The Golem's Eye

here night after night, year after year. Surely all of London had seen Swans of Araby by now, many people more than once. But still the buses puttered in from the provinces, bringing new customers to gasp at all the shabby glamour.
    "Darling! Be silent!" Kitty nodded with approval. Nice one, Bertilak. He'd cut her off in the middle of her aria.
    "What is it? What do you sense that I cannot?"
    "Hist! Do not speak. We are in peril..." Bertilak rotated his noble profile. He looked high, he looked low. He seemed to sniff the air. All was still. The fire had burned right down; the magician slumbered; the moon had been obscured behind a cloud and cold stars twinkled in the sky. Not a sound came from the audience. To her great disgust, Kitty found she was holding her breath.
    Suddenly, with a ringing oath and a rasp of iron, the genie drew his scimitar and clutched the trembling girl to his chest. "Amaryllis! They come! I see them with my powers."
    "What, Bertilak? What do you see?"
    "Seven savage imps, my darling, sent by the queen of the afrits to capture me! Our dalliance displeases her: they will bind us both and drag us naked before her throne to await her awful pleasure. You must flee! No—we have no time for soft words, though your limpid eyes implore me! Go!"
    With many a tragic gesture, the girl disentangled herself from his arms and crept to the left of the stage. The genie tossed aside his cape and jerkin in barechested readiness for battle.
    From the orchestral pit came a dramatic discord. Seven terrifying imps leaped out from behind the rocks. Each was played by a midget wearing a leather loincloth and a skin-coat of luminous green paint. With horrid whoops and grimaces, they drew stiletto daggers and fell upon the genie. A battle ensued, accompanied by a frenzy of screeching violins.
    Vicious imps... a wicked magician... It was a subtle job, this Swans of Araby, Kitty could see that. Ideal propaganda, gently acknowledging popular anxieties rather than denying them flat out. Show us a little of what we fear, she thought, only take away its teeth. Add music, fight scenes, lashings of star-crossed love. Make the demons frighten us, then let us watch them die. We are in control. At the end of the show, all would no doubt be made well. The wicked sorcerer would be destroyed by the good magicians. The wicked afrits would be cast down, too. As for Bertilak, the rugged genie, doubtless he'd be a man after all, an eastern princeling transformed into a monster by some cruel enchantment. And he and Amaryllis would live happily ever after, watched over by the wise council of benevolent magicians....
    A sudden sick feeling swelled in Kitty. It was not the tension of the job, this time; it came from deeper down, from the reservoir of fury that bubbled away perpetually inside. It was born of knowing that everything they did was utterly forlorn and useless. It would never change anything. The crowd's response told her this. Watch! Amaryllis has been seized: an imp has her under his arm, kicking and weeping. Hear the crowd gasp! But see! Bertilak the heroic genie has tossed one imp over his shoulder into the smoldering fire! Now he pursues the captor and— one, two—makes short work of him with his scimitar. Hoorah! Hear the crowd cheer!
    It didn't matter what they did in the end; it didn't matter what they stole, what daring attacks they made. It would make no difference. Tomorrow the queues would still be forming in the streets outside the Metropolitan, the spheres would still be watching from above, the magicians would still be elsewhere, enjoying the trappings of their power.
    So it had always been. Nothing she had ever done had made any difference, right from the beginning.

4
     
    Kitty
     
    The noise on the stage receded; in its place she heard bird-song, the hum of distant traffic. In her mind's eye, the darkness of the theater was replaced by remembered light.
    Three years ago. The park. The ball. Their laughter. Disaster on its way, like lightning from a blue sky.
    Jakob grinning as he ran toward her; the bat's weight, dry and wooden in her hand.
    The strike! The triumph of it! Dancing with delight.
    The distant crash.
    How they ran, hearts thudding. And then—the creature on the bridge...
    She rubbed her fingers into her eyes. But even that terrible day—was it truly the beginning? For the first thirteen years of her life, Kitty had remained unaware of the exact nature of the magicians' rule. Or perhaps she was