I fiddled with the straps of my baggy and battered overalls a final time and made sure the buttons on my sleeves had stayed fastened. Stalling for precious seconds by tucking my oversized tunic back into my overalls where the fabric liked bunching. On both sides of the curtain all that people were waiting on was me. Mustering my meager courage and out of things to fidget with, I took my last step from inside the curtain’s shade.
For one brief and beautiful instant the sudden glare of daylight blinded me to the mass gathered there before me. And then my vision rapidly cleared.
Only just rounding the boundary dividing our puppeteers and music makers from the hungry eyes of our audience and I was already counting well over sixty heads and then still more slowly funneling into our corner of the plaza. My breath caught in my chest. A desperate urge to flee back behind the curtains filled me and I forced myself to swallow it down.
I tried reminding myself that at one point I used to enjoy all of this. Watching the shows and learning the stories. Collecting coins and being praised for my hard work. Feeling like I’d finally found a use for my unique type of magic. I wanted to laugh at that thought. Yes, surely aiding a pack of swindlers and rouges was putting my magic to excellent use indeed. But still, I had made that deal. Chosen this fate.
Clearing my head and breathing in deep through my nose, I strode to the centre of our mock stage. It might not have been more than a couple lengths of rope extending to a pair of posts placed roughly two spits away from the curtains, that then met and were tied off together at the end, yet it did its job well. The audience stood just back from that thin line and hushed slightly as the many faces took my arrival in.
So many eyes rolling over me. And I needed mine to meet each set. Staring into gaze, after gaze, after gaze. A cold sweat collecting in beads across my brow. And then, with false bravado and a dramatic bow, I began to pour a generous amount of my mana into the sweaty old top hat still clutched in my hand. The intricate circle of threads embroidered within eagerly ate their meal. Mana so naturally rich with feelings of want and longing which we, the hat and I, then expelled as I stood with a sweep of both arms and a final flourish of tossing the hat into the air, only to catch it on the toes of my boot before kicking it back up into my hands. All done to ensure that the countless invisible threads of my spell had woven themselves into the hearts of all that had looked into my aching eyes.
“Welcome, welcome! We the Puppet Players of Strise are here for this one show and today alone!” I bellowed out in my rehearsed imitation of a market barker as Mirrin and Shay started up a merry little tune from somewhere backstage, “Won’t you fine and fare folks of the fabled, and only once fallen, fabulous city of Fellorne please join us today as our talented puppet masters carry all of your woes away? I assure you that the price is fair!”
I rose my held hat to just above waist height in both of my hands, the opening facing skyward, and widened my grin from ear to ear.
“For you see this shabby old hat of mine only accepts what coins you feel fit to spare! So fret not if your wallet is short on iron bits o’eight, my friends, one and all are still welcome here!”
I felt like I was going to be sick. I told myself that I wanted to cheer.
The audience whooped and applauded, almost at once. A quasi-synchronicity to their rhythm that rapidly eased into a more natural sound. I bowed again, the first part of my job over, and took up my post in the corner. Crouched down in a squat near the audience and turned to face the curtains. My roll was split between participating in the show as well as watching it.
From low down the central slit in the curtains came a small, wooden hand, painted in white to resemble a glove. It was followed by a vague hint of something yellow before moving ever so slightly to catch the edge of the dirty red canvas within its carved clutches. Then a lengthy, curved protrusion appeared slightly higher up, only to duck back into hiding a moment later.
I forced out a bored chuckle. The audience giggled with delight.
The peeking beak protruded once again and the hand clutching the curtain suddenly swung to the side. In a swift set of motions out scurried our troupe’s main puppet, the Teller of Tales. Dressed like a court jester, in a puffy suit of bright yellows and purple hues. The Teller bounced on each step adding an extra jingle to the bells atop his three-pronged cap and on the end of each wooden shoe. He stood at around knee-high and was piloted by strings. The control bar and rod, while in plain view, garnered next to no attention. Neither did the white gloved hands and black sleeved arms that controlled him. Even without my magic to focus them, the Teller had power enough to draw eyes away from where the limbs of the one pulling his strings vanished into the curtains.
In a chipper, high pitched and nasally voice that made the very mana in the core of my being want to groan, the Teller spoke, “O what a wretched sight there is laid out before me! For what great woe and tragedy has stricken this withered land? Mayhap that it was unendingly cursed? Ah but then such shame. Such tragedy. O woe, woe indeed for nothing remains to offer those forsaken souls left languishing here, unfed, unwashed, unwanted.”
By this point in his speech the Teller had dropped to his knees and covered his face as though to hide his weeping. The audience and I sat transfixed.
“Not from Shimmer to Splain had a soul come through untarnished. Not with nature now running in reverse and the crops and the trees awakening to feed upon them. Farmers, foragers and even wee small folk gathering up wild bouquets for their loving mothers. The plants drank all folks dry. Turning next to the beasts and crawling things and at last each other. Woodlands and prairies left scarred and barren save for solitary shrubs, flowers and trees where each stood as isolated kings. Their ruined kingdoms seeming to be secured forever and a century more. And yet...”
From behind the curtains came a faint sound of clopping. The sound being produced by Garris or Charlie, or anyone else who’d had a free set of hands and been caught loafing off backstage in the moment, gently clapping some oceanut husks together. The left side of the curtain fluttered with a light ripple as the next puppets were placed in position.
I could feel the mana of two of Everrnak’s apprentices begin concentrating as they summoned the spectral hands they’d use for this part of the show. I had to admit it was pretty impressive that our puppet masters had honed their craft enough to play blindly from behind the curtain. And often times on sets of hands separate to their own.
The audience gawked in wonder a few beats early causing my spell to wane slightly on the handful of those under my influence with the strongest sense of self or some other kind of mental fortifications. The Teller held a dramatic pause as the oceanut husks continued gently clopping on. I let myself feel remorse for my minor screw up and at once a proper balance was restored. It wouldn’t do to feel any other way in the moment. Not when the Teller was telling this tale of our Realm’s darkest history.
Stolen story; please report.
“After a century and then decades more in a place so dreadful and dreary a glimmer of hope came rolling onto the stage! Spoked wheels on a horse drawn carriage crashing along divots in the ground that once remembered a life spent as a road both sprawling and grand!”
On cue a trio of shapes came trundling around the corner. A pair of hand carved horses, one black as night and the other a golden, caramel brown mottled with flecks of white, each less than half the height of the Teller. They were harnessed to delicately crafted reigns which connected to the boxy shape of a cloth covered wagon. The clopping grew both faster and louder as the little horse drawn cart began it’s journey across the stage.
The Teller rose back up to standing and sprung his arms into the air before merrily crying out to the crowd, “O merciful merchant witch Marinclay and they the shadow known as Stray, benevolent-”
There was a light ka-thunk and then a crackle and pop which startled all gathered round. One of the wagon wheels had gotten snagged in a gap between the road cobbles and then snapped off in favour of doing the reasonable thing and simply bouncing back out. The wagon and horses tipped over sideways and landed with a clatter and the freed wheel bounced up enthusiastically into the air.
The audience gasped along with me in the beat before I launched myself forward. Despite his eyes being carved and painted spots on a piece of wood I could sense the Teller’s, and by extension old Everrnak’s, disgust with his clumsy pupil. The wheel began its arc back toward the ground. I had one chance to save things and maintain order. After all, if I couldn’t watch this act all the way through then all the different kinds of magic our troupe was weaving together would come undone far too early.
I prepared to cast out the sweaty top hat like a net and used my forward momentum to bring myself all the way back up to standing and then leaned back on my heels in order to stop. The wagon wheel came spinning toward my head and in the instant before contact I landed my prize within Boss Strise’s grubby hat. And then all the weight on the balls of my heels started transferring further back and suddenly I was gazing up at the sky.
I fell backward and landed flat on the ground but for just one second I saw her, one of Boss Strise’s newly hired pickpockets, as she gently fleeced her way through the pocket linings of the crowd. Her hair was long and flowing. A beautiful raven black. Or at least that’s how it looked under the soft day glow. She looked to be a human in her mid-to-late twenties. Pale skinned and wearing a simple linen dress. And then my skull whacked hard into the cobblestones beneath me.
Not missing his chance to keep the show going the Teller made his way over to where I’d fallen, none noticing the absurd lengths his controllers arms had extended to in order to accommodate his journey. He got in close, leaning in over my head, arms flailing in mock concern.
“And oh indeed on a road so weary our intrepid duo and their great steeds did face many challenges,” the Teller pretended to help me back up to sitting and I produced the sneaky wheel which he snatched up in both hands, “So fortunate were they to find kind souls willing to aid them along the way!”
He hoisted the wheel over to the fallen wagon and I made my way back to my previous position while rubbing the back of my head.
Some members of the audience were beginning to unconsciously groan. We were barely five minutes in and I was already feeling well past my limits. What a pain in the ass this all was. Gritting my teeth and making my headache worse I increased the mana being offered up to my spell. I’d have to eat well later to account for this but I’d be damned if I was going to let this sad little show fail. Not when failure meant being faced with my pact sworn retribution. My captive audience all at once became eased, completely ignorant to the tinkering of another set of white gloved hands, carried on a pair of black sleeved arms. We watched as the Teller made exaggerated gestures and we listened as he regaled us with a rendition of a popular folk song recounting the same events of our current tale.
I found that my attention was more focused on trying to remember what colour that girl’s eyes had been. The ache in the back of my head starting to feel like a distant memory.
After the wagon was righted and the Teller had been allowed to commence we’d gone from Splain to the eastern coast and then down to the swamp huts of Stuck. Then back again through the southern barrens, Splain bound once more. Only to arrive sans one merciful merchant witch. I’d heard the story countless times and knew it by heart but it’s message laid tarnished in my mind. Still, with it at last ending, I was motivated to move along to my next task.
On my feet again I greeted the crowd, trying my best to think about how much I’d love giving our troupe lots of my money. But my eyes were busy darting through the dense gathering. I held the top hat out and felt an influx of weight as iron eights, copper wholes, Silvers and even some shimmering hefts of Gold clinked against each other in a jolly little chorus. When I’d seen her I could have sworn there had been a smirk on her face.
Several loose coins bounced off the brim of the hat and scattered across the ground. Her eyes, I know I’d seen them because they looked back into my own. I stooped down low while still holding the hat aloft in my right hand. My left deftly plucking up a tidy ground score. Each time I dumped a fistful into the hat a couple cool metal pieces mysteriously finding their way down my buttoned sleeve. They looked green, but then maybe they’d actually been blue or was it brown? Something had been so shockingly mesmerizing about what I saw when our eyes met but it wasn’t something that I could easily place.
A boot clad foot stomped down hard on my hand, crushing it firm into three iron eights and the ground. I yelped in pain and my spell wavered in focus. Through all the noise of the moment I heard a giggle. Right up close and also crouching down, pale skin and flowing hair. She was right there with me, only some legs standing between us. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze despite feeling those eyes I longed to decipher piercing into me.
Instead I focused on her delicate looking, slender fingers as they worked her own kind of magic. As if without effort a fine looking boot knife became hers. And then she stood and was gone and someone was dropping a coin onto my head. I’d gotten a touch too distracted and over stupefied the gathering I had enchanted. Righting myself I realized that the hat was nearly filled to the brim. I released my spell and thanked all in attendance for enjoying our show. Hardly pausing to offer a parting bow, I immediately turned face and departed back behind the dusty canvas scab.
My heart still felt woefully anxious but it wasn’t steeped in a cold pool of dread. This was a much warmer feeling.