On This Unworthy Scaffold by Heidi Heilig (best pdf reader for ebooks TXT) 📕

Obligingly, the silk drape falls in a rippling heap, leaving me face-to-face with the startled audience. Their wide eyes reflect the firelight as they look from me to the fantouche of the King of Death, held up without stick or string.

I can see the questions in their faces. How is it done? What is the trick?

And other questions too. How dare she? Is this supposed to happen?

They do not know how to respond, so they wait, breathless, for a cue from Le Roi. On his face is an expression of disdain, barely concealing the anger underneath. “What is the meaning of this?” he says.

I had thought the crowd was silent before, but as they wait for my answer, it’s as though they’ve stopped breathing. “I promised you a show like you’ve never seen,” I reply. “So I decided to show you who you are.”

“This is not a show,” Le Roi replies, standing to leave. “It’s a snub.”

“You haven’t seen the finale,” I call after him, but the king doesn’t turn back. The audience too stands, following his lead, but the show is far from over. So I send the fantouche of the King of Death down the steps and into the aisle to intercept Le Roi.

The audience murmurs again, louder now, but if Le Roi is wondering how my fantouche works, he hides it well. Reaching out, he snatches the leather puppet from its feet and tosses it aside. But I am done with the leather fantouches. Instead I call to the next: my false shepherd, my skeleton king.

In a rattle of bones, it rises, the glass jewel of the wire crown shining in the light of the fire. The gossamer robes we had fashioned to dress him shimmer over the old bones, and the audience gasps again, this time in horror. Le Roi turns back at the sound, and I see the look in his eyes as I raise another fantouche, and another. There is awe on his face—and fear—as he watches the fourth skeleton rise, then the fifth.

The others join them—my whole cast, ready for their turn on stage. The word is rippling through the audience again—nécromancien, nécromancien—but the condescension has been replaced with desperation. Still, they turn to the king for a cue, but it is no longer his show.

“Direct from Chakrana,” I say, pitching my voice to carry, and in the silence of the living, I can hear the clacking bones of the dead. “Never before seen in Aquitan. And if you give me my payment, Theodora and I will be on our way home and you’ll never have to see them again.”

Le Roi glances from me to my cast, weighing his options—still hoping, perhaps, that this is all some charlatan’s trick. Or does he hope to trick me? “Come then,” he says. “Let me take you to the salon to claim your reward.”

“No need,” I say. “It’s waiting outside.”

He raises an eyebrow. But I only step down from the stage to join him in the aisle, followed by my cast of skeletons, and he has to hurry to join me. Behind my entourage, the audience rushes into the aisles to follow.

Leading the impromptu parade into the lobby, I throw the doors open to the night. There, on the wide stone stairs, the skeleton of the griffin is waiting. I had summoned the creature just before the show started, in case I needed to make a quick exit. Now, the beast cocks his head as I approach, the book held lightly in his curved beak.

Le Roi stops on the steps when he sees the creature, and now the anger on his face falls away. “The avions,” he says quietly. “It isn’t engineering that makes them fly.”

“No, Your Majesty,” I confirm. Turning to give him a little bow, I see what looks like the entire audience on the steps behind us. But it is whispers that ring in their ears, instead of music—nécromancien, nécromancien—and the terror has been replaced with awe. I take a breath, looking back at the king: perhaps a private conversation is in order. “Will you join me at Les Chanceux?”

I hold out my hand, aware of the audience. After a moment, Le Roi takes it.

I pull him up after me on the back of the griffin, and we spring into the air as the crowd gasps. Then, as we wheel away from the theater, applause breaks out behind us.

The evening streets are not crowded, but neither are they empty, and as we soar higher and higher over Lephare, passersby gawk. But I wish I could see Le Roi’s face—try to read his expression. Does the griffin delight him, or is he only afraid of falling to the hard earth below? When he speaks at last, his voice is carefully soft, even over the rushing wind. “You were right,” he says. “You should stay in Aquitan.”

“I am needed in Chakrana, Your Majesty,” I say. “As is Theodora.”

“Whatever they pay,” the king says quickly. “I’ll double it.”

I can’t help but laugh; rebellion pays even worse than art, but I can’t tell the king that. “The wealth you offer is stolen.”

To my surprise, he thrusts something out. The crown—gleaming gold and sapphire blue. “Take it,” the king insists, pressing it into my hands. “Anything else. Everything else. The contents of the jewel room if you stay to work for me.”

I look down at the crown in my hands. It is so heavy. How can he bear the weight? The jewel seems to wink at me, the color of vengeance. Le Roi has taken so much, and yet he has nothing to offer that can truly tempt me. Shaking my head, I hand the crown back. “I can’t stay,” I say. “But my fantouches will.”

“The skeletons?” Le Roi shifts behind me, and his voice takes on a hint of uncertainty. “And . . . what will they do?”

“Nothing, Your Majesty,” I say mildly. “Unless I order otherwise. Of course you could always send them to