Horrors of the Dancing Gods (43 page)

They approached the dark at the end of the tunnel before they could think any more about it.

And like
that
they burst through into an insane, chaotic roar of battle on a vast supernatural scale.

All around them, great dark shapes like giants in a twisted shadow play rode even more horrifying steeds that snorted, exuded, and shot fire and brimstone and electrical energies at an equally horrific series of giant apparitions in front of them. The enemy seemed outlined in bright white energy yet was all animal hatred, with slashing fangs and razor-sharp claws not of flesh and blood but of supernatural energy, the true underlying That behind All That.

It was the most awful, terrifying thing any of them had ever seen, made all the more so by their total lack of control over anything, including being able to run or hide or block from their vision the grisly and grotesque war of the evil gods that raged all around them. Instead, they tried to focus forward on a tiny sliver of light, of reality, toward which they slowly moved even as they stood motionless with Mephistopheles.

The pinpoint grew abruptly larger, surrounding and overwhelming them, and they felt the suddenness of wind on their faces and the heat of the early evening and saw a. vast impenetrable-looking forest only a few dozen meters in front of them.

They didn't wait for an invitation; although they were all still stunned and reeling from the incomprehensible violence through which they'd come, they each acted out of an instinct for self-preservation and hit the ground running hard for those trees, not stopping until they were well inside the thick grove and hidden by its shadows.

Irving still wasn't thinking; he flattened himself against a tree, breathing hard, the terror in his face impossible to disguise. He wasn't certain where Larae was, but he thought he could hear her gasping for breath not far from him, while over in another corner came the sound of the oily Thebes whimpering.

Poquah had been in that realm before, although never against that sort of enemy or facing that intensity of sheer hatred. He had felt and been unnerved as they had, but his nearly absolute self-control had not wavered. Only the fact that he was breathing almost as hard as the others showed that there was anything more going on inside his head.

Of them all, Marge felt the least affected, and she wasn't sure why. Certainly she'd never seen anything like
that
before, but what had been total horror and confusion for the others had been to her like a great thrill ride; she could still feel the sense of exhilaration from all the energy that had washed over and through her. It felt as if she'd just come off the greatest roller coaster in the world, one with, nothing but superhill after superhill. The sense of extreme danger, of the potential for instant death or psychic dismemberment, far from being so terribly frightening, had only increased the thrill. She hadn't had this much fun, felt this great, since ... since ...

Hell, she'd
never
felt
this great!

She'd been a wimpy Kauri far too long.
This
was
living again!

She could see and sense that her companions did not share her enthusiasm, and it amused her.
I'm the only real female in this whole bunch, and I've got all the balls,
she thought with some satisfaction.

She walked through the forest, finding each of them in turn and saying in a normal tone not designed to bring unwanted attention but sufficient to be heard by them all, "Come on, come out! We've got to get moving! The dark's not gonna pose a big problem for me, but it sure will for the rest of you. Let's move in and set up some sort of camp here."

Slowly, shakily, they all managed to let go, although Thebes let go and followed only when it was suggested that the alternative was that he
not
come and thus be left there for whoever or whatever came along.

"What—what was
that?"
Larae managed after a while.

"Just what the demon said it was," Poquah responded. "That is total war in the realm of Heaven and Hell and, in this case, a third force as well. Ugly, is it not? Ugly and beautiful at one and the same time."

"I—I could make sense of little of it," she admitted.

He nodded. "None of us could. Our minds aren't capable of processing that sort of information, nor are our brains fast enough and clever enough to interpret what we were seeing. The result was a series of horrific impressions, true, and all of the chaos of battle, but nothing specific. I must admit, though, that it was useful and instructive in judging the enemy here."

"How so?" Irving asked him. "All I got was a lot of hatred and animal lust."

"True. That's what I got, too. The mason this temporary breakthrough worked was that the forces of Hell were employing carefully plotted battle plans. There was intellect, organization, and discipline there, and it was pitted against raw emotional power. No plan, no coordination, no discipline, just all the base passions. The only reason they am formidable is the depth of their power. Intellect can hold against brute force in most cases, but if that is the force level
now,
imagine
what it will be like if these demigods truly come through. I believe that's what Hell fears, what it cannot withstand. If just the followers here can muster this kind of power and wrest and tear even this small spot flout the Prince of Hell himself, then who or what could withstand their masters?"

There was a sudden low, ominous rumbling that seemed to come from all around, and the very earth shook and the trees began to sway this way and that. The earth shifted beneath them, throwing them all briefly to the ground.

It went on for a few seconds but stopped almost as quickly as it had started. There was, however, still the sound of only slightly more distant mumbling and the occasional whiff of sulfur.

They picked themselves up in the deepening gloom of the forest.
"What
was
that?"
Irving asked as they set off, unnerved once again.

"A minor earthquake, I believe," Poquah told him. "We are walking into a deep valley cutting right into a gigantic and somewhat active volcano, remember, and these forces all around certainly won't help pacify its normal and natural anger."

"There is no danger of it erupting onto us, is there?" Larae asked nervously.

"I don't think so," the Imir replied, "even though that would be very symmetrical and thus in full accord with the Rules. To do so, though, would mean wiping out this valley and this forest, and I believe that these specific segments, mostly remnants moved here from Earth after the Fall, are pretty well protected. Not, however, from earthquakes and other similar phenomena."

"You sure you're going in the right direction?" Irving asked him nervously. "It's getting pretty dark."

"I'm an Imir. Being in trouble in my natural forest element would be as unthinkable as it would be for, say, a wood nymph. Ah! See?"

It emerged right out of the ground, surrounded and even overgrown by the trees, but it was a large and very round-looking cave.

"Lava tube," Poquah explained. 'There
do
appear to have been some limited eruptions in here, after all. Perhaps we can use that somehow."

Irving looked at it nervously. "You mean
lava
comes out of that thing? Forget it! No way I'm goin' in there!"

"It doesn't tend to happen twice. This was formed in the process; it's not a cannon. It appears perfect for us, and convenient. All of us can fit in there, it's not easy to spot, and there aren't a lot of nasty other things living in it."

"I think I'd rather stay outside than be in there," Larae commented, and Irving nodded.

"No telling what is in those trees after dark; you'd have no warning and no chance if something dropped on you," Poquah pointed out. "This might not be as comfortable, but there's rock and dirt all around you. There is no time when you need more protection than now, when we don't know what is here. Later, when we see what we are dealing with, we can
adjust."

Marge looked at it. "No way
I
am crawling in there," she told him, then chuckled. "I don't think you'd
want me
in
such close quarters. Let me see what I can see."

"No! Not yet!" Poquah snapped. "You more than anyone are vulnerable to them, since they are such raw emotion. I cannot afford to have you, engulfed by their power and go over to their side while you know all that we know!"

"You can't
afford ...! You
can't
stop me from doing anything I want to do. None of you can. It's already dark, and you're gonna have to set up by braille as it is, since even faerie sight isn't all that much use in that lava tube.
I
can see very well. You are all ground huggers. I can fly. You might not approve of my personality change, although I'm getting to like it more and more, but I know which side I'm on.
You
better watch that iron they're packing when you're all stuffed in there, Poquah.
You're
in
more immediate danger from
them
than from whatever's out there."

There was no reply for a while as Poquah's legendary control was tested to the hilt, but as he was about to say something, there came the sound of huge crowds and rhythmic chanting that seemed to emanate from farther inside the valley. The friction within their company was forgotten for the moment.

"That's from that structure they have been building," Poquah said. "It sounds like thousands of voices all gathered in some ritual."

"I'm getting mighty curious about that structure," Marge told them. "I think I'm going to have a look at it from the air, from a spot where elevation will prevent me from having to get too close. Set up your camp. I'll be back!" And with that, she lifted off into the air and was soon lost beyond the treetops.

Irving gave a low whistle. "She's sure changed. Cold and sexy at the same time, but dangerous-type sexy. The only thing I can see of the old Marge is the Texas accent." Poquah thought a moment. "I am inclined to move, since who knows what will happen if she's captured, but she is correct. We'd have to work our way through this in total darkness, and for all its sense of ancient power, it is not a true faerie wood." He sighed. "I warned Master Ruddygore that this would happen, but he dismissed it. Now we shall
all
have to hope that it works out."

"What did she mean, none of us could stop her from doing anything?' Irving asked him, an odd thought occurring to him at that moment.

"No matter what we were originally or behaviorally, we are all sexually male," the hair noted. "With great concentration, skill, and magical protections, we may well be able to stave off the power of a Succubus and not succumb to her, but we could never hope to reverse it. We can defend but not attack. It would take a true woman to do that—beg your pardon, Larae, but you know that does not include you—and even then, she is not defenseless. The primary difference between a Kauri and a Succubus is that one cleans up small messes while the other is an out-and-out predator."

"That's kinda what I thought she meant," the boy replied. But he couldn't help wondering about that curse, that on-again, off-again curse that he had been assured by a true demon, minor or not, would work on all females who could and did cohabit with human males. That certainly would include a Succubus, a far more minor and elemental being under Hell's domain. If
she
could not resist
him
and
he
could not resist
her, what
would happen if they went head to head? He couldn't help but wonder—and hope that he didn't have to find out.

Marge broke above the treetops with effortless ease and looked around at the spectacular setting they had not been able to see on arrival. The menacing presence of Mount Doom loomed over all else, tall enough that it seemed to make its own weather at the top, including dense clouds that interacted with the hot steam and lava in the caldera to produce local thunder and lightning storms around the top of the mammoth structure.

It was in slow eruption from a flank volcano, but the lava stream was headed away from the valley and toward the ocean of the south coast not too far beyond.
This
valley was
more
on the inland side, which seemed at the moment to have least volcanic activity.

It did, however, have activity of a different kind. Over alone the far side of the valley the forest had been cleared away, and a well-built road cut into the heart of the forest, ending at that central structure.

It was a large rectangular affair, well lit by huge limelight arrays that bathed the central area as if it were daylight Startled, she realized that the two structures on either side were bench-type seats filled with living creatures and that they were moving in unison, one side and the other, but to different chants and in different rhythms, and that that was where the sounds were coming from.