A great room with a high-beamed ceiling spread off to the right, lit by a crystal chandelier, sparkling with candles. A player piano bobbed on madly in the corner. Off to the left a carpeted staircase curled upstairs and beside it, in a side room with the door ajar, a group of six noisily played cards.
Joshua entered the main room. The madam said, “You find somethin’ ya like, Trouble, an’ we’ll discuss it,” and then wandered off, leaving Josh on his own.
The room was filled with buyers and sellers of every description, trysting quietly in the dark and fluid candlelight. In one corner a pale, gaunt man spoke in low tones to a female Vampire. She was naked, though her brown wings loosely encircled her. As the man spoke, he slipped his hand down under the smooth, thin wing-skin to fondle the slope of her heavy breast. She let out a throaty chuckle, showing a long white tooth at the corner of her mouth.
A Satyr lounged on the couch, goat-legs up on a table, a smile on his face, and a young woman in his lap with another at his side. Their moist eyes were glazed, their hands urgent in his fur. It was not immediately apparent whether the Satyr was buying or selling.
Shadows danced in the stairwell.
Near the dark side of the room two Hermaphrodites explored each other’s darker sides.
A Troll exposed his hump to someone with bulbous lips and a vacant stare; a black Cat lapped distractedly at the inner thigh of a hairless woman wearing a black mask.
Josh scanned the group, but saw no sign of the Accident. Where would it be? He thought of everything he’d ever read about them, but there had never been mention of Accidents going to brothels. The black Cat looked up, and her strange eyes met Joshua’s for a long moment. Then she jumped down from her couch and disappeared. As Josh was about to try another room, a pretty girl walked up to him. She was no more than four feet tall, wearing a gauzy half-slip and a thin half-smile that was at once shy and hungry.
“Looking for me?” she said. Her voice tinkled like fine crystal breaking in a muffled room.
Josh began to shake his head, but stopped and decided to take a chance. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Meli,” she smiled. “Will you dance with me?”
He smiled back. “So you’re a Dryad.” Her name was a giveaway. “What’s a wood nymph like you doing in a…”
Her face lit up like autumn fire. “I knew you were a hunter,” she exclaimed. “You know the woods, I could feel it.” She danced around him once, then pressed her diminutive body up to his, “Take me up to room seventeen,” she whispered gaily.
Madam walked up. “You found somethin’ that suits ya, Trouble?”
Josh dug into his belt and extracted one of the five gold pieces cached in the lining. The madam examined the coin in the candlelight, then tasted it. “This’ll buy you a lotta trouble, boy,” she said as she laughed uproariously and then swatted him on the bottom. He swatted her bottom right back and she laughed even louder. Then Josh took Meli’s hand, and they went upstairs.
Beauty trotted once around the buildings, but saw nothing of interest. A few rough-hewn cabins, a watering hole, a garden, a few goats, and sheep. All very innocent.
He hoped he could catch the Accident alone, without Josh. He could make the beast talk quickly, and he could kill it quickly. Humans hesitated too often in these matters; they had too many motives, too many second thoughts. Scribes were the worst of the lot.
Beauty was glad to be Centaur. Centaurs had the gift of balance – physically, spiritually, intellectually. They defined grace on the earth both in demeanor and being. Their graceful behavior was well known and their spirit forever poised toward the patch of sky in the constellation Equus, where the great Horse Spirit was known to live. But most important for Beauty was that Centaurs had a history.
An ancient, royal history. It extended back thousands of years to the birth of animals, to the earliest days after the continents congealed. A history of heroes, principles, and – naturally – balance. It was a heritage weighted with responsibility. He wore the mantle proudly.
Not like some of the other animals you saw crawling around. Animals you might see once and never see again. One-of-a-kind creatures, without a past or future, the dregs and the flotsam. Like the Accidents.
The thought of the wretched beast brought Beauty’s senses back to the moment and to his resolve. He put his nose in the air. The wind was beginning to respire, but not really enough yet to catch the blades of the windmill behind the barn. He walked up to the stables and opened the door.
Inside he was greeted sourly by an old man who took his piece of silver and told the Centaur he could have the use of any stall for an hour. Beauty thanked him curtly and started to look the place over.
It was a big L-shaped structure with cubicles along the walls. Paper and straw littered the dirt floor and candles were set out every five feet or so. Three open windows near the ceiling provided the only ventilation and allowed some thick waxy moonlight to pour in.
Beauty walked a few steps and opened the door to the first stall. A pretty bay mare stood inside, her big brown eyes fearful. Beauty backed off. In the next stall a heavy woman lay on her back in the hay, her teeth yellow, her dress open.
Next was an Equiman girl – head and torso of a woman on the upright hind legs and tail of a horse. She was the sterile cross between a Centaur and a Human. Beauty’s child with Rose would have looked like this, and Beauty stared into the girl’s eyes from the depths of his own lost future. She clopped her hoof in the dirt, tossed her hair, half-laughed, half-whinnied, made a kissing expression with her lips, and then rubbed her breasts and slapped her Horse-bottom. Unnerved, Beauty withdrew.
Centaurs lolled in the next two stalls, aged and mangy, and then there was a roan stallion mounting a gray female Centaur, followed by some empty stalls, a young boy, an old woman, and a couple of ponies. No trace of the Accident.
He went back into the stall with the young Equiman girl and closed the door.
“Hi-i-i-i,” she whinnied, smoothing the hair under his flanks.
He bent down and nuzzled her neck. “I just want some information,” he said softly.
Josh closed the door to number seventeen and sat down on the bed, while Meli danced over the floor like a leaf in a crosswind.
“You always this happy?” Josh asked. He’d never heard of a Dryad living anywhere outside the woods.
She flittered up to him and sat, feather-light, on his knee. “This is my room,” she confided, then jumped down to the floor and did a pirouette.
“But why aren’t you out in the forest with…”
She leapt up, pushed him back flat on the bed, and straddled his chest. “This is my bed,” she said quietly. He began to answer, but she placed two fingers on his lips. “My tree,” she said. “They cut down my tree to make the bed.” Joshua looked at her open face and nodded softly. Every nymph was said to have a tree that was her own, about which she had special feeling, of which she had special knowledge, with which she had special communion. Some said a Dryad withered when her tree died.
He ran his hand along the hard ash bed frame. She got off his chest and lay
