Entertainment Is Its Own World

The only factor which moderated the laughter in Planterson's was the number of diners inside. The first floor had never been empty since Planterson started offering food, drinks, and entertainment for the businessmen who came to deal with him or meet one another on neutral ground, an innovation being adopted by more than one property owner with an eye for trends, but it was not often full. A merchant here and a guard there at different tables made up the few witnesses to the finest performance any of them had ever seen.
Planterson allowed not only musicians and reciters of poetry to take the floor but also jugglers, acrobats, dancers, and practitioners of public legerdemain who, feeling the intensifying competition in the entertainment industry keenly, had been doing more and more to spice up their acts. At the time a mercantile association junior member named Waxerson was juggling cheeses while telling humorous anecdotes in a dialect spoken far from Latemarket that readied the audience for mirth on its own.
No one there had ever enjoyed such a diverting spectacle, but the merriment was interrupted when a phantasmal woman appeared, embraced Waxerson, and disappeared, him along with her.
The laughter stopped. "What happened?" A patron, Glazerson by name, asked an older man sitting nearby for an explanation as if a few years gave the answer to every question there was.
"No need to concern yourself," the older man said. "He's been taken by a comedy valkyrie is all. To Valhalla. Seen it many a time."
"Oh . . . oh, really?"
"Yes sir. Not that it happens often. Not at all. But I've followed the career of every promising humorist I ever caught word of for, oh, six hundred years now and more. You get so these things don't surprise you so much."
"You mean . . . you're saying you're the immortal sage, Counter?"
"I don't recall saying so, but that's my name."
"Racing heavens! Wait till I tell everybody back home! So, what is the secret to immortality?"
Counter shrugged. "Don't remember. It's been six hundred years."
"Oh, yes, of course."
A caravan guard stood up and sang a song from his homeland so as not to allow the entertainment to die down for good. All agreed he was decent but was unlikely to summon a song valkyrie.
Finis