Jack Chalker - Horrors of the Dancing Gods

"Good point, I suppose," Irving responded after a moment, feeling the power radiate from the strange monk but figuring he had little to lose. "But if you're that powerful, why don't you go in and we'll stay back here."

The others gasped at his nerve and impudence, but Mephistopheles wasn't at all disturbed, or at least didn't sound so. "Quite correct. There are limits. Were there none, we would own you all and not have to work nearly so hard. We need each other. You need us to get you in there past a kind of power you cannot imagine. We need you to go the rest of the way. It is good to notice, however, who allies with whom here. Hell is at the side of human and faerie. You see none of Heaven here. A bit of war or pestilence or disease from us and everyone curses. But if Heaven commands Joshua to kill all the men, women, and children in three cities and bum them to the ground, it's 'praise God!' Our influence here is about the same as on Earth, no more, no less. Their influence would be absolute if they were allowed to materialize here. You'll see their minions. You'll see what this world will easily become under them. And Heaven is content to allow it to happen. Keep that in mind."

Nobody wanted to argue theology with Mephistopheles under the best of circumstances and particularly not now. Instead, Marge asked, "So when do we go?'

"The King has given his blessing. My own ruler has sanctioned the plan. The legion even now is being gathered and briefed. Do you wish to go in by day or by night?"

Now it was the military one among them, Poquah, who took over. "Is there an advantage one way or the other?"

"Not really. We're not dealing with minor creatures like vampires and the like here. Some of the greatest accomplishments of Hell were achieved in bright sunshine. Likewise, they tend to a more normal sort of schedule, with heavy work and such during the day and then reduced activity at night, with little advantage one way or the other in overall powers."

'Then we should go in near sunset," the Imir told him. "This will give us sufficient light to establish ourselves and set up a camp and some, cover if we have opportunities later."

"So be it. Use today to try and shift yourselves a bit in schedule and prepare. Use tonight for practice. Tomorrow sleep most of the day and then awaken refreshed and prepared," the demon instructed. "We will insert you at the gate of the forest tomorrow at one hour before sunset. Meet me on the battlement here precisely at eighteen hundred tomorrow night. Let us end this matter, resolve this grave crisis, and quickly."

There had been little discussion about what they should and should not bring. They had traveled light up to now, and even cooking would be risky once they were inside, so supplies would be mostly things that were dried or sealed and could be eaten cold or raw. Although the forest was fruit-bearing, there was little likelihood that a large workforce in there would have left much edible.

For Irving they secured a full and well-balanced sword of a nice iron alloy with a plain but quite solid hilt. He wasn't a master swordsman, it was true, but this weapon might well be just as effective handled crudely. Nothing that might withstand it or ward it off was going to be any less clumsy when it did.

For Larae they took a sling, since she claimed to be adept with one, and a spear of light but aerodynamic wood that ended in a serrated and polished stone tip that had been dipped in and coated with a paint high in the mineral magnetite. It would do the same damage, depending on where it struck, whether the object was mortal or faerie. Finally, she selected a sharp dagger that might well be thrown if it could not be plunged, again with an iron alloy blade.

Poquah could not handle the iron, but his own short sword, his bow and quiver, and a sharp boomeranglike device he called a jerun satisfied him as much as anything could. All those familiar with or flout Earth agreed that a nice submachine gun and grenades would be handy, but they weren't very common in those parts.

Marge took nothing, as always, and Thebes seemed more trustworthy without a weapon than with one and not all that much of an asset considering his cowardice in the face of the zombies. Still, he had begged to go, swearing that one way or the other he could get in there anyway. Short of killing him, which would have been easy enough but still would have bothered the Company, the only way to make sure he wouldn't blow their entry was to take him along.

They studied the maps, they studied the drawings Thebes had of a ravenlike bird sculpture that was allegedly what they sought, and they decided on the weight and duration of supplies. The valley was only roughly nine miles long by three wide; they decided that if they couldn't accomplish what they sought in seven days, then it was unlikely they, would be able to do so at all. The shrine of the McGuffin was nestled right into Mount Doom along the valley wall, but it was only about halfway back on the western side of the valley and a bit up the side. This would bring them past whatever was being constructed there but, they hoped, well west of it and clear.

Finally; there was little to do but practice, and wait, and hope that they would be tired enough to fall asleep by dawn.

Marge spent the early morning hours walking the area and flying up to the battlements. She was anxious to get away, to get in there, to get it all over with, if only because she was finding it harder and harder to control her behavior here. There were men all around, awake and asleep, and not just those damned "mechanic” ciphers and imaginary types that kept changing all the time. Real mortal men. She felt a powerful hunger, a craving that two cleanings the night before hadn't even dented.

She had hoped to stave it off with a couple of the Hollywood types, but she couldn't sense that they had any souls; they were as meaningless to her as the "mechanics."

There was no one there, she was all alone, but something seemed to be whispering in her mind, feeding her Marvationlike sensations.

"Too late," it whispered. "Too late. You've already gone over. You are just fighting it. Park your mind and your reservations. Did you not find it possible to be alert in daylight today? Could a Kauri do that? Physically it has already happened. Deep down you already know that. You need only to accept it and let your body do what it must do. Unlike the Kauri, it will give you true power; real strength. Can you stand it, anyway? Can you stand another hour, another day, another week like this? Give in while you can still gain and use that energy…"

She felt like crying, but the voice was right; it was like heroin to an addict, blood to a vampire. She could not resist it.

Something inside her just snapped, and she remembered very little of the details of the next few hours, only an eventual sense of enormous strength, of well-being, of being satiated at all levels. She awoke and brought herself to a comfortable sitting position and stretched. She felt different. Not completely; she remembered who she was and particularly what was to happen later today. There was a certain irony in that, she who had been in a force fighting those of Hell more than once was now being protected, guarded, and aided by those very same forces.

It was daylight, in fact at least midday, yet she felt no tiredness, no sense of coma. She walked into the hotel bathroom and stared at the mirror. There was no reflection there, none at all.

She hadn't expected one and wasn't all that upset. In fact, it was impossible to remember just why she had fought this so desperately. It wasn't as if she were going to endanger Irving or even Larae.

She turned away from the blank mirror and went over to the polished black marble tile on the wall. In this she was reflected, although not terribly clearly. It was certainly good enough, though, to show the royal purple tinged with gold, the sculpted and overly large insectlike wings, the incredibly exaggerated female form that made even a Kauri seem plain. Dark lips, too. Huge Bardot-in-spades sexy lips.