To Learn A Place

Dancing With Death: Part Three of Ten

Dancing With Death is the sixth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the third 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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To Learn A Place

The moon waxed and waned twice, the season slowly growing into early summer, although the weather seemed little altered by the progression of time. It rained a lot, and the sun never seemed to appear from behind a constant blanket of cloud or mist. Often she could be seen, a silvery white disk, masked, obscured by a veil. It felt strange, not to see or feel direct sunlight for so long.

Flin worked hard, more than earning her keep and pay. She was bought drinks and offered meals and beds, asked for her ankle in marriage twice, threatened only the once and made enough money from tips that she knew she could travel as far south as The Maelstrom without needing to work again, if she was frugal.

Every week or two brought news of a new death. A new killing, a draining. Those who talked about the deaths said there seemed little pattern to the dead, to who was targeted, but Flin noticed each man or woman held power, held charisma. They were people who others would follow and listen to, whether one of the islands most talented rock carvers, the auctioneer from the whale market, or the first mate of a tall-masted long-distance trade ship.

The city was on edge and real fear gripped the populace. As with most large cities, people were killed all the time—bar fights, robberies, duels, murder, feud and revenge—but this was different. Each corpse was found completely drained, blood and fluid liberally splashed across a wide area, bare footprints leading away. More details began to escape, the authorities—The Forge—failing to keep things hidden.

Sometimes, there were symbols written in blood, sometimes there were none, but the corpse was arranged neatly, arms crossed, feet together, a piece of rock in its mouth. The bloodied footprints did not always make sense either, they always headed uphill, but sometimes they were absent before suddenly appearing, as though the killer had leapt an impossible distance. One outlandish claim suggested that at the site of the auctioneer’s death, footprints were found walking along the side of building, at right angles to the path itself, although everyone agreed that was simply people adding impossible details to embellish the tale—but Flin was unsure. She knew many stories, and she knew many of the stories were real.

The city was angry, it was afraid. No one knew who would be next and the rich and powerful began to travel everywhere with bodyguards, especially when night approached. When the first killing occurred within a locked bedroom, those with power who could began to leave. Two members of The Forge took sail to the south, after selling their businesses for a fraction of their worth. A price beyond that they had received was put on their heads, the others in the council effectively making it illegal for any of their number to flee.

Yet not everyone could afford to escape and people still needed to work, they still needed to eat, and they still sought distraction from their fear. The crowds at The End did not thin but seemed to grow, friends arriving and leaving together, groups perceived the safest way to travel.

The one constant was that the killings all took place late at night and Flin made use of this fact, exploring Taura Furnace during the day, when she rarely worked, learning as much as she could about the city and The Ribbon beyond.

She learnt of the cult of The Maelstrom, those who wore clothing of purple and travelled from across the known world towards the one place in the whole Ribbon where people could see through to the other side. She learnt of the Ribbon itself, what it was—or what people said it was. Beyond simply being a long archipelago of islands, it was also the name applied to the strange, purple-tinged clearly magical barrier separating two halves of the world, a remnant from the time of The Breaking. The islands themselves had once been far fewer but whatever cataclysm had formed the impregnable Ribbon had also raised the seabed in places, pulling new land into existence, volcanoes and earthquakes an unfortunate aftermath for generations. Try as she might, she could not learn when The Breaking had happened, no one seemed to know for sure, but it had been many, many thousands of years since those days.

Flin was told of the ice flows, and the places where the sea became solid, giant icebergs and shelves home to flightless swimming birds, huge white cats and wolves and even bigger white bears which preyed on seals, caribou, and small, hairy oxen. She heard of the places where land reared above the ice, with cliffs teeming with migratory birds, which all disappeared before the winter arrived, only to return every spring. It seemed another world, and she was tempted to visit, but she knew it would be a distraction from her goal of finding her home.

Her home had not been ice-bound. It had been cold in winter, with deep snow, but the valleys and many of the slopes had been full of trees and drenched in sweaty, hot summers. The only white animals she remembered were the varying hares, which lived high in the mountains, the long sinuous ermine, and the small foxes, different to their russet cousins of the forests. They all changed their coats with the seasons, and did not stay white in the summer.

She sampled black salt and tasted smoked puffin. She dined on raw whale dipped in a vinegar made from rice and drank a strong alcohol made from the same plant. There were many tongues spoken in the city, each with dialects and accents of their own, and Flin learnt many new words. She saw crafts she had never seen before—the beautiful lines, tiny dots and hashes of scrimshaw, and the intricately-woven silver thread-work, each piece of art dotted with jewels or other materials, both of which Taura Furnace was famous for.

Once, walking down the steps from the temple, Flin felt someone watching from behind and turned to see the same figure she had seen on the boat the morning of her arrival in the city. The woman was still wearing a broad hat, the hilt of a sword visible above her shoulder, tattooed arms still bare. Flin raised a hand in greeting, and began to climb, but the woman also turned and quickly outdistanced her, long legs powering her up the mountain. Whoever she was, she clearly did not want to talk and Flin turned to head back down, one hand playing with the amulet she wore. Perhaps the tall woman recognised Flin from somewhere, perhaps she was looking for someone similar, she was unsure, but she did not feel any sense of worry, and Flin was good at listening to her instincts.

Despite the fear palpable across the city, Flin felt rested and comfortable. She rarely had any panic attacks, and those she did she managed to calm without anyone noticing. Her friendship with Albin and Ana grew, but she was surprised to find that, outside of the circle of performers the inn employed, the quiet waitress and kitchen help, Omena, become one of her closest friends.

Omena and Flin talked about many things, with the small, dark-haired girl opening up and sharing her own background, how she had come to the city from the south, how she had hidden away on a trading vessel to see more of the world, then wished she could return home, before washing up at The End and finding a purpose and joy in life. Flin told her about her past and surprised herself when she told her about Kadan, and his death. She left out much of the detail, but simply opening up and talking about it, and what had come after, really helped Flin—how she had been saved by a passing traveller named Lang, how he had cared for her and nursed her back to some semblance of herself, teaching her how to grieve, to process her loss, and to learn to calm her mind, all the while asking for nothing in return, before they had parted ways over a year later.

Omena loved her job, and although she missed her family and friends back home, she did not want to leave. She knew life in the smaller town she had departed would be very different to the one she had.

Wherever she travelled, Flin easily made new friends. It was something she had always been good at, even before becoming Rharsle’s apprentice, on those trips to town with her father to sell their wool, or at the summer gatherings or autumnal markets. Over the years, she had finely tuned this gift, knowing where to place words or a touch on an arm, when to give a friendly smile or tilt her head just so, listening attentively, and, crucially, knowing when to step back if someone—and they always seemed to be a man—mistook friendship for something more. It came naturally, but it was a gift honed through constant repetition and practice.

The other musicians were from places Flin knew, places she had yet to visit, and places she had not even known existed. Different styles all fed into each other, this beat or cadence, that harmony or descant, all mixing together into something exciting, something fresh. Ana ran the entertainment The End was famed for, placing the performers in a certain order, always finishing the night with an ensemble, new music no one had ever heard before, very occasionally failing to enrapture the crowd but, usually, creating a wild atmosphere.

Flin appreciated the effort Ana put into the running order. Some nights she was able to tell stories, early in the evening, or even in the afternoon, or slow ballads and verse-poems. Other nights she could lead jigs or skips, the stamping of the crowd shaking the small stage. It was a thrill and privilege to work at The End.

‘Tonight we go to The Caverns,’ Shint said, thick locs, banded with silver rings and woven with silken strands, swaying in time to the complex finger work he was practising.

‘After the performance? How late is it open?’ Flin asked. She liked the man, his ready smile and pure joy in music made him an instant compatriot; he had an energy, a magnetism she could not escape.

‘After. The Caverns do not close, Flin! Night is day and day is night. If we wanted to go dance now, to drink and laugh and smoke or chew, we could. We have it lucky here at The End, we work hard, yes, but those at The Caverns work shifts, some in the day, some at night. My friends there sometimes see no sun in months.’

‘We see no sun, Shint, it’s never there!’ Flin said, laughing, ‘What sort of music do they play?’ She had heard of the place, but had yet to visit. Since arriving in the city, she had spent most of her spare time practising, exploring, learning the languages and customs of The Ribbon, and planning, poring over charts and maps of the Ribbon, listening to stories of the islands, tales of the Maelstrom.

‘Oh, you will see. Wear comfortable and light clothing though, it gets very hot, especially with all the dancing. And dance, we shall.’

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