Horrors of the Dancing Gods

Marge at least recognized it as sixties rock music. It sounded in fact like Jim Morrison.

Following the boy through, they emerged not in some creepy place but in a rather modern-looking office with a nice computer sitting on a desk and built-in bookshelves all around containing lots and lots of reference works, classic horror novels, science fiction, history, geography, you name it.

A fairly normal looking human man of average size was at the computer, typing away. He didn't stop when they entered, and they stood there quietly as he continued on, until he filially completed whatever he'd been typing and looked up at them.

'Sorry. When you're going good, you can't just stop. You have to finish the thought or you lose it,' he explained in a very friendly American-accented voice.

Irving frowned and blinked. 'You are the King of Horror?' he asked.

'At your service, at least for, oh, for ten or fifteen minutes or so. Best I can spare today. Lots to get done. It's not easy being the foundation for all contemporary horror on Earth, you know. The imitators drive you nuts, then there's the sycophants, all the folks wanting your money or your endorsement for something, and even strangers deciding you're so damned public, they can tramp through your house. It was that damned Amex commercial that started it. Never should have done that one. I've had to hide half the time over here ever since.' He seemed lost in his own world, then suddenly remembered his guests. 'Sorry. Just what am I supposed to do for you?'

'Uh, Your Majesty, there are eldritch horrors about to emerge from a crack in space-time near Mount Doom,' Poquah said as respectfully as possible. 'We're supposed to stop them within the Rules.'

The King nodded, sat back in his chair, and sighed. He pointed to one wall of the room. 'Those Rules drive you nuts sometimes. Worst part is, when you wind up in this job, you find that the next volume's all your Rules that everybody's stuck with. What a burden! Still, okay, it's probably not eldritch horrors — they're pretty passe. Most likely the Ancient Ones, I'd guess. That mythos never went out of style and keeps inspiring more and more of our best. Inspired me, too. That's the only reason they're still around at all, still a threat as an alternate opposition, see. They're useful, they're valuable, and a lot of Earth still really gets into them.'

Irving cleared his throat. 'Um, excuse me. Do you mean that all these horrors _.only exist or have great power because Earth still believes in them?'

'Oh, no. I doubt if anybody sane on Earth believes in 'em. But folks still sit down and read the stories they inspired, that they communicated to the best of the bunch, starting with Chambers and Bierce, and folks still find the stories scary. When you're scared, then for that period you believe. See? And that's enough to keep anything or anybody alive in the Sea of Dreams.'

Marge should have been between groggy and comatose, but she was wide awake for some reason here. 'But I thought it was the reality here that influenced the dreams and nightmares over there.'

'It's both. No communication is ever just one-way, and this is no exception. The difference is that what we take from here over there is a dream; what we take from there over here becomes reality. We go back and forth like that. It's what connects us together. The only way to destroy these Ancient Ones is by destroying all vestiges of them in the imaginations and literature of Earth, which is very unlikely. It would be really interesting if they took over here, I have to admit. It would make things easier for people like me back on Earth. Think of the universal dreams and nightmares that would travel then!'

'And yet you are willing to aid us in blocking their coming?' Poquah prompted hopefully, not at all pleased at how this was developing.

'Oh, sure. Take me, for example. Everything you see here isn't what's real, it's what enough of Earth thinks of as a kind of fantasy. When all is said and done, I kind of like the job. When people like you, they can make things very nice in their imaginations. I'd find them coming through interesting but not enough to risk all this. So you want me to unlock the gates of the Garden Wood for you. That about right?'

'The Garden Wood? Is that what you call the forest near Mount Doom?' Irving asked him.

'Well, yeah, it's what I call it, not what everybody else calls it. See, there's one part of it on every continent here. The trees of the ancient Garden, all split up. This is the part with the mean one, the Tree of Knowledge that screwed everything up but gave us all the plots. Pretty tough to build interest or suspense if you can't tell the difference between good and evil. Of course, it also introduced pain, death, all the things that make life exciting. Used to be a great place for snakes, too, but this business has chased them all out. They're mad as hell about it, too. Just what will you do once you're in there?'

'We'll use the McGuffin,' Poquah told him. 'I have a basic formula provided by Master Ruddygore. It will seal the rift and restore things to a normal equilibrium without doing much else. It is thought that the status quo is the best possible resolution.'

'Okay, I'll buy that. You might have some problems, though. Nobody knows where the McGuffln is in there; the hiding place can be seen only by mortals, and no mortals have survived that place that I know of. There's also a lot of turncoats and surreptitious followers of the Ancient Ones all through there. That's a lot of power and a lot of danger roaming around the woods while you go hunting for the sucker.' A watch alarm began to beep steadily, and the King shut it off. 'Look, that's it. I have a lot to do here. I'll make sure that you're authorized, and that's all I can do. You should also speak with Prince Mephistopheles and see if you can figure a quick and dirty way in. Sammy can show you the way.'

'Meph — the Mephistopheles?' Marge was amazed.

'Sure. The idea of there being two of them is too terrible to think about. At least he's used to dealing with humans. Go on down and talk it out. Good luck. I really hope you make it.'

He turned and was soon absorbed once more at his computer keyboard, oblivious to their presence. They knew they had been dismissed.

Sammy came in and looked at them. 'Follow me,' he piped, and they had no choice but to follow.

The contrast between the opulence and comfort level of where they'd been and the spartan, monastic-looking medieval room where they were taken by the boy couldn't have been more marked. There wasn't even electricity in this underground chamber, just oil lamps.

Marge felt quite comfortable in the cold, stony place, but less so mentally as she realized that this was where they were to meet with the prime minister of Hell. She'd met a demon face-to-face before, one far more minor than this august presence, and it had been among the scarier things she'd ever experienced.

They waited, and finally Irving whispered, 'How long do we stay here?'

'Learn patience,' Poquah cautioned. 'Being too impulsive and in too much of a huffy can get us all killed down there.'

'A mature sentiment, sir,' said a strange, deep, but quite pleasant voice that seemed half cleric and half schoolmaster for some reason. They all turned and saw that Mephistopheles had arrived through the wall.

He was dressed in dark earth-brown robes like a monk, and there was nothing about him to suggest that he was a major supernatural entity or in fact that he was demonic in any way. The face, deep within the hood of the robe, was next to impossible to make out and darkly shadowed, but the hands looked quite human and, interestingly, quite unblemished.

'They will not let you get in, you know,' the demon prince commented.

'Then how do we do it?' Poquah asked him.

'It might have been possible to sneak in even a few weeks ago, but now they have pretty well secured the entire region and the three provinces around it. A great many have been impressed to build some sort of structure in the center of the forest. We're not quite certain what it is or why, but there could be thousands of their minions working on it. It is certain that this is where they will come through.'

'When?'

'Soon. There is not much time. We thought we had several months, but now that looks far less likely. One… entity… has already passed through; we don't quite understand how. The entity itself is quite small, certainly not one of them, and must have come through primarily by using their linking of power to push himself through, a worrisome and unheard-of effort. They do not tend to like each other very much, although the Ancient Ones are somewhat elemental in nature and thus can work together to split the rewards. There is one for the sea, one for the land, one for air, one for fertility, one for the space between the stars, and so on. The entity has gathered, built, organized, and seems ready to open the way.'