Up from out of the depths of their blank minds new words rushed, words red with blood and revenge, words that had echoed among the castle's stones, words stored in silicon, words that would have themselves heard, words that gripped their mouths so tightly that an attempt not to say them would result in a broken jaw.
'Do you fear him now?' said Gumridge. 'And he so mazed with drink? Take his dagger, husband – you are a blade's width from the kingdom.'
'I dare not,' Wimsloe said, trying to look in astonishment at his own lips.
'Who will know?' Gumridge waved a hand towards the audience. He'd never act so well again. 'See, there is only eyeless night. Take the dagger now, take the kingdom tomorrow. Have a stab at it, man.'
Wimsloe's hand shook.
'I have it, wife,' he said. 'Is this a dagger I see before me?'
'Of course it's a bloody dagger. Come on, do it now. The weak deserve no mercy. We'll say he fell down the stairs.'
'But people will suspect!'
'Are there no dungeons? Are there no pilliwinks? Possession is nine parts of the law, husband, when what you possess is a knife.'
Wimsloe drew his arm back.
'I cannot! He has been kindness itself to me!'
'And you can be Death itself to him . . .'
Dafe could hear the voices a long way off. He adjusted his mask, checked the deathliness of his appearance in the mirror, and peered at the script in the empty backstage gloom.
'Cower Now, Brief Mortals,' he said. 'I Am Death, 'Gainst Who – 'Gainst Who—'
WHOM.
'Oh, thanks,' said the boy distractedly. ' 'Gainst Whom No Lock May Hold—'
WILL HOLD.
'Will Hold Nor Fasten'd Portal Bar, Here To – to – to'
HERE TO TAKE MY TALLY ON THIS NIGHT OF KINGS.
Dafe sagged.
'You're so much better at it,' he moaned. 'You've got the right voice and you can remember the words.' He turned around. 'It's only three lines and Hwel will . . . have . . . my . . . guts . . . for.'
He froze. His eyes widened and became two saucers of fear as Death snapped his fingers in front of the boy's rigid face.
FORGET, he commanded, and turned and stalked silently towards the wings.
His eyeless skull took in the line of costumes, the waxy debris of the makeup table. His empty nostrils snuffed up the mixed smells of mothballs, grease and sweat.
There was something here, he thought, that nearly belonged to the gods. Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflects the landscape. And yet . . . and yet . . .
Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things, you might think they would want to escape from – hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in. He was fascinated.
He was here for a very particular and precise purpose. There was a soul to be claimed. There was no time for inconsequentialities. But what was time, after all?
His feet did an involuntary little clicking dance across the stones. Alone, in the grey shadows, Death tapdanced.
—THE NEXT NIGHT IN YOUR DRESSING ROOM THEY HANG A STAR—
He pulled himself together, adjusted his scythe, and waited silently for his cue.