One-Eyed Pete's Precision Performance had drawn the largest crowd we'd seen all day.
Pete himself was not what I expected. He was a halfling, which meant he came up to approximately my hip, but he carried himself like someone who had never once in his life felt small. He wore a battered leather vest covered in so many patches it was hard to tell what the original material had been, trousers tucked into boots that had seen considerable adventure, and a wide-brimmed hat that cast half his face in shadow. The half that wasn't in shadow featured a black eyepatch, a jaw like a geographic feature with carefully maintained stubble, and an expression of absolute serenity.
The whip was coiled at his hip. It was longer than he was tall by a wild margin.
He didn't introduce himself. He didn't need to. He walked into the performance space, looked at the crowd, and cracked the whip once.
The sound was like a door slamming in an empty building. Several people flinched. Pete looked pleased.
His first few demonstrations were for calibration — his own, I realized, not the crowd's. A candle at six feet, snuffed cleanly. A flower stem at eight feet, cut so precisely the bloom didn't move until it fell. A playing card held by his assistant at ten feet, struck down the center and split into two equal halves. She held both pieces up for the crowd without expression. The crowd applauded. She did not.
Pete said nothing throughout. Occasionally, he would look at the audience with his one visible eye in a way that suggested he found our amazement mildly amusing. He would then do something more impressive. Out came more whips. Longer ones.
At twelve feet, he split an apple balanced on the assistant's head. She didn't flinch. She had clearly done this before. The apple fell in two clean halves. She picked them both up and ate one.
The crowd loved her almost as much as they loved him.
At fourteen feet, he extinguished a row of five candles in sequence, left to right, so fast the sounds overlapped into something almost continuous. The last flame went out. The crowd went loud.
Pete coiled the whip slowly. He produced a wooden disc from somewhere — flat, about the size of a dinner plate, painted in alternating colors — and mounted it on a pole at the edge of the performance space. He gave it a spin. It caught the light as it turned.
He looked at it for a moment before tossing it smoothly to his assistant. She made a meal of showing it to the audience before tossing it straight into the air.
Out came the whip. A crack. A cleanly split disc. Thunderous applause.
The crowd immediately clammed up as Pete moved to the side of the stage. "For this one," he said, in a voice that was surprisingly deep for someone his size, "I'm going to need a volunteer."
The crowd immediately became very interested in their own shoes.
Everyone except Tessa, who had already grabbed Kael's arm, her free hand bobbing up and down as she jumped.
Kael's voice was an anxious hiss. "Tessa, why?!"
"Why not? It'll be fun!"
"I think you and I have different definitions of 'fun'."
Pete was looking directly at Kael. "Well, young man? Your adoring public awaits."
Kael's eyes went from Pete, back to Tessa, who was giving him the most pleading puppy-dog expression I'd ever seen from her. That was saying something.
He threw up his hands. "Fine."
The audience went nuts. Kael stepped carefully onto the stage, waving at them awkwardly.
Pete pointed him to a position on the stage. I could see a red X marked with paint. He then turned to address the crowd. "Now, folks, I've been rather quiet throughout this show. I like to let the whip speak for me. But here, at the finale of my show -"
There was a collective groan from the crowd. "I know, I know. But I promise I've saved the best for last! I need to make one thing clear. This is my most dangerous stunt. My intrepid volunteer…"
He looked back at Kael and spoke quietly. "What's your name, kid?"
Kael was trying and failing to keep his face neutral. "Kael."
"My intrepid volunteer, Kael, is bravely putting himself in peril for your entertainment! Before I begin, I want you to make the most noise you've ever made in your lives for this young man! Let's hear it!"
They didn't disappoint. Kael looked embarrassed, but not upset. They began to chant. "KAEL! KAEL! KAEL! KAEL!"
As the crowd worked itself into an uproar, Pete handed Kael a long, unlit candle and stepped behind the curtain for a moment.
In an instant, everyone fell into deathly silence as he dragged a large chain into view. By my guess, it was about fifteen feet long, each link about a quarter-inch thick. It looked pretty intimidating. "The chain whip. Clumsy. More difficult than leather. Danger incarnate for our courageous Kael!"
A single "whoo!" split the silence from the back of the crowd.
Pete continued. "For my final trick, I am going to use this chain whip to light that candle, which Kael is going to hold high, high above his head."
There was a low murmur. Kael looked frozen in place. I wasn't sure if it was because he was fascinated, terrified, or both.
Pete changed his voice comically to sound like a spectator. "But Pete, how will you light a candle with a chain?"
He snapped back to his booming voice. "Fantastic question, audience member!"
Everyone laughed except Kael. "And it's a good question. To light a candle…"
He pulled a match from his belt and struck it against the stubble on his chin. It sparked to life. "Fire!"
He dropped the match onto the chain, where it immediately burst into flame.
I was flabbergasted. Kael looked for a moment like he was about to run.
"I BELIEVE IN YOU, KAEL!"
Tessa's voice seemed to strengthen him. He straightened up and held the candle as high as he could.
The silence was so complete that all that could be heard was the crackling of flames.
Pete spoke calmly, but loud enough to be heard. "Now this goes without saying, my friend, but I'll say it anyway. Do. Not. Move."
Kael gulped but stayed motionless. I was impressed that he wasn't shaking.
It felt as if the entire world slowed to a standstill.
The chain slid across the stage.
Pete initiated the throw.
Rattling.
Whoosh.
Crack.
Silence.
The crowd erupted into cheers once again, somehow louder than ever. Tessa was screaming, jumping up and down.
Kael lowered his hands to find an unbroken and lit candle sitting in them. He looked like he might faint.
Pete immediately tossed a heavy blanket over the chain and stomped on it, snuffing out the fire.
I was in complete disbelief.
Pete grabbed Kael by the hand and raised his arm. "Let's hear it for the bravest young man in the empire!"
Kael stepped off the stage to more thunderous applause.
Tessa immediately tackled him into a hug. "You were amazing! That was so fucking cool!"
Even Alara looked impressed, though she said nothing.
Kael spoke hoarsely. "I think I pissed myself a little."
Tessa looked up at him, her smile as bright as the sun. "Booze?"
He nodded. "Booze."
We saw a few more shows: Balthazar's Burden was an amazing balancing act; The Mud Men were delightful, if exceptionally filthy; Twice the Trouble were so devilishly funny that they even got a smirk out of Alara.
Then there were the games. Axe throwing. Archery. I managed to win a game involving darts and rotating balloons, and received a stuffed bear as a prize. I gave it to Tessa, who hugged it for the rest of the day.
I kept catching Alara's eyes on me after that. I didn't examine why.
There was one game that we skipped. It featured a log upon which two people sat cross-legged and hit each other with straw-filled pillows until one fell off. It was being hogged by two extremely drunk humans who seemed to be having the time of their lives. Good for them.
We visited all of the vendors, admiring everything from beautiful jewelry to intricately carved bone scrimshaw and lovingly forged gardening tools.
All in all, a fantastic day.
The lantern lighting happened at sundown, and the whole festival seemed to know it was coming.
The shift was gradual at first — the daytime energy softening, the crowd moving with a collective instinct toward the center of the lower city, where a wide open square had been kept clear all day for exactly this purpose. The food vendors stayed open. The performers took a break.
By the time the sky had gone from gold to deep amber to the first suggestion of purple, every halfling in Moorhaven seemed to be standing in or around that square, faces turned upward.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Tessa had found us. Or rather, she had found my arm, which she was now holding with both hands and swaying slightly. She had acquired several more ales and a flask of whisky at some point during the afternoon and appeared to be on good terms with all of them simultaneously. "This is my favorite part. I cried last year."
Kael laughed. "You cry at everything."
"That's because everything is beautiful, Kael."
She pointed at him with great seriousness. "Everything."
Kael looked at me. I looked at Kael. We said nothing.
The square was ringed with unlit lanterns — dozens of them, hanging from poles and lines strung between buildings, climbing all the way to the rooftops. In the fading light they looked like sleeping things. Patient. Waiting for permission.
At the center of the square stood Vlod and Hulda.
They had been given the ceremonial torches — two of them, one each, tall as Vlod's shoulder and burning with a clean, warm flame.
The sight of two enormous minotaurs standing in a sea of halflings holding ceremonial fire should have been alarming. Instead, it looked exactly right. Hulda held hers with the easy dignity of someone who had done this before and would do it again.
Vlod held his slightly away from his body with the careful attention of someone who was very aware of how much he could accidentally set on fire if he stopped paying attention.
A small halfling elder — ancient, barely three feet tall, wearing a chain of dried flowers around her neck — raised her hands.
The square went quiet.
She began to sing. Her voice was surprisingly strong for someone her size, clear and slightly reedy, the melody simple and old in the way of songs that have been sung so many times the tune has worn smooth.
"When the light goes from the sky, We send our small flames high, So the ones who came before Know we haven't said goodbye."
Around the square, other voices joined in. Then more. Then all of them — several hundred halflings singing the same words with the ease of people who had known them since childhood. The sound filled the square and spilled into the surrounding streets.
Tessa was singing. Of course she was singing. She knew every word, her slightly unsteady voice blending into the whole without self-consciousness, her eyes already bright.
The elder nodded to Vlod and Hulda.
Vlod looked at Hulda. Hulda looked at Vlod. Something passed between them that was warm and private and none of our business.
They touched their torches to the nearest lanterns simultaneously.
The light spread outward from the center of the square like something alive — lantern to lantern, line to line, pole to pole, climbing the buildings toward the rooftops until the entire lower city was lit from below in warm orange gold. It took perhaps thirty seconds. It felt longer than that in the best possible way.
The singing swelled as the light spread.
"Carry the flame through the cold, Carry the names of the old, Every light is a door left ajar, For the ones who can't come home."
When the last lantern caught, the crowd erupted. Not the sharp noise of a performance crowd — something rounder than that. The sound of people feeling something together.
Tessa made a sound beside me that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "See? Everything is beautiful."
I didn't argue with her.
Above us the lanterns swayed gently in the evening breeze. The lower city glowed like it had decided, just for tonight, to be a little bit magic. Around the square, the vendors were already calling out again, the performers returning to their stages, the festival resuming with renewed delight. The night portion of the Swiftfoot Festival had begun.
Dandy Dan walked onto the stage as if he owned it, which, for the next twenty minutes, he did.
He was tall for a human, lean in the way of someone who moved for a living, wearing silks in every color imaginable that had clearly been washed so many times the colors had softened into something almost pastel. His hat had bells on it. His shoes had points. His five o'clock shadow was so precisely maintained it had to be intentional, and his smile — deployed the moment he walked onto the stage — was the kind of smile that made you feel like you were the only person he was performing for.
The crowd already loved him before he'd done anything.
Tessa was vibrating beside me.
His act built slowly and then all at once. Jokes first — the smooth, practiced kind that landed before you'd finished hearing them. Then the swords. One to start, tossed and caught with casual indifference, as though he'd simply found it in the air and decided to keep it moving. Then, two, the rhythm established itself. Then, three, the crowd quieted the way crowds do when something real is happening.
He was good. Genuinely good. The blades caught the lantern light and multiplied it, orange and gold tracing arcs in the evening air above his head. I found myself intensely focused on his form: his hands were nimble and quick. They seemed to barely touch the hilts of each sword before tossing them again. His attention was firmly on his task, unbothered by the oooohs and aaahhs of the audience.
He deftly caught each sword by the hilt, one by one, and took a deep bow to exuberant applause.
His next trick, he told us, was to light the swords on fire.
And he would need a volunteer.
Kael gave an audible "no," which seemed to catch the man's attention.
His eyes found me, and I knew he had already decided.
"You."
Tessa made a sound I could only describe as triumphant.
I was on stage before I'd fully processed agreeing to it.
His assistant made a show of coating the blades in oil and handing them to him.
He passed me one sword — unlit, handle first, with a look that communicated exactly what he needed me to do and when. I was to toss it to him on his signal. Simple enough. I could see the oil dripping from the blade.
I found my position at the edge of the stage.
Dan lit one sword. Tossed it. Then he threw the second one. Then the third. In the whirl of the spectacle, the other blades lit up from the proximity of the flame. Three razor-sharp weapons, all on fire, all expertly handled. "Now!"
I tossed him the final sword. Into the fray it went, round and round, lighting up like the others.
That's when I saw it.
A slick patch on the boards, dark and slightly reflective in the lantern light. Oil, dripped from the sword coating during the act, pooled in exactly the wrong place. Dan hadn't noticed. He was already moving in that direction.
I opened my mouth.
Too late.
His foot hit the slick on his next rotation, and he went down hard. All four swords went up.
The crowd gasped.
I didn't remember deciding to move. I remembered the swords coming down and my hands being where they needed to be. The catches weren't graceful — one, then two, then the third, and the fourth — but they were clean. Four.
Four flaming swords.
My hands found the rhythm before my brain caught up with what was happening. The pattern came with scary ease — not thought, just motion, like it was automatic; like I'd done this a thousand times before. I did not know how that was possible. Even as it was happening, I grew more and more confused.
The crowd had gone completely silent.
Dan was still on the floor. I could see him from the corner of my eye, sitting up, watching me with an expression I didn't have time to read.
I juggled for perhaps ten seconds. It felt considerably longer.
Then I stopped. Caught all four in sequence and held them, two per hand, points down.
I searched for something – anything – to say. I had no idea what had just happened, or how. "Dandy Dan, everyone."
Stupid. That was the wrong thing to say.
The silence lasted one more beat.
Then the crowd detonated.
I walked to the edge of the stage and held the swords out to Dan's assistant, who took them from me with the practiced calm of someone who had seen everything. I looked at the crowd. I looked at Dan, who was back on his feet, hat slightly askew, smile fully intact.
I stepped off the stage, and the noise followed me into the crowd.
Tessa found me in approximately half a second. "WHAT WAS THAT?! LORNE! WHAT WAS THAT?!"
I didn't have an answer.
Kael was beside her, not saying anything. His eyes were doing the calculating thing.
I looked for Alara.
She was standing very still. Not watching the stage. Watching me. The same expression she'd worn after the dart in the Ebon Maw — not surprise exactly. Something more careful than surprise. Like she was filing something away.
Our eyes met.
She looked away first.
I didn't know what to do with that so I didn't do anything with it. "I don't know what happened," I said, to everyone and no one. "He slipped. I just—"
"You just juggled four flaming swords," Kael said. Still not looking at me. "Better than a professional."
"I got lucky."
Kael said nothing. Which was its own answer.
Tessa grabbed my arm with both hands. "You're the coolest person I've ever met and I've met Uncle Hask."
I felt my face get hot. "You know that's not true."
"You don't know what I know!"
"Can we please talk about something else?"
"Absolutely not!"
The Swiftfoot Festival didn't end so much as it gradually decided it was finished.
Stalls folded themselves away. Performers packed up with the practiced efficiency of people who had done this in every city on the continent.
The crowd thinned slowly, halflings drifting homeward in small warm groups, the lanterns still burning above them, the lower city still glowing but quieter now. The kind of quiet that comes after something good rather than before something bad.
We found Vlod and Hulda near the square as the ceremony area cleared. Hulda immediately attempted to feed us, despite the fact that we had been eating continuously for approximately six hours. Nobody refused her.
After we said our goodbyes we wandered out of the lower city, heading for the Guild Hall. Tessa had reached a point where her drunkenness had tipped into not feeling well. She was silent, draped over my shoulder as we walked.
Kael and Alara flanked us on either side, their shock at what had happened at Dandy Dan's show seeming to have worn off with the haze of alcohol and warmth of the lanterns. It was just another mystery. We had plenty of those.
I'd walked the streets of Moorhaven plenty of times by this point, but it never failed to amaze me at how different it was at night. Even with the smattering of citizens stumbling home from the festival, it was intensely quiet. Everyone seemed either too drunk or too exhausted to continue merrymaking.
It took about a half an hour to reach the Guild Hall, and once we arrived, Kael and I parted ways with the girls. As I lifted Tessa to set her down on the ground, she whispered quietly in my ear. "Thank you for coming with me. I'm glad I got to share that with you."
I felt her lips press against my cheek, and my face burned. As I put her down, she stumbled over to hug Kael, and she and Alara disappeared inside the building. The elf girl gave me one last look over her shoulder, and it left me thinking about it even after she was out of sight.
Kael stretched and yawned. "I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to go to bed just yet. Wanna grab a nightcap?"
"Are there even any taverns open now?"
"The Hollow Crown."
"Works for me."
Despite the long walk to get home, we departed together back into the city. As the tavern came slowly into view, I heard a voice from across the way. "Young man! A word, please!"
I turned. It was Dandy Dan. He looked rumpled and exhausted, probably a little drunk. He was waving and looking directly at me.
Kael glanced at me, and I shrugged. "You go ahead. I'll catch up in a second."
Kael trundled his way to the Hollow Crown, and I changed course toward Dan, who was leaning against the corner of a nearby building.
He was definitely drunk. I could smell it on him as I got closer. But his winning smile was very much intact. He slurred as he spoke. "My young savior! You departed so quickly from the stage, I was unable to properly thank you."
I shifted my weight to my other foot awkwardly. "Don't mention it."
Dan waved his hand dismissively. "I shall mention it! You saved my life, and the show! The crowd loved it. Most of them thought I had planted you in the audience."
He lowered his voice. "I'm a bit miffed that you juggled those swords with such aplomb, even better than I. No small feat. Regardless, my irritation is vastly outshined by my deep gratitude. I'd like to compensate you for your trouble and the danger I put you in."
I was slightly taken aback. "Oh, that's not necessary. Anyone would've done what I did."
"I disagree! And I must insist. Unfortunately, I have but one coin on me, but I think you'll find it…"
He paused for dramatic effect, as if he were on stage. "Quite valuable."
He pressed a metal coin into my hand. It felt cool on my skin. "If you need anything, anything, at all, I'm not difficult to find."
His voice seemed to lose a modicum of its slur as he said that, but then he straightened up and resumed his normal, boisterous register. "Now I must be off! The troupe is already packing their carts and I must assist them before I head home for the night!"
He turned on his heel, a slight wobble in his step that I now suspected was an affectation.
A consummate performer.
As I headed toward the Hollow Crown, I looked down at the coin in my hand. On one face was the stern and regal face of Kaidus Krath III, the reigning emperor of Delvenmoor. When I flipped it, I froze.
Emblazoned in the gold facade were two concentric circles, divided by an offset line.
I shivered, despite the night air being quite warm.
With a pit in my stomach, I pocketed the coin and stepped into the tavern.