Pagewalker

by C. Mahood

  During the preparations one of the guards threw an empty bottle at Caitlin. We were finishing a routine involving high ropes and the guards loved to disrupt things. It gave them more pleasure to see us fall and in pain. Over the years we had perfected the ability to dodge the objects thrown and continue. In fact it was almost part of the act now but this time Caitlin was caught on her blind side. The bottle hit her head on the temple. The mixture of surprise, fright and pain knocked her from the ropes. She hit the stone with a thud and a crack. Her arm was broken on the impact and she was not moving. I could see that she was breathing but other than that, motionless. The Tent erupted in laughter. All but myself and the queen. A Rage filled my eyes, I felt the palms of my hands warm and felt my face flush red. I hated that woman more now than ever. Even to look on her face filled me with disgust. I looked on her with such disrepute I almost gagged. Her eyes locked with mine. She did not laugh at Caitlin or even flinch when the body cracked on the floor. She simply kissed her lips, lifted her hand to look at her nails, without lifting her eyes from her hands she ordered her men.

  “Kill her”

  She was content that she had stripped everything from my father and I but after locking eyes with me she knew there was still one more thing to take. Again she ordered

  “Kill her, then Devlin Grimm, the son of a coward and a whore. The bloodline ends here. A sliver of hope is a keyhole for rebellion. Stamp it out before the lock is turned. Kill them both”

  The guards moved instantly and began to beat and strip the Caitlin. I had never lost control before. I could keep everything inside to the most part but not then. All the rage, anger, emotion, lust and passion burst from me. Before I had any time to assess my actions I was already leaping to her aid. I had prepared the fire breathing trick before the juggling. My mouth full of oil. I turned to the guard approaching me, to his surprise I blew oil in his face. The pipe in the mouth of the guard exploded in flame throwing us both the floor. From the sand beside me I lifted a burning juggling pin, aimed it at the guards beating Caitlin and threw it into the middle of the scrum. Before it hit, I blew the largest lick of flames I had to that day. On reaching the Pin it exploded into a cloud of flame throwing the guards high into the air and crashing fatally onto the hard, wooden steps of the main event tent.

  The Queen screamed in rage as I lifted Caitlin and a guard’s shield. She was light, I threw her over my shoulder and rose to my feet. I took another swig of the oil pouch and spat more flames onto the shield, it burned bright a blue fire, stripping the painted Sigel on the front until is dripped and bled paint on the sand below. The exit was guarded by another two of the queen’s soulless bodyguards. We ran toward them with the shield held in front, smashing through them and breaking the shield in two as we burst through the entrance flap into the paddock.

  The fairground was empty as we ran from the tent but quickly filled as more guards and infantry were summoned. We knew the layout. This was our home. When you survive on the scraps you find on the ground and drink the rainwater dripping from the ropes and stall canopies the place does truly belong to you. We weaved in and amongst the slow moving guards, ducking under axe swings and dodging spears thrown.

  The training we had both received from the ring master was second to none, agility was our ally and we quickly lost the pursuers. Hiding in an abandoned repair workshop, I remember scrambling on the floor and shelves for anything I could find as a weapon. All I could find however was some wood and coal.

  Caitlin’s eyes scraped open, one eye swollen from where the bottle had found its mark.

  “We both can’t escape, they will find us. You need to get away” She said to me

  “I cannot leave you, we have suffered together all our lives, it is only right that we both taste freedom together” was all I could reply.

  “It will never work, we will be caught. There are too many of them. I am tired as it is, I cannot run much farther.”

  I slumped beside Caitlin. We were behind a giant forge at the back of the smithy’s hut. Rotten wooden beams had partly collapsed above us, cobwebs grew in intricate, beautiful patterns stretching from the celling to the floor, like a silver blanket draped over all the abandoned tools and remnants of a once lucrative industry, now done away with and forgotten in this hollow souled carnival.

  We lay behind the forge as still as headstones every time guardsmen and soldiers patrolled past the shop front. For hours Caitlin and I stayed there. I remember slipping in and out of sleep, awoken by the slightest creak or bump that I heard. Caitlin however slept solidly. After hours of waiting the dawn was cracking through the darkness.

  “We cannot stay here Caitlin, when the morning breaks we can leave by the rivers and streams. They are not far and we could swim under the bridges and through the reeds. They cannot swim and would not find us.”

  Caitlin did not respond. Her head resting on my shoulder. I moved forward to shake her awake but her head dropped backwards onto the Bench we were leaning against. Her body was lifeless and skin cold. I freed my arm from underneath her, as I did so I noticed my hand dark in shade and my sleeve wet and sticky. The Smell of blood turned my fear to panic. I Shook Caitlin but her soul had left her. Nothing but an empty shell was left. Anger took me to a place I had blocked from the front of my mind for years. The feeling of betrayal and injustice filled me with an rage I had not felt before. Blood pulsed through me, faster and faster. A warm heat from my head to my toes tingled at the tips of my fingers. A pressure filled my chest and from behind clenched fists and gritted teeth I let out a roar or hatred that released me from all heavy emotion. I read of the northmen of old in my father’s books years before. The Bezerkers were the most fierce, and hence most feared, warriors. They wore no armour and carried no weapons. They would release a roar and charge on their enemies. No shields or defences could hold them back. I knew then I was one of them. I felt the soul of my ancestors beside me that day. Roaring with me. Digging their heels into the dirt beside me, readying for the charge. They would follow me into battle and protect me, fight with me and die, again, with me.

  No Longer would I hide in my own home. No longer would I be a preforming fool. I felt it then, I accepted my fate, this would end now, all the humiliation, the suffering, fear, torment and un-certainty. No more waiting for my life to be snatched once the queen tired of me. I was in that moment, seized my future in fists wrapped around an iron poker from the forge. I was in charge of my fate and it would play out the way I chose. I would die a Northland Bezerker!

  I tore the sleeves from my tunic. I threw them in an iron bucket and soaked them in the remaining oil I had attached to my belt. Knowing that my outburst of emotion would draw the guards to me, I did not have long before they descended on me and cut me down. I worked fast, taking the soaked material and binding it tightly to the top of the poker.

  Taking the remains of an old, moth eaten, weathered and damaged canopy from the floor i wrapped myself in it like a robe. I could hear the clank of armour and steel outside, from the sounds of the shuffles I knew the guards were falling into formation.

  I remember feeling that this was the end for me. The curtain would fall for a final time after this, there would be no encore. I never had an applause before but I knew tonight’s audience would not go home un-scathed.

  Looking back one last time at the lifeless, blood-soaked body of my best friend, I lifted her small oil flask from her belt. Nothing can ever prepare you for seeing the body of the person you love, lying still and cold on the ground. Nothing.

  I would avenge her with her only true possession. I recited the prayer of Sif as I made my way towards the door,

  In light I see hope,

  In hope I see future,

  In future I see life,

  In life I see God.

  Protect me father above,

  Wield your glory through me,

  Make me like Sif,

  The angel who speaks your voice.

  With those words resting gen
tly on my lips I lit a small match from the wooden box I kept in his pocket and flames instantly engulfed my newly made torch. Tilting back my head and filling my cheeks, I took a large swig from the Oil flask. The goat skin canteen I took from Caitlin, and ran with increasing speed to charge the first wave of bodyguards.

  I Burst into the small opening between the tents in a cloud of dust sweat and smoke. There were guards on either side. Shield walls were raised. Spears facing forward in an attempt to trap me. They must have known that the flame of passion cannot be so easily extinguished, love and anger are not defeated by fear or oppression. They must have thought they would contain me, but the coin had flipped. They were all together, surrounding me in a small space. bottle necking themselves. The ambush had turned into my killing floor. My back foot was not placed in defeat but in attack. If I were to die tonight I would do so as one of the knights of Xill, no fear just honour.

  I must have taken the guards buy surprise, they were not expecting me to smash directly into the shield wall, two guards toppled backwards giving me a clear view of the guards behind. I lifted the torch to my face and blew, flames exhumed in an arc in front of me. A glorious ring of green and yellow dancing fire. The tabards and garments of the guards instantly burst into an inferno. Panic hit the ranks and an un organized retreat ensued. The shield wall behind me closed in, sensing what they believed to be an opportunity, but they too were met with a burst of flames. I only had one mouthful of oil but the flames were larger and more intense than anything I had conjured before. I felt that I could move the fire. Each burst was larger and hotter than the one before. The Yellow turned to blue and the heat intensified. Guards ran and flailed weapons around them but they were blinded by flashes or blue flame and searing heat, melting the armour to their skin. Cries of men burning alive festered in the air. The heat was unbearable, the Air was thick with singed hair and bubbling flesh. So dense it was impossible to breathe.

  Long after the oil was gone from my mouth I continued to breathe pillars of fire toward my foes, Turning the fireballs into large vertical spires of flame. I wielded them like whips. Slapping into the walls and splashing molten stone in a circumference of destruction. As the combat continued the once lifeless and depressing fair, now resembled the deepest seal of hell, flame, pain, screams, burning tents and smoke rising from the bodies below me. I continued my rampage for several minutes, revelling in the power. This magic was intoxicating. I was drunk on this magical supremacy.

  I continued until all had either fallen at my feet or retreated back out of my reach. I stopped blowing fire, the awareness of my image became very real to me. What was I becoming? I sank to my knees, exhausted. My body was more painful than I can express in written words. Exhaustion seems to small an adjective to express what my arms, chest, head and legs felt. More than the many times I had fallen from the high ropes or my only time at attempting to tame a bear under the supervision of the ring master. I could not move, I was anchored by fatigue and I waited for the killing blow to come from behind, but no blow came. Moments passed that seemed like lifetimes. Silence filled the paddock, Just the occasional light hiss and a wisp of steam, as drops of blood dripped from wounds of the fallen, onto he scorched hot armour they died in.

  From the smoke however, emerged one single figure. Not heavily armored, not large in size or presence but with eyes that could pierce the seal of the heavens. Dark green eyes fixed on mine. I knew who came toward me. The self proclaimed Queens.

  A ruthless, sadistic masochist with a deep hatred for the bloodline of Grimm. She had always seen us as northern gypsies. A nomadic scumm, plaguing the northern world. Before my senses could return to me or even any time to stand or react I felt a welt on the side of my head.

  Then Darkness…

  I opened my eyes to see her towering over me. I tried to move but a pulsing, excruciating pain shot from my head and neck, to my lower back. The blow must have concussed me and the feeling of vertigo was unshakable. My vision blurry and noises were muffled as if I had slipped under the surface of a hot, deep bath.

  I could however make out her face, and hear her snake like, smug tone.

  ‘I will not kill you now, I will do it tomorrow when the spectators arrive for a new spectacle. I have two other acts lined up you may enjoy. Two new visitors to our lovely fair. That little man beside you and a woman with the mouth of a gutter tramp.” She nodded over to the cage beside me. The smallest man I had ever seen was chained up and holding onto a beautiful Northern Woman. Long blonde hair was tied back behind her head with blue eyes sharp enough to cut her free from these chains. They were both gagged and looking at me with longing and desperation. I knew that look. New ‘visitors’ were usually nothing more than fodder for the Queens amusement. Most likely fed to lions or tossed from high ropes. “They both arrived this morning! Maybe you could explain how things work here, show them the ropes, so to speak.” She cackled that horrid laugh she used mostly ironicly then continued “Tonight will be a masterpiece, so manywill be watching” she said.

  She dragged Me toward the stalls in the Best pens. I gave little struggle, my body was broken from the magic. I had no fight left in me. I was locked in. My vision went very blurry and then I must have lapsed once again into unconscious darkness.

  The next morning, I was awoken from his oblivion by a sharp slap on the face, administered by a most gorgeous woman. The same one from the day before in the cage. In any other scenario this would be a perfect way to be awoken and no better view to gaze upon once opening your eyes but the safe time between awakening and remembering reality had just passed. She steadied me and put both her hands on my face. Her accent was foreign, harsh but kind.

  “Hey, wake up for fuck sake.” She said with a confusing tone, shaking slightly with fear but energetic, the voice of someone with a plan. “Ok, we haven’t got very much time here ok? My Name is Sarah, and that wee legend is Garret!” She pointed at the little man that was with her earlier. He had somehow squeezed through the bars of the pen and was creeping along the side of the tent with a spade he had collected somewhere. I began to speak but Sarah put her hand over my mouth and narrowed her eyes on mine. “Feck sake, just shut up, Listen. I only have a small window of time to get home. Garret is going to take me to some place called the brotherhood alter? Or something along those lines? I don’t really know but that’s not important to you. Just know that Garret will pass the spade thought the bars to us, we can prise the front of the cage open enough for us to slip through if we work together. I haven’t got time to explain or care about anything else right now. So just pull when I tell you and stay quiet.” Her voice was a whisper. A beautiful whisper. She reminded me so much of Caitlin. That is most likely why I fell immediately in love with her. Who was she? How amazing she is. The little man named Garret managed to sneak back into the cage. We managed to prop the spade between the lock and the latch and wiggled it until it was deep enough into the groove to give us some leverage.

  “Now!” Sarah whispered. It was awkward to get enough room or into the right position in the cage to get the gate open. We were cramped inside and couldn’t get enough room to really push it open. I was more worried about the wooden handle of the spade snapping under the pressure. We managed to get a couple of inches of movable room but not nesarly enough for sarah to get out. I am much skinnier than I used to be and not nearly as strong. Starvation will do that to a man. After another group heave we managed to prize one of the hinges of the door. The bottom corner of the gate had enough room for us to bend the bars either way. Enough room for a man my size to slip through but Sarah has something that was a blessing in so many ways and only a fault in this particular scenario. She has an amazing, large bust. I tried not to look but sometimes a man can not help himself. After she tried to slip out feet first she was stuck at the chest. We tried a few times but it was decided that I would slip out and pull the other side as Sarah pushed the middle hinge. This was the only way we could move the gate enough for her to slid
e out. I slid under and got out of the cage. Holding the bars as Sarah pushed I pulled with all of my strength. The screws on the hinges were just starting to bend slightly when all the pressure was released at once.

  Garret and Sarah both stood in the cage. Stepping slowly back into the middle with their faces drained of colour. A shadow loomed over my own from behind me. I managed to turn just in time, to see a black blur speeding towards my face. Then once more I tasted dirt and felt a throbbing pain behind me eyes.

  The smell of sweat and rotting leather from the Robes the queen insisted on wearing under her carnival house coat awoke me. She always wore this, be it through superstition or sheer filth, never removed, even as sahe slept. The stories and roomers had always circulated through the whispers of guards, to tradesmen, to their wives to their children to the streets. It was thought to be simply tales, but I truly believed it now. I composed myself, I thought inwardly “At least he would not have to deal with the stink for long.” By the quick and sharp look I received from her I realized statements spoken out loud were not as private as I had hoped.

  As my eyes focused I saw boots, stained with blood, my blood. I lifted my head and looked around to see the staff of the carnie and hundreds of new patrons, watching me with drained blank eyes, soulless and lifeless eyes. The people had loved my father as ringleader. He was charismatic, funny, kind and generous to both paying customers and his traveling family of carnival workers. Since the Queen had taken over, this circus had become a suffering existence. No life or hope left under the canvas.