after them, but Orinda touched his shoulder. He turned.
“She loves you, you old fool,” Orinda told him. “You both fight jealously for every knuckle’s distance of territory, but do you suppose she learned that on her own?”
“I—”
“Shush!” She put her fingers to his lips. “I’ll not listen to your explanation. It’s not for me anyway to know it. Tell the walls if you’re looking to persuade something. Not me.” She slid her hand to his shoulder blade then and impelled him to leave.
Below, in the booth once more, Leodora selected her puppets while Diverus chose his instruments—the theorbo again, and a duduk. She had the feeling the theorbo, with its more resonant bass strings, was going to become a permanent addition to his repertoire.
Once he had his choices she perched upon her seat, raised her hand to the lantern, and slid a blue filter in front of the side facing the screen. Then, slowly, she raised the black curtain and the theater was bathed in a blue glow. The hidden lens in front of the booth redoubled the strength of the light, and even over the top of the booth she could see the glow, like the most intense moonlight striking sapphire.
The audience shrieked with joy. Some whistled or yelled, but their noise soon fell to a murmur and then the silence of anticipation.
From the case beside her, Leodora lifted out the figure of Meersh. Her hands nearly trembled upon the rods controlling him. Here was the figure Soter had once used to represent her father, the puppet most closely tied to him, the one who like Bardsham had acted on impulse and stolen a million hearts as he did.
She raised him to the screen. They all knew that profile, even if they’d never seen him before—the beaky nose, the wicked smile that knew your secrets, the wide and mischievous eyes: the consummate trickster.
Applause and more shouts greeted his appearance.
Soter, standing on the far side of the booth, just beside the larger screen, began an introductory speech. “You know this story already, many of you, because once upon a time the immortal Bardsham told every tale of Meersh the Bedeviler, and told them so well that we have them still. Here, tonight, the old Bedeviler returns to us, now in the hands of the formidable Jax.” Some of them repeated the name. Someone shouted it.
Soter continued: “As you know, Meersh had many adventures, and not all of them turned out for the best. Meersh, helpless in the face of his own desires, paid a price for his every pleasure.”
THE TALE OF MEERSH AND THE SUN GOD
Back in the early times, when only a single strand of spans graced Shadowbridge, Meersh the Bedeviler took a wife named Akonadi and settled upon Taprobane. Akonadi was a remarkable huntress who could stand in a boat, throw her spear, and skewer a whole school of fish at once. Meersh had married her out of lust, as he did everything, but especially because she kept him well fed. The old saying goes, “When you want to eat, marry a huntress.” And when you want trouble, marry Meersh.
Now, even in the earliest times, Meersh had difficulty staying in one place for very long. This is why he’s known far and wide across Shadowbridge. And even though she looked after him so well, did our Akonadi, he could not resist his peripatetic urges. Thus he went traveling while she remained on Taprobane, hunting and keeping house.
Meersh stayed away a long time, and Akonadi pined for him. She prayed to Edgeworld that he be returned safely to her, for even when they were furious with Meersh, women loved him, and Akonadi loved him the deepest of all, for most of his follies were still to come. Nevertheless, after many months had passed, she began to pray that somebody be delivered to her, whether it was Meersh or not. If any gods were paying her the slightest attention, they offered her no sign.
One day while she was fishing, she sailed farther out than ever before and came to an unfamiliar shoreline, an island she’d never visited. Its shore was rocky, precipitous, and hazardous. Before the sheer cliff face, many stones jutted out of the sea like teeth or tines. One in particular had been worn by the waves into a familiar shape. Upright in the shallows, it looked like Meersh himself. The play of shadow and light chiseled the stone into his recognizable visage, an illusion to be sure,