City of Demons (32 page)

Salick paused after a guard waved them through the Ward Gate. Looking across to the west bridge, she said, “Marick, you and Dorict go back directly and report to Master Mandarack. Take my trident. I want to walk through the plaza and listen to what people are saying, and I don't want to stand out.” She looked at Garet who quickly nodded in agreement.

“What!” Marick yelped. “Why shouldn't we go with you. Is this just an excuse to be alone together? Just because...” His protest was cut off by an annoyed Dorict who grabbed his friend's ear and pulled him towards the bridge. His yells receded in the distance. “Dorict, let go. I was just saying...Ow!”

Garet felt his cheeks flush and saw that Salick had reddened as well. She gave him an embarrassed grin.

“Oh well, it's not like we're avoiding work, just because we're together.” She slipped her arm in his and they walked slowly towards the Palace. Garet felt as if he were walking on cracking ice, each step had to be perfect so as not to disturb Salick's hand curled around his forearm. Because he was taking such care, he soon tripped over his own feet and Salick had to pull to keep him upright.

“Garet,” she laughed, “what are you so nervous about?” She turned him around and, placing both hands on his shoulders, looked into his eyes. “I'm not a demon, though you're acting like I had a jewel in my head the size of one of Andarack's rocks!” She gave him a little shake. “Haven't you ever walked with a girl before?”

How do I answer such a question?
Never walked with a young woman before, never flirted with a girl before, never been in love before: all were true, but he chose the least difficult. “I've never walked arm in arm with a girl, that's all,” he told her and managed to laugh with her.

“Well, neither have I, walked arm in arm with a boy, I mean,” Salick said. “But it seems I've learned better from observing others.” She slipped her hand in his. “Shall we try again?”

He took a deep breath and tried again.

The plaza was still busy with the people who had attended the many funerals that had occupied the Temple until late in the day, and the large awnings in front of the Palace were still up for the play they had seen being prepared the day before. As true night fell, the last peal of the funeral bells faded and bright music started up on the stage. They stood at the back of the crowd and listened to the sound of trumpets, drums, tambourines, and strummed and plucked string instruments that Garet had no name for. The beat was fast and the musicians raucous. Jesters, dressed in fantastic costumes and wearing masks of distorted human faces and wild beasts, whirled on the stage. Jugglers wove among them. Two of the clowns bumped into each other and staged a mock fight that soon involved all the dancers. The two Banes, hands still clasped and shoulders touching, laughed at their exaggerated actions.

“Should we take off our sashes?” Garet asked, remembering the hatred of the merchant who had cursed him in the street.

“We'd have to take off all our clothes,” Salick replied, fingering the winter vest and tunic she wore. They were a bad compromise between mobility and warmth, but they also bore the traditional colours of the Banehall, purple and black. “I don't think we'd blend in that way, so let's just stand here at the back and try not to draw attention to ourselves.”

The audience was also appreciative, and Salick whispered to him, “Maybe this is what the city needs after last night.”

Garet agreed. He felt a twinge as he remembered the empty seats draped with gold sashes, but he was here, and alive, and Salick was holding his hand. He laughed with her as the clowns trouped off the stage in grand disarray.

More music followed, accompanied by a pretty harvest dance, and then the clowns returned. They appeared to be constructing something out of wood and rope. One clown, a tall man with the mask of an old man, a large wooden hammer in one hand and a sheathed sword in the other, gestured wildly at them in a futile attempt to get the structure erected.

“That's Lord Andarack!” gasped Salick, her hand covering her mouth. She saw Garet's confusion. “Not the real one, of course. Clowns often poke fun at the important people of the city.” On stage, the Andarack clown tested the structure by whacking his hammer into a support. The tower, along with several grey-clad clowns clinging to it, collapsed in a heap. He threw down his hammer, stomped on it and drew his sword. He chased the false mechanicals around the stage several times, just missing them with his theatrical swipes and thrusts, before driving them off the stage. The crowd showed its appreciation by slapping the back of their hands.

Salick had briefly let go of his hand so that they could both add their appreciation. “Will Lord Andarack be upset at this?” Garet asked, although he couldn't imagine the scholarly, open-hearted man taking offense at anything, except perhaps Dasanat's obstinacy.

“No, not at all. It's considered a great honour to be picked by the clowns for one of their comedies.” She pointed at the stage. “Look, the actors' ambassador is coming out to tell the audience about the main piece.”

A flourish of trumpets announced a portly woman dressed in rich purples and a trailing fur cloak. She bowed low to the audience, who responded with the call, “Ambassador! Ambassador!” She held up her hands to quiet them.

“Friends, citizens of Shirath. We come to you in a time of sadness, when the foundations of our city are shaken.” A sigh went through the crowd. “We come to take you from your sorrows, and lift your spirits,” she continued, raising her arms to Heaven. A smattering of applause rippled around Garet and Salick. “But distraction is not the only duty of an actor,” she continued. She lowered her arms to hold them, palms up, to the people surrounding the stage. “We must also be a mirror, held up to the citizens of Shirath so they might know themselves better, and know what actions to take!” The two Banes looked at each other. Salick gave a slight shake of her head to indicate this type of introduction was new to her as well. Many around them also shook their head in puzzlement. The ambassador did not pause to quiet the talking in the crowd. She pulled her fur cloak off and flung it behind one of the curtains bracketing the stage. She bowed low, and standing straight again, said, “For the education and entertainment of the people of Shirath, we present, ‘The Necklacing of King Birat'.”

As she swept off the stage, the murmurs of the audience became a roar of surprise. Several people nearby turned to Salick and Garet to see their reaction.

Salick's hand squeezed Garet's tightly. Her wide eyes stared at the spot on the stage where the woman had been standing. Seeing the people nearby regarding her, she regained her composure and pulled Garet a little ways back from the crowd.

“This is incredible, and perhaps very bad, Garet.” She kept her voice low and her eyes on the stage. Several actors, dressed as Palace guards, had appeared, pushing various props into place. A golden throne dominated the set, occupying centre stage.

“Why, Salick? I mean, it's only a storyteller's tale, isn't it?” he asked, his voice as low as hers. The musicians were moving to take new places on the left of the stage.

She shook her head. “It's an old story about a fight between the Banehall and the Palace that took place hundreds of years ago.” Her face was grim. “This is not the time for such stories.”

“Not unless you want another fight. And some people do,” Garet replied softly. “Salick, what does necklacing mean? I remember Marick said it on the barge, when he played that trick on those bullies; what does it have to do with demons and Banes?”

Salick began to answer, but saw that some of the people waiting for the play to start had drifted closer to try and catch what they said. She shook her head at his question and said, “We'll watch the play. You'll understand well enough by the end, and Master Mandarack will want to know all about this.” She drew him back to the fringes of the crowd.

More torches were lit around the perimeter of the stage. When all was prepared, drums signalled the arrival of an imposing figure, who swaggered on stage and ascended the throne. His face bore no mask, but was covered with red paint save for a few strokes of black to emphasize his eyes and mouth. The crowd booed as soon as they saw him.

“That's King Birat,” Salick said. “He was the third king after the demons appeared in the South.” The figure on the stage gestured at the guards, his arm movements both wide and sinister. A man was brought in, chains on his wrists and rags covering his body. His face paint was white and blue. He pleaded soundlessly with the King, his arms stretched out from his prone position on the floor, but the red-faced actor laughed and waved him away. The guards dragged him out, to the boos and hisses of the audience. Not one of the actors had spoken, and Garet soon realized that the whole story would be told through actions alone.

It was a confusing story, but with Salick's whispered explanations, and the clear gestures of the actors, he pieced out what was going on. The King, Birat, was an evil man who wanted to kill his son, the man in chains. A woman with a blue face, who received thunderous applause whenever she came on stage, tried to restrain the King, but was generally helpless in the face of his perverse nature. Several other characters, their faces tinted in varying shades of red if they assisted the King, or blue if they stood against him, contributed to the progress of the story. Garet was not sure what they all were doing, but the main conflict was at least clear in his mind.

The drums and horns swelled, signalling an important event. The king thundered silently on his throne at the blue-faced lady, who wept behind graceful, trailing sleeves. He gave orders to the guards and they left, returning quickly with a short man dressed as a Master of the Banehall.

“No!” Salick cried in a tight voice. Garet could barely hear her in the tumult that this character's arrival had evoked from the crowd. He leaned in to catch her words. “Look! Look at his face!” she ordered, and he did so. The Bane slunk up to the King, who bent to whisper in his ear.

“I see his face. It's red like the King's,” Garet replied. “What does it mean?”

“Red means evil,” Salick said, her eyes never leaving the figure now bowing before the King. “The actors, or whoever put them up to this, are saying the Banes are evil!” The actor dressed as a Bane mimed agreement to the King's suggestion and strutted off stage to the sound of a single, sinister flute.

“Moret would never have acted in such a way!” Salick exclaimed. “He was the second of the Shirath Hallmasters. He was already an old man when Birat was on the throne.” On stage, the man in chains was dragged in again by the guards. The King demanded and he refused. The woman threw herself between them, but at an order from Birat, she was dragged offstage. All the musicians joined together in producing a desperate crash of sound.

Salick cursed. “Claws! Moret stood against Birat. But the Banehall was betrayed by a Gold who was Birat's cousin.” She shook her head as the drama continued between the man in chains and his murderous father. “Birat paid him to bring...” she stopped to look around her, but didn't have to worry about being heard, for her increasingly angry outbursts had cleared a little space around them, “... to bring him a necklace of demon jewels so that he could drive his son mad.”

“But why would he want to do that?” Garet asked, before remembering that both he and Salick knew of parents who did not love their children.

“To keep his throne, I think.” She paused for a moment, remembering. “The Ward Lords opposed him because of his cruelty, and they wanted his son to replace him.” She looked back at the stage, where the woman in blue face paint, moving alone on stage, danced out her sadness and fear. The crowd was silent, following every graceful step. “If his son went mad, there were none of the King's other children old enough to take his place.”

The King and his court returned, to the sound of royal flourishes, driving the woman, his wife perhaps, to hide by the right hand curtain, though in plain view of the audience and the other actors. The King did not appear to see her. The false Moret then came back on stage, carrying above his head a black, polished wooden box. The music swelled while he danced around the prone figure of the son. At a crash of the symbols, he placed the box in front of the prisoner and threw back the lid. The King and guards raised their hands ritually before their faces while the son writhed on the floor. With a leap, the Bane pinned him and drew from the box a cord of withered, pear-shaped objects. He pulled up the head of the prince and settled it around his neck. The crowd gasped as the prince leaped and rolled across the stage in a pantomime of mortal agony.

“How could they think this,” Salick murmured, and Garet saw a tear of anger trace the line of her cheek and chin. She merely shook her head when Garet tried to offer his comfort.

On stage, the guards reversed their spears and prodded the twisting, shaking man off stage. The King and his court, laughing uproariously, followed, leaving the Bane on stage alone, rubbing his hands at the audience. The hatred directed back at him was like a wind, and when the woman left her hiding place and came up quietly behind him, someone in the crowd shouted, “Kill him!”, and many took up the call.

But the woman did not attack the Bane, instead she pulled a pouch from her tunic and waved it in front of his face. He comically chased after it, to a frenzy of cymbals, while she held it just out of his reach. After a whispered exchange, she passed him the pouch and he left the stage. The King came back on stage, without his guards, and slumped into his chair, head on his hand and eyes closed. While the woman stood at the corner of the stage and watched, the Bane slipped back in carrying the necklace of wrinkled objects—they look like hearts, Garet thought—and placed it stealthily around the King's neck. Cheers and drums erupted as the King went through even more gyrations in his agony than the Prince had. He flung his crown across the stage and overturned the furniture. The guards ran in and, with difficulty, pinned him against his tipped throne with the butt ends of their spears. A minor, blue-faced character appeared, supporting the prince. The crowd roared its approval. The lady gave him the crown, which he set on his own head. With an imperious gesture, he ordered Birat removed, still wearing the necklace. The throne was righted and the prince, now king, sat down. The slinking Hallmaster came before him, bowing low, but the new king set his booted foot on his shoulder and set him rolling back among the courtiers, to the great amusement of the audience. The false Moret climbed to his feet and shook his fist at the King and the Lady, who were laughing at his predicament. He then turned and shook his fist at the crowd, before stomping off the stage to a chorus of boos.