Nine for the Stranger: Chapter I
Well, I've cut into my NaNoWriMo time by polishing and tweaking the first chapter here, but since I wrote this a long while ago and have since workshopped it, I had changes I wanted to make and issues I needed to address. Whatever. It's now in a state to be seen, and will then be followed by the mad-dash first draft which I'm going to launch into writing as soon as this posts.
And by the NaNoWriMo rules, this first chunk of 3900 words, though a short story by SFWA rules, doesn't count for the NaNoWriMo novel, which will start with what I write this month, and needs to be at least 50,000 words. But it's not as if I haven't done that before.
So, no more delays. Here it is. Enjoy. Next chapter soonish.
P.S. Tweaked the opening couplet of the rime at the beginning. I'd never liked the first two lines, but now have something that fits.
Strike but a match to mark your desire.
Then kindle a candle to call to the fire.
Once for the Baby,
Twice for the King,
Thrice for the ruby in the Bishop's ring,
Four for the Maiden,
Five for the Witch,
Six for the Soldier who lies in the ditch,
Seven for Luck,
Eight for the Queen,
And Nine for the Stranger who's yet to be seen.
Chapter I
Backstage, the Gilded Lily was musty and dark, with smoke-blacked rafters and splotches of paint and spilled rouge. Dominick loved it. After the growers halls and market squares along the road, the old theatre meant a clean bed in the inn down the street and meat for dinner. And a good audience, judging from the applause that filtered through the canvas walls of the dressing room.
Dominick watched his father apply the last of his makeup, transforming himself from the familiar Sergio Marelli, traveling magician, into Pyroka, the Fearless Fire-Eater. The Lily had already booked two other magicians and a spirit medium, so the only act they had left was fire eating. Dominick didn't mind. The fire act was his favorite anyway. He leaned his battered stool back against the one solid wall, happy for the most part.
His father turned and grinned, teeth flashing white between his waxed moustache and pointed black beard. "What do you think? Pretty terrifying, huh?" He took a long pull on his cigar, then waggled his eyebrows and snorted smoke.
Dominick grimaced. "Why do you always have to look like the Devil?"
His father pinched him on the cheek the way he always hated. "Dominick, Dominick, when are you ever going to learn? I don't choose to look like the Devil--the Devil chooses to look like me." His father grinned and took another pull on the cigar, blowing a perfect smoke ring. "And you too. Only fifteen and already as tall as me, and almost as handsome." Dominick's father gave his cheek one last tweak. Dominick massaged the sore spot as his father took up a perch on the dressing table. "Girls are already after you. Give you a couple of years and you'll have to beat them off with a stick."
"Father . . ."
"Don't 'father' me, Dominick--I've seen the looks you get when you're on stage." Sergio Marelli grinned his long-practiced Devil's grin. "Now get up and finish with your costume. I'll not swallow flames all by myself. Ruins the appetite." He glanced around the room, then leaned forward and whispered, "And I'll tell you something else--the Duke is in the audience tonight."
"You're joking."
Sergio Marelli grinned and bounced his eyebrows, then said quietly, "No."
"The Duke?"
His father nodded. "Duke Regis Von Schilling, Duke of Bramgarten. We do our tricks right, we might get an invitation to the Ducal Palace. And if that goes well, we might even go to Valkynburg, get to audition for the King's players."
Dominick felt cold. "He's really here?"
"That's what I've heard," his father said. "I don't know if it's true, but you'd best get ready anyway."
Dominick righted the stool and got to his feet, grabbing for his own fire-eater costume. "Matches and tinder," he swore, "the Duke . . ."
He slipped into the red tights and ruffled silk shirt, then began knotting the waist sash. It had once been embroidered with dragons, but they'd had to dye it black since Bishop Zeller's ban on all depictions of the creatures. "Oh drat it all," Dominick concluded. "This doesn't look any good anymore."
"Don't worry about it. Just do your best performance."
Dominick rearranged the sash, then slipped on his flame-colored vest. "What's the Bishop have against dragons anyway?"
"They don't tithe to the Church."
"What?"
"Oh, I don't know." Dominick's father double-checked his makeup. "Maybe he thinks they're real. And magic too."
"But isn't there--"
"Dominick," said his father, turning, "this is the Age of Reason. There is no such thing as real magic."
Dominick tapped his heels into the low red boots. "The Bishop says . . ."
His father stared at him until Dominick looked up. The words died in his throat.
His father took a deep breath. "The Bishop, Dominick, is a fat old fool who makes his business the same way we do: He goes out on stage, tells everyone there is magic, does his show, then passes around the collection plate afterwards. The only difference is that he has better costumes and a much better take." Dominick's father paused. "You know, you're right. I should have been a priest. But I don't look the part."
He blew another smoke ring and waggled his eyebrows again. Dominick laughed.
"Now if only the audience is half as appreciative." He chomped his cigar, then reached out and mussed Dominick's hair. "Finish getting ready. I'll go see when we're on."
He tousled Dominick's hair one more time and slipped out of the dressing room.
Dominick frantically started fastening the brass buttons of his vest. He'd never understood how his father could be so cool about things. The Duke was in the audience. Duke Regis Von Schilling. He'd heard that things like this could happen, but he'd never thought they'd happen to his father and him.
The Lily was hardly the worst theatre in Bramgarten, but hardly the most fashionable either. The gilding was wearing thin, and though there was pretty carving about the rafters, the place had certainly seen better days. Duke Regis, however, was famous for ignoring his counselors and insisting that he judge everything personally. Dominick didn't know if he should believe the stories of the Duke going through the marketplace to pinch tomatoes, but it was widely known that he selected the palace entertainment himself.
Dominick finished buttoning his vest and ran a comb through his hair, looking in the spotty mirror over the dresser. His father was right--they both looked like the Devil, especially if they did the makeup right.
He took up a bottle of kohl, adding a scroll of black to each eye to heighten the diabolic appearance. Oh well, looking like the Devil was better than a lot of things. The theatre owner had a face like a frog and his wife had horse's teeth and a laugh like a wild donkey, and all three of their children looked like weasels. Proof, his father said, that pond creatures shouldn't marry livestock.
Dominick grabbed up his torches and ran to join his father in the left wing of the theatre. He jostled past tumblers and acrobats, Pierrots and Columbines, until he stood at his father's side. Sergio Marelli smiled and saluted once with his unlit torches, then looked back the other way.
The Lily’s owner, Herr Schimmelpfennig, was center stage, done up like a lace pincushion in his frock coat and floppy green velvet hat. He clapped his hands high in the air while a fat actress in an oversized wig and hoop skirt flounced past Dominick and his father.
The last of the performers followed the actress off the stage, and the owner glanced to Dominick's father. Sergio Marelli gave a slight nod.
Herr Schimmelpfennig turned back to the audience and raised his arms. "And now," he thundered with a voice like a king bullfrog, "the Gilded Lily is pleased to announce Pyroka, the Fearless Fire-Eater, and his son, Drakoman, the Flame Demon!"
Sergio Marelli grinned and touched his torches to the wall sconce. The pitch sputtered to life, and he raised the flame in a toast to the night's act. Dominick raised his own torches and met it, lighting them. With a ritual pass, his father reversed his bouquet of flame and Dominick lit the other end of his father's torches, his father doing the same for him a moment later.
Whooping like a madman, Dominick's father tumbled out onto the stage. The double-ended torches spun wheels of fire as the theatre owner hopped along the edge of the stage, shuttering the footlights so the flames would show brighter.
Dominick loved the pine smell of pitch and the crackle of flame. Of all the acts he did with his father, the fire act truly was the best.
Twirling the batons of live flame above his head, Dominick stepped out onto the stage, joining his father. His pace was slower, more sedate, controlled where his father was madcap, graceful where his father was feverish, like a lantern flame safe behind glass put next to a madly spinning Catherine wheel.
Dominick moved to center stage, his father spinning around him. One, two, catch the baton, pass the flame. Whirl, twirl, spin once, dance with the flame as the flame danced with you.
His batons wove a pattern before him, flashing light into his eyes and onto the faces in the front row. He looked into the eyes before him and smiled. A girl, almost his age, watched with rapt attention, while her brother lounged next to her, bored.
Dominick took one of the torches and swallowed it, his father juggling the extras. The trick was to hold your lips around the torch until the flame died in your mouth, keeping just enough spit on the tongue to protect it.
The torch died in a second, and Dominick removed it from his mouth. An appreciative ooh went up from the audience, followed by another as he reversed the baton and extinguished the other end.
Dominick wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, pausing long enough to take a mouthful of double-distilled potato brandy from the hidden tube in his cuff that led to the bottle in his pocket. His father took the dead torch from him, trading it for two double-ended flame batons.
Dominick spun the batons before him in two counter-spinning wheels, then abruptly stopped their twirling and held them out, crossed, a foot before his face. He spat the potato brandy as hard and as wide as he could.
The flame shot out for three yards over the audience, directly over the girl in the front row. A loud aah went up from the crowd and Dominick bowed, twirling the batons in both hands. The applause washed over him, and for a moment Dominick caught the china blue eyes of the girl in the front row. She clapped enthusiastically, and even her lethargic brother seemed somewhat impressed.
Dominick danced back, twirling his batons and throwing their flames in the air. He tossed them high to his father, who returned them, and they soon had all six arcing back and forth through the vault of the theatre.
A gap came in the batons, and Dominick took it to fill his mouth with potato brandy. Now came the part of the act where he and his father would play dragons, spitting flame at each other across the stage. He readied himself, taking a stance exactly four yards from his father. Not enough to reach him, but close enough to look dangerous.
Dominick took one torch in his hand, and instead of returning it, held it before his mouth.
"Stop this blasphemy at once!" a voice thundered. Dominick was so surprised he abruptly swallowed the mouthful of brandy, then nearly gagged, the alcohol biting his throat as it went down.
A loud murmuring arose, people whispering back and forth, and Dominick scarcely had time to catch the two batons as they arced back towards him.
He stood up straight and looked as the theatre lanterns were unshuttered, illuminating the audience. As the light spread, so did a dead hush as people realized who had spoken. There, in the center aisle, stood Bishop Zeller of Bramgarten. His miter was covered with gold embroidery and he held a gold crozier in his hand. Surrounding him were the Knights of the Lily, their spotless tabards emblazoned with a pure white flower that mirrored the form of the gilded lamps and faded decorations of the theatre.
The Bishop was small, with cruel blue eyes that swept across the audience like a miser taking stock of coins in a counting house. "You are all under arrest!” he pronounced at last. “By the authority of the Holy Church, I charge you all with gross indecency...and consorting with witches and demons!"
There was a flurry of whispers which was quickly hushed. The frog-faced theatre owner crept up the aisle, rather more like a toad than a frog, and proceeded to grovel at the Bishop's feet. "Your Grace. To what do we owe the honor of your presence?"
The Bishop smiled down at the cringing theatre owner. "You are charged with heresy, Herr Schimmelpfennig.” He reached into the sleeve of his vestment, producing a sheet of paper such as were commonly hawked by ballad sellers on the street. “I have here a handbill from your establishment. This proclaims that you are hosting witches who will summon demons and a whole host of other vile blasphemies...."
The Bishop held out the pale sheet of newsprint, which the theatre owner took and read frantically. He abased himself at the Bishop's feet, his velvet hat crumpled in his hands, his wig hanging askew. "Mere amusements, your Grace. Harmless pleasures to idle away the hours."
"Summoning demons a harmless pleasure?"
"A mere fancy, your Grace. A simple illusion."
The Bishop advanced, jowls shining in the lantern glow. "You're saying you lied. Here, in this hall, in this building once consecrated to the holy church...."
The theatre owner gulped. "Um, yes."
The Bishop glowed in triumph. "Guards! Arrest him!" The Knights of the Lily sprang forward, seizing the miserable theatre owner. "And have this den of lies cleared. Tomorrow we will haul all this blasphemous gilt and frippery into the street and have it burned!"
"No!" wailed the theatre owner, clawing frantically at the guards. One clubbed him with the butt of his sword. There was a sickening crunch, and the theatre owner fell limp. A gasp rose up from the audience.
The Bishop turned to the rest of the theatre. "Everyone here is under arrest! You are all charged with conspiracy to hire witches and summon demons!"
"See here!" said a voice from the front row. Dominick looked down as a large man in a voluminous brown velvet cape and doublet got to his feet. Dominick recognized the face and the gold chain of office immediately--Duke Regis Von Schilling, Duke of Bramgarten.
As was his custom, the Duke had forgone a private box, instead having the first two rows roped off for the Ducal party. He strode past the blue-eyed girl and her brother, stepping over the red velvet ribbon that separated his party from the rest of the theatre.
The Duke marched up the aisle, straight for the Bishop. "Your Grace," the Duke said icily as he closed the distance, "I'll have you know you're far overstepping your bounds, and you had best hope that the violence done to Herr Schimmelpfennig is slight, or--."
The Bishop glared up at the Duke as they came face to face. "Did you come here to witness the summoning of demons and other blasphemous acts?"
The Duke paused for almost a full minute, glaring. "I came," he said finally, "to spend a pleasant evening watching parlor tricks, which is all anyone else came to do either. The only people who still believe in magic are fat old fools like yourself."
The Bishop gasped in mock surprise. “You deny the holy writ?” His attitude of feigned horror was quickly replaced by a more honest one of wicked glee. “You must either be a heretic or a fool, or both. Or...” The Bishop’s leer continued to widen. "He is possessed by demons!" the Bishop suddenly pronounced. "Guards! Seize him!"
The Duke roared like an angry bear, but the Knights of the Lily had their swords out. The next thing Dominick saw, a fountain of blood shot into the air and a scream came from the audience.
The Duke fell back in the aisle, dead.
There was a look on the Bishop’s face then, one of true horror and not false, the blood draining from his cheeks, leaving his skin pale as chalk. But then the gaping mouth drew together like a banker pulling close the strings of his purse, and Bishop Zeller’s pale bloodless lips and cold eyes turned back to the audience. Something had not gone to plan, but he’d now taken that into account and was reaching a new decision.
The folk of Bramgarten evidently knew that decision before Dominick, for chaos erupted. All over the theatre, people rushed, screaming, for the exits. The Bishop shouted orders to his knights and the screams of terror mixed with the screams of death.
The boy from the front row suddenly came to life and scrambled up onto the stage. Dominick helped him pull his sister onto stage as well, careful of her skirts and the footlights.
A scream louder than all the rest suddenly cut through the din. Dominick looked. In the rush for the main entrance, one of the lanterns had been knocked over. The right wall of the theatre was aflame.
"Where's the exit?" the girl asked, breathless.
Dominick turned and took a step upstage, then froze as he saw Knights of the Lily pour from the right wing of the theatre. They seized his father and held a sword to his back. "Do not move, demon!"
"Dominick!" his father shouted.
Dominick turned and saw more knights come from stage left, swords unsheathed.
"Do something!" the girl screamed.
On instinct, Dominick raised his arm, sucking in a mouthful of potato brandy. He spat it out across the torch and the stream of flame leapt out, catching the first knight in the eyes.
The man bellowed and clawed for his face, dropping his sword. The boy lunged forward and caught it up, then swung in a circle, only half awkward. Dominick could see he knew something of swordplay, but the blade was too heavy for him. "Get behind me!"
Dominick did as he said, following the boy's sister, as the guards advanced from both sides of the stage. He watched in horror as one of the knights dragged his father from the stage, a sword to his back.
"Put the sword down, boy," said one of the Lily Knights.
The boy feinted close to the knight who had spoken, then jumped back and slashed the backdrop. The old canvas parted with a loud rip and the boy plunged through the gap. His sister followed, pulling Dominick with her.
The torches in his hands nearly set the cloth afire, but the girl then grabbed one from him and held it to the ragged fabric at the bottom of the tear. The fire caught for true this time and the painted canvas went up in a sheet of flame.
Dominick jumped back as a sword plunged through the gap after them. "Which way?" the girl asked.
Dominick looked around, orienting himself. "This way." He threaded his way through the old scenery and props that made up the rear of the theatre, heading for the stage door.
They stopped ten yards short of their goal. Knights of the Lily were there, letting no one by. One actor lay dead on the floor already.
"No good," said the girl. She took Dominick's hand and led him back towards the burning stage, her brother running before them. Flames from the backdrop had licked up to the ceiling and the rigging was afire. A sandbag crashed to the floor nearby, toppling old scenery.
The girl looked at him. "Where's the trap door?"
"Center stage."
"Any back entrance?"
Dominick shook his head. "I don't know."
The girl rushed forward to the tackle board. Ropes and ties secured sandbags and burning scenery. "How do you raise the backdrop?" She looked at the various numbered pegs.
Dominick tried to sort out the tangle of rigging. "Why . . . ?"
"Don't argue--just do it," the girl said. "The Bishop will kill us if he can."
"My father . . ."
"Is lucky. He’s a prisoner," the girl finished for him. "The Bishop always saves a few for scapegoats. Trust me."
The boy pushed them both aside. "Botheration." He swung the sword into the entire tangle of the tackle board. The steel bit deep and ropes snapped, whipping away.
Sand bags plummeted like bombs and blazing scenery crashed down while the flaming tatters of the backdrop flew up and the curtains fell.
Dominick stared through the smoke. "Father . . ."
The girl tugged his hand. "Come on."
"But . . ."
"Come with us or stay and die," she hissed. "You're hardly of any use to your father dead."
Dominick didn't know what to say. He ran forward with her, dodging falling cinders till they reached center stage, where her brother was pulling up the trap door.
The girl grabbed Dominick's spare torch and handed it to her brother just as one of the Lily Knights pushed through the flaming curtains. "Stop in the name of the Church!" he ordered, rushing at them, sword upraised.
Dominick sucked in a second mouthful of potato brandy and spat it out across the torchflame. The knight screamed, flame and alcohol catching him in the eyes.
"This way," called the girl, disappearing down the trap door.
Dominick quickly followed. Clutching his last torch in his teeth, he clambered hand over hand down the ladder.
He jumped the last few feet down onto the old boards laid down for the performers. The air beneath the stage was cool and smelled of dust, fresh after the smoke in the theatre above.
The girl grabbed his arm and pointed to the top of the ladder. The knight was following. "Flame him again!"
Dominick took a mouthful of brandy and spat it across the torchflame up at the Knight of the Lily. It caught him straight in his broad back, catching his tabard alight.
"This way," said the girl. Dominick followed the torchlight of the girl and her brother, racing through the wooden supports beneath the theatre.
They paused. "Which way, Bertil?" asked the girl.
The boy looked around, sensing like a fox. "This way," he decided. "I remember it was back here."
The boy led them to where a second trap door was sunk into the earth of the floor, the wood set round with stones. Bertil handed his sister his torch and took the rusty old ring in both hands. He heaved to and the rotted door came up, releasing a smell of old death and decay. "Down," he gasped. "Quickly."
Dominick looked down and saw a set of old stone stairs leading into blackness. He took them, followed by the girl. Bertil made up the rear, lowering the trap door back into place. He came down and collected his torch from his sister.
Dominick gasped as he reached the base of the stairs. Skeletons. Skeletons everywhere. Stacked in niches in the wall, tumbled in jumbled piles on the floor.
The girl slipped past him, then paused as she reached the flagstones below. Cobwebs and grey mold gleamed in the flickering light of her torch. "We're in the catacombs. With any luck, we'll come up in the Bishop's pantry." She lifted her petticoats with one hand and stepped over a fallen skull.
"Wha--" Dominick said as Bertil passed him. He hastened to catch up, not wanting to be left alone in this place.
"These are Church lands," the boy explained. "This entire district is under the authority of the Church."
The girl paused, looking back. "Which is why Bishop Zeller felt safe doing what he just did."
Dominick stopped, feeling sick with the memory.
She came over beside him and laid a kind hand on his forearm. "I'm sorry. We both lost our father to the Bishop a year ago. If your father's lucky, he escaped. If not, he may still be his prisoner." She paused. "Or worse. I'm sorry."
Dominick sighed. "How did you know these passages were down here?"
She looked sad. "Our father was the Royal Architect."
"One of those scapegoats Lottie mentioned." Bertil glanced off down a dark passage. "I think that leads to the Cathedral square. We'd best be careful." He set off down the passageway.
The girl paused, then put out her hand. "I'm Mertelotte, but everyone calls me Lottie."
"I'm Dominick," Dominick said weakly, taking her hand.
She smiled. "Be ready with that flame of yours. We'll be passing under the Cathedral, and we may need it."
And by the NaNoWriMo rules, this first chunk of 3900 words, though a short story by SFWA rules, doesn't count for the NaNoWriMo novel, which will start with what I write this month, and needs to be at least 50,000 words. But it's not as if I haven't done that before.
So, no more delays. Here it is. Enjoy. Next chapter soonish.
P.S. Tweaked the opening couplet of the rime at the beginning. I'd never liked the first two lines, but now have something that fits.
Nine for the Stranger
A Novel
By Kevin Andrew Murphy
Strike but a match to mark your desire.
Then kindle a candle to call to the fire.
Once for the Baby,
Twice for the King,
Thrice for the ruby in the Bishop's ring,
Four for the Maiden,
Five for the Witch,
Six for the Soldier who lies in the ditch,
Seven for Luck,
Eight for the Queen,
And Nine for the Stranger who's yet to be seen.
Chapter I
Backstage, the Gilded Lily was musty and dark, with smoke-blacked rafters and splotches of paint and spilled rouge. Dominick loved it. After the growers halls and market squares along the road, the old theatre meant a clean bed in the inn down the street and meat for dinner. And a good audience, judging from the applause that filtered through the canvas walls of the dressing room.
Dominick watched his father apply the last of his makeup, transforming himself from the familiar Sergio Marelli, traveling magician, into Pyroka, the Fearless Fire-Eater. The Lily had already booked two other magicians and a spirit medium, so the only act they had left was fire eating. Dominick didn't mind. The fire act was his favorite anyway. He leaned his battered stool back against the one solid wall, happy for the most part.
His father turned and grinned, teeth flashing white between his waxed moustache and pointed black beard. "What do you think? Pretty terrifying, huh?" He took a long pull on his cigar, then waggled his eyebrows and snorted smoke.
Dominick grimaced. "Why do you always have to look like the Devil?"
His father pinched him on the cheek the way he always hated. "Dominick, Dominick, when are you ever going to learn? I don't choose to look like the Devil--the Devil chooses to look like me." His father grinned and took another pull on the cigar, blowing a perfect smoke ring. "And you too. Only fifteen and already as tall as me, and almost as handsome." Dominick's father gave his cheek one last tweak. Dominick massaged the sore spot as his father took up a perch on the dressing table. "Girls are already after you. Give you a couple of years and you'll have to beat them off with a stick."
"Father . . ."
"Don't 'father' me, Dominick--I've seen the looks you get when you're on stage." Sergio Marelli grinned his long-practiced Devil's grin. "Now get up and finish with your costume. I'll not swallow flames all by myself. Ruins the appetite." He glanced around the room, then leaned forward and whispered, "And I'll tell you something else--the Duke is in the audience tonight."
"You're joking."
Sergio Marelli grinned and bounced his eyebrows, then said quietly, "No."
"The Duke?"
His father nodded. "Duke Regis Von Schilling, Duke of Bramgarten. We do our tricks right, we might get an invitation to the Ducal Palace. And if that goes well, we might even go to Valkynburg, get to audition for the King's players."
Dominick felt cold. "He's really here?"
"That's what I've heard," his father said. "I don't know if it's true, but you'd best get ready anyway."
Dominick righted the stool and got to his feet, grabbing for his own fire-eater costume. "Matches and tinder," he swore, "the Duke . . ."
He slipped into the red tights and ruffled silk shirt, then began knotting the waist sash. It had once been embroidered with dragons, but they'd had to dye it black since Bishop Zeller's ban on all depictions of the creatures. "Oh drat it all," Dominick concluded. "This doesn't look any good anymore."
"Don't worry about it. Just do your best performance."
Dominick rearranged the sash, then slipped on his flame-colored vest. "What's the Bishop have against dragons anyway?"
"They don't tithe to the Church."
"What?"
"Oh, I don't know." Dominick's father double-checked his makeup. "Maybe he thinks they're real. And magic too."
"But isn't there--"
"Dominick," said his father, turning, "this is the Age of Reason. There is no such thing as real magic."
Dominick tapped his heels into the low red boots. "The Bishop says . . ."
His father stared at him until Dominick looked up. The words died in his throat.
His father took a deep breath. "The Bishop, Dominick, is a fat old fool who makes his business the same way we do: He goes out on stage, tells everyone there is magic, does his show, then passes around the collection plate afterwards. The only difference is that he has better costumes and a much better take." Dominick's father paused. "You know, you're right. I should have been a priest. But I don't look the part."
He blew another smoke ring and waggled his eyebrows again. Dominick laughed.
"Now if only the audience is half as appreciative." He chomped his cigar, then reached out and mussed Dominick's hair. "Finish getting ready. I'll go see when we're on."
He tousled Dominick's hair one more time and slipped out of the dressing room.
Dominick frantically started fastening the brass buttons of his vest. He'd never understood how his father could be so cool about things. The Duke was in the audience. Duke Regis Von Schilling. He'd heard that things like this could happen, but he'd never thought they'd happen to his father and him.
The Lily was hardly the worst theatre in Bramgarten, but hardly the most fashionable either. The gilding was wearing thin, and though there was pretty carving about the rafters, the place had certainly seen better days. Duke Regis, however, was famous for ignoring his counselors and insisting that he judge everything personally. Dominick didn't know if he should believe the stories of the Duke going through the marketplace to pinch tomatoes, but it was widely known that he selected the palace entertainment himself.
Dominick finished buttoning his vest and ran a comb through his hair, looking in the spotty mirror over the dresser. His father was right--they both looked like the Devil, especially if they did the makeup right.
He took up a bottle of kohl, adding a scroll of black to each eye to heighten the diabolic appearance. Oh well, looking like the Devil was better than a lot of things. The theatre owner had a face like a frog and his wife had horse's teeth and a laugh like a wild donkey, and all three of their children looked like weasels. Proof, his father said, that pond creatures shouldn't marry livestock.
Dominick grabbed up his torches and ran to join his father in the left wing of the theatre. He jostled past tumblers and acrobats, Pierrots and Columbines, until he stood at his father's side. Sergio Marelli smiled and saluted once with his unlit torches, then looked back the other way.
The Lily’s owner, Herr Schimmelpfennig, was center stage, done up like a lace pincushion in his frock coat and floppy green velvet hat. He clapped his hands high in the air while a fat actress in an oversized wig and hoop skirt flounced past Dominick and his father.
The last of the performers followed the actress off the stage, and the owner glanced to Dominick's father. Sergio Marelli gave a slight nod.
Herr Schimmelpfennig turned back to the audience and raised his arms. "And now," he thundered with a voice like a king bullfrog, "the Gilded Lily is pleased to announce Pyroka, the Fearless Fire-Eater, and his son, Drakoman, the Flame Demon!"
Sergio Marelli grinned and touched his torches to the wall sconce. The pitch sputtered to life, and he raised the flame in a toast to the night's act. Dominick raised his own torches and met it, lighting them. With a ritual pass, his father reversed his bouquet of flame and Dominick lit the other end of his father's torches, his father doing the same for him a moment later.
Whooping like a madman, Dominick's father tumbled out onto the stage. The double-ended torches spun wheels of fire as the theatre owner hopped along the edge of the stage, shuttering the footlights so the flames would show brighter.
Dominick loved the pine smell of pitch and the crackle of flame. Of all the acts he did with his father, the fire act truly was the best.
Twirling the batons of live flame above his head, Dominick stepped out onto the stage, joining his father. His pace was slower, more sedate, controlled where his father was madcap, graceful where his father was feverish, like a lantern flame safe behind glass put next to a madly spinning Catherine wheel.
Dominick moved to center stage, his father spinning around him. One, two, catch the baton, pass the flame. Whirl, twirl, spin once, dance with the flame as the flame danced with you.
His batons wove a pattern before him, flashing light into his eyes and onto the faces in the front row. He looked into the eyes before him and smiled. A girl, almost his age, watched with rapt attention, while her brother lounged next to her, bored.
Dominick took one of the torches and swallowed it, his father juggling the extras. The trick was to hold your lips around the torch until the flame died in your mouth, keeping just enough spit on the tongue to protect it.
The torch died in a second, and Dominick removed it from his mouth. An appreciative ooh went up from the audience, followed by another as he reversed the baton and extinguished the other end.
Dominick wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, pausing long enough to take a mouthful of double-distilled potato brandy from the hidden tube in his cuff that led to the bottle in his pocket. His father took the dead torch from him, trading it for two double-ended flame batons.
Dominick spun the batons before him in two counter-spinning wheels, then abruptly stopped their twirling and held them out, crossed, a foot before his face. He spat the potato brandy as hard and as wide as he could.
The flame shot out for three yards over the audience, directly over the girl in the front row. A loud aah went up from the crowd and Dominick bowed, twirling the batons in both hands. The applause washed over him, and for a moment Dominick caught the china blue eyes of the girl in the front row. She clapped enthusiastically, and even her lethargic brother seemed somewhat impressed.
Dominick danced back, twirling his batons and throwing their flames in the air. He tossed them high to his father, who returned them, and they soon had all six arcing back and forth through the vault of the theatre.
A gap came in the batons, and Dominick took it to fill his mouth with potato brandy. Now came the part of the act where he and his father would play dragons, spitting flame at each other across the stage. He readied himself, taking a stance exactly four yards from his father. Not enough to reach him, but close enough to look dangerous.
Dominick took one torch in his hand, and instead of returning it, held it before his mouth.
"Stop this blasphemy at once!" a voice thundered. Dominick was so surprised he abruptly swallowed the mouthful of brandy, then nearly gagged, the alcohol biting his throat as it went down.
A loud murmuring arose, people whispering back and forth, and Dominick scarcely had time to catch the two batons as they arced back towards him.
He stood up straight and looked as the theatre lanterns were unshuttered, illuminating the audience. As the light spread, so did a dead hush as people realized who had spoken. There, in the center aisle, stood Bishop Zeller of Bramgarten. His miter was covered with gold embroidery and he held a gold crozier in his hand. Surrounding him were the Knights of the Lily, their spotless tabards emblazoned with a pure white flower that mirrored the form of the gilded lamps and faded decorations of the theatre.
The Bishop was small, with cruel blue eyes that swept across the audience like a miser taking stock of coins in a counting house. "You are all under arrest!” he pronounced at last. “By the authority of the Holy Church, I charge you all with gross indecency...and consorting with witches and demons!"
There was a flurry of whispers which was quickly hushed. The frog-faced theatre owner crept up the aisle, rather more like a toad than a frog, and proceeded to grovel at the Bishop's feet. "Your Grace. To what do we owe the honor of your presence?"
The Bishop smiled down at the cringing theatre owner. "You are charged with heresy, Herr Schimmelpfennig.” He reached into the sleeve of his vestment, producing a sheet of paper such as were commonly hawked by ballad sellers on the street. “I have here a handbill from your establishment. This proclaims that you are hosting witches who will summon demons and a whole host of other vile blasphemies...."
The Bishop held out the pale sheet of newsprint, which the theatre owner took and read frantically. He abased himself at the Bishop's feet, his velvet hat crumpled in his hands, his wig hanging askew. "Mere amusements, your Grace. Harmless pleasures to idle away the hours."
"Summoning demons a harmless pleasure?"
"A mere fancy, your Grace. A simple illusion."
The Bishop advanced, jowls shining in the lantern glow. "You're saying you lied. Here, in this hall, in this building once consecrated to the holy church...."
The theatre owner gulped. "Um, yes."
The Bishop glowed in triumph. "Guards! Arrest him!" The Knights of the Lily sprang forward, seizing the miserable theatre owner. "And have this den of lies cleared. Tomorrow we will haul all this blasphemous gilt and frippery into the street and have it burned!"
"No!" wailed the theatre owner, clawing frantically at the guards. One clubbed him with the butt of his sword. There was a sickening crunch, and the theatre owner fell limp. A gasp rose up from the audience.
The Bishop turned to the rest of the theatre. "Everyone here is under arrest! You are all charged with conspiracy to hire witches and summon demons!"
"See here!" said a voice from the front row. Dominick looked down as a large man in a voluminous brown velvet cape and doublet got to his feet. Dominick recognized the face and the gold chain of office immediately--Duke Regis Von Schilling, Duke of Bramgarten.
As was his custom, the Duke had forgone a private box, instead having the first two rows roped off for the Ducal party. He strode past the blue-eyed girl and her brother, stepping over the red velvet ribbon that separated his party from the rest of the theatre.
The Duke marched up the aisle, straight for the Bishop. "Your Grace," the Duke said icily as he closed the distance, "I'll have you know you're far overstepping your bounds, and you had best hope that the violence done to Herr Schimmelpfennig is slight, or--."
The Bishop glared up at the Duke as they came face to face. "Did you come here to witness the summoning of demons and other blasphemous acts?"
The Duke paused for almost a full minute, glaring. "I came," he said finally, "to spend a pleasant evening watching parlor tricks, which is all anyone else came to do either. The only people who still believe in magic are fat old fools like yourself."
The Bishop gasped in mock surprise. “You deny the holy writ?” His attitude of feigned horror was quickly replaced by a more honest one of wicked glee. “You must either be a heretic or a fool, or both. Or...” The Bishop’s leer continued to widen. "He is possessed by demons!" the Bishop suddenly pronounced. "Guards! Seize him!"
The Duke roared like an angry bear, but the Knights of the Lily had their swords out. The next thing Dominick saw, a fountain of blood shot into the air and a scream came from the audience.
The Duke fell back in the aisle, dead.
There was a look on the Bishop’s face then, one of true horror and not false, the blood draining from his cheeks, leaving his skin pale as chalk. But then the gaping mouth drew together like a banker pulling close the strings of his purse, and Bishop Zeller’s pale bloodless lips and cold eyes turned back to the audience. Something had not gone to plan, but he’d now taken that into account and was reaching a new decision.
The folk of Bramgarten evidently knew that decision before Dominick, for chaos erupted. All over the theatre, people rushed, screaming, for the exits. The Bishop shouted orders to his knights and the screams of terror mixed with the screams of death.
The boy from the front row suddenly came to life and scrambled up onto the stage. Dominick helped him pull his sister onto stage as well, careful of her skirts and the footlights.
A scream louder than all the rest suddenly cut through the din. Dominick looked. In the rush for the main entrance, one of the lanterns had been knocked over. The right wall of the theatre was aflame.
"Where's the exit?" the girl asked, breathless.
Dominick turned and took a step upstage, then froze as he saw Knights of the Lily pour from the right wing of the theatre. They seized his father and held a sword to his back. "Do not move, demon!"
"Dominick!" his father shouted.
Dominick turned and saw more knights come from stage left, swords unsheathed.
"Do something!" the girl screamed.
On instinct, Dominick raised his arm, sucking in a mouthful of potato brandy. He spat it out across the torch and the stream of flame leapt out, catching the first knight in the eyes.
The man bellowed and clawed for his face, dropping his sword. The boy lunged forward and caught it up, then swung in a circle, only half awkward. Dominick could see he knew something of swordplay, but the blade was too heavy for him. "Get behind me!"
Dominick did as he said, following the boy's sister, as the guards advanced from both sides of the stage. He watched in horror as one of the knights dragged his father from the stage, a sword to his back.
"Put the sword down, boy," said one of the Lily Knights.
The boy feinted close to the knight who had spoken, then jumped back and slashed the backdrop. The old canvas parted with a loud rip and the boy plunged through the gap. His sister followed, pulling Dominick with her.
The torches in his hands nearly set the cloth afire, but the girl then grabbed one from him and held it to the ragged fabric at the bottom of the tear. The fire caught for true this time and the painted canvas went up in a sheet of flame.
Dominick jumped back as a sword plunged through the gap after them. "Which way?" the girl asked.
Dominick looked around, orienting himself. "This way." He threaded his way through the old scenery and props that made up the rear of the theatre, heading for the stage door.
They stopped ten yards short of their goal. Knights of the Lily were there, letting no one by. One actor lay dead on the floor already.
"No good," said the girl. She took Dominick's hand and led him back towards the burning stage, her brother running before them. Flames from the backdrop had licked up to the ceiling and the rigging was afire. A sandbag crashed to the floor nearby, toppling old scenery.
The girl looked at him. "Where's the trap door?"
"Center stage."
"Any back entrance?"
Dominick shook his head. "I don't know."
The girl rushed forward to the tackle board. Ropes and ties secured sandbags and burning scenery. "How do you raise the backdrop?" She looked at the various numbered pegs.
Dominick tried to sort out the tangle of rigging. "Why . . . ?"
"Don't argue--just do it," the girl said. "The Bishop will kill us if he can."
"My father . . ."
"Is lucky. He’s a prisoner," the girl finished for him. "The Bishop always saves a few for scapegoats. Trust me."
The boy pushed them both aside. "Botheration." He swung the sword into the entire tangle of the tackle board. The steel bit deep and ropes snapped, whipping away.
Sand bags plummeted like bombs and blazing scenery crashed down while the flaming tatters of the backdrop flew up and the curtains fell.
Dominick stared through the smoke. "Father . . ."
The girl tugged his hand. "Come on."
"But . . ."
"Come with us or stay and die," she hissed. "You're hardly of any use to your father dead."
Dominick didn't know what to say. He ran forward with her, dodging falling cinders till they reached center stage, where her brother was pulling up the trap door.
The girl grabbed Dominick's spare torch and handed it to her brother just as one of the Lily Knights pushed through the flaming curtains. "Stop in the name of the Church!" he ordered, rushing at them, sword upraised.
Dominick sucked in a second mouthful of potato brandy and spat it out across the torchflame. The knight screamed, flame and alcohol catching him in the eyes.
"This way," called the girl, disappearing down the trap door.
Dominick quickly followed. Clutching his last torch in his teeth, he clambered hand over hand down the ladder.
He jumped the last few feet down onto the old boards laid down for the performers. The air beneath the stage was cool and smelled of dust, fresh after the smoke in the theatre above.
The girl grabbed his arm and pointed to the top of the ladder. The knight was following. "Flame him again!"
Dominick took a mouthful of brandy and spat it across the torchflame up at the Knight of the Lily. It caught him straight in his broad back, catching his tabard alight.
"This way," said the girl. Dominick followed the torchlight of the girl and her brother, racing through the wooden supports beneath the theatre.
They paused. "Which way, Bertil?" asked the girl.
The boy looked around, sensing like a fox. "This way," he decided. "I remember it was back here."
The boy led them to where a second trap door was sunk into the earth of the floor, the wood set round with stones. Bertil handed his sister his torch and took the rusty old ring in both hands. He heaved to and the rotted door came up, releasing a smell of old death and decay. "Down," he gasped. "Quickly."
Dominick looked down and saw a set of old stone stairs leading into blackness. He took them, followed by the girl. Bertil made up the rear, lowering the trap door back into place. He came down and collected his torch from his sister.
Dominick gasped as he reached the base of the stairs. Skeletons. Skeletons everywhere. Stacked in niches in the wall, tumbled in jumbled piles on the floor.
The girl slipped past him, then paused as she reached the flagstones below. Cobwebs and grey mold gleamed in the flickering light of her torch. "We're in the catacombs. With any luck, we'll come up in the Bishop's pantry." She lifted her petticoats with one hand and stepped over a fallen skull.
"Wha--" Dominick said as Bertil passed him. He hastened to catch up, not wanting to be left alone in this place.
"These are Church lands," the boy explained. "This entire district is under the authority of the Church."
The girl paused, looking back. "Which is why Bishop Zeller felt safe doing what he just did."
Dominick stopped, feeling sick with the memory.
She came over beside him and laid a kind hand on his forearm. "I'm sorry. We both lost our father to the Bishop a year ago. If your father's lucky, he escaped. If not, he may still be his prisoner." She paused. "Or worse. I'm sorry."
Dominick sighed. "How did you know these passages were down here?"
She looked sad. "Our father was the Royal Architect."
"One of those scapegoats Lottie mentioned." Bertil glanced off down a dark passage. "I think that leads to the Cathedral square. We'd best be careful." He set off down the passageway.
The girl paused, then put out her hand. "I'm Mertelotte, but everyone calls me Lottie."
"I'm Dominick," Dominick said weakly, taking her hand.
She smiled. "Be ready with that flame of yours. We'll be passing under the Cathedral, and we may need it."
posted by Kevin at 3:57 AM
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