Dancer's Luck

by Ann Maxwell

  “Longer,” he grunted, shifting his grip.

  The lever became longer but not thinner. Fssa simply increased the space between his densely packed molecules to achieve a greater length with no sacrifice of strength.

  The slab grated against the tunnel floor. A shower of small rocks fell over Kirtn. He ignored them. “Can you bend around the rock and still give me enough length?”

  Fssa changed again. Kirtn took a deep breath and heaved against the bar with a force that made the slab shudder.

  “Get back!” he called hoarsely over his shoulder.

  Daemen and Rheba backed away. They could not take their eyes off the straining figure of the Bre’n. In the eerie light of the tunnel he looked like a creature out of myth, taking the weight of eternity on his own shoulders so that lesser beings would not be crushed.

  Kirtn’s hands slipped, oiled by sweat and blood. He swore and shifted his grip.

  Fssa changed subtly, roughening his exterior. Kirtn felt the new texture as pain across his bloody palms, but he welcomed it. He strained against the bar. The slab shifted minutely. He pushed again and again and again.

  The slab tottered but would not fall.

  “Make yourself wider at my end if you can,” panted Kirtn.

  The part of the lever he had held changed until it was as broad as both his hands held together.

  “Good,” grunted Kirtn, wiping his slippery hands on his thighs.

  He reversed his position, turning his back on the bar. With bent knees he braced himself between the bar and the side of the tunnel. He breathed deeply several times . . . and then he straightened his legs.

  The boulder shivered, grated horribly and fell forward into the tunnel. Somehow Kirtn spun out of the way in time to avoid being crushed.

  “Fssa!” cried Kirtn, looking frantically in the rubble for his friend.

  A thin whistle answered. The Fssireeme slithered out from the shadow of the slab. Bre’n blood and pulverized rock coated his body, concealing his normal metallic brightness beneath a grubby patchwork of gray and black.

  Kirtn snatched Fssa out of the rubble. “You’re beautiful, snake.”

  Fssa glowed in shy delight. It was the one compliment he could never hear often enough, for he had spent eons believing himself to be repulsive in the eyes of the Fourth People.

  “Are you all right?” asked Rheba, hurrying forward.

  “Yesss.” The answer was as much a satisfied hiss as a word. “But Kirtn almost bent me that last time.” Twin sensors changed colors with dizzying speed. “Your flesh isn’t like mine, Bre’n, but you’re strong just the same.”

  “Strong!” Daemen laughed shortly. “He’s more than strong, he’s—” The Luck made a baffled gesture, finding no words to describe Kirtn’s strength.

  Kirtn flexed muscles that knotted and quivered painfully. He felt about as strong as a gutted cherf. With a suppressed curse, he turned back to the barrier.

  “Wait,” said Fssa. “Put me in the opening.”

  Before Kirtn could respond, Rheba took the Fssireeme. She scrambled over the slab until she could place him in the opening created when the huge boulder had toppled into the tunnel. Then she retreated, not wanting to be near while Fssa probed the altered dynamics of the rockfall.

  She created two more balls of light and examined Kirtn. Her lines pulsed in protest at what she saw, but she said nothing. The bruises and scrapes she had expected. His hands, however, made her ache. Even as she watched, blood ran silently down his fingers and dripped onto the stone tunnel floor.

  He jerked his hands away from the light, but she was faster. Her fingers closed around his wrists. Energy crackled. Instantly, his hands were numb. “I can’t work that way,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Without looking at him, she summoned fire in her fingertip and burned off strips of her green cape. She wrapped his injuries carefully, ignoring Daemen, ignoring Fssa, ignoring everything but her Bre’n’s battered hands. When she was finished, only his fingertips were free.

  “Rheba,” gently, “I still can’t work. My hands are numb.”

  “As soon as Fssa’s finished,” she snapped. “Or are you in a hurry to hurt again?”

  Kirtn brought her hand up to his cheek. She avoided his eyes, but her anger was transmitted in images of fire. He kissed her hand, silently thanking her, unruffled by her anger. He knew that her emotion came from her inability to prevent further pain to him. He did not point out the illogic of her reaction; were their roles reversed, his response would have been even less rational.

  “It’s not as safe as it was,” called Fssa from the tunnel, “but it’s as safe as it will ever be.”

  Kirtn looked at Rheba and waited. Reluctantly, she touched his wrists again, drawing away the energy that had blocked messages of pain. Other than a slight narrowing of his eyes he showed no reaction.

  “Doesn’t he feel pain?” asked Daemen wonderingly.

  Her hair hissed and seethed. “Yes!”

  Daemen hesitated, then seemed to decide that even the Luck should not press an angry fire dancer. In silence, he followed her back to the barrier.

  Beyond the slab, none of the rocks were much larger than Kirtn’s chest. He worked steadily, sending rocks back over his shoulder as fast as Rheba and Daemen could carry them away. Fssa alternated between being a lever and listening for the first hint of shifting stones.

  A shower of rocks tumbled from the ceiling of the narrow tunnel Kirtn was digging. Fssa snapped out, becoming a hard sheet stretching across the tunnel above Kirtn’s head. After deflecting the worst of the rockfall, the Fssireeme changed into a shape that allowed him to probe the stability of the rocks that surrounded them on three sides. Kirtn waited, staring at the bloody shreds that were all that remained of his bandages.

  “It isn’t safe,” said Fssa finally.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” snapped Kirtn, his exhaustion showing in his ragged voice. “At least it would be a quick way to die,” he muttered, grabbing a rock and heaving it over his shoulder for Daemen and Rheba to carry away. “Dehydration isn’t.”

  Fssa said nothing from any of his possible mouths. His silence, as much as the languid way he resumed his customary shape, told Kirtn that something was wrong with the Fssireeme.

  “Did you hurt yourself in the rockfall?” asked Kirtn, picking up the snake.

  “No . . .” There was a long pause. Then, “Rocks can’t hurt a Fssireeme.”

  Kirtn realized that Fssa was cold in his hands, colder even than the rocks. He remembered that the more Fssa stretched out, the more heat he needed to maintain himself. He had been moving over chill stone, probing for instabilities, listening for the first tremors of a rockfall and finally thinning himself into a sheet to protect Kirtn from falling stones. Fssireemes were tough creatures, but they had their limits—especially where cold was concerned.

  “Take some of my heat,” Kirtn said, looking at his arms, where sweat and rock dust coated his fine copper fur. “I’ve got plenty to spare.”

  “No.” The answer was flat.

  “This is no time to be coy!”

  “No.” This time the answer was an anguished Bre’n whistle, carrying with it all of Fssa’s shame at his heritage as a parasite who lived off warmer creatures’ body heat.

  Kirtn was too tired to think of an argument to equal Fssa’s shame. Rheba was more practical. She sent minor lightning coursing through the tunnel until incandescence ran like water over the Fssireeme.

  Kirtn threw a protesting glance toward Rheba. In the cold tunnel, she simply did not have energy to spare. She stared back at him, cinnamon eyes burning. “Without Fssa, you would have been knocked silly by those rocks. Without you, we’d die.”

  “Next time,” said the Bre’n to Fssa, “use me.”

  Daemen simply stared. “I thought I’d seen every kind of weird creature on Loo,” he said, looking at the Fssireeme glowing softly in Kirtn’s bloody hands, “but that snake is the other si
de of incredible. Can’t it make its own heat as we do?”

  “No,” said Rheba, her voice tired.

  “Then how does it survive?”

  “There’s work to do,” cut in Kirtn, knowing that Fssa would be mortified by any discussion of his peculiar physiology. “Save your breath for lifting rocks.”

  “Do you always make heat for the snake?” continued Daemen, looking at Rheba. “If you make heat, why don’t you warm the tunnel? It’s cold enough in here to make a stone shiver.”

  “She can’t make heat from nothing,” snapped Kirtn. “When there’s no external source of energy, she has to use her own body. If you’re cold, work more and talk less.”

  Daemen was too busy trying to figure out his companions’ peculiar biologies to be insulted. He smiled at Rheba, a smile that could warm the coldest of Deva’s hells. “If you need energy, I’d be delighted to share mine.”

  Kirtn snarled soundlessly and attacked the remaining barrier. Rocks skidded down the tunnel, narrowly missing The Luck. Fssa whistled a protest—not at the barrage, but at Kirtn’s reckless disregard for the barrier’s stability.

  Kirtn ignored the snake’s warning and continued moving rocks at a dangerous pace. Fssa protested again, then realized what any Senyas would have known: An angry Bre’n listens to nothing but his own rage unfolding. The Fssireeme wasted no more time carping. He braced part of himself on the tunnel floor and probed the rockfall with a burst of energy that made Rheba stagger and grab her temples.

  She turned in startled protest just as the front part of the tunnel shifted. Kirtn whistled shrilly. The Bre’n warning needed no translation. Daemen grabbed Rheba and yanked her out of Kirtn’s burrow before she could protest.

  “Kirtn!” she screamed, looking over her shoulder where rocks shifted and slid coldly over one another.

  “You can’t go back!” said Daemen, struggling to hold her. “The rest of the tunnel could go any second!”

  She looked at him with eyes that were blind with fire. He released her a split second before she would have burned his hands to the bone. She turned and dove into what remained of the tunnel. Her frantic whistle cut through the random sounds of settling rocks.

  Fssa answered with an odd whistle, so thin that it almost could not bear the weight of Bre’n complexity.

  “Is Kirtn—are you—?” Her whistles were ragged, breathless.

  Kirtn groaned. She heard rocks shifting. Fssa whistled again, the sound still flat. She moved rocks frantically. The tunnel had only partially collapsed. Within minutes, she had cleared enough debris to reach Kirtn.

  “Kirtn?” she whistled, peering through the dust. She coughed and whistled again. Even when she stepped up the power of her light, she could not penetrate the darkness enough to see her Bre’n. She felt around with her fingers, searching for the warmth and resilience of Kirtn’s flesh. What she found was a smooth, cold sheet between herself and whatever lay at the end of the tunnel. “Fssa?”

  A strained whistle answered, sound without meaning. She realized that she was touching the Fssireeme . . . and that he was cold. When she tried to give him fire, her lines only flickered. Like her friends, she was near the end of her strength. She would have taken Daemen’s energy if she could, but only a Bre’n could establish the necessary rapport.

  Deliberately she slowed her breathing, murmuring akhenet litanies until her heart stopped pounding messages of fear through her body. She built a shell of tranquillity around herself. Wrapped in its shelter, wholly focused, she called on her Inmost Fire.

  The call was an emergency measure taught to all dancers, a state almost like Bre’n rez. It was so dangerous to the dancer that it was rarely used.

  Fire beat in her veins like another kind of blood. Her body turned on itself, consuming reserves of fat and flesh. Energy poured into the Fssireeme. With a soundless cry he soaked up life itself.

  Beneath him, shielded by Fssireeme flesh, Kirtn groaned and woke to darkness and pain. For a moment he did not know where he was. When he remembered, he groaned again. He felt around himself, expecting to find the dimensions of his tomb. What he found was Fssireeme, a canopy of incredible flesh between himself and the rockfall.

  And then he sensed energy flowing, fire-dancer energy, Rheba pouring herself into Fssa so that her Bre’n would not be buried alive.

  “Kirtn?” Fssa’s whistle was odd, but understandable.

  “I’m here, snake,” said Kirtn. “Which way is out?”

  “Dig in front of your head. It isn’t far,” he added.

  Kirtn burrowed like a cherf, taking debris from ahead and shoving it back along either side until he could force his body forward. Fssa stretched with him, a protective membrane. Kirtn bunched his shoulders, using his hands as clubs to batter out of the rockfall.

  Light came in like an explosion. A triumphant whistle carried back into the tunnel. He pulled himself out into Daemen’s thin daylight, but it seemed as thick as cream after the tunnel’s midnight.

  “Can Rheba—get through?” he asked, panting.

  “She’s very weak,” whistled Fssa, ashamed that he had caused it.

  Kirtn threw himself back into the burrow. When he found Rheba, he hauled her unceremoniously into the open. He buried his hands in her lifeless hair, forcing rapport as only a Bre’n could. Skillfully, he gave her some of his own energy. After a moment she sighed and awakened.

  Daemen emerged from the burrow covered in grit. He laughed and stretched as though to hold the sun in his hands. “The Seurs were wrong!” he said exultantly. “I am Good Luck incarnate!”

  The burrow collapsed with a grinding sound as Fssa slithered into the light. “I hope so,” he said sourly. “We’re too tired to fight.”

  “Fight?” asked Daemen, confused.

  With a sinking feeling, Kirtn turned and looked over his shoulder.

  Ten Daemenites stood nearby, watching with predatory intensity. They were armed with knives and slingshots powerful enough to smash bone.

  Kirtn glared at Daemen and wished he had spaced the unlucky cherf when he had the chance.

  XV

  Daemen turned toward the ten people and spoke rapidly. Fssa translated, but manipulated his voice so that only Kirtn could hear.

  “I’m The Daemen,” he said, walking confidently toward the waiting people. “Are you Square One Seurs?”

  The people muttered among themselves, but their lowered voices could not elude a Fssireeme’s sensitive hearing. Rheba scooped up the snake and stood very close to Kirtn. Fssa vanished into her hair. His voice remained behind, seeming to form out of the very air between her and the Bre’n.

  “. . . Luck? . . . told me that trouble was coming,” said a woman with startling red hair and skin as black as the tunnel had been.

  “You can’t trust the Voice. Sometimes it . . .” retorted a man with luxuriant silver fur on his arms and face, and eyes of a startling pink.

  “Have you considered the possibility of . . .” cut in a woman whose skin alternated between brown and gold.

  Fssa made a frustrated noise. His hearing was too good. It picked up overlapping sounds, making little sense of the group’s muttering. Their dialect was different from Centrins’ speech. It was not different enough to require learning the language all over, but enough to make translating group babble impossible.

  Kirtn and Rheba listened without appearing to. Daemen made no attempt to hide his curiosity. He seemed a bit piqued that they had not responded to The Luck’s presence with more appreciation.

  “Are you Seurs?” he demanded.

  “We’re Scavengers,” said the red-haired woman proudly.

  “That’s close enough,” answered Daemen, smiling. “Are you the leader, First Scavenger, or whatever you call it?”

  “Super Scavenger,” said the woman. “No . . . not yet.” She looked at Kirtn and Rheba possessively. “But when I return with those two, Ghun will be back on scout.” She squinted at Daemen. “The Luck, eh? That should be worth a few e
xtra points.”

  Daemen took a moment to digest the implications of the woman’s odd words. “Is Ghun the Super Scavenger?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Only until I get back with the three of you,” the woman said, nodding her head emphatically. “Then I’ll be Super Scavenger. Unless—” She leaned forward and looked anxiously along the cliff face where the tunnel had emerged. “You Seurs have any more of those holes?”

  “No. That’s the only mover that still works.”

  The word “mover” was obviously unfamiliar to the woman. She squinted at Daemen, then moved her shoulders as though to shake off doubts. “Then no other scouts are going to come back with more Treats?”

  “Treats?” Daemen’s tone was as perplexed as his expression.

  “Treats,” agreed the woman. Then she realized that Daemen did not know what she was talking about. “They must do things different on the other end of that hole. Around here, strange things are called Treats. The Scavenger who brings in the best Treats is the Super Scavenger until the next Hunt. But we haven’t seen anything like those two. Ever. So I should be Super Scavenger for a long time.”

  “Ahh . . . excuse me,” said Daemen. He turned toward Rheba and Kirtn and switched to Universal. “Apparently they play some kind of elaborate game here. Scavenger Hunt. Whoever brings in the strangest thing becomes the Super Scavenger until the next Hunt.”

  Kirtn and Rheba made encouraging noises.

  “We,” continued Daemen, “are very strange. Therefore, we’ll be the winning Treats.”

  Kirtn did not like the idea of being anyone’s Treat. “What happens to the Treats after the Hunt?”

  Daemen hesitated. “Excuse me.” He turned back to the red-haired woman. “What do you do with your Treats?”

  She stared at him, unable to believe that even a stranger could be so ignorant. “We give them to God, of course.”

  “You give them to God. Of course.” A glazed look came to Daemen’s eyes. Then, loudly, “What in the name of other does that mean?”

  The people around the red-haired woman grabbed their weapons. She made a cutting gesture with her hand. They let go of their whips and slingshots, but fondled their knives with disturbing intensity.