Dancing Is Dancing
Dancing With Death: Part Five of Ten
Dancing With Death is the sixth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the fifth chapter.
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This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.
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Dancing is Dancing
A turning of the glass later and Flin was definitely having one of the best nights of her life. She was sure of it. The place was magical, the music extraordinary and even the wine was good, although she wondered whether that was simply due to the quantity she was drinking, such was her thirst.
Before she had started dancing she had studied the musicians, raised on a wide, curving dais around one half of the chamber, the other half taken up by a long bar, with two sets of double doors on either side of the chamber. At the rear were the drummers, some with smaller drums to the sides, others standing behind huge bass drums and massive hollowed logs towards the centre. They worked in harmony, each seemingly doing their own thing, but each a part of a whole, fitting perfectly. They controlled the speed of the music and took it in different directions.
In front were other instruments: fiddles and strings, flutes and woodwind, and the chorus. There were twelve of them, with voices ranging from a deep bass that somehow managed to rise above and below all the other sounds, through to a trio of sopranos, each striving to support the other. Again, the whole was a unit, well-rehearsed and well-versed. There seemed to be no particular words, just sounds, the music powerful and hypnotic, making Flin want to move, making her feel good.
Then she had begun to dance.
Apart from teaching steps, Flin had not danced since before Kadan had died, four years earlier. Shint and the others each had their own style of dancing, each happy to dance as they pleased, demonstrating steps and moves as they did so. Everyone in the room was content to do their own thing, with no fear, and Flin knew it was an important lesson: dancing is dancing, there can be no wrong moves when you enjoy it. And enjoy it, she did.
Above, the chamber was lit with lanterns shaded in different coloured glass, some which spun, casting moving pools of light, or sharply focused beams on the dancers below. Flin guessed people were employed to move the lanterns, to keep them twisting, changing the direction and speed, perhaps in keeping with the beat. It was a remarkable operation.
Flin had never felt constrained before, never felt she had held back from moving her body as she desired but, that night, she realised she must have been. She moved to the rhythm, fitting in between beats, driven, guided, following her own path and it felt utterly right.
‘Come on, we should rest a while,’ Shint shouted in her ear and took her hand.
Flin looked around and realised the others in their group were no longer there; she had been so busy dancing that she had not noticed them leave.
‘Where are the others?’ she called over the pounding beats.
‘They left to get some food and have a rest, quite a while ago. You’ve been well tranced, haven’t you? That’s a good thing. Come.’
As they walked out of a bright yellow and black striped door Flin looked to the stage. The musicians were all different, she had not noticed them swapping over, either.
‘They do it gradually, the beat never breaks, all night, all day,’ Shint shouted, as he followed her gaze.
‘What can we eat here?’
‘What do you want to eat? There are several options.’
Flin thought about it, listened to what her body told her.
‘I think I would like some of the vinegared rice and fish things they sometimes have at The End.’
‘This way.’
After a short tunnel, they passed through another chamber, this with just one drummer and five men playing strings, their bows rising and falling, coaxing out melodies and harmonies together. The people in this room were dancing too, but slower, less frenetic. The idea felt good, Flin realised—she was exhausted.
Shint and Flin ate and rested, barely talking, but catching their breath, drinking cool mint tea and watching the other people in the room come and go.
The food was perfect, sticky vinegared rice cakes with pieces of fish and vegetable within, a strong and spicy dipping sauce, and a plate of some kind of fruit Flin did not recognise. There was also a very small bowl of mushrooms and Flin popped one in her mouth, chewed and swallowed, before realising they might be more than simple food.
‘Don’t worry, one shouldn’t make too much difference, even if you aren’t used to them,’ Shint replied to her worried query, ‘I’d recommend not having any more for a while though, see how you react, everyone is different.’
They ate the rest of the rice and fruit, and Shint ate several of the fungi, before handing the rest to Flin.
‘Put them in a pocket and see how it goes. Now, shall we go dance again?’
‘Yes, maybe slower for a time?’
‘Good idea, let the food go down.’
They left the room, but not before Flin felt the strange sensation of being watched. She looked around and saw someone leaving via the opposite door, someone with swirling tattoos running up her arms.
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