Six Moon Dance Part 9

"Correct," said Madame, with an admonitory look at Mouche. "Men are taught to dismiss the need for babying as mere 'female stuff,' that is, foolishness, but this nurturing does not seem foolish to women. Women are hungry for affectionate words and that's why we have conversation mistresses: to teach you to use them! Your colleague or brother may accept your striking him forcefully and addressing him as 'You old mismothered b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' Your patroness will not do so.

"We do other things similarly. We teach you to dance in ways that make your patroness feel skilled and graceful. We teach you to stack a deck of cards so your patroness will win the game if at that moment she needs to win a game. Simon or Jeremy are skilled cheats, and they will teach you how to do it.

"Now, in order to make a woman contented, we must be alert to the stories she creates about her own feelings. It is important for you to recognize when your patroness is inventing.

"Let us suppose that on some other world a young woman falls 'in love' with an utterly unsuitable young man. Describe an unsuitable young man, Battel."

Bartel scratched his forehead with his pen, leaving a smear of ink at the top of his nose. "Well, Ma'am, he'd be lazy. He'd be ... unkind. He'd be ... I suppose he could be dirty. Or ugly...."

"She wouldn't fall in love with him if he was ugly," objected Tyle.

"Well, then not ugly," conceded Barton.

"On the contrary, Tyle, he could be ugly," said Madame. "And he could be lazy and abusive as well. The woman still might fall in love with him. Why? Anyone?"

Fentrys said, "Because her hormones are pus.h.i.+ng her toward mating, he has a dangerous look, and he is spreading pheromones all over the place."

"Quite true," agreed Madame. "Now, she cannot say to her friends or parents that her body is s.e.xually receptive and that this man looks dangerous and smells virile. Can she? What would her family say?"

Fentrys laughed. "They'd say he was ugly and lazy and abusive."

"And the woman actually knows that," said Madame. "She may refuse to admit it, but she knows that. What she doesn't know is why she is responding to him. She does not know that she is being led by evolution and her nose. Though she can see his inadequacies with her mind, her body wants him nonetheless, so she has to justify herself. What does she do?"

"She makes up a story," said Mouche, suddenly enlightened.

"Indeed. All unconscious of what is going on, she makes up a story. What does she say?"

Interested, Fentrys said, "She could say he has good things about him that n.o.body sees. Some women are very tenderhearted, so she could say he needs her...."

Tyle offered, "She could say he would change after they got married. I heard my aunt say that about a man who offered for my cousin."

"Indeed," said Madame. "And after they are married, he abuses her, and what does she say?"

Mouche said, "She says, 'He broke my arm, but he really loves me.' "

"She wouldn't!" said a voice from the back of the room. "Women aren't crazy."

"Quite true," said Madame. "They aren't crazy, but they are sometimes quite helpless in dealing with their biology. Our theoretical woman might say just what Mouche proposes. Or, she might say, 'He's under a strain, and he goes all to pieces, and it was my fault, I upset him.' An interesting fact about such stories is that repeating them actually calms the mind and a.s.suages the pain of abuse by eliciting the release of serotonins and endorphins. Such stories are a kind of self-hypnosis, a verbal veil over reality. In this example, the woman a.s.signs the man the role of one helpless in his affliction and a.s.signs herself the role of nurturing mother-martyr, using the verbal veil as her device for surviving in that role."

"She wouldn't do that here on Newholme," said Fentrys. "My mother wouldn't do that!"

"Women don't need to do that on Newholme," Madame agreed. "On this world, any woman who did do such a thing would be referred to the psych machines for rebalancing! Here, physical abuse of women took place only at the time of the women raids and the Hags put a stop to that! We do, however, hear women say things like, 'My father really treasured me. He didn't want to let me go....' Or, 'My married daughter would come visit me with the children if she could get away from home.' What are these?"

Tyle said, "They'd be the same kind of veils. To hide her disappointment?"

"Exactly. Admitting the fiction would be destructive to the woman's ego, so she uses a verbal veil to conceal disappointment. Why do we care? Why do we talk about it? Because as Consorts, you will hear these stories as symptoms of need! Your patroness should be without disappointments if you are doing your job correctly. When you hear your patroness lying to herself, your job is to eliminate her need to do so."

"We tell her she's being silly," said the voice from the rear of the room.

"You will not," snapped Madame. "That is a traditionally male response which is totally unhelpful! You won't say she is silly or that the situation she describes is not true or that she should forget it. You will say, 'Yes, I know what you mean. I understand. I know of a similar case,' and you will go on to tell a parallel story, which will allow her to feel that her own disappointments are universally shared, that she is not exceptional in this regard, that she need not worry over them....

"Fentrys? You look confused."

"I am confused, Madame. Our patronesses are supposed to be exceptional, so why ..."

"Your patronesses are supposed to be exceptional in all favorable favorable regards. You will let them know they are exceptionally witty, exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally charming, patient, and so forth, and you will tell them so at least hourly. But if your patroness is troubled, if she thinks 'Why me?' the 'Why me?' must be turned into 'It's not just me.' It's normal for husbands to be preoccupied with business, for children to be thoughtless, for familial relations.h.i.+ps to be unfulfilling. That is exactly why you are there, to make up for such things. If such disappointments weren't normal, Consorts wouldn't be needed. You'll know you have succeeded when your patroness does not lie to herself anymore, when, instead of coping with sadness, she turns to you for her ent.i.tlements." regards. You will let them know they are exceptionally witty, exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally charming, patient, and so forth, and you will tell them so at least hourly. But if your patroness is troubled, if she thinks 'Why me?' the 'Why me?' must be turned into 'It's not just me.' It's normal for husbands to be preoccupied with business, for children to be thoughtless, for familial relations.h.i.+ps to be unfulfilling. That is exactly why you are there, to make up for such things. If such disappointments weren't normal, Consorts wouldn't be needed. You'll know you have succeeded when your patroness does not lie to herself anymore, when, instead of coping with sadness, she turns to you for her ent.i.tlements."

17.

Mouche Becomes a Hunk.

Though Mouche grew accustomed to his new suite and his new status, the pictures in the hallway continued to disturb him. It was only after some months had pa.s.sed that he realized he was worrying about his own eventual patroness, something he hadn't even thought about until the most recent Amatory Arts lectures. The time of graduation had seemed remote, and he had never once visualized himself as actually fulfilling the necessary role, but now he thought of Her, the Patroness, someone sad, maybe. Someone needing care. Or, he found himself thinking almost obsessively, someone like ... someone in one of those pictures.

There were stories about Hunks who had been required to do things so evil and depraved they had gone mad. There were tales about Wilderneers, Hunks who had killed their owners and escaped after swearing revenge against all females. Little girls were frightened with this tale beside the fire of an evening. "They'll come in the night," the story-spinner would say. "Tapping at your window. Their eyes are red with blood, and their teeth are sharp...."

The suddenly perceived reality of his future made him self-conscious. In the privacy of his own suite that night, Mouche stripped down, set candles either side of the cheval gla.s.s, and tilted the mirror to give himself a slow looking over. His skin was very white and smooth, due to all the bathing and oiling and ma.s.sage. His ashen hair was not yet as long as Madame wanted it, but it was a good deal longer than when he came, the silver-gold ma.s.s artfully curled up and away from his brow, which was wide and unlined and interrupted only by the wings of his dark brows, plucked into full but graceful arcs. His nails were smooth and polished, his teeth likewise. The health machines brought by the settlers had seen to that.

Since Mouche was only thirteen, the hairdresser, manicurist and facialist worked on him only once in a tenday. Later, it would be every day or so. Light hair and dark eyes, said Madame, were a dramatic combination. Mouche's eyes were malachite green, fringed with heavy dark lashes. His mouth was wide, the upper lip somewhat narrow, the lower more full. Even now, his jaw was round enough to denote strength. He would not have to keep a full beard, as some Hunks did, in order to look properly romantic.

As for his body, it wasn't much as yet. Lean and muscular, of course, with all the training he was getting, but he had little bulk. His shoulders were broader than when he came, and his legs straighter and more comely. He turned, looking at his back view from over his shoulder. Women were attracted by b.u.t.ts, as men were to b.r.e.a.s.t.s, so b.u.t.ts were important. The ideal b.u.t.t was small, neat, round, and smooth. His wasn't bad. Nothing would be done to his s.e.x, if at all, until he was sold.

Every Consort was sterilized as soon as he was sold, for the one thing absolutely taboo to Consorts was the fathering of children. Extravagant dowries a.s.sured that children would be of a man's own name, his own line. Every Family Man had a right to expect his own unique line, his own genetic makeup, his own descendants. Elder son to elder son to elder son, the lineage honored and remembered, his own name honored and remembered. The g'name was the important thing. There could be no doubt about who fathered whom.

Later, after most or all of the children were born, that man's wife would shop for someone much like Mouche, who now turned before the mirror trying to envision himself after another five years or so. When dressed in a clean tunic and a graceful mantle, he made a good appearance. Several times during the park promenades, he had caught people looking at him. Some of them had been women, though there had been a few men as well. He had, as instructed, dimpled at the former and ignored the latter. Madame did not sell to h.o.m.os.e.xuals, unless the Hunk was being purchased by a woman as a gift for her husband-an erotic aide, as it were, in the necessary business of procreation.

He struck a fencing att.i.tude. He liked fencing, and his fencing master was pleased with him. He rose on his toes and turned, then bowed and stepped and turned again. His dancing master had moved him to the advanced cla.s.s. Mouche liked fencing better than dancing, but dancing was important, so he did it. Sometimes women held soirees for their friends and their Hunks, and the Hunks had to be able to put on a show. He cleared his throat and did a few lalas. The singing master had been pleased with him also, though Mouche's voice was now beginning to crack. Beginning next year he would learn to accompany himself on the lap harp or lute.

All in all, except for recurrent fantasies of the sea, Mouche was reasonably content. He had gotten over feeling shamed, for in House Genevois his status was not considered shameful. How one is regarded by one's peers is most important, and Mouche's peers were friendly enough. The embarra.s.sment he had thought he would feel forever had lasted only a cycle or two, though he often thought of Mama and Papa, wondering if he would ever see them again.

Mouche did see his papa again, for once a student went into Consort Country, he could receive visitors, as Mouche soon learned. He sent word to Papa, and Papa arrived shortly thereafter, looking unusually prosperous, with a new c.o.c.kade on his hat and much news of the new calf and the new kittens and the successful repairs to the mill. Papa did not mention that Mama was pregnant, an event long considered impossible, but which may well have resulted from a lessening of worry and an improvement in diet. When little Bianca was born some months later, Mouche was not informed of that, either. Even though money could have been borrowed on the girl's prospects, Mouche could not have been redeemed. Sales to Consort Houses were considered final. Repayment, even with interest, would not have been accepted by Madame, and the contract Papa had signed was not susceptible to cancellation.

When Bianca had a baby sister, a year later, and then a baby brother a year after that, Mouche was not told of either event. Though Papa continued to visit faithfully, appearing ever more prosperous over the next few years, he didn't mention to Mouche that for all practical purposes, the new baby boy was now the g'Darbos-apparent, as Papa's eldest son.

At sixteen, the boys entered upon the most demanding part of their education. Four hours of physical training each day were coupled with five hours of cla.s.sroom work, and to this was now added the actual practice of amatory arts. The women who came to House Genevois to a.s.sist in this education were masked during the sessions, no one knew who they were except Madame, and Madame did not even hint at who they might be. Some were young and shapely, and some were not, but the quality of work expected from a Consort was to be the same, regardless. In fact, the highest prices would be paid for those from whom the pleasures given a thirty-year-old wife and a sixty-year-old grandmama were indistinguishable. What these women had to say about the students was perhaps more important than any other a.s.sessment they might receive.

Amatory arts required, Mouche found, a good deal of concentration, the acquisition of certain autohypnotic abilities, and careful attention to his physical health. There were certain drugs that helped in certain cases, either taken by the Consort or by his patroness, though Madame did not recommend their use except in cases of extreme need.

"In this respect, graduates of House Genevois are unlike the graduates of, say, House Fantuil. In House Fantuil they do a great deal of drug-induced work, but in my mind such sensationism-I do not call it sensuality, which is a natural effect-not only suffers in comparison with the natural modes, but also shortens the lifespans of its pract.i.tioners. Of course, given the clientele to whom House Fantuil sells, perhaps the drugs are necessary! I am proud to say that House Genevois never expects the impossible from its graduates!"

Mouche now paid strict attention to the lectures, usually given by Madame but occasionally by other women, concerning the nature or natures of women, for he now could put the theory into action. He decided women were more complicated than he had imagined possible. At night, in the Consort suites, there was a great deal of talk about these complications, about natural versus unnatural modes, and all the middle ground between.

Naturally, the boys discussed other things as well, with particular attention to the mysterious, the unmentioned, and unmentionable. There was exchange of misinformation about the invisible people. There was more of the same about the fabled Questioner, who was rumored to be interested in Newholme. This rumor had more substance than most, for Tyle had a sister married to the family man who managed the s.p.a.ce port, and a trader captain had told the manager, who had told his wife, who had told Tyle.

"What does the Questioner do?" asked one boy.

"It destroys worlds," whispered someone else, "if they don't conform to the edicts."

None of the boys knew much about the edicts, but most of them supposed Newholme didn't conform.

"I mean," said Fentrys, "we've got all these things we can't talk about, but if we conformed, we could talk about anything."

"So she wipes out Newholme?" asked Mouche skeptically.

"No. Not if we can keep her from finding out."

This topic was hashed and rehashed until it grew boring and was replaced with newly heard stories about Wilderneers. No one had actually ever seen a Wilderneer, but stories about them nonetheless abounded.

In general, Mouche enjoyed his life. The Consorts-in-Training had, so Madame stressed, a better diet than other men, a more healthy lifestyle, a more certain future, and fewer s.e.xual frustrations than anyone on the planet. The days went by without upheaval in an atmosphere of general kindliness, and the only thing that saddened Mouche were his dreams: often of Duster and sometimes of the sea. Each time he dreamed of the sea, it became wider and darker and bigger, until eventually he dreamed of a sea of stars with himself sailing upon it.

In accordance with Madame's instructions, Mouche had managed to let go of his father and mother. He had ceased to grieve over the animals and the farm itself. But Duster and the ever widening sea ... those things he wept over still.

18.

Ornery Bastarle, the Castaway.

The freckled, red-headed "boy" named Ornery Bastable had been bought onto the freighter Waygood Waygood at age seventeen and she had stayed there ever since. Because of her (his) early "mutilation," a story that Ornery frequently told and by now had considerably embellished, she was allowed to be somewhat reticent about natural functions. She had no beard and her voice was rather high. Nonetheless, she was strong and resourceful, and though she could not partic.i.p.ate in all the recreations indulged in by her companions, she was a good s.h.i.+pmate, always eager to offer a hand or stand a watch for a friend. Had Ornery been prettier, the subterfuge might not have worked, but "he" had remained a plain, lean, energetic person who over the years had become an accepted member of the crew. at age seventeen and she had stayed there ever since. Because of her (his) early "mutilation," a story that Ornery frequently told and by now had considerably embellished, she was allowed to be somewhat reticent about natural functions. She had no beard and her voice was rather high. Nonetheless, she was strong and resourceful, and though she could not partic.i.p.ate in all the recreations indulged in by her companions, she was a good s.h.i.+pmate, always eager to offer a hand or stand a watch for a friend. Had Ornery been prettier, the subterfuge might not have worked, but "he" had remained a plain, lean, energetic person who over the years had become an accepted member of the crew.

In general, Ornery had found the life healthful and interesting. So far as recreations went, Ornery enjoyed the society of her fellows, she had found a close lipped and empathetic female Hagger in Naibah with whom she could occasionally be "herself," and every now and then she traveled up the river from Naibah to pay dutiful visits to Pearla. Though most of her life was relatively routine, it was not without adventure, including, on one occasion, being marooned.

Freighters sailing westward from Gilesmarsh customarily refilled their water barrels a dozen days' sail down the coast at a Sweet.w.a.ter spring which was separated from the sh.o.r.e by a strip of forest so thick and overgrown as to be impa.s.sible except by the laboriously created trail maintained by the s.h.i.+pcrews who watered there. Ornery was part of a work party sent ash.o.r.e on the duty of chop and fill, but despite the trail being well marked and Ornery herself having traversed it many times, she somehow got herself separated from the rest of the party. She sat down to figure out where she'd gone wrong, and just at that moment the world started to shake.

She was under a tree; a branch whipped off the tree, struck Ornery on the head, and she rolled down into the dirt, dead to the world, in which state she continued until the Waygood Waygood sailed away without her. sailed away without her.

She wakened along about moonfall, figured out where she'd gone wrong and made an unsteady way to the beach, where she found a note from her mates saying they'd return in eight or ten days, and, "If you want picking up you'd better stay on the sand, but watch out for tidal waves, because there's more tremors all the time."

They left her a few rounds of hardbread, as well as a packet of cheese and jerky, so she wasn't as badly off as she might otherwise have been. She had her belt knife, hatchet, and canteen. There was fruit in the trees. The spring was close enough for drinking water, the rations were sufficient, the knock on the head had left a painful lump but no lasting damage. She hacked herself a few fronds from the nearby trees, built a shelter of sorts high on the beach between two erect pillars of stone that had long served as a landmark for the spring, a s.p.a.ce partly screened from the sea by a pile of other pillars, similar though rec.u.mbent. She then lay back in her lean-to awaiting rescue, staring at the moons at night and swimming in the sea in the daytime-a delight she almost never had the privacy to indulge in and one she considered almost worth being marooned for.

Three of the biggest moons were out when the s.h.i.+p left, one almost at full but the other two at waxing half and new, so the tides weren't enough to make her move and she felt no tremors. On the third night, however, she wakened to a sound: not a loud sound, not even a threatening sound, but certainly an unfamiliar one. It conveyed, she thought, the sense of an exclamation. Or, maybe, an exclamatory question, as though something very large had asked from the direction of the sea: Who is that person camped on my beach? Or, more accurately, Who is that person camped there there on my beach? on my beach?

Ornery went from there there to to somewhere else somewhere else in a panicky skulk that ended with her in the trees, prostrate upon some uncomfortably k.n.o.bby roots, peering out at the place she had just left. The waxing half moon was low in the sky; the new moon had long since set, but the full moon was just past the zenith, casting enough light for her to see the bulky though sinuous shadow that flowed upward from the water to her left, squirmed across the beach to the stones, fumbled about with them for what seemed a very long time, then went back as it had come. This was accomplished without any noise whatsoever and without any evidence that the shadow knew or cared where Ornery was. Where there had been two pillars standing in the moons' light, there were now five, each casting a bifurcated shadow like a lopsided arrowhead, pointing away from the place Ornery lay. in a panicky skulk that ended with her in the trees, prostrate upon some uncomfortably k.n.o.bby roots, peering out at the place she had just left. The waxing half moon was low in the sky; the new moon had long since set, but the full moon was just past the zenith, casting enough light for her to see the bulky though sinuous shadow that flowed upward from the water to her left, squirmed across the beach to the stones, fumbled about with them for what seemed a very long time, then went back as it had come. This was accomplished without any noise whatsoever and without any evidence that the shadow knew or cared where Ornery was. Where there had been two pillars standing in the moons' light, there were now five, each casting a bifurcated shadow like a lopsided arrowhead, pointing away from the place Ornery lay.

Ornery stayed where she was, replaying what she had seen in her head: the shadow coming out of the sea and squirming across the sand. Now that had been one thing, one single thing, she was sure of that. But then, when it had fumbled around with the rocks, some of it had separated itself and moved away from the other part of it, so it must have been more than one thing to start with.

Except for that very distinct impression it was one thing at the beginning!

At the first light of dawn, Ornery crawled back to her shelter. The rations were pressed quite deeply into the sand but otherwise undamaged. The fronds that had sheltered her were scattered and the area smelled like ... well, she couldn't quite say. Not a bad smell. Not a stink, but nonetheless, something quite distinctive and possibly to be avoided. Ornery gathered up her belongings and found a place at the other end of the beach to make her bed. Having done so, she fell asleep, without even thinking about it. She knew it was the only thing to do.

Later in the morning she woke with the word "Joggiwagga" moving about in her head. Moon dragon, she said to herself, wondering where she had heard such a thing. Her memory didn't at that moment stretch as far as the invisible person who had nursed Oram and Ornalia as babies, telling them stories and singing them songs. She had been told to forget that time, and though she had by no means forgotten, she had obediently stopped thinking of it. The word soon evaporated, like dew, and she remained astonished at herself for having slept at all since she had a rather frightening memory of the night's happening.

When the s.h.i.+p came by on its way back to Gilesmarsh she told her mates about the experience, and they teased her a good deal. Castaways always told stories about hearing things and seeing things and being wakened in the night, or having their things moved about. Ornery accepted this with good grace but without believing a word of it. She'd seen the stone pillars lying in the sand and she'd seen them standing erect, and each of the stones had been far too heavy for her to have raised it herself. Something had set them up, and Ornery had seen the shape-or shapes-of the somethings.

19.

The Invisible People.

Late in his sixteenth year, Mouche fell prey to a peculiar illness, one with few and subtle outward symptoms, one to which, however inadvertently, he exposed himself.

It began one evening rather late when, in the course of restoring certain volumes of erotic tales to his bookshelf, Mouche jostled a particular carving in an unusual way, and the whole bookshelf rotated on its axis to display a gaping black doorway out of which drifted the sound of music and an enticing odor. The smell made his mouth water even as it made his nose wrinkle, as if he scented something marvelously luscious but, perhaps for that very reason, forbidden.

After experimenting with the bookcase to learn how it opened and closed and how the latch might be opened from the back side, Mouche lit a candle and went through the dusty, webbed opening. He briefly considered asking Tyle or Fentrys to go with him, but they were at fencing practice, and Mouche did not want to wait.

He shut and latched the door behind him and began exploring, finding no single route that led from his suite to somewhere else. Instead he was in a maze of pa.s.sageways that branched opening onto narrow catwalks that crossed open s.p.a.ce to small, dark balconies from which, ascending or descending by ladders, one came upon narrow adits leading to crawlways that went hither and thither in all directions through the ancient fabric of House Genevois. Everywhere along the route were small access panels into rooms of House Genevois, and doors that would have opened had they not been closed from the back by long rods that thrust into the surrounding woodwork. There were also a great many peepholes that looked out into the corridors and suites. When Mouche applied his eyes to some of the holes, he saw his fellow students. When he peered through others, he realized he was peering through the painted eyes of those quite terrible pictures in the halls.

Throughout his rather lengthy exploration, he kept moving toward the sound of the music, arriving finally at one end of a level and uniform pa.s.sageway stretching in a straight line for some considerable distance and pierced with tiny glazed openings along both sides. Since the pa.s.sage was scarcely wider than his shoulders, he could look through the openings by merely turning his head. To his left he saw the moonlit roofs of the buildings north of House Genevois; to his right, the open s.p.a.ce of the large courtyard. When he stood on tiptoe and craned his neck to peer downward, he could see the torch-lit dock and a firewood wagon being unloaded.

The corridor continued straight on, eastward past the courtyard, over the roofs of the lower buildings and along yet another open s.p.a.ce to end finally in a cul-de-sac with two leaded windows of colored gla.s.s, one to his right, one straight ahead. Putting his eyes to a missing segment at the corridor's end, Mouche gained a view of the muddy river, dully gleaming in moonlight, like hammered copper. The window to the right was unbroken and so dirty he could see nothing at all through it, though it was ajar just enough to admit both the sound and the smell that had enticed him.

No one had ever warned Mouche not to do what he was doing. No one had considered for a moment that he or any other student might fall into it by accident. While some parts of the maze were too low and narrow for most persons to traverse, other parts had been built by long ago mankind, but then closed off and forgotten. The straight stretch of cobwebby corridor where Mouche found himself was actually inside the north wall of House Genevois, a wall that began at the street and ran eastward to the riverside.

On inspecting the windows, Mouche saw that the slightly open one to his right was not merely ornamental, though the hinges and the latch were so corroded from long exposure to the weather that they might as well have been. After a moment's hesitation, he decided to force it farther open. The hinges were on the left, and when Mouche leaned his full weight against it, it cracked open with a scream of alarm followed by utter silence.

Mouche held his breath and waited until the rhythmic sounds of voice and instrument resumed. He then used the music to cover the sound as he forced the reluctant cas.e.m.e.nt a fingerwidth at a time, opening it enough that he could lean out and look below.

He stared down from the northeast corner of an earthen courtyard enclosed on the north and east by walls, on the south and west by brightly painted dwellings, their colors and designs revealed by the leaping flames on a central hearth. Around the fire were dancers. Not people dancers. Far too slender for people, and too graceful. For a long moment, it did not occur to Mouche who the dancers were, and then the heaps of brown, shapeless garments lying near the firepit wakened him with both a thrill of recognition and a s.h.i.+ver of dread. What he was doing was improper. What he was doing was forbidden. He should not be here watching, for the dancers were invisible people, people who did not exist.

His first thought was that he'd done it, he'd overstepped, he was done for. He'd be blue-bodied for sure, or at least beaten into insensibility. In a moment this guilty fear pa.s.sed as he realized he was alone, after all. No one knew he had come here. He needn't ... well, he needn't tell anyone. And since no one knew where he was, he needn't go back, not just yet.

In truth, he could not have made himself leave what he saw, what he smelled, what he heard in the music: the new, the strange, the marvelous. He was so intrigued that he sat down on the sill and settled into being a spectator.

He pretended to himself that he did not know who they were. If he ever got caught, he thought, the "ever" coming to mind quite clearly, if anyone "ever" asked him, he would say he didn't know who they were. How could he? After all, he might not have noticed the garments that defined invisible people. How could he tell these were people who did not exist?

People who nonetheless were! People who leaped and spun around the fire in ecstatic, delirious movement, like willows in wind, their hair flowing like swirls of lovely water. They were more slender than people, almost sylphlike, and their skin had a sheen of opalescent gold, the ocher-apricot glow of freshly fired clay pots. And they sang! Their voices were like birds and breeze and the burble of water. Their hair was much more luxuriant than people's hair, thicker and longer, and it almost seemed to rise and fall of itself, besides being of gorgeous and opulent colors: all the blues of the sea and the sky, shading to dark purple, all the greens of the forest and the fields shading to pale yellow. Mouche had seen hair colored so brilliantly only once before, on the small furry thing that he and Duster had befriended.

The dancers below him were clad only in diaphanous s.h.i.+fts, though after a time it struck him that the swirling veils weren't clothing at all. The dancers had a sort of web that flowed from beneath their arms and down the outside of their legs. So far as Mouche could tell, they were all of one s.e.x, whatever that s.e.x was. They didn't seem to have b.r.e.a.s.t.s or genitals, but each was definitely an individual, easy to distinguish from the rest. One particular form brought his eyes back again and again, a girl or youth he supposed one might say, one with soft moss-green hair flowing to its ... no, her her knees in a liquid stream that seemed to pour forever across his vision. His eyes went away and returned, went away and returned, unable to ignore the magic of that hair and the pattern of light that s.h.i.+fted along it like a fish sliding among eddies. Once or twice he caught the glimmer of her eyes, a startling mirror silver in the firelight. knees in a liquid stream that seemed to pour forever across his vision. His eyes went away and returned, went away and returned, unable to ignore the magic of that hair and the pattern of light that s.h.i.+fted along it like a fish sliding among eddies. Once or twice he caught the glimmer of her eyes, a startling mirror silver in the firelight.

Adding to his enchantment was music full of unfamiliar harmonies and rhythms, the tunk-a-tunk tunk-a-tunk and and tongy-dong tongy-dong of tuned wooden blocks and metal rods being struck with soft hammers. Also, there were marvelous odors from the foods seething over the fire, exotic spices and resinous smokes, all part of a marvelous and fascinating whole that gave him new sensations and awarenesses that caught him by the throat. What he saw, smelled, and heard wrapped him in a tingling web of stimulation that burned like a warm little sun, ripening him as a fruit on a vine, making him swell with sweet juices. His foot tapped, of tuned wooden blocks and metal rods being struck with soft hammers. Also, there were marvelous odors from the foods seething over the fire, exotic spices and resinous smokes, all part of a marvelous and fascinating whole that gave him new sensations and awarenesses that caught him by the throat. What he saw, smelled, and heard wrapped him in a tingling web of stimulation that burned like a warm little sun, ripening him as a fruit on a vine, making him swell with sweet juices. His foot tapped, TIKa-tika-TUM tika-TIKatum TIKa-tika-TUM tika-TIKatum. His eyes crinkled, he caught himself smiling as he could not remember smiling ever before. After the first few moments, he was lost in the spell of it.

And then ... then they sang a song he knew. He knew it! He had heard it, not like this, with many singers and drums and wood blocks and bells, but still, he knew it. Someone had sung it to him, in this same language, and then later in his own ...