the bottom of the screen by its rods, secured in the groove of the shelf below. The suitor suddenly sprang off screen.
“‘Guards! Guards!’ the magician cried. ‘Come quickly—a thief has broken in and attacked the princess!’ Never for a second did he imagine that the thief had succeeded in carrying out his mission. No one had ever met the twin dragons and lived. The wizard assumed that the thief had never really gone at all or had given up, as anyone else would have done. As he would have done. The plan fixed itself even as he cried out. The unconscious chaperone behind the curtain—the thief had struck her and hidden himself there. As for the girl, the wizard would magnanimously offer to marry her, thus securing her father’s eternal debt. The rape would remain a secret between them. The thief would be executed before day’s end, the shamed girl reduced to his docile slave. It was all too perfect, even better than his original plan.”
Leodora had no guards to bring onto the scene. But she did have their pikes among the weapons Soter had given her. The suitor’s figure she locked in place for a moment by setting its control rods in the grooved shelf. Then she picked up two pikes and leaned them in from the side, one above the other.
“The guards entered. The suitor thrust a finger at the thief. ‘There he is. Look at what he’s done!’”
She drew the suitor’s figure back slightly from the screen so that his shadow swelled in size while the thief leapt into motion.
“‘No!’ cried the young thief. ‘I didn’t do this—he did. I was climbing up the vines outside to fulfill my pact with the good physician who dwells higher up, but I fell onto the balcony trying to catch this!’”
He lifted into view the golden Druid’s Egg. Leodora swung down the lantern again and spun it red at the same moment that, with her pinkie, she coaxed apart the rods of the egg, splitting it open.
“‘Aiiieeee, I’m undone!’ cried the suitor. He tried to grab the egg, but the thief hopped back. The wizard stood trapped between the thief and the guards he had called. He quailed at the power of the egg. Its power would defeat any enemy—and most certainly he was the enemy of this thief. Even if the thief didn’t realize it, the egg knew.”
She gave the lantern a spin so that light became stars became red became darkness; and in that precise instant of darkness, she switched the suitor with the sharp-featured wizard.
“Helpless, the wizard watched himself transform, and in terror he ran to escape the deadly influence of the egg, ran blindly for the door—his only thought to get away from that hellish glow. But the guards reacted as guards should and lowered their pikes. They impaled the evil man.”
The pikes slid behind the wizard’s torso. She brought her middle finger to her thumb, and the figure doubled over. The pikes lifted him into the air.
“The thief knelt beside his beloved. The Druid’s Egg shone upon her. She stirred, awakened, to find herself clothed in light. A total stranger was at her side, and her wicked seducer was dead upon the pikes of her guards.”
The princess got to her feet, her body trembling. The young thief rose also.
“‘Who are you?’ she asked.”
The thief lowered his head.
“‘I’m no one. Just a common thief.’
“‘How can you say that when you have saved me?’ she replied.
“‘I saved one for whom I would willingly perish.’
“‘Don’t say such things. How could you feel that way for me when we have never met?’
“‘I could. I do. I can’t help it. But I must go now before your father finds me here. I don’t belong here.’
“‘Then take me with you.’
“‘How can I?’
“‘If you go, then I no longer belong here, either.’
“‘Oh,’ said he. ‘In that case, how can I not?’”
The princess reached to him, and he took her hand. The two shadow figures embraced in a long, lingering kiss. The egg slipped from the thief’s other hand and cracked open at his feet. The screen turned red with its light, and then, as Leodora unlooped and let slide the lanyard, the red light sank like an evening sun, taking all shadows with it. When it was below the silk screen, she blew out the light.
Outside the booth the room might have been empty, it was so quiet. She set down the figures, stood and stretched, then stepped through the curtain.
Soter seemed