(For more detailed Author's Notes, Program Notes and Disclaimer, see Chapter 1 and the end of this chapter.) This story is set in the same universe as my "Chapter of the Duck." This is set about a year and a half after the battle with the Raven, around late April or early May. Duck is once again human, and studying ballet at the Academy; Fakir is on a tour with many of the seniors in the Dance and Music divisions, and is expected back in about two weeks.

Profuse thanks to LunaSphere for beta-reading this!

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Chapter 2

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Autor had stopped himself just in time from repeating to Duck the one remark meant for him alone.

"Your power is of the wrong kind." What had the man meant? What power did he have? He had none. He could write, of course, better than Fakir. Gritty, real, true- to- life stories, grand and epic stories, stories that might be published some day, but never stories that came to pass. Fakir, with his clumsy allegory and fantasy, and his tame tales of Goldkrone, had had that power fall entirely to him. Autor had never wholly gotten over the jealousy, although as things had turned out he was glad enough that the Bookmen had left him alone. The desk in Drosselmeyer's Study still bore the dent from a Bookman's axe. Autor had left it there. Somehow it was useful to have a reminder of that day.

When he went back to the Academy after dinner he found his practice room free. There was something or other going on across the lawn in the dining hall– oh yes, a reception for a touring operetta company. He supposed he ought to go to the student's performance tomorrow. Was his flat- voiced stranger with them, he wondered.

This evening the piano didn't soothe his jangling nerves, no matter how demanding the piece. No point in frustrating himself, not with this; he'd be performing it in a few weeks for his final grade for the term. He was making mistakes, like that dissonance just now. It sounded like he felt... well, why not try...?

He reached for pencil and paper and ruler, and drew a staff. Then he closed his eyes, repeated the dissonant chord, moved to the next one that came to mind, and let it go where it would for several bars. He played the result through a few times, changing and moving things a bit until he had what he wanted to hear. He wrote it down, hardly more than a few variations on a theme, and certainly incomplete.

Maybe he could develop it, turn it in for a Composition assignment sometime. It wasn't bad, but it sounded... very modern. It vented his frustration and jealousy, and the fear he hadn't admitted to himself that afternoon. Maybe he'd just keep it for a while and see if anything else should be added later. He ought to think of a name then, too, and make a better copy.

Fakir's letter was already in his pocket when he folded the scrap of music and tried to put it away. Oh yes, he'd asked for the new address of a bookshop on one of the tour stops. It seemed unimportant just now. Autor went to his dorm, trying to shed the feeling that he was being watched. He saw no one.

The operetta was a bit of satiric fluff for the masses, hilarious and sappy by turns, and had the audience humming and laughing as they left the auditorium. Whoever Vendetta was, he didn't seem to be in the cast. Autor had insinuated himself into the group of students helping backstage after the performance. He wasn't there, either.

Instead he was waiting as Autor left the building by the stage door.

Autor stifled his surprise. Vendetta had simply appeared a few paces in front of him, indistinct in the fog.

"Have you spoken to the Writer yet?"

"No," said Autor, trying to walk past without losing his dignity.

"How long will you delay?"

"Look, what makes you think such a person would listen to me, even if he existed?" Autor wasn't used to this sort of contest.

"Oh, he exists," stated the stranger in that flat voice. "I see his hand all around. He is still learning, but he is learning subtlety and responsibility. He puts others' needs before his own. It is time, no doubt, that good fortune came his way. I can provide that, for such a small service."

"And I say, sir, that–" you are mistaken, he wanted to say. He stopped himself just in time. The man might be in a ridiculous disguise, but nothing so far had indicated that he could not detect a lie. Quite the opposite. "–no such person is in Goldkrone." Okay. Absolute truth.

Silence, for an interval just long enough to become uncomfortable. Then: "I see that I must find another way. What is it worth to you to exercise your own gift?"

"What gift might that be?" Try as he might to sound uninterested, Autor knew himself to be hooked now. The man had found a lever to move him.

He hated himself for it.

"I think it must be discovered by you, yourself," said Vendetta. "It will not have the same influence as a storyteller does; it is much– how is it called? –broader, much deeper, not so fine. You must answer for yourself what you do that moves others. I cannot."

"Nothing," said Autor firmly. "If I could, would I be here? My genius is in words. There's no power like you describe."

"Yet you wear the Goldkrone Academy uniform," said Vendetta in that so- wrong voice. It was getting on Autor's nerves. "Art, and music, and dance. Writing is not why you are there." He turned and walked away.

Autor moved to follow, but stopped himself. Foolishness. Foolishness to listen. That way lay Drosselmeyer, hands cut off, bleeding to death, writing smeared words in his own blood as consciousness faded and dooming the town to live out his story. Autor had no wish to do the same. He had no illusions about courage or heroism, like Fakir had; he knew himself to have neither, and never dwelt on their absence. A properly organized life shouldn't need either. He turned to go.

He yelped at the person suddenly standing in front of him.

"Um. Sorry," said Duck. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't sc– Never mind. How much did you hear?"

"Hear what?" she said. "Come on, walk me home."

She hauled him away by his arm and chattered about the performance until they were alone in the open lawn, nearing the noisy fountain. "I think I heard everything. He's scary."

"And how did you contrive to be there? You can't– I thought you couldn't turn back into a duck anymore!"

"Oh, I can't. You said the right thing about Fakir, I think, but I can tell he's got you interested, saying you've got this mysterious power of your own. Don't listen to him–"

"I don't want to!" Autor fairly exploded, if not loudly enough to carry. "But I can't see any reason for him to say such a thing unless it's there! There's no sense in any of this! And how did you hear us?"

Duck snorted in frustration. "All right. I saw you in the auditorium and kept an eye on you all evening. I hung around afterward and went out the front when you went backstage, and I recognized him on the steps and saw him go around the corner. I followed him and stayed out of sight. Neither of you were keeping your voices down and I was only a few yards away. That's all there is to it. I think you're right about him being partly deaf, his voice sounded wrong, and he had you talking louder than you usually do. And he thinks you can do something for him. Autor, don't believe him. I don't know what he wants or why–"

"All he said yesterday was revenge," said Autor sullenly. "'Just vengeance' to be precise."

"That's enough reason not to do anything, isn't it?"

"How should I know? He hasn't exactly been generous with the details."

"That's another reason, then. Look, Fakir doesn't tell me everything, but the people he writes about are the ones who really need help, aren't they? They tell you what they need–"

"At great length," Autor groused.

"Yeah. This guy just wants to get back at someone, and he says he's got money for it. You can't even be sure of that."

"Are you telling me anything I don't know? I don't trust him. I know he's not being honest, or at least not forthright. I know you kept quiet until we got here where he can't hear us unless we see him first. But I have to ask, how does he know someone's spinning stories in Goldkrone? Does he really see something in me? How can I avoid him? And lastly, why are you involved? You know what Fakir's going to be like if you get hurt!"

Duck kept her temper. Autor and Fakir could be two peas in a pod in some ways, and by now she had had a lot of practice. "I'm here because you haven't asked anyone else for help and you look like you need it. You can't avoid him, unless you stay here at school all the time, and maybe not even then. I have no idea what he sees or how, and everyone I know who could help will be gone for weeks yet. I'm pretty sure it's out of Charon's depth, and Mytho and Rue are away. But right now I have to go, and you should too. Just think if he's watching."

It wasn't until Autor was in his own room that he realized exactly what anyone who had seen them would think, and he groaned. He could only hope that Duck would remember to tell Fakir what happened tonight. To all outward appearances those two weren't exactly an item, but Fakir would kill him anyway if he heard from anyone else that he had gone to the dorms with Duck on his arm. Appearances weren't everything. They might not turn into pink- faced, stammering idiots around each other like that tall girl and Senior Lysander had for so long, Lysander who had been so steady and laudably taciturn for years; and Duck wasn't all moping melancholy (like Lysander had been all term) even now when Fakir had been away for weeks; but still... as much as they argued, and as little as anyone saw them touch beyond the demands of a dance class, it was all there, laid out for the discerning observer like an optical illusion. Especially someone who had seen Fakir before Duck had been there, or who could grasp the fact that Fakir had run out of postage and used the last of it on her instead of his father.

Duck was prepared for Pique and Lillie to grill her about coming in on Autor's arm, to the point of being a little disappointed as well as relieved that they evidently hadn't seen. It was late, but she lit the lamp and found paper and pen anyway. If she didn't set this down now she'd forget something.

She managed to fit it all on two sheets, legibly. Being a duck around Fakir had done wonders for her writing as well as her speech. She remembered the tired, battered piece of folded paper that Fakir had always had in his pocket for that year, with the alphabet printed on it and a few common words in the margins. It had been a reliable means of communication, but so very slow that she had learned to think through everything she said before she said it. She hadn't really thought of it since until one weekend afternoon a few months ago at Charon's, when she'd needed to borrow a book. Fakir had tacked the sheet on the wall above his dresser, where it looked oddly like an embroidery sampler.

It didn't mean she could spell properly though. Probably never will, she thought; that seems to be a gift.

The music from the operetta was bouncing around Autor's mind as he readied himself for bed. Not even all good music, he grumbled to himself, just catchy, with clever lyrics. Common. To try to expel it he remembered yesterday's tune; raw in comparison, edgy, making it easier to think about his problem. He should work on it. It suited the situation with Vendetta.

Suddenly a brief phrase from the night's entertainment inserted itself into his recollection, part of a harmony but in a minor key instead of its original major, and slower. It fitted, but not into what he'd done already. It was dark, brooding, sinister... he could pile on a few more clichés, if he wanted.

Autor threw back the covers, stalked to the desk and turned up the lamp. He wanted to sleep, but the theme he was already building around those few notes wouldn't wait until morning; he might not remember. It was going to be another of those nights, when the music wouldn't let him be. Second Movement, he wrote at the top of the paper.

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Author's Notes: I don't know exactly what Autor's works sound like; it would take a composer to do the score before I did. It's original, so I can't use another composer's piece.

The touring company that visits the Academy might be putting on, for instance, a Von Suppe operetta. What little I know about Von Suppe is that he wrote overtures and popular operettas; if this were set in an English- speaking country, the equivalent might be Gilbert and Sullivan. The one piece we've all heard is the Light Cavalry Overture-- otherwise known as the theme to "Rin Tin Tin," if I remember correctly. Or maybe Dudley Dooright. Maybe both.

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