Horrors of the Dancing Gods

A MASSAGE FROM GARFIA

FOR SUCH A DOOMED SHIP IT WAS IN MANY WAYS A MAGNIFICENT vessel.

The whole thing was gleaming polished wood and brass; the lamps were bright and solid, burning only the most fragrant oils and putting out a light that almost seemed electric; and the windows and glass doorways had seemingly abstract patterns of stained glass that were impressive works of art in and of themselves. This was no cattle boat or common freighter; this was as high as luxury went in Husaquahrian ships.

Marge stared at the whole thing with a sense of nervous awe, both appreciating the quality and at the same time remembering that this was no ordinary ship and that it trafficked in no ordinary souls going to no ordinary place. This was a Hell ship, run for the convenience of the Prince of Darkness and his minions, and it was very clear that creature comforts were high on the demonic priority lists. There was, Marge thought, too much Judeo-Christian background in her; she was still surprised to see this soft of thing even though it was creature comforts and luxuries in the here and now that Hell always promised, wasn't it?

"What's that sign at the bottom of the gangplank?" Irving asked them. "It looks like Earth writing, but I can't read it."

"It's Latin!" Marge exclaimed. "A quote from Dante, I think. The fancy big letters say 'Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here.' The standard for Hell."

"Yeah'? Then what's that phrase in small letters below?"

"It says to have a nice day," Poquah told him.

They walked up the gangplank and onto the ship. Oddly, there was more of a sense of embarking on an adventure than of putting their fate in the hands of their worst enemies.

"Take a good, close look at some of those stained-glass windows," Irving bent down and whispered to her. "My old granny woulda freaked. Yours, too, I bet."

Marge took another, closer look at them and suddenly saw what he meant. Far from being totally abstract, they showed a number of stylized scenes, not at all the sort you'd see in your local church but in some ways parodies of them, with demonic figures shown as all-knowing and all-encompassing angelic-type figures, and below them all sorts of wonderful excesses were depicted in rather graphic detail. Marge hoped that Irving was really as worldly a sixteen-year-old as he seemed, or else this was going to be one heck of an education. Although some of the less interesting sins were depicted, such as greed and gluttony and sloth and the like, it was certainly the sexual ones that paid the most attention to detail and commanded the most attention of voyeurs.

Marge stared at one and wondered if what was depicted with such obvious relish was really possible. It was a Succubus depicted as doing it in the glass pattern, of course, but except for being on different sides, they were sort of in the same business.

"Could you really do that?' Irving asked, somewhat appalled but still fascinated. The effect the scenes would have on him if his spell of celibacy was removed was something Marge was glad she didn't have to deal with right now. Hell, they were turning her on, and she was way past sixteen.

"Anything they can do, Kauri can do better, kid," she responded with a confidence she didn't really feel. Holy smokes! If this sort of stuff was on the passenger-deck windows, what in the world could be decorating the bar?

Somehow, this was one heck of a fancier ship than Charon was usually depicted as having.

A tall, gaunt figure stood at the main doorway inside. It was dressed in a black robe and cowl but clearly was no demon by its shape and movement. A skeletal handliterally — emerged from each sleeve, and they all got the very distinct impression that the rest of the figure was equally bony.

"Tickets, please," the thing said in a hollow voice that was all business rather than conveying any sort of threat.

Poquah handed the thing their documents, which suddenly erupted in a puff of smoke and flame and were gone.

"All in order. See the purser inside for a cabin assignment and meal information."

Irving shifted his pack, the only luggage they carried other than a small garment bag Poquah used, and muttered, "I wonder what they eat in their dining rooms."

"I believe 'don't ask, don't tell' would be most prudent as a policy there," Poquah responded, and they entered the main ship.

Again, in spite of the decor, the cleanliness and overall gleaming opulence of the craft almost overwhelmed them. Even Irving, who had little sense of social graces, felt decidedly underdressed.

The purser proved to be a more conventional sort of demon but of about average height and with an above-average girth, wearing an official-looking gold-braided dark uniform similar to that found on fancy ships everywhere. Marge thought he looked like Uncle Fester, if he enlisted in the navy.

"Hmmm… I think they made a mistake on you," the demon muttered, checking a clipboard and sounding jolly enough. "They only booked one cabin, number fourteen, for all three of you, but there are only two beds in there and not much room for more, I'm afraid."

"That is quite all right," Poquah told him. "I am more of the day, and the lady is of the night, while the boy can be either way. It seemed silly to book a second cabin when only two of us at best would be using it."

"Ah, yes! Very good, sir. A penny saved is a penny more we can take you for in the casino. Rather boring aboard in the daytime, though, sir, if I might say so. Not much of our clientele likes the sunlight, you know, and we get real hovecraft speed and comfort only at night — daytime is the more mundane and much slower kraken pull. Of course, there are always a few people about. You will dine in the forward restaurant, boat deck. It's the Purgatorio. Open all the time, anything you wish, any cuisine, any race. You will find the cuisine here the finest in the world." He turned and reached over to a huge wooden pegboard, took down a large key on a big polished wood key chain, and handed it to Poquah. "You may keep this inside or turn it in if all are outside the room," the purser added, pointing down a well-lit passageway. "Down amidships, then up the forward stairs to the top. It is quite a nice room."

The Imir bowed, and they turned and walked down the corridor. Irving took the key and looked at it. Even the key was a work of art, not just a key but a sculpture of a familiar form.

"Skeleton key," he noted.

Marge chucked. "Wonder if it'll open any door."

"I don't think we want to check that out," Poquah responded. "There are a number of guests who travel this route I should not like to disturb. Those throngs of the damned outside aren't here; they're crammed below in the holds. Besides, as with virtually any hotel or inn — and this is basically a floating version of a hotel — the key is primarily a formality. They could get in and out with passkeys any time. Elsewise, how could the rooms be cleaned?"

"You're really reassuring," Marge told him sourly.

He shrugged. "Remember, the one thing Hell depends upon is that it is as good as its word and always honors its guarantees. If it did not, nobody would ever try and beat their system. We are warranted safe on this boat. Period. It is a condition of passage. There are no guarantees if we violate the basic rules of passage, which are in every case pretty much what one would expect from anyone — no vandalism, observing the privacy of others, that sort of thing — but there is also no fine print. You see, they count on this ship to bring their own people to Yuggoth and from there to the gates of Hell itself and to send their own agents back into Husaquahr. They control passage in both directions. Why should they risk anything on the boat? It is simply not in their best interest."

A few cabins were open in one area, and they revealed interiors very opulently decorated but with what looked for all the world like polished coffins where the beds should have been. Others seemed to have cages that didn't appear to be able to be opened from the inside. Their own cabin, however, turned out to have a king-sized bed in the center, surrounded by a pentagram on the floor and holders for candles and incense. There was also a washbasin with a small pump that actually could feed cold or hot water depending on which way it was pressed. There was also a fairly standard chamber pot with sealable lid.

"Why the pentagram?' Marge asked, looking it over. 'They call demons in the bed or something?"

Irving chuckled. "The demons stay in the cabins on this boat! Remember, you can use a pentagram to keep demonic forces inside or to keep them outside. Doesn't matter which. I think this is for folks who just might not trust that they didn't catch all the fine print."

"It is indeed mostly a psychological aid," Poquah agreed, examining it. "However, it might well be prudent to set it up, particularly for the night. Irving, you will have to decide if you want to sleep in or out before it is sealed, and Marge, I'm afraid that once it is sealed, you'll be as unable to cross as anything else. Of course, you can yell if need be."

"Fair enough," she told him. "Still, I kind of wonder what protects me when I roam this ship at night."

"Your wits," the Imir replied. "The same as protects you wandering the night skies of Husaquahr."

"You really don't sound worried."

"I'm not. The fact is, in this one and only this one instance, Hell and we are on the same side. Remember that there are more than two universes and that the others are even farther from the template of Earth than this one. The djinn you know; the other, reached through the worst depths of the Sea of Dreams, is that of Hell's nightmares. That is the one that now threatens to come here. If it does, it is going to find Hell no more kin than Heaven; I would admit that Leviathan versus Cthulhu would be fascinating, but I am not certain that I would relish being on the same dimensional plane as the contest."

"Huh? You're saying Hell wants us to win?"

"No, no. By no means. They want the current threat to us all ended. They would most certainly rather do it themselves, but so long as we are serving their ends, I do not believe we are in mortal harm from the great principalities and powers of the air. That does not, of course, mean that they wouldn't like to see us come over to their side and point of view and enter into their service or that they wouldn't get rid of us if they could triumph for sure without our help. Still, I will lose no sleep on this leg of the voyage from worry that some ghoulie or beastie or demonic form is going to get me. I believe we should all simply get as much rest as we can, for I can foresee many long and difficult times ahead." He yawned. "Indeed, I believe I shall nap right now."

"Not me," Marge told him. "I'm in my prime time here. Irving?"

"I want to see the rest of the ship and how it moves," he told her. "No way I'm gonna sleep now."

They left Poquah and went back to the hall, then forward and out one of the doors to the outer deck. Things were getting very busy very fast, and they could feel the boat shift against its moorings as people and things were loaded on board. Marge shook her head in wonder. "Do you feel that this is strange somehow?'

"Those windows? And coffins in the rooms? Sure," he admitted.

"No, that's not it. You kind of expect that. It's that most of this is not bizarre. There's no feeling of dread, of monstrous evil, blood and gore, all the rest. This could be any large, new luxurious craft going anywhere on the ocean. There's just something wrong about it."

"You mean you think we're being conned or something?' he asked.

"No, no! I mean that this is pretty much what it is, that nobody's conning us, but it isn't what it should be. Demon ships to a horror continent that is the gateway to Hell? This?"

"So you think they get people over to their point of view by scaring them to death?" Irving asked her. "Heck, I mean, you heard that demon. They're at war. They see all that evil power stuff, all that blood and gore, as striking at their enemy, but you wouldn't expect them to live that way. I bet you Satan's so beautiful, he'd make you cry, too."

"Huh?"

"He was in charge of all the angels, right? And he controls all the organized evil in at least two universes, right? That's power. These little guys, these demons or bad angels, they're just ones that got conned or suckered or maybe just talked into going with the revolt. No big deal. But I bet you the big ones, the princes, are something else — and their chief the grandest of all. You figure he's gonna sit back with the best wines and the finest foods and all the stuff anybody can enjoy in spades, right? Everything your preacher ever told you not to do, and no penalties, no aging, no guilt or nothin'. I bet he don't need a ship to be anywhere, but this is the kind you'd build for your people, right? Not the suckers — we saw them all chained up back there. The ones who really run things."

Marge sighed. "Maybe. Still, it just doesn't seem right somehow. Not to me."

Was it just her old cultural upbringing, she wondered, or was it the fact that she'd seen the evil those creatures could do and had learned of more? Hitler, Stalin, war, pestilence, disease, suffering — that was the business of those who owned and operated this craft. How terribly depressing to discover that they literally saw it as their business, nothing personal.

Still… "If they're so powerful, why do they need us at all?" she asked him. "You're so smart, kid, you answer that one. Why can't the big man who can corrupt nations and enslave whole worlds and chuckle over a nice Chianti about it, him and all his princes who run things, take care of this turf war with somebody else muscling in? What could a sixteen-year-old green kid on his first outing and two faerie do that all that power and glory and such can't?"

It was Irving's turn to shake his head. "Sorry, I been thinking about that one myself. Maybe we'll find out if we make it."

The ghostly, roaring sound of lost souls under amplification came from all around them.

"The H.P. Hovecraft Eibon will depart in five minutes. All ashore that is going ashore. All passengers and freight for Red Bluffs, Innsmouth, and points beyond should now be on board"

"Well, we might as well stick here and see how this thing works, anyway," Marge noted. "I still can't figure out why it's called a hovecraft or just how it moves. I don't see any masts, the huge inner tube that seems to surround it doesn't allow for oars, and nothing up front that seems to be used for pulling is broken out."

They waited, hearing the clomping of inhuman feet below them and the shouts of many creatures in many tongues. There were also shapes, human and otherwise, on the docks and at the mooring lines. The gangplank aft and the loading ramp amidships were withdrawn, and they could hear the crew putting up the railings and bulwarks. There was a definite feeling of departure that quite abruptly struck both Irving and Marge in a way they hadn't expected.

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here…"

Since coming to this world, they had both traveled to many lands, seen many things of good, evil, and in between, and experienced both magic and nature, but it had all been in Husaquahr. Now, for the first time, both of them were leaving the great northern continent, the largest on the planet, whose heart was the River of Dancing Gods, and heading southward, past the equator, to a place that they didn't know but that was billed as all the bad things of Husaquahr and Earth, with none of the good.

Both felt suddenly very homesick, and Marge again had to suppress the urge to fly up and away, back toward home and familiar lands.

"Eibon now departing," reported a somewhat spooky but far more solid and official-sounding voice. "All passengers remain away from the rails and mooring lines. Let go aft. Let go amidships. Let go forward"

The huge boat drifted free of the dock, with the lines being pulled in from the lowest deck below them and secured. It didn't feel like it was powered by much of anything but rather was simply adrift, its pilot steering with a rudder, using only the outgoing tide to get well away from shore.

"False dawn's starting," Marge noted, pointing. "They won't have much night left."

"Probably not," Irving agreed. "Just enough to get them out to where they can pick up the krakens, I'd guess. Still, he's making pretty good time with just the tide here. At least I think it's the tide."

They were well away from shore, and the lights of the H.P. Lines dock seemed extraordinarily distant. Pretty soon they were far enough out to see the whole coast stretching before them for many miles in both directions, and to the rear and the right they could see the resort town and its crowded harbor as a collection of miniature radiances in a gaudily lit gloom.

Somewhere over there Macore was fast asleep, probably surrounded by his crew of nymphs, no longer exposed to the danger of yet one more quest.

There was a sudden bump and lurch of the whole boat, almost as if it had struck something, and then the sound behind them of massive things rising up, up into the sky and the breaking of the still air by great downward rushes in a regular sort of beat.

They were both almost knocked off their feet, and Irving grabbed the rail, leaned against it, and looked back and upward to see what was going on.

Two great black shapes, each perhaps a quarter the size of the entire vessel, had risen from apparent resting places on top of the boat, between the bridge and the aft pilothouse. Giant, thick, yet amorphous beasts, they now seemed to loom above the ship and cover it, yet they matched its position relative to themselves and to each other perfectly.

"What are they?" Marge shouted over the noise of their beating, great manta rays of the sky.

"I dunno. I think they're some kind of night gaunt, but I never saw or heard anything that big or powerful before," the boy responded. He pointed. "Look! They're attached to the ship!"

It was true; the two great beasts were linked by lines not of rope or chain but of the blackest magical forces so that each carried half the vessel. Now, very slowly but very deliberately, the ship seemed almost to come out of the water, suspended under the two creatures just above the waves.

There was a sudden, heavy beating now, and the ship began to move forward at a rapidly increasing speed, leaving the shoreline of Husaquahr behind, moving off with extraordinary haste away from the threatening light of dawn and toward the still-inviting darkness.

It was clear from the start that they would not beat the dawn, but they would make a game try of it.

Daytime was definitely not the most comfortable time of passage. Kraken power involved lashing the great sea behemoths to lines from the bow and having them pull with great muscular snakelike motions. That did the job but caused a fair amount of rocking and definite discomfort during heavy seas. While the forward motion was enough to allow them to make time, the comfort zone for the Eibon was definitely slated for dusk to dawn.

The dining room was everything the purser had promised, as well. The wines were superb, of legendary vintages, and whatever food you wished for, that mysterious never-seen kitchen could manage not only to come up with but to prepare it precisely the way you wanted it.

There were few eating or wandering the decks by day, even in warm sunshine, and that made Irving in particular more sensitive to the feeling that he was being watched, and not by members of the crew. It wasn't constantly, and it wasn't anything he could pin down, either, but he had the distinct sense of being checked up on constantly by someone or something that was never that far away yet never quite glimpsed save in shadow or out of the corner of the eye. It was always faster than he and cleverer as well, and it was no paranoid delusion. Once he thought he had caught the watcher and almost had, but while there was nobody there when he made the challenge, the doorway was still sliding shut and the inner door was swinging back and forth as if someone had just run through.

Both Marge and Poquah admitted to having the same sensation, although not quite as frequently and certainly with no better luck. "At first I thought it was some fellow passenger who had designs on a neck or thigh," Poquah noted, "but I get no sense of menace from this. Imir are very good at this sort of thing — sensing threats. Whoever or whatever it is, while I cannot be certain that it is friendly, it is certainly not our enemy. This suggests someone paid to keep tabs on us or watch our backs. It will be interesting to see what comes of this — or who."

"Great. Just what we need," Marge grumped.

Beyond the luxury of the restaurant and bedrooms there really was little to do on the boat for the average passenger. They did have a nighttime casino, as promised, but it was a rather subdued affair for anybody, let alone Hell, and looked even more impossible to beat than a regular casino. The library tended toward honor novels and collections, many from Earth, together with volumes in many languages of both Earth and Husaquahr on black magic, sorcery, Satanism, and other cheery subjects. Irving did find the complete, bound set of Tales from the Crypt, but it provided only a couple of hours diversion at best.

It was more comfortable by night, when the giant night gaunts skimmed the ship over the waves regardless of seas or winds and kept things steady and very quick, but Irving in particular found that this was the best time for him to sleep. The constant pulsing and rocking from the two somewhat laboring and slightly out of sync daytime krakens were much easier to get used to walking about than sleeping in the cabin. That left Marge more to herself at night, which she didn't particularly like but had to accept, and Irving roaming around pretty much on his own during the day. Poquah was never a very convivial sort or great company and tended to use his time reading, studying, and meditating. Once or twice he did try to stalk Irving himself, hoping to catch the elusive shadowing figure in between them, but although he came close, the shadow proved resourceful and the most that could be gleaned was a small black-clad shape whose very race, let alone features, couldn't be determined by short glimpses.

And then there was the girl.

Irving first saw her in the restaurant at the second meal there, eating alone. She was striking in a number of ways, not the least of which was that she appeared dark-skinned and African-featured although quite different from his specific features in many ways. She also was dressed in a light cotton dress that seemed comfortable but hid little and was most remarkable because on Hell's dark ship it was the whitest of whites.

Who was she, this first person of African-type features Irving could remember seeing since leaving Earth? What was she doing here, traveling to Yuggoth on this ship, wearing the plain white that usually signified purity and chastity and all that, and awake by day rather than by night? At first he thought she might be a Succubus; those creatures, after all, did have a tendency to take the form in the beholder's mind of some kind of ideal human. But it was never the same for any two people, and Poquah saw her, too.

"There is a Moorish continent, but it is well west of our destination," Poquah noted. "Still, she certainly looks of that continent and place, and most likely the western delta region of that continent. I have no idea why she is here, but I can perhaps make some kind of nasty guess based upon what I see."

"Yes?"

"Note the spell. Not all that different from your own. Chastity, celibacy — she is a virgin. The spell keeps her that way, but it is the power of that unspoiled virginity that shines through and is almost painful in faerie sight. White cotton, virginal, unadorned, and alone. There can be but one possible explanation for this."

"I don't understand," Irving said, frowning.

"She is a gift. Someone made a bargain with a demon back where she came from to provide a firstborn virginal daughter. There is much potential for both good or evil sorcery in such a one. We can safely assume that if she's headed to Yuggoth on the Eibon, she is headed for an evil master, a payoff that will almost certainly be a tragedy."

"Huh? What? You don't mean…?"

"I fear so. She is intended as some sort of sacrifice to a power of the underworld. Whoever does it will gain something important, possibly vital protection or even power. The underworld prince will gain a soul that can be used against others like a weapon of iron. There is a whole volume devoted to sacrificial virgins in the Rules, you know."

Irving was shocked. "Hey! We can't let that happen! Particularly to her! I mean, it's not right!"

The boy seemed so mature and so much an adult that it was a surprise sometimes when the naive kid in him surfaced as it did now. Poquah sighed and said, "Irving, we are on a ship owned by a principality of Hell heading toward, and I repeat, toward, the evil continent of Yuggoth. Aboard are a considerable number of lost souls as well as — almost certainly — demons in sufficient numbers that we could not stand against them if they decided they wanted all of us. To top it all off, we are in the middle of the ocean. Just what do you think we could do if indeed we had the right, the duty, or the obligation to intervene?"

The boy was somewhat taken aback by the catalog of their weaknesses, but deep down there was a moral sensibility that couldn't walk away from this. Still, he had to think pretty fast.

"I think we are supposed to," he replied a bit hesitantly.

"Indeed? Why?"

"Because she's black like me, and I don't ever remember seeing another around here, so the two of us being on this ship this trip has to mean something in the destiny department or something, right?"

"Or it could be sheer coincidence. I suspect there are a hundred million or so of her race about, just not many that get to Husaquahr. And I'm unaware of any monopoly on dealings with Heaven, Hell, or the spirits in between by one race versus another. She is also brown, not black, and you are not only not black, either, you are only half-related to her in any genetic sense. Now, if she'd been a red Indian, I might well have agreed with you on the destiny business — we have some relatives here in a remote land but nothing all that close, and so someone of that type showing up would be highly unusual, if not unique. But a girl of one of the Moorish races — don't be absurd. A million times more common than an Int, for example."

Poquah clearly could not be moved, but Irving wasn't the type to budge on that sort of thing, either. Much of the day he brooded over it, trying to figure out just what to do, what he might be able to do, and, if he could come up with something, what was needed to do it.

The first thing, he decided, was to talk to her. Poquah might well be right. Hell, she might even be there of her own free will or to save her family's life or something. He didn't think so. Not only was the racial link much more certain an indication of destiny linked to him than Poquah accepted, but the fact that she was also clearly not much more than his own age cinched it.

And if she didn't want to be here, then just to pretend she was never here would be as big a sin as bumping her off. If they refused even to check out somebody who might need help or refused to help somebody who needed it, then maybe they all deserved to be going one way to Yuggoth on the Eibon.

He was determined to approach her as soon as he had the chance. That, however, was easier said than done; other than at meals, she appeared to be spending most of her time alone in her stateroom, and he didn't even know where that was. Meanwhile, the disapproving Poquah tended to join him for day meals. Marge might understand, but she was for the night, and he'd not seen the girl after dark.

It happened early in the morning of the second day out. He hadn't slept well and had arisen before dawn, breaking and then recasting the stock pentagram of protection around the bed, leaving Poquah out cold. He had slipped out quietly and gone on deck, since he felt far more comfortable in the open air with whomever or whatever he might meet than inside, where unexpected daylight or radiation from the sun through the clouds didn't always reach. The beating of the gaunts and the vast stretches of open ocean made for heavy winds, but it was very hot and they weren't a real problem. In fact, he walked out into a brief predawn shower and found it more refreshing than irritating.

The gaunts were already beginning to slow as light seemed ready to creep above the horizon. He watched as they settled the hovecraft gently into the water, where the telltale rocking and odd pitching of a craft in heavy seas were sudden and unmistakable. Then down they came, gently settling on top, sinking below a rail and possibly down into a recess that would be covered by day. He hadn't had any particular yen to find out for sure about that.

For a short while they just drifted there, bobbling around, the bridge apparently keeping them close to a single position by steering in low, lazy circles wherever ocean current and wave wanted to move them, until, just as dawn broke, the two huge kraken beasts surfaced not far away, looked around with their Creature from the Black Lagoon faces, saw the craft, and oozed over toward it like great porpoises or perhaps a real nightmare of a Loch Ness monster until they were at the bow. Giant webbed hands reached up, took hold of the towing chains, and, with the help of some dark and indistinct crew members below, dragged out the lines until they were well forward of the craft. At that point they began to swim, taking their bearing from the sun, and within a short time were sufficiently in sync to produce the familiar roll of kraken power.

It was still cloudy with light rain, although he could see the sun coming up far off in the distance, showing how localized the shower really was, and he turned from watching the harnessing, or the changing of the power guard as it were, and was startled to see the girl leaning against the rail, looking out at the sea on the other side of the forward deck walk, just below the bridge.

She seemed oblivious to him, to the rain, to much of anything, so he swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and wandered over toward her in what he hoped seemed a casual and natural manner.

She was aware of him, though; as he approached and got very close, she began slowly to edge her way aft and toward an interior hatch.

"I–I'm sorry if I scared you!" he called to her. "I didn't mean any harm!"

She hesitated a moment, and he could see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes but then she bolted into the open doorway and was gone. He resisted the impulse to follow her. He'd made the first move; now it was up to her if she wanted to follow up with him. He was smart enough to realize that any kind of forced persistence would send exactly the wrong message.

He was actually a bit surprised at her action, though; he wasn't used to women not being instantly friendly and attracted to him, even if his own spells kept him from fully understanding why. It was still a matter of ego in a sense, and there was a bit of a nagging letdown that the first girl he'd ever found attractive in any way was somehow immune to the charm all the ones he couldn't care less about found irresistible.

Still, what must she think of anyone with passage on this ship? If she was the prize for some terrible bargain, now being sent to evil as Poquah had surmised, then what did she think he and his faerie companions might be?

She didn't show up for breakfast during the early morning period, so he prepared to go through his exercises, jog a few times around the main deck, and then lounge around in the hot sun on the afterdeck, figuring that he would at least be accessible to anybody during that whole period.

There was seldom anyone on deck — or almost anywhere else on the ship — who was awake and active during this daylight period, with the mornings being particularly deserted. He had that weird feeling of being watched again but no longer even bothered to try to catch whoever or whatever was spying. Let them catch him!

This morning, though, the second time around the deck area, he felt something go in his upper calf and suddenly came up with a really strong muscle spasm that collapsed him onto the deck for a moment in sheer agony. Trying to put some kind of pressure on it while massaging the leg helped a little, and the intensity of the spasm diminished, but he was through running for the time being, that was for sure.

Gingerly, he tried to stand up, using the rail as a support, in one way happy that nobody had seen him go down like that and in another way wishing that there were a few concerned passersby to help him to his feet. Yow! He hadn't had a charley horse like that in ages!

It wasn't comfortable to walk on, but it was manageable to a degree. The blood flow had been screwed up and there was probably slight bruising from the spasm, but in his experience the only thing that would help now would be a good massage. He made his way carefully to a bench and for the first time saw messages posted on a board just above it. Funny — he hadn't really noticed the board before.

Many were the usual — black masses every night at midnight in the chapel, a promo for a book on the scenic ruins of Arkham available in the gift shop, another flier for pterodactyl tours of Mount Doom, that sort of thing. One item, however, just block printing on a small index card tucked in a corner, caught his eye.

"Massage," it read. "Day or night. Agamemnon Garfia, days, Alestair Crowley IV, nights. Cabin 33, float deck. No appointment necessary, charge to ship's account."

That was fairly far down, on the deck where you boarded, and inside, so it was entirely possible that it was some kind of trap. Still, Poquah had said with some confidence that they wouldn't bother to trap anybody here, not on their way to Yuggoth, and certainly nobody had been anything but nice or at worst noncommittal to him since they'd come aboard. Why not? The leg didn't feel much better, and if he got somebody good to work on it now, he might well be jogging again by the next morning.

Aware that he could still be doing something terribly stupid, he nonetheless made his way down to the float deck and sought out cabin thirty-three, an inside cabin down the center hall. It wasn't nearly as pleasant down there as it was topside; you could feel far more of the motion of the ship, and you could also hear the moaning and groaning of the lost souls piled up in cargo below.

Cabin thirty-three looked pretty much like all the others from the outside, but like several others in the center passageway leading aft to the purser's station, it had a small plaque by the door noting that it was not a passenger cabin at all but something more official. Some said "Chief Engineer" or "Medical" or "Clergy" — best to avoid that one! — but this one just said "Please Enter." Hesitating yet another moment and wondering if he was being a fool, he took a deep breath, turned the knob, and pulled open the door, almost ready to run for it should the sight that was about to meet his eyes so horrify him that he needed to escape.

But there was no horrible visage, no fangs, no coffins; just a larger than expected area with two roomettes, each with a standard massage table, a bunch of towels, a small dressing room and closet area, and another door. It was dark, but the smell was of liniments, not incense, and he'd seen this sort of place at Terindell. If it was a trap, it was a good one.

"Get undressed and lie facedown on the table one to your right," a think, heavily accented man's voice called from somewhere beyond the inner door. "I'll be with you in just a moment."

Well, a loincloth wasn't much in the way of clothes, simple to remove and hang up, and he hadn't used sandals since coming aboard, so it was pretty easy to do as requested and lie flat.

The door opened, and a black-robed figure emerged, its face swathed in a cowl and an unnatural mistiness that made it nearly impossible to see any features. He wasn't a big man, if indeed he was a man, but he came in and stood right there, and two arms that looked surprising strong and muscular for one who appeared so slight emerged from the sleeves, reaching for the liniments. He stepped up on a platform that pulled out from the side of the table to give him the requisite height and position and started to work.

"You are too tense!" the masseur snapped. "Relax! I am not going to eat you or bite you. I am going to make you feel better!" His voice lost its harsh tone. "I know how this ship can spook some folks, but that is a very different category than what we do here. I do exactly what you are here for me to do, so please relax or I cannot do it."

He was so friendly in his tone and so natural that Irving did relax, feeling the liniments go on and then feeling the strong hands and surprisingly supple long fingers work on his body.

"Unh! You got a knot in that calf worse than a rock!" the little man said. "You are a runner?'

"Yes."

"Well, don't do it for about a day. Let it relax. I will give you a potion that will help heal it in a hurry. Don't sleep on your side, either. You let me at it now, use the balm as needed, and get some good rest, and you will be back running very quickly."

The little man was very good, and Irving found himself, relaxing more and more, although attempts to shift and see the masseur's face were totally unsuccessful.

"You are Mister Garfia?"

"I was once. I suppose I still am, yes. You saw my card, then?"

"Yes, up top."

"We tend to stick the cards where those who need us most might notice them," the man told him. "We provide a full range of services that people need on this ship and beyond, but we aren't for everybody. You would be surprised, though, what we can tell just by such contact as this. For example, I can tell you her name."

Irving suddenly stiffened and started to turn, but strong hands forced him back to the proper massage position. "What?"

"She is Lame Ngamuku. Her mother was supposed to be a sacrifice to a volcano god, but her father loved her and made a sacrificial bargain. Spare the mother, and upon their sixteenth birthdays, any daughters would be given to the spirit world. Of course, this had the practical effect of giving her daughter to the demon in charge there, and although they tried to remain childless, it didn't work. The demon, a fellow named Zakaputi, wanted his deferred pay. Quite a story, eh?"

"But how do you know all this? Or that she is what I am curious about?"

"I feel it. I get the questions from you, and of course the answers are pretty easy in this Case because she's here and we crew all know the stories. It's one of the few joys we get, swapping these stories. You want to hear the rest of it?"

"I–I suppose." If it's true.

"Oh, it's true, all right. I know what you're thinking. Anyway, you can almost figure out the rest between the fairy tales you know and the Rules and stuff. They loved their kid; she was beautiful. Came the approaching sixteenth birthday and they tried hard to figure out how not to go through with the deal, but where do you hide from a good, honest demon? Particularly when the whole kingdom knows the story and isn't too thrilled with the idea of lava coming through the nation's capital, if you get the idea. So they searched for a top sorcerer to figure a way out and found an old fellow named Lothar who's been running that region for some time with a showy associate. Anyway, Lothar tells 'em the obvious — the one thing Hell values most is a promise. A contract is a contract. You expect Hell to honor its contracts, and it expects you to do the same. Period. They knew what they were saying and doing back then, and they were stuck with it. She would have to be given over. The old boy was clever, though — devilishly clever, if I do say so myself. He worked out a spell that he felt was so secure, it would at least save the girl's life while also preserving the kingdom. A curse, as it were, that was so strong and so complicated and so outrageous that this Zakaputi fellow couldn't get around it. Blew his cork on the volcano, too, but couldn't do much to the capital because she had been given over."

"What did this Lothar do?" Irving asked, fascinated:

"Ah, that would be telling. Let's just say that she was duly presented but was no longer fit for sacrifice in the volcano. Zakaputi got so mad, he wanted to wipe everything out anyway, but he got stopped. Rules are Rules, and a bargain's a bargain. Best he could manage was to curse the parents to turn into living statues, take Larae, and send her off to Yuggoth in hopes that somebody there would be able to break Lothar's curse. I personally doubt if he ever expects to see her again, but he knows that once she's in Yuggoth and stuck as she is, all sorts of bad things will just kind of naturally happen, anyway. That's the way things are. So she got the geas to come here, to catch the ship, to go to Yuggoth, and present herself somehow in the Court of Chaos at the Dantean Gate. Of course, no time limit was put on her, so she can be there until she's an old crone and not show up. I don't think he really cares that much, you see."

"Then — what he's done is throw her to the mercy of whatever captures or enslaves her. That's not fair!"

"Of course it's not fair. To her, anyway. To everybody else it's fair. I'll tell you this, though, kid. If you keep thinking about her and looking at her, you'll eventually be attracted to her real bad no matter what your own spells are. Your spells will be weakened by Yuggoth, and any spells of Hell will be strengthened. That's why you find her so much more interesting today than before. Don't fall for it! Remember, you guys are headed for the Range of Fire and the Usurpers, not the Dantean Gate. You get involved with her, you'll be pulled the wrong way. No way around that. Her geas will screw up your luck. And you'll find you won't ever be able to get what you want from her, either."

"You mean that no matter what, she's stuck? That there's nothing I can do to help her? I can't accept that."

"Oh, you can help her, but only at cost to yourself. And if she doesn't get to the gate, you can never have any life with her. No happily ever after. Her curse will see to that. Anything nasty enough to screw up a full-blown demon, a volcano god, no less, is more than a match for you. You've been warned." The strong hands stopped the massage.

He considered the last part. "Is that what this is all about? Did you or somebody give me the cramp just to send me this message?'

There was silence, although he was certain that the other had not gone anywhere and he'd heard no sounds of movement. Suddenly he rolled over and looked around.

The room was empty.

He sat up, got down off the table, and went out and retrieved and put on his loincloth. There was no sign of Garfia either in the two rooms or in the anteroom, and when he tried the side door, it was locked tighter than a drum.

So it had been a setup! They'd seen him try to contact her this day, figured or known his interest, and given him the cramp where they did just so he'd see the card and come on down.

Keep off the grass. This property is condemned. Bought and paid for.

Well, he didn't believe in bought-and-paid-for people. He never had and never would. If they'd thought to frighten him with this story, they had made a mistake, because all this did was make him more determined to help her somehow. There had to be a way even if all the details were true.

Poquah would never agree to anything of this nature even if he heard the story himself. Marge might be a better ally here and maybe somebody who could even do more to help him contact the girl.

No matter what they said, this was personal now.