Elvenborn Read Free Page B

direction and explained. "He makes up two opposing armies out of slaves, my dear, and personally leads one army into battle against the other, if you can believe it! Not to settle a grievance or for any other reasonable purpose, not even for the entertainment of watching them slaughter each other! No, he does this just to see how strategies work out with living subjects!"
    As the others chortled, howled, or simply looked smug, ac¬cording to their natures, Lady Brynnire looked startled, then shocked, then amused. "Aelmarkin! If I didn't know you, I'd be tempted to think you were making this up!"
    "Sadly, my dear, I am not," Aelmarkin replied, and looked to Tennith, who nodded in confirmation.
    "Really!" Brynnire giggled, a little nervously. "Well, eccen¬tric is not what I would call him!"
     
    "He takes after his father, dear lady," said Tennith smoothly. "Which might be said to demonstrate that, sadly, madness is in¬herited in his family. Surely you recall that poor demented fel¬low who vanished several years ago, out hunting some obscure relics of Evelon?"
    "Yes!" Brynnire replied, brightening. "Ancestors! You don't mean to tell me that was Kyrtian's father?"
    "The same," Aelmarkin told her, with a heavy sigh. "A sad case indeed. And it should have been obvious to the Great Council from that fiasco that the estate should not have been put in the hands of his son."
    "I should say not." Lady Brynnire nodded her head, after ex¬changing a look with her escort. "At least, I would not have."
    "Nor anyone else with any sense." Aelmarkin thought it more than time to change the subject, and signaled for the dancers.
    The musicians, who had been playing soothing, quiet back¬ground music until this moment, abruptly changed mood and tempo, startling the guests with a thunder of percussion.
    The lights dimmed, and a mist arose from the censers, a scented, cool mist that relaxed and yet stimulated the senses, even as it obscured the couches and their occupants. Only the space in the middle of the couches remained clear, lit from some invisible source.
    The dancers ran in from all directions, dressed in the merest scraps of animal-hide, paint, beads, and feathers, and meant to represent wild humans. Not that any of Aelmarkin's guests had ever seen wild humans—nor had Aelmarkin himself, for that matter—but that would hardly matter. Most entertainments fea¬tured dancers mimicking the graceful and ethereal dances of their masters, or dancers changed to resemble animated flow¬ers, birds, or flames. Aelmarkin wanted to startle his guests with something different.
    The dance began with astonishing leaps as the performers hurled themselves across the floor with total abandon, their un¬bound hair streaming out behind them. Then, as drums pounded, the females hurled themselves at the males, who caught them in various positions, whirled them around, and
     
    flung them on to the next partner. There was frank and un¬flinching eroticism in their choreography. Even Aelmarkin, who had seen them practicing, felt his pulse quicken at their raw sensuality.
    "Ancestors!" Tennith muttered under his breath, his eyes wide. "What is this?"
    "An ancient fertility rite, so I'm told," Aelmarkin said casu¬ally. "I thought it might be interesting to watch."
    Tennith didn't reply; his eyes were glued to the dancers.
    Half combat, and half mating-frenzy, it was sometimes diffi¬cult to tell if the dancers intended to couple or kill each other, and the performance built to a pulse-pounding crescendo that ended in a tangle of bodies suggestive of both.
    By Aelmarkin's orders, the lights dimmed gradually as the dance ended, leaving the room bathed only in star- and moon¬light. As he had hoped, the performance had achieved the arousing effect he had intended. His guests had turned their at¬tentions to their couch-companions, and as the dancers and ser¬vants slipped away, Aelmarkin turned his attention to the censers, increasing the mist rising from them.