Horrors of the Dancing Gods

different category than what we do here. I do exactly what you are here for me to do, so please relax or I cannot do it.'

He was so friendly in his tone and so natural that Irving did relax, feeling the liniments go on and then feeling the strong hands and surprisingly supple long fingers work on his body.

'Unh! You got a knot in that calf worse than a rock!' the little man said. 'You are a runner?'

'Yes.'

'Well, don't do it for about a day. Let it relax. I will give you a potion that will help heal it in a hurry. Don't sleep on your side, either. You let me at it now, use the balm as needed, and get some good rest, and you will be back running very quickly.'

The little man was very good, and Irving found himself, relaxing more and more, although attempts to shift and see the masseur's face were totally unsuccessful.

'You are Mister Garfia?'

'I was once. I suppose I still am, yes. You saw my card, then?'

'Yes, up top.'

'We tend to stick the cards where those who need us most might notice them,' the man told him. 'We provide a full range of services that people need on this ship and beyond, but we aren't for everybody. You would be surprised, though, what we can tell just by such contact as this. For example, I can tell you her name.'

Irving suddenly stiffened and started to turn, but strong hands forced him back to the proper massage position. 'What?'

'She is Lame Ngamuku. Her mother was supposed to be a sacrifice to a volcano god, but her father loved her and made a sacrificial bargain. Spare the mother, and upon their sixteenth birthdays, any daughters would be given to the spirit world. Of course, this had the practical effect of giving her daughter to the demon in charge there, and although they tried to remain childless, it didn't work. The demon, a fellow named Zakaputi, wanted his deferred pay. Quite a story, eh?'

'But how do you know all this? Or that she is what I am curious about?'

'I feel it. I get the questions from you, and of course the answers are pretty easy in this Case because she's here and we crew all know the stories. It's one of the few joys we get, swapping these stories. You want to hear the rest of it?'

'I–I suppose.' If it's true.

'Oh, it's true, all right. I know what you're thinking. Anyway, you can almost figure out the rest between the fairy tales you know and the Rules and stuff. They loved their kid; she was beautiful. Came the approaching sixteenth birthday and they tried hard to figure out how not to go through with the deal, but where do you hide from a good, honest demon? Particularly when the whole kingdom knows the story and isn't too thrilled with the idea of lava coming through the nation's capital, if you get the idea. So they searched for a top sorcerer to figure a way out and found an old fellow named Lothar who's been running that region for some time with a showy associate. Anyway, Lothar tells 'em the obvious — the one thing Hell values most is a promise. A contract is a contract. You expect Hell to honor its contracts, and it expects you to do the same. Period. They knew what they were saying and doing back then, and they were stuck with it. She would have to be given over. The old boy was clever, though — devilishly clever, if I do say so myself. He worked out a spell that he felt was so secure, it would at least save the girl's life while also preserving the kingdom. A curse, as it were, that was so strong and so complicated and so outrageous that this Zakaputi fellow couldn't get around it. Blew his cork on the volcano, too, but couldn't do much to the capital because she had been given over.'

'What did this Lothar do?' Irving asked, fascinated:

'Ah, that would be telling. Let's just say that she was duly presented but was no longer fit for sacrifice in the volcano. Zakaputi got so mad, he wanted to wipe everything out anyway, but he got stopped. Rules are Rules, and a bargain's a bargain. Best he could manage was to curse the parents to turn into living statues, take Larae, and send her off to Yuggoth in hopes that somebody there would be able to break Lothar's curse. I personally doubt if he ever expects to see her again, but he knows that once she's in Yuggoth and stuck as she is, all sorts of bad things will just kind of naturally happen, anyway. That's the way things are. So she got the geas to come here, to catch the ship, to go to Yuggoth, and present herself somehow in the Court of Chaos at the Dantean Gate. Of course, no time limit was put on her, so she can be there until she's an old crone and not show up. I don't think he really cares that much, you see.'

'Then — what he's done is throw her to the mercy of whatever captures or enslaves her. That's not fair!'

'Of course it's not fair. To her, anyway. To everybody else it's fair. I'll tell you this, though, kid. If you keep thinking about her and looking at her, you'll eventually be attracted to her real bad no matter what your own spells are. Your spells will be weakened by Yuggoth, and any spells of Hell will be strengthened. That's why you find her so much more interesting today than before. Don't fall for it! Remember, you guys are headed for the Range of Fire and the Usurpers, not the Dantean Gate. You get involved with her, you'll be pulled the wrong way. No way around that. Her geas will screw up your luck. And you'll find you won't ever be able to get what you want from her, either.'

'You mean that no matter what, she's stuck? That there's nothing I can do to help her? I can't accept that.'

'Oh, you can help her, but only at cost to yourself. And if she doesn't get to the gate, you can never have any life with her. No happily ever after. Her curse will see to that. Anything nasty enough to screw up a full-blown demon, a volcano god, no less, is more than a match for you. You've been warned.' The strong hands stopped the massage.

He considered the last part. 'Is that what this is all about? Did you or somebody give me the cramp just to send me this message?'

There was silence, although he was certain that the other had not gone anywhere and he'd heard no sounds of movement. Suddenly he rolled over and looked around.

The room was empty.

He sat up, got down off the table, and went out and retrieved and put on his loincloth. There was no sign of Garfia either in the two rooms or in the anteroom, and when he tried the side door, it was locked tighter than a drum.

So it had been a setup! They'd seen him try to contact her this day, figured or known his interest, and given him the cramp where they did just so he'd see the card and come on down.

Keep off the grass. This property is condemned. Bought and paid for.

Well, he didn't believe in bought-and-paid-for people. He never had and never would. If they'd thought to frighten him with this story, they had made a mistake, because all this did was make him more determined to help her somehow. There had to be a way even if all the details were true.

Poquah would never agree to anything of this nature even if he heard the story himself. Marge might be a better ally here and maybe somebody who could even do more to help him contact the girl.

No matter what they said, this was personal now.

A SENSE OF THE FAMILIAR

Destiny shall always draw the hapless to the hopeless.

— Rules, Vol. XVII, p. 1350)

MARGE LISTENED TO THE WHOLE ACCOUNT WITH A mixture of fascination and skepticism. Unlike Irving, who'd stuck pretty well to days and had one view of this strange craft, Marge had slept by day and seen the