Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

As the slapping noise and cries of approval grew, Tuari spread his arms, inviting any to challenge his consort for the Center. I could not imagine who would attempt it. Even Kol must doubt. I crushed that thought before it could blossom. Three dancers tried, each one better than the last, though none were a match for Nysse. Few from the crowd voiced support for any of them.

An expectant murmur traversed the crowd as a fourth challenger strode up the hill and nodded to the archon—Kol, unmatched in his pride.

He began slowly, a simple series of steps and blindingly sharp triple spins, one and then another, scribing a circle on the hilltop, so that those on every side could see—every movement precise, composed, and very large. His body spoke that this was to be a monumental kiran, for he did not stop or slow or hesitate or miss the next…or the next…or the next…And when he had drawn us tight enough, when I could not believe that he could possibly execute one more movement without flaw, he coiled and leaped into the air like the explosion of a geyser, soaring twice the height of a man, his legs split wide and straight. No sooner landed than he bent gracefully to earth as if to work a summoning, then rose and with his powerful leg drew himself into one eppire and then another, driving his body until my heart felt like to burst. The music he drew from earth and sky began with the grieving strings of vielles and the cool flowing sorrows of a dulcian—my lost mother—with hints of mysteries and secrets, and moved with driving purpose to trumps and songs of triumph.

I could not have said that those who watched held breath as I did. They could not know how much depended on this kiran. But when Kol had built the image of the Well, so true that I could feel my own deep-buried fires, my veins of stone, my bed of earth and wounded walls, wonder and memory surged through the host. One and then another of the Danae stood as if they could not believe what they perceived. Some spread their arms as if to bask in their awe.

By the time Kol stretched leg and back and bowed his head in his allavé, every Dané in Dashon Ra was standing. And when he rose to his feet, a great cry of joy and triumph shattered the night.

“He said to prepare for a surprise, but who could have guessed this marvel?”

I almost fell off my perch. Kol’s friend Thokki stood just below me, looking up with eyes the same color as her gards—the hue of morning sky in spring.

“In the Canon, Thokki.” I jumped down and kept my distance, wary, ready to pounce if she cried out warning.

“Thou hast naught to fear from me, initiate,” she said, raising her hands as if to ward a blow. “Kol asked my help—a matter of such astonishment that all else he babbled was but chaff tickling my ear, save for his promise that his challenge kiran would vouch for his actions—as indeed it has. He asked me in his sire’s name to partner thee in Stian’s Round and disguise thy…limitations.”

“I promise you that—”

“Thy promises carry no vigor with me, initiate. Kol’s and Stian’s serve well enough.” Her ready smile dismissed whatever offense I might have taken. “Ah, see? Tuari has no choice now.”

I looked back to the hilltop where Nysse herself took Kol’s hand and presented him to the exultant Danae. Another cheer broke out as Tuari followed her lead. Then the two of them backed away, leaving Kol alone at the Center.

Kol stomped one foot on the ground, then clapped his hands together over his head. He set up a steady rhythm that subsumed the random slaps and cheers and drew them into unison. Soon every Dané kept his pace, so that the earth thundered with it. They continued all together until Kol nodded, and a group broke off and set up a counterpoint of three quick claps in between Kol’s steady marks. My blood pulsed in time with them. Simple. Powerful.

“Dost thou feel the call?” asked Thokki, tight with excitement. “This is Stian’s Round.”

My foot hammered the beat—the same rhythm Stian had driven into my head that afternoon. How had I ever judged it boring? All across Dashon Ra, the Danae formed circles large and small, wheels within wheels. Circles of light. “Aye,” I said. “I feel it.”

Thokki clasped my hand and grinned. “Then let us join in.”

She paused, watching, as one great wheel expanded to catch up more dancers, burgeoning in our direction, and then shrank again, spinning off minor circles like sparks from a fire. “Now!”

We ran across the small dark gap and joined three others—two males, one female—in a minor circle. I stumbled at first, my heart in my throat.

“Welcome the initiate!” called Thokki as she stomped and clapped.

The others shouted, “In the Canon, initiate!”

“In the Canon,” I croaked. Then I stomped and clapped, kept the rhythm and moved in the circle, and within three beats felt like crowing with the joy of it. I could have continued a lifetime with naught but this.

But the dance was not static, and Thokki leaned close. “Thy feet, initiate. Do not lose the pace. Remember.”

She stepped back, and I felt sere grass and thin soil, shards of rock and pricks of ice underneath my feet. I spun in place and stepped to the right. Gods cherish all…a rock pricked my left great toe and a sprig of tansy tickled my heel. And so we moved into the patterns Stian had drilled into me. Simple steps and spins and short leaps about our small wheel. The music of pipes and tabors swelled from the earth and stars. My gards took fire with the deepest blues of lapis, sapphire, and summer midnight in the frostlands, and I thought I must be raised into heaven. And when Stian’s Round came to its end in a great crescendo, I thought the hands that reached under my arms as if to embrace me must surely be my grandsire come to welcome me. Kol had won, and I was Danae.

The arms squeezed upward, crushing my shoulders. “Take the halfbreed to the pond. And remove that one.” Thokki stumbled forward and fell, her head slamming into the turf. “I’ll have Tuari break her for this trespass.”

No mistaking the crone’s voice that gave the orders, or the stick that fell so brutally on Thokki’s shoulder, or the shapeless form that moved into our circle from the night. Underneath her hood, golden eyes smoldered with hate, and her thin lips broke into a smile that none but I could see. Ronila.

“N o!” I yelled as a Dané with an unmarked face hefted a dazed Thokki to his shoulder and disappeared into the night beyond the circles. “Don’t harm her. Please, you don’t understand!”

The glare of sigils and starlight became a blur as I tried to wrestle free. But the owner of the well-muscled arms that gripped my shoulders locked his hands behind my neck. No matter my kicking and writhing, another Dané bound my ankles. If I could not walk, I could not escape.

The youth glanced up at me and wrenched his knots tighter. My heart sank as I recognized him as Kennet, the initiate whose legs were twined with oak leaves, Tuari’s attendant who had bound me to a tree intending to break my knees. His tall, strong companion with the wheat-colored hair was likely the person crushing my neck.

The other three dancers of our circle gawked in disbelief as the two young Danae bound my wrists behind my back. “My kin-father, the archon, has charged me to root out the causes of our failing life,” Ronila said to them. “What more cause could we discover than a halfbreed flaunting illicit gards in the Canon?”

“Don’t let her do this,” I said. “She wants to destroy us all!”

Ronila touched each of the three dancers on the shoulder. “Human interference has corrupted the long-lived, even he who is Chosen. I have paid the just price to preserve the Canon, and so must every violator. Go. Dance Freja’s Round and restore innocence to the change of season.”