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…or, Up In The Air

The back side of the hill sloped down a bit and then fell away very steeply, like a bluff. The amphitheater was nestled into the initial downslope, with steps and rings of stone seats cutting into the natural grade of the hill. Crystal Hill Park was near the eastern edge of the town. On the other side of the hill, there might have been some last traces of brightness near the horizon. Looking straight ahead from the top of the amphitheater, though, was looking out into a field of stars.

From where we waited for an usher to show us to our seats, the semi-circular stage at the bottom of the theater seemed to be hanging precariously out into space. A grand harp was set up next to a short four-legged stool on one side of the stage. There were four seats arranged in the center, and a drum set and pair of keyboards set up at the other end.

“Well, there are the strings, or some of them, anyway,” I said to Iason, pointing. “I wonder where the wings and things are?”

“I could show you my thing,” he said. “It even has wings.”

“If the eight P.M. show’s the same as the six, I’m not interested,” I said. “I want to see something new.”

“I can promise you, Iamie, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Good evening, gentlemen,” a smiling usherette said, reaching for the tickets in Iason’s hands. He handed them to me, and I gave them to her. She held a glowstone up to read them.

“Looks busy tonight,” I said.

“Oh, it is. Absolutely sold out. Our ‘Wings’ show is always like this, though,” she said. She squinted at the tickets, and then handed them back. “Oh, you’re in the boxes. You actually need to go back up and then around to the left, where there’s stairs going down inside the hill.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You got box seats?” I asked Iason as we headed back up the steps to the plaza-like lobby area.

“I didn’t pay attention. There were two sets of tickets available when I bought these,” he said. “The other ones were too cheap to be any good.”

We passed through the thick stone walls which screened the theater off from the rest of the hilltop. Iason cast a glance at the long tables where cash bars had been set up.

“I don’t suppose they would have anything like a proper elven wine, anyway,” he muttered.

“You can get something for yourself, if you want it,” I said.

“No, thank you,” he said. “I prefer not to drink with somebody I know is drinking less than I am.”

“You don’t have to deny yourself anything on my behalf,” I said. “It’s not like I’m not used to other people drinking around me.”

“I can promise you, Iamie, it’s not on anybody’s behalf but my own that I do this,” he said. “Ah, there is where that woman said to go, I think.”

He pointed at the far corner of the walled plaza, where a woman in a red uniform stood in front of an opening in the floor. We went over and I showed her our tickets.

“Hello,” she said, glancing at them. “Down and to your left, gentlemen, and then all the way to the end.”

The flagstones on the stone stairs and in the passageway glowed softly, illuminating a stretch of tunnel that would otherwise have born too great a resemblance to a catacomb.

Our seats were in a box with two others, at the end of a long set of balconies that were carved out of one arm of the cutaway hillside, putting us up close to the stage. Looking over the end of the box gave me a view down the steep side of the bluff. There were some trees clinging to the lower part of the slope, and then a clear space. On the other side of that, the very eastern edge of Enwich was visible, out to the city wall.

The stage itself jutted out into the open air, creating the illusion of a much straighter drop. Of course, it wasn’t so much an illusion for the people who were on it. The stone railing at the back looked pretty secure, though.

There were some carts set up on the ground at the bottom of the hill, below and behind the stage. Since nothing else was around them, I figured they had to be involved with the show. Maybe there would be some fireworks or illusions at the climax. Something that caught fire and went boom seemed likely, because it looked like there was a cordon in a wide ring around the area.

There were people on chairs and blankets on the yards and even the rooftops of the houses on the other side of the cordon. It seemed the coming spectacle was going to be spectacular enough to be appreciated at a distance.

“I always thought this was a plains province,” I said to Iason as I looked down the precipitous drop.

“We’re actually on the edge of the Enias River Valley,” Iason said. “The river used to flow on this side of the hill. If we’d entered Enwich through the other gate, we would have had to pass over the canal to get here. The height does not bother you?”

“Not really, no,” I said. “Just kind of surprising.”

“I can switch seats with you, if you’d like,” he said. “If you’re afraid.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said.

On the stage, a couple of people had come out to fiddle around with the harp. The part of me that had spent too much time with Marlot wondered if somebody offstage was harping on a fiddle.

The auditorium had been close to packed when we sat down, and the scattered empty seats continued to fill in bit by bit. Aside from having comfortable chairs, legroom, and an unobstructed view of the whole stage, one of the big advantages of our box seats was that we didn’t have to get up to let other people get by.

“Exactly how much did these seats cost you?” I asked Iason.

“Don’t be vulgar, Iamie,” he said, leaning over and draping an arm over me.

“I’m just curious,” I said.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you. That would be boastful of me.”

“And you never boast?”

“I don’t feel it’s necessary right this moment,” he said.

“I’ll just look it up tomorrow.”

“If it’s that important for you to know how much I spend pursuing you, I can’t stop you from finding out,” he said.

“It’s not,” I said. “I’m just making conversation.”

I looked around the amphitheater again. It looked like the ushers were just about done seating people. The foot lights on the stairs were starting to wink out, from the bottom up, and the faux flames burning in sconces high on the wall were also dimming themselves.

Our box was still empty apart from us. It seemed like the other two seats were the only vacant ones in the house.

“I wonder if they’ll have a problem getting seated, if they’re late,” I said.

“Who?” he asked.

“Whoever has these other seats,” I said.

“Nobody has them,” Iason said. “Or rather, I do.”

“You were expecting someone else to show up?”

“No,” he said. “I like my space.”

“Did you know there were only four seats in the box when you bought the tickets?”

“I told you, I wasn’t paying that much attention,” he said. “I just wanted to ensure I wouldn’t have any foul, smelly, sweaty, disgusting humans sitting on top of me.”

“Do I have to remind you that I’m human?” I said.

“Yes, Iamie, but you are hardly foul. But, hush. I think they are beginning.”

I suspected it would be bad form to punch him in the stomach when the show was starting, but I pushed his arm off my shoulder anyway. The lights on the stage had gone out. Two figures in emerald robes went and stood at the front corners of the stage. They gestured over the smoky flames, and a wavy wall of shimmering green light formed in front of each of them, then spread upwards and towards the center of the stage to form a curtain.

From our vantage point, we could see behind the curtain as a troupe of seven people walked out. An older man took a seat at the keyboards, a black-bearded dwarf climbed behind the drums, three women and a man carrying instruments cases took the center seats, and an elven woman sat down at the harp.

As the musicians were getting situated and taking out their instruments, a voice sounded at a comfortable volume throughout the theater.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Enwich Guild for the Bardic Arts welcomes you to the final installment of our summer concert series, ‘Strings and Wings and Things’. For the comfort and enjoyment of the other guests, please refrain from smoking, gazing, reflecting, or channeling inside the amphitheater. Recording or transcribing this performance is prohibited, but crystals and music boxes will be available in the lobby during intermission and following the concert. Oh, and one more thing: don’t feed the dragons.”

“Dragons?” I mouthed to Iason, but he just shrugged.

The musicians had begun to play a series of quick, rising notes which built to a crescendo which made the curtain burst into a shower of blue-green sparkles. The musicians continued to play while the illusionists waved their hands and made the sparkles disperse themselves over the stage, fading out of sight but leaving the whole area covered with a soft glow.

It wasn’t my kind of music, but it was a high-energy performance and I was getting swept up along with it. The illusionists were still at work, and the shimmering energy curtain was taking shape again, this time at the back of the stage. I kept my eye on it, figuring it would be used as a backdrop for whatever the rest of their performance would consist of.

The music was obviously building towards another climax, and I found myself holding my breath waiting for it to arrive.

I could never have guessed the form it would take, when the curtain exploded as three dragons–two blue, one red—whooshed up from below, spouting two gouts of lightning and one of fire ahead of them. They rolled around as they climbed, and I could see they were being ridden by slender figures in dark leather.

They were small dragons. I’d say that their bodies were about the size of a very large dog, but that might be misleading if you didn’t take into account their wingspans, whip-like tails, and serpentine necks.

It goes without saying that when dealing with dragons of any size, the modifier “just”—as in “just a small dragon” or “just the size of a dog”—doesn’t begin to apply. It didn’t matter how big they were. They were still fucking dragons.

At least, they looked an awful lot like them.

“Are those mockdragons?” I asked Iason.

“Too big,” he whispered. “They are lesser winged dragons. True dragons, if not as intelligent as their larger kin. They are essentially animals, if magnificent ones.”

He didn’t have to say that twice. They wheeled and spun about in the air, spouting fire and lightning as color bursts from the illusionists kept them illuminated and the musicians continued to play.

After a few minutes of aerial acrobatics, a flock of smaller creatures joined in among them.

“Those are mockdragons,” Iason said of the cat-sized creatures. He slipped his arm back around me. Spellbound, I accepted the gesture, and even leaned in to him.

Seeing them right next to one another, it was easy to tell the differences between the mockdragons and the true dragons, size aside. The mockdragons had shorter necks and more beak-like snouts, and their forepaws were attached to their wings. The dragons had four full legs in addition to their wings. They also had elaborate frills on the backs of their heads.

It was hard to be all analytical about it, though, because they were fucking dragons. They practically radiated majesty.

The string ensemble played on but they might as well have been a recorded soundtrack. I couldn’t believe that any eyes in the theater would have been on the stone stage. The real stage was the sky beyond.

The opening number seemed to go on and on, but as it wound down, the mockdragons all came gliding down to alight on the front of the stage, between the two illusionists. There were twenty-four of them in all, eight each in the colors of gold, silver, and copper. Once they’d all settled down on their hind paws with their wings folded behind them, the dragons touched down on the rear of the stage, perching on the stone railing like gargoyles.

“Hello, Enwich!” the elven harper said. “We are the performers of Strings and Wings and Things, and we would like to thank you for welcoming us back here for another year. We put on shows in venues all over the Imperium, and this is honestly our favorite one because it’s set up so perfectly for the sorts of things we like to do.

“For those of you who have never seen our show, my name is Melaina. I am still learning to play the harp, I only started eighty years ago, so if I seem a little off, please hold your slings. We’ll introduce the rest of the band in a bit, but right now I’d like you to meet the real stars of our show. On the left—stage left, your right—we have Claude, who is a Skarean Blue dragon. He’s male, he’s two hundred and eighty-seven years old, and he’s carrying Margaret.”

Claude reared up on his hind legs, and Margaret—who looked like a really petite human woman—waved. The rest of the audience applauded. I was frozen, watching the dragon. He was so close to us. I could see his individual scales, I could see the slitted pupils in his yellow eyes.

“In the middle is Magestrix, a Northern Mountain Red. She’s four hundred and fifty-two years old, and is carrying Perseus.”

She responded to the introduction by arching her long neck and shooting a stream of fire skyward while her elven rider remained impassive and still in his saddle. The applause was even louder for her than it had been for Claude.

“And last but not least, on the right we have the newest member of our draconian family: Vera. She is an Imperial Blue, and you will notice that she has purple webbing on her wings where Claude is blue all over. Now, everybody knows it’s against Imperial edict to name an animal after the Emperor or Empress, but there are actually two exceptions: lions and dragons. Our Vera had her first public performance in front of the Vera, at which point we asked for and received her blessing for our friend to use her illustrious name. Vera is only thirty-five years old, which means she’s had much less training than her adopted brother and sister, but because we had her as a hatchling she’s actually very well trained. For this performance, Vera is carrying Marcello.”

Vera bowed her head low to the ground, and Marcello bowed with her. There were “awws” mixed in with the cheering. I noticed this time that the little mockdragons were flapping their wings in front of them and hopping while the people in the audience clapped.

“Let’s have one more big round of applause for all of our dragons, their human and elven partners, and all of their little friends,” Melaina said.

The dragons kicked off of the balcony and fell backwards into space as we all clapped and hollered for all that we were worth. Once they were clear of the stage and each other, they spread their wings and the show began again.

It was amazing, from start to finish. The dragons and their riders knew their stuff. They appeared to joust with each other, charging through the air towards an apparent collision, only to wheel away at the last moment. They’d breathe fire or lightning that seemed to miss their “siblings” by inches. They did all this while effortlessly avoiding the antics of their smaller cousins, and the music from the stage punctuated every maneuver perfectly.

Iason’s hand didn’t stay on my shoulder. I didn’t care. Watching the metallic-scaled beasts soaring through the sky was a surprisingly erotic experience, especially when one flew upwards facing us with its belly, then arched its back to turn over. They were sleek creatures, but in moments like that when you could see their muscles straining with the effort of flight you couldn’t help but realize how powerful they were. We spent intermission not-so-discreetly making out.

“When this is over, I’m going to fuck your tiny little brains out,” he whispered as the lights began to flash for the end of intermission.

“You’d better,” I said.

We could talk about the “tiny little” remark later.

After.

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