Finally, Vercleese called the match, awarding it to Gerard. Gerard wrenched off his helmet and drew in deep lungfuls of the breeze that blew across his face, keeping his eyes on Blair. The sergeant leaned heavily on his knees, head hanging as he gasped for air. Each gasp tore from his chest and throat, sounding more like a sob than a breath. His own helmet lay abandoned on the ground.
Gerard began unbuckling the armor, still keeping a watchful eye on Blair. The sergeant also began stripping off the steel plates, avoiding Gerard's eyes. His head hung as if in shame. As soon as he was finished, he climbed from the ring and shouldered his way through the crowd that had gathered to watch, ignoring the hisses and catcalls directed at him for failing to congratulate the winner. Gerard let him go, recalling the expression of fury on Blair's face when Gerard had danced with Kaleen. Clearly Blair was jealous, and that was an issue he and the sergeant had yet to resolve.
After thanking Vercleese, Gerard again wandered through the fair. He watched an egg toss for a time, where two lines of paired contestants faced each other across an open space, each pair tossing an egg back and forth across the ever-widening distance separating the two. The crowd hooted and laughed whenever an egg broke, splattering the would-be receiver with its contents and disqualifying the pair from winning the competition. When only one duo remained, the judge held their egg aloft, then hurled it to the ground, where it too burst, ensuring the winners hadn't somehow switched a boiled egg for the raw one they had been given. The crowd applauded, and the next round of contestants hurriedly took their places, lining up along the field.
In another area, a tug-of-war was under way, with two teams of burly men straining and heaving at the rope. Between the teams, a yawning mud pit, specially dug for the purpose, awaited the losers. Occasionally, a small boy or young woman would dart from the crowd to lend his or her questionable strength to a favored team, only to be chased away, laughing, by the referees.
The happy day wore on. Gerard bought a midday meal of roast chicken from one of the vendors and munched on it as he strolled through the fair. He watched a kender win the greased-pole climb, and Gerard was as amazed as everyone else in the crowd when the kender somehow managed to alight from his task with clothes unsmudged, grinning and holding the prize purse aloft. Gerard shook his head amazedly. Apparently, the creatures were immune even to ordinary assaults of nature, if one could manage that climb without getting smeared with grease.
At the dunking booth, someone new had replaced Cardjaf Duhar, who had undoubtedly gone home to change. His replacement, still in dry clothes, jeered and taunted the contestants who took their turns trying to hit the target and dunk him. If his intention was to rile them and disrupt their aim, his efforts were proving successful, for most throws flew well wide of their target.
A little farther on, Gerard came to a cleared area where contestants demonstrated their prowess at another kind of throwing. But instead of three bags of sand, for a fee contestants were given three balanced throwing knives, which they aimed at a series of small blocks of wood some fifty yards away. Each block sported a quill feather, stuck into the block as a target. Gerard, who had to squint even to see the targets adequately from this distance, oohed and aahed with the rest of the onlookers as contestants occasionally landed a knife in one of the blocks with a resounding thunk, severing the quill. But so far, no one had managed to hit all three targets successfully.
Then, as Gerard peered down the range, a knife sailed into one of the blocks, cutting the feather cleanly at the quill. Almost immediately, a second knife followed the first, and a second quill drifted to the ground while the knife quivered, its point buried deep in the block of wood. There was a pause, before the third knife flew the length of the course, again sinking into its target, and the third feather floated away. A cry of admiration rose from the onlookers.
Gerard turned to see who the successful contestant might be.
It was Blair, who even now was accepting the prize purse from the judge. Gerard's eyes narrowed in thought. This was a skill of Blair's that Gerard hadn't known the man possessed.
Finally, with the afternoon beginning to wane, Gerard came to an area of the field that had been cordoned off, limiting access to several rows of benches lined up in front of a rickety raised stage. At the rear of the stage, a tawdry canvas backdrop depicted mountains and trees. Otherwise, the stage was bare. In the field beyond the backdrop, a cluster of gaudily painted wagons stood, grouped in casual disorder. No two of the wagons were the same, with some short and squat, and others considerably larger. They were all decorated with extravagant carvings of scrollwork and exotic figures and strange, half-threatening faces. Gerard was handed a playbill as he joined the throng streaming into the makeshift theater and found a vacant seat on one of the benches. Seeking only to pass the time, he read the playbill without much interest.
THE TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY OF HUMA
A Play in Three Acts Performed by the Traveling Players of Gilean Under the Direction of Sebastius Written by Sebastius Costumes, Sets, Backdrops Designed by Sebastius All Rights Owned by Sebastius
Gerard snorted. Evidently, this Sebastius was a very humble fellow. With talents extending to so many disciplines, it was a wonder he hadn't found employment in one of the larger, more fashionable theater companies of Palanthas instead of roaming the back country with his motley entourage. Could it be that Sebastius's appraisal of himself exceeded the estimation granted him by others?
Still, Gerard was glad to be sitting for a change, and he did have a couple of hours to kill before nightfall. He settled as comfortably on the bench as the hard, rough-hewn boards allowed and crossed his arms, daring the traveling players to entertain him.
The doors of the wagons banged open in quick succession, and the players emerged. The crowd gasped, for the troupe was a highly mixed lot that included an elf, a kender, and even a minotaur. Yet the reaction from the crowd was not as strong as Gerard would have expected even a year earlier, before Solace's rapid growth brought representatives from these same races and more into town. A large human with a face as pliable as bread dough took the stage and addressed the crowd, holding up his hands for silence.
"Good citizens of Solace, you do indeed see individuals from several of the races of Krynn among our number." He went on to extol the virtues of his troupe, as opposed to all others, for using elves to play the parts of elves, kender for kender, and even at times ogres for ogres. Gerard paid scant attention, assuming the real reason for the motley assortment of players was that these had been the only individuals whom Sebastius (who was apparently none other than dough-face himself) had been able to recruit.
At length, the performance got going. A man in pasteboard armor strode to the center of the stage and knelt. When the crowd grew sufficiently hushed, he began pouring out a supplication to Paladine, praying for the means of countering the desolation being wreaked across Krynn by terrible dragons. And here, some magic occurred. At least, that was the only way Gerard was able to explain it to himself afterward, for all at once the man before him was not some itinerant player spouting his lines on a makeshift stage, but it was the great and noble Huma himself, praying for aid in the midst of a real forest. In answer to his prayer, a white stag stepped onto the stage. Some part of Gerard knew this had to be only a person wearing antlers and a robe of white fur, but what he saw and heard was a real stag. Huma, exhausted and hungry, drew his bow to kill the stag but was unable to do so, so affected was he by its grace and beauty. Huma threw down his weapon, and to his surprise the stag beckoned him to follow.