Horrors of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  She nodded. "Don't worry. Fliers can keep track of people a lot easier than ground huggers."

  "You watch yourself! There are creatures here that would eat a Kauri for breakfast or turn her dark. Don't think it can't be done to you!"

  "I'll be careful. Don't worry."

  She took off, up into the darkness. Irving turned to Poquah and saw in the always impassive elf something he'd never really observed there before—concern. It was very subtle, almost impossible to notice unless, like the boy, you'd been around the Imir for many years, but to Irving it was as startling as Mr. Spock having a crying fit.

  "You really are worried about her, aren't you?"

  "About all of us," the Imir responded. "But yes, I believe she is particularly vulnerable to the temptations of this place. For one thing, she does not believe that she is, and that makes her far more of a target, and secondly, she sees the threats primarily as external, coming from creatures of the night. That better fits the Ancient Ones for all the legends and terror stories. Hell works best from inside and with one's own cooperation. You remember her reaction to the Succubi?'

  "Yeah, sure. She didn't like them at all."

  "They are the same, really. Not enough difference to matter in the composition department. The difference is that the Kauri cleanse souls and the Succubi devour them. Either is capable of doing the other's work. We faerie are living creatures, and all living creatures must eat. Marge has been faced with a clientele of late that is almost too much of a good thing—a forced banquet, as it were. In Husaquahr she could get rid of it before it became too much a part of her. Here—I don't know." He paused for a moment, looking out at the dock. "Ah! The gangplank is out! We may go ashore! It will be good to get some solid land under us again, eh?"

  Irving followed Poquah down to the disembarkation point, looking around for any sign of the girl, but he didn't see her at all. He didn't like that, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Either Marge could link up with her and, he hoped, steer her away from harm and toward them, or she couldn't. There just wasn't anything the two of them could do right now.

  As a small child back on Earth, or "back in the real world" as Irving still tended to think of it even though this was by far the more familiar one to him by this point, he remembered seeing a picture that they seemed to run every Christmas. He never remembered all the details, but he remembered that this good guy got real down on Christmas Eve and wished he'd never been born, and Heaven granted his wish to show him how important he was. When he'd gone back home, his nice, peaceful white-bread town had become a wide-open strip of bars, gambling joints, and all the other stuff they thought was awful back then before somebody discovered real drugs. It still had looked pretty mean and ugly, particularly to a little kid, compared to what had been there before.

  He flashed back instantly to that scene in that picture as he followed Poquah off the boat and walked down into the town in spite of not having thought of it in so many years that the memory's very existence was a surprise. It was, however, exactly the effect of walking off the ship and into the town of Red Bluffs.

  The whole place was lit up in every kind of gaudy way; wild music and laughter came from dingy-looking joint after joint up the broad main street, and when he could see in the windows, he saw women, mostly in the wildest imaginable underwear and stuff and in weird poses, and occasionally faerie of the same sort. Well, no, not just women—there was a whole set of guys just as wild-looking and posed like, well, Irving wasn't certain just what to make of it, but he had the general idea.

  There were sidewalk barkers trying to get passersby into the shops and shows with all sorts of loud and boisterous claims and promises, some of which were clearly impossible without sorcery of a most perverse sort. They also offered other kinds of recreational pleasure, from the wildest of drugs to the weirdest of drinks and potions; all this was wide-open and unconcealed. It was like the most outrageous elements of every bar, burlesque, and red-light district in all the world or worlds.

  Shops near the places, sandwiched between, or on narrow side streets offered all sorts of roots, potions, drugs, sexual paraphernalia, weapons, you name it, both conventional and magical. There were also promises of all sorts of cures, curses for sale or rent, curses lifted, fortunes told, and so on and so on. Here and there an occasional boisterous fight would burst from inside one of the establishments into the street, and there would be screams of both delight and terror coming from the various upstairs windows.

  Irving absolutely loved it.

  Poquah sighed and shook his head sadly at the sights and sounds. He had thought it might be ugly and mean, but he'd never thought it would be this base and, well, tacky.

  "Gee, it's like a grown-up Disneyland with no cops," Irving commented, unable to stop staring at one attraction or distraction after another.

  "There are cops, as you call them," the Imir responded in a low and measured tone. "They simply have a somewhat different agenda." He pointed at two dark-cloaked, uniformed figures walking down one of the sidewalks opposite them as if they owned it. Everybody from patrons to barkers got out of their way as they came, too, and they barely deigned to notice anyone else. Their faces showed them as definite minor demons, horns and all, and they were puffing on big fat cigars and talking to each other.

  "The name of the game," Poquah instructed the boy, "is power. Period. That is all that it's ever really about. Who's got it, who's subject to it. These are the folks who instructed Sodom and Gomorrah on morality and entertainment value and later on instructed the SS, the Gestapo, and a lot of other cheery authority figures. If this seems so wondrous and fun and romantic to you, think about where the ones who perform these services come from and how willing they were to do the jobs until forced into it. Think of your young woman from the boat in the hands of these folks, walking up this street as we are now doing. People, and parts of people, are bought and sold here, and I doubt if permission is required."

  "Hey! Boy! You! The Nubian! Ever dream of having all your fantasies come true?"

  The speaker was a nasty-looking fellow with a strong family resemblance to a middle linebacker and a brick wall, and he seemed to have a friend or two about as well.

  "The boy is under my protection," Poquah said evenly, not stopping. "He is not for the likes of you."

  "Yeah? Somethin' wrong with the likes of me, piss-elf?"

  "Other than the fact that you are a bully and an idiot who is about to find himself dead and at the Dantean Gates if you persist in this, nothing much," Poquah responded.

  A big, beefy hand shot out and grabbed Poquah's tunic. The Imir stopped and stared up into the eyes of the huge man, his face as impassive as ever, but the eyes, something in the Imir's eyes ...

  Even the big man caught it, but it was much too late to back out now. "Stop and face me when you're talkin' to me!"

  "I was not talking to you. I was responding to your uninvited comments."

  Irving's hand went to his short sword, but he didn't draw it; rather, he positioned himself to cover Poquah's back.

  It was impossible to imagine the elf being anything but a grease spot at the hands of the big man, but Irving knew better.

  "I take what I want, shorty, and I want him," the big man snarled.

  "Then, sir, you are dead," the Imir responded.

  Absolutely no one could agree later about what happened next. There was a sound and flash something like an electrical charge, and then the elf was a blur of motion, going so fast and moving in such an unnatural series of moves that no watching eye, whether human or faerie, could follow them.

  The big man's other hand held a dagger, and it was coming up with professional speed. It never even came close.

  Almost instantly, amid the flash and blur of Imir motion, something ripped the big man open as if he were an overripe melon. Guts and blood spilled from massive and nearly instantly fatal wounds without it being clear how those wounds had been administered and with such speed that the man was
dead on his feet yet his expression showed no change at all. Suddenly Poquah was a few steps to one side of him, his back against Irving's, no visible weapon in hand, and the big man's body was only then collapsing into a gruesome heap in the street.

  The big man's confederates were easy to spot; they were the ones with the totally frightened and confused expressions among a crowd of mostly admiring glances. Nobody, friend or foe, was inclined to do much more to the Imir and the youth, and they gave way and made a comfortable path up the broad street for the two newcomers to go. There was even a smattering of applause.

  Mostly, however, the people and creatures around them totally ignored the fight and the corpse and just went on with their business as if nothing had happened and no remains were there.

  There was a sudden shimmering around the body, and the street itself seemed to turn into something alive underneath him, cobblestones growing long, clawed arms and gaping tooth-filled mouths and growling and chomping as they devoured the big corpse amazingly quickly.

  Poquah seemed utterly unfazed by what he'd just done or by its aftermath. Instead of being repelled by the sight of the street literally rending and tearing and devouring the body as Irving was—slightly, at least in his stomach—the Imir commented, "Well, at least they have efficient sanitation here. Come. We have a hotel to reach yet."

  Irving felt a mixture of confidence in having passed a test and at the same time a less than pleasant sense that this as not going to be a fun time, after all. He thought of the girl and Marge and, for the first time, his father trapped in it bimbo body and wondered how in hell any of them were going to make it across much of a continent like this.

  And most of all he wondered about those tearing limbs and gnashing teeth that were even now cleaning up the last of the body and felt less than certain of his own footing and suddenly uncomfortable that he was barefoot.

  ****

  Larae Ngamuku needed no imagination to realize what walking up that broad street would mean for her and no wish even to try it. This was a case in which some care and caution might be well repaid.

  The problem was, getting off the ship, she had no idea where exactly to go. Compelled to come this far, her path eased by the demonic geas that all of Hell could sense, she had nonetheless come without instructions, as it were, and certainly without resources.

  "Go to your right at the end of the dock," a woman's voice came to her. "I'll give you instructions to thread you through this mess as you go."

  She looked around but saw no one in the throng of people and, well, others coming off the ship, working to unload it, or waiting on the docks. Whoever had made the comment could have been almost anyone of them.

  It seemed silly to obey a mysterious voice, but there also wasn't much of a choice in the matter. Not to obey would leave her no better off.

  Turning right at the first opportunity as instructed, she saw only an industrial road paved with uneven stones, mostly dark, and sparsely traveled at this time. She felt something odd as she walked and, looking down, saw that strange metal rods were actually embedded in parallel in the street itself. The rods seemed to run the full length of the street as far as she could see, but she couldn't imagine what they were for save perhaps to catch the side of sandals or boots and twist ankles.

  Marge, now above the girl, was equally surprised to see them, but she recognized the parallel rods as rails. A railroad? Here? Up until now she'd never seen any evidence of engines in this whole world, only magic, wind, water, and muscle power. This might well bear much closer examination when she had the chance.

  Marge didn't like remaining in the air too long. It made her too conspicuous, and she could see that there were as many unpleasant creatures of the night up in the air, perched atop roofs and lofts and just flying around, as there seemed to be on the ground. She was hardly beyond their notice, either, but so far they seemed content simply to accept her as an equal and not interfere. For the moment the challenge was keeping their attention off the girl below, not to mention the lurkers, mostly human but no less dangerous, in the shadows.

  Not that there were a lot of lurkers on the ground; it just wasn't profitable to stake out such places when there was little likelihood of anybody coming past. She had an idea at she might well be able to thread the girl through there and, after a complete survey of the route, decided to risk going to the ground and to the side of the scared but game young woman below.

  Larae heard Marge come down, silent as she was, turned, gasped. The person she saw was not at all the one she'd expected. Rather, it was more the one she needed; a tall, muscular warrior woman with a bronze sword.

  "Relax, it's still me," the strange woman told her. "I have a knack of being able to be seen pretty much as the needs of others require. Unfortunately, it's not real—it's just an illusion. Still, as long as this is handy, others will see me this way as well, and it might keep then backed off. Even the sword's an illusion. In truth, Kauri have no real offensive weapons or abilities at all, but the fakeout's usually pretty effective."

  "I—I'm not sure I understand, but welcome, anyway. What do we do now?"

  "I already scouted the area from the air. Up this small street here—it runs parallel to Broadway over there, but it's all industrial. Some rats and stuff but nothing really nasty. There's actually a somewhat respectable-looking part of own up on the hill to our right. That's where we're headed, since the hotel recommended for my people is in that vicinity."

  "I'm not sure I'd trust any appearances around here," Larae noted nervously as she started walking with the strange apparition. "As you point out, you aren't even you. What makes you think this area really is safer?"

  "It's high and unobstructed. The morning sun's light will strike it first and leave it last. That's no real guarantee, but it tends to signal things to those of us with experience."

  The girl shrugged. "I stilt do not see why there need be any respectable or decent people or areas here."

  "Got to be some. For one thing, just as evil is defined by good, good is defined by evil. One without the other becomes the norm. Also, this is a real place. It's not Hell, it's not some fairyland, it's not in some other dimension. It's real, it's here, and most of its people are alive. Folks are born here, grow up here, work here, maybe marry here, have kids, and so on. Being under Hell isn't always so obvious; mostly it's apathy, just accepting conditions and making do without fighting it or sacrificing against it. I have a very strange feeling that there's more that's familiar than unfamiliar here."

  But not at night. Two lone women in the dark, by the docks, at night would be a target in any big city, Marge thought. She wasn't as concerned, being a night creature and a flying one as well, but her ward was neither.

  It would be interesting to see this place in daylight, in its normal workday mode, though. Evil didn't go to bed at sunup, nor did it flee the light as many of its supernatural minions did, but it did become more subtle. Still, her own power came from the night as well, and it was ironic that she felt so much safer in the darkness.

  The vast majority of her tricks worked only on mortal humans; faerie would see right through them and certainly wouldn't be impressed, nor, of course, would demonic creatures, and around here the supernatural was definitely king.

  Still, there were more practical considerations to be faced if they got by all those dark shadows and creepy-looking buildings. "It's gonna be quite a climb up that hill," she noted. "Ten to one the hotel's right smack on top, too." And it would be so very easy to just fly straight up there ...

  ****

  The Hotel Usher was at number 777 Avenue Nictzin Dyalhis high atop Morgana Hill. It was an imposing structure but not a scary-looking one, rising six stories and going a square block around the hilltop with a panoramic view of the harbor below and a less interesting one of some of the rest of town on the other side. The whole of it was quite solid and ornate, with white stucco gilded with brightly colored abstract designs and gold leaf on the doors, crests, and s
uch.

  There was a doorman who looked to Irving like one of the soldiers who'd guarded the wicked witch's castle in The Wizard of Oz movie, high-topped hat and fancy coat and all, even in this tropical heat.

  "You sure they'll let the likes of us into a place like this?' Irving whispered worriedly. Poquah paid him no attention at all, but Irving felt conspicuous as the doorman nodded to them and opened the big oaken entry door for them to enter the spacious lobby.

  If ever an interior did not disappoint, it was the Usher's. It offered a grand vista of polished wood and marble, with sculptures, interior fountains, vines growing up the sides of the walls and columns, and everything in gold and plush draperies, carpeting—the works—all somehow built and arranged so that there was some sort of constant airflow that made it seem cool and comfortable inside, only the humidity betraying the fact that it was not in truth Earth-style air-conditioning.

  The clerk at the front desk was dressed in formal livery and looked like another product of central casting. He looked at the pair who stood in front of him, sharp eyes the only thing betraying an otherwise impenetrable countenance, and said, "Yes? May I help you?"

  "I believe we are expected," Poquah told him. "Poquah of Terindell, Master Irving de Oro, and party to follow."

  "Indeed, sir. Let me see ... Yes. Party of—three?"

  "Four. We have offered our advantages to someone we met on the voyage and who needed some additional aid. One each, faerie and human, male and female. Will this pose a problem?'

  "Indeed not, so long as you are willing to accept full financial responsibility for your added member. Um, ahem, it is not usual for young ladies to be out without an escort in this town at this time of night. It is quite dangerous out there. When might we expect them?"