The Dancer, part one
Fiction: The first story from The Great Fire
Welcome to the first part from The Great Fire. The Dancer is a story collected by Maya to learn more about her history and to try and stop the tyrannical King Favian.
The Great Fire is designed to be read in any order but you can catch up on the previous stories here:
Read part one of The Dancer or listen to the recording below.
The Dancer
Part One
It’s tradition that before we learn to fight, we learn to dance. Over the years that I learned to fight to defend my King, I danced. There was nothing more freeing than those moments and it pains me to say that I will never experience anything like it again. The last time I danced was over thirty-three years ago on the night before I came to Teron to meet with your wretched King.
My mother and I travelled with twelve soldiers from my Kingdom, Baline. We passed through the Kingdom of Thawn and the Thari Mountains here to Teron, solely to meet him. My mother was to be the mediator, and I was the mediation. I would dance for him, and if he chose me we would create a union between the two Kingdoms for the first time in eighty years, since before the Nine Wars.
I took little comfort in having my mother with me. She felt the weight of the cause more than I did, and she continued to treat me like the soldiers that came with us. She reminded me that she wasn’t there to support me; she was there to keep me in control.
But why were you coming?
So I could marry the King. We didn’t know about you then, of course. But I suppose that was the point.
We couldn’t enter Teron through the main gates. Baline lies to the North, and with the Thari Mountains like a wall between us, it would take too long to journey around them. So we travelled through the tunnels that splintered through the mountains.
I was set inside the palanquin in my ceremonial dress and carried to the gates. Or what we expected to be the gates. What we found was an end to the path we were on, and a blue door stuck in the mountain wall. It was an entrance for slaves.
We don’t have slaves in Teron.
Yes, you do.
Through the silk that covered my window I glimpsed the blue door, its colour was peeling at the edges, so that the blue looked like the water of a darkened sea. I leaned in further to see where we were, the jewels of my dress rattling against one another with each breath of movement, the door was certainly closed.
I caught the eye of my mother in the palanquin next to mine; none of it was what we were expecting. As our soldiers placed us on the ground I saw her re-arrange her dress sleeve, making it easier to unsheathe the dagger she’d hidden on her arm. I struggled to rise against the weight of my dress and when I finally stepped down from my palanquin, the door creaked open.
As it opened it revealed a passageway, which extended to a courtyard outside where I glimpsed the sun. We must have travelled through the night because I hadn’t realised that it was day. A man passed through the door, blocking the light behind him.
The first thing I noticed were his teeth.
Thrat.
His smile stretched from one edge of his face to the other but it was practised and tired. It was as if his teeth were blocking his true thoughts from spilling out of his mouth, rather than expressing any joy at our arrival.
He threw his arms wide and we all instinctively shifted our stance, my mother’s hand vanishing up her sleeve. In that moment we were prepared to fight. But he was welcoming us. He strained his smile wider, before speaking in the common tongue:
“Welcome, dear friends of Baline.” he said “I am Thrat, squire for King Favian. I am here to escort you to your rooms.”
“And where is the King?” asked my mother as she kept her hand on her hidden daggers’ hilt.
“Currently engaged,” he said, his smile faltering. He studied each of our soldiers before he stepped aside from the door and presented it to us. I looked to my mother for guidance, but she ignored me and stepped towards the door. I often wonder if she knew then what would happen, but if she did, she showed no signs of it.
Our soldiers reluctantly took rooms in a different wing to ours. My mother and I were then met with six guards who appeared from the dark and escorted us to our rooms. We were then split up once more and taken down different passages; my mother raised no alarm so I remained silent but I was nervous.
My mother had said I wouldn’t need a weapon, but none of it was right. The walls of the castle were windowless and made of black stone and the further we walked, the closer they drew towards us. They were guiding me through the castle as if it were a maze, trying to disorientate me. But even now I remember each way we turned, and if you were to open that door, I could find my way back to the tunnel without getting lost once.
Tell me about the guards.
There were two guards that walked in front of me, and after my mother left, one more fell in line behind me. I couldn’t see their faces, but they each had a red brand on their sleeves, which were different to your torch emblem. The two in front were much taller than I am but the one behind may have only been half a hand. I don’t know their names but they spoke of an Adrian although not in terms that I think he’d like.
Go on.
Without my mother, I started planning how I would overpower them. I would have released the sash that was strapped around my front, as that was where most of the weight in my dress was. With that gone, I would have struck the guard behind me first with a kick to his belly.
If the guards in front of me weren’t yet alerted, I would have sent his head through those black stonewalls with a second blow. Before he could fall to the ground, I would have taken his sword and then turned my attention to the two guards in front of me. Because of the walls they couldn’t have fought side by side. Outnumbering me meant nothing.
Like I said, they were taller than I am and your swords are made heavier than ours in Baline, but that is why we train. Fighting with that sword would have been no different than dancing in uncomfortable boots. I would have killed them all before they realised they could call for help. But I never did make that first strike, and my memory of that moment grows darker than those walls.
You shouldn’t remember any of this.
There are many things that I don’t remember, like my name, but I know how I came to be stuck in here. If you don’t believe me, leave.
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