A cymbal crashed, and lightning flashed in the tent. The audience yelled. Thunder rumbled and stars twinkled briefly in the fog before fading. The fog dissipated.
The music returned. Six golden-skinned shirtless men wearing loose pantaloons somersaulted on the rock slab of the stage with liquid grace. They paraded around the stage before forming a human pyramid in the center. They did not even appear to be out of breath.
But mine caught in my throat.
In the past life that was now lost to me, I had jumped through trees and scrambled up scaffolding, but it had never occurred to me to deliberately fall and flip. The men were beautiful, with rippling muscles, exotic, slanted features, and knowing smiles.
The man at the top of the pyramid stood and flipped to the floor, twirling in midair, and the others broke formation, moving like a pack of wolves towards backstage.
A man stumbled onto the stage. The music warbled to a stop.
The clown was tall and muscled, with incongruous white hair that looked like a dandelion standing out straight from his head in all directions. His face was painted milk-pale, with two spots of pale rouge on his cheekbones. His eyes were ringed in black and his lips cherry-red, with eyebrows painted high on his forehead. He wore clothes in a motley of cream and blanched pink save for a large orange flower on his breast.
A brass horn quavered. The clown cupped his hand to his ear, frowning. The horn chirruped again. The clown nodded vigorously and jumped forward.
He tumbled about in a parody of the acrobats that had just been on stage. With an odd, bumbling grace he somersaulted and stood on his head, kicking his feet. The audience laughed. He ran about the perimeter of the ring, pulling faces at the audience and sticking out his tongue.
Abruptly, he stopped, cupped his hand to his ear again, and continued his mute conversation with the horn. The horn urged him to do something, and the clown vigorously shook his head, holding palms out in front of him. The horn insisted. The clown crossed his arms across his chest and held his nose in the air. He stuck out his tongue and made a wet raspberry. The audience laughed.
The horn player blared, the sound startling everyone in the tent. The clown jumped in the air and then crouched on his hands and knees in the middle of the ring. He sighed and shook his head, as if resigned to his fate, then whistled over his shoulder.
Other clowns somersaulted onto the stage. One was dressed in a blue motley, another in red and orange, one in shades of yellow, and another in shades of green. They cavorted on stage, linking arms and skipping. The white clown whistled again, impatient.
They formed into a human pyramid, but one far less graceful than the acrobats of earlier. They swayed to the right, and then they swayed to the left, looking as if they would fall at any moment. It must have been more difficult to do than the previous tumblers' pyramid. The white clown grinned at the audience in mischief, and then squirmed out of the bottom of the pyramid. The rest of the clowns tumbled and proceeded to chase the white clown around the ring and then offstage. I giggled with the rest of the audience.
I leaned forward in anticipation. Mr Ragona ambled back onto the stage and looked around, as if faintly surprised that we were all still here.
"Enjoying yourselves?" he called.
The audience hooted and hollered.
"Let me just say, girls and boys, ladies and gentlemen…" He held his hands out again. "You haven't seen anything yet."
A trick equestrian act performed. The man relied on brute strength, hanging from the side of the cantering horse. The woman looked as calm as she would if she were balancing on solid ground.
Between each act, Ragona made another announcement, or the white clown and his fellows mimed and parodied the previous act or told jokes. The pace of the circus never waned and each act only seemed to grow more daring and dangerous.
And between each act, much as I knew I should not, my gaze darted to the Policiers three rows behind me. They did not seem to notice me, but my heart still pattered in fear.
I had looked at a volume of exotic animals from around the world in father's library, but so many of them had looked like they could never be real. The illustrations came to life before me. Little furred creatures called otters trotted onto the stage after their trainer. Together, they stood on hind legs and danced, or tossed a ball from one to the other. They twined about their trainer, two perched on his shoulders and another twisted about his waist like a belt.
An elephant named Saitha balanced on its hind legs; larger than a hansom cab, with tusks longer than sabers. I wondered what the skin would feel like; it looked like grey tree bark.
Men ate and spat fire like human dragons. A solid slab of a man lifted barbells that were said to weigh more than three average men.
I peered at the empty ring, knowing that the finale was brewing. A child cried out and pointed. A man and a woman walked onto the stage, their costumes glittering in the light of the glass globes.
The slender woman wore green. With a long brown braid snaking down her back she looked like a forest elf out of legend. Her costume looked like the bodice of a woman's dress, but instead of skirts she wore pantaloons, thick tights and light slippers. The man in blue was older, his hair silvered at the temples. The woman curtseyed and the man bowed.
They walked away from each other and each climbed a rope ladder to the wooden platforms. I wondered what they thought, standing so high as they looked down into a sea of faces.
She picked up a lace parasol from the platform, pirouetting and opening it. She balanced on tiptoe, holding her other leg so high she could have kissed her knee.
The aerialist stepped onto the tightrope. The rope bent slightly under her weight and I held my breath, frightened she would fall.
But her feet were firm as she made her slow, steady crossing in midair. She looked so dainty and delicate as she walked, pointing her toes when she lifted a foot, holding the parasol aloft, as though she could bend her legs, propel herself upwards, and fly away. The light filtered through the lace, shadows dappling her skin. When she finally made it across, I let out the breath I had been holding and clapped as loudly as I could.
The man walked across next, and he was even more talented. He must have been an acrobat for decades since he did not hesitate as he stepped onto the thin rope to perform. He walked across it as naturally as though he were strolling through a park.
Once he crossed the tightrope, the man clutched the delicate wooden handle of the trapeze and pushed himself into midair. The woman grasped her trapeze and dived after him.
A flautist trilled a solo as they flew through the air under the canopy of the tent, like sparrows in courtship, flittering close to each other only to coyly dart away again. At times it seemed certain that one would clip the other, but they never did.
The man shifted, hanging by the crook of his knees instead of his hands. The woman let go, somersaulted in midair, and clasped the man's hands above the wrist.
They swung together in a human chain. If the man's hands were to slip ever so slightly, the woman would plummet to her death.
The woman climbed up the man and stood on the top of the trapeze bar, her feet to either side of the man's knees. He changed position and again hung by his hands. They swung together, gaining momentum, and the woman flipped off the trapeze and rotated twice in midair. At the last second, she reached out a hand and grasped her trapeze.
The aerialists finished to wild applause as they shimmied down the ladder and bowed before exiting.
The circus ended with the entire cast reappearing. The elephant waved its trunk and clowns wove their way between the acrobats and the trainers, the strong men and the contortionists. All smiled and waved as they bowed.
The circus had been unlike anything I could ever have imagined and I could not walk away. I wanted to be a part of the magic; create it and wield it with such skill that it looked effortless. I wanted to fly.
It was the perfect way to lead a completely different life.
3
S
UMMER:
O
N
D
ISPLAY
"The circus and carnival grew in popularity starting in the late 107th century. Scattered funfairs with simple illusions and sideshows evolved into detailed worlds of entertainment, with trained acrobatics, animal shows, feats of human strength and strangeness, and Vestige artefacts to try and add a sense of wonder and magic.
"Of late, the human oddities have grown stranger and stranger. Are birth defects rising, or are the performers merely growing better at their disguises?"
A HISTORY OF ELLADA AND ITS COLONIES
,
Professor Caed Cedar, Royal
Snakewood University
I jumped out of my seat and squeezed past the burly man and through the crowds before the Policiers had even stirred from their chairs. I was one of the first at the carnival outside, and I smelled sizzling meats and the burning fuel of the gas lanterns strung between poles. The carnival was a long alleyway, flanked with booths in lurid colors, and I was certain I recognized some of the sellers as merchants from the markets of Sicion.
I wandered amongst the booths, keeping an eye out for the pointed helmets of Policiers. Merchants in mismatched clothing sold jewelry and food. The women had daubed their eyes with kohl and tied their hair with scarves. Many of the merchants were foreign, for their eyes slanted or their skin was darker than Elladans'. They spoke with thick accents or called out to each other in exotic tongues. I started toward a jewelry stall run by a woman with skin as dark as the night and dressed all in scarlet.
"Come here, my boy," a voice behind me said, startling me from the scarlet-clad woman. It was not a Policier. The ancient man behind his counter motioned for me to come closer. The weathered wooden sign above the booth proclaimed him an "Alcymyst to Cure All Ills and Ails" in a wobbly script. His pale face was so wrinkled that it seemed to be slowly drawing in toward his shriveled, toothless mouth. He had a few stray white hairs bursting out of his head, ears, and nose.
"I can cure you," he said.
"Cure me of what?" I asked, skeptical.
"Of your… disorder."
My eyes narrowed but my stomach somersaulted like the tumblers I had just seen. Very few knew what was wrong with me. "And what disorder is that?"
He peered closer at me. "Child, are you a boy or a girl?"
I said nothing, but my palms began to sweat.
He picked up a vial of pale blue powder. "This will cure you."
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to appear both confident and derisive. A couple of passersby paused in front of the stall. "Cure me of what, exactly?"
Others were standing about the booth now. "You don't want me to say in front of these people," the alchemist said.
I bit the inside of my cheek. I stepped closer. "Then whisper in my ear what my condition is, and then I'll decide whether or not I need your cure."
He smiled. "Of course, of course," he said with a magnanimous gesture toward the people gathered. "You will be my first satisfied patient of the evening." By patient, he meant customer. He was stressing his syllables oddly as if to sound foreign, but I suspected he was born and raised in Sicion.
I shuffled over to him. He tilted close to me, touched my arm, and drew me even closer. He smelled of musty clothes and soured milk.
"You have a serious condition. You have been to many to see to it. None have been able to help you." He did not lower his voice much. The people leaned in to hear him better.
My eyes widened. "How do you know this?"
He smirked and waved a hand. "I am both an alchemist and a psychic. Much of the mysteries and ways of the world make themselves known to me."
"Then why are you working in a booth in a carnival?" I asked. My voice was too loud and two women standing close to me giggled.
He slapped me lightly on the head. "Do not be impertinent, my young child. I am here because I choose to, not because I need to. I have healed the kings and queens of many colonies far across the sea. I have learned the ways of healing from the magic men of Kymri, the land of black sands, and they taught me all that they knew for many years. I help all – from the highest king to the lowest peasant! And for these wonders,
all
I ask for is a modest contribution for my help."
His words had their intended effect. I shivered. I leaned closer and whispered into his hairy ear, "Then what is my problem that no one will cure?"
He whispered into my ear, "You have warts on your nether regions."
I jerked my head back, looked into his solemn face, and began to laugh. I laughed until tears pricked my eyes and I could barely catch my breath. The crowd around me looked perplexed.
"Is his problem that he's mad?" someone asked.
I wiped my cheek. "Mister Alchemist, sir, I wish that was the worst of my problems." The crowd called jeers to the alchemist and he yelled obscenities at me as I walked away.
At the far end of the carnival a sign advertising "Freakshow" rose above a series of patched and faded tents. Another had a sign of an exotic woman with a snake wrapped around her and I shuddered. I did not much care for snakes. The show had already started, and the crowd of men seemed to be enjoying whatever the woman was doing with the snake. Cymbals pinged in time to Byssian music.
There was another tent further back, grubby and stained. There was little doubt as to what this tent held. Two beautiful women, painted in shades of blue, silver, and green gazed at me with half-lidded eyes. Families walked by the tent on the way to see the freakshow, but the parents hurried their children along.