The Dancers of Noyo Read Online Free Page A

sensation of being followed. Every few steps I felt impelled to turn and survey the road behind me. There was never anything there.
     
                  Time passed. The feeling that something was following me abated. I was plodding along dully, listening to the slap of my moccasins against the pavement, when I heard a sliding roar just behind me. I looked around, startled. It was a rockfall , a sizable rockfall , with a lot of large rocks. I began to run. It was a good thing I did, for a really big rock came bounding down, gathering momentum, and crashed on the spot where I had been a moment before.
     
                  Had it been an accident? I didn't think so. It was the wrong time of year for a rockfall , especially one of such size. I crossed over to the seaward side of the road and began to watch the skyline as I walked along. After a while I was rewarded by seeing Brotherly, on my motorbike, making a slow detour around the hole the rockfall had left in the height above me. I suppose the reason I hadn't seen him before was that I'd been too close to the cliff.
     
                  I was convinced he'd tried to kill me. Hastily I pulled my bow off my shoulders, fitted an arrow to it, drew the string. "Come down!" I yelled. "Come down! Or I'll shoot." He was within easy range.
     
                  BL knew that if he made a move toward his bow I'd skewer him. He directed the bike toward a relatively low place in the bluff and came slithering down the slope toward me, scattering rocks and shale as he came.
     
                  I awaited him with fury, my arrow still at the ready. It wasn't only that he had tried to kill me, it was that he'd been riding my bike when he did it. His first remark, though, as he came up with me was a disinfuriating one: "Say, do you hear music, Bright Moon?"
     
                  I considered. I hadn't been conscious of much except the roar of the surf, but now that my attention was directed to it it did seem that I heard a high ringing in the air, golden, musical, and remote. "I guess so. I mean, it could be music. Why?"
     
                  "I've never been on One before when a Pilgrim was going down," he answered. "Maybe it's the usual thing, but it bothers me."
     
                  I shook my head, annoyed at being distracted from my rage. "Never mind that. Why are you following me? Why did you try to kill me just now? I'm not doing anything."
     
                  "The Dancer told me to follow you to be sure you really made the Grail Journey," he said after a very slight pause, a pause so small that I thought I had imagined it. "About the rockslide, it was an accident. I got too close to the edge. I wasn't trying to kill you. Why, I might have been hurt myself!"
     
                  It sounded plausible, but I kept my arrow to the string. "What would I do if I didn't make the journey?" I demanded.
     
                  "I dunow . Goof off somewhere, I guess. Everybody knows you're browned off at having to make the journey."
     
                  "Are you going to follow me all the way to Gualala? On my motorbike?" I asked.
     
                  "... No."
     
                  "Then turn around now. Go back to Noyo. Tell the Dancer I promise to make the journey. I'm even"—I managed a grin I tried to make sinister—"I'm even looking forward to it. It's going to be a real experience."
     
                  " Yesh , but—" Brotherly looked distressed. "I wish I could go back. It's no pleasure to me to watch you clumping along like a duck with flat feet. But I'm supposed to stay with you until I'm positive."
     
                  "What keeps you from being positive? I promised. It's against the rules for a Pilgrim to be disturbed. How am I ever to have the Grail Vision if you keep bothering me?"