Horrors of the Dancing Gods

it?'

'No! Of course not! Um, well, I just haven't had a straight out favor from one of these dudes yet that didn't have a catch in it.'

'I think it is the only thing that will keep me from going mad and jumping into the river or the jungle today,' she d him. 'Still, I just would not do it alone. Together, perhaps? Or are you simply too frightened even to take my word for it?'

'Poquah—^' Irving began to object, but she cut him off.

'He will be in his trance all day, doing very much naturally what we cannot do without help like this. Will you do it?'

He sighed. He didn't want to, didn't trust those drugs one bit, but he sensed that this was some kind of trust test on her part and didn't want to lose her confidence. Damn it! He would never have considered this before. It was because she wanted it and his new self didn't want to do anything to displease her.

'All right, but just this once,' he told her. 'I got a bad feeling about this, and I want you to remember that if it goes bad.'

She squeezed his hand and actually gave him a peck on the cheek that made him feel like a million and blew away any hesitancy.

So while Joel Thebes dozed, Poquah sat in his trance, and Marge slept, they took some of the root she selected from the crewman and broke it off in half and began to chew it, remaining well toward the rear of the boat and away from the others.

It didn't seem to do anything for a while, just leaving a sickly sweet, almost purely surgary taste in his mouth. Still, he found after a while that he was staring at things and that they didn't look or seem the same anymore. The jungle blurred, the dull colors mixing and marching and becoming an endless palette of living colors swirling all about. In a little while he was vaguely aware that he was thoroughly soaking wet, but it did not bother him, nor did he much feel it or reflect that he hadn't even remembered the rainstorm.

And then there was Lathe, who seemed the object of all desire, and pretty soon she was doing something to him that felt really good and he was doing pretty much the same, imitating her, to her, and there was all sorts of stuff that felt good and had no thought behind it at all, and suddenly it was dark and he was sound asleep.

She had already awakened and moved forward to the usual sleeping place when he came out of it at around midnight. He felt pretty mellow, really, but suddenly realized that he was naked and fumbled around, finally finding his loincloth well to the other side of the area, near the far rail. The straps were broken! He managed as best he could, but he wasn't at all sure what had happened. Had he done 'it' with her and just not remembered, or had he forced it, or what?

Hell, from the looks of this, she had forced him!

He also had a headache, a stomachache, and aches in places he never even knew had muscles to ache.

Marge floated down to the deck and handed him a fresh loincloth.

'Thanks. I was kinda stuck for a minute.'

'No problem,' she assured him. 'Poquah's mad as hell at you two, though.'

'Um, yeah. But if he's really gonna be Daddy, then he's gotta be as responsible as Daddy and watch over and help me, right? He's got no kick. If they're gonna send me to a place like this at my age, then they got to figure I'm at least partly on my own.'

'Could be. I guess doing your first drugs and such makes you feel all grown-up, huh? Tonight you are a man.'

'No, no! It's not like that!'

'You had no idea what you were swallowing. Some of that shit that these guys have is enough to turn you into one of those muscled morons who pull the oars. Larae I blame more than you, and that's probably what will save your hide in the end with Poquah.'

'She only offered me the apple. I was the one who took it.'

''Yeah, but she knew just what she was feeding the two of you. I could tell. She knew how much to take and how to take it, figuring you wouldn't. She wanted you blotto.'

'No, that's not it. I mean, why would she? She was the one who wanted it just to pass the time. It's so damned boring!'

'Hell and adulthood are usually boring. No, she wanted you blotto because she's not much older than you are but she's alone, afraid, and completely frustrated. She wanted you, but if you weren't higher than a kite, you'd find out and remember her nasty little secret. Her curse.'

'What? I've heard and seen this curse, but I still don't get it. What could be so awful that she'd go in this direction rather than reveal it even to us?'

'The answer to that will tell you whether you are really grown-up and can handle things or whether you're just a kid.'

'Do you know?'

'Yeah. Now I do. And I figured out the rest of her story. Pretty obvious once you put the story together with the sorcerer Lothar and figure his options on the problem. The only reason it wasn't immediately obvious was the way he did it, the way I think even the mighty Lothar was forced by the conditions of the curse and the opposition of the demon to do it. It had to be a real curse, not a simple transformation. A transformation wouldn't have done the trick. Probably not allowed under some obscure Rule.'

'You're not gonna tell me she's a guy. I know one sex from the other, and that's the kind of stuff you see in plays and movies, not for real.'

'Well, we're living in the heart, soul, and origin of every cliche in fiction,' she reminded him. 'However, in one sense you're right. She was born female, raised female, and is female in almost all respects. That was the problem. Lothar couldn't change her into a male at that stage; the demon would never have accepted it, since no matter what he changed her into, she'd still be the firstborn girl. So, somehow, and I have no idea about this, the sorcerer instead created a curse for her that made her unacceptable as a sacrifice. I don't know what poor unfortunate he used, but he grafted a male organ onto her. It is mostly isolated from the rest of her system, I think — the testosterone just doesn't get through to her. She's in every way female, but the route to that femininity is blocked. She became damaged goods, neither fish nor fowl, without the purity a sacrifice demanded, but so bound to her is this that to remove it would rip her guts out. It was a minor demon; he just couldn't figure out a way around it. All he could do was vent his fury and command her to come here, where even curses of that complexity might be unraveled by smarter and more powerful demons.'

He didn't want to hear it. 'I don't believe you!' he almost shouted at Marge, even though he really did. 'You mean that under that skirt—'

'You mustn't blame her. She didn't choose it, and in all but that one area she is very much still a she, which must be the most frustrating thing in the world. When you're dealing with that level of world-class sorcerer, even the little things get handled. It's why she tried to avoid you on the ship over and why she fled when you contacted her. Only her fear and loneliness led her to take up my offer.'

Irving felt sick. 'Then we — that is, tonight, we — oh, no!'

At least it explained why he had no power over her, but it also meant that she'd reversed his erotic dreams. She, if that was still the right term, had seduced him.

'Quit feeling sorry for yourself!' Marge snapped. 'She's the one with the curse and the problem, not you. And you are the one who took that drug with her by your choice, your lust. That's what I meant about growing up, Irving. In the end, nobody did anything to you but you. You removed your limits and your spells; you fantasized and lusted after her and dragged her into our group. She didn't try and join us, remember. And you took the drug with her. Now, how you handle this inside yourself and how you handle yourself in Larae's presence will determine just how grown-up you really are.'

Right now he didn't feel all that grown-up. It wasn't fair! Damn and double damn! He felt used. Unclean, sort of. Bits and pieces of just what they'd done earlier came back to him in his emotional torment, and he felt like blaming anybody but himself. Grow up? Hell, nobody ever was that grown-up!