Tag Archives: Andre Blacklight

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Six

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

By the time Andre finished his story Isobela had joined them, asking questions that forced him to go back and fill her in. Finally, after about an hour of back and forth he reached the end of the story. Once he was done the Maestro leaned back on the bench where he sat with an arm around his wife and sighed. “It’s a bad situation, Andre.”

“You should have told us about this sooner,” Isobela said.

“There wasn’t time to do anything about it before the performance started,” Andre protested.

“If you knew the girl they were looking for you should have told us as soon as you realized it.” When she saw his stricken expression she hastened to add, “Not to send the guards after her. I see no reason for that. But we could have discussed the situation and decided what to do if they came to us immediately; then you could have been more prepared tonight.”

“Perhaps,” the Maestro said. “Though there’s no telling what would have happened. Either way, it would have been better if you had told one of us the situation before it became so salient. But the damage is done. What will you do now?”

Andre flopped down on the locked money box in the corner of the caravan. “Does it matter? The guards already took Sophia and her mother, there’s not much I can do for them now.”

Mastroianni leaned forward, his expression severe. “What are you going to tell her father when he comes looking for her? It sounds like the other girl knows enough to look for Sophia here so at some point he’s going to drag that out of her. Then he’s going to come looking for her.”

Andre put his head down in his hands. “I don’t know. I’ve never met him and I’ve never had to tell someone the guards arrested their daughter and wife!”

“You can write him a script,” Isobela said. “Contrite, I think, with a dramatic recounting of their heroic attempt to escape.”

“You know I’ll forget it.”

“It will only be two people!”

“A hostile crowd is a hundred times worse than a large one,” the Maestro said. “You’re young, Andre, but you’re also a man grown. I won’t tell you what to do about it, though I suggest being respectful and regretful, but I can’t let them stay here. It would be different if the guards hadn’t already found half their party here. Now that they have it will be far harder for us to survive a second discovery without suspicion or worse falling on us. I can’t have that.”

Andre nodded, glum. He wasn’t surprised, although the plain fact of it still stung. “Then I’ll send them on their way if I see them.”

Mastroianni slapped his hands down on his thighs and said, “There are worse things to do, I suppose.”

His wife gave him a curious look. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“As I said, he made his own decision that created this problem,” the Maestro replied, pushing himself to his feet. “Now he must decide how to solve it.”

Ha crossed to Andre and gently but firmly pulled him to his feet. “I’ve searched for the right part for you for years, boy, but I have to admit I never thought you would choose to try improv.” The Maestro led him to the caravan’s door and paused there, studying Andre with a concerned look. “If you find it’s more than you can handle, that’s fine. Don’t do anything you’re not ready for. But if you are ready for it there’s no better time to try something new than right now. We don’t have another performance for a few days so you have some time and if you need something from the props or costumes make sure it’s back before the next show. Just let us know if you’ll be leaving camp. That’s all I ask.”

Their conversation done, Andre found himself crossing the camp with his thoughts awhirl. He wasn’t sure what had just happened. The Maestro clearly had some idea in mind, which annoyed Andre to no end both because Mastroianni hadn’t explained his idea and because he clearly expected Andre to do whatever it was regardless. It felt like he was just another actor for the Maestro to boss about on stage.

Ultimately there wasn’t much he could do about that either way in the middle of the night. So he slipped into his caravan, quietly made ready for bed and did his best to fall asleep. The results were mixed.

Andre didn’t remember the sun coming up the next morning so he assumed he must have fallen asleep at some point but from his overall exhaustion it couldn’t have been for more than a few hours. He dragged himself through the next day, mechanically going through the basic maintenance and cleaning tasks of a day without a show. He never saw sign of Belladonna. No strange man appeared and identified himself as Sophia’s father.

The next day he took Tullio and Gianni over to one of the city gates and they went busking, collecting a few coins from the people entering and exiting Fionni. Tullio played flute, like his mother taught him, while Gianni and Andre took turns tumbling. They did very well. By the time the sun was high overhead Andre had already emptied the coins from their collection basket twice. He was growing worried about the amount of money in their bag attracting attention. Finally, as things slowed to a crawl during lunch, he called for a stop and told the boys to run their takings back to the Maestro. Andre himself stayed by the gate, occasionally pulling a stunt or two for passersby.

With the sun directly overhead it was hot, tiring work and Andre eventually conjured a sheet a few poles to shelter under. He was in the process of sitting down on a convenient rock when he heard the coins in his basket jingle. Worried some urchin was trying to run off with them he spun around and snatched for the basket, scooping it off the ground with more effort than he’d expected.

A small but weighty bag sat in it, nestled among the loose coins. Andre looked up from his basket to find a short but remarkably wide man with absurdly curly hair studying him with keen eyes. He looked like the type of men Andre had seen in other troupes who specialized in lifting incredible weights or dealing with dangerous animals. His hands were scarred and calloused, the arms they were attached to as wide as Andre’s legs.

In contrast to his remarkable stature, the man was dressed in the most forgettable clothes imaginable. A long, reddish brown tunic. Dark brown hose and boots that rose to midcalf. Over it all a tanned leather apron with pockets below the waist and an unadorned cap.

The two of them stared at each other until Andre grew uncomfortable. “Signore del Rhodes, I presume?”

“And you are Andre the stagehand,” the man replied, crossing his arms across his chest. Andre briefly marvelled that they were long enough to reach. “I understand you did a kindness for my family and our guest. Don’t look around for her, please, she’s nearby and safe, which is as much as you need to know for the moment. You understand the power of a simple glance, don’t you?”

“Of course, signore.” Andre forced himself to casually put his basket back down and return to his seat on the rock. “Would you like a seat?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on the other man’s face. “No, thank you. I don’t get up as easily as I used to.” The amusement vanished. “Please, just call me Ragi for now. The Borgias know my name, though I doubt any of them have seen my face.”

“Of course.” Andre eyed the purse Ragi had thrown into his basket. “You’re a very generous man, signore.”

“Consider it gratitude, Andre. I know you took care of the girls a few days ago and I hope you can answer a question now.”

Andre looked down, suddenly interested in the rocks on the ground. “You hope I can tell you where two of the girls are now.”

Ragi nodded wordlessly.

“They came to me two days ago but the guards found them before I could do anything to help. I’m sorry.”

A soft, rumbling sound leaked from deep in Ragi’s chest, a mix of frustration and something Andre couldn’t quite place. “I worried as much when they didn’t come to our meeting place this morning. I take it they were found as soon as they arrived.”

“The same night, though they were there for a bit.”

“Then I know where they are at this point,” Ragi said, spinning on one heel and starting towards the city. “Thank you, Andre.”

“Wait, signore.” Andre reached into the basket, scooped up the weighty purse and held it out towards the other man. “I haven’t earned this.”

“There you’re wrong, signore. A few moment’s kindness may not seem like much but in Nerona these days it’s far rarer than gold.” 

Andre stared at the money in his hand, confused. The Maestro had made it sound like this was going to be a difficult conversation but so far, other than the lingering sense that he’d somehow let Sophia and her mother down, it had felt quite natural. Of course, Mastroianni had been wrong before and would likely be wrong again, as all men were from time to time. But a nagging intuition told Andre the Maestro wasn’t wrong this time.

“What will you do now, signore?”

“We must meet our ship,” Ragi said with a resigned shrug. “Then I must find my family.”

Andre took note of the change from ‘we’ to ‘I’ and drew the obvious conclusion. “A notion, signore.” He gestured for Ragi to join him under his shelter again so they wouldn’t have to speak quite so loudly to be heard. Once the other man did so he continued, “It will be difficult for your guest to pass the gate guards. They most likely have a sketch of her and they will examine every merchant’s daughter they see with extra care.”

“We will manage.”

“I’m sure you could,” Andre said with a placating gesture. “But even if you pass once, you and your family must pass through again, for it doesn’t sound like there will be a ship for you to leave on. So you will have to pass the gates twice.”

Something about Ragi’s expression told Andre the other man disagreed with that assessment but rather than bring it up he just asked, “What do you have in mind?”

Andre hefted the bag of coins and said, “What do you think of commissioning a private production, signore?”

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Five

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

In point of fact, rather than overstaying its welcome the show felt like it flew by. Andre struggled to stay focused on the stage due to a constant need to count the guardsmen on the edge of the crowd and ensure they were all still there. Yet the constant back and forth kept him so wound up he barely noticed the time passing.

The distraction was not all upside. He nearly missed three major set changes and fumbled so badly during the dragon sequence Isobela singed his hair. By the end of the show he could tell the Maestro and his wife were not happy with him. At least he had a brief respite from their disapproval as they went out into the crowd afterwards.

Andre turned his full attention towards striking the set. With the sun fully set the stagehands struggled to get everything put away, scattering more blacklights than normal and still struggling to move the delicate scenery and props in the dark of night. After nearly an hour of tripping over half seen hillocks and invisible roots the work was done. He sent Tullio and Gianni to collect the lanterns, keeping one for himself, then went to find the Maestro.

Normally he would still be milling through the audience, basking in their attention and receiving any contributions they offered. That night there was no audience left. Between the late starting time and the difficulty in striking the set they hadn’t finished until long after the audience departed.

Well, most of the audience. Andre couldn’t help but note that the three guardsmen who accompanied the grim faced man were still loitering around the stage when he policed it. That told him their leader was still around somewhere as well. He flipped the shutter of his lantern full open and made his way towards the Maestro’s caravan, vigilant for signs of Mastroianni or the guardsman.

He heard them first.

“…though I am glad something good came out of it, Maestro,” the guardsman was saying. “What brought you to Oliviamonde, if I may ask? It wasn’t the kind of place to attract actors even before the siege, did you have another profession at the time?”

Andre froze and flipped the blacklight’s shutters closed, hesitating by the corner of the lumber wagon. He couldn’t see the other two men yet but the soft glow of a lantern was visible over top of the vehicle. The Maestro’s voice was quiet but carried enough to make out. “As you must have guessed, Captain Phillipe, I was a condottiere.”

“With the Blacklegs, then?”

A soft chuckle, followed by the sound of Mastroianni slapping his stomach. “Hard as it may be to believe now, yes. And you? Fionni is a long way from the mountains and I don’t recall any flags from the counties here abouts flying in the camps either. Did you march there with one of the other hireling companies?”

“No. Like the boy I was born there, though I did not see the siege myself. By then I was a bravo, guarding caravans to earn my keep, but when I heard the citadel was fallen I hurried back to see what there was to see.”

“Ah.” The Maestro’s voice turned melancholy. “Then you must have been disappointed.”

“The town had been sacked before,” the captain replied, his voice thickening a bit. “I’m sure I’ll live to see it sacked again. But it wasn’t a warm homecoming.”

The conversation was beginning to fade into the distance and Andre knew he’d need to move to keep up with it. A quick glance around the corner of the wagon told him they were headed towards the Maestro’s caravan, which wasn’t a surprise, but there was no way to follow them in inconspicuous fashion. He’d have to go another way.

Easy enough to do, the encampment’s layout was as familiar to him as the back of his own hand and the two men were moving at a leisurely pace. So Andre looped the lantern through his belt and took off at a run. The lumber wagon was near the edge of the camp so he doubled back and went along the outside of it, then darted from there to the musician’s caravan. He heard Tullio’s mother murmuring inside but ignored it. He slunk along the side and peeked past the corner to see the light of the Maestro’s lantern but not the man himself.

Another quick lunge put him behind the props caravan, a few seconds later he was behind the costume caravan. He paused to knock softly, hopefully on the wagon’s side. He hadn’t bothered to set up some kind of signal with Sophia and her mother but perhaps they would answer him. If they were still inside.

But there was no answer.

So he moved on, crouching behind the last wagon in line, across from the Maestro’s caravan. He could still hear the two men speaking, although he had missed part of the conversation as he scrambled through the damp grass outside the troupe’s encampment. “…glad you could come, although I’m afraid I can’t really help you,” the Maestro was saying. “People come to the theater to lose themselves.”

“Doesn’t that make you the natural person to help me find them again?”

“It’s a breach of trust, Captain. They come to us to be no one for a while, they come to us and make us someone. If we don’t honor that exchange we betray them and then, what are we? Nothing but impoverished itinerates living on the charity of others, good for nothing and despised by all.”

“The woman is in great danger, signore, and leaving her there is no favor to her.”

“You said she was in the company of friends.”

“I fear the danger may be greater than they are prepared for.”

“Captain Phillipe.” The Maestro’s voice shifted subtly. It became slightly less deep, more rough as the polish of his public persona lapsed just a bit and his true face showed through. “I recognize that instinct, and it’s a noble one. You see people who have abandoned civilization and taken to the wild roads and think you owe them something. Safety. A hand up. A shelter from the sun and rain. However, the world is more than these simple things. Stories teach us that if a person leaves them behind it must be for a reason. If this young woman you speak of left her family and home behind it must have been with purpose in mind. Who am I to judge her reasons? I cannot say whether the danger she faces or the purpose she pursues is more worthy of consideration. I can only tell you this.”

Andre crept along the side of the wagon and peeked out, wondering what Mastroianni was about to say. What he saw made him freeze before he got a chance to look at the two men.

The Maestro continued speaking. “If I find the woman in danger I will not hesitate to bring you to her. Otherwise, it is not my place to interfere.”

“I suppose I can’t ask for more than that.” A sloshing sound came from their direction. “Are you still interested in that drink?”

The Maestro laughed. “Am I still an actor? Come, my caravan is just down here, the one with the awning.”

Andre scrambled back behind the wagon. “Awning?” Phillipe asked. “What awning?”

It was an understandable question because the red awning on Mastroianni’s caravan was gone, most likely removed by Sophia at some point. What Andre couldn’t understand was why she would do so. Perhaps they’d chosen not to wait for the Maestro to come and taken it as a blanket to sleep under?

“That’s odd.” The Maestro sounded just as confused as Andre was. “Perhaps it blew down?”

“It hasn’t been windy,” the captain replied, his voice growing nearer at an alarming speed, his footsteps in the dew soaked grass creating a sinister hissing sound. “There may be a thief in your camp, Maestro.”

A sharp whistle split the night. A moment later, three answering whistles in the distance.

“Why would someone steal my awning?” Mastroianni asked, clearly skeptical of the captain’s diagnosis.

“It would be an excellent way to carry your money box without attracting attention, for one thing.” The captain’s voice turned thoughtful. “Or perhaps they have other uses for it.”

Andre got down on his hands and knees, then laid flat and peered under the wagon. It didn’t give him a very good view of what was happening but he could make out the broad strokes. The captain was walking back and forth, looking around the Maestro’s caravan, while the Maestro approached the door with his key in hand. “I don’t think so, Captain. The lock is still here and latched but we’ll check inside just to be sure.”

“Wise of you.” Instead of just waiting by the door for the Maestro to return, Captain Phillipe walked to one of the poles that had supported the awning and wiggled it experimentally. Then he set a clay bottle down in the grass, grabbed the pole with both hands and pulled, yanking it up out of the ground. He swept it back and forth through the air a few times and grunted once.

“Find something?” Mastroianni asked from somewhere inside.

“Not yet.”

To Andre’s horror the guardsman proceeded to kneel down until they were almost at eye level with one another. He only avoided detection because the guardsman was looking the other way, under the Maestro’s caravan. The captain extended the pole he was holding underneath the vehicle at ground level and suddenly snapped it upwards, hitting the underside of the floorboards with a sharp wooden crack.

“What was that?” The vehicle rattled as Mastroianni pounded towards the door.

Phillipe didn’t answer, instead rotating the pole forty five degrees and repeating his previous maneuver. This time the pole made a dull thud and a woman’s voice let out a muffled yelp. With a flash of motion a red bundle yanked itself out from under the caravan, pulled by a rope tied to the hitching tongue. The cloth unfolded and gently deposited Sophia and her mother on the ground, the latter rubbing her side ruefully, then spun around and enveloped the captain just as quickly.

Although he didn’t look surprised at the awning’s sudden appearance, Phillipe made no effort to dodge the fabric. He got to his feet before the cloth wound around him, the pole still in his hands, but that was all he had time for. Andre scrambled up and around the wagon. By the time he got past the end of it and ran towards the scene of the encounter, as if he’d come because of the noise, the three guardsmen he’d seen earlier were less than twenty feet away in the other direction, coming at a dead run.

Captain Phillipe had somehow unwrapped himself from the awning and was in the process of rewrapping it around the pole to keep it in place. From the way it bucked and jerked it was obvious Sophia was trying to keep him from doing so. She just couldn’t and the frustration on her face was obvious. Her mother was watching the guards approach with a resigned expression and when she put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder the cloth went still in the captain’s hands.

The Maestro stood in the caravan’s doorway, his lantern held aloft, studying the scene. “What’s going on here?”

“Maestro -”

“Not now, Andre.”

The captain gave him a look, as if waiting to see whether Andre would listen to Mastroianni or not. But once it was clear he had the floor, Phillipe said, “I think I’ve found your thieves, Maestro.”

After giving the two women a cursory once over the Maestro shrugged and said, “I suppose you have.”

Sophia opened her mouth to speak but closed it again when her mother squeezed her shoulder. Then the older woman said, “My name is Charissa de la Rhodes and I am no thief.”

“I am Captain Phillipe Borgia and I am not qualified to say whether you are or are not a thief. You will have to make your plea to the Magistrate.” He set the pole against the side of the caravan, leaned down, picked up his bottle and handed it to the Maestro. “Unfortunately, my duties prevent me from sharing that drink with you now, signore, but I hope you will enjoy it none the less.”

Mastroianni took the bottle, his face expressionless. “Of course.”

With a gesture from their captain the guards surrounded the two women and led them away. Andre tried to glean some meaningful look or gesture from them, letting him know that they still had some plan to slip away but no such fleeting contact came. As they vanished into the night and his spirits slumped the Maestro put a hand on his shoulder. “Now, Andre, perhaps you will tell me what is really going on here.”

“What makes you think I know what’s going on?”

The older man grabbed the front of Andre’s tunic and held it up, covered in dew and blades of grass. “This, among other things. Is it only coincidence that you were rolling around on the ground at the same time two women were hiding in a makeshift hammock under my caravan?”

“No, Maestro.”

“Then I suppose you have a story to tell me.”

So tell it Andre did.

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Four

Posted by natechen on

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“Gianni, look at this,” Andre shouted, shaking his hammer at the stake by his feet.

The boy plodded around the growing stage, his shoulders slumped and his eyes rolling up towards the sky, clearly exasperated. “What is it now?”

“You barely drove this into the ground at all! Look at it.” The stake had fallen over on the ground, a spattering of dirt covering its bottom few inches. “Are you trying to break your mother’s neck?”

Heaving a sigh in the way only a twelve year old could, Gianni knelt down and grabbed the piece of wood, hefting it into place and shoving it back into the divot in the ground where it had been. Andre held it in place as the boy slammed his wooden mallet on it a few times. Once he was done Andre grabbed his shoulder to prevent his running off. “Now climb up on it.”

The stakes didn’t shake underfoot as Gianni dashed up them, not wavering even when he vaulted off the highest into a somersault. He was lighter than Isobela or Antonio but Andre was satisfied that this time they were deep enough in the ground to be safe for use. He nodded and said, “That’s good. Get back to what you were doing.”

As Andre went back to hammering the frame of the stage itself into shape Guiseppe met his eye, grinning. “You’re stricter with him than his own parents.”

“Someone has to be, or an oaf like you is likely to trip on the way up and knock his teeth out on the stage.”

Guiseppe laughed and started lifting planks up on top of the frame. Once everything was in place he headed off to get dressed for the evening’s show, leaving Andre to tie down the boards. It gave him a few minutes to look around at the growing crowd. The guards hadn’t shown up yet, which was some relief, and he hoped to catch sight of Sophia and Belladonna before the grim-faced captain and his men did.

However, he had no such luck. There was no sign of either group by the time the stage was finished and he was starting to run the set pieces up onto it. Although it wasn’t heavy, the scenery demanded much more of his attention to handle without damaging it and he had to stop searching the crowd. Gianni and Tullio, Antonio’s son, worked together to pass the pieces up onto the stage where Andre arranged them and lashed them to their braces.

It was difficult, sweaty work but they managed to knock it all out in half an hour. Andre took a moment to stretch once they were done, pleased with the work. Or at least that it was done. A glance to the horizon told him there was still an hour or so until the sun set, which meant they had plenty of time.

Normally, the Maestro’s version of Ulysses wanted to begin about this time. The waning sunlight made the transition from the story’s optimistic beginning to the threatening middle acts more dramatic, or so Mastraionni claimed. However, here the terrain and orientation of the stage made that unwise. The backdrop was almost full west and audiences generally dislike having the sun in their eyes. So the decision was made to push the starting time back until after dusk, which would be a mixed blessing. 

On the one hand, they had more time to attract an audience with music and acrobatics. On the other hand, travellers rarely stayed away from their possessions for very long after dark and, since Fionni was a walled city, that was about all the audience they could expect. Residents would be back inside the walls by the time they started.

Andre finished his stretching and dashed to the edge of the stage, diving hands first onto the step stakes and somersaulting off them onto the ground in a cartwheel. A smattering of applause came from the crowd but he ignored it. A couple of hand springs and he was far enough back to slip behind the scenery and dash off to check the props. Tullio nudged him as they unpacked the dragon. “You should have taken a bow, Andre, they like you.”

“They like seeing people jump around,” he replied, nudging the younger boy back. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Do people have to like you before you can take a bow?” Gianni asked, loading his arms up with half a dozen wooden swords.

“I don’t know,” Andre admitted. “I’ve never felt like taking one before.”

“You really are a strange one,” Tullio said. “I can’t wait until the Maestro lets me do more than carry props and play the flute.”

“No surprise there,” Andre said, brushing a stray puppet string off of his arm as he carefully extracted the dragon wings from storage. “You’ve been begging for attention since the day you were born.”

“How would you know?” The boy asked, feigning indignation. “You were only three then!”

“I’ve got an exceptional memory,” Andre said, grinning toothily.

“Then how come you couldn’t recite the opening narration when papi asked you?” Gianni asked.

“It gets worse for every person looking at me.” Andre passed one of the wings to Tullio and wrestled with the other, batting at strings that seemed to constantly wind up wrapped around a hand or arm in the least convenient fashion. Annoyed, he gave Gianni, who was standing right behind them, the stink eye. “We can’t get this out of here with you right there. Get a move on and get those things by the stage, we’ll be right behind you.”

Gianni rolled his eyes in the way only children of his age could but he did get out of the way. Tullio was right behind him. Finally free of the clinging strings Andre made to follow them, only to stop short when the threads slunk off towards the back of the caravan like shy, skinny little caterpillars.

He frowned.

“Tullio, did you lock the costume caravan next door?” Andre said when he rallied and caught up with the boy.

“Not yet. I wasn’t sure if everyone was done changing and setting their things. Do you want me to check?”

“No.” Andre tried to speak a little louder than was necessary without sounding strange. “I’ll come back and check on it in a minute.” 

He finished setting the props in record time then sent the younger two boys out to work the crowd. Hopefully that would distract the guards and anyone else looking from what was happening behind the stage, too. That done, he estimated he had about half an hour before he needed to be back for the beginning of the show. Keeping his head low, Andre slipped back into the troupe’s collection of wagons and caravans, headed for the one that held their costumes.

Like Tullio had said, the caravan was unlocked. After a quick glance around Andre climbed the stairs to the door and cracked it open. Small shutters on the roof of the caravan were propped open, filling the inside with dim but serviceable light.

He didn’t see anyone, which wasn’t surprising. By this point in the evening the whole cast should have already retrieved their garments and placed them in the small canvas changing tents by the back of the stage. However, even if there had been someone standing in the middle of the wagon it would have taken a moment to pick them out. Dozens of costumes hung from long rods on either side of the vehicle. Tunics, dresses, breeches and pantaloons of all colors and sizes, a riot of colors and shapes with only a few inches of space forming an aisle between them, more clothes than the average Neronan would wear in a lifetime.

There were also sixteen pairs of shoes and boots on the floor, which was one too many.

Closing the door behind him, Andre slipped down the narrow aisle between the racks until he reached the unfamiliar pair. Sophia looked up at him from between a velvet dress and a knight’s tabard. 

“I thought you sent me here because this was a good hiding spot,” she whispered.

He matched her tone, saying, “It is. So long as no one from the troupe is looking for you. Why did you come here? The guards have been everywhere looking for Belladonna and they have a drawing of her from somewhere. Half that crowd knows what she looks like!”

“I know that now but we didn’t see the drawings until half an hour ago.”

“What happened?”

Sophia packed a great deal of confusion and defeat into a single shrug. “A pair of guards found our camp and recognized her, what else? We split up. My father and Belladonna went one way, my mother and I came here.”

Confused, Andre glanced down the two or three feet to the caravan’s back wall, as if he could have somehow missed a person standing there. “Your mother?”

The tabard Sophia was standing beside convulsed and a woman’s head popped up through the collar. “Her mother.”

Andre jerked back and hit his head on the hanging rod on the other side of the aisle. Sophia snickered. He gave her a glare while rubbing the back of his head then said, “Don’t do that again.”

“So long as you remain courteous to my daughter I don’t think I will need to,” the woman replied. “Now. What are your intentions, Andre?”

“Mother!” Sophia looked aghast.

“Quiet.” Although the woman had the same cheery face as her daughter it was, for the moment, molded into something quite hard and determined. “From what they told me you helped Sophia and Bella avoid the guards once. Now you nudge us here when Sophia gets your attention. Why?”

For a brief second Andre considered lying but decided against it. “I don’t like guardsmen very much, signora.”

A flicker of confusion broke through her hardened visage. “You have issues with Citadel Fionni?”

“No. All guardsmen.”

“You can’t have visited every city in Nerona.”

“Give me a few years. An acting troupe travels a lot.”

The womenfolk exchanged an inscrutable look, some kind of message passing between them, then the lady said, “How far will this dislike take you?”

Andre bit his lip as he thought. “It’s not my troupe, signora, and while the Maestro isn’t one to turn away someone in need I’m not sure he’ll take you for such a person, either.”

“Oh?” Sophia gave him an impish look. “How can you be so sure we’re not ruffians then, Andre?”

“Ruffians do not mend clothes in exchange for help with laundry.”
“We could be very clean ruffians.”

“Those are called lords and ladies.”

The woman cleared her throat meaningfully, cutting off the exchange. “We are waiting for a ship to come into port tomorrow, the day after at latest. If you can help us stay out of sight until then we’d be grateful, if not, we understand.”

Andre sighed. The play began in twenty minutes, maybe less. There was no time to find the Maestro and explain the situation until after it was over so he would have to make a call, at least for the moment. “You can’t hide in this caravan very long. In two or three hours they’ll be bringing their costumes back after the show. The Maestro’s caravan has the red awning. Wait there and I’ll try to get him back to it as soon as I can so we can explain the situation. Unless you’d rather not take your chances with him. In that case, you can just leave. But there’s no way I can hide you here overnight without the troupe cooperating.”

“And they won’t unless the Maestro agrees to it?” She asked.

“As you say.”

“We’ll talk it over,” Sophia said.

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to get backstage before I’m missed.”

By the time he left the costume caravan the troupe’s campsite was deserted. Everyone else was already at the stage, making last minute preparations, so Andre made no play at nonchalance and just ran for the stage at top speed. He arrived with a good ten minutes to spare.

“About time you showed up,” Tullio said as he got into position. “The Maestro was wondering where you were.”

“Something wrong?” Andre asked after catching his breath.

Tullio pointed around the right side of the stage saying, “That’s up to you.”

So Andre looked in that direction. The hard faced guardsman looked back at him, surrounded by three other men. “Wonderful,” Andre muttered. “Nothing wrong. Everything is wonderful.”

It was going to be a long show.

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Three

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Andre picked up his pace, ignoring the soft, distressed noise that Bella made, and briskly rolled his cart down the path towards the guards. The two men weren’t paying him much attention, far more interested in the stack of papers they were carrying. That suited Andre just fine. It wasn’t their attention he was interested in.

Yet he did have to clear his throat, breathing deeply through his nose as he tried to warm up his voice without making a lot of noise. It was a difficult task but one he felt he accomplished well enough. At the same time he conjured a tin bowl on top of the costumes in the cart. Once he was about twenty feet away from the guardsmen he opened his lips a few inches, holding them perfectly still and speaking into the bowl using his best impression of the Maestro’s commanding voice. “Hey there, lads, come and have a look at this!”

His voice hit the tin bowl and echoed off it, ringing and distorting as it echoed over the open ground. As soon as he was done speaking he let the bowl vanish and fixed his eyes on a man in the distance, close to the city walls, who was waving flies away from his face. The guards naturally looked around to try and find who had spoken to them. When they saw Andre paying no attention to them they naturally looked to see what had him so interested.

What they saw looked an awful lot like a man waving to get their attention, so off they went. Andre slowed to a stop and waited for the girls to catch up. When they did, Sophia was giggling under her breath, saying, “How did you do that?”

“That,” Andre said, “is stage magic. I can’t tell you how it’s done, the Maestro would have my hide.”

“You just said you weren’t cut out for the stage,” Bella objected. “You look like you can manage it just fine to me.”

“We’re not on stage.”

“Does that make a difference?” Sophia asked, nudging him towards a path on the left as they started moving again.

“A lot.”

“What’s wrong with actors?” Bella asked. “You’re a stagehand, shouldn’t you like them?”

“Spoken like someone who’s never met an actor in person.”

“I’ve met a few. Why don’t you like them?”

“I never said I didn’t, although they can be a bit much sometimes.”

“That’s our wagon, over there,” Sophia said, pointing to a sturdy, canvas covered cart with a tent beside it a few hundred feet away. “The problem’s the stage, right?”

“Essentially. My real issue is that the stage isn’t real.”

Bella stopped and gave him an incredulous look. “What is that supposed to mean? Everyone knows that plays aren’t real, that’s not the point of them.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He also came to a stop and thought for a moment. Then he reached down into the pile of costumes and rummaged around until he pulled out two coifs. One was made of knitted gray yarn. The other, shimmering steel links. He held both pieces of headgear up for the women to study. “Tell me, which one of these is real?”

Sophia immediately pointed at the metal coif. “That one, obviously.”

“You think so?” Andre tossed the conjured piece of chainmail towards the cart and let it dissolve to nothing along the way. Then he set the knit coif down on top of the other costumes. “How about now?”

“No surprise there,” Bella said, clearly unimpressed. “Why would a theater troupe spend so much on a real piece of armor when a facsimile will do? It was obviously a trick, just like acting is obviously not real.”

“No,” Andre said, “the obvious thing was bait. The trick comes once you take it.” He snapped his fingers and the conjured yarn also vanished back to whence it came and he started towards the campsite again. “That’s the thing about the stage. Everyone knows the actors are playing parts so they miss that the stories themselves aren’t real.”

The two girls exchanged a confused look then started after him. Sophia wrinkled her nose and said, “Okay, Andre, that feels meaningful but I’m not really getting what the meaning is.”

“In the story of Ulysses he slays a dragon, marries the princess of Lome and eventually inherits the throne.” Andre arched an eyebrow. “How many people do you know that are given a hero’s welcome after slaying a dragon?”

“But that’s because the dragon’s closest relative comes for revenge…” The younger girl trailed off as his point became clear.

Andre nodded at her, absently scratching at the side of his neck. “No one wants a dragon around, plundering their cities, devouring the livestock and sometimes even eating the people. They tell stories about how great it is to get rid of them. But anyone who actually goes out and slays the beast is treated as worse than a dragon themselves. They’re something that brings dragons. So they get thrown outside the walls – assuming they aren’t chained to them and left there as a peace offering to the vengeful wyrm who comes looking for them. That’s because the story isn’t real.”

To his surprise, Bella nodded along looking regretful. “Many stories smooth over the worst parts of the tale and praise the best parts until they’re unrecognizable. I never liked Ulysses and the Dragon for just that reason.” Her eyes flicked up at his hand then away, chagrined. “What dragon did you challenge, Andre?”

He whipped his hand away from his neck, flushing red. “None. The only dragon I’ve ever seen is a puppet.”

“I suppose that’s enough to tell you what’s fake about the story. Can you tell what’s true?”

“I didn’t say fake, just not real. Besides.” He drew himself up in mimicry of Bella’s formal posture and measured walk, so out of place among the people camped around Fionni’s outskirts. “Do you think everything playing pretend wants the truth about it spoken?”

“No, Andre,” Sophia said, her voice barely a whisper. “I don’t suppose they do.”

An awkward silence fell over them for the last few minutes it took to reach their campsite. As they approached the wagon a woman bustled out of the tent, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked almost identical to Sophia, save for a few gray hairs her daughter lacked. “There you are!” She exclaimed, giving each girl a peck on the cheek then grabbing Andre by his elbows and looking him over. “And you! You’re the one helping some poor girls clean up. Bless you! Will you stay for a moment? I’m sure we -”

“No signora, I have to get back to my people before I’m missed. We have a tight schedule to keep, I’m afraid.”

Her look of genuine disappointment caused him a pang of guilt. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, mother,” Sophia said, gently putting a hand on the woman’s arm. “Andre’s troupe is staging a play this evening and I’m sure there’s a lot he has to do before that.”

Her mother was no fool and clearly understood there was more to it than that but she didn’t press the issue. “Very well, then. Perhaps we’ll stop by to see the show.”

“Let me know if you want to meet the Maestro afterwards,” Andre said. “I’m sure I can arrange it. If you don’t see me just look for one of the other stage hands and ask them to find me. We’re the ones in brown.”

It took a good twenty minutes to work his way back around the outside of the city to where he’d left the troupe. The roads were filling with people as midday approached. He also spotted more and more of the city guards moving about, asking questions and occasionally running a person to the ground. Andre also noticed more than one of them showing a piece of parchment to those they were talking to.

Very strange behavior. It was almost strange enough to take his mind off the two strange girls he’d met. Almost.

When he wasn’t avoiding eye contact with the guards or maneuvering his cart around other people on the road he wondered why Sophia had come down to the ocean that day. She couldn’t have known she’d meet someone doing laundry there. Was she just looking for the ship she said her family was waiting for? Or perhaps she wanted to get her cousin away from the guards milling about the walls that morning. A beautiful but unmarried woman couldn’t be too careful, after all, and more than one guard had taken advantage of such women before.

With such wonderful thoughts rattling around his head he finally arrived back at the caravan. Almost at once he heard Isobela’s voice rising over the general bustle. “Andre!” She called. “There you are, come here at once!”

Confused, his head swiveled about until he spotted her by the caravan she shared with the Maestro, waving for his attention. He hefted the cart’s handles a bit higher and started in her direction at a jog. “Never mind that.” Annoyed, she mimed setting something down. “Leave it and come over here!”

A towering man in a feathered hat stepped around the side of the caravan. He was dressed in the now familiar colors of a Fionni guardsman, although his coat and hat were of a much better quality than any Andre had seen so far. The man had a hard, weathered face that looked permanently annoyed. “No need to hurry him, signora,” he said. He glanced from her to Andre and back again. “This is your other son?”

“No, signore,” Andre said, setting the cart down as he drew near. “Though the Maestro and his family have cared for me well since taking me in.”

“Andre…” Isobela gave him a disapproving look.

The guard nodded his understanding and he produced a thin plank of wood with a stack of parchment atop it in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other. “Your name’s Andre then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Age?”

“About sixteen, sir.”

“Place of birth?”

“Olivamonde, sir.”

He paused in his writing and looked up. Andre whipped his hand away from his neck, annoyed that he’d been caught scratching twice in just an hour. An arm wrapped gently around his and Isobela leaned against his side, keeping him from reaching up there a third time. The guardsman pursed his lips, clearly curious, but didn’t comment on it.

Instead he finished writing whatever he was writing and said, “You and your husband did a good thing, signora. You’re a very lucky man, Andre.”

“As you say, sir.”

“Did you go anywhere in particular this morning?”

“Just down to the gulf beaches, sir.”

“That’s not the direction you came from.”

There was no reason not to tell him that he’d walked a couple of girls back to their campsite along the way. Except for the fact that he didn’t want to. “On the way back I bought some thread, sir. Some of our costumes need mending.”

The guardsman just grunted and put his charcoal stick away. “Did you meet anyone along the way?”

“I saw a lot of people, sir. It feels like half of Nerona is on their way to Fionni today.”

“That’s true most days.” He plucked a parchment off the bottom of his stack and held it out for Andre to look at. “Let me be more specific. Did you meet this person?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, if you do let a guardsman know. Thank you for being so cooperative, signora, I look forward to your show tonight. I’ve always enjoyed Ulysses and the Dragon.” The guard turned and walked out of the troupe’s camp at a measured pace, a few other guardsmen falling in behind him as he went.

Andre watched him go, wondering what it was all about. The charcoal sketch on the parchment he’d seen wasn’t great art, in fact it was badly smudged in places, but it was still perfectly recognizable as Bella. He couldn’t begin to guess why they were looking for her, though.

Whatever the reason, he found himself hoping Sophia and her cousin didn’t come to that night’s show after all.

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Two

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

With the ocean on one side of the city and the gulf on the other there was not a lot of open land outside of Fionni on those sides. Add in how far out on the peninsula it was and there wasn’t a lot of fresh water available outside the city walls, either. There were a couple of wells in the highlands where the local herders watered their flocks but they were crowded and busy from dawn til dusk. Getting fresh water without paying the outrageous gate toll to enter the city was difficult to say the least.

However Andre had a work around for that, at least to some extent.

So the next morning he went down to the gulf beaches with a cart full of the troupe’s costumes. After an hour of hard scrubbing in conjured water he had the clothes back to a fresh state, ready for the next show that evening. Satisfied he finally dumped the water out of the tub and let it vanish.

It had only been a dozen gallons or so but keeping anything in existence for so long took a toll on him, creating a knot of exhaustion in the space between his eyes akin to a muscle cramp in his Gift. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose with wrinkled fingers. Not for the first time he wondered how his hands could stay clammy and shriveled when the water that had saturated them had returned to nothing.

“That’s a neat trick.” Andre paused in the middle of folding the costumes, glancing up the rocky shore to find a short woman, possibly still a girl, crouching on the rocks and watching him. She waved a greeting. “Not only can you clean your clothes, they dry immediately, too.”

With a nimble leap she dropped down to the sand and gravel along the shoreline, grinning as she approached. She wore a pale blue apron over a yellow tunic and breeches with deep blue slashes. Her worn leather boots and gloves spoke of someone who had been on the road for some time, though the material of her clothes suggested she was wealthier than the average Neronan pilgrim. Though not quite as wealthy as a true noble or leading merchant.

Andre finished with the tunic he was holding and set it aside, saying, “It’s not the best way to keep things clean but it’s better than anything else we’ve got out here.”

“I’ve never heard of a conjuror who makes liquid,” she said, giving Andre a curious look. “Is it rare?”

“There isn’t a lot of point to it most of the time. Conjured things taste like ash and they don’t fill you up, or at least not for very long, since they vanish when you fall asleep at the very latest. So it’s not like drinking something I conjured would do anyone any good.” Andre fished through the laundry until he found Giuseppe’s torn pantaloons and grabbed needle and thread out of the cart. “I only worked at it because we have a young flame hand in our troupe.”

“Sounds like pretty strong motivation.” The girl considered the pants he was fumbling with. “What do you say to a trade?”

He hesitated in the process of trying to thread a needle. “I’m sorry?”

“I am Sophia Ravel,” the girl said, plucking a different roll of thread out of Andre’s sewing kit and holding it up between two fingers. The thread unraveled itself and spun through the air around her arm like a living thing. “My family had been on the road for almost two weeks without a chance to attend to the washing and now that we’re expecting to stay here for a few days there’s no fresh water to do it with.”

Andre raised an eyebrow and stuck a finger through the hole in the pant leg. “So I make water for your clothes and you reravel ours?”

“You won’t even be able to see where the rip was at,” Sophia said, looking quite proud of herself. “Not a bad deal if I say so myself.”

Andre looked down at the damaged garment. It wasn’t like the Maestro would be upset if he got someone else to help him keep the troupe’s wardrobe from falling apart. Conjuring water wasn’t particularly difficult. The hardest part was keeping the picture of it in his mind for a long period of time to keep it real and he’d become quite adept at that over the last month. “How much laundry do you need to do?”

“A dress, a few cloaks and tunics. Maybe a scapular?” She paused to count things on her fingers. “Yes, I think that’s all.”

“Well, go get it. I’ll pull out everything that needs mending.”

In the ten minutes it took Sophia to get back Andre managed to fold his washing, setting aside a handful of items that needed bits of mending. He guessed they would take a raveller less than a minute per garment to fix. He was going to be keeping the water conjured for at least twenty minutes so he figured she was still getting the better deal.

When the girl returned she wasn’t alone. Andre wasn’t terribly surprised at that, most self respecting Neronan women wouldn’t spend much time around a strange man alone. He wasn’t expecting Sophia to come back in the company of another girl roughly her age.

She was a little taller than Sophia and filled out her long blue dress a bit more so he assumed the new girl was the elder of the two. Her hair was a shade darker and she walked with a poise that the younger girl hadn’t developed yet but otherwise they looked very similar. Andre guessed they were cousins.

They carried a small basket of laundry between them.

The older girl gave Andre a skeptical once over as they approached and asked, “Are you the conjuror?”

“That’s me.” Andre tipped his cap to her. “Andre Stagehand at your service.”

“Belladonna.” Her lips twitched into a flat, unimpressed line then she dismissed him with a twitch of her nose and returned her attention to the other girl. “Where are we going to hang this to dry, Sophia?”

“You’ll see, Bella, you’ll see,” her cousin replied gleefully.

They dumped their load into his tub and he conjured water in it, letting the water appear in his palms, trickle down his fingers and soak into their laundry. Bella watched the tub fill up. “Is it harder to conjure liquids?” She asked after a minute of watching the water level rise. “I’ve seen conjurors make whole planks in a couple of seconds.”

“Depends on what you mean by harder,” Andre replied. “I have to picture what I’m conjuring when I bring it here and I’ve always found picturing water in my hands harder to get right than a piece of wood. On the other hand once it’s here it’s easier to keep a bucket full of water conjured than it is the same amount of wood, rocks or cloth.”

Sophia peered at the block of white, waxy stuff she’d brought with the clothes. “Can you make soap, too?”

“I can make something that looks like soap but it doesn’t clean like soap should. I’ve only tried it once or twice, though.”

Bella raised an eyebrow. “But you could make soap that cleans? If you practiced?”

“I don’t see why I couldn’t. I can make oil that burns or greases wheels, I think I could get soap right if I worked at it enough.”

“You can burn something you conjured?” Sophia asked, looking astonished. “Does that hurt?”

“No. Conjured things fade back to where they came from eventually, it doesn’t matter if they’re wood or ash when they do.”

Bella chewed her lower lip thoughtfully as she helped her cousin with the laundry. Andre couldn’t help noticing Sophia was a lot better than her at it. “How complicated a thing can you make? Could you conjure a whole wagon with working wheels? Or… a door with hinges?”

“A wagon is too big for me right now. Maybe ever. Large objects have never been my forte although I’ve tried once or twice. I can conjure a helmet with a visor so a door with hinges wouldn’t be too hard, although I’d probably have to spend a little time getting familiar with a set of hinges first.”

“That makes sense,” Sophia said, shooting the other girl a strange look. “I had to spend a while learning stitches before I could ravel much of anything.”

Andre glanced at her unusual choice in clothes then the stuff they were washing, all of which looked like better quality stuff than the typical Neronan traveller owned. “Did you make all this yourself?”

She glowed with pride. “Most of it. My father is a merchant and I’m hoping he can set me up as a seamstress in another few years.”

“You have an eye for it.” He glanced at Bella. “What about you?”

“Sophia is the one with ambitions,” she replied, looking ambivalent as she answered, “and I’m sure I’ll help her along the way. I’m destined to be much more normal.”

“She’s going to get married next year,” Sophia faux whispered to him. “She doesn’t like to talk about it because I get jealous.”

“You fancy him for yourself?”

She just heaved a massive sigh and fluttered her eyes dreamily. Bella gave her a playful shove then gestured at the tub, saying, “We need to rinse this out.”

Andre placed a grate over the top then said, “Help me dump this.”

Bella’s eyebrows shot up as the water drained out and vanished, leaving behind dry but soap stained clothing. A couple of cycles of fresh water to rinse off the remaining soap left them with perfectly dry clothing. “Impressive,” she murmured, holding up a dress and studying it with a keen eye. “As scarce as water is out here you could make a living off this, don’t you think?”

“I don’t believe there’s as much market for it as you might think,” Andre said, giving her a skeptical look as he handed the stack of costumes needing mending to Sophia.

“She likes to be clean,” the girl told him as she took them off his hands.

“I understand the impulse. Actors are the same way.” 

Bella wrinkled her nose, clearly unhappy with the thought of being compared to an actor, but he didn’t pay it much attention. More interesting was Sophia’s work.

She touched each garment lightly and they twitched, the fibers wriggling under the influence of her Gift, giving them a surreal look. Then she pawed through his rolls of thread, selecting a few, setting the rest aside. The loose thread took on a life of its own under her fingers, leaping up and darting along frayed hems or weaving through tears, mending damage in the blink of an eye. It took them twenty five minutes to wash her laundry. She repaired a half a dozen worn and ripped pieces of clothing in less than five.

“Impressive work,” he admitted, looking over each of the costume pieces and deciding he’d made the right call, letting her fix them. It was hard to tell they’d been damaged at all. “The Maestro will appreciate it as well. We’re moving the stage to the south side of the city and we’ll be hosting another performance tonight, if you want to see your handiwork atop the boards.”

“Oooh!” Sophia squealed as she grabbed Bella’s arm, hopping in excitement. “What is your show?”

“It’s Ulysses and the Dragon,” Bella said, subtly working her arm around the other girl’s waist to restrain her enthusiasm.

Andre raised an eyebrow at her as he folded and stacked his costumes. “You’ve seen our performance already?”

“You have a cloak with a gorgon head embroidered on it. That’s Ulysses’ coat of arms. It wasn’t hard to guess from that.”

“I suppose.” He hefted the handles of his cart and glanced about as the women collected their own basket. “Which way are you ladies headed?”

“We can make our own way back,” Bella assured him.

“The Maestro would have my head if I let you,” Andre replied, firm in his conviction that Mastroianni would do just that. “Besides, you’ve already saved me a few hours of work today so I might as well spend a few minutes of them seeing you back to your family. Merchants are usually near the south gate, yes?”

“Only if they’re waiting for a ship to make port,” Sophia replied. “We’re camped by the south gate, near the canals.”

“Of course.” Andre turned his steps that way.

“You know an awful lot about merchants for a stagehand, Andre,” Bella said.

He looked at her sideways, his skin suddenly prickling. Her voice suddenly had the smooth, almost singsong cadence Isobela affected when delivering a speech. “The theater touches on all walks of life. Besides, knowing where the well off camp means knowing where the audience can give us more than just applause.”

“I suppose.” Her voice went back to normal immediately.

“Do you enjoy being a stagehand?” Sophia asked, gaze full of curiosity. “You must get to meet so many interesting people, with how much you travel.”

“Stagehands don’t do most of the meeting, which suits me fine,” Andre said. “I’m not cut out for the stage.”

“Why not?”

He opened his mouth, about to give a flippant answer, then paused. There were a lot of reasons but he wasn’t sure how to get them out of his brain in a way that made sense. He’d tried explaining it to the Maestro and his wife more than once. He even suspected Mastroianni understood him, although more because the Maestro was a keen student of people than because of anything Andre said to him. For her part, Isobela had never gotten it.

Still, he didn’t want to just brush off Sophia’s question.

Sophia lightly cleared her throat, jolting Andre out of his wool gathering. He thought she was growing impatient. Then he saw that her gaze was fixed on something in the middle distance and he followed her line of sight to a pair of men in the colors of Fionni’s guardsmen. A strange warmth washed over him.

Leaning towards the girls he dropped his voice to a low whisper and said, “Watch this.”

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter One

Posted by natechen on

“Andre! My pantaloons!”

Annoyed, Andre finished fastening Giuseppe’s fur lined cloak in place and whispered, “What about them?”

“They snagged on the back of the carriage set,” the older boy hissed. “Check them.”

“Where?”

Guiseppe gestured at the back of his left knee and Andre twisted about, trying to get a good look at the fabric of the actor’s tights without falling off the narrow platform behind the set. It took a few seconds to get a good look at it. There was a small rip there so Andre focused for a moment and conjured a small wooden clothespin into existence with his Gift. Then he folded the cloth over to hide the rip and pinned it shut. Then he tucked the pin into the back of Guiseppe’s knee high boots and readjusted his cloak so it fell naturally again. “There. It will hold until the end of this scene.”

The actor wasn’t paying attention to him. His focus was on the stage, where Maestro Mastroianni was finishing a wistful song as the other two stage hands bustled about in cloaks, posing as passers-by while clearing the stage. “Hurry,” Guiseppe whispered. “You’re going to miss your next cue.”

Since he was running late because of the actor’s carelessness Andre wasn’t exactly grateful for the older boy’s warning. Still, it was true. Andre took two long strides down the platform and launched himself off it. Stakes of varying heights were driven into the ground as makeshift stairs but he ignored all but two of them, briefly resting the balls of his feet on the four inch square pieces of wood while his weight tipped forward. 

He rolled into a somersault and vaulted forward with the added speed to reach his next spot just as Isobella started to move her giant puppet into position. Andre slipped in front of her and grabbed hold of the paper jaws of the dragon. Together they carefully slipped the puppet’s face through an opening in the canvas backdrop that hid them from view but let the dragon’s torso sized head show to the audience.

At first the crowd just made a quiet murmur. In truth, the puppet wasn’t much to look at, there were other acting troupes that had more impressive props to use in the story of Ulysses and the Dragon. But the prop wasn’t what made their version special.

As Isobella worked the puppet’s jaws and Antonio’s basso profundo voice spoke its lines Andre closed his eyes and focused on his own gift. In his experience, the most difficult part of conjuring something from nothing was keeping a picture of the something in his mind. If you didn’t know what a thing looked like it was hard to keep the nothing from drifting off in smoke. Fortunately, for this story smoke was exactly what he needed.

So Andre held his hands out, palms up, and conjured smoke into the jaws of the dragon, letting the foul, acrid substance drift out in sinister fashion as Antonio, speaking in a voice more musical than draconic, pronounced doom on Ulysses and all Lome with him. The Maestro, speaking as Ulysses, launched into an impassioned speech. He spoke of duty. Of loyalty. Of the heart beating in every man’s breast that told them to resist famine, violence and death with every moment of their lives.

The crowd roared their approval at his words. They booed the dragon as he laughed at Ulysses’ resolve. Andre conjured nothing and let it drift away in smoke.

Finally, Ulysses finished his defiant speech and Antonio grabbed a long, thin sheet of metal he shook to make the dragon’s booming roar. Andre stopped his conjuring and grabbed the puppet from Isobella. She quickly stepped back from the paper puppet and canvas backdrop, raised her hands to the sky and threw a bolt of blazing fire towards the stars. The crowd oohed and aahed in appreciation. Having a flamehand or fireheart show the dragon’s rage was a common enough conceit among actors but it never failed to please the crowds, no matter how many times they might have seen it.

Andre tried not to let it bother him. Conjuring flame was more impressive than conjuring smoke, after all. It was just that normal conjurors couldn’t do it without burning themselves in the process and throwing it was out of the question.

Isobella’s display was the Maestro’s cue. The sequence had played out so many times that Andre could picture it now in his mind’s eye even with the backdrop between him and the action on stage. Mastroianni would call his men to follow him to battle then turn towards the back of the stage. Then, instead of running towards the curtain that led to the stair stakes he would drop down into a squat, weight perfectly balanced over his heels, and leap. A perfect, arcing trajectory would take him up a good three feet over the top of the backdrop and down to the ground behind the stage.

As the Maestro leapt, Andre handed the puppet off to Antonio, then gripped his hands together with the palms inwards and began to conjure again. When the Maestro landed on the ground with a soft thud, Andre and Isobella threw their hands upwards towards the sky in unison, a blast of flame and smoke exploding from them with a sharp crack.

The crowd whooped in delight.

Giuseppe and the Maestro ran back and forth holding large wooden swords up so they cast shadows on the backdrop when the flashes of flame illuminated them. Antonio moved the dragon puppet towards them from the other side. They went through a carefully choreographed dance that told of Ulysses’ battle against the dragon entirely through smoke, flame and shadow while the pipers played a rousing tune. The crowd’s delight continued.

Finally the dragon was pierced by Ulysses’ blade, its shadow lit by a few dying flames springing from Isobella’s fingertips, as Andre sent columns of black smoke drifting off into the air. The Maestro, Giuseppe and Antonio – going on as the King of Lome – marched triumphantly on stage for the closing scene.

Isobella moved to the side of the stage while Andre grabbed the Lady of Verdemond’s veil and brought it to her. She swiftly wrapped the lace around her head, favored him with a bright smile and said, “Good work tonight, Andre.”

“You’ll have them on their feet, Signora.” He passed her a crown of laurels so she could reward Ulysses and held the backdrop aside as she swept out onto the stage to a rousing fanfare.

As he predicted, the audience leapt to their feet with raucous cheers. The Maestro bowed his head and his wife placed the crown upon his head, bringing Ulysses’ story to an end.

The crowd applauded and stamped their feet. The Maestro and his cast basked in their adulation. Andre collected the blacklights scattered behind the stage and clamped the shutters on the lanterns closed. The noise of the crowd faded as they began to drift away into the gathering dusk. A handful of the more curious souls lingered around the platform and the Maestro climbed down to mingle with them, Isobella dutifully at his side.

Andre and the other two stagehands began breaking down the more delicate parts of the set while Giuseppe and Antonio collected props. Inside of ten minutes the backdrop, props and set dressing were packed away in boxes. The blacklights were reopened to hold back the dusk and the boxes were carried to one of the caravans and packed away. The platform and stakes would be taken in the next morning.

As Andre did a final check of the platform, shining the reflected rays of his lantern about for anything he might have missed, the Maestro found him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Not a bad show, Andre.”

“Thank you, signore. You were inspiring as always.”

“Was I?” The Maestro’s voice took on a teasing tone. “If this is what you sound like when you are inspired I fear the day you become apathetic.  Your voice will leave you entirely.”

Andre considered trying to force cheer into his voice but doubted it was worth the effort. And it’s not like he could fool an actor with the Maestro’s skills anyway. “Sorry, sir. You know how it is.”

Mastroianni snorted, as if he couldn’t conceive of a person who didn’t feel the thrill of the theater. “We need to find a part that suits you, Andre,” he said, turning to stare out at the open field around their little stage. “There has to be one out there somewhere.”

“I’m not a performer, Maestro.” Andre scratched absently at the side of his neck. “At least as a stagehand the audience doesn’t have to suffer for my lack of inspiration.”

“Stagehand is just another part to play, Andre,” the Maestro replied, hands folded behind his back as he thoughtfully strutted about the perimeter of the stage. “You’re passable at it. But the troupe isn’t so well off we can afford to have merely passable players in any of our roles. We can find something you’re better at, Andre. You’re fit to be one of our best players. I’ve known it since I first discovered you.”

“I was less than a year old then,” Andre pointed out. “And you hadn’t even formed the troupe at the time.”

The Maestro spun to give him a look, his expression unreadable in the gloom of night. Just as the silence turned uncomfortable he chuckled and said, “You’ll understand it in time, Andre, that I am certain of. The rest of this can wait ‘til morning. Get some sleep.”

“Yes, Maestro.”

He closed the shutters on his blacklight and picked his way back towards his caravan by the light of the rising moon. It waned crescent overhead, giving just enough light to walk by if one felt like taking a risk. Andre rarely felt like taking such risks but whenever the Maestro spoke about his taking a role in front of the crowd such a mood fell upon him.

The truth was that he didn’t care much for the theater. Half a day ago there had been nothing in the open field where they performed and by mid morning the following day things would be returned to that state. What meaning would anything they’d done in that tiny window of time really have? Sometimes Andre wondered if the world would really care about anything he did at all. If he fell in the dark and broke his neck did it really make any difference compared to how things would unfold if he did not?

In the face of such difficult questions, what did a few people making empty speeches on temporary stages have to say, really?

When he raised those questions to the Maestro the actor just laughed and told Andre he simply hadn’t found a stage big enough to perform on yet. Andre wasn’t certain such a place existed.

As he climbed the steps up into the stagehand’s caravan the light atop the tower that stood over Citadel Fionni sprang to life. It illuminated the waters of the Gulf of Lum on one side of the great city and the Adriatic Ocean on the other, warning ships that drifted too close to the city on either side. It also shed a warm light on the city spreading to both sides of the narrow peninsula. 

It illuminated the fortress at the heart of the city’s streets. And unknown to Andre – or the Maestro – the light hid the stage he had spent his whole life looking for.