BRYCK (5)

HE LOOKED AWAY from the naked backs that the soldiers were methodically flogging. The sounds of hide whips impacting flesh and bone, and the attending cries for mercy and shrieks of agony, echoed across the plaza even as his eyes furtively roved the crowd. Bryck was vaguely repelled by the violence of the punishments being meted out; but these were, after all, only whippings. No one was being butchered. Acts of inhumanity were inevitably measured against the annihilation of Udelph. That was his standard.

Nonetheless, it was difficult not to feel a little pity.

The turnout was sizable, though attendance wasn't mandatory. Everybody liked a show though, Bryck thought with a callous cynicism that would have once shocked him. In bygone days when he was a husband, father, noble, playwright, he had somehow always managed to see the better side of people.

No. No point in taking a revisionist view of his past. He had almost always been able to find the comical side—of people, of events. But humor had such amazing scope. Humor had the capacity to contain horror, sadness, murder, epic tragedy. Some of his most beloved theatricals embraced such subjects but did so in that special way that permitted laughter. That had been his gift.

Still, he was hard-pressed to imagine what sort of slant would make humorous this row of ten stripped bodies being beaten bloody by whips. The Felk soldiers had erected a long horizontal crosspiece and shackled each of the criminals with his or her hands well above the head, backs exposed to the two floggers that were working their way inward from either end. They were professionals, not sadists. Bryck had counted them delivering equal numbers of blows to each offender. It was a high count, but it was equal.

He blended easily enough in the crowd. He no longer radiated a forceful presence, no longer drew attention automatically. The extrovert in him had gone grey and numb.

So, almost invisibly, he slipped away through the grimly watching faces. He could still hear the blows as he left the plaza behind. The Callahans under those whips had all committed various offensives against the Felk laws of occupation. The charges had been read by an officer of the garrison at the start of the proceedings. Most of the people had been caught transacting illegally in coin. No doubt displays like this would deter other potential offenders.

Lately the Felk had stepped up their enforcement efforts. The patrols through the city weren't strictly for show anymore. Bryck wondered if these Callahans were stirring up trouble, causing the Felk to clamp down. But, as it had been from the start, he had no way to accurately gauge what effect his efforts to sabotage the Felk occupation were having.

He passed the door of a shop where, during that Lacfoddalmendowl festival, he had branded a sigil onto the wood. The door was gone now, replaced with boards. He had discovered that at virtually every site where he had left it, the brand had been defaced or removed completely. Apparently the Felk had taken note.

He had pushed himself too far that day, and he had paid. He was no wizard. The magic had drained him, and he had lain in bed, burning with fever and unable to eat, for two days. Once he had recuperated, however, he had set about spreading word of the Broken Circle, the name of the cell of rebels here in Callah who were planning to overthrow the Felk occupiers. As before, he used his capacity as a stringbox-playing minstrel to deliver the news.

The market nearby the Registry was doing its normal business. He entered it.

Moments later Bryck was handing over two blue-colored goldie notes and carrying away an ornate candle-stick from a stall. It was heavy and, looking at it closely for the first time, also quite handsome. He had of course purchased it merely to put yet more of Slydis's ingeniously false currency into circulation. The stall's keeper was certainly pleased Bryck had agreed without undue dickering to pay nearly the full asking price. Nothing was said about coin fetching a better price. Perhaps those public floggings were already having effect.

The candlestick was finely molded to resemble the stalk of a plant; around the empty socket the metal flared out like petals.

Normally he would dispose of something like this. He regularly bought expensive items only to discard them in waste barrels. Once, he had collected and taken pleasure in objects—pieces of art, items of decor. Pointless, frivolous things. But that was a different life.

Still, he might keep this candlestick, take it back to his room. It might brighten up his modest lodgings ... not that he cared anything about his own comfort any longer.

He moved through the streets. Rain had fallen earlier, enough to make a thick paste of mud for everyone to trudge through. Those rains were coming more frequently

and turning colder. Autumn came sooner in this northern city than in Udelph.

He wondered about the mild pity he'd felt for those Callahans who were being lashed. It was odd he should feel anything. Since his initial shock-horror at U'delph's destruction had worn off, since he had turned grief and hate into grim, focused vengeance, he hadn't felt much in the way of real emotion. Even deliberate thoughts of Aaysue and his children didn't provoke fits of sorrow anymore.

So why should these Callahans matter to him? They were foreigners, a conquered people. They were merely players in the revenge that he was orchestrating.

They were giving substance to his fiction of the Broken Circle by believing in it. They were, in a way, his audience. After all it had been his audiences flocking to see the likes of Glad of Nothing and Possibly I Misheard who made those farces almost real. Without performers to play the roles and without viewers to accept those characters as true, Bryck's works would have been only absurd fantasies scribbled on paper.

This new "theatrical," however, was definitely a departure from his past works. The fabrication of the Broken Circle was so obvious a wish-fulfillment for these people of Callah. At the taverns where he quietly introduced the story, people were wildly excited. He'd claimed it was merely a rumor, but his talent for storytelling served well. With a few earnest whispers, reenforced by the curious sigils that had sprung up around the city recently, he created the Broken Circle from the air.

Hopefully they were spreading the word themselves now, probably inventing "news" of the local uprising, the plans being made, the arms being gathered, the men and women preparing to usurp the Felk rule.

It was a fine fantasy. A pity for these Callahans that it had no reality but what they gave it. Yet if it provoked one of these people to raise a hand against the Felk, it was an accomplishment.

Bryck of course wanted more. He wanted these people to truly rise up. To annihilate the Felk. To slaughter them in the streets like diseased dogs. But until he actually saw that, he wouldn't know if his fabricated Broken Circle had inspired anyone.

He was taking a roundabout route back to the building where he had his room. He consciously avoided falling into patterns. He didn't walk the same streets every day or eat at the same places. He was doing his best to stay anonymous.

Nevertheless, as he rounded a corner, squelching through mud, an elderly but still burly blacksmith at the entrance to his shop lifted a hand and called a greeting. Bryck returned it and strode quickly onward. The man hadn't called him by name; that was good. He must have seen Bryck often enough in the neighborhood to recognize him, or perhaps he'd been at one of the taverns where Bryck played. He was careful never to perform at the same place twice.

Maybe it was time to relocate, he thought. With the ridiculous amount of counterfeit money he still had, he could secure lodgings just about anywhere. Callah was a large city. Lots of places to hide.