DG5 - Horrors of the Dancing Gods

by Chalker, Jack L

  He sighed. "I know. It was stupid of me to get that spell taken off, but what can I do?"

  "I don't think it was stupid at all. I think it was dumb to put it on you in the first place. Kids should grow up feeling normal and learning how to handle things, damn it."

  "Yeah, yeah. It was only because I managed to get that curse on me that women pay any attention. Ruddygore got upset, worrying that with that kind of power and the studies I was doing at the time I might go evil right off the bat. He wanted to prevent that, and I guess he did, until now. But here I am, and going evil is what everything inside me says to do."

  Marge gave him a sympathetic chuckle. "Evil is sometimes absolute, but it's also sometimes in the mind of the beholder. Heck, Irving, I'd be glad to give you some relief except that I also feel like your aunt. Besides, I couldn't do it tonight, anyway—not anymore tonight."

  He looked at her squarely. "I'm not sure I dare do it with you. Nothing personal and all that, but you're a little scary since we got here. A lot more than on the boat over."

  It was her turn to be startled. "Huh? What do you mean? I feel great! And my kind of creature never looks or is better than when she feels this good."

  "Um, Marge, I'm getting double vision just looking at you. It's like there are two of you standing there. It's why I didn't quite recognize you until you were actually here. You're changing, Marge, and maybe getting a little scary."

  "What? Huh? I don't feel any different. In what way am I changing?'

  "Poquah said it to me, but I didn't really believe him. That you'd—feed—on locals with no consciences at all, consuming parts of souls rather than cleaning them."

  "Succubi do that! I'm not a Succubus!"

  "Not yet, but you're getting there. You notice you're taller? You barely came up to my chest before; now you're maybe shoulder-high. Your colors are growing darker in faerie sight, and your wings are starting to look a little less like an insect than a fairy."

  She grew suddenly alarmed. If Irving was telling the truth ... "What color are my lips, Irv? My lips. Simple question."

  "Um, look crimson red to me."

  She gave a sigh of relief "Not deep purple, not black? Then there's still time."

  "Yeah? But how will you eat? Aren't you in some kinda trap here, sort of like me?'

  "I'll find some way. There has to be one, otherwise the Earth Mother would never have commanded that I come, nor would Ruddygore have let me. Damn! This place corrupts you, and you don't even notice!" She sighed. "Irv, hold on. I'll figure something out for you and maybe for me, too. Can you hold out another day and night?"

  He shrugged. "I dunno what I can do anymore. I never imagined I could feel so—so driven, so much like an animal or something. I was always in control."

  She nodded. "Yeah, I know. Just hold on for a day and a half or so until I can get some of it worked out. Won't mean a damned thing if by the time we get to Mount Doom both you and I are already in Hell's service, will it?'

  "I—I guess not. But I almost feel like I am right now."

  She managed something of a grin. "Don't worry about that. You'll feel like that many times. Just make sure it isn't permanent." She paused a moment. "And stay off Larae unless she wants it, you hear? You dragged her in with us; now don't betray that trust!"

  "I won't," he assured Marge, but it was an easy promise to make. After he'd returned that afternoon, he hadn't been able to resist testing out this new power on her, at least to an extent. It hadn't worked. She hadn't even seemed to be aware of him trying.

  All that, and he couldn't even attract the girl of his dreams! It wasn't fair.

  Man! That was some curse she had!

  The mystery of the rails in the streets of Red Bluffs had been solved the first day they'd arrived; now they were taking advantage of what the locals called the "omnibus" service to move themselves and their gear to the river embarkation station.

  Power was by the old traditional method: horses or, in the case of freight, oxen. The only reason it didn't give the whole city a certain, well, air, was that the same underlying alternate reality that had gone after the big man's body back on the broad street a few nights earlier also seemed really to love manure.

  "Below is not Hell, but below is where those whom the princes would punish or discipline for offenses against themselves are sent," Joel Thebes explained. "It is not a pleasant existence. Just a short while in it is sufficient to turn the strongest will to their bidding and keep it on the path of total obedience. Most everyone who winds up in their clutches spends at least a little time there, just as a sample. It is usually enough. I suspect that this experience is where the idea of Hell as a place of eternal punishment came about. Hell is actually quite nice, quite comfortable and regal. It is where the so-called bad angels, whom the Greeks named demons, live and have lived since before Eden. The souls that come to them, which, let us face it, constitute the majority of those from both Earth and here, wind up either rewarded for services rendered while alive or as slaves to those who live there. Most do not consider it fun, but it is no lake of eternal fire. That is what is promised for all of them, demons and minions and slaves alike, if the other side wins the final battle."

  Irving's eyebrows went up. "You mean there's some doubt about which will win?"

  "They seem to think so. Otherwise why bother at all? But if these others come over, if they displace Hell as the opposition, as it were, then it could be the worst of everything, you see. Better the devil you know than the ancient horrors you don't."

  The river launch was a modest affair, resembling the passenger craft that sailed the River of Dancing Gods. There would not, however, be much in the way of privacy aboard or comfort, either, and the trip promised to be quite boring. Too small for diversions or private assignations, too, which suited Irving, at least for now.

  It was, however, a fairly elaborate two-masted schooner with emplacements for oars if the need arose. In addition to their own party, it appeared that about a dozen others were traveling upriver, possibly all the way to their own destination.

  They were a curious-looking lot. All humans, more or less—at least as much as Joel Thebes was human—but all of them looked, well, somewhat sinister and not quite legit. That is, they all looked like characters out of bad soap operas, at least to Irving.

  That one there was a tall, dark stranger; one woman was the malevolent housekeeper, another woman, the damsel in distress. One tall fellow looked like a cartoon mortician; another, the crazy doctor or mad scientist.

  "They are all machinists for the King," Joel Thebes told them.

  "Machinists?" Irving repeated. "What kind of machinists would those people be?"

  "They're called deus ex machinists, I believe. His Majesty employs a million of 'em. They're obviously returning to work after some rest and relaxation. Stay away from them. They tend to be nothing but trouble and complications."

  Even Marge, as dull-witted as she was in daylight, admitted to herself that these clichés looked definitely overworked.

  The captain and crew had red faces and horns on their heads and sort of looked like human-sized satyrs of a diferent color, but they also seemed pleasant and capable enough. To them this was just a job, another routine trip.

  "Stow your gear and yourselves forward of the mainmast," the mate told them, pointing to the bow. "You'll have to sleep on deck, you know, being such last-minute add-ons. You can make a tent of insect netting there. It's not very hard."

  Poquah looked it over and sighed and shook his head. 'Looks like very close quarters. Oh, well, it's only for—now long on the river, Mister Thebes?'

  "Against the current, probably five days. After that it'll be by caravan to the capital. Well, it could be worse. Doing a overland and on your own, this could take months."

  The river didn't seem all that huge even here, deep though it obviously was, and Irving wondered about where it led. "Anything dangerous that might threaten us up ahead?"

  "There is always s
omething," Thebes responded. "Nasty jungle animals, voodoo witch doctors, cannibals: things like that during the jungle part. More nasty creatures across the mountains, then desert to the capital. Just keep your eyes and ears open as usual and don't worry so much. This ship races back and forth all the time and loses very few passengers."

  "Haven't lost one in three return trips," one crewman commented, overhearing Thebes' assurances. "Past due, probably. We usually lose a few every other trip." That was not exactly what any of them wanted to hear.

  Still, at precisely noon the small sloop was pushed away from the dock and began going upriver, first with oars and rhythmic tom-tom beat, then, when the sea breeze began later in the day, with sail.

  Irving, out of curiosity, went to check on who the oarsmen might be who could power this boat and almost wished he hadn't. They were monstrous, misshapen creatures, things of nightmare, having in common only muscles and miserable expressions.

  It didn't take long for the city and its lights to fade from view behind them, leaving only a dull glow on the horizon. Ahead was darkness, a living, very noisy darkness of thick trees and vines and more insects than even Hell might come up with on its own.

  It wasn't easy, in spite of his lack of sleep the night before, to get to sleep in this insect din and on this uncomfortable deck, but he managed. As least things were so miserable and uncomfortable that he barely had time to think about his other problem.

  Neither Poquah nor Larae seemed to have any difficulty. The Imir seemed to be able to tune in or out anything he wished, and the girl appeared to be right at home in this sort of alien environment.

  For Marge the night brought less respite, since she was wide awake, anyway. Still, it was damned difficult to figure a way out of this trap, even though there had to be one. First of all, didn't the Rules require that there be a way out of any predicament? Not that the solution was necessarily a good one—that same rule was why Joe had become a wood nymph in the first place. It had been either that or death.

  That precedent worried her. Since the choice wasn't life or death here but Kauri or Succubus, did that rule apply? She no more wanted to be one of the foul creatures than Joe had wanted to become a nymph, but it wasn't an end road. The big problem would come if and when her conversion was complete. It wasn't any big deal to eat some of these souls, but she could never in that case return to Husaquahr or Earth or anywhere else where good men lived. Or could she? The few such creatures she'd seen had positively enjoyed corrupting good men the most. Nor would she ever again know the communion with the Kauri that had become so dear to her.

  So how did she keep from becoming one? Other than Irving, there really weren't any sure targets that could be treated Kauri-style, were there? And she didn't really want to have at the boy, even though she knew it was probably inevitable. He was no relation at all, and she barely knew him; still, it seemed somehow almost, well, incestuous.

  And yet what other possibility was there?

  The area inland of the city was a jungle, and like all jungles, while it looked like a deserted green Hell, it was actually teeming with life of all sorts, including animal, human, demonic, and faerie. Be easy to find a nice cannibal in there, she mused, but to find one who first ate you and then felt guilty about it, well, that was a different story.

  What this whole damned continent needed, for her sake, was a bunch of Jewish and Catholic mamas roaming around heaping on guilt and making even the demons miserable.

  She wanted to fly up and oversee the whole region, but there were some bats around, half as big as she was, and other creatures equally threatening: she wasn't about to become anybody's lunch or dinner. Heck, it was worse there than in the city, where the toughest thing had been ducking the gargoyles.

  None of these things looked like fruit bats, that was for sure. She sat perched on a mast and watched two of them earn up to swoop down and pick up and carry away a screaming something the size of a wild boar.

  They swooped around the ship but didn't land on it or seem interested in snatching things from it. Most likely the complex spells that were woven around it helped; the really tasty stuff was repelled to a degree, which was, she supposed, good for business.

  None of this solved her problem, either. She was usually the one who helped people and gave advice to others. Who did she have to turn to in a situation like this when she really needed help? Even reaching out to the Earth Mother was closed to her, clearly her altered nature had as much to do with that as distance did.

  She thought about Irving's copy of the volume of the Rules on Yuggoth. There might well be something in there—if she could read it. Maybe that would have to be the trade-off after all. He would find something that would get her out of her dilemma, and she could figure a way out of his.

  Well, his inhibitions would block him for now aboard this craft, and she could go several days without feeding, particularly after her times in the city. The trouble was, when she did run low again, she'd be unable to be very discriminating about who or what she was servicing.

  Irving would find the passengers on this ship not very conducive to his powers or desires, either. Although those walking clichés seemed human enough, they were a peculiar kind of fairy, a singular kind that seemed to be able to take the basic shapes and attributes a mortal willed them to have but whose interaction was limited primarily to one another. They could be shaped, their behavior influenced or even controlled by mortal thoughts, but they could not actually physically interact on the real-world level with mortals.

  The next day brought dull gray skies—when they could be seen at all—and heavy rain in the afternoon that could be endured only for the hour or so that it lasted. The crew didn't seem to think much of it; it happened almost every day, they were assured, in this jungle, and whether the full force struck the ship depended on how dense the forest canopy was when it fell, nothing more or less. Otherwise, nearly one hundred percent humidity was the norm.

  The river was so narrow and winding that it was next to impossible to figure out where they were or how much distance was covered. Only at night, with absolutely no glows either on the horizon or from stars above, did it seem as if they were traveling not only south but into another, totally isolated world.

  It was also boring as all hell, so much so that they were climbing the walls by the third day out. Time dragged, and the other passengers didn't seem to be able even to speak except in stilted dialogue that wouldn't pass muster with the mildest critic. Beyond their surface attributes and simple and repetitive ways, there was quite simply no "There" there.

  One of the satyrlike crewmen, seeing their problem, said, "I cannot make it more exciting—unless we are attacked by cannibals, which is a bit too exciting—but I can offer the nonfaerie members some diversion. These roots and leaves are very handy for passing the time and will make it seem pleasant."

  Poquah looked at the assortment and snorted. "Drugs! Mild hallucinogens mostly, from the looks of them. I wouldn't touch them if I were you!" That last was said to Irving in a tone that was much less advice than warning.

  But Poquah spent most of his time in meditation, ignoring rain and anything else, and seemed not at all troubled by the boredom. Irving was much more tempted in spite of spending a fair amount of time scouring the Rules volume for some solution for Marge, but he was also more than a little scared of going for any of it. What if it were addicting? What if it induced some kind of temporary nutso state that might find him waking up somewhere in the river or the jungle in somebody's stew pot? That last was even more to think about; hell, he'd seen just enough native faces peeking out at them from the bushes to know that the natives here sure looked like real primitive white guys, and he wasn't going to wind up in their pot!

  "Pleasant, not addicting," the crewman swore. "Just feel good. Maybe a little silly but not dangerous."

  It was Larae who was most tempted. "What have I got to lose? I'm going out of my mind anyway," she told him. "Still, I wouldn't want to do it alo
ne. My people used a lot this sort of thing for various cures, and I can see some similar things. I am sure that it is as the crewman says. Are you afraid of it?"

  "No! Of course not! Um, well, I just haven't had a straight out favor from one of these dudes yet that didn't have a catch in it."

  "I think it is the only thing that will keep me from going mad and jumping into the river or the jungle today," she d him. "Still, I just would not do it alone. Together, perhaps? Or are you simply too frightened even to take my word for it?"

  "Poquah—" Irving began to object, but she cut him off.

  "He will be in his trance all day, doing very much naturally what we cannot do without help like this. Will you do it?"

  He sighed. He didn't want to, didn't trust those drugs one bit, but he sensed that this was some kind of trust test on her part and didn't want to lose her confidence. Damn it! He would never have considered this before. It was because she wanted it and his new self didn't want to do anything to displease her.