'Dark and empty,' cursed Talbot.
'What's wrong?' said Sivana, emerging from the prop room beneath the stage.
She wore half of her costume and held the rest under her arm along with Talbot's kingly robes and crown. Mallion was right behind her in the garb of the prince.
'Nothing,' said Talbot. 'I hope.'
His hope did not last long after the play began.
In the opening scene, as King Krion, Talbot demanded that his children declare their devotion to him before dispensing their inheritances. Mallion's prince honored his father's martial conquests and promised to take up his arms in eternal defense of his realm. To him Krion entrusted his armies and granted a paltry annual stipend.
'You set me to arms, sire, but arm me not,' protested the prince.
Mnomene's father snorted derisively.
The elder princess, played by a pretty young actress Mallion had 'discovered' in a local festhall, praised the king's wisdom and pledged tireless diligence in overseeing justice in his kingdom. The king awarded her a magistrate's scepter and another paltry income.
'Judge them best who toil in economy, as you provide exemplar to their lives.'
The groundlings hissed the niggardly advice, but Mnomene's father sneered.
'If you had matched her worth to her wits,' he spat, 'you should demand a return of your gift!'
At last, Sivana stood before the king as his beloved youngest princess. In response to his demand for praise, she promised love in the precise amount of the duty of a daughter, no more, no less.
'Ha!' barked the guest. 'Nothing will come of nothing.'
Talbot narrowed his eyes, thinking it unlikely that the man had guessed the very lines he was about to speak. He realized Mnomene's father must have observed the play before, clandestinely, and while the troupe did not object to the groundlings' reacting to the play, a heckler on the stage-especially a noble guest-could throw them.
Talbot forged again, his voice shifting almost involuntarily to mimic the guest's voice. 'Nothing will come of nothing,' he said, shaking a dire finger at the princess.
For the rest of the first act, the visitor said no more, but he shifted in his seat and coughed every time some character protested Nesme's innocence or implored King Krion to reason.
The trouble began when Krion banished his loyal seneschal.
'Ridiculous!' he barked, standing up to point at Talbot. 'This is where it all goes inexcusably wrong. No such thing happened. Never!'
Presbart, in his motley and bells, sidled up to the man as if he were an attendant lord at Krion's court.
He had decades of experience dealing with hecklers, most of whom merely wanted to share the attention of the crowd.
'Can you not see, my lord?' he said, taking his arm to ease him back into the throne. 'The king is mad!'
The visitor brushed him aside, and the other players continued, trying to ignore his outburst even as Ennis, at a nod from Talbot, changed direction in his retreat from Krion's court to stand near the belligerent guest. If he noticed Ennis's intention, the visitor made no show of it.
'Only this fool could think the wise man mad who measures his hoard against impudent, wanton youth!' The visitor strode toward Talbot, admonishing him with a wagging finger. 'And whose fool are you-?' with the most casual flick of his hand he shoved Ennis away as the big man reached for his arm-'to so abuse a good father in this pitiable pantomime?'
'For a heckler,' observed Mallion, edging away from Talbot, 'he's pretty good.'
'Be at peace, my loyal subject,' said Talbot.
He was not as smooth as Presbart at such improvisation, but he had to give it a try before tossing the man bodily from his stage. He raised his prop scepter and gestured for the guest to return to his throne
Undaunted, the guest slapped the scepter out of Talbot's hand.
'Where is she?' he demanded. 'Mnomene, show yourself!'
'That is enough,' Talbot growled at the man. 'Get out.'
'Who are you to order me, you mincing imitation of a man?' He turned and called out to the gallery. 'Mnomene, show yourself at once! This farce of yours is over.'
'It has only just begun,' cried Mnomene's voice from the upper gallery. She was either still invisible or else well hidden. 'Everyone has seen for tendays what a callous miser you are.'
'Listen, old man,' said Sivana, coming up behind him. 'You have had your fun, but the paying customers- oof.'
She flew across the stage, just missing the pillar and crashing into the crowd with half a dozen groundlings. Their laughter turned nervous, for while they loved a good brawl, they could not understand the course of the sudden improvisation.
Talbot reached for him, but the visitor was already transforming. His gold-threaded robes shrank and merged into his flesh to form metallic scales while his arms stretched up, fingers splayed and forming wide golden wings even as a new set of taloned arms grew out of his sides and his legs turned to powerful haunches.
The groundlings' laughter turned to screams, and the galleries rumbled with the sound of running feet.
The gold dragon continued growing. As he grew too tall to remain under the stage roof, he stepped out into the yard, scattering more groundlings as his wings twitched and snapped. He reached toward the gallery where Mnomene's voice had come, grabbed a support beam, and tore it away.
'Face me, child! Or I will tear apart this shack stick by stick.'
'Face him, Mnomene! Face him!' yelled Mallion.
He drew his prop sword, looked at it, and threw the useless thing away before retreating from the dragon.
Talbot began his own transformation, feeling his robes tear down the back as his shoulders grew great and wide.
'Ennis, make sure Sivana's all right,' he yelled while his throat was still human enough to articulate words.
'The rest of you, help everyone get out of here.'
The dragon tore away the gallery railing and groped for his invisible prey. His scaly claw came away with a mass of splintered benches reduced to so much firewood. He trumpeted his anger and blasted a cone of fire into the seemingly deserted area.
'Show yourself, girl! Face me!'
'No, you great fool,' roared Talbot from the stage. His voice had become a howl. 'You face meV
Only the barest scraps of his costume clung to his black furred body as he stood brandishing Perivel's sword in his clawed hand. Half-wolf, half-man, he stood as tall as an ogre, his body surging with the hot power of fury. Still, even on the stage, he stood barely as high as the dragon's gleaming thigh.
The dragon hesitated when he saw the Black Wolf at his knee.
'What a curious mammal,' he said. 'Do not stand between a dragon and his wrath.'
'Stop wrecking my playhouse,' roared Talbot, leaping. 'And stop stepping on my lines!'
He swung the massive sword hard across the dragon's knee, striking with the blunt of the blade. The blow sounded like the fall of a pillar in a marble hall, the report deafening the panicked few who still had not escaped the playhouse.
A huge stretch of wall ripped away in the upper gallery, and a smaller gold dragon appeared as her invisibility spell fell away. She looked fearfully at the big dragon and leaped away to fly over the houses of Selgaunt.
'You cannot escape me, rebellious child!'
For an instant, Talbot hoped the dragon would fly off after Mnomene, but the great drake hesitated, looking around at the playhouse.
'But first,' he rumbled, reaching up to tear at the roof, 'let us put a sure end to this despicable place.'
'No!' Talbot howled.
The dragon raised a leg to kick Talbot, who rolled to the side, sprang up, and drove his sword through the dragon's foot and deep into the hard-packed earth of the playhouse floor. The dragon's bugling scream drowned out the human shrieks before it turned into fire that washed over the playhouse roof and spread over the thatching. Despite the wards against mortal fire, the thatched roof exploded into flame under the extraordinary heat.
