Horrors of the Dancing Gods

over the place, mostly old and Victorian style, which brought back unpleasant recent memories of a similar if smaller place at the end of the jungle. Fortunately, this was well lit, looked nicely maintained, and had what were clearly mostly real people going to and fro on top. She wondered how they got up there and where they came from.

Well, at least there isn't a gigantic pull tab, she thought with some relief.

The carpets slowed, turned, banked slightly, and began to settle down in a nice pattern on a broad grassy area right in the center of the mountaintop.

There was a welcoming committee of several serious-looking men and one or two women all dressed as if they shopped at L. L. Bean. It was kind of like landing at a heliport except that there weren't any engine noises or down-draft from rotor blades.

A man of about fifty with a graying beard, long-sleeved work shirt, faded jeans, and boots came up to them, a corncob pipe puffing in his mouth. 'Howdy!' he greeted them in a clipped, straightforward accent that sounded of extreme New England more than of this world. 'Welcome to Castle Rock! Name's Latimer. I'm the first secretary here. What brings you out here?'

'I am Poquah, an Imir in the service of Ruddygore of Terindell,' the elf responded, standing in relief and bowing slightly. 'My companions are Marge, a Kauri; Master Irving, Ruddygore's ward; and Larae Ngamulcu, who has joined us and, um, proved quite useful. The fellow coming over now from the other carpet is Joel Thebes, who might already be known here.'

'Yeah, I know him,' Latimer almost spat. He clearly knew him in a way that most people didn't want to be known. 'How'd you get hooked up with the likes of him?'

'He is in our employ. Native guide, as it were. The rest of why we are here I shall have to discuss with His Majesty if it is at all possible and with the utmost urgency. I believe he has been expecting us.'

Latimer nodded. 'Could be. I'll have to contact him and see. He's asleep right now, but he should be up in a few hours. In the meantime, why don't you all come with me. We have a nice hotel here, the Overlook, which has spectacular views by day and all the amenities.'

Poquah looked uncomfortable. 'Um, I fear that friend ben Hazzard has managed to deplete our fortunes far more than we anticipated.'

'Oh, there's never a charge for our guests. Not at the Overlook,' Latimer assured them. 'However, the rules are quite different here from the whole rest of the world, and we tend to assign some regular staff to newcomers until they can get used to things here.'

'If you mean electrical power, we are pretty well familiar with it,' Poquah assured him. 'I have been to Earth many times with Master Ruddygore, who can do it whenever he wishes, as you might know, and the lad was born there and probably remembers enough. Even the Kauri is from Earth; she is a changeling. Of them all, only the lady there is native; so as long as she remains close to us, I see no problems.'

'From Earth, eh? So am I, in fact. So are a bunch of folks here. I'm from Portland myself, a long time back.'

'I'm from a small town in west Texas nobody ever heard of,' Marge told him. 'The boy's from Philadelphia.'

'You don't say! Small worlds, I suppose. Outside of the Rock here, you usually run into Earth types only after they've been dead a while. Stay away from the folks in the fourth-floor west wing of the hotel, though. They're all from Hollywood, and you ain't seen sleaze until you set down with some of 'em.' He looked around. 'You see how the machinists work, so I don't have to tell you their limits. Boss wants some maids, he materializes some maids. Right impressive, but that's all they are. You probably won't have much of a problem, but you always got to watch people and things round here. Boss has a stray thought, almost anything can happen.'

'Comforting,' Irving muttered.

Latimer thought for a moment 'You know, young feller, come to think of it, you ain't the first one through these parts from Philadelphia.'

'Huh?'

'Yep. Never got to Castle Rock, of course, but we pretty well know who comes through the land round here. Didn't see her myself, but she was some kinda changeling, too.'

Irving felt his stomach knot slightly. 'A wood nymph?'

Latimer shrugged. 'Could be. Didn't get that much detail. Lost track of her a few weeks ago, though. She went down toward the south. You might have heard we're havin' a bit of a disturbance down them parts lately.'

'I've heard,' the boy responded. 'But we've been looking for hi— her, and you am the first one in quite a while to report that she got this far. She's a relative. It's my hope we can find her.'

'Lots of luck if yer headin' down that way,' Latimer told him. 'Me, I'd rather stick with the usual demons, vampires, ghosts, that kind of thing. Even the boss thinks that way, although he's so damn brainy, he still wants to see what in hell comes through. Me, I say leave 'em.'

'Us, too,' Marge assured him.

Joel Thebes yawned and stretched. 'It is amazing how doing nothing for hours and hours can make you more tired than running many miles,' he commented. 'Come, friends. The hotel is the finest on this world and perhaps the finest anywhere, and its bar is like no other as well. They will tell His Majesty about us when he wakes up. Let us relax and enjoy what may be the only luxury we have left this trip. I have a feeling that once we leave here, it is going to be very rough indeed.'

That at least made sense. 'Lead on,' Marge told him.

After breakfast they got word from the hotel that the King would indeed receive them and that a messenger would come to take them over. The messenger proved to be a small boy with a very pale complexion even in the daylight.

'He's pretty busy right now,' said the strange little boy, who said his name was Sammy, at the door of the King's palace, 'but I think he'll fit you in. Just follow me. We don't stand on nearly the ceremony here that most folks expect, but you do have to have a good stage setting to keep the locals impressed.'

He led them to a large tower on the far end of the top of the rock. Around the sinister-looking spire, sitting on black ledges, were huge birds of a kind none of them had ever seen before. Each was the size of a man and had the face and neck of a vulture, yet they all wore dark humanlike suit jackets, top hats, and glasses and clutched battered leather cases in their hands. Every once in a while someone would come to an open window and call, and the nearest of the huge birds would come over, take something from the person at the window, stuff it into the case using its feet, and fly off.

'Lawyer birds,' Sammy explained kind of nonchalantly. 'We need a ton of 'em around here, both goin' after others and defending ourselves. Seems like it never ends. Hey, here we are! Come on in and enjoy the show!' With that he opened a large wooden door, revealing a vast and otherworldly corridor.

The great entrance corridor that took you into the presence of the King of Horror looked like nothing so much as a Grand Guignol version of the Wizard's palace in The Wizard of Oz movie. The motifs were blood red and sickly green streaked with blacks and browns, though not emeralds, and the statuary and tableaux along the way were gruesome in the extreme.

At the end was an enormous piece of statuary, a great demonic idol whose ruby-red eyes blazed down on them. It was right in character, reminding Marge of the demonic figure atop the mountain in Fantasia, and when it actually moved, as if it were a living thing itself, it was pretty damned scary.

'Who disturbs the King?' the creature demanded in a deep, spooky voice that echoed down the broad entrance hall.

'The ones from Husaquahr,' Sammy told it, unimpressed and underawed. 'About that stuff goin' on down south.'

'Oh, yes. Ruddygore's group. Very well; bring them in.'

To everyone's surprise, Sammy ran right up to the demonic figure, pushed something in the base, and made a keystone pop out. He then turned it, and there was a noticeable click and a door was framed in the base. It opened, blasting light into the room, and with it also something else.