Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells Read Free Book Online

probably passengers from the barge that was weathering the bad currents, came down from the post. Most of these people had never seen the elaborate Ariaden puppets before and there was much whispered commentary in the crowd. Someone else was drawn by the noise as well.
    Maskelle looked for him, and saw him finally just beyond the reach of the torches, sitting on the grass and watching. It gave her more information about him, though it was nothing that made any particular sense. She wasn’t sure how a Sitanese outcast could have seen kiradi theater before, but he got the joke that even passed the Mahlindi by, the one that appeared to be an innocuous remark about idle hands and was actually a subtle innuendo implying masturbation, to the point where he actually fell over on his side with laughter.
    A burst of applause made Maskelle glance at the stage. At first she thought the figure crossing in front of Therasa and Dona’s scene was a child, escaped from some parent in the audience. It was a puppet.
    “Great Days in the Dawn of Life,” Maskelle swore, starting to her feet.
How did that damn thing get out
? She circled the crowd hastily, coming up on the wagon that formed the stage right entrance. She caught Rastim as he pelted into her and dragged him behind the wagon.
    “I don’t know,” he whispered frantically, answering the question she hadn’t had the chance to ask yet. “Thae and Tirin got the Aldosi out of their boxes, but they know better, they would never—”
    “I know they wouldn’t.” Maskelle leaned around the wagon to peer at the stage. The animate puppet was standing, staring out at the audience, the painted face expressionless. Therasa and Doria were still saying their lines, but they were casually putting distance between themselves and the puppet. The crowd still thought it was part of the show; to people unused to puppets, the one that was walking by itself was no more miraculous than the two that had been controlled by the young boys. Firac and Gardick were standing out of sight of the crowd near the wagon marking the opposite end of the stage; Firac was holding a net. Maskelle shook her head. That wasn’t going to do much good.
    All the Ariaden puppets had names: the Aldosi were the two big walking puppets Thae and Tirin were working. The one that was working itself had been Gisar, a clown puppet manipulated by strings pulled from above. Gisar had had the misfortune to be on stage during a performance that had offended a powerful magister in the eastern province of Corvalent. It was how Maskelle had first met Rastim and the other Ariaden.
    Gisar now lived locked in a box hung beneath Rastim’s wagon and sealed by all the protective symbols Maskelle knew to put on it. It had been getting stronger, the particular nature of the curse put on it making its malevolence grow with time instead of fade. It must have been able to manipulate one or both of the boys from inside its box, so when they had thought they were only unpacking the Aldosi puppets, they had opened Gisar’s container as well.
    “You’ll have to go and get it,” Rastim whispered.
    “I know that.” It hadn’t done anything yet, but possibly it was biding its time, waiting for her. Across the length of the stage she caught Firac’s eye. When she had his attention, she stepped out away from the wagon.
    “Wait,” Rastim said urgently. He gestured rapidly to the others on stage. Ariaden actors had a sign language, used for communicating silently during the complex performances. Doria suddenly clapped her hands and gestured extravagantly stage left, saying something about the townspeople’s dancing festival. Firac, Gardick, and Killia gamboled onto the stage, followed by the two boys with the Aldosi puppets. Firac whirled the net over his head, looking as much like an escaped madman as a celebratory dancer.
    The puppet Gisar stared at them, backing away from the trap. Maskelle darted onto the stage in the confusion and it