Horrors of the Dancing Gods

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

TERIDELL NEVER REALLY CHANGED. ALTHOUGH A GREAT, imposing structure built by men, it had much of the quality of faerie about it both in its permanence and in its seeming impenetrability. The greatest wizards of Husaquahr never lived forever, but the best lived a very long time, and it was certain that the edifice built by and for the comfort and convenience of Throckmorton P. Ruddygore would last at least as long as he did.

A tall elfin creature with a pale face, pointed ears, and a permanent doleful expression answered the door, and when he saw who was there, he almost but not quite managed a very slight smile.

"Hello, Poquah," Marge said cheerfully. "You're looking much the same as usual."

"We seldom change on the outside, but my head says that I am growing much too old," responded the Imir — the link were a rare elfin tribe that could in some cases learn magic not a part of their own nature — tiredly. "And few of us can wash all our troubles away in supernatural fires."

The creature he was speaking to was also of faerie, and, save for the brilliant reds and oranges of her coloration and her large capelike wings, one might well classify her as one of the many varieties of nymph. She seemed, however, more exotic than a mere nymph, with clear intelligence and even some power inherent in her strong face, although she certainly was built at least partially for pleasure. She was in fact a Kauri, a kind of psychic vampire that could remove heavy psychological burdens in the act of making love to a man in the guise of his ideal fantasy playmate, a positive succubus who literally fed on other people's problems.

This Kauri, however, was almost certainly the only one in Husaquahr who'd once been an English teacher in Midland, Texas, and still retained a hint of a Texas accent no matter what tongue she was speaking.

Poquah ushered her inside the outer castle area, and she immediately began to notice that some of the furnishings were quite different from what she remembered. While passing into the inner courtyard she noted that the layout and extensive flowers and exotic shrubs were totally different from what they had ever been before.

"That's new," she muttered to herself, frowning.

The Imir heard her. "No, madam, it was changed over the past few years. You have not been here in quite some time, you know."

The comment startled her because she didn't know, at least not really. Time had little meaning anymore, and clocks even less, and it hardly seemed any time at all since she'd last been here at the end of settling the final accounts with Boquillas and Sugasto. Now, suddenly, it bothered her. "How long has it been? Do you recall?"

"Yes, madam. Things run by clocks and calendars in this existence. It has been a good six years next month."

Marge was shocked. "Six years! My God! I had no idea! So little Irving—"

"Is not so little anymore," Poquah finished for her. "No, madam, I fear he's anything but that. And no end of trouble, too. After all this time you would think that he would have assimilated into the world here as one or another thing, but so far he's resisted. He's a good swordsman but not a great one, and more than capable with the basic weapons yet not of the warrior or mercenary class. No self-discipline. He's learned to read the Husaquahrian tongue to a remarkable degree yet has no feel for the language, nor a general interest in trade and commerce or in politics, which he holds in deep contempt. In some things he's quite brilliant — he applied himself for weeks to learning a specific set of spells, then, when he got so he could cast them, he did so and was done with more than mere 'puttering' around with occasional magic, all for mischief. He's also a passing fair pickpocket and thief, although I think he brought those talents with him when he came."

"Spells? What did he cast? And on whom?"

"On what is more like it. Turned the Master's entire collection of precious lawn jockeys white as snow."

Marge cracked up, and it was a couple of minutes before she could get complete control again. Ruddygore was wonderful and sophisticated in so many areas, but he had a bizarre fixation on the idea that cheap, tacky plaster statues, lawn jockeys, pink flamingos, and other total junk from the Earth of her origin were somehow great and unappreciated works of art.

"What did Ruddygore say about that when he found out?' she asked the Imir.

"He was initially not pleased, but then it occurred to him that the act was done not out of mischief but out of a sense of personal offense. Frankly, I do not believe that the Master ever considered that the objects might be considered offensive to or by anyone, and this brought home to him the fact that they offended very much indeed. It was the violence of the spell as much as its nature that gave it away. I must say, once his anger cooled, he did not undo the spell, nor has he added to that particular collection since. I believe that in some strange way the Master feels he actually learned something new, and for one of his great age and experience that is more valuable than anything else."

"Maybe it is, Poquah." She nodded. "Maybe it is. What about Joe? What does she say about this?"

The Imir sighed. "I'm afraid that the question is without meaning. Joe remained here only a few days after returning from the north, then departed, stating that she had to learn to deal with the situation before she could be of any value. The Master has kept track of her travels but has never called her back."

"What about the kid, then? You mean Joe just hauled the poor kid over, left him here, and bugged out?" She was appalled. "No wonder he's got no self-discipline! Who's been raising him, anyway?"

"We all have, to a degree. In a sense, he's the young prince of Terindell."

"But — what about him and his father? I mean, Irving at least knows what happened, doesn't he?'

Poquah shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes I think he does; sometimes I think he does not. All the time I believe he thinks of it as irrelevant to him. It is not easy for anyone to fully understand another, but for an elf to understand humans to that degree — I fear not."

Marge shook her head sadly in wonder. "So what was I called here for, then? The old boy just wants to talk over old times or what?"

"I'm not certain, but I rather think it is more serious than that. You have certainly felt it."

"The dark chill, you mean. I think everybody can feel it, even the most nonmagical of humans. It's ugly and pervasive."

"And it is growing stronger," Poquah added.

"Yeah. But I hardly think it's anything I can do much about. Lord knows it's driving me to exhaustion, though. Everybody's so down, so depressed, I often have to cleanse myself every third or fourth person. There are times even now when I've felt fat, bloated, and too dense even to fly right. But hey, I did my bit. More than my bit. Besides, what could I do now against even the old enemies? Our company's long disbanded, and things aren't like they were. None of us are like we were."

"Less who we were than even we think," Poquah responded a bit cryptically. "Still, we are no more self-piloting than before, either. Our destinies run a strange race through the Law, the Rules, instinct, intellect, and destiny. Something is unfinished. I cannot explain it any better than that, but it has been constantly there. A sense that there is something among our own threads that remains undone. Until we do it, we cannot pass the burden to the next generation. That's the Rules."

"I never did like the Rules all that much," she muttered.

"They are excessive," Poquah agreed, "but they are also necessary. Without the Rules, it is unlikely that any of us would be alive today or a stone of this castle standing. The Rules, like any good body of law, are good not because they are all necessary — indeed, most are quite silly — but because they are so mathematically evenhanded. Neither good nor evil can ever gain absolute victory so long as the Rules exist, and so long as they provide opportunity, the cleverest will come out on top. So long as the Rules exist, we tend to be guaranteed a tie, given an equal force on each side. With no Rules, with no margins built in, I, as a mathematician, wouldn't give a gold bar for good's chances."

They were now inside the inner castle and up the winding stairway to the Great Hall on the second floor above the arch. This one great room had changed the least; various suits of armor from countless periods — including some built for nothing remotely human — stood all around, great portraits of dour-looking nobles and sorcerers and the like stared down, and great fireplaces and wonderful great tables and chairs with arms and legs carved into fantastic shapes of gargoyles, wild animals, fairy folk, you name it, graced the hall.

Against the far wall was a massive bookcase running floor to ceiling and along the entire expanse without break, filled with huge heavy-looking tomes all bound in red buckram with gold-embossed spines. Hundreds of volumes, going off to both sides and up and down in a sea of blood red, the Books of Rules Existent under which the whole of this world, this universe, was governed.

"I will go and tell the Master you are here," Poquah said, bowing slightly. "He's been quite tired of late, what with this evil essence, so be prepared for a less than vital man. He is still quite strong, though."

"You didn't tell me he was ill!"

"It is not — exactly — illness. You will see. I'll fetch him." And with that, he left her standing there.

She stared at the books with a mixture of awe and apprehension, as always, knowing that within those pages were the very Kauri defined and limited, and also up there, in some form or another, were the Rules for almost all that had happened to them over the year since she and Joe had first been brought here to battle the Dark Baron.

What a grand campaign it had been, too! For all the horrors and slipups and nasty surprises, it had been in many ways a remarkable experience, the kind few people got a crack at in their lifetimes.

She'd always promised herself that she'd learn the Husaquahrian written tongue and read those Rules someday, but she never had. Why not? She couldn't really say, but somehow it just hadn't seemed important for her to do so.

It hadn't seemed important to do much of anything, in fact.

That bothered her, although she was having trouble even determining why it should bother her.

In fact, until Ruddygore's summons had brought it all back, even those past exploits had faded into memories that she barely considered anymore. For the first year or so after the final showdown in the cold wastes she'd been pretty faithful in keeping in touch here, checking on Irving, dropping in to talk over old times with the likes of Poquah and Ruddygore, and even keeping in some sort of contact with Macore.

Over time, though, things hadn't so much stopped as faded out. The visits had become fewer and farther between; the conversations — when they did come — more basic, less substantial; and, finally, it had just stopped altogether. She couldn't remember the last time she'd even dreamed in English or thought much in that language. It wasn't that the old Marge wasn't there anymore, it was just that she had been, well, filed away somewhere under old times and rarely was brought out except for infrequent reunions.

Was that bad? She didn't really know. She was a Kauri, pretty well indistinguishable from all her sister Kauris and doing what Kauris did. Not only was that not going to change, she enjoyed it. Was the price, the loss of individuality, too great? She wasn't sure. It didn't seem so, yet something in her old prechangeling Texas upbringing said it should be.

Throckmorton P. Ruddygore always made an impressive appearance even when he was feeling off. A huge man, well over six feet in height and impossible to guess in girth, he always reminded Marge of Santa Claus living the good life in the off-season. His thick but carefully managed flowing white beard and long, snow-white hair only added to the impression, and even in the worst of times his eyes seemed to twinkle with the suggestion that he was enjoying some cosmic joke at everyone else's expense.

"Marge! How good it is to see you again!" the sorcerer exclaimed, sounding both sincere and delighted. "I'm very glad that you could come." He went over, took her hand, and, bending down, kissed it softly. It was a very nice gesture, but it also served as a reminder of just how huge a man he was compared to her or, frankly, almost anybody else.

"I'm glad to be back for a bit," she responded, smiling. "But let's face it, when you're the one calling, it's not like I'm going to ignore it!"

He grinned and pulled over a huge, high-backed padded chair and then sank into it. The chair, made of the hardest woods and of ancient lineage that had borne the weight of sorcerers and kings, nonetheless sagged and almost seemed ready to scream in protest.

"You'll pardon my manners," he said more softly. "I'm sure that Poquah has already told you that I'm well off my feed of late."

"You do look and sound unusually tired," Marge admitted to him. "This new pall seems to sap the very energy out of folks."

"It's worse than that for sorcerers. The thing is, it is so pervasive, we spend much of our energy just keeping things up to snuff. With no chance to renew or get away, it takes its toll."

"I assume it's why you called me here, or at least part of your reason."

He nodded. "More or less. It's not the pall itself so much as the cause and object of it. It is slowly, incrementally, almost particle by particle, draining the free magic out of Husaquahr."

"But that's impossible! I mean, the faerie, alone account for a great deal of it."

"True, but it is less of a drain on the faerie, for you are essentially defined as much by your powers as by your form. That is not free magic energy. You feel it, certainly, but not to the extent that someone like me feels it. I call upon the energy, I gather it, I weave it into the patterns we call spells. That is free magic, and that is what is slowly being sucked out. At this rate it's not going to be a terrible blow to us today or tomorrow, but sooner or later it will be. And since it puts pressure on all of us who use free magic, it drives us closer to exhaustion. When we can't fight it anymore, it will accelerate. I think that's the idea. Collapse those of us who can guard Husaquahr, and anybody can move in and take over. And whoever controls the free magic in the end controls the faerie as well, since you are subject to it as much as to your own predefined limitations."

She gave a low whistle. "Then this is serious."

"Indeed. Very much so."

"Do you know who's causing it?"

He nodded. "I think so. He took great pains to disguise himself, but the concerted efforts of the whole Council were brought to bear, and we've rooted him out. The thing is, we can't do much about him. The only member of the Council who could act refuses to acknowledge or recognize the problem. Whether it's because he's been bought off with promises of even greater power or has been deluded, I can't say. Either way, under his protection, if only by his inaction, this continues."

"The rest of you can't stop it? I mean, you wrote all those Rules and you're stuck with something like this?"

Ruddygore sighed. "That really is part of the problem. We wrote those Rules and we're stuck with them. Oh, I suspect that the whole of the Council could combine in single unitary purpose to dislodge our recalcitrant brother and perhaps get to this evil source he protects, but that won't happen. We can't even change the damned Rules until every single sorcerer has a copy — that alone takes years!"

"Seems to me you dealt with Boquillas right off, at least in stripping him of his powers and exiling him to Earth," she noted.

"Indeed. Stripping powers. Exiling. With Boquillas right in front of us. But what if he hadn't been in our custody? We would have been helpless. We still needed the bunch of you to go off and pull him out to where he was vulnerable, and even then, he was only temporarily so. Finally Joe sent him to Hell, but the bastard still didn't go there — instead he sought out the enemies of all creation, consorted with them, and is mounting a rather effective takeover bid."

Marge was startled. "Takeover? Boquillas is alive — and he's actually trying to conquer Hell?"

"And other things. There seems to be no stopping that man."

Marge began to see where this was going. "You are telling me that the Dark Baron, last seen in the body of a pretty woman stabbed through the heart with a sword and falling headfirst into volcanic lava, is somehow behind all that's happening now. You really are saying that, aren't you?"

"I'm afraid so. Things are still unfinished with him."

She blew up. "How the hell can they ever be settled? Jeez! We've exiled him, stripped him of his powers, stabbed him, dissolved him in molten rock…! If all that didn't work, then what the hell can?"

"I assure you that this is not exactly normal even for such ones as Esmilio and myself. The Lamp of Lakash could have done it — its magic overrides natural law, the Rules, you name it. I–I thought he was gone, though, and that the Lamp had been shown to be more of a danger to us than a protection for us. I got rid of it. It was a very stupid thing for me to do. The whole reason why it was here, why it had been allowed to be here, was that it was the ultimate weapon against the ultimate attacks. Nothing could stand against it. Nothing save God and perhaps the Devil. That's why it was so dangerous. Like all ultimate weapons, defensive or not, it was always a two-edged sword."

"Great! You know what we went through to get you that thing? Can't you get it back?"

"Impossible. That route is gone."

"Then what are we talking about here? After all that stuff, all those adventures, all those fights and spells and wars and personal tragedies and sacrifices — after all that, the bad guys win?"

Ruddygore sighed. "What can I say to the first charges? That acquiring great knowledge and tremendous power makes one feel almost godlike? That you begin to forget that you are not truly a god and that the very last thing you are is infallible? Guilty. As to the second — not so long as the Rules prevail in Husaquahr."

"Huh?'

"Remember the one that got Joe in his fix but nonetheless saved both your tails more than once? That, no matter what, there has to be one out available? At least one? That nothing, not even certain doom, can be inevitable even if it is the most likely outcome?"

"Um, yeah. But—"

"That's why I've been studying here and racking my brains for so long. I am as much subject to the Rules as you are. It hit me after a fashion that the Rules would no more permit such an absolute action as I took with the Lamp than they would permit you to be executed without somehow providing a way of escape whether you discovered and took it or not. Like you, my first thoughts were on reversing the dismissal of the Lamp, and I wasted a lot of precious months trying to figure out a way around the action before I finally accepted that I had done too good a job. The Lamp is out, and there is no reversal of that — of this I am now certain. That meant, however, that under the Rules there had to be some sort of backup. Perhaps not as effective, but something had to exist beyond the Lamp, something here in this world and accessible, although perhaps not without great cost, that will at least do the job."

She thought it over but wasn't all that thrilled by the concept. "I remind you, sir, that many years ago now I was one of those who came to this world because of just such a problem. The Baron and his demon allies were beating up everybody and everything, and not even the great powers of this world could stop them, so off we went to find the Lamp and wrest it from its ten-foot-tall killer-bunny guardian. That deal brought Sugasto into the picture, and it was more than Hell to pay before we got rid of him, never mind the Baron. Okay, we got rid of them, and we got rid of the Lamp so it couldn't be stolen and do irreparable harm. Great. Now here it is, a few years later, there's some new evil spreading over the land, nobody can stop it or deal with it, and we have to find some kind of supermagic thingie nobody else knows about and steal it and round and round and round we go."

Ruddygore let her go on and get it out of her system, but he ignored her weary sarcasm. "Marge, there is no such thing as 'new' evil. There is only evil, eternal and vicious, and it is never new. Creative certainly, but it is very old indeed. It is the same evil that crept into the Garden, the same evil that sunk ancient Atlantis, that brought fear and war and horrors to two universes and more. It has many names. War, pestilence, genocide, hatred, intolerance, torture, fear — all those and more. But it's universal, it's been there almost since the beginning, and it will be there until the end. It varies mostly in degree and in its capacity to reinvent itself. Indeed, did you know that there is actually an entire continent devoted to evil right here in this world? Has no one ever told you of Far Yuggoth?"

The name had a familiarity and perhaps a slightly chilling tone to it. "I have heard it mentioned," she admitted, "but not often and never directly. I thought it was a myth, like the Boogeyman."

"Those who know of it don't want to think about it. Those who have ever known of it or been close to it never wish to think of its existence again. When you consider the amount of evil we have here even in quiet times, let alone when ones like our old friend the Baron was at large, and Sugasto, and the rest — well, a continent of concentrated evil is best left mythological. It is not, however. It is very real."

Marge frowned. "Yeah? Then why hasn't it spawned all the stuff that goes on elsewhere? And how come we aren't in a constant war with it?"

"We are," the sorcerer told her. "The Baron was once a good and noble sorcerer," he said, smiling slightly, "like myself, who got so caught up in the injustices he saw in this part of the world that he was led by demons to go down to Yuggoth and learn the parts of magic forbidden to any and all here. He did so, in contravention of our guild, and that, as much as or more than his breaking of the covenants and his war against us, was why he lost his powers and was exiled — but also why he was so difficult to beat. It was there he learned the gateway to Hell and made his alliances with the demon princes. Now you also know the source of Sugasto and his zombie trickery. We can keep it somewhat confined and controlled not only because of constant and heavy vigilance but also because, being evil, the denizens of Yuggoth are their own worst enemies, too. We also have a deal with the King of Horror, who reigns as temporal absolute ruler there, to safeguard his own throne and hide our support so long as he reins in as much as he can. Even so, you can readily see and experience just how much evil escapes to our regions!"

Marge nodded. This was all new and interesting… and not at all heading in any direction where she wanted to go.

Still, she couldn't help her curiosity. "The King of Horror? You mean Satan?"

"No, Satan's King of Hell, Prince of the Powers of the Air, ruler of a dimensional context you cannot imagine. The King is, well, a sorcerer, a great power like myself and my colleagues, with a decided bent for that sort of thing. He's propelled himself to the top there and remains, hated by all his subjects as you'd expect. You can imagine that his power is enormous — anything less and he'd have been knocked off long before now."

"And he likes that kind of existence?"

"Well, he's got more than he could ever want and is greater than he ever dreamed he could be. Why not? But staying on top — aye, that's always the trick, isn't it?"

"I've seen enough evil in this and the other world that I'm not too sure how good a job he does," she noted.

"But that's the point! He does a superb job. I seriously doubt if anyone can ever do it better. Certainly nobody has before. He's got both worlds to worry about, too. Just consider — we have always beaten what gets out here, and back on Earth, who would have wagered a fig that half a century after the atom bomb people wouldn't have already blown themselves to Hell without further intervention? Compared to that, wars, minigenocides, mass murders, demonic possessions, natural disasters, and the like seem rather trivial. No, he's definitely worth his weight in anything precious, that's for sure, but just as certain his eye is a bit too busy to be on sparrows."

"You almost make him somebody likable," she noted.

"In a sense he is. He can be a delightful chap. However, he rules an entire continent that mouths hatred of him and doesn't like itself very much, either."

Marge sighed. "I know you too well, Ruddygore. You're not bringing up this Yuggoth or this King of Horror just to be sociable and educational. You are heading someplace with the subtlety of a force-ten earthquake. Someplace I am absolutely, positively, under no circumstances going to go."

Ruddygore looked stricken. "Marge! How can you doubt my sincerity in this?"

"If it's so easy, you go this time. You've at least got the power."

He turned very serious. "It's not easy. It's possible, but I know that only because of my knowledge of the Rules and how things work. Just how possible and just how many mistakes, if any, are allowed, I cannot guess. Nor can I or any of my colleagues go. Not even at the very end this time, to solve the final problems. We, any of us, would be instant psychic magnets, drawing together all that is evil throughout all the planes and universes and unifying them as never before against us. Any of us either would become as corrupted as Boquillas was or would be utterly consumed."

She wasn't impressed. "Uh huh. And if it's too much for you, you still think that somebody like me can waltz in there and walk through it unscathed? Uh uh."

"Not alone, no. An army of faerie could not stand in that place for long. Only with an anchor — a mortal, corruptible individual of free will — could all hope to have any chance to survive, and that as much by protecting that anchor as by doing anything themselves."

She stared at him. "You are really serious, aren't you? And you're talking about the kid. Joe's kid. You're gonna take a teenage kid and throw him into that and count on me and maybe a few other experienced types to protect him? Ruddy, that is evil. That requires no King of Horror. You are sick."

Ruddygore sighed. "Marge — Joe is missing."

"Huh?"

"Joe went right into that region because the same thing that might save us would also quite obviously have no problems curing his situation. I received a message from Macore that Joe and a halfling girl — about whom I'm still trying to learn a lot of details — arrived many weeks ago, stayed a bit, pumped the port locals on Yuggoth and the like, tried without success to get Macore to join them, and ultimately went anyway. About forty days ago they were put off on a desolate shore on Yuggoth by a mercenary ship, and they vanished. I mean that almost literally. The King was aware of their landing yet can find no trace whatsoever of either of them."

That did concern her. "Jeez! Do you think — I mean, is Joe dead?"

"I believe I can unequivocally state that Joe is alive. Joe has a protection of life beyond any power here to alter, remember. The problem is, the protection is strictly limited to life. There are situations where life is the absolute worst thing to keep and where death would be longed for, and ninety-nine percent of those states were conceived on Yuggoth. Even being faerie doesn't lock you in; not only is great pain, misery, and whatnot as possible with your people as with ours, but the very purity of faerie existence is corruptible. The soul can always be turned and remade, and you are pure ectoplasm, as it were, and can pass to the astral planes without death intervening."

She thought it over but caught herself. "Uh uh. No go, Ruddygore! I did my bit! We all did. And you have to admit, even with all the help, it's a miracle any of us are still here at all. Every time something like this comes up, the odds against us are greater than before. Something inside me says that I've been too lucky for too long in this department. Send somebody else!"

The sorcerer sighed. "I shall, but they will lack your experience and your knowledge. The boy will go, you know. He'll go because it's his father, and because it's honor, and also because children that age believe they are immortal. He's the center of whatever power the new Company might have, just as Joe was of the original one. Poquah, too, although I admit that even I had reservations about him going on this trip. He is not powerful enough to withstand all the forces that may be represented just in the journey, but he is more than powerful enough to act as a magnet to draw such forces to him. He considers it a matter of honor. I have hopes that Macore might also join one last campaign."

"He didn't go in with Joe, I notice," Marge pointed out a bit acidly.

"No, of course not. There was nothing of cosmic significance, at least obviously so, that would have impelled him to do so, nothing to compel him to go, either, and frankly, he has just about everything he can want in his retirement and has no need for more."

"So what makes you think he'll go now?"

"For Joe, of course. Possibly even more for Joe's son. You see, Irving has spent some time with the old thief, and Macore has come to consider the lad as, well, not the son he never had, perhaps, but at least a favorite nephew. He's no longer in the peak condition he once was, nor is he as young as he used to be, but his skills and experience can substitute for quite a good deal."

"The next thing you'll be telling me is that Tiana is going, too."

"No. In fact, I have made it my business to keep Tiana ignorant of this affair. Tana has adjusted extremely well to being not merely male but king. His experiences both on the highest and the lowest levels of society here have made him wise and capable in ways the old queen could never have been and wasn't. The country needs its king badly, and for the first time the monarch is perfect for the role. As I and my colleagues battle against darkness here on the magical level, Ti is essential to the holding together of the political and social fabric. To go now would mean renouncing his throne and all claims for all times. I cannot permit that."

"Well, I don't like it, anyway. It stinks, and I think you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking of letting that boy go!"

"Transformed or not, blood is blood and relation is relation! I could not stop him if I tried! And if he decided not to go, he would be useless ever after both to others and to himself. He needs to define himself. If he goes and survives, he will be defined here both to his own ego and within the Rules. It will work out. If he goes and does not survive, then he would not have long survived life here, anyway. If he feared too much to go, he would be without courage, and if he refused to go, he would lack honor. No, it is unthinkable that he be stopped."

Marge gave a big sigh. "All right, all right. I don't agree with this, but I'll accept the point for now. The real question is whether this is just a hunt for a needle in a continent-sized haystack. Find Joe. Where? How? Even your King of Horror can't find Joe! What's the object here, Ruddygore? If it's to roam around until something there finally eats us or turns us or whatever, no thanks. There has to be an object to a quest. Even I know that much of the Rules."

"You're right. The object isn't to find Joe, but if you accomplish the object, then finding Joe will almost certainly follow." The big man reached into the folds of his robe, pulled out a small scrolled sheet, and handed it to the Kauri. She took it, unrolled it, and frowned.

"A big, mean-looking bird?"

"Not just any bird. That one's not alive, at least not in the sense that birds or you and I are alive. It won't fly; it won't even move. It's a sculpture, an idol if you will, carved out of black marble by some ancient faerie artisan in times long past, not here but on Earth. An island in the ancient Mediterranean, I believe. A good likeness of Hammettus hitchcockius, a very tough but majestic bird now nearing extinction everywhere. This one has an infinite number of names and has been fought over and had people die over its possession. Our own literature here simply calls it the Great or Grand McGuffin. It is on Yuggoth, having been switched for a fake one many years past and brought there by a man who tried to cheat the devil with it, and — as is standard for ninety-nine point nine percent of people throughout human history with such a goal — he didn't quite make it. It's been hidden, cared for, even worshiped on Yuggoth as a minor deity ever since."

She stared at it, suspecting that she knew the name of the island where it had originated. "And this thing can actually grant wishes like the Lamp?"

"Not exactly, but yes, it has some of that sort of power. The Lamp, however, was a product of a totally alien universe, that of the djinn. This was brought into existence by other, darker, but more comprehensible forces and to do evil overall. It is somewhat neutral in most senses like the Lamp, but unlike it, the Great McGuffin, is designed to deliver less than its potential. No one has ever been able to use it without some sort of price being exacted, at least not that we know. You know the old saw about making a deal with the devil? He always gives you exactly what you ask for, but somehow you never think of everything. The McGuffin is like that and more. Wishes are granted instantaneously — even pausing for breath can cause horrible side effects. That's why not even the evil ones of Yuggoth have tried to use it. Too many bad examples. But it has the power, all the power anyone would ever require. Yes, indeed, it has that power. That is the object. Locate the McGuffin, steal it, and get out of there and bring it back here. Even trickier is to do this without using it, for to use it is to risk damnation."

"But you intend to use it," she pointed out.

"Perhaps. If I must. But I am better qualified to do so, because I know the limitations and I know the risks. Marge, I had no idea that this thing even existed until quite recently. Even less that it had this sort of power. Because it was fashioned in ancient times on Earth, it is not directly covered by the Rules; because it has been removed to here, there is not a whole heck of a lot left on Earth about it, either. I have confirmed, however, not only that it exists but that it can do the job. It can seal this rupture that is threatening to open between our world here and the bottommost layers of filth and decay that lie at the bottom of the Sea of Dreams. Irving, Poquah, and perhaps Macore will seek it with a little help from some denizens of Yuggoth who might prove more dangerous than the rest of the locals once the end is in sight but who are necessary for Irving to have any chance of moving within that realm."

"So you do have local help. Then what do you need me for in all this, other than because it's good symmetry?"

"Yuggoth is dangerous in the light of day, but it is truly nasty at night. You are a nocturnal with a great deal of immunity to the sorts of things that might threaten others at that time, and you can fly."

She shook her head sadly. "I think this is sick. Still, let me see the kid and I'll see if I can talk him out of this?'

"The kid," Ruddygore repeated, smiling. "I think you might well be a bit disoriented on this as well. Come, let us go and find him by all means!"

The imp was about a foot tall and purple, with a perpetually nasty expression, rotten sharp teeth, and the personality of the gargoyle it resembled. It snarled and spat and its eyes flamed, and it was clearly a very dangerous creature restrained only by the candlelit barriers and the Tetragrammaton within.

And this was when it was trying to be helpful and nice. Irv couldn't imagine what the thing would be like if it didn't like him.

The human, wearing only a cotton loincloth, sat in a slightly modified lotus position facing the imp. In front of him were a series of small clay bowls with different-colored sands in each of them. Carefully and in the prescribed manner of the Rules on this aspect of shamanism — Volume 16 to be exact, which he had off to one side — he reached in and took a handful of several different sands at once, and with soft chanting and great care, he began to draw a design in front of him by letting the varicolored sands drip slowly from his fist. Although he had no control over the colors or the mixing, the result was an exotic design not unlike a varicolored mask of some strange, ancient creature on the dirt below.

The imp studied the design critically, craning its neck to follow the drawing at the correct angle as much as possible.

"Not too bad for an asshole," it commented. "Only thing is, this is a cross between a totem of the Benin City-States in the 1400s and Anastazi circa 1200. That kind of inconsistency weakens the totem. You get two different entities tryin' to answer, and they don't like each other much. Combine 'em and they just hate themselves."

"I can't deny my twin natures," the human responded.

"I keep tellin' you, it's concentration, you idiot!" the imp stormed. "You got to decide what in hell you're goin' for before you go, that's all! Isolate what you need from what you are. It's like you got a purse with coins of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and nationalities. You need coins that'll spend in this place, now, at this time. You don't reach into the purse and pick out all the coins and insist that they're all good! And you don't melt 'em down and give 'em a lump — which is about what you're tryin' here. You reach in and pick out the coins that spend where you are and put the rest away, right?"

"Yeah, well, that's a lot easier to do with coins than with your mind and soul."

"Of course it is! Otherwise everybody'd be doin' this and we'd never get any rest! That's the final knack of it. Most of the rest is all mechanical. Craft, that's all. The art's in how you can control yourself. What you got there is a plea for a hot fudge sundae from the god of turnips. The best you can hope to get is chocolate-covered turnips."

The young man shrugged. "Might make turnips edible, anyway."

The imp blew up almost literally in sheets of purplish flame. "Now, see! That's just what your problem is! You ain't got no discipline at all! They'll eat you alive when they get the chance! How you gonna ever best somebody who can call on the gods of war when you call up the gods of nosebleeds? Get with the program or say 'the hell with it!' and find something you can do well! You got all the talent, boy, but you ain't got the mind for this!"

And with that the imp vanished in a ball of flame.

Irving sighed and made a pass with his clenched fist over the bowls, allowing a little sand from each to drop, and each color went back into its proper vessel. Once it was empty, he used his hand to completely rub out the weird face he'd drawn. What did they expect of him, anyway?

How could he make them see just how miserable he was? He'd been miserable since having been yanked here years before by his father, then abandoned while dear old Daddy went off to save the world — and did so at the cost of being turned into a green Playboy centerfold. The funny thing was, his father never even knew that he knew Dad hadn't died in the war. Nope, instead, brave old Daddy had run away in shame and hadn't been anywhere near his son, leaving said son to be raised by Santa Claus and his elves, all of whom lived in the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West.

He had the only father who'd flunked out both as a father and as a mother. Irving couldn't help but wish, as he had many times before, that Dad had at least tried one of those roles.

He heard someone coming and deliberately put the stuff away and got to his feet just as Ruddygore and Marge entered the chamber.

It was unclear which of them, Marge or Irving, was more shocked at the sight of the other. Irving at least had seen Marge and creatures like her, although not up close for a very long time. Ruddygore and the others here had spent a great deal of effort trying to ensure that he didn't have any private encounters with nymphs.

The last time Marge had seen the boy, he'd been literally that. Nothing so marked the dramatic passage of time in anyone's experience than seeing a child at one stage and then not seeing the same one again until long afterward.

Although young, the person who rose and stood facing her was hardly a child anymore. Irving was in fact pushing six feet tall with no absolute assurance that he'd stop growing. He was a handsome young man, too, with a finely honed muscular brown body that would have been the envy of almost any of his contemporaries and a finely featured angular face that seemed quite exotic-looking, blending the sharpest and most distinctive features of his Native American father and his African-American mother. Still, for all his lack of European ancestry, there was something of the Greco-Roman god in him, some kind of ancient ideal in deep, dark bronze, yet it was also clear by his looks that they had been attained by nature, not by any of Ruddygore's tricks.

Holy cow! Marge thought, a bit awed by the sight. He wasn't just a good-looking guy, he was gorgeous! She felt a little odd in a way she had nearly forgotten. She hadn't felt this way about the sight of a man since… since she'd been human.

"Irv, this is an old friend of your father's who was originally from your world. Marge, meet Irv," Ruddygore said.

"I don't remember seeing anyone who looked like you when I was growing up back on Earth," Irving noted, his voice already deep and rich yet with no trace of an accent at all.

"I've changed a bit since I got here," Marge assured him, sounding both nervous and a bit skittish. What was getting into her?

"It seems to happen pretty regularly," Irv commented a bit sourly. "After all, how many other people do you know whose fathers are wood nymphs?"

"I — well, nobody, of course." Damn! What was wrong with her? "It wasn't really his fault, though. It was that or die."

"We've been through this, Irving," Ruddygore commented patiently. "Until you are in a spot where you would have to make that choice for yourself or for someone else you care about — which I devoutly hope you won't have to ever do — you cannot sit in judgment on others. And by doing what he did instead of taking death or surrender, he also was able to dispatch one of the most dangerous and evil people I have known and make it possible to foil a plot to take over the whole world. I'd say it would have taken a lot more courage to do what he did than not to do it and let evil win."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't there," Irving responded petulantly. Damn it, this is Joe's kid! Marge told herself, and got back some self-control. She was fascinated by his reaction in spite of the problems she was having. "I was," she managed, "and Ruddygore is right. I can promise you that."

"Yeah, well, it's what some of my tutors here have said. Dad won the war, but he blew the peace. Seems to me that if you have the guts to make that kind of decision, you should have the guts to learn to live with it, too."

"What…?" Marge was totally confused at this attitude.

"Joe never told him," Ruddygore explained. "And didn't stay around very long afterward, either. Irving found out on his own. Somebody on my own staff slipped; still, we'd have to have told him sooner or later, anyway."

"Jeez! That's tough!" Marge said, genuinely sympathetic. "But your dad's one of the good guys — or was. Honest. Sometimes people do stupid things because they think they're better than what they should do. This sounds like one of those."

"I wouldn't know, now, would I?" Irving responded frostily.

Marge frowned. "Wait a second! You feel that way about your father and yet you're still willing to risk your neck and worse to find him? Why?"

Irving gave a wry smile. "It sure beats hanging around here."

Things wouldn't get any better, and Ruddygore, realizing it, excused them as quickly as he could.

"If I thought I was wrong for this expedition before, I'm doubly sure now," Marge told the sorcerer, relieved to be away. "It starts with his effect on me. I–I can't explain it, but it's not what a Kauri should feel."

Ruddygore nodded. "Yes, we've noticed it ourselves. It keeps growing stronger as he gets older, too. The odd thing is, he's essentially unaware of it and certainly has no knowledge of how to use it."

"You sure of that? That was a magic lab if I ever saw one back there."

"Oh, I'm sure. He has the talent of a major shaman but never a world-class magician. He's unaware of it primarily because I've had him under a fixed spell since puberty, one of many minor ones you might have noticed. We couldn't contend with all the temptations in a place like this."

"Oh, don't tell me he's gay! That would be too much!"

"No, he's not. At least I doubt it. He's nothing at all. He understands sex on an academic level, but absolutely nothing turns him on. Nothing. On a physical and emotional level it's still a mystery to him."

"You can't keep him that way," she noted. "Sooner or later that lid'll have to come off, and then the more repression you've caused, the worse the reaction. I'd really hate to see somebody like him, with that kind of power, let loose without learning control and responsibility."

"I agree, but there's little time for it. Besides, he'll be far too busy contending with other things to truly abuse it on this trip, and it may come in handy."

She stared at him. "That's what you want me for, isn't it? You want me to break him in, be both mother and play lover. I'm not sure I can do that, Ruddy. I'm not sure just which of us would be in control in that circumstance. I'm also not at all sure I like the big guy, no matter what his animal magnetism. That's one bitter and seething cauldron there. With that abnormal a background and his own resentment… I think he really blames his father for just about everything and wants revenge, not rescue. Frankly, he seems like one sick puppy to me."

"Perhaps. I've done what I could. The thing is, though, this is another of those matters where I have to be cold. You, even he, can go for Joe. That's fine, and I won't be judgmental. I suspect Joe's already fallen into much worse than even anything Irving can do to him, and if not, then no matter what either feels at the moment, I think finally bringing the two together in full knowledge of who the other is would be healthy for both of them. From my stand point, though, I have to push all that to one side. The bottom line is that someone must bring me the Great McGuffin, period. I can solve the other problems if that occurs; if I do not get it, then everything else makes no difference. All that we know will cease to exist — Kauris, nymphs, and livings, too — and this world will be a pulsing cancer of pure evil."

Outside their ancient and sacred small homeland, the Kauris were few and were spread across the length and breadth of the world, so they seldom encountered one another in their wanderings until their mandated pilgrimage to cleanse themselves in the psychic and very real fires of their Holy Mother. Even so, they were never truly alone, though they usually were reminded of this only on the rare occasions when they needed some kind of correction.

"Marge?"

She was startled. "Yes, Holy Mother?"

"I didn't allow you to go over there to Terindell to beg off. I can smell the stink rising from fissures in Yuggoth even here. They cannot be permitted to widen and allow in that which must never take true physical form. Ruddygore's right in that regard: you let that happen and all our asses are grass."

"I came only because it was your command, as you know I will go if that, too, is your command, but I would rather not."

"You bet your little wing tips you'll go if I command you!" The Holy Mother was not simply a leader but a supernatural force. If she commanded a Kauri, any Kauri, to stand on her head and spout poetry, then that Kauri would be absolutely powerless to refuse, and Marge knew it. The fact that they were having a dialogue at all was most unusual for the Holy Mother and definitely suggested that this was a high-stakes game.

"I do not lack the courage, Holy One. Surely you know that after all this time. It is the boy. He has a power over me that I am hard-pressed to resist and has it without even knowing he does so. This kind of attraction is bad in most people, but it should not act at all upon faerie in general or Kauri in particular"

"But you controlled it."

"True," Marge admitted, "but that was in an initial meeting, with Ruddygore present, and for a very short time. This would be day and night, constantly, and perhaps for months. It is not like the old Joe, even if he had also had this attraction. Joe was a genuinely interesting, likable man. This boy is cold and dark within; the attraction is unmerited, without reason, no more than a magical version of a love potion. Even as I feel the attraction, I find the man-boy behind it unlikable."

She had once had a husband back on Earth who had been something like that. He was charming, sexy, handsome, with tremendous animal attraction and a mean soul, a man who cheated anyone who loved him, whose promises were worth less than spit, and who took out his frustrations at the world by hurting others and feeling pleasure and release by doing so. There was something in Irving de Oro's voice and something else in his eyes that had seemed very, very familiar.

"The boy was snatched from his mother and family and the world he knew, good or bad and brought here, where he was subsequently abandoned," the Kauri goddess noted. "He's been raised and educated in a household of strangers by people who do not understand families and the needs of growing boys and who think a kind word or a reward or a magic spell cures all. His father might — might — have saved him, by returning, by being honest, by raising the boy anyway and overseeing his development, and, most of all, by giving him the one thing he had little of back in his native world but expected more of here: love. His younger self came here because he sensed the loving and caring his father had for him in the mere act of coming for him. Then, at that tender age, he was abandoned and felt betrayed. He still feels betrayed. At heart he is still that little boy, looking for somebody to give him that kind of love."

"Yeah, well, that might be true, but there's got to be some point at which you take responsibility for your own actions. My ex was beaten and abused growing up as well, but I knew men who also had been and who were determined that they would never be like that to others. Most poor people don't commit crimes, either. The majority of the people here are dirt-poor; but every time I hear poverty given as an excuse for evil, I have to laugh. I'm real sorry for Irving, but I didn't do it."

"Well, there's no getting around it, honey. That brat's gonna decide the fate of all our asses, so you got the job. I will give you some armor against his charisma, and Ruddygore can give you the keys to his fetters. Do I have to command you to go?"

Marge sighed. "No. I'll go on my own, but for the sake of you and my sisters and to rescue Joe if I can. Not because Irving needs an education."

"Start from down here near where Macore lives," Ruddygore instructed. "It's quite a long sea journey, and you will be dependent on ports in the region anyway for passage. As you might suspect, there isn't a whole lot of traffic, at least of the commercial sort, between Yuggoth and the rest of Husaquahr, and it's not the sort of spot folks go for holidays. Try to talk Macore into coming along — I think he'll be his usual great asset. In any event, he's the last person on this continent to have seen and spoken with Joe."

Marge, Poquah, and Irving all stood around, nodding at the instructions. Until then the boy hadn't evidenced much interest in getting to know Marge or the details of the trip, but now at least he seemed to realize that he couldn't just walk blindly off a cliff.

"I'd say it wouldn't be much on the usual shipping lanes," Marge noted. "Are you sure we can even get there in any reasonable time?"

"Oh, yes. That's the one thing about evil places. If you actually want to go there, there's always a way open to do so. The problem is never finding evil, it's getting away from it."

"All right, assuming we can get there in reasonable order, what then?" she pressed, feeling uncomfortably the leader of this mess. Damn it! 1 was drafted — they don't draft generals!

"Once you're off, I'll know where your first landfall will be and I will arrange for you to be met. Still, remember, once you're inside, you cannot trust anyone or anything on Yuggoth. The good people there are the ones who wouldn't stab you in the back for no reason at all, just if they had something to gain by it. Still, the agents we can use for this are primarily changelings like yourself, although of a darker nature. People whose absolute fanatic and uncompromisable lust for the McGuffin has taken them across the Sea of Dreams to Yuggoth but not completely to their goals. They will help you because you will facilitate them in attaining what they most desire. In general, you can trust them to get you there, but not once you get there or are clear to the goal. And if it looks like some other player can help them if they betray you, they'll have no hesitation in doing so."

"Sounds chummy," Marge noted glumly.

"You will be unable to find the McGuffin on your own; its concealed hiding place is known only to the King. He has agreed that if any of our representatives get to him, he will make that location known to them."

"Why not just tell us outright so that we may head straight for it?" Poquah asked, frowning.

"Well, for one thing, he doesn't want it known to others, and this decreases the chances of that happening," the sorcerer explained. "Second, if you can't make it to him, you can't make it there. And third, since you'll have native guides who also want the McGuffin — if they know, well, then, they won't need to be with you anymore, will they?"

Poquah was unconvinced. "But if we reach the King, assuming we do, and gain this information, won't the effect be the same?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I'm sure he'll have something in mind to guard against that. He always has the most arcane ideas for accomplishing things, but those things get done because nobody else can figure them out."

"How far will we have to go in this land before we reach His Majesty?" the Imir asked. "From the port city, that is."

"Yuggoth is roughly three thousand kilometers across by perhaps twenty-four hundred north-south. The King runs things from almost dead in the middle, atop some high mystical but natural formation called Castle Rock. That's where you must go."

"How big?" Marge was appalled. "Ruddy, that's something like fifteen hundred plus miles! That's longer than Texas is wide! And all filled with horrors and dark powers and creepy-crawlies, and all hands, tentacles, and whatnot against us! It can't be done!"

"Oh, I assure you that it can," the sorcerer told her. "Absolutely guaranteed. That is not to say that you will do it, but it is certainly possible with who and what you will have. What makes it more difficult than it is, is that this McGuffin must be in my hands — in my hands, not yours — in less than six months' time. If it is not, the fissures will be opened and the only option then will be a hasty escape for the powerful few. If the denizens of the muck beneath the Sea of Dreams actually make it through to reality, any reality, it is all over. If that happens, nothing, not even the McGuffm, will have the power to save us."