The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (62 page)

“Well, it was quite easy for me,” Rafferdy said. However, when she handed it back to him, he found he could no longer open the locket. At first he took care not to damage it, but he soon gave that up and tried with all his might. However, the tiny hinge would not budge.

“You cannot open it that way,” Mr. Bennick said. There was a pleased look on his aquiline face. “No one at the table can. It’s been sealed with magick, and only magick can open it again.”

“Nonsense,” Rafferdy said, and kept trying to open the locket, though without success. “There must be some trick.”

“What trick can there be?” Lord Baydon said. “It was in your hand the entire time.”

“It’s true, Mr. Rafferdy,” Mrs. Baydon said, clapping her hands and laughing. “It had to have been magick that locked it shut.”

He scowled at her. “Magick, yes, but we already know who in this room was the real magician. You spoke the incantation even as I did, Mr. Bennick, and with more proper inflection, I am sure. It was you who locked it, not I.”

“I can prove to you quite easily that was not the case,” Mr. Bennick said.

“How so?”

“Do you recall the words of the incantation? Yes? Then hold the locket in your hand and speak them again.”

“I will not. I am finished with this ridiculous farce.”

“But
we
are not,” Lady Marsdel declared. “If you are so certain you cannot work magick, Mr. Rafferdy, what have you to fear? Now, speak the words! You are very clever—I have no doubt you can recall them.”

Calls of “Hear, hear,” went around the table.

Rafferdy glared up at Mr. Bennick.
You have gotten your revenge against me again, sir,
he wanted to say.
First you cursed me with the wretched ring, and now you’re making a mockery of me.

However, he tightened his hand around the locket, then spoke the six words of the incantation. He did not know if it was from his prior experience or from the energy of anger, but this time the words were easier to utter.

“There,” he said, and thrust the locket at Mrs. Baydon.

She accepted it and put a fingernail to the thin crack where the two halves met. It opened easily under her touch.

“Marvelous!” Lord Baydon exclaimed.

Mrs. Baydon laughed, and Lady Marsdel applauded by striking a spoon against a dish. Even Mr. Baydon seemed amused.

Rafferdy, however, was not.
It’s a trick,
he wanted to say. Yet it wasn’t. He had handled the locket himself; there could be no other explanation. Somehow, Bennick had made him to do magick. But how? And moreover, for what purpose? The former magician returned to his seat. His expression seemed neither surprised nor leering. His dark eyes were as unreadable as ever as he picked up a fork and ate his supper.

“You really did it, Mr. Rafferdy,” Mrs. Baydon said, smiling at him. “You performed an enchantment. You cannot deny it.”

“I must concede it appears so,” Rafferdy said grudgingly. “You’ve bested me, Mr. Bennick, though I have no idea how. Nor can I see what opening and shutting a locket has to do with real magick.”

“That is the very foundation of magick,” Mr. Bennick said. “It is the opening of things that are shut and the shutting of things that are open. It is also about the binding and unbinding of things. You should come speak with me sometime if you wish to learn more.”

“I don’t wish it, thank you very much.”

“Come now, Rafferdy,” Mr. Baydon said, scowling across the table. “Clearly you have a talent for this stuff. There are men who pay hundreds of regals a year to go to university in hopes of learning the smallest amount of magick, and here Mr. Bennick’s given you a lesson for free and offered you more. Surely you must want to know how to wield such power.”

“What I want is another glass of wine,” he said, and handed his empty glass to a servant.

“My offer remains open if you change your mind,” Mr. Bennick said.

Mrs. Baydon laughed. “You’re wasting your time, I’m afraid, Mr. Bennick. I fear magick seems too worthwhile. Our dear Mr. Rafferdy has never had an interest in anything that might be remotely useful.”

“Or perhaps he simply has yet to find the right use for it,” Mr. Bennick said. His glance went to Rafferdy’s hand and the ring there.

“Well, since you all want so badly for me to perform another trick, I will oblige you,” Rafferdy said.

“And what trick is that?” Lady Marsdel demanded.

He rose from his seat. “I shall make myself disappear.” And bowing to her ladyship and the other guests, he took his leave, retrieved his hat, and went out into the night.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
HE BELLS OF St. Galmuth’s were tolling as Eldyn walked past Duskfellow’s graveyard and deeper into the Old City. He kept the shadows close around him as he skirted the ragged fringes of High Holy. It would have been safer to take a hack cab, but he would be spending too much as it was that night. He went swiftly, a wraith in the dark.

All at once the night air brightened, and Eldyn turned a corner onto the west end of Durrow Street. Despite the late hour, crowds of people moved up and down the street. Some went boldly, others furtively, all of them searching for the theater most likely to cater to their tastes. Music and laughter spilled out of the open doors, along with colored light that shimmered on the air like a glamour. Eldyn moved down the street, forgetting his stiff fingers and aching back, forgetting the dim apartment over the shoemaker’s shop and Sashie’s reproachful looks.

Over the last quarter month, since attending the performance at the Theater of the Doves, he had returned to Durrow Street several times. However, with no special coin to grant him admission, he had been forced to pay for his ticket like everyone else.

He knew that it was wrong, that it was frivolous, that he should save the money for his and Sashie’s future. Each time he walked home, he vowed he would not return. Only then would come a particularly awful day at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle, or a quarrel with Sashie, and he would find himself here once again.

Like tonight. Eldyn walked past the theaters. A performer or two stood before each one, crafting illusions and conjuring phantasms. These were small things, meant to intrigue and entice and also to indicate the nature of the performance that would take place inside. The true wonders would be revealed only to those who entered.

In front of one of the theaters, a pair of illusionists tossed balls of blue and green fire back and forth. Beyond, a man, his face powdered, danced with a lithe figure swathed in a white cloth, then pulled away the sheet to reveal nothing but air. Across the street, a lady—or what
seemed
to be a lady—in a silver gown used a wand to draw glittering squares in midair, then pushed them open as if they were windows, revealing seascapes and mountains and sun-drenched fields beyond.

Eldyn watched each performer for a few moments, then moved on, trying to decide where to go. The second time he had come to Durrow Street, he had gone to the Theater of the Doves again. Since then he had gone to the Theater of Dreams, the Theater of the Veils, and the Theater of Mirrors. In each he had seen wonders and visions: confections of light and sound that, like sweets, only left one hungrier the more one consumed.

A man in a black suit beckoned to him. As Eldyn drew near, he saw that the other was unusually thin, and though his face was carefully powdered and rouged, it did not hide the hollowness of his cheeks.

“Look,” the man said, and with a palsied hand he gestured to a gilded cage that hung from a stand.

Eldyn looked into the cage, expecting to see a jewel-colored bird like those from the Theater of the Doves. Instead, on the perch inside the cage sat a creature the length of his hand. It was naked and looked like a tiny woman except for its gossamer wings, green hair, and curling tail. The creature let out a trilling laugh as Eldyn gasped. Its tail coiled around its body, caressing, probing; the creature writhed on the perch, eyes glowing red.

The man in the black suit gave a grin as skeletal as any adorning a tombstone at Duskfellow’s. “You’ll see the full-size ones inside, and more. Come, enter the Theater of Emeralds.”

Eldyn shook his head, then hurried down the street. There were many theaters that offered sights such as those at the Theater of Emeralds, and they did not lack for patrons. However,
that
was not the sort of performance Eldyn sought. It was the fantasias, the idylls, and the reenactments of myths of ancient Tharos that entranced him. As the illusionists worked their craft, the stage became like a door to another world. For a little while at least, Eldyn could be somewhere far away from Invarel.

“Don’t wish to be seen, do we?”

Eldyn turned around, startled. He had reached the last theater on that side of the street: a narrow edifice, rather plain and dilapidated compared to the others, being without gilt trim or lacquered doors. The columns along its facade listed a bit, and the only ornamentation was a sign above the doorway, a silver circle with black lettering. It read:
Theater of the Moon
.

“See?” the voice said again. “You’re not the only one who can do that trick.”

Eldyn looked around but saw no one. “Who’s there?” he said.

Laughter sounded next to him. “So you can be fooled by your own trick.” The air rippled like a dark cloth, and the figure of a man Eldyn’s age, or a bit younger, appeared as if stepping from behind a curtain. His features were finely wrought and pale, and his gold hair was tied back with a red ribbon, but the rest of him was clad in black.

“Now it’s
your
turn to show yourself.”

Eldyn belatedly realized that, as he fled from the Theater of Emeralds, he had gathered the shadows around himself. With a thought, he let them fall away.

The young man’s smile was a white crescent in the gloom. “There you are. You shouldn’t bother with shadows, you know. They won’t hide you from
our
eyes. Is this your first time to Durrow Street? But, no, that can’t be it. I believe I’ve seen you before. Which house do you work for?”

Eldyn shook his head. “Which house?”

“You must be even newer than me! Which theater do you perform at?”

Now Eldyn frowned. “I’ve come to see a performance. I don’t work at a theater.”

“No? I would have thought…that is, are you certain we haven’t met before?”

“I don’t see how.”

The young man gazed at him a moment, then shook his head. “Well, it doesn’t matter. If it’s a performance you wish to see, come no further. The Theater of the Moon is the finest on Durrow Street.”

“It doesn’t look like much,” Eldyn said, eyeing the slanted columns and the curtain covering the door, which even in the dim light looked shabby.

“It’s not how it looks outside but what’s within that matters.”

“I haven’t even seen you work an illusion. Why don’t you show something of your play like at the other theaters?”

“Because I can’t. Even the smallest glimpse would spoil the wonder of what you’ll see inside. You cannot experience just a shard of it. You must behold it in the fullness of its splendor.”

Now it was Eldyn’s turn to laugh, and he crossed his arms. “How do I even know you’re really illusionists? You probably just have a few actors in ratty costumes hanging about on wires and pulleys.” Except the other
was
an illusionist. How else could he have so easily mimicked Eldyn’s talent with shadows?

The young man’s expression grew solemn. “You can’t know. That’s how illusion works. You can never really know anything; you can only believe.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the door.

Eldyn hesitated. Perhaps it was the other’s kindly face. Or perhaps it was that, somehow, he
did
look familiar. Whatever the reason, Eldyn reached into his pocket, drew out a quarter regal, and counted the coins into the illusionist’s hand. Then he stepped past the curtain.

W
HEN ELDYN AGAIN stepped past the curtain, this time leaving the theater and heading out onto Durrow Street, he knew he was not the same person who had entered two hours before but someone—something—different. It was as if all he had been before, all he thought he had known, had poured out of him, leaving him an empty vessel ready to be filled with something new. Yet with what? He could not say, only that it had to be something
better
.

And to think he had nearly left the theater before the performance began! At first, upon taking a seat in the balcony, he had thought his fears had proven true. The chairs were rickety, the walls cracked and flaking, the cloth draped across the proscenium half-patched. A scant collection of people made up the audience, slumping in their chairs, loudly consuming nuts or tipping back bottles. Thinking the joke was on him—that the real illusion here was the way his money had been made to vanish—Eldyn had started to rise from his chair.

At that moment the lights went out. For a minute, the darkness was unbroken. It was so black he could not see his hand move before his face. He began to grow alarmed. Was some harm going to come to those fools who had been convinced to enter? Were they to be robbed of whatever funds they had left? Then, just as he was about to get up and try to feel his way toward the door, a face appeared in the darkness.

The face was silver, set inside a silver circle that hovered in the blackness, eyes shut. Whether it was the face of a man or woman, he could not say. Then, just when he realized what the face must represent (for this
was
the Theater of the Moon), the eyes opened, and the face began to sing.

Eldyn sank back into his chair.

When the song was finished, the circle of silver light expanded, revealing the moon as a beautiful, silver-clad youth who charmed all he encountered. Only then he made the mistake of letting his shadow fall upon the figure of a proud and jealous king who, clad in a coat of gold flame, could only be the sun. The king condemned the silvery youth to death for this transgression. However, the youth fled, while forces of the king pursued him across a fantastical landscape, beneath a deep ocean, and finally into the starry heavens themselves.

From time to time, it occurred to Eldyn that the illusions were not so elaborate as what he had seen at the other theaters; they were simple, even austere. The ocean was conjured by nothing more than flickering blue light; the stars were but a flurry of white sparks. However, it was the story itself that enchanted Eldyn. With the rest of the audience, he cheered the youth each time he escaped his pursuers, and he hissed and booed each time the king strutted onstage.

Despite all his efforts, the king could never capture the silver youth. At last their journey came full circle, back to where it began, and once again the youth’s shadow fell upon the king, dimming his glory. Except this time—almost willingly, it seemed to Eldyn—the youth came too close to the flames, and in a flash of light and puff of smoke he was consumed.

The audience gasped and fell silent. The king threw his head back and laughed, his red hair crackling and throwing off sparks. But his laughter ceased as his own fiery aura began to dwindle and fade, then with one last sputter went out. He fell to the stage in a heap of cinders, and the theater went black. For a long, lightless minute, all was silent.

Then, in the darkness, a silver face appeared and began to sing.

Now, as Eldyn walked through the darkened city, he could not stop thinking of the play. He thought maybe he understood. The king and the youth were like the sun and moon—no, they
were
the sun and moon. Did not the moon sometimes move before the sun, casting its shadow on it as the youth had done to the king? The king had pursued the youth, but he had never been able to catch him, just as the sun could never pass in front of the moon in the sky. All the same, when the sun shone forth, the moon vanished under the force of its light.

Yet when darkness fell and the month turned, as it always must, the moon would shine forth anew.

Yes, Eldyn understood what had happened onstage, but he didn’t understand what it meant or why it made him feel as he did—as if he himself had been running all his life but had now come full circle and was ready to begin again. Yet begin what? He glanced up at the sky, seeking illumination, but there was no moon that night.

He walked onward through the Old City, and as he did the feeling of exhilaration, of
possibility,
receded. It seemed the farther he got from Durrow Street, the harder it was to remember just what had happened onstage—how the actors had looked or what visions they had conjured. Soon all he could picture were the rickety chairs, the moldy curtain, the unshaven men drinking gin in the balcony.