“Dance tha dance”, the dwarf had said.
I slid and skidded down the embankment below the cliff supporting the decaying fortress as I recalled his words.
“Dance tha dance for when evry’un is playin’ the game none check close ‘nough ta know tha diff’rence between tha livin’ uns and tha o’ so dearly depar’ed.” He had said.
Literally he meant, as it turned out. When Death held out its hand and invited you out to his derelict ballroom floor to dance among its other haunted dancers, it was wise to accept graciously. I didn’t often claim to be wise.
From the stairwell, Thane and I had watched Mahaad Ibn and Kaito accept the invitation of Death. Even Kolya and Whiskers had feigned acceptance, albeit unconvincingly. From our vantage, I had assumed that Thane and I had gone unnoticed, foolishly.
Its not that I wasn’t a bad dancer, in fact I could be quite nimble when the occasion arose, but Thane’s attitude towards the situation and my own pigheadedness lead me to believe I was the clever one out of me and the reaper. Out the nearby window I had snuck, thinking myself so sly. Seconds later only to find a great scythe cutting through my path, practically coming from the the stone wall itself as the Shinigami attempted to cut me down in my defiance.
The ghastly scythe of the specter still loomed above me, but I was falling far below its reach. I could still feel the cold and draining slice of god of death’s scythe. It had passed through me without leaving so much as a scratch, but it didn’t leave me untouched. It had ripped through me and stolen a part of my essence from deep within me. If I wasn’t so close to panicking as I toppled down the cliffside, I might have been cowering at the hem of Death’s tattered robe.
I reached out as I fell and brushed the cliffside with my fingertips, feeling the stones around me, and then forcing them to arrest my fall in a blast of stone and dirt.
At its base, the sheer cliff gave way to rocky slope. I was no longer falling, merely sliding and recalling the words of a dwarf much wiser than he appeared.
I looked back up at my attacker and without turning its gaze from me, it retreated through the stone wall from which it had appeared.
I dug my feet in and called to the stone below me to stop giving way and to stop my slide. My gaze returned to the castle wall above me, beyond which my companions remained. I wasn’t lost to them, but I had been removed from the fight they had coming.
Spitting words filled with ugly curses, I began my climb back up.