Demons of the Dancing Gods (20 page)

talk—but innocuously and as vacuously as possible. That, in

fact, was an advantage among the kind of men they liked to

play with. Marge wondered how long she would be able to

have this level of introspection, or even remember words like

innocuous, vacuous, or introspection. Certainly her spoken vocabulary

already seemed to switch to something more childlike

and basic. Following the period of her binge, she now realized,

she was speaking in a sexy variation of little-girl speech without

even thinking about it.

Without even thinking...

At that moment, she heard a commotion in the hallway and

went over to her door. To her surprise, she heard Ruddygore's

booming baritone and then the sound of the door of the adjacent

room opening and closing.

The old Marge would have hesitated to disturb him and

would have just sat and brooded, but she literally didn't think

about it in this case. She opened her door, went down to the

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big double doors of the parlor suite, and just turned the handle

and walked in without knocking.

Both Ruddygore and Poquah turned in puzzled surprise at

her entrance; but when the big sorcerer saw her, he broke into

a grin and sat down in the chair. He looked very tired, but he

said, "That's all right, Poquah—leave us alone."

The Imir looked a bit concerned for his boss, but bowed

slightly and did as he was instructed, sliding his own door shut

behind him.

Ruddygore beckoned her over with his hand. "Pardon me

for not rising, my dear, but I'm about done in."

"That's all right," she told him. "I guess I should have set

up some better time to see you, but I don't seem much in

control of myself any more."

"I think I understand," he said sympathetically. "Don't worry

about me. Although I hadn't intended to seek you out until

another day or two, this is fine, since I'm not getting any

younger and this pace is telling."

"I just want to know why."

"Huh?" The comment took him by surprise. "Why what?"

"Why am I a Kauri? I was happy the way I was, after coming

here. Why did I have to change?"

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107

"Those are two different questions, my dear. You seem to

imply that I had something to do with it."

"Well? Didn't you?"

"Not a thing, I assure you." As quickly and as clearly as

possible, but with more detail on the fine points, he explained

to her, as he had to Joe, why she had been made a changeling

from the moment they crossed the Sea of Dreams. "I made

you neither changeling nor Kauri. You did that to yourself."

"Me!"

He nodded. "Oh, with your mental state, I should have

known from the start that you would be a changeling—but

what sort was really up to you." He thought a moment. "My

dear, what is your vision of Heaven and Hell?"

She shrugged. "Harps on the one side, fires on the other, I

guess."

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"Uh-uh. Would it shock you to learn that Heaven and Hell

are actually the same place?"

"Huh?"

He nodded. "That's why Hell is such a curse. You can look

around and see, with little difficulty, just what you missed, but

you're stuck as you are, permanently. And the way you are is

what you built for yourself. Let's see if I can explain it. If Joe

should die, his soul would be re-formed according to the chain

he forged in life, with his own mind, conscious and subconscious,

creating his own Heaven or Hell. Most folks, as you

might expect, wind up somewhere in between. Then, at the

end of time, there will be a Judgment. Those of Hell will at

that time suffer the true and total death, while those judged

worthy will be able to perfect their own existences and live

happily ever after in total communion with the Creator. That's

the way it works."

"But not for me?"

"Not quite. As a changeling, your physical form was burned

off in the fires; and because you, as a fairy, exist in the physical

world, you became what your mind said it should become

within the limits of our world. You never wished to harm

anyone, so you became something that can not consciously

harm anyone. You felt that the world was ouKo do you harm,

so you became something that can defend itself against the evil,

cruelty, and malice of the world."

She sighed sadly. "I see. With a bad world all around, 1

wanted only to give and get pleasure," She stopped for a moment,

suddenly feeling stunned. "And since I ran down my

education as getting me nowhere and nothing and being a real

waste, I became something that didn't need any of that. Sweet

Mother! I did do it to myself, sort of. But this wasn't what I

had in mind!"

"It seldom is," he told her, "for anybody, and not just

changelings. It's wonderful to see some of those Holy Joes

permanently sitting on clouds, forever singing hymns and hosannahs,

bored out of their skulls. You very seldom get what

you really want, but you usually get what you deserve, based

on your own life and thoughts and desires, both expressed and

suppressed."

"Then that's it, I guess. I'm stuck until Judgment, and by

that time I'll be as empty and bubble-headed as my sisters and

probably just keep on going, like somebody with a lobotomy."

He looked serious. "So that's what it is. I should have

guessed as much." And he did see. The Kauri form was exactly

what that lonely loser on her way to suicide in Texas would

have wanted; and, since it was from that woman that the forces

of magic took their cue, that was what she'd become. But now

Marge was not that woman; Husaquahr had given her a whole

new life and outlook, and she was no longer a perfect match

for what she now was.

"The best I can offer," he told her, "is some hope, with

work on your part, for something a little more than that. You

are Kauri and you will remain Kauri. There is nothing anyone

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can do, since you of faerie may be destroyed but not transformed.

But the fact that you're talking to me, here and now,

shows that there's still you inside there."

"Yeah, but me, the Marge that's talking, is losing. I mean,

I think I figured out that Kauri are elementals, not like the

elves and gnomes and other creatures. There are water elementals,

and wood elementals, even fire elementals, but we're

a different kind, since we're out of Earth, Air, and Fire. I don't

know about Water."

"You swim like a fish," he told her. "Go on."

"We're—emotion elementals. Only certain kinds of emotions,

though. The good ones, I guess. Singing, dancing, playing,

even sex."

"That's close enough." Briefly he told her the function of

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fairies in the scheme of things, as he had told Joe. "Now,

Kauri, they have a very important place in the scheme of things.

You may not know it, but each and every man you were with

so far had some sort of problem. You're attracted to them

without realizing it. They're not evil or nasty or anything like

that, not in the main, but they have totally lost touch with that

sense of childlike innocence and wonder. They're troubled by

all sorts of things—business pressures, deadlines, deep depression,

that kind of psychiatric illness—and you, believe it or

not, help restore to them a sense of fun, of life worth living.

That's the Kauri function."

"All I can say is there are a lot of men with hang-ups," she

noted acidly. "That and the fact that never have I felt less like

a shrink and more like a homebreaker."

Ruddy gore chuckled. "Homebreaker? No. You leave no

guilt. That's part of the magic. Those men, like all who receive

fairy gifts, take with them only the positive. They become

better husbands, better fathers, better in their work for it. Believe

me when I say that Kauri can do harm to no one unless

that person attempts to harm them. Any kind of harm. The

magic knows.

"Look, Marge—don't downplay your importance. Maybe

if they had Kauri on Earth, they would have a lot fewer problems,

although there are—counterparts—for the other side as

well, you know. Incubi and succubi, they're usually called,

and their purpose is the opposite of yours. They are elementals

of a far different sort and they are your sole true enemies."

She considered that. "Then is there a male form of Kauri?

It seems only fair."

He nodded. "Yes, there is such a race, the Zamir. But let's

get back to the Kauri. Tell me—what have you eaten in the

past few days?"

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She thought a moment, then realized that, while things were

a blur, she was pretty sure of this answer. "Nothing. Nothing

at all."

"Feel hungry?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Because what you eat is the collective terrors, insecurities,

and nightmares of the men you serve. In an ironic way, they

power you, as the succubus devours the good and leaves corruption.

That's why you feel both physically wonderful and

JACK L. CHALKER 109

mentally down right now. In time you will transform that spiritual

decay and it will lessen, but often it gets too much to

bear. Then you must return to Mohr Jerahl and cleanse yourself

in the fires of the Earth Mother. Otherwise it will tire you

terribly and weaken you to a tremendous degree. You see the

system now? I always thought it was rather nice."

She did see the system, and that made her feel better, to a

degree. It explained the very substance of Mohr Jerahl and the

reason for the uninhibited innocence they all had there, as well

as why they were concerned about her going outside it the first

time.

She gave a dry chuckle. "So what you're saying is that I

do my job, then revert to this adolescent level, only to build

it up again. And because I've eaten my fill, so to speak, and

because ol' Marge is really a collection of hang-ups, I'm only

me when I'm carrying around everybody else's burdens."

"If you want to put it that way, yes," he told her. "And the

longer you go without eating, let's say, the more you will

revert. It's actually a tough job, since you, the mistress of

emotion, will be on an emotional roller coaster. That's why so

many Kauri stay at Mohr Jerahl as long as they can, until their

instincts force them out. No, Marge, you don't have to worry

about forgetting yourself. Your big problem, particularly if you

overdo it, will be carrying the extra weight of depression,

neuroses, and anxiety."

She thought about it, and it did make life sound a little

better. "Does Joe know this?"

"No, not specifically, but I'll make certain he's instructed.

Tiana will probably explain it all to him."

"Tiana?" Very oddly, she felt a slight tinge of jealousy at

the name. That made her feel a little guilty, considering how

she'd chided him for that sort of feeling.

Ruddygore nodded. "They've hit it off very well." He smiled.

"You see? You just felt jealousy and guilt—I can tell. They're

inside you now, until you transform them into energy as needed,

but they are familiar to you from your past experience. In fact,

I'd say that you can handle a far heavier load than a bom Kauri,

because you have experienced such things firsthand and know

how to deal with them. No, Marge—you're not going to lose

yourself, just take on a new set of problems. I'm counting on

you to be able to handle a great deal in the weeks ahead, more

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than I'd ever ask a born' Kauri to handle."

She got interested in spite of herself and lost some of her

self-pity in the process. "So this isn't just a vacation or a

shakedown for me."

He shook his head wearily. "No, hardly. I hesitate to say

this. Marge, but the odds are you might be the only one left

at the end of this to tell the tale." •

CHAPTER 8

THICKENING PLOTS

The convention shall be limited to members of the Society and their

authorized guests.

—Rules, VI, 29(a)

TIANA WAS PROVING A GOOD GUIDE TO THE COMPLEXITIES OF

the convention, but it was still a confusing blur to Joe. He felt

like a truck driver at a convention of nuclear engineers celebrating

Halloween.

Registration proved to be no problem. Their names were

on file, their single room number raised no eyebrows, and both

were suddenly handed large bags full of written material and

silver necklaces from which hung a bronze rectangular pendant

with various cuneiformlike letters on it, some large and some

small. When they were away from registration, he got Tiana

to translate.

"Well, the top row gives the name of the Society and says