They entered the second series of dances. The drums shifted from straightforward to syncopated, enabling more intricate stepping. Still the legs moved like mirror images, and the taps sounded as one. The beat became more intricate, with choreographed irregularities, but the dancers never faltered.
When they entered the third course, more eyes were on the girl. This was advanced; how far could she take it before tripping or stumbling? When was the old man going to falter on his drum? A fault by either would wipe out both. This was the point at which the prior contestants had gone wrong. They could lose it here and not be ashamed. Yet the girl showed no sign of tiring or losing her concentration, and the old man had held out better than anyone, including himself, had expected.
Beat looked past Eke to Eve, and saw the woman smiling. It might have been for the joy of the dance, but he thought it was because she was pleased to see her daughter doing so well. They were rivals now, but what mother wished her child less than the best? The longer Eke continued, the better Eve liked it, regardless of the inevitable end.
They completed the forms, and there had been no misstep. All the audience was watching raptly; this was much more of a show than they had expected. They were surprised and pleased. Who would have thought the child would do so well? She had already made a creditable showing; there was no longer a question of dishonor. Even the troupe master, Step, was half smiling; this was well beyond his expectation.
Now came the finale. This was a tricky step when slow, and its quickening cadence would bring a decision, if only from sheer fatigue. The speed would increase until one dancer or the other lost the cadence. They did not take turns on this one; it was together throughout, until the decision.
It started—and Eke performed the step flawlessly, exactly as he had drilled her, never thinking she would have to use it in competition this soon. Never dreaming it would be against the finest dancer of the region—her mother. But she responded to his beat, knowing his touch. She could do it as fast as he could take it, at least for a little while.
But as the tempo quickened, Beat's hands began to lose their power. His fingers were going slowly numb. He had drummed too long in one sitting, and his age was telling. He was the one who was losing it. Irony!
The girl's cadence, powered by the drum, began to fall behind the woman's. Eve's drum was strong; it was Eke's drum that was fading. It was not the girl but the old man who was the liability. Why hadn't he better anticipated this? It was his own troupe that was going to lose because it didn't have a drummer!
The referee glanced in their direction. He signaled a fault. Three faults would disqualify them. That would finish it. The audience focused entirely on the girl now, seeing the approaching end. It had been a good show, a very good show, but it was almost over.
Eke had faced Eve throughout. Now she turned, still dancing, and faced her drummer. She caught Beat's eye, and held his gaze. He felt the healing power come, entering his eyes and spreading through his body until it reached his hands. She was lending him strength to continue!
The referee frowned, but did not intervene. Normally the drummer supported the dancer, but there was no rule forbidding the reversal. The audience stared, an expression of wonder passing across its massed face; this was really new.
Beat's hands regained power. His beat increased, becoming stronger and faster. The cadence accelerated until it matched that of the opposition drum. They were together again.
Still the girl's feet moved, and her tapping continued, ever faster. Behind her the mother continued, matching it. Then a sigh passed through the audience; this was faster than most of the people had seen before—and not only was the child doing it, she was pouring her strength into her drummer.
It couldn't last. The healing strength faltered, and so did the cadence and the feet. Eke couldn't carry him while dancing at competitive level. No one could. The referee looked at the girl and signaled the second fault. Still, it had been a remarkable exhibition, as the surrounding reactions indicated.
Then it reversed again. The strength of the healing increased to beyond its prior level, and with it the drum cadence—and the feet. Now they were performing at championship level! But how was it possible?
Yet it continued. Beat's gaze was fixed on the girl, as he drew the wonderful power from her, but his peripheral vision indicated that his fingers were moving so rapidly they could barely be seen—and so were the girl's feet. The sound was a rapid staccato, tens of taps per second, impossibly fast.
And Eve began to lose the cadence. The referee glanced at her, calling a fault. She had been pushed to her limit, amazingly. But then it changed again, and Eve regained her power, matching the cadence. The mother, too, had resources to recover, when pressed. The beat increased, and she was with it. But this couldn't last much longer.
A new sound came. For a moment Beat was perplexed, not recognizing it. Then he understood: it was the thunder! He was drumming thunder! It started low but expanded to fill the glade. It shook the very clouds in the sky, filling the world with its power. How could it be? He had seldom done this well even in his prime.
The audience was standing now, all eyes fixed on the dance. No one believed it, for it was unbelievable. Many of them had never heard the thunder before. But it held them rapt, in a delirium of participation. Yet still the cadence increased. There seemed to be a glow about his blurring hands and Eke's blurring feet. There was nothing in the universe except that sound and that glow, pulsing together, shaking the very fundament.
Then Beat fathomed it. He was throwing his life force into it, summoning his talent at his prime, supported by Eke's healing. His very heart was in the beat; it was fibrillating, for the cadence was too fast for any normal beat. He was giving the last of his life power to the drum. He was dying, but he was doing it in rare style.
Then it ended. Not Eke's feet. It was Eve who finally lost the cadence, falling behind her own drum. She slowed, could not recover, and stopped. Only Eke was left, dancing at astonishing speed, her hair flinging out, spittle flinging from her mouth.
The referee signaled, gesturing toward the girl. She had won. The audience burst into applause as Beat collapsed over his drum, stifling the thunder. He was finished.
Eke flung herself forward, catching hold of him from in front. “I did it! I did it!” she exclaimed as she hugged him.
"You did it,” he agreed weakly. “You gave me your strength. I was failing.” And he was still failing; even her healing could not sustain him now. He was an old man who had badly overextended himself. It was all he could do to answer her.
She burst into tears. “And now it's over!” She did not yet realize how literally that applied to him.
Eve crossed to join them. “Not yet, I think.” She sat down behind Beat, her raised knees on either side of him, and took him into her embrace. He fell helplessly back against her bosom, and felt her encompassing healing strength as her long hair fell across his shoulders and chest. She was restoring him by the warm contact of her body, her power greater than that of her daughter. His heart stabilized, returning to its normal rhythm. She was denying him death. “Watch,” she murmured in his ear.
They looked. Something else was happening. The referee summoned the two troupe masters. “You have a protest?” he asked Goad.
"I can't."
The referee looked at Step. “You have a rebuttal?"
"I can't either."
"Well I can, and I do,” the referee said. “I want to know exactly what happened here."
"The girl healed her drummer,” Step said.
"At a distance?"
"It is possible, when there is true love given and received. She had a right."
The referee turned to Goad. “What of the woman?"
"She healed her daughter."
"At a distance? From behind?"
"A mother truly loves her child."
"And thereby cost you the match. She gave it away."
Beat tried to sit up, startled. “
What?” Suddenly he understood why Eke had recovered after drawing her fault.
"Peace,” Eve murmured in his ear, holding him back.
"Negation,” Goad said. “She kept her strength."
"She couldn't keep it and give it away!"
"She drew from her own drummer."
The referee—and Beat—looked. There was Beau, slumped over his drum.
"Uncle!” Eke cried. She lurched up and ran to Beau. In a moment she was hugging him—and he was starting to recover, as her healing took hold.
"I don't understand,” Beat said dazedly.
"We can heal anybody by direct contact,” Eve said. “As I am healing you. I will not let you break my daughter's heart by dying. But only true love enables healing at a distance. My daughter loves you—and you love her."
"But it's no fault. We must separate."
"And your son loves me—and I love him, in my fashion. In the context of the drummer/dancer relationship, that enabled me to draw power from him. I recovered, and sent it to my daughter, who sent it to you. It was a chain."
The referee spoke to the troupe masters, but it also answered Beat's question. “So the energy was even, between mother and daughter. Neither dancer had more."
The two troupe masters nodded.
"So then the dancing was fair."
They nodded.
"And the girl won."
Again they agreed.
"Very well. Decision stands. No protest."
The audience renewed its applause.
They moved on to the announcements. “Champion dancer: Eke. Champion drummer: Beat. Champion troupe: Step.” Yet that hardly seemed to matter. The other aspects were more significant than who was declared winner of one contest.
"But if you had held back the healing, you could have won the dance,” Beat said, bemused.
"I couldn't let my daughter fall. I had to support her. And it was even, because of your son. You taught her well; she beat me fairly."
"Not that well. She never danced that well for me."
"You never drummed like that before, for her. That spectacular thunder enabled her. We couldn't match that."
"But I gave out. She had to support me."
"And we had the chain,” she agreed. “This will surely be remembered as one of the more remarkable tournaments."
"Not just for the dancing,” he agreed.
"Eke loves you. I must support her in that too. This must not remain no fault. You must adopt her as your granddaughter."
"But our lives go different ways."
"Not any more, I think."
"Really different. I will be dead in a year or two. What kind of relationship is that? I don't want to do that to her."
"You can live to see her grown and married."
"Hardly! I can barely travel. You can feel my weakness."
"And you can feel my strength. We can preserve you, if you join us. You are going nowhere without us, by your own statement. Isn't adoption better than death?"
She was right. He had no future on his own. Her healing power was restoring him to vigor, if not to youth. A daily touch like that could maintain him for a long time. “I do love her,” he said.
"I want to keep Beau as my drummer. He's the best I have encountered."
"Eve, he's seventeen. He's impressionable. And you—"
"And I am twenty eight, and married, and a mother. I know. But we can go on to larger championships together. We'll work it out with the troupes. This is too good an opportunity to let go. I will treat him right."
"He'll have to marry in a year. You have already spoiled him for that."
"I think not. In time he will meet my little sister. She's not a dancer, but she has her ways."
Beat pictured a woman halfway between Eve and Eke, Beau's age, with the healing power. She would surely have her way with Beau, regardless of the rest.
Beau got up and walked across to join them, holding Eke's hand. Beat knew that she was sustaining him with her own healing. The circle was complete; Eke was returning the life energy to its source. Beau was young; he recovered faster from depletion than Beat did.
"Tell them,” Eve murmured.
"I will adopt Eke as my granddaughter,” he said.
"Grandpa!” Eke screamed gladly, diving on him.
"And I suppose that means Eve as my daughter,” Beat said.
Behind him, Eve shook her head. “Negation."
He tried to look at her, but she remained too close to see, her warm energy still restoring him. “Question?"
"Why should I travel no fault with my brother?"
Beau looked perplexed, then faint, as the implication registered. Yes, Eve was a decade his senior, and married, but she normally traveled no fault with her drummer. She was the region's most beautiful woman. He could have her, no fault, while their professional relationship lasted. All else paled into insignificance. Until he met her little sister.
"I think you have captured us,” Beat said.
"I love my daughter. I love my business. You make both complete."
"And you make us complete,” he said.
"Oh, Grandpa, stop lolling about,” Eke said. “We have things to do."
Apparently they did. She probably wanted to introduce him to the other aspects of her family. Would they be drumming and dancing together in the future? Surely so, though not at the level they had just achieved.
Eve let him go, and Beat climbed to his feet with a good deal more energy than he was accustomed to. He had thought he was undertaking his last journey. Instead he had found a new existence. It promised to be relatively dull, for the coming decade, before his life and her innocent childhood faded, but it would be a joyful dullness.
* * * *
The illusion show ended. Havoc shook his head. “There was some romance in that,” he said, not caring to admit how strongly the story had affected him.
"Oh come on, Havoc! You can't have a story without a little bit of it, and there wasn't much. The central theme is Grandfather/Granddaughter. I played fair."
"If you played fair, you wouldn't try to seduce me with a suggestive story line."
"I didn't!"
"A young man only a year or so younger than I am, and a beautiful woman not much younger than you, setting up a no fault situation?"
She looked stricken. “I never thought of that! Apology. Read my mind."
He didn't need to. “You had forgotten that aspect when you chose that show."
"Acquiescence. But you're right: it is there. I shouldn't have run that show. Contrition."
"You yield victory to me?"
"I yield, Havoc,” she said sadly. “I did not mean to cheat."
Now he read her mind. She was genuinely sorry, and intended to honor her loss. There would be no more attempts at seduction. Yet her love for him was unabated.
He sighed. “Mischief. You impress me more in your yielding than in your scheming. You win."
"Confusion."
"You have your no fault affair."
"Humor?"
"Come here."
She came to him uncertainly. He embraced her, then kissed her. “Let me take you rapidly, this first time, for my passion is overwhelming my reason. Thereafter you have leave to work your wiles on me at your leisure."
"Havoc, I yielded. I love you, but I yielded. If this is teasing—"
He bore her down, almost ripping at her clothing. She did not impede him, but neither did she take any initiative. In a moment he was on her and in her, climaxing explosively.
"You mean it,” she said with wonder. “You took me."
"And hereafter you may take me. No fault."
"Of course,” she agreed faintly. Neither of them pretended that she had gotten anything from the sex itself other than the proof of his acquiescence to the affair. That victory from seeming defeat was filling her with its own type of rapture. She would have her sexual delights soon enough. “But what caused this change in you? I had thought the game lost."
/> "That's why. I don't want to be dominated by a woman. I want to retain control of my nature. You yielded that control. Now I can indulge with you."
"I think I don't quite understand, but whatever you want of me is yours."
Havoc wasn't sure he quite understood either, but he had made the decision. Probably it was a combination of factors: his need to divert himself from Gale, Symbol's intelligence and beauty and experience, her absolute love for him, her proximity and convenience, and the warm emotion generated by the Dancer show. He had been on guard against direct seduction, but not against wholesome emotion. He wanted to do something nice for her, and this was it. “Take me."
"Oh Havoc, I will. My way."
"Your way."
She kissed him, and held him, and stroked him. “I am pretending you are mine."
"I am yours, no fault."
"I am pretending it is real. Havoc, I have never been in love before."
"Not with King Deal?” he asked, surprised.
"I liked him, but it was too much of a business, being his mistress. Filling a prescribed role. I didn't want to hurt the Lady Aspect. She's a fine woman."
"So I found."
"So I really wasn't free to truly love him. Then, thinking myself immune, I encountered you, unguarded, and by the time I recognized the danger, it was too late.” She kissed him again, her passion genuine. That was the wonder of it.
"Apology,” he murmured. “I would not have brought you this kind of distress, had I known."
"It just happened; we both know that. But there is a certain joy in it too. Just the experience of being in love is glorious. It makes of me a seemingly innocent girl, instead of what I am."
She stripped down, becoming invisible. She stripped him, and addressed him so tenderly that he had to respond despite the recent abatement of his lust. This sex had so much gentle caring it was a different thing, unhurried, unurgent, beautiful. Slowly they made love, and it was remarkable because it was not what he had ever expected of her. She did indeed seem like an innocent girl.