Demons of the Dancing Gods

by Jack L. Chalker

  Frustration! Perhaps a little guilt, too, at having so much while the masses were in bondage!

  But what do you know of the masses, Esmilio? You were born to wealth. Even had you not had the talent or the intelligence, you still wouldn't have had to work a day in your life. You're like every social revolutionary I've ever seen. You know no more of the masses, what they're like, how they think, act, and live, than a hereditary king.

  One does not have to be a woman to understand women's oppression. One does not have to be a soldier to know the horrors of war. Often I've gone out in full disguise, mingled with people from all walks of life all over Husaquahr, lived with the farmers and the merchants and the stevedores on the docks. I know more of them than you!

  Indeed? So the rich boy went off in disguise and played at farming, or played at loading ships, all the time knowing that at any time he could materialize what he needed or, if need be, slink back to his family's banquet hall. You have never felt, nor can you ever feel, the hunger that comes from having no such fallbacks, no resources. You can never know the anguish of being a continual victim of society, pushed and shoved, without influential friends to bail you out or stay the whip's cruel hand. Even your emotions arc intellectualized. The masses are a conceptual model, a mathematical construct like a good spell or an accountant's ledger. You can never know the human individual, for you can never experience what he or she experienced. As any actor, you can play the part, but you cannot be the man.

  And you can?

  My mother was a prostitute. My father, I was told, was a common sailor, looking for a good time while in port in Todra. I grew up in the filth and squalor of the docks of long ago, which were worse then than now by quite a bit. I scrounged through the garbage for scraps to eat, but I was ambitious. Oh, yes. I could see the magic and I understood what that meant. Back in those days, Todra was a republic, and imported tutors taught the very rich and powerful in small groups on the treelined estates of the wealthy. One day, while still a mere lad, I was casing one of those places for a possible robbery when I happened on such a class. I was fascinated. I never did burgle the place, but I came back, day after day, for weeks and months, hiding in the trees and hearing the lessons. Basic mathematics. The classics, frustratingly discussed but which I could not read. Oh, yes, I can indeed, my friend, I can be such a man.

  Boquillas was shocked. In all their conversations over the years, he had never heard this before. But—how did you rise?

  Every society requires one thing to keep it from exploding. It requires a measure of social mobility. Surely you know that. In some countries it is the degree of literacy, or some sort of merit system within a political structure. For some,-it is money. Here it is both money and magic, but you know that magic brings wealth. By my tutorial eavesdropping, I was able to manage and master some small spells. With that, I was able to demonstrate the art to certain magicians in the bazaar, who seemed impressed. They continued my education, as well as taught me to read, and from this I attained membership in the Society. From that point, I began truly to learn and to rise. I really never regretted my origins, nor my pride in my attainments. Perhaps my only regret is a lifetime of overcompensation for those early days of near starvation.

  I never knew.

  It was very long ago.

  But—you should have been my natural ally, not my enemy in this! Together we could have changed so much!

  Ruddygore sighed. I see now my mistake, one that must be paid for. At some point I should have put aside my reservations about taking a fellow ranking sorcerer across and given you a tour of Earth.

  Is it so terrible?

  Well, yes and no. But with all the modernities that technology brought them, there is more true happiness there than here, I would say. Many people yearn for our world and our life. Some of what we have here comes across to them as dreams, and they write glorious books with wizards and sorcerers, and all have their fairy legends. Most would be very disappointed with the reality here, I grant you, but as long as we remain fantasy, we remain an ideal they yearn for. It is ironic, I think, that they yearn for us, while just the opposite has happened to you. No, old friend, it's not worse than here over there, only very different. But, on balance, it is about even in its good and bad points. Those two you held here were from Earth, and from a particularly progressive part, and they both seem to be doing better here than there.

  So that explains. . .Never mind. You talk of Earth, but this is not Earth. Here we have magic! We need not fight, Ruddygore! Together we can blend technology and magic to build a perfect world!

  Sadly, Ruddygore shook his head. No, it cannot be. You would see it for yourself, were you not blinded by a beautiful but impossible vision. Technology and magic do not mix. The more of the former, the less powerful the latter becomes. There were as many fairies on Earth at the start as here, you know. They are mostly gone now—dead. They died from obsolescence. Their forests were cut down, their rivers dammed, their true work replaced by devices. You would kill them here as well, for they cannot change. They are not meant to change. And, with their going, our power, too, will vanish, for all new magic-comes from faerie and its values and traditions and work. It happened on Earth, which once also frolicked with the djinn and had sorcerers and witches as great or greater than ours. He sighed. I will make you an offer. I will send you to Earth, to a system run according to one of those books you got hold of. Live there as a commoner and see how far you get and whether you want it for Husaquahr.

  It was Boquillas' turn to shake his head sadly. It is much too late for that, even if I believed you, and you have been too full of tricks for me this day. I can neither give up my dream nor abandon my people who believe in it. Surely you must know that.

  Ruddygore nodded. Yes, I knew, but I had to try first. Why don't you go upstairs, shower, and change? Then we'll crack that fine old bottle and smoke a couple of good cigars. I do have your word that you'll be back shortly?

  Boquillas smiled and nodded. Yes, of course. There is no purpose to prolonging this while good people are dying on both sides. With that he arose wearily from the table and made his way upstairs to his room. Ruddygore just stared after him, a sad look in his eyes and perhaps just a glint of a tear.

  They stood facing each other on the wall, the tall, handsome Boquillas in brown velvet robes, trimmed in gold and silver, Ruddygore in his sparkling golden robes. Below them, waves lapped at the base of the cliffs several hundred feet down the sheer drop. The sky was clear and star-filled, the nearly full moon eerily illuminating the great lake.

  Boquillas looked at the huge figure of Ruddygore and shook his head. This shouldn't have to be. If I win, I win it all. If I lose, you merely abandon this world to Kaladon, who will do it far worse than I.

  I think it does have to be, Ruddygore responded. As for Kaladon, I will tend to him at the proper time. Come. It is time to put an end to this thing.

  Boquillas bowed silently, his face grim, but he said nothing.

  It began.

  There was a seamless growth in the Count's figure, until it rose up and towered over Ruddygore, fluidly taking the form of a great and ferocious beast that stank and howled and gibbered and drooled. Ruddygore watched, but did not seem impressed. Magic tricks, he muttered. Ghoulies and beasties. No, Esmilio, we met this way on the fields of the Valley of Decision and settled nothing. Now face the curses you would bring to our land.

  Massive explosions sounded all around the monstrous, gibbering shape, the concussion from their charges echoing menacingly against the castle walls and then out onto the lake like some eerie thunder. The creature became confused, disoriented, and began to swat at the explosions, then realized that it was on the wrong tack. It leaped upon the form of Ruddygore with a snarl, but he was not there. In his place was a massive, horrible machine, all gaseous fumes and grinding gears, sucking in the monster, sucking in and grinding it in sharp and nasty gear teeth.

  The creature changed and became a terrible whirlwind,
a tornadolike funnel cloud that sucked up and broke apart the machine with a thunderous roar. Overhead, immediately atop the whirling mass, appeared a great orange explosion that rapidly spread and grew until it covered the whole of the sky, setting, it seemed, the very air afire. As it descended, a blazing blanket, it drew up into it the very oxygen below; with its force, it dissipated and swallowed the whirlwind. But it did not reach the castle proper, vanishing just above it and leaving the region oddly quiet.

  From the sudden, deathly stillness came a huge shape, the great roc of ancient and terrible legend, its condorlike beak snapping furiously while from deep within its massive throat came horrible shrieks. It swooped and whirled around, searching for an adversary, and it found one, also coming out of the sky, a strange blackness that approached at impossible speeds and was gone again before even the tremendous explosive sounds of its passing struck the great and terrible bird of old.

  But the newcomer had not passed in demonstration but rather had laid its eggs, dozens of them that now sped toward the roc from all directions, including from above and below. Frantically the bird tried to zoom up, then straight down, then from side to side, but those horrible eggs kept matching its movements and all the time coming closer, closer...

  At least five struck the roc in its massive underbelly, exploding with incredible force, driving white-hot bits of metal into its flesh along with flaming jellied liquid that seemed only to eat into the creature while refusing all efforts to be extinguished. The roc reeled as seven more struck it, one in the head, and the force of the explosion there and the spread of the terrible burning jelly struck its eyes, rendering it blind. In panic, burning, it raced for the surface of the lake and dove beneath the placid waters, sending a plume of water thirty feet into the air as it did so.

  Ruddygore, his face and eyes showing tremendous strain and concentration, stood on the castle wall and looked outward to where the roc had entered the water. Within a short time, the water was smooth once more, with no sign of the huge entry.

  Now, though, great bubbles issued up along a wide area below the castle, as if some enormous creature was surfacing. When it did, it was more terrible than anything of the old legends, a monstrous mass of living green slime from which issued thousands of wriggling tentacles as needed. It continued to rise, its bulk so vast that it was soon almost the size of the entire castle. Ruddygore faced it impassively, not moving a muscle as stench-ridden, sucker-covered tentacles reached out for him.

  From all around the beast, small white contrails broke the surface of the water, dozens of them coming in a semicircular pattern toward the beast's bulk. Just as the first tentacles of the kraken closed upon Ruddygore, the objects struck, all within a fraction of a second, sending up tremendous plumes of water as each exploded with a roar that made all previous detonations look like firecrackers. With the water, pieces of green slime went up as well, and the kraken roared its terrible agony and writhed in pain, its two giant eyes on great stalks glaring in hatred.

  Ruddygore reached down, picked up a strange-looking object, and aimed it at the eyes. The thing shot more of the jellied flame, which this time burned on and into the water, and the creature groaned and thrashed in an unsuccessful attempt to quench the spreading fires that covered it.

  Suddenly the kraken vanished. For a moment, all was silence again. Then there was a roar from the castle roof, and Ruddygore spun around to face an enormous dragon that reared back and shot hot, smoky flame at him. Boquillas was fighting fire with fire.

  Ruddygore flung back his right arm as if about to throw something, but when he brought it forward, an enormous stream of water rose out of the lake and struck the dragon full force in the mouth. Suddenly the fat sorcerer was standing right on the castle wall, holding and guiding a gigantic pressurized hose that quenched the dragon's flame.

  The dragon, its flame so easily extinguished while Ruddygore's fires had been unquenchable, roared defiance and leaped upon the man below, but suddenly the man wasn't there. The dragon missed and plunged over the edge of the castle wall, but there was no sound of an object striking the water.

  Both men again stood facing each other on the outer wall, neither actually hurt, but Boquillas' fine robes looked slightly singed.

  It's called napalm, Ruddygore told him. Just one of technology's little gifts to mankind.

  But Boquillas was no longer there. Instead, the whole castle shimmered and seemed to change into a terrible, menacing jungle of carnivorous vines and animated plants. The transition was so swift that Ruddygore found himself suddenly held by strong tentaclelike vines that tightened and pulled in all directions toward gaping plant jaws. The abrupt change had obviously surprised him, and he showed real pain and discomfort, but only for a moment.

  There was a sound like a thunderclap, and down from the sky rained a suffocating, yellowish cloud of gas. It quickly covered all the plants and the sorcerer himself; but at its first touch, the vines recoiled and the gaping mouths of the huge plants seemed to scream in dreadful agony. The jungle was suddenly in frantic, insane movement, screaming and tearing itself to bits as it died. The more it writhed, the more it opened its wounds to the yellowish powders.

  Freed, Ruddygore, although slightly injured, did not pause.

  Now smell the world of the perfect future! Breathe it and weep! he cried. The air changed, and the stars and moon were blacked out. All around was a dense, wet fog that choked anything it touched, a fog filled with the metal particulates from a billion smokestacks and the noxious fumes of a hundred chemical and power plants. It was the condensation of all that had been pumped into the air by mankind's progress through the centuries, and it was more horrible than any monster of Husaquahr.

  Again Boquillas was disoriented by the tactic, which was more terrible and incomprehensible to him than anything he had known. He tried to fight his way out of it, to rise above it, but it was so dense and so horrible that he could not seem to find a break in it.

  Suddenly the way was clear, and he made for it, but it was not a pleasant clearing. Although the pretty farms and fields appeared lush and green and the little town looked both alien and very familiar with its small cottages and dirt main streets, it was a scene of total terror. Two armies, it seemed, were going at each other, but not in any formal way. The entire pastoral vista was one of pure carnage and disorganization, and men were falling from bullets so thick in the air that the entire countryside seemed infested with some sort of locust. When any man showed even a part of himself, though, those locusts struck and tore gaping wounds open, causing terrible pain and agony. Men fell by the hundreds, by the thousands, in an impersonal carnage that turned the little creek that ran through the fields and then through the town into a river of blood. Antietam Creek had become Bloody Lane.

  Just as abruptly, the scene changed, yet somehow stayed the same. It was a horrible wasteland now, any trace of what it might have been before having been long obliterated. Shells burst in the air in an almost constant barrage of concussion and shrapnel, while men huddled in long trenches and died every time they tried to advance en masse just a few yards from those holes...

  Then the sky was filled with a shattering roar as machines of destruction flew over in so dense a formation that the city below seemed blocked from sunlight. Most of the people were below, in shelters against the rain of bombs, but nothing could protect them from this onslaught of explosions that created a firestorm above, rather than on the surface, sucking out the oxygen and killing them, men, women, children, old and young, dogs and cats, soldiers and bankers and janitors, as they huddled in their shelters...

  Boquillas whirled, but the place now was a new place, without explosions or bombs. He saw rows upon rows of men so thin and emaciated they looked like what the line marching the road to Hell must look like, only these were human beings, some being forced to shovel out piles of human remains from enormous ovens, the remains of men, women, children, and none of them soldiers...

  The sights sickened a
nd appalled him at first; but after a while, their very sameness brought him a measure of respite, a crack in the chamber of horrors, allowing reason to resume command. Ruddygore was effectively showing him the evils of technology, but without any of the benefits, and he fought back in this Never-Neverland of the mind.

  Gleaming cities of steel and stone... Highways that were ribbons of concrete stretching from coast to coast, spanning continents, filled with horseless vehicles in astounding numbers ... Homes, powered and heated by oil, gas, even the sun itself, in tremendous profusion, and not a castle in sight... Huge symphonies in large, well-lighted halls of acoustical perfection, playing wondrously beautiful pieces...

  Ruddygore, ready, counterattacked...

  Family units all grouped around boxes from which issued moving pictures in full color, all hypnotically staring at the screen for hours on end, all watching incredible drivel...

  A band on a huge stage entertaining tens of thousands of young people, but the band was dressed in weird, half-naked fashion, its lead singer's jewelry including razor blades for earrings; all their faces were terribly made up, while their hair was shaved in strange ways and dyed in greens and blues and reds. They were singing of death, destruction, and hopelessness to a crowd that was at one and the same time worshipping them, emulating them, and watching with that same hypnotic fascination as those in front of the little boxes...

  Inventory, Boquillas commanded. And in his mind appeared fallout shelters, missile silos, satellite guidance systems...

  Mutual Assured Destruction... the hydrogen bomb...

  He located what he needed, targeted it, and aimed it properly. The great missile broke back through the atmosphere, targeted not on a city but on a single individual, its lenses and computers interacting to locate that one man, who, when spotted, turned to the onrushing death from the sky...

  Only it was not Ruddygore. It was a small, helpless beggar child with pitiful eyes, his hands still grubby and stained from rooting through dockside garbage. He looked up at the missile with sad, fatalistic eyes, then turned to Boquillas, who watched, horrified. The boy reached out, pleading with him, pleading...