Carnival of the Soul

by Cebelius

  The tiger man rolled his tongue around in the cage of his jaws as he thought about that. He expected to be a wreck, but instead his emotional landscape seemed empty at the moment. What feelings he had were entirely centered on his hunger, his thirst, and the vague ache of having slept too long.

  "Thirsty," he said at last. "And hungry."

  Euryale pointed with a brazen claw as she said, "Water's there, and there's jerky in that pouch on your left."

  She was pointing toward a sizable waterskin, and Yuri picked it up, uncorked it, and drank until he was forced to come up for air. His mouth tasted foul, but the water made it a little better. Then he opened the packet and stuffed jerky into his face.

  All the while, Euryale watched him with keen interest.

  Eventually, he swallowed and — making an easy assumption — said, "You want to know about Boss?"

  "Of course not. You think I'd wait for you to wake up for that? Isthil told me everything she knows."

  "Where is Asturial?" Yuri asked.

  Euryale shrugged. "Dunno. She didn't come back with you, and for some reason Isthil can't cross back over into the Wildervast. They're on their own. Now that you aren't hungry or thirsty anymore, how are you?"

  He found it curious that she asked again, but shrugged wearily as he said, "I feel like I'm in the space between one moment and the next. I don't know what to do."

  "I get that. Most of my life was like that."

  Euryale hopped off the tailgate and took a few steps, then sat down on the bed of the wagon with her back against a nearby barrel as she curled her legs up and wrapped her arms, then her wings, around her knees.

  "Wanna talk about it?"

  Yuri's lips peeled back from his teeth, but it was a friendly if somewhat sardonic expression. Before he could speak though, she said, "Let me guess. You're wondering why it's me in here with you, right? Of all the people to give you the post you-got-your-ass-kicked pep talk, why me?"

  "Is that what happened?" Yuri asked.

  "According to Isthil, yep. You got cursed, lost your mind, and Asturial kicked the shit out of you," Euryale declared brightly. "Then Isthil brought you back here to give you a chance to put your head together."

  "Okay, yeah, why you?" Yuri asked.

  "Mostly because there's a bunch of tauren out there right now begging forgiveness for some kind of plot to kill us, and your sister didn't want me there because she thought I might lose my temper," the gorgon said. "I heard you shifting around and decided to see how you were. No one else knows you're up yet."

  Yuri's ears flattened as he took that in and let it settle, then said, "I guess a lot has happened."

  "Not so I noticed, but yeah, apparently. You know how it is when people find out about Master. They lose their shit. I'm not worried though. If they make trouble, I'll just kill them all. We had to deal with a few leftover losers from the Labyrinth too."

  "I am not sure Boss would approve," Yuri said, speaking cautiously.

  "He's not here, and I don't have any instructions to the contrary. I can't take my mask off, and would run out of arrows after a while, but I'd get the job done eventually."

  "You are a very scary lady," he said, shaking his head. "I hope no one else decides to make trouble."

  Euryale shrugged and several of her snakes came very close to him, their tongues flickering out at him as she said, "So, Isthil said you were turning into some kind of spirit beast over there. You don't remember anything?"

  Yuri thought about that, about the missing time, then shook his head. "I ... really do not. I also do not feel what I think I should. I feel neither sadness nor rage. There is no hatred. No ... anything. Is there something wrong with me, do you think?"

  "Don't mistake my interest for competency," Euryale cheerfully admitted. "I don't know a thing about what goes on in the Wildervast. I'm glad you're feeling better though. You looked messed up after killing Vlad."

  "You were not in good condition either," he said cautiously.

  "Oh, I was completely panicked. When Vlad put me in that doll I couldn't see or hear or taste or smell anything. I thought I was trapped for good, and it took me a while to really pull myself back together. I didn't notice you at all, I'm just going by what's been said since then."

  Yuri started chuckling despite himself, and leaned back against a barrel across from Euryale as he said, "Well, thanks for looking out for me. I am ... strangely okay. It is as though all the emotion I felt was ... stripped away somehow."

  Euryale's head bobbed up and down as she took that in, then lifted a claw as she said, "By the way ... I guess it happened after you went over, but your sister looks a bit different now."

  Blood retreated from Yuri's extremities as panic threatened his composure. "Is she all right!?"

  "Oh she's fine. Bigger, got some really wicked teeth now, and she's um ... well, her hands are backward."

  "My sister ... is a Rakshasa?"

  "Yep! Bond gifts sure are something, huh?"

  Yuri swallowed, trying to figure out how to feel about this latest news. Finally he asked, "How is she taking it?"

  "She's worried about what Master will think when he sees her."

  Yuri nodded, frowning, then shook his head and said, "He will accept her."

  "Sure he will. We all know that, but she's still worried."

  Euryale let out a breath as she petulantly added, "Even her boobs got bigger. I swear it's not fair."

  Strangling his laugh, Yuri leaned back away from the snakes that hissed at him as Euryale said, "It's not funny!"

  "It ... kind of is."

  That was as far as he dared push things, and after a moment Euryale's head shifted as she apparently considered him. Yuri had never seen her face, and wondered idly what it looked like under the mask she was forced to wear.

  "I guess since I just said we all know Terry will accept Mila even though she looks different, being grouchy about not having big tits really is kind of silly."

  "Euryale ... what happened to you?" Yuri asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, all of his other women got something from him. But you ...?"

  "I got him," she said, as though that were the obvious answer. "What else could I possibly have gotten?"

  "So he did not ... change you somehow? Nothing is different?"

  Euryale's head tilted as though she were looking at him sideways, then she said, "Yuri, my Master changed everything for me. Every single thing. I get to talk to people now. They can look at me. I get to live like ... like anyone else. What else could I possibly want?"

  "I thought a template changed the people he was ... with, that is all. You have always been you."

  Euryale laughed and her head flipped from one side to the other. He could almost imagine her smile as she said, "You're silly. I killed you when we met, remember? Have I done that since Master accepted me?"

  Yuri opened his mouth, closed it, then thought better of trying to convince the gorgon that wasn't what he'd been talking about.

  Some arguments are simply not worth having, he thought, and quietly let it go.

  One of her snakes was elevated and looking out the back of the wagon, and she abruptly said, "They're leaving. Your sister's coming this way. I'll leave you two alone."

  Euryale got up and turned toward the back of the wagon to get out, but several of her snakes were still looking at him as she paused and said, "Thanks ... for going with Master, for standing by him when I couldn't even though I know you were hurting. If you ever need my help, I hope you let me know. I'm not really that good at knowing what mortals need so ... don't be a stranger."

  "But, I failed!" Yuri said, startled by the sincerity he heard in her voice.

  She glanced back at him, and the wooden mask stared blankly at him as she quietly said, "Everyone fails. But you stepped up. Master is your brother now, and you stood by your brother when he needed you."

  She paused, then turned and vaulted the tailgate. Yuri barely heard her murmur
ing as she walked away, "Not everyone does that."

  Terry Mack is my brother?

  Yuri mulled that, distracted as his sister let down the tailgate, deigning not to climb over it as Euryale had done.

  Damn. I guess he is. How did THAT happen?

  He shook his head ruefully. He knew how it happened. But as much as he might love Terry Mack, he didn't want to think about what the other man had done with his sister.

  The wagon shifted as Mila sat down on the lowered gate, leaning against one side of the wagon and looking across at him as she said, "You look ... better than I thought you would."

  Yuri focused on her, and his ears shifted flat for a moment despite his best effort as he took her in. She had the sabers, was several inches taller, broader across the shoulders and ... Euryale hadn't been lying about the other thing.

  There is no way her robes are THAT much tighter.

  He noted with interest that she had torn the sleeves from her favorite garment. Her arms had more definition — though they weren't even close to Laina's — and her fur pattern had changed. She now had eye-shaped stripes just under the ball of the shoulder facing him. He glanced down at her hands, only to see that she had them folded and half hidden in her lap. The sense of wrongness was there though. Euryale hadn't lied; they were backward.

  "How do you feel?" he asked.

  Mila's head tilted this way and that as her ears flattened, then perked again. "Honestly? I feel amazing."

  "You look it."

  She smiled. She had always had good teeth, but now they were perfect, and unnaturally white. "Thanks."

  "I think he will like it. He admires strong women."

  Mila quirked her eyebrow at him, and he spread his hands defensively. "What? He does!"

  "This was not supposed to be about me," she said with a bit of rebuke in her tone. "Isthil told us that you were ... not doing well over there."

  "I feel fine," he said, searching his feelings and finding them just the same. All his rage, hate, and despair were gone ... he just had no idea why.

  "It is like ... like all of the bad things got left behind somehow. Like ... like it happened years ago, not yesterday. I cannot explain it better than that."

  "Whatever the reason, I am glad," Mila said quietly, staring down at her hands. "I had the sense that I lost you. It felt like destiny, you know? I was absolutely sure I would never see you again. When Isthil brought you into camp I ... I am glad you are back."

  Yuri nodded, vaguely uneasy about how close she seemed to tears. He decided to do the manly thing, and changed the subject.

  "Euryale told me that we had visitors?" he said, glancing past her and seeing that the carnival was at least a mile distant. "And apparently, we moved?"

  "Ah, yes."

  Mila visibly shifted her thought and glanced out toward the now distant sea of canvas as she said, "Terry being revealed as a template apparently caused some of the herd matrons to try and claim him as common use."

  "They applied the accords ... to us?" Yuri asked. Their village was often visited by the herds, and they attended nearby carnivals with fair regularity in their youth. He was intimately familiar with the tauren charter of proper behavior on the Steppes.

  "Yes. Ariadne Storm, Graven Morrow, along with a few others and their seconds, came to try and reassure us that the trouble was past, and to beg us to get Prada back under control."

  Yuri blinked at that. Mila grinned somewhat sheepishly as she glanced toward the carnival and said simply, "She has apparently been busy down there."

  He hesitated a moment, then asked, though he dreaded the answer.

  "How busy?"

  "Several Temujin and the Lone Tree matron are missing and presumed dead. No bodies. Two of Yesun Tege's seconds were eaten right in front of him, and he killed Laila Rise in the middle of a council moot, revealing her to be one of ... ahh, her, witches in the process. So ... very busy."

  "Well. Shit!"

  Yuri shook his head and ran his hand across his scalp, not at all sure what should, or even what could be done. "Do we know where she is?"

  "No one does."

  "Yesun Tege was not with the delegation?"

  "He has said that no Temujin will move against our camp, and he was apparently very serious about it," Mila said, chuffing softly as she glanced out toward the carnival.

  After a moment, Mila musingly said, "Prada is a very scary woman."

  Yuri grinned, then started laughing.

  Mila looked back at him with incredulity on her face and he waved his hands in front of him as he said, "No no, I agree, but I just said the same thing about Euryale not five minutes ago. We are surrounded by scary women."

  "I suppose I am one of them now," Mila said, not at all amused as she looked back down at her hands, twisting them over to try and make them look normal.

  Yuri shifted, keeping the blanket to preserve his modesty, and pulled her into a hug as he said, "You are you. I am not scared of you."

  "Maybe you should be."

  He blinked, then leaned back and looked at her with mock suspicion as he said, "Mila? Mila Kolenko?"

  "Yes?" She blinked at him, searching his face for his intentions.

  He nodded in satisfaction and shifted away again, deliberately turning his back as he reached for the clothes in his backpack and said, "Okay then. Not scared of you."

  "Pft! Ha!"

  Mila laughed, and was still smiling in amusement as Yuri finished pulling on a pair of pantaloons and a loose shirt and turned to face her again.

  "Thank you, brother."

  "Of course, little sister, well! ... maybe not so little now."

  Her eyes widened and she bared her teeth at him, then sighed. "It could have been worse."

  "My sister is fishing for pity in the wrong pond," Yuri said as he came to sit on the tailgate next to her. "You are stronger, faster, and more powerful than you could ever have become on your own. That is simple fact. You should not whine about this, considering what could have happened."

  Mila looked annoyed, and just to rub it in Yuri added, "Euryale is jealous of you now you know."

  "What? Why?"

  Yuri didn't answer with words, but he cupped his hands in front of his chest and exaggeratedly moved them out, his eyes going wide as his jaw dropped in mock amazement.

  Mila twisted one of her hands around and cupped her eyes as she hung her head and her ears twisted back, but her shoulders started shivering and after a moment she broke and started laughing again as she stammered, "You ... you would notice. Ass."

  "You would have to be blind not to notice. Find a tailor woman, before it gets cold."

  She swung, but he'd known it was coming and leaned effortlessly out of the way as he said, "There she is. Welcome back, little sister."

  Mila shifted and leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. He glanced down at her and noticed the black hair beginning to poke up through her fur, but chose not to comment on it. Instead, he looked back out over the distant carnival and wondered again why he could think about his village, and the likely fates of almost everyone he loved, without the knot of emotion he knew should be there. Even thoughts of Vlad were uncolored by the rage and fear memories of the duplicitous shaman always used to bring him.

  He felt her wrap him up, and she turned her face into his shoulder as she murmured, "You came back."

  Nodding, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head, holding her like he used to do those few times she was able to come to him after Finnegan took his payment. It warmed him to know that even now, his was still a shoulder she could lean on.

  Most of me came back, he thought, worry coiling inside his heart. Now I just have to figure out where the rest went.

  25

  Two-Faced

  The show was magnificent.

  Terry had never gone to a circus. Even so, he knew — as he watched one superlative performance after another — that he hadn't missed a thing. The show at the Carnival of
the Soul topped everything. He was sure of it.

  Even the clowns were a riot, and he had never laughed at a clown.

  When he had given his playmate soul token to the barker, it was only after being assured that everyone who saw the show would get a chance — if they chose — to speak to the lord and lady of the Carnival. Technically, they were merely performers, but in reality they still held sway, and it was this reality that forced Koschei to keep them on a tight leash.

  Having sat through several performances waiting to see how the performers would leave, he knew the show only lasted about forty-five minutes. But just as with the brothel tent, it seemed that the rules were different inside.

  Terry got lost in the performances as they came one after another. Juggling, acrobatics, fire-eating, monster taming, hypnosis, and sleight of hand were interspersed with astonishing displays of martial skill with all manner of weapons. Everything was amazing.

  He found it particularly interesting that before the 'magic' show, the audience was reassured that there was no magic being performed. Rather than trying to convince people magic was real, the draw for sleight of hand here was that it wasn't magic ... it just looked like it. After every trick, the performers showed the audience how it was done to prove it.

  The show went on and on, and it occurred to Terry every once in a while that time was passing. That he should try and force the meeting. But always he found himself making excuses to see the next act, keeping firm hold of the realization that time wasn't flowing right inside the big top.

  Eventually though, a woman tapped him on the shoulder where he sat in the bleachers and leaned over as she murmured, "You wanted an audience. They're ready for you."

  Nodding, he got up and followed the shapely posterior of a feline woman wearing a clown costume complete with whiteface and rosy dots on her cheeks that looked completely natural somehow. He couldn't tell if she was wearing make-up, or if her fur was simply patterned that way. It was impossible to tell without asking, and he wasn't about to ask.

  Instead, he realized that he hadn't seen the Harlequin or Hellequin perform yet, and it seemed now that he looked back on it that days had passed. The variety of performances and performers seemed endless, and that did force a question out of him.