Tell them everything we’ve nearly done and everything you want to do. All you’ll do is bring the stars down upon your head, as well.”
Quickly he changed tack. “I’ll tell Gousier.”
Fear knifed her belly. Everything she had ever felt for or shared with Tastion evaporated. She took a step and he moved to block her. She kept coming nevertheless, impelling him backward by force of will until his heel caught against a root and he fell. He tried to grab her as he toppled, but she dodged his fingers and kept going. She expected to hear him shout his threat again, but there was silence behind her.
Where the paths branched, she turned left and went to Soter’s.
Oil lamps burned brightly within his hut. She stopped in the doorway.
One of the puppet cases stood open in the center of the room. All the puppets lay in a heap beside it, a congeries of articulated limbs and rods. From the rear Soter emerged, his eyes sparkling in the oil light, a smile on his lips at the sight of her. He looked uncommonly sober.
“Come see,” he urged. She crossed the room. “You see how the case is made?” He leaned over it and found a small black ribbon in its depths, which he ceremoniously pulled. What appeared to be the bottom of the case rose up like the trapdoor to her garret room.
“Extra compartments,” he said. “We put our belongings in this one, beneath the puppets. The other’s bigger, deeper. Your father used it for whatever came along. If pockets were picked and the boodle found its way to us, in it went. The moneys collected during performances, too. It pays to be careful on the spans. He was doing very well, and thieves lurked everywhere, in the most unexpected guises. That’s something to remember about the spans and spirals: You can be as intimate as you like with someone and the next thing, they turn on you.”
“Yes, they do, don’t they?” Through her fresh bitterness her thoughts were already leaping ahead, in another direction. “The other case is a little larger.”
“It is, yes. Like a coffin, big enough almost. Bardsham managed to fill it, though. We once carried a young…never mind.”
She hadn’t heard him. She was regarding the larger undaya case. “Do you believe in coincidence, Soter? Or do you think that some things just happen to take place at the right moment?”
He stared at her in perplexity.
“We need to take everything out of the case,” she told him, “all the puppets. I need it.”
“But I just packed it.”
She started past him, and he hurried after her, around her, muttering, “All right, all right.” He took hold of the case before she could and dragged it out of the small back room. Unfastening the lid, he carefully began removing the puppets. “They’re in proper order, be careful,” he advised when she reached in, too. Piled on the floor, there were so many, she couldn’t believe she had tried every one. Soter lifted the false bottom. “You don’t want to put anything heavy in here, you know. These cases will wear you down. In the morning they’re hardly an inconvenience, but you haul one along till sunset, and you won’t think you’ll ever stand up straight again.”
“It isn’t heavy, what I have in mind. It’s light as air.”
He dropped the bottom back into place. “Well, I hope it’s important. We can’t have anything frivolous on this escapade.” She closed the case and carried it out, leaving him bewildered between the puppet piles.
She didn’t dare light a lamp. She had to feel her way through the cavern.
Around the bend the Coral Man was glowing, but now no brighter than the farthest star. Just as well for her—she didn’t think she could have touched him again if he were brightly lit. This way, she could pretend that he was dull and harmless.
She stood the case up beside him to compare. As she had thought, he was smaller than the case, just like she was. Once it was open, she had to pat around in its depths to find the black ribbon. As she pulled up the false bottom, from the corner of her eye she thought she saw the Coral Man lean toward her. She jumped and looked straight at him. He hadn’t moved of course. It was, she insisted, her steaming breath in the air that had caused the illusion. “Why in the world am I doing this?” she muttered, and answered herself: