But then, how had it already been bent?
Feltheryn nodded.
"But still," the master player added, "there is an untied string. We may prevent Vomistritus gaining any evidence against us, but he will know, and he will try to take a counter revenge if I am any judge of him. We need some sharp and terrible sword to hold over his head, that he may never come back against us again."
There was another silence in the room, then a quiet cough sounded from the doorway. They turned to look and there stood Lalo the Limner, his ginger fringe of hair awry, his fingers stained with paint where he had come early to adjust a few things about the set with which he had not been satisfied.
"I believe I can help with that," Lalo said.
Thus it was that in a strangely deserted park called the Promise of Heaven, a heavy man dressed in goose-turd green was assaulted by demons. He cried out, but his minions were appalled, when they rushed to his aid, to find their way blocked by a contingent of gladiators from Lowan Vigeles's school at Land's End. The cries of their master soon ceased, or at least became muffled, and those minions (having only the loyalty born of cash) quickly retired from the fray.
It was not the first time that park had played host to demons; but later on, the ladies too much enslaved to krrfor too ill featured to work in the Street of Red Lanterns returned, their time well compensated.
It might have been noted that for a few nights the Schoolgirl disguised as a Schoolboy (in The Chambermaid's Wedding) was a little less springy of step. That perhaps the play took on a tenderer note than it had shown on opening night. That certain aspects of the ensemble were sharpened while others were softened.
It might have been noted, but it was not, for in Sanctuary few people came to see a show more than once. And there were thenceforth no critics to be concerned.
For to be a True and Just Critic is a risky business. One must have standards against which one measures, but one must also become submerged in the emotions of the work. One must, like the director, be able to see the play from the point of view of an entire audience. One must, in fact, be an entire audience.
Yet an audience does not simply observe a work of art. An audience participates. If a play is performed perfectly, but with nobody to see it, it is not a play. A painting unseen does not exist, not even for the painter; for the purpose of art (and of everything else of value in life) is communication. A tree falling in the forest does not make any. sound. At least, not any sound that an artist could understand.
An audience does not merely come to the theater, it brings with it Observation, Participation, Response. If the audience comes unwilling to submerge itself in Feeling and Understanding, then it is like a lover who merely lies there, waiting to be acted upon.
It is the difference between those sad women who walk the paths of the Promise of Heaven and the beautiful ladies who sail the satin sheets of the Aphrodisia House. The difference between a courtesan and a whore.
In short, the audience unwilling to act its part is incompetent, and nothing in the performance, nothing in the painting, nothing in the book, nothing in the music will alter its state; and the critic stands in for the audience.
A rain came, brief but enough to wash the ink from the broadsides that defaced the town's walls. On the back wall of a closet in the palace a new portrait appeared, one which Prince Kadakithis was pleased to receive from Lalo the Limner but which he did not desire to display in public, as it showed, with the preternatural accuracy of Lalo's brush, the True Soul of a naked ugly man in the stocks at the House of Whips. It was a portrait which might be of use to the prince should the new Emperor plan another visit to Sanctuary, and its subject knew the prince possessed it.
A small dog had to be told point-blank not to do so many tricks, as she was stealing the scene in which she appeared from the star,
And one night, when the actors all repaired to the greenroom, the jardinieres were filled with fragrant black roses.
OUR VINTAGE YEARS by Duane McGowen
Rumor had it that some measure of prosperity was once again gracing the streets of Sanctuary. The reign of terror that had lasted since the False Plague Riots had abated, as the various factions which had fractured Sanctuary into warring districts crumbled in upon themselves or left town for new frontiers or more profitable battles. The streets seemed to be peaceful and relatively calm recently, and business seemed to be returning to normal. "Seemed" being the operative word on both counts.
There could be no doubt, however, that commerce was on the up-andup these days. Beysib and Rankan invaders alike seemed to favor diplomacy over military action and turmoil. Terrorist activities by the PFLS, which had all but brought the business world to a standstill, were on the decline. If one were inclined to believe the wildest rumors, it was said among some that Zip, the former PFLS leader, was now in charge of assuring peace on Sanctuary's streets. Though many shook their heads in doubt at this bit of highly speculative information, there could be no denying that the nights were now free of terrorist raids, and that young toughs no longer came to the merchant stalls by day to collect "protection" money from bullied peddlers.
"Sanctuary is finally what Sanctuary should be," the merchant class agreed. For they were making the most profit out of the town's newfound prosperity. The masons, workers, and craftsmen who had poured into town to build the walls commissioned by Molin Torchholder were now plying their respective trades in the city at targe. The enriched artisans increased the wealth of the local merchants as buying and selling became the backbone of Sanctuary's upward-rising economy. The most shrewd entrepreneurs were looking into the future for wise and lucrative business investments. The town that had once been considered "the anus of the Empire" was now a place for people of that broken and war-torn Empire to come and rebuild their lives.
This was true of many refugees from troubled Ranke, who paid the caravan-masters handsomely to bring them across the desert to the port city under the rulership of the Rankan Prince Kadakithis and his Beysib consort, Shupansea. Some of these refugees had relatives in the Rankan populace who took them in and gave them shelter and comfort. Others, like Mariat, were not so lucky. Having no one else to turn to, Mariat had brought her three grandchildren, the surviving remnants of her once powerful and affluent family, to Sanctuary to rebuild their lives from scratch. With only her own determination and wit to rely on, she was still optimistic about the future.
Mariat drew her wagon to a halt at the entrance to the Bazaar. Behind her, the other wagon driven by her eldest grandson, Keldrick, also came to a stop. Keldrick and his sister, Darseeya, kept an alert watch to make sure that no one approached the two wagons without .warning. Though the boy was only fourteen and the girl twelve, the events of the past year had matured them beyond the normal bounds of childhood. They knew that no unscrupulous eyes should be allowed to view the contents hidden in the two covered wagons. For there lay the future of Mariat's family.
While her two older grandchildren kept watch and the youngest one slept in the back of her wagon, Mariat scanned the Bazaar for the safest, least crowded route through it to the residential parts of Sanctuary. Her little troupe formed an island of motionless calm in a sea of swirling activity. Around them danced the brightly colored skirts of the S'danzo. Merchants cried their wares and buyers bought them. Garrison soldiers strode boldly through the crowd with the seeming, if not the actuality, of purpose. Here and there, beggars begged and pickpockets dodged artfully from purse to purse. The bleating, baying, and neighing of the animals in their pens were almost indistinguishable from the noises made by the buyers, sellers, and thieves of the Bazaar.