Six Moon Dance
SIX MOON DANCE
Sheri S Tepper
“ ‘What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend replied.
There is another shore, you know, upon the other side …
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?”
—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
CONTENTS
1—On Newholme: Mouche
2—Ornery Bastable, and a Bit of History
3—The Establishment of the Questioner by Haraldson the Beneficent
4—Orientation to the Amatory Arts
5—Life as a Lobster
6—On Old Earth: The Dancing Child
7—The Questioner and the Trader
8—Native and Newcomer. A Conversation
9—Amatory Arts: Fitting into the Family
10—Three Angry Men
11—On Old Earth: History House
12—The Amatory Arts/What Women Want
13—At the Mercy of the Mountain
14—A Diversion of Dancers
15—Marool Mantelby
16—Amatory Arts: Stories Women Tell
17—Mouche Becomes a Hunk
18—Ornery Bastable, the Castaway
19—The Invisible People
20—The Dutter Boys
21—Among the Indigenes
22—A Dream of Falling Water, Flowing Green
23—Dancers in Transit
24—Harassments
25—The Long Nights
26—Amatory Arts, the Marions
27—The Questioner is Announced
28—A Family Man Visits the Hags
29—Calvy and his Friends
30—Mistress Mantelby Investigates
31—The Questioner Approaches
33—Marool Mantdby and the *** p198
34—Pressed into Service
35—Timmy Talk
36—Pressed Men at Mantelby
37—An Intimate Disclosure
38—The Questioner Arrives
39—Gardeners, Mouche, and Intricacies
40—Questioner Visits the Panhagion
41—Assorted Persons In Pursuit
42—Marool Worships Morrigan
43—A Journey Toward Dosha
44—Consternation
45—The Camp of The Wilderneers
46—The Second Expedition Sets Out
47—Round the Down Staircase
48—Westward the Wilderneers
49—Sailing the Pillared Sea
50—The Abduction of Dancers
51—Madame Meets A Messenger
52—Leggers, Tunnelers, and Assorted Traffic
53—The Farther Shore
54—Assembly At The Fauxi-dizalonz:
56—A Gathering Of Monsters
57—Quaggima And The Chasm
58—The Jongau And A Matter Of Gender
59—Into The Fauxi-Dizalonz
60—Many Moons
61—Love Cards Wild
1—On Newholme: Mouche
“It’s all right,” Mouche’s mother said. “next time we’ll have a girl.”
Mouche knew of this because his father told him. “She said it was all right. She said next time … “
But there had been no next time. Why the inscrutable Hagions decided such things was unknown. Some persons profited in life, producing daughter after daughter; some lost in life, producing son after son; some hung in the balance as Eline and Darbos did, having one son at the Temple, and then a daughter born dead at the Temple, and then no other child.
It was neither a profit nor a great loss, but still, a loss. Even a small loss sustained over time can bleed a family: so theirs bled. Only a smutch of blood, a mere nick of a vein, a bit more out than in, this year and then the next, and the one after that, a gradual anemia, more weakening than deadly—the heifer calves sold instead of kept, the ewe lambs sold, the repairs to the water mill deferred, then deferred again. Darbos had taken all he had inherited and added to that what he could borrow as his dowry for a wife who would help him establish a family line, to let him wear the honorable cockade, to be known as g’Darbos and be addressed as “Family Man.” He had planned to repay the loan with advances against his share of the dowries paid for his own daughters. Instead, he had paid for Eline with the price of the heifer calves, with the ruin of the mill. Her family had profited, and though families lucky enough to have several daughters often gave those daughters a share of the dowry they brought in (a generosity Darbos had rather counted on), Eline’s parents had not seen fit to do so. Still, Eline’s daughters would have made it all worth while, if there had been daughters.
Their lack made for a life not precisely sad, but not joyous, either. There was no absence of care, certainly. Eline was not a savage. There was no personal blame. Darbos had created the sperm, he was the one responsible, everyone knew that. But then, some receptacles were said to reject the female, so perhaps Eline shared the fault. No matter. Blaming, as the Hags opined, was a futile exercise engaged in only by fools. What one did was bow, bow again, and get on.