Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome by Stephen Lawhead Read Free Book Online Page A

his own way, just as wild.

SEVEN
    Yarden watched as the dancers whirled and spun on the grassy field before her, their shimmering clothing reflecting the sun's last rays. Three men and three women, each tracing a complex interaction of movements with each of the others, danced for an audience of a hundred or more rapt spectators. Several musicians sitting around the ring of observers accompanied the dance on their instruments: long, hollow tubes, curved into polished semicircles. The flutelike instruments emitted low, rich, mellow tones, and though the musicians were scattered throughout the crowd, their music formed a single, seamless stage upon which the dancers performed.
    Never had Yarden seen such exquisite movement, so lithe and free and—there was no other word for it—holy. The music and the dance were one and the same expression, so beautifully did they complement one another: sound giving impulse to movement, dance giving visual emphasis to the music, and each doing what the other could not do, thereby creating a total experience greater than the sum of the parts.
    Yarden stood entranced. She'd seen dancers perform before, of course—some of the best in the world—but never with such abandon—almost as if they were creating their intricate movements spontaneously, yet in complete harmony with the others, for each dancer moved as an individual and as a member of a larger body at the same time. She knew they must have performed together for years to be able to create such intricate and harmonious movement.
    This appreciation made the dance all the more wondrous to Yarden. She knew the cost of such perfection and loved the dancers for their extravagance. She watched with total concentration, savoring every fleeting, endless moment as the dancers spun and leapt and turned, coming together, forming patterns, breaking apart to create new patterns, until all the field and music and spectators coalesced into a single, creative awareness, joined by the movements of the dance.
    When the dance finally ended—the dancers breathless and exhausted, the music trailing off in whispers—the audience all exhaled as one, and Yarden realized that she, like all the others, had been holding her breath. She sighed, closed her eyes, and savored the moment, knowing that she had experienced true beauty and had been touched by it in a most intimate way.
    She felt a nudge and opened her eyes. Ianni smiled at her and indicated the crowd, typical of Fieri gatherings, moving away silently. Yarden saw that the dancers, having gathered themselves together, were smiling at each other and talking together in low tones, their faces flushed with satisfaction and exhilaration. It seemed somehow wrong to Yarden that this performance should go unrewarded by the audience; there should be some recognition paid the dancers—applause, at least.
    “I'll be right with you,” she told Ianni. Turning to the dancers, she approached hesitantly. One of the women in the ensemble glanced up as Yarden came near. She smiled and held out her hands in the Fieri greeting, but Yarden stepped close and put her arms around the woman. They embraced and Yarden said, “Thank you for sharing your dance with me.”
    The woman pressed Yarden's hands and said, “It is our joy to dance. If you find pleasure in it, praise the Giver. He gives the dance.”
    “Your dance is praise itself,” replied Yarden. “I will never forget what I've seen here today. Thank you.” She then rejoined Ianni, who was waiting for her a little way off.
    “Why did no one acknowledge the dancers?” asked Yarden as they walked back across the meadow toward the Arts Center, a palatial edifice made of rust-colored sunstone, with numerous wings and pavilions radiating from a common hub. “Or praise them for their artistry?”
    “Praise belongs only to the Infinite,” Ianni explained gently, as she had explained so often to Yarden since becoming her mentor. “Would you have us praise the