Jack Chalker - Horrors of the Dancing Gods

Why, she just might have accidentally stumbled into something as nasty and bizarre as anything in the history of this twisted world!

Of course, she didn't really believe she could have that kind of luck, but maybe. Who could say for sure?

She reached down, found the pouch with the gold, and brought it over to Alvi. The halfling looked at it, gasped at the amount in there, then frowned, reached in, and pulled out her father's ring. Joe had stuck it in there for safekeeping.

"Sorry. Thought I told you about that," the nymph commented. "It was all I could really salvage."

"It's — it's more than enough." She took it, found the ring finger of her top right hand, and slipped it on. It was much too loose, of course, but…

Suddenly there was a bright flash from the ring, and her whole hand seemed bathed in an eerie, unearthly glow. Joe was as startled as Alvi, and both could see the intricate strands of a previously hidden spell there.

Alvi nervously pulled the ring off her finger, and the glow died. "Some kind of spell! A trap!"

"No, no!" Joe exclaimed, rushing to her. "I doubt that. I know how some of these suckers think. Remember? They asked for the signet ring in the broadside, almost as an afterthought. But they did specify it. They want both you and the ring. They just don't want anybody getting the idea that he can hold them up for even more than a king's ransom to get both. Or — or maybe they don't want anybody so curious about that ring that they'll play with it. I wonder what they don't want anybody to find out."

"Well, here! You're welcome to it! I'm not putting the thing on again!"

Joe thought a moment. "It didn't try and stop you from removing it, did it?'

"No, but—"

"Did it hurt?"

"No, just tickled a little, but—"

"So? Put it back on. Be ready to yank it off if need be, but I doubt if you will. I don't think it's trying to hurt you or do anything to you. I think it's a message."

"Huh? From who?"

"Your father, maybe, or your mother, or who knows? It didn't go off when your dad had it on, so the odds are that it was intended for you if he should die. Probably activated only when he died. It might activate only on your finger, although being a common spell, it would most likely be crackable by any thief with any ability at all. Go ahead. Try it. I'm right here."

Alvi thought it over for a moment, then sighed and cautiously replaced the ring almost as if afraid it would bite her finger off. Again there was the glow, which enveloped the hand, but there was nothing else apparent in the effect.

"Turn your hand over or try different positions," Joe suggested. "It's got to do something more than just glow."

It did. With the palm out and angled slightly down, there was a crackling sound, and then, quite clearly, there was a man's voice, not loud but actually rather calm and conversational.

"Alvi, if you are hearing this, then I must assume that I am dead and you are now alone," the voice noted. "I also must assume that you or we failed to contact any friendly power among the established Majin, so that you are truly alone. If this is not so, then you should go with them. You are ill equipped, I fear, for the only alternatives and should use them only as a last resort."

"That's my father's voice!" she exclaimed in wonder.

"However, if you are alone and all else is lost, then there is no choice. Under the stone of this ring, released by a small catch that you will find if you feel along it, is a tiny pellet of poison. If you are captured by dark forces and there is no hope of escape, you must use it. Not only for your own sake — for they will kill you or worse after they are done with you, anyway — but for the sake of the entire world. They must not be permitted to use you! And your only hope if all else has failed is to go straight into the den of your worst enemies. Your only hope for a future and to banish this evil is to travel to Carcosa and within it to locate the path to Far Yuggoth. There, eons ago, one of my great ancestors, at the risk of life and soul, hid the Grand McGuffin, that thing that all seek. The McGuffin's power is vast but personal; any who meet its criteria may be granted what they need and most desire. But to ensure that it could never be used by darkness, a curse was placed upon it by my family so that only one born of woman who carries also the seed of faerie may approach it and live."

"That's me!" Alvi breathed.

And also me, Joe thought excitedly. Seek all this time, go through all that crap, and when you give up and head on home, it falls into your lap!

"Many years ago I betrayed much of this in order to regain your mother's freedom and safety, but they do not know where and they do not know how. The location and map I entrust to you alone. Trust no one but seek help from the good races of faerie. Farewell."

The glow faded. "That's it ?" Joe said, frowning. "Where's the map? What's the location?'

"Good heavens! You don't suppose it was elsewhere on him, do you?"

Joe shook her head. "I don't think so. At least I hope not. Anything we didn't take with us last night is gone now. Here — let me see that ring."

Alvi slipped it off once more and handed it over. Nothing was evident except that… Hmmm… "That's odd," Joe muttered. "There's still a heck of a spell on this ring. I'd swear it looks more complicated now than it did before."

"I — let me see. Wow! That is some sort of complicated weaving! At least now we know what some of the master sorcerers were doing visiting us. But — what good does this do me? 'Trust no one,' he says, then leaves me with a spell so intricate that it would take an expert magician even to come close to figuring it out and no other clues at all. What do I do now? If I take it to a sorcerer, how will I know I haven't just handed something of great value over to somebody who shouldn't have it? And if I don't, then what do I do?"

Joe thought things over. "Poor kid. I don't know if your dad was supposed to unlock more of this, or one spell was supposed to unlock the other, or what, but whatever else we need is probably still locked up in here. I know a sorcerer who could unscramble this easily and is about as trustworthy as any here — he had the Lamp of Lakash in his possession, and rather than use it for himself, he destroyed it. But he's still weeks away up north, and they're bound to be on the lookout for you. Still, I can't see any other way. To get through that spell would take a master sorcerer, or…"

Alvi sensed that her new friend was thinking of something. "Yes?" she prompted. "Or what?"

"Or a master thief," Joe finished. "Hmmm… Maybe two days back south and a few wasted days west, but if he hasn't cracked up on a desert island already, he could do this. It would be child's play for him. He stole the Lamp from Ruddygore's own vaults."

"A thief? But wouldn't a thief keep it for himself? Or double-cross all of us?"

"No, there's honor among thieves, no matter what you've heard. At least there is here. The Rules demand it. He's formally retired and hardly needs the money, so he wouldn't care about it all that much. And if he did, he'd be willing to come in with us and share any outcome. I haven't seen him in a very long time, either. Yes, he's certainly the answer."

"You know a thief?'

"I know the greatest living thief in all Husaquahr, the one they still tell legends about in the guildhalls of the nations. He's a very old friend who more than once helped save us all from the forces of evil. He retired a while ago, and when last I knew of him, he was running charter tours of the islands and coast of Leander just west of Yingling. We may be able to cross the River of Dancing Gods just below here, in Quoos, so we don't have to also cross the Rombis and then go down by older back roads to the coast."