Horrors of the Dancing Gods

little error, the inspectors will reject them. It is just that everything in them is totally meaningless. The only reason we must have them is that we must have them. This is not an efficiency system; it is a full- employment system!'

'That is usually the case with bureaucracies,' Poquah sympathized. 'The direct approach is always more efficient.'

Irving was puzzled. 'Is there a real problem here? I thought everybody here was being nice to us because they wanted us to get in there.'

'Oh, it is not a particular problem for you,' Thebes assured them. 'It is including the girl, you see. And I get the idea that some various powers that be are none too happy she has hooked up with you.'

'Well, it is not as if we planned this,' Poquah noted, giving a menacing side glance to Irving and Marge. 'However, we can hardly abandon her now. She has become part of the Company. The Rules would not allow such a thing.'

'I know, I know,' Thebes wailed. 'But that is why they make so much trouble. Here in the real world they cannot get around the Rules very much, either. Still, I would be very careful with her. You know that things can happen to people in a Company. Bad things.'

'The question is, Will we make our transportation arrangements or won't we?' Marge asked him.

'Oh, yes, yes. I think so. They will cause all sorts of horrible things to happen, but in the end it is as the boy said: you are here because they want you here. In the end they will have to let us all go. You should be ready by nine tomorrow morning if you wish breakfast. We will have a short way to travel, and then we will join and board the river launch.'

Marge yawned. 'Then I'm going to bed. The rest of you will have to do whatever needs to be done.'

Larae didn't want to go out, at least not right then. It was almost as if she were afraid that something would happen at the last minute that would separate her from her only companions in the world. Poquah decided to go along with Thebes and hope to help things along and possibly even contact Ruddygore. That left Irving suddenly all alone with no place to go.

He decided to go out, anyway.

The shop was called, quite simply, Spirits, Potions, and Spells, betraying both a simplicity of mind and something of a lack of real imagination. Nonetheless, it looked interesting as a cross between a magic antiques store and an old-fashioned apothecary shop.

The proprietor was a strange little man with big sharp teeth, a round face, and pointed ears, and he was having a bad hair day. He flashed Irving back many years.

He looks like the Count on Sesame Street, he thought, wondering where the image had come from. He hadn't thought of any of that in a very long time.

The little man came straight up to him and held out a small jar filled with some kind of black powder. 'This is it,' he said quite casually. 'This one is, of course, temporary. The permanent one costs considerably more than you have on you.'

'Huh? I beg your pardon. You must have mistaken me for somebody else, 'cause I just walked in.'

'Yes, you were wondering about love potions, and this ground powder, which dissolves with virtually no telltale taste or odor, is the finest temporary one I know.'

'I–I was just idly thinking. You don't read minds or something, do you?'

'Not unless I use various spells, I don't, no. Would you like that?'

'Um, no. I just was trying to figure out how you knew what I was thinking about.'

'Oh, that is simple. A very minor spell on the whole establishment. It tells me as you come in why you were interested enough to enter. What kind of a sorcery supply store would I be if it were otherwise?'

Irving was impressed and fascinated. 'What about removing any last vestiges of a spell put on yourself?' he asked the little man. 'I can't touch it, and it might well interfere.'

The proprietor examined him carefully. 'You have both a spell and a curse. The curse, in fact, might well make this powder irrelevant if the spell was totally removed, you know.'

'A curse? Who would do that to me?'

'I have no idea, but it is a strange one to be placed involuntarily on another. Hmmm… Let me see. Yes, there, and there, and over here, and urn, uh huh. All right.'

'Well, what does it curse me with?'

'Oh, that part's easy. It states that you will exert an enormous attractive influence over women.'

'Oh, that. I've known about that since I discovered girls. Sometimes it's more of a pain than anything else, and it hasn't done me any good at all, even if I knew how to use it.'

'Interesting. Well, the spell was obviously overlaid to neutralize the curse. Remove the spell and you will, I believe, discover a number of ways to use it. Interesting. Suppose you could turn it off or on at will. Would that be of interest to you? Assuming we remove the rather weak and simple restraining spell.'

'Huh? Um, you can do that?'

'Removing the spell is simple enough. I'm surprised you haven't had a go at it with someone else before this. Almost anyone could handle it.'

'I have pretty straight guardians.'

'Um, yes, I see. Well, as I say, ridding you of it is no problem. Do you still have this guardian problem?'

He thought of Poquah. 'Yeah, I'm with somebody who can read these like a book — and fix them.'

The little man sighed. 'All right, then, what about this? I'll remove the effect of the spell while leaving it on. Like wearing a light jacket or wrap; it will still be there, but it will have no effect on you.'

'Yeah, that sounds great. But how much?'

'Oh, I wouldn't think of charging for something so simple. But the other one—that is a different story. Making that one voluntary will require work and a higher power than myself. There are, of course, some interesting additional powers implied by that as well. I know what you have on you. It will take all of it, but I can handle it.'

Irving was startled. 'What? Now?'

'Unless you wish a more convenient time.'

Irving thought about it. There was no other convenient time, of course. They were leaving tomorrow. All the remaining cash on him, though, was a fair amount even after his purchases. Explaining what had happened to it to Poquah wouldn't be easy, but it might well be handled. But the idea of lifting the curse to find out what these odd feelings were like unimpeded and to be able to act on them like any other normal young man his age—that was tempting. As for the curse — which he did know how he'd gotten, fooling around with sorcerous attempts of his own to break the first one a couple of years ago — that wasn't so pressing, but it did seem like a great idea. To be able to turn it on or off…

He thought of Larae, who, unless she had tremendous self-control, was somehow not affected by it. 'You guarantee that all women would be affected by it?'

'Absolutely. Would you like to do it now?'

Oh, hell! 'Yeah, I think so.'

'You understand that a curse requires a demon to modify it. Come on back and I'll treat the spell, and then we'll summon someone appropriate. Um, leave your shoes and cloth outside. Nothing but you inside, please; we wouldn't want anything to contaminate the work.'

The proprietor took him in the back, where there was a small, dark room lit with candles and with a small altar in the center. 'No pentagram?' Irving asked him.

'In Yuggoth? Whatever for? I mean, demons can just as easily walk in off the street and do. It's only when you're dealing with the really powerful ones, the ones of a kind even their fellow demons can't control, that you need any sort of protection along those lines, and usually in that case a mere pentagram is inadequate.' He fumbled under the small altar, and then there was a hissing sound under