by Borderland
“I’ll tell you,” he said, “but you must decide. If you are to save me, you must claim me before the Lady and all the company.”
I gulped thinking of how much I hated speaking in public. “Sure,” I said.
“But first, you must win the right to claim me. And that means Dancing the Challenge.”
Then my heart froze. I’m just not a very good dancer. If it meant it was me against the Lady, there was no hope for him.
“Don’t you dance?” he asked quickly.
“Oh, sure I dance, but . .
“I didn’t see you dancing in the hall before.”
“You . . . noticed me?” I couldn’t believe it.
“I noticed you. You have beautiful hair.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never, ever heard anyone tell me that before. Not anyone I wanted to hear it from.
“Let me tell you about the Challenge,” he said. “It’s not what you think. The Challenge is not a contest, it’s a battle. A battle you win through your strength and your will. Style and grace don’t mean anything there, you know. They never do, they’re just the outer trappings of what’s inside. In the Challenge Dance only one thing matters: that you outlast your opponent.” He looked straight into my eyes. “You can do that, I think.”
“I’ll try,” I managed to say. “Is my opponent you, or her?”
“Me, I hope. I have the right to Dance for myself. But if the Lady enters the Challenge, too, it will be hard. Hard but not impossible.”
“I understand.” I swallowed dryly. “Do I have to do it now?” In front of my parents? he wondered silently.
“No, not tonight. And not in this place. Three nights from tonight will mark the turn of one year from the night my Lady first chose me. While we are here, she wants to taste all the pleasures of Bordertown. So we are going to dance at a club called the Dancing Ferret
that she’s heard about, to hear a band called the New Blood Review. Can you be there then?”
“Oh, sure.” I thought about ditching Scullion. And I thought about bringing Scullion; he’s a halfie, he can go anywhere. If things get rough, he’ll be good to have along. I’m still thinking about it. I want to do this myself. It’s not through Scullion’s strength and will that I can win him free.
“Thank you,” he said. “When you claim me, remember: my name is . . . you won’t be able to pronounce the elvin name. Here I would be called Silvan. Now listen.” To my surprise, he began to sing quietly:
Up she starts as white as the milk Between the king and all his company.
His fifteen lords all cried aloud For the bonny Lass of Engelsea.
She’s taken him all by the hand,
Saying, “You’ll rise up and dance with me,”
But ere the king has gone one step,
She’s danced his gold and his lands away.
She’s danced high and she’s danced low,
She’s danced as light as the leaf on the broken sea. And ere the moon began to set She has gained the victory.
Up then starts the fifteenth knight,
And O an angry man is he.
He says, “My feet will be my death Ere she gain the victory!”
He says my feet will be my death Ere this lass do gain the victory—
He’s danced fast, but tired at last,
He gave it over shamefully.
She’s danced off all their buckles and shoes,
She’s danced off all their gold and their bright money.
Then back to the mountains she’s away
The bonny Lass of Englesea!
His voice was soft and low, but I heard the song perfectly. It was a pretty tune, cheerful and eerie at the same time.
“You see?” Silvan said. “It’s been done before by a white-skinned maiden. An old, old song among us. The Challenge is not new.”
“How can you dance against me,” I asked, “when you want me to win? Won’t people think you’ll throw the match?”
“Not when the Challenge starts. I will not be truly free unless you’ve won me fairly.”
“I will.”
He leaned forward, and I thought he was going to kiss me. And I would have let him. Maybe to have the mouth that the silver Lady owned be pressed against mine; and maybe because he was alone and I could help him and for once kissing felt like a prize I deserved, instead of a present some boy felt obliged to give me even though I was ugly.
It still scares me to think how much I wanted that kiss.
But I didn’t get it. He leaned back with a sigh. “You are gracious,” he said. “May the Stars always guide you Home.”
It was too late to explain his mistake, if it was one. Because that’s what the elves in Bordertown say only to each other. Did he really think I was an elf the whole time? A halfie? Doesn’t he know? Doesn’t he care? Can’t they tell their own kind, even in the dark?
I can’t help my hair.
I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. I’m going to do it. I said I would help him, and I will. He needs me, and there’s nobody else to do it.
III.
I’m not going to die. I only think I am.
I went to the Dancing Ferret. That part wasn’t hard. I even told Lena and Randal where I was going—-just not who I was coming home with. Soho makes my parents nervous—too much weird stuff happens there— but they know you can’t play it safe forever, and having a daughter who never went anywhere the other kids go would make the family look just as bad as having one who got into a Soho brawl.
Also, Scullion takes a lot of the risk out of it. Or so I thought. And I didn’t see any way of giving him the slip. So I let him follow me to the Ferret.
I felt like I was going to war. I chose my clothing carefully, for wear and not for show: fitted tights that moved when I moved, soft boots, and a loose tunic without sleeves. Dancing for hours at the Ferret can really make you sweat, and tonight I meant to dance like I never had before. I tied my hair up off my neck with a twist of bright rag. My one really splashy accessory was a pair of earrings I’d just gotten the week before from one of the street people: miniature machine parts carved out of wood and painted silver to look like steel. I thought they were the greatest. I’m going to burn them.
Over the whole outfit went a giant wrap of elf cloth: black with silver spangles, like the night sky. My mother says it’s too old for me, but I bought it with my own money, and Randal says it looks terrific.
Then I went out into the night. God, what a feeling!
Autumn chill in the air and darkness beckoning. I found myself whistling, but for a second I didn’t recognize the tune. Then I realized what it was: Silvan’s “Bonny Lass of Engelsea.” Pleased with myself, I whistled it louder.
I crossed the Mad River on the arched bridge they call the Dragon’s Claw. Usually I like to pause at the crest of the Claw to take in a really good view of the city below; but tonight it was rush-rush-rush, my heart beating in my ears like the river rushing under the bridge pilings. Behind me Scullion’s steady footsteps echoed the beat. I heard a strain of music, and realized he’d picked up my tune: “Up she starts as white as the milk . . . She’s danced light as the leaf on the broken sea . . .”
Under the Old Wall, then, with a nod at the punk guarding it. Ahead of me people were rushing, too, kids with a sense of the night, the glitter, and the dancing ahead.
It felt good to be in Soho, where anything could happen, where gangs who were as tough as I was going to have to be, and as desperate, held their rule. It felt good to be going alone, to meet someone I wanted to see.
Then I got to the club, and all my nervousness came rushing back with the business of getting in, paying my fee, adjusting my eyes to the gloom, and finding someplace to stand among all the people already crowding in to hear the Review.
I looked around for Silvan and the Lady. There’d been a lot of talk about tnem the last few days. More than one girl at the elf school around the corner from ours had been going around dressed in silver. And one from
ours had abruptly gotten over her crush on Eadric Vole, lead singer for Magical Madness, and was trying to find out what clubs the Lord and Lady would be going to. It made me feel funny to hear other people talk about them. They didn’t know. I think Lena must feel this way when she hears people in the market talking politics.
Politics had been rough lately, too. Ever since the ball, Lena and Randal had been complaining to anyone who would listen about how rotten things were in Council and out of it. The elves were making trouble, finding insults in everything from seating arrangements to old laws nobody’s disputed for twenty years. The most annoying thing, Randal said, was how much they seemed to be enjoying it. On the streets elves are usually controlled and distant; there it’s the hot-blooded humans who pick fights. There’s even a saying, “Cold as elf blood.” But when it comes to politics, elves seem to like it hot. It gives them a chance to be good and arrogant, I guess.
With Randal and Lena under pressure, and me almost jumping out of my skin with nerves over the upcoming Challenge, home had been tranquil as a pit of dragons. I could imagine what it would be like when I brought Silvan home.
It wasn’t very exciting, but that was the best thing I could think of to do with him. My parents’ house is very safe, and here he’d have time to think about what he wanted to do next. I know what I hoped he’d want . . . but being Lena’s daughter has taught me some sense. You don’t run off with an elvin Lord when you’re sixteen and human. Rescuing him from the Lady was bad enough. I only hoped there wouldn’t be an Incident. I knew Lena and Randal wouldn’t exactly be pleased to find him on their doorstep, but I figured when I explained how much he needed help they’d understand.
If this doesn’t sound like I’d thought it all out too clearly, it’s true: I was really too worried about the Dance to put much thought into what would happen after. I wasn't even sure there’d be an after.
There certainly wouldn’t be if Silvan and the lady didn’t even show up at the Ferret. I looked around, hard. They were a hard couple to miss. And they were nowhere in sight.
I was early, I thought. They weren’t there yet. They weren’t even coming. I’d gotten the day wrong. They’d been already and left.
They came in the door.
This time no one went down on their knees, but everyone was looking, human and elf. Farell Din himself went over and said something to the Lady that made her laugh.
The New Blood Review got going with “Free Me.” They were ten times better than the band at the ball had been, did things with the music I would never have dreamed of. They had no singer, but I remembered the words:
Rope me to the wind and set me free,
Ten thousand volts is not enough
To free me . . .
The Lady and her Lord came onto the dance floor. In my stomach, someone was beating a cat to death. I kept thinking, Why did I wear these earrings, they look so dumb. . ..
Then I went up to Silvan and took his hands.
The Lady looked over her shoulder, amused. Then she must have realized what was happening. She shook her head at him, reached for his hand that wore her ring. But I held his hand safe in mine. I looked into his pale, still face. The music was too loud to hear anything, but I made my lips say, “I am not afraid.”
Silvan’s hands were impossibly cool, the bones almost weighdess. Mine felt sweaty and grubby by contrast. Then I felt the tingle of wild magic in them, and the beat of the music got into my blood. . . .
I’ll never dance like that again. But it was worth it, for the one night. Like my whole body was music, like the band couldn’t play unless I was moving the beat. . . . I had my eyes closed a lot of the time, so as not to see the people watching me, and to better feel the bass in my bones, the shrill licks come off the top of my head. I didn’t really care what I looked like, for the first time in my life. I got hot, the sweat ran down my chest. For once at the Ferret it felt like there was no one trying to dance in my space, and when I opened my eyes, I saw there wasn’t. The whole floor around us was clear. Silvan was dancing elvin and liquid, putting little twists into the beat with his hands, his feet. It was great to watch, but I couldn’t stop, and I didn’t dare try to mirror him, for fear of losing what I had.
The band just kept going, riffing like crazy on that one tune, over and oxer, free me, free me, free me . . .
I smiled at him, and he smiled back. He didn’t look that old. For a moment, we were just what we were supposed to be: two kids having fun, out free in the hottest spot in the World or out of it: the Dancing Ferret, Soho, Bordertown, Borderland, the Universe.
Then, with a flourish of silver, the Lady was there. She didn’t touch him or me, just started dancing in the open space where we were. Her hair was braided all over her head, with silver bells woven in. You couldn’t hear them, of course, but they trembled when she moved.
She looked better than both of us put together. I tried not to care. It wasn’t fun she was having, just some old power probably my mother’s age (more, if the stories about elves are true), trying to stay young by picking up some kid like Silvan, who’d probably never been to a decent club before in his life. . . .
As if she were pulling them in, the space around us started to close up with dancers. Everybody was on the floor, more people than I thought the Dancing Ferret could hold. They were crowding us out, so close it was hard to do anything but shuffle to the beat. And the beat was hard, now, all bass and drums, no lightness even of cymbals. Like there was no tune at all, just a steady thump like footsteps, a giant heart.
Now I wanted to stop. I couldn’t even see Silvan. I couldn’t see anything but some tall person’s shoulder. For all I knew, he was gone, dropped out already, and I could stop. I was thirsty, and the bottoms of my feet ached. The beat was jerking me like a puppet, not free me, just me—me—me—me—
Then the treble, faint and faraway over the bass, sweet and clear . .. the jingle of silver bells, the Lady’s laughter.
I stayed on my feet. I didn’t lean on the other dancers. And when the music came back and the floor cleared down to normal, I was there and the Lady was there, and her Lord was gone. He was gone. He “gave it over” to me, and the Challenge was mine.
Still I didn’t stop. I wanted to outlast her. The rules to the Challenge were strange to me, and he’d warned me something like this might happen. Since the Lady had entered the Dance, it might be that I had to go on to keep Silvan free from her. I wouldn’t dance with her, but I’d dance against her. Nobody fresh from Elfland was going to outdance me. I was Bordertown, Dragon’s Tooth Hill, and we bowed to no one.
It’s pure charity to say I was really dancing. Moving to the music, maybe. My tunic was so wet it was sticking to me. But the Lady wasn’t doing much better. More graceful, maybe, but not too exciting to watch anymore. The Glamour had gone out of it. It was going to end with two wet little heaps on the floor at this rate, I thought.
I’d reckoned without that good old elvin style.
She stopped.
Right at the end of a song, she simply threw back her head, brushed a few wisps of hair out of her eyes, and shrugged. Elegantly, of course.
I didn’t know what to do. Had she thrown the contest? Or was there no contest? Maybe she just didn’t think I was worth fighting with: no glory in beating some gawky little human girl.
Or maybe she’d been afraid to lose. Afraid to look sweaty and tired and as though she actually cared about anything. She didn’t care about Silvan.
I saw him making his way to me through the press of people. His face was paler than even an elfs should be. Wordlessly, he took my hand. And he looked at me like there was something I should do. Something more.
I was scared to look at the lady, but I made myself do it. She was smiling, looking like she’d won. But she hadn’t won. I’d won.
“I claim Silvan,” I said to her.
She couldn’t hear over the noise, but she knew what I’d said. The smile vanished from her face like the glue that had bee
n holding it on had suddenly come unstuck.
“Take him,” her lips moved. That was all. Then she turned away, back into the crowd that was already dancing to a new song.
We threaded our way out of the Dancing Ferret, out into the cool darkness of Carnival Street, still holding hands. I could feel the ring on his finger, his Lady’s ring, elvin-cold against my skin. I didn’t look to see if Scullion was following me. I’d won Silvan, and that was all that mattered. Nothing could hurt me tonight. An entire gang of Bloods could jump me; I’d break their heads and play dice with their teeth.
I led my Lord through the streets of Soho, past graffiti-glittering walls. He finally pulled me to a halt to lean against one of them, still catching his breath. He looked so fragile. There was none of that elvin arrogance. Had I really outdanced him? And didn’t he know yet what I was?
I guess not. He pulled me to him like he was terribly cold and needed me to warm him. And I lifted my head and got that kiss I’d wanted so much at the ball.
Even now, it feels better to remember the way it was then. Magic, it felt like magic all through me. I’d never been so happy. I’d almost stopped being me. I felt grateful and triumphant, both at once.
That was all there was. His mouth was still on mine when 1 felt a tremendous crash on the back of my head, and the world fell away from me.
I came to in a blurry room full of sunlight. I was home. My parents were sitting next to my bed, talking over my head, in the middle of a quiet argument.
. . better that way,” Randal was saying.
“Not this time, love,” Lena said firmly. “She should know as soon as she—”
She stopped as soon as she saw my eyes were open.
“What?” I said hoarsely. “What’s going on? Where’s Silvan?”
“You’re all right, honey, Scullion brought you home.” Randal sounded real gentle, the way he did when I was truly young. It made me want to cry. “Here’s something for you to drink. Let me help you sit up.”
“My head hurts,” I said, like a little girl. "What happened? Is Silvan all right?”
“He’s fine,” Lena said. “Drink your medicine.”