Carnival of the Soul

by Cebelius

  The minotaur turned and with an abrupt gesture to his seconds, left Laila Rise without even the courtesy of a respectful good bye.

  That man definitely needs to vanish before this is all said and done, Laila mused, watching the four round the corner of another yurt and step out of sight.

  Given how unstable he is now, it should be easy enough to manage.

  Yesun left two of his seconds to guard the door to his yurt and entered with the third. Once inside he turned and asked, "Satisfied?"

  The minotaur nodded, but when he spoke the voice was feminine and exotic. "Yes ... you could have been an actor, Yesun Tege."

  "So? Did you manage to touch her?"

  "Of course. I know her plans. She does not like you very much, I'm afraid. I would definitely watch your back. Lee-anne was sent to learn of your assassins, then kill you. Laila Rise is a witch, granted immortality in exchange for service to Baba Yaga. She has a coven of associates spread throughout the herds. I have all the names."

  "What do you want me to say at the council?" Yesun said, trying hard not to let his nerves show. It was difficult, because along with the voice not fitting the body at all, the eyes of the minotaur he was talking to had shifted to orbs of red. No pupil, no white. The color of blood.

  "Be honest. Tell them that you do not want to antagonize the template's women. Remind them that the Madsee is there, and she is the same sort of creature as the one roaming the Steppes to the north."

  "Is that really true?" Yesun asked, eyes widening.

  "Yes ... it is. She alone can and will kill everyone at this carnival if she is provoked."

  "When are you going to release my people?" Yesun asked.

  "I never said I would," the creature replied with a sultry smile that looked completely out of place on its masculine face. "Do remember that you can't lie to me, Yesun. You would have turned those agents loose on the people I love. Consider them permanently removed from play."

  "This is no game!" he roared.

  Unfazed, the creature's smile only broadened as it said, "It most certainly is a game. And if you don't mind my saying, you don't play it very well. The object of this game — for you at least — is to survive, and if you prove difficult for me to manage, I'll simply ... replace you. Now that you've passed Laila's little test for me, you're quite expendable."

  "Besutei! Tabur! Get in here!" Yesun roared as he leaped backward and pulled the bow from his back, an arrow sliding into his hand with the ease and rapidity of long practice. He was a man of action, and it was far past time to act. There was no way for him to outmaneuver this creature, but if he killed it he could prove the manipulation with its corpse.

  As his two seconds entered the yurt he fired, and fired again as he said, "It's a monster! Kill it!"

  The first arrow flew true, embedding itself just to the left of the breastbone. The second arrow caught the creature in the eye.

  It jerked with each impact, but instead of coming for him, its arms swung backward in a completely unnatural movement and ruby spikes shot from both palms.

  Besutei was impaled through his open mouth and sagged to his knees, while Tabur dropped his ax and clawed at the red spike driven through his throat. Neither made a sound as they died.

  Yesun fired a third arrow, then a fourth, and screamed his frustration as — with arrows in both its eye sockets and shafts sprouting from its chest, belly, and groin — the feminine voice of the thing didn't even sound irritated as it said, "Temper temper. If you scream again, I will only keep killing whomever comes through that door. You are wasting your people. Consider this an object lesson. If your hospitality had remained true, none of this would have happened."

  The spikes driven through his dead seconds hooked and pulled the bodies along as the grotesquerie advanced on the Temujin herd leader. The arrows pushed themselves out of the body and clattered to the dirt.

  Yesun dropped his bow and pulled his ax. It was enchanted and supremely sharp, capable of cutting through even the toughest armor with ease.

  He counter-charged, ax high overhead as he bellowed, and the creature didn't try to avoid him.

  The ax split the skull and its momentum carried it all the way down to the stomach. The body split away from the blade, curling apart like the petals of a macabre flower. But instead of gore and organs, there was only a thick, ruby-red substance that shone like blood, and a figure shifted within that mass, sliding around the blade and encasing it as it formed into an exaggeratedly feminine shape, full lips twisted in wry amusement as it reached out with blood-red hands to cup his face.

  The hands were cool, and bizarrely soothing as Yesun watched in horror while the tendrils still connected to the bodies of his friends began to spread and engulf them.

  "Remember this, when you sit at council," she said, her voice almost a croon. "I know Laila makes you nervous, but I also know she's no longer what you fear. I am what you fear. Disappoint me, and I will eat you alive ... feet first. I will make the meal last, Yesun Tege. Your screams will become a ghost story on the Steppes. They will talk about your agony for generations."

  The smile of the thing was ethereal, beautiful, and Yesun's bowels clenched and threatened to let go as she leaned in and pressed faux lips to his muzzle. The scent of blood was in the air.

  "Now ... what are you going to tell the council?" she asked sweetly when the kiss broke.

  Yesun tasted blood on his lips. He swallowed hard, and said, "I'll tell them attacking the template's harem is suicide."

  Traces of his courage returned as he added, "It won't matter. They'll come for you anyway."

  "Not for me, because I'll be here close by you," the creature purred. "But you will do your best. Fail, and ... well. I don't like to repeat myself."

  She winked at him, withdrew, and the petals of minotaur flesh lifted back into place, sealing up as Yesun watched. The ax was expelled, and fell from his nerveless fingers.

  The bodies were half gone. The fake minotaur's midsection was distorting and rolling as it spread backward in two directions, engulfing and consuming, actively eating ... utterly silent.

  He stood frozen, mesmerized, as Besutei and Tabur vanished, and a moment later the minotaur in front of him heaved, then spit. Five times, and four horns along with a cascade of teeth clattered to the ground next to his ax, all of them completely clean and bone dry.

  "You can keep those," the creature said dismissively, before it turned and arrogantly sauntered out of the yurt.

  For long minutes, Yesun stared at the teeth and the horns, blinking stupidly. Then he turned, fell to his knees, and lost his breakfast into the chamber pot in great, gasping heaves.

  What he had just seen would haunt his nightmares for years to come, of that he was certain.

  He spent the rest of the time before the council trying to compose himself. Most of that time he stared without thinking at the fabric wall of his yurt.

  Monsters. Nightmares and dragons and MONSTERS.

  Yesun Tege was an ambitious man. He was also a practical man. He knew that if his herd went into battle against the template's harem many if not most of them would not survive. HE would certainly not survive. The best he could hope for would be to die in the initial fighting, because if he lived through that ... it, would come for him.

  I want to be a legend ... not a ghost story.

  The council convened, and Yesun didn't even remember how he got there. It was obvious to him — given the looks he was getting — that his distress was plain on his face, and he didn't bother to hide it.

  Laila was particularly attentive, but he deliberately sat across from her so as to give her no opportunity for an aside.

  "Lee-anne Sunset is missing, and I believe she has been killed," Laila got straight to the point once the formalities were dispensed with.

  "There is a shapechanger in our midst. The Yesun Tege we saw at the council last was an imposter."

  A murmur swept the assembled herd masters and matrons, but Yesun chose not to s
peak. Not yet. When they looked to him, he only nodded and corroborated Laila's story. "I was attacked with magic. I slept the whole night through."

  Let her lay out her plans, he thought. Only then will I say my piece.

  "How do we know this is the real Yesun Tege?" Ariadne Storm, herd matron of the Stormfollowers, asked.

  Laila produced the vial again, explained its contents, and again performed the spell she had cast on him at breakfast.

  As he held out his hands, submitting to the test, it occurred to Yesun that the creature had to have foreseen this. Though she had threatened to kill him and take his place at this council, she hadn't done it. Instead, she had horrified him, then let him live.

  She knew. She touched Laila and learned all her plans. How can we possibly defeat something like this, something that can steal the thoughts from our minds?

  The flesh of his back and neck tightened as Yesun fought to maintain his composure. He feared no beast or mortal in fair battle, but this ... this was beyond him.

  Utterly beyond him.

  "It is clear, given the shapechanger is one of the template's, and that they have abandoned our hospitality, that the women around the template have no intention of honoring the accords," Laila said. Yesun refocused with an effort. Whether she had planned it or not, Brogan Teatree, leader of the Firestompers, spoke up, perfectly filling the empty space left by Laila's declaration.

  "We should assemble all the able bodies we have on hand and detain the template's harem, doing whatever is necessary to ensure that when he reappears his powers are accorded to us. With the immortal beast in the north ravaging the lands there and slaying all it finds, we must not let this opportunity to strengthen ourselves pass."

  Laila's gentle expression didn't waver, but she gave a tiny nod. Yesun could see stirrings of agreement all around the council fire, and knew a vote was imminent.

  Now. I must speak now, or I will lose everything.

  Yesun opened his mouth, but the words wouldn't come. He lifted a hand to gather attention as he took a deep breath and shame washed through him, followed by rage, then hate. The monster had put fear into him. She had twisted him and broken his courage. For that, he hated her with every fiber of his being.

  But he was not willing to sacrifice his herd. Not for this. The template's power was a wavering mirage, and if they chased after it they would all die.

  "We cannot. The shapechanger has already killed my most skilled warriors and magi. She did this because there was a plan put forward to use them against the template's harem. She is probably here. Not me, maybe one of you. I don't know. It doesn't matter. If we attack, or even threaten Boss' women, we will lose far more than we could possibly gain."

  He drew a deep breath, then declared, "Under no conditions, whether there is a vote or not, will the Temujin break camp while I am master of the herd. Those women are monsters, any attack on them is folly, and I refuse to be part of it."

  "Well spoken."

  Graven Morrow nodded, and said, "I too refuse to allow Trembling Earth to move. While I respect the accords, if the earlier plot suggested at the last fire was attempted, it is clear to me that our good faith hospitality was broken."

  "This shapechanger has killed a herd matron!" Ariadne Storm exclaimed. "We cannot allow this to pass unanswered!"

  "Answer it however you like," Yesun said, and he upended a pouch in front of him, pouring out the teeth and four horns as he said, "I have suffered losses enough. I am afraid, and that should be enough to make all of you afraid, if you are not fools. This is not a fight we can win. More than that, it is not a fight we should press, if we are to hold our own traditions sacred."

  Graven Morrow said, "It is also true that with Yuri Kolenko in tow they are bound for the north. Let them deal with the immortal beast rampaging there. Their power is better spent against our enemies than us."

  Yesun moved to stand as he said, "For me, this council is done. Neither I, nor a single member of my herd will participate in any move against the template or his party."

  Laila sounded genuinely regretful as she spoke. "It is clear Yesun is compromised. I move to have him stripped of his title and replaced. The Temujin are a herd of warriors. They cannot be led by a minotaur afraid of battle."

  Looking at Laila, Yesun smiled. It was not a friendly smile. "It knows your plans, Laila. It told me. You had Lee-anne wheedle the names of my best out of me, then try to kill me. You're a witch. You have a deal with Baba Yaga, and Laila Rise is only the latest of a string of names you have gone by. You are no true matron."

  Ariadne gasped, and several of the other herd leaders turned their full attention on Laila, who was placidly shaking her head as she said, "I do not know what horrors were visited upon you, Yesun. I regret that it has come to this, but you should not be so desperate as to forward lies such as these to save yourself or your position."

  As he looked around the circle of herd elders, he could see that Laila was simply too good. Her charade too perfect. Even Graven's expression held only sadness as he turned his old eyes on Yesun. If even Graven Morrow didn't believe him, no one would.

  Ah, fuck you, old man. If I'm going down anyway, I'm not going alone. I might not be able to kill whatever the hell that thing is, but I can kill her.

  Yesun was already standing, and he was a man of action. The time for words was once more past. He looked over at Laila, gauging the distance as he did so. He moved casually, because sudden moves drew attention while slow and easy ones did not. He pulled his ax from his belt loop and wound up, then with a fluid release born of long practice threw it with swift surety at Laila Rise.

  She never saw it coming.

  Her eyes had still been traveling the circle, as though to reassure herself that her lies were being bought.

  She had just turned to face him, her mouth open to say something soothing no doubt, when the blade of his ax crashed through her skull.

  A dull ax would have shattered the skull, but his ax was enchanted, and very sharp. It cut cleanly through the forehead and lodged against the top vertebra, the head bisected all the way down to the still open jaw. Yesun was satisfied. His throw had been perfect, and this time, his ax had not failed him.

  Laila Rise died instantly.

  Yesun didn't know that anything would happen. In fact, he hadn't expected anything to happen. He just thought she would die like any other tauren with a split skull. Fortunately for him, the corpse immediately burst into lurid green flames that cascaded up into a pillar of emerald fire. Instead of the sound of burning though, the pyre was accompanied by a minotress' scream that went on and on, filled with rage and hatred.

  The body visibly aged as the fire instantly consumed the witch's clothing, and the two pieces of nose lengthened and arched as the face and body shriveled, both burning and rotting. By the time the corpse was entirely engulfed and vanished, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Laila Rise, whatever she might have been, wasn't who she had claimed to be.

  His fear gone, replaced by a strange sort of tranquility unlike anything he'd ever experienced, Yesun Tege waved a hand at the pile of char and ashes.

  "See? Witch. That shapeshifter might be a stone cold killer, but she didn't lie. Replace me if you dare, but Temujin is not moving. I suggest we send a delegation to apologize to those women, and beg forgiveness."

  The herd leaders glanced from him to each other, most of them aghast both at what he'd done and what had been revealed through his action.

  Brogan Teatree of the Firestampers was first to speak.

  "Seconded."

  The vote was quick, unanimous, and no one moved to replace Yesun Tege, nor did they stop him when he retrieved his ax.

  24

  The Tiger and the Snake

  Yuri's eyes were open long before he had any sort of true awareness. He was in the bed of the wagon, staring up at the canvas and listening to it billow gently in the breeze that passed effortlessly through the wain, ruffling his fur and smelling faintly of t
auren.

  I'm back at the carnival, he thought dully. I wonder how that happened?

  The last thing he remembered was a bone fence lined with the skulls of his people. Then ... a collage of insanity. Now, as he listened, he heard a bird twittering somewhere, and felt the breeze ruffling his whiskers.

  A light blanket had been tossed over him, and he could feel that his armor and clothing had been stripped away.

  Everyone is dead. Everything I worked for is ... gone.

  Mila might be skeptical of Vlad's words, but Yuri was not. His father had known the Dreamer to be duplicitous, but he was not a liar. He misled, but never lied. He had said the village had no need of protection. There were only two possibilities. Either the village had been saved by someone or something else, or it was dead.

  And of course, Vlad was HERE. In all my life, he never went more than twenty miles from the village.

  Yuri sat up, and his body ached. It was nothing specific, only the feeling of having been still for too long.

  He looked for his clothes, but saw none in reach. Barrels and crates surrounded him, organized so as to balance the load across the breadth and length of the wagon while keeping the center clear for sleepers such as himself. Atop several of the barrels were the massive, twitching silken balls. Yuri had never had the courage to ask Boss what was to become of those spiders, but he felt certain what came out of those cocoons wouldn't look anything like what had gone in.

  He spotted his pack after another moment of searching, hung from a hook on one of the high metal spars that supported the arch of canvas overhead.

  "Oh, you're awake!"

  Yuri turned to see Euryale hoisting herself lightly up and over the tailgate, settling on the edge and looking at him curiously as her wings flared a bit to balance her. Her snakes were almost all focused on him, and combined with the blank wooden mask she wore it was a disconcerting sight, but her voice was bright and curious as she asked, "How do you feel?"