Horrors of the Dancing Gods

The figure was definitely a wood nymph, or, more accurately, it had begun as one. The face, arms, upper torso were all still clearly the same, but instead of being inside a tree, she was a tree, at least in a sense. Instead of two legs extending from the hips, there was a single green stalk the width of both thighs going down deep into the ground. The creature clearly had some serpentlike mobility, but only within about the three-meter range the roots would allow.

She was also pregnant, obesely so, with an enormously distended abdomen.

Irving felt he had to risk a whisper. 'That can't possibly be my dad, can it? I mean, you can't get that pregnant in a few weeks, can you?'

'Not normally you can't,' she responded, 'but we don't know what black magic and Rules apply here. At the moment I'm concerned with the fact that she's got a light but sharp-looking blade in each hand.'

'Yeah, well, I guess she's still easier to handle than the one on Larae's side,' Irving noted, gesturing.

It wasn't as easy to see the other creature from, this angle, but you could see enough to realize that while fundamentally the same as the wood nymph now, it had not begun as a wood nymph but rather as something else.

Poquah, who had a much better view from the opposite side, was appalled. The figure, while 'planted,' had three sets of arms, each with a full-blown sword, and three sets of breasts, and she seemed to be almost three times as pregnant as the other. Both the Imir and Lame examined the guardians, and both determined that pregnant or not, if both extended themselves on their stalks to the fullest, they could cover the entire altar area. Short of killing them both, the only way through, using the original plan, would be to somehow lop off all their limbs, and that didn't seem too likely a possibility.

'This is what became of Irving's changed father and the girl he was with, isn't it?' Lame whispered. 'The description is too close.'

Poquah nodded. 'I am afraid so. And I think that Irving knows it, too. They are enchanted, of course, or cursed, or something similar. That means they won't recognize us in all likelihood and will kill us, even Irving, if they can. Not good.'

'I wonder if one of us could get up behind them,' she said. 'I can virtually see the bird-thing from here. If I can just come in from the rocks, I might be able to reach down and grab it and still be just out of their range.'

'A diversion, then. Good. Go. I will give you five minutes to get into position. Then you do it or I at least will die. Give me your spear. You won't need it now.'

He saw that she had removed literally everything, and for the first time he could see her as she really was and as she had been cursed. It was quite the most bizarre thing he'd seen of its kind, and, most unusual of all, it didn't look cooked up by magic. If someone from Mars were to see that body and not understand anything about how the human body was constructed or know of the specifics of the sexes, that person might accept it as 'normal.'

The leather straps and such had cut into her and chafed; for the first time she felt totally free and took a minute or two before starting off to get full circulation back. Then, taking only the sling but no stones for it in one hand, she eased off to the forest wall at the rock face.

Irving was still trying to figure out what to do. He couldn't bring himself to kill his father no matter what, but he didn't want his father, under some weird enchantment, to kill him, either.

Marge had no solutions for him, but she couldn't figure out the scene as she saw it. 'Little Miss Alvi over there was half-human and mortal. She should have been able to get the McGuinn. Why stop her?'

'Maybe they act first and think later,' Irving suggested. 'Some do, but not here. L-look! It's Larae! Up there!'

Irving frowned, then saw the girl's figure slowly emerge and make its way carefully over on very slender finger-thin ledges and handholds toward the back of the McGuffin's shrine.

As she emerged, Poquah stepped out of the forest and into plain view about halfway between the Tree and the altar area and out of reach of either guardian by at least a small amount, or so he hoped.

Up until then neither of the two planted ones had moved so much as a muscle, imitating the trees around them, but now, suddenly, the eyes opened and they began to seem very animated.

Marge reached out to restrain Irving, but it was too late. The boy drew his sword and stepped out of the other side, just opposite Poquah and perhaps just out of range of Joe.

'Dad!' he shouted. 'It's me, Irving! If there's any of you left in there, don't try and harm me!'

The nymph's face contorted as if in agony, and finally she managed, 'Irving? No! Back! I — can — not — stop my — self. Go! Get — way!'

Irving felt tears of pity come to his eyes and also tears of conviction. 'I cannot, will not believe that you can harm me!'

'Believe it!' Poquah called to him. 'Do you think he can control it? Someone else programmed the body! Someone who doesn't give one damn about you!'

Larae had reached a small, crooked bush growing out of the side of the rock and had locked her legs around it. Irving tried not to watch what was going on but knew full well that the bush and its branches wouldn't have supported his weight as they did hers, nor was he in the kind of shape to hang and dangle like that.

Had it been directly over the enclosure with the idol, there would have been little trouble at that point, but it was slightly off, forcing her to swing on her legs like a gymnast. She had the base of the sling in her right hand and, using it, was trying to encircle the neck of die birdlike statue on every pass.

'Go!' Joe shouted insistently. 'Run! No hope! No hope! Bo — Bo—'

Larae latched onto McGuffin just as Joe began to speak, and, twisting the handle deftly with her wrist, she pulled up and away and it came loose!

Joe and Alvi could not help but hear it when it happened, hitting against the side of the rock a couple of times, and both immediately turned and began slashing.

'Make the wish!' Poquah shouted to her. 'In the name of all that's holy, make the wish now!'

But Larae didn't speak, not immediately, gathering up the unexpectedly heavy statue in her hands, swinging one more time, then doing a nearly classical dismount off to one side. A sword from Alvi's top hand came so close, there was a tiny scratch and some blood beaded up on her leg, but she had it, and, grinning broadly and knowing she was out of range, she got to her feet and held it up, totally forgetting that now was more dangerous a time than before.

'Larae! Make the wish!' Irving screamed at the top of his lungs, and she suddenly realized her error and started to speak—

A figure leapt out of the trees nearby and brought her crashing to the ground, the statue falling from her grasp and rolling slightly onto the forest floor. The newcomer rushed for it, picked it up, then stood back against a tree, a look of beatific insanity on its face.

'I wish I was the god of this whole world and all living things within it!' Joel Thebes shouted. 'Bow down and prostrate yourself before me—now!'

For a moment the entire world seemed to pause, then Marge stepped out behind Irving. 'I don't feel like bowing down to him,' she noted, as much puzzled as relieved. 'Do you?'

'Not a bit.'

Thebes gaped, his face changing from a look of godlike power to the sort of horror no one should ever have glimpsed. He looked at the statue in his arms, turned it around, studied it as if it were some new species of creature, and finally read off something stamped on the roughhewn base.

'USA. 1941!' he read in total disbelief. 'No! It can't be! USA! 1941! It can't be! It's not only a fake, it's the fake!' And with that he screamed with such terror that it echoed throughout the valley and caused even those who could not remember such things to pause and shudder for just a moment.

Irving ran to Thebes, barely paying him any attention, and helped a shaking Larae to her feet. 'I am all right,' she assured him. 'I just feel very stupid.'

Thebes sank down, staring vacantly at the black bird idol and the inscription and otherwise not moving at