Mabatan, though, is unconcerned, and reaches into her pack. Unfolding a canvas cloth, she gently lifts up a strange mask, woven of reeds, painted green and red. “I made this for you yesterday,” she says as she hands it to Lumpy.
“Thanks. This'll really help me blend into the crowd.”
“It's a festival. Many are wearing masks. Here's yours.” Mabatan gives Roan a mask of brown grass and dons a similar one herself.
Thus disguised, they slip out of the trees on the far side of the village, then wind around on the road, slipping in among the other new arrivals. Moving through the gates, the three friends choose the least crowded path they can find while still following the flow of brightly costumed people.
It's a sprawling town with many buildings of stone and brick. But evidence of decay is everywhere: windows boarded up instead of repaired, the paint on shutters and doors left to peel, and what once must have been paved areas are now uneven paths of broken stone. This town had been prosperous, but those times are long past. Unlike the citizens of Fairview, these people had obviously fallen out of favor with the City.
The three friends drift among the stalls in the open marketplace at the town's center. True to Mabatan's word, many of the townsfolk and visitors are in gaily painted masks. A burst of laughter draws their attention to a platform in the middle of a makeshift stage, where a deeply wrinkled man with long white hair is limping and moaning.
“Ohh... ohhh...” the old man groans, swaying extravagantly.
A cleric in a tattered blue robe and huge red wig, eyes wide and crossed, rushes in and tosses himself at the ancient one's feet. With a look of desperate terror and an obvious apprehension of being kicked that sets the crowd to giggling, he whines obsequiously: “Master, Master, what ails thee, Sire?”
“My heart is dying,” the old man replies, rubbing it. “Oh! And my poor bladder. I haven't had a proper piss in months! But my intestines, my intestines are the worst!” He bends over and lets out a thunderous fart, causing the cleric to roll right off the stage and into the crowd. The audience collapses with laughter.
Roan can't take his eyes off the old actor. There's something familiar about him. He knows him, but from where?
Climbing back onto the stage, and making a production of trying to conceal that he is holding his nose, the faux cleric resumes. “And what would you have me do, Oh Rectum of the City, Archangel of Flatulence, Our Great Stinker?”
“Get me new parts!”
“But Oh Smelliest One, Commander of the Cheese, the people in the Farlands have no more parts to spare.”
“No more, you say?” he thunders.
“Not I say, Oh Malodorous One, they! They say!” the cleric screams, pointing at the crowd.
“Then, my servant, it shall be your honor to give!”
“But my parts, Oh Master of the Swamp Gases, my parts are not up to standard!” cries the cleric, backing away.
The old man suddenly reaches out and grabs an apple-sized lump on the back of the cleric's neck. The cleric immediately relaxes and smiles.
“I am yours, Oh Great Fluttering Sphincter.”
Two official-looking clowns wheel in a draped table, upon which the donor cleric lies. From beneath it, the old man pulls forth a huge, oversized saw. He careens wildly from one side of the stage to the other, dragged by the weight of the saw, until the clowns steady him. With their assistance, he runs the saw back and forth over the cleric's torso. Leering at the audience, he cackles.
“Now, I will live forever! Nothing can stop me!”
“Go stuff yourself, Darius!” shouts a heckler.
The old man points at the heckler. “You're next! When I need a new anus, I'm coming for yours!” Everyone guffaws, and then the audience grows quiet as the old man reaches his arm deep into the cleric's body. Up to his elbow, he feels around and smiles. “My new heart!” And he pulls out an old tire. Tossing it into the crowd, he reaches in again and again, with growing desperation, pulling out a cabbage, an old sock, a bag of garbage. “A heart, a heart, my City for a heart!” the old man plaintively yowls.
Everyone is jeering and shouting, booing the crazy villain, when suddenly the old man stops. Listens. The crowd goes silent, thinking it's another comedic turn. But then everyone hears it. The unmistakable pounding of horse hooves. Many horses galloping in from the distance.
“Raiders!” someone shouts, and there's instant pandemonium. Men push the gates closed, people run screaming or calling out for their children. The merchants close their stalls and the actors collect their costumes and props and disappear into the confusion. Lumpy turns to Roan. Only his eyes are visible through the mask, but Roan can see the panic. Where will they go?
The question is answered by the old actor. Charging up to them, he shouts, “Follow me!” and leads the way down a winding street.
Before turning the corner, Roan looks back. The gates burst open and the riders gallop through, cutting down any in their way. He recognizes them at once. Fandor. The same ones he viewed from his astral body. And safely ensconced in the rear is a figure Roan has hoped never to see again, the pernicious Raven.
“Over here,” the old actor says, waving them down a lane and toward a weathered house. A villager opens the door and they flock in. As soon as they're inside and the door's barred, the villager rushes them through the cooking area and into a pantry. He opens a cabinet wide and urgently directs them down into a hiding place.
“Hurry. Quickly now. Quickly!”
Lumpy and Mabatan are the first down, followed by Roan. A woman and three small children are already huddled in the corner of the hidden cellar. The woman looks suspiciously at Roan as he steps onto the floor of hard-packed earth. The rage and terror he can read in her face and body as she shields her children make him turn away in shame. He should be outside, defending these people, not hiding with them. He looks up just as the cabinet is closed and manages to catch a glimpse of the ancient actor as he descends the ladder. He's agile, Roan realizes, far too limber to be as old as the man he played. And against the light, the powder in the actor's hair creates a halo of dust around him.
“So, Roan of Longlight, we meet again,” grins Kamyar the Storyteller as they are cast into darkness.
Roan's surprise barely registers before there's pounding on the upstairs door. Frozen in position, they can only listen while the door is smashed open.
“Bring me your children!” orders a Fandor voice.
“I have no children.”
“Stinking liar.”
There's the sound of a blow, then a smash as the man who concealed them falls to the floor.
Footsteps. Crashing. A thud and the villager's groan.
Roan reaches for his hook-sword and moves toward the ladder. But a hand stops him.
“Wait,” whispers Kamyar. “Do you hear that?”
Fighting. In the streets.
The voice of the Fandor upstairs sounds strained. “Get out there! Now!”
After the group of Fandor clamber out of the house, the cabinet is opened and the bruised face of the villager appears. “The Brothers have come. This may be a good time to make your exit!”
“Brothers?” asks Roan, turning to Kamyar.
“They've offered protection to any and all who break with the City, and who are we to argue?”
“Hurry!”
Roan, Lumpy, and Mabatan quickly follow Kamyar up the ladder, leaving the man's family safe below.
Showing them all to the back door, the man asks Kamyar if he remembers the way.
“How could I forget?” smiles the Storyteller. “Thank you again, old friend, for the courage of your hospitality.”
After giving the man an embrace worthy of his honor, Kamyar signals for the others to follow. He leads them down a winding path between houses, avoiding the battle that rages all around them. From behind fences and around corners, Roan catches glimpses of the Brothers, and he recognizes every one. Even his old teacher, Brother Wolf, is here, his hook-sword, the pair to Roan's, slicing through a Fandor. Roan reckons he could expect the same fate if Wolf saw him now. It is difficult not to face him, not to face them all, these Brothers who annihilated Longlight.
Hesitating for a moment, Roan realizes he is flanked by Mabatan and Lumpy. He knows they aren't just there to keep him safe, but are ensuring his direction doesn't alter. There'll be no detours to exercise revenge.
When they reach the town perimeter, Kamyar has them wait while he goes to the outer wall, and discreetly holds back a curtain of vines. One by one, the friends covertly pass through the small gap concealed there. Kamyar is the last to scrape through, and heaving a sigh of relief, he leads them away from the village, leaving the battle behind.
Roan's many questions for Kamyar have to wait, for the rest of the day is spent in a furtive trek through a scraggly forest. It's a narrow trail that avoids the settlements along the main road, but the stunted trees provide little cover, so they need to remain quiet and stay low to elude detection.
By nightfall, they arrive at a glade where the other three members of the acting troupe are waiting. The pony that pulls their small wagon is grazing contentedly, and several rabbits are smoking on the fire.
A small woman, her hair a mass of tight black curls, grins widely at Kamyar. “Glad to see you're in one piece. Mejan bet me five to one you'd finally taken an arrow.”
“Mejan!” Kamyar admonishes, waving a long finger.
“Bound to happen sometime, the way you carry on,” growls Mejan, a tall, broad-shouldered woman with spiked, sandy hair.
“She cares deeply for me, she does,” jokes Kamyar.
“Only when she wins the bet,” says the small woman, in a tone that Roan immediately recognizes as the faux cleric's in Kamyar's play.
“Meet Talia,” says Kamyar. He waits as she bows ceremoniously to each of them, then introduces Dobbs, an amiable giant who seems built of round corners. Roan and Lumpy share a smile at the sight of the troupe, for they're all sitting around the fire knitting, and the clack of their long shining needles seems a comic accompaniment to their banter.
“Come, come, sit! Are there tubers roasting in the ash for our vegetarian friends?” inquires Kamyar.
Jabbing a stick into the fire, Mejan spears a couple of steaming sweet potatoes.
“I'd be happy with a vegetable, of course,” says Lumpy, “but that rabbit looks pretty tasty to me.”
“We have never formally met,” says Kamyar, extending a hand.
“Lumpy.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And you're Kamyar. But I thought you were a Storyteller, not an actor.”
“Anything can carry a story, young Lump. Whether it's a song, a tale, a poem, or a play. Our objective remains the same: to plant the seeds of doubt and righteous indignation in the people.”
Lumpy grins. “You didn't have to plant anything in that town.”
“It's true, we are well received there. They've felt the heavy hand of the City for too long. But it's not always so easy.”
As they all take a place by the fire, Roan asks, “When did the Brothers start fighting the City?”
“They claim it was the wish of their leader. Before he was slain, he'd received a new directive from the Friend, I am told.”
“Just like that?” Roan asks doubtfully.
“Apparently. What matters is, the Brothers stopped both their raids and their deliveries to the Masters. But recently, Darius released Raven to lead the Fandor in an attempt to enforce the laws of the City and gather the food and children the Brothers now deny them.”
“The Brothers may defend the towns, but only because it serves their struggle for control,” says Roan. “Fighting the Fandor ensures the City starves. If the Brothers were ever to win the City, they'd start bleeding the villages dry again. They're not heroes, they're killers.”
Mabatan shrugs. “You thought the same of the Hhroxhi.”
“I didn't know the Hhroxhi and misunderstood their actions. The Brothers I got closer to than I ever wanted. They're marauders and mass murderers and they justify it with their religion.”
“Well, I don't think we'll be getting to the bottom of it tonight,” Kamyar pronounces, ending the argument. “Mabatan tells me you want help getting into the City, Roan.”
“If it's possible.”
“It's serendipity, in fact. An old friend's urgently requested a meeting so that's exactly where we're headed. Of course, you'll have to earn your keep.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I could use a couple of extra actors in my next opus,
A
Clerical Error.
An incompetent cleric seems to be the death of all who come in contact with him. Interested?”
Roan blanches. “I've never done anything like acting before.”
“You just need to be able to keel over and look dead in a funny way. You've survived hoards of Raiders, a sojourn with the nefarious Brothers, the Nethervine, and a trek into the Devastation. Surely some crossed eyes and a lolling tongue are not too much to ask.”
“What's Mabatan going to do?”
“I have a talent. I will play the drum,” she replies.
“I can play the recorder,” Roan says eagerly.
“Ah, well,” says the Storyteller with an exaggerated sigh, “perhaps I can make do with one less actor. Are you any good?”
“I can vouch for him,” says Lumpy. “Roan recently performed for a crowd of man-eating plants. Had them mesmerized.”
Kamyar laughs. “Excellent preparation for the audiences we'll be facing.” He leans in on Lumpy. “My friend, you'll never guess what I have in store for you.”
“You won't be putting a Mor-Tick victim on the stage,” Lumpy says with a grimace.
The Storyteller grins wildly, slapping him on the back. “Yes, I am! It's brilliant! See, in the play, the muddled cleric is sent to capture a child for the City. But instead, the fool will bring back someone already dying from Mor-Ticks! It'll save a fortune in make-up.”