THE TWILIGHT DANCER

by Ardath Mayhar

  Anyone who could abuse such a tender little thing deserved the worst the Teddies' Guild could dish out. I felt for my weapon and grinned ferociously into the dim room.

  When she woke, I was cuddled in her arms. Playing toy, of course, as we must do on assignment, so I couldn't speak to her or pat her cheek or anything. She didn't question my presence ... children accept things without thinking about them. It would be nice if adults would do the same, but our business is saved by the fact that most adults don't pay much attention to their children's toys, and their memories are very poor, anyway.

  When she took me down to breakfast her mother didn't even notice me. Her father was scowling at a bowl of cereal and didn't look up. I couldn't tell which looked the angrier – or guiltier. It didn't really matter. I'd know, when the time came, which of them had done the dastardly deed the night before. Rosalind wouldn't suffer again.

  We went to nursery school, which was no better or worse than a hundred I'd attended. Rosalind seemed fond of the young teacher in charge of the four-year-olds. That was good. At two the mother came after us, her arms full of packages, and we walked the two blocks back to their house. The packages were full of stuff the mother sewed at home for extra income. Not presents for Rosalind, as I'd hoped.

  They tell me I'd spoil children terribly, if I had all my wishes come true, and I think they're right. But I did wish she had brought something for the child.

  The father came home at six-thirty, and he was angry when he walked in the door. So. I'd seen this syndrome before. The angry-at-work, take-it-out-at-home cycle. He wasn't naturally cruel, he just was in over his head about something. I cooled down a notch. That would affect my treatment, when the time came for family therapy.

  It didn't take long for that time to come. Rosalind was trying to tell her mother about the picture she'd made at school, using putty and popsickle sticks. Her mother wasn't listening, and the child spoke louder and louder. Her father came into the room and picked her up to shake her hard.

  "Don't I have enough crap at work, without hearing a kid screaming its head off at home, too? Shut up!" he shouted. His big hands were bruising her arms and her sides.

  She whimpered, and big tears ran down her cheeks, though she was trying not to cry aloud. He flung her away from him, and she hit the door frame. That's when I activated the Automatic Neural-Response-Transfer Unit. Every twinge Rosalind felt was transmitted into her father's nervous system, doubled.

  He gave a cry and staggered to a chair. "What's wrong with me? I'm hurting all over!"

  I walked over and looked up at him. "Theodore Ursinoid,' I said politely, "at your service. I have been sent by the One Who Watches Over Children to call to your attention the fact that in your distress you are causing harm to your child. This gentle reminder should be all you need to make you behave like a man instead of an adolescent. Should it be needed, harsher measures are at my disposal."

  He stared down at me as if doubting his sanity, which he was. That was when I cut in the telepathy (we're not allowed to use it except in specific instances). He knew I was really there, speaking to him. He understood at that moment – what he felt was what his daughter was also feeling.

  He gave a sort of moan and looked at Rosalind. who was sobbing silently in the corner. "Come here, Baby. I didn't mean it!" he said softly.

  She scuttled over and was lifted into his lap. I felt them out carefully. There was no real bitterness on either side. This had been an unusual thing in this family. Now it seemed to be healing. He knew what he'd been doing, as he had not understood before. That was my job.

  I sighed and backed quietly away from them. Something bumped me from the rear, and I turned to look way up at the mother. She smiled down at me.

  "If we're all crazy, I'm glad of it," she said. "Thank you, Teddy-Bear. And thank Whoever it is who sent you. We needed you badly, right along now."

  I couldn't smile, but I nodded. Seldom does anyone pay attention to us as we leave the scene. It was always a treat to get special thanks like this. I'd always had a hankering to hear someone say, "Who was that masked bear?" as I rode away. This was as near as I'd ever get, being as they don't issue us masks.

  Tomorrow they'd have forgotten all about me, but they would remember what they sensed from each other. And if they lapsed... why, I'd be sent back. With tougher weapons. We never give up.

  Rosalind would have a happy childhood, or we of the Teddy Bears' Guild would know the reason why.

  THE ONE WHO FOLLOWED DREAM

  Broon came up the long slant through a wood filled with evening light. Ahead of him the path curved beneath an oak, whose ancient branches were larger than trees, themselves. Beyond that, a dazzle of golden light told him that the end of the forest lay ahead. He hurried his pace, his long legs swinging, his bright head cocked to see what lay beyond that Grandsir of a tree.

  A meadow ran away at a gentle slope, its grasses bright with the last of the sun. He leaned against the shaggy trunk of the oak for a moment to remove his hat and mop the sweat from his tanned face. It had been a long journey, but now a quickening within him told that he neared its end.

  His pathway threaded downward through the grass, and he followed it toward the stream that ran at the meadow's foot. The stream bank was lacy with birches and a few of the dark conifers that were native to this country. He swung down toward the water, invigorated at the thought of dousing his head and laving his face.

  The path, once more, curled beneath a great tree before going on. This one was the ancestor of all birches, from its size, and it leaned its pale-barked trunk over a dark pool that tickled its roots where they grasped the embankment. The traveler stopped beneath the tree and looked down.

  Where the black water eddied, it seemed that wicked eyes stared up at him. Curiously. Inimically. There was no temptation to cup his hands for a draught of that evil fluid.

  Once more he leaned against a huge tree, this time with his forehead touching the smooth bark of the birch. He stretched his arms, as if to embrace it, though they lacked much of reaching about its girth.

  "Is this the way?" he whispered. "Am I headed aright? And will nightfall see me nearing my goal?"

  The living tingle that fills all trees, for those who know how to sense it, deepened. As if in reply, the multitude of silvery leaves rustled urgently. The breeze that moved them did not stir a lock of his bright hair.

  He stood for a long moment, listening to the tree. Then, as the twilight filled the meadow and misted the stream bank, he relaxed. Smiling, he stepped back and took off his hat, once more.

  "My thanks," he sighed. Then he smoothed the curling brim of the small green hat, arranged the yellow cockerel feather that decorated one side, and hung the headgear upon the highest stub of branch that he could reach. "For you, Dearest Madame, with love." Then he turned down the path, following its dim gleam.

  Broon Dream-Walker was reassured. He had followed his instinct and the urging of his dream, and his journey neared its end. Though he could sense the dark will that contaminated this fair-seeming land, he knew that where such as the oak and the birch stood guard, wickedness could never have its way unimpeded. With such allies ... ah, what might he not do?

  The path wriggled before his feet, looping toward the stream. A rough bridge spanned its width here, and Broon paused to look at it, though it was almost invisible in the last of the twilight. Untended, indeed, for long. Lacking in many spots, where boards had once secured the footing. Yet usable, to one who felt with his head and his foot and his spirit. He stepped forward confidently, crossing in three swift strides.

  Now the path led away from the stream, over another meadow, wider than the first. At its edge, now lost in darkness, there was a twinkle of light, and toward that Broon hastened. He had walked far and slept on hard ground, and now he craved the shelter of a roof and the talk of honest folk. Besides, the echo of that evil will moved through the night air. It troubled his heart, for he had not met its kind before.

>   By the time the stars had claimed the sky and the moon hung its silver sickle halfway up the eastward span, he could see that a cottage stood in the verge of another forest that seemed almost as old and weary as had the one beyond the stream. This was washed with creamy stuff, and it glimmered in the moonlight, its slouched roof slanted rakishly over a window that looked amazingly like an eye. The door was pursed between the two visible windows, holding the expression of an old fellow about to tell an amusing story.

  Laughing already, Broon stepped upon the scoured doorstone and rapped his knuckles against the weathered wood.

  There was a long silence inside. The light that had made the windows wink so invitingly went out quite suddenly. Hesitant steps approached the doorway, then paused.

  "Who raps at our door, so late? Who goes through Tarkann's lands at night? Be you spirit or flesh? Answer me that!" It was a breathy gasp, but somehow filled with fear.

  "I am Broon, called the Dream-Walker. I have come, as is my habit, following my dream. It has led me here. The oak nodded me on. The birch assured me that I was on the right path. By oak and birch, by wood and wind and water, I say that I am no spirit, nor yet any warlock or wizard. Only a strange one who hews to other ways than most. Will you shelter me from the night? I fell an ill will moving with the breeze."

  There was a short whispered argument on the other side of the door. Broon, listening intently, felt certain that both voices, though they overlapped at times, were also the same voice, and that interested him mightily. But he said nothing, waiting patiently until the matter was decided.

  The door whisked open, and a thin hand grasped his elbow and drew him inside with astonishing strength. He found himself in darkness and stood quite still until he might know which way to move. There was a scrape of metal on metal, and light shone from a candle-box, whose sliding sides had been closed to hide its gleam. Then he saw that the cottage was one square room, clean but sparely furnished with a bed-niche set into the wall, a table of planed wood, several benches, and a hutch containing a few vessels of pewter and pottery. In one corner was a pile of half-finished brooms.

  This he saw as his glance made one circuit of the space. When it settled upon the small being who stood before him, it stopped its wandering in sheer surprise. At first sight he thought her to be a very old, withered woman, though one with an amazing grip in her clawed hand. Yet as he looked, he realized that two faces alternated in that space atop the slight form. The crone looked out beneath grizzled brows for an instant, only to be supplanted by a beseeching girl, whose eyes blossomed green and whose skin freshened and hair hinted at chestnut. But she was gone again before he could make out all her features, and he looked again at the old woman.

  She cackled, the peal turning into musical laughter as the young girl took her turn again. "Sit, Broon Dream-Walker. I see that you have met none of Tarkann's handiwork, ere now. Once we have told our tale, you may well know why your dream led you here. There is much work here for someone with wit and will. Perhaps you are he ... I wonder, now."

  She drew him to one of the benches and bent to stir the embers of the fire, which had almost died away in the hearth. Its flickering, added to that of her constantly alternating form, made a dizzy sight, indeed.

  Broon sat down and held his head between his hands. "I take it that this is some enchantment that Tarkann has imposed upon you. Yet a stranger work of wizardry I have never seen or heard of!"

  She reached over her shoulder and drew forward a veil, which she pulled across her face. "This may help you to listen without distraction. I find it necessary, when we go to sell our brooms in the village. Folk cannot listen when their eyes are constantly engaged in trying to see which of us is speaking.'

  He reached to take one of the hands that she laid again in her lap. "I will listen, veil or no. I will hear, and I will help, if it can be done. Tell me the tale."

  "Know you of Tarkann?"

  He shook his head. "In the land where i live, that is no name spoken in the marketplace. And in the lands through which I have come it is unknown, as well. He is a wizard?"

  "No. Not exactly a wizard at all. He calls himself a student of the mind. He has an uncanny knack of knowing how people will act at any time, no matter what the situation. He maneuvered his father, who was our Prince, until the poor man fell ill. When he went mad at last, Tarkann shut him away in a tower of his house and began ruling our land himself. He has driven more men mad than just his father, I dare swear." The strangely dual voice was bitter.

  "What is this land? The oak has one name for it, the birch another, and neither, I wager, is the one its human inhabitants have for it."

  "Madillea is the name our ancestors gave it. A lovely name, and a lovely land until Tarkann laid his hand upon it. Now he forbids the farmers to plant at the proper season. He is curious to see the result. Two years of such folly have exhausted the stored grain, and we will starve in the winter unless the wild nuts and berries bear as never before. He has forbidden women in childbirth to be attended by midwives. He is curious to know what proportion of babes will die at birth, so unattended. More mothers than ever before have left his world, but he is not interested in that."

  "The man is a fool!" said Broon, his brown fist clenching on her little paw. "Why do the folk not rise and depose him?"

  "Look at me, Broon!" She flung back the veil again. "He has the terrible power of drawing forward the oldster that you will become. Both of these are myself. I am young, or was when he did this thing. He brought the self I will become to live in the here and now with me. He has done that to many, and most have chosen to end the lives so divided and confused. All who oppose him are served as I was."

  "I can imagine what it was that you refused him," said the Dreamer, catching a glimpse of the flower-faced girl for a moment.

  "True, and not only I. But only I persevere in making my life and my way, as best I can. It was my good fortune that my parents left me a house and a scrap of ground for growing broomstraw. I need not look, every day, into the faces of my kind and see horror there. Those in the village fare worse than I."

  "You have no idea how he manages this transformation? Does he use incantations? Sacrifices? What did he do when he enchanted you?"

  She gazed into the fire, a wrinkle between the brows that curled instantly into a gray tangle. "He talked very strangely. Not incantations – I have heard those from the wise women and the wizards. He said things about the logic of human life containing within it all that was to come about. He mentioned that the seed of the elder is curled within the babe at the breast. That one who knows the proper symbols may draw it out of the future to live in the present. He said that it is science, not magic. Does that help you at all?" The voice was again girlish, the eyes green as they gazed up at him.

  Broon thought deeply, holding the hand that changed within his grasp from smooth-skinned youth to withered age and back again. The fire flickered lower, and the candle burned down toward its spike. A gust of wind whirled in the chimney, making smoke boil into the room for a moment.

  The man came to himself and released her hand. "I think you have helped. I hope it. And it may be that I hold the key to unlock Tarkann's hold upon Madillea. Or it may not. But we shall see.

  "Where may I spread my blanket?"

  She rose and smiled. "On a bench or on the floor, Friend Broon. Or you may take my bed-place, and I shall sleep on the settle. I will gladly give up a night's sound sleep to one who is willing to face Tarkann, knowing what he might do."

  "The space before the fire will suit me well, if that is good with you," he replied. "Go to your rest ... I have no name for you ... ?" He looked at her quizzically.

  "Sylla. Sylla Broom-Maker, who was once known as Sylla the Beautiful." Her words sounded plaintive, but her voice was not, being touched with wry amusement. "Rest well, Broon. I wish that every caller in the night might be as welcome as you."

  In the warm room, Broon rested quietly, stretched before the ashes. Sp
ring though it was, the outside air was chill, and it was a grateful thing to have the warm coals at his back and the rush matting beneath his blanketed bones. Sleep swept over him in a great dark wing, and he plunged into it, seeking his source of direction.

  Strangely, he did not remember, upon opening his eyes, what it was that he had dreamed. For one whose entire life was dream-directed, that was a most unusual thing, and it troubled him. He had hoped to find some clue as to his approach, there in the world bounded by sleep. He came forth with nothing tangible, though it seemed to him that something lurked in the very deeps of his mind and heart that had not been there before.

  However, when one route is foreclosed, the wise man chooses another. Over their breakfast of cheese and bread, he talked again with Sylla.

  "If Tarkann is no wizard, how is it that I feel such an evil will lying over the forest and the fields? Surely that is a thing of magic, in itself. Who else can force his own sickness upon an entire land?"

  Sylla crumbled a bit of crust between her withered fingers. "That I cannot tell you. Indeed, I did not know, until you spoke, that Tarkann's will has polluted the very ways of Madillea. I cannot feel such things, and I know no one else who can. It may be that the thing giving you access to your dreams has also given you a sense with which to perceive such a ... miasma."

  Broon finished off his cheese and carefully raked the crumbs into a small heap, which he cast from the doorway to the pigeons that flew down from the roof. He returned to the hearth and began rolling his blanket and remaking his pack. His eyes were thoughtful, as he worked, and in a bit Sylla touched his arm.

  "You are thinking about this," she said. "What is your thought? I am most curious."

  He smiled and laid his hand upon her shoulder. "The trees were strong and helpful, yet full of unease. I know now that was the thing I felt in them. The very grasses of the meadows cried aloud of strangeness, but I was so engrossed in my journey that I was slow in realizing it. I am ... attuned ... to the living things of any spot, be they those that move freely or those rooted deep in the soil. It must be that the growing things feel the enmity of Tarkann. They passed that feeling to me, the only person in Madillea able to understand them."