Heroes Adrift (13 page)

“No,” I objected softly. “You've done magic, you have.”

And her smile slipped away. “Have you water?”

“Uh.” How was that for a sharp shift in subject? “You're thirsty?”

“No. I mean to wash after you perform. You won't want to sleep in this paint. And you won't feel like gathering water after you've shown.” She began collecting up the items she had brought, tossing them into her bag. “I'll fetch some for you. Have you soap?”

Had I offended her in some way? How? Should I ask? “Of course, but you don't have to—”

“I'll be right back.” She was out of the tent.

Feeling a little disoriented by her abrupt departure and having no idea what to do about it, I ended up staring at myself in the mirror.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't believe what I was seeing was me. I had always been plain, almost bland. If someone had shown up with a magic wand offering to make me beautiful I wouldn't have said no, but being plain had never disturbed me. It was what I was, and it had its advantages. But this face I was seeing in the mirror, it was almost otherworldly. It would certainly be hard to forget. How could mere paint do so much?

The tent flap was pushed aside. The dying dusk light flashed in. Karish stopped midentrance and stared at me. “What the—”

“It's for my performance,” I said. A little proudly, I had to confess.

He didn't respond, just kept looking at me.

“You don't like it?” I was stunned. How could he not?

I was disappointed. A sharp ache blossomed in my chest, all out of nowhere.

He was so glorious. I had thought, for a brief moment, that for once I might be able to match him.

“It took great artistry to create the appearance,” he said.

The hand holding the mirror dropped of its own volition. “Zaire, you're being diplomatic.” Always a bad sign.

“You don't look like you anymore.”

“That's the point.”

“It shouldn't be. It's your skill that matters.”

“Not here. Here it's about the show of it.”

“That's the problem.” He held up his hands before I could protest. Not that I was going to. I felt too deflated to want to say anything. “I know, I know. You don't really have a choice. You have to go through all this as part of the job. And I'm sorry about that.”

I wrapped up the mirror. I wished I could wash all of the mess off my skin. I didn't dare. Kahlia would kill me.

“Can I come in?” Kahlia called from outside.

Karish scowled.

“Of course,” I answered.

She squeezed in by Karish, who was unwilling to make much room for her. “Water for after.” She hefted the bucket before placing it in a safe corner. “And I thought of this. You can wear it on the way to the bars.” It was a plain hooded cloak, of rough brown material. “I know it's got no flash, but that's all to the good. People will be taken aback by the dazzling creature underneath.” She grinned at Karish. “Isn't she beautiful?”

“I prefer her as she was,” he said, reaching for my face.

She slapped his hand away.

He gaped at her, shocked.

“You'll blur the paint,” she explained.

He glared at her.

She smirked back at him, an air of challenge about her stance.

“Are you sure people will even show up to see this?” I asked hastily, feeling a distraction was in order. “How will they even know I'm here?”

“We've been telling them,” she said, sounding like she thought the question was stupid. “Leavy the Flame Dancer. Come and be entranced.”

Oh lord. I hated that name already.

She saw my expression and giggled. She was too old to be giggling. “I'm going to go and help set up. I want to make sure it has the right flair. Come out as soon as it's completely dark. Just follow the road. You'll know it when you see it.” She winked at Karish and ducked back out of the tent.

“I don't like her,” he announced.

“Why not?” Yes, she could be too blunt, but there were worse things. “I don't know what I'd have done without her, to be honest.”

He snorted.

I looked down at myself. And I saw myself through his eyes. The short skirt, the scanty top, the childish paint all over the limbs. I did look ridiculous. What was I thinking, being seen by people like this?

“I know you need the costume for the performance, Lee,” he said in a soft voice. “I've seen the others. This is the way it's done. I just…” He shrugged. “You remind me of the Empress's court, with all that paint. It's all so fake.”

I felt a spurt of irritation. I didn't need to be made to feel this way just before exposing myself in front of strangers. “Cosmetics are no different from fashionable clothes,” I pointed out. “You fuss over your clothes all the time.”

“Ah, but I'm a useless peacock,” he retorted. “Decoration is all I'm good for.” He paused a moment. “Though not even that here, apparently.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from speaking. I was not going to pander to his ego after he'd just finished shredding mine.

He pushed his hands through his hair, then shook his head. “Don't mind me, Lee. I'm being a brat.” He offered up a weak, bent smile. “How are you feeling?”

Annoyed. Embarrassed. Nervous. Oddly cold. Very hungry. Slightly panicked.

I didn't want to talk about it. I shrugged.

The sun slid down behind the horizon too quickly, and the knot in my stomach spread to my chest and threatened to crawl into my limbs and freeze my muscles.

I pulled in a deep, deep breath. I was nervous. Yes, I was nervous. There was no point being nervous. Because what would happen if I did badly? Nothing life threatening, not for me or for anyone else. There would be jeering. People would leave in the middle of it. Hopefully there wouldn't be any flying vegetation. There was great possibility for humiliation, but nothing fatal. I could handle humiliation. I just needed a few years and a cave. Really, it was nothing to be afraid of.

Oh, and the fact that Karish and I would starve to death. Mustn't forget that.

“We should get going.” I picked up Kahlia's cloak, draping it over my shoulders, assuming Kahlia wouldn't have given it to me if it were a danger to the paint.

“I imagine you should have this up,” Karish suggested, standing before me and drawing the hood up over my head. “Heighten the suspense and all.” He fussed with it a few moments, settling the folds to his satisfaction. “That'll do. Ready to go?”

No. “This is the stupidest thing I've ever done,” I confessed.

“Oh no.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “You've done much stupider things.”

I glared at him.

He grinned, then leaned down for a quick peck on my lips. “You'll be brilliant, Lee. Don't worry.”

I brushed the trace of glitter off his lips with my thumb and sighed. “All right. No use delaying anymore.”

I breathed very carefully as we walked, trying to settle my stomach. Too much of a panic would render me unable to dance at all. We walked past the other tents, huddled close together in the small clearing we had cut out ourselves. And then by some sort of field that smelled unpleasantly damp, the foliage stripped out of the ground year after year by the residents, opening up the sky to our view. And then some small squat buildings of the same open, multipurpose styles we'd seen elsewhere.

We passed the jugglers throwing torches at each other, and Rinis, who was coiling and jumping in candlelight. Corla was reading palms to the gullible in a tiny and intimate circle of black felt. With so much to see, no one paid attention to us, and I really wished circumstances would keep it that way.

As Kahlia had assured me, the site of my humiliation was easy to find. We heard the music first, and light and playful sort of drumming with the odd pipe notes tossed in. Then we traversed a bend in the road and saw the scattering of torches, glinting off the skin of far too many spectators.

“Damn,” I muttered.

I felt the lightest touch on my shoulder. “They'll love you, Lee,” Karish said. “They won't be able to help it.”

I didn't care about making anyone love me. I just wanted to avoid laughter.

I wondered if I should tell him Kahlia had said almost exactly the same thing.

“Must they have started the music so soon?” I griped. “They're attracting too many people.” The crowd among the torches was much larger than those around the jugglers or Rinis.

“That's the point, isn't it? To get as many people here as possible?”

Don't talk to me of logic. “Shut up, Karish.”

He chuckled, the bastard. “I don't think I've ever seen you so jittery, Lee.”

I wasn't jittery. I was apprehensive. A whole different emotional state.

Kahlia, the wench, must have been looking out for me. “And now!” she called out, and the music stopped. “Your wait is over! Ladies and gentlemen, watch and admire, be entranced and bedazzled by the mistress of fire and air! Here she is! Leavy the Flame Dancer!” And Karish, with his usual sense of drama, slipped the cloak from me from behind. So all of a sudden, I was completely exposed.

People turned to follow the direction of Kahlia's pointed arm. They all stared. Some of them gasped. Was I that freakish looking? Was everything covered as it should be? Were they all thinking I was the most hideous idiot they'd ever seen? They parted, leaving a path for me to walk to the bars.

Hell. What a nightmare. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to get from here to there?

Well, it took a step. Forcing my head high and my shoulders back—I refused to thrust out my breasts—and keeping my gaze trained on Kahlia, I took a step, and then another.

And Leverett slid his fingertips over the drum, in time with each step. Everyone was silent, watching me in the dark as I took step after step, each footfall emphasized with a smattering from the drum.

Zaire, this was awful.

“Oh, I know what you are all thinking!” Kahlia shouted. “You have all seen bench dancers. Every sole-hole village has someone who can claim to dance. But as we all know, the fumbling of our poor dancers lacks the grace, the beauty, the pure Northern magic, of the dancers of the frosted lands.”

The frosted lands. A rather poetic way to describe cities drowning in snow for half of every year.

“Our Leavy has been dancing since before she could walk.”

Not quite that long.

“She has been touring the Northern continent, defeating all who come against her with her beauty and her power.”

Actually, I lost more often than I won.

“And now, after years of pleading, we have lured her down among our people, to share her gift with us. You are the few privileged to see her first performance among us. Welcome her!”

They most obligingly applauded. I was finally free of the audience and stepped between the bars. I noticed Panol and Setter were looking particularly naked, wearing nothing more than scraps of red cloth about the waist that barely—barely—hid the genitals and buttocks. A light dusting of glitter had their dark muscles gleaming in the torchlight. I looked at Leverett, who was identically undressed. Sacey and Kahlia wore a few more straps, which seemed to almost cover their breasts, though I wouldn't have wanted to make any guarantees for modesty once they started moving.

Leverett rapped a roll off his drum, smart and sharp. A second roll echoed off the night sky, disappearing into the silence. At the third roll, Panol and Setter began moving the bars, low off the ground.

The idea was for me to begin with a short demonstration of almost real bench dancing. Or as real as it could get, with only two bars, no bench and no competitor. I was to show them all that I was a proper bench dancer, with all the skills required by the sport. And then, after, I was to get weird.

It wasn't at all the same as the real thing, of course. But it felt nice, something of a warm-up. Nice and easy swinging of the legs, working out the aches of the day. It was soothing, and it calmed my nerves a little.

The spectators, though, weren't terribly impressed. They applauded after Leverett and I came to a halt, but it was polite applause. I could tell. And that didn't feel wonderful. A few coins were tossed. Even I knew they were of the smallest currency. Pity money.

But before I could feel more than the first flare of disappointment and apprehension, Leverett started drumming again, a livelier beat. A few bars in and Sacey joined him with the pipes. Sprightly, exciting music, really more suited to ballroom dancing than bench, but I could move to it. The bars went up just a little higher and I leapt over them, letting the music guide me into throwing in those hip swings and arm gestures Kahlia seemed to find so important.

Thank the gods for the music. I could concentrate on it, follow it, let it move me. It shielded me from feeling too stupid about what I was doing. And when it sped up, thinking became even harder.