Songs of the Dancing Gods (3 page)

And yet, there was still enough of the gentleman in him that he paused, after telling the Forty-Seventh Tale, realizing that he was getting so carried away he was not only imposing upon her hospitality, he was, worse, starting to improvise the tale after so long a time. And so he reached for his water flask, drank, and said, “But I have imposed far too much, and you have been gracious to hear me out beyond measure.”

“I do not mind,” she responded quietly, sounding very sincere. “This is not a place where interesting company often travels through, and, after you, it may be long until I hear a man’s voice again—and perhaps never one with such wondrous sagas to spin.” She paused a moment, staring at him. “But in truth it is I who have imposed. You are weary; the way from here is long and harsh. Rest if you like. Sleep and dream great dreams.”

He was mad, even he knew that much, but he wasn’t crazy. The quest, all the sacrifices, all the loneliness and travails, would be for nothing if he slept here now and failed to awaken the next morning; even worse if he did awaken, but undead, stranded here to serve her as slave forever, knowing he would never be able to fulfill his grand ambition.

“How come you here?” he asked her, the weariness which she noted now coming to him full as the energy stole quickly away. “What is your name and who and what are you?”

She seemed to shimmer slightly in the firelight, and the wind stirred a bit.

“I am cursed to be here,” she told him. “Once my people reigned over a great kingdom, but we were overthrown by treachery and sorcery, expelled and cursed forever to reign over waste and desolation, commanding none but wind and barren rock. We had great power,” she added wistfully, “but, obviously, not great enough.”

The weariness kept creeping over him; he felt himself nodding off in spite of his best efforts, his storytelling having drained him even more than the travel. “What was this kingdom,” he asked her, “and where? And what is your name?”

To know the name of an entity was to gain some power over it.

“I can be whoever you want me to be,” she responded evasively. “I can be the one who you desire most.”

She stirred, then, moving more into the firelight, and pulled back her veil, and he gasped and stared in spite of himself, and his jaw dropped.

“Mary Ann … . ” he breathed.

For a moment all defenses were down, all rationality fled, as she came closer and closer to him. She was more beautiful even than he had remembered her, more sensuous than the fantasies that had gotten him through this much of his quest.

Now she was to him, and they were in an embrace, and for the briefest moment it was the closest to Heaven he would ever come, but there was something wrong, something that triggered all those defenses that had kept him alive all this time.

Through all that exotic perfume, she smelled like warmed-over horse dung.

He broke free of the kiss. “You—you’re not Mary Ann!” he gasped. “You—you’re all the rest!”

Where the strength came from he would never know, but he lashed out hard and shoved her away, unbalancing her for just a moment. As she staggered and tried to retain her balance, the wind began to swirl and then scream around him.

“I tried to make this pleasant,” she snapped. “Now we’ll have to do it the hard way. Look, how about you just relax and don’t fight it? After all, you have no strength left, and I did sit here and listen to that interminable crap for hours and hours!”

The wind began to swirl and scream at him.

It was as if all the gods suddenly supercharged him with energy. “Crap!” he exclaimed. “CRAP!”

His new energy and his sudden rage loosened her grip on his mind; the girl seemed to blur and fade out in the firelight, and a new, more sinister shape slowly emerged from the mass: A skeletal body covered with coarse brown fur; thin arms linked to leathery wings, and a ratlike face with eyes of burning coal and a mouth with pointed teeth designed only to rend flesh. …

Because he was small and seemingly fragile, enemies always underestimated his fighting skills. He was a thief, but not merely a thief—the greatest of all thieves, the King of Thieves. His tuning was always perfect, his instincts always correct.

Even as the creature launched itself at him, he did the most unexpected of actions and, instead of backing up into the darkness, off the cliff or against a rock wall, he leaped forward at the thing, drawing his short sword with one and the same action. They met virtually in the air, the creature totally unprepared for anyone to attack it, and the sword blade came up and made contact. The creature and the wind screamed as one, and the thing dropped back to the ground.

He didn’t let things go with that kind of blow. Instead, he leaped upon the wounded thing, and with strength that belied his size and his condition pushed back taloned claws set now not to tear his flesh but just to keep him away.

“Crap, huh?” The sword pointed down at the thing’s chest. “I’ll show you crap!”

The creature’s eyes widened. “No!” it screamed. “We can make a deal! Anything! Anything!”

“Ah, no! I know you now for what you are! Critic! The only thing worse than blasphemers are critics!” he snapped back. The sword came down. If the creature were of faerie, the iron in its blade would be pure poison to it; if it were of flesh, however foul, it was so solid a blow that it would almost be a coup de grace.

The fire flared like a torch, the ground trembled, and the wind seemed to go mad as the sword pushed through the creature’s chest as if through air itself, the thing’s flesh hissing as it passed. He rolled over and, catlike, was on his feet, wary, prepared to do more if it were necessary.

It was not, although the thing was rolling around and screeching horribly in its death agony, and the elements seemed ready to join in. Suddenly, the creature stiffened, its back arched, its wings sprawled, and, for a brief moment it almost looked as if it were gaining new strength, but it was the last brilliant blast of energy before it collapsed into a stinking, smoldering heap.

Wind and fire seemed to rise into the air, and a bright ball of energy suddenly sailed skyward and was quickly gone. A wind swept through, forming something, of a whirlwind over the still smoking body of the creature, then seemed to pause in the air.

“You … you killed her… killed her …” it moaned to him.

He stared at the secondary creature that had led him to her. “And what of it, elemental? Would you avenge her, you bag of hot air?”

The whirlwind seemed suddenly agitated. “No, no!” it responded. “We like the saga, we do, we do …”

‘ “Then you shall pledge yourself to me through these wastes!” he shouted. “You shall bind to me, the killer of your mistress, until I leave your domain!”

“We bind… we bind…”

“Very well, then. Stand watch, while I sleep, and let no harm come to me or my horse while we rest, or you shall die the true death of dissipation!”

“We obey… obey… “

He moved as far away from the stinking body as he could and prepared his bedroll. He settled down, but still could not quite rest.

“Elemental! A gentle breeze away from me, so I do not smell the odor of that carrion!”

Instantly a very light but steady breeze came from behind him and the air cleared. He was impressed. Air elementals were more useful than he would have thought. But he was still too keyed up, perhaps too overtired to sleep. He needed to relax himself after the events of the evening.

“Well, blowhard, you say you like the saga.”

“We do … we do …”

“Well, then, follow along, sing the great ballad with me.”

There was no response.

“Just sit right back …” he started, then stopped. “You’re not singing along!”

“We know not the words … the words…”

“Well, listen, then! And we’ll serenade each other on the ‘morrow!”

“We obey… obey…” the elemental responded, sounding resigned.

Now, at last, he leaned back, relaxed and closed his eyes, and a smile grew upon his face. Yet, in spite of the hopes of the elemental, he did not quickly fade to sleep, but, instead, started again to sing the ballad that was prologue to the object of his sacred quest.

He drifted off to sleep, and the elemental, too, seemed to relax, perhaps more because the saga would not have to be endured further that night.

He slept soundly, the sleep of the dead, but, occasionally, through the night, he would stir, that smile would return to his sleeping face, and he would breathe a line of the refrain: ” ‘Twas Gilligan, the Skipper, too…”

CHAPTER 2

ON DANCING YOUR HEART OUT Unless contravened by magic or other Rules, an individual’s role in life shall be determined by destiny and circumstance. However, once fixed in that role, only those things necessary to perfect one’s role may be learned, acquired or retained. In this way is social and cultural harmony and stability maintained. —The Books of Rules, II, 228(c)

THEY MADE A MOST UNLIKELY LOOKING GROUP AS THEY SLOWLY made their way down the road away from the mountains, toward green fields and rolling hills.

In the lead was a big man with bronze skin and tight muscles, the kind you would never doubt could carry the horse he rode as well or better than that same horse carried him. His skin, darkened and weathered by the elements, was, nonetheless, bronze to begin with; his finely chiseled face was barren of facial hair unlike the local customs, yet seemed as if it had never known a razor, and his thick black hair hung below his shoulders like a mane. His high cheekbones marked him as an Ostrider, a continent weeks from Husaquahr over dangerous seas, yet he had never been to that fabled continent. He wore only a strange, broad-brimmed hat, a loincloth, and swordbelt, and from the latter one could see the hilt of a massive and elegant sword. He looked at once exotic, strange, and dangerous.

The woman was fairly tall, with extremely long, muscular legs; fair of skin, although tanned by the sun, her hair lightened by exposure to the sun, she had delicate, sensual features and an athlete’s thin, firm build, without fat or loose areas. But a head shorter than the man, she had perhaps half his mass, perhaps less, and seemed almost tiny by comparison. Although she wore a thin, shielding cloak of light brown tied at the neck, otherwise she wore strings of woven beads that barely hung on her slender hips from which strings of more varicolored beads protected what little there was of her modesty. Another such assortment of beads strung together barely covered but hardly concealed her small, tight breasts. A faded, thin, golden headband, worn more for decoration than utility, sat upon her head, a slight bit of ornamental work extending below it in a triangular shape extending down almost to eye level. Matching bracelets and anklets completed her wardrobe, the bands holding tiny enclosed bells that sounded when she moved.

The third of the company was a young man, possibly not much past puberty, dressed much like the man. His skin was extremely dark, the deepest of browns without going to full black, like the Nubians of the Southern Continent, a trace of whose common features could also be seen in his face, yet his steely black hair was straight and long, like the big man’s. He was dressed in dark brown leather briefs and chest straps of the same, studded with ornamental bronze bolts, and matching leather boots.

“Man! This place is boooring!” the lad muttered, loud enough for the others to overhear. “I’m hot and sweaty and smellin’ like a stuck pig. This whole world smells like a horse’s ass! And this damn outfit’s rubbin’ my skin raw.”

“We’ve heard it all before,” the big man responded, not looking back. “As for the outfit, you’re the one who picked that out, remember, against our advice. Most of this world’s a lot warmer than back home.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, but it look baad!”

” ‘Looks,’ ” the woman corrected him. “It looks bad. How many times do we have to drill that into you?”

“You ain’t my mother!” the boy shot back. “You got no place speakin’ to me like that.”

“No, your mother let you run wild on the damned streets,” the big man responded. “Now I am your father, and I didn’t. carry you away—you came yourself when I gave you the chance. Your real mother, for what she’s worth, is so far away from us

that she, or you, might as well be dead. Tiana’s my wife and your stepmother, and I’ll have no more of that. Unless, maybe, you want to take me on and show me who’s really boss, like last time?”

The boy glared, but did not immediately respond. He was still getting to know his father and unsure that he ever really would, deep down, but he sure as hell knew that the big man was the meanest, toughest dude he’d ever run across. He’d quickly learned that much the hard way and didn’t want to push it. Being a full-blooded Apache trucker was bad enough, but a guy who’d spent the past several years in this world as everything from mercenary to adventurer to ruler of a kingdom and seemed none the worse for it wasn’t anybody you wanted to screw around with. He decided to switch familiar gripes.

“Yeah, but where’s all the fun in this hole? I thought there’d be dragons and monsters and all that Conan stuff. What we seen most of is proof that white folks can live even worse here than black folks in Philadelphia.”

“They’re here,” the big man assured his son. “You’re just not ready to take them on yet.”

“That’s what parents always say, ain’t it? You’re ready, and you say you got all them big connections, but we’re movin’ ‘round here and livin’ like runaways and eatin’ worse.”

“I’ve had my three big quests,” the father responded. “I’m a little tired of nearly getting killed every ten minutes. I needed a break. You wait until we run into something nasty. Then remember your complaining.”

“Yeah, well, it—it’s got to be better than Ms. Man! What a place! No electricity, no runnin’ water, no flush toilets, no cars, no guns, no rap, no rock, no soul, not even no TV!”

“You want out? Back to the streets? Back to running drugs for some street gang until somebody didn’t like the way you looked at him and blew you away? No future but death at a real young age? You didn’t have a future, Irv—you didn’t even have a present. The way you whine and complain, somebody in that crowd you ran with would’ve knocked you off within a year or so, anyway. You know it, and I know it.”