Demons of the Dancing Gods (9 page)

play and was more or less designed for the part. It didn't take

a lecture in fairy lore to tell him what the Kauri's obvious role

in the supernatural scheme of things was.

In a sense, it made him feel even more alone, since he knew

that there was now a gulf separating them forever. She was no

longer human, nor could she be expected to be human again.

The fairies always did what they had to do, what they were

supposed to do, his teachers back at Terindell had assured him.

While that made them somewhat predictable, it made Marge

and him more than a world apart.

He continued to brood as they slowly approached the Firehills,

alternately cursing Ruddygore for bringing him here and

himself for feeling weaknesses inside himself he never really

knew were there.

The Firehills looked more intimidating the closer he got to

them. Less a mountain chain than a whole line of continuous

small volcanoes, their tops were shrouded in white smoke,

through which occasional flashes of fire were visible now. He

was worried about that fire, and by the fact that there seemed

no break as far as the eye could see in that solid, if fairly low,

black wall. They had been following the now tiny Bird's Breath

all the way, but soon it petered out into a not-very-wet marsh,

while the path continued right toward the barrier ahead, with

no pass in sight.

There were bushes and many odd-looking groves of trees,

but now in the air there was the unmistakable smell of sulfur

and the rotten-egg odor of hydrogen sulfide. The path led through

brilliantly colored mud pots, some of which occasionally gurgled

and bubbled and steamed their foul odors. Here and there

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DEMONS OF THE DANCING GODS

were pools of very clear water, but he could see within the

pools the discolorations from the settling out of minerals and

the steam rising off their surfaces. Clearly the Bird's Breath

had its origins in volcanic waters, and probably should have

been named Dragon's Breath. It sure smelled like it, anyway.

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Off in the distance, a geyser spouted a hundred feet or more

into the air with a great rush and roar, and he stopped momentarily

to watch it, then became acutely aware that there

were a lot of geyser holes all around him. He sighed and pressed

on, trying to reassure himself that it had been Ruddygore who

had recommended this route. It didn't reassure him all that

much, though, since Ruddygore had always been more certain

to get them in trouble than out of it in the past.

The sun was low in the sky when, threading his way through

a virtual mine field of volcanic manifestations, not to mention

leading Marge's horse through it, he finally reached the base

of the Firehills themselves. The horses were getting jumpy and

acting uncomfortable from all the hissing, roaring, bubbling,

smoke, and smells, but they didn't feel anything he didn't feel

double. He decided that it was time Marge woke up, no matter

how much beauty sleep she needed.

After finding that yelling and shaking her produced only a

dreamy reaction and shifting, he finally got fed up and did

some obscene and not-very-gentle things to her. She gave a

big, dreamy smile and sighed; her fairy eyelashes fluttered a

bit, and those great, sensuous eyes opened a crack. Under any

other circumstances, he would have been delighted at the reaction,

but the fear of being roasted alive had a tendency to

drive all other impulses from his head.

"Marge! Wake up!" he screamed as the lids started to flutter

back, and he reached over, cursing, and dropped the dark

glasses back into place.

From Marge's vantage point, it was at first like being awakened

from a pleasant sleep filled with erotic dreams to a disorienting

confusion; but when the glasses slid down, she suddenly

saw perfectly and sat bolt upright. "Wha—what's happened?"

She looked up at the blackish cinder wall rising just ahead of

them and the strange and violent landscape behind and grew

instantly alert. "How'd we get hereT

"We rode," he responded sourly. "The map says there's a

path over this damned hill. Not only do I not see one, but

JACK L. CHALKER

47

darkness is coming on, and I sure don't want to spend the night

here!".

She glanced around. "Looks okay to me. Real pretty, in

fact." She stopped short for a moment, realizing her reaction

and comparing it with her memories. The Kauri were creatures

of this earth-fire, but others were not. The land posed no problems

for her, yet she could sense Joe's fear and discomfort

with that empathic ability and she grew concerned for his safety.

She looked up at the Firehills, so dark and featureless to their

smoke-covered tops, and she could indeed see the flashes of

molten fire through that smoke. It looked as if the whole ridge

had a crack most of the way to the top, a crack running horizontally

as far as the eye could see. "Let me have the map,"

she said, suddenly serious. She looked at it for a moment,

frowning. "Let me go up and see what's what."

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Without waiting for his reply, she rose effortlessly off the

horse and into the air, moving straight up until she was out of

sight. All he could do was wait there, calming the horses and

starting to worry more and more.

She was gone for what seemed like ages; then, as silently

as she'd left, she returned and quickly settled, standing daintily

atop her horse's saddle. He could see by her expression that

things were at least as bad as he'd imagined.

"Trouble," she told him needlessly. "I've been all over the

area, and finally I figured out that we took a wrong turn. There's

something of a break in the Firehills about twenty miles northwest

of here, in a place where they're not very active, and

there's an old path to it and across. There's a second branch

of the Bird's Breath we were supposed to take and didn't."

He sighed and shrugged. "The thing was so small I never

saw any junction. That damned map doesn't show which is

which, so I followed what looked like the main course all the

way here."

"Yeah, this is the source, but it's not the stream we were

supposed to follow."

He looked toward the darkening, nightmare landscape to

the northwest., "So I guess we'll have to detour."

She shook her head. "Uh-uh. You don't want to go through

that mess, I'll tell you. This is a calm and stable part, I'll

swear. You could never be sure of the ground elsewhere. It's

a good twenty miles back to the fork, then another thirty to

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DEMONS OF THE DANCING GODS JACK L. CHALKER 49

the pass. That's two, maybe three days, and I don't think the

horses could take it. They're straining now."

He sighed. "So what else can I do? You can fly over and

be safe and comfortable in bed tomorrow, but I sure as hell

can't, and I'm not going to abandon the horses and supplies

unless I have to. In this stuff, it would be their death warrant."

She nodded. "Then the only way is to go up. If we can

cross over, the horses can get a good rest and watering on the

other side." She paused. "You, too."

He wiped sweat from his forehead and looked up at the

ominous hill. "So how do we do it?"

"First let me go up and check it out, see if there's any place

we can cross. Then we'll risk my horse, with me leading. If

the stuff underfoot holds her, it will hold you and yours."

He nodded. "Fair enough. But be careful—I don't want you

melted down."

She laughed. "No danger of that. I can swim in the stuff,

Joe. I have done it." She sighed and looked up at the swirling

smoke. "Well—here goes!" And with that, she was gone,

flying up the side and into the dense cloud at the top.

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Chalker, Jack L - Demons of the Dancing Gods

This time she was gone for only a couple of minutes, reappearing

and setting down in front of her horse. "There's a way,

I think," she told him, "but it's going to be a real hairy time

for you and the horses. It's cinder most of the way, but I think

it will hold. Up just into the smoke, though, the heat comes

and goes. There are real nasty cracks all over the place." She

pointed. "But in one spot, just over there, it seems fairly cool.

It's been hot, though, and the heat has melted and remelted

the stuff up there. The surface is almost like glass, and it's

bound to be slippery. If you slip, it's pretty nasty on either

side."

He looked up and swallowed hard. "Well, let's try it. Anything

to get out of spending a night around here. I want to get

it over with while there's still some light."

She nodded. Taking her horse's bridle, she stepped out onto

the cinders. The horse resisted for a moment, then went along

when she saw Marge being supported. Then the horse sank a

bit into the cinders and ash and thrashed for a moment in

confusion. It took precious minutes of Joe's daylight to calm

her down and get her to go on.

Beyond, the cinders and ash were so dense that they gave

a surprisingly solid footing. Joe decided to lead his horse as

well and was relieved to Find that the hill felt, at least at the

beginning, cool. He was, however, really beginning to wish

he could trade his thick sandals for some even thicker boots.

Asbestos boots, preferably.

The slope was rather gentle, and they took it at an angle,

but it was slow going, and several times the material gave way,

causing a momentary loss of footing. The horses were a big

problem here, but, fortunately, none were sufficiently unbalanced

by the occasional loss of footing to go tumbling over

and back down.

Almost before Joe realized it, they were up to the smoke

level and into it. The stuff stank and stung his eyes, causing

even more problems with the horses, but the gases weren't very

dense, once he was in them, and he could, at least, see ahead

to the rear of Marge's horse. One thing for sure, though—the

air was getting really hot, and he was sweating as he never

had before. The volcanic surface, too, was getting pretty damned

warm, although not bad enough to cause burning.

And then they hit the remelted area. He had imagined a

smooth slope. In fact, it was rough and irregular, but it was

shiny and slippery. Only the irregularities in its surface, almost

like a frozen sea, allowed them any chance of footing. The

stuff was hot, too—he felt as if he were in somebody's giant

oven, and the bottom of his sandals were becoming very, very

warm.

He soon saw why. Only ten feet or so on either side, the

glassy surface dropped away to reveal a bubbling, hissing pit.

"I'm already well done!" he called out, coughing at the

smoke and miserable from the intense heat- "How much farther

is it?"

"Not far," she called back. "Just ten more minutes and we're

home free!"

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Chalker, Jack L - Demons of the Dancing Gods

He groaned. He wasn't sure he or the horses could last that

long. Right about then he was so miserable he didn't give a

damn about the horses.

Suddenly Marge stopped, and he almost screamed out in

agony. "Now what?"

"We're not alone up here," she responded, sounding worried.

"I think you better draw Irving."

"He's so damned hot I can't even touch him," Joe called

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^ACK L. CHALKER

51

back in disgust, but he did try the sword hilt—and found he

wasn't kidding.

A series of small, dark shapes that looked like moving globs

of obsidian formed around them on the peak. Joe couldn't get

a good look at them, but Marge had no trouble at all. They

did, in fact, appear to be made out of the same stuff as the

melted material on which they all stood, but these creatures

had definite form. They looked like, funny little men—or,

rather, statues of funny-looking little men, she decided, with

short, stocky bodies, stubby limbs, and huge balloonlike noses.

She couldn't help thinking of Grumpy from Snow White as she

stared at them, and that certainly fitted their expressions and

mean-looking gazes.

"Are you union or scabs?" the lead one rasped out in a stem,

deep, gruff voice.

The question took her aback. "What do you mean? All we're

trying to do is cross this mountain before the man with me and

the horses die. Please let us past!"

"Are you union or scabs?" the creature repeated, unmoved.

"I am Kauri, and no scab!" she responded angrily. "You

should know we have no need of a union!"

"Hah! Sexual exploitation without love or involvement and

all for some cheap bauble," another of the creatures muttered.

"And they're so dumb they don't even see how they're exploited."

Marge was acutely aware that time was running out, but