The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files)

by Frank Tuttle

  “I don’t think Gertriss knew either,” whispered Darla. “Hon, do you know what’s wrong with Evis? Did you see him, tonight? He’s ill. He claims it’s a minor fever, but I’m sure he’s lying, and Gertriss is worried sick.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said. “But look. He’s got the best Avalante doctors and the best Avalante medicines and no matter what’s wrong with him, I’m sure they’ve got a treatment hidden away in a vault somewhere. Hell, the man just took on mastodons. How sick can he be?”

  “Looked like sick to death,” said Mama. “I ain’t heard of but one thing what can infect a halfdead. Vampire worms. But that ain’t vampire worms he’s got. I hope you’re right about them fancy doctors, boy. I hope they’re as good as you think.”

  At the other end of the bar, Randy and his father hauled a halfdead onto the polished bar top and cut away his shirt. The elder man drew on a pair of white gloves, produced a pair of bright steel pliers, and plunged them into the halfdead man’s chest, probing and pushing.

  Darla looked away.

  “Evis said he’d join us here soon,” she said. The black man grunted, twisted his hand, and yanked a barbed steel hook out of the pale halfdead, who never made a sound. “I wish he’d hurry.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure where The Cat and Fiddle stood, but I was sure we were a good dozen blocks from the docks, and on the wrong side of the river from the Hill. “It’ll take him forty-five minutes just to get here,” I said. “And that’s if he left immediately.”

  Evis himself settled heavily onto the barstool to my right. He stank of gunsmoke and mastodon dung and muddy river water. His hands and wrists were black with gunpowder residue, and his cloak hung in dirty tatters about his spare frame.

  “Hell of a night,” he said. He caught Randy’s eye, and held up a single sooty talon. The kid nodded and darted through a door toward the back.

  “Angels and Devils, Evis. How did you get here so fast?”

  Gertriss stepped out of the shadows. She’d wrapped a long tan coat around her ravaged clothes.

  “Tell him,” Evis croaked. He reached for a breast pocket handkerchief that wasn’t there. Gertriss handed him a wad of bar napkins and sat beside him while he dabbed at the black ooze gathering at the corners of his mouth.

  “He had Stitches install a stepping stone back there,” she said, nodding toward the back row of booths. I realized why the lamps in that area weren’t lit. “Like the ones she uses to get around the House. Step on a stone in the office, step off a stone here. Nobody knows about it but us.”

  “Keeping secrets from the House?” I asked. “Won’t that be frowned upon, possibly beaten with sticks?”

  “Won’t be considered at all if everyone keeps their mouths shut,” said Evis between coughs. Randy returned, bearing a plain silver chalice filled to the brim with something dark and black.

  The kid set it carefully down on the bar top, as though he were handling a bucket of snakes.

  “Here you are, sir,” he said.

  Evis drained the chalice all at once. Gertriss looked away, biting her lip, her brow furrowed into a brief hard frown.

  “Why all the secrecy?” I said. “It’s not like we haven’t set a few fires before now. Allegedly, of course.”

  “Somebody higher up might ask why Avalante shot up a backwoods carnival,” said Evis. “Last thing I want is for the House to take an interest in Buttercup.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “You think the House might?”

  “Not if we keep a lid on things,” said Evis. “Otherwise, she might be considered an ‘experimental asset.’ Not sure I’ve got the pull to get her off that list. Sure as hell don’t want to find out.”

  He started coughing again. Gertriss handed him more napkins.

  “Didn’t mean to drag you into this,” I said.

  “You didn’t.” Evis shot a meaningful glance at Mama, who shrugged and drained her beer.

  “What’s this about me being gone for two days?” I asked. “I swear it’s been a night, no more.”

  “Let’s see,” said Darla. “You had your driver strand us in the middle of a hayfield five miles from town three days ago.”

  “Thought you was awful smart, didn’t you, boy?” said Mama.

  “It kept you from getting killed,” I replied. Darla didn’t smile.

  “When you didn’t come home that night,” she said, “I went to the carnival. Walked around. Looked and looked. No sign of you or Buttercup.”

  I thought about Darla alone within Thorkel’s reach and my gut twisted.

  “I followed her, boss,” said Gertriss. She held Evis’s hand while he made wet retching noises. “No one paid any attention to her.”

  “And I was there, watching the both of ye,” said Mama. “’Cept I snuck into that fancy-ass carnival master’s tent, had myself a look around.” She grunted. “Didn’t find nothing.”

  “I rented a manure wagon,” I said. “Walked in with a bunch of farmers. Hid until hard dark.” I retold the tale of hiding in Slim’s cage, of finding the black tent, and watching Buttercup held fast by the world’s ugliest doll.

  Evis had me repeat my conversation with Thorkel. I described the interior of the black tent twice too. He kept his dark glasses on, so I couldn’t read his eyes and tell if he reacted to anything I said.

  I wound down. The bar was dead silent, save for Slim’s soft guttural muttering and the occasional dry whisper exchanged between halfdead.

  “So that’s it,” I said. “Dammit, when is Stitches due back?”

  “Two weeks or more,” said Gertriss. “And no, we’ve got no way to speak to her.”

  I cussed. “Mama? Anything?”

  “Ain’t no mirror magic I know of,” she said. “Ain’t never seen no grabby dolls, neither. But I reckon you put a flame to it, and it’ll burn up right enough.”

  “You said you entered Thorkel’s tent,” said Evis. He was hunched over and shaking. If he hadn’t already passed through death’s door I’d have claimed he was nearing the threshold. “Describe it. In detail.”

  “I seen wigs,” Mama said. “Wooden arms. Wooden legs. Clothes all over. Hats. Shoes. Gloves. All of it old, all of it shabby. None of it hexed, as far as I could tell.”

  I remembered Thorkel’s empty clothes falling away from my grasp.

  “What did you take, Mama?” I said. “I know you didn’t leave empty handed. Show us.”

  Mama grinned with her two best teeth and hefted her bag. She produced a matted, filthy wig, a crumpled porkpie hat, a pair of threadbare wool gloves, and a fancy patent leather shoe, right foot only.

  “I was pressed for time,” she said. She plopped her loot down on the bar. “But I thought maybe that sorcerer might take a keen interest in something took from Fancy Pants’ tent.”

  I smiled, pulled my knife from my boot, and poked at the filthy wig. “Good thinking, Mama.”

  “Didn’t know she weren’t here,” said Mama. She scowled at the objects. “Reckon I could hex ’em good, though. Willing to try.”

  “We’ll see.” I motioned for another restorative beverage, slid my knife back in my boot. “Let’s say we’ve got four days to figure out what they’ve done to Miss Ordwald and get Buttercup out of the glass. Ideas?”

  Evis broke into a coughing fit so hard he fell off his stool. Gertriss followed him down and kept him supplied with napkins.

  When the fit was over, Gertriss’s hand was black with thick ooze, and Evis was gasping breathless on the floor.

  Every halfdead in the place gathered around us, silent as shadows, every gaunt gray face bent over Evis, every pair of dead white eyes following the rise and fall of his chest.

  The silence was finally broken by the sound of Gertriss crying.

  “We have to get him home,” she said. “He needs the doctors.” />
  “Won’t. Help,” he said. “Get me up.”

  Thin arms encircled him and bore him to a booth.

  Another silver chalice of the black fluid appeared. Gertriss helped him drink it down.

  “Better now,” said Evis, after a while. Liar, mouthed Gertriss. He took her hand and tried to smile.

  “Today is a wash,” he said. “We’re wounded. Exhausted. Need rest. Need strategy.”

  Slim joined us, stooped nearly double, smelling of equal parts musky Troll and river mud. The ring of halfdead quickly made room.

  “Fight?” he asked, looking at me.

  “Not now,” I said. “Rest first. Fight later.”

  He dipped his eyes, in the Trollish way of nodding assent. “I hear you talking,” he said. “The sky wagons. They will ride away. Soon.”

  “We ruined them,” I said. “Tore them to shreds. They won’t be flying for a long time.”

  “Sometimes storms come,” said Slim. “Tear at sky wagons. So they have fresh skins. This many.” He held up his right hand, spread wide his six Troll digits.

  A general chorus of muttered curses arose. Mine alone was worthy of a year in Hell, claims the Church.

  “Will some flee, leaving others behind?” I asked.

  Slim shrugged. “Who can say?”

  “So we might have four days, or two, or none,” said Gertriss. “This just gets better and better.”

  “They have mastodons and necromancers,” I said. “What do we have?”

  “Pluck. Resolve. Assorted serious injuries,” said Evis.

  Call it inspiration. Call it a mild concussion. Call it what you will, but a shiver rose up my spine and ended in my sudden smile.

  “No,” I said. “We have the power of the press, and twenty thousand witless readers.”

  Evis lowered his head to peer at me over the tops of his dark glasses. His eyes, or what little I could see of them, were a bright blood red.

  “Someone. Is thinking. Happy thoughts,” he said. “Do share.”

  I laid it all out, making parts up as I went.

  Mama hooted and broke her mug banging it on the bar. Slim grinned a toothy Troll grin and boomed something I gathered to be affirmative in Troll.

  Darla and Gertriss exchanged worried glances, and quietly reloaded their revolvers.

  It took maybe half an hour to hammer out the details. Runners were dispatched. Lies were told. Money was spent.

  Lots of money. Most of it mine. I insisted on that. Evis tried to argue, but in the end he simply ran out of breath.

  “That’s it,” said Gertriss, after Evis nearly passed out coughing. “We are done. I’m taking you home. Darla, boss, Slim, come with us. A carriage is waiting down the block.”

  “Go ahead and use the fancy magic dingus,” I said, rising. “You two head on back to Avalante. I’d prefer my own bed.”

  Gertriss ignored me and got Evis up.

  “The stepping plate is one-way,” she said. “Have to take the carriage back. We have your room ready.”

  “Thank you,” said Darla. “We’ll be right along. A moment alone, if you please.”

  “Whoah, am I invisible again?” I asked. “Thanks all the same, but I’m going home.”

  Gertriss hustled Evis out without a word. Slim sauntered past, Alfreda in his arms. The halfdead filed out with all the fuss and bother of a distant passing cloud.

  Darla wrapped her arms around me.

  “I just want to go home,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “Our house,” she said, before stopping. She buried her face against my chest, and I felt the sudden warmth of tears. “It’s gone. They burned it to the ground, the night you left.”

  She began to shake, and I held her, and we didn’t turn each other loose until Slim knocked softly at the door and hooted my name.

  “Cornbread?” I asked.

  “Safe,” she said. “At Mama’s. They came near dawn. Flying things. The witch. A big snake with wings. They dropped fire.” She tried to go on but couldn’t.

  I’d just put up a new picket fence. Fixed the sticky window in the parlor. Put shiny new brass latches on all the doors.

  Middling Lane was home. Our home. I couldn’t bear to even imagine the sight of flames reducing it all to ashes and ruin.

  “I’ll make them pay,” I said after a moment. “I’ll get Buttercup back and I’ll burn that damned carnival to the ground and when I’m done I’ll piss on the ashes. This I swear.” I swallowed hard, because my voice was going funny. “This I swear.”

  “Just don’t get killed,” she said. “That’s all I ask. Don’t get killed.”

  Darla wiped her tears, found a smile, and together we walked out into the harsh bright light of day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Again, I dreamed, and walked in my dream.

  My body lay sleeping beside Darla, deep below Avalante’s tilting slate roofs, far from the charred remains of our tidy little home on Middling Lane.

  For a time, I dreamed of fire. I walked to the night and the hour my home was attacked. I watched as the witch dropped from the dark, leading the rest as they spiraled down and sought to force their way inside while Darla slept.

  I heard Cornbread bark, saw a candle flare to life at our bedroom window. Saw the Witch cackle and hurl a handful of tangled shadows at the tiny flame.

  Her shadows didn’t make it. Instead, they gathered around the lightning rods protruding here and there from my roof. After a moment, they coursed down the rods and down the copper lines and vanished into the ground.

  The witch shrieked. Her companions, half a dozen flapping things I couldn’t begin to name, drew close about her.

  The plain old fire they hurled quickly spread.

  I watched Darla run away, Cornbread at her feet. She emptied her pistols into the sky.

  My house caught fire, and the flames quickly rose.

  I turned from it, pushing down the rage.

  “Now is not the time,” I thought, and yet I heard my words echo across Rannit, and it seemed that a peel of mad laughter from the east rose up in reply.

  I walked. Night and day changed places. The sun hurtled across the sky, once, twice, slowing, stopping.

  I crossed the river easily. The stench of smoke still filled my nostrils. I’d not realized how much I’d come to love that modest little box of a house.

  I looked down, saw a scatter of rags at my feet, and then diminished until I recognized the carnival.

  I walked among them, unseen.

  Tents were being erected. The fires were out, save for a pair of big ones being fed with debris. Hammers fell. Ropes were stretched taut. A pair of mastodons trumpeted as they pulled the wreck of a balloon’s ornate gondola down the littered midway.

  Clowns charged about, cussing and hauling and pushing and shoving.

  It didn’t take long to see that the carnival folk weren’t breaking camp.

  As I watched a new stage being built in front of Malus the Magnificent’s tent, I realized they were setting up for the night’s show.

  I grew, until I was tall enough to tower over the mastodons.

  I let loose my rage, and I kicked at the nearest tent.

  My boot passed through it. I raised my heel and brought it down, wanting nothing more than to crush the carnival down into the dirt, tent by clown by tent.

  I could feel the earth, but nothing above it was disturbed.

  I cussed. I railed. I swatted at the riding wheel, tried to wrest the carousel from its mooring and hurl it into the Brown. I may have dislodged a flock of blackbirds from the trees, or I may not have, but I inflicted no vengeance on the carnival or its folk.

  I walked on, fuming.

  I knew Buttercup lay wrapped in a doll’s unyielding embrace, though I’d never found the black tent.
I knew, in my heart, that I could return with Evis and the Army and a thousand guns, come nightfall, and we could burn every tent and smash every structure and in the morning Buttercup would still be gone.

  I wandered, growing. Soon the forests at my feet gave way to vast plains of tall, windblown sage. I spied mountains in the distance, and soon snow glistened bright about their peaks, and still I roamed.

  Killing Thorkel hadn’t opened the mirrors. I recalled feeling Thorkel go light in my hand, remembered his empty clothes and scrap of a wig falling from my grasp. Had he ever lived? Was the creature I’d walked with, conversed with, nothing but a pile of cast-off costumery animated by some grim sorcery?

  The mountains stretched away, their snowy crags and frigid shoulders barely reaching my knees. I cast my gaze about, and finally found the moon, just risen over a darkening peak.

  Stitches, I thought. She knows the things I must.

  Go to her, came a whisper at my ear. The voice was that of the she-Elf I’d consumed in the woods. Go to her. You know how. It’s easy. So easy…

  I pondered the insanity in her words. I knew of no sorcery, no sorcerer, which ever claimed such a feat.

  The moon hung in place, pale and silver against the white-blue sky, eternal and distant and cold. Unreachable. Impossible. Forbidden.

  I stretched forth my hand, and grew as never before, and as I held the moon in my right palm I brought it close so that I might better see its secrets. I considered its darkened plains, its pockmarked gray wastes, its bright peaks and impenetrable shadows. I turned it to and fro, until I found the miniscule stirrings of light I sought.

  I let go of the moon. I grew, and it was, after all, just one small step away.

  When I found Stitches, she was hard at work.

  She stood in the midst of a vast circular chamber. The whole of Rannit could be fit inside that cavern. The floors were worked with intricate symbols, like the walls and the distant, domed ceiling.

  Lights ran and pulsed and collided and parted on every part of every marking, lighting the room with a continual shimmering glow, as if the room were packed with lightning. Strange sounds echoed in the room’s stale air. Some were voices, raised in chant or song. Some were shouts. Some were howls or groans or cries, none of which were born from any human throat.