Divided (9 page)

The two of them continued.  If Calis had been with anyone
else, he would have wondered if Lee knew where he was going—but Lee would have
admitted that immediately.  He wasn’t the sort to waste time with much pride. 
“I hope the girl doesn’t recognize me,” Lee said dismally. 

“Just tell her you were curious,” Calis answered.  “If
someone recognizes you, the rumor would die quickly.  Nobles don’t seem to
understand that an advisor may as well as be as important as the noble himself.” 
Lee smiled at the veiled compliment, but said nothing to acknowledge it.

“Ah, there,” Lee said, stopping for a moment, and gestured. 

Sure enough, when Calis glanced to where the man pointed he
saw many more lanterns.  There were also people and voices whispering at his
ear.  They were still a ways off, but now he could see that this was a lively
event.  “Shall we go?” Calis asked.

Lee nodded, and they both started towards the building.  As
they neared, Calis realized that the building he thought was one was actually several
buildings that all had their doors open to allow people in and out access. 
People dotted the area, laughing and drinking.  There were tables in front and
behind the buildings.  They weren’t long or elaborate—they held no table cloth,
and they were round.

The buildings that the dance seemed to be inside of were
fairly rundown, clearly not belonging to anyone.  They were probably abandoned,
or used for storage.  Dark District would never have expected one of its
residents to accommodate them.  The dwellings weren’t large enough for that,
Calis was certain.

Once they were within the people, Calis could hear the
gossip and the music.  The music!  The music was nothing like he’d ever heard. 
It was a twanging, stringy sound that he wasn’t entirely sure he enjoyed.  He
didn’t hate the sound—but it was a far cry from the soft melodies played back
at the castle.  Then again, that had been what he wanted away from. 

Tankards littered the tables with mead in them that smelt
bitter.  There were no fanciful dresses, and Calis realized that he and Lee
were dressed just as well.  Most of the people were in their work clothes, and
even some of the girls weren’t in dresses.  Others of them were a little more
dressed up, in dull colors, and no one seemed to be wearing shoes.  Even some
of the men had removed their boots.  A few people waved hello to them, which
was odd since Calis knew that none of them knew who either Calis or Lee were.

But this was not about rules or regulations, and there were
no standards associated with waving to someone.  These people were simply being
friendly, without any sort of attachment to it.  Calis smiled.  He was glad
he’d come here.  They neared the center building, and Lee ducked underneath a
curtain that seemed to be doubling as a door.

Calis followed and immediately his ears were assaulted with
that music.  It was much louder than it should have been, by royal standards,
and Calis found that he had to shout to speak to Lee.  “This is different,” he
said.

Lee glanced at him for a moment, as if trying to understand
what Calis said, and then he nodded his head when he finally deciphered it. 
They both glanced into the building.  Everyone was moving about in the
strangest manner.  Nothing made any sense.  Girls were twirling and men were
just moving—with no rhyme or reason—and it took Calis a moment to realize that
they were dancing. 

Try as he may to find a pattern in the way the bodies moved,
he could not.  The people were just moving with their own rhythm, and everyone
seemed to have their own set of steps.  At the back of the building, there was
a raised area where even more people were performing the foreign movements. 

Not only were the movements chaotic, but the entire scenario
was.  The loud music seemed secondary to the way people used any surface to
dance on, and there was no need for pairs.  Women and men danced alone, women
danced with other women, and men danced with other men.  Calis could see a few
male-female pairings, but they were not separated in any way from the others.

“Fascinating,” Lee said.  Calis was surprised that he could
even hear his advisor over the events in the room.  Everything seemed so hectic
that part of him wanted to run, and the other part was so entirely fascinated
that he didn’t think he’d ever leave.  People were drinking, drinking while
they were dancing! 

A voice from beside Calis startled him out of his
amazement.  “Goodsir, would you care to dance?”  Calis blinked and glanced
towards the girl who had just spoken.  She had black hair, braided behind her,
in a much more sensible way than the noblewomen wore theirs.  Yet, she still
looked pretty in her dark, blue dress. 

Calis flushed.  He certainly wasn’t ready to join in this
obviously intricate design of dancing and whatever else was going on.  “I-I… I
don’t know the steps…” he admitted warily.  Was that alright here?

The girl laughed as though he had told some joke.  Only, she
wasn’t laughing for his benefit like Lady Avyon, she was laughing at him.  “Oh,
come on…”  She grabbed him by the wrist and whisked him out into the center of
the moving bodies.

When he glanced across at Lee for help, he found that his
advisor found himself in a similar position.  The two girls had apparently
plotted their attack and had both enacted at the same time so that the men had no
chance of saving themselves.  How devious.  Calis had no idea what to do with
his body.  Certainly none of the steps he’d learned back at the castle would do
him any good here, but the girl just moved—not really needing him.  “Just
move!” she instructed.

Once again, Calis’s cheeks were getting very hot.  He tried
to move his body, but the entire ordeal just seemed completely awkward.  This
woman wasn’t going to go away, despite his weak protests.  When Calis glanced
to find Lee again, the search was in vain.  This woman was dancing in a way
that made no sense, and everywhere he looked—people were doing that very same
thing.

What was this?  He was sure that he had never been more
humiliated in his
life
.  The girl seemed amused, but he was not.  In one
last desperate attempt before he was going to run from the girl like a child,
he found a singular person that stood out to him.

The boy was relatively little, though taller than the woman with
whom he danced.  He was dancing as effortlessly as the others, but there was a
familiarity in the way he moved his body.  He spun the girl, brought her to his
body, spun her outwards, and then let himself move freely.  Calis took a breath
and decided to use what knowledge he did have of dancing to lead this girl to
some extent.

He twisted his body and then pulled the girl into a twirl. 
For a moment, she seemed surprised and then her smile went from amused to
flirtatious.  He laughed and pushed her from his body only to bring her back. 
As the rhythm of the music eased its way into his body, he was able to move
without worrying too much about the lack of steps. 

Once his body was moving on its own, Calis cast a glance
back to the boy who’d more or less saved him.  The boy was with another
partner, now.  Calis was in shock—changing partners midsong?  This seemed so
freeing.  The boy wore a soft, white cotton shirt and brown trousers.  To
Calis’s eyes, he was the only one who was truly dancing.

The woman he was with had short, black hair, and the biggest
smile Calis had ever seen on someone’s face as her body fell against the boy’s
chest.  The boy had short black hair, as well.  It was flawlessly black.  There
was a slight spike to it that made it appear even messier, but fortunately, it
was so short that the mess wasn’t too unbecoming. He also had very tanned
skin.  Calis was positively fascinated with his movements, and did everything
in his own power to mimic them.

“You must be new,” his partner said when they finally found
a rhythm so that they weren’t stopping every few moments. 

Calis offered a weak smile.  “That obvious?”

“Well, yes,” she answered nicely.  Her brown eyes were
amused as she regarded him.  Calis wasn’t sure how he felt about being regarded
like this.  She was being flirty, but for no real reason—there was no fakeness,
only a genuine interest.  Calis liked it, and so he found himself smiling at
her.  “I’m Taiya!”

A name.  That wasn’t anything Calis had been asked for in
his visits to Dark District.  For all of his bravado in coming here, he had
very rarely interacted with people.  When he did, they had been short lived and
no name had been required.  “Pretty name,” he said.

She seemed a little confused that he hadn’t given his, but
she seemed to forget it after a moment in their movements.  “You catch on
pretty quickly!” she encouraged.  Well, that was nice to hear.  He felt more
comfortable, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t look like a fool to everyone
else.  “Where are you from?”

“Just a traveler,” Calis answered easily.

“Oh, how exciting!  I’ve lived in this boring place my whole
life.  I’m sure you have tons of stories to tell!” she squealed.  Her behavior
wasn’t that different from noblewomen’s, but something about it was endearing
whereas nobles were not. 

Calis did have many stories, and any of them would have
amused her and could have been edited to ensure that she didn’t know who he
was.  But he didn’t feel like getting into any of them.  He wanted to forget
life for now.  “I do, but for now, I don’t want to think about any of them,” he
told her honestly.

“Now that I can understand,” she said as he twirled her
again.  “Well, welcome to Telandus,” she said.  “Are you staying long?”

“With events like this?” Calis asked, “I might stay a little
longer.  When I showed up, I certainly didn’t expect anything like this.  I
only arrived this sun.”  He tried to mix as much truth into his words as he
could so that he had less to explain later.

The girl seemed amused enough without being too interested
in what he was saying.  If she’d thought long enough about it, she might have
recognized that he had a distinctive resemblance to Calis Tsrali, but she was
enjoying the moon like he was—and she didn’t care who he was.  “We don’t do
this often.  So when we do, we like to go all out!” she exclaimed.

Calis thought that much was rather obvious, but he didn’t
bother to say as much.  Inevitably, Calis caught a glimpse of Lee who seemed to
have mastered the art of dancing just as he had.  Though, he had to wonder if
Lee had done so in the same way that Calis had.  Probably not.  Lee probably
knew a little more of what to expect with these dances.  “So is that friend
your only traveling companion?” the girl asked a few moments later.

“Ah, yes,” Calis answered, not bothering to go into too much
detail.  Surely, it wasn’t that rare for two men to be traveling together. 

The girl accepted this, and they continued dancing.  The
songs changed, but the steps really didn’t.  They just kept up with the rhythm
of the song, and moved in very similar patterns.  A few times the girl allowed
him to dance with others who were just dancing around them, and he found that
they were no different from the girl.

A few times, Calis caught Lee’s eye.  And eventually, he
realized that Lee had been allowed a break, while Calis had not.  At last,
Taiya, his dance partner, seemed to require a drink, and so she wandered away
from him.  This left him free to return to a place less populated with bodies. 
Sweat made his hair and shirt cling to him.  He panted—being out of breath
after dancing—what a concept.  “That was… not what I expected,” he breathed.

“I know, this is… actually…”  Lee seemed at a loss for a
moment.  “Enjoyable.”

“You wouldn’t think it possible with the way the castle
handles its festivals, but I agree… this is brilliant.”  Calis looked around
the room, where people were still drinking and dancing in such a carefree
manner that it stunned him.

Lee let out a breath.  “The people are far less annoying, at
any rate.  Though, I can’t say I’m a fan of that band.”  Calis had located the
source of the stringy music long ago, and he glanced towards the three men up
on stage dancing and playing their fiddles.

“At least it isn’t boring,” Calis offered helpfully.  He
glanced to a keg nearby and thought idly of grabbing some mead, but he was sure
that it would be disgusting and would not quench his thirst. 

The dance floor was so alive that Calis had a hard time
separating the bodies from their environment.  The band managed to be loud
enough so that all three connected buildings could hear them.  “It certainly
isn’t that,” Lee answered.

A few moments later, Taiya returned with a smile on her
face.  She held two tankards and set one in front of Calis before handing the
other to Lee.  Well, this certainly ruined Calis’s idea of staying away from
the mead.  He glanced down at the brown, gold liquid and let out a breath.  He
needed some liquid, anyway.  “Thank you,” he said after a moment.

“I don’t know if it will be what you’re used to, but you
looked parched on the dance floor.”  The other girl, the one that had
originally grabbed Lee, appeared a few moments later, and the two exchanged a
brief greeting.

Apparently, their dealing with these girls wasn’t over yet. 
Calis wasn’t entirely disappointed that their company had not given up on them. 
As they drank, they learned that the girls were sisters—twins, in fact, though
not the type that looked alike.  Lee’s girl had much lighter hair than the
other, and the one Calis danced with was taller. 

They spoke without thought, talking about their troubles and
how they both worked as servers at the local inn—which their father owned. 
That meant that, for Dark District, they were well enough off.  “So what’s the
town gossip, anyway?” Calis asked when there was a lull in the conversation.

Both girls came alive with the chance to talk about gossip. 
The word seemed to do wonders for any woman, noble or not.  “Well, this sun,
one of the princes who has been away returned from a five year stead in Dokak,”
the brown-haired girl said.