Horrors of the Dancing Gods

'Great! You know what we went through to get you that thing? Can't you get it back?'

'Impossible. That route is gone.'

'Then what are we talking about here? After all that stuff, all those adventures, all those fights and spells and wars and personal tragedies and sacrifices — after all that, the bad guys win?'

Ruddygore sighed. 'What can I say to the first charges? That acquiring great knowledge and tremendous power makes one feel almost godlike? That you begin to forget that you are not truly a god and that the very last thing you are is infallible? Guilty. As to the second — not so long as the Rules prevail in Husaquahr.'

'Huh?'

'Remember the one that got Joe in his fix but nonetheless saved both your tails more than once? That, no matter what, there has to be one out available? At least one? That nothing, not even certain doom, can be inevitable even if it is the most likely outcome?'

'Um, yeah. But—'

'That's why I've been studying here and racking my brains for so long. I am as much subject to the Rules as you are. It hit me after a fashion that the Rules would no more permit such an absolute action as I took with the Lamp than they would permit you to be executed without somehow providing a way of escape whether you discovered and took it or not. Like you, my first thoughts were on reversing the dismissal of the Lamp, and I wasted a lot of precious months trying to figure out a way around the action before I finally accepted that I had done too good a job. The Lamp is out, and there is no reversal of that — of this I am now certain. That meant, however, that under the Rules there had to be some sort of backup. Perhaps not as effective, but something had to exist beyond the Lamp, something here in this world and accessible, although perhaps not without great cost, that will at least do the job.'

She thought it over but wasn't all that thrilled by the concept. 'I remind you, sir, that many years ago now I was one of those who came to this world because of just such a problem. The Baron and his demon allies were beating up everybody and everything, and not even the great powers of this world could stop them, so off we went to find the Lamp and wrest it from its ten-foot-tall killer-bunny guardian. That deal brought Sugasto into the picture, and it was more than Hell to pay before we got rid of him, never mind the Baron. Okay, we got rid of them, and we got rid of the Lamp so it couldn't be stolen and do irreparable harm. Great. Now here it is, a few years later, there's some new evil spreading over the land, nobody can stop it or deal with it, and we have to find some kind of supermagic thingie nobody else knows about and steal it and round and round and round we go.'

Ruddygore let her go on and get it out of her system, but he ignored her weary sarcasm. 'Marge, there is no such thing as 'new' evil. There is only evil, eternal and vicious, and it is never new. Creative certainly, but it is very old indeed. It is the same evil that crept into the Garden, the same evil that sunk ancient Atlantis, that brought fear and war and horrors to two universes and more. It has many names. War, pestilence, genocide, hatred, intolerance, torture, fear — all those and more. But it's universal, it's been there almost since the beginning, and it will be there until the end. It varies mostly in degree and in its capacity to reinvent itself. Indeed, did you know that there is actually an entire continent devoted to evil right here in this world? Has no one ever told you of Far Yuggoth?'

The name had a familiarity and perhaps a slightly chilling tone to it. 'I have heard it mentioned,' she admitted, 'but not often and never directly. I thought it was a myth, like the Boogeyman.'

'Those who know of it don't want to think about it. Those who have ever known of it or been close to it never wish to think of its existence again. When you consider the amount of evil we have here even in quiet times, let alone when ones like our old friend the Baron was at large, and Sugasto, and the rest — well, a continent of concentrated evil is best left mythological. It is not, however. It is very real.'

Marge frowned. 'Yeah? Then why hasn't it spawned all the stuff that goes on elsewhere? And how come we aren't in a constant war with it?'

'We are,' the sorcerer told her. 'The Baron was once a good and noble sorcerer,' he said, smiling slightly, 'like myself, who got so caught up in the injustices he saw in this part of the world that he was led by demons to go down to Yuggoth and learn the parts of magic forbidden to any and all here. He did so, in contravention of our guild, and that, as much as or more than his breaking of the covenants and his war against us, was why he lost his powers and was exiled — but also why he was so difficult to beat. It was there he learned the gateway to Hell and made his alliances with the demon princes. Now you also know the source of Sugasto and his zombie trickery. We can keep it somewhat confined and controlled not only because of constant and heavy vigilance but also because, being evil, the denizens of Yuggoth are their own worst enemies, too. We also have a deal with the King of Horror, who reigns as temporal absolute ruler there, to safeguard his own throne and hide our support so long as he reins in as much as he can. Even so, you can readily see and experience just how much evil escapes to our regions!'

Marge nodded. This was all new and interesting… and not at all heading in any direction where she wanted to go.

Still, she couldn't help her curiosity. 'The King of Horror? You mean Satan?'

'No, Satan's King of Hell, Prince of the Powers of the Air, ruler of a dimensional context you cannot imagine. The King is, well, a sorcerer, a great power like myself and my colleagues, with a decided bent for that sort of thing. He's propelled himself to the top there and remains, hated by all his subjects as you'd expect. You can imagine that his power is enormous — anything less and he'd have been knocked off long before now.'

'And he likes that kind of existence?'

'Well, he's got more than he could ever want and is greater than he ever dreamed he could be. Why not? But staying on top — aye, that's always the trick, isn't it?'

'I've seen enough evil in this and the other world that I'm not too sure how good a job he does,' she noted.

'But that's the point! He does a superb job. I seriously doubt if anyone can ever do it better. Certainly nobody has before. He's got both worlds to worry about, too. Just consider — we have always beaten what gets out here, and back on Earth, who would have wagered a fig that half a century after the atom bomb people wouldn't have already blown themselves to Hell without further intervention? Compared to that, wars, minigenocides, mass murders, demonic possessions, natural disasters, and the like seem rather trivial. No, he's definitely worth his weight in anything precious, that's for sure, but just as certain his eye is a bit too busy to be on sparrows.'

'You almost make him somebody likable,' she noted.

'In a sense he is. He can be a delightful chap. However, he rules an entire continent that mouths hatred of him and doesn't like itself very much, either.'

Marge sighed. 'I know you too well, Ruddygore. You're not bringing up this Yuggoth or this King of Horror just to be sociable and educational. You are heading someplace with the subtlety of a force-ten earthquake. Someplace I am absolutely, positively, under no circumstances going to go.'

Ruddygore looked stricken. 'Marge! How can you doubt my sincerity in this?'

'If it's so easy, you go this time. You've at least got the power.'

He turned very serious. 'It's not easy. It's possible, but I know that only because of my knowledge of the Rules and how things work. Just how possible and just how many mistakes, if any, are allowed, I cannot guess. Nor can I or any of my colleagues go. Not even at the very end this time, to solve the final problems. We, any of us, would be instant psychic magnets, drawing together all that is evil throughout all the planes and universes and unifying them as never before against us. Any of us either would become as corrupted as Boquillas was or would be utterly consumed.'

She wasn't impressed. 'Uh huh. And if it's too much for you, you still think that somebody like me can waltz in there and walk through it unscathed? Uh uh.'

'Not alone, no. An army of faerie could not stand in that place for long. Only with an anchor — a mortal, corruptible individual of free will — could all hope to have any chance to survive, and that as much by protecting that anchor as by doing anything themselves.'

She stared at him. 'You are really serious, aren't you? And you're talking about the kid. Joe's kid. You're