The flesh in the furnace

understand?"
        Trimkin did not speak.
        "It's very difficult playing God," Pertos Said. "Maybe when you and your Heritage Leaguers have established a little divinity for yourselves, you'll find that having the power of life and death over others is not really worth the agony."
        "No one forced you to be a puppeteer"
        "No one forces the soldier to kill. He could throw down his gun and accept the stockade. But there's something inside him somewhere that makes him like killing."
        "And you think I like power?"
        "Are fond of it"
        "And the sin?"
        "One can either love power, or people. But the two do not mix."
        "And I suppose you love that idiot of yours. And those puppets which aren't even real."
        "No. I made the mistake of loving power, in a small way. I've been trying to reeducate myself, but perhaps I'm too old."
        "Too old to suffer," Trimkin said, steering things back to more familiar ground. "We'll give you a final chance. If your announcements are circulated tomorrow, if you still insist on performing then, your beating will seem slight. We'd burn down the theater with you inside, if necessary."
        Pertos did not reply.
        Trimkin shrugged, then walked by the old man, thumped down the steps and was gone around the corner, brown against white. The swish of his buckskin fringe whispered along the cold walls for long seconds, then faded like a dream surrendering to consciousness.
        In the lightman's perch, Pertos locked the door behind himself and laid his pistol within easy reach.
        
        He sat behind the spotlight and swung the control console to his side, looked at all the buttons and toggles that controlled the stage, the curtain and the scenery which would rise out of the boards or descend from the ceiling on wires whenever he gave the electronic command.
        He fingered the topmost row of toggles. -
        Let there be light! he thought.
        He flipped the switches with quick fingers. The footlights popped on all across the stage, the dullest of the white set, barely casting any illumination.
        Pertos laughed, though he was not at all happy.
        Let there be life! he thought.
        The curtains opened, and the puppets frolicked forward. The last show of the night had begun, playing to a capacity house. In the front row, in one of the most expensive seats, the devil sat biding his time, disguised as a merchant named Alvon Rudi…
        
        Pertos Godelhausser sat in a comfortable form-fitting chair that hugged the contours of his body, holding the Holistian Pearl in his right hand, staring at nothing, his mouth somewhat slack and his face far too pale. The jewel was a brilliant white that almost seemed to radiate heat, and as he rolled it back and forth in his fingers it seemed to cling to his flesh with a will, like a magnet seeking out his bones through the insulating cushion of his flesh. Sebastian sat on the floor, lacquering a newly painted prop to keep the colors rich and vibrant as Pertos wanted them. He could never have been trusted to apply the many colors themselves, but he could work the self-feeding lacquer brush without much problem. It was something he usually looked forward to, for it made him feel more a part of the show. He was always plagued with fear deep inside that he would one day be useless and that Pertos would reject him for someone else. But tonight being useful was not bringing him the sense of contentment and worth that it usually did. He thought of Bitty Belina.
        Pertos had said that she was putting on a special show for the merchant Alvon Rudi. It was a new show, a new story, privately enacted. And he and Pertos were to wait here, perhaps sleep here, in Pertos' case, if the play should take an hour or all night. They were at the far end of the corridor from Pertos' room where Rudi enjoyed the new play.
        He wished he could watch.
        Not being permitted to watch made him feel excluded. It was as if they all knew what the play was about, except him. And that made him miserable. He felt childish and unneeded.
        Pertos slept. The Pearl glowed. And no one was watching the idiot at the moment.
        Sebastian knew from experience that the puppet master would be tranced for a long while yet. It had only been moments since the strange sleep had taken him, and he never severed himself from a Pearl-vision in less