by Ben Galley
They smiled and they chatted for a few minutes with each one, their eyes sneaking over their bright clothes and strange luggage, their tattoos and obvious talents; the muscled, corded arms of Devan; or the monstrousness of Big Jud, and the way he sweated buckets just talking. They were peculiar and yet they were alive in ways Merion could not quite yet fathom. Each talked differently. Each looked far-flung and different, as if their individuality had been painstakingly and intricately carved, each quality analysed and exaggerated.
The circus folk grinned the widest when talking about the circus, or how long they had known Yara, or the places they had seen. They painted Merion such a vivid picture he was almost exhausted by it. It was like trying to read ten books in an hour. By the end of it he felt dizzy.
Lilain and Lurker seemed happy with it all. Lurker was even gifted a pouch of tobacco by Jackabo, the tall and muscular fire-eater. The prospector packed a pipe in the blink of an eye, and spent a few minutes sharing it with the man, something Merion had never seen. Jackabo blew smoke rings, and Merion had flicked them apart.
Merion smiled and shook their hands, receiving more than a few charcoal or grease smears in the process. There were plenty of others that they did not meet, and even though they nodded and waved, they did not pause to chat or learn names. Merion got the distinct impression they were being introduced to the core of the circus, its inner circle.
By the time they had spiralled around the main tent several times, and shaken far too many hands than Merion liked to think about, it was several hours past noon, and the circus was quickly vanishing before their eyes.
‘Our time is nearly at an end here,’ Yara said, as she kicked dust, absently strolling beside Merion, half a dozen paces behind Lurker and Lilain.
‘Then I guess ours is too.’ He felt a little unease growing in his chest, though for whatever reason, he hadn’t the faintest clue.
‘Where are you headed, might I ask?’
Merion told the truth. ‘We’re headed east, hopefully to Boston or New York to find passage back to London,’ he explained.
‘Going home, I take it?’ Yara licked her teeth again.
The young Hark nodded. ‘That’s right, back to my father’s house. Where I belong.’
‘Your father waits for you there?’
Merion mulled over that for a moment. ‘In his own way, I suppose he does,’ he replied, in a low voice.
‘My home is also over the sea, where the borders of the Prussian Kingdom meet those of the Rosiyan Empire.’
‘So you’re even further away than I am,’ Merion replied. It was boyish logic, but true nonetheless.
‘That I am, Master Harlequin,’ Yara said, and she gazed off into the distance, narrowing her piercing green eyes. ‘But I am making my way back slowly. Town by town, we are heading in the right direction. Many of us want to see the shores of our homes again– or in my case, the mountains, where the only way to catch a rabbit is with a dagger.’ Yara flicked her hand and there was a flash of steel as a dagger appeared between her fingers. Merion had to laugh. She winked at him. ‘That is how I learnt,’ she said, and with another flash of her hands, the dagger was gone.
‘So it would appear as though we are both headed east, and for the Iron Ocean,’ Yara affirmed, after a few paces in silence. It was of course a statement of considerable depth, not just idle conversation. Yara looked down at him, a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. ‘You should come with us, travel with us.’
‘I …’ Merion began, torn between success and the worry of the morning.
Yara raised her voice so the others could hear.
‘You, your aunt, and your friend. Lurker … Lilain, what do you say?’
Lurker and Lilain stopped and turned, right at the entrance of the circus.
‘We travel east together. You can journey with us, eat with us, be a part of our family.’
Yara’s words rattled out like bullets from a Gatling. She was clearly excited at the prospect, but Merion felt his unease grow. They had barely spent a day with these people, and for most of it, Merion had been tied to a chair, with a knife in his face. He bit his lip as Yara searched his eyes. A few more of the circus folk had gathered around, hearing Yara’s invitation. He looked around, trying to escape her emerald stare.
‘Aunt Lilain?’
‘I can’t speak for you, Merion, but I do know it would beat walking alone.’
Then to the prospector: ‘Lurker?’
Lurker sniffed. ‘To put it plainly, they don’t seem like bad folk.’
Yara chuckled. ‘Why thank you,’ she said.
Merion was still undecided. He could not shake off that wariness. Could he simply ignore it? Learn to live with it? The circus itself was incredible, alluring in every way possible, but it was the ache of his wrists that bothered him, and the other side of this keen, smiling woman that he had witnessed in the gloom of the candlelight. And of course, there was that inbuilt inability of any Empire-born to accept hospitality at the risk of being rude. That, for some reason, was easier to cling onto than his misgivings about Yara and her intentions.
‘I think,’ he began, but he trailed off. He could not form words around what he truly thought. ‘We’ll have to decline. Thank you, of course, but we wouldn’t want to take up space, or get in the way. We have to be on our way.’
Yara’s face fell as Lurker and Lilain swapped confused glances. A few sighs came from around them.
The circus master began to nod, looking more than a little disappointed. ‘I understand,’ Yara said, extending a hand. Merion half-expected a knife to be balanced in it, but it was empty, and waiting. Merion reached out to shake it.
At first he did not even notice. He was too mesmerised by the glint in Yara’s eye to feel the strangeness in the handshake. It was the twitch of her little finger that brought him crashing back to the moment. Merion looked down as he folded his own little finger between their hands, and followed suit. A strange smile spread across his face, fighting with his deep confusion. His mouth dropped open, but no words came out. He was experiencing one of those rare times in his life, which he believed was called speechlessness.
‘What colour is blood?’ Yara asked.
Merion could only summon a whisper. ‘There are many shades …’
There was a round of applause from around them, piling on the confusion.
Yara held her arms wide. ‘Now do you see why we wanted you to stay? Why we were so wary of you, Merion?’
The young Hark began to nod, letting it all slide into place. It made sense to him now. Not entirely, of course, but he felt the unease fading from his chest, like the sun chasing the night away. ‘You’re bloodrushers,’ he said, barely above a whisper.
Yara nodded, stepping close to whisper back. ‘Most of us are, yes. We’ve even got a couple of letters.’
‘Did you say letters?’ Lilain stepped forward with a look on her face Merion had never seen before.
‘Yes indeed,’ Yara said, smiling.
Lilain lifted her chin. ‘Then you can have one more, for the time being,’ she said, smiling right back.
Yara clasped Lilain’s hand with both of hers. ‘Excellent! Now, we must be going. There are plenty more towns out there that will gawp and shed their coin. And the road is a better place for stories,’ she told them. The folk about them scampered off to do her bidding. She was so effortless in her authority, Merion was secretly impressed.
‘Let us see if we can find you something to do, Master Harlequin,’ she said. ‘Come on.’
*
Bit by bit, the circus was broken down into its parts, until it could be packed into wagons and carts or carried on backs. It was incredible, the way it all folded, collapsed, and coiled up. The folk went about their work with quick hands, honed by practice. It took no time at all. Even Merion found it easy, helping to fold the big tent with the others.
Barely an hour had passed between handshake and horseback, or to be precise, ponyback. The y
oung Hark had been assigned a pony to ride, and to lead it when it tired. It was a pony which normally entertained the children, giving rides and pinching carrots from pockets.
Merion swiftly realised he had no charm with animals, especially the equine kind: Gorm, his piebald Shohari pony, had not listened to a single command; Jake the magpie had never given him a kind look; and now this one, this little white mare, had swiftly decided that she was in charge, and that Merion was just luggage. At least she wasn’t wandering off course, but followed alongside the head wagon, Yara’s wagon, where she and Itch, the one with the tortured skin, sat comfortably, though jogged by every rut and pebble.
Merion watched the baking country roll by, listening to Lurker and Lilain’s conversation behind him. They were trying to work out which shade each performer put in their belly. Merion could just about hear them over the rattle of the wheels and the clip-clop of the pony, whom he had just that minute decided to name Berk.
‘Jackabo has to drink the wisp shade. Those smoke rings weren’t exactly normal now, were they?’ Lilain was whispering.
Lurker just muttered something, a low rumble.
‘Or phoenix, but that’s a hard shade to come by. A char, or salamander would be more likely, and have the same effect, maybe a blend.
‘What about that Itch Magrey fellow?’ whispered Lurker. Merion barely caught it.
‘Toad.’
‘Not dragon?’
‘An even tougher shade to find.’
‘Maybe it’s easier for them, movin’ about. You should go see what the letters have got.’
‘Big Jud has to be a feathercoat. The penguin shade. Has to be.’
‘And you know what? I reckon those Dolmer twins had too much of the wolf or monkey shade. Back when they was little. Heard of that happenin’ before.’
‘You may just be right there. I’m impressed, John Hobble.’
‘Thank ’ee, Ma’am,’ grunted Lurker, tipping his hat, careful not to tip it too far lest a sleeping faerie roll out.
Merion smiled and shook his head. Those two were a strange pair when it was just the two of them, blabbering away, assuming that nobody was listening in. Odd peas in an odder pod. The boy turned his ears to Itch and Yara’s easy conversation, as they sat sprawled on the driver’s bench of the lead wagon. Itch wore a bright blue waistcoat over a yellow shirt and red neckerchief. He positively glowed in the bright sunlight. He wore a cracked black leather hat low over his bristled, chiselled face. His tongue wagged back and forth in that thick western accent of his.
Merion found himself reaching up to explore his own cheeks. His fingers found only bare skin and fine hairs—no more than fluff. Merion inwardly grumbled to himself. There seemed to be some connection between respect and authority and facial hair out in the wild west, and Merion was bored of being looked at like a child.
What child takes a life, never mind several? Merion asked himself, yet again. No point in painting the shit a shade of gold to dress it up. The innocence that comes with childhood had been blasted away when he’d driven a bullet deep into Castor Serped’s chest, when his finger had twitched on the trigger of the Mistress. Hell, it was lost the moment he sucked down that first drop of blood.
The problem resided in the fact he didn’t feel the slightest bit like a child any more. In fact, he felt far from it. Change had come and played puppet master, tugging his strings this way and that. After his last night in Fell Falls, it was nigh impossible to deny it. Whether he wanted to or not, Merion had both mentally and literally put a match to his childhood, and stepped back to watch it burn. Yet here he was, still being called ‘boy’ or ‘son’ by others, and it turned Merion’s lip to scorn. He hoped this circus would dare to be different. There was a polite cough, and Merion blinked.
‘You asleep or somethin’, lad?’ Itch Magrey was staring at him beneath his hat. His calloused fingers rasped against his black stubble as he fulfilled his namesake.
‘Yes, I mean, no, Sir,’ Merion smiled politely, shaking himself from his introspection. ‘What was that?’
‘I asked if you was enjoyin’ the ride? And there ain’t no need to call me “sir”,’ he grunted, in a voice as tortured as his skin.
Merion couldn’t avoid looking at Itch’s hand, at the whorl of brown scarring that was his skin. ‘It beats walking,’ he replied, remembering his manners. ‘Hands down.’
‘Well I should hope so,’ Yara said, piping up over Itch’s shoulder. ‘Mister Magrey, why not get some exercise and walk Rizl. Let Merion sit up here so he can learn about my circus.’ She waved her hand at him.
‘Who’s Rizl?’ Merion asked.
‘The pony you’re ridin’, lad,’ Itch informed him, a fraction on the stern side, as the man hopped down from the wagon and reached for the pony’s reins. Merion preferred the name Berk.
‘Hop down then.’
Merion did so as gracefully as he could, slipping only once. Itch tutted. ‘I’m not good with ponies,’ Merion told him bluntly, before chasing after the wagon.
The driver’s bench was definitely far more comfortable than the hot leather saddle that had been starting to grate on his buttocks. Yara handed him a flask. ‘What is it?’ Merion asked. He had developed a natural distrust of other peoples’ drinks since meeting the Serpeds.
‘Water. Nice and cold,’ she replied, her Rosiyan accent sharp, hollow in the vowels.
Merion sipped it and found she was right. It felt as though waves were crashing inside his parched mouth. He hadn’t had a drink since breakfast and now the sun was high, as fierce as ever. Yara drummed on her knees while he took a few more gulps, and then drank some herself. After wiping her lips, she hummed. ‘Do you know what I have learnt over the years, Master Harlequin, travelling with this circus and the many before it?’
‘Not a clue,’ said Merion, with a smile. He could get used to sitting on a wagon.
‘I have learnt it is always easier to ask questions than to try and guess the answers.’
Merion looked out over the rocks and swaying yellow grasses. The desert was once again giving way to prairie. This time it seemed to be more permanent. ‘I don’t follow.’
Yara chuckled. ‘How about this: you ask me what you want to know, and I shall tell you, instead of me spinning you a long story that you may not want to hear?’
That certainly appealed to Merion’s curiosity. ‘Alright,’ he replied, daring to rub his hands. ‘That sounds fair.’ He bit his lip as he thought. The first question is always the toughest to choose. ‘How did you know I was a rusher? We could have been thieves, murderers even, on the run?’ That was of course true in many ways, but Yara did not need to know that.
The circus master tapped her nose. ‘A good question, and in truth, I did not, but that is where our handshake comes in. You might have just thought me strange, and wandered on your way, thinking nothing more. I had an inkling. Nobody stares at animals like rushers do. Like the look you had in your eye, when I took you back to the Shohari.’
Merion mulled that over. He had found himself staring at the beasts a little longer than perhaps necessary, wondering what their blood could hold for him.
‘Alright then, what brings you all the way out here to the frontiers?’ he asked next.
‘That is easy. This circus was born in a place like this,’ she began, waving her hand out over the desert. ‘In little towns where no day is ever the same, and people have to rely on their innate talents to survive. All it takes is a few performers or tricksters forming a troupe here and there. They cross paths, start talking,’ Yara put her fingers together. ‘An idea is formed. It was the same for Cirque Kadabra, born out of the ashes of campfires and the swilling of whisky, out of the life and love of the greatest circus master that ever lived, Kon Kadabra, magician and bloodrusher. He had a plan to protect us, others like him with a taste and a knack for blood and stages. He wanted to keep us together, safe, and make sure our dying art did not die so quickly. It will outlive him at least. He died in Jan
uary. Cancer of the lungs, they said. Before the Mother took him into her arms, he had planned for us to come back west, and tour the old towns, to show wild America how far we had come.’
Merion nodded, taking it all in, trying to manhandle it into place in his head. ‘So where do you fit in? You weren’t born here, so how did you come to know this Kadabra fellow?’
‘Kon was a master salesman as well as a master showman. You see, bloodrushers are born to perform. A perfect little swindle, as he used to call it. We show them true magick, and they dismiss it as tricks. And because of that little lie, we can stun their minds with the truth. That is what he used to say. On stage we got to be ourselves, and the crowds flooded in. Kon toured the east, up and down the coast, and then jumped the ocean and toured Francia, Prussia, even your Empire. When he came to Rosiya, I was there. I had heard the rumours of a circus coming to Siyat, my hometown. It was a special one, my parents had told my friend Spetzig and I, as they walked us towards the lights. They knew what we were, and they wanted us gone. Rushing is unlucky, in the old country. It is a curse, the sort that brings pitchforks and torches to your door. We were brought to Kon, and he welcomed us in. I followed him for nine years.’
‘May I ask what his shade was?’
‘Kelpie, have you ever heard of it?’ Yara asked.
Merion shook his head.
‘It was how he did his greatest trick. The shade of the water-horse lets you breathe underwater for as long as the rushing lasts. He would lock himself up in chains and padlocks and throw himself into a glass tank, full to the brim. He would wait just long enough for the people to start screaming before he burst out, chains in one hand, hat in the other.’ Yara sighed wistfully, gazing at nothing in particular, a smile frozen on her lips.
‘That sounds fun,’ Merion replied. He was swiftly beginning to like this idea. All he had ever done with his shades was fight or survive. It might be fun to be able to show off with it.