Horrors of the Dancing Gods

'You didn't tell me he was ill!'

'It is not — exactly — illness. You will see. I'll fetch him.' And with that, he left her standing there.

She stared at the books with a mixture of awe and apprehension, as always, knowing that within those pages were the very Kauri defined and limited, and also up there, in some form or another, were the Rules for almost all that had happened to them over the year since she and Joe had first been brought here to battle the Dark Baron.

What a grand campaign it had been, too! For all the horrors and slipups and nasty surprises, it had been in many ways a remarkable experience, the kind few people got a crack at in their lifetimes.

She'd always promised herself that she'd learn the Husaquahrian written tongue and read those Rules someday, but she never had. Why not? She couldn't really say, but somehow it just hadn't seemed important for her to do so.

It hadn't seemed important to do much of anything, in fact.

That bothered her, although she was having trouble even determining why it should bother her.

In fact, until Ruddygore's summons had brought it all back, even those past exploits had faded into memories that she barely considered anymore. For the first year or so after the final showdown in the cold wastes she'd been pretty faithful in keeping in touch here, checking on Irving, dropping in to talk over old times with the likes of Poquah and Ruddygore, and even keeping in some sort of contact with Macore.

Over time, though, things hadn't so much stopped as faded out. The visits had become fewer and farther between; the conversations — when they did come — more basic, less substantial; and, finally, it had just stopped altogether. She couldn't remember the last time she'd even dreamed in English or thought much in that language. It wasn't that the old Marge wasn't there anymore, it was just that she had been, well, filed away somewhere under old times and rarely was brought out except for infrequent reunions.

Was that bad? She didn't really know. She was a Kauri, pretty well indistinguishable from all her sister Kauris and doing what Kauris did. Not only was that not going to change, she enjoyed it. Was the price, the loss of individuality, too great? She wasn't sure. It didn't seem so, yet something in her old prechangeling Texas upbringing said it should be.

Throckmorton P. Ruddygore always made an impressive appearance even when he was feeling off. A huge man, well over six feet in height and impossible to guess in girth, he always reminded Marge of Santa Claus living the good life in the off-season. His thick but carefully managed flowing white beard and long, snow-white hair only added to the impression, and even in the worst of times his eyes seemed to twinkle with the suggestion that he was enjoying some cosmic joke at everyone else's expense.

'Marge! How good it is to see you again!' the sorcerer exclaimed, sounding both sincere and delighted. 'I'm very glad that you could come.' He went over, took her hand, and, bending down, kissed it softly. It was a very nice gesture, but it also served as a reminder of just how huge a man he was compared to her or, frankly, almost anybody else.

'I'm glad to be back for a bit,' she responded, smiling. 'But let's face it, when you're the one calling, it's not like I'm going to ignore it!'

He grinned and pulled over a huge, high-backed padded chair and then sank into it. The chair, made of the hardest woods and of ancient lineage that had borne the weight of sorcerers and kings, nonetheless sagged and almost seemed ready to scream in protest.

'You'll pardon my manners,' he said more softly. 'I'm sure that Poquah has already told you that I'm well off my feed of late.'

'You do look and sound unusually tired,' Marge admitted to him. 'This new pall seems to sap the very energy out of folks.'

'It's worse than that for sorcerers. The thing is, it is so pervasive, we spend much of our energy just keeping things up to snuff. With no chance to renew or get away, it takes its toll.'

'I assume it's why you called me here, or at least part of your reason.'

He nodded. 'More or less. It's not the pall itself so much as the cause and object of it. It is slowly, incrementally, almost particle by particle, draining the free magic out of Husaquahr.'

'But that's impossible! I mean, the faerie, alone account for a great deal of it.'

'True, but it is less of a drain on the faerie, for you are essentially defined as much by your powers as by your form. That is not free magic energy. You feel it, certainly, but not to the extent that someone like me feels it. I call upon the energy, I gather it, I weave it into the patterns we call spells. That is free magic, and that is what is slowly being sucked out. At this rate it's not going to be a terrible blow to us today or tomorrow, but sooner or later it will be. And since it puts pressure on all of us who use free magic, it drives us closer to exhaustion. When we can't fight it anymore, it will accelerate. I think that's the idea. Collapse those of us who can guard Husaquahr, and anybody can move in and take over. And whoever controls the free magic in the end controls the faerie as well, since you are subject to it as much as to your own predefined limitations.'

She gave a low whistle. 'Then this is serious.'

'Indeed. Very much so.'

'Do you know who's causing it?'

He nodded. 'I think so. He took great pains to disguise himself, but the concerted efforts of the whole Council were brought to bear, and we've rooted him out. The thing is, we can't do much about him. The only member of the Council who could act refuses to acknowledge or recognize the problem. Whether it's because he's been bought off with promises of even greater power or has been deluded, I can't say. Either way, under his protection, if only by his inaction, this continues.'

'The rest of you can't stop it? I mean, you wrote all those Rules and you're stuck with something like this?'

Ruddygore sighed. 'That really is part of the problem. We wrote those Rules and we're stuck with them. Oh, I suspect that the whole of the Council could combine in single unitary purpose to dislodge our recalcitrant brother and perhaps get to this evil source he protects, but that won't happen. We can't even change the damned Rules until every single sorcerer has a copy — that alone takes years!'

'Seems to me you dealt with Boquillas right off, at least in stripping him of his powers and exiling him to Earth,' she noted.

'Indeed. Stripping powers. Exiling. With Boquillas right in front of us. But what if he hadn't been in our custody? We would have been helpless. We still needed the bunch of you to go off and pull him out to where he was vulnerable, and even then, he was only temporarily so. Finally Joe sent him to Hell, but the bastard still didn't go there — instead he sought out the enemies of all creation, consorted with them, and is mounting a rather effective takeover bid.'

Marge was startled. 'Takeover? Boquillas is alive — and he's actually trying to conquer Hell?'

'And other things. There seems to be no stopping that man.'

Marge began to see where this was going. 'You are telling me that the Dark Baron, last seen in the body of a pretty woman stabbed through the heart with a sword and falling headfirst into volcanic lava, is somehow behind all that's happening now. You really are saying that, aren't you?'

'I'm afraid so. Things are still unfinished with him.'

She blew up. 'How the hell can they ever be settled? Jeez! We've exiled him, stripped him of his powers, stabbed him, dissolved him in molten rock…! If all that didn't work, then what the hell can?'

'I assure you that this is not exactly normal even for such ones as Esmilio and myself. The Lamp of Lakash could have done it — its magic overrides natural law, the Rules, you name it. I–I thought he was gone, though, and that the Lamp had been shown to be more of a danger to us than a protection for us. I got rid of it. It was a very stupid thing for me to do. The whole reason why it was here, why it had been allowed to be here, was that it was the ultimate weapon against the ultimate attacks. Nothing could stand against it. Nothing save God and perhaps the Devil. That's why it was so dangerous. Like all ultimate weapons, defensive or not, it was always a two-edged sword.'