The Dragon's Path

we
shall
pass.”
    A chill ran up Marcus’s spine. He could see that Orcus the Demon King was having much the same effect on the bandits. He felt a small, tentative hope. The Jasuru pulled his bow from its sling and nocked a vicious-looking arrow.
    “Say that again, you bastard!” the bandit captain shouted.
    Even in the dimness, Marcus saw Master Kit smile. The actor raised his arms, the dark folds of the costume seeming to twist on their own accord, just as they’d done during the play in Vanai. It was something to do with uneven stitching, but with Master Kit’s sepulchral voice and defiant posture, the effect was unsettling. Master Kit spoke again, slow and clear and utterly confident.
    “You cannot harm me. Your arrow will miss its mark.”
    The Jasuru scowled and drew back the string. The horn bow creaked.
    Well,
Marcus thought,
it was worth the try.
And then, a second later:
God damn. He
is
going to miss.
    The arrow sped through the gloom. Master Kit didn’t flinch as the shaft flew past his ear. The Jasuru licked his lips with a wide, black tongue. His gaze shifted from Marcus to Master Kit and back. There was real fear in his eyes now.
    “And for what it carries, I really
am
Marcus Wester.”
    The silence lasted four long breaths together, before the Jasuru turned his horse to the side and raised his arm. “There’s nothing here, boys,” the bandit shouted. “These little turds aren’t worth the effort.”
    The horsemen sprang away into the forest. Marcus stood in the road, listening to their hoofbeats fade and realizing that he wasn’t going to die today after all. He clasped his hands behind him to keep them from trembling and looked up at the ’van master. The Timzinae was shaking too. At least Marcus wasn’t the only one. He stepped to the side of the road, leaning to see that the bowmen at the treeline had also vanished.
    Yardem walked to him. “That was odd,” the Tralgu said.
    “Was,” Marcus said. “Don’t suppose we have a winch? We’re going to have to move that tree.”
    T hat night, the ’van master’s wife cooked meat. Not sausage, not salt pork, but a fresh-killed lamb the ’van master bought from a farm at the forest’s edge. The meat was dark and rich, seasoned with raisins and a sharp-tasting yellow sauce. The carters and drivers and most of Marcus’s guard sat around a roaring bonfire at the side of the road. Allexcept the wool-hauler, Tag, who never seemed to eat with anybody. And sitting at a separate fire away from all the others, Marcus ate with Master Kit.
    “It’s how I’ve made my living since… well, not since before
you
were born, I suppose,” the actor said. “I stand before people, usually on a wagon, and I convince them of things. I tell them that I am a fallen king or a shipwrecked sailor on an unknown shore. I presume they know it isn’t truth, but I see my work as making them believe even when they know better.”
    “What you did back there, then?” Marcus said. “Talking the bastard with the bow out of his confidence? It wasn’t magic?”
    “I think talking a man into believing in his own failure is close enough to magic. Don’t you?”
    “I don’t really, no.”
    “Well, then perhaps we disagree on the point. More wine?”
    Marcus took the proffered skin and squirted the bright-tasting wine into his mouth. In the light of the two fires—the small one at their knees, the large one fifteen yards away—shadows clung to the old actor’s cheeks and in the hollows of his eyes.
    “Captain. If it’s any comfort to you, I’ll swear this. I can be very convincing, and I can tell when someone is trying to convince me. That is all the magic I possess.”
    “Cut thumbs on it?” Marcus said, and Master Kit laughed.
    “I’d rather not. If I get blood on the costumes, it’s hard to get out. But what about you? What exactly did
you
intend, facing the man down like that?”
    Marcus shrugged.
    “I didn’t intend anything. Not in particular,” he said. “Only I thought the ’van master was going about it badly.”
    “Would you have fought?” Master Kit asked. “If it had come to swords and arrows?”
    “Of course,” Marcus said. “Probably not for very long, given the odds, but I’d have fought. Yardem too, and I hope your people along with us. It’s what they pay us for.”
    “Even though you knew we couldn’t win?”
    “Yes.”
    Master Kit nodded. Marcus thought a smile was lurking at the corners of the actor’s lips,