Firetale

Firetale

By Dante E.
Graves

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without express written permission of the
author/publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages
in a review.

Text copyright (c) 2015 Dante E.
Graves

All rights reserved

To Marina.

“
And all my friends are
skeletons,

They beat the rhythm with their
bones.”

Soundgarden, “Spoonman”

The U.S., some town. Present
days.

As the last sound of the charivari
died away, the big top arena plunged into darkness. A spotlight
flicked on, its beam illuminating a magician standing in the
center. He was no glossy TV illusionist type. Short and
broad-shouldered, he wore frayed jeans, a simple T-shirt, and worn
high boots. The audience murmured its disappointment. On the table
next to the magician lay a crystal ball, like one a medium in a
movie might use to communicate with ghosts. The table also held a
top hat and a candle.

With his eyes fixed on the audience,
the man picked up his top hat and held it out, showing the crowd
that it was empty. He put his hand into the hat and pulled out a
live dove, which sat on his palm. The bird moved its head, as if
the light in the center of the arena blinded it, and tried to fly
away, but the magician held it by its feet. Someone in the odeum
shouted approval, but a chorus of boos overwhelmed the brief
expression of praise. The spectators in the auditorium were people
of the tullies, hard workers or unemployed, but certainly not
simpletons who would be fooled by a trite trick. The magician
smiled and threw his top hat beyond the illuminated
circle.

Holding the bird in his left hand, the
magician reached his right hand into his jeans pocket and pulled
out a lighter. He raised it above his head, showing the audience,
and then lit the candle on the table, indicating that the flame was
real. The magician brought his still-flaming lighter toward the
dove.

People in the grandstands were the
first to smell the odor of singed feathers. Muttering and shouting
rose up, and people jumped from their seats, shouting insults and
threats. “Kick the freak’s ass,” someone yelled. Unfazed, the
magician held the bird as if the flame couldn’t hurt it. As a trio
of hotheads headed from the seats toward the arena, the bird
flapped its wings, once, twice, thrice. The dove threw its head
back and made a sound, not like a cry of pain, not like the sound
one would expect from such a small bird. It was like the cry of a
predator, meant to paralyze its prey with fear.

The magician opened his left hand, and
the dove flew to the top of the tent, sixty feet up, under the
center pole. The bird began to increase in size. Now it was the
size of a child, then an adult, then two adults. The light coming
from the bird’s body lit up the whole tent. The roar of the flame,
like the sound of a forest fire, deafened people, paralyzed them.
The firebird froze for a moment at the highest point under the big
top and looked down. People jumped up but couldn’t make a move to
the exit in stampede. It was impossible to make out the bird’s
features in the fire, but a giant predatory beak and a high
caruncle were clearly visible. Its lurid silhouette looked like an
unearthly crossbreed between an eagle and a pterodactyl.

“
Calm yourselves,” the
magician called out, his voice loud enough for all to hear yet
still composed, almost relaxed, and filled with confidence and a
hint of mockery. “Hold your seats. You’re safe. It’s just a trick.
This dicky will not hurt you. Besides, you haven’t seen the most
interesting part.”

The bird, which no longer looked like
a dove, spread its wings and plunged. Halfway down, it made another
thunderous cry, momentarily drowning out the roar of the flame and
the screams of the crowd, and then began flying in a circle over
the auditorium. The audience screamed. Some people fainted. Others
recoiled and covered their faces with their arms or sought
protection from their companions. A full minute passed. People
uncovered their faces and watched the bird fly in its circle. The
magician’s words were true. The beast made of fire couldn’t harm
people. Its feathers exuded warmth but not heat. The bird slowed
its circling and glided lower, so low that the most daring
spectators could touch it. The shouting died away, replaced with
laughter, and the huge creature continued its flight over the
auditorium.

Once, when the creature flew over a
balding middle-aged man, the crystal ball on the magician’s table
flashed red, setting the stranger’s face deep in the sphere. The
audience, swept along with the performance, did not notice
this.

The magician snapped his fingers, and
the bird, uttering a predatory call, darted up again, to the top of
the tent. It paused there, hovering, and then exploded into a
hundred little lights that slowly dissolved in the air, like
snowflakes that melt before they touch the ground. But the biggest
spark fell on the magician’s palm, where it continued to glow. The
man covered it with his other hand, brought his hands to his mouth,
and breathed on the spark. The last flake of fire went out, and
only a banjo light remained. The magician opened his palms, and the
white dove sprang upward and flew right under the dome of the big
top. The auditorium exploded in applause and cheers.

Mr. Lazarus Bernardius watched the
spectators channeling off. He stood in the shadow of a cage with a
wyvern in thirty feet away from the big top entrance. After half a
century of life in a cave, the old lizard was not accustomed to
light, and when performances ended, lights went out around its
cage. Mr. Bernardius loved to come here to watch the audience
unnoticed. He had been the circus tentmaster for many years but
never got used to the crowd. The way he looked gave evidence of how
uncomfortable he felt there. Spectators took his appearance for an
artificial image that suited the circus’s freaks and monsters. He
wore a black frockcoat with a red collar and long flaps, which gave
his figure a lanky look, and a worn vest that was once the color of
emerald. The vest was almost invisible because of a long and thick
gray beard descending to his waist. Mr. Bernardius didn’t only
dress like this when his circus came to another city; these were
his regular clothes. The only elements of his dress that conformed
to his image were a top hat and a cane with a handle in the shape
of the head of the devil. The audience, of course, didn’t know
that.

The performance went well and the
audience liked it. This was evident by the way people discussed it
as they left the arena. Mr. Bernardius was so satisfied with this
that he almost smiled. But this did not happen. He hadn’t smiled
for one hundred and forty years, since his second death. Twice he
had seen only darkness, which would discourage anyone from smiling,
even those less inclined to melancholy than he was.

The only thing that bothered
Bernardius was Greg’s disturbing trick with a dove. The tentmaster
did not like the magician’s willfulness—the man constantly repeated
the trick despite all prohibitions. Lazarus was watching Greg’s
performance and caught sight of the crystal ball turning red when
the fiery bird flew across the odeum. This alarmed the tentmaster.
Every night the ball turned red, and every night the conjurer
disappeared mysteriously. This had almost never happened during
Greg’s first year with the circus, but over the next couple of
years, when he did the trick with the bird, the magician vanished
until the next day.

Greg didn’t need the crystal ball for
the trick with the bird of fire, and Bernardius assumed that the
magician used it to catch some kind of signal. Greg was looking for
something he could not share with anyone, and for this he was ready
to break the rules of the circus.

The magician was one of the few
inhabitants of the circus with normal human appearance, which
allowed him to leave the camp freely, unlike the others. Greg never
explained where he was when he was gone, and over time, Mr.
Bernardius stopped questioning him.

But, even if the magic of fire made
Greg one of the most dangerous of Bernardius’s fosterlings, and
even if all his tricks were pure, real magic, there were old,
proven ways to find out where the illusionist spent his
nights.

Lazarus turned and headed for the yard
behind the big top, where props, animals, and performers were
readied for a circus and where trailers were parked away from
public view. The grounds were dark; the lights in the trailers and
campers would flash on when the last spectator left the circus.
Only the spot near the entrance to the site was lighted.

Brothers Blanche and Black were
playing cards, sitting on hay bales and using an upside-down barrel
as their card table. An oil lamp sat in the middle of the makeshift
table. In their huge green and gray paws, the cards seemed like
small scraps of paper. Hearing footsteps, the brothers grunted and
stood up, but, seeing Lazarus, sat back down and doffed their
bowlers in greeting. Bernardius nodded to them and went to the
outermost trailer on the site, which stood apart from the others.
The encampment behind the big top was almost silent, and by the
time Bernardius reached the trailer, even Blanche’s and Black's
grumbles and wrangles were barely audible. The tentmaster sighed
and knocked on the door of the trailer. From inside came the sounds
of breaking glass or mirrors, hurried steps, mumbling, and cursing.
Footsteps approached the door.

Lazarus tried not to look at the
person who opened the door and was glad it was so dark. "Master?"
The person looked puzzled. He did not invite Lazarus in, and
Bernardius never expressed a desire to enter, although it was the
tentmaster’s right to enter any premises of the circus.

"I asked you not to call me that,
Zinno," said Lazarus.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Bernardius, sorry," the
creature replied. His voice was pleasant, as if he sang every word.
Lazarus stifled the urge to glance at him.

"Are you alone, Zinno?" asked the
tentmaster.

"Yes, mas … Mr.
Bernardius."

"You're telling the truth? You know
you must be alone, Zinnober," Lazarus said gently.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Bernardius. I am alone.
There is no one but me in the trailer." Zinnober's voice was so
bashful and plaintive, that Lazarus, once again, had to suppress a
desire to look into the eyes of the creature.

"Good. I need your help,
Zinno."

"Mine, sir?" The creature's voice was
full of genuine surprise.

"I want you to follow Greg. I think
he's going to leave the circus tonight."

"Leave, sir?" Lazarus heard a barely
concealed joy in Zinno's voice, but he chose to ignore
it.