On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig [best books to read for success .txt] 📗

As they fill the seats, I can hear the word sparkling in the air like the light of the chandeliers: nécromancien. Just as it says in the poster in the lobby. But the idea seems to thrill the Aquitans. Of course, there is a difference between knowledge and experience.

I myself am surprisingly calm. Usually I have to struggle for composure before a show, but as I wait backstage, my palms are dry and my thoughts are measured. When I risk a peek around the scrim, even the sight of the seats—so many, and so full, all the way up to the balcony—does not ruffle my calm.

Then I catch sight of Le Roi. He sits in the front row, where few can see his face, though I have a clear view. But he is a performer in his own right, and I cannot read his expression. What does he think of my billing? I suppose we’ll know soon enough.

Ducking back behind the scrim, I nod to the musicians in the wings. They lift their instruments and begin tuning. The first notes make my heart beat faster, as does the expectant hush that follows. They are familiar sounds—the fading whispers of conversations. The gentle percussion of feet and chairs. The soft rhythm of breath and blood, usually imperceptible, that builds to a thrum when crowds gather.

These are the sounds that have always centered me, but now, at the eleventh hour, doubt creeps in. What if the show goes awry, if the audience deems me a charlatan, or Le Roi brands me a traitor? What would happen to me—to the rebellion, to Leo on the Prix de Guerre and Theodora in the sanatorium? What would happen to my country—and my countrymen? Peering into the shadows of the wings, I meet the singer’s eyes. Davri is his name, and he had told me it had been years since he’d sung on stage. Will he ever do it again after tonight?

For him . . . for me . . . for all of us, the show must go well. But no matter what, the show must go on.

So when the musicians fall silent, I step from the wings to the center of the stage, careful not to trip over my fantouches. I have laid them out between the scrim and the fire bowl—or rather, the gas lamp. It’s half my height, with a mirrored backing, and all I have to do is turn a knob to raise the flames. Still, as I kneel in front of it, I close my eyes, imaging the smell of woodsmoke like we used back home. The flames rise before me, and the heat makes the burn scar on my shoulder tingle. Shadow play has always been a dangerous profession. Only tonight, it’s not because of the flame.

Still on my knees, I turn back downstage, keeping my own shadow off the scrim. The musicians know the signal, and after a moment, the first strains of music rise with the light.

The audience should know the song well, though as with all old stories, the joy is not in how the story ends, but in how it’s told. Indeed, most of the time, shadow plays are performed in Chakran; the Aquitan audience doesn’t even understand the language. They have only memorized what should happen without understanding why.

But now, when Davri joins in, he sings in Aquitan. I have translated the words with care, because I want to be sure the audience finally knows the real story.

“In the days when our ancestors were young,” he begins, his voice like a deep river. I can feel the air move through the theater as the audience gasps at the sound. “There was a brave shepherd who tended his flock.”

My heart beating in time with the rhythm, I raise my first fantouche: not a shepherd, nor a swineherd, but a king.

The skeleton stands on the stage before me, bare but for a crown of brass and glass. On the other side of the scrim, the audience cannot see the stark expression of the skull, nor hear the rattle of his bones over the music. Still, I can sense their sudden unease. These shadows are nothing like what they expected.

“Under his eye, his flock grew and grew. . . .”

Another skeleton rises, and another, each bowing deeply to the king. These, we have dressed in costume—a gown, a suit, a hat, a parasol. But I keep them in profile, so the firelight outlines the disturbing silhouette of their noseless faces. Now I can hear the audience shifting in their seats.

“Until the day a tiger came prowling—”

I raise another fantouche, this one crafted in the traditional style. Painted leather scraped so thin the light shines through, delicate joints that make the graceful movements almost lifelike . . . but not the tiger puppet they expect. The tiger I had borrowed from the king is still in the silk bag backstage. Instead, I have borrowed Ayla’s version of the King of Death. I would swear she crafted him after Le Trépas, down to the scraped lines of scars over where his heart would be.

“To devour them one by one.”

The King of Death extends a graceful hand, lifting the king’s subjects to their feet. Then the skeletons bow to him, and they do not get up again.

Now, the two kings face each other alone in silhouette, as would the Tiger and the Shepherd, if I were actually telling that story. But instead of the battle that would normally ensue, the music stops suddenly, and my own voice rings out as the skeletal king bows too, prostrating himself on the ground.

“And the shepherd did nothing.”

The crowd erupts at the insult, gasping and jeering, but I cannot see their reaction from behind the scrim. They cannot see my fantouches either—not the way they should. So I step forward into the light, my own silhouette looming, and lift my hand. The long shadows of my fingertips reach for the top of the scrim, and I murmur to the soul I’d put into the silk