Chapter XXXII (32)

  “Welcome, one and all! Today I have the pleasure to announce the first of many of our wondrous, spectacular sights! Never again in your lives will you witness such daring acts and stupendous feats! You will laugh! You may cry! You will leave with new memories seared into your minds for eternity!”

  Alberto raised his arms to the sides, bejeweled cane raised high, and confetti burst around him while the audience roared their pleasure. When he appeared again from amidst the confetti, he was flanked by two massive beasts. An elephant and the rare four tusked mammoth. Riding on the back were Sara and Hugh, they bowed.

  “Woah. Have you ever seen a mammoth?” Holly asked.

  “I saw the bones of one animated by a necromancer,” Mitsuko responded. Not quite the same thing, but close enough.

  They sat in the audience, watching the circus’ acts. Alberto had given her strict instructions to spectate and analyze the performances today. He wanted to debut her tomorrow for a short act, but needed her to understand the flow of the performances.

  Not in a uniform or wearing makeup like she would be in the future, Mitsuko kept her hood up to keep her face from anyone’s notice. Not that guards would be likely to look for her here of all places.

  “I saw one once before,” Sterling said from his place on Holly’s lap. “They had several on Porcelain Island. The sculpts used to breed them there. Only two tusks, however. Not the four we see here today. Though those I knew were quite a bit larger than the one in front of us. Perhaps it is simply a runt? I doubt they would have shrunk too severely over the last millennium. Unless perhaps crossbreeding and soul shenanigans got involved. Perhaps a question for that druid girl?”

  Mitsuko ignored Sterling and watched as the beasts moved to opposite ends of the tent. Swings swooped in from the sides and Sara and Hugh each grabbed a hold of one. Then they swept across air, so quickly that Mitsuko would have thought them to be air elementalists if she didn’t know better. When they met in the center, Hugh raised himself up, letting himself gain air for a second before reclaiming his grip. Meanwhile, Sara flipped herself upside down on the trapeze and now held the swing’s bar with her legs. While she swung back, she blew the audience kisses from her upside down position. At the far end she flipped herself back into a right-side up posture with her hands on the bar once again. And then it was Hugh’s turn to flip himself upside down.

  When the duo met again in the center, Hugh grabbed Sara’s ankles. The crowd gasped as she let go of her swing and let an upside down Hugh carry her off to the other end of the tent.

  “Is he enhancing the strength in his legs with a spell?” Holly asked. “Or using a potion?”

  “No,” Mitsuko said. “That’s simply raw skill and talent.”

  “Spectacular!” Holly exclaimed. “And you get to work in an act with them? Lucky!”

  Even Sterling peaked his head up in an attempt to see better as the trapezists reached the center of the tent. Hugh released his grip on Sara’s ankles and she flew up into the air, twisting and flipping. Mitsuko thought she would once again grab ahold of her empty trapeze swing, but instead she slipped between the cords that the bar swung on. Then she plunged down.

  Every member of the audience forgot how to breathe in that moment.

  Alberto, still on his pedestal in the center of the circus ring, spun on his heel and pointed his cane. A pool of water appeared a fraction of a second before Sara met the floor. A sploosh of water sprayed up, far higher than her size and weight accounted for. Mitsuko waited for the trapezist to resurface. Instead, a dozen seconds later, Hugh released himself from his swing and swan dove into the water. When he met the water, not a drop spilled out of the pool.

  There was complete silence for several more seconds. Then both trapezists burst from the water, arms raised.

  The crowd erupted in applause.

  Then it was time for the clowns. They tumbled out from the sidelines, cartwheeling, and failing to cartwheel in equal measure.

  “Ah. I understand.” Sterling nodded to himself. “This current display of foolishness is designed as a palate cleanser. It allows the audience to relax and lower their guard before another performance. They work quite well together. I’ve heard bards attempt a similar strategy with music. It’s a great risk, breaking the immersion with a tonal shift, but I’ve seen it done before.”

  “Ha! Mitsuko, that one has a pie! Look! That could be you tomorrow!”

  The clown wearing makeup designed to look like a permanently surprised face ran in zig zags across the circus ring clutching a pie in front of him. Then he tripped over a sleeping clown and fell face first into the pie. Everyone burst into laughter at the display. Nora’s four armed monkey chose this moment to swoop over on one of the trapeze swings and land on the unfortunate clown. The monkey grabbed a handful of pie from the clown’s face and ran off while stuffing the smooshed baked good’s remains into its mouth.

  Then something Mitsuko didn’t expect happened. Coleo the bitelas musician came in from the side and took a seat, his instrument in front of himself. His wings unfurled behind him, and he began to play. It was a somber tune, and better than what she’d heard from him at his rehearsal.

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  The clowns all stopped their silliness and cocked their heads. Slowly, they let themselves be drawn into the song. They swayed to the music. Then, as it reached its end, they burst into exaggerated tears and clutched at one another, sobbing.

  The audience didn’t love the new performance, but the clowns’ reactions got more than a few chuckles and nobody heckled as Coleo bowed and took his leave.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t perform today because they only accepted you earlier,” Holly asked, curious.

  “Yes. Well, I guess Alberto is more worried about me ruining Sara and Hugh’s performance than he is the clown act.”

  “You’re likely correct,” Sterling agreed. “Jesters are experts at improvisation. If they feel the mood of the spectators wane or grow in irritation, I have no doubt they can twist the music to their advantage in a different method.”

  The clowns scattered as Blok, the goliath strongman appeared. He stood over three meters high and was by no means a lean man. Muscles bulged from his shirtless form as he lifted four clowns at once and tossed them with casual ease into the pool of water behind Alberto’s pedestal. The goliath’s oiled skin, a slight bluish shade, gleamed in the tent’s overhead lighting.

  Mitsuko was far from the only person in the crowd devouring the goliath with her eyes.

  “You have the worst taste in men,” Holly complained, noticing Mitsuko biting her lip.

  That broke Mitsuko from her enjoyable trance and she glared at her friend.

  Unlike Mitsuko, Holly found the newest performance less interesting than the others. She began to chat about her day while Blok continued to lift progressively larger and larger props.

  Holly had gone on that date she’d planned out before their arrival. The gnome she’d met was an enchanter who made most of his income by creating devices for the residents of Porcelain Island.

  “There’s a small community of gnomes on the island,” Holly said. “Nearly twenty of them. It’s quite the little happy surprise.”

  Mitsuko nodded along to her friend’s words, her eyes now once again glued to Blok’s toned abs.

  The rest of the circus performance went on perfectly as far as Mitsuko could tell. The crowd gasped, cheered, and laughed all in the proper places. Everyone save for Coleo had at least two acts of performances, with the clowns acting as an exception with four acts. Alberto stood center stage the entire time. Often the lights overhead would move from him onto the acts, but it always returned to him. He acted as the conductor of the circus’ chaos. He waved his cane about and announced each new performer, often tagging on little tidbits of achievements or titles to their names.

  “That clown is the funniest,” Holly commented, pointing down at one with a massive red smile painted on his white face.

  “You just like him because the woman clown chased him around and swatted him with a newspaper earlier.”

  “Well, yes,” Holly said, exasperated. “But I like how he holds himself. He has swagger to his walk. Very chipper. Almost like he’s dancing as he moves.”

  “Maybe you should apply to be a clown,” Mitsuko suggested dryly. “I’m sure they’d love to have you.”

  “Actually! I do have a job offer I was thinking of taking. Not as a clown though.”

  “What? How? When?”

  “Just as I was joining you here. I got to chatting with an old lady out front about divination techniques.”

  “A fortune teller offered you a job?” Mitsuko sighed. “Don’t do that. You remember what happened last time you tried selling your fortune telling services?”

  “Relax. I learned my lesson. Don’t tell women they’re fated to bear a bastard child from their neighbor. At least…not in front of their husbands.”

  “You’re too honest for a fortune teller. You can’t lie to save your life.”

  “I can make illusions! Those are like lies.”

  “No. They’re not. That’s like saying art is a lie.”

  “Actually, that’s how it was back in my day,” Sterling cut in. “We used to call illusionists ‘the great perjuries.’”

  Mitsuko glared at the cat on Holly’s lap. “There’s no way they used the word ‘perjuries.’”

  “Well. I did. Others liked to say ‘fibbers.’ My version sounds better though. And since I am the last remnant of that society, I get to choose how to initiate our aphorisms into the modern era.”

  “Mitsuko?” Holly said. “Are you feeling alright? Did you hit your head earlier?”

  She sighed. “I’m fine, Holly. I swear sometimes I can hear that horrible creature talking to me. It gets to me.”

  Holly laughed. “Ahh, Sterling here isn’t horrible. He’s so cuddly.” She pulled him in closer and hugged him.

  Sterling purred and rubbed his cheek against Holly’s shoulder.

  The circus performers all gathered for one final performance. It was utterly staggering. Not everyone did stupendous acts, but the sheer quantity of activity overwhelmed Mitsuko. She didn’t know where to look. Up, at the trapezists, to the left, at the clowns throwing rotten fruit at one another, to the right where Blok lifted the elephant onto his back, or the center of the ring where Nora rode on her mammoth’s brow as it stood on its hind legs, lifting her to a height with the trapezists. And of course, in the center of it all was Alberto, cane raised high.

  “Thank you one and all for joining us on this momentously wondrous day! Ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid this is where we must part ways. Perhaps someday our paths will cross once again. Until then, I bid you farewell! May we all remain in each other's hearts and minds for the eternity to come!”

  He slammed his cane down on his pedestal and more confetti exploded down from above. Millions upon millions of pieces obscured the audience’s vision of the performers. The last thing they saw was everyone lined up in a circle around Alberto, bowing deeply. And then, once the confetti cleared, nobody remained down below. Cheers erupted from the stands. Everyone applauded. Holly stood up abruptly to clap, launching Sterling to the floor without warning. The cat yowled in protest and surprise, but the gnome clearly didn’t hear him.

  “That was an exit!” she exclaimed.

  Mitsuko reached out to touch one of the falling bits of colorful confetti. It slipped through her hand. An illusion. She smiled. That would save time on the cleanup.

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