The Tower: Part 6: Ostara
Post #67: In which a deal is struck ...
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No wonder the Dvorgs had been stirred up, she thought, smiling to herself. Surely none of them had ever seen a snake this size, and to have it come upon them in the darkness while their attention was fixed on the scene in the cavern must have been quite a shock.
But why on earth had Mirmir come?
Heks laughed as Mirmir undulated luxuriously to the music, the smaller snake frisking around him like an affectionate puppy. Pele actually giggled, her feet flying to Persephone’s drums as she stood nose to nose with Mirmir and the two of them tried to outdo each other in speed and grace. Mirmir’s mouth stretched in a wide grin.
Then another figure approached from the shadowed tunnel mouth from which Mirmir had emerged. The Dvorgs stirred and hummed like angry bees. A shadow like a man moved toward the dancers, but Ginger had a confused impression of a wing. Was it a man or a man-sized bird or bat? Still dancing, straining to see the newcomer, an unexpected pang of joy shot through her.
The figure danced now, an athletic, strong-muscled dance, disciplined and economical. A hand moved to the throat, unfastened a long cloak and threw it aside. Skin shone palely, and Ginger saw a lean, well-made man with a muscled chest and powerful-looking shoulders, but on one side, instead of an arm, a dark wing curved gracefully from the level of his chin to below his hip.
He approached her, dancing, his eyes fastened on her as though they were the only ones in the cavern. She hadn’t seen him before, but at the same time he felt altogether familiar. Amazed wonder filled her.
As she turned and moved back from the loose triangle which she, Pele and Heks had formed to include Mirmir and the winged man, she saw yet another had joined the dance.
Poseidon, naked but for a strip of cloth around his hips, sweat gleaming on his olive-skinned chest with its dark curling hair, crowded Mirmir and Pele’s snake aside and took their place before Pele.
Pele bared her teeth in a ferocious grimace. She looked ready to bite Poseidon in half. His own face was alight with mischief and a sort of rueful charm.
The drums rolled in a suggestive, sexy beat. Pele hissed like a kettle, hips and belly undulating. Poseidon let his gaze wander over Pele’s gleaming body with appreciation and open lust. He licked his lips.
Pele spat, hitting Poseidon’s chest, and he put a finger to the blob of spittle and raised it to his lips. Pele glared. Poseidon raised an eyebrow and grinned flirtatiously.
The drums vibrated.
Ginger felt the stranger’s wing brush against her arm and waist. He whirled around her so she saw arm, wing, arm, wing. He did not brush her with his skin, but the feathers on his wing caressed her shoulders, her arms, her torso and her breasts. The feel of it lit a fire in her belly and made her nipples harden into tight peaks.
The dance was like a battle now, a contest of power, an act of seduction. Ginger felt swept away, no longer a leader, no longer a civilized, thinking person working with others to achieve a goal. It was Persephone now who anchored the dance with the drums, Persephone who guided, who picked them up by the scruff of their necks and demanded the expression of their bodies.
Ginger herself was nothing but female, as elemental and passionate as Pele. She threw herself upon the music, displaying her body and dancing her lust and desire without shame or thought for who watched.
As though in response to her thought, Persephone’s rhythm changed again into something lighter, more lyrical and playful. The rhythm slowed. Ginger became conscious of breath, sweat and her pounding heart. She smiled at the winged man, at once grateful and wistful at the slow release of sexual tension.
Mirmir had coiled much of his body inside the cavern, and the fire salamanders perched along his length, moving as the great snake moved. His head and neck rose to eye-level with the humans and a low reverberation came from his throat, a combination of hum and hiss. His mouth curved in his inscrutable smile as he swayed and rippled to the drums. Pele’s snake writhed around her neck and wound down one arm, its flat head snuggled blissfully under her chin.
Pele still glared at Poseidon, but Ginger thought a hint of a smile lurked in the corner of her wide mouth, though her glowing blue eyes remained cold.
The drums begged for playmates, and Pele turned away from Poseidon, closed her eyes, and danced as though she were alone, her snake winding ecstatically around her as she gave herself to the music, turning and stepping, hands and arms floating, breasts and buttocks bobbing. She widened her steps and danced nimbly across the cavern, moving lightly over the loops of Mirmir’s body. Ginger, feeling childlike and free, followed her, and Heks came after, cackling with old-woman laughter.
The winged man danced with Mirmir, stepping over and around his body with controlled grace. He and Mirmir grinned at one another like old friends. Poseidon joined them, clapping with Persephone’s rhythm, which she altered slyly, throwing him off-beat until he caught it again, and then running ahead of him once more. He threw back his head and laughed at her teasing.
Gradually, the drums slowed and quieted. Ginger felt languorous, unwilling to stop dancing but sated with passion and sensuality. Her throat was dry. She wondered what Pele would do when the dance ended.
The bats, as though acting on a pre-arranged signal, flowed one more time around the men and Mirmir, and then streamed out the narrow cleft into the night to hunt.
The beat slowed, and slowed again. The dancers separated, each bringing his or her dance to a private end, coming back to themselves slowly, donning the rags of civilization, moving from the body’s language, feeling, and instinct back into words and thoughts.
Ginger stood near a cavern wall, her back to the others, her arms wrapped about herself, eyes closed, quiet and renewed after the storm of dance. The drums stopped, and with them her feet. She wondered if it had been a dream. When she turned, would she see Mirmir and the winged man?
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and moved to face the cavern.
The Dvorgs, like the bats, had exited, although more quietly. Without their presence the cavern felt peaceful and spacious. The dancers stood as though awakened from separate dreams. The intimacy of the dance was broken, the winged man withdrawn, Pele and Poseidon divided by several coils of Mirmir’s body. Rumpelstiltskin perched on a high stone near the cavern’s outside entrance. Persephone remained motionless in the shadowed rocky alcove.
Heks moved first. She stepped briskly over Mirmir, picked up her discarded tunic and donned it. Ginger, feeling suddenly self-conscious with her breasts bared and slightly chilled after the heat of dancing, regained her own tunic. As she pulled it over her head, she wondered anxiously what to do next. Was she still the leader? What should she say? How could she bridge the gap between the inarticulate honesty of dance and the aftermath of constraint, inevitable when people feel overexposed? She ran her fingers through her tangled red hair, trying to decide how to proceed, and felt relieved when Persephone left her drums and approached Pele.
Ginger, watching, thought Persephone was amazing. She could be as artless and natural as any country girl, comfortable with animals, field and forest, sleeping in a hay mow by choice, friendly and affectionate with her friends. At other times, she appeared every inch a queen, dignified, confident in her own power, respectful without being smarmy in the presence of Artemis, Pele, Poseidon and old Baubo.
“Lady Pele, Mother Earth-Shaper,” said Persephone to Pele, bowing her head, “I am Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. We are honored to have danced with you.”
“I have heard of you,” said Pele. “You play well, Queen Persephone.”
“It is the dancers and the dance that play the drums,” said Persephone modestly. She indicated Ginger. “This is the Red Dancer, Ginger, and this is Heks. The Dwarve Rumpelstiltskin requested our assistance in inviting you to come forth and join us. I believe you know Poseidon. This is Mirmir, the serpent who guards the Well of Urd and Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, and his … friend. We have prepared offerings for you.”
Pele’s glance swept each of them as they were introduced. Rumpelstiltskin rose on his boulder and bowed.
“It is you who has been stirring up the Dvorgs and abovegrounders,” Pele said to him. “Some of my people were here tonight.”
“Yes, Lady,” said Rumpelstiltskin. “I have heard some Dvorgs are questioning the old ways and even the existence of Pele, Mother of All. I have come back to my birthplace to persuade my people they are part of a greater whole; above- and belowgrounders need one another, and without the sacred female our race will die.”
“And have they fallen at your feet and confessed their ignorance and pig-headedness?” Pele inquired dangerously.
“No, Lady,” said Rumpelstiltskin imperturbably. “As you know, Dvorgs are as stubborn as the rocks they live among. However, the abovegrounders believe in you and recognize your power, and tonight several Dvorgs saw you with their own eyes. The news you are not merely a myth will spread. That was my goal.”
“Hmmph,” said Pele noncommittally.
She turned suddenly on her heel, lithe as a panther, facing Poseidon. “What do you have to say for yourself?” she demanded.
“I’ve come to make a deal,” said Poseidon at once, “a business deal.”
“And why would I do business with a lying, impotent, blind worm such as yourself?” The snake around her neck hissed.
Poseidon winced. “Not impotent, surely?” he appealed.
Pele glared.
Poseidon straightened his shoulders, looking resigned. Ginger smiled, watching him prepare to eat crow.
“I was wrong. I was careless and selfish and …”
“Immature,” put in Pele.
“…Immature. I apologize. I had no idea of these problems with the Dvorgs. In the last months we’ve heard of disconnections all over Webbd, and I suspect your experience with your people is a further symptom of the wider problem. My friends and I,” he indicated the others,” are trying to understand and repair the breakdown.”
“What is this business deal?” Pele arched an eyebrow suspiciously.
“If you’ll step this way,” Poseidon indicated the rock pedestal Rumpelstiltskin perched above.
Pele approached cautiously. Poseidon picked up the marbles shaped from gems and poured them into Pele’s sooty palm. He rummaged at the base of the pillar and spilled another handful from a bag with a string around its neck into his own hand.
“Every jewel needs the right setting,” he said. “Here’s slate and flint and obsidian, brass and copper and steel. Best score, three out of four games of Trouble. If I win, you forgive me and keep what you win. If you win, you can punish me as you see fit, forgive me and keep what you win. I can’t say fairer than that!”
Ginger did not allow the laughter bubbling up to escape her lips.
Pele made a show of examining the jeweled marbles in her palm. Her mouth curved in a slight smile.
“I remember a nice flat place in the caldera,” said Poseidon suggestively. “From there we can see the stars and the sea. Remember the night we watched full Noola rise and dimmed the stars with our sparks and steam? Remember the way the lava overflowed and trickled down the volcano’s flanks and the ground shook? Remember the blood-warm sea and how the water hissed against our shuddering skin?”
Pele swayed, her hips tilting. She nodded, her blue eyes far away.
“Let’s play there,” said Poseidon softly, coaxingly. “Come play with me, Pele. I want to hear about your snake, and your eel soup and what you dreamed last night. Come now!” He took a flower from the pile of offerings and tucked it behind her ear. He picked up an engraved silver flask containing brandy in one hand and took Pele’s hand in the other, pulling her out of the cavern and into the humid tropical night.
For a moment after they’d gone, everyone looked at one another blankly.
“Well, that’s all right, then,” said Rumpelstiltskin at last with deep satisfaction, “but it won’t be a restful night.”
“Mirmir, what on earth are you doing here?” Heks demanded. “And who are you?” she asked the winged man.