by Allan Cole
He could see the dread in their eyes that maybe he'd returned to announce their brief stay in paradise was ended and they must once again resume their fearful journey.
Safar hastily pulled on his old entertainer's personality, waving and laughing and shouting jokes and words of cheer. Khysmet did the high step as if born to the circus march and soon everyone's joyous mood returned. He pushed on, smiling until his lips ached, until he came to the place where his family had set up camp.
All his sisters and their husbands were gathered about a big, rough plank table, eating and making merry while the children played games under the trees. In a little potter's shelter his mother and father were making small clay necklaces as gifts for the young ones-painted jesters, with skinny limbs and peaked hats riding jauntily over long beaked noses. Toys in the shape of the Jester God, Harle, were an ancient favorite of Kyranian children.
His mother, who was running leather thongs through holes bored into the caps, was chatting gaily with his father when Safar rode up and dismounted.
When she saw him her face lit up she dropped what she was doing. "It's Safar, Khadji!" she cried.
"Come home just in time!"
She ran over and embraced him while his father looked fondly on. "We're having a celebration, dear,"
she said. "And I was so hoping you'd come."
Myrna pulled back, eyes shining. "Thanks to you," she said, "we're safe at last. And in such a beautiful place! Why, it's almost as beautiful as home!"
Safar didn't know what to say, so he embraced her and murmured the usual loving evasions sons and daughters use when they believe one of their parents has lost all touch with reality. Such as, "I'm happy that you're happy, mother, dear." Or "Yes, I've missed you too."
And so on until his mother rushed off to fetch him a plate of the tastiest morsels from the feast. When she was gone, he eyed his father, who was painting smiling faces on the toy jesters.
"You've made your mother very happy coming home today, son," he said. "She and your sisters worked hard on this feast."
"What is she celebrating, father?" he asked, still smiling, still trying to hide his concern.
"Why, our deliverance, son," his father said brightly. "Didn't you hear what she said?"
Safar was finally tested too far and his smile dissolved. "Of course I did," he said. "But that's ridiculous."
To his surprise his father's eyes seemed to glaze over and like a child shutting out harsh words it didn't want to hear he started humming a bright little tune.
Safar kept going, trying to break through. "For the gods sake, father!" he said. "No one's been delivered.
No one's safe. You know that as well as I do. Why are you letting mother think differently?"
But the whole time he spoke his father kept up the humming. When Safar finally realized he wasn't getting through and gave up, Khadji broke off and resumed his side of the conversation.
"It's such a relief to all of us that you found this place, son," Khadji said. "To think we no longer have to go all the way to Syrapis to find our new home. The people here are so wonderful and generous. Why, I heard only yesterday that the Queen was selling you a good bit of land so that we can rebuild Kyrania right here."
He blinked back tears of joy. "You can't imagine how proud you've made your mother and me," he said.
Safar gave up. It was clear his family and friends had been afflicted with the same insane but merry spell as the Caluzians. He would have to do something about that soon, but just now he didn't have the heart.
So he hugged his father and kissed him. Then his attention was drawn to the pile of completed jester necklaces. He picked one up to examine it and felt a faint buzz of mild magic.
"Where did you get the clay for these, father?" he asked. "They're quite … uh … unusual."
Khadji pointed up the river. "There's a nice bed of it around the next bend," he said.
He grabbed some up from a pail, skilled fingers forming another jester. "Palimak discovered it," he said.
"And I must say I've never seen clay as perfect as this. A nice neutral gray color, not too sticky, not too spongy, and it fires in no time at all. And not one shattering out of the scores I've already made."
Khadji scratched his head, thinking. Then he smiled. "In fact," he said, "it was Palimak's idea to make these jesters for the children." He chuckled. "Such a thoughtful boy."
Safar narrowed his eyes when he heard that. He looked down at the large pile of completed jesters.
There were also several trays of others ready to go into the oven. Plus, Khadji was painting several dozen more.
"There's a lot more here," he pointed out to his father, "than there are Timura children."
More chuckling from Khadji. "Well, after we talked about it for awhile, it seemed like such a good idea that we decided to make enough for everybody."
Safar goggled. " Everybody?"
Khadji nodded, firm. "Before we're done every Kyranian, down to the newest infant, will have one. The best of luck from Harle, the king of luck, hanging about our necks.
"Now isn't that a grand gift for everyone?" his father asked.
Safar nodded absently, puzzling over all this. What was Palimak up to? "Sure, father, sure," he said.
"Well, it's nice talking to you son," his father said. "But I'd best get back to it. I've got more than a thousand of these to make."
He started getting busy, pinching out more jesters and laying them on a firing tray. Becoming so absorbed in his work he seemed to forget his son's presence. Safar gently took his arm, stopping him. His father blinked at him, awareness coming back.
"Where is Palimak, father?" Safar asked.
Khadji again pointed up the river. "At the claybed," he said. "He's with Leiria, so you don't have to worry. They're fetching more material for the jesters."
Safar just smiled, gave his father another hug, and swung up on Khysmet. "Tell mother," he said, "that I'm off to see Palimak. And to save us some of that delicious food."
His father didn't hear him. He was humming merrily again, totally absorbed in his work. Safar shrugged and headed up the river.
He eventually found them standing on a hill, supervising a half dozen willing lads who were digging up buckets of clay from the river.
"Be sure and clean it real well," Palimak admonished two young men who were washing the debris from the clay.
"You there," Leiria called to another group. She pointed to several pails of finished clay. "Grab a couple of those buckets and trot them down to Khadji. He should be getting pretty low by now."
The lads took all this with such good nature that Safar was immediately suspicious.
When Palimak and Leiria spotted Safar they both jumped in startled guilt. Palimak ducked behind Leiria.
"I take full responsibility," Leiria said. She said it boldly, but he detected a quivering note of embarrassment.
Safar sighed and pointed at the working youths. "Let them go," he said wearily.
"Yes, father," Palimak squeaked. Then, his voice a little firmer, "But you have to let me do it my way. If they wake up too quickly they're going to feel pretty bad."
"Go ahead," Safar said.
Palimak ventured out from behind Leiria enough to wave a hand at the boys. "You're suddenly all feeling very tired," he said, trying to sound commanding. The boys all stretched and yawned. "That's good,"
Palimak praised. "Really, real sleepy." More stretching and yawning. "So now that you're so sleepy,"
Palimak said, "you all decide to go home and take a little nap. And when you wake up you'll feel just great and you won't remember anything."
The young men all nodded, then put the buckets down and wandered back toward the encampment, yawning and mumbling sleepily as they went.
"Don't worry about them, father," Palimak said. "They'll be fine." He gestured at the buckets of clay sitting by the shore. "Besides, we were almost done anyway."
This brought a hot glare from Safar. "Ooop
s," Palimak said, clapping a hand to his mouth.
Leiria groaned. "I wish you hadn't said that."
"We have a awfully good reason, father," Palimak said. "Honest."
"He's right," Leiria said. "We do."
"Go on," Safar said, climbing off Khysmet. He patted the animal, drawing on its powers of patience. "I'm listening. And it had better be as good as you claim."
Palimak swallowed hard, but Leiria had a completely different reaction. She blew. "Listen here, Safar Timura," she said, standing tall and hooking her thumbs into her sword belt. "In case you haven't noticed, everybody here has gone insane. They are in hap-hap happy land, where the bees don't sting and the wolves graze on grass like the lambs."
"I noticed," Safar said, gritting his teeth. "But that doesn't give-"
Leiria stomped a boot. "That doesn't give you the right," she said, "to come storming in here to dump a camel load of grief on us, after being gone for the gods know how long, and not a word from you, by the way, and we're here with all these crazy people not knowing what to do."
Safar was rattled by this verbal assault. "Still," he said, "you have to admit-"
"Admit nothing!" Leiria stormed on. "What if something happened? What if Iraj attacked right now?
Everyone would just stare and giggle while his army cut them down!"
Now it was Safar's turn to be stung by guilt. "You have a stronger point than you realize about Iraj," he said. "But, honest to the gods, couldn't you have waited?"
"I repeat my last question, Safar Timura," Leiria ground in. "What if something happened?"
"It really is a good plan, father," Palimak made bold to say. "I got the idea when I found the clay."
He pointed at the gray, dug up pits at the river's edge. "Leiria and I went fishing right over there. Which is how I found all that fantastic clay."
Palimak glanced at his father and decided a self-serving aside might be called for here. So he made his eyes rounder and more innocent as he said: "Grandfather has been teaching me ever so much about clay, father. And I've been doing my very best to learn all I can. And so that's why I noticed the clay right off.
All because of my wonderful, wonderful grandfather, who I love more than anything anyone can mention at all. So you can imagine, father, how bad I felt when I put a spell on him. Again! I mean, that's twice, now. And I knew you'd be mad, because I was mad at myself, but like Leiria said, what were we going to do?
"Nobody would listen to me. They wouldn't even have listened to Leiria. They're all crazy, father! Just like Leiria said. So we had do something! And I figured out what to do soon as I saw that clay. I was looking at how the water comes out of the turtle. You really ought to take a close look at that turtle, father, because it is really, really strange.
"Anyway, I saw right off the clay was not only the kind of stuff grandfather thinks is the absolute, absolute, best, but it also had a little bit of magic in it. And I that's when I got the idea!"
"You should have waited," Safar said again, but rather glumly, with little force to it. "I could have talked to my father. And those lads. I could have spoken to them and convinced them with little trouble to help us make those amulets."
He shook his head. "I know what you're up to. You were going to supply everyone with an amulet of the jester-and that was clever, Palimak. But perhaps a little too mature." He looked pointedly at Leiria.
She blushed. "Guilty," she said. "I'm an outsider. Outsiders noticed things. And one of the first things I noticed about Kyrania is that the tots are crazy about anything to do with Harle, the Jester God."
Leiria gave him a defiant look, tilting up her chin. "Since adults are only children in not so pretty skin," she said, "it only seemed logical that it would be a figure loved by everyone. From children to the gray hairs."
"And at the proper moment, I presume," Safar said, "Palimak was going to cast a spell to wake everyone up to a most unpleasant reality."
Leiria nodded. "It was acting for the greater good," she said. "We were thinking about saving lives."
"That's right, father," Palimak piled on. "For the … what did Leiria call it … oh, yeah-'The Greater Good.' Sure! That's what we were doing." He threw his shoulders back, intoning, "Acting for the greater good."
"Oh, bullocks' dung!" Safar snorted. "You've both gone as mad as the others!"
He dropped Khysmet's reins, wheeled about and stalked away, muttering, "I'm raising a despot!
Befriended another as well! And I'm responsible! By the gods above, if they are awake and listening, please strike me dead on the spot!"
Leiria and Palimak trailed along, shrinking at his mutters. Although they knew they were right, so was he-perhaps even more so.
As Safar stalked up the hill he thought, what a ridiculous, quite human situation this was. It was certainly worthy of Harle, who had a darker sense of humor than most realized. What a joke we all are, he thought. Struggling with silly moral points while the whole world melts about our ears. I'm Palimak's moral mentor, hammering away at rights and wrongs as if they were real. As if they meant a damn. As if the gods were suddenly going to stir in the heavens and take notice that one small person, on one small world, was sticking to his moral principles. Principles supposedly handed down from on high and thereford objects of much heavenly interest.
He recalled a fragment from Asper:
"Why do I weep?" he'd asked.
And Asper's answer, after a few other rhymed musings was:
"I weep because Harle laughs!
So why not laugh instead, my friends …
And make the Jester's tears our revenge?"
So Safar laughed. Laughter poured from him, bursting like a pent-up flood suddenly released after much hammering on humor's gate.
He doubled up, holding his sides, wracked with laugh after laugh. What was he worried about? What did it matter if his son, aided by his best friend and former lover, cast spell nets of enslavement over his father and mother and innocent Kyranian lads? It was well meant, that was all that mattered. We're only trying to save the world, here. So we bend things a bit for the "greater good." What's the harm in that?
And wasn't he doing worse?
And wasn't he going to ask even more?
Palimak and Leiria caught up to him. They watched in silent amazement as he choked and gasped laughter.
Then he stood up straight, wiped his eyes and chin, and said, "I love you both, anyway."
He continued up the hill, taking the last few steps to the summit with his arms draped over both of them.
He was still laughing, although not so uncontrollably. Just little outbursts, with chuckles building and falling in between. They grinned crazily, not knowing what he was laughing at and if they had they wouldn't have understood. But they grinned anyway. Grinned in empathy, strangely sorry that whatever they had done had made him laugh like this.
When they came to the top of the hill Safar paused to catch his breath. Below them was a broad field decked with many festive banners. And in the center of that field was a huge tent shot with bright, dazzling colors.
A familiar voice thundered from that tent, chanting a joyous, heart-wrenching refrain:
"Come one, come all! Lads and maids of Alllll ag-es! I now present to you-Methydia's Circus of Miracles!
"The Greatest Show In Esmir!"
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
THE GIFT FROM BEYOND
Palimak was circus struck. All his cares, all his troubles, all his toils smashed away by a lightning storm of the senses-color and music and smell and thrilling action crashing here and there and everywhere, all seeming chaos.
His attention, no, his whole being was snatched from one amazement to another, each sight a new experience exploding all that had come before.
But it couldn't be chaos because everything seemed to have a direction, a goal, a point, a moral, a story with heroes and villains and a beginning and middle and end. It was madness-delicious, soul-satisfying madness-but most of all it was
orchestrated madness.
Commanding it all was the circus ringmaster, a fantastic, muscular dwarf with a lion's skin tossed over his magnificent torso like an ancient hero.
He had an incredible voice that reached everywhere and everyone, booming and intimate at the same time.
At the moment he was lit by a brilliant pool of light. And he was shouting:
"And now, without further ado, we present our star attraction. A wonder of all wonders.
"A gift from the heavens!"
Music blared and the dwarf gestured-hand coming up slowly, dramatically, commanding complete attention. A slowly opening fist, reaching for the heavens, promising entire volumes of mysteries that were about to be revealed. Music somehow sliding under all that anticipation, lifting it higher and higher on a rhythmic out-rushing tide of drums and pipes and strings all running toward the Mother Moon of imagination … and beyond.
And all the while the dwarf was saying, "Only the gods themselves could have created the wonder you are about to see, my friends. A marvel, a mystery, unveiled before your very eyes.
"Look, my friends. Look high above! Look to the heavens themselves!"
As he spoke the music and the gesturing hand crept up to the penultimate point and all eyes were fixed on the dwarf's fist as it came fully open.
Palimak jumped as cymbals crashed and a shower of sparkling bits burst from the dwarf's mighty hand, shooting up and up, carrying Palimak and the whole audience with it to the very top of the tent. It hung there for an agonizing moment, swirling and boiling like a troubled, many colored cloud, slowly forming a glittering curtain of suspense. Seemingly held up only up by the building music.
And the dwarf said, "Ladies and gentlemen, lads and lasses, beings of all ages, I present to you the one, the only…"
A skillful pause as the music reached its climax…
And then, in an enormous voice that filled the tented arena:
"Arlain!"
Cymbals crashed and the curtain burst, shattering in every direction.