Lord Tophet

THREE


“The girl touched by the gods,” proclaimed Orinda. “That is what we’ll put on the banner, and surely you’ll fill the theater.”

Across the long table covered now in emptied bowls and cups, Soter sat with his arms crossed and head bowed as if dozing after the meal. Without moving, he said, “You’ll still be wanting to call yourself Jax.” Though he didn’t raise his head, he opened one eye to watch Leodora’s reaction. She straightened as if she’d been jabbed, and her eyes blazed. Before she could respond, he interjected, “I’m not saying you should go masked anymore.”

“Then why should I hide my name?”

His gaze rolled to Orinda, and he dipped his chin as if to say You explain it to her. Glaise and Bois—their places absent of dishes—looked to their mistress, too.

Then to everyone’s surprise Diverus spoke up. “Performance name,” he said.

Soter raised his head. “That’s so,” he agreed, but in a tone conveying his bemusement.

Diverus added, “It’s all I have.”

Bois responded to his dejection by patting him on the shoulder. Orinda asked, “What do you mean, it’s all you have, Diverus?”

He answered, “That’s what—my name is my performance name. Nobody knew my true name. I didn’t know it.”

Leodora interjected, “You told me Eskie gave you your name long before you’d discovered what your gift was.”

“That’s so, but it doesn’t make it my proper name, it’s just what they called me in the paidika when they wanted me to do something, instead of saying Boy all the time.”

“Ah, performance,” Soter replied. “I see what you mean now. Not the same thing as we was thinking, though you somehow arrived at the right word anyway. Sometimes, boy . . . Diverus, you startle me.”

If Diverus caught the jibe, he showed no reaction. “I don’t mean to,” he said.

“Is that what you told your last owner before you ran off—I don’t mean to cause you trouble?”

“Stop it, Soter,” Leodora said.

“You doubted him the same,” he protested back.

“I was asking him to clarify, not belittling him.”

Soter made no reply, but finally shrugged off the criticism.

Softly, Diverus asked her, “Why don’t you ask your new counselor?”

“Ask it what?”

“About the name, what name you should use.”

She had laid the polished pendant aside while she ate, for all of them to see, but it hadn’t said a word nor even opened its eyes the whole time. Taking hold of the chain, she raised it in front of her, then turned the head so that it faced her. She wanted to ask it about the blight of Colemaigne, not about her name.

Soter pushed back his chair. “That’s right. Don’t listen to old Soter’s advice, but by all means get the contraption’s opinion. You will let me know what it says, won’t you, Lea.” He gave a polite nod to Orinda and the wooden men, and then marched off into the depths of the theater.

An uncomfortable silence ensued during which Leodora stared after him, Diverus stared at her, and Orinda looked at everything else.

Then the Brazen Head opened its eyes. “In answer to your principal question,” it said, “you can only continue to call yourself Jax.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t speak it, which is not the same thing.”

“Why must she call herself Jax?” Orinda asked. “She needs the reason.”

“It is the name the world knows. In time it will surpass that of Bardsham.”

“Please, don’t patronize me,” Leodora protested.

The lion looked as if it might just close its eyes again out of spite, but then it said, “Didn’t Bardsham’s name surpass that of Meersh?”

“But Meersh—”

“Meersh, Leodora, is as old as these spans and recognized by all of them.” And with that it did close its eyes, a plain and simple pendant once more.

“It sounded a little angry to me,” said Diverus.

“Testy,” Orinda observed.

Leodora sighed, “Wonderful. One Soter wasn’t enough.”

For an instant after she said that she saw the face of the other one again—the “Soter” from Edgeworld—before both image and memory collapsed, leaving her with a vague and disconnected sense of there being two realities in attendance, but one invisible and forever out of reach.

Carefully, Orinda told her, “I know you have differences with Soter, and I shouldn’t want to wade into the middle of that, but I must concur with him and with your remarkable adviser here. You have created a magical persona in Jax, and it is that which will be whispered and remembered. It also frees you to be yourself when you choose, to leave Jax on the stage, in the booth. In the boxes with the puppets.” The two wooden men nodded in agreement.

Leodora nearly confessed to her hostess that there was already someone in the boxes with the puppets—someone who manifested in her dreams to disturbing effect, as if a ghost watched her wherever she went, never revealing himself nor his desires concerning what she did. And yet it seemed this ghost waited for some particular event.

When she glanced down again, the pendant had opened its eyes anew. “Tophet,” it said. She had no idea what question she had asked this time, but the lion was already inanimate again.


Despite the quirky nature of her brazen counselor, later that morning Leodora wore the pendant as she and Diverus walked the crooked lanes of Colemaigne. It hung between her breasts, an insentient piece of brass.

Many of the lanes folded back upon themselves, cramped and dark. Already twice she had elected a narrow route out of a piazza only to find that they were returned to the starting point as if by magic. And twice, on the much wider, brighter boulevards decorated with fig trees, the two of them had come upon Bois—or was it Glaise?—pasting up posters announcing the premiere performance tonight of THE GIRL WHO HEALED COLEMAIGNE! This was the title conferred on her by Orinda and Soter after much debate, playing upon the obvious transformation of the span. The posters drew small crowds even as he was hanging them, and she was thankful that her image wasn’t on them.

The resurrected buildings lining the boulevard were perfect, glistening edifices, untouched by time, unworn and brightly colored, and the line of them was easily traceable across the span. Only the blighted buildings had been repaired, looking newer now than the rest. The guild of craftsmen Soter had mentioned were indeed wizards if these were what their creations looked like when new. The pigments inside the sugar shells glowed as if with an inner light, an illusion created by the refracting layers of confection. People clustered before new buildings, chattering, admiring. In one courtyard she came upon a flock of children licking the side of a tall house while others scooted up a tree to break off the orange marzipan leaves and drop them to their friends below. It was strange, otherworldly, and perfectly natural. Everywhere stood statues, and all seemed to be the work of the same sculptor, who captured citizens of Colemaigne in lifelike poses. These looked older, too, not part of the regeneration.


“Would they know any stories?” Diverus asked her as they stood watching the children. He had grown tired from all the walking in circles—endlessly it seemed to him. While she had slept and rejuvenated after her encounter with Edgeworld, he had slept fitfully if at all and would on this occasion have preferred to stay behind. He had also begun to worry that they would not be able to find their way back through the maze of alleys and lanes they had traversed. He was certainly lost.

“I’m sure they know some,” she replied. “But Colemaigne’s an ancient span. There has to be someplace where people gather and tell their tales. It’s been that way on every span, and even on Bouyan, on an island where nothing ever happens. The villagers had a house for storytelling.”

“What if it’s at the far end, your gathering place?” His tone clearly conveyed his opinion that they should stop looking for now.

“It’s possible, I suppose, though I can’t believe there’s only one such place on a span this long.”

“But it was damaged, and performance forbidden for years.”

“That’s true. Such places may not be easy to find. Maybe I should scale one of the towers. Maybe I could see something from up there.”

“You’ve done that before, then. I remember you saying—” He broke off before he added right before you were snared by the gods.

“Before you joined us,” she said.

He speculated, “What if the stories here all lie in the upside-down city?” and was surprised when she clutched his arm, bringing him to a stop. “What is it?” he asked, glancing around, expecting there was something to behold.

“You saw that, too?”

He nodded. “When we went to carry you off the dragon beam. There were buildings in the shadows under the span, hanging from the span. I thought it was a reflection until I realized it didn’t match the span above at all.”

“I remember it—one of the few things I do remember. Just for a moment, and then the sky was flashing and I looked up and . . . then I woke up in that room.”

“A man came out of one of those houses. He was blue and he was walking upside down. He should have fallen into the sea but he didn’t. He came to the edge and he waved to me. And then he was gone.” Suddenly he wasn’t tired any longer, but strangely roused by the memory.

“How can we get there, do you suppose?”

Diverus thought for a moment. “Well, although it’s on the wrong side, there is the opening where the goods from the ship were hauled up. Remember how they were hauled out of sight under the street?”

“Where we climbed the stairs,” she exclaimed. “We need to go back there, Diverus.”

“You think that’s a way in?” he asked.

“We have to see. It could be it’s the only way in.”


Finding their way back to the point of their arrival proved easy. They had only to follow the trail of gleaming resurrected buildings. The line of renewal led back to the square where Leodora and Diverus had arrived. Even that had been transformed. The fountain where Soter had sat had been repointed, the stone animal figures in the center had been polished, their details freshly chiseled. Leodora could count the feathers on the roc, the scales on the dragon. It was a fabulous fountain now, and behind it lay a garden full of blossoms, purple and white. People lazed in the garden, sprawled here and there, some entwined, as if drugged into a stupor. Now and then one person picked a blossom and fed it to his partner, which seemed to be all the energy he could muster before collapsing again with a vague and dreamy smile. The street, which previously had been full of broken and uneven stones, was smooth, the square-hewn blocks so perfectly fitted that they seemed a single surface.

Leodora looked over the wall at the pulley arms jutting from the stone below. One of the platforms on which goods were hauled up from the harbor hung there unattended. The platform had been pulled up—apparently hours before, because there was no ship below now. Baskets and bolts of cloth swung there in the mild breeze.

“Everyone seems to have taken the day off,” Diverus said.

“This is the Colemaigne of legend that Soter described, much more so than what we encountered when we arrived.”

“Then maybe it’s a holy day.”

“If it is, we’re the cause.” She stepped up on the wall.

“Lea,” he gasped, “what are you doing?”

“I’m going to jump to that platform, so that I can go into the undercity.”

“But if you miss—I can’t even bear to look down there!”

“Yes, but I can. I scale bridge towers, remember?”

“You—you shouldn’t do this alone. And you’ve already risked . . . You just recovered from the Dragon Bowl, from Edgeworld. That’s enough, isn’t it? Besides, there’s bound to be a way into there from someplace up here—people aren’t spending their whole lives down there!”

“Why? They did on Vijnagar, didn’t they?”

“Please,” he begged.

“I’ll be fine, Diverus, I’m not going to miss the platform. There’s barely a hand’s width between the wall and it. It’s hardly a jump at all.” With that, as casually as if she were strolling along the boulevard, she stepped off the wall and dropped.

She landed on a bolt of cloth and fell forward onto her hands and knees. The pendant swung and slapped against her, and the platform bounced slightly off the wall but otherwise hung steady.

Where she lay, she was looking directly into an opening, with a pulley arm above her, and the ropes bearing the platform all running to a winch set back far enough to allow for the unloading of the goods. She realized that if she had taken one step to the side before jumping, she would have struck the pulley and possibly missed the platform altogether. Her stomach clenched. She would not point this out to Diverus.

Lifting one of the baskets, she found it to be as heavy as if it were filled with wet sand. She heaved it into the opening and, using its weight as a fulcrum, hauled herself up and in beside it.

The area beneath the span receded into darkness. What light did play through the opening showed nearby containers and amphorae, baskets and crates all neatly stacked. It looked familiar: the cargo from the boat that had brought her here.

“Lea!” called Diverus, and she stuck her head out to show him that she was fine. He laughed in relief.

“I think this might go all the way across the span, Diverus,” she called up. “I’m going to follow it. Don’t wait for me here, go back to the theater. I’ll find my way out.”

“But I’m not sure where the theater is.”

“Just go to the far side of the span and walk down the sea-lane, same as we did before, past the Dragon Bowl. Just don’t walk out onto the beam.”

Disregarding her levity, he replied, “I’m not happy about this.”

“You could come down here with me.”

“No,” he said, “I couldn’t. I can’t.”

“Well, I can’t come back up now that I’m here. So you have to go on top and me underneath.”

“You’re crazy, Leodora, do you know that?” He shook his head at her and then withdrew.

“All too well,” she said to herself.

When he didn’t reappear, she ducked back inside, but his final statement stayed with her. He was right, she had taken ridiculous risks, although she hadn’t seen them as such at the time. She hadn’t expected the hexagonal bowl to ignite, to do . . . whatever it had done to her. She glanced down at the pendant, fingering the edges of it. Whatever had been done, she could hardly reverse it now. She was who she was. Jumping down here, though, had been no risk at all, for someone used to scaling bridge towers. Diverus would just have to understand.

She turned her attention to the space ahead.

The underspan had a low ceiling, and while the floor was not a natural formation, it otherwise reminded her eerily of Fishkill Cavern where she’d first met the Coral Man. It was the sound of the place, she realized as she headed deeper in. It was the way her footsteps echoed as in a great cave.

Her eyes grew used to the dimness. There must have been hundreds of containers, perhaps thousands if they continued into the darkness. It was as though ships had been coming here since the beginning of time, their cargo hauled up but never passed along.

She soon came upon the first set of steps leading back to the surface, their zigzag shape like a fracture in the darkness.

She went up them bent low, her hands on the steps above, as if ready to fling herself off at the first sign of trouble from above. Nearing the top, she raised one hand and patted it against the shape of a trapdoor. Her fingers closed around a metal ring dangling from it. As the underspan reminded her of Fishkill Cavern, the trapdoor was all too unpleasantly reminiscent of her boathouse on Bouyan, and an irrational terror seized her that if she lifted that trap, she would be back there with her uncle looming over the opening, waiting for her. For a moment as she crouched in the darkness, she had the wild notion that she had never left the boathouse and that all the adventure between there and here had been an illusion, and now she must return to the cold horror, relive it all. This terror so pressed and compacted her that she flung open the trap in defiance of it.

It wasn’t the boathouse, of course. She was in someone’s kitchen—there was a wooden block, and on it knives, pots, and empty red-glass bottles. The place looked gray and disused, although that might have been a trick of the light coming through the smudged, distorting glass of the windows. Before anyone came into view, she lowered the trap and retreated down the steps, but then sat at the bottom of them until she could see in the darkness again.

The house above might have been one of those that had been blighted until yesterday. That would explain its sense of emptiness, of stillness. She didn’t know if people had continued to live in the blighted places. Orinda had continued living in the back of the theater, but did that constitute reliable evidence?

In the murk around her she now could make out jagged edges of more scattered stairways up to the surface.

She got up and continued walking. She passed a few small barrows and a larger cart. The cart, half unloaded, had lengths of rope dangling off it, conveying a sense that all work had simply stopped. That seemed to be what had happened. Perhaps it was because of the rejuvenation of the span, or maybe this was just a day of rest. She thought of the people lying about among the flowers above—a day with no obligations, no work to be done. It sounded terribly inviting if utterly alien to her.

She walked deeper into the space and shortly came upon another stairway to the surface. Beside this one stood one of the stone statues, like those she’d seen along the refurbished boulevard. Someone had opted not to carry this one to the surface, although it looked to her perfectly formed. It was the figure of a man. Even in the poor light she could see how well defined were the folds of his tunic, how the sculptor had dramatically captured every detail of him. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose to leave it down here in the dark.

Off in the distance, someone laughed. She listened, and tried to determine where it had come from, but the sound bounced off a hundred surfaces, circling her. She guessed at an approximate direction and started walking, cautiously. She walked past a thick pillar, an unlit lantern hanging from it.

She realized that she was seeing a wan light in the deep distance, one that flickered from behind stacked crates and boxes. She passed by more statuary, figures in crouched poses, looking as if they were in the middle of lifting something, and another pillar hung with another unused lantern, and more small carts. The light from outside, where she’d entered, shrank and shrank until it was like the glow of a distant star. The reflected light ahead looked brighter. She felt her way past amphorae and woven baskets toward a murmur of voices.

Someone cried out, “I serve you with a writ!” and she stopped dead. Whatever she expected next, it wasn’t the groan of dismay that followed. A woman’s voice exclaimed, “That’s wonderful. Now I can sue for damages!” Hands clapped. Whoever it was sounded gleefully malicious, but no one else said a thing in reply. Instead there came a clicking sound and the words, “A nine!” and Leodora quite suddenly knew what was going on.

The remaining distance she walked with less concern, then around the stacked boxes that served as a wall enclosing the game. Indeed, it was definitely a game.

Five players—two women and three men—sat in a circle upon wicker chests and boxes. One sat on a leather drum. In the center they’d set up an equally makeshift playing surface—a large flat cloth that was covered in symbols, lines, squares, and two piles of cards. The light came from lanterns hung from the arms of two more statues placed on opposite sides of the game. The players all held cards, and when she appeared they turned as one to see her. At first they gaped, but then they smiled to her. “Fresh meat,” said one of the women. She stood. “Find her a seat.”

“You composing poetry now, Meg?” asked the skinny man across from her.

“Could if I wanted,” she answered, then to Leodora, “Come in, come in. We need another player, you’ve no idea—someone whose tricks we don’t know yet.”

“Hang on, now, my dear,” said another of the men. “She could be here for supplies. You here for supplies, girl?”

“No,” replied Leodora.

“Lost, then?”

“Not exactly. That is, I know how I got here.”

The second woman laughed, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “If you know that, then you’re ahead of most of us. Come and sit.” She tugged at the wide wicker case she perched on, dragging it to the side to give Leodora a place to perch beside her. “Tight quarters but still room enough, heh?” Leodora circled them and sat on the end of the case. “I’m Garna,” said the woman. “That’s Meg, then Pelorie, Hamen, and Chork.”

“Leodora.”

“Now, there’s a name. Brave name,” said Chork.

“How would you know that?” asked Hamen. He had a flushed, dissolute face, but friendly. “You don’t even go up to the surface anymore.”

Chork was wall-eyed and she shifted her gaze from one eye to the other, trying to determine which to look at. He said meanwhile, “Never mind how—I just know it from the sound. So tell us, do you know how to play?”

She looked at the cloth, the four dice, the game pieces, which looked to be whatever had been lying about—a cork, two pebbles, a striated shell, and a heavy ring set with a green stone. “This is what I think it is?”

“It is if what you’re thinking is Lawyers’ Poker. We don’t have a judge. You need a minimum of six to play with a judge. So we been taking turns as needed. It’s not the same, though, is it?”

Leodora didn’t want to disappoint them. “I can try,” she said. She had never played the game and knew of it only as referenced in one of the stories of Meersh.

“Well, then, toss in your cards,” instructed Pelorie. “We’ll deal a new game.” He raked the cards into a heap and began to shuffle them.

Off in the distance someone called, “Coo-ee! Lignor Alley!”

“Damn,” said Hamen. He got up, groaning, stretching his stocky frame. “I’ll be right back then.” He lifted the lantern behind him from the statue’s arm and walked off. His voice echoed back: “What’s it want?”

“Lingonberry wine!” came the reply.

Chork scratched his ear. “I’m sure there’s some left that we haven’t drunk.” The others chuckled.

“Maybe one or two bottles were overlooked,” added Meg.

As if in response, Pelorie set down the cards, lifted a bottle, uncorked it, and drank. He passed it on to Garna, but placed the cork on the board. “This’ll serve as your piece, Leodora.”

She nodded.

He said, “So, what is it you’re doing down here, then? Nobody ever comes down here.”

“I saw it when we arrived. We came on a ship and they had mostly cargo, so when we climbed up I saw the goods hauled in.”

“That was us all right,” agreed Garna. She handed her the bottle. “But how’d you figure to come visiting? Lots of people go up them steps—or used to. They don’t usually come swinging in here on a rope.”

“I’m a storyteller. I thought—”

“Oh, what kinds of stories?” Meg asked.

“Shadowplays.”

“A puppeteer?”

She nodded.

“You’ll want to take that drink today,” urged Chork.

Leodora took a pull from the bottle. The liquor was sharp and sweet at the same time, and her eyes teared.

“Lemons,” said Meg, as if answering a question, and Leodora nodded vigorously. She passed the bottle to Chork, who leaned forward to take it.

“You came here to perform,” he said, “only to find out they’s banned all such here for years and years now. That’s a shame.”

“No. I’m performing. Tonight.”

“Naw! Where? Not on this span!”

“At the theater?” she offered.

“What theater would dare?”

She didn’t recall that anyone had named it in her presence. All she could say was, “Mr. Burbage’s?”

“The Terrestre. That old ruin? You can play there all you like, but all you’re going to have for an audience is a lot of rubble and some rats. And even so they’ll arrest you for it, see if they don’t.”

“He’s right,” Garna agreed. “The ban’s a very serious thing.”

“Not anymore, apparently,” called Hamen. He walked up with his lantern and handed a sheet of yellow parchment to Meg. “Proprietress at Lignor give me this just now. Someone’s passing ’em out up there.”

Leodora knew what it was without reading it.

“THE GIRL WHO SAVED COLEMAIGNE?” Meg recited. The group looked from her to Leodora, who tried to smile at the same time as she would happily have climbed inside the wicker container on which she sat.

“Oy, but this calls her Jax. THE REDOUBTABLE JAX. Not Leodora.”

She started to explain but Hamen replied first. “Stage name, like.” She met his amused gaze and bobbed her head.

“That’s fine and all, but how’d she save Colemaigne? Did it need saving? We didn’t hear anything about it.”

“We wouldn’t, now, would we?” Pelorie answered. “Anybody been up there so far today? I bet Hamen’s come the closest with that paper.”

“What day is it?”

“Who knows?”

“Celebration day, by the looks. So how did you save us, exactly?”

Leodora wrapped her arms about herself. “I don’t really know, exactly. All I did was walk out on the dragon beam.”

“What? That thing hasn’t fallen off yet?”

“Garna, hush,” Hamen said. “Go on.”

“That’s all—all I know. I seem to have gone to Edgeworld, but I’ve no memory of it. When I woke up, the span had been put right. The theater—”

“Terrestre.”

“—the Terrestre’s whole again, like it’s brand new. The blighted buildings, they’re fixed up. Repaired. I saw them on my way here. Children were licking them.”

“I used to do that,” said Chork, “when I was tiny.”

“Well, tie me to the gods’ gofe,” Pelorie said in wonder. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “Hang on, though. How come they didn’t change?”

The players eyed the statues suspiciously.

“Why didn’t you change them back?” Garna asked her.

“I didn’t—I don’t know what that means,” she said, and then all at once she did. “Those were people?”

“Once,” Pelorie replied.

Chork focused one eye on her. “When the blight swept through, they were standing in its path. Down here.”

“That one’s me dad,” Meg said, pointing to the one on which Hamen had hung his lantern.

“I’m sorry.”

“Long time ago, that. I’m used to him this way now.”

Garna asked again, “Why didn’t they change back? The buildings but not the people—what’s the point of that?”

“I don’t know.” She fingered the pendant nervously. “What is the point?”

The pendant opened its eyes. Meg gasped and Pelorie fell off his seat.

“The point,” said the pendant, “is that a building can go forward in an inert state but life cannot. Once stopped it stays stopped.”

“Time is that which ends,” Leodora recited.

The pendant said, “Ah-ha,” then closed its eyes and was silent again.

“What the mummichog was that?” Pelorie climbed back onto his seat.

“Orinda calls it a Brazen Head.”

“Who? The Orinda that lives in the Terrestre?”

Meg and Hamen exchanged glances. “I’m thinking we might want to go up on the surface tonight,” she said.

“Take in a play maybe, like?” Hamen looked at Leodora. “What do you think of that?”

“You live down here all the time?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It’s akin to being a miner. We have our shifts, live mostly in the dark. We go home, some of us do.”

Distantly someone called, “Coo-ee, Arbady Lane!”

Meg got up. “Hold my place,” she said, as though someone new might sweep in and take it. She walked off into the darkness.

“Does that happen all the time?” asked Leodora.

Pelorie replied, “Nah. Most like in the morning. Sometimes we’ll go a whole shift without a call. Not often, mind you, but it’s happened.” He took another drink from the circulating bottle, then asked, “So what are you doing down here, ‘redoubtable’? You only said that you weren’t lost.”

“I’m looking for stories.”

“The kind you can play out with your shadows?”

She nodded. “I like to hear how stories are told. Every span’s a little different. Your characters might have a different name than elsewhere, or the tale reach a different outcome. Maybe they don’t cut off their toes to make the magic slippers fit.”

“I know that story!” Chork proclaimed.

“Of course you do,” she went on, “and I like to hear how you learned it, what names everyone in it has, how it’s changed, how it’s become part of this span and not of any other. Then when I perform, I’ll get it right for here. I mean, I could tell them in a general way and everyone would be pleased, but I would really rather tell them in the way they belong here.”

“Never realized it was so complicated,” said Garna.

“I’d a’thought you just telled ’em,” Chork added, then loosely waved his hand. “Of course, it’s been so long since there was a story here, we can’t remember. But it’s what I’d do.”

“And that’s why you unload ships and she performs stories,” Garna told him.

“Well, thankee for nothing,” Chork replied.

“I don’t want to cause a squabble,” Leodora said.

“Oh, you’re not causing anything. He’s like that all the time.”

Pelorie added, “To everybody.”

Chork looked at the two of them and started to laugh.

“I know a story,” Pelorie offered. “Fella off a boat told me it last week. You want to hear?”

“All right.”

“But then you have to be our judge, just so we can play a real hand of Lawyers’ Poker. That’s my price.”

“That seems fair.”

“Well, good, then.” He leaned back against the statue behind him and closed his eyes.

Leodora quietly asked Garna, “What’s he doing?”

“Waiting for Meg.”

“Oh.”

“Meantime, I’ll show you the rules of the game so you’ll know how to play it.” Garna reached across the cloth and grabbed the deck of cards.

By the time Meg returned, they’d gone through half the deck, and Leodora had seen enough to understand and act her part. She urged them to play first and tell the story after, and that’s what they did.

The game—or so Meg claimed—went much faster than usual now that they had a real judge. They shouted at one another, bickered, threatened. As a group they cheered when she threw one of the dice, picked a card from the judge’s pile, and handed down a sentence upon Chork that took him out of the game until Garna handed him a card that claimed he had tunneled from jail and into a brothel. “At least,” he said, “I’ll be happy in my retirement.”

“Too bad the whores can’t say the same,” answered Garna.

In the end the play all came down to a lawsuit between Garna and Hamen. They argued their positions and then the judge had to rule. Leodora threw the dice and read the first card, which was called the amicus curiae. It meant she had to consult with the players who’d been kicked out of the game and get their answers. They talked and then outshouted each other, but without any agreed position. Chork and Meg wanted Garna to lose, while Pelorie opposed Hamen on the argument that someone simply should. She threw the dice again, and the card that came up was called bona vacantia, and stated that the properties owned by the remaining parties had to be divided equally between them. As she ruled, Garna stood up, outraged, bellowing furiously, and Leodora considered diving for safety under the cloth, at which point Garna, unable to maintain her façade of fury any longer, collapsed in laughter. Pelorie decreed, “Thus we know that law laughs in your face while it picks your pocket.”

“Just like real life then, is it?” said Meg.

“But now,” Hamen said, “our judge has earned her reward. Eh, Pelorie?”

Pelorie patted the cards into a neat stack. He drew the top one and held it up. “Ad arbitrium,” he read. “At your will, Leodora.”

“You still talking lawyerish, then?” Chork said.

“All right, fold up the game cloth,” Garna directed. “I want to hear this story, too.”

They passed the bottle around another time. It finished empty, and Pelorie set it aside. “Well, then,” he said, “I got this off a navigator. He carried it here from another spiral, so it’s not one of ours nor known hereabouts.”

“Fresh, then, is it,” said Chork.

They all settled back comfortably. Pelorie stood and leaned back beside the statue.

THE NAVIGATOR’S TALE

“There was a girl,” said Pelorie, “who lived on an island. It was one of those backwater places where the vermes breed in the salty shallows and one day is like any other. Almost nobody ever escapes from islands like that. This girl, though, she had the desire, you know, the dream. She wanted to leave the island and see the world.” He gestured at Leodora.

She said, “That’s a real dream, all right.”

“Oh, yes. But the villagers, now, they would have none of it. ‘You’re of us, you stay with us!’ is what they said to her. They gave her tasks to wear her down and wear her out, forced her to do the work of three, and fed her just enough to keep her alive. She was a slave, a prisoner, and her own family sided against her. That life was good enough for them, it should have been good enough for her. The village tried to break her will. That’s what they intended. It was a fishing village, so life was hard anyway, but it could always be made harder. The family, they treated her like a slave for her pride. No matter what they did, though, she clung to her dream of escape.

“These folk had trained generations of kraken—trained the tentacled beasts to carry the fishermen about upon their backs. Only the men were allowed to ride them. This idea became the law of the gods, and violation of it brought dire consequences.”

By now Leodora had become uneasy with the story, but she didn’t interrupt.

“One day while the men were off fishing, the girl escaped from her captors. On foot she traveled perhaps halfway around the island before she gave up. Continuing would only take her all the way around to where she’d started. Soon she saw that there was no escape, no friend willing to defy the whole village and sail her away—any such a friend would have had to stay away ever after, too. She came to realize that her life was doomed, her fate inescapable. She could only circle the island and come back to where she’d begun. And then they would treat her even worse than before.

“She turned and started back.

“It was then that she encountered a mystical kraken. It surfaced out of nowhere, stuck its head up out of the water and called to her. Called her name.

“It told her it had heard her anguish and had come to take her far away. All she had to do for this to happen was climb upon its back.

“You can imagine that she didn’t hesitate a single moment. She threw off her clothes and waded out to the beast, which lifted her in its tentacles and settled her upon its back, to ride as the fishermen did. The beast carried her out into the deep, but soon she realized that it wasn’t going where she wanted at all—it was headed straight for where the village men fished. She cried out for it to stop but it didn’t seem to understand. She beat upon it, but it didn’t flinch nor change its course. It was a kraken and this was what it did. The beast swam right through the fishing grounds, letting all the men see her, naked upon its back. They gave chase, driving her and the kraken back toward shore, toward the village. There was a spit of land there that projected like a finger into the sea, and the women—who by now had discovered her escape—came out and saw her. They shouted at her, called her a witch: the witch that conjured monsters.

“Seeing her displaying herself so wantonly, the women picked up stones and hurled them at her. They pelted her, pelted the kraken. The women shrieked at her like a flock of birds. And finally one stone struck the beast a mortal blow. Ribbons of black ink billowed out of it, turning the sea to darkness. It floundered and started to sink. Rolling its great eye toward her, it said, ‘Forgive me, forgive me, I’ve failed you.’

“In some other story, the beast might have transformed into her lover, or into an enchanted prince, or someone else special. But in this story, it was as it appeared, and it died. Then the girl was struck in the head and slid into the water beside it.”

Leodora could not conceal her horror at the specifics of the story. “Did . . . did the navigator tell you what became of her?”

“Oh, yes. The villagers drowned her in that black water, tore her body to pieces, and fed her to the fish, to the barbed and poisonous vermes. In one sense you could say the beast had not lied, for it did take her away from there. She did find escape.”

Meg, watching Leodora’s reaction, remarked, “It’s not a very pleasant tale.”

“That’s true, I suppose,” Pelorie agreed. “This fellow, though, he swore it really happened on an island not three spirals from here. He’d got it off some crippled-up fishmonger who came from that island and had seen it all happen. He claimed he wanted folks to know what fate awaits you when you aren’t satisfied with what you have.”

“More like it’s a tale to keep you from ever hoping for anything,” said Garna. “It’d be like telling me I’m never leaving this place.”

“But you aren’t leaving, are you?” said Chork.

“Not the point of it. If I wished to, I could, anytime, same as you or them. I choose not to, but it’s what I choose. Now, women stoning their own child—that’s just cruel for no good reason. That’s a place where the rules have defeated the common sense of folks.”

“If they ever had any,” said Meg.

“Rules is like tradition,” argued Chork. “You do what your family’s done for every generation since the world began. You don’t have no more choice than that girl. None of us does. What would we do different, anyhow. What would you know how to do?”

A long silence followed his question.

“It was just a story,” Pelorie apologized. “For Leodora, is all.”

She made herself smile, and thanked him for telling it. She didn’t try to explain that his tale was strewn with real elements of her and her mother’s lives, mixed together by a demented fishmonger who couldn’t tell them apart anymore. The story was out on its own now, a version of her released by her uncle or whomever, and whether or not it was an utter lie seemed of less importance than the conclusions being drawn from it, conclusions that said life was defeat, hopeless and pointless. The thing she knew absolutely was that she would never perform it anywhere.

“As Garna chooses,” she said, “so must I, and I have to choose to go back up now. Thank you, Pelorie, for a tale. I’ve a performance to prepare for, and I hope you’ll all attend. Do you know if there’s an entrance to the Terrestre?”

The others glanced at Hamen, and she followed their gaze.

“Not in it, but next to it,” he said. “I’ll take you.” He stood, a little unsteady on his feet.

“Oh, be careful with him, Leodora,” said Meg. “He’s drunk enough I’m not sure where he’ll lead you.”

He waved off the criticism. “I could find my way through the underworld in the dark.”

“Blindfolded,” added Chork.

“We could test him,” Pelorie suggested.

“Test your own selves, spit-frogs,” he answered. “Come on, Leodora. I’ll get you back safely.”

She started to follow him, but then remembered the reason she had come down here in the first place, before the game and players had distracted her. “I’ve a question before I go. Can any of you tell me, is there an entrance from this level to the inverted city?”

“To what?” asked Garna.

“I don’t really know its name, or if it has one. I saw it from Colemaigne’s dragon beam. The houses pointed toward the water, and I think it must have been below this.”

All of them gaped at her. Chork leaned toward her and quietly said, “You actually saw it? You didn’t just hear of it? Have the notion of it planted in your head by somebody?”

“No, I saw it. And—”

“She saw the Pons Asinorum,” Meg said in wonder as she eyed the other players. “When is the last time anyone ever saw it?”

Pelorie replied, “Drunks in the blighted lanes say they see it all the time. Drag themselves to a rail to spew up, and there’ll be someone looking up at ’em as if the water had moved up close and they were seeing themselves, but it’s not themselves nor like themselves, it’s someone dark and shadowy, blue or black with fire for eyes. And who believes what a drunk sees?”

“Then is there anyone whose opinion is trusted?”

Pelorie shook his head. “Been twenty years or more, I think.”

“Longer than the blighting itself even.”

Pelorie reconsidered Leodora. “You saw it, though, you swear.”

“She’s been noticed by the gods. ‘The girl who saved Colemaigne,’ isn’t it?”

“Don’t know as I’d much like to be noticed. Nobody who is ever seems to come to a good end.”

“Capricious, that’s what everyone calls them—the capricious gods.”

“Me, I think we’ve been blessed by your visit,” Hamen told her.

“But then again, you only been here two days,” Chork added.

“I hope—” Garna began, but hesitated.

“You hope what?” asked Leodora.

“I hope they take only a passing interest, those gods.” She gave Leodora a worried smile.

Hamen said, “Enough of this jabber. Come on, I’ll lead you back to the theater.” He lifted a light from a stone figure and walked past Leodora. She acknowledged the group with one final nod, then set off after him.


Meg stood watching until the darkness had swallowed the lantern light. Then she said, “I think we’d best see this performance tonight.”

“Because there might not be another?” mused Chork.

“Exactly.”


Hamen led her past dozens and dozens of small stairways, past embedded foundations of whole buildings that evoked a walk through a maze, past kegs and barrels, crates and clay jars and cloth sacks, and past dusty, stony upright corpses. In one place they passed an overturned boat that was a little too reminiscent of her uncle’s ruined esquif, and she made haste to close the distance to walk beside Hamen, secure in the lantern’s pool of light.

“I’m going to dally once I’ve taken you up,” he said to her. “I want to see your performance. The others, too, they’ll most likely come along once they talk themselves into it. The idea that something might happen and they’d miss it will play on ’em till they have to see, too.”

She nodded but said nothing.

“Pelorie’s tale—I saw how you reacted. That was all about you, wasn’t it?”

She eyed him askance. “It seemed to be,” she admitted. “Everything he said, I kept thinking—hoping—the next wouldn’t be more of it, more of me, and then it was. And where it wasn’t, it was as if someone had replaced the missing stones in the mosaic with a different color of stone, was all. But the picture—”

“You’ll not be performing it, then.”

“Not ever, I think.”

“Makes you wonder a bit. I mean, how many of the stories you tell do you suppose used to be about somebody—somebody real, once upon a time. And then the story took over—some of the stones, like you say, got replaced with different ones, made-up ones—and the real person and their story went different ways altogether. Separate ways, like. I mean, do any of us ever perform our own stories,” he asked, “save for the one time?”

She shook her head, both in answer and in surprise at the depth of his comments and question. “I don’t know,” she said.

“No, nor does anyone, I expect. You can’t know your story when you’re part of it. And until you die, you’re always in the middle of it, aren’t you.”

“I never looked at it that way, Hamen.”

“Well.” He gazed down, as if embarrassed by his own sudden metaphysical opinions. “Besides, what you want to know about is the Pons Asinorum.”

“I do.”

“Well, then, I hope somebody above can help you, because I can’t. I’ve never seen it, nor really believed in it, nor have the others. Just stories to us.” He chuckled then. “All just stories.”

When they’d walked a little farther, he spoke up again. “I was thinking, you know, I said that the group of us all live in the dark here, and, well, so do you, don’t you? I mean, with your puppets and all, you’re in the dark, you know, a lot. People don’t see you, just see what you offer ’em.”

“That’s so,” she agreed.

“Yeah, well. Same with us.”

“You seem to think a great deal, Hamen.”

“Don’t know about a great deal. No more nor you, I expect. But if the Pons Asinorum exists, I think it’d be good if you found it.”

“Why?”

“Can’t say, quite. I’d have to think about it some.” Then he grinned to himself, and she laughed.

“One more thing—what are vermes?” she asked. “Some kind of fish?”

“A terrible fish. Can climb up on land and pull down an ox, tear it to shreds. That’d be one of those stones of another color in your mosaic you were talkin’ about.”

“It would, yes,” she replied, and wondered where that element had been added to the story. What isle or span did the notion of vermes hail from?

Before long they approached a great curving wall of stone. “The Terrestre,” Hamen pointed out. “That’s its foundation. The prima pietra’s around here somewhere, got Burbage’s name etched on’t.”

Around the far side of the wall they came to another flight of steps, and Hamen delivered her to the surface. The steps led to a narrow gated portico across the alley from the rear of the theater. It smelled of a rusty wetness. She unlatched the metal gate and stepped out. Overhead, the sky was going dark, with the first stars twinkling.

Hamen followed her into the theater. Diverus, seated at the long table where they’d eaten earlier, leapt up at her appearance. “Lea!” he cried, which brought Soter and the others. By then Diverus had wrapped his arms around her with such obvious relief that she blushed.

Soter pulled Diverus back and said to her sternly, “You age me every single day, child, you don’t know how much.”

So nonplussed was she by their reaction that she didn’t try to explain. Instead she turned and introduced Hamen. Orinda said, “I believe I recognize you, good sir.”

“And you, madam,” he replied. “You’re of my district. It’s my services you call on from time to time when you want something brought up from the cellar, you know?”

Her expression brightened. “Coo-ee? That’s you? You will stay and sup with us then, before the theater opens for business?”

“I should be most happy to attend your company. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” she said. “You’ve returned to us our savior, it’s the least we can do.”

Leodora blushed again at being called their savior. As the others turned about, she grabbed Glaise by the sleeve. “I’ve had an idea for the performance tonight,” she told him. “I want to know what you and Bois think of it, because it involves you both.”

Bois came over, and the three of them walked off toward the stage, leaving Hamen in the company of the other three.

The kitsune watched as the long-snouted tanuki took a black stone between his middle and index fingers and snapped it onto the g board. “Atari,” said the tanuki, and its black eyes gazed meaningfully at the cadaverous figure on the opposite side of the gban. Two others, nearly identical to the seated player, stood motionlessly behind him as they had throughout the game. Torches burned on either side of them. They stood as still as moonlight.

The player of white stones pursed his thin lips and then raised his hands in a gesture of capitulation. The tanuki nodded respectfully that his opponent had recognized defeat. His whiskers twitched.

The seated figure arose, tall and gaunt. One of its companions said with dismay, “You lost.”

The white stone player ignored the observation, but turned to the kitsune and said, “Now I’ve played your game and it’s time you told me about these storytellers.”

“You lost?” the second figure repeated.

The player turned coldly about. “Yes. I lost. The stars still burn in the sky, last I checked.”

The kitsune looked overhead. “They do,” he agreed. “As to the storytellers, what can I say? They came, they watched a game unfold, we told them a story—a very good one I might add—and then they joined us for the parade. Would you like to join us for the parade?”

The bald player’s lips drew back over his long teeth. His sunken eyes smoldered, as if he thought he was being toyed with. “What I want to know—was one of them called Bardsham?”

“Well,” said the kitsune. “What would your Bardsham look like? I have never seen him, and I had always fancied that he died long ago, for surely he hasn’t performed anywhere I’ve heard of, and our kind do hear things.”

“Unusual things,” the tanuki chimed in. “It’s past sunset,” he told the fox.

“Yes, I know,” replied the kitsune. “Gentlemen, you’ve indulged us, and we appreciate it, but we know nothing of whether your Bardsham dwelled among the storytellers. But then we only encountered two of the troupe, and as I understand these things, most troupes of players contain four or more. How many were in your Bardsham’s troupe?”

“Three,” the player stated.

“Four,” his companion corrected. Their eyes locked. “There was the dwarf. Grumyfin or some such name.”

“Four, then,” said the player to the kitsune. “It doesn’t matter. Whoever they are, we must find them all. It’s most urgent that we do.”

The kitsune adjusted his kimono. “I am sorry, but there you have it. We met two, and who can say if they were, either of them, the one you seek. And anyway they haven’t come again.”

“I dislike being taken advantage of,” the player said, and his words dripped with threat.

“We did not swear to have your answers, only to have some answers, of which none seems to belong to you.”

“You—”

“We. Must be leaving now,” explained the kitsune. “The parade does not wait. If you care to return to the park tomorrow, I’m certain you can learn more, though not more certain of its benefit.”

The player stared at his hands, flexed his fingers. One palm glistened as if coated with blue glass. Suddenly he reached for the fox’s arm. His hand closed upon empty air. The kitsune had vanished and only the tanuki remained, with bared fangs and bristling fur. “Unusual,” he snarled. “Not alive, and not dead enough.” The player lunged at him, but the tanuki flipped the gban into the air, and the stones covering its surface peppered the trio, forcing them to stumble back. When they lowered their arms, the tanuki still stood there, observing them. “Most unusual,” he said. Where the white and black gishi had struck their faces, the flesh was pocked and gray. “You’re not at all nice. We shall not help you further.” Then, like the kitsune, he vanished. It was as if the wall drank him up. The torches guttered and went out, leaving the trio of agents in darkness lit only by the stars and the twin moons.

“I hate conversing with the supernatural,” complained the player.

“You lost the game, Scratta.”

“If you remind me of that once more, I’ll strip the rest of the glamour from you and you can remain fixed right here for pigeons to spatter. Now.” He paused to regain his composure. “We will return to the ship. Possibly the others had better luck.”

“If not, what then?”

“Tomorrow night we’ll hunt the venues, find out where they performed. They had to have performed somewhere.”

“Why not simply go north to the next span? We’re close behind them now.”

“I see,” he said, and then asked the third one, “Is that what you want to do, too?”

The third glanced nervously between his two companions. Prudently he ventured, “They must have moved on, so why continue looking here? It would seem reasonable.”

“Fine. Then that is what we shall do. If you’re right,” said Scratta to the second, “we save time. If you’re wrong . . . well, every ship needs an anchor.” He turned and strode off.

The others followed. “You can’t intimidate the supernatural,” said one.

The other replied, “We should know, and better than any.”

“So then, when we catch up to this troupe, what if the teller, this performer, is the supposed-to-be-dead Bardsham?”

“Then he’s doomed.”

“And what if he’s not Bardsham?”

“Then he’s doomed.”

“Oh, good. I like simplicity.”

“Indeed. Complications are for stories.”


The Terrestre was only half filled, but the audience included the governor of the span, who wanted to see for himself what creature had coerced the gods into healing Colemaigne.

Soter complained about the way the stage was set. He had put the puppeteer’s booth front and center, but while he ate and chatted with Hamen, Leodora and the two woodmen had moved it to one side, leaving most of the stage open. He was further dismayed when she told him that she didn’t want him narrating the first story as he often did. She would do it herself.

He replied, “Merely because you’re revealing that you’re a girl, now you want to change the process? Will you be performing the introduction as you manage the puppets, too?”

She told him, “I won’t be managing puppets for this performance.”

Diverus joined her in the booth. She explained to him what she was going to do, and his ritual began. He sat on the floor and spread his instruments in a circle around him. There were new ones she hadn’t seen before: Orinda had shown him the Terrestre’s instrument collection, and he had selected various items, including a snaky horn that seemed more designed for processionals than accompaniment. Now he closed his eyes and lowered his head. His hands reached out and took hold of one of these novel instruments from the Terrestre, a theorbo. It looked like a lute but with an extended neck and second pegbox. He lay it across his lap and then reached again, adding three small percussion instruments to his choices. One was a clapper. The other two, she couldn’t fathom. Then he sighed and leaned back. His eyes fluttered open and he stared, bemused by what he’d picked, despite which confusion he told her, “I’m ready.”

Orinda strode out from the curtains and welcomed the crowd. Most of them knew her. Some, like the governor, had known her husband. They applauded her, and cheered her announcement that theater was coming back to Colemaigne. She gestured to the governor in his box, and the audience stood to give him an ovation for dismissing the ban. He bowed, then gestured broadly for all of them to sit, so that the performance might begin.

It had seemed only fitting to Leodora that the first story recited should be “The Tale of the Two Brothers.” Bois and Glaise strode out upon the boards, took their bows, and then, as she recited from within the booth, pantomimed the tale as they had done with her earlier. Accompanied by Diverus’s score, their movements seemed more fluid and precise. The graceful music carried them along, and punctuated each step deeper into cruelty and greed.


Soter stood beside Hamen in one of the stage balconies. He was edgy and complained unhappily about this unprecedented change in how they did things, until Orinda entered the balcony. She moved between the two men and said, “Your Jax does us great honor by letting them perform the first story. They’ve waited so long. Mr. Burbage would be elated.” He knew from her tone that she believed he’d had a hand in the decision and he did not attempt to dissuade her, but allowed her to kiss him on the cheek.

When she leaned over the rail to watch, Hamen edged close beside him again and said, “Don’t worry it, your secret’s safe with me.” He winked.

Soter replied, “Why am I not comforted, knowing that?” If Hamen heard him, he gave no indication.


The recitation of “The Two Brothers” ended. The two figures, wrapped about each other, seemed to have melted together into the great worn sandstone lump that Baloyd had become. They held their positions as Leodora emerged from the booth. For effect she wore her trademark mask, black silk stitched with a diamond pattern, covering the top of her head to just above the tip of her nose. But now her thick red braid swung behind her, and the loose-sleeved red bodice she wore removed all doubt as to her sex.

The audience uttered not a sound, as though uncertain if the play was finished, or what their role was supposed to be in response.

Then the governor stood and began to clap enthusiastically, and like a lead bird drawing its flock into the air, his applause brought the rest of the audience to its feet. The din of approval surged until the half-empty theater shook with clapping and calls of “Jax!” Leodora swept off the black mask as she bowed. The footlights flashed over her copper hair. As had happened on Hyakiyako, the audience shouted louder. Those nearest the front of the stage reached toward her, tried to touch her feet. She knelt and squeezed their hands, gestured Bois and Glaise up beside her, and although they were known to everyone in the pit, the hands reached for them as well. They met her gaze, eyes full of wonder, but no more than her own. The charge from this audience crackled through her, made her heart pound, her brain spark. She arose, took one more bow, and then retreated behind the booth again. Diverus stared at her as if in wonder, and she said, “Oh, Diverus, come out,” and took him by the hand. At the last moment, she seized upon an idea and drew her domino mask over his head, tying it quickly behind him. He carried the theorbo in one hand, following along as if in a daze. She told him to bow and remove his mask, too, and he did as she ordered, if uncertainly.

The noise must have spread through the streets and alleys, because more people were pushing through the doors, as if they’d been waiting for the signal the applause represented. They entered and marched up the aisles. Even when the ovation died down, more people continued to enter.

Bois and Glaise ran to the side of the stage and began dragging the sections of the booth out into the center. First came the giant screen and, behind it, the tall lens that would enlarge her puppets so that even those at the back could see. Once that was set up, Diverus hauled his instruments behind it and then helped Leodora move the cases from the booth, which the two wooden men would carry. The poles and screens weighed next to nothing. Meanwhile the audience milled about, chattering, imbibing.


From the balcony, Hamen spotted his comrades seated together in one of the front rows. He thanked Orinda for her kindnesses, and she invited him to sample them another night. Soter scowled at the exchange. Hamen saw the look and winked at him again, then walked down into the theater as Leodora came up the stairs and joined them in the box. Though she’d only known him briefly, Soter noticed that she watched Hamen’s departure sadly.

She said, “They’re setting up the lens you described—the same one Bardsham used.”

“Glaise found it,” said Orinda. “I’d hoped he would.”

“And what other surprises are in store,” Soter asked sharply. “Will we be setting someone on fire perhaps?”

“Why are you so contrary?” Orinda asked.

Soter glanced between them, and then insisted, “I’m not contrary. We do things a certain way. Suddenly you’re taking charge and changing the performance without even asking if I think it’s a good idea.”

“Afraid you’re obsolete and we don’t need you anymore?” Leodora asked.

“To tell you the truth, yes.”

Leodora closed her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, Soter. How can you believe that?”

“Not believe,” he said, “it’s not that obvious and clear. But you certainly don’t need me to teach you anything anymore, and now you don’t need me even to narrate the occasional tales that have always been mine rather than yours to recite.”

“One story, Soter.”

“Not for long. Jax is Leodora now. Your voice could be the one that tells all the tales and they’ll listen in rapture. There’s no longer a reason to divide the task with me. You are the consummate storyteller, how can anybody deny it? You could narrate and perform and never so much as open your eyes. In any case, my fear is my burden, not yours, and I will settle with it on my own terms. Now, what do we do next?”

“Another story. I was thinking it’s about time we do a Meersh play.”

“I think if you perform any of Meersh now, you’ll have a riot on your hands. They might pull the walls down, this crowd. It’s filling up out there like a tower in a flood.”

“If they tear it down, I’ll simply walk the dragon beam again,” she replied.

“Don’t even joke about that.”

Orinda had been peering around the balcony curtain. She stepped back again. “It looks as if the whole span has come out.”

“What are you charging them?” Soter asked.

“A penny.”

“But how can you expect to pay us from that?”

“She doesn’t,” Leodora said. “We’re taking a smaller cut, too.”

Before he could object, Orinda explained, “It’s the first chance they’ve had to see puppets in more years than some of them have been alive—you said it yourself, this crowd is dazzled. Look at all the children out there. I can’t greedily squeeze their families. You want them to return again and again, yes? To tell everyone, here and on other spans. We want other theaters to reopen, to compete with us, which will make the quality of the performances that much better. And if none of that should come to pass, then let them have this event to remember.” She parted the curtain again. “Oh, I hope Mr. Burbage can see this where he’s gone. It’s what he always loved, the sound, the energy.”

Soter found himself strung between wanting to complain about the misappropriation of still more of his power and wanting to give Orinda the impression that he was in complete accord with her. The result was that he said nothing.

Diverus entered the balcony. “What are we going to do next?” he asked. “The theater’s mayhem.” Leodora told him about Meersh, and he smiled. “Well, I want to see one even if nobody else does. You and Soter have gone on and on about Meersh stories ever since you found me.”

“They’ll certainly have their money’s worth,” said Soter, without any vitriol. “But I’m narrating this.”

Leodora laughed. “Of course you are.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re listening.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Orinda cover her mouth so as not to laugh, too.

“Now,” said Soter. “Which tale of Meersh do you propose we tell them?”

“I don’t want to do one of the long ones. So I was thinking of ‘Meersh and the Sun God’ or ‘How Meersh Tried to Become Immortal,’ ” she replied.

“ ‘Sun God.’ ” He stared at her critically. “You wouldn’t be,” he asked, “proposing this tale because of your horrid Coral Man that we should have dumped overboard before we got here.”

He watched her dwell a moment upon the implications before she shook her head. “There’s no ulterior motive, Soter,” she assured him. “Now, Diverus needs to pick out his instruments. We’ve kept them waiting as long as we can.” The two of them left the balcony, Diverus glancing back as always, as if trying to comprehend the meaning of everything around him after the fact. Soter took a step after them, but Orinda touched his shoulder. He turned.

“She loves you, you old fool,” Orinda told him. “You both fight jealously for every knuckle’s distance of territory, but do you suppose she learned that on her own?”

“I—”

“Shush!” She put her fingers to his lips. “I’ll not listen to your explanation. It’s not for me anyway to know it. Tell the walls if you’re looking to persuade something. Not me.” She slid her hand to his shoulder blade then and impelled him to leave.


Below, in the booth once more, Leodora selected her puppets while Diverus chose his instruments—the theorbo again, and a duduk. She had the feeling the theorbo, with its more resonant bass strings, was going to become a permanent addition to his repertoire.

Once he had his choices she perched upon her seat, raised her hand to the lantern, and slid a blue filter in front of the side facing the screen. Then, slowly, she raised the black curtain and the theater was bathed in a blue glow. The hidden lens in front of the booth redoubled the strength of the light, and even over the top of the booth she could see the glow, like the most intense moonlight striking sapphire.

The audience shrieked with joy. Some whistled or yelled, but their noise soon fell to a murmur and then the silence of anticipation.

From the case beside her, Leodora lifted out the figure of Meersh. Her hands nearly trembled upon the rods controlling him. Here was the figure Soter had once used to represent her father, the puppet most closely tied to him, the one who like Bardsham had acted on impulse and stolen a million hearts as he did.

She raised him to the screen. They all knew that profile, even if they’d never seen him before—the beaky nose, the wicked smile that knew your secrets, the wide and mischievous eyes: the consummate trickster.

Applause and more shouts greeted his appearance.

Soter, standing on the far side of the booth, just beside the larger screen, began an introductory speech. “You know this story already, many of you, because once upon a time the immortal Bardsham told every tale of Meersh the Bedeviler, and told them so well that we have them still. Here, tonight, the old Bedeviler returns to us, now in the hands of the formidable Jax.” Some of them repeated the name. Someone shouted it.

Soter continued: “As you know, Meersh had many adventures, and not all of them turned out for the best. Meersh, helpless in the face of his own desires, paid a price for his every pleasure.”