a handful of true stories,” he said so often that she could parrot his exact emphasis. “The rest are simply embellishments, or reconstructions. Variations, my girl. When you walk the spans you’ll hear a thousand versions of the same story. Some are dark, others light. Tales get rewritten to suit people and place. What’s beheld as divine wisdom on one span will be mythic farce on another, with nary a word dividing the two. All depends on what is believed. I’ve seen stories revised from top to bottom, too, after the gods have sent something down to a Dragon Bowl. That one about the girl made of wood who receives a magic visit from an Edgeworld god who sends her off to find a prince and her wedding—well, it was once someone much lower than a god who granted her wishes, some local spirit somewhere. After a while that local spirit wasn’t recollected anymore and got replaced. Stories, you see, are alive, or else not worth the telling.”
As to which tales might be originals, she didn’t know. Perhaps everything was embellishment. Was the simplest the more fundamental? Or just a true tale stripped of true meaning? In the end she had stopped fretting over it. It was no more important than knowing on which span the story had begun. She was expected to know every one of them, regardless of their origin.
She now considered the puppets Soter had laid out for her on the case: the orange figure that was sometimes a beggar but most often a thief, a pair of winged dragons, a maiden, an emperor, an assortment of tiny weapons, two guards, a young man, and an old man. Soter had fitted a straight wand in the old man’s hand. From that she knew he was a wizard. Last of all was the resplendent figure of the handsome suitor.
The key object was missing, however. He had withheld it on purpose to challenge her. She smiled to herself for having recognized this, too. “It’s the tale of the Druid’s Egg,” she announced authoritatively.
Soter rocked on his heels. “You are positive?”
“Yes,” she replied, concealing the doubt his question let in. “But you have the title element.” She boldly held out her hand.
Soter’s gaze fastened on hers. “How did you identify the tale if I have the key?”
“The thief figure is also the beggar figure, so his limbs are detachable. In the Druid’s Egg tale the thief isn’t swift enough to steal the egg without being bitten by one of the twin serpents who hold the egg aloft, and he loses an arm to its venom. The old man is the wizard with the magic wand. He transforms himself into the handsome suitor to capture the heart of the princess, who is the true love of the thief. She’s the reason he stole the egg in the first place—to have her for a wife. The wizard wants her because he wants to rule the kingdom. He wants power. The thief fears she won’t want him with one arm, and so—”
“Enough! Here!” He handed her the prop of the translucent golden egg. “Show. Don’t tell.” Then he collected the figures of the guards and the emperor.
“Wait! I need them. How can I tell it right?”
As if the question were superfluous, he answered, “Improvise.” He pushed apart the drapery and left the booth.
The lantern was already lighted. She had only to rotate it to cast its beam upon the taut white silk screen. Beneath the screen was a narrow shelf. A groove ran the length of it.
She brought the figure of the wizard to the screen. Normally the trappings of a set would have been hooked in place around the puppet. But Soter forced her to rely on storytelling alone to convey situations.
It was theater without a stage.
She picked up her story: “The wizard disguised himself as a physician, and gained admittance to the palace in that form, taking a small room that overlooked the city. There he performed his dark arts. He used his powers to discover every suitor the princess had, worthy or not. He saw the thief’s passion for her. That was why the wizard, in the guise of the good doctor, had sent him on the impossible quest for the Druid’s Egg—for with that prize and his knowledge of how to unlock it, the wizard would gain remarkable powers, and as a reward would give the girl to the thief, after first stealing her love for himself.