There was a bark to the side, and a blur of white. Cougar had spied them, and was running to join them. He was the village dog, of mixed breed, not at all like a cougar, but somehow he had acquired that name. Normally only the despots kept animals, but sometimes they allowed one to wander unattached. Cougar loved adventure, and a trip to the instruments was that, by his definition. Indeed, it was said that a tryst wasn’t complete without the dog.
Stave picked up a stick. “Fetch, Cougar!” he cried, hurling it ahead of them.
The dog launched himself in pursuit, joyfully. But as the stick landed, it assumed the likeness of a skunk. As the dog caught up, the skunk turned tail, making ready to spray.
“You shouldn’t tease him,” Nona murmured.
“He’s too smart to tease,” Stave replied.
Sure enough, Cougar charged right in and caught the skunk in his jaws. He had not been fooled by the illusion. But, in a seeming act of retribution, he brought the stick back not to Stave but to Nona.
She reached down to take it, using her own illusion to convert the skunk into a bouquet of flowers. “Thank you, Cougar,” she said, patting him on the head.
“You’re welcome, lass,” the dog replied.
She elbowed Stave in the ribs. “Watch you don’t get bitten in the hind pocket!” the dog said in a more feminine voice.
Cougar wagged his tail. He enjoyed being part of an illusion.
There was a rumble of thunder. They looked, and there beyond the castle a storm was building, appropriately sinister. However, it was unlikely to come in this direction, and if it did, they would have time to return to the village before it struck. There was even a rainbow, probably the work of an idle villager, because the angle was wrong for it to be natural.
They reached the place of the instruments. Nona handed Stave the bouquet, which became the skunk again as he took it. She ran ahead, up to the very brink, and stood looking out. Cougar did the same, to the right, sharing her spirit.
The sea wind sought her out and tugged at her hair and the skirt of her tunic. Both material and hair flowed to her left, and the air stroked every part of her body with an intimacy she would not have permitted in anything else. She was exhilarated. She shaded her eyes with her left hand and waved to the sea with her right. She wished she could be here forever.
Then she looked down. The cliff at whose brink she stood was no ordinary work of nature. It was a monstrous stone musical instrument, a hammered dulcimer without its strings, rising five body lengths above the heaving surface of the water. Two giant stone roses were set in it, red with green leaves despite the weathering of the stone. In these alone the old magic lingered. The rest of the instrument was scarred with cracks and chips, and the top was overgrown with moss and grass.
How long had it been since the Players left? No theow seemed to know, and if the despots knew they did not tell. How long did it take for waves and weather to make stone crumble? Nona shivered. Longer than the time required for nine generations, obviously. Far longer, surely.
She looked to her left. There was a giant mandolin, its stone also cracking apart. The grass and moss outlined its entire top surface in green, and its hole was a dark cave into which the waves crashed. To her right was a great fiddle, in similar ruin.
These had been the possessions of the Megaplayers, even in their destruction suggesting the immense power of that lost age. What giants had wielded these mighty instruments? What could their music have been like? What could have caused these beings to depart, not only leaving their music behind but dumping their treasures into the sea?
Nona tried to imagine the Players, and could not. She tried to fathom the playing of the instruments, and could not. It was all too far beyond her. Yet somehow she had to find the Megaplayers and call on them to return. To deliver her people from near slavery. If only she could!
She stepped to the side, then back. She hopped. She shifted her weight and turned her body to an imaginary rhythm. She spun about, her skirt flaring out, her brown hair wrapping around her face. She felt a faint beat, as of distant marching or a baby’s heart. She heard a faint sound, as of a delicate melody hidden behind crashing waves.
In a moment she was dancing. At first she set her feet deliberately in the patterns of the dance. Then something took them, and she abandoned herself to it. She stepped and whirled, kicked and leaped. The beat intensified, carrying her with it. She saw the world turning around her, the sky above, the sea below, and she was not in it but of it. She floated, she soared!
“Ana!”
She fell, abruptly released from the spell. Stave caught her, his strong arms bearing her back from the brink. “You were going to leap!” he exclaimed apologetically.
She realized that it could be true. Something had imbued her, and she had let go of her own will. It had been glorious—but now she realized how readily that possession could have swept her over the cliff and into the surging sea. Actually that would not have meant her death, because she had developed the power to fly, or at least to float in the air and to propel herself by attempting to conjure heavy objects to her. But if she had gone over the cliff, and fallen, and used that power to save herself, her secret would have been out, and that would have meant her death at the hands of the despots.
“Thank you,” she panted. “I—I lost control.”
“I never saw anything so beautiful,” he said. “You danced as if the Players had taken your feet! Your legs were so lovely when your skirt floated up. Where did you learn those steps?”
The Players… Could it be? Had she made contact? The prospect awed her. But what could she say to Stave?
For a moment she was nonplussed, knowing that she could not afford to have him guess that she was tuning in on the music of the Megaplayers, but also that it would not be right to lie about it. The magic she sought was the essence of truth; a lie would taint and perhaps nullify it. Yet if she distracted him by waxing romantic, she would be deceiving him in another way. She had no intention of marrying him.
“Just how far did my skirt rise?” she inquired, forcing a blush. This was about as much of a ploy as she cared to try: diverting him to a minor matter.
“Oh, not that far!” he said quickly. But it was obvious from the dilation of his pupils that it had been too far. Yet maybe that had solved her problem: he had already been distracted. It was not the way she would have chosen, but perhaps it was just as well.
“I tell you, Ana,” he said as she hesitated. “I always thought you were, well, distant. Not the sort of girl to take on a date. I came here with you mainly from curiosity. But when you danced—you are a truly comely woman—it would be easy to love you.”
“Don’t do that!” she exclaimed. Then she had to laugh. “I mean, I didn’t mean to—”
She saw him grow subtly tense. He felt rebuffed. “You just wanted to see what kind of impression you could make on a man when you tried?”
“No, I—”
“Well, I’ll tell you: you made an impression on me!”
This was getting worse. “Stave, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
He smiled, not comfortably. “You’re trying to say that you didn’t know how well it would work, or if it would work at all, and it worked too well? I understand. You had no more interest in me than I had in you. You just wanted to try the dance and see. Now you know: it works. So it’s time to fetch whoever it is you’re really interested in, and make your skirt flare up for him, so—”
“Stave, no!” she cried, chagrined.
“It’s all right. There’s someone I’d like to impress too. Can you show me how to do that dance?”
She stared at him. She had not tried to deceive him; he had deceived himself. But she had to accept it. If he took the dance as a romantic prelude, instead of a connection to the Players, there would be no suspicion.