The Rebirth of Wonder (20 page)

Applause swelled up from the audience,
invisible beyond the closed curtain.

The show was over.

There were to be no curtain calls; in fact,
Art realized as he brought up the curtain-warmer that several of
the Bringers seemed to have vanished. None of the onstage or
backstage lights were on, but an eerie glow seemed to suffuse
everything; by it Art could see Maggie and Myrddin and Morgan and
Dr. Torralva, and a fox was standing atop the stump of a
papier-mâché streetlamp, but the others were gone.

Had the Dragon gotten them, eaten them,
consumed them somehow?

But the Dragon wasn't real...

But then what had wrecked the stage?

And had the ceremony worked? Myrddin and
Morgan and Torralva were still alive, but what about the others?
Maybe the whole thing had been a bust, and the others had died, had
turned to dust and blown away.

No. He knew that wasn't what had happened. He
could feel the magic in the air, could feel it pouring up out of
the hole in the stage, like cool air from a cave, like the electric
tingle of static, like the heat from a furnace, all at once – and
not really like any of them. The spell had worked.

In fact, he could
almost
see
the
magic bubbling and spilling out of the hole, in blue and purple and
colors he had never seen or imagined before, like heat shimmer and
sparks.

He really, really hoped that hole was an
illusion, or just the traps opened.

But he still had something more immediate to
worry about. The applause had become ragged and uncertain, but
there was still an audience out there.

The show must go on. He had his job to
do.

He brought down the curtain-warmer, waited a
long five beats, and brought up the houselights. That should make
it plain that the show was over.

Sure enough, the applause died away during
the five beats of darkness, and was gone by the time the
houselights were up full.

His job was done.

The show was over, and magic was loose upon
the world – in theory. Whatever that really meant.

He couldn't resist; he left the board,
crossed to the curtain, and peeped out around the end.

The audience was beginning to drift out to
the lobby.

Somehow, despite the feel of raw magical
energy in the air, Art had assumed that when the play was done the
various mysterious phenomena would cease, and the supernatural
portion of the audience would vanish.

They had done nothing of the sort.

There were goblins bouncing on the cushions
in several seats; translucent things that Art took for ghosts were
floating up and down the aisles. The ordinary citizens of Bampton
were all out in the lobby – the few faces Art could glimpse at that
distance, through the doors, looked apprehensive.

All but one, that is. Marilyn was standing at
the foot of the stage. She spotted him peering out, and waved.

He waved back, took a quick glance at the
ruins, at the remaining magicians, and beckoned to her.

She hopped quickly up onto the stage and
slipped around the end of the curtain.

“
Art,” she said,
“that was incredible.”

“
Yeah,” Art agreed.
He took a final glance out at the house, then stepped back to the
board and turned on the work lights. He caught Marilyn's hand, and
together they looked at the damage.

The sets were shattered and scattered; bits
of painted paper and wood were everywhere. Some of them were
scorched and blackened.

And the stage was smashed
open. There could be no doubt; it had
not
been an illusion.

Cautiously, the two of them advanced to the
edge, not speaking, stepping carefully, testing each board before
putting weight on it. When they neared the edge, Art leaned forward
and peered down into the hole.

He could see the big basement room, the
unused old sets, the stone walls, all lit by an eldritch red glow.
The center of the wooden floor was gone, however, and he could also
see down into the pit beneath, the pit that went down deep into the
living stone beneath the theater.

That was where the glow seemed to be coming
from.

All that should be down there, he knew, was
old trash, but that was not what he saw.

Instead, he saw the Dragon, looking up at
him, red eyes glowing in its shadowed face.

It was unquestionably the same dragon. There
couldn't be two like that.

“
But it vanished going
up
,” Marilyn
protested. “How could it be back down there?”

“
Magic,” Art
said.

“
It
is
magic, isn't it?” Marilyn said. “Those things in
the audience – they aren't just midgets in costume, or special
effects, are they?”

“
Is that what you
thought?” Art asked, startled. He had become so accustomed to magic
over the past three weeks that he had forgotten how this must all
seem to Marilyn.

She didn't answer. He sighed, and said, “I
guess I'd better explain.”

“
About time,” she
told him.

By the time he finished
telling her everything they were sitting on the porch steps outside
the stage door and dawn was breaking in the east. Myrddin had
interrupted them once to apologize. The old magician had then used
his magic to repair the stage and clear away the destroyed sets and
props – even
he
had been surprised by how easy the spell was – while Marilyn
stared in wonder.

After that, any question she might have had
about the reality of magic was gone, gone as completely as the hole
in the floor.

When the repairs were done, Myrddin had
departed.

All the Bringers of Wonder had departed. Art
wasn't sure how or where, or whether they might return, but they
were definitely gone.

The magic spilling from the theater washed
over Art and Marilyn like a warm summer rain as they sat and
talked. When Art tried, he could see it rolling out across the
parking lot, climbing the lampposts on Thoreau Street, spreading
across the sky overhead.

Marilyn had not had a month of practice to
become sensitized to it, but she, too, could feel it, and she had
seen the play, had seen Myrddin at work afterward. When Art had
finished his explanation she had no doubt of its truth.

Sunlight streaked overhead, tangling with the
magic; for a moment, invisible colors spilled from the air. Marilyn
and Art sat side by side on the steps, thinking, feeling the eerie
new world, looking out at the transformed and familiar reality of
Bampton.

Old Spanner was out in his field, but Marilyn
noticed something different about him. She pointed.

“
Look,” she
said.

Art looked, as Spanner spread wide fine new
wings. He flexed great white feathers and took to the air. As the
two watched, the old horse sailed upward, sunlight gleaming from
his flanks, tail flying in the breeze.

Tiny humanoid creatures, naked and shining,
fluttered down from the theater eaves on dragonfly wings, to circle
Art's head and then dance away through the air.

“
What are they?”
Marilyn asked. “Fairies?”

“
Who knows?” Art
asked. “Sprites, elves, fairies – I don't know the distinctions.”
He got to his feet and helped Marilyn up.

“
We'll have to learn
them,” Marilyn said.

“
Or make them up,”
Art replied. “These might be new, not the old things at all.” He
grinned, and waved a hand, painting a polychrome glimmer in the
air.

Together they walked across the parking lot,
hand in hand, trailing rainbows, as gnomes peered from the mailbox
on the corner, elves danced on the sidewalk, and the morning sun
smiled down at them all.

Somewhere overhead, Spanner sang as his wings
caught the jeweled breeze.

-end-

About the Author:

Lawrence Watt-Evans has been a
full-time writer for more than thirty years, with more than forty
novels and well over a hundred short stories to his credit. He has
served as an officer in the Horror Writers' Association, Science
Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, and Novelists Inc. His
story “Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers” won the 1988 Hugo
for short story, as well as the Asimov's Readers Award. He lives in
Takoma Park, Maryland, with his wife and an overweight
cat.

His website is at
www.watt-evans.com
.

Short stories by Lawrence Watt-Evans
available as ebooks:

“Why I Left Harry's
All-Night Hamburgers”: The Hugo-winning story of a place where
millions of alternate realities meet.

“Parade”: A tale of urban
horror as five office workers find themselves swept up in a
mysterious parade through the city streets.

“Heart of Stone”: A
wizard's creation is left trapped and alone when her creator
dies.

“Hearts and Flowers”:
Experiments with the chemistry of love produce fads, fancies,
addiction, and disaster.

“Dead Things Don't Move”:
Two thieves think they've found easy pickings.

“Stab”: A short horror
story about a businessman's memories.

“The Ghost Taker”: A
priest on an alien planet finds his faith challenged by people from
Earth.

“Jim Tuckerman's Angel”: A
man is obsessed with seeing an angel.