Jack Chalker - Horrors of the Dancing Gods

"I'm getting mighty curious about that structure," Marge told them. "I think I'm going to have a look at it from the air, from a spot where elevation will prevent me from having to get too close. Set up your camp. I'll be back!" And with that, she lifted off into the air and was soon lost beyond the treetops.

Irving gave a low whistle. "She's sure changed. Cold and sexy at the same time, but dangerous-type sexy. The only thing I can see of the old Marge is the Texas accent." Poquah thought a moment. "I am inclined to move, since who knows what will happen if she's captured, but she is correct. We'd have to work our way through this in total darkness, and for all its sense of ancient power, it is not a true faerie wood." He sighed. "I warned Master Ruddygore that this would happen, but he dismissed it. Now we shall all have to hope that it works out."

"What did she mean, none of us could stop her from doing anything?' Irving asked him, an odd thought occurring to him at that moment.

"No matter what we were originally or behaviorally, we are all sexually male," the hair noted. "With great concentration, skill, and magical protections, we may well be able to stave off the power of a Succubus and not succumb to her, but we could never hope to reverse it. We can defend but not attack. It would take a true woman to do that — beg your pardon, Larae, but you know that does not include you — and even then, she is not defenseless. The primary difference between a Kauri and a Succubus is that one cleans up small messes while the other is an out-and-out predator."

"That's kinda what I thought she meant," the boy replied. But he couldn't help wondering about that curse, that on-again, off-again curse that he had been assured by a true demon, minor or not, would work on all females who could and did cohabit with human males. That certainly would include a Succubus, a far more minor and elemental being under Hell's domain. If she could not resist him and he could not resist her, what would happen if they went head to head? He couldn't help but wonder — and hope that he didn't have to find out.

Marge broke above the treetops with effortless ease and looked around at the spectacular setting they had not been able to see on arrival. The menacing presence of Mount Doom loomed over all else, tall enough that it seemed to make its own weather at the top, including dense clouds that interacted with the hot steam and lava in the caldera to produce local thunder and lightning storms around the top of the mammoth structure.

It was in slow eruption from a flank volcano, but the lava stream was headed away from the valley and toward the ocean of the south coast not too far beyond. This valley was more on the inland side, which seemed at the moment to have least volcanic activity.

It did, however, have activity of a different kind. Over alone the far side of the valley the forest had been cleared away, and a well-built road cut into the heart of the forest, ending at that central structure.

It was a large rectangular affair, well lit by huge limelight arrays that bathed the central area as if it were daylight Startled, she realized that the two structures on either side were bench-type seats filled with living creatures and that they were moving in unison, one side and the other, but to different chants and in different rhythms, and that that was where the sounds were coming from.

If she didn't know better, she thought, frowning, she'd swear… No, that was ridiculous! She had to know more, and that meant getting close enough to see just what was actually going on down there. The skies were not safe or unguarded; large creatures with bat wings and lizard faces rode night gaunts around and around in lazy patterns, but they were few, far between, and regular, easy to avoid. They were looking for bigger game and more dangerous menaces than she would appear to them in any event, but they seemed pretty calm and almost bored. Clearly they did not expect anything there, not so close to their heart.

Slowly, cautiously, she approached; as she did, the chants from the two sides of the structure came to her in waves, and she was able to some extent to separate them.

" Id! Cthulhu! Block that kick!"

"Yd! Ed! Yog Sothoth! Hold that line!"

As Marge watched openmouthed, she saw denizens— creatures— lining up on one side of the field clearly defending a goal before an opposing line of even more loathsome things. They quivered, they gibbered, they dripped, and they slimed, but they moved forward against each other for the prize, a prize that was terrified and very much bloodied but alive.

One team seemed very much at a disadvantage; its creatures seemed to have oozed out of the sea and were very much off balance on land, lacking the coordination to battle the other side, whose own monstrosities appeared to be far more comfortable on land and in the immediate air. Just as defeat was staring them in the face, however, there was what could only have been a time-out, and when play resumed, the land-bound side was suddenly faced with a massive, countless horde of goatlike things chomping and slobbering their way forward almost in a wall.

"Shub Niggurah! Shub Niggurah!" the Cthulhu crowd chanted, apparently delighted at the appearance of an ally.

Marge turned away and decided to check out the rest of the valley while the creatures were preoccupied. How she was ever going to get the others to believe this, though, was something she didn't even want to think about.

All this couldn't have been about building some stadium for some stupid, loathsome game, could it? Or did those names have other meanings? Were those in the stadium not perhaps merely playing games but goofing off, relaxing after a hard day's work?

Certainly, from more of a distance, she could see and even feel what was too omnipresent to pick out closer in: the massive cloud of bizarre evil that seemed to be centered there, to be oozing from that point out to the whole of the world.

Right from the center of that stadium, almost like one of those steam vents on the volcano over there.

So the stadium wasn't just a stadium. Or perhaps it was more than a stadium. At night they goofed off, but by day they built, and a fissure in space-time opened there in the middle of the field and stayed open, spewing forth its evil ectoplasmic ichor.

It wasn't all that clear whether there was any other development anywhere in the valley, though, and all those creatures, as loathsome and horrible as they were, were recognizable as having once been far more normal-looking and probably native to here. If there was an entity — something new, special, and not of this universe — it had yet to show itself. If it was still in the valley, though, it was hard to figure how it could hide from faerie sight, if only by a sudden cessation of it.

She tried to remember the map of the valley they'd gotten from Macore. Over there, on a line from the stadium and then just a wee bit farther up. Up inside the rocks, that very different grove of trees — that was it! She looked back toward where Poquah had made camp and scowled. So cautious and so limited!

She flew just above treetop level in hopes of attracting no attention and went over toward the spot where she was certain the McGuffin lay. It would take a mortal to get it — she understood that — but if she could spot it and scout a decent route, they might be able to do this in nearly record time. It was beginning to look like a real piece of cake in spite of it all.

She recognized the tree almost immediately. It was set off from the rest, and it had its own sort of meadow completely surrounding its vast, thick trunk. The local trees even seemed to bend in just slightly toward it as if deferring to its age and rank, and it was certainly old.