kender in long beard and floppy clothes.
The audience interrupted occasionally, calling out, “Kiss her more!”
“No! No! Hit him.”
“Louder and funnier!”
“Sweeter!”
“Give us a fight!”
By the last scene of the second act, the father had forbidden the lovers to meet, the grandfather had threatened more destructive but well-meaning help, and the dispirited lover Samael/Amandor had retreated to his books again. Kela/Sharmaen, real tears flowing down her cheeks, vowed to make everything right in a single night.
A man and a woman leaped up cheering. Three other audience members leaped up and knocked them down, and it was time for intermission.
Backstage, Daev clapped his hands for their attention. “All right. Let’s hold it together and finish fast.” He glared at the kender. “Remember, fake blows and no improvising. Keep the curtain call short and make a bee-line for the wagon.” It was already packed except for the fifth-act costumes and props.
Samael nodded and left. Frenni, sulking, stomped off to change costumes. Daev gently wiped the tears from Kela’s cheeks. “Do you love him so much?” he said softly.
She blinked at him mutely and said through her tears, “I just want it to work out for them. Lovers ought to be together forever.” She dashed away, drying her face and looking for her props.
Daev stared emptily after her. “I always thought they should be. I thought. .” What he thought he left unfinished.
Tulaen walked into Xak Faoleen, looking quizzically at the empty homes and deserted streets. Clearly something important was going on or some disaster had caused the townsfolk to flee.
Tulaen disliked missing disasters. He quickened his pace, moving to the central square. Once there he barely glanced at the stage and actors, moving slowly through the audience and checking their faces. He was nonplussed by the strangeness of people’s postures and expressions, but he was indifferent to them: none of them was Daev or the young woman who sketched.
He tapped one of the audience members on the shoulder, lightly. “Excuse me.”
The man emitted a high-pitched shriek and ran off. Tulaen shrugged and continued searching the crowd. Bored and frustrated, he glanced at the cast onstage for the end of the second act. The father was too tall to be the one he looked for; the grandfather was too short. The woman had the wrong color hair, and the lover was nothing like. .
Tulaen looked at the backdrop more closely, saw the magnificence of the painting that went into it, and smiled for the first time in quite a while. “Actors who print books,” he said, shaking his head at his own folly.
He moved slowly to one side of the stage. There was no hurry now. He tested the edge of his sword on his thumb, feeling only satisfaction when his thumb began to bleed.
“Last act,” Daev hissed backstage. “The wagon’s ready. Keep them laughing, move the action along, and don’t waste time on the curtain call.”
He called out loudly, “The final scene. A woods, outside town,” and half-pushed Tasslehoff onstage.
The dog, grinning happily, entered and sat at stage center. Pieces of brush were strapped to him, and a sprig of leaves was tied to his wagging tail.
Kela waltzed on stage, patted the “woods” and announced Sharmaen’s plans to trick Amandor into marrying her with the unwitting help of her clumsy grandfather and angry father.
Samael/Amandor strode on and promised, at her request, that he would do whatever she asked.
Frenni/Old Staffling, disguised in a sorcerer’s costume, entered pretending his staff was a magic wand. He produced flashes from it with powders supplied by Samael, and he laid out four fire-fountain pots the size of ale kegs. Frenni/Old Staffling’s hat fell off each time he set down a fountain; each time, without seeming to notice, he caught it on the end of his staff and flipped it back onto his head.
Daev took a deep breath, tested the wooden stilts to be sure he could keep his balance, prayed that the fire fountains would all work as Samael had said, and strode out, waving an outsize gauntlet and threatening one and all with death and destruction.
There was the sound of soft clapping. The actors turned.
Tulaen entered stage right, still applauding. He stopped and raised his sword.
Daev knew exactly what the big, evil-looking man had come for. He stepped back, raising his prop sword in as threatening a manner as possible.
Tulaen slid forward effortlessly and swung his sword. Daev stumbled back, wondering why he wasn’t dead.
“No blood?” Tulaen asked. From the stage he picked up the chunk of wood, sandal still attached. “Ah. Not your real foot.” He moved forward again. “Yet.”
Some of the audience thought that screamingly funny. One of them did in fact scream. Daev retreated upstage, confused by still being alive.
Tulaen swung again, deftly circling over Daev’s prop sword, and sliced all the fingers off Daev’s empty left gauntlet.
Tulaen kicked at the empty glove fingers, scratched his head, then brightened. “You must be in there somewhere,” he said mildly.
Daev backpedaled, bumping into Frenni and sending him sprawling. Kela and Samael were watching with befuddled expressions. Frenni bounced up in a handspring and said jealously to Daev, “Who is that guy? You’d never let me improvise like that.”
“He’s a real assassin,” Daev gasped, pulling back before Tulaen sliced off his left hand. “Do something. Whatever you want.”
The kender brightened. “You mean it?” He spun his staff over his head, leaped over a sword slash, and brought the staff down full on the assassin’s bald head.
Tulaen blinked, feeling nothing more than a tap.
Frenni, encouraged, vaulted back out of range, planted himself and swung on Tulaen from behind, striking the assassin in the midsection with a resounding smack.
“No more fake fighting,” shouted a desperate Daev. “Hit him as hard as you can!”
Someone near the stage shouted, “Hit him harder than you can!”
Frenni spat on his hands and aimed his best blow at Tulaen. Tulaen speared Frenni’s beard, lifted it up and tucked it over Frenni’s face and kicked the kender. Frenni rolled into a ball inside the beard, wobbled to the far edge of the stage, and dropped off.
Daev said desperately to the dog, “Tasslehoff! Kill!”
Tas wagged his tail and, barking, bounced around Tulaen. The assassin was quite fond of dogs, having slain several in his childhood. He merely raised a lip and growled. Tas tucked his tail between his legs, lowered his head, and slunk off stage right.
The audience howled-some with laughter, some with bloodlust, some attempting to sing. They were on their feet now, excited by the violence on stage.
Kela and Samael stood frozen. Kela, with anxious glances at Daev and at the audience, said in a stage whisper to Samael, “Amandor, this man means to harm Da- my father Stormtower. If you save my father’s life, perhaps he’ll let us marry.”
A voice from the audience called, “I already told you, kill him!”
Another voice called, “Kiss him, then kill him!”
A frightened voice quavered, “Run for your life.”
Samael looked uncertainly at Tulaen, set his jaw, and dashed off stage right. A woman called out, “Coward!”and a piece of fruit smashed on the edge of the stage.
Tulaen looked back at Daev impassively. “We’d better give them a show.” He closed in on Daev and sliced off some of the costume padding from Daev’s midsechon.
