Horrors of the Dancing Gods (35 page)

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."