Free The Rebirth of Wonder by Lawrence Watt-Evans Page A

half
days ago, when the Bringers had first arrived; they hadn't so much
as moved the curtain, so far as he could tell. There were no sets,
no props.
    However, he realized, he did see marks on the
stage – those would presumably be for blocking, for showing the
cast who belonged where in various scenes. He climbed up on the
stage and looked.
    Every other production he'd ever worked on
had used colored tape for blocking marks, but the Bringers had used
chalk, white and red chalk. They had drawn a white circle center
stage, about fifteen feet in diameter, with little red symbols here
and there around the circumference.
    It was a very neatly drawn circle, obviously
not done freehand; the symbols, on the other hand, looked like
little more than scribbles to Art. He could make no sense of any of
them.
    As he walked around the circle, he remembered
Marilyn's suggestion that the alleged play was a cover for some
sort of cult activity. The idea had a certain plausibility that
made him uneasy; this chalk figure could be some sort of mystic
figure for an occult ritual.
    But it was probably just blocking marks.
    Maybe the play had some
sort of ritual in it. It was about magic, after all.
    But what if it was some kind of occult
ceremony these people were planning, rather than a play? What
then?
    Well, what then? What business was it of
his?
    Not much. People had a right to their own
beliefs. That was in the Constitution.
    But it would mean they had lied to him, and
to his father, and that was wrong, that was a violation of the
rental contract. And why would they lie? It wasn't any big deal if
they wanted to hold a ritual, was it?
    And why in the theater? There were some local
pagans in Bampton, people who called themselves Wiccans, who held
meetings, and they always held them outdoors, not in theaters.
    So the Bringers weren't Wiccans, obviously.
Maybe they were Satanists, and the fact that the foundation had
originally been a church had appealed to them.
    But Maggie had apparently not known that the
theater was built atop a ruined church until he had told her.
    He looked down at the chalk lines on the
scuffed wood of the stage and frowned. He was being silly. They
were just a bunch of actors and prestidigitators. These were
blocking marks. And the knife in the basement wasn't anything
special; someone had dropped it somewhere, that was all, and it had
wound up in the prop room by accident.
    But why couldn't he find
any mention of Merton Ambrose or The
Return of Magic ? It was all rather
odd.
    He would, he decided, bring the knife up here
and wait for the Bringers, and ask a few questions. Simple
enough.
    When he started down the stairs the theater
was empty and silent. By the time he had fetched the dagger and
started back up, even though it was still ten minutes before four,
he could hear voices; the Bringers had begun to arrive.
    He was spotted the instant he reached the top
of the stairs. “Ah, Arthur!” Innisfree called. “I'd wondered where
you were!”
    “ I was getting this
from the basement,” Art explained, carefully holding the knife out
by the blade, hilt extended. “I think one of you must have left it
here the other day.”
    Innisfree and Morgan, the two closest of the
four Bringers in sight, came to look.
    “ A fine weapon,”
Morgan said, “but not mine.”
    “ Nor mine,”
Innisfree said. He looked up and gestured to the man in the turban
– who also wore a loose white shirt and black denim
jeans.
    Art took the opportunity to transfer the
knife to his left hand and hold out his right.
    “ Art Dunham,” he
said.
    After a moment's startled hesitation, the
turbaned man took the offered hand and replied, “Mehmet
Karagöz.”
    “ Pleased to meet
you,” Art said.
    “ Thank you; it is an
honor,” Karagöz answered, dropping Art's hand. “May I?” He gestured
at the knife.
    “ Of
course.”
    Karagöz took the dagger and studied it
carefully.
    “ It is not mine,” he
said at last, handing it back, “but it