Horrors of the Dancing Gods (36 page)

"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
guy.
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."

Irving felt sick. "Then we—that is, tonight, we—oh, no!"

At least it explained why he had no power over her, but it also meant that she'd reversed his erotic dreams.
She,
if that was still the right term, had seduced
him.

"Quit feeling sorry for yourself!" Marge snapped.
"She's
the one with the curse and the problem, not you. And
you
are the one who took that drug with her by
your
choice,
your
lust. That's what I meant about growing up, Irving. In the end, nobody did anything to you but you. You removed your limits and your spells; you fantasized and lusted after her and dragged her into our group. She didn't try and join us, remember. And you took the drug with her. Now, how you handle this inside yourself and how you handle yourself in Larae's presence will determine just how grown-up you really are."

Right now he didn't feel all that grown-up. It wasn't
fair!
Damn and double damn! He felt
used.
Unclean, sort of. Bits and pieces of just what they'd done earlier came back to him in his emotional torment, and he felt like blaming anybody but himself. Grow up? Hell,
nobody
ever was
that
grown-up!

Oddly, as he stared out into the pitch darkness of the rain forest, a thought came to him from out of nowhere:
This is how Dad must have felt.

Felt wrong, weak, compromised, ashamed, and unwilling to admit the truth or face down his son. Joe hadn't acted very grown-up, either, had he? And the son had cursed and blasted him for running ever since.

Now it was the son who wanted to run, who didn't want to face the way things were with somebody
he'd
sort of assumed responsibility for. But how could he just keep on after knowing? How could he treat Larae the same as before? Or even as just a friend? Even a companion? Particularly now that she'd
used
him
.

But hadn't
he
dreamed of using
her?
Wasn't that why he'd taken that drug with her in the first place?

That was
different!

How?

Only because in his own scenarios he was the user rather than the victim. Damn it, it made him feel like a skunk.
She
had done this to
him,
and here
he
was
feeling guilty about it!

But it was so—so
unnatural!

In a world of fairies, nymphs, gnomes, curses, demons on street corners, and resident sorcerers, what in
hell
was
natural?

So Dad had gone off to conquer the evil sorcerer and had been changed in the process into a wimp of a bimbo wood nymph.
"Hi, Irving! Guess
what?
But don't worry, I'll stick around and be your role model, anyway."

What if he had been the one who was changed? Would he have acted differently than Joe had? Would he have faced his son like that,
forever
like that, and would the son have accepted it? He'd been blaming his father for not doing just that for years, but what would his own reaction have been?

He knew the answer. He knew that what he'd always thought he
would
have done was what he most certainly
should
have done under those circumstances, but it wasn't what he really would have thought or felt or done.
Nobody
grew up
that
quickly. Nobody should have had to.

Marge had no idea what Irving was really thinking or how he'd finally resolve this, if he could, but she did emphatically sense the growing buildup of guilt, shame, and emotional turmoil within him.

Maybe in another night or so he'd at least have worked up sufficient guilt to allow her to solve her immediate problem by helping him solve his.

Poquah rarely smoked a
pipe, and when he did, it was only when the most important things were imminent. It was a pleasure he shared with his elfin brethren but one that also never quite fit his self-image and lifestyle. But in the predawn hours he was on deck smoking the pipe and leaning against the rail, looking out at nothing in particular.

Irving wasn't sure who he wanted less to see and talk to, Larae or Poquah, but as much as he wanted just to go overboard and make his way through the jungle to someplace where they'd never heard of him and wouldn't find him, he wasn't really about to do it. He wasn't at all sure he wouldn't have, though, if he'd also shared his father's immortality.

Marge had reported the Imir as furious, but Poquah never showed emotion and was always in perfect control. He was not in fact nearly as angry as he'd been initially and not entirely angry at the boy or the girl, particularly since Marge had briefed him on all that had transpired and all that had been revealed.

"Poquah, I—"

The Imir, barely visible in the predawn grayness, held up his hand. "Growing up is learning, often by committing mistakes," he said softly. "The trick is to grow up and learn from those mistakes without allowing them to destroy you. Have you learned?"

"I—well, sure, I've learned. I'm just not sure if I learned all that I could have or that the lesson is correct. Damn it, Poquah, it's not
fair!"

"Nothing much in life is certain except its unfairness. Good people die; evil lives to a ripe old age. Crime pays much of the time. Wars ravage schoolyards as
thoroughly as battlefields. People tolerate and even create the grossest of dictatorships rather than risk hunger and uncertainty in freedom. Everybody expects a free lunch, but nobody can give such a thing. Someone
always
pays. That's not just something in the Rules, you know. It's the way things work. If we are not constantly tested by fighting through valleys of weeping and crucibles of fire, then nothing we can gain is worthwhile." He paused. "So what will you do now?'

Irving shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know
what to
do."

"She is asleep now. She has slept better tonight than at any time since she joined us. She also does not know that we all now know her secret. It is her great shame. I believe she is terrified that someone will find out."

"Well, I can't
hide
it. I can't
pretend
anymore. I wouldn't know how. That's something more mature people can handle, maybe, but it's just not in me, not yet."

"Then you must be totally honest with her, but that is a grave risk. If she cannot accept us knowing and you knowing in particular, she will react as your father did and will flee at the first opportunity. At least she cannot kill herself. That option is removed by her geas. She is not the owner of her fate and thus has no right to take her life.
That
at least we need not worry about."

"Yeah, but if she runs, out here, in
this . . ."

The Imir nodded. "There is still a day and a night left. The creatures in there would be sensitized to her curse, but they would feel free to use or abuse her. She wouldn't die at their hands; she'd just wish she could."

"Great!
More
load heaped on me!"

"I wouldn't do it if there were any other way. Understanding, forgiving, sympathizing aren't enough. You must convince her that you
accept
her. That it doesn't
matter.
She has had enough of pity and of punishment, I think. This past night proved that. She seized an initiative and acted upon it, which is very encouraging. It means she's at the point of finally accepting her situation, of living with it as a permanent condition rather than just moping around and hoping she'll die or wake up. If she were to get the idea, particularly at this crucial juncture in our travels, that she could be an equal and not have to hide in shame, then she might actually have the potential to
contribute
to this expedition, which I think may be far shorter ahead than I originally thought."

"Huh? How so?"

"Something darker than anything I have ever experienced or even imagined is afoot here. I can feel its enormity, its oppressive weight and sheer power, the farther in we travel. Odd to think of Yuggoth as having a
cancer,
but it does, and that cancer is spreading at a rate that says there is no time for caution now. Something draws me as well to its source. Marge, too, I think, and you to a lesser but still important extent. We must settle all the turmoil within our company, and we must do so now. We will need each other like never before in very short order."

Irving didn't sleep much at all after that, but he let Larae get up and wash and eat and get comfortable. She
did
seem different, both softer and more self-confident and definitely bound to him in some emotional way.

That was going to make this pretty damned tough, and he'd gone over and over how he'd manage it. In a sense, he knew he had her fate in his hands, and that was a heavy burden if he blew it.

Finally, though, he couldn't put if off any longer. "Larae?"

She smiled at him. "Thank you for last night."

He tried not to show discomfort. "It's all right. I think maybe it's time I told you a little about my own self and other things in more detail than you've heard them so far."

"You don't have to."

"Yes, I do. And I want to start by telling you about my father ..."

WE'RE OFF TO SEE THE LIZARD

Just say no to drugs or they will do something wrong to you.

—
Rules, Vol. XLI, p. 194(c)

There! What did I tell you?

—
Reagan, N.

AT THE UPPER LIMITS OF NAVIGATION ON THE RIVER, whose name they never did quite get clearly in their minds—it meandered horribly, and with every bend it seemed to have a new and totally unrelated name—was a small inland town that nobody had named but that was clearly their first destination.

In spite of its remoteness, the town looked oddly familiar to those from Earth, if a bit out of place in this geographic setting, with large Gothic-style Victorian houses peeking out of the ends of the jungle like an enormous collection of haunted houses. The jungle in fact ended within sight of the town and very dramatically; the mountains seemed to be a two-mile-high wall.