by Carol Berg
The last rays of the sun were swallowed by the horizon. From the hilltop, one of the eldest Danae began to sing a simple wordless melody, eerie, haunting, marvelous, wrenching, for it touched all the yearnings and confusions that had marked my life from my earliest days: the pain that had dragged me into perversion, the fury that had lashed out at confinement and tawdry concerns, the truth that had teased at me in temples and taverns, in drink and in lovemaking. The song called me to the dance.
Tuari spun on one foot, straight and powerful, then came to rest and touched Nysse’s hand. She stretched one foot skyward, impossibly vertical. Tuari held her hand and walked a circle around her, turning her as she balanced on her toes. When he released her, she touched the next in line, a luminous elder who jumped and scissored his straight legs so fast they became invisible. He landed and touched the next…
And so the connection of movement and grace passed down the spiral around the hill until it reached the three initiates at the end. Their gards pulsed a faint azure. But not mine. My breath came short and painful, as I withheld my answer to the call. I had to wait. This was but the first round, the Round of Greeting, so Stian had schooled me.
A livelier song began the Round of Celebration. The ranks of dancers broke into smaller circles or duets or solo dancers, each following the music as they would. Soon other songs drowned out the voices—the songs of trees and wandering waterways, a pavane as stately as an oak, a gigue, light and joyous like the water. Or perhaps only I heard those particular harmonies, and others heard songs drawn from their own senses.
I climbed the gully wall and found a perch whence I could see farther down the hill to the lake, where the reflections of the dancers grew brighter as the afterglow faded from the west. Danae everywhere. An hour, they must have danced that second round.
The third round began with the Archon’s Dance, a courtesy to his position. All others sat wherever they had finished the last round and watched attentively. Tuari was a powerful dancer. His jumps were almost as high as Kol’s, his eppires charged with life, his positions held to the point of breaking. Though glorious in themselves, his movements spoke more of vigor than of grace. Yet at his allavé, the watchers all over the hillside offered their approval, slapping one hand against a thigh—the sound of hailstones rapping on a slate roof.
The next to dance was Nysse, for this third was the Round of the Chosen, where the archon charged the one judged finest among all Danae to demonstrate her skills and invited any who wished to challenge her naming to do so.
Indeed Nysse was lovely. She could weigh no more than cloud, for though her jumps were not so high as those of the males, she seemed to hang suspended in the air for an eternity and land without disturbing the grass beneath. Her willowy grace evoked the image of a pond where swans glided in the moonlight and once a year white lilies bloomed. Yet the dance affected me with a wrenching sadness, as it told how early snow had blighted the lilies and sent the swans southward over the mountains.
To feel Nysse’s movements was to understand that every passing season weakened the bonds between the kirani and the land. When even so beloved a sianou as the Pond of the White Lilies suffered, the world must change or be lost. Her allavé drew a sigh of wonder and grief from the Danae host. Without a word, she had made a strong argument for the unlinking Kol feared.
As the slapping noise and cries of approval grew, Tuari spread his arms, inviting any to challenge his consort for the Center. I could not imagine who would attempt it. Even Kol must doubt. I crushed that thought before it could blossom. Three dancers tried, each one better than the last, though none were a match for Nysse. Few from the crowd voiced support for any of them.
An expectant murmur traversed the crowd as a fourth challenger strode up the hill and nodded to the archon—Kol, unmatched in his pride.
He began slowly, a simple series of steps and blindingly sharp triple spins, one and then another, scribing a circle on the hilltop, so that those on every side could see—every movement precise, composed, and very large. His body spoke that this was to be a monumental kiran, for he did not stop or slow or hesitate or miss the next…or the next…or the next…And when he had drawn us tight enough, when I could not believe that he could possibly execute one more movement without flaw, he coiled and leaped into the air like the explosion of a geyser, soaring twice the height of a man, his legs split wide and straight. No sooner landed than he bent gracefully to earth as if to work a summoning, then rose and with his powerful leg drew himself into one eppire and then another, driving his body until my heart felt like to burst. The music he drew from earth and sky began with the grieving strings of vielles and the cool flowing sorrows of a dulcian—my lost mother—with hints of mysteries and secrets, and moved with driving purpose to trumps and songs of triumph.
I could not have said that those who watched held breath as I did. They could not know how much depended on this kiran. But when Kol had built the image of the Well, so true that I could feel my own deep-buried fires, my veins of stone, my bed of earth and wounded walls, wonder and memory surged through the host. One and then another of the Danae stood as if they could not believe what they perceived. Some spread their arms as if to bask in their awe.
By the time Kol stretched leg and back and bowed his head in his allavé, every Dané in Dashon Ra was standing. And when he rose to his feet, a great cry of joy and triumph shattered the night.
“He said to prepare for a surprise, but who could have guessed this marvel?”
I almost fell off my perch. Kol’s friend Thokki stood just below me, looking up with eyes the same color as her gards—the hue of morning sky in spring.
“In the Canon, Thokki.” I jumped down and kept my distance, wary, ready to pounce if she cried out warning.
“Thou hast naught to fear from me, initiate,” she said, raising her hands as if to ward a blow. “Kol asked my help—a matter of such astonishment that all else he babbled was but chaff tickling my ear, save for his promise that his challenge kiran would vouch for his actions—as indeed it has. He asked me in his sire’s name to partner thee in Stian’s Round and disguise thy…limitations.”
“I promise you that—”
“Thy promises carry no vigor with me, initiate. Kol’s and Stian’s serve well enough.” Her ready smile dismissed whatever offense I might have taken. “Ah, see? Tuari has no choice now.”
I looked back to the hilltop where Nysse herself took Kol’s hand and presented him to the exultant Danae. Another cheer broke out as Tuari followed her lead. Then the two of them backed away, leaving Kol alone at the Center.
Kol stomped one foot on the ground, then clapped his hands together over his head. He set up a steady rhythm that subsumed the random slaps and cheers and drew them into unison. Soon every Dané kept his pace, so that the earth thundered with it. They continued all together until Kol nodded, and a group broke off and set up a counterpoint of three quick claps in between Kol’s steady marks. My blood pulsed in time with them. Simple. Powerful.
“Dost thou feel the call?” asked Thokki, tight with excitement. “This is Stian’s Round.”
My foot hammered the beat—the same rhythm Stian had driven into my head that afternoon. How had I ever judged it boring? All across Dashon Ra, the Danae formed circles large and small, wheels within wheels. Circles of light. “Aye,” I said. “I feel it.”
Thokki clasped my hand and grinned. “Then let us join in.”
She paused, watching, as one great wheel expanded to catch up more dancers, burgeoning in our direction, and then shrank again, spinning off minor circles like sparks from a fire. “Now!”
We ran across the small dark gap and joined three others—two males, one female—in a minor circle. I stumbled at first, my heart in my throat.
“Welcome the initiate!” called Thokki as she stomped and clapped.
The others shouted, “In the Canon, initiate!”
“In the Canon,” I croaked. Then I stomped and clapped, kept th
e rhythm and moved in the circle, and within three beats felt like crowing with the joy of it. I could have continued a lifetime with naught but this.
But the dance was not static, and Thokki leaned close. “Thy feet, initiate. Do not lose the pace. Remember.”
She stepped back, and I felt sere grass and thin soil, shards of rock and pricks of ice underneath my feet. I spun in place and stepped to the right. Gods cherish all…a rock pricked my left great toe and a sprig of tansy tickled my heel. And so we moved into the patterns Stian had drilled into me. Simple steps and spins and short leaps about our small wheel. The music of pipes and tabors swelled from the earth and stars. My gards took fire with the deepest blues of lapis, sapphire, and summer midnight in the frostlands, and I thought I must be raised into heaven. And when Stian’s Round came to its end in a great crescendo, I thought the hands that reached under my arms as if to embrace me must surely be my grandsire come to welcome me. Kol had won, and I was Danae.
The arms squeezed upward, crushing my shoulders. “Take the halfbreed to the pond. And remove that one.” Thokki stumbled forward and fell, her head slamming into the turf. “I’ll have Tuari break her for this trespass.”
No mistaking the crone’s voice that gave the orders, or the stick that fell so brutally on Thokki’s shoulder, or the shapeless form that moved into our circle from the night. Underneath her hood, golden eyes smoldered with hate, and her thin lips broke into a smile that none but I could see. Ronila.
Chapter 33
“No!” I yelled as a Dané with an unmarked face hefted a dazed Thokki to his shoulder and disappeared into the night beyond the circles. “Don’t harm her. Please, you don’t understand!”
The glare of sigils and starlight became a blur as I tried to wrestle free. But the owner of the well-muscled arms that gripped my shoulders locked his hands behind my neck. No matter my kicking and writhing, another Dané bound my ankles. If I could not walk, I could not escape.
The youth glanced up at me and wrenched his knots tighter. My heart sank as I recognized him as Kennet, the initiate whose legs were twined with oak leaves, Tuari’s attendant who had bound me to a tree intending to break my knees. His tall, strong companion with the wheat-colored hair was likely the person crushing my neck.
The other three dancers of our circle gawked in disbelief as the two young Danae bound my wrists behind my back. “My kin-father, the archon, has charged me to root out the causes of our failing life,” Ronila said to them. “What more cause could we discover than a halfbreed flaunting illicit gards in the Canon?”
“Don’t let her do this,” I said. “She wants to destroy us all!”
Ronila touched each of the three dancers on the shoulder. “Human interference has corrupted the long-lived, even he who is Chosen. I have paid the just price to preserve the Canon, and so must every violator. Go. Dance Freja’s Round and restore innocence to the change of season.”
The three glanced back uncertainly as they moved off to join Freja’s Round or the Round of Learning, where one dancer would move about the inside of a wheel of light, striving to match every other dancer’s most difficult steps.
“This is no violation!” I shouted after them. “Kol brought back the Well. It lives in your memory again.”
Kennet’s comrade hefted me onto his shoulders and carried me down the hill, past circles and spirals that twisted and turned like jewels of heaven strung on silken threads. Ronila hobbled alongside.
“I am made new by the Canon,” I said, recalling Kol’s teaching. “You cannot hinder me.”
“The archon will render that judgment,” said Kennet. “We but ensure thy attendance.”
With only a few hundred steps we traveled far from the dancing ground and the Center. This pond lay in a nest of meadowlands in the lee of a gentle hilltop, very like the lake at Dashon Ra. But here spike-thin pines and dark spruce mantled the surrounding hillsides. Snow lay deep upon these meadows, frosting every twig and needle of the trees. And the new-risen moon set the crystals sparkling and laid a path of silver light across the rippling lake. The splendor of the scene pierced my heart.
Two Danae walked out of a rainbow flare and joined us at the lakeshore. “What urgency demands our absence from the Canon, Llio-daughter?” said Tuari. “The change approaches. The dance beckons.”
My captors threw me to the ground at Tuari’s and Nysse’s feet. I rolled to the side, spitting out snow and dirt that filled my mouth. My cheekbone stung, sliced by a protruding rock.
“Behold, Tuari Archon,” said Ronila, “all has come about as I warned thee. You asked me, as your kin, as one who has paid the just price of imperfection, to uncover evidence of the corruption that cracks the world. Here is the halfbreed Cartamandua found preening and prancing in Stian’s Round. Canst thou mistake whose work this is?” Ronila’s stick poked my back, where the second remasti had etched Stian’s rock, and my arm, where the cat lurked amid Kol’s sea grass.
“Thou dost accuse the Chosen and his sire of willful violation?” Sounding truly shocked, Tuari stooped to examine me closer. “How can this be the Cartamandua halfbreed? He wore no gards when I saw him.”
“Clearly they have forced his body through some corrupt remasti,” said Ronila. “Canst thou not feel the storm wind rising in the human realm? Look out upon the beauty of Aeginea, Tuari Archon, and tell me that human violence and filth do not threaten its annihilation.”
“Good archon, gracious Nysse, I bring you hope of healing,” I said, struggling to my knees. “Your kind were given guardianship of both Aeginea and the human realms. Surely no mere chance caused the first four Danae guardians to arise at the points of our joining. I beg you heed what you have felt this night. Kol has given you back the Well, where my mother was poisoned by this harpy and her minions.”
“Who can say what deceptions Stian and his brood have wrought in our minds?” said Ronila, sneering. “The daughter who gave a child of our blood to a human. The son who steals the Center, as he stole this halfbreed from your just breaking. The father who once condemned you—Tuari Archon—to live as a crawling beast. They have brought a halfbreed to the dance, as your own proclamation of the Law forbids.”
Tuari looked from Ronila to me, his rust-colored eyes flaring with anger and mistrust. “Did Kol and Stian bring thee to the Canon, halfbreed?” he asked.
“Ask him about Thokki, as well, resagai,” said Ronila eagerly. “She who has lusted after Kol since he was nestling. Corrupted, as are all those touched by Stian’s get.”
“More pain and vengeance will not repair what’s done,” I said. “But I can help you heal the Canon without breaking it further. All I ask is your hear—”
“Thou art halfbreed, Cartamandua-son,” said Tuari sternly, interrupting. “Thou hast reached maturing this night, thus the Law forbids me to break thee. However, those who brought thee illicitly to the Canon are forfeit. Answer truth, if thou wouldst have me hear another word from thy lips. I will judge silence as agreement. Did Kol and Stian bring thee to the Canon, using Thokki to shield thee?”
How could I weigh the consequences of my answer? I, who was a master of lies, could likely devise a reasonable story. But Ronila had built her life on lies, corrupted Sila with lies. We stood at the brink of the abyss, and I needed this man to believe what I told him. Surely it was the time for truth. Kol and Stian…and Thokki, too…had known the risks they took.
“Yes,” I said, “because they believed—”
“There, you see?” crowed Ronila.
“Silence, Llio-daughter.” Tuari held up a warning finger to the old woman. “I have sought thy forgiveness for the wrongs I’ve done thee and thy dam, and thou hast offered me generous service in return. But I am archon and would hear what healing this Cartamandua-son believes he can bring to the Canon. Despite our hard experience of him, Stian is no mindless actor.”
Ronila pressed her hands together and bowed. “It is but sincerest concern for the Canon that drives my crone’s tongue, resag
ai. Thou art most generous to allow thy flawed kin to be of use.”
“Speak, Cartamandua-son.”
“I am born of a line of cartographers—human sorcerers who can find their way through the world with magic…” With cautious hope and urgency, I told the archon of my bent. Of finding the Well before I knew of my parentage. Of my ability to follow the paths of kirani laid down on this day or those long past. Though I dared not mention that the Well had chosen me as guardian—not with Ronila present, not when I was captive—I told him how I had walked my mother’s kiran to build Kol’s memory and understanding of the Well, and what Kol believed about my talents.
“I know not what to believe,” said Tuari, throwing up his hands. “How can I accept that a human-tainted abomination, one ignorant of the Canon, can accomplish what our finest dancers cannot? We feel the chaos of humankind; we suffer these poisonings and betrayals, and blind though we are, we know our lands diminished. To hear thy claim that we are responsible for this great imbalance drives me to fury.”
“Allow me to show you, good Tuari,” I said. “I can help you restore what is lost.”
“This halfbreed is poison, Archon,” snapped Ronila, growling with hate. “Stian has set him to bring you down in—”
Tuari silenced her with a gesture, then turned to Nysse, who had been quietly attentive throughout all. “Kol’s and Stian’s violation—deliberate and well considered—risks the very survival of Aeginea…of our kind,” he said in anguished indecision. “How can I allow it? And yet this halfbreed’s sincerity rings true, and Kol’s kiran hath bespoke a marvel this night. I must consider: What if his claims be true, and I refuse to heed?”
Before Ronila could burst or Tuari shatter with his vacillation, Nysse laid her hand on Tuari’s shoulder. “The season’s change is upon us, my love, yet clearly these matters cannot be settled in haste.” Her clear voice rippled with light, just as the pond did. “Stian and Kol have certainly trespassed the Law. Thokki to a lesser guilt. Yet unless we can prove, without doubt, that their violations have done damage, Kol must dance the Center. To force him out on uncertain grounds could be judged an equal risk to the Canon. Nor will I have it said that private jealousy spurred me to take his place. His kiran was flawless, and none other can approach our level. Only in the dance and its consequences can we judge truth.”