Fire Dancer

by Ann Maxwell

  The sleeping Bre’n stirred, dream shadows changing his face. Rheba felt something twisting inside her as she realized for the first time that Kirtn was inhumanly beautiful, as perfectly formed as a god. His gold mask glowed like two enormous eyes, and she ached to touch the copper hair that was so different from the copper plush of his fur. His powerful body moved again, graceful even in sleep. Muscles coiled and slid easily beneath the thin sheen of fur. She shivered, wanting to go to him, to lie down next to him, to pull his warmth and power around her like a robe, to build a cage of fire around them both, together.

  Akhenet lines pulsed achingly throughout her body, traceries of fire in the darkened room. She bent over Kirtn until her hair drifted across his shoulders like a cloud of fire. Her hands moved as though drawn against her will, seeking the textures of muscle and fur. But when she was a breath away from touching him she drew back, frightened by the heat of her own body.

  She sat without moving until dawn, shivering with cold and unnamed emotions, practicing the akhenet discipline of thinking about nothing at all.

  XX

  “This,” said Dapsl, using a drawing stick across a piece of plastic, “is the amphitheater. The Imperial Loo-chim has the seats of honor right there"—the stick went to a point just beyond the center curve of the stage—"and the rest of the chims are arrayed on either side according to rules of precedence no slave could understand.”

  Rheba leaned against the wall, trying to keep her eyes open. The Act had rehearsed all morning, making the lost night’s sleep like a sandy weight on her eyelids. Besides her, Lheket stirred restlessly. His beautiful, blind green eyes turned toward her, but no recognition moved in their depths. She took his hand and murmured soothingly. He had been disturbed ever since Ilfn had left, ostensibly to find salve for Rheba, but actually to contact the rebel slaves.

  In response to Rheba’s touch, Lheket reached up toward her, seeking her hair. Her hair, however, was bound in a knot beyond his reach. Seeing his disappointment, she shook her head, sending her hair cascading down her back. The silky strands brushed across his face. He giggled.

  “Tickles,” he whispered in Senyas.

  She smiled before she remembered that he could not see. She touched his cheek gently. “Quiet, rain dancer, or Dapsl will get angry.”

  Lheket subsided, but he kept a strand of her hair in his hands. She frowned and tugged gently. His fingers tightened. She sighed and leaned closer to him, taking the strain off her hair. With Ilfn gone, he seemed to need constant tactile reassurance. Not that she blamed him—being a blind slave among aliens would unnerve even an adult.

  She wondered if Ilfn had been successful in contacting the rebels who were planning the Last Year’s Night uprising. They would not be pleased to add new lines to their rebellion script at this late date; but they would have no choice. Either Rheba’s Act was included in the rebellion, or Ilfn would not give the door codes.

  She sensed Dapsl’s glare and returned her wandering mind to his lecture. Her attention was not really required. Kirtn was memorizing every word, for it was the Bre’n who would choose their escape route out of an amphitheater full of Loo aristocrats and their guards. The J/taals, too, were very attentive. Their military experience was the pivot point of any plans Kirtn would make.

  “—ramp leads to the area behind the stage. You’ll wait in the tunnel until you’re cued, then come to the quadruple blue mark on the left wing of the stage.”

  Kirtn watched the crude drawing of the amphitheater that was growing beneath Dapsl’s stick. “What about curtains, lights, energy barriers, props—”

  “Nothing,” said Dapsl firmly. “Acts that can’t provide their own light perform during the day. The amphitheater is pre-Equality. It was built by people who either didn’t want or didn’t know how to use a mechanized stage. There will be absolutely nothing on the stage of use to you except your own skills.”

  And thus, no energy source for Rheba to draw on.

  Though neither she nor Kirtn said anything, the thought was foremost in their minds. Their performance would be given at night, along with the other bioluminescent Acts. She would have no exterior source of energy but the Act itself, unless she set fire to the stage and then wove more complex energies from the simple flames.

  But the stage, like the amphitheater, was made of stone. She did not believe she could set it ablaze, especially in the time given to her during the Act. To take heat out of the night air, condense it, shape it, and then use it to ignite even highly combustible organic material required a long, concentrated effort on her part. She would have enough difficulty simply maintaining the cold light required for their Act.

  “But the amphitheater isn’t protected,” said Kirtn. “Did the Loo-chim—or whoever built it—plan on sitting in the rain and watching slaves drown?”

  Dapsl grimaced and pulled on his longest braid. “This is the dry season. It almost never rains on the Last Year Night.”

  Rheba looked at the boy beside her, smiling faintly as he played with her lively hair. Rain dancer.

  “Never?” shot back Kirtn. “Do they use weather control?”

  Dapsl made an oblique gesture. “If the weather is bad, there’s an energy shield over the amphitheater that can be activated. It’s been used in the past. That won’t affect the Act, will it?”

  Rheba made a dismissing gesture. “Shield, no shield. It doesn’t matter,” she said casually, hoping Dapsl believed her.

  He chewed thoughtfully on a braid end, then spat it out and returned to the business of familiarizing the Act with the stage they would use for the most important performance of their lives.

  “Since we have been given the honor—the great honor—of being the last Act of the Last Year Night, we won’t be called out of the tunnel until there is just enough time left to perform and finish on the absolute stroke of midnight. The timing is crucial; too soon or too late will spoil the ritual and displease the Loo-chim. That wouldn’t be wise.”

  Rheba’s smile was both grim and predatory. She hoped to do more than displease the Loo-chim before the Last Year Night was over. The thought made her hair stir, strands lifting and seeking blindly for her Bre’n.

  Lheket smiled dreamily, instinctively drawing on her energies. His eyes changed, darker now yet somehow more alive. The tips of his fingers began to pulse a pale, metallic blue, first hint of latent akhenet lines. When she looked down she saw the blush of blue on his fingertips. Realizing what had happened, she damped her own power. He made an involuntary noise of protest.

  “Keep that cub quiet or I’ll send him back to his room,” snapped Dapsl. “It’s bad enough that I have to put up with a furry whore unsettling the Act, but to put up with her belly warmer is—”

  Whatever Dapsl had meant to say died on his tongue when Kirtn and Rheba stared at him, their predatory thoughts naked on their faces. A clept snarled. Like the J/taals, they took their signals from Rheba, the J/taaleri. Fssa, hidden in her hair, made a sound that was between a snarl and a growl. The clept subsided. Rheba wondered what the snake had said to the clept, but did not further infuriate Dapsl by opening a dialogue with Fssa.

  “Continue,” she said, her eyes like cinnamon jewels with darker flecks of rage turning in their depths. “And remember, small man, whose Act you belong to.”

  “Two days,” snapped Dapsl.

  “Two days,” she agreed. In two days the Act would be performed, and they would be rid of Dapsl until the next time they were required to perform. The Loo could not divide a Concatenation Act, but the Act could choose to live apart.

  “The only thing,” continued Dapsl in a tight voice, “in the amphitheater besides the softstone seats and the stone stage is the silver gong in front of the Imperial Loo-chim. It is struck twice to bring on an Act. It is struck four times at the end of an Act.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Often the Loo-chim doesn’t wait for the end if the Act displeases it. Then the gong is struck three times, and the slaves are taken to the Pit. That won’t
be a problem in our Act, though. The Loo-chim has made it obvious that it can’t wait for the obscene tongues of their furry—”

  Kirtn moved in a supple twist of power that brought him to his feet. Dapsl changed the subject hurriedly.

  “After the gong sounds twice, you have a hundred count to take your place. The gong will sound twice again. The Act will begin. After the Act is over, the gong will sound four times. You have a hundred count to clear the stage, descend the ramp, and return to the tunnel. Questions?”

  Rheba had many questions, none of which Dapsl could answer. Apparently Kirtn felt the same way, for he kept his silence. Dapsl looked around, disappointed. After a moment he tossed his braids over his shoulder and turned away, rolling up the plastic sheet.

  “I’ll take that,” said Kirtn, reaching for the diagram of the amphitheater.

  The sheet slid out of Dapsl’s grasp before he had a chance to object. “What—“

  “The J/taals,” Kirtn said. “I’ll explain the layout to them. Fssa didn’t translate while you were talking because we know it annoys you. Rheba told them we’d explain later.”

  Dapsl stood, trying to think of a reason to object. “It’s the first time you’ve ever shut up that flatulent beast on my account.”

  Kirtn gave the Bre’n version of a shrug, a movement of his torso that revealed each powerful muscle. “Just trying to keep everyone calm. We’re all touchy, the closer the performance comes.”

  “Grmmm,” said Dapsl, his pale eyes narrowed. But he could think of no reason to object. “Be careful with it. Lord Jal bent the rules just to give us a writing stick and plasheet. If you ruin it, I can’t get another.”

  Kirtn started to reply, but saw Ilfn. He watched her come soundlessly into the room. Even so, Lheket sensed her return. He turned toward the door, his expression radiant.

  Kirtn wished that Rheba would show her feelings for him so clearly; but she would not. She had schooled herself to show as little of her feelings as possible since Deva died. Or perhaps it was simply that she had no such depth of emotion for him.

  He turned away from his thoughts and went to Ilfn. “I have the amphitheater plans,” he said in Senyas, his voice harsher than he meant it to be, residue of his thoughts. “Did you—”

  She held up a small pot made of swirls of blue-green glass. “I found everything we need.” She looked at Dapsl.

  “He doesn’t understand Senyas or Bre’n,” said Kirtn.

  “Good. I managed to speak with my contact for a few minutes while I got Rheba’s salve.”

  Rheba brought Lheket to his Bre’n. The boy’s smile was as brilliant as his sightless emerald eyes. Ilfn’s hand went out, stroking the boy’s face reassuringly. He turned and brushed his lips against the velvet of her palm.

  The gesture was so natural that it took a moment for its impact to register with Rheba. Her eyes widened. She studied the woman and the boy, using her fire dancer sensitivity. She found nothing but mutual love expressed in touches that were sensual without being explicitly sexual. Yet the potential for passion obviously existed. The thought disturbed her. Was sexual intimacy normal for a Bre’n/Senyas akhenet pair?

  Her memories gave her no immediate answer. She tried to recall her Senyas mother and her Bre’n father. Had they been lovers as well as akhenet pair? The memories refused to form. All that came was the incandescent moment of her parents’ death. She had deliberately not thought of her parents since Deva died. She found she could not do so now. It was too painful.

  “Rheba?”

  Kirtn’s questioning whistle brought her out of the past, “I’m fine,” she lied, shivering. Her eyes were dark, inward-looking, reflecting a time and a place that seared her mind. 'I’m fine.” Without thinking, she took his hand and rubbed her cheek against it, savoring the velvet texture of his skin. Her lips touched his palm. Then she realized that her actions were very like Lheket’s with Ilfn. She dropped Kirtn’s hand.

  “Rheba?”

  The whistle was soft, worried, as pure as the gold of his eyes watching her. “It’s nothing,” she lied, rubbing her cheek where it had touched his hand. “Nothing.” The last word was a whisper.

  Kirtn began to touch her, then retreated. He sensed that his touch was disturbing to her now. There was no reason for her to react that way—except that akhenets who were worked too hard became irrational. She must rest. Yet she could not. Concatenation Night was only two days away. “Why don’t you lie down, Rheba? Ilfn and I can explain the amphitheater to the J/taals.”

  “No.” Rheba’s voice was curt. She looked at Ilfn. “Did you get anything more useful than a smelly pot of goo?”

  The Bre’n woman hesitated at Rheba’s tone. She looked from the girl to Kirtn and back again. “The unguent will help you, fire dancer. Your akhenet lines are new. They must itch terribly.”

  Rheba, who was at that moment scratching her shoulder, said only, “We’ve more important things to worry about than my skin.”

  Kirtn took the pot from Ilfn and began rubbing the unguent into Rheba despite her protests. “Nothing is more important than your well-being. Without you, fire dancer, we would die slaves.”

  Rheba looked around as though seeing Dapsl and the J/taals and stone walls for the first time. Her voice was as brittle as autumn ice. She gestured to the plasheet. “Unroll it. Explain to Ilfn and the J/taals how we’re going to die trying not to be slaves.”

  XXI

  Kirtn started to say something, then did not. Rheba’s hair was shimmering, the ends twisting like ultrafine gold wires held over a fire. If she had any control left, she was not exerting it. Anyone who touched her would receive a jolt of energy that could range from painful to debilitating. But then, that was why Bre’n akhenets learned to control pain.

  Deliberately, he buried his right hand deeply in her hair. The air around her head crackled. A shockwave of energy expanded up his arm. His left hand clenched, the only outward sign of the agony that came when he drained off some of her seething energy.

  When Rheba realised what she had inadvertently done to him, she cried out an apology and jerked her hair from his fingers. Her eyes were huge and dark, pinwheels of uneasy fire stirring their depths. Without hesitation he put his hand into her hair again. This time the long golden strands curled around his arm like a molten sleeve. He smiled and smoothed her cheekbone with his thumb.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured. “I knew what would happen if I touched your hair then.”

  “Why did you do it if you knew?”

  “Unstructured energy is dangerous, fire dancer. You could have killed one of the J/taals just by brushing against them.” He smiled, then turned and left her side before she could say anything. As he walked over to the J/taals, clepts gave way before him. He stopped and spoke to M/dere.

  From his hiding place in Rheba’s hair, Fssa began to translate Kirtn’s words into the J/taal language. Startled, Rheba cached up into her hair. She had forgotten the snake was there. He felt very warm, hot, but seemed not to have suffered any damage in the outburst of energy Kirtn had triggered from her. Apparently the Fssireeme could deal with forms of energy other than sound waves. Nonetheless, she made a silent promise to remember the inconspicuous snake before she let her emotions get the better of her control.

  She walked over and stood next to Kirtn as he described the amphitheater to the J/taals. Fssa’s translation was simultaneous, unobtrusive, and an exact tonal reproduction of the person speaking. Ilfn stood on the other side of Kirtn, listening carefully. Next to her stood Lheket, a silent, shoulder-high presence who never stood more than an arm’s length from his Bre’n.

  After Kirtn finished, M/dere looked at the diagram for a moment, sheathing and unsheathing her claws as she thought. “The spaceport,” she said finally. “Where is it on this sheet?”

  “Over here and to the left,” said Ilfn, pointing to an area behind the amphitheater. “If we use the Bay Road, it’s more than five mie from here. But there’s an estate over . . .
here.” Her hand switched to the left side of the amphitheater. “It’s a Loo-chim park, closed to all but the Imperial Loo-chim and a few favorites.”

  “Then how do we get in?” asked M/dere.

  “From here. The park was part of the state complex once, Most of the buildings there are ruins now. Only the amphitheater is kept up. The tunnel system goes underneath all of it. I was told there’s a way from the amphitheater tunnel into the park. From there, it’s less than two mie to the spaceport.”

  M/dere looked at the map again. Ilfn’s moving finger had left no trace of its passage on the resistant plasheet. The J/taal leader stared, then called her clept. She bent over the waist-high animal, murmuring commands that Fssa did not translate. The clept opened its mouth, revealing serrated rows of teeth. On its fangs bright-blue drops formed. M/dere dipped an extended claw into the fluid and began drawing on the map. Clept venom smoked faintly, leaving behind vague, dark stains as it corroded the durable plasheet.

  “The tunnel exit . . . here?” asked M/dere.

  Ilfn gestured agreement which Fssa translated as a J/taal affirmative.

  “The park . . . here?”

  Again the affirmative.

  “The spaceport . . . here?”

  “A little farther to the right.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How big is the spaceport?”

  “I don’t know. Many mie.”

  “The J/taaleri’s ship . . . where?”

  Ilfn looked at Kirtn. “J/taaleri?”

  “Their employer,” he said. “Rheba.”

  Ilfn’s eyes widened. She glanced quickly at Rheba, then back to the map. “The ship is here, on the edge of the spaceport by the park. It’s a derelict yard, from what I was told.” She looked up at Kirtn, silently questioning.

  “The Devalon wasn’t derelict when we landed,” said Kirtn. “They probably put the ship in the derelict yard when they found out that the Devalon only responds to us.”