Demons of the Dancing Gods Read online

  Demons of the Dancing Gods

  The Dancing Gods

  Book II

  Jack L. Chalker

  Content

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  ENCOUNTER ON A LONELY ROAD

  The road to Hell is sometimes paved with good intentions.

  —The Books of Rules

  CVI, Introduction

  If he had to go to hell, well, it was better to go dressed in expensive clothes, drinking good wine, and smoking a fine cigar.

  The small figure walking slowly down the road was hardly visible in the darkness, and any who might have come along would probably not even see, let alone notice, him. He stopped for a moment, as if trying to get his bearings from the stars, and sighed. Well, he thought to himself, the clothes weren't bad for being nondescript, and the wine was long gone, but he did have one last cigar. He took it out, sniffed it, bit off the end, and stood there for a moment, as if hesitant to light and consume this one last vestige of wealth. Finally he lighted it, simply by making a few small signs in the air and pointing his finger at the tip. A pale yellow beam emanated from the finger, and the cigar glowed. Such pranks were really pretty petty for a master sorcerer, but he had always enjoyed them, taking an almost childlike pleasure in their simplicity and basic utility.

  He found a rock and sat down to enjoy the smoke, looking out at the bleak landscape before him, invisible in the darkness of the new moon to his eyes, but not to his other, paranormal senses.

  The darkness was in itself a living thing to him, a thing that he sensed, touched, caressed, and tried to befriend. He found it indifferent to him, interested instead in its own lowly subjects—the lizards, the snakes, the tiny voles, and other creatures that inhabited the desolation and knew it as home. For these and all the nameless citizens of its domain, the night was life itself, allowing them access to food and water under cooling temperatures, sheltered from greater enemies by the cool, caring dark.

  The road seemed empty, lonely, desolate as the landscape itself, a track forlorn and forgotten in the shelter of deep night; but as he sat there, nursing the last cigar, he extended his senses and saw that this road was different, this road was for those with beyond normal senses and training. This road was inhabited, used in the night; as he let himself go, he could hear the groans and lamentations of those who used it now in the depths of night.

  Even he could not see them, not now, but he could hear them, hear the crack of the whip and the cries of hopelessness and despair from those who moved slowly, mournfully, down that lonely road.

  For in the dark, at the time of the new moon, he knew— perhaps he alone knew—that this road had a dark and despairing purpose beyond its utility to the travelers of day and full moon.

  They were walking, crawling, along that lonely road, he knew, going toward a destination they dreaded yet had richly earned.

  The month's quota of damned souls was a bumper crop, judging from the sounds.

  One night, he knew, he'd be there, reduced to the same level as all the rest, walking or crawling down that road himself. One night, he, too, would be brought as low as the lowest of those now moving down that road, paying a due bill he had willingly run up. Perhaps, just perhaps, it would be this night, if his tongue and quick mind failed him for once. He was willing to go, he tried to convince himself, but not yet, not just yet. He had surrendered much to travel that road one day, not the least of which was his honor, and he certainly was loath to pay without at least attaining the goal for which he'd sold his soul.

  The cigar was almost finished now, but he continued to nurse it along almost to the point of burning his fingers, as if the end of the cigar would also be the end of his hopes, his dreams, his life, and his power. For the first time, in the dark, with the sounds of the damned filling his bargained soul to its core, he had doubts and fears about his course and his own well-being. Was the great goal worth this sort of ultimate price? Did it really matter one way or the other what he did or didn't do, or was he, like the cigar, a momentary brilliance turned to ash and of no more consequence than that in the scheme of things?

  He got up, dropped the stub, and crushed it angrily with his right foot. Such melancholy was for fools and failures, he scolded himself. He had not failed yet, and in his setbacks he had learned a great deal. Now was not the time for self-deprecation, self-doubt, and inner fears to consume him—no, that was what they would want, not merely his enemies but his inhuman allies as well. They, his allies, were the cause of this, for they dealt in such matters, traded in doubt and fear, sowed the seeds of turmoil inside you, and, in that way, they fed and grew stronger.

  He began to walk along the dark, lonely road in the wastes, conscious now of being among the milling throng of the damned on their way to perdition, and conscious, too, that they knew he was there, a living, breathing man of power. He could feel their envy, their hatred of him for still cheating what they now faced; he could feel, too, the pity in many of them, not merely for their own sorry fates but for him as well.

  Turn back, he could hear them crying. Do not walk this path with us, as we have walked. You still live! For you, there is still time...

  Still time... Until his corpse rotted as theirs now did, until his cold and silent soul received their summons, there was always time. Time to set things right. Time not to repent, nor turn back—never!—but time, instead, to complete the work.

  Within the hour he had passed through the slow-moving throng and stood at a point in the road where, in the light of day, it went through a narrow pass and emerged in greener, more beauteous regions beyond. Any who dared this path on a night so dark would still pass through to that other side, oblivious to that which lay before them, only slightly out of phase with the world they knew. But he—he was a sorcerer and he saw the many plains in his mind's eye and in the magical energies that flowed through all the world.

  The colors of the valley's magic were crimson and lavender, the colors of its district prince, and they flowed along the road with its great traffic of once-human misery, flowed with a curious and subtle beauty to the head of the pass, then seemed to pause a moment before beginning a swirl in the air before him, as if, somehow, these great colors were some sort of liquid, here reaching a great drain.

  And, in fact, it was so, for through him passed the souls of the damned, screaming in terror, unable not to press forward, reaching the great swirling mass of magical energy and falling in, their cries and pleas for a mercy now forever denied them cut terribly short as they were sucked down the great outlet from the real world in which they had forged their fate to Hell itself.

  Not that Hell was actually so terrible. He had visited there on two occasions and found it more a place of curious fascination than the abject horror of the old tales and mystic religions. Yet it was still an unhappy place, fueled with hatred and revenge, its most terrible punishment a constantly available vision of the glory and beauty of absolute perfection that could always be seen but never experienced. They walked in Hell, always avoiding the vision, their eyes averting from it as men's eyes averted from the sun; yet they were always aware it was there, a place of indescribable joy and beauty that was held tantalizingly before them, just out of reach—always out
of reach. It was this vision that had been denied him on his visits, for no living being was permitted to see such a sight as Paradise, lest, it was said, he be consumed in the light and desire nothing else. This did not really bother him; everybody in his past whom he knew, liked, or admired was in Hell anyway, along with all the other interesting people.

  The swirl was changing now, becoming more irregular, as if disturbed by some great power or form arising within it, going, as it were, against the flow of the thing. It was less a drain now than a spiral. He saw the four arms of the turning swirl break from the main mass and fly upward above it, then form in a diamond. The light of these four shapes was no longer nebulous, but instead took on the form of wraithlike faces, demon faces, looking down upon him with cold interest. Now from the center of the magical mass shot two more bright lights, out and up into the diamond-shaped phalanx of faces, the demonic captain and the equally demonic sergeant of the guard.

  Finally, out of the mass, so large it almost was the mass, walked a vaguely humanoid form. The creature was terrible to behold, one who had once been a creature of near perfection, an angel, distorted by hatred and an unquenchable thirst for revenge into a vaguely manlike thing that oozed the rot of long dead corpses and whose face, twisted in an expression of permanent hatred, was set off by two huge pupil less eyes glowing a bright red.

  The creature was dressed in royal robes of lavender, set off by a crimson cape, boots, and gloves. It halted in front of him and looked down menacingly. He bowed low and said, How is my lord Prince Hiccarph?

  The demon prince gave a bull-like snort. You really blew it, didn't you. Baron Asshole?

  We blew it, he responded calmly. Despite that cursed dragon and the very considerable powers of Ruddygore, it was the lack of the Lamp that did us in. We had it in our grasp— and, in your august presence, a brainless hulk and a slip of a Halfling girl stole it right out from under your nose. All that when one wish would have carried the day and the war for us. You can't make me take all the credit, not this time.

  I can make you take whatever I wish, the demon prince hissed. You're mine. Baron. I own you, not merely when you get here but right now. I think this fact bears reminding.

  He smiled. If that is true, my lord, and I am your abject slave, then the fault is truly yours for the loss, for you chose the instrument and you played its string.

  You are an impudent bastard, Hiccarph commented, his tone softening. Perhaps that's why I like you. Perhaps that is why I just don't strike you down and take you with me tonight.

  Inwardly, the Baron relaxed a bit at the comment. Still time... still time... Aloud, he asked, Have you determined why those two were able to ignore your powers? At first I thought it was the Lamp, but I soon realized that the magic Lamp of the djinn would have little authority over you.

  I have done much research on the matter, the demon prince told him, and still I have not the answer that is true. Dozens of explanations have occurred to me, but which one is the right one? Unless I know the exact means by which Ruddygore accomplished this, I can take no measures to counter it. We know very little about them, after all; and, if I peer too deeply into it from my side, it will certainly alert his Majesty, and I would prefer he in particular learn nothing of our little project, at least not yet, for understandable reasons. Since they worked so well for Ruddygore, though, it is likely he will continue to use them, and in that we might ultimately learn the secret through your offices. Remember, Baron, that we are in a sense kindred in this matter. Neither of us can afford to fail, and both of us will suffer terribly if we do.

  The Dark Baron nodded. The harsh and rugged land of Husaquahr, dominated by the great River of Dancing Gods, had never been totally conquered by force of arms and, as such, it was the key to the domination of the entire continent. The continent, in turn, was the key to the entire world, since a bare majority of the Council of Thirteen, the most powerful necromancers in the world, lived on it—including, of course, himself. Control of the Council meant the ability to rewrite the Books of Rules, which governed the lives and powers of all who lived on the world, and that meant absolute control. From this world, formed by angels in the backwash of the Great Creation, Hiccarph and the minions of Hell could launch an invasion of Earth Prime, an Armageddon that might well have a different ending from the one everybody and every holy book of both worlds predicted.

  Of course, there was more to it on a personal level than merely giving Hell a great advantage. Hiccarph might be a prince, but as his sphere of influence was Husaquahr and not any place on Earth Prime, he was a decidedly minor one in the Hellish hierarchy. If Hiccarph could deliver this world to his Satanic Majesty free and clear, his standing in the royal pecking order would be second only to great Lucifer himself.

  But Hiccarph was taking a terrible gamble himself. For over two thousand years there had existed a compact between Heaven and Hell, a reordering of the rules of their great war. No longer would angels and demons walk directly upon the planes of the worlds, but would, instead, act through intermediaries native to those planes exclusively. Thus balanced, the minds and souls of the worlds would themselves choose sides and do the work freely and for their own motives. To break the compact would be tantamount to a formal declaration of war, the second War of Heaven called Armageddon, a war Hell did not wish to fight unless it believed it could win.

  And yet Hiccarph had in fact broken the compact and directly intervened in Husaquahr. With his powers, unconstrained by the man-made Books of Rules, he had built and backed the forces of the Dark Baron and conquered over a quarter of the entire land. They had been stopped, though, in a great battle in which Hiccarph's powers were blunted by his inability to act against the two from the other plane at a key point in the battle, and by the subsequent skill of opposing sorcery and swords. Because of that defeat, the Dark Baron's forces had had to withdraw, and both the Baron and Hiccarph were in pretty deep trouble.

  The longer it took, and the more direct involvement by the demon prince, the more likely his activities would be discovered by his own king, who might not approve of such a premature and unilateral breaking of the compact by a comparatively minor underling. But the more open and direct Hiccarph's involvement, the more the enemies of the Baron would be strengthened, since those opposing Hell would be able to rally all the most powerful sorcerers to their side—a combined power Hiccarph alone could not block. Worse, proof that the compact was being violated would raise even the hands of evil against the Baron—for who, living in decadent splendor and enjoying the power and possessions that evil brought, would like to take a risk on Armageddon, at which point their wonderful wickedness might be destroyed for all time, when they had sure things in the here and now?

  Those two saw you, the Baron pointed out. Live witnesses now exist that know you personally intervened.

  They are of no consequence, the demon prince assured him. After all, Ruddygore already knew. But the others— particularly those who are already in the service of Hell—will not want to believe. They will find the idea that any might violate the compact unthinkable. Only if faced with proof so clear and incontrovertible that they can not help but believe will they do so. That's the only thing that's saving our collective asses. Baron, but it's a big thing.

  He nodded. So what do we do about these two you can't control?

  They are no longer any threat, now that we know their looks and boss. Remember, while they are immune to me, they are vulnerable to the Rules of Husaquahr; thus, they can be easily handled by such as you. It is ironic, my dear Baron, that, had you actually gone to attend to them instead of me, we would have won. While my far greater magic was powerless against them, you could have frozen them to statues or turned them to toads with a flick of your wrist. Ruddygore is clever— he foresaw in the Mazes of Probabilities that such a situation might occur and prepared for it—but his advantage is now known. Once known, his schemes are of no consequence. I think we have seen Ruddygore's bag of tricks. He will not expect us
to act again so soon, and we will not give him the time to prepare more tricks and traps.

  You have a plan, then?

  You still control a quarter of Husaquahr. Your army is a good army, perhaps the greatest ever raised here, and it retired from the field intact and in good order. In the end, it was geography that defeated us, as it has defeated all past conquering armies here. Even without the Lamp, we almost carried the day, nor could our enemies mount a credible counterattack. They won in the end because geography told them where we must meet and they were there, well fortified and in the defensive positions of their choice. Eliminate the geographical factors and we will carry any battle.

  But how do you eliminate geography? the Baron asked, fascinated but skeptical.

  With me, you are the equal of six of the Council, Hiccarph told him. We have the power. Now listen, my impudent instrument, as to how it will be used.

  Chapter 2

  VISITS WITH OLD FRIENDS

  The fairies may belong fully to no human orders, nor their political parties.

  —The Books of Rules

  LXIV, 36(b)

  The Glen Dinig was a place of magic and mystery. the sacred grove of trees along the banks of the River of Dancing Gods was but a few hours north of the great castle Terindell at the confluence of the Rossignol and the Dancing Gods, yet it might as well be on another planet. Legends abounded concerning it, but few had actually seen it and fewer still dared to penetrate its depths. Even those who scoffed at the legends and tall tales nonetheless admitted that there was a strong spell on the place; no human male could enter it, no matter from what direction or means, nor male fairy, either. Only a few steps into the tree-covered area and a man felt his breath become labored and hard; in a few steps more, he would be gasping for air, with the choice of suffocation or fleeing outside the invisible but tangible boundaries.

  Legend said that a great witch, a virgin power who was the daughter of Adam and Lilith, had finally tired of the world and its struggles and created this place, perhaps on the spot where, a world away, Eden had once stood; and here she remained to this day, never aging, never changing, in some strange and wondrous world of her own creation, echoing imperfectly the Garden she once actually saw so long ago. Exiled, as her mother had been, to this new and alternate Earth, unable to die and unable to forget, she was in a state where, at least, she might not go mad.