elaborate fantasy costumes to a feather and two bangles. The only similarity was that there was some red to their hair, ranging from strawberry blonde to auburn, and they had three tears painted under the left eye.
“I can’t win this,” Doris said. “Look at Garnet!”
The previous year’s winner’s costume was an elaborate laser-cut leather demon complete with the talons.
“That must have cost an arm and a leg.”
“More like a soul,” Daphne said. “Souls. But they weren’t hers. Win or lose, you are going to participate. And have you looked more closely? Most of them truly don’t have a chance. They’re just here because for thirty seconds, eight thousand people will be looking at them.”
Now that Doris had some time to recover from her shock, she had to admit the little pirate had a point. More than half the women in the room really would look better in street clothes. Spandex was a privilege, not a right. And even for those who had some semblance of the real “Dawn” look, most of the costumes ran to the sort of thing you got from a Halloween shop. Little Bo Peep and Sexy Cop.
That left, out of probably two hundred, maybe thirty who were contenders. Considered honestly, Doris was in that category. So those were the girls to beat.
At which point…
“I’m still not going to win,” Doris said.
“Seek the Grail,” Daphne said. “You may find it or not, but the value is in the search.”
“Do you know Duncan Folsom?” Doris asked.
“I know the name,” Daphne said. “But we’ve never met. We run in slightly different planes but we’re aligned.”
“If you’re going to register, please do,” the lady at the table said. She looked as if she could have been an entrant once upon a time. “We need to get this show going.”
“Yes,” Doris said. “I’m registering.”
“Stage name?”
“Excuse me?” Doris said.
“Most people use their mystic name,” the lady said. “It cuts down on the stalkers. Or you can use your mundane name. Up to you.”
“Myst…” Doris said, frowning. “I don’t really have…”
“Sure you do,” Daphne said. “Think about it. Everyone does, they just hold it deep inside. Who are you, really? Doris Grisham of White Springs, Alabama?”
“Yes,” Doris said. “I am. And…no, I’m not.”
“The Faces,” Daphne said, softly. “The thousand faces of the hero, the nine billion names of God. Who is the Goddess within? What name calls once from the darkness, twice from the light?”
“Janea,” Doris said hesitantly. “My name’s Janea.”
“Good one,” the lady said, writing it down on a form. “Original. Okay, you’re done. Your friend has to stay. Only contestants from here on out.”
“Good luck,” Daphne said, hugging her. “Truth is, we’re from about as far apart as anyone could imagine, but I think I’ve grown knowing you. Which takes some doing.”
“You’re…going to be around when I’m done, right?” Doris asked.
“Always,” Daphne said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “But when you win, I think there will be others who will want to greet you. There are some who have been waiting to see who you become. I hope we see each other before the end of the con, but that’s tonight at midnight. And everyone will be gathering for Dead Dog. But I’ll be with you when you hear the whisper of the wind.”
“What?” Doris said.
“Just go, honey,” Daphne said, pushing her into the throng. “Be the Goddess.”
Doris waved as she walked away but Daphne didn’t look back. She already missed the little pirate and hoped that they’d be able to meet again and get some contact information before the end of the con. She thought about the last conversation for a second and then frowned.
“Plane?”
Waiting for the contest was about the most nerve-wracking experience of her whole life. The girls had been assigned numbers at random rather than as they turned up, to keep people from gaming the system. Winners tended to be either early in the contest or very late.
Despite that system, Doris suspected some sort of foul play since Garnet’s entry was next to last. Worse, Doris had somehow gotten the slot right before the previous year’s winner. Which meant she was probably going to be upstaged.
And the more time she had to think, the less she liked her costume. It wasn’t elaborate enough to win for the costuming value-several of the judges were serious costumers-and it was too elaborate to win her points for sexy.
One by one the contestants went out, did their little pirouette or, in rare cases, some sort of routine, and then in some cases submitted to questions from the judges. If you didn’t get questioned, it was pretty clear you weren’t in the running. But most of the girls weren’t really there to win, as Daphne had pointed out. So most of them came back happy looking. The few that didn’t were the “contenders” who weren’t asked questions.
There were fewer than ten girls left and Doris started to sidle towards the front. It was no big deal. Walk out, do the quick dance, come back. Hopefully the judges wouldn’t ask her questions.
“‘Did you do the costume yourself?’” Doris muttered, sliding over to the wall by the stage entrance. “‘Except for most of it, which I bought in a stripper shop.’ ‘How long have you been costuming?’ ‘How long has the con been going on?’”
“Now the little newb is talking to herself,” Garnet said. “How quaint.”
Doris had been so focused on the stage, she hadn’t even noticed the woman walk up.
“Well, it’s talk to myself or talk to you,” Janea said. “I’ll take talking to air first.”
“Think you’re special?” Garnet snarled. “You’re nothing but a tiny little nobody in this con. You’re nothing. You’re worthless.”
“Which is why you keep picking on me, right?” Janea said. “Because I’m so worthless you know I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Really?” Garnet said, smiling. “Think so?”
Without the slightest warning, she snatched off half the barely attached appliances on the costume, ripping the dress in the process. “Not now.”
“Oh…” Doris said. “You…you…”
“And next…Janea…presenting Dawn, Warrior of the East.”
“Good luck,” Garnet said.
Doris stood, just breathing hard for a moment, then reached up and ripped the rest of the elaborate fake armoring off the dress, ripping more of it in the process.
“…Dawn, Warrior of the East…?”
Janea strode onto the stage without even glancing at the judges or the crowd, then spun into a lotus position with her back to the crowd. She opened up the brooch on her cloak and spun it out of the way, then drew her swords and laid them, crossed, in front of her on the stage.
The music started and she stood up, took her right sword, and stuck it through the constraining material of the dress between her legs, and cut from just below her crotch to the floor. She spun up on one foot in a pirouette and the two swords lashed the remaining fabric away, the leg-length pieces flipping away through the air like butterflies. Then she started to dance.
Everything else fell away then. For Janea, when she was in movement the world became the dance. The crowd did not matter, the judges did not matter, Garnet did not matter. Only the dance.
There have been sword dances performed in every society that had periods when the sword was the paramount weapon, from Caucasus saber dances to Wu-Shu. Most of them had little to do with actual combat. But they mostly shared the peculiarity of performing them being a life-and-death event for the performer. Most styles involved moving the blade very close to the performer’s body. The closer the blade to the body, the faster…that was
