by Chris Turner
“The sweet maiden who wears threads of gossamer over her pearly-white loins pouts. She pines with ever the look of desolation for a lover lost! It evokes a catharsis, which inspires me to compose an ode—which I will render on the fly.” Weavil gave a dreamy-eyed sigh.
Baus rolled up his eyes. He attempted a protest, but Weavil had already launched on his impromptu opus:
“Hearken and come ye in times of yore,
When a maiden’s enthralled cry for August love,
Waxed in Wagwarth glade and was not, or would not be fulfilled,
Oh piteous amour! Fickle and sightless are your eyes!
Come to my side! Come to my bosom, my dove!
Fly fleet-footed forever!
Thy ministrations of plangent affection shall not touch,
Thy young buck’s noblest, doughtiest chords of—”
Baus interrupted with a peremptory wave. “I think I detect the unmistakable sneers of passer-bys.”
Weavil gave a frown of injured pride. “Rubes. They know nothing of good art.” The two walked in silence.
By the time they had reached the end of the fair, the rain-heavy storm clouds had disappeared. Through the hasty wrapping of snow-fence, the nearby seashore remained a ponderous plain of rising swells. Tangy air bit at their nostrils. Below, the tide had nearly washed over the mud isles, leaving behind a scattering of seaweed and shells. The beach was instantly full of clams and debris. Hopping gulls poked about for crab mites.
The crowd had grown to appreciable numbers and Baus and Weavil were surprised, also alerted to animated sounds issuing from a nearby aisle. They exchanged critical glances. Through the throng they spied a to-do of gathered persons. The two elbowed their way forth and stood standing in a wide, populated alley. Yellow polka-dotted clowns drifted from booth to booth. A stage of impressive proportions occupied a triple space at the end of the lane, backed with timber and gay terracloth. Above the platform a silver awning ballooned with ornate embroidery: depicting fire dragons with fantastic sickle moons, butterflies floated in cloud-mist, soaring albatrosses. Front and centre stood a buxom woman. She assisted a confidently-dressed gentleman garbed in a plush black gown whose costume was lustrously embellished with grey moon-sickles. A conical top hat, midnight black, was perched on his crown. A wide belt of silver silk circled his waistline and was fitted with a star-shaped buckle, and his feet were pressed into long silver shoes, curled at the toes.
Baus scowled. The outfit seemed overdone. A puff of green smoke wafted up the stage. The handkerchief in the magician’s hand became a green-billed canary which flew off, shrilling banshee cries. The enchanter set two blue balls rolling across the stage; then, upon a command, the balls became red spheres twice their size and burst into red plumes of confetti before bouncing off the edge of the stage. Baus and Weavil blinked. The plumes lurched ten feet into the air and showered the first rows of spectators with liquid sprays, a scene which caused angry grunts, at which the magician tendered only smug apologies.
A gigantic toad suddenly limped its way across the stage. The entertainer seemed astonished and gestured implausibly. The trick seemed to backfire. The toad did not seem to playact as required. The creature stared blinking at the magician before it was hastily shooed off.
The magician performed a triumphant bow, then wrapped a limb around the waist of his scantily-clad partner. She swan-swooped on her back and looked out from behind moist, glistening eyes.
Baus rolled his eyes. Not insubstantial hand-clapping spread through the crowd and Baus and Weavil were ill-impressed and flashed each other bored looks but while taking leisure time to move closer.
Inside the snow fence enclosing the exhibition, no less than forty onlookers struggled to gain a better view of the performance: a mixture of upscale folk with their children, fishgutters, cartwrights, masons and dockworkers—all craned necks to behold the wonders that seemed to spring from Nuzbek’s fingertips like candy.
Baus looked left and right. A flag-poled entrance bisected the barrier, no wider than arm’s reach. It allowed bystanders to pass into the enclosure. A smiling attendant wore a white tag on his breast writ ‘Nolpin—stage hand’. He planted feet to one side of the gate; hairy forearms were hooked belligerently across his chest. He wore a neatly ironed pair of orange breeches and leather-corded brown boots and glittering sleeves rolled up to the elbow while an opal earring dangled from his left ear.
Weavil and Baus attempted to bypass the attendant but the gatekeeper thrust out a knuckly fist: “The fee is three cils, as you can plainly see. Step back, or make your coins ready. Paying patrons wish to view the debut show.”
Baus wheezed: “Debut show? Downright robbery! What vendor charges three cils for admission to his kiosk?”
“The great Nuzbek, that’s who,” the gatekeeper sneered.
“Nuzbek, shmusbek!” scoffed Weavil. “We wish to witness this so-called magician.”
“Then lay down your coin. Saunter up the next aisle if you wish gimcracks or curios. Here, you will find only the best entertainment this side of Brislin, tendered by the great Nuzbek.”
Weavil gestured to the snow fence in feigned panic.
The gatekeeper swivelled his neck. Weavil quickly ducked under his arm and slipped through the gate—Baus followed. The gatekeeper could not react fast enough—the two had already merged into the crowd and were couched under a sea of shins.
Weavil laughed. Under Baus’s advice, the two took up a cramped position on the far side of the gathering, so as to be shielded from Nolpin’s roving eyes. They seemed conveniently hidden by two tall heads and were pleased. Edging sidewise, they discerned a badger-like man mounting the stage now, garbed in a gaberdine, swallow-tailed suit. He stood, beaming beside the magician’s pretty aide. “Ladies and Gentlemen!” he cried fulsomely, spreading arms wide. His wagging moustache accentuated his oak-brown ruggedness. “You have witnessed the reputable ‘dancing balloons of Bloom’ and Gomer’s bereavement of magical rebirth, and finally the Carugiain nuptials! The Flight of the Yellow Canary was also part of the package. Now comes the pièce de résistance—‘To Nowhere’, Nuzbek’s final act.”
There came a barrage of applause. The announcer held up a hand. “Please exercise decorum! May I remind you that this is the paragon known as Nuzbek, the same magician of Mosmornon—thaumaturge and miracle-worker, whose fame has spread throughout the lands from Loust to Owlen. He will dare a feat of feats!”
Cheers rocked the gathering.
Baus hissed out a growl to Weavil. “Mosmornon? Where the devil is that?”
Weavil mustered a cheeky grin. “Who knows? Must be a fable. The rogue has made it sound important.”
Baus nodded frowningly. The announcer held up his hands, beckoned for silence. “ . . . Now! During Nuzbek’s following act, the great artist must make room for considerable concentration—a performance including stunning and near impossible thaumaturgics.”
Hushed murmurs rang through the crowd. The announcer ceremoniously departed the stage and on brisk feet a twain of lightly-clad brunettes entered from the side, rolling out a large mirror on four wheels. The crowd was mystified. Nuzbek’s first assistant joined the train and the three halted beside the glass. All flashed winning smiles. They exiting offstage. Nuzbek, meanwhile, adjusted the tilt of the mirror before dabbing a corner with his handkerchief. Satisfied at its congruity, he gave a pretentious bow before conducting three distinguished waves to the crowd.
“Get on with it,” Weavil muttered.
Baus appraised the magician with sardonic disfavour. The man was tall, spare of figure, straight of leg, etched with tangly bluish-black brows. His round, amber eyes protruded from his rather austere face with a hollow-cheeked pomposity, but full of inflexible precociousness. The lips were immeasurably thin, like strips of wire, yet capable of a saturnine curl when necessary. Behind the look, Baus sensed a certain ‘split personality’ that was not comfortable to behold.
The great Nuzbek cleared his t
hroat, allowing the audience to settle down: “Friends! Fans! As my valuable aide, Boulm, has declaimed, I will endeavour to demonstrate a hazardous display of dematerialization.”
Baus and Weavil indulged each other grimacing frowns. “What a hackneyed routine!” hissed Weavil. “Even the most jackleg magician knows the ‘disappearing’ act.”
Nuzbek accepted the crowd’s approbation before he caught the flicker of a fractious response in the crowd.
“Mark well! The feat which I am about to attempt is extremely hazardous. It is unpredictable. Not an exercise to be attempted by the dilettante.”
Weavil cupped his hands and booed. “The demonstration is jejune, ‘Sir Nuzbek’. In fact, every half doodle knows it from here to Owlen.”
Nuzbek craned his neck to see who had spoken. Catching sight of the rodent-like head that bobbed, he contorted his expression into an amused sneer. “Opportunity strikes! What fortune! Perhaps we have a learned pundit in our midst—a savant who would trot up and explain the mechanics of dematerialization?”
A few jesting murmurs came from the front row.
Nuzbek nodded benevolently: “It has been so many years since I graduated from conjuror school—I’m sure we’ll all have need for an analyst.”
Baus rose to attention. “A droll rejoinder, magician. Let us see your mettle. Give us a purely original spectacle—not the time old disappearing act—one never before witnessed!”
Nuzbek paused, pondering with care. “The challenge I must admit, is evocative, though certainly not impossible. Given my expertise, I suppose well within my capacity. Yes . . . a conception very exceptional—even flamboyant!” He gave his knee a jaunty slap. “Consider the dare met, young friend! I will entertain you this evening, at half past seven, with a feat upon feats with other of my fans. Is this to your liking?”
“Very much so!” called Baus.
“Then we are at peace. And your name—so that I may at least know who is my challenger?”
Baus peered about with discomfort. To attract unwanted attention to himself while Uyu and Migor roved unchecked was unwise. In muffled tones, he stated that he was ‘Baus, a fisherman of Heagram,’, and that he was not given to any vanity by divulging any of his other skills.
“No vanity is implied,” assured Nuzbek easily.
“And I,” shouted Weavil importantly, “am a prestigious poet, Weavil of Heagram, who includes myself in the category of ‘challenger’.”
Nuzbek reached in his robe and jotted the names very carefully on a pad before tucking the parchment back into his topcoat. “Very well, Baus and Weavil of Heagram. Consider the agreement sealed! I have a similar request to make of you two. That you step forward as volunteers.”
Baus and Weavil exchanged uncomfortable looks.
Craftiness bloomed on Nuzbek’s face. “Ha, normally I would intrude upon my associate, the vivacious Nadek to be assistant, but for lack of a more impromptu test, I believe your services will be apt.”
Baus demurred. “I must decline, master Nuzbek. Perhaps my colleague,Weavil, would care to inject himself as a willing participant.”
Weavil pushed forward hands and raised an angry cry but Baus urged him on. “Come, Weavil, it is only fitting!”
“I am no more a toy than a lab rat to this shamster! Get me away from this charlatan.”
“Charlatan, is it?” Nuzbek croaked. “Shamster? Your words sting, Weavil! But alas, I suppose everyone has his hecklers . . .” He addressed his audience with a grave earnest. “Is there no soul venturesome enough to become part of my extraordinary act?”
An awkward silence ensued—followed by uneasy muttering from the gathering.
Nuzbek paced back and forth. “I cannot wait till cockcrow to receive word from a single volunteer! Come now, are you pantywaists? Where are all the brave souls? The redoubtable Baus and Weavil have elected to forgo a momentous opportunity. Why should stalwarts as these refuse my invitation? ’Tis not known. How are matters to rectify themselves, faced with such dull torpor before my eyes?”
Despite the appeal, no member of the audience came forth.
Nuzbek’s snort was akin to a jackdaw’s. “I see that I must sweeten the pot then. Alas! Cravens and duffers! My patience you test! For the first man or woman, or even beast, who presents himself as a suitable candidate, I offer ten cils.”
There was a frantic dash for the stage. Surly teens with expressions of zeal, tough old mariners with gap teeth, barefooted children with moony grins; blue-bonneted women with frills and lace, hunched-over dockworkers scrambling like wolves at feeding time. Nuzbek was amused by the unseemly rush. He leaped to the stage’s edge to hold up a hindering hand. “Desist! I order all access barred!”
The participants ignored the decree.
Nuzbek, unamused, stomped on the fingers of several stage-clamberers. “Let us exercise propriety here! Storming my stage like a bunch of ignorant bumpkins is intolerable, especially on a platform as expensive as this.”
The mob subsided, grumbling; Nuzbek smoothed out the back of his gown. “That is better. Now, you!”—he pointed a bony finger at a dowdy frump with quivering lip who clung close to the stage. “What is your name?”
“Conikraul.”
“How ladylike! Nadek, help Miss Conikraul on stage. There’s a lass. Ho-ha! No need to struggle! Mind her sun bonnet and froggish parka. Get Zlanda out to assist you, if her weight is too prodigious.”
Conikraul resented the remark about her weight. With indecorous effort, Zlanda and Nadek hauled the woman up on stage. Propelled by the aides, she stood beside Nuzbek in front of the mirror, wearing a confused frown.
Nuzbek addressed the audience with a patronizing glare: “First of all, let it be know that it is of utmost necessity to—”
“What about my cils?” demanded Conikraul.
Nuzbek’s eyes glittered. “First, never interrupt me; second, miss, your stipend shall be forthcoming at the conclusion of this episode. No earlier. Now, as I was saying, I shall prepare the requisite unguents . . .” He lifted a menacing finger, brought forth two tubes from air, rousing more delightful murmurs. “A bit of background,” he added, “these gels are to be smeared on the exposed areas of Conikraul’s body, which as you notice, include shins, forearms, neck and visage. Then, as habitual, the subject is to be doused with wintergill, and a generous spray of gautz.”
Conikraul raised a cry, at which someone suggested a jesting supplement.
Nuzbek arched a questioning ear to the audience. “What need I of unguents when my powers are all-encompassing? For this reason alone, hounds: the place where Conikraul is to go is fraught with danger and debasement! Do not doubt it! The place is one of abysms and abysses! She is to enter a world of Stygian gloom, a place devoid of kind thought, where she will be presented before a line of demonesses and dark dorlords and tested for the mettle of her essence. And here I do not fib!—the spirits from the other side may decide her unworthy. Maybe they shall spare her rigour. But harbour no misgivings! I have administered the proper unguents, which are of nature too puissant to name, yet steeped in the ritual hours of litany. If Conikraul is to waver in the dusky weft of chaos, perchance claimed by the demonesses—alas! With regret, she will not return. But, invested with the agents I subscribed and drenched with the goodness of my will and my formidable magics, she shall return to the world as we know it, unscathed from the claws of ‘Ruthifara’, the demoness witch!”
Never before had the crowd heard such necromantic prophecy and they roared out a single note. Conikraul wailed and struggled to fight her way offstage. Nuzbek signalled Nadek. Nadek and Zlanda scooted her back toward the mirror, positioned dead centre alongside the magician.
“Do not fear, child.” Accustomed to this quality of voice, Nuzbek shook his head in contempt. Weavil noted somewhat sourly how he had been barely spared such lampoon treatment, no thanks to Baus’s jocular suggestion that he volunteer as a guinea pig. Conikraul thrashed about and was subdued by Nuzbek’s four assistants
. Nuzbek applied more unguent with snaps of hand while Conikraul’s exposed skin seemed to shrink with the application of the gel. The magician proceeded to chant while Conikraul’s impassioned outbursts went unheard. The crowd stared gap-eyed. They were met with the magician’s casual withdrawal from his robe of a strange ebon rod which he tapped on her crown and which froze all her faculties to ice.
Baus eyed the device with bewilderment. The rod exuded a macabre flux which seemed genuine, and judging from its effect, an inestimable power, something which he would not resent tucked in his own pocket.
Anticipation ran rife in the air. Nuzbek’s droning chant escalated to a ghastly cadence at which the crowd murmured in fright.
Weavil bared his teeth. Baus whirled, detecting a sudden unnatural disturbance to his left. Not surprised was he to spy Uyu and Migor elbowing their way in his direction.
He tugged at Weavil’s sleeve, grunting his annoyance.
“Go, if you must,” reproved Weavil, “I wish only to view the performance—as clownish as it appears.”
Weavil shifted about, but was conferring to empty air. Baus had disappeared. A heavyset man with huge, punch-bowl face joggled the poet aside. Another massive individual kneed him in the thigh—not accidentally either, and Weavil was less than pleased as he was pitched to his knees. The two boothkeepers blundered on like sneak fighters after their quarry. Weavil shouted for retribution. He was about to inject further outrage into the tumult, but Nuzbek raised his arms in frightful crescendo and shouted a single, malign word:
Agarharunkujuhara!
A ghastly explosion ripped across the stage. Ghoulish plumes billowed outward from the place where Conikraul had stood. All forms were obscured under a nacreous, mushroom-like cloud.
The fog suddenly began to dissipate. Only Nuzbek’s tall, wraith-like figure emerged from the fumes, with an exultant leer on his face. Conikraul was nowhere to be seen.
“Kudos!” The magician touched a jubilant finger to his nose then thrust it at the quivering mirror. “Conikraul has vacated herself to the nesisphere—behind the magic mirror!”