Chapter 3. The Duels

The story that each tiefling could tell is sure to be one of mystery, intrigue, betrayal, and greed - and what makes it even more interesting is that it could all just be a lie. Tieflings lie frequently and lie when it suits them to do so. It is their fiendish nature peeking through, tapping them on the shoulders, not letting itself be forgotten. Anger, rage, greed ... are like old friends to the tieflings.

Not all tieflings want this heritage. Most hate it, seeing their fiendish blood something that makes them scorned, untrusted, and hated by normal people. They desire to prove themselves, to show the world that they've risen above the stereotype that it's shown to them. They've survived on their own all their life, and they're not going to turn to other people for help.

... They might be proving themselves to the common folk of Sigil: they are just like them, only with a different heritage and background, only with a different face, but they are able to live among them without fear. They might be proving themselves to the upper class citizens of the Lady's Ward: they are trustworthy and reliable messengers and business partners, they are able to succeed just as the nobles themselves did so long ago. Or they might be proving themselves to the cutthroats of the Hive and beyond, they are ruthless and cold-hearted killers, the greatest murderers that ever existed, the keenest thieves, or the best weapons makers.

... They're going to make a name for themselves in something, or they're going to die trying.

- Selected Records of Lady's Cage Mush

"When did I become such a miserable creature?" Rahk wondered twisting a ring on his far too slender index finger, "Did these fingers ever grip to a hilt of a two-handed sword?" And then, with a chilling certainty: "Maybe I have never been strong. A strong man remains strong no matter where he is. Like Duke Darkwood." The githzerai winced at this new reason to feel shamed. All that Rahk had heard about Duke, before The Lady had impregnated him with the revolting details of the man's accent among the Fated, spoke of a man he, Rahk, would have wished to call a friend, and not because he would have made a too formidable foe. Rowan Darkwood made his own fortune and adventured far and wide; he married a woman he loved; he had two sons.

Then he was tricked by a demon into surrendering himself in his sons' stead to captivity in the Nine Hells. The legends asserted that the Duke was always a man who looked out only for himself, but it rang false. The Duke, who survived the Blaaterzu's revenge, returned to his home world and found both lands and hearts changed beyond reclaim - and walked away from it... That Duke Darkwood did not sound like a man who'd woven lies thicker than any tiefling and patiently set snares for those who placed their trust in him. He should have not come to Sigil… or at least should not have aspired to take the Cage over from The Lady of Pain.

"Maybe it was Sigil that broke him, just like it broke me?" It was not a comforting thought. Rahk did not chose his enemy, so there was no aversion to start with, but if he began to see similes between the powerful Factol and himself, his game would be lost. Rahk mused on every word that the Lady had said, trying to bring himself to believe that the Duke Rowan Darkwood was a ruthless man who had to fall for the good of Sigil. He could not. And he did not care about Sigil at all.

Panicking, Rahk got up from his seat, intending to stop the whole thing, to find Haer'Dalis, to...

It was too late. His heart pulsing in his throat, Rahk saw Haer'Dalis walk out on the stage.

Limply, Rahk dropped back into his chair, aware of the interest on Raelis' face. She gave him a sliding glance when she motioned for Haer'Dalis to start his piece. Once or twice during his recital she fixed Rahk with her outwardly stare. First, there was fury in her gaze, and then - some sort of detached curiosity. Unsettled by Raelis' directness, Rahk tried to ignore her and concentrated his attention on his protégé. Haer'Dalis had chosen well, Rahk thought, listening to the piece, and took comfort in the stream of familiar pretty words.

"Enough of this!" Raelis' voice came as a snap, startling Rahk. But if Rahk was dismayed by Raelis' command, Haer'Dalis felt it ten-fold. The tiefling on the stage caught his breath laboriously, being interrupted in the middle of a phrase. Raelis leaned herself against the chair in front of her, arms crossed under her breasts. Her amber eyes held the gaze of Haer'Dalis' blue ones. The untold 'boy' or worse hung between them. There could be no mistake - one tiefling had just challenged another. Rahk could sense Raelis' outrage. She had obviously seen that the understudy with his scarred face was an integral part of the scheme, but the githzerai had never expected cool Miss Shai to explode so suddenly during the auditions. The worst, he thought, would be her ignoring Haer'Dalis and firing him, Rahk. He had miscalculated... And badly.

What was happening between the two tieflings was beyond his understanding or experiences. So he relaxed in his chair, watching Raelis Shai and Haer'Dalis and listening. The trivial everyday noises filled the silence - the squeal of a chair as someone shifted his weight, an uncomfortable cough, creaking of the burning lamps, and, somewhere, a little girl's voice singing a trivial song. Glafira must have been washing the floors. And there was the breathing of the two opponents. Raelis' intakes were sharp but shallow, and the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling was slowing down. Haer'Dalis swallowed rather than breathed, almost biting on air and shoving it down his parched throat. His face was reddening slowly and hands involuntarily balled into fists. Rahk remembered that the man was a fair swordsman, and was quite glad that the hilts of Haer'Dalis' twin swords did not peek from behind his back as was customary.

Finally, Raelis interrupted the silence by saying with her usual calm: "Try something different. Very different." Haer'Dalis backed away from her lightly, visibly composing himself. He nodded. Rahk licked his lips. Different how? What did she mean?

It was an unrehearsed piece that Haer'Dalis started to read; the one Rahk had never heard him try until then. It was a gambler's story, of the man who had lost everything in one day. Rahk knew it. By the Lower Planes, everybody knew it!

Everybody who tried to read it ended up gesticulating wildly, and almost wailing, intoxicated by the raw feelings exposed by the poem. Haer'Dalis was no exception. He was but a half tone shriller than would be believable when he said that he'd put all he's got on one card. He struggled but still he ended up sounding impossibly pretentious when he got to "my card is beaten and so I am lost..."

Raelis' lips narrowed, as Haer'Dalis staggered closer to the edge of the stage in the uneven gait of an intoxicated man and went down on his knees for the second part of the monologue. Rahk braced himself, preparing to hear out the last part. It was an exposition of disillusionment, when the lyrical hero had seemingly accepted his defeat and humility. It would be inevitably followed by the last verse in which the gamblers jumped up to their feet to go deathly quiet, as Haer'Dalis's half-mad feverish hero would put a sacred artifact on the card and forsake his soul...

It was the worst part of the monologue, the one that seemed to have been written for one purpose only - to excite the nervous naive maidens. Rahk wondered if that was the reason why Haer'Dalis knew the blasted poem. But Haer'Dalis spared them the last tragic lines. Instead a single obscene word came out of his mouth. A single word – but it was an embodiment of the sin, filth and unrelieved coarseness of the Hive. And it fit the monologue like a glove; it was perfect after the exaggerated pathos… It was exactly what a pompous fool, who knew not a worry in his prior life would have said when he saw the end of his fortune. It was also directed straight at Raelis Shai. Whatever injury she had caused him, Haer'Dalis had just avenged himself.

Raelis did not blink. She dismissed Haer'Dalis in the same businesslike, impersonal manner as every other actor. The way Haer'Dalis walked away, so straight and stiff, so controlled made Rahk wonder if he'd repeat his oath once safely out of the earshot. More understudies came forward; Raelis Shai made notes in a steady hand, and Rahk stared at the divine curve of her elbow and wondered what would they do after the audition would end. One part of him dreaded its ending. Another part was curious to see if he had guessed the internal working of Miss Raelis Shai, if he had won the game.

Raelis but motioned for him to follow after it was over. In silence he trotted after her to the familiar apartments and watched her open the door. His excitement was so strong, that his eyes focused deliriously on the loveseat, the curtains, a vase of half-translucent stone, the warm shade of peach, taking in the smallest details of whatever his gaze fell upon, but failing to see the room. "Who do you think you are?" Raelis rounded at him as soon as the door closed with a loud thud, "How dare you!"

The githzerai did not understand her anger: "It is just a safety net, Raelis. You have seen Haer'Dalis' face. Nobody would be able to blame it on mischief or intrigue, if I, say, grew ill, my understudy were to take my place, and the sigilians saw allusions in the play that were not there to start with."

Raelis laughed bitterly: "A safeguard… You have thought about everything, Rahk, have not you?" Rahk kneeled by her and took her hand gently: "I do not want you to take unnecessary risks…"

"Rahk, Rahk…" Raelis shook her head, "I will never understand how a talent so bright and so boundless, was given to a man who neither knows nor cares for the theatre. Here you stand, so sure that you have done good, but what you are telling me is that I have to play my premier with an understudy instead of my lead actor and a mangled understudy at that."

"Mangled?" Rahk repeated incredulously.

Raelis laughed mirthlessly. "Even you should understand what you have done… No you do not. Rahk, you have taught the boy. Do not try to deny it."

Rahk shrugged: "Why would I? I showed him a couple of lines, taught him what is expected from an actor."

Raelis hit her palm on the table and snarled at him: "You made him into a mimic, not an actor, you blithe fool." She touched his chest, and her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper: "You can polish a piece of granite as much as you like, but it will never become a diamond."

"The boy has a good memory," Rahk mumbled, "He will do well…:"

"That's where it has to come from, Rahk, from within." Raelis took his chin in her hand and made him look into her eyes, "and gods are my witness, it does when you are on the stage. It is called talent… a gift. The boy you brought in, he did have a gift, not as overwhelming as yours, but sufficient. And you have trampled on it like a blind slaadi, dazed Haer'Dalis with what you can do… he worships you, he envies you, he almost hates you…"

Rahk laughed unsteadily: "Raelis, you are surely wrong. Haer'Dalis and I go years back… we lived for a time in the same monastery on Limbo, we fought side by side."

"That was before he had wanted to become an actor, Rahk. And before he had seen what you can do, and perceived that he would never be able to match it. So he started copying you, and you, in your ignorance accepted it as normal and you even encouraged it. I would have liked to chastise you, to accuse you of rape… But I cannot. When I think of who you are, I understand why you have done it… and why you never thought it to be a wrong thing."

Uncertainly, Rahk smiled: "Then perhaps you could explain it to me? I am utterly confused." Raelis chuckled: "You are confused? Of course you are… You are the lucky one who had never known a shade of doubt, a painful uncertainty in your own ability, a heart wrenching suspicion that you were measured and found lacking. For you acting is about memory… because when you stand before the audience, by the irony of gods, whatever words were given to you, whatever role you have rehearsed… it comes out right. O, Rahk if you only knew, what pain it is to get it right for those who are not as gifted as you are. If you only knew what triumph it is to get it right… If you only knew what it means to want this one thing… the full-bodied talent… and be given a meager substitute… an ability, instead."

Raelis stopped talking and for a while they stood in silence. Then she kissed him and told him in a chill entrepreneurial voice, so different from the trembling and passionate one in which she delivered the preceding speech: "You can understand me no more than a fish could understand a bird's flight. Is that play important to you?"

Rahk nodded his assent.

"Very well then. I will write it. But I will make you regret a hundred times our deal, because in return I will ask you for two things. You will stay with me and you will act out every line, every role, every scene as I write… and when we rehearse you will train Haer'Dalis. You will not make him into a mordon who obeys and does it as instructed. You will bring out everything you have buried, and you will make him bloom. It is in your own interests, Rahk. You, of course, do not have a clue, but for the rest of the troupe it would be a challenge to change the lead for the premier without notice – and to keep it secret, it will have to be without notice. The better Haer'Dalis would show, the better they would adapt. If he'd just give them a pale copy of your own performance, so theirs would be but a pale copy. And the spectators would not notice the political satire, even if I put Duke Darkwood himself on the stage; all they would see would be a failed play. And people do not forgive failures."

>

It was late night when Rahk got out of Raelis' apartments. True to her word, Miss Raelis Shai mercilessly used him, but to her credit, she herself worked twice as hard, writing and listening, revising and crumbling paper, feeding him the lines… There was devil at the core of this woman, a restless, eager demon. What stunned Rahk was that she wanted it, wanted that feverish work, the hoarse laughter, the moments of dark brooding over the things that did not quite turn out as well as she thought they should, wanted the sudden bouts of passion when it did go right and was affixed on the paper. She enjoyed that insane, horrendous play that The Lady of Pain had ordered. Rahk had once heard a Bleak Cabal's factotum speaking of the torments and pains everyone endures. And how meaningless it is… Raelis had chosen hers and she seemed to have a very clear goal in mind, yet, Rahk could not help but to feel bleak.

Before he knew what he was doing he wandered onto the stage. It was but an elevated wooden dais. Being there did not give one any real power or money. It did not make one happy. And yet in the middle of it sat a small gnomish girl, with her hair veiling her face and sang the same silly song, as yesterday. "Glafira," Rahk said softly, "Why would not you hire out as a musician? Your lute…" Glafira turned toward him: "Because, Rahk, if I hire out as a musician, nobody will ever notice me. Just a lute. They will never let me sing. And I want to sing about… about love." She ducked her head and said miserably: "I know that I was not born one of those women, who enthrall men by their mere presence. Nobody would ever look at me with eyes ajar and discover that he has a heart… I know all that. But surely, I can sing about love." Rahk caught himself staring. Glafira scrambled to her feet and pushed her hair away from her beady eyes. Her cheeks were blushing. "You… you would not understand, Rahk." She made a vague gesture, towards Raelis' apartments (or at least Rahk thought that what it was) and ran away.

Rahk stood in the middle of the stage for a time yet, feeling thirsty and disheveled before going back to Raelis. His feet felt leaden under him. I am growing tired of being told by women that I do not know what it means to want one thing… just one thing, and to want it more than anything else.