing, was a large buffet table filled with cold platters and pitchers of something or other.

  “Just take what you want whenever you feel hungry,” the sorcerer told them. “The red jugs are a fair rose, the yellow a decent if slightly warm ale. Use any of the flagons you see they’re public.”

  The engines suddenly speeded up, and there was the faint but definite sensation of moving, moving back out into the dark. But moving where? And on what sea?

  “What are we floating on desert?” the woman asked.

  Ruddygore cut himself a hunk of cheese, poured some wine, tore off a large chunk of bread, then sat down in a chair that creaked under his great weight and settled back.

  “We are heading across the Sea of Dreams,” he told them between large bites and swallowed.

  Joe decided he might as well eat, too, and followed Ruddygore’s lead, except for taking some sliced meat as well and the ale rather than wine. “I never heard of a Sea of Dreams,” he noted. “And it sure ain’t in Texas.”

  Ruddygore chuckled, “No, Joe, it sure ain’t. And yet, in a way, it is very close to Texas and everyplace else, for that matter. It is the element that connects the universes. It isn’t anywhere, really, except well, between.”

  The woman wandered out onto the deck for a moment and stared down at the inky blackness. There was the strong feeling of movement; wind blew her hair, wind with an unaccustomed chill in it, but there was no sound of water, no smell of sea or brine.

  She shivered in the cold and came back in to join the others.

  “That sea is that water?”

  Ruddygore reloaded with meat and half a loaf of bread and settled back. “Oh, no. But it has the consistency of water and the surface properties of water, so you treat it that way. In truth, I couldn’t begin to explain to you what it actually is.”

  He thought a moment. “The best way to give you at least a sense of it is to provide you with a little background.”

  Both passengers settled down. “Shoot,” Joe invited him.

  “Go back to the beginning. I mean the real beginning. The explosion that created your universe and mine. Where was the Creator before He created the universes?”

  Joe shrugged. “Heaven?” “But he created the heavens and the earth, also,” Ruddygore reminded them. “Well, I’ll tell you where He was. Here. And when He created your universe. He also created all the natural laws, the rules by which it all operates, and He generally has played by those rules, particularly in the past couple thousand years or so. But when He created your Earth, there was a backwash from all that released energy. As it surged from here toward your universe, an equal suction of sorts was created that resulted in the creation of another world indeed, another whole universe on the other side of here. The force of it was such that it was totally complete but it wasn’t the universe He was interested in. Realizing, though, that it was there. He turned it over to associates who were around. Angels, you might call ‘em, although that’s far too simple a term.” Ruddygore paused to Stuff his face with gobs of meat and cheese, washed everything down with most of a pitcher of wine, then continued.

  “The other universe was, of course, a mess, since it was more or less a backwash of yours. Much natural law held, but not enough to make any real sense out of it. It was chaos. How it was in reality is totally beyond imagination, I assure you, but it was an environment more alien than any other planet in your universe. It was madness beyond imagining, and it was obvious to those angels in charge that it must be stabilized, must have rules like those in the universe you know. But these were, after all, angels, not the Creator, and they could only shape what the Creator had wrought, not really change it. The result was a set of Laws, absolute Laws, governing how my universe and my world would operate. These Laws incorporate the basic physical laws needed for such a place to exist at all, but only the Creator can think of everything. Thus, the Laws of my world are, shall we say, soft. The simple ones, particularly on the local level, are subject to change.”

  “Huh?” the woman responded. “You mean, nine out often times that you drop a rock it goes down the way it should but one in ten times it might go up? Or just stay there, suspended in midair?”

  “Ah, something like that,” the sorcerer replied. “Basically, that rock will drop every single time unless someone with the knowledge and the will applies them to that specific rock.

  It won’t do otherwise on its own, I assure you.”

  “This place we’re goin’,” Joe put in. “It’s got people and stuff?”

  Ruddygore chuckled. “Yes, Joe, it’s got ‘people and stuff.’ It didn’t at the start, but the angels implored the Creator, once they’d gotten it set up, and He shifted a small group fr
om your world over to mine. From that first tribe come the populations of today. And in the millennia that have passed since then, they’ve developed into different races, different cultures, just as on your Earth. Not quite as diverse, but diverse enough, and this despite the fact that there are far fewer languages there than on your Earth. It’s not as important as you might think, that different language business. In your world almost all those peoples to the south of your own country, and many in your country, speak Spanish, I believe yet there are many cultural differences among those peoples, and many countries that are quite different from one another. Geography and isolation do as much to make people diverse as language.”

  “You know a lot about our world,” the woman noted. “Do your people visit us?”

  “Oh, my, no!” Ruddygore laughed. “If they did, they’d soon be corrupted beyond belief. In fact, very few can cross the Sea of Dreams, and none as of now can do it until and unless I will it. You see, this is my ferry, and it’s the only one.

  Oh, others can see the Sea and others can try the crossing, but it is tricky and dangerous. Impossible to cross, in fact, unless you know exactly how to do it. Fail and you will merge with the Sea, returning to the mind of the Creator and you, yourself, will cease to exist. This is more than death. Your very soul is swallowed and merged back into the primal energies below us. You are gone in true death.”

  “You’re telling us that there is a soul an afterlife?” the woman pressed eagerly. “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “Well, there is a soul, yes. Miss just what is your name, anyway? We can’t keep calling you ‘that woman’ all the time.”

  “Marjorie’s my real name,” she told them, “but mostly I just go by the nickname of Marge.”

  “All right Marge,” the sorcerer said, nodding. “At any rate, yes, you have a soul. All the humans have souls, and a few of the others. But as to the fate of those souls there are a lot of things that can happen. Evil can destroy a soul outside as well as internal evil and leave the body empty. The soul can wander, or it can be trapped, or a million other things can happen. Otherwise it definitely goes somewhere, a somewhere from which it occasionally, but very rarely, returns. And there are, it seems, a lot of somewheres for that soul to go. Let’s not get into that now.”