Horrors of the Dancing Gods

'Hello, Poquah,' Marge said cheerfully. 'You're looking much the same as usual.'

'We seldom change on the outside, but my head says that I am growing much too old,' responded the Imir — the link were a rare elfin tribe that could in some cases learn magic not a part of their own nature — tiredly. 'And few of us can wash all our troubles away in supernatural fires.'

The creature he was speaking to was also of faerie, and, save for the brilliant reds and oranges of her coloration and her large capelike wings, one might well classify her as one of the many varieties of nymph. She seemed, however, more exotic than a mere nymph, with clear intelligence and even some power inherent in her strong face, although she certainly was built at least partially for pleasure. She was in fact a Kauri, a kind of psychic vampire that could remove heavy psychological burdens in the act of making love to a man in the guise of his ideal fantasy playmate, a positive succubus who literally fed on other people's problems.

This Kauri, however, was almost certainly the only one in Husaquahr who'd once been an English teacher in Midland, Texas, and still retained a hint of a Texas accent no matter what tongue she was speaking.

Poquah ushered her inside the outer castle area, and she immediately began to notice that some of the furnishings were quite different from what she remembered. While passing into the inner courtyard she noted that the layout and extensive flowers and exotic shrubs were totally different from what they had ever been before.

'That's new,' she muttered to herself, frowning.

The Imir heard her. 'No, madam, it was changed over the past few years. You have not been here in quite some time, you know.'

The comment startled her because she didn't know, at least not really. Time had little meaning anymore, and clocks even less, and it hardly seemed any time at all since she'd last been here at the end of settling the final accounts with Boquillas and Sugasto. Now, suddenly, it bothered her. 'How long has it been? Do you recall?'

'Yes, madam. Things run by clocks and calendars in this existence. It has been a good six years next month.'

Marge was shocked. 'Six years! My God! I had no idea! So little Irving—'

'Is not so little anymore,' Poquah finished for her. 'No, madam, I fear he's anything but that. And no end of trouble, too. After all this time you would think that he would have assimilated into the world here as one or another thing, but so far he's resisted. He's a good swordsman but not a great one, and more than capable with the basic weapons yet not of the warrior or mercenary class. No self-discipline. He's learned to read the Husaquahrian tongue to a remarkable degree yet has no feel for the language, nor a general interest in trade and commerce or in politics, which he holds in deep contempt. In some things he's quite brilliant — he applied himself for weeks to learning a specific set of spells, then, when he got so he could cast them, he did so and was done with more than mere 'puttering' around with occasional magic, all for mischief. He's also a passing fair pickpocket and thief, although I think he brought those talents with him when he came.'

'Spells? What did he cast? And on whom?'

'On what is more like it. Turned the Master's entire collection of precious lawn jockeys white as snow.'

Marge cracked up, and it was a couple of minutes before she could get complete control again. Ruddygore was wonderful and sophisticated in so many areas, but he had a bizarre fixation on the idea that cheap, tacky plaster statues, lawn jockeys, pink flamingos, and other total junk from the Earth of her origin were somehow great and unappreciated works of art.

'What did Ruddygore say about that when he found out?' she asked the Imir.

'He was initially not pleased, but then it occurred to him that the act was done not out of mischief but out of a sense of personal offense. Frankly, I do not believe that the Master ever considered that the objects might be considered offensive to or by anyone, and this brought home to him the fact that they offended very much indeed. It was the violence of the spell as much as its nature that gave it away. I must say, once his anger cooled, he did not undo the spell, nor has he added to that particular collection since. I believe that in some strange way the Master feels he actually learned something new, and for one of his great age and experience that is more valuable than anything else.'

'Maybe it is, Poquah.' She nodded. 'Maybe it is. What about Joe? What does she say about this?'

The Imir sighed. 'I'm afraid that the question is without meaning. Joe remained here only a few days after returning from the north, then departed, stating that she had to learn to deal with the situation before she could be of any value. The Master has kept track of her travels but has never called her back.'

'What about the kid, then? You mean Joe just hauled the poor kid over, left him here, and bugged out?' She was appalled. 'No wonder he's got no self-discipline! Who's been raising him, anyway?'

'We all have, to a degree. In a sense, he's the young prince of Terindell.'

'But — what about him and his father? I mean, Irving at least knows what happened, doesn't he?'

Poquah shrugged. 'I don't know. Sometimes I think he does; sometimes I think he does not. All the time I believe he thinks of it as irrelevant to him. It is not easy for anyone to fully understand another, but for an elf to understand humans to that degree — I fear not.'

Marge shook her head sadly in wonder. 'So what was I called here for, then? The old boy just wants to talk over old times or what?'

'I'm not certain, but I rather think it is more serious than that. You have certainly felt it.'

'The dark chill, you mean. I think everybody can feel it, even the most nonmagical of humans. It's ugly and pervasive.'

'And it is growing stronger,' Poquah added.

'Yeah. But I hardly think it's anything I can do much about. Lord knows it's driving me to exhaustion, though. Everybody's so down, so depressed, I often have to cleanse myself every third or fourth person. There are times even now when I've felt fat, bloated, and too dense even to fly right. But hey, I did my bit. More than my bit. Besides, what could I do now against even the old enemies? Our company's long disbanded, and things aren't like they were. None of us are like we were.'

'Less who we were than even we think,' Poquah responded a bit cryptically. 'Still, we are no more self- piloting than before, either. Our destinies run a strange race through the Law, the Rules, instinct, intellect, and destiny. Something is unfinished. I cannot explain it any better than that, but it has been constantly there. A sense that there is something among our own threads that remains undone. Until we do it, we cannot pass the burden to the next generation. That's the Rules.'

'I never did like the Rules all that much,' she muttered.

'They are excessive,' Poquah agreed, 'but they are also necessary. Without the Rules, it is unlikely that any of us would be alive today or a stone of this castle standing. The Rules, like any good body of law, are good not because they are all necessary — indeed, most are quite silly — but because they are so mathematically evenhanded. Neither good nor evil can ever gain absolute victory so long as the Rules exist, and so long as they provide opportunity, the cleverest will come out on top. So long as the Rules exist, we tend to be guaranteed a tie, given an equal force on each side. With no Rules, with no margins built in, I, as a mathematician, wouldn't give a gold bar for good's chances.'

They were now inside the inner castle and up the winding stairway to the Great Hall on the second floor above the arch. This one great room had changed the least; various suits of armor from countless periods — including some built for nothing remotely human — stood all around, great portraits of dour-looking nobles and sorcerers and the like stared down, and great fireplaces and wonderful great tables and chairs with arms and legs carved into fantastic shapes of gargoyles, wild animals, fairy folk, you name it, graced the hall.

Against the far wall was a massive bookcase running floor to ceiling and along the entire expanse without break, filled with huge heavy-looking tomes all bound in red buckram with gold-embossed spines. Hundreds of volumes, going off to both sides and up and down in a sea of blood red, the Books of Rules Existent under which the whole of this world, this universe, was governed.

'I will go and tell the Master you are here,' Poquah said, bowing slightly. 'He's been quite tired of late, what with this evil essence, so be prepared for a less than vital man. He is still quite strong, though.'