Horrors of the Dancing Gods

Oddly, as he stared out into the pitch darkness of the rain forest, a thought came to him from out of nowhere: This is how Dad must have felt.

Felt wrong, weak, compromised, ashamed, and unwilling to admit the truth or face down his son. Joe hadn't acted very grown-up, either, had he? And the son had cursed and blasted him for running ever since.

Now it was the son who wanted to run, who didn't want to face the way things were with somebody he'd sort of assumed responsibility for. But how could he just keep on after knowing? How could he treat Larae the same as before? Or even as just a friend? Even a companion? Particularly now that she'd used him.

But hadn't he dreamed of using her? Wasn't that why he'd taken that drug with her in the first place?

That was different!

How?

Only because in his own scenarios he was the user rather than the victim. Damn it, it made him feel like a skunk. She had done this to him, and here he was feeling guilty about it!

But it was so — so unnatural!

In a world of fairies, nymphs, gnomes, curses, demons on street corners, and resident sorcerers, what in hell was natural?

So Dad had gone off to conquer the evil sorcerer and had been changed in the process into a wimp of a bimbo wood nymph. 'Hi, Irving! Guess what? But don't worry, I'll stick around and be your role model, anyway.'

What if he had been the one who was changed? Would he have acted differently than Joe had? Would he have faced his son like that, forever like that, and would the son have accepted it? He'd been blaming his father for not doing just that for years, but what would his own reaction have been?

He knew the answer. He knew that what he'd always thought he would have done was what he most certainly should have done under those circumstances, but it wasn't what he really would have thought or felt or done. Nobody grew up that quickly. Nobody should have had to.

Marge had no idea what Irving was really thinking or how he'd finally resolve this, if he could, but she did emphatically sense the growing buildup of guilt, shame, and emotional turmoil within him.

Maybe in another night or so he'd at least have worked up sufficient guilt to allow her to solve her immediate problem by helping him solve his.

Poquah rarely smoked a pipe, and when he did, it was only when the most important things were imminent. It was a pleasure he shared with his elfin brethren but one that also never quite fit his self-image and lifestyle. But in the predawn hours he was on deck smoking the pipe and leaning against the rail, looking out at nothing in particular.

Irving wasn't sure who he wanted less to see and talk to, Larae or Poquah, but as much as he wanted just to go overboard and make his way through the jungle to someplace where they'd never heard of him and wouldn't find him, he wasn't really about to do it. He wasn't at all sure he wouldn't have, though, if he'd also shared his father's immortality.

Marge had reported the Imir as furious, but Poquah never showed emotion and was always in perfect control. He was not in fact nearly as angry as he'd been initially and not entirely angry at the boy or the girl, particularly since Marge had briefed him on all that had transpired and all that had been revealed.

'Poquah, I—'

The Imir, barely visible in the predawn grayness, held up his hand. 'Growing up is learning, often by committing mistakes,' he said softly. 'The trick is to grow up and learn from those mistakes without allowing them to destroy you. Have you learned?'

'I — well, sure, I've learned. I'm just not sure if I learned all that I could have or that the lesson is correct. Damn it, Poquah, it's not fair!'

'Nothing much in life is certain except its unfairness. Good people die; evil lives to a ripe old age. Crime pays much of the time. Wars ravage schoolyards as thoroughly as battlefields. People tolerate and even create the grossest of dictatorships rather than risk hunger and uncertainty in freedom. Everybody expects a free lunch, but nobody can give such a thing. Someone always pays. That's not just something in the Rules, you know. It's the way things work. If we are not constantly tested by fighting through valleys of weeping and crucibles of fire, then nothing we can gain is worthwhile.' He paused. 'So what will you do now?'

Irving shook his head. 'I don't know. I don't know what to do.'

'She is asleep now. She has slept better tonight than at any time since she joined us. She also does not know that we all now know her secret. It is her great shame. I believe she is terrified that someone will find out.'

'Well, I can't hide it. I can't pretend anymore. I wouldn't know how. That's something more mature people can handle, maybe, but it's just not in me, not yet.'

'Then you must be totally honest with her, but that is a grave risk. If she cannot accept us knowing and you knowing in particular, she will react as your father did and will flee at the first opportunity. At least she cannot kill herself. That option is removed by her geas. She is not the owner of her fate and thus has no right to take her life. That at least we need not worry about.'

'Yeah, but if she runs, out here, in this…'

The Imir nodded. 'There is still a day and a night left. The creatures in there would be sensitized to her curse, but they would feel free to use or abuse her. She wouldn't die at their hands; she'd just wish she could.'

'Great! More load heaped on me!'

'I wouldn't do it if there were any other way. Understanding, forgiving, sympathizing aren't enough. You must convince her that you accept her. That it doesn't matter. She has had enough of pity and of punishment, I think. This past night proved that. She seized an initiative and acted upon it, which is very encouraging. It means she's at the point of finally accepting her situation, of living with it as a permanent condition rather than just moping around and hoping she'll die or wake up. If she were to get the idea, particularly at this crucial juncture in our travels, that she could be an equal and not have to hide in shame, then she might actually have the potential to contribute to this expedition, which I think may be far shorter ahead than I originally thought.'

'Huh? How so?'

'Something darker than anything I have ever experienced or even imagined is afoot here. I can feel its enormity, its oppressive weight and sheer power, the farther in we travel. Odd to think of Yuggoth as having a cancer, but it does, and that cancer is spreading at a rate that says there is no time for caution now. Something draws me as well to its source. Marge, too, I think, and you to a lesser but still important extent. We must settle all the turmoil within our company, and we must do so now. We will need each other like never before in very short order.'

Irving didn't sleep much at all after that, but he let Larae get up and wash and eat and get comfortable. She did seem different, both softer and more self-confident and definitely bound to him in some emotional way.

That was going to make this pretty damned tough, and he'd gone over and over how he'd manage it. In a sense, he knew he had her fate in his hands, and that was a heavy burden if he blew it.

Finally, though, he couldn't put if off any longer. 'Larae?'

She smiled at him. 'Thank you for last night.'

He tried not to show discomfort. 'It's all right. I think maybe it's time I told you a little about my own self and other things in more detail than you've heard them so far.'

'You don't have to.'

'Yes, I do. And I want to start by telling you about my father…'