What is the significance of the black void in "The Dancer on the Stairs"?

Question

Sarah Tolmie's novelette [_The Dancer on the Stairs_](http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-dancer-on-the-stairs/) is a kind of portal fantasy, with the protagonist whisked away from our world into a strange fantastical one -- except the place she is whisked to is a guarded stairway, where she depends on charity and desperation to survive, and can get out only by growing to learn the strange culture, and forge a meaningful bond with another. At the story's conclusion, long after she has escaped, the protagonist is in an unexpected position of responsibility -- orchestrating the enigmatic coronation dance. And here, at the climax of the dance several strange things happen - a break from the culture's fundamental order; a miraculous signal; and also, this: > It is over. But not for me. There is no more rising effervescence, but a terrible black suction into an upward void, pulling pulling pulling. I scream and hold on to Yestril and to the railing, clutching the stone, every cell protesting movement upward, movement away. > The pull ceases, and I fall down. > A murmur passes through the crowd below, an outcry. Four members of the royal family, in their octagonal enclosure, are gone. There are tears, complaints, railing. But there will not be any serious attempt to explain it. Soon enough this will be one of the things that "do not command attention" or "do not happen among us." This phenomenon is brief and sudden, and obviously important to the story, but I do not understand it. **What does it mean? Where are they being pulled? And why is it some people, and not others?** This feels like it might tie in the protagonist's arriving in the first place, from another world. And as for explaining that, the hint we have is Yestril's conjecture: > "But then how," I continued, "did I end up there?" > He looked at me in puzzlement. "I don't know," I remember him saying, "Perhaps you, also, were too much bound?" Or perhaps it's to do with the climax of the coronation, which is a (temporary) breakdown of the sigil-groups, and this is somehow an extension of that sudden, shocking intermingling and universality. But I'm not seeing a clear connection between the sudden void and either of those avenues. So I feel like I'm missing a key piece. This is a deeply thematic story, so I expect the significance here is more a matter of understanding the theme, than it is of finding a logical, in-world explanation supported by the text -- but I might be wrong about that too.

Answer 1

The black void in The Dancer on the Stairs functions primarily as a thematic and symbolic device rather than a fully explained physical phenomenon. It appears at the climax of the coronation dance, a moment already defined by the story as one of ritual intensity, cultural collapse, and the protagonist’s heightened responsibility. The sudden “terrible black suction into an upward void” signifies a rupture in the carefully maintained social and magical order of the world, an event that eludes standard explanation and resists assimilation into the culture’s rules. Its selective effect—pulling some individuals but not others—underscores the idea that agency, attention, and attunement to forces beyond the mundane determine one’s vulnerability to the extraordinary. In this way, it echoes the protagonist’s own journey: she arrived in this world precisely because she was “too much bound,” unusually perceptive or sensitive to forces ordinary citizens ignore. The void functions as an extension of that idea, selectively revealing that the boundaries between worlds, hierarchies, and categories are permeable under moments of extreme intensity. Thematically, the black void dramatizes the story’s exploration of responsibility, adaptation, and the consequences of being attuned to what others overlook. It marks a sudden, almost spiritual reckoning, emphasizing the tension between the ordinary social order and the extraordinary possibilities beyond it. Its abruptness and the fact that society quickly dismisses or refuses to explain it, reinforces the story’s commentary on conformity, attention, and perception: only those willing to engage deeply and resist passive acceptance are capable of encountering, or surviving, the extraordinary. In this sense, the void is less a literal space than a narrative embodiment of disruption, insight, and the selective permeability of reality itself, mirroring the protagonist’s own liminal experience and the precarious balance between participation and transcendence in this fantastical culture.