Songs of the Dancing Gods

I’m not any more. The other thing is, as I discovered tonight, I can’t just give it away, except to him. That’s some Rule someplace, no question.”

“You been doin’ this all along since we got here, then?”

“No, I’m in full control of myself. This was the first time. I’m not so sure about him, though, although he’s probably been good because you’re with us. I’m just sorry you had to find out, particularly like this. I guess I must not seem much of a change to you, and certainly not a good example. That I feel bad about.”

“Well, I dunno… What if he finds out?”

“He probably will someday, and then I’ll pull the Rules on him—everybody does it because nobody knows what the Rules really say—and he’ll feel free and that’ll be that. But I’d just as soon not right now. I don’t plan on this as a regular habit unless he forces me. I did it for just one good reason—pure practicality.”

“You did it for money.”

She nodded, holding out a hand. He reached out and into his outstretched palm dropped two gold and two silver pieces. “Jeez!” he said. “That’s two and a quarter horses! Was that all of them or are you really that good?”

“Never mind, smartass. Let’s get back and get some sleep. Tomorrow you can find the extra pieces you didn’t notice, maybe hidden away in a fold of the bag or whatever.” She grew very serious. “Look, it’s important to me that you understand this. I love your father. I would never leave him, and I wouldn’t want to be with any other man like this. I don’t know what happened between him and your mother because he never talks about it except in vague terms, but if we split up, it’ll be him taking the walk out of male ego, not me. I’m sorry, but the situation’s just different here.”

“All right, I’ll shut up about it,” he assured her, “but only this once. You keep sneakin’ off with these strangers in strange places with no backup and sooner or later somebody’s gonna get you good. People just ain’t that different over here as you like to think they are.”

Not too different at all, he thought, as they rode back in silence, except that these folks have a ready excuse for the wrong things they do. Except that at least these two cared what he felt, and that was something. Something he very much needed, and didn’t want to lose.

When Irving had asked what sort of fairies ran the ferry, the man had told him to wait and see. Now, as it came in, he still wasn’t quite sure. It was a big thing, flat but raised up, with a real hull, and there was a huge single sail on a mast in the center controlled by some kind of rope-and-pulley system that extended to the sides of the ship and seemed to go down into the water. There seemed to be lots of some sort of large fish, maybe dolphins, ahead of it in the water as if scouting the way, but, aboard, there appeared to be no wheel, no wheelhouse, and no apparent crew!

As it drew closer, it was clear that the big fish or whatever they were in front were on lines, like a team of horses attached to a big wagon, and that they were in fact steering the boat that way, although the main propulsion came from the manipulations of the single sail. And there was someone, or something, atop the lead fish, almost invisible from any distance because the creature’s coloration seemed to match or reflect the water.

Now the boat was angled so that the current would take it into shore, the sail slowly folded inward so that it was no longer driving.the boat, and, for a moment, the rider was against the dark background of the boat hull rather than the water. The outline was of an impossibly beautiful girl, almost a cartoon of a sexy girl, only her skin seemed weird, as if she were somehow made of glass or plastic and filled with water.

“A water nymph!” Joe exclaimed. “I never knew they did any work they didn’t have to!”

Tiana nodded. “But what’s pulling and steering? Mermaids?”

At that moment the “fish” team, freed of its tension for a moment, sounded as one, and from the water emerged the ugliest, most fearsome, monstrous heads Irving had ever seen, almost a cross between a lion’s head and maybe the Creature from the Black Lagoon. They roared with a terrible sound that more than fit their horrible visage.

“Hippogryphs!” Joe exclaimed. “Nymphs who never did anything in their lives riding and guiding a beast that I never knew could be tamed! They’ve got to be tame, though. She wouldn’t have the strength to guide them against their wills!”

The water nymph stood atop the lead beast, reins in hand, like a performer in some big water show, pulling this rein and that until the beasts were to one side, out of the way of the boat, which then passed them. The team moved in and started nudging the boat into the landing.

There was no dock as such; just a mud flat that went gently down into and under the water. The boat ran right up on the flat and seemed to dig a little trench as it stuck fast in the shallow mud. Now a couple of human boys, maybe eight or nine years old, who had been sitting on a piece of wood, ran up and started unfastening the front end of the boat, which dropped with a crash onto the mud and created a ramp from the exterior. As soon as the people, horses, and carts inside started to come off, all sorts of adults seemed to pop up from all over the place hawking just about everything and keeping an incessant set of pleas to buy this or that or, “You’ll need this,” as the travelers disembarked.

“It’ll be interesting to see how they collect the fares,” Tiana commented. “Water nymphs must be pretty much in contact with the water at all times or they’ll start to dry out.”

If Joe had been at all aware of the previous night’s activities, he did not let on to either of them, and seemed perfectly happy to accept Irv’s contention that there was more in the purse than he’d thought. He really began to wonder about his Dad, though; he knew that Joe had lightning reflexes and could pop up out of an apparently sound sleep, sword in hand, at the merest sound of danger. For the simple life, the boy thought, things were sure getting complicated, with everybody keeping secrets from everybody else.

Now it was their turn to be besieged by the vendors as they loaded back on. It was kind of the honor system on who got on first, but it wasn’t much of a crowd and the line was pretty much self-enforcing.

Irving looked inside and wasn’t sure he liked it. “Hey! This tub’s sinkin’!”

An old guy with a thick gray beard taking a cart aboard chuckled. “Don’t worry about it none, son. They decide if the water comes in or stays out. Just you wait!”

The small boys who’d unfastened the ramp now waded into the water and got hold of ropes floating there on the surface. Then they ran back and attached hooks on the ropes to an assembly at each end of the ramp and gave a shout. Something pulled on the ropes from the sea, raising the ramp, which hit a wooden catch at the top of each side and clicked into place. The boat lurched this way and that, and suddenly was floating free. The deck had only a few inches of water in it, but now the water seemed to coalesce in clear spots and from those spots arose, almost oozed, the shapes of two of the water nymphs. They had an unnerving, Other-Worldly perfection to them, and they looked exactly alike, each about four feet of total feminine sensuality.

“Don’t touch the hair, boy,” the old man cautioned in a low tone. “It’s like sea nettles. Stings like crazy.”

“Welcome to the Daryia ferry,” they said in unison, in truly musical, singsong voices. “Please give us your fares now as we pass among you. After we are squared away, the water will recede and there is fodder in the forward hold for the animals which is included in the fare.”

“I wonder what happens if you don’t have the fare?” Irv mused.

“Then they take you,” the old man replied.

That was not a comforting thought.

Even up close, the fairy nymphs seemed weird, like beautiful but extreme sculptures made of glass. Irv, like all the other men, couldn’t really take his eyes off the creatures.

When one got to them, Joe, who’d appropriated the money pouch, fished out six gold pieces and dropped them in the nymph’s palm. The pieces sat there a moment, then seemed to sink into her hand, and you could watch the golden coins go down through her into the water and then to who knew where?

“I’ve never heard of nymphs running a ferry before,” Tiana commented. “Nor tamed hippogryphs, either.”

The nymph shrugged. “It beats lying around all day being seductive,” she responded. “It’s an old troll ferry that was abandoned during the War. We looked at it and decided that sitting around looking sexy for a few