Horrors of the Dancing Gods (44 page)

If she didn't know better, she thought, frowning, she'd swear... No, that was ridiculous! She had to know more, and that meant getting close enough to see just what was actually going on down there. The skies were not safe or unguarded; large creatures with bat wings and lizard faces rode night gaunts around and around in lazy patterns, but they were few, far between, and regular, easy to avoid. They were looking for bigger game and more dangerous menaces than she would appear to them in any event, but they seemed pretty calm and almost bored. Clearly they did not expect anything there, not so close to their heart.

Slowly, cautiously, she approached; as she did, the chants from the two sides of the structure came to her in waves, and she was able to some extent to separate them.

"
Id!
Cthulhu! Block that kick!"

"Yd! Ed! Yog Sothoth! Hold that line!"

As Marge
watched openmouthed, she saw denizens—
creatures—
lining
up on one side of the field clearly defending a goal before an opposing line of even more loathsome things. They quivered, they gibbered, they dripped, and they slimed, but they moved forward against each other for the prize, a prize that was terrified and very much bloodied but alive.

One team seemed very much at a disadvantage; its creatures seemed to have oozed out of the sea and were very much off balance on land, lacking the coordination to battle the other side, whose own monstrosities appeared to be far more comfortable on land and in the immediate air. Just as defeat was staring them in the face, however, there was what could only have been a time-out, and when play resumed, the land-bound side was suddenly faced with a massive, countless horde of goatlike things chomping and slobbering their way forward almost in a wall.

"Shub Niggurah! Shub Niggurah!"
the Cthulhu crowd chanted, apparently delighted at the appearance of an ally.

Marge turned away and decided to check out the rest of the valley while the creatures were preoccupied. How she was ever going to get the others to believe this, though, was something she didn't even want to think about.

All this
couldn't
have been about building some stadium for some stupid, loathsome game, could it? Or did those names have other meanings? Were those in the stadium not perhaps merely playing games but goofing off, relaxing after a hard day's work?

Certainly, from more of a distance, she could see and even
feel
what was too omnipresent to pick out closer in: the massive cloud of bizarre evil that seemed to be centered there, to be oozing from that point out to the whole of the world.

Right from the center of that stadium, almost like one of those steam vents on the volcano over there.

So the stadium wasn't just a stadium. Or perhaps it was more than a stadium. At night they goofed off, but by day they built, and a fissure in space-time opened there in the middle of the field and stayed open, spewing forth its evil ectoplasmic ichor.

It wasn't all that clear whether there was any other development anywhere in the valley, though, and all those creatures, as loathsome and horrible as they were, were recognizable as having once been far more normal-looking and probably native to here. If there was an entity—something new, special, and not of this universe—it had yet to show itself. If it was still in the valley, though, it was hard to figure how it could hide from faerie sight, if only by a sudden cessation of it.

She tried to remember the map of the valley they'd gotten from Macore. Over
there,
on a line from the stadium and then just a wee bit farther up. Up inside the rocks, that very different grove of trees—that was it! She looked back toward where Poquah had made camp and scowled. So cautious and so limited!

She flew just above treetop level in hopes of attracting no attention and went over toward the spot where she was certain the McGuffin lay. It would take a mortal to get it—she understood that—but if she could spot it and scout a decent route, they might be able to do this in nearly record time. It was beginning to look like a real piece of cake in spite of it all.

She recognized
the
tree almost immediately. It was set
off from the rest, and it had its own sort of meadow completely surrounding its vast, thick trunk. The local trees even
seemed to bend in just slightly toward it as if deferring to its age and rank, and it was certainly old.

It was unlike any other tree in this forest or in fact most other trees anywhere, but she had seen its kin. Not exactly the same, but you could tell the relationship. This tree, even in darkness, exuded multiple metallic bands of color on the faerie level, glimmering beautifully as it displayed the entire spectrum. Closer in, the trunk seemed almost golden, the leaves like copper or bronze, and the fruit, the perfect fruit, like .. .

Little green apples.

Once she'd seen the Tree of Life. Now she was in the presence of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

One bite,
she thought bitterly.
One lousy crunch and it screwed
everything
up for everybody.
She couldn't help but wonder what would happen to anybody who had a second bite of the fruit. It wouldn't matter. It had stained the souls of all creation and brought death and judgment to humankind. The knowledge of good and evil ...

It had cursed the faerie, too. Some in the Garden had failed to prevent the disobedience or even had egged it on. So the faerie had been cast out of Heaven as well and condemned to lose to mortal humankind on Earth and be driven here to await the final judgment.

Somewhere within sight of that tree was the Great McGuffin. She looked around, seeing at last a lava extrusion in back of the tree at the edge of the grove, going up and blending into a rise. It looked a bit like a stage and a bit like an altar as well, but it didn't look like the hiding place for anything important.

Still, it
had
to be there, and they were, oh, at worst, under five miles from their final destination.

She suddenly felt a strong pang of real danger, not from above but from below, from the grove!
What? Who?
she wasn't sure, but it was
very
strong and
very
menacing; it was alive, and it was down there.

And something about it was hauntingly familiar.

She was being probed! Something horribly evil down there was checking her out! She decided to get the hell out of there
immediately
and sped off as quickly as possible back toward the camp.

Her new confidence shaken, she regained most of her composure before she got back to the others after she determined that whoever or whatever had discovered her was not following.

Of course not,
she thought nervously.
It knows we either have to come to it or give up, and either way it wins.
Poquah wasn't going to like
this
at all, either.

He didn't, but he seemed more relieved at her return and her report than concerned about it.

"As you say, it suggests an easy task," he agreed. "Why should they trouble themselves with a heavy defense, manhunts, and the rest when they
know
we must come
to them? How much of a force do you think they have around there?"

"Impossible to say, but I didn't sense
anybody.
That
one
was more than enough. I don't remember ever feeling that kind of power or that strange and alien a sensation from it, either, but the funny thing is, I
did
find something familial there. I just can't put my finger on
it!"
She suddenly stopped, frowned, and looked around. "Where is Joel Thebes?"

"What!"
Poquah shot around and surveyed the scene, looking for auras, and he found two where there should have been three. "I
thought
it smelled better here, but I couldn't be certain!"

"He said he was going to take a leak," Irving noted. "That was quite a while ago now, but I guess I just didn't think about it."

Marge surveyed the whole area. "Well, he's gone now. You want me to try and find him? I might be able to put the come-hither on him if he still has anything between his legs."

"No," the Imir replied. "However, it does mean that we can no longer stay here under any circumstances, and that means you must lead. Whether he is a traitor or simply blunders into one of them, he will betray us all. Get us closer to this grotto, and we will see what we might be up against"

"You're not going to try it
tonight!"
She was appalled at the idea. "You haven't experienced that—thing—out there."

"Not tonight, no," Poquah agreed. "However, close to dawn is a different story."

"What have you got in mind?" she asked him.

`Think about the situation. This entity obviously knows that we must make a try for the McGuffin. It must also be assumed that it has at least a reasonable idea of who and what we are by this point. The most important thing is that the McGuffin is still there. It hasn't been used, nor is it currently in anyone's hands. That means the entity can't get at it, either. Possibly all those on his side, even the
mortals, get so corrupted with this alien plasma that it prevents them
from picking it up as well. I do not think they will stop us. I am not even certain they will try to capture us, although I could be wrong in that. They want one of us, probably Irving, to pick up the McGuffm.
Then
they will move without giving him time to use it."

"And you're still going for it?
Now?"

"Yes. The entity must be cursing itself right now. It made a mistake in probing, in betraying its location and its
power to you. Now we know it
is
there. What is the commonsense approach?"

"Lay off. Try and figure a way in. Sneak in, if possible."

"Exactly. It will not, I hope, be quite so prepared for us rushing straight in as quickly as possible. We will gain nothing by putting it off. We need to act. Now, tell me about what you saw at the structure and the entities you heard as exactly as you can while we gather up what we have here and make ready to shift position."

"You aren't gonna
believe
this."

"Perhaps. What were the names?"

"Forgive my pronunciation problems. One sounded like Cath-oo-loo."

"Cthulhu. Ancient master of all the waters. Yes."

"Yog something or other."

"Yog Sothoth. Master of the Air, the Lurker at the Threshold. He will be first through, for he and his followers alone have the key and power to punch through. Any more?"

"Shub somebody."

"Shub Niggurah. The Goat with a Thousand Young. Yes, very consistent. The seed of this one, that pantheon's symbol of fertility, bears careful watching. You won't be just a pleasure nymph under
her.
You will be used to help breed what they require. Remember that!"

"If she's a goat who has all those kids, why does she need me?"

"Regardless of form or attitude, you were never stupid before, so please do not start now. The goat is often
associated
with fertility, as are the rabbit and the egg, the symbols of Ishtar upon which your own cult originated. Likewise the satyr, the male nymph, Pan, half-human and half-goat and all the time on the make. It is difficult to say what kind of creations she would make of such as you, but you would not be pleased."

"I get the idea. So, as usual, we're all the way here with no hope and everything against us, huh?"

"That about sums it up," he agreed.

"Figure the entity needs the McGuffin to complete his opening, right? That's why it picked here. Something has blocked him, probably something in the Rules, which it's still stuck with until the takeover, right?"

"Yes."

"So somewhere there's a way for us to win. The Rules demand it."

"That is certainly true," the Imir agreed. "However, finding it simply
can't
work
every
time ..."

THE ENTITY STRIKES BACK

Old enemies are more likely than new enemies to be at the root of plots.

—
Rules, Vol. VI, p. 297(a)