Quartz (5 page)

A short-statured man strolled into the tent, pink hands folded over his slightly-pudgy middle. “Now who do we have here?” The uniformed stazi behind him held up a lantern.

Rafe leaned back against the pillows, blinking blearily. He raised his eyebrows in mock indignation. “Who am I? Why, I am the Great Breveldo, Master of Fire, Defier of Flame, Swallower of Blazes”—he was fast running out of epithets—“and this over here is…” He looked at the blankets around him. “Oh. She’s gone.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t know her name, anyhow,” he said confidingly.

The stazi snorted.

Rafe took a swig of wine and sloshed it around in his mouth. “Ah, divine water, earth-heated and earth-birthed… what does it matter? I will never forget her charms. These Blackstone women of yours…”

The short man raised a hand and Rafe fell silent. “Gorvich,” he said in a gentle voice. “Surely you have work to do? We are counting on your close encounter with the fugitive to assist us in identifying and capturing him.”

“Yessir!” The man started to snap a salute, thought better of it, and then set to work taking apart the sleeping quarters.

Rafe’s smile felt plastered on his face as he tried to look less like a Fist impersonator and more like a brash firedancer.
Scorch it!
It had to be the stazi captain he’d tricked before going into the old theater.

He barely kept his muscles from tensing. He forced himself to maintain his casual, lounging position, feeling horribly exposed.

The first man—the one with the soft voice and thinning hair combed neatly over his scalp—looked on with eyes that were deceptively mild.

“Breveldo, is it?” he said. “You must have traveled a lot, had many adventures…” He trailed off.

Rafe realized that his persona was the sort of garrulous character who would seize any opportunity to talk about himself. While Gorvich kicked bedding apart with his dirty boots and emptied knapsacks, Rafe launched into a description of his imaginary exploits, involving desperate gambling ventures, affairs with married women, and a prank with an ambassador’s pet pig. The other man listened with an air of polite interest.

When Gorvich failed to find a malefactor hidden in the blankets despite his best efforts, his superior waved him off. Rafe felt sorry for the person whose property had just been so carelessly abused, and took a deep breath.

At the tent flap, the short man pivoted suddenly and silently on his heel. The light struck a mad glint from his eyes. “I look forward to your performance tonight. Be out in the front, will you? I’m sure the Protector and his Oakhaven guests will be delighted by the Great Breveldo.”

“I would be most honored.” Rafe matched toothsome smile with toothsome smile.

“Wonderful.” The man beamed and left. Gorvich followed, his boot catching on a gauze shirt and ripping it. The man didn’t even look down, just kicked it off. Rafe heard his voice raised in an “All Clear” and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the stazis’ search, the anger-edged voices of the performers, Burgess roaring about the costumes and the equipment.

Isabella appeared long after the camp fell silent, sliding into the tent like a breath of wind. She and Rafe looked at each other across the lamp Rafe had lit. Rafe tensed, prepared to either duck or construct a light-hearted reply to whatever reprimand she meant for him.

“You talked too much,” she said.

“What?”

“Quoting Virga?
Divine water, earth-warmed and earth-birthed, liquid fire, ice-edged, melted gold.
How many performers do you think can actually read and write, much less quote rightly-obscure philosophers?”

Rafe shrugged. “Uneducated and stupid wasn't on your list of qualities to emulate. And maybe you don't realize it, but Virga's words have made it into several drinking songs. Perhaps you don't visit enough taverns?”

“Some of us have better things to do with our time.”

“Ah. But in this case, it proved useful, didn't it?”

“You could've achieved the same effect by guzzling wine, slurring your words, and relieving yourself all over the blankets.”

“Yes, but think of these priceless heirloom clothes.” Rafe brushed his tights and a large swath of sequins flaked off and settled in glittering piles on the ground. “Oh.”

“I hope you know how to sew.” Isabella picked up a bottle of rouge and a fine-tipped brush from the debris the stazi had left behind. “Since you’re to be in the front row tonight, Burgess will want you to look the part.”

Rafe held up his hands, fending her off. “I’m not the Marquis of Rocquespur, you know!”

Isabella started. It was barely a twitch of the shoulder, a rapid blink, but Rafe had been on the lookout for those signs, and noticed. It had been pure speculation—Isabella struck him as an Oakhavenite, and if she didn’t work for the government, than it was likely she worked for the political opposition headed by the notoriously foppish Marquis—and it had paid off.

“Someone you know?” Rafe asked as she applied makeup to his face with expert skill and speed.

“Who doesn’t?” Isabella stepped back and examined him. “There. You look like a lady’s painted fan. How about some gold dust in your hair?”

“No, thank you!” Rafe stepped away. “Burgess won’t really put me in the front row, will he?” he asked hopefully.

“If Karzov asks specifically for the Great Breveldo, then Burgess will do it.”

“And who is this Karzov?” Rafe thought he knew the name of every high-ranking official in Blackstone.

Isabella’s look was almost pitying. “Karzov is the leader of the Secret Fist. The Shadow himself.”

Rafe stood outside the dressing tent, partly to clear his head in the chill air, but mostly to prevent Burgess and his minions from inflicting further cosmetic horrors on him. The firedancers’ tent and stage occupied only a small portion of Brethren Circle, a concrete plain that had once been an attractive park of fountains, rock gardens and sand paths raked into attractive patterns. This had been one of the first things to go in the Revolution, destroyed by a mob of howling commoners pushed into red-raged madness by generations of backbreaking squalor.

The Palace itself had fared no better. Gone were the gilded domes, the sprawling wings, the twisted, confectionary-light towers from the tales of his Goldmoon refugee great-aunt. Past the heat shimmer and blaze of the Girdlesday bonfires, it was a smudge of shadow, a low-lying broken hulk of a building that was now the home of the current regime.

Maybe even now, the Protector was interrogating his Oakhaven captives. Bile rose in Rafe's throat. He coughed and turned away, rubbing his eyes, as if a draft had blown soot from the nearby coal-burning lamp into his face.

"Breveldo! Where is that no-good bit player?" Burgess, louder than ever, sounded harassed.

"Here." Rafe pushed through the tent flap and into a confusion of performers trying to snatch up batons and staves, pull on trousers and put on cosmetics, all at the same time.

Burgess stood in the center, bellowing orders. He had added more ostentation to his costume. Gold bracelets shimmered all the way up to his elbows and an iron collar studded with enormous fake gems encircled his throat. He drew all the light to him; it oiled his muscles, glittered off pointed metal-coated teeth, played amidst sequins and spangles.

Rafe barely noticed Isabella in a corner, dressed in shapeless subdued clothing, even though he looked for her. Her posture sent a certain humble don't-see-me message, but he had never seen anyone who could sit so still and observe so intently. She had the discipline he had always admired in the best of professional soldiers.
I’ll find out your secrets soon enough.

Get out of Blackstone first, then get answers from Isabella.

He didn’t expect he would like them.

Burgess glanced at him. "Not enough glitter, boy!” he barked. “Look at you, dressed like a Sister mourning Selene on New Year’s Eve. The front row needs to be gold in the eyes of the audience, gold!"

One of his minions dashed up to Rafe and threw a generous handful of gold dust all over him. Rafe started back, only to be caught by a surprisingly strong grip—the man was several heads shorter—as his assailant rose on his toes and rubbed glitter into Rafe's hair. Task done, he disappeared into the melee.

Rafe rubbed glitter off his face and brushed his chest and shoulders, to no avail. The stuff stuck. No doubt he'd be washing it out of his hair for weeks to come.

Isabella left the tent and a few moments later a drum boomed out, deep and strong. Slow steady beats, like the giant heartbeat of the earth. Burgess grinned, fierce and wide. "Time to go, boys."

With a joyous whoop, the milling crowd formed into two lines. Rafe fell into place and the gold-dust man put a baton in his hands. Wicking material poked out of one end; the whiff of kerosene made him blink. Someone thrust a jug to his lips. The liquid was cool and slightly numbing, and Rafe drank long and greedily. Only after, while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, did he notice that no one else was drinking. He felt ashamed, as if his honor had been called into question. Even the thought that the others were experts who had been doing this for years, and that he was a fugitive desperately trying to keep up his disguise, couldn't assuage the hot flush in his cheeks or that sudden sharp feeling of separation.

The drumming was now faster, impatient, insistent, rolling and flourishing like a dramatic jewelry-bedecked mistress. They left the tent and stood behind the stage, a square raised platform covered with sand. Beyond that stage sat the Protector and the captured Oakhaven ambassador and Karzov the Shadow. Had Rafe already been found out? And was this just an elaborate set up, with the Blackstone authorities toying with him like a cat with a mouse? Or were the Blackstonians hoping to trick one of the Oakhaven party into identifying him?

He couldn’t worry about that now. Tonight, he was a fire dancer.

The dancers jogged in place, slapped each others’ hands, made circular motions on their chests, and kissed their palms to the sky. Someone touched Rafe's arm in camaraderie, and suddenly, he didn't feel as much of an outsider as he had. He twitched his shoulders, rolled his neck, loosening up his muscles.

Burgess touched one end of his staff to a brazier. Fire blossomed; he touched the other tip to the flames, then the ends of his second staff. He held the flaming staffs aloft for one triumphant moment and leapt up on the stage. The crowds roared, and, behind him, so did the other performers. The lines moved swiftly, each man barely pausing by the brazier. Fires came alive, dancers leapt.

Baton lit, heart pounding, drum beats throbbing through him, Rafe ran up the ramp. Red and orange and yellow flames emblazoned themselves into his eyeballs. The world was blurry with heat-shimmer, smoke-drift, fire-twist. Beyond the fires were hundreds of spectators, eyes and mouths open and hungry. Behind them were the raised boxes for high-ranking officials, but Rafe could make out no faces in the blur of light around him. Torchmen, solemn and still, lined up in rows on either side, ready with burlap and water barrels to quench stray flames.

The world had been scorched once before. Selene’s twin in the sky, Salerus, gold to her silver, had come in the form of a dragon and nearly destroyed it. That they danced with fire on the last day of the month named for him suddenly seemed to be a reckless thing.

The beat changed, went from calling for attention and haste, to something insidious, sneaking its way through the ground and into Rafe's feet. He stomped, jumped, kicked, baton now high, now spinning, now crisscrossing with another’s. He was always aware of its flaming head, the low hungry crackle that whispered in his ears. He barely noted what Burgess and the other performers did. It took all his focus to dance and flirt with his own flame.

Rafe tossed up his baton. His heart leapt as he caught it, but his hand found leather grip instead of loose flame. Faster and faster now, the steps more exaggerated, the jumps higher. Hold the baton close, let the flames reach out like the fingers of a lover. Throw from hand to hand. Toss up into the air, jump, catch. Sweat beaded his brow, trickled down his scalp, and slithered under his vest.

The drum worked up to the climax, loud and demanding, hammering at his skull. Rafe did the last spin, the last kick, then took a wide stance. He barely had time to think, to rub his tongue over dry lips, force the last bit of moisture into his mouth. Head back, mouth open, he pointed the flaming end of the baton towards his lips and blew. He touched the wick to his tongue, drew the baton into his mouth. His lips closed almost completely around the metal. Pain burned against his skin, grabbed his tongue, filled the inside of his mouth with fire.

An instant of agony, then it was gone, leaving behind a dull throb. Shaken, barely hearing the oceanic roaring, Rafe stumbled after the other performers. He had the sense to lift his head up, stretch his stinging lips in a careless smile, and wave with his free hand. Then they clattered down the ramp, and Isabella snatched him out of the line and hustled him away with a pot of salve and a cool tonic.

“I thought this was supposed to be easy,” Rafe said through numb lips and a mouth that felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool. His words came out as “ah do di wa sop zee” but Burgess obviously understood pain-garbled speech for he laughed and clapped Rafe’s shoulder.

“It is. There are no tricks to fire eating. Just a high tolerance for pain.”

“And a quick slathering of salve,” added Isabella.

Rafe thought about this. “You didn’t tell me about this earlier.”

“Didn’t want to worry you. You had to do it and there’s not much you can do about the pain.” Burgess shrugged. “It’s over now. You did well.”

“Do I get to go to bed now?” He tried not to sound too hopeful, though tone was hard to control in his current state. Once in his tent he could sneak out from under Isabella’s watchful eye.

“No,” said Isabella. “You’ve been living in the forsaken Barrens. You haven’t had good beer or seen a woman or stuffed your face with sweetcakes in weeks. You need to be out ogling and fingering and wasting your money on overpriced, poor-quality trinkets.”