In Which Ken Picks the Wrong Girl to Dance With
The town center had been cleared to accommodate the ongoing celebrations. Paved with thick cobblestones and lined with thousands of petals of contrasting colors, this seemed, at least to Ken, to be a place of some significance. Several baskets hung suspended from nearby trees, ropes affixed to their edges. One tug would send fresh cascades of scattering petals tumbling down on revelers and onlookers alike.
But it was the butterflies that really stole the show. Hundreds illuminated the air, clustering every few feet. They cast a gentle glow around the plaza, winking in and out as if on command. All the villagers took this in stride, like there was nothing extraordinary shining right above their heads.
A large statue stood at the heart of the small clearing, a white marble figure wearing a crown of roses on her brow. She was one-handed, as far as Ken could tell, with one wrist ending in a stump. Carved roses and lilies, magnificently detailed, shielded most of her body from view. The faint, sweet scent of flowers clung to the air.
A large crowd had gathered around the small fires kept burning around the statue, cheering the dancers on. There were two different kinds of dances taking place at once. The first was headed up by the male village elders and was meant to be the main performance. The men wore colorful shirts, large hats, and heavy decorative staffs that they pointed toward the heavens as they chanted, whirling and dancing around with feet that moved like they were thirty years younger.
Following them was a masquerade of color; the dancers were completely hidden by costumes constructed from barks and leaves, all boasting lion-like manes over their chests and thick ruffs on their arms and legs. They waved strange-scented leaves in their right hands, contributing to the smell of incense in the air, and wielded simpler wooden staffs on the left.
But it was the second dance that was taking up most of Ken’s attention; girls were dressed in colored wraps, their wrists and ankles adorned in wrist sleeves made of pillow-like fur. They stepped lightly among the butterflies and around the bonfires as they moved in rhythm to the sonorous beats of drums and clapsticks. Freshly picked flowers were gathered in their arms—carnations and calla lilies and gardenias and pale roses. Every now and then, a few of the girls would dance into the crowd and tuck flowers behind the ears of fortunate bystanders.
A doe-eyed, raven-haired girl with a full-lipped mouth smiled sweetly at Ken, inserting a red carnation behind his ear. It was a daunting task, because four other girls had previously tucked four other flowers in the exact same place. Despite his half-hearted protestations, she pulled him, smiling, into the center of the plaza, where a new dance began. The girl laughed whenever he stepped out of turn, gently guiding him through most of the routine until he didn’t fare as poorly as when he had first started out.
“You’re a quick learner, milord,” she said, after maneuvering through slightly more intricate steps that Ken accomplished with only minimal awkwardness.
“I’ve been told,” Ken said blandly, then caught her up in his arms, paying no heed to the music and spinning her around, the steady beat of drums and the piping of flutes drowning out her laughter.
“Are you staying long, milord?”
“Name’s Kensington. Not milord.”
“Kensington.” Her voice was like velvet, soft and husky. “An unusual name.”
“It’s got gardens Mum’s mad about,” Ken said. “And the Royal Albert Hall.”
“Royal Albert Hall?”
“It’s nothing.” Ken spun her again, and as the song ended, dipped her low enough that the brunette’s long hair grazed the ground, her smiling face beneath his own, only inches away. “You dance in a style I am not accustomed to, Kensington,” she whispered, and then kissed him. Ken was initially surprised, and then enthusiastic, and then a shade nervous. None of the other girls he’d danced with so far had been so forward, and the innkeeper’s comment about the girls finding husbands that night was rattling around in his head like a persistent warning bell.
The dance concluded to rounds of applause and cheers, giving way to a brief interlude before the next one commenced. The girl ended the kiss slowly, her eyes an open, blatant invitation, and Ken found himself clearing his throat several times. “I’ve been told you have a priestess,” he began.
“She has been good to us. Her granddaughter is to wed on the morrow, the poor girl.”
“Poor girl?”
“On account of her doom. Mam says that there are only two kinds of people who receive dooms—the ones who shall be terrible, and the ones who shall be great.” She flashed him an alluring smile. “I am neither, but I am glad to be ordinary.”
“There is no way in hell,” said Ken, “that you are just ‘ordinary.’”
“My name’s Iniko. When the dancing is over, I’ll be waiting by She of the One Hand.” She pointed to the tall statue.
“She of the One Hand?”
“She fought her own evil brother and saved a kingdom, though she sacrificed much in the process. Her name has long been lost to time, but her legend has not been forgotten. I can tell you more of our stories later. Among other things, if you wish.” Iniko giggled at her temerity before dashing off to join a covey of girls, who whispered among themselves, glanced at Kensington, and giggled some more.
A group of matriarchs frowned in his direction, not liking the girls’ new fancy. Wisely, Ken decided that some distance, for now, was in order. He grinned back at Iniko—she reddened, for all her previous boldness—then disappeared quickly into the crowd. Every girl he’d danced with so far had been very evasive about their priestess, and even more so about her granddaughter. They were celebrating the upcoming nuptials, but it felt like most pitied the bride.
Ken figured that the Dame had wanted them in Ikpe to meet its priestess. If Zoe had been there, she would have pointed out in her clear, logical way, that he could have come to that conclusion without needing to dance with the girls, but where was the fun in that?
He spotted Loki several minutes later, nearly hidden behind a thin coppice. Loki looked disconcerted for once, a white rose dangling loosely behind their ear. They were cornered by a lovely, slim waif of a girl barely taller than their shoulder. From time to time, Loki would reach up and slowly take the rose out of their hair. Almost immediately, the girl would reach forward, pluck the flower from their grasp, and then put it back, the resolute look on her face telling them this was where it belonged.
“Don’t think I’ve seen you around these parts,” the girl purred, oblivious to Ken’s approach. “Where did the frost sweep you in from? The Scythian borders? The Albion heartlands?”
“I’m an outlander,” Loki said, honest and wary, their eyes darting around for a way out.
The girl was undaunted. “If outlanders are all as handsome as you, it’s a shame more have not breached the Avalon barriers. Why don’t we wander over to that house on my right, and we can talk about the differences between your outlander customs and mine?”
“Where’ve you been, Wagner?” Ken broke in, stepping into the clearing just as Loki began to look particularly desperate. The girl shot him a dirty glare.
“You’re going to be in a lot of trouble when Edna catches you, you know. Pardon me, miss,” he said to the still-fuming girl, selecting a girl’s name at random. “My friend here’s been hitched to Edna only a week, but they always did have a hard time remembering. I would, in their place.”
“Married?” Loki echoed.
“Married?” the girl echoed.
“To the damn strongest girl this side of Avalon.” The girl fidgeted. “She’s at the inn right now, arm wrestling the patrons into submission, into oblivion, into all sorts of -ions. Strong lady. Chopped down half a tree with her bare hands once, when she’d caught them making out with some other girl, Bridgen, wasn’t that her name? You saw the mess Edna made of Bridgen, Sun-Wagner, you really want to do that all over again? I mean, this one’s pretty enough, but so was that last one before Edna grounded her down to compost.”
“What are you…?” Loki began, but the ruse worked. The girl backed away, eyes wide, before turning to flee.
“You’re welcome. She would have chased you all the way to Lyonesse if I hadn’t stepped in.”
“What just happened?”
“You’ve obviously never met a village girl before. I grew up on a ranch; I know their tricks. Had fun figuring them out too.”
“They seem very cavalier about the fact that we’ve come from outside of Avalon, although they’ve been trapped here for twelve years.”
“Well, it’s only been a year for them, right? And I would imagine their priestess has been telling them about our arrival for all that time, so they’re not too shocked.” Ken scanned the crowd. It occurred to him that West could be having the same difficulty, though that seemed doubtful. “I didn’t get much information from the girls. You see West anywhere?”
Loki shook their head. “I lost sight of him when the dance started.”
Ken felt ill at ease. He hadn’t seen West among the dancers either. A shape-shifting, naked boy wandering the streets was the sort of unwanted attention Zoe disliked.
“He could have gone back to the inn. Let’s go back and take a loo—”
Squeak.
Ken glanced down. Red beady eyes stared back at him. The rat sat on its hind legs and had both paws around Ken’s pants leg, tugging.
“West?”
The rat squeaked again. And then it took off, tail and whiskers quivering violently, into the thick of the crowd.
“West, wait!”
Chasing a small rat was difficult when half the people in the plaza were dancing and the other half were watching the dancers. Ken wormed his way through the crowd through force of will, with Loki close behind. He spotted the boy’s tail just as it vanished around a corner, into a narrow alley.
West had finished shape-shifting by the time Ken and Loki caught up. The smaller boy’s bony arms were clasped around his fur cloak, and he was a mild shade of blue.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Ken demanded. “If anyone saw you change, we are going to be in so much trouble, because I’m not sure the priestess told her people about you being a Roughskin. Either way, Zoe is going to have a cow.”
“It wasn’t a girl,” West said, teeth still chattering.
“What?”
“It wasn’t a girl. I mean, it was a girl. Real pretty. Hair like midnight, eyes this really nice shade. She had pretty hands and she was coque…croquet…real come-hither, and had on one of those nice dresses, not the full length ones. Real short, clings to her like it was—”
“West, cut to the chase.”
“What chase?” Loki asked, still confused.
“Figure of speech, Loki. Well?”
“The pretty girl with the dress said she had something for me. So I followed her, and once we were alone, she…”
West paused and shivered again. “She wasn’t a girl, Ken. Her eyes were like great big bacons—”
“Beacons,” Loki corrected.
“Beacons, shining like a cat’s. Except she’s not a cat. And then these men stepped out, and they had the same eyes, and she says ‘We have been waiting for you, Weston-Clifford Eddings.’ They tried to grab me, so I shifted, and then I came here and saw you, and you said ‘West, what do you think you’re—’”
“Bugger that all,” Ken whispered, his blood running cold.
“Deathless, here in the village?” Loki sounded bleak.
“Aunt Elspen told me,” West groaned. “She said to avoid pretty girls in dark corners, didn’t she? I should have known.”
“Stay with me, West,” Ken told him. “This changes things. We need to find Zoe and the others right now.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath, Sir Inoue.”
A woman’s shadow framed the alleyway, her features obscured by the lack of light. Even in the darkness her eyes were like black holes, the pupils bright twin stars too large to be normal. Half a dozen hulking men appeared behind her, blocking their way out.
“Give us the firebird,” the girl spoke in a soft, sonorous voice, “and you may leave with your life. Is my mistress not compassionate?”
“She’s so kind she makes my hair bleed,” Ken said. “And I’m guessing the alternative would be much, much worse? I know how this works. I’ve seen those James Bond movies.”
“How did they even know we were here?” Loki demanded.
“We are everywhere,” the girl said. “You are not as safe as your Duke of Wonderland wishes you to believe.”
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Ken said. There was a slight grating noise as he drew the Yawarakai-Te, and then the Juuchi Yosamu for good measure, out from the scabbards on his back. He knew without looking that Loki had already taken out their staff.
“You will have little time to feel regret, Kensington.” She stepped closer, revealing delicate features with dark flawless skin and bloodred lips. Ken realized, much to his horror, that he recognized her face. The girl smiled, and managed to convey every appearance of unrestrained cruelty with two rows of perfect, even teeth.
“Kill them all,” Iniko said.