Horrors of the Dancing Gods

that, after examining the will and the worthiness of a supplicant. I don't think she quite qualifies. No, it is an academic exercise, purely academic. Just to figure it out would be a triumph.'

Deep down Marge had always known that Poquah was something of a softy.

It hadn't been a great day at sea. Thunderstorms had raged all around, the decks had been awash, waves had pounded the craft as even the kraken had trouble pulling it in this kind of surf, and some of the biggest waves had risen almost up to the wheelhouse and seemed to loom like monsters, only to crash and submerge the bow of the vessel, which then wriggled in all planes at once to get free and slowly rise up out of the water to do it all over again. It made walking almost impossible, and anything that wasn't fastened down inside was instantly transformed into something of a missile.

Irving was excited to know that the girl was in with them, although the idea that she'd be just 'one of the boys' hadn't really sunk in as such. Still, he was much more concerned with getting out of the rotten weather, at least for now. Although he wasn't as seasick as some of the others he'd passed in the corridors seemed to be, he certainly felt dizzy and a bit queasy. It was impossible to be anything close to human and not have this condition. He worried that the girl might well be sick in her cabin.

There really wasn't much he could do about it, though, or about anything else right now. He certainly wasn't going to, er, eat, and besides, it might be a long night. He stayed in bed as much of the day as he could, even though that put him next to the totally zonked Marge, which was something of an unusual experience.

Poquah might or might not have been affected by the storms, but he chose to demonstrate his mental command of himself by ignoring the situation when that was at all possible. He spent some time checking and rechecking his weapons as well as the copy of the map of Yuggoth they had secured from Macore.

The map was certainly authentic in that it had been made by someone with skill who seemed to know the region well. In fact, the level of detail was so impressive, it seemed almost as if it had been taken not from pieced- together ground explorations and by flying creatures going over it sector by sector, as with most maps of this world, but from some great but detailed height. Poquah had seen Earth satellite photos of continental masses and maps made from high-resolution orbital surveys of Earth's regions that were no better than this one, and who could go that high or get that kind of detail here?

It was absurdly easy, though, to use it to plot a route, and the annotations in a fine handwriting showed a very definite approach to and location of the lair of the McGuffin. It would not be a good idea, the Imir decided, to follow this map so closely that they would head straight toward their goal along that route. If the minions of Hell knew of this, they might well decide that their little party was dispensable. Safer to waste probably close to a week to veer over to the seat of the king of this place and go through the motions anyway. Do the expected and save the unexpected for when it was most needed and when your enemies thought they had you cold.

He carefully refolded and stored the map and then went out, his unnatural faerie balance keeping him on the deck as if all were smooth as glass even though the ship was moving in ways even he never knew a ship could move. Just so long as it does not move straight down, he thought, not a little nervous in spite of his appearance and demeanor. The Imir were masters of many things, but they had to breathe just as most other life did, and they could not breathe water.

The crew didn't seem to be any happier about the ride than was the Imir, for what that was worth.

'Usually smooth as silk,' the watch officer assured him. 'It's this new element trying to move in. You've seen it in the skies, I think, too. Drawing all the powers inward, trying to disrupt everything so much, they can blow a hole right through space-time and open a gateway to this world.'

'They are concentrating on a specific spot, then?'

'Oh, sure. Somewhere in the southeast, close to Mount Doom. The attraction's pretty severe, too. They're getting a lot of our people under their influence and some of the normal types, too. Some free advice: you stay out of that area. I hear tell that nobody or nothin' can withstand goin' over to them if they get too close. We sent an entire cohort of demons, medium-powered types, good fighters, veterans of the spiritual wars. Not a one came back, but they're still very much around as the guardians of that damned place.'

'Really? That is interesting, and disturbing,' Poquah responded. Now, for the first time, he understood why even Satan and the minions of Hell weren't directly battling these other dimensionly types who were moving into their turf. 'Hell' was almost the very definition of evil in this world, as on Earth; there was little of virtue left in its followers, and even apathy fed their cause — fed it perhaps best of all — so what did Hell do when confronted with a new and alien concept of evil?

In a sense, Hell was as biblical as Heaven; they recognized the same rules, the same morality, the same concepts of good and evil. It was essential that they do so, so that when they acted in the other's reality, they did the opposite of what would be expected of one loyal to that side. Torture, murder, pain, debauchery — these were only the 'thou shalt nots' of the heavenly side. The system remained, which was why the Rules themselves worked.

The ones attempting to come through near Mount Doom, though — those were outside the system, outside the Rules, outside any rules applicable to this world or even to Earth. Good and evil had a different meaning in their case, although in one way and one way only it was the same: what served them and their interests defined 'good,' and what opposed, inhibited, or impeded them was 'evil' in their view. In such a situation those loyal to Hell didn't have a prayer, as it were. The fact their very natures were grounded in the concept of this world's evil made them gravitate to the power that seemed the strongest yet would have them.

Only those not already of Hell might have any chance at all of withstanding such power long enough to do any good.

Not for the first time, Poquah found himself silently but internally wondering about Ruddygore's judgment. It had always worked out before, but there had always been an underlying sense of the mathematics of magic and the comfort of the Rules guiding him no matter how odd his routes to goals. But now, in this quest…

A boy who had never even faced ordinary evil of the kind that terrified most men and sent the rest gibbering in the moonlight in helpless insanity; a Kauri with the strength of a small child, whose gifts were all for defense; a silent elfin warrior from a race of warrior-assassins who nonetheless had severe limits on his own powers and was more susceptible to the other side than he wanted to admit; and now added to this a girl no older than the boy, without skills, spoiled and defenseless, and on top of that cursed.

This agent they were supposed to meet in Red Bluffs had better be the equivalent of a dozen legions of high- ranking demons, Poquah thought. Otherwise, how could they stand? How could they hope to do anything at all?

The ship shuddered, then seemed to smooth out a bit, and slowly but surely the severity of the motion simply faded away and there was a steady and comfortable feel to it once more.

'What happened?' Poquah asked the ghoul on duty. The creature shrugged. 'It is sundown. The gaunts have risen and kept us steady above the ocean, and we should be coming in toward the harbor in a little while and protection from the elements. We are running late and will certainly not be getting in before four or five more hours, but it should be all right from this point.'

Poquah bolted past him, went out onto the deck, and looked out and forward. In the gloom he could clearly see a dark landmass in the distance, and the rain seemed to have slackened off to a steady but routine little disturbance. Away to the south could easily be seen clusters of lights, as if small towns or settlements along the coast were coming into view, and here and there he could see the unmistakable signal of a lighthouse.

When he shifted to faerie sight, the land came in much more clearly, but in an eerie crimson outline and inky black on gray. This was a place of strong and powerful magic, of deepest sorceries and treacherous spells of a kind that made Husaquahr seem almost benign to look at. Here all the strings of magic were deep yellows and crimsons and dark purples and blacks.

The ancient land of Yuggoth, from which it was said all magic had sprung, and from where the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had come and to where it had returned after being the instrument for betraying Earth's humanity, and from which all the nightmares sprang was there, now, in plain sight, and they were coming in at a fair clip to its dark shores.

A few hours late, perhaps, but they were at last in Yuggoth.