Horrors of the Dancing Gods

now long on the river, Mister Thebes?'

'Against the current, probably five days. After that it'll be by caravan to the capital. Well, it could be worse. Doing a overland and on your own, this could take months.'

The river didn't seem all that huge even here, deep though it obviously was, and Irving wondered about where it led. 'Anything dangerous that might threaten us up ahead?'

'There is always something,' Thebes responded. 'Nasty jungle animals, voodoo witch doctors, cannibals: things like that during the jungle part. More nasty creatures across the mountains, then desert to the capital. Just keep your eyes and ears open as usual and don't worry so much. This ship races back and forth all the time and loses very few passengers.'

'Haven't lost one in three return trips,' one crewman commented, overhearing Thebes' assurances. 'Past due, probably. We usually lose a few every other trip.' That was not exactly what any of them wanted to hear.

Still, at precisely noon the small sloop was pushed away from the dock and began going upriver, first with oars and rhythmic tom-tom beat, then, when the sea breeze began later in the day, with sail.

Irving, out of curiosity, went to check on who the oarsmen might be who could power this boat and almost wished he hadn't. They were monstrous, misshapen creatures, things of nightmare, having in common only muscles and miserable expressions.

It didn't take long for the city and its lights to fade from view behind them, leaving only a dull glow on the horizon. Ahead was darkness, a living, very noisy darkness of thick trees and vines and more insects than even Hell might come up with on its own.

It wasn't easy, in spite of his lack of sleep the night before, to get to sleep in this insect din and on this uncomfortable deck, but he managed. As least things were so miserable and uncomfortable that he barely had time to think about his other problem.

Neither Poquah nor Larae seemed to have any difficulty. The Imir seemed to be able to tune in or out anything he wished, and the girl appeared to be right at home in this sort of alien environment.

For Marge the night brought less respite, since she was wide awake, anyway. Still, it was damned difficult to figure a way out of this trap, even though there had to be one. First of all, didn't the Rules require that there be a way out of any predicament? Not that the solution was necessarily a good one — that same rule was why Joe had become a wood nymph in the first place. It had been either that or death.

That precedent worried her. Since the choice wasn't life or death here but Kauri or Succubus, did that rule apply? She no more wanted to be one of the foul creatures than Joe had wanted to become a nymph, but it wasn't an end road. The big problem would come if and when her conversion was complete. It wasn't any big deal to eat some of these souls, but she could never in that case return to Husaquahr or Earth or anywhere else where good men lived. Or could she? The few such creatures she'd seen had positively enjoyed corrupting good men the most. Nor would she ever again know the communion with the Kauri that had become so dear to her.

So how did she keep from becoming one? Other than Irving, there really weren't any sure targets that could be treated Kauri-style, were there? And she didn't really want to have at the boy, even though she knew it was probably inevitable. He was no relation at all, and she barely knew him; still, it seemed somehow almost, well, incestuous.

And yet what other possibility was there?

The area inland of the city was a jungle, and like all jungles, while it looked like a deserted green Hell, it was actually teeming with life of all sorts, including animal, human, demonic, and faerie. Be easy to find a nice cannibal in there, she mused, but to find one who first ate you and then felt guilty about it, well, that was a different story.

What this whole damned continent needed, for her sake, was a bunch of Jewish and Catholic mamas roaming around heaping on guilt and making even the demons miserable.

She wanted to fly up and oversee the whole region, but there were some bats around, half as big as she was, and other creatures equally threatening: she wasn't about to become anybody's lunch or dinner. Heck, it was worse there than in the city, where the toughest thing had been ducking the gargoyles.

None of these things looked like fruit bats, that was for sure. She sat perched on a mast and watched two of them earn up to swoop down and pick up and carry away a screaming something the size of a wild boar.

They swooped around the ship but didn't land on it or seem interested in snatching things from it. Most likely the complex spells that were woven around it helped; the really tasty stuff was repelled to a degree, which was, she supposed, good for business.

None of this solved her problem, either. She was usually the one who helped people and gave advice to others. Who did she have to turn to in a situation like this when she really needed help? Even reaching out to the Earth Mother was closed to her, clearly her altered nature had as much to do with that as distance did.

She thought about Irving's copy of the volume of the Rules on Yuggoth. There might well be something in there — if she could read it. Maybe that would have to be the trade-off after all. He would find something that would get her out of her dilemma, and she could figure a way out of his.

Well, his inhibitions would block him for now aboard this craft, and she could go several days without feeding, particularly after her times in the city. The trouble was, when she did run low again, she'd be unable to be very discriminating about who or what she was servicing.

Irving would find the passengers on this ship not very conducive to his powers or desires, either. Although those walking cliches seemed human enough, they were a peculiar kind of fairy, a singular kind that seemed to be able to take the basic shapes and attributes a mortal willed them to have but whose interaction was limited primarily to one another. They could be shaped, their behavior influenced or even controlled by mortal thoughts, but they could not actually physically interact on the real-world level with mortals.

The next day brought dull gray skies — when they could be seen at all — and heavy rain in the afternoon that could be endured only for the hour or so that it lasted. The crew didn't seem to think much of it; it happened almost every day, they were assured, in this jungle, and whether the full force struck the ship depended on how dense the forest canopy was when it fell, nothing more or less. Otherwise, nearly one hundred percent humidity was the norm.

The river was so narrow and winding that it was next to impossible to figure out where they were or how much distance was covered. Only at night, with absolutely no glows either on the horizon or from stars above, did it seem as if they were traveling not only south but into another, totally isolated world.

It was also boring as all hell, so much so that they were climbing the walls by the third day out. Time dragged, and the other passengers didn't seem to be able even to speak except in stilted dialogue that wouldn't pass muster with the mildest critic. Beyond their surface attributes and simple and repetitive ways, there was quite simply no 'There' there.

One of the satyrlike crewmen, seeing their problem, said, 'I cannot make it more exciting — unless we are attacked by cannibals, which is a bit too exciting — but I can offer the nonfaerie members some diversion. These roots and leaves are very handy for passing the time and will make it seem pleasant.'

Poquah looked at the assortment and snorted. 'Drugs! Mild hallucinogens mostly, from the looks of them. I wouldn't touch them if I were you!' That last was said to Irving in a tone that was much less advice than warning.

But Poquah spent most of his time in meditation, ignoring rain and anything else, and seemed not at all troubled by the boredom. Irving was much more tempted in spite of spending a fair amount of time scouring the Rules volume for some solution for Marge, but he was also more than a little scared of going for any of it. What if it were addicting? What if it induced some kind of temporary nutso state that might find him waking up somewhere in the river or the jungle in somebody's stew pot? That last was even more to think about; hell, he'd seen just enough native faces peeking out at them from the bushes to know that the natives here sure looked like real primitive white guys, and he wasn't going to wind up in their pot!

'Pleasant, not addicting,' the crewman swore. 'Just feel good. Maybe a little silly but not dangerous.'

It was Larae who was most tempted. 'What have I got to lose? I'm going out of my mind anyway,' she told him. 'Still, I wouldn't want to do it alone. My people used a lot this sort of thing for various cures, and I can see some similar things. I am sure that it is as the crewman says. Are you afraid of