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.Bold but tender.Powerful but tragic.Especially tragic.His career had ended at its height, turning on itself like a snake swallowing its own tail.To escape ever-present fans, V’Torres had begun to drink himself unconscious.The problem was he would invariably wake up beside one of those fans.Eventually, drink rotted his liver, and pox rotted his brain.By the time he got dry on both ends he was empty in the middle, and had no voice left.V’Torres, now, was next to nothing, and jealousy consumed him.Perhaps murderous jealousy.Tonias was worthy of it.Occasionally, he would stop bellowing and actually sing something soaring and sweet.Then, even I could tell he was good.In those moments his voice held all of hope and fear, desire and devotion.The sound struck me in the breastbone and moved in waves through my ribs, into my spine, and up to buzz in the base of my brain.It was like my ears heard only the smallest part of that sound, most of it resounding directly in my bones.Even now he sang such a passage.Among a rapt and adoring throng of choristers, King Orpheus stood, belly thrust outward, head thrown back, and battle sword lifted high:“I rise.I rise upon the dawning hope of Distalia,Like pollen in the teaming air of Spring.I rise.I rise as all life rises, green and softThrough iron-hard ground to daylight gleam.I rise.I rise from roots that turn your dark decayTo golden finery, turn grave soil to wind-borne seed.I rise, as all of life, I rise!”While King Orpheus sang, Garragius growled out a counterpoint.Tattered black rags swayed around his twisted frame.Within the cloth, a wickedly curved dagger glinted with little flame teeth from the foot candles.Clutching the blade, Garragius made his way toward the king.“Death also rises,Or didn’t you know?In every blossom, every fruit,The worm will also grow.The worm that eats away the home.The worm that winnows flesh from bone.The worm, implacable, aloneEternal, worm.Eternal worm!”Garragius groveled his way to the foot of the singing king and lifted the dagger in tremulous hands.King Orpheus sang on, oblivious, as his foe rose from the shadows to slay him.Giving a final shriek of animal fury, Garragius rammed the curved dagger into the King’s bulging gut.A gout of blood sprayed forth.I was impressed with this bit of stage magic, more realistic than in the fifty-some last performances.The blood even steamed in the cool air.Tonias’s song turned into a shriek of agony and he stared in horror and shock at the knife jutting from his stomach.“He’s killed me!” Tonias cried out unmusically.The pit orchestra ground to a halt.The lead rebec player-a thin, pale woman-rose to stare, aghast.Tonias lifted a crimson hand from his belly.“V’Torres has killed me!”V’Torres? I flung back the curtain and rushed onstage.Too late.Tonias’s whole body shuddered.His sword arm went limp and dropped, blade still in hand.The steel flashed in an orange arc and struck V’Torres in the neck, bringing an instant spray of gore.V’Torres’s scream was taken up by many members of the crowd.The audience recoiled from the stage, clambering over seats and bustles and miles of satin to get away from the blood.I was drawn to it.I reached the scene in time to catch Tonias, slumping unconscious to the floor.The dead weight of the man bore me down in a heap beneath him.Next moment, V’Torres added his body to the pile, hand falling from his spurting neck.That’s when I began bellowing.Hot blood soaked my clothes, and three hundred pounds of tenor crushed me.But mainly I bellowed because the men I’d been hired to protect had, in front of thousands of elite witnesses, killed each other dead.* * * * *Well, not exactly dead, thanks to the priests of Lathander in the front row.I commandeered the healers, who accompanied body-bearing guardsmen to separate dressing rooms where ministrations began.After issuing orders for crowd control, I got the blood cleaned off me and headed for Tonias’s dressing room.I knocked on the door.The lead rebec player answered.She blinked big moon eyes at me.Her hair bristled in a brown, unkempt mat and her mannish tunic and trousers were stained in blood.“What?”“I’m Bolton Quaid, the bodyguard.”“A little late, aren’t you?” she asked caustically.She stepped back and let me in.The room was as sumptuous as it was crowded-wool rugs, glazed windows, silvered mirrors, embroidered chairs… Tonias lay, huge and sweating, on a too-small fainting couch, midsection covered by a rumpled yellow shirt.At his head stood one gray-garbed guardsman.Another stood at his foot.The rebec player drifted quickly in to kneel beside the couch on a lush Shou Lung carpet.Her knees settled just beside the bloody sword that had almost killed V’Torres.I made my way past red-and yellow-robed priests and stood over the tenor
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