Free Dockalfar by PL Nunn Page A

continue the dance. She was being taken from it. Her fellows seemed hardly to notice.
    Panic overtook her. She tried to break the grip, but it was resolute. Not hurtful, merely unbreakable. She looked to her offender and saw a cloak the colors of a forest pallet, many layered and light as sea froth. The hand that gripped her arm was dusky, almost olive. A good match for the cloak.
    She screamed. And began to struggle in earnest. The dancers faltered. Great luminous eyes stared at her. The music hit a distinctly sour chord. She cried for help, reaching out her free hand to them. The sweet faces turned vaguely feral. The eyes blazed indignantly at the interruption of their dance and she knew relief. They would take her back.
    They moved with grace and speed towards her, clutching her, clutching at what held her. The first of them fell.
    Without sound, without reason that she could see. Cries came from those who followed. Wails of grief and anger. And of fear. The hand that held her arm shifted and went about her waist, swinging her around and off her feet. He began to move swiftly through the wood, no longer pursued. She cried and beat against him with her fists. The music was fading. It was fading from her memory and its loss was more than she thought she could bear.
    She cursed him who had done it, exhausted and grieving.
    “I hate you. I hate you,” she cried. He made no comment, save to put her back on her feet and drag her along under her own power. The forest was too quiet. Too still.
    She wanted to dance.
    There was a crash of brush and her captor started, swinging her around and behind him, releasing his grip on her arm.
    A small, tawny shape blundered towards them. A name came to mind, just out of reach. She crouched down to welcome the creature anyway. A rough tongue washed her cheek and prickly claws kneaded her knees and thighs.
    Phoebe. Phoebe was the cub’s name, given to her by herself… who was she?
    Victoria. Self realization dawned.
    She beamed with the knowledge. Then frowned with further knowledge of what stood behind her. She knew him. Dusk.
    Assassin. These things that were concrete before her, that she could touch and feel, she knew. They willfully pushed the music from her head and made her think of other things. Other things lost and loved. She squinted up at the assassin. There was patience on his face and endless calm. He reminded her of a haunting, beautiful melody. Elusive and heart wrenching. She thought nastily that she would like very much to shatter the calm and break the patience, for what he had done to her. She might never find the music again.
    She sat down with the cub, feeling stout little ribs under the thick pelt.
    Coolly, stubbornly she said. “Phoebe’s half starved again. Fetch her something to eat.”
    She dared not look up, continued to stroke the cub. The silence was too much.
    She turned and found him still there, staring at her. He made her nervous and self conscious. She was dirty and robeless, her night gown too revealing for modesty’s sake. An hour ago she would not have cared.
    “Well?” she snapped, angry with herself and the loss of her uninhibited state. He acted so swiftly she almost missed it. Something fell out of a tree across from him. He moved like melting shadow. She had to concentrate to see him once he was in the deeper brush. He stooped and picked up a small, striped creature, laid it on the ground before her and backed away. She forced her mouth closed.
    Phoebe devoured the creature, skin, bones and all and sat licking her lips afterwards in satisfaction. Dusk did not bother to ask for Victoria’s hand, merely reached down and latched onto it and pulled her to her feet.
    She lifted her chin and glared at him, useless effort that it was, for he was paying no attention to her as he pulled her into motion. They walked and Phoebe trailed behind, quiet when she wanted to be, disastrously clumsy when she did not.
    The assassin occasionally tossed what might