Margaret Weis - Heroes And Fools

The kender stepped back. Daev moved forward, arms raised, and spoke the prologue.

He made eye contact with the audience and faltered. They looked entirely normal until Daev looked closely at their eyes.

Some of them did look fascinated. Some of them were leering at everything, including the dog and the kender. Some of them looked furiously angry, deeply insulted by a play that hadn’t been performed yet. Some were quite clearly already in love, and one person was in tears for a tragedy that wasn’t on the bill.

Elayna, dead center in the front row, looked gorgeous but also strangely imperious. When approached by admirers-and far too many of the men who had purchased love potions felt free to approach her while the performance was on-she came dangerously close to striking them.

Daev finished the prologue, stepping back before bowing, and led the others backstage. Kela saw his face and said, “Is something wrong?”

“Your book, Samael,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I should have let you proof it a fifth time.”

Frenni clanked up, shrugging out of the band gear noisily. “It’s a best-seller. I only have one copy left,” he said proudly.

Samael opened it and froze. “Wrong font?” Frenni asked worriedly.

“No, no-but. .” Samael thumbed back and forth frantically. “These aren’t my recipes.”

“They are too,” Frenni said self-righteously. “Every word you wrote is in that book.”

Samael loomed over the kender. “Not in the order I wrote it.”

“Mostly in the order.”

Daev looked on interestedly. “What are the differences?”

Samael stabbed at the recipes. “This was supposed to make people attractive. Now it makes them attractive and invincible in battle. This one was to induce melancholy. Now it induces melancholy, anger, and a desire to dance. The sneezing powder. .” He peered at it with genuine horror. “Paladine alone knows what else it does now.”

“They’re basically the same,” Frenni pointed out defensively. “It’s just that I needed to fill in some places when the letters fell out before printing.”

Samael lifted the kender off the ground with one hand. “The letters what?”

“Fell out. Don’t worry. I got them all back in, every letter, before I printed the book.”

Samael dropped Frenni. The three humans looked at each other in silence.

Daev spoke first. “Frenni, what did you add to these recipes?”

“The usual thing,” the kender said indifferently. “A dash of this, a pinch of that.”

Daev turned to Samael. “How long until they recover?”

He shrugged. “Assuming they all only took one dose, just before the play, they’ll peak during act five.”

Daev closed his eyes, contemplating the potential for disaster. “The perfect audience. Well, don’t get too close to the front edge of the stage.”

Frenni said, “Because we’ll fall off?”

“Because not a god from past times or future could guess what’s going to happen if the audience gets its hands on you. They’re all a few dwarves shy of a mine, if you catch my drift.”

Frenni said, hurt, “My best scenes are in act five.”

Samael said, sadly, “My book is a disaster.”

Daev said, “I think maybe we should pack up between scenes.”

Kela looked starry-eyed as she watched Samael tweak the last hair of his false beard into place. “C’mon everybody,” she said. “The show must go on, and all that. They’ll like the play. How could they not, if they have any heart at all?”

Dave said coldly to her, “You’re right. The audience is waiting. So get out there and kiss.” He pushed her and Samael onstage hand in hand, and he wished he had never in his life tried to write about love.

The action of the play went well, as it should have. The father threatened the lovers, the grandfather took their part and fought the father physically, and the lovers met and kissed in spite of obstacles. Tasslehoff, with a pair of absurdly small wings and his spine and wagging tail tricked out with a sawtooth ridge, made a passable rogue dragon. With a helmet to block his vision and a ridiculously short lance under his arm, Daev charged the “dragon” but struck Frenni, knocking the kender’s hat over his eyes and starting a blind sword fight. A sheet of metal and exploding flare powder made an excellent storm.

Daev, the stilts and absurdly long arms making him even taller, got. laughs just by standing next to the kender in long beard and floppy clothes.

The audience interrupted occasionally, calling out, “Kiss her more!”

“No! No! Hit him.”

“Louder and funnier!”

“Sweeter!”

“Give us a fight!”

By the last scene of the second act, the father had forbidden the lovers to meet, the grandfather had threatened more destructive but well-meaning help, and the dispirited lover Samael/Amandor had retreated to his books again. Kela/Sharmaen, real tears flowing down her cheeks, vowed to make everything right in a single night.

A man and a woman leaped up cheering. Three other audience members leaped up and knocked them down, and it was time for intermission.

Backstage, Daev clapped his hands for their attention. “All right. Let’s hold it together and finish fast.” He glared at the kender. “Remember, fake blows and no improvising. Keep the curtain call short and make a bee-line for the wagon.” It was already packed except for the fifth-act costumes and props.

Samael nodded and left. Frenni, sulking, stomped off to change costumes. Daev gently wiped the tears from Kela’s cheeks. “Do you love him so much?” he said softly.

She blinked at him mutely and said through her tears, “I just want it to work out for them. Lovers ought to be together forever.” She dashed away, drying her face and looking for her props.

Daev stared emptily after her. “I always thought they should be. I thought. .” What he thought he left unfinished.

Tulaen walked into Xak Faoleen, looking quizzically at the empty homes and deserted streets. Clearly something important was going on or some disaster had caused the townsfolk to flee.

Tulaen disliked missing disasters. He quickened his pace, moving to the central square. Once there he barely glanced at the stage and actors, moving slowly through the audience and checking their faces. He was nonplussed by the strangeness of people’s postures and expressions, but he was indifferent to them: none of them was Daev or the young woman who sketched.

He tapped one of the audience members on the shoulder, lightly. “Excuse me.”

The man emitted a high-pitched shriek and ran off. Tulaen shrugged and continued searching the crowd. Bored and frustrated, he glanced at the cast onstage for the end of the second act. The father was too tall to be the one he looked for; the grandfather was too short. The woman had the wrong color hair, and the lover was nothing like. .

Tulaen looked at the backdrop more closely, saw the magnificence of the painting that went into it, and smiled for the first time in quite a while. “Actors who print books,” he said, shaking his head at his own folly.

He moved slowly to one side of the stage. There was no hurry now. He tested the edge of his sword on his thumb, feeling only satisfaction when his thumb began to bleed.

“Last act,” Daev hissed backstage. “The wagon’s ready. Keep them laughing, move the action along, and don’t waste time on the curtain call.”

He called out loudly, “The final scene. A woods, outside town,” and half-pushed Tasslehoff onstage.

The dog, grinning happily, entered and sat at stage center. Pieces of brush were strapped to him, and a sprig of leaves was tied to his wagging tail.

Kela waltzed on stage, patted the “woods” and announced Sharmaen’s plans to trick Amandor into marrying her with the unwitting help of her clumsy grandfather and angry father.