Songs of the Dancing Gods

CHAPTER I ENCOUNTER ON A LONELY ROAD

She watched him come from her heights, from her shadows, but then she had lost sight of him in the gathering gloom. And so she summoned the wind, and whispered softly to it in the silence.

“Bring him to me,” she commanded, as the wind whipped around her and played with the folds of her cloak. “Find him and bring him to me.”

The cold wind wailed a reply, then crept down into the hollows and sped across the barren hills of Mazra-dum searching for the one tiny figure below in the wastes and finding him, as a chill wind always could.

The tiny, gray-clad traveler on the weary roan horse looked even smaller against the majestic background of the badlands landscape, a place of rounded mounds cut into the land—end colored in dull candy stripes of all the various shades of rust and decay and where even the thin ribbon of water that snaked through its bottommost canyons was not clear or even mineral brown, but rather a milky, alkaline, and poisonous chalk white.

Here and there, the traveler and his long-suffering steed passed dull and slowly dissolving skeletons of many an animal who had attempted this place before and failed or, in desperation, had sipped from the white death that was at least something that moved in this place. The traveler pulled his cowl up to protect against the chill wind whose eerie moans and shrieks seemed like the trapped and hopeless cries of the lost souls who had never made it through the route he now attempted.

Now the trail hit a point where one could go either way, but there was no way to tell from the ground, hard as steel, which was the right way and which was the wrong, if there was such, and he stopped a moment, his face coming up from its weary downward cast. Eyes far older than the years of the traveler scanned the choices; the face was weathered and lined and covered with a full beard that obviously had just grown rather than been cultivated and had, for its trouble, been ignored by its wearer. The beard, like the tangled, shoulder-length hair revealed when the cowl slipped back, had been black once, but it was now tinged with gray bought by hard experience, not comfortable old age.

The man frowned, unable to decide which trail led to somewhere fruitful and also unable to decide at this point if it made much difference which route he chose. Yet he had not lost hope of attaining his goals; the eyes still burned with a fire only fanaticism brought, and the soul was still fueled by a singleness of purpose that said, success or death!

The sun was but an hour from the horizon; already the shadows grew long and the wind bolder, the temperature dropping fast under brilliantly clear skies. The horse seemed suddenly nervous and made a nervous sound as the wind came around and seemed to be speaking to its master.

“Which way? Which way? We know the way. We know the way…”

“The way to what?” he asked, rather sardonically, but without fear, his voice breaking the silence and echoing here and there, although he did not shout over the wind, speaking as he was to it—or what was within it.

“The way, the way… The way to safety, to warmth and comfort, to clean water and lush green fields…”

“You’ll not buy me that cheap,” he retorted. “Think you that I would be out here in this miserable place for lack of such things? I am the richest thief in Husaquahr! All those things were not enough!”

“To safety, to safety,,… Where neither man nor god will find you…”

He drew himself up straight in the saddle, pride dispelling his weariness of body and spirit. “I am the greatest thief in the history of Husaquahr!” he retorted in a regal tone. “I fear neither man nor god, having stolen from both, and never caught!” That was not quite true, he knew, but if one spit into the wind, better it blow back praise than cold spittle.

“A quest, a quest…He is under a geas and embarked upon a quest… ”

“No geas, not for such as I,” he told the wind. “I quest as I steal, not for others, but for my own pleasure and interests.”

“We can lead you there, lead you there… ” the wind asserted. “The wind goes everywhere and sees all things… The wind can find who or what you seek…”

“Persistent, nagging spirit! You are not even powerful enough to know in advance that I am on a quest, let alone for what it is that I seek! I, who have stolen the sacred jewels from the navels of gods themselves and plucked the rings from demons’ noses, will not be taken in by the likes of you! Now, be gone or be silent!”

“Who can silence the wind?” the wind mocked. “Who can banish it when it wants to caress? The wind which grinds the very rock to dust, which gives strength and power to fire or blows it out as only the wind chooses, who stirs the water and cools it and uses it to batter the shore? Who are you to command the wind?” it mocked in its screaming, eerie voice.

“Well, someone commands you” he responded. “You speak as a cat but you obey like a dog. Whose big-mouthed puppy are you?”

“Follow the wind,” it responded. “Follow the wind to that which you seek.”

He thought a moment, seeming almost amused by all this despite the grim setting. “All right, then—lead on. I might as well be somewhere before dark.” But he reached under his woolen robe to his tunic and touched his blade just to make certain it was ready.

It wasn’t difficult to tell the way, although it was the opposite of following just about anything else. You just headed the one direction that the wind was not, in this case to the left and up a bit, away from the deadly little white river.

It was near dark when he came to her, but she was not hard to find for all that. She sat there, crouching before a welcome fire, a delicate and mysterious figure in azure robes. His horse started a bit upon seeing her, but the traveler calmed him, then slid off the saddle and approached the lady at the fire.

She looked up at his approach, and he was struck by her dark beauty almost at once, as he’d suspected he would be. He was not certain how much of that beauty was real, but the fire was, and that was enough for the moment.

“Come, good sir, and be warmed by my fire,” she invited, in a soft, very sexy voice.

He seemed quite relaxed. “I thank you, Madam. It feels good after the chill your pet sent to me upon the sunset.”

She was puzzled by him, and by his casual manner, as if he knew not only her own secrets but all the secrets of the world. He was a small but very strong-looking man, with a big hawk nose and small, almost beady little black eyes that seemed to reflect the dancing flames perfectly.

“You do not seem at all curious about me, or how I came to be here,” she noted.

He sighed wearily. “Well, Madam, if you be here alone in this accursed place, then I take you to be either an enchantress or dead or of the world usually unseen—or perhaps all of them together. Whichever, you build a mighty good fire.”

That drew from her a bemused smile, and perhaps a hint of wariness in her eyes, for clearly this was no lost and innocent pilgrim, nor did he fit the mold of great hero or wandering adventurer. “Are you then a sorcerer who walks the land without fear?”

He chuckled. “As I told your blowhard puppy, I am—I was a thief. The greatest in all the land. That does not mean, of course, that I am without skills in the magical arts, but they are of a specialized sort. One cannot last long in my line of work without being able to beat all the systems, as it were.”

“And yet you do not fear me? Or is it, rather, the thrill of danger that propels your life and gives you energy and meaning?”

“That last is true for ordinary thieves,” he admitted readily, “and once, when I was young and did not know how very good I was, it was true for me. No longer. I have outgrown fear because it is a weakness that interferes with thought at the time one needs it most. I do not fear you, Madam, because I have already looked into the faces of horror far worse than even the undead can comprehend and it reams the soul of such inclinations. Nor is it that I have a choice. Better to sit here in the fire’s warm glow and speak with you than to wonder where or what you might be in the darkness. No, I cannot afford to fear you. Let us say, rather, that I respect your potential.”

That brought a slight smile to her lips. “Are you escaping, then, the pursuit of your latest escapade? Or are you, rather, going between here and there?”

“One is always going between here and there,” he responded lightly. “I have been on a quest for a very long time; a quest for a kind of magic that no one else can or will offer me and which is beyond my power to steal. It is quite frustrating, particularly for a master thief, to discover that there is something that you want and need that is beyond the power of the greatest thief to steal. I, who can beg, buy, borrow, or steal most anything any mind can imagine in this world, cannot have this one thing, so I must go searching for one who can supply it.”

“What is such a thing as that?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“I have been to the Other World and found it a world where magicks far greater than any dreamed of in Husaquahr are taken for granted even by the poorest folk, who buy miracles at a discount and never even think twice about it. Their magical devices are beyond number in kind and abilities and do things even the greatest of our sorcerers would find impossible to imagine. I have such devices, brought back with me from that expedition, but I soon discovered that they are not sufficient in and of themselves. The sorcerers of that Other World dispense their miracles on the cheap, but they retain the ultimate power, in that the magical spells required for their devices to work their miracles are transitory and need frequent or constant renewal.

There one merely pays gold and the spells leap from the walls into the devices, but here there is no such thing. In my ignorance, I believed that the devices I have would retain their spells even away from such sources, but even mere the sorcerers of the Other World are clever. The devices ultimately consume and devour the magical energy themselves, over time and use, and I can get no more here. Only a very few of our greatest sorcerers could even synthesize such things and they will not. I search for one who can and will.”

“These must be devices of great power for you to come so far and surrender so much to gain their powers,” she noted.

He sighed once more. “They deliver something of insubstantial value, really. The images of a great epic quest, possibly the greatest epic produced by the poets of the civilization of the Other World. It is long and magnificent, each act a work of unparalleled brilliance, mixing humor and pathos to a degree unknown here by our finest poets and bards. Once any mind capable of appreciating its genius beholds it, that mind cannot rest until it beholds the saga once more. The saga is there, as if the actors come out and perform their great play only for you and at your command, but beyond my power to view. Such frustration has driven me near madness. I must see it again, and it is there, yet beyond my sight!”

She seemed genuinely fascinated. “Go, tend to your mount, make camp here for the night, and when you are ready you must tell me of this great saga,” she said softly.

Whether witch, ghost, or creature, he was delighted to have an opportunity after brooding alone upon it for so long to talk of his great passion with someone new and eager to listen. Next to himself, it was the subject he loved to talk upon most of all. And, like the subject of himself, it was a subject almost nobody else wanted to hear him speak about.

She seemed very patient and understanding, even interested, and he was so very, very lonely. He knew not if she be nymph or goddess, demon or sorceress, but she was something right now that he needed very, very badly; the one thing he could not even steal in these trackless wastes.

She was an audience.

The wind which had been constantly swirling and twisting and screaming through the wastelands paused as well; the very air seemed impossibly frozen, the night still, yet oddly expectant. Although incredibly weary, his voice echoed from the dark walls unseen beyond the firelight with the strength and vigor of youth as the very experience brought forth his last reserves of energy, saved for just such an occasion as this.

And yet, there was still enough of the gentleman in him that he paused, after telling the Forty-Seventh Tale, realizing that he was getting so carried away he was not only imposing upon her hospitality, he was, worse, starting to improvise the tale after so long a time. And so he reached for his water flask, drank, and said, “But I have imposed far too much, and you have been gracious to hear me out beyond measure.”

“I do not mind,” she responded quietly, sounding very sincere. “This is not a place where interesting company often travels through, and, after you, it may be long until I hear a man’s voice again—and perhaps never one with such wondrous sagas to spin.” She paused a moment, staring at him. “But in truth it is I who have imposed. You are weary; the way from here is long and harsh. Rest if you like. Sleep and dream great dreams.”

He was mad, even he knew that much, but he wasn’t crazy. The quest, all the sacrifices, all the loneliness and travails, would be for nothing if he slept here now and failed to awaken the next morning; even worse if he did awaken, but undead, stranded here to serve her as slave forever, knowing he would never be able to fulfill his grand ambition.

“How come you here?” he asked her, the weariness which she noted now coming to him full as the energy stole quickly away. “What is your name and who and what are you?”

She seemed to shimmer slightly in the firelight, and the wind stirred a bit.

“I am cursed to be here,” she told him. “Once my people reigned over a great kingdom, but we were overthrown by treachery and sorcery, expelled and cursed forever to reign over waste and desolation, commanding none but wind and barren rock. We had great power,” she added wistfully, “but, obviously, not great enough.”

The weariness kept creeping over him; he felt himself nodding off in spite of his best efforts, his storytelling having drained him even more than the travel. “What was this kingdom,” he asked her, “and where? And what is your name?”

To know the name of an entity was to gain some power over it.

“I can be whoever you want me to be,” she responded evasively. “I can be the one who you desire most.”

She stirred, then, moving more into the firelight, and pulled back her veil, and he gasped and stared in spite of himself, and his jaw dropped.

“Mary Ann… ” he breathed.

For a moment all defenses were down, all rationality fled, as she came closer and closer to him. She was more beautiful even than he had remembered her, more sensuous than the fantasies that had gotten him through this much of his quest.

Now she was to him, and they were in an embrace, and for the briefest moment it was the closest to Heaven he would ever come, but there was something wrong, something that triggered all those defenses that had kept him alive all this time.

Through all that exotic perfume, she smelled like warmed-over horse dung.

He broke free of the kiss. “You—you’re not Mary Ann!” he gasped. “You—you’re all the rest!”

Where the strength came from he would never know, but he lashed out hard and shoved her away, unbalancing her for just a moment. As she staggered and tried to retain her balance, the wind began to swirl and then scream around him.

“I tried to make this pleasant,” she snapped. “Now we’ll have to do it the hard way. Look, how about you just relax and don’t fight it? After all, you have no strength left, and I did sit here and listen to that interminable crap for hours and hours!”

The wind began to swirl and scream at him.

It was as if all the gods suddenly supercharged him with energy. “Crap!” he exclaimed. “CRAP!”

His new energy and his sudden rage loosened her grip on his mind; the girl seemed to blur and fade out in the firelight, and a new, more sinister shape slowly emerged from the mass: A skeletal body covered with coarse brown fur; thin arms linked to leathery wings, and a ratlike face with eyes of burning coal and a mouth with pointed teeth designed only to rend flesh. …

Because he was small and seemingly fragile, enemies always underestimated his fighting skills. He was a thief, but not merely a thief—the greatest of all thieves, the King of Thieves. His tuning was always perfect, his instincts always correct.

Even as the creature launched itself at him, he did the most unexpected of actions and, instead of backing up into the darkness, off the cliff or against a rock wall, he leaped forward at the thing, drawing his short sword with one and the same action. They met virtually in the air, the creature totally unprepared for anyone to attack it, and the sword blade came up and made contact. The creature and the wind screamed as one, and the thing dropped back to the ground.

He didn’t let things go with that kind of blow. Instead, he leaped upon the wounded thing, and with strength that belied his size and his condition pushed back taloned claws set now not to tear his flesh but just to keep him away.

“Crap, huh?” The sword pointed down at the thing’s chest. “I’ll show you crap!”

The creature’s eyes widened. “No!” it screamed. “We can make a deal! Anything! Anything!”

“Ah, no! I know you now for what you are! Critic! The only thing worse than blasphemers are critics!” he snapped back. The sword came down. If the creature were of faerie, the iron in its blade would be pure poison to it; if it were of flesh, however foul, it was so solid a blow that it would almost be a coup de grace.

The fire flared like a torch, the ground trembled, and the wind seemed to go mad as the sword pushed through the creature’s chest as if through air itself, the thing’s flesh hissing as it passed. He rolled over and, catlike, was on his feet, wary, prepared to do more if it were necessary.

It was not, although the thing was rolling around and screeching horribly in its death agony, and the elements seemed ready to join in. Suddenly, the creature stiffened, its back arched, its wings sprawled, and, for a brief moment it almost looked as if it were gaining new strength, but it was the last brilliant blast of energy before it collapsed into a stinking, smoldering heap.

Wind and fire seemed to rise into the air, and a bright ball of energy suddenly sailed skyward and was quickly gone. A wind swept through, forming something, of a whirlwind over the still smoking body of the creature, then seemed to pause in the air.

“You… you killed her… killed her…” it moaned to him.

He stared at the secondary creature that had led him to her. “And what of it, elemental? Would you avenge her, you bag of hot air?”

The whirlwind seemed suddenly agitated. “No, no!” it responded. “We like the saga, we do, we do…”

’ “Then you shall pledge yourself to me through these wastes!” he shouted. “You shall bind to me, the killer of your mistress, until I leave your domain!”

“We bind… we bind…”

“Very well, then. Stand watch, while I sleep, and let no harm come to me or my horse while we rest, or you shall die the true death of dissipation!”

“We obey… obey… ”

He moved as far away from the stinking body as he could and prepared his bedroll. He settled down, but still could not quite rest.

“Elemental! A gentle breeze away from me, so I do not smell the odor of that carrion!”

Instantly a very light but steady breeze came from behind him and the air cleared. He was impressed. Air elementals were more useful than he would have thought. But he was still too keyed up, perhaps too overtired to sleep. He needed to relax himself after the events of the evening.

“Well, blowhard, you say you like the saga.”

“We do… we do…”

“Well, then, follow along, sing the great ballad with me.”

There was no response.

“Just sit right back…” he started, then stopped. “You’re not singing along!”

“We know not the words… the words…”

“Well, listen, then! And we’ll serenade each other on the ’morrow!”

“We obey… obey…” the elemental responded, sounding resigned.

Now, at last, he leaned back, relaxed and closed his eyes, and a smile grew upon his face. Yet, in spite of the hopes of the elemental, he did not quickly fade to sleep, but, instead, started again to sing the ballad that was prologue to the object of his sacred quest.

He drifted off to sleep, and the elemental, too, seemed to relax, perhaps more because the saga would not have to be endured further that night.

He slept soundly, the sleep of the dead, but, occasionally, through the night, he would stir, that smile would return to his sleeping face, and he would breathe a line of the refrain: “ ’Twas Gilligan, the Skipper, too…”