The Troupe (18 page)

George watched as one little stick figure that was glowing bright walked before a group of people huddled before a growing shadow. The figure waved its tiny stick arms until the people were watching, and then it sang for them, and George recognized the song as the ethereal harmony he had first heard at the beginning of the show. The people who heard the song seemed to light up, gathering a small halo of bright colors about them. Then they walked into the darkness, and where they walked the darkness retreated and the world began to return. The little glowing figure who had first sung the song went to another group of people and sang again, and then another and another until almost half the world had been brought back, the shadow withdrawing as the glowing people moved forward. The wolves at the edges paced and bit and snapped, but the world stayed bright and clear, and they made soundless howls of rage.

“And though much of the world returned, some parts could not be brought back,” said Silenus. “Many lands and countries had lain under shadow for too long, and were lost. So the people decided that they would never allow such a thing to happen again, and they assigned a group to carry the First Song from fading place to fading place and renew the edges of the world, and pass on the song when needed. And so Creation would be maintained, piece by piece, performance by performance, as the First Song was carried across the face of the Earth, echoing in the deeps.”

The last image on the screen was of a group of people crossing the
little brown world, weaving through tiny mountains and traveling down into a valley. There was a faint glow to them, as though they carried a light that they had to keep veiled. Out beyond the border of the world the wolves in the darkness watched them, and they stewed and paced back and forth. The glowing people did not seem to take notice, and George almost shouted at them to watch out, and take warning, but before he could the screen began to grow blank again, and the darkness and the wolves and the world turned into empty canvas.

Stanley increased the light on his lantern. Silenus walked down off the stage, took the glass chimney off of it, and lit his cigar in its flame. As he did he looked up at George, the fire’s luminescence bathing his craggy face, and said, “Good fucking show, ain’t it?”

George was not sure what to say at first. Finally he asked, “What is it you’re trying to tell me? That… that the song you sing in the fourth act is…”

“I am saying,” said Silenus, “that the strange performance at the end of our shows, where everything seems to go still and the audience grows dazed and silent… In that moment, what is being played is the First Song, otherwise known as the First Invocation, the art that called Creation out of the darkness and forged the world. Or at the very least a part of that song.”

George stared at him. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“I dead fucking am,” said Silenus.

Stanley took out his blackboard and wrote:
WHAT WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU HEARD IT LIKE
?

Silenus added, “Yes, but ignore that memory that woke up inside you. That’s abnormal. Besides that, what was it like, that first time?”

George thought and said, “It was like the theater felt very small, and we could… look out and see everything. Like we were watching a machine from the outside, and we’d only ever seen it from within.”

“Exactly,” said Silenus. “Within the First Song are the… blueprints, I suppose you could say, of everything that’s ever been or ever will be. When it’s sung and heard it connects people, links them to everything that’s around them, every piece and every particle of everything until they see… well, everything. It is a glimpse of the infinite, bundled up into one three-minute act. And unlike most other experiences with the infinite, there is no sense of feeling lost, or meaningless, or any dread. Reciting the First Song is a force of renewal. It reminds the listener and even Creation itself what they are, what they were meant to be—an integral, inseparable part of a much vaster whole.”

George frowned as he tried to take this in. He remembered how those who’d seen the act in Parma had changed: their colors had become brighter, and they’d seemed somehow content and at peace. “So you sing this just to give people that feeling of… infinity?”

“Well, that’s not exactly
the
reason,” said Silenus. “That’s more of a pleasant side effect. The real reason is protection.”

A light went on in George’s mind. “Against the men in gray.”

Silenus exchanged a cool glance with Stanley. “Yes,” he said.

“I was approached by one of them, several months ago,” said George. “He was looking for news of you, but he didn’t give me his name, and his story was… Well, it was very unconvincing. I didn’t tell him anything. But just recently I heard someone say that you were a hunted man.”

Silenus smiled nastily. “Then that someone was correct. I am very hunted. In the past, oh, several hundred years or so, the darkness figured out how to manifest itself in the world, and disguise itself. Parts of itself, that is. It’s learned to send agents abroad to search for what’s keeping it at bay, in other words. They wear the images of people as you and I would a coat, but underneath, they’re like holes or tears in existence itself. Just their presence affects everything around them—light and colors and sounds fail, and shadows lengthen. They are not used to being real, to existing—hence why
the one you met thought up such a stupid plot, or why they were fooled by our reflections—but they are still a terrible threat to us. They do not need to be intelligent. They can win by sheer numbers alone.”

“And you call them wolves?”

“That name comes from older times,” said Silenus. “Way back when wolves were what men feared most. They killed and devoured flocks, and terrified villages. These shadow-creatures seemed to do the same, so they named them the same. It was a way of making sense of what was happening.” Silenus snorted and spat carelessly on the theater floor. “When they first appeared, our forebears obstructed them as best as they could, but I suppose it was inevitable—eventually the wolves learned of the First Song. They realized that if they could find it and prevent it from being performed—by killing the performers, essentially—then there would be nothing holding them back. They could finally eat up this remainder of the world, and have peace. And so they have been hounding us ever since. Performing the song normally pushes them back, like fortifying a dike against the tide. That’s how it’s been for… hell, thousands of years. But somehow in the hotel in Parma, it didn’t work. I can’t say why just yet. It is extraordinarily troubling, though.”

“Did you say thousands of years?” asked George.

“Yes,” said Silenus. “This has been going on for quite some time, kid. How old did you think I was?”

“I don’t know,” said George. But he thought he detected some anger in Silenus’s face that suggested the question had a very bitter meaning to him.

“In some form throughout the years, there has always been a traveling band of players,” he said. “They’ve been of different nations, different creeds, different races and languages, and different entertainments. Not all of them performed on the stage. Some did their routine in city squares, or in fields, or in temples or on the backs of wagons. Anywhere they could get a crowd. But they always carried
the First Song with them, and sang it in their performance, and passed it on when the time came.”

“Do the others in the troupe know?”

“They’ve all seen the picture show,” said Silenus. “The members have come and gone through the years, but they all drew a crowd. Which was what we needed. If I may say so, this current version of the troupe is the most efficient yet.”

“It is?” said George, and then he realized. “Ah. Because it’s in vaudeville, isn’t it? I suppose the circuits are perfect for you.”

“Can you think of a better method?” said Silenus. “We are allowed to—no,
expected
to—travel all around the country, going from theater to theater and doing our short act in front of enormous crowds. No other kind of entertainer has ever covered more ground than a vaudevillian.”

Stanley wrote:
AND OUR TRAVELS ARE A USEFUL SCREEN FOR OUR SEARCHES, AS WELL
.

“What are you searching for?” asked George.

“For other pieces of the song,” said Silenus.

“Other pieces? I’d have thought you’d have it all by now.”

Again, there was that bitter smile. “No,” said Silenus. “We do not. Over time we think we’ve found a lot of it. Not quite all, but most. But we are still missing a few key fragments. As such, when we perform the First Song we are only playing a portion. There are many dimensions to Creation we cannot help, or renew. So we are always searching for those missing pieces, to gather them up and fill in the empty portions.”

George was about to ask how they did this, when he suddenly remembered the two of them trudging through the rain with that enormous steamer trunk held between them. He remembered how angry Silenus had been, as if he’d gone out looking for something and been hugely disappointed. And then there was what the girl in green had said: Silenus always seemed to be carrying something very, very
heavy
.

“Oh,” said George. “Your trunk!”

Silenus narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“That’s how you collect it. It’s… it’s that trunk you have, with all the locks. You and Stanley have to get it in there, right?”

Silenus was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “The particulars of collecting or singing the song are a very delicate and secret matter, kid. Stanley is my assistant, and only he is allowed to know exactly what I do with the song. I’m telling you a lot of stuff right now, stuff people have gotten killed trying to protect. But right there is where I’m going to stop. Those are our most protected secrets, and I’m not willing to share them with you. Not yet.”

“People have gotten killed?” asked George. “Over a song?”

“Not just a song,” said Silenus. “
The
song. Do you know what’s at risk? What could be lost if they caught up to us?” He stood up and replaced his hat. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you what would happen.”

“Where are we going now?” asked George.

“I’m not sure yet. But I’ll know it when I see it.”

Silenus led them out back to the street behind the theater. The snow had lessened, but it was still bitterly cold. He took a right and followed a meandering little alleyway that ran behind several shops and homes. He held up a finger as though testing the wind, and changed direction and kept walking until they came to a neighborhood behind an old abandoned mill, next to a dribbling little stream. The buildings appeared to be deserted, and the lots were crisscrossed with cracked wooden fencing. In the weak starlight it was a lonely, disquieting place, snow-decked and littered with old industrial equipment and rusting chains, and splintered wood that sometimes had the look of bones. Every surface was ringed with frost, and armies of cats wove in and out of the machinery and the broken fences, some
times pausing to observe these intruders before disappearing down a gutter.

George was not sure what Silenus was looking for, but he could not imagine finding anything of worth here; yet then he recalled how both Parma and Rinton had felt when Silenus’s troupe had performed, and realized this place had the same sort of atmosphere: it felt dark and
thin
, as if one could scratch at the ground or the sky and it would tear away like paper.

“This place doesn’t seem right, does it?” asked Silenus.

George shook his head.

“It’s one of the fading parts. When more people who have heard the song come here it will return to what it once was. We’re helping it now, even as we speak.”

“I thought you caused this feeling,” said George.

“Caused?” said Silenus. “No. I am specifically here to
remove
this feeling, in a way. Though when the wolves follow us this feeling only increases, at least until the song’s effects take hold.” Then Silenus spied something, and he pointed at the tumbled-down remains of a red-brick building. Nearly all of the structure was gone except for a single lonely corner, and the way the starlight fell across it made dark shadows in its center. “There,” he said. “Do you see it?”

“See what?” asked George.

“That shadow, in between those walls. Is it not much darker than all other shadows? Does it not seem somehow deeper?”

George looked at the broken corner of the building, and admitted that it did seem very black.

“All right,” said Silenus. “Stanley, put down that lamp. And George, take your shoes off.”

“Why would I want to do that?” said George, who was sure there’d be rusty nails and broken glass under all that snow.

Stanley took out his blackboard and wrote:
BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT THEM TO BE FROZEN TO THE GROUND
. Then he set it aside.

George did not know what he meant, but did as Silenus said. Silenus and Stanley removed their own as well. Silenus stuck his hand out and said, “Join hands. Everyone.” Once they had they approached the corner of the building in a human chain with Silenus leading. “You will want to take a deep breath before we enter,” he said, “so that you will not have to take in much of the cold air.”

“The what?” said George, but he heard Stanley breathing deep behind him, and hurriedly did the same.

Silenus slowly led them toward the dark corner, moving forward step by step, until he entered the shadow. It was so dark that Silenus seemed to disappear entirely, though George could still feel the man’s hand in his own. Silenus kept leading them ahead, even when, by George’s estimation, there was not much space left within this corner of the red-brick building. Yet Harry kept pulling him forward, as though there had been a door there George had not seen, and soon he entered the shadow as well and could see nothing.

The shadow seemed impossibly deep, the darkness stretching on and on. The three of them kept walking forward, traversing a space several times longer than the fragment of the building, by George’s reckoning. Then the ground changed beneath them, and they were walking on what felt like icy stone that sucked at the moisture on the soles of George’s feet. Then George saw that there were stars up above them, though they were poor imitations of the ones he’d just seen behind the mill: these seemed more like needle punctures in the darkness above. When his eyes had finally adjusted he looked out at what was before him, and gasped.