In desperation, Daev kicked over one of the fire fountains, aiming it toward the assassin, and pulled the priming string. Instead of emitting a shower of sparks, the fountain exploded with a deafening roar and a soaring fireball lit up every enthusiastic, deranged face in the audience. An immense puff of smoke enveloped half the stage.
Daev stepped out of it, coughing, and said conversationally to Frenni, “Changed the mix on the fire fountain, did you?”
The kender, still tangled in the beard and struggling on stage, said, “A little.”
“Interesting.” Daev leaned on his sword. “What did you put in?”
Frenni said airily, “Oh, you know, a dash of this, a pinch of that.”
In Daev’s opinion the line didn’t deserve it, but it got the best laugh of the day.
When the smoke finally cleared, Tulaen stood there, dazedly blinking at the audience. His clothes were smoldering, his beard was a charred crisp that left a burned-feather smell, and his eyebrows were gone. He was almost enjoying things.
So was the audience, one member of which was sneezing hysterically. A man who was sobbing and snarling at the same time struck the sneezer.
The woman now hopelessly in love with the sneezing man giggled but struck the sobbing man with a piece of bench anyway.
Daev watched, appalled, as a ripple, as from a stone cast in a pool, spread from the small group. The entire audience began jostling and muttering.
Samael ran in from stage right, sword at guard position. He shouted, “Daev!” and with his free hand lobbed a small pouch over Tulaen’s head.
Dazed though he was, Tulaen turned without any seeming effort and warded off Samael’s lunge, raising a boot and kicking Samael offstage again.
One audience member laughed until he sobbed. The man next to him sobbed until he laughed. They punched each other enthusiastically, occasionally landing blows on bystanders who became participants.
Daev managed to catch the pouch and undo the drawstring as Tulaen turned and charged, swinging his sword in an unstoppable, brute-force slash. Daev stumbled backward, the last of his costume padding undone.
Seemingly without haste, Tulaen closed in for his first truly bloodletting cut.
Holding his breath, Daev threw the entire powdery contents of the pouch straight into the face of the assassin.
Tulaen crumpled, sneezing. Daev, sword held shakily at the ready, retreated stage left.
Tulaen rose, facing the audience, and stared into Elayna’s furious eyes.
He dropped back to his knees, overcome by wheezing and adoration. For the first time in his bloody and indifferent life he felt joyous, hopeless love. He dropped his sword, held his empty hands straight out to her in pleading, and announced, “I love you more than anyone I have ever killed!” He sneezed again.
Elayna, gorgeous and invincible, climbed on stage. Tulaen raised his watering eyes hopefully and saw three things:
Elayna’s perfect but hate-filled face looking down at him.
Beyond her, the actor who played Amandor, as he brought the haying cart around and the other players leaped on it in the midst of a townwide fistfight.
Elayna’s fist, which seemed small at first, but which in the last moment before it reached his eyes seemed beautiful, gracious, and absolutely enormous.
Epilogue. A Road Out of Xak Faoleen
Sharmaen: If peace has triumphed by my plans, The fault is woman’s and is man’s. Since once the wars of hearts begin, True wars must lose, and love must win. Come, give your hands now. Let us all agree: Books are but letters; love is alchemy.
They were well out of town before slowing the horses to a trot. Samael peered behind them. “Do you think he’ll follow us?”
“Not for a while,” Daev answered. “When he wakes up, I don’t think he’ll find any reliable witnesses. We’ve got some time.” He considered. “We’ve got more than that.”
“We still have the printing press,” Samael said cheerfully.
“We still have half of our props,” Frenni said.
“We have my notebooks,” Kela said.
Daev felt the purse at his belt. “We have a fair amount of gold.”
Kela hugged him suddenly. “We still have our play and all your wonderful words. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since we started rehearsal.” She held him tight.
Samael glanced sideways at Frenni, who was watching with interest while he sat with an arm around the panting, happy Tasslehoff. “I have some work to do inside.” He lifted the canvas flap. “ Tasslehoff, come. Frenni, you too.”
“But-”
“I’ll need the help.” He pushed the kender backward into the wagon bed. Tasslehoff followed happily, and Samael closed the flap behind them.
“So the thing you loved was the play,” Daev said wonderingly.
“Of course. You wrote such beautiful things about love-you’re so wonderful, Daev. There’s no one like you in the whole world.”
“But I thought-” He shook his head. “Never mind what I thought.”
Kela looked up at him, her eyes shining. “What are you thinking now?”
Daev was thinking that perhaps he’d been exposed to too much of the love potion. He stopped thinking and kissed her.
Much later he had a disturbing thought. “Kela?”
“Yes, love.” She was nestled in his arm, but she was sketching the view ahead in a notebook. She frowned, trying to get the sunset shadows right.
“I’ve been reviewing our recent past.”
In seven lines she added a tree, which was not in the panorama ahead but which balanced the distant mountains nicely. “It’s been exciting.”
“Now I understand how much I love you-mostly because you-
“Accidentally, of course-”
“-made me jealous.” He paused. “Was it accidental?”
She laughed and kissed him.
That was no answer at all, he realized as he kissed her back.
“Frenni’s right,” he muttered to himself as he kissed Kela again. “In some things, thinking is less fun than improvising.”
The kender’s head popped out from under the canvas wagon back. “I heard my name.”
“I expected you to interrupt earlier.”
“I wanted to, but Samael sat on me.”
Samael gave one of his demented-sounding laughs. “You two needed privacy, and I needed something to sit on while I corrected the revised version of the Alchemist’s Handbook.” He looked disapprovingly at Frenni while he showed them the corrections.
Daev was thinking aloud. “There’s a play in this somewhere. . ”
