DG5 - Horrors of the Dancing Gods

by Chalker, Jack L

  "Be on your guard," the Irnir warned his party. "Irving, keep your sword ready."

  The boy looked around. "You see something I don't?'

  "No. I just feel the currents. Not all the denizens of this town are still on the side of the established order here. If that is the case, there might well be an attempt to prevent us from going farther."

  "Terrific," Irving responded glumly.

  Thebes, too, seemed to sense the danger, but when a creature emerged from one of the nearby houses and shambled toward them, he seemed to relax a bit, even though the thing was certainly tension-inducing.

  "That thing was once a human being?' Larae gasped.

  It was the size of an average man but bent, misshapen, twisted in such a way that it seemed both smaller and more massive. It had the look and stench of decomposing flesh and a skull-like face that looked more like an Eygptian mummy than a living being.

  Thebes walked out to the thing, which stopped, and they exchanged some sort of conversation too low to be heard by the others. Thebes pointed back to them, the thing nodded, and two dead eyes looked them over carefully.

  "I don't trust that little man," Larae whispered. "I don't care if he's one of you or not."

  "We don't, either, and he's not ours," Irving whispered back. "He's just sort of hired help to get us through."

  "I am not worried about Mister Thebes," Poquah told them. "Not until after we reach Mount Doom, anyway. If he could have reached our goal on his own, he would have been there long before now. He is not on our side or either of their sides. He is on his own side, which is a very lonely and dangerous position to be in."

  Thebes came back over to them. "We should get moving without delay," he told them. 'There appears to be danger here if we stay. Get your things and follow our gimpy guide there through town. No deviations or temptations, please. There is nothing alive—as we know it, anyway—left here."

  "You expect an ambush?" Poquah asked him, looking around.

  "I don't know. I don't think they're strong enough for that, but with these types you can't tell. When you're already dead and looking like that, you don't exactly have a lot to lose, yes?'

  The town smelled like death; even Marge, who would not normally be alert enough to do much good for anybody, found herself strangely wide awake in that grim place. There were few signs in writing of what it might once have been but some indications that at one time it had been a much larger place and that part of it had been consumed by fire. Just once was there anything that might be helpful in identifying it, but it was only a fragment of an old sign—interestingly, in Latin letters—that read "J-E-R-U." Nothing more.

  They were more than conscious of being watched from the houses and dark places as they walked through the town in the gray gloom. Dead eyes, yes, but envious eyes, too, and hungry ones.

  The deathly stillness was also unnerving, and when it was broken now and again by the loud cry of a tropical bird, they all jumped and hands went to weapons. Only the "machinists" seemed unconcerned, just blithely walking through as if it were a bright sunny day in Mister Rogers' neighborhood. Not worth a bite, Irving decided, and they knew it. Their very vacuousness was their protection. They were very close to clearing the town proper now, going through the remnants of burned-out buildings and charred timbers from a onetime small-town business center, when they saw their destination. While much more ordinary in many ways than the town and its denizens, it was no less scary a sight.

  "A cable car? Here?" Marge gasped.

  And a big one, too, from the looks of it, more than able to carry them all, some freight that was being hauled along on a cart by the crew of the sailing ship, and anything else that might want to go. It was like a giant old-fashioned trolley car without wheels, and it appeared that once out of its berth, it would be suspended by two thick black cables that went up at perhaps a thirty-degree angle toward the mountain wall, quickly losing them in the clouds and mist up there.

  "We're gonna take that up there?" Irving said, both nervous and incredulous.

  "What powers it?" Poquah asked, fascinated more than worried.

  "You do not want to know," Thebes responded, then proceeded to pretty much tell him anyway. "A lot of very naughty souls on some amazing treadmills beneath us."

  "I don't like it," Irving told them. "Once we're in that contraption up there, we're sitting ducks."

  Poquah was ever the pragmatist. "You would perhaps prefer to climb? It is one or the other."

  Thebes looked around nervously. "Well, I think we better decide very quickly on this. I'm afraid some of the locals want us to stay!"

  Swords came out, and they whirled to see horrors emerging from the cellars of the burned-out structures: misshapen humanoid creatures that might once have been people but were now dripping with foulness.

  "Holy shit! It's The Night of the Living Dead!" Marge cried, the last bits of lethargy slipping as she launched herself into the air and then straight for the waiting car.

  Thebes opened his white coat for the first time and revealed a virtual smorgasbord of weaponry in nice little holders along the lining. It was no wonder he always looked like an unmade bed; there were wooden stakes and mallets, crosses, crescents, Stars of David, silver daggers, wolfsbane: it was an incredible sight.

  "Zombies!" he muttered irritably. "What the hell stops the zombies?"

  'Take it from experience—very little!" Poquah shouted. "Run for the car, everyone! Irving and I will try to buy you time."

  Irving gave the Imir a quick, nervous glance and gulped. "We will? Um, yeah, I guess we will."

  The things came on pretty fast for zombies, which had a reputation for being slow and shuffling. One reached very close to Irving, who was trying to backpedal and not trip while making as good time as possible. Now he swung the short sword in a series of broad, professional strokes that sliced right through decaying yet animated limbs, shearing them off as if they were made of butter.

  That, unfortunately, stopped neither the severed limbs nor the trunk from coming on. Slashes at the legs with that sword were out of the question. "I got to get a longer sword," Irving muttered, then turned and ran so hard for the open door that he overran both Poquah and Larae. Thebes seemed to have given up on his quest for a talisman or weapon and to have got there ahead of them.

  Irving made the open door of the cable car, then turned to hold it as long as possible. He saw Larae running, but she stumbled and fell, and he started to run back toward her to help her. Almost immediately he realized that a zombie was going to beat him to her.

  She turned onto her back as the undead creature lunged at her, but as the zombie tried to pounce on her and rip out her throat, her legs came up, caught the thing at the hips, and then, with a powerful somersault roll, sent the zombie flying while somehow Larae got back on her feet, pulling her skirt down almost below her ass.

  Irving saw a half dozen more of the creatures closing in as he reached her. "Don't bother getting pretty now!" he shouted, picking her up and sprinting for the open door, where now only Poquah guarded the entrance.

  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 fo
und 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 what 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 occupant
s 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.