Marge frowned. "Yeah? Then why hasn't it spawned all the stuff that goes on elsewhere? And how come we aren't in a constant war with it?"
"We are," the sorcerer told her. "The Baron was once a good and noble sorcerer," he said, smiling slightly, "like myself, who got so caught up in the injustices he saw in this part of the world that he was led by demons to go down to Yuggoth and learn the parts of magic forbidden to any and all here. He did so, in contravention of our guild, and that, as much as or more than his breaking of the covenants and his war against us, was why he lost his powers and was exiled—but also why he was so difficult to beat. It was there he learned the gateway to Hell and made his alliances with the demon princes. Now you also know the source of Sugasto and his zombie trickery. We can keep it somewhat confined and controlled not only because of constant and heavy vigilance but also because, being evil, the denizens of Yuggoth are their own worst enemies, too. We also have a deal with the King of Horror, who reigns as temporal absolute ruler there, to safeguard his own throne and hide our support so long as he reins in as much as he can. Even so, you can readily see and experience just how much evil escapes to our regions!"
Marge nodded. This was all new and interesting ... and not at all heading in any direction where she wanted to go.
Still, she couldn't help her curiosity. "The King of Horror? You mean Satan?"
"No, Satan's King of Hell, Prince of the Powers of the Air, ruler of a dimensional context you cannot imagine. The King is, well, a sorcerer, a great power like myself and my colleagues, with a decided bent for that sort of thing. He's propelled himself to the top there and remains, hated by all his subjects as you'd expect. You can imagine that his power is enormous—anything less and he'd have been knocked off long before now."
"And he likes that kind of existence?"
"Well, he's got more than he could ever want and is greater than he ever dreamed he could be. Why not? But staying on top—aye, that's always the trick, isn't it?"
"I've seen enough evil in this and the other world that I'm not too sure how good a job he does," she noted.
"But that's the point! He does a superb job. I seriously doubt if anyone can ever do it better. Certainly nobody has before. He's got both worlds to worry about, too. Just consider—we have always beaten what gets out here, and back on Earth, who would have wagered a fig that half a century after the atom bomb people wouldn't have already blown themselves to Hell without further intervention? Compared to that, wars, minigenocides, mass murders, demonic possessions, natural disasters, and the like seem rather trivial. No, he's definitely worth his weight in anything precious, that's for sure, but just as certain his eye is a bit too busy to be on sparrows."
"You almost make him somebody likable," she noted.
"In a sense he is. He can be a delightful chap. However, he rules an entire continent that mouths hatred of him and doesn't like itself very much, either."
Marge sighed. "I know you too well, Ruddygore. You're not bringing up this Yuggoth or this King of Horror just to be sociable and educational. You are heading someplace with the subtlety of a force-ten earthquake. Someplace I am absolutely, positively, under no circumstances going to go."
Ruddygore looked stricken. "Marge! How can you doubt my sincerity in this?"
"If it's so easy, you go this time. You've at least got the power."
He turned very serious. "It's not easy. It's possible, but I know that only because of my knowledge of the Rules and how things work. Just how possible and just how many mistakes, if any, are allowed, I cannot guess. Nor can I or any of my colleagues go. Not even at the very end this time, to solve the final problems. We, any of us, would be instant psychic magnets, drawing together all that is evil throughout all the planes and universes and unifying them as never before against us. Any of us either would become as corrupted as Boquillas was or would be utterly consumed."
She wasn't impressed. "Uh huh. And if it's too much for you, you still think that somebody like me can waltz in there and walk through it unscathed? Uh uh."
"Not alone, no. An army of faerie could not stand in that place for long. Only with an anchor—a mortal, corruptible individual of free will—could all hope to have any chance to survive, and that as much by protecting that anchor as by doing anything themselves."
She stared at him. "You are really serious, aren't you? And you're talking about the kid. Joe's kid. You're gonna take a teenage kid and throw him into that and count on me and maybe a few other experienced types to protect him? Ruddy, that is evil. That requires no King of Horror. You are sick."
Ruddygore sighed. "Marge—Joe is missing."
"Huh?"
"Joe went right into that region because the same thing that might save us would also quite obviously have no problems curing his situation. I received a message from Macore that Joe and a halfling girl—about whom I'm still trying to learn a lot of details—arrived many weeks ago, stayed a bit, pumped the port locals on Yuggoth and the like, tried without success to get Macore to join them, and ultimately went anyway. About forty days ago they were put off on a desolate shore on Yuggoth by a mercenary ship, and they vanished. I mean that almost literally. The King was aware of their landing yet can find no trace whatsoever of either of them."
That did concern her. "Jeez! Do you think—I mean, is Joe dead?"
"I believe I can unequivocally state that Joe is alive. Joe has a protection of life beyond any power here to alter, remember. The problem is, the protection is strictly limited to life. There are situations where life is the absolute worst thing to keep and where death would be longed for, and ninety-nine percent of those states were conceived on Yuggoth. Even being faerie doesn't lock you in; not only is great pain, misery, and whatnot as possible with your people as with ours, but the very purity of faerie existence is corruptible. The soul can always be turned and remade, and you are pure ectoplasm, as it were, and can pass to the astral planes without death intervening."
She thought it over but caught herself. "Uh uh. No go, Ruddygore! I did my bit! We all did. And you have to admit, even with all the help, it's a miracle any of us are still here at all. Every time something like this comes up, the odds against us are greater than before. Something inside me says that I've been too lucky for too long in this department. Send somebody else!"
The sorcerer sighed. "I shall, but they will lack your experience and your knowledge. The boy will go, you know. He'll go because it's his father, and because it's honor, and also because children that age believe they are immortal. He's the center of whatever power the new Company might have, just as Joe was of the original one. Poquah, too, although I admit that even I had reservations about him going on this trip. He is not powerful enough to withstand all the forces that may be represented just in the journey, but he is more than powerful enough to act as a magnet to draw such forces to him. He considers it a matter of honor. I have hopes that Macore might also join one last campaign."
"He didn't go in with Joe, I notice," Marge pointed out a bit acidly.
"No, of course not. There was nothing of cosmic significance, at least obviously so, that would have impelled him to do so, nothing to compel him to go, either, and frankly, he has just about everything he can want in his retirement and has no need for more."
"So what makes you think he'll go now?"
"For Joe, of course. Possibly even more for Joe's son. You see, Irving has spent some time with the old thief, and Macore has come to consider the lad as, well, not the son he never had, perhaps, but at least a favorite nephew. He's no longer in the peak condition he once was, nor is he as young as he used to be, but his skills and experience can substitute for quite a good deal."
"The next thing you'll be telling me is that Tiana is going, too."
"No. In fact, I have made it my business to keep Tiana ignorant of this affair. Tana has adjusted extremely well to being not merely male but king. His experiences both on the highest and the lowest levels of society here have made him wise
and capable in ways the old queen could never have been and wasn't. The country needs its king badly, and for the first time the monarch is perfect for the role. As I and my colleagues battle against darkness here on the magical level, Ti is essential to the holding together of the political and social fabric. To go now would mean renouncing his throne and all claims for all times. I cannot permit that."
"Well, I don't like it, anyway. It stinks, and I think you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking of letting that boy go!"
"Transformed or not, blood is blood and relation is relation! I could not stop him if I tried! And if he decided not to go, he would be useless ever after both to others and to himself. He needs to define himself. If he goes and survives, he will be defined here both to his own ego and within the Rules. It will work out. If he goes and does not survive, then he would not have long survived life here, anyway. If he feared too much to go, he would be without courage, and if he refused to go, he would lack honor. No, it is unthinkable that he be stopped."
Marge gave a big sigh. "All right, all right. I don't agree with this, but I'll accept the point for now. The real question is whether this is just a hunt for a needle in a continent-sized haystack. Find Joe. Where? How? Even your King of Horror can't find Joe! What's the object here, Ruddygore? If it's to roam around until something there finally eats us or turns us or whatever, no thanks. There has to be an object to a quest. Even I know that much of the Rules."
"You're right. The object isn't to find Joe, but if you accomplish the object, then finding Joe will almost certainly follow." The big man reached into the folds of his robe, pulled out a small scrolled sheet, and handed it to the Kauri. She took it, unrolled it, and frowned.
"A big, mean-looking bird?"
"Not just any bird. That one's not alive, at least not in the sense that birds or you and I are alive. It won't fly; it won't even move. It's a sculpture, an idol if you will, carved out of black marble by some ancient faerie artisan in times long past, not here but on Earth. An island in the ancient Mediterranean, I believe. A good likeness of Hammettus hitchcockius, a very tough but majestic bird now nearing extinction everywhere. This one has an infinite number of names and has been fought over and had people die over its possession. Our own literature here simply calls it the Great or Grand McGuffin. It is on Yuggoth, having been switched for a fake one many years past and brought there by a man who tried to cheat the devil with it, and—as is standard for ninety-nine point nine percent of people throughout human history with such a goal—he didn't quite make it. It's been hidden, cared for, even worshiped on Yuggoth as a minor deity ever since."
She stared at it, suspecting that she knew the name of the island where it had originated. "And this thing can actually grant wishes like the Lamp?"
"Not exactly, but yes, it has some of that sort of power. The Lamp, however, was a product of a totally alien universe, that of the djinn. This was brought into existence by other, darker, but more comprehensible forces and to do evil overall. It is somewhat neutral in most senses like the Lamp, but unlike it, the Great McGuffin, is designed to deliver less than its potential. No one has ever been able to use it without some sort of price being exacted, at least not that we know. You know the old saw about making a deal with the devil? He always gives you exactly what you ask for, but somehow you never think of everything. The McGuffin is like that and more. Wishes are granted instantaneously—even pausing for breath can cause horrible side effects. That's why not even the evil ones of Yuggoth have tried to use it. Too many bad examples. But it has the power, all the power anyone would ever require. Yes, indeed, it has that power. That is the object. Locate the McGuffin, steal it, and get out of there and bring it back here. Even trickier is to do this without using it, for to use it is to risk damnation."
"But you intend to use it," she pointed out.
"Perhaps. If I must. But I am better qualified to do so, because I know the limitations and I know the risks. Marge, I had no idea that this thing even existed until quite recently. Even less that it had this sort of power. Because it was fashioned in ancient times on Earth, it is not directly covered by the Rules; because it has been removed to here, there is not a whole heck of a lot left on Earth about it, either. I have confirmed, however, not only that it exists but that it can do the job. It can seal this rupture that is threatening to open between our world here and the bottommost layers of filth and decay that lie at the bottom of the Sea of Dreams. Irving, Poquah, and perhaps Macore will seek it with a little help from some denizens of Yuggoth who might prove more dangerous than the rest of the locals once the end is in sight but who are necessary for Irving to have any chance of moving within that realm."
"So you do have local help. Then what do you need me for in all this, other than because it's good symmetry?"
"Yuggoth is dangerous in the light of day, but it is truly nasty at night. You are a nocturnal with a great deal of immunity to the sorts of things that might threaten others at that time, and you can fly."
She shook her head sadly. "I think this is sick. Still, let me see the kid and I'll see if I can talk him out of this?'
"The kid," Ruddygore repeated, smiling. "I think you might well be a bit disoriented on this as well. Come, let us go and find him by all means!"
The imp was about a foot tall and purple, with a perpetually nasty expression, rotten sharp teeth, and the personality of the gargoyle it resembled. It snarled and spat and its eyes flamed, and it was clearly a very dangerous creature restrained only by the candlelit barriers and the Tetragrammaton within.
And this was when it was trying to be helpful and nice. Irv couldn't imagine what the thing would be like if it didn't like him.
The human, wearing only a cotton loincloth, sat in a slightly modified lotus position facing the imp. In front of him were a series of small clay bowls with different-colored sands in each of them. Carefully and in the prescribed manner of the Rules on this aspect of shamanism—Volume 16 to be exact, which he had off to one side—he reached in and took a handful of several different sands at once, and with soft chanting and great care, he began to draw a design in front of him by letting the varicolored sands drip slowly from his fist. Although he had no control over the colors or the mixing, the result was an exotic design not unlike a varicolored mask of some strange, ancient creature on the dirt below.
The imp studied the design critically, craning its neck to follow the drawing at the correct angle as much as possible.
"Not too bad for an asshole," it commented. "Only thing is, this is a cross between a totem of the Benin City-States in the 1400s and Anastazi circa 1200. That kind of inconsistency weakens the totem. You get two different entities tryin' to answer, and they don't like each other much. Combine 'em and they just hate themselves."
"I can't deny my twin natures," the human responded.
"I keep tellin' you, it's concentration, you idiot!" the imp stormed. "You got to decide what in hell you're goin' for before you go, that's all! Isolate what you need from what you are. It's like you got a purse with coins of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and nationalities. You need coins that'll spend in this place, now, at this time. You don't reach into the purse and pick out all the coins and insist that they're all good! And you don't melt 'em down and give 'em a lump—which is about what you're tryin' here. You reach in and pick out the coins that spend where you are and put the rest away, right?"
"Yeah, well, that's a lot easier to do with coins than with your mind and soul."
"Of course it is! Otherwise everybody'd be doin' this and we'd never get any rest! That's the final knack of it. Most of the rest is all mechanical. Craft, that's all. The art's in how you can control yourself. What you got there is a plea for a hot fudge sundae from the god of turnips. The best you can hope to get is chocolate-covered turnips."
The young man shrugged. "Might make turnips edible, anyway."
The imp blew up almost literally in sheets of purplish flame. "Now, see! That's just what your
problem is! You ain't got no discipline at all! They'll eat you alive when they get the chance! How you gonna ever best somebody who can call on the gods of war when you call up the gods of nosebleeds? Get with the program or say 'the hell with it!' and find something you can do well! You got all the talent, boy, but you ain't got the mind for this!"
And with that the imp vanished in a ball of flame.
Irving sighed and made a pass with his clenched fist over the bowls, allowing a little sand from each to drop, and each color went back into its proper vessel. Once it was empty, he used his hand to completely rub out the weird face he'd drawn. What did they expect of him, anyway?
How could he make them see just how miserable he was? He'd been miserable since having been yanked here years before by his father, then abandoned while dear old Daddy went off to save the world—and did so at the cost of being turned into a green Playboy centerfold. The funny thing was, his father never even knew that he knew Dad hadn't died in the war. Nope, instead, brave old Daddy had run away in shame and hadn't been anywhere near his son, leaving said son to be raised by Santa Claus and his elves, all of whom lived in the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West.
He had the only father who'd flunked out both as a father and as a mother. Irving couldn't help but wish, as he had many times before, that Dad had at least tried one of those roles.
He heard someone coming and deliberately put the stuff away and got to his feet just as Ruddygore and Marge entered the chamber.
It was unclear which of them, Marge or Irving, was more shocked at the sight of the other. Irving at least had seen Marge and creatures like her, although not up close for a very long time. Ruddygore and the others here had spent a great deal of effort trying to ensure that he didn't have any private encounters with nymphs.
Horrors of the Dancing Gods Page 9
