Dark Dance by Tanith Lee Page A

navel, its green glass stem bisecting her pubic fleece.
    She turned from the mirror and got naked into the bed.
    She had placed a chair under the doorknob.
    This was foolish. He had seen her.
    She did not sleep for a long time, and twice muted steps went through the passageway, and she thought of the great cat slipping past, brushing the door with its flank, something dead in its mouth.
    Rachaela was standing at the base of the tower.
    There was no light, but glass lilies grew between the treads of the stair, which was scarlet, moist, littered with feathers.
    He stretched down his hand to her.
    She would not take his hand.
    She climbed up and up the tower. The ascent was endless. All the while some terror was tight in her throat. She meant to reach him and was afraid to do so.
    At last she came into a wide round room under the cone of the roof. To her amazement there were windows of clear glass. They showed the woods, the cliff and the sea.
    Adamus, if so she must call him, was not there. The room was vacant. And Rachaela began to cry.
    ❖
    The picture in the corridor window was a dreadful one, a lion slaughtering a sheep, and its vivid colours were strewn everywhere by the excluded sunlight.
    Rachaela was searching the house aimlessly.
    The corridor was very long and it seemed to her it led to the library, but she could not recall for certain. Sylvian would be busy in the library, crossing out the words, or Alice would be there, scratching with a hat pin at the globe.
    She saw the Scarabae hounded over the face of the globe. Burning houses glowed behind them as they fled in the snow, and the snow was red from firelight.
    Someone was following her.
    Was it the cat? How would she deal with the cat, alone? She would not dare to touch it.
    The corridor was so very long. She had passed so many doors, some of which she tried, and they were locked.
    What was behind the locked doors of the Scarabae?
    She heard a rusty panting behind her, a giggling like that of a naughty child.
    Camillo.
    Was this a cause for relief? Lost in the byways of the house with a madman snuffling behind her. Did he have the sword?
    The corridor turned, and rounding the turn, Rachaela saw it ended in a door.
    The door was bound in black iron. Could it be another way into the tower? Locked also then.
    At that moment Camillo’s steps became pronounced, flapping down on the carpet behind her. He was running. Running, this mad old man, to catch her up.
    Rachaela shrank against the wall and naughty insane Uncle Camillo sprinted by. He giggled as he passed her, and ran up against the door.
    He had a key, and with it he unlocked the door, and an oblong of blackness appeared, night in day.
    Camillo bowed, holding open the door for Rachaela on the oblong of night.
    She lifted her eyelids and saw her room in the frenzy of the window of the temptation. She had only been dreaming again. Uncle Camillo had not opened the way into the tower. But she had not dreamed her encounter with Adamus. He stood out as solidly as a lighthouse in the sea of nightmares. Sleep well , he had said.

Chapter Five

    In the library, Sylvian was busy.
    He did not glance up from his work. Rachaela stood and watched him, placing the ebony ruler precisely, dipping the pen into the ink. Drawing a neat thin line. Another phrase gone. Another thought obliterated.
    Rachaela went up to the table and, pulling out the chair, sat down opposite to him.
    ‘I wish I could make you stop.’
    ‘No, Rachaela. I can’t stop. This is necessary.’
    She sat watching him. A desire to scream rose in her. She damped it down. Only another mad old man, Elsewhere these books thrived and were read. But perhaps not. Some of them were decayed and ancient. The only copies left in the house of the Scarabae and Sylvian ruling them through.
    ‘Why am I here, Sylvian?’
    ‘You belong here,’ he said, not stopping even now, but just a flash of the spiked eyes.
    ‘Where should I look to find Camillo?’ she