by Ann Maxwell
Rheba hummed to Fssa, but the snake still did not have enough clues to unravel Dapsl’s speech. The Fssireeme darkened with embarrassment for an instant.
“You’re beautiful,” whispered Rheba. “Do you have the Loo language yet?”
“Almost,” he whistled very softly, brightening. “There are at least four forms of' it and not much relation between them.”
“Slave, master, middleman and equal,” guessed Rheba.
Fssa hissed soft agreement.
The next act was a very pale-skinned male. His features seemed neither handsome nor ugly, just as he was neither tall nor short. He looked so unremarkable that Rheba found herself wondering what he could possibly do that would be up to the standards of a Concatenation Act.
Then the man changed before her eyes. He became taller, broader, darker, velvet-textured. His eyes burned gold in a golden mask. He seemed to reach out to her, compelling her body to respond to him. Soon he would touch her and she would burst into flame, touching him, igniting him until they burned together in a consummation of passion that she could not imagine, much less understand.
With a moan, she forced herself to look away.
“What is it?” asked Kirtn, touching her. Her skin seared his fingertips with a kind of heat she should not have generated at her age. His own response was instantaneous, almost uncontrollable, a reflex as ingrained as hunger. But he was Bre’n, and must control the sensual heat that would otherwise destroy them both. Too soon. Everything had happened too quickly after Deva. “Rheba!”
Kirtn’s harsh whisper broke the Act’s hold on her. She shuddered. Heat drained from her skin, bleaching the patterns of power. “I’m—all right,” she said, breathing brokenly. “I don’t—I don’t know what happened.”
Kirtn knew; dreams of just such an awakening on her part had haunted him more frequently of late. Yet she was at least ten years too young; and she had neither Senyas mother nor Bre’n sister to gently lead her to understanding.
Dapsl looked over at her. When he saw her flushed face, he smiled. “So you can respond to something besides a furry—or did he look like a furry to you?” His smile widened at her confusion. “Is that the first time you’ve seen a Yhelle illusionist? His Talent is unusual, even among the Yhelle. He makes you see whatever would most inflame you sexually.” Dapsl looked around the audience. “He’s not very good, though. Only the women responded. And you were able to break his illusion. He’s probably too young for full control.”
Apparently the Loo lords agreed. There was a brisk bargaining session but apparently no price was reached. The guard led the illusionist out of the circle and abandoned him. The man hesitated, then walked back to wherever he had come from before the Loo lords had condensed out of the Fold’s ceiling.
Dapsl made a satisfied sound. “Next time he’ll be ready. He’ll be able to reach men as well as women. Then he’ll be a prize for any chim to buy and use.”
Rheba looked at the ground and hoped she would never again be within range of the man’s illusions. She had known pleasure and laughter and simple release with her Senyas friends, but she had never suspected the existence of such consummation as she had seen in him. She wondered how much had been illusion, how much a reality latent within her that she had not yet experienced. She wondered . . . but was oddly reluctant to ask the only one who might be able to answer her. Kirtn.
The guard stopped in front of Dapsl and spoke curtly. Rheba did not need Dapsl’s translation to know that it was their turn on the stage. She wiped the illusionist from her mind, thinking only of the Act.
XV
Dapsl bowed low to the Loo lords and ladies. His braids brushed his bare feet and the hard-packed earth of the stage. “Lords and ladies,” he said, his voice ringing, “I have a tale for your astonishment and amusement, a tale about a time long ago when demons were kings and the Devil God created the First Woman as punishment to an unruly king.”
Kirtn listened to Dapsl with only half his attention. The first few times he had heard the Loo’s creation myth, he had been amused: at one time in the past, the Loo had apparently gone furred; even today it was whispered that some children were born with pelt rather than smooth blue skin. Those secret children were the legacy of the First Woman’s victory over the Demon King.
“—came to the furred king. He was strong and fierce, his minions were swift and vicious—”
On cue, the J/taals and their clepts swept into the ring in a leaping, swirling entrance that required both strength and split-instant timing. The five J/taals moved as one, doing back flips and somersaults while the clepts wove through with fangs flashing. The clepts appeared on the edge of wounding the J/taals—and that would have happened, had not the timing been perfect.
There was a final, closely choreographed burst of movement, then J/taals and clepts froze into a savage tableau, animal fangs echoed by the shine of J/taal teeth.
“—Demon King had heard of the Woman made by the Devil God. The King had been told that if he conquered her, she would give him a furred male child who would rule the world. But if she conquered him, her children would be two, and smooth, founders of a superior race.
“He was only an animal, a demon. The thought of siring his superiors enraged him.”
Lord Jal snapped his fingers twice. Instantly Dapsl speeded the presentation. “In time, he succeeded in capturing the Woman. Capturing, but not conquering.” Rheba felt a quick pressure on her hand as Kirtn strode away on cue toward the stage. When he was inside the circle, Fssa began creating soul-curdling sounds, as though a gathering of demons dined on living flesh. The snake projected the sounds so that they seemed to come from Kirtn. For her part, Rheba concentrated on Kirtn’s body, changing the quality of the air around him until he seemed to walk wrapped in sable smoke that licked out toward the audience.
While the Loo’s attention was on Kirtn, she stole onto the stage. She stood close to him, looking angry, wrapped in thin flickers of flame. A leash of black connected her to him, but the leash was no more substantial than the smoke that clung to his copper body. Fssa produced sweet cries of distress for her to mouth, sounds that would have wrung compassionfrom any audience but Loo-chims.
The next part of the Act was supposed to be a ballet of advance and retreat where the J/taals menaced and tormented the First Woman while the Demon King watched. Dapsl, however, did not give the cue. He summarized swiftly, then cued in the culmination of the battle between Woman and Demon. Because he had warned the Act that the performance might be shortened at the whim of the Loo, they were ready. Rheba formed balls of blue energy and flicked them at the J/taals and their clepts. They froze in place, paralyzed by cobalt light.
With the “minions” disposed of, she advanced on Kirtn. Her footsteps were outlined in red flames, and fire leaped from her flying hair as she sought to change his demon soul, thus making him a fit mate for her. A demon head grew out of Kirtn’s skull. The ferocious face expanded and expanded until its mouth was large enough to devour the stage. Out of that mouth—courtesy of Fssa—rose a caterwauling that was enough to freeze the core of a sun.
A cage of fire sprang up around Kirtn. He struggled terribly against it, but could not break free. It was a difficult part of the Act for Rheba; she had to sustain the cold blue fire around the minions, the rippling demon head that filled the stage, and the moving cage of hot fire around Kirtn.
Fssa switched from screaming to a pure whistle that was like water in the desert to the listening chims. The whistle was the opening note of a Bre’n courtship song, but such was its power that people of all races were compelled by it. Had Rheba not been so busy holding various kinds of fire, she would have sung the female part of the duet. As it was, the notes only seemed to come from her lips.
Slowly, as though drawn against his will, Kirtn stopped struggling. The demon head above him waxed and waned, changing with each beat of song until the grim mouth closed with a long series of moans which were also supplied by Fssa.
&
nbsp; Rheba felt the snake change to meet each need of the Act, at the same time holding his surface color so that he exactly matched her hair. Fssa was justifiably proud of his performance. Neither whistle nor demon cries could be traced to the hidden Fssireeme.
The demon head puffed out, releasing one drain on Rheba’s energies. Kirtn appeared to test his immaterial cage. It held, and he howled in fear. Still Fssa/Rheba whistled beguiling notes that danced like moonlight on a waterfall, presaging the fiery dawn yet to come. Unwillingly, the Demon King answered.
When Kirtn’s lilting whistle slid into harmony, weaving a world of sensual possibilities out of pure song, the Loos stirred and leaned forward. The contrast between the savage Act and the lyrical duet was so great that it was almost incomprehensible. Even Lord Jal seemed caught, body keeping time to alien rhythms, imprisoned by uncanny music.
The fire that had flickered over Rheba’s body leaped forward, joining with Kirtn’s cage in a soundless explosion. The duet simultaneously reached its peak. Then Fssa/Rheba sang alone, coaxingly, luring the Demon King, promising him ease and beauty in marriage to the First Woman. Step by slow step, the Demon King crossed the ground separating him from the First Woman, drawn by a passion that consumed him. She waited, arms raised, demanding and inviting his touch. Then his arms folded around her and he bent toward her.
For a moment all Rheba could see was his gold eyes burning over her, head bending down, arms hard around her. She was as shaken as she had been by the Yhelle illusionist, caught in a chaos of needs she was not prepared to understand.
“It’s almost over, fire dancer,” he murmured against her flying hair, holding her tightly. “Just a bit more.”
As she heard his words she realized that she was stiff, unbending, as though she still fought against the illusionist. But this was Kirtn who held her, Kirtn who had soothed her smallest hurts since she was a toddler, Kirtn who always had a smile and a gentle touch for his little fire dancer. Kirtn, not an alien illusion.
She tightened her arms around him, clinging to him with sudden fierce heat. She felt his hesitation, then his body molded to hers, answering her embrace.
Lines of power smoldered over her body, searing him where he touched her, but he did not flinch or protest. He knew that she was unaware of herself and what she did to him, what she was becoming. Too soon....
“It’s over,” he whispered. “You can let go of the fire.”
Despite his words, he held her even after the last random flame flickered free of the clepts. Then, with a reluctance he could barely conceal, he released her. As she stepped away she looked up at him. Her eyes were red-gold, luminous, searching his for something she could not name.
A murmur of Loo language washed over the stage. Fssa tickled her neck as he changed into listening mode. Her confused feeling about Kirtn evaporated when she heard Fssa’s satisfied hiss.
“Got it,” he murmured. He began summarizing the Loo mutterings for her. “They like you and Kirtn. They think that you veiled the obscenity nicely by using Loo creation myths.”
“What obscenity?” whispered Rheba. Then, “Oh. Furry and smoothie, right?”
Fssa whistled soft agreement. “The J/taals and clepts are competent, but unnecessary. They distract from the central necessity—the Demon King’s conversion. Several of the chims are trying to buy the J/taals as guards. The J/taals are well known in the Equality. Theirs is one of the few languages other than Universal that I learned from my guardian.”
“He can’t sell them!” she whispered harshly. Fear made gold lines flare on her arms.
Fssa did not bother to make the obvious statement that a slave master could do whatever he wanted with his slaves.
“But we’re an Act. He wouldn’t separate an Act,” she said, as though the snake had contradicted her.
“Only after you appear in the Concatenation are you an Act. Until then, you’re a collection of slaves.”
She wanted to argue with the snake, but knew it was futile. Fssa was right. She realized she was squeezing Kirtn’s hand with enough force to hurt. She looked up at him, and saw from his expression that he had heard Fssa. “They saved the child when we couldn’t,” she said. “I can’t abandon them.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Jal hasn’t told them yet.”
Lord Jal raised his arm, pointed at Dapsl, and snapped his fingers impatiently. Dapsl hurried forward and made a deep obeisance at the hem of Jal’s sheer robe. Fssa changed shape again, tickling Rheba’s ear. She waited, breath held, but the snake said nothing.
“Translate,” she snapped.
“They’re using Dapsl’s language,” responded Fssa. “Others are talking at the same time. It’s hard to separate, much less learn.”
She took the hint and stopped bothering him. Several chims joined in Jal’s conversation, but they spoke only master Loo. Still Fssa said nothing. Dapsl hurried back to the stage.
“The clepts,” he said, “are unnecessary and ugly. The J/taals are little better. They are rejected.”
“Then the Act is rejected,” said Kirtn before Rheba could speak.
Dapsl stared at Kirtn. “The Act is not rejected. Just the J/taals and the clepts. Lord Jal will graciously allow you to keep that flatulent snake and the ugly First Person you are pleased to call a crown.”
The Bre’n touched Rainbow, forgotten around his forehead. The rock had changed itself until it matched the color of Kirtn’s hand-length hair. Fssa had told them that it would be better if Rainbow did not excite any greed or unusual interest until it had appeared with them at the Concatenation. Rainbow had obliged by pulling its colored facets inward and altering the remainder until it appeared to be a battered, primitive, gold-colored crown.
“Lord Jal,” said Rheba quietly, “takes us all together or not at all.”
Dapsl’s color deepened, then bleached to lavender when he realized that Rheba meant what she said. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life in the Fold, until they tire of feeding you and send you to the Pits? No one is that stupid—not even a kaza-flatch bitch!”
“We haven’t had much time to prepare our Act,” said Kirtn. “When the buyers come again, the J/taals and clepts will be a vital part of the Act.”
“But you could be free of the Fold right now! All you have to do is leave the—”
“No,” said Rheba and Kirtn together.
“But if you miss this Concatenation, you’ll be at risk of separation for another year!”
“No.”
With a furious, inarticulate sound, Dapsl turned and stalked back to Lord Jal. Whatever was said was very brief. Jal knocked Dapsl to the ground, then walked toward the stage. He looked curiously from the J/taals to Rheba.
“What bond do you have with these?” Jal asked. “Is it simply that kaza-flatchers stay together, the better to enjoy their perversions?”
“Nothing that complex,” said Rheba, her lips thin but her voice even. “Honor. A promise kept.”
Lord Jal looked at his blue-black fingernails, his eyes hooded, his expression bored. “And if I separate you from them?”
“I’ll be unAdjusted. You can’t take an unAdjusted slave out of the Fold.”
Kirtn leaned forward. “And I’ll be unAdjusted, too. How will you explain that to the female cherf who is half of the Imperial Loo-chim?”
Lord Jal looked up. Despite herself, Rheba took a step backward. Defensive fire smoldered on her arms, waiting to be used.
Jal smiled. “Do you still share enzymes?” he asked, his voice as cruel as his eyes, reminding her that he could take away more than the J/taals.
She blinked, forgetting for a moment what Jal meant. Then she remembered the ruse she and Kirtn had used to stay together. “Of course,” she said quickly. “Didn’t you see us onstage?”
Jal’s laugh was soft. “I see everything, kaza-flatch bitch. Remember that.” He stared at her for a long moment, then shifted his regard to Kirtn. “You,
furry, are worth a great deal of money to me, but not enough to risk humiliation. A man without a chim is . . . vulnerable. The Act is embarrassing.” He tapped one long nail against his nacreous teeth. The sound seemed very loud in the silence.
Fssa stirred against Rheba’s neck and whistled low Bre’n phrases. Kirtn listened, then turned to Jal. “To be part of the Act, the J/taals and clepts simply have to appear with us on the Concatenation stage, correct?”
Lord Jal gestured agreement. And waited.
“Surely the Loo still have some equivalent of hell in their mythology?”
Again the gesture. And the silence.
“A flaming hell?”
Gesture. Silence.
“Rheba will make the J/taals and clepts into fire demons. Our Act will be a vision of hell.”
The silence stretched. The taps of nail on tooth slowed, then stopped entirely. Jal’s expression was not encouraging. Fssa whistled like a distant flute, enlarging upon what he was hearing the chims in the audience say. Kirtn listened without seeming to as the snake eavesdropped on chims speculating upon ways to improve the Act they had just seen.
“If you have a hell myth,” the Bre’n continued, “then you must have a myth about a man trapped and distorted by devils, then finally rescued by somebody who symbolizes pure innocence.”
“Saffar and Hmel,” said Lord Jal, startled. His eyes looked through them, focused on one of the Loo’s favorite myths. “Yes . . . mmm.” His glance narrowed and returned to the Bre’n. “A happy choice. The female polarity’s favorite story.” His eyes closed, then snapped open. “It’s worth the risk. We’ll try it. You surprise me, furry. But if it’s not good enough to be one of my three Acts—and the trash I just saw certainly was not!—we’ll have another talk about honor and unAdjusted slaves.”
Kirtn, relieved Jal had not noticed that Fssa was feeding him information about Loo culture, did not object to the threat in the blue lord’s words. Then, before Kirtn could feel more than an instant of relief, a funnel of energy came down, engulfed him, turned him inside out, and spat him onto the top of a ramp outside the Fold.