by Ben Galley
Merion looked this way and that, eyeing the winding rows of tables full of makeup and beakers of water. Yara had pulled out every stop, even drawing in a few of Cirque Kadabra’s workers to act as extras and prop-monkeys. Backstage was a hive of activity. The chatter was nearly deafening. Those who had not made the cut for the show were getting ready to man their stages and booths. Big Jud for instance, halfway through having his face powdered, would wow the crowds before they settled in for the main attraction. No wandering. Just a tour, neat and tidy. Like guiding a herd of rabbits into their nooses. Yara watched everything, making sure it flowed just the way she liked it. She was part foreman, part queen of her own little kingdom.
‘Where am I supposed to go?’ Merion piped up. Yara had almost forgotten he was there, wrapped up as she was in the bustle. Tonight might as well have been gold-plated for how precious it was to her. Their ticket home. A grin snuck onto her face.
‘See the girls, there. For your makeup.’
‘Makeup?’ Merion looked abhorred.
‘Yes, Master Harlequin. Makeup. Everybody, even Itch and Devan, wears it. It stops your face shining in the stage lights. We would not want that, now would we? Not for your big performance?’ Yara laid it on thick.
Merion grumbled something to himself, but acquiesced. Yara watched him go, mentally checking the structure of her plot, testing the joints, making sure the boy could not break them. He was a risk, but one she could control. She’d managed riskier. That’s the awful blessing of children. They’re naive, she smirked to herself, and so easy to dupe.
*
‘You don’t look too hot, Neams,’ Rhin commented, leaning against the cage door. Mr Neams was fiddling with a lock that had taken upon itself to come loose during the train journey.
‘Fell over, is all,’ Neams hissed, cursed as his fingers slid off the latch again, banging painfully on the iron bars.
‘Don’t seem to be having a lot of luck either,’ added Rhin, taking a brief opportunity to smirk. He had no liking for this man, not since Merion had outed the lot of them. But he knew his role and he was going to stick to it. The smile faded in an instant as Neams turned to him.
‘Can you see to it? You got smaller hands than me.’
‘Understatement of the week goes to Mr Nelle Neams,’ muttered Rhin. Oh, how he could not help but poke at him. Neams was jittery after his incident, whatever had happened. The faerie harboured the strong suspicion that it had something to do with Lilain and Lurker. Harboured, and hoped.
Neams was doing everything except physically licking his wounds. He grumbled and he moped, winced and gasped every time he touched his throat or face, which was plenty. Who knew that the beast-keeper could be such a whining piglet of a man?
Rhin eyed the lock, patting it with his hand. ‘Let’s see here.’
‘Whassat?’ Neams spoke up, pointing at the faerie.
‘What?’
‘That black mark on your hand. That weren’t there before.’
Rhin tutted. ‘I think you’ll find it was. Maybe you just didn’t notice. It’s a tattoo. A Fae mark.’
‘Looks more like a brand t’ me.’
The faerie shrugged disarmingly. ‘Same thing to us.’
Neams grunted, apparently satisfied. Rhin went back to the lock. It was more for keeping the crowd out than for keeping him in. There was always some daredevil or town moron that could be trusted to try and get in the cages, to pat the lion maybe, ride the tortoise, or catch the faerie. Rhin snorted as he jiggled the lock mechanism with his iron-like fingers. Idiots. Just let them try.
With a click and a twang, the slipped pin slotted back into place and Rhin dusted his hands. ‘All done.’
‘Right.’ Neams jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Be time for you to leave, time to get that costume on. Only got us half an hour before the crowds start to arrive. You ready for this?’
‘As ever,’ Rhin replied, pausing for the nearby caged eagle to finish screeching. ‘Can you feel it yet? The Bloodmoon?’
Neams shook his head, wincing as his neck clicked. Whomever had taken a disliking to him, they’d done a thorough job. ‘She won’t rise till it’s all good and dark. Just you wait.’
‘Better get to it then. Half an hour it is.’
‘Less,’ Neams rasped. ‘Twenty minutes.’
Rhin nodded, and stepped out of the circus enclosure into the dimming evening.
Twenty minutes goes quickly when your eyes are full of wonder. It took Rhin a whole ten to reach the tent, he was so marvelled by the evening.
Say one thing for the lying, cheating bastards of Cirque Kadabra, they knew how to put on a show. The circus was an inferno of colour and light, defeating even the bright glare of the sinking sun. A kaleidoscope of ribbons, pennants and bunting stuffed the spaces between the twinkling lanterns. Every colour that had a name, and even some without, shone brightly. Checkerboard and pinstripe tied it all together, miles of it, wrapping around every corner the circus had to offer, hugging the glowing stages and booths of those who had not been picked for the main show. There were no hard feelings about it. They all knew their place.
Big Jud was already sprawled on his cushions, busy nibbling grapes. Hoarse Hannifer sat in his booth with his fingers templed, waiting to be tested. Rhin had half the mind to warm him up, to see what his greatest fear was, but he already had a pretty good idea.
Shan was there too, sitting on a chair and surrounded by mirrors, practising her wild grins. So was Devan Ford, together with his other bulging strongmen. Though he was lucky; he was also going to be performing in the big tent, with Yara the Lightning herself.
The sky was of a more natural beauty, burnt orange and streaked with high cloud, which was gilded yellow at the edges by the moribund rays of the summer sun. It sat like a squashed lemon on the horizon. Buildings were etched black against it, a spire here, a dome there—all so grand.
By the time Rhin reached the tent it was already time to leave again. He decided to change on the fly, and when he made it back to Neams, who was busy seeing to one of his mopish bears, the faerie was still trying to shrug a tunic on over his armour and wings.
‘Just in time,’ Neams rasped. The bear snuffled at the faerie, whispering something in a language Rhin had never heard. And he had heard most in his two-hundred and thirty-six years. He shrugged to the poor beast.
‘I think I just heard a bell ringing at the Ivory House,’ he said.
‘With those ears of yours, no doubt,’ croaked Neams. ‘Looks like it’s time. Take your place.’
‘Aye,’ Rhin replied, hopping inside his cage and shimmering into nothing. He waited patiently for Neams to leave, drawing the last few curtains from the tall cages in his wake, before he slipped out between the bars. Just as he and Merion had agreed.
Rhin stuck an arm through the cage and his breastplate clanged against the iron. The faerie smirked. Neams had already switched his cage for one with narrower bars, just as expected. So the games had begun already then. Thank the Roots for being prepared. Rhin felt for the hidden blade at his hip.
The black knife whispered as it slid from its sheath. With a buzz of his wings, he was up at the lock, hacking the teeth from the mechanism with a fistful of Fae Steel. It made iron look like old wood. It took barely a matter of moments for the lock to spring open, gutted like a fish.
Rhin hopped to the dust, shut the door behind him, and crept after Neams. The faerie followed the shadows, walking the perimeters of the cages, ears pricking with the snuffling, padding, and slithering of the fellow inmates of this gaudy prison. Rhin had half a mind to slash all the locks and see which one could sink a tooth into Neams first. Then he wondered what Lincoln would think of that. And Merion.
The beast-keeper had taken a spot just outside the entrance. There were grinning lanterns at his feet, and he was busy hanging them from a line above his head. Rhin could hear him humming, warming up his throat, ready to entice the crowd. But he was having some trouble. His voice cr
acked like parched earth every time he spoke above a whisper. Rhin grinned, and thanked whatever boot, fist, or club it was that had been so kind as to teach him a lesson.
Rhin chose his own spot, just behind and to the left of Neams, where he could easily disappear into a low bush. He took a breath, keeping his spells strong, and leant against a guide-rope, waiting.
Sure enough, the bells of the Ivory House rang again, and before long the sound of excited, brandy-fuelled chatter reached their ears. Neams rubbed his greasy paws.
They gathered respectfully at the entrance, washing up on the shores of Cirque Kadabra like an eager tide. Two-hundred of the New Kingdom’s finest, waiting for the best of them to arrive. And arrive he did, to the tune of hearty applause and a smattering of cheers. Even with his powerful eyes, Rhin struggled to see anything but a tall man in a tall hat through the blaze of lights.
People are fascinating things to watch. The faerie had discovered that just days after escaping Shanarh and Undering. Though none are more fascinating than the pompous ones, and this sort, the sort busy flooding the paths between the booths and tents, were an entirely new breed of pompous.
The men were dressed up like penguins, wrapped in black suits, sporting white gloves and low hats, brandies in hand. The women seemed to be waging silent wars against one another, despite the smiles lingering behind lace fans. Their corsets battled and their dresses fought to be the thinnest, the frilliest, or the most flamboyant. It was a vicious struggle.
Politicians, secretaries of state, judges, generals, celebrities, and lords and ladies from across the sea, they all fell in like a long shadow behind Lincoln. Watching the Red King lead them was like watching a long knife dragging a tablecloth free of its table, hauling everything in its wake. Lincoln alone led the charge, striding forth with his shoulders back and his pace confident. Even though it was a tall stovepipe hat sitting on his head instead of a crown, he wore a powerful air of royalty about him. His face, decorated with a beard so precise it hurt to look at, was calm and friendly, weathered by age, wisdom, and the field of battle. He towered over his peers, a giant to Rhin even from a hundred yards away. The crowd did not dare to outpace him, clamouring at his back along with his many guards, tall hats on firm and balancing rifles on their shoulders.
Only one person walked beside him, and that was his wife, dressed in a long pale dress and wearing a garland of flowers in her dark hair. Every king must have a queen, so they say, and Mary was Lincoln’s. Queen Mary, as she had been affectionately dubbed.
It did not take long for Cirque Kadabra to steal the crowd’s attention, and it began to fragment. People were drawn to the attractions like iron filings around a magnet. Rhin waited patiently for them to notice the zoo. He wanted to see the look on Neams’ face when he realised he had lost the faerie. His star attraction, or so the painted board to Rhin’s left proclaimed.
As the beast-keeper’s rasping was proving utterly useless, he had resorted to waving his arms and grinning like an idiot. Neams nodded and smiled as a few dignitaries broke from watching Devan lift ridiculously heavy things, and wandered closer.
Once the trickle became a steady stream, Rhin snuck back to his cage, darting between the legs and coattails of the gathering crowds. With a squeak and a clang, he was in place, utterly invisible. That was a good thing, considering the size of his grin.
One by one, the crowd gathered. They chuckled and they peered, craning their necks and squinting for all their worth to spot the faerie. When Lincoln finally appeared, his head still brushing the cloth ceiling even though his hat loitered in his hands, the crowd parted like warm butter to let him and Mary through. Neams followed like a loyal hound.
‘Witness our star attraction, Sir. A faerie from beyond the Iron Ocean. A wild beast, ain’t no hiding the truth, Sir,’ Neams was rasping at them, excitedly. He gestured towards the cage, and as one, the crowd leant forward.
Silence: it never lasts long when the jig is up. This one lasted barely ten seconds before the muttering began. The word ‘hoax’ filtered between the cramped shoulders and brandy glasses. Rhin’s keen ears heard all.
Neams was sweating. His eyes flicked from the cage to King Lincoln and back again. He laughed nervously and whacked the cage bars with his switch, but Rhin did not move. He was too busy trying to suppress a snigger.
‘Just shy, Sir, that’s all,’ Neams whispered. A few titters from the crowd now. More sweating from the beast-keeper.
Rhin chose his moment perfectly. He reached forward, pushed the door open, and strode out, tensing his spell of invisibility as hard as he dared without popping an eye out of its socket. There were a few naive gasps, and then a wave of laughter from the crowd. They thought Neams a charlatan, the so-called faerie just a cheap trick of the hinges.
Lincoln just rubbed his dark beard and chuckled. ‘Shy, or perhaps he believes in better living conditions, Sir,’ he said, in a rumbling earthquake of a voice. More laughter followed, and Neams swallowed something hard and painful. ‘Shall we?’ Lincoln added with a smile, before escorting Mary from the zoo.
‘Rhin!’ Neams hissed, when the last of them had filtered away. ‘Rhin, you yella’ bastard, get out here!’
But there came no answer. Just a cackle from a hyena several cages down. Rhin was already long gone, striding across the sun-scorched grass between the wagons and tents, where the shadows were long and the paths quiet. Darkness was descending. The clouds had become bolder, streaking across the bruised sky. It would not be long before the Bloodmoon chose to rise. Time to get into position.
His tent was in sight when a frigid wind blew across him, making the skin of his arms pimple, something which faeries are far from accustomed to. It was enough to stop him dead in his tracks, to make him look down in confusion at his arms. A hand strayed to the knife at his belt.
The wind blew again, keener still, and Rhin found himself shivering. Something throbbed in his left hand. Something ominous. His fingers slipped from the steel blade to the pine-knife, thrust through his belt.
‘Not now,’ Rhin breathed, his throat quivering. ‘Please, not now.’ With a schnick, he pulled the knife free and held it low, pointing backwards. He forced himself to move. Legs leaden, he had to jolt them into life with a thrust of his wings. Sword. Merion. The words went round and round his head until he was pushing through the tent-flap and scrabbling under the pillow for his blade.
It was then that he heard it. The wailing of his nightmares, a piercing whine that hunted the very core of his ears. Bone-chilling and hollow it was, like the dying cry of a starving child. It clutched Rhin’s heart and strangled its chambers. The faerie gasped as he fought off the terror, the bean sidhe’s poison. ‘Not now!’ he snarled. Not this night.
The tent around him began to flutter, its walls rippling like a wind-chased sea. The poles groaned and the pegs creaked. Rhin took a knee, buckling the rat-leather scabbard to his belt. When he was done, he pushed his knuckles to the dirt, and burst into a sprint. His wings thrummed as they propelled him. He would have given a greyhound a run for its coin.
Rhin burst into the night, breath escaping as steam. There was an eerie glow eroding the shadows, death-pale and the green of mould. The faerie winced as his hand spasmed again, the sword nearly flying out of his grasp as he pumped his arms like pistons.
A shape loomed, dripping shadow and mist, its face a skeletal grin. Rhin spun as he ran, raking the pine-knife hard against the apparition’s face. A lost voice within its bones howled and it melted back to the earth, to whatever hell it had crawled from.
Rhin sprinted on, his lungs aflame in the cold air. ‘Not now!’ he yelled, verging on a scream. Not since the tunnels of Carn’Erfjan had he felt such throbbing, twisting fear. He had seen the pink insides of a troll that day, before he’d cut himself free. Now, given the choice, he would have taken that over this. A troll, he could kill.
Another shape loomed, a ghoul etched with green light. No more than a skull with a body of rags and vap
our, and yet it was enough to set the faerie’s legs trembling, like a rookie in his first battle. Rhin cursed himself as he dodged its lunging claws, its rags crackling, and its face agape in a piercing wail.
‘By the Roots and all that’s buried!’ he panted to himself as he fled headlong for the bright lights of the circus. The bean sidhe did not like bright lights, or so the olden lore proclaimed, but would dare them when given no choice. Rhin desperately hoped they had another choice. He certainly did not.
Yet another banshee arose from the shadows to scream at him, standing between him and his escape: a small hole between the attractions. How the crowds of Cirque Kadabra had not heard this terrifying ruckus, he did not know. Rhin just knew he had to duck, and fast.
The claws stole a single strand of hair from his head as they swiped overhead. Rhin’s face was a tight mask of hope and daring. As he skidded under the swing, dust flying from his heels, his wings barely holding him up, he swung both his blades. Fae steel and pine, cutting through the shadow to where bone could be notched, maybe even broken. Rhin threw his all into those swings, arms outstretched and knuckles whiter than snow.
The sword hit first, the Fae steel cutting through the darkness and rags, and biting into something hard and ancient beneath. Not deep, but enough to elicit a high pitched wail from the terrifying thing as it reared up. It towered over Rhin. But the sword’s wooden brother fared better—much better.
The pine-knife found flesh. How, Rhin did not know, but he knew the feel of flesh under a blade. Knew it far too well. The bean sidhe shrank back, screaming like iron dragged over slate. The pine-knife was almost taken with it, but Rhin yanked hard as he scrambled to his feet.
He burst into the blinding light of the circus, instantly tensing himself. He felt the spell wrap him, stealing him from sight. Rhin dove behind a barrel and crouched there, watching the dark gap with saucer-eyes. Mist trailed after him, groping like fingers. Rhin fought to temper the thudding of his heart, his blades atremble and ready. But nothing came. He heard the wailing grow faint, as if cheated. The faerie sagged to the dust and let himself exhale.