Songs of the Dying Earth

dance the wild and uninhibited Devian Tarantula. The Brothers Vromarak put aside their mourning for the night and led everyone in a hopping, leaping tango-conga line that concluded with two-thirds of the dancers collapsing in a wriggling, laughing heap. Then Arch-Docent Hu?—the same tall, silent, solemn form with whom Shrue had played chess every evening on the foredeck — who had left his dark docent robes behind in his booklined stateroom, appeared barechested in gold slippers and silver pantaloons to dance a wild solo Quostry to the pounding piano and tamdrums. The dance was so gravity-defying and amazing to watch that the sixty-some passengers and crew applauded to the beat until Hu? concluded by literally leaping to the ceiling, tapdancing there for an impossible three minutes, and then lowering himself like a spider to the crystal dancefloor below and bowing.

Little Maus Meriwolt wheeled out an instrument that he’d cobbled together. The thing appeared to be a mixture of organ, calliope, and fog horn, and Meriwolt — dressed now in his fanciest yellow shirt, white gloves, and red shorts — tapdanced in oversized wooden clogs as he sang in his falsetto and pulled ropes to activate the various horns, pipes, and steam sirens. The effect was so comical that the round of applause Meriwolt received rivaled Arch-Docent Hu?’s reception.

But perhaps the most amazing part of the long night to Shrue was the transformation of Dame War Maven Derwe Coreme and her six Myrmazons.

Shrue had never seen Derwe Coreme or her fighters out of their formfitting dragonscale armor, but this night they appeared in thin, floating, incredibly erotic gowns of shimmeringly translucent silk of soft red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Everyone in the ballroom gasped when the Myrmazons floated in like a rainbow. And — like the bands of color in a rainbow — the intensity and hues shifted and changed from one to another as the women moved and as one moved in relation to them. Derwe Coreme, who had entered in a red dress, had her thin gauze’s color shift to violet as Shrue approached to ask her to dance. Each of the young women’s gowns shifted color as they moved and as their bodies moved beneath the fabric, but the full rainbow was always present with all seven of its colors.

“Astounding,” whispered Shrue much, much later as he held Derwe Coreme close as they danced. The orchestra, apparently exhausted from its own exertions during the wild dances, was playing a slow waltz half as old as time. The ball was almost over. There was a pre-dawn grayness to the light outside the crystal windows. Shrue could feel Derwe Coreme’s breasts against him as they slowly moved together across the crystal hull-floor. “Your gown — all your gowns — are astounding,” he said again.

“What? This old thing?” said Derwe Coreme, tossing aside a floating ribbon of the nearly transparent and seemingly gravity-free fabric — it was now green. “Just something the girls and I picked up after sacking the city of Moy.” She was obviously amused — and perhaps pleased — by Shrue’s amazement. “Why, diabolist? Does this sort of garb on a warrior not fit into your magician’s philosophy?”

Shrue recited softly—

“Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—
Unweave a rainbow.”

“That is astounding,” whispered Derwe Coreme. “Who wrote it? Where did you find it?”

“No one knows who wrote it,” said Shrue, pulling her closer and whispering against her cheek. “I was thinking a moment ago that this waltz is half as old as time…well, that verse, the name of its author lost to us, is as old as time. And older than all our memories — save my mother’s, who used to put me to sleep with ancient poetry.”

Derwe Coreme pulled back suddenly to study Shrue’s face. “You? Shrue the diabolist? With a mother? It is hard to imagine.”

Shrue sighed.

Suddenly Arch-Docent Hu? cut in — not to dance with Derwe Coreme, but to talk excitedly to Shrue. “Did I hear you just say something about gnome mines? I am doing my thesis on gnomes in gloam-mines, you know!”

Shrue nodded, took Derwe Coreme’s hand, and said, “Fascinating. But I fear the lady and I must turn in now. I shall talk to you about gnome mines another time — perhaps over chess tomorrow.”

Arch-Docent Hu?, appearing somewhat less professorial than usual with his bare chest, red cumberbund, silver pantaloons, and gold slippers, looked crestfallen.

As they went up the grand stairway out of the ballroom, Derwe Coreme whispered, “My leaving will ruin the rainbow.”

Shrue laughed. “Five of your other six colors left with gentlemen hours ago.”

“Well,” said the war maven, “I cannot say that I am leaving with a gentleman.”

Shrue glanced at her sharply. Although his expression had not changed, he was amazed to find that his feelings were deeply hurt.

As if sensing this, Derwe Coreme squeezed his hand. “I am leaving with the gentleman,” she said softly. “Of this voyage. Of all the males I’ve known in my not-insignificant lifetime. Perhaps in all of the Dying Earth. A gentleman and a magician — not a common combination, that.”

Shrue did not argue. He said nothing as they went up to their stateroom.

Two days later the Steresa’s Dream crossed the western coastline of another continent just after dawn. Ulfant Banderoz’s nose shifted at least ten degrees northeast in its little box and the sky galleon altered its course to follow.

“Captain,” Shrue said as he stood on the otherwise empty quarterdeck near Shiolko at the great wheel, “I noticed the gunports along the hull…”

Shiolko rumbled his sailor’s laugh. “Paint only, Master magus. Paint only. For appearance sake come sky pirates or angry husbands after a port call.”

“Then you have no weapons?”

“Three crossbows and my grandfather’s cutlass in the weapons’ locker,” said Shiolko. “Oh, and the harpoon gun down in the for’ard hold.”

“Harpoon gun?”

“A great awkward thing that runs off compressed air,” said the captain. “Fires an eight-foot long barbed bolt of a harpoon trailing a mile or three of thin steel cable. Originally meant to hunt whales or baby Lanternmouths or some such. My sons and I have never had reason nor opportunity to use it.”

“You might want to bring it up on deck and see if it works,” said Shrue. “Practice with it a bit.”

Late that afternoon, the galleon crossed an expanse of ochre and vermillion desert glinting with crystals. The Steresa’s Dream was flying low enough that everyone could see the huge, blue creatures — rather like soft-shelled chambered nautiluses, Shrue thought from where he watched from the railing — which had evolved a single great wheel by which they rolled singularly and in groups across the red desert floor, leaving tracks ten leagues long.

“We could practice on one of them!” called one of Shiolko’s sons to Shrue. He and two others had assembled and hooked up the air-harpoon gun nearby on the deck but had yet to fire one of the barbed harpoons.

“I wouldn’t,” said Shrue.

“Why not?” asked the goodnatured young man.

Shrue pointed. “Those tracks the blue-wheelers are leaving in the sand? They’re ancient glyphs. The