Horrors of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  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 something," 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 alone. 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.

  "All right, but just this once," he told her. "I got a bad feeling about this, and I want you to remember that if it goes bad."

  She squeezed his hand and actually gave him a peck on the cheek that made him feel like a million and blew away any hesitancy.

  So while Joel Thebes dozed, Poquah sat in his trance, and Marge slept, they took some of the root she selected from the crewman and broke it off in half and began to chew it, remaining well toward the rear of the boat and away from the others.

  It didn't seem to do anything for a while, just leaving a sickly sweet, almost purely surgary taste in his mouth. Still, he found after a while that he was staring at things and that they didn't look or seem the same anymore. The jungle blurred, the dull colors mixing and marching and becoming an endless palette of living colors swirling all about. In a little while he was vaguely aware that he was thoroughly soaking wet, but it did not bother him, nor did he much feel it or reflect that he hadn't even remembered the rainstorm.

  And then there was Lathe, who seemed the object of all desire, and pretty soon she was doing something to him that felt really good and he was doing pretty much the same, imitating her, to her, and there was all sorts of stuff that felt good and had no thought behind it at all, and suddenly it was dark and he was sound asleep.

  She had already awakened and moved forward to the usual sleeping place when he came out of it at around midnight. He felt pretty mellow, really, but suddenly realized that he was naked and fumbled around, finally finding his loincloth well to the other side of the area, near the far rail. The straps were broken! He managed as best he could, but he wasn't at all sure what had happened. Had he done "it" with her and just not remembered, or had he forced it, or what?

  Hell, from the looks of this, she had forced him!

  He also had a headache, a stomachache, and aches in places he never even knew had muscles to ache.

  Marge floated down to the deck and handed him a fresh loincloth.

  "Thanks. I was kinda stuck for a minute."

  "No problem," she assured him. "Poquah's mad as hell at you two, though."

  "Um, yeah. But if he's really gonna be Daddy, then he's gotta be as responsible as Daddy and watch over and help me, right? He's got no kick. If they're gonna send me to a place like this at my age, then they got to figure I'm at least partly on my own."

  "Could be. I guess doing your first drugs and such makes you feel all grown-up, huh? Tonight you are a man."

  "No, no! It's not like that!"

  "You had no idea what you were swallowing. Some of that shit that these guys have is enough to turn you into one of those muscled morons who pull the oars. Larae I blame more than you, and that's probably what will save your hide in the end with Poquah."

  "She only offered me the apple. I was the one who took it."

  "'Yeah, but she knew just what she was feeding the two of you. I could tell. She knew how much to take and how to take it, figuring you wouldn't. She wanted you blotto."

  "No, that's not it. I mean, why would she? She was the one who wanted it just to pass the time. It's so damned boring!"

  "Hell and adulthood are usually boring. No, she wanted you blotto because she's not much older than you are but she's alone, afraid, and completely frustrated. She wanted you, but if you weren't higher than a kite, you'd find out and remember her nasty little secret. Her curse."

  "What? I've heard and seen this curse, but I still don't get it. What could be so awful that she'd go in this direction rather than reveal it even to us?"

  "The answer to that will tell you whether you are really grown-up and can handle things or whether you're just a kid."

  "Do you know?"

  "Yeah. Now I do. And I figured out the rest of her story. Pretty obvious once you put the story together with the sorcerer Lothar and figure his options on the problem. The only reason it wasn't immediately obvious was the way he did it, the way I think even the mighty Lothar was forced by the conditions of the curse and the opposition of the demon to do it. It had to be a real curse, not a simple transformation. A transformation wouldn't have done the trick. Probably not allowed under some obscure Rule."

  "You're not gonna tell me she's a g
uy. I know one sex from the other, and that's the kind of stuff you see in plays and movies, not for real."

  "Well, we're living in the heart, soul, and origin of every cliché in fiction," she reminded him. "However, in one sense you're right. She was born female, raised female, and is female in almost all respects. That was the problem. Lothar couldn't change her into a male at that stage; the demon would never have accepted it, since no matter what he changed her into, she'd still be the firstborn girl. So, somehow, and I have no idea about this, the sorcerer instead created a curse for her that made her unacceptable as a sacrifice. I don't know what poor unfortunate he used, but he grafted a male organ onto her. It is mostly isolated from the rest of her system, I think—the testosterone just doesn't get through to her. She's in every way female, but the route to that femininity is blocked. She became damaged goods, neither fish nor fowl, without the purity a sacrifice demanded, but so bound to her is this that to remove it would rip her guts out. It was a minor demon; he just couldn't figure out a way around it. All he could do was vent his fury and command her to come here, where even curses of that complexity might be unraveled by smarter and more powerful demons."

  He didn't want to hear it. "I don't believe you!" he almost shouted at Marge, even though he really did. "You mean that under that skirt—"

  "You mustn't blame her. She didn't choose it, and in all but that one area she is very much still a she, which must be the most frustrating thing in the world. When you're dealing with that level of world-class sorcerer, even the little things get handled. It's why she tried to avoid you on the ship over and why she fled when you contacted her. Only her fear and loneliness led her to take up my offer."