Free Demons of the Dancing Gods by Jack L. Chalker Page A

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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    Chalker, Jack L - Demons of the Dancing Gods
    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