Vengeance of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  They used the dumbwaiter route up and out into the second floor. Thanks to Gimlet's room by room search earlier, she knew exactly where the bedroom was.

  Joe looked around, enjoying how effortlessly gravity seemed not to exist for him. It was as easy to go at any speed in any direction as it was to walk it. The only trouble was, everything looked so huge.

  The bottles were just sitting there on the mantel of the bedroom fireplace, but they were a good case in point. He and Gimlet were both no more than four inches high— not more than half the height of the whiskey bottles. Both had corks in them apparently from old wine bottles, but Joe found himself able to stand comfortably on the cork.

  "Can't we just uncork 'em here and hope for da best?" Gimlet asked hopefully. "I mean, dey're fairy souls."

  "They could still wander and never find their bodies," he replied. "Our best bet would be to uncork them next to the statues."

  She sighed. "Well, I guess we can manage it, but after dis, we're both gonna be too pooped out to do any more."

  He found out that she wasn't speaking metaphorically, either. Still, once the stuff was on the bottles—as opposed to the corks—Joe found he could lift his as if it were attached to his tiny body by ropes. Even the empty bottles were terribly heavy, but barely manageable.

  They had just gotten the bottles to the door when the Baroness walked in to the room. They both froze, the bottles as high as they could maintain them. Joe thanked Providence that they liked high ceilings at the turn of the century.

  The lady of the manor was not alone, but was followed by two Ministering Angels, neither as yet out of their apparently normal household uniform of high boots, tassels, jewelry, and nothing else. Neither was armed, and they helped the Baroness undress and get newly fixed up, then brushed her hair and checked her makeup.

  "Gimlet!" Joe whispered, although his voice, like hers, wasn't within the realm of normal human hearing. "One of them is Mahalo!"

  Mahalo McMahon finished brushing the Baroness's hair. "Thank you, Mahalo," the lady of the manor said. "Tiana, bring me the Chanel from the cabinet over there."

  "At once. Mistress," the other answered and went to get it.

  Joe stared at the other woman. If that was where they'd put Tiana, they'd never chosen a more different body for her. The woman was small, almost petite, with one hell of an athletic body and small, firm breasts. She was tanned and had a playfully cute kind of face, set off by long, straight, light brown hair.

  "I can't hold dis much longer," Gimlet noted. "Let's try'n sneak outta da room wit' dese t'ings before dey kill us. Dey're bewitched. We need the Imir."

  She was right, of course. Slowly, carefully, and nervously, they each made their way down and out the door. No one was in the hall, but there were the sounds of loud voices downstairs, perhaps a small crowd, and some other voices from rooms down the hall. This had to be fast.

  "Which one's which?" Gimlet wanted to know. "Best we put dem next to each statue."

  "No matter what, we'll probably get the wrong ones," Joe muttered. "All we can do is trust to the luck that's got us this far." He wasn't sure about Marge, but he had a feeling that Poquah in a Kauri body would hardly be a thrilling love goddess.

  They set their bottles down and, as Gimlet warned, neither had much reserve. The corks moved a bit, but wouldn't come all the way out. Each of them grabbed what they could and tugged.

  Joe's came suddenly free with a force that almost knocked him down the stairs. Gimlet's came a few seconds later. Then they held their breaths. Both souls had gone into the bodies nearest them, but which was which?

  It took about a minute, a very nervous minute when it seemed as if someone was going to come by at any moment, before the fixtures turned back into living, breathing beings. Marge, for one, looked puzzled, but seemed to realize quickly the position and danger she was in.

  Joe flew down to Marge's shoulder. "Is that you. Marge? Or did we mix it up again?"

  "Joe?" she whispered. "Is that really you?"

  "Until sunup, anyway. Come on—we got to move it. They're going on the air in maybe a half hour, forty minutes. We got to be away."

  Poquah looked less surprised, and there was no question that, this time, things had worked out right. At least they'd had a fifty-fifty chance for them. "Where are the others?" the Imir whispered.

  "The Baroness is in there with Mahalo and another we think is Tiana, soul-transferred. O'Grady's drunk but he's down in the demon's room with his chalk."

  "Are they alone?"

  "Yes. But we can get them later!"

  "Is either woman armed?"

  "Not that I saw, but we don't have the time!"

  "Yes we do," Poquah said and walked boldly into the bedroom. Marge decided she might as well follow, although there was almost nothing she could do to help, and the pixies joined in as well.

  The Baroness was being worked on by the two women and looking into her mirror. Although four creatures entered, there was nothing reflected in it except the three humans and the door, although suddenly the Baroness noted that it had suddenly closed on them. She turned, as did the two others, and gaped at the duo she saw. She didn't even notice the pixies.

  "You!" she called out. "How—"

  The two Angels immediately stepped in front of their mistress and took up fighting positions.

  Poquah put out his hand and from it issued a series of sparkling yellow bands. They wrapped around the two Angels and held them. The Angels moved meekly out of the way.

  The Imir looked at her and his eyes seemed aflame. "Now you will know what it feels like to be on the other end of such sorcery," he said darkly.

  A bit later, the Baroness, with no memory of the incident, walked out the door, summoned two blue-robed Angels, and went downstairs to greet her guests. Poquah took the time to lift the rather basic spells placed on Mahalo and Tiana. The Baroness was crude with spells, lacking finesse, although she got the results she wanted.

  "Oh, wow!" said Mahalo McMahon. "I guess the cavalry arrived, huh?"

  "No, not quite," Poquah told her, "but it is close. Some of us must see to Father O'Grady. The rest of you should clear out—now. Dacaro's down greeting guests—I can feel him—so we can't go that way. Gimlet, you got O'Grady down there somehow. Can you show me how?"

  "Yeah, sure. You'll fit a lot better dan he did."

  "I can go out the window, if he's lifted that damned sticky spell," Marge told them. "You want me to fly out and get a raid in here."

  "No!" Poquah said sharply. "We must not interfere. The broadcast must go on as scheduled!"

  "Huh?" they all managed.

  "You'll see. Kauri, I'll open the window here and you fly out. Don't touch the exterior and you should be all right. Just take a good perch in a tree someplace and watch what happens."

  Tiana looked at the two pixies. "Joe? Is one of those you?" she managed, chuckling.

  He nodded and waved.

  "You don't look much like a fish either, honey," Mahalo noted. "They put you in a new package."

  "I wonder what they did with the poor girl whose body this was and who is now a mermaid?"

  "Impossible to know, at least until dawn," Poquah pointed out. "She would be a were, remember. We must go. O'Grady may well need help and a lot depends on him."

  "Hey! What about us? How do we get out?" Mahalo wanted to know.

  "You don't. Too many people, lights, guards, and spells about. You'll have to stay here until it's finished."

  "We will miss whatever fun you have planned!" Tiana objected. "It is not fair!"

  "No choice. I haven't time to give you a spell effective enough to get you by."

  "But what if the Baron returns?"

  "He'll have far too much on his mind to come to the bedroom," the Imir promised. "If he does, he'll find two servile Ministering Angels. Just act the part and remember that he doesn't have as much power as you do, Tiana."

  She frowned. "That spell you put on the Baroness— what did it do
?"

  "Gave her a case of what Master Ruddygore once called Beavercleaveritus. She'll be so sickeningly sweet and good you'll want to throw up. She can't do anything even remotely bad. Maybe you'll see. They'll take it for an act downstairs until it's too late, but she's out of it. Now— I must go."

  With that he opened the door a bit—and seemed to vanish. The pixies followed in the air, keeping close to the ceiling where possible.

  A couple of other Angels were in the hall and should have seen Poquah, but appeared not to notice him, even giving way without a second glance when he passed. It was the first time Joe had been able to see Poquah when he was in this phase, and it was fascinating. It would not, however, get him past Dacaro or into the cellar, whose entrance was much too public from the first floor.

  The old dumbwaiter, however, served one more time.

  Until now, there had been nothing from the pentagram, but now that O'Grady had completed it, after fifteen tries, and started to say the words that would activate it, something happened.

  It was at first just a feeling, a presence growing somehow in the midst of the five-sided figure, but the sensation of overpowering evil was beyond anything he had ever experienced, even beyond belief.

  If he had been the least bit sober, it would have stopped him completely. Even so, he stumbled over some of the words and had to back up. He did not want to look ahead as he prayed, did not want to see what was forming there, but he did, and the figure he saw was beyond words to describe. Raw power it was, at once the most horrible and loathsome thing he'd seen and also one of the grandest. It was a sight far worse than his nightmares, a vision so terrifying there was an intense feeling to stop this work and fall down and worship the thing.

  "Stop, priest!" the thing thundered, its voice the voice of a million Auschwitz camps and billions of innocent dead. "I will crush you if you continue!"

  Suddenly the panel in the back rolled back and Poquah entered. The two pixies tried, but could not penetrate the force of evil there. Through the one-way glass, they could see the priest and Poquah clearly, but only a shimmering shape in the center of the pentagram.

  "It can't get at you. Father!" Poquah yelled to the kneeling naked figure. "It can't cross that pentagram and those candle sticks! Seal this one bastard away from this place it profanes!"

  The demon prince roared defiance, but turned toward Poquah. "Silence, elf shit! You are not your master, and even him could I devour, if I chose!"

  The change of focus took some of the pressure off O'Grady, who continued. That and the booze gave him barely enough insulation to finish the long and complex passage. He was still amazed he remembered it. It had been years since he'd studied it, and the text almost seemed to be coming from—somewhere else.

  Suddenly his spirit soared, and he stood up and grinned at the terror beyond description. "Begone, ye demon! Your better has bested you! In the name of the Lord God, Creator of the Universe, this place is sealed!"

  Suddenly the demon howled, and where the strings were, forming the Seal, was now a mass of fire forming the great seal and spelling out letters. Slowly, the six lines began to converge on their center at the pentagram.

  "It's shrinking." a shaken Joe managed from behind the screen. "Well, I'll be damned!"

  "Probably!" roared the creature, but it was definitely in agony. It, too, seemed to be shrinking, losing substance and power. The lines of fire continued their march, passing the candlesticks and consuming them in a nearly electrical fire, then consuming the pentagram itself, which was no longer needed.

  There was a sudden burst of pure bright light that seemed to blind them, and then all was still and quiet except for the buzz from the untouched fluorescent light fixture. On the floor, the great Seal of Solomon was etched into the very stone itself, about the size of the inner area of the pentagram. The aura of evil, the terror that the room had held, was gone. It just felt suddenly cold and damp down there.

  "Well, I'll be—darned," Father O'Grady said. "The thing actually worked! Praise be to God!" He turned to

  Poquah. "This calls for a drink!" he proclaimed and collapsed on the floor.

  The Imir rushed to him and checked him, and the two pixies flew in immediately to see for themselves.

  "Passed out cold," the Imir told them. "Might as well leave him here and make him comfortable. Right now this is the safest place in the area."

  "You do that," said Joe. "You still won't tell us a damned thing, so Gimlet and I are going to go up and watch the show."

  "Be careful," the Imir warned. "Dacaro is still dangerous as hell; there are no guarantees our plans will work, and that audience and most of the people in this house are still the enemy."

  "We'll remember. Just call if you need us."

  "You can do no more. Now—go. It's almost time. I can feel Dacaro's spell reaching down to connect with his nibs in here at this moment, and I'll have to give him a reasonable facsimile of a connection so he feels secure. Not that he could do anything but go through with it, anyway."

  The Baron and Baroness had taken their seats and the last checks were in. Dacaro brought his script up to the lectern, although it was a scant ten pages of giant-sized double-spaced type, just enough for the introduction. He'd wing it after that.

  The connection to below felt a bit odd, but he put it down to nervous excitement. This night was everything— and more—that he ever dreamed when he'd decided on the black side of the arts.

  The Baroness leaned over and whispered to the Baron, "Golly gee whillikers! I'm so excited!"

  He sighed. "Enough of that, my dear. We are secure. Just look pretty and watch the show. I don't know what's gotten into you, anyway."

  "Oh, okay, honey. But, golly! Everybody looks so nice!"

  He stared at her for a moment and a hint of suspicion crossed his mind, but he finally dismissed it as just excitement. He didn't feel himself tonight, either, although he put it down to tiredness and pressure. Even though this was a big moment for him, he still wished it was all over and done with. There! The recorded gospel music was already going out! They were on the air!

  A ghostly, disembodied voice that was actually pre-taped said, "The Blessed Art Thou Network proudly presents, from Stockman Mills, California, live, the Reverend Richard Dacaro and the True Path Crusade for the Lord!"

  There was a lot of applause. As that was going on, the pixies spotted Marge back in the trees and went to her.

  "Everything squared away?" the Kauri asked.

  "Okay below," Gimlet responded. "Ain't nothin' goin' out of here tonight 'cept what we're seeing now."

  "Yeah, I'm real curious as to this other part. What did they have planned? An air strike?" Joe wondered. "I mean, they're still on top. Their gimmick just won't fly tonight."

  "Oh, I got an idea. My feet are still sore," the real pixie said.

  "Your feet?"

  "From typing dose extra lines in da script."

  The applause died down, and Dacaro, looking really splendid, began. As had been anticipated, he was more than a little nervous at this, despite his earlier hour-long stint, and so he kept pretty close to his script.

  "Brothers and sisters," he began, "we welcome the rest of you across this great land of ours to our glorious crusade. Here, in this natural setting, we can feel the presence of God around us, and I hope some of that communicates to those of you out there."

  He went on leading a group prayer, then launched into his keynote sermon. It was a typical sort of nondenominational sermon, except that it wasn't very long.

  "We must rid our beautiful nation, one nation indivisible, of those elements that corrupt our young. We declare war tonight on the evil that spreads over this land! Why, in this very spot, in the midst of God's most wondrous nature, at one time not long ago they grew the noxious weed that rots the minds and steals the souls of our young! Well, we have liberated this land for God, and they shall not have it back!"

  There was great applause, and Marge commented, "He's really
pretty good. I almost feel like phoning in a donation myself."

  "Brothers and sisters here and across this great nation, we can here, now, today, make a start at a true revolution for our country! Not one that will burn or loot or pillage, but one based on God and scripture, one that drives the evil drugs and pornography and booze and filth from our land and our young! I wish all of you out there could see, could feel, could know what this country would be like if we were in charge!"

  "DONE!" cried a voice that went over the microphones and out to the satellites.

  Dacaro stopped, as if it were the voice of God, but he had no choice in the matter and no time really to reflect on it. He grew suddenly transparent, and seemed to be sucked as if by a vacuum cleaner into the lectern itself. But the podium was not deserted, for in a simultaneous reversal another oozed out and solidified, a huge man in formal clothes and top hat with a big white beard.

  Both Marge's and Joe's jaws dropped. Finally Marge managed, "The Lamp! Macore hid the Lamp in the podium!"

  The crowd, however, hardly noticed Ruddygore up there. They were, as were at least a million people tuning in across the country, in a state of absolute shock and horror, for the Lamp had granted Dacaro's unintended wish.

  They knew exactly what the country would be like if the True Path were in charge.

  It broke through spells, and it broke through all manner of faith and belief. It just was. Down there, some people were so nauseated they were throwing up all over their nice clean suits.

  Ruddygore had seemed dazed for a moment, but now he suddenly seemed to see the lights and the cameras and he brightened like a small child discovering a new toy. He grabbed the microphone and began singing, "I am the very model of a modern Major General...."

  A technician had had the presence of mind to shut down transmission, but there were still all those people out there. Ruddygore continued to sing.

  Joe looked forward and grew alarmed. "Boquillas has split!" He looked at the other two. "You check this side of the crowd, and you. Gimlet, check the other. I'm going back into the house. He may try some sort of slicker getaway there, and Tiana's trapped in there!"