All the World’s a Stage
“Come one, come all! Step right up and see the greatest show this side of the River Greymyst! One night only! A performance you’ll be tellin’ your grandchildren about! Magic, mystery, death-defying danger, and the greatest story the villages of the Longshore have ever heard or seen!”
Mari turned to her friend Petra, excitement in her eyes, as the grizzled but energetic barker shouted a few feet away. “I can’t believe the Marffers’ Fair is finally here, in our tiny little town! We really have to see this show. My uncle in Passingdale says it was the best part of the whole fair.”
“I don’t know, Mari.” Petra gestured at the crowd around them with a gloved hand. “There’s so much to do here!” She and Mari were both wearing beautiful dresses: elegant ruffled affairs with gloves, long stockings and tight corsets flattering their curves and pushing up their bosoms. The two friends had already gotten several admiring glances from men both young and old, and a few envious glances from the women as well. “Games to play, food to eat, boys to flirt with….” Petra grinned, mischief flashing in her deep green eyes. “I don’t want to just sit inside on a bench and watch a show.”
The two had been friends since they were old enough to walk, and together had blossomed into stunning beauty. Mari was bright and energetic, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a classic vision of loveliness. Petra, on the other hand, had inherited her mother’s dark red hair, and had an exotic, almost foreign beauty about her, especially for such a provincial town.
Around them the crowd flowed, men and women, young and old, most dressed up in their finest clothing, marveling at the sights. On one platform nearby, a woman with two heads danced and swayed her hips to the beat of a drum, twirling a pair of burning batons in a mesmerizing display. In perfect timing with the rhythm of the dance, her heads took turns drinking deep from a bottle and breathing fire into the cool night air, eliciting a gasp from the enthralled crowd every time.
At another booth, a man with a green scaly arm as thick as a ship’s mast was seated at a table, challenging the strongest men to beat him in a contest of strength. He had more than his fair share of takers, mostly young, foolish men hoping to impress the ladies on their arms. The young ladies watched with bemusement as their dates fell one by one, walking away a little lighter in both pride and coin.
“Please, Petra?” Mari pouted, putting on her best puppy dog eyes. “Don’t make me go inside and watch it alone. As soon as it’s over, we’ll go do whatever you want.”
Petra studied the strange barker, standing near the closed entrance to a massive tent. He was a large man, with shabby pants, a colorful blue waistcoat and a tall black top hat sitting on his head. When he noticed Petra and Mari watching him, a twinkle lit his eye, and he winked. “Well, lovely ladies, step right in!”
He pulled open the tent. A soft light poured out, and from inside drifted a tinny, cheerful music, barely audible over the crowd. Something about it seemed awfully inviting, though, almost calling to them; the music was far more enticing than the barker’s words. They stood there, entranced, but were startled out of the moment as a young man and his date stepped past them and into the tent.
“Welcome, lady and gentleman! Enjoy the greatest show of the Longshore!”
The barker tipped his hat to the couple, and as he lowered the entrance to the tent behind them, Petra did a double-take. “Look at his hand, Mari!”
The man grinned and waved at them, wiggling his fingers. Mari gasped. His left hand was wooden! Sticking out from the end of his left sleeve, his thin wooden fingers waved and bent as if they were real, with tiny hinges for joints, like the hand of an incredibly well-articulated puppet brought to life.
“Come on, Petra,” Mari said, pulling on her friend’s arm. “We have totally got to see this.”
The man pulled the tent flap back open, the inviting music growing louder amidst the crowd. “Step right in, ladies, I promise you won’t regret it.” As they entered, the man resumed barking at the crowd. “Show starts in ten minutes! Get your seat at the greatest spectacle the Longshore has ever witnessed!”
As the tent flap closed behind them, the crowd noise from outside faded, leaving only the music, a soft, gentle melody that seemed to come from nowhere in particular. The tent was large, with a tall ceiling that stretched high over their heads, and about twenty rows of benches leading up to an elevated stage a few feet above the ground.
The inside of the tent was well-lit, although like the music, the light seemed to have no particular source. The benches were scattered with people, and as they took in the scene, a tall woman in a narrow, clingy dress stepped in front of them. Her long blonde hair was flecked with streaks of reddish-brown, and they stared, captivated, at her eyes, which were a deep yellow, with vertical pupils like a cat.
“Hello, ladies.” Her voice was soft, but with a wild edge to it, and as she smiled, two sharp fangs glinted at the corner of her mouth.
Mari grasped her friend’s hand, and Petra squeezed it tight. The strange woman studied them, her gaze unblinking for a few seconds, then she tilted her head and took a step back, beckoning them to follow. “Come this way, yes, this way,” she said. “Two lovely lasses like yourselves deserve to sit at the front, yes? You shall have the best view in the house!”
Then with a flourish, she spun on her heel, and nervous but wondering, Petra and Mari followed. At her direction, they sat down on the front bench, in almost the exact center of the row, and the woman curtsied. “Enjoy the show, ladies,” she said, fangs glinting one last time before she half-walked, half-danced back to the entrance.
As the aura of the strange woman faded, Mari released Petra’s hand. “Sorry about that. I got startled.”
“It’s all right,” Petra looked up into the wooden rafters of the tent, suspended high overhead. “She gave me the creeps, too. This whole place feels… unreal.”
A grin split Mari’s face. “Yes, but isn’t it great?”
Petra couldn’t help but smile. “Indeed, it’s quite a place.”
Just then the music stopped, and the light dimmed everywhere but the stage. About eight feet above the stage, there was a ceiling and a series of rafters, and from the rafters, suspended by strings, descended two marionettes. The marionettes were relatively large, about two feet tall, with plain clothing that might have been made from simple sackcloth. They were pale, and had featureless faces, but their limbs were well-crafted, even equipped with fingers and toes. As they reached the floor of the stage they landed like real people, bending their knees. Then their strings jerked, and the marionettes turned and faced the audience, and began to dance. As they did, the chatter of the audience died down, and even though there was no sound, it soon became apparent that the marionettes, through their elaborate pantomimes, were telling a story.
“Am I correct,” whispered Petra, “in thinking they’re performing “’The Beautiful Bandit’?”
“Wow,” said Mari, “you’re definitely right.”
The Beautiful Bandit was an old legend, about a bandit who had once terrorized their village. At one point, he kidnapped a beautiful maiden, holding her for ransom, but the maiden unmasked the horrible bandit and discovered he was really a woman in disguise. The maiden escaped, but no one in town believed her story, so she went back out to challenge the outlaw herself. The maiden killed the bandit, and at the end of the story, realized that by doing so she had turned into the Beautiful Bandit herself.
It had been one of Mari and Petra’s favorite stories growing up, and had provided hours of entertainment, back when they were young and tomboyish, staging pretend duels for hours on end. Now, in pantomime, the marionettes acted out the story. It only took a few minutes, and when they were done, one of the puppets lying dead and the other standing over it, the audience broke into applause, and the barker who had been manning the entrance walked on stage.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed our little opening act. Welcome to the Marffers’ Puppet Theater. I am the Puppet Master, and I shall be your host this evening. Many of you undoubtedly recognized the tale we just spun a moment ago, a classic story from your own village: The Beautiful Bandit.”
The audience applauded again, and the Puppet Master raised his hands. “But,” he added, “as skilled as us puppeteers are, we can only be as good as the puppets we work with. These figures are wonderfully crafted, but they lack personality. Can they really do justice to such a remarkable tale?”
The two puppets were standing now and faced the audience.
“Look at them. Plain faces… drab clothes…” He put his hand to his chin, deep in thought, then his face lit up as he snapped his fingers. “I have an idea! We need two volunteers!” The man flung his arms wide, inviting, his wooden hand on prominent display. “Are any of you fine folks willing to help us out?”
Mari nudged Petra in the ribs. “Let’s do it.”
Petra hesitated. “I’m not sure…”
“Come on! After all, you said you didn’t want to just sit at a show. So let’s join it.” Before Petra could say anything, Mari raised her hand, and almost as if he had been expecting her, the man extended his arm with a flourish. “The young lady in the front! Come on up! And her friend? Her friend, too! Ladies and gentlemen, give these lovely women a big round of applause!”
They made their way up to the stage, lifting their dresses to avoid tripping as they climbed the steps. The marionettes from earlier were still on stage, and their strange, blank faces and colorless straw hair seemed even creepier up close. “Ladies, what are your names?”
“Mari.”
“Petra.”
“Well, Mari and Petra, welcome to the greatest act of the Marffers’ Fair! Petra, why you don’t you step over here to my other side? That’s it.”
Petra felt a little more anxious being separated from her friend, but looking out over the audience, she smiled and curtsied. She looked up, and in the rafters a few feet above, she saw the eyes of one of the puppeteers. He was a young man, dressed in black, but with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He winked at her, moving his hand and causing the marionette’s hand to wave. She blushed a bit, but then the Puppet Master’s voice brought her back to the moment.
“Now, ladies, before you take part in our little show, we need to make sure you get along well with our puppets here. After all, marionettes are fickle things, and if you’re not a good match… well, we don’t want to disappoint our audience, now, do we?”
There was motion in the rafters, and the marionettes walked toward them. Their movement was stilted, yet somehow still more fluid than most such puppets, as if they were living things just learning how to move. After a moment, a puppet stood on either side of the Puppet Master, between him and each of the girls. Then the man stepped backward into the shadows at the rear of the stage.
“Petra, Mari,” his voice boomed, “turn to face your dancing partners!”
They faced their marionettes, and in the process faced each other as well, sharing an apprehensive smile before the Puppet Master spoke again. “It’s a simple sort of dance. Just follow their lead, ladies.”
Petra looked at her marionette. The marionette had wide hips and was shaped like a female, and was wearing a nondescript white dress. The blank face was creepy, but nevertheless, when it raised its right arm, Petra dutifully raised hers. It raised his left arm, and Petra raised that one too. Then it spun in a circle, and so did Petra, eliciting a chuckle from the audience. Mari did the same, raising her arms, lifting her leg, and joining the marionettes in their awkward, stilted dance. The audience laughed whenever the marionettes did something absurd, and Petra and Mari got into the act, copying them, moving their arms into odd positions, even adopting blank expressions to match the puppets.
After a few minutes, the Puppet Master interrupted. “Very good, ladies! The marionettes do seem to like you. Would each of you be so kind as to bend down and give your partner a kiss?”
Mari smiled, and then bent down and kissed her marionette on top of the head. Petra did the same, pressing her lips lightly in the middle of the marionette’s blank face, and as she did so, she felt a feeling of lightheadedness pass over her. She shook her head a bit, trying to clear it.
“Ta da!”
The audience gasped at the change. The two marionettes had transformed into miniature copies of their dancing partners! The straw hair of the puppets had been transformed into hair that matched each girl’s, both in color and style: Petra’s puppet had long red hair tied back in a ponytail, and Mari’s puppet had shoulder-length blonde hair. Petra’s puppet had a beautiful blue dress, and large painted eyes like pools of green, while the other puppet had a dark red dress and bright blue eyes. Both marionettes had red circles painted on their cheeks, and large red lips painted in a broad smile. But that wasn’t all; the girls themselves looked different, too, with wide eyes and big red circles on their cheeks.
In her head, Petra felt like she was a daze. She noted with surprise that her marionette had changed, and as she stood back up, her legs felt stiff. She looked across at Mari and noticed that her friend’s bright blue eyes looked larger than ever—was that just surprise in her expression, or had they really gotten bigger? And how had her cheeks gotten painted such a lovely shade of red? What a strange effect from a kiss.
“Turn to face the audience, ladies, and let them get a good look at our newest performers!”
As she heard the Puppet Master’s voice, it was as though his words became her own thoughts, and she began to turn. But she struggled to do so, her arms jerky, finally rising up. She felt herself freeze in place, arms outstretched, as the crowd cheered. Though she couldn’t see, next to her Mari had done the same, a wide smile on her perfect red lips.
The marionettes danced on their strings next to the women, adopting a pose, and the Puppet Master instructed in his booming voice, “Now, curtsy, my lovely puppets.”
Controlled by their puppeteers, the marionettes executed perfect curtsies. Mari tried, but found herself frozen in place, smile on her lips, eyes wide, arms outstretched. Petra could not move either, and it hurt, to have such a clear instruction but be unable to fulfill it.
The Puppet Master, as though he had just noticed what was wrong, frowned and put his arm to his chin as if deep in thought. “It seems we have a problem, ladies and gentlemen! Mari and Petra have no strings! They’re unable to move! Whatever shall we do?”
He walked up to Mari and waved his hand in front of her face, but her eyes did not blink, and her expression remained frozen. He moved her arms, bending her elbows so her hands were placed on her hips. Still frozen in her body, Mari was able to feel his touch, the weirdness of his wooden hand as he guided her arm into a new position, but she couldn’t move. She enjoyed this new feeling, this helplessness, being guided by her master.
“Well, we shall have to fix that.” His wooden hand reached into the pocket of his coat, and he pulled out a piece of wood in the shape of an X, the sort that might be used to control a marionette, but with no strings attached. He pressed it to the top of Mari’s head, then removed it, and from the perspective of the audience, it looked as if tiny, sparkling strings rose from her arms and legs into the nothingness of the air above her.
As the audience watched the magic do its work, nobody even noticed that Mari’s marionette faded away, disappeared, as if it had been simply absorbed by the magic of the Puppet Master. Now, they watched only Mari.
Holding the simple wooden controller in his hand, the Puppet Master tilted it sideways, and Mari’s arm rose up. He tilted it the other way and her other arm rose. Then, his hand became a blur of motion, fingers spinning across the control rod, and she began to walk. As the Puppet Master smiled, Mari, expression still frozen on her face, walked over to Petra, who hadn’t moved. Under the Puppet Master’s expert manipulation, her hand extended forward and brushed Petra’s cheek. Even though Mari couldn’t control her muscles anymore, she could still feel and see and hear, and Petra’s skin felt stiff under her fingers, smooth and hard, almost like porcelain. Her friend stared straight ahead, eyes wide and unblinking, her full red lips locked in a smile. Mari’s hand brushed the red circles that were painted on her cheeks, but it didn’t feel like makeup or paint… her skin had really changed color. She found herself wondering if her own face looked the same. She tried to move her eyes, but couldn’t; she couldn’t even blink or breathe, but she felt no discomfort.
The Puppet Master pressed another control rod to the top of Petra’s head, and brought his second new puppet to life. Mari’s hand was still on Petra’s cheek, and her friend’s head dropped down and their eyes met, but Mari could see no sign of life there. Except for their own thoughts, everything about them was now controlled by the Puppet Master.
As the girls walked to the center of the stage, whispers trickled through the audience. “There now,” the Puppet Master cried, “aren’t these marionettes a little better looking?”
The whispers turned into applause, the Puppet Master worked his magic, and the girls curtsied.
“Now,” their Master asked, “what sort of tale shall we tell with Petra and Mari?”
The music started up again, and the girls began to dance to it. In Petra’s mind, the movements felt natural, like she was doing them herself. Even though she had no control, it still felt like the motion was originating from within her, rather than like her limbs were being pulled by invisible strings.
She had been alarmed when she was first frozen, but now a comfortable haze had settled over her thoughts, and she marveled at the changes. When her head faced the right way, she could see Mari, who looked cuter than usual with her red cheeks and blond hair. The Puppet Master brought the two of them close, and for a moment their breasts pressed together, and Petra was surprised and how firm and unyielding her flesh felt. They moved apart, and she realized that Mari’s chest looked even bigger than usual, as though the transformation had made her breasts fuller and rounder, almost like globes.
Then the Puppet Master began to narrate the story of The Beautiful Bandit. Mari took the role of the maiden and Petra the bandit; in her thoughts, Petra smiled. She had always preferred being the bandit. She knew she couldn’t affect anything, but she let the Puppet Master’s commands flow through her, not resisting, trying to contribute what energy she could to them, not knowing if it made a difference or not but knowing she wanted to give the best performance she possibly could.
Occasionally Petra would stay frozen in place, off in one corner, as the Puppet Master narrated the maiden’s part of the story. Then, at the end, the two girls each picked up swords and dueled. It was a masterful duel; Petra marveled at the speed and fluidity with which her arm moved. In real life she had never so much as held a real sword, but here, under the command of the Puppet Master, she was an expert.
The audience gasped as occasionally one girl would come close to striking a blow, and then an audible yell as Mari’s sword pierced Petra’s stomach! Petra fell to the ground, but no blood came from her wound and in her mind, she barely felt the pain. A moment later, as Petra lay on the ground, Mari pulled the sword back out and stood up. The story finished, and the lights dimmed.
For a few eerie moments, the tent was plunged into total silence and darkness. Then the light returned, and as the Puppet Master brought Petra back to her feet, the audience erupted in wild, raucous applause. He raised his hands, acknowledging the cheers, and in their heads, the two girls basked in the glory of the moment.
The Puppet Master brought their control rods forward, and Mari and Petra bowed. Then, he lifted Mari’s hand, and placed her control rod in her fingers. The red circles on Mari’s cheeks faded, and her eyes seemed to shrink a bit. She blinked, like she awaking from a long sleep, and stretched her arms out, as if unable to believe that they worked.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he shouted, “give Mari a big hand!”
The applause got louder, and Mari waved and bowed again, this time under her own power. It felt good to be back in control of her hands, although it had been kind of fun while she wasn’t. She brushed her arm, which felt human again. Then the Puppet Master handed her the other control rod—the one he had used for Petra. “Mari, would you hand this back to Petra? She might want it.”
Mari walked over to her friend, still frozen in place. She tilted the rod a bit, and Petra’s arm moved, her expression still frozen in a vacant smile. She reached forward, taking Petra’s hand, feeling the odd stiffness to her skin. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she placed the control rod in her friend’s hand and closed her hand around it.
Petra blinked her eyes and looked down at herself, moving her arms and legs. She felt where the sword had pierced her body, and there was a tiny hole in her dress, but her skin was unbroken. She glanced at Mari and laughed, and together they hugged each other and then, holding hands, bowed to the audience.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” the Puppet Master boomed, “that concludes tonight’s show. Enjoy the rest of your evening here at the Marffer’s Fair, and don’t pet Larysa on your way out; she bites. Good night!” Then the Puppet Master bowed, and he gestured for the ladies to bow as well, and they did. It took several minutes for the applause to die down and the audience to begin trickling out of the tent, full of chatter about what they had seen.
As the audience dwindled, Petra looked at the control rod in her hand. “Excuse me, sir?” she asked the Puppet Master.
The Puppet Master doffed his hat, revealing a bald head underneath. “You may call me Farn, Miss Petra. And may I say, you two ladies make wonderful marionettes.” He grinned wistfully. “The disadvantage to my job is that even when I find such marvelous ladies as yourselves, I still only get to work with you for one show.”
Petra blushed. “Thank you, sir. But…” she held up the control rod. “Do these still work? Or are we back to normal?”
Farn smiled. “Mari, hand yours to me for a moment.”
As Mari handed over her control rod, Petra watched in amazement as her friend began to grow stiff. Red circles formed on her cheeks, her eyes grew wider, and her lips reddened and grew into a smile, and, she couldn’t help but notice, her bust rose and grew a bit. Farn made some adjustments with the rod, and soon Mari was perfectly posed, her arms bent, her face in a smile. But as soon as he did so, he placed the rod back in Mari’s hand.
As she returned to normal, she giggled. “That feels weird! I kind of like it.”
“You see, Miss Mari, Miss Petra, as long as you hold your own control rods, you will be as you are now—normal, ordinary people, will full control over your mind and faculties. But hand them to someone else, and well, you will return to being puppets. I suggest you be careful with them and not lose them.”
Petra frowned. “But what if someone steals it, or…”
“Then best be careful, Miss,” said Farn. “You’ve magic inside you now, the sort that doesn’t go away. And,” he winked, “I did say you’d be telling your grandchildren about tonight, didn’t I?”
As he doffed his hat and bowed, Petra opened her mouth to protest, but suddenly Mari snatched her control rod out of her hand. Petra turned to her friend, annoyed, and reached over to try and take it back. But already she was freezing up. “That’s not... fun… ny…” Her expression turned doll-like, her mouth arching upward into a smile, and her movement grew stiffer and jerkier, until after a few seconds she froze completely.
“Come on, you have to admit, this is pretty nifty.” She tucked her own control rod in her bosom, then took Petra’s hand in her left hand and Petra’s control rod in her right, making her walk as she guided her down the stage and toward the exit. “Let’s go enjoy the rest of the night.” She turned and waved at Farn one last time, who gave a jaunty salute with his wooden hand.
Petra’s movements got smoother as they walked, as Mari got more used to the control. “Now, where should we take you first?” She grinned. “Didn’t you say there were some boys you wanted to tease?”