this only to herself, but the twins halted their enactment and turned to look up at her. They didn’t move after that. They seemed to be waiting for a response from her.
“I know your story,” she called down.
One of the two took a few steps toward her, gesturing excitedly for her to come down to the stage.
She raised her hands. “How?” she asked.
He pointed a finger around the rear of the stage, through the balconies, directing her back into the hall and beyond the room from where she’d emerged, then effected jagged movements signifying stairs. She nodded that she understood and then retraced her steps back into the dark corridor, where she felt her way along the wall. As he’d indicated, stairs began but a short distance beyond her room.
From then on she navigated by instinct, approximating the location of the stage and feeling her way in search of an entrance. She touched a heavy curtain and, pushing it aside, entered a dark area to one side of the stage, hidden from the audience, but with part of the stage itself visible.
The two figures had stopped their pantomime and awaited her, still as statues. Leodora walked out onto the stage. Four of the lights along the front of it had been lit. Past them she could see the empty theater space that threw back echoes of her footsteps.
Drawing nearer, she found that statues was not an unreasonable comparison to the two men. They were like clockwork creatures that had wound down. Bodies motionless, they watched her approach. Their eyes were alive, though shallowly set; but their mouths were painted on, their chins defined by vertical lines as though separately inserted and hinged. So, too, their fingers had three distinct joints.
Looking from one to the other, she asked, “Am I still in Edgeworld?”
The two faced each other, their expressions changing to show confusion, their painted mouths pursing. Then together they turned back to her and shook their heads. “I’m in Colemaigne, then?”
This time they nodded without prior consultation.
“So my companions, they’re here, too? In this theater?”
One figure nodded; the other pressed his hands together and placed them against his cheek, closing his eyes.
“Yes, I understand,” she said with relief. It was night. They were asleep. Everything would be fine. Until they awoke, she was in no position to learn what had happened to her, so she might as well explore on her own.
The two inhuman men waited for her to say something.
“I know the story you were performing. I perform it, too. I’m a shadow artist.” One of them pressed his thumbs to his fingertips and moved his hands up and down independently as if raising and lowering something. “That’s right—puppets on rods, that’s how I tell stories.” He placed one hand to his own chest and the other on his twin’s shoulder. Again, she understood his intent as clearly as if he had spoken. “I could—if you want—recite it while you perform. If that’s not presumptuous of me.”
His eyes widened and without warning he clasped and hugged her. When he let go, she said, “Well. I didn’t expect that.” He pretended to be shy then, lowering his head. She laughed at his clowning, and he brightened again. His twin shook his head as if disapproving, but glanced her way to see if she was watching. It was all part of their repartee.
“So,” she said, “I will go sit over there beside the lights and tell the story as if to the audience behind me, and you’ll perform it for them.”
They both nodded their accord and shook hands with each other. She walked to the front of the stage, and they strode off into the wings to await her beginning. She sat cross-legged and for a moment gazed up at the roof, which was like an awning overhead. This is as strange as the parade of monsters, she thought, or the Ondiont snake. The thoughts wanted to drift her into daydream, but she banished them, flexed her spine, and placed her palms on the floor. She inhaled deeply and began.
THE TALE OF THE TWO BROTHERS
There once were two brothers named Baloyd and Suald. They had lived on the span called Kakotara their whole uneventful lives. Both of them had married by arrangement. Their brides had been betrothed to them when they were children. Their father was a respectable weaver, and their mother raised colorful, exotic birds, many of which were purchased for the court of Kakotara. Because of this neither of