Legends? Our time doesn't produce a lot of them. It's a lot easier to become a legend if you die, close the book, and let the legend makers get to work. Mere stardom can be conveyed willy-nilly and last no longer than a soap bubble. So no one is going to chisel your name in stone until everyone's sure you're not coming back to be an embarrassment.
About half the theaters on The Rialto had achieved landmark status. You might buy and sell the structures, but you couldn't tear them down and the names were there forever. The rest were up for grabs. I wasn't familiar with this "Golden Globe" house and I had forgotten the address as the months went by, but I recalled thinking it couldn't be far from the site of my last appearance as Sparky: the late lamented John Valentine Theater.
I was right. It was in the neighborhood. Like everything else, the neighborhood had changed, but I knew approximately where I was.
I walked up and down in front of it. It had been so long since I'd played in a real Rialto theater I just wanted to get a feel for the place again. I liked what I saw. Something called Two Problems in Logic was playing, a title I wasn't familiar with, though the writer and director were both known to me. Only two players were listed, one with her name above the title, and I had never heard of either of them. That was depressing.
Pushing one of the brass-and-glass doors, I entered a long, thick-carpeted lobby in lavender and ecru. Spaced along the walls were posters from past productions at the Golden Globe. I gathered the house specialized in new works by established playwrights, though there was the occasional old war-horse guaranteed to put butts in seats, and a few revivals of faded stars who'd only had the one hit, reprising the role for the ninety-ninth time.
Finally I came to the back of the theater itself, and looked down a long aisle to the stage.
There was something oddly familiar about it.
I walked down a few rows and looked around. Even more familiar.
I hurried back to the lobby, paused to get my bearings, and followed a branching corridor that led to the rest rooms. Just beyond them was a bank of fire exit doors. My heart was hammering as I banged through one of them, setting off a distant alarm. I found myself outside on a side street, around the corner from the main entrance. It was a narrow way, not quite an alley, and just off to my left was a small park with a gazebo that, other than a fresh coat of paint, had not changed in seventy years.
The Golden Globe was the John Valentine Theater.
I staggered into the park and collapsed on a bench.
Memories.
"En garde!" Valentine shouted, and slashed at his son's face.
It was a backhand stroke, and the tip of the blade drew a red line on Kenneth's left cheek. There was no more pain than from a razor cut. He touched his cheek with his free hand and looked at the blood on his fingers.
"I said en garde, sir," Valentine said. "Raise your weapon."
Kenneth slowly did so.
"Are you ready this time?"
He nodded.
"Then fight, damn you." Valentine slashed again, not quite as quickly. Kenneth parried the move, felt the clash of blade up through his wrist. And here, the blade was coming at him again, and he parried once more, and again, and again... and his father's blade tore through the fabric of his sleeve. This time he felt some pain, and a wet heat as blood ran down his arm.
"Again." And once more the sword was flashing in his face. He got the blade up just in time. But no sooner had he fended off the first thrust than another was coming at him. And another, and another.
Parry, riposte. Sixte, seconde. The words flew around in his mind, mocking him. I'll bet you wish you'd studied now, they said. Frantically, he tried to remember, but it just wasn't there. If you had to think about it, you were already too late. Your body must simply respond. Thinking was for the attack, and it would be a long time before young Kenneth was ready for that. The best he could do was try to keep his blade up, try to keep it between his body and the slashing, hungry steel that had a life of its own. That's what it had to be. His father could not be trying to kill him.
He felt pain again. This time it was his hip. A thrusting wound, this one hurt more than all the others put together. Others... how many were there now? Five? Six? He had lost count.
He was blinded by sweat. He stopped, turned his back, wiped his face with his sleeve. Then he turned around and tried to smile.
"I yield!" he shouted. "The first lesson has gone badly for me, I admit it. But I'll work all night, and you'll see a new man for lesson number two." He dropped his sword. "Now, do you want to do some blocking on that scene? Maybe we should get Tybalt in here to help."
"Pick up your weapon, sir."
"Father, I—"
"Your weapon, sir!"
Slowly, Kenneth reached down and took the bloody hilt.
"En garde." And once more the blade flashed.
As usual, his father was right. This was the perfect way to teach swordsmanship. If the pupil survived it.
Within an hour Kenneth had improved markedly. Like all his father's methods, it was a simple process. The student made a careless move. The teacher showed him the error of his ways in the form of a small cut. The student tried another approach, which was a little better. No cut. Again the teacher offered the same move, and the student found a variation that actually might give him a small advantage. Then the teacher varied the first move. Once more, a cut. Again. Not so good, Kenneth; another cut, deeper this time. Now don't think, let your body remember what you did wrong last time, what you did that resulted in pain. Your body will remember and find a way to avoid the pain. Here it comes again—
—and that was much better. No pain. Try it again. No pain. Again.
Now, try this....
The pain in Spain is mainly for the slain.
Again.
With a spiraling motion worthy of Errol Flynn, John Valentine's blade twisted the sword from Kenneth's hand and sent it flying into the wings. "Get it," he said.
"Father, could we have a break?"
"Ten more minutes. Go."
Kenneth didn't move for a moment. He was barely able to stand. "Son," Valentine said, gently. "You brought this on yourself. I know it hurts. I went through this with my father, and I'm the better for it. Soon you'll be disarming me, and the audience as well. But in the meantime it is going to hurt. At the end of the day we'll have you patched up. And we'll start fresh tomorrow."
Patched up.
Tomorrow. What a frightening thought.
"Now go get your weapon."
Kenneth turned and trudged toward the curtain. He was afraid that if he reached down to pick up the sword, he would simply pass out. He did bend down for the sword, and his head did swim, but he did not pass out.
And then a strange thing happened. Kenneth reached for the saber—
—and Sparky picked it up.
It was invigorating, just being Sparky again. He was still hurting, badly, and he was still weak, but in the ways that mattered Sparky was strong. He didn't really know who this Kenneth person was, but he knew he was weak.