Elegy for a Lost Star (15 page)

A chorus of assent replied.

“All right,” the Ringmaster snarled. “Show me your damned freak.”

Quayle broke into a wide smile and stepped aside, bowing and gesturing politely at the wagon. “Be my guest, sir.”

The Ringmaster lifted the tarp high.

A pale arm shot forth from the bowels of the wagon, its sickly skin almost green in the flickering light of the brands, followed a moment later by the misshapen head, its huge, cloudy eyes blazing, its grotesque mouth hissing and screeching sounds that were clearly inhuman, and possibly demonic. It clawed at the Ringmaster, clutching his waistcoat and dragging itself toward him. The man pulled free and stepped away. The creature swiped helplessly at Quayle before sinking weakly back into the depths of the wagon.

The crowd gasped collectively, the spectators in the front pushing and shoving to get clear of the wagon.

Only the Ringmaster stood still. He turned to Quayle, who was still unable to disguise his gloating.

“How much do you want for it?” he asked tersely.

Quayle pretended to consider. “Well, this afternoon I had planned to ask for fifty crowns,” he said, continuing on through the Ringmaster's shocked intake of breath, “but since you've been so downright rude, the price is one hundred gold crowns. Plus two.”

The Ringmaster started to protest, but then caught sight of the crowd surging enthusiastically toward the gate of the Monstrosity, and reconsidered.

“Done,” he said. He motioned to one of the keepers, and the man disappeared in the direction of the outer villages of Bethany.

“We'll give you an hour,” Quayle said, climbing back into the wagon. “My friend Brookins here would like to use his ticket, if you don't object. Then we're gone, with our money and without our fish-boy, or without it and with him. So if your lackey ain't back with the money—”

“He'll be back in time,” the Ringmaster said through his teeth.

“Good,” said Quayle, stretching out on the wagon board. “And just to show you what a generous chap I am, you can take its fish; that's what it eats, though it likes eels better. And maybe next time you'll show up when you're expected.”

T
he creature was handed over in the dark, when the sideshow had closed for the night. It had spat and hissed, but its soft bones and weakened state made its transfer a fairly easy one.

“Don't forget to keep it wet,” Quayle had cautioned the Ringmaster as the creature was placed in a canvas sling and carried away beyond the gate and into the strange world of the Monstrosity. “It dries out easy.”

“Take your money and get out of here,” said the Ringmaster, watching the keepers carry the creature into one of the tents within the carnival. He turned and followed them without another word.

Later that night, as they rejoined the trans-Orlandan thoroughfare, heading back west to the coast, Brookins finally spoke. He had been staring
directly ahead of him for hours, trying to process what he had seen beyond the gates.

“There was a—woman in there with two—two—purses,” he whispered, gesturing between his legs. He shook his head, trying to expunge the sight from his memory.

Quayle laughed aloud. “Good thing I was holding the gold, Brookins,” he said with a crude tone. “You wouldn't want to deposit any of your ‘coin' in either of those ‘purses.' ”

“And one that ate manflesh,” Brookins continued, still attempting to exorcise the experience. “Severed arms all around her, tearing at the muscle and fingers with her teeth—”

“Stop now,” Quayle directed, annoyed. “I just want to enjoy our good fortune.” He patted his chest where the wallet of tender was kept, and felt something sharp scratch across the skin over his ribs. He reached inside his shirt and pulled forth the ragged, multicolored disk he had taken from the creature. It shone, prismatic and radiant, in the light of the sliver of the setting moon.

“Well, lookee here,” he said, pleased; he had forgotten about the strange object altogether. “I guess we have another memento of our fish-boy.”

“Didn't you promise to give that back?” Brookins asked.

Quayle shrugged. “A promise to a fish don't count,” he said nonchalantly. “I make 'em promises every day to lure them into the nets. I don't keep those, neither. Besides, by the time we would get back there, that sideshow will have packed up and moved on.” He turned the scale over, admiring his own face in the reflection.

“Did they say where they are goin' next?”

Quayle thought for a moment, trying to recall, then nodded.

“Sorbold,” he said.

They drove most of the rest of the way in their accustomed silence, Quayle planning how he was going to spend his share of their good fortune, Brookins trying to forget how they got it.

F
aron awoke in water.

The creature blinked; it was dark inside the tent. It could make out dim shapes through the blurry glass of its container; with a little effort it floated to the surface and took a breath, bumping its soft skull on the ceiling of reinforced canvas that had been chained around the outside of the glass.

It tried to remember what had occurred to bring it to this place, but the picture in its limited mind was hazy and painful to contemplate. Faron
vaguely recalled being wrestled from the wagon onto a sling of some kind, and fearing drowning when plunged into the tank, but other than that, everything was a blur.

It banged helplessly on the glass, futilely pressing its bent hands against the canvas ceiling, but gave up after a few moments, spent. At least it was out of the blistering sun, back in the comfort of water without salt.

The thought of salt water made Faron melancholy. The last time the creature had seen its father was aboard a ship; he had left and gone ashore in an angry state and never came back. Faron had seen him pass through the Death scale into a deep abyss; the Lord Rowan, Yl Angaulor, had refused him entrance to eternal peace. Its father's death had broken Faron's heart; deep despair had set in, but only for a moment.

Grief had fled in the wake of the tidal wave that followed its father into the Underworld.

Faron had been belowdecks, down in a pool of glowing green water in the darkness of the ship's hold, when the wave struck the ship broadside. The creature could hear the screams a second before, but had no idea what was going on above until the ship lurched violently, upending the pool and slamming the creature into the hull. Faron had lost consciousness and awoke in the sea, surrounded by flotsam and jetsam, and no sign of another living being.

And remained thus, suffering the sting of the salt and the thunder of the waves, until it washed ashore, unconscious, in the fishermen's net.

The flap of the tent was pulled aside, spilling light within. Faron winced.

A stout woman in many tattered layers of ragged dresses, soiled aprons, and torn petticoats came into the tent, a tray in her sharp-nailed hand. She wore no shoes; her enormous feet, easily twice as large as would seem proper, were splayed at an odd angle, flat and covered with calluses. The toes appeared to have a webbing of skin between them.

She came straight up to the tank and peered inside. Faron wrenched away to the back wall, treading water furiously. The woman's wrinkled lips skinned back, revealing an almost toothless smile; what teeth she did possess were black or broken.

“Yer awake! Aw, dearie, Sally's so glad to see yer feelin' better.”

The woman set the tray down on the dirt floor, clucking sympathetically.

“Now, now, little 'un, nothin' to fear. Old Sally would neva hurt ye.” She undid the knot in the chain that held the canvas cover on the tank and, reaching over her head, slid it off and onto the floor.

Faron's arm went up defensively, and the creature hissed at the odd woman. She didn't blink, just crossed her arms and regarded the new arrival fondly.

“Now, you just stop that, little 'un, my sweet. Ye got nothin' to fear. Ye hungry?”

Faron's cloudy eyes narrowed. The creature looked askance at her, then nodded guardedly.

“Poor dearie. Well, I've brung ye some nice fish, live 'uns. Will that do ye?”

A mix of hunger and excitement came into Faron's eyes. The woman chuckled at the response, then pulled the cloth from the tray to reveal a small bowl full of goldfish. She held it up before Faron's face, and chortled with delight as the creature began salivating and whimpering with anticipation. She extended a long taloned finger and, with a motion so quick Faron could not follow it, speared one of the fish on her nail, then held it, wriggling, over the tank.

“Here ye go, my beauty, my sweet little 'un,” she whispered. “Come an' eat.”

Faron floated in the back of the tank for a moment, considering; finally, hunger won out over suspicion and the creature swam forward, bracing itself against the front wall of the tank. With quivering lips Faron reached up and plucked the writhing fish from the woman's nail, shivering with delight as it slithered down its gullet into a stomach that had known nothing but hunger since the shipwreck.

Outside the tent, voices could be heard as two men walked past.

“Ye seen Duckfoot Sally? Ringmaster's looking fer her.”

“Ayeh, she went into the tent ta feed the new 'un.”

The canvas tent flap pulled aside again. Faron shrank away from the light. Duckfoot Sally scowled at the man who opened it.

“Sally—”

“I 'eard him. Tell him ta keep his stripes on; I'm busy feedin' the new 'un,” she said harshly. She turned back to Faron, and the snaggletoothed smile spread over her face again.

“So sorry, my luvly; come back now. Here's another.” She speared a second fish and held it up.

After a moment's hesitation Faron returned to her and allowed her to continue to spear fish and hold them up to be eaten. She didn't seem to mind the touch of the creature's lips; in fact, took delight watching the wriggling fish disappear, sating its hunger. She spoke softly to Faron, crooning occasionally as a mother would to a child.

Her ministrations were so tender, so kind after so long being tossed about in the sea, abused on the land, that it brought a memory back to Faron's mind, the recollection of the father that had tended the creature so gently, even though given to fits of rage and cruelty. Then there welled up a sense of loss as profound as Faron had ever felt, and a tear rolled out of one cloudy eye and down the loosely wrinkled cheek beneath it.

Duckfoot Sally's grisly smile dissolved to a look of sympathetic consternation.

“There, there,” she said quickly, setting down the empty fishbowl and turning back to the weeping creature, “what's wrong, luv? Ol' Sally's here, and she won't let no one harm ye.” She extended her hand and carefully closed the talonlike nails into a fist to keep from scratching the creature, then ever-so-gently brushed the tear from its cheek with her knuckles. “Don't cry my sweet little 'un, my fair 'un.”

Faron's eyes snapped open, recognition clear for a moment in them.

Duckfoot Sally's eyebrows shot to the top of her forehead at the reaction.

“What, luv?”

The creature's gapped lips quivered, and its gnarled hands banged against its chest.

Sally's brows now drew together in puzzlement. “ ‘Fair 'un'? That be yer name?”

Faron nodded enthusiastically.

The hag clapped her hands together in delight.

“Well, well,” she said brightly, reaching out to caress the creature's cheek again with her knuckles, “pleased ta meet ye, Fair 'un. Be ye man or woman?”

The creature blinked, no understanding in its eyes.

Duckfoot Sally shook her head. “Never mind; doesn't matter. There are many here that dun' know, either. No worries, luv. Sally's lookin' out fer ye, and that's all ye'll need.” She drew closer, her tatters rustling as she pressed herself against the glass. “Jus' 'member this, my Fair 'un: yer as good as any livin' soul born in this wide world. They may pay to see folks like us, ta laugh and throw things, but mayhap where you come from, why, yer king of yer kind! Mayhap somewhere, in a distant sea, yer the lord above all the fish that swim, an' all the clams; the oysters, too! And what are they that laugh at ye? Peasants, all of 'em. Mindless peasants who save up their miserable coppers to go hoot at others, all in the 'tempt to ferget that their lives are of no consequence.” Her smile brightened, and her voice grew warmer.

“But ye and me, my Fair 'un, we perform fer kings and queens! Kings and queens, ladies an' lords, Fair 'un! We go to grand cities, and palaces the likes of which those wretches will
never
see. So never ye mind when they laugh at ye, my Fair 'un. It's us, ye and me and our like, that will have the last laugh.”

T
he Monstrosity remained three more nights in Bethany, one night longer than they had planned. Each night the crowds swelled to capacity and overflowed in long lines, waiting to catch sight of the horrific fish-boy. Word had spread from the outer towns into the city proper, and there was so
much interest that even the Ringmaster, who kept to a rigid schedule, could not resist the business.

But after keeping the sideshow open from dusk to the end of the dark hours just before dawn three nights in a row, the Ringmaster decided there was such a thing as too much good fortune. He called for his exhausted menagerie to pack up and put rein to horse.

An entire empire awaited, a harsh realm where trade and commerce of all sorts, honest and otherwise, flourished.

Sorbold.

R
hapsody was pale throughout the dinner in Gwydion's honor. After the meal had been cleared away Ashe hoped that she would regain some of her stamina and that her stomach would settle, but she remained nervous and quiet, even when the toasting began.