“barbaric ritual” that may someday become as obsolete as scapulimancy.
There are two contestants, two drummers, and three judges. The drums set the pace, and once the dance begins it is forbidden to break the rhythm in any way. The contestants are required to perform six mandatory maneuvers in sequence, each with an increasing level of difficulty, and all maneuvers are performed while leaping —both feet must leave the ground—and require precise slashes with two swords over, under, and around the body, that are graded according to grace, accuracy, closeness of blades to the body, and elevation of leap. These mandatory maneuvers are very important because the judges must beware of mismatches, and if one of the contestants is clearly outclassed, they will refuse to allow the dance to continue.
The contestants begin quite far apart and move closer with each maneuver, and at the completion of the six mandatory maneuvers they are practically face to face. If the judges are satisfied they signal for the drummers to sound the beat of the seventh level, and now the dance becomes art, and occasionally it becomes murder.
Seventh-level maneuvers are free-form, and the only requirement is that they must be of the highest difficulty. The dancers attempt to express their souls, and the fun lies in the fact that once a maneuver has been completed the dancer is free to clip the hair from his opponent's head, if he can do so before his feet touch the ground. The opponent is free to parry and thrust, but only after his own maneuver has been completed and only before his own feet touch the ground. A dancer who attempts a stroke while so much as a toe is touching the earth is immediately disqualified. Masters disdain such easy targets as the hair on the head and attempt to barber their opponent's beard or mustache, if he wears such adornments, and the loss of noses and eyes and ears is considered to be an occupational hazard of no great importance. Of course if a dancer panics and breaks the rhythm he will probably be killed, because he will be leaping up when he should be coming down and his opponent will aim for his hair and cut off his head.
During the mandatory maneuvers the drummers play together, but with the seventh level they split, one for each dancer, and it is said that a truly great drummer is the equivalent of a third sword. Sample gymnasium conversation:
“I hear that Fan Yun has challenged you. Who's your drummer?”
“Blind Meng.”
“Blind Meng! Great Buddha, I must sell my wife and wager the proceeds! Orderly, be so kind as to order flowers for Fan Yun's widow.”
Of course that is at the master level, and the enemy of the raw amateur, such as Number Ten Ox, is not his opponent but he himself. The swords are as sharp as razors, and terrific force is required to whip them around the body in a seventh-level maneuver, and the amateur is likely to beam with pride after a successful maneuver only to discover that he has left one of his legs lying upon the ground.
It is quite impossible to describe the beauty of the Sword Dance in words. It is skill and pride and courage and grace and beauty rolled into one, and when two consummate masters go at it their bodies seem to float effortlessly into the air and hang suspended in space, and their swords are flashing blinding blurs—particularly at night, in the light of torches—and the clash of steel meeting steel is like the songs of gongs that thrill the heart as well as the ears. Each brilliant maneuver inspires a counter maneuver even more brilliant, and the drummers drive their rhythms into the hearts of their champions and force them past human limitations into the realm of the supernatural. The audience screams as a blade slips through and blood spurts, but the dancers laugh out loud, and then the sand clock runs out and the drums fall silent, and even the judges leap to their feet and cheer as the panting contestants drop their swords and embrace.
One might assume that this dangerous sport requires the strength of a man, but speed and suppleness can counterbalance strength. It is said that among the six greatest dancers of all time there was one woman, and I insist that the figure must be revised. Two of them were women, and I am in a position to prove it.
That night Li Kao carried two sharp swords up the path toward the wall. They had to be sharp because an expert would spot dull blades in a second. Henpecked Ho carried two drums, and I carried two thousand pounds of sheer terror. My flesh was all goose bumps as I stripped to my loincloth, and my fingers were like icicles as I took the swords from Li Kao. They hid in the shrubbery, and I have never known time that passed so slowly yet reached midnight with such appalling swiftness.
The watchman's knocker rapped three times, and I turned to see the faint outlines of a ghost shadow upon the patch where the door had been. The shadow blanket slipped easily over my head, and the door stood open and the well was uncovered and the path was clear of weeds. I walked up the path to meet Bright Star.
The flute began to play its haunting melody. A light moved toward me. The exquisite girl came dancing down the path, and again I caught my breath as I watched the agony of her perfection as she honored her art, even while her heart was breaking. She did not see me.
Henpecked Ho began pounding his drum, and at first I couldn't imagine what he was doing. He certainly wasn't sounding the challenge to the Sword Dance, but finally my pulse told me the answer. The gentle scholar was playing the song that he loved most on earth and that he had learned during the lovesick sleepless nights; the heartbeat of a dancing girl. He leaned over his drum and put his weight into it, and the insistent heartbeat thudded and thundered through the trees, and the first flaw in the dance of Bright Star was the faintly puzzled expression that began to appear in her eyes.
Li Kao's drum rang out with the challenge to the Sword Dance, weaving in and out and over and around the steady beat of a heart, and an awareness, a growing wonder, began to shine in the eyes of the dancing girl. I stepped forward and raised my swords in the salute, and then I knew that the legend was true, and that the challenge to the dance is stronger than death itself, because her eyes began to sparkle, and as the challenge and the heartbeat pounded louder and louder her hands lifted gracefully to the clasp of her throat and her robe fell to the ground, and she danced toward me in her loincloth, with the jade pendant that her captain had given her hanging between her small firm breasts on a golden chain, and Henpecked Ho's silver comb in her hair.
Then she saw me. She spread her hands wide and two ghost swords suddenly sparkled in the moonlight. The heartbeat thudded even louder, and Li Kao began to pound the command for the mandatory maneuvers.
A master would never consent to dance with an amateur. It would be murder. I plastered a silly smile on my face and pretended that I was making a joke of boring classroom exercises, and then I launched into the air with the Tiger, the Kingfisher, Dragon's Breath, the Swan, the Serpent, and Night Rain. Bright Star didn't suspect that I was doing the very best that I could. She laughed and promptly imitated me, even to the slight stumble that I made after Dragon's Breath. We were moving closer and closer together, and Henpecked Ho's drum joined Li Kao's as they thundered the command for seventh-level maneuvers.
I sent a fervent prayer to the August Personage of Jade, and then I leaped off the ground with Eighth Drake Under the River Bridge. The August Personage of Jade must have heard me, because I managed to complete the eight savage slashes around my body and between my legs without castrating myself, but when I saw Bright Star's response I nearly fainted. She lifted effortlessly into the air and floated like a leaf as she slashed her swords around her body in Ice Falling From a Mountaintop—which is very nearly impossible—and still had time before her toes touched the ground to take a couple of playful swipes that would have neatly trimmed my eyebrows if her ghost swords had been real. I managed to complete Stallion Racing in the Meadow, and Bright Star tripled the level of difficulty with Storm Clouds, but her eyes narrowed suspiciously when she saw that I had left myself wide open.
It was now or never. I leaped into the air with Widow's Tears, and Bright Star turned pale with shock and horror. I was dancing backward, out of reach of her swords. The drums continued, and she almost lost her balance. My cowardice was plain to see, but the judges had not stopped the contest, and there could be only one explanation. They had been bribed, and the Sword Dance had been defiled, and her whole world was crashing down around her ears.
“What? You break the rhythm of the dance?” I sneered. “Are you afraid of me, base-born dancing girl?”
That did it. The beautiful ghost uttered a piercing scream of rage, and her lithe body shot up into the air, and her swords began to flicker around her body like tongues of flame as she pursued me down that path, performing seventh-level maneuvers that I could not possibly believe, even though the blades were flashing right in front of my face. I puffed and panted and danced backward as fast as I could, but nothing on earth could persuade a dancer to continue if the opponent failed to complete a maneuver, and now I was slicing myself to ribbons.
Henpecked Ho began to pound Bright Star's heartbeat so powerfully that blood was spurting from the palms of his hands, and Li Kao's drum was drowning out the ghost flute as it commanded: Faster! Faster! Faster! I
