throbbed visibly in the wrist.
The crawling slowed-became intermittent-and the hand twisted upside down, fingers quivering in the air like the legs of a dying spider.
Tulaen regarded the hand with as close to regret as he would ever show. “If only you had known more,” he said to the corpse. “You could have said so much more. You might have lasted till morning.”
He stood, the cold night wind stirring his beard. Tulaen slept very little.
“You traded a haying wagon to a man, a kender, and a girl on the road. They gave you a stack of books. You said the girl sketched you.” He tugged at his beard, thinking. “I wonder, now-does she sketch the pictures for the books?”
He looked at the blood trail behind the corpse. It was three times the length of the body and could have been so much more. “Well, there’s no use asking you. At least you knew where they were going.”
While waiting until morning, he tied a log to a rope and slung it from a low hanging limb. He set it spinning in the faint light and chopped it with his broadsword, ducking with practiced ease. For the next log he put a patch over one eye and led with his left. For the last he tied his feet together, and still the spinning log never hit him.
By dawn he had an impressive pile of splintery tinder and kindling. He cooked a quick breakfast and began his walk toward Xak Faoleen.
Scene 5. A Stage, in Xak Faoleen
Sharmaen: Crisis pursues, and crisis we pursue Mid-scene in madness, endings overdue.
The stage was nothing but boards on sawhorses, with stairs at either side and a second level to stand in for hills and balcony scenes. The theater was row on row of planks on upright logs. The backdrop was painted cloth- beautifully painted by Kela, a neighborhood scene, but only cloth and paint nonetheless. The few pieces of scenery- suitably minimalist-were some upright crenellated boards for a castle, three torches in stands for a hallway by night, and two standing branches for a wood.
The whole effect, Daev reflected, was much like magic must have been. Already they felt the distance, like an invisible wall, between the world of the actors and that of the audience.
Daev, Samael, and Kela had toiled until nearly dawn, when the kender stumbled up, panting, and announced that he had delivered the last of the books to the prepaid customers. His face showed disappointment that most of the work was done, the special effects all prepared. But after a day and a night of steady work, they had finished and were ready to face a waiting audience.
Frenni stepped onstage. Actually he shuffled, hampered by wearing a bass drum, a light drum, cymbals, a hunting horn, and a hand-cranked bullroarer, which made a noise like a spinning hoopak. Daev had been quick to see the comic possibilities of strapping every available musical instrument to a kender and watching him try to play them all at the same time.
After Frenni performed the overture, to great applause, the rest of the cast marched on and bowed.
Daev kept his expression but frowned inwardly. Something was off about the applause. The rhythms were sporadic, and some audience members were tapping lightly while others were pounding their fists on the benches.
The kender stepped back. Daev moved forward, arms raised, and spoke the prologue.
He made eye contact with the audience and faltered. They looked entirely normal until Daev looked closely at their eyes.
Some of them did look fascinated. Some of them were leering at everything, including the dog and the kender. Some of them looked furiously angry, deeply insulted by a play that hadn’t been performed yet. Some were quite clearly already in love, and one person was in tears for a tragedy that wasn’t on the bill.
Elayna, dead center in the front row, looked gorgeous but also strangely imperious. When approached by admirers-and far too many of the men who had purchased love potions felt free to approach her while the performance was on-she came dangerously close to striking them.
Daev finished the prologue, stepping back before bowing, and led the others backstage. Kela saw his face and said, “Is something wrong?”
“Your book, Samael,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I should have let you proof it a fifth time.”
Frenni clanked up, shrugging out of the band gear noisily. “It’s a best-seller. I only have one copy left,” he said proudly.
Samael opened it and froze. “Wrong font?” Frenni asked worriedly.
“No, no-but. .” Samael thumbed back and forth frantically. “These aren’t my recipes.”
“They are too,” Frenni said self-righteously. “Every word you wrote is in that book.”
Samael loomed over the kender. “Not in the order I wrote it.”
“Mostly in the order.”
Daev looked on interestedly. “What are the differences?”
Samael stabbed at the recipes. “This was supposed to make people attractive. Now it makes them attractive and invincible in battle. This one was to induce melancholy. Now it induces melancholy, anger, and a desire to dance. The sneezing powder. .” He peered at it with genuine horror. “Paladine alone knows what else it does now.”
“They’re basically the same,” Frenni pointed out defensively. “It’s just that I needed to fill in some places when the letters fell out before printing.”
Samael lifted the kender off the ground with one hand. “The letters what?”
“Fell out. Don’t worry. I got them all back in, every letter, before I printed the book.”
Samael dropped Frenni. The three humans looked at each other in silence.
Daev spoke first. “Frenni, what did you add to these recipes?”
“The usual thing,” the kender said indifferently. “A dash of this, a pinch of that.”
Daev turned to Samael. “How long until they recover?”
He shrugged. “Assuming they all only took one dose, just before the play, they’ll peak during act five.”
Daev closed his eyes, contemplating the potential for disaster. “The perfect audience. Well, don’t get too close to the front edge of the stage.”
Frenni said, “Because we’ll fall off?”
“Because not a god from past times or future could guess what’s going to happen if the audience gets its hands on you. They’re all a few dwarves shy of a mine, if you catch my drift.”
Frenni said, hurt, “My best scenes are in act five.”
Samael said, sadly, “My book is a disaster.”
Daev said, “I think maybe we should pack up between scenes.”
Kela looked starry-eyed as she watched Samael tweak the last hair of his false beard into place. “C’mon everybody,” she said. “The show must go on, and all that. They’ll like the play. How could they not, if they have any heart at all?”
Dave said coldly to her, “You’re right. The audience is waiting. So get out there and kiss.” He pushed her and Samael onstage hand in hand, and he wished he had never in his life tried to write about love.
The action of the play went well, as it should have. The father threatened the lovers, the grandfather took their part and fought the father physically, and the lovers met and kissed in spite of obstacles. Tasslehoff, with a pair of absurdly small wings and his spine and wagging tail tricked out with a sawtooth ridge, made a passable rogue dragon. With a helmet to block his vision and a ridiculously short lance under his arm, Daev charged the “dragon” but struck Frenni, knocking the kender’s hat over his eyes and starting a blind sword fight. A sheet of metal and exploding flare powder made an excellent storm.
Daev, the stilts and absurdly long arms making him even taller, got. laughs just by standing next to the
