The Rebirth of Wonder (19 page)

And they weren't really
unknown. They were
magic
. Raw magic, bubbling over,
spilling back in time, shapeless and random – and
harmless.

It was very odd, just how
certain Art was that the lights were harmless. Sometimes that
certainty troubled him slightly, but he was so sure he was right,
what harm could it do that he didn't know
why
he was sure?

And they were a distraction. He didn't have
time to worry about Faerie or the thing in the pit or the drifting
lights, or the bone-handled dagger or the box of treasures or the
locked door in the wardrobe room. He had lights to aim, cues to
learn, and a vital decision to make.

Would he go through with the performance?

On Monday of the final week Marilyn knocked
at the stage door around midnight to suggest a late-night snack
together. He was distracted, not thinking, and let her in while he
locked up.

The Bringers had departed a few minutes
before, so it seemed safe enough. He left her staring at the muddle
of sets while he checked the basement doors.

He wished he could have locked the door to
Faerie, but none of the keys would fit.

As he was climbing the stairs again a flight
of the glowing things cruised past him, vanishing around a corner
under the steps. He paid no attention until he looked up and saw
Marilyn standing in the open doorway, staring.

“
What were
those
?” she asked.

He glanced down just in time to see the glow
fade; as usual, he hadn't gotten a clear look at them.

“
Fireflies,” he
said.

“
I never saw
fireflies like that,” Marilyn said. “Besides, it's too late in the
year, isn't it? How'd they get in here?”

“
Well, I don't know,
then,” he said, shrugging.

Marilyn stared at him, then down at the point
where the lights had vanished.

“
I don't know,” Art
repeated defensively.

“
Okay,” Marilyn
said. “I'm not arguing; you coming?”

The date was not a success; Marilyn made no
further mention of the mysterious elfin lights, but somehow, after
she had marveled at the bizarre stage set and Art had mumbled
unresponsively in return, they wound up first discussing, and then
arguing about, Maggie Gowdie. Marilyn managed to take offense at
Art's passing mention that Maggie's grandmother had claimed to be a
Scottish witch.

Art's heart wasn't in the argument, though;
he was always thinking, underneath, about the big question.

Should he go through with his part of the
performance?

Wednesday Jamie came back from California,
broke and tanned and full of stories about L.A. – and curious about
what was happening at the theater.

“
A play,” Art told
him.

“
What kind of
play?”

Art couldn't answer that; his thoughts on the
subject were too confused.

“
You'll have to come
see it,” he said.

Instantly he regretted it. Hadn't Myrddin
said the audience wasn't to be human?

He didn't want to say any more, and did his
best to steer the conversation back to Hollywood, where he could
safely ignore it while he thought about his choices.

Then it was Saturday, and the point of no
return was nearing. He had gone through lighting rehearsal, full
tech rehearsal, dress rehearsal, without voicing his indecision,
without saying anything to disturb the Bringers' calm assurance
that he would cooperate. And the performance was to be this
evening.

If he was going to back
out, he had to do it
now
, while there was time for the
Bringers to flee into Faerie – those who preferred escape to death,
at any rate. He guessed that would be roughly an even
split.

He stood by his lighting
board, checking how the blue wash at the edge looked on Rabbitt's
skin, and trying to make up his mind about two things at once:
Should he do a last-minute gel change? Did he
want
to unleash magic on the
world?

In the blue light Rabbitt looked even darker
than he ordinarily did, but it was a healthy enough color; Art
thought it would do.

No new gel, then.

But magic...

“
Mr. Rabbitt,” he
asked, “what'll it be like?”

He had hinted at the question repeatedly, had
even asked it directly, and had never gotten a good answer; he was
making one last try.

The huge magician cocked his head in Art's
direction. “Do you mean, when the magic is come?”

“
Yeah.”

Rabbitt smiled wryly. “In truth, lad, none of
us really, entirely knows what will happen.” He waved theatrically.
“It might be that unicorns will be reborn, that dragons will walk
the mountains once again – or perhaps not, perhaps the magic will
take new and strange forms.” He dropped his arm and shrugged.
“Whatever unintended side effects we may achieve, we can be certain
that magic will once again be so accessible that anyone with the
will and belief will be able to use it, not just wizards and
mages.”

“
Anyone?”

“
Oh,
nearly.”

“
Well, I mean...
who?”

“
You, perhaps.” He
smiled again. “It's said that young lovers will be particularly
good at it. That's if the stories are to be trusted, of
course.”

“
I'm not a young
lover,” Art protested.

“
Ah,” Rabbitt said, with a broad grin, “but perhaps
you
will
be.”

Art frowned.

Something bright and green flitted across the
periphery of his vision; he started and stared.

One of the mysterious lights from the
basement, the fairies or will-o'-the-wisps or whatever they were,
had ventured up the stairs and emerged onto the stage.

This was the first time one of the more
obviously magical spontaneous phenomena, as opposed to the
Bringers' spells, had manifested itself anywhere except the
basement.

And it didn't vanish when he stared at it; it
flickered, and darted about so that he couldn't see it clearly, but
it didn't vanish.

He looked at his watch. Less than an hour
before curtain.

He had to decide.

“
Art?” someone
called.

He turned and found Maggie beside him, and
was oddly disappointed.

“
Hi,” she said.
“Hope I didn't startle you.”

“
Just pre-show
jitters,” he said.

“
Yeah,” she replied,
forcing a smile. “Me, too. But anyway, I need the key to the box
office.”

He blinked at her. “You do?” he asked
stupidly.

“
Well, yes, of
course I do,” she said. “I'm manning the booth.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending.

“
Selling tickets,”
she explained. “Someone has to. People are coming to see the show,
you know. Even though we didn't advertise except the one poster out
front.”

“
They
are?”

“
Sure. A lot of your friends from
Dream
, for one
thing – they're all curious about us.”

“
You have
tickets?”

“
Conjured them
myself – with ten bucks at the local print-shop.” Grinning, she
held up a stack of printed red pasteboard. “The
key?”

“
Uh.” He reached in
his pocket, then stopped. “I'll take care of it,” he said. “Someone
needs to open the doors, too, right?”

She asked, “You don't need to be back
here?”

“
Not right
now.”

Together they walked up the aisle, and he
stared out at the empty seats.

Somehow, he had become so
involved with the ritual aspect of the play he had forgotten that
it was a
play
, a
performance people could watch and enjoy even if they didn't know
about spells or magic or other mysteries.

But it was a play, and there would be an
audience, with real, everyday people in it.

In the lobby he unlocked the box office
without a word, then crossed to the big front doors. He threw back
the bolt and opened the right-hand door an inch or two, then peered
out the crack.

Marilyn and Jamie were already waiting on the
sidewalk, talking idly. They were standing apart; Marilyn's hands
were behind her, against a signpost, while Jamie's were in the
pockets of his cutoff jeans. They weren't looking at him.

They were here to see the show.

At that moment, Art suddenly knew what he had
to do.

It didn't matter if it changed everything. It
didn't matter if it was dangerous – after all, what was life
without a little risk? What was life without a little magic? He'd
invited Jamie here himself. He couldn't disappoint an audience.

After all, magic or no magic – the show must
go on.

Chapter Twenty

Only about thirty citizens of Bampton were in
the audience, yet when Art risked a glance around the curtain in
the middle of the first act he saw no empty seats.

Just what was occupying the others he
couldn't really say. Some of them had faces, some didn't. There
were the mysterious cellar lights flitting here and there, too. And
he could hear something thumping under the stage.

The Bringers of Wonder were untroubled by
such details as they went through their performance.

Art had seen real magic in it before, in
rehearsals, but nothing like what he saw now. Strange colors
flickered in every corner; magic swirled in the air, surged back
and forth in waves. He could feel it, like an impending
thunderstorm, but a thousand times more intense.

He wondered what the humans in the audience
made of it.

Then he heard his next cue coming, and he
slipped back to the lighting board, and back to his work.

There was no intermission between acts; Art
could feel himself that the magic wouldn't allow it. It had waited,
somewhere, for a very long time; now it was awake and eager, not to
be held back.

The second act was brief and simple: in it
the mage and his apprentices confronted the gods and demanded that
magic be restored to the world; the gods considered the request,
and then granted it, expelling the dragon that had kept magic
confined – or perhaps instead freeing the dragon that was magic
itself; the play was deliberately ambiguous.

In rehearsal, Al Tanner, playing the gods'
spokesman, had provided an illusion of a dragon for the climax,
when the dragon burst forth from its cave; Art had considered it a
rather unconvincing illusion and a weak ending.

As he felt the magical forces crawling across
his skin and flashing through him, as he saw the light from his
instruments bend and twist and change, he began to wonder whether
Tanner's illusion would work properly.

As the final scene began, Tanner did not
raise his wand. The thumping from beneath the stage sounded again,
louder than before. Art felt a sudden surge of panic.

By then it was too late to do anything; the
floor burst open in a spectacular roaring explosion of flame and
splinters, and the Dragon arose, spreading its wings.

Shining emerald green, wings lined with black
and with colors Art could not name, the Dragon rose from the crypts
beneath the stage and looked out at the audience with blazing eyes.
The Bringers of Wonder tumbled back away from the monster, which
seemed to fill the entire stage; the mismatched sets toppled and
shattered, falling in fiberboard and plaster ruin. Art wanted to
run away, to flee in terror; he wanted to run out onstage and do
something to the Dragon, anything, to make it go away. He wanted to
jump down into the audience and protect Marilyn.

What he actually did, though, was to bring up
the center-stage ring of licos to full, and keep the blue
background lights at half while dropping everything else to black.
The Dragon was lit in a blaze of glory, the golden light glittering
from its vivid green scales.

Cue 49. Myrddin had insisted on it, even
though Art had said it wouldn't look right on Tanner's
illusion.

Myrddin had been right.

Then the Dragon rose up out of the stage and
vanished into the flies overhead, and Art looked up,
astonished.

He saw only the catwalk and the lights and
the ropes and the other normal overhead clutter. The Dragon was
gone.

It was gone – but where?

Then he smiled, remembering. Illusion. The
essence of magic is deceit. There was no dragon, really; Tanner had
just done a better job with his tricks.

Then he looked out at the stage.

The lights were wrong; he'd missed his cue.
Quickly, he went to Cue 50, and brought up #7 while slowly fading
everything else.

Myrddin was out of position, knocked aside by
the great beast – or by Tanner's illusion, whichever it was. Now he
scrambled across the stage to take his place under the spotlight
for his closing speech.

Art watched, and saw him stumble as his foot
came down on a board that gave beneath him; the floorboard had been
broken by the dragon.

Then the magician was standing in his place
in the light, declaiming his lines, and Maggie was hauling on the
curtain, Dr. Torralva helping her. Myrddin spoke his final line,
Art brought down #7 in a three-beat fade, and the curtain swung
closed.