Pantomime Page 2

  The man walked across next, and he was even more talented. He must have been an acrobat for decades since he did not hesitate as he stepped onto the thin rope to perform. He walked across it as naturally as though he were strolling through a park.

  Once he crossed the tightrope, the man clutched the delicate wooden handle of the trapeze and pushed himself into midair. The woman grasped her trapeze and dived after him.

  A flautist trilled a solo as they flew through the air under the canopy of the tent, like sparrows in courtship, flittering close to each other only to coyly dart away again. At times it seemed certain that one would clip the other, but they never did.

  The man shifted, hanging by the crook of his knees instead of his hands. The woman let go, somersaulted in midair, and clasped the man's hands above the wrist.

  They swung together in a human chain. If the man's hands were to slip ever so slightly, the woman would plummet to her death.

  The woman climbed up the man and stood on the top of the trapeze bar, her feet to either side of the man's knees. He changed position and again hung by his hands. They swung together, gaining momentum, and the woman flipped off the trapeze and rotated twice in midair. At the last second, she reached out a hand and grasped her trapeze.

  The aerialists finished to wild applause as they shimmied down the ladder and bowed before exiting.

  The circus ended with the entire cast reappearing. The elephant waved its trunk and clowns wove their way between the acrobats and the trainers, the strong men and the contortionists. All smiled and waved as they bowed.

  The circus had been unlike anything I could ever have imagined and I could not walk away. I wanted to be a part of the magic; create it and wield it with such skill that it looked effortless. I wanted to fly.

  It was the perfect way to lead a completely different life.

  3

  SUMMER: ON DISPLAY

  "The circus and carnival grew in popularity starting in the late 107th century. Scattered funfairs with simple illusions and sideshows evolved into detailed worlds of entertainment, with trained acrobatics, animal shows, feats of human strength and strangeness, and Vestige artefacts to try and add a sense of wonder and magic.

  "Of late, the human oddities have grown stranger and stranger. Are birth defects rising, or are the performers merely growing better at their disguises?"

  A HISTORY OF ELLADA AND ITS COLONIES,

  Professor Caed Cedar, Royal

  Snakewood University

  I jumped out of my seat and squeezed past the burly man and through the crowds before the Policiers had even stirred from their chairs. I was one of the first at the carnival outside, and I smelled sizzling meats and the burning fuel of the gas lanterns strung between poles. The carnival was a long alleyway, flanked with booths in lurid colors, and I was certain I recognized some of the sellers as merchants from the markets of Sicion.

  I wandered amongst the booths, keeping an eye out for the pointed helmets of Policiers. Merchants in mismatched clothing sold jewelry and food. The women had daubed their eyes with kohl and tied their hair with scarves. Many of the merchants were foreign, for their eyes slanted or their skin was darker than Elladans'. They spoke with thick accents or called out to each other in exotic tongues. I started toward a jewelry stall run by a woman with skin as dark as the night and dressed all in scarlet.

  "Come here, my boy," a voice behind me said, startling me from the scarlet-clad woman. It was not a Policier. The ancient man behind his counter motioned for me to come closer. The weathered wooden sign above the booth proclaimed him an "Alcymyst to Cure All Ills and Ails" in a wobbly script. His pale face was so wrinkled that it seemed to be slowly drawing in toward his shriveled, toothless mouth. He had a few stray white hairs bursting out of his head, ears, and nose.

  "I can cure you," he said.

  "Cure me of what?" I asked, skeptical.

  "Of your… disorder."

  My eyes narrowed but my stomach somersaulted like the tumblers I had just seen. Very few knew what was wrong with me. "And what disorder is that?"

  He peered closer at me. "Child, are you a boy or a girl?"

  I said nothing, but my palms began to sweat.

  He picked up a vial of pale blue powder. "This will cure you."

  I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to appear both confident and derisive. A couple of passersby paused in front of the stall. "Cure me of what, exactly?"

  Others were standing about the booth now. "You don't want me to say in front of these people," the alchemist said.

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I stepped closer. "Then whisper in my ear what my condition is, and then I'll decide whether or not I need your cure."

  He smiled. "Of course, of course," he said with a magnanimous gesture toward the people gathered. "You will be my first satisfied patient of the evening." By patient, he meant customer. He was stressing his syllables oddly as if to sound foreign, but I suspected he was born and raised in Sicion.

  I shuffled over to him. He tilted close to me, touched my arm, and drew me even closer. He smelled of musty clothes and soured milk.

  "You have a serious condition. You have been to many to see to it. None have been able to help you." He did not lower his voice much. The people leaned in to hear him better.

  My eyes widened. "How do you know this?"

  He smirked and waved a hand. "I am both an alchemist and a psychic. Much of the mysteries and ways of the world make themselves known to me."

  "Then why are you working in a booth in a carnival?" I asked. My voice was too loud and two women standing close to me giggled.

  He slapped me lightly on the head. "Do not be impertinent, my young child. I am here because I choose to, not because I need to. I have healed the kings and queens of many colonies far across the sea. I have learned the ways of healing from the magic men of Kymri, the land of black sands, and they taught me all that they knew for many years. I help all – from the highest king to the lowest peasant! And for these wonders, all I ask for is a modest contribution for my help."

  His words had their intended effect. I shivered. I leaned closer and whispered into his hairy ear, "Then what is my problem that no one will cure?"

  He whispered into my ear, "You have warts on your nether regions."

  I jerked my head back, looked into his solemn face, and began to laugh. I laughed until tears pricked my eyes and I could barely catch my breath. The crowd around me looked perplexed.

  "Is his problem that he's mad?" someone asked.

  I wiped my cheek. "Mister Alchemist, sir, I wish that was the worst of my problems." The crowd called jeers to the alchemist and he yelled obscenities at me as I walked away.

  At the far end of the carnival a sign advertising "Freakshow" rose above a series of patched and faded tents. Another had a sign of an exotic woman with a snake wrapped around her and I shuddered. I did not much care for snakes. The show had already started, and the crowd of men seemed to be enjoying whatever the woman was doing with the snake. Cymbals pinged in time to Byssian music.

  There was another tent further back, grubby and stained. There was little doubt as to what this tent held. Two beautiful women, painted in shades of blue, silver, and green gazed at me with half-lidded eyes. Families walked by the tent on the way to see the freakshow, but the parents hurried their children along.

  "Care to see the dancing sylphs and undines of myth?" Compared to the other middle-aged and paunch-bellied men about, I must have screamed "young, lily virgin."

  I shook my head and hurried on, even though a small part of me was curious. Very curious.

  The same barker who had lured me into the circus was standing in front of the freakshow tent, and he had no qualms about shouting at the top of his lungs.

  "Come and see the perfect show to end a fantastic evening at Mr Ragona's Circus of Magic!" he cried. "Come see the menagerie and the freakshow! Inside this tent are the strangest creatures ever seen by man. Animal and human, twisted in their
nature. Animals from Byssia, Kymri, Temne, and Linde! Come and see, my good friends. Come and see things you've only seen in your dreams… or your nightmares."

  I did not want to go into this tent, either. I feared they wouldn't be as freakish as I was.

  But out of the corner of my eye I saw the shiny helmets of the two Policiers.

  I turned my back to them and waited in line with the others, hiding behind a fat man as I had no money to give and ducking into the dark tent. It smelled musky, and the glass globes flickered over the cages and the animals inside. Most of the smell came from the large cats.

  I had befriended small, feral felines in my youth, but creatures that looked sweet when they did not come up to my knee looked terrifying when they weighed twice as much as a man. There was a lion, almost comical with the gigantic ruff of tawny fur around his face. A tiger prowled the cage, displaying its orange, yellow, and white stripes. A cyrinx, a black cat that shined purple in the light, rubbed itself against the bars of its cage. It barely had enough room to turn around. I wanted to reach out and touch the fur, but a sign to the side read: "Do not touch if you value your hand."

  The striped cat gnawed on a metal bar. He was fond of doing so judging by the scratched and dented iron, and his teeth were dull and worn. The sight of the cats behind bars twisted from exciting to saddening. I wanted to see them prowling through grass fields, not curled up within cages.

  Saitha the elephant slurped water into her long nose before squirting it into her mouth. Her cage only barely contained her, the bars pressing against her flank. "Poor thing," I said, not realizing I had spoken aloud.

  "She has her own cart on the circus train and she'll spend the day in the big top," the trainer said, his voice defensive. "She's not in this very long." He put his hand on the elephant's large leg. I nodded, though a cart of a train did not seem large enough for her, either, and continued through the maze of the tent.

  Horses shied in their stalls, their nostrils flaring at the smell of the nearby predators and so many unwashed people. The star of the herd was from the plains of Kymri, its body a rich gold that darkened to reddish amber around the hooves, mane, tail, and nose.

  As I moved deeper into the maze of cages and canvas, the animals shifted from the exotic to the strange and malformed. A turtle with two heads shared a tank with a fish with a strangely human face. A pig with two snouts stood in a pen, snuffling and hanging its heavy head close to the ground. A glass aquarium held an array of albino creatures – a frog, a water snake, and a few fish. One of the fish might have been dead. Another tank held a stunted albino alligator, its pink eyes gazing at us impassively, and its white tail lashing against the grimy glass.

  A woman stood next to the covered entrance to the rear of the tent. She had unnaturally red hair, dusky skin, and wore large clunky jewelry wherever she could – earrings, five necklaces, jangling bangles, and a ring on every finger. Loose, multi-colored scarves were draped about her stout body.

  After enough of a crowd had gathered, she spoke. "This is what you have entered to see, is it not?" she said in – of course – an affected, accented voice. "In here are people unlike you or I. In some way, these men and women are unique to any others. They come from all over the world just to show you their extraordinary bodies. Some you may find beautiful. Others you may find repulsive. Are they blessed? Are they cursed? You decide."

  She held back the cloth door so that we could shuffle in. This section of the tent was darker, and somehow colder. It did not smell of animals, but dust and stale human sweat. I wrapped my arms about myself.

  The woman snapped her fingers and the glass globes brightened. In a large circle men and women stood, or sat upon stools. Small plaques were hammered into the ground in front of them. Like the others, I gawked.

  The middle-aged red-haired woman nearest to me looked like anyone's mother, aside from the fact that she had a bushy moustache and beard. She wore a long dress with a flowered print and an apron to heighten the oddness of her ginger beard. Her blue eyes crinkled at me and I averted my gaze. I raised a hand to my still-smooth cheek and wondered if I would ever sprout hair.

  "Bethany here was a perfectly normal girl from the village of Rionan, but when she entered her blossoming time, she ended up growing a beard as well as breasts!" our gypsy guide said.

  The strongman from the circus act had a pile of wooden planks, and he picked one up and snapped it as if it were sugar glass.

  "Mr Karg here grew up in Girit on a farm. They used him instead of a plough-horse because he was stronger."

  Next to him, to provide the utmost juxtaposition, was a tiny man who came up to my waist. His face was handsome, with swarthy skin and a furrowed brow underlined by thick black eyebrows.

  "Mr Tin is the tiniest man in Ellada, but he has the biggest of tempers." The dwarf scowled at the gypsy woman and looked as if he would like nothing more than to kick her kneecaps.

  A woman seated on a stool waved, and she seemed normal at first glance. She was perhaps thirty, with a handsome face and dark brown hair coiled into a bun, and she wore a maroon dress several years out of fashion. The woman held the taffeta skirt bunched in her lap so that we could see her pantalooned legs. Two of her legs were perfectly normal, finely-muscled legs in delicatelyheeled black boots. But from her lower belly sprouted what looked like two child's legs, complete with shiny black children's shoes. She wiggled first her normal legs and then twitched her tiny legs. My mouth dropped open in shock and the four-legged woman laughed coyly.

  "Madame Limond is one of the rarest women in the entire world. She has two pairs of fully functional legs and two working pelvises." She paused significantly, though at the time the allusion was lost on me.

  A man wearing only a loincloth posed for us, covered head to toe in tattoos depicting all the myths I had heard growing up. The Lord of the Sun shone from the right side of the man's chest, his head crowned in sunrays, his hands aflame. The Lady of the Moon glimmered on the left side of his chest, her head haloed by a crescent moon. Female Chimaera were inked along his stomach and back – mermaids, centaurs, angels. Monsters twined about his calves – two hydra, two dragons, and a sea serpent. He flexed his muscles, causing the monsters and women to dance.

  A man with the pimpled skin of a chicken bobbed his head and gazed at us over the beak of his nose, the slack skin of his neck wobbling. He wore a bobbled red cap and a yellow outfit. Our flame-haired narrator named him "Poussin." I half-expected him to squawk.

  Next was the "Leopard Lady of Linde," though she looked as though she might have been from Byssia. Most of her skin and hair were bleached, like the white clown of the circus performance. Dark rosettes dotted her skin. Her eyes were ringed like a cat's. She was beautiful, her limbs long and graceful, as though she could sprint away at a moment's notice. Her skirt came to her knees, leaving her spotted legs shockingly bare. A man came too close for her liking. She hissed at him, flashing her pointed canines.

  The last man was not a man at all, but "half-man, half-bull," the woman proclaimed. He was large and muscular and his body matted with hair. Though he was distinctly bullish in appearance, he was not the Minotaur out of legend. His face and head were still human, mostly. He had a heavily-boned face with slack muscles, a long nose with flared nostrils, and two horns growing from his head, though they were a bit lopsided. The flesh of his nose between his nostrils was pierced with a thick ring, like an ox, and he wore a leather collar. His wide, cowlike eyes did not appear to recognize us in any way.

  "His is a sad tale," our guide said, holding her hand to her face in emphasis. "His mother was a beggar woman and heavily pregnant. A fearsome bull had escaped from the docks, where it had just arrived from Girit. The bull knocked his mother down and frightened her so much that when her babe was born, he was part bull. She herself died from childbirth and poor Tauro was left in an orphanage and grew up bullied by the others until he learned to fight. R.H. Ragona's Circus of Magic rescued him from the stocks so that you
fine ladies and gentlemen could see him this evening." The bull-man only stared at us balefully in response.

  The others chatted excitedly as we left the tent, but I was subdued and almost wished that I had not gone. First almost seeing the naked women in the tent, and now seeing the sadness of the menagerie and the freakshow had dimmed the vivacity of the circus. People wandered through the carnival, laughing and pointing out oddities. I watched a man juggle whatever the crowd passed him – bottles, trash, books, and a baby's doll – to the delight of the crowd. The fire-eater's dragon breath illuminated the funfair. Stalls sold hot drinking chocolate and roasted hazelnuts, popping corn and caramel apples.

  I returned to the jewelry stall with the woman in the red headdress. The "alchemist" pointedly ignored me from across the lane. The woman's wares were lovely, polished black stones with silver wire swirling over their faces. A necklace looked as though a spider had woven a web over the stone, and another looked like plant tendrils had taken possession of it.