by Heidi Heilig
The monk turns on his heel, heading to the door, but LEO calls after him, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
LEO: You’re going to kill the Aquitans? Now?
LE TRÉPAS: It’s a lot of flesh. A lot of blood. Best to start early.
LEO: You said it yourself, the dead will rot before we’re halfway to Lephare!
LE TRÉPAS: Not with Jetta’s blood powering the ship. I have just enough left to take one more soul. What do you think? A crocodile, perhaps? They’ll be easy to catch.
As LE TRÉPAS heads toward the door, he picks up the rice sack that holds XAVIER’s head.
Especially with a little bait.
As the monk exits, LEO spares a last look for the open window at the stern.
LEO: One more soul.
Gritting his teeth, he sheds the last of the rope and stands, racing after the monk.
Act 3
THE SWINEHERD AND THE TIGER
In the days when our ancestors were young, there was a brave swineherd who tended well to his charges. Under his care, his herd grew numerous and healthy, and the swineherd happy and prosperous.
Then one day, a tiger came prowling. The beast was quick and deadly, carrying off livestock night after night. The other farmers locked their doors, too frightened to face the tiger, but the swineherd guarded his herd closely, so the tiger stayed away.
After three nights, the swineherd was exhausted. He fell asleep during his watch and woke to the cries of the smallest runt being carried away in the jaws of the tiger.
Quickly he gave chase, with only his staff to defend himself, while his neighbors called after him to let the tiger go. But the swineherd knew that if he let the tiger go now, the beast would only come back. So he chased the creature through the fields, across the valley, up the hills, and into the jungle, where the King of Death was waiting to collect a soul.
There the tiger dropped the piglet and turned to face the swineherd, a hungry look in his eye. “You could have let me go with just a morsel,” the tiger said. “Now I have a feast. How did such a foolish man become so rich?”
“By caring for my herd,” the swineherd said, raising his staff. “It is because of them that I have what I have. It is for them I must be willing to give it up.”
The tiger leaped at the swineherd, and the two fought tooth and nail. Though the tiger was vicious, the swineherd did not give up, for he had his herd to protect. And when at last the two lay bloodied and broken on the jungle floor, it was impossible to know who had won and who had lost.
So the King of Death chose the victor, and took the tiger’s soul. Then he helped the swineherd to his feet. “Why did you spare me?” the swineherd said, leaning on his staff, but the King of Death only smiled.
“Because I too care for my herd.”
Chapter Twenty-One
As I watch the message to Ayla flutter into the dark, my uncertainty returns. I hardly know the woman—how can I trust her? She had reminded me so much of Maman, but Maman herself had always warned me to keep my power a secret.
Never show, never tell, she used to say. But that was when the old ways were forbidden in Chakrana. Now I’m far from home, and there is no use hiding anymore. Soon enough, all of Aquitan will know.
Still, when a knock comes at the theater door, I half expect to see the entire armée when I open it. But Ayla herself stands on the doorstep, her face half hidden by the hood of a cloak. In the shadows, her expression is even more nervous than my own. She is no longer afraid for me, but afraid of me.
The look makes my heart hurt, but I reach for my own poise and paste on a smile. “Come in,” I say, stepping back, and she follows slowly—carefully. Stepping through the door, she glances over my shoulder, right, then left, as though checking if I am alone.
Frowning, I watch her duck into the theater, peering at the empty seats. Then she squints up toward the balconies and the boxes. She returns to the lobby as I am closing the door. “Wait,” she says, opening it again and beckoning to someone outside. Peeking out into the dark, I realize she has brought an armée after all, but they are not Aquitans. As she holds the door open, Chakrans file into the lobby. They too have hidden their faces with deep hoods or hats pulled low.
But as Ayla had taught me, I look at their hands and recognize the scars and calluses there. These are puppeteers and musicians—artists, like me. Some of them even carry leather cases at their sides, the right size and shape to hold Chakran instruments or tools to work leather.
They cluster behind Ayla, as though she is a shield, and I wonder how many of them she had welcomed—how many she had tried to protect with her poise and a well-placed word. Now, with the door shut against outsiders, she pushes back the hood of her cloak and draws something from the pocket. It is the letter I had sent, still folded.
“Show them,” Ayla says to me. “Show them what you showed me.”
I look at my audience, their expectant faces. Chakran faces. There is no scrim between us, nothing to hide behind—no way to pretend that my power is anything but what it is. So I take a deep breath and glance back at Ayla, at the letter on her palm. “Up,” I say to the soul inside. The paper wings stir as the note takes wing, fluttering toward the coffered ceilings.
The audience gasps. Candlelight gleams in their eyes as they watch the note circle the chandeliers. Is that fear or awe on their faces? After two passes through the lobby, I send the letter toward the door of the theater. As it swoops down the aisle toward the stage, a few people break into a run to follow it. Laughing, I lead them on a chase up the other aisle. When the letter comes soaring back through the opposite door, I send it up once more toward the closest chandelier. It circles once, twice, then dips toward the flame. I summon it back to my hand, the tail alight. Grabbing the letter with a flourish, I let it burn as I take a bow. The audience applauds, though I am the only one who can see the soul fly free.
Still, the soullight seems to shine in Ayla’s eyes as she turns to her companions. “You see?” she says, her grin triumphant. “Fighter, artist, savior . . . nécromancien. How can we help?”
Her joy surprises me—she seems so unafraid. “It might be dangerous,” I warn them. “I cannot guarantee Le Roi will enjoy the show.”
“I’m sure I will,” Ayla says, her hands going to the buttons at her throat. “It’s bound to be unforgettable.”
Before I can reply, she pulls off the heavy wool, revealing a Chakran sarong underneath. It’s a lovely one, woven of purple silk, but what catches my eye are the tattoos that unfurl across her bare shoulders. They are black against the pale gold of her skin, like shadows on a scrim, like ink on a page. “You were a monk before you were a shadow player,” I say, but she smiles.
“I am a monk and a shadow player. And if I ever come home, I will have a new sin to bear: cowardice. I am ready to put it behind me.” Ayla tosses her cloak in a corner and cracks her knuckles, as though prepared to work. “Now. What do you need?”
She looks to me, her expression mirrored by the artists behind her: musicians and singers, fire tenders, puppeteers. “The play is the Shepherd . . . the Swineherd and the Tiger,” I say slowly; there is recognition in their eyes. “But there will be some modifications. Do any of you know anyone who works at the boneyards?”
Several of the performers murmur, and a few nod. Then they all turn when a man speaks from the back of the crowd. “I do.” His voice is deep and rich—the voice of a singer—but when he steps forward, I recognize him. He has wiped the sweat from his brow and the muck from his shoes, but he cannot clean the deep grime from his gnarled hands. This was the man I had seen on my way to the salon, when I had been too ashamed to meet his eyes. “I work there.”
His words ring in the lobby like the deep tolling of a bell. I want to ask him what he did to be banished from the stage, how the king could bear to silence a voice like his. But I do not want to remind the others of the risks—nor do I want to think of them myself.
Instead, I take a deep bre
ath and tell him what I need for the show. When he sets off into the night, the other performers get to work, some adjusting the lights as others unpack and tune their instruments. A painter starts on a poster for the easel outside the theater, and the singer reviews my changes to the original song. As the air rings with chatter and laughter and snippets of familiar music, the puppeteers wait. Some of them have their tools laid out on the stage—wire and paint and awls and gilding—but we are still waiting for the rest of our supplies.
I wait with them, and as the hours pass, I find myself trying to read the Old Chakran on Ayla’s tattoos. Excessive pride . . . lack of caution . . . “Careless of the well-being of others,” she adds when she catches me. “Deficient in compassion . . .”
“It’s hard to believe,” I say, embarrassed to be caught staring. But she only smiles, turning to face me.
“It’s tempting to say that I was a different person then,” she admits. “But I am the same person. I only try every day to do better than I am.”
“I know that feeling,” I say, returning her smile with a rueful one of my own. I can only imagine the sins I’d bear if I ever became a monk. Combative. Impulsive. Distracted. Obsessed. The words echo in my head as my thoughts begin to race around them. “What god do you serve?” I ask, trying to focus, but Ayla’s smile falls away.
“I serve the King of Death,” she says softly, and it takes everything in me not to recoil. Le Trépas serves the King of Death as well. But that is the only thing he and Ayla seem to have in common. Still, she is a good enough performer to recognize the tension in my expression. Her smile returns, sadder now. “Le Trépas has taken so much from all of us,” she says. “I spent so long praying that someone would bring it back some day.”
“Bring what back, exactly?” I say.
“The balance.” She reaches out to touch my hand, squeezing my fingers in her own. “We have plenty of death, but not enough life, and precious little knowledge.”
She looks like she’s about to say more, but just then, one of the musicians comes racing up to the stage with a grin on his face. “Ayla! Jetta! Come eat!”
At the announcement, I tense; had the king sent a meal? Did he have spies hidden in the theater—or among the performers? Was he watching us make our preparations? But Ayla pats my hand and follows the musician, and then I smell it: the scent drifting through the theater. There is no way this meal was prepared in an Aquitan kitchen.
Reaching the lobby, I see the feast laid out on the marble floor. Vegetable pancakes, curries, and a crispy fish to share—the flavors are both familiar and strange, as though the cook had to make do, but the dented brass platters and bowls remind me of home even more than the food. These dishes made the journey across the sea just as the rest of us did; they must have served many meals both there and here.
We sit cross-legged on the marble, like we all did at home. When everyone is done eating, I notice that all of us have left a little bit for the spirits, though I am the only one who can see them clustering. I watch them dip and swirl until the sound of a violin makes me turn.
My first wild thought is that it is Leo, but of course that’s impossible. No—one of the musicians, who came prepared with her long-necked erhu and her worn guzheng, has also brought a violin. Her hand is not as confident as his—she is clearly still learning the Aquitan instrument. But as she plays, I hear another song: the refrain of the melody Leo had been working on the past few weeks. Haunting and tentative as the notes reach for resolution. Has he finished it yet?
I am so lost in my reverie that I jump when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Ayla is there at my side, and she nods toward the stage. Turning, I see men coming in the loading door, their backs bent under burlap sacks that shift and rattle on their shoulders.
As the king’s servants had done with the fantouches from the salon, we bring the sacks full of bones to the stage. There is more space here, after all, and it will be easier to clean afterward. The bones themselves are old, stripped of flesh by worms and weather, and free of dirt. Still, there are so many to string together.
The puppeteers and I set to work, wiring the joints, stringing vertebrae like beads, arranging the tiny bones of feet and hands. It is painstaking work, but as Ayla said, art leaves its mark.
The work continues into the night. The others leave in small groups as they tire, but Ayla and I keep going till our fingers are raw and bleeding and the last bones are strung. Only then does she say her goodbyes, and I walk her, yawning, to the stage door.
“How can I repay you for your help?” I ask as she wraps her cloak around her shoulders, pulling her hood down to hide her face once more.
Her smile is even deeper than the shadows. “You can save me a seat.”
“Front row,” I promise, but she shakes her head.
“For this, I’d like to sit in the back,” she says. “The performance will be a sight to see, but I’m most interested in the audience’s reaction.”
“Me too,” I say fervently. She bows deeply, and I return the gesture. Then she starts off into the predawn light.
I squint at the sky—and the barest glimmer of dawn above the side street on the theater. Then I smother another yawn. I want nothing more than to leave as well—to go back to my rooms at the palais and the soft bed there. But I still have work to do.
On the stage, my fantouches wait, as lifeless as the dead. But in the theater, souls glimmer in the corners. So I return with bloody hands to the bones, and set to work building not an armée, but a cast.
Act 3,
Scene 22
Under cover of night, AKRA stalks through the now-empty streets of Nokhor Khat. Though the bleeding has stopped, the bullet wound in his side still aches, as does the pain in his heart.
Although he saw fresh clothes in the costume shop, AKRA hasn’t bothered changing out of the bloody uniform. When he was a capitaine, a ruined shirt would have counted against him, but now it should only make it easier to slip in with the rest of the dead soldiers. Then he reaches the docks and curses. The pier is deserted, and the Prix de Guerre is already halfway out into the bay.
AKRA: Why can’t you keep your own damn timetable?
He kicks something toward the water—a muddy shoe, lost or discarded in the riot. The docks are littered with similar items: hats and handkerchiefs, broken bowls or bottles of wine. Something catches his eye—a little fantouche in the shape of a man. A children’s toy, too small for a stage, but carefully made, and lovingly worn.
Crouching, AKRA picks it up; the limbs of the puppet dangle from his hand, connected by black thread to slender sticks of bamboo. It is not unlike the toys he used to make for JETTA when she was small.
Setting the puppet down, AKRA gathers himself, gauging the distance across the dark water. The Prix de Guerre hasn’t yet reached the open sea—above the ship, steam floats in wispy tatters. It seems the soldiers were right about the ship being low on coal. Still, AKRA has never been a strong swimmer. He casts about the pier, but there are no boats left in the harbor. Reluctantly, he sighs, kneeling on the edge of the dock, feeling ridiculous as he calls into the deep.
Come here, you . . . dragon.
Ignoring the bodies drifting around the pilings, he pats the surface of the water awkwardly, as though calling a dog.
Here, girl.
CAMREON had told him the dragon would obey him, but while he is used to giving orders to soldiers, he has never spoken to a fantouche before. Still, he waits, and soon enough, he sees a sinuous ripple in the water, followed by the horns of the skeletal head. As the creature rises out of the water, AKRA scrambles to his feet. Then, cautiously, he steps off the dock, swinging a leg over the bones of her neck.
The dragon turns her head to look back at him, as though she is judging him with her hollow eyes. Settling down between the ridged vertebrae, AKRA jerks his chin toward the ship in the harbor.
Take me to the Prix de Guerre.
The dock creaks as the dragon climbs out of the water,
bunching her haunches to leap skyward, but AKRA puts a frantic hand on her neck.
Down! In the water. So they don’t see us coming.
Uncoiling, the dragon slips back into the bay, and AKRA hunches down over her neck, holding his pistol over his head.
The night is quiet and the moon is slim. Goose bumps skitter across AKRA’s skin as the warm water of the harbor gives way to the cooler currents sweeping in from the Hundred Days Sea.
The dragon swims quickly, her long tail undulating through the water as she closes the distance to the Prix de Guerre. Soon enough, they are in the shadow of the ship. Circling in the water, AKRA looks for the best way to sneak aboard. The side is slick with algae and studded with barnacles, and the deck seems a mile away, but the dragon could easily bring him up.
Then, above the slow chug of the boilers, the monk’s voice floats across the water as he calls to his soldiers.
LE TRÉPAS: We need to go faster! We’ll be at sea for weeks at this pace.
He receives no answer—the dead aren’t much for conversation. But AKRA can hear the sounds of the soldiers responding to his orders. Boots crossing the boards, the heave and saw of rope as they adjust the sails or turn the rudder or whatever it is they are doing on the deck above.
AKRA crouches lower in the water, hoping none of them happen to look over the side. He presses his hand to his wound. It is still tender. Bullets would not kill him, but given enough of them, he might wish they could.
Best to slip aboard unnoticed, but how? Then he sees the open windows of the captain’s staterooms. From there he can get a look at what he’s facing.
Holding tightly to the bones in the dragon’s neck, AKRA urges her upward. The beast leaps lightly from the water to scramble up the side of the ship. Reaching the rear window, AKRA peers over the sill into the cabin. Then his eyes widen.