A Tale Of The Continuing Time - The Last Dancer Part 32

Dvan spoke with what dignity he could summon. "Follower, the Sentinel Mai'Arad'Marah," he said, and had to stop for breath for a moment, "bade us pray before the Opening Dance."

The girl shook her head swiftly. Her voice dropped to a whisper: "Sir, the Keeper isinside already."

"Oh." Dvan blinked, took a deep breath. "Well. Perhaps I will not pray after all. Perhaps," he said slowly, "I will go bathe instead. Doubtless I need it. Do you think?"

The girl simply stared at him, clearly uncertain what to say. Dvan grinned at her. "I suppose you must stay on the Gate?"

She took his meaning now; she looked down immediately. Her hair, long and unbound, obscured her features. "Aye," she whispered.

Dvan nodded. "Sometime again."

In the first minutes after Sunset, the Temple's First Gate was thrown open to the crowd. The quarters of the Shield prospects were a twenty-minute walk from the Temple, at the edge of town. By the time Dvan had reached it, his mates were bathed and changed into formal clothing. Except for Tamtai they did not wait for him, and he could not find it in him to blame them. Tamtai laid his clothes out while Dvan washed the sand and sweat off, and then tied Dvan's thongs while Dvan dressed. They ran most of the way back to the Temple, until they reached the center district, and then, with eyes upon them, slowed to a more dignified walk.

They just made it; they entered through the First Gate with the last of the crowd, day workers mostly, a few farmers, the sort of men who would not care much if they missed the Dance entirely. The First Gate swung shut behind them, and they made their way down the long pa.s.sageway, past the Temple proper, to the Temple Amphitheater. Dvan could already hear the karoki sticks, beating in rhythm, and he longed to run for their seats; but they were Shield now, at least until the Review said they werenot Shield, and they had the dignity of the Shield to uphold.

They pa.s.sed through the portal, into the Amphitheater proper. Neither Dvan nor Tamtai had time to look for his mate, and it probably would have done them no good if they had; if there were not forty thousand men in the Amphitheater, there were not many fewer. Tamtai found them a pair of seats together in the second deck. As Shield they might have claimed seats in the first deck, but it would have required hunting for a seat during the Opening Dance, and would surely have annoyed those sitting in the first deck-Shield; a few scattered lords of the Aneda in white shadow cloaks; and the Keeper's Daughters. A bare few of the Aneda were women who had once been Keepers; aside from those few, and the Daughters, there were no women in the crowd; breeders were hardly appropriate at the Dance.

The light posts that ringed the large dais faded to black as Dvan and Tamtai made their seats. Dvan could not help himself; it was far from the first Dance he had ever seen, but a fierce shiver ran up his spine as the darkness descended around them. The murmur of the crowd gentled into an antic.i.p.atory hush- They came in single file, a dozen men in scarlet, hoods raised to cover their faces. Dvan knew the names of two of them-the legendary Dancer Indo, one of the greats not just of this millennium, but of all time; and Sedon, a man not yet fifty, whose reputation had crossed the World already.

They ascended to the dais, and there, in the darkness, disrobed, and called down the Flame into the Continuing Time- -and Danced.

I am the Name Storyteller.

Words can no more contain the Dance of the Flame than electric ecstasy, or the feeling of hate, the song of a whale, or the smell of s.e.x. The Dancers moved in a certain fashion that could be described, and spoke words that could be marked down, and told certain stories that might be repeated; but these things are not the Dance; and if I told you the half of what they did and said, would take us into Story after Story after Story; and they are not the Story I have chosen to tell.

They are not Dvan's Story.

In the night it grew chill, and Tamtai joined Dvan on his mat. Dvan drifted, eyes closed, warm covers drawn up around them.

Tamtai lay with his head on Dvan's shoulder. He spoke quietly, so as not to be heard by their mates, sleeping nearby throughout the boy's barracks. "Dvan?"

"Hmm."

"The Dancer-"

Dvan knew who Tamtai meant, even without the name. "Aye?"

Tamtai spoke in a whispered rush. "When he spoke the Renunciation-'Tonight we are free, and the promises broken-I swear by Haristi, Dvan, I thought he was talking tome."

"You're supposed to, Tammi. That's the task of a Dancer, to bring the old truths to life for the crowds."

Tamtai was silent a moment. "You didn't feel that, that he was talking toyou?"

Weary and sore from the day's work, and in no mood for the conversation, Dvan nonetheless said gently enough, "Tamtai, by the name of my Name, I can't imagine what the Dancer Sedon might want to say to you, or me either." The boy yawned, and said as sleep gathered, "And what wouldI have to say to a Dancer?"

- 2 -.

The ship rolled slowly through the s.p.a.celace tunnel.

The walls of the tunnel pressed in upon the ship, a seething gray storm of lines and spheres enclosing the starship. The tunnel stretched as the starship rolled along its length, widened to accommodate its pa.s.sage.

Once gone the s.p.a.celace tunnel shrank back to its original dimensions.

For most of half a year, while the starship crawled the long distance to the distant planet of exile, the starship was all of Dvan's existence.

When he was not on duty, Dvan prayed, or walked the empty corridors of the huge starship. Existence began at the very center of the starship's sphere, at the gravity ball that gave the ship's crew and guards and exiles their weight. Some claimed to be able to feel a difference between the gravity at the center of the ship and that at the outer deck; Dvan thought that those who made the claim fooled themselves, for he had never noticed any difference in weight himself.

And at one hundred and thirty kilos, he surely ma.s.sed more than anyone else aboard the starship. If there was a difference to be felt, he would likely have been the one to feel it.

Arrayed around the gravity ball, on the First Deck, were the various control rooms, where the crew and engineers did Haristi knew what to keep the ship on course. There were rumors that the engineers used metalminds to aid them in navigation; if true, and Dvan had a sneaking suspicion it was, Dvan certainly did not wish to know about it. One of the great opponents the Flame People had faced during the Splinter Wars employed such metalminds; stories of the mechanical and electronic life forms that had arisen during the Wars were still used to terrify children.

In the ordinary course of the trip, Dvan knew the duty of the engineers was simple enough; only if the ship were unfortunate enough to encounter the warcraft of the sleem empire would they be called upon to truly exert themselves.

And then,thought Dvan without any cynicism whatsoever,for a rather short period.

For the Flame People did not surrender in battle, and once engaged, the sleem showed no mercy. In over 3,200 years, no ship of the Flame People had ever triumphed in combat against the sleem; some few had survived to escape.

They did not expect to encounter sleem, not on this trip. The starship's destination was far from the path of the empire's expansion.

Second Deck held most of the great ship's support equipment; the airplants and water-growing plants in one section; repair parts, tools and general reserve equipment in another-among them a dozen stasis bubbles, to store those who might be alive, but badly injured, until they could be returned to the superior medical facilities of the World.

Third Deck held quarters for the crew, the engineers and their women. It was the one deck where Dvan did not walk. His presence among them, in their private time off duty, would not have been welcome.

Not that they would have been rude; quite the opposite. But they feared him, and no overture from Dvan, or from any of the Shield, could change that.

Fourth Deck held the Shield quarters, including Dvan's, and the Zaradin Temple.

And Her place, the largest open s.p.a.ce aboard the great ship, larger than the enclosure that held the Temple itself. Had this been a purely military mission, either the ship captain or the Shield Sentinel, depending on whose length of service was greater, would have taken that place of honor.

To Dvan's knowledge, this was the first time a Keeper of the Flame had ever been aboard a starship, had ever left the World.

Fifth Deck held the exiles, and the Dancers imprisoned within their wards. It was the place where Dvan spent his duty time; it was the place where he walked most often, letting himself be seen by the over four thousand prisoners the Shield guarded.

Though he showed himself to the other Dancers, he rarely bothered stopping by the pentagram of the great heretic himself; he saw quite enough of the Dancer when on duty.

There were eight Dancers aboard among the four thousand, the balance being their followers, men and breeders who had chosen to accept exile with them. Twenty cells of two hundred each, with doorfields barred to all except Shield, sufficed for the four thousand. There were no Shield among the exiles; Shield who had followed Sedon had died, either by their own doing when defeat was clear, or at the hands of the Shield they had fought.

The exiled Dancers were the only Dancers aboard. The heretic had shown an uncanny ability to draw Dancers into his heresy, and the Aneda had thought it wise to avoid any chance of further contamination.

Sixth Deck sat beneath the outer sh.e.l.l of the starship. It was the largest of the decks, both in square floorage and cubic; the ceiling reached up five or six times a man's height. Antimatter missiles, dormant in their casings, waiting row upon row for the moment they would be needed, took up much of the free s.p.a.ce on Sixth Deck. Particle cannon protruded up through the sh.e.l.l of the starship, gave the starship's surface its slightly cratered appearance.

Field generators, dense and cold, squatted in the s.p.a.ces between the particle cannon. If they were called upon, it would mean the ship was in mortal danger, being fired upon by a sleem warship intent on destroying it.

A bare smattering of other weapons were mounted about; black hole generators, lethal if they penetrated the sleem defenses, but so ma.s.sive, and therefore slow, that no attempt to use one against a sleem warship had ever succeeded; antimatter mines and cl.u.s.ter bombs, largely defensive in nature, to aid a ship when it chose to flee; and a few other weapons that had rarely or never seen use in combat.

Sixth Deck had a viewport, a transparent opening in the hull that let out onto the s.p.a.celace tunnel.

In real s.p.a.ce, there would have been one or more crew up here, watching the panorama of the stars.

Inside the tunnel, only Dvan came, and seated himself, and watched.

In his first hundred days aboard the starship, the view had disturbed him, as it disturbed all the others.

But Dvan found himself drawn to it, and night after night, in the early hours before he was due for duty, he ended up seated alone on Sixth Deck, shadow cloak drawn up around himself to protect him from Sixth Deck's bitter chill.

The s.p.a.celace tunnels were not empty.

They held two shapes.

The first shape was that of the lines, long, twisting, and sinuous, weaving themselves around Dvan's disembodied awareness. The lines rarely touched, but when they did they came together as though embracing, as though-and Dvan knew the impression ridiculous-as though they were exchanging information.

The lines were all of a color, a deep, almost black shade of gray.

The second shape was the sphere, shaded in infinite levels of gray, from a pale chalkiness that at times fooled Dvan for a moment into thinking he had seen a white sphere, to a dusky gray that approached blackness. The spheres were all of different sizes; a very few were of a majestic size to equal that of the starship, so large that the walls of the s.p.a.celace tunnel bulged at their pa.s.sage as they had bulged at the pa.s.sage of the ship.

Likewise the lines, some thick and ropy, others of the thinness of a cutting laser.

They moved together, touching and tumbling, the lines and spheres. At first the movement had seemed random to Dvan, but as the days flowed by he began to see rhythm in their movement, a meaning in the dancing spheres, writhing lines, and shifting shades of gray.

He had an idea that, if he could only watch it long enough, he might learn something.

But he was only a Shield, with such religious instruction as was necessary for his position.

Had he received the full instruction of a Keeper, or a Dancer, he might indeed have learned something, as the Zaradin had learned, three and a half billion years prior.

But that is another Story, for another time.

Inevitably, as for all of us, duty called him.

The eight Dancers were separated from one another by as much s.p.a.ce as Fifth Deck could grant them.

The Shield Sentinel Mai'Arad'Marah, eldest and fiercest of the Shield aboard the prison craft, sat at the edge of the Dancer Sedon's pentacle, inside a warding circle. His shadow cloak, of deepest black, was pinned at the shoulder with the emblem of his w.a.n.k, the gold wheel of the Sentinel.

At his belt hung the kitjan.

At his feet sat a small stone cup that held black ink.

Marah rose at Dvan's approach, stood at the edge of the circle and touched foreheads briefly with the younger man.

Dvan had to bend a good bit for it. "I have the duty."

"I give it freely."

With a toe Marah erased a segment of the circle and stepped free. Dvan took his place and accepted the kitjan from Marah. He dipped his thumb into the still pool of black ink, used it to trace the circle closed.

He glanced at Marah when done. "Anything?"

Marah shook his head, said roughly, "He'll not speak to me. He knows better."

Dvan nodded, clipping the kitjan at his waist, and gathered his cloak about himself, sinking to the floor facing Sedon.

Marah left.

Silence descended around Dvan and Sedon.

In the distance Dvan heard the distant murmur of the rebels speaking; the doorfields kept them from moving about, but they did not bar sound.

The Dancers could not be stopped by doors. Walls would not hold them if they did not choose to allow it.

They were imprisoned in open s.p.a.ce, inside pentagrams that teams of Keepers had drawn, laboriously, over and over again, until the ink on the ship's deck was ten and twelve layers deep.

Sedon's pentagram had been drawn, chanted alive, and drawn again, over thirty times; the layers of ink made a visible ridge on the deck.

Flames, small and pale, danced at each of the pentagram's corners.

Sedon moved restlessly, his beautiful, sculpted form nude inside the confining pentagram. He had enough s.p.a.ce to move; enough to stretch out and sleep, enough to exercise, enough to Dance if he chose.

So far as was known, none of the Dancers had Danced on the trip out.

All of Fifth Deck was lit poorly, but the areas around the Dancers' pentagrams were lit more poorly yet.

Dvan was not certain why; perhaps it was some measure of support for the small Flames that lit the corners of the pentagrams, or of punishment for the Dancers inside.

Sedon's voice, sharp and piercing, rapped against Dvan's ears. "How are you today, my friend?"

Dvan did not correct the Dancer. "Well. Yourself?"

"Imprisoned, against my will. As yesterday, and the day before, and so forth." Sedons eyes-brown, Dvan thought, but he had never seen them closely, or in enough light to be certain-touched upon Dvan.

"Have you been fed well?"

"I will not complain of my food, only of my dignity. I c.r.a.p into metal while one of you watches, I cover it with metal, and slide it across the line. It is undignified for a Dancer to be used so."

"I can do nothing about that. We balance your needs against ours. Where we have been able to preserve your dignity, when measured against our needs for safety, we have done so."

Sedon stood silent, very still, looking at Dvan. His voice held no emotion. "I understand. I bear you no grudge."

Dvan spoke honestly. "I am pleased."

"Shall we step on with yesterday's conversation?"

"If you wish."

"You were born near Kulien?"