Firetale (27 page)

The woodwose
’s hand stopped trying to push
the wall. Instead, the creature attempted to beat the fire out, but
flames engulfed its barklike skin almost instantly, and the
monster’s hectic moves only made it flare brighter. Within moments,
the woodwose’s body had turned into a huge living fire. The monster
fought and wept but could not free itself from the doorway. Fire
spread to the walls and furniture. Half of the house was overtaken
by flames. The deed was done. The woodwose was trapped. But there
was no time for Greg to enjoy his triumph. Fire and heat would not
cause him any harm, but the smoke made it hard to breathe, and the
magician hurried to get out.

He crawled to the window on the
far wall.
He
put one hand on the windowsill, used his other hand to open the
window, and climbed out. Halfway out, Greg got stuck. He glanced
over his shoulder and saw one of the branches from the “crown” of
the monster sticking out of his back and coming up against the wall
above the window. Gathering his strength, he broke the branch off,
threw it aside, and rolled through the window. The landing was
hard. His leg and back responded in pain.

Greg crawled away from the
house,
every
movement causing excruciating pain, making it harder and harder to
get away from the burning house. He felt coldness flowing
throughout his body from the wound in his back.

The house was in flames.
The sighs of the
woodwose turned into screams, and then the monster fell silent
forever. Wooden walls cracked and collapsed, and sparks flew all
around. Fire devoured the remnants of Ino’s former bar. The fire
burned brightly, but it could not warm up Greg. The mage stopped
crawling. His strength left him, and the inner fire still did not
answer. For a moment he thought about returning to the burning
house, hoping that the fire would give him strength, but he could
not move.

He no longer felt
pain
, only
anger and resentment. But he did not want to die like this, in
bitterness and regret. So he thought about Martha.
It is a pity that
she’s not here
, Greg thought. It would be easier.

He remembered her smile and closed his
eyes.

Record made on 07/19/1996

Archivist: Enzo

I
’m not the first archivist of our circus,
and, I feel, I’ll soon be replaced by someone younger. Only Mr.
Bernardius is irreplaceable and eternal. I’ve read in the archives
and saw for myself how the ringmaster had to make difficult
decisions, which is why the circus has been operating for so long.
He is smart and knows how to handle matters. But sometimes I still
doubt if he has the stiffness of a true leader. Consider his rule
that every conscious demionis has the right to decide whether it
wants to stay in the circus or not. For my taste, everyone who gets
in the circus should remain here until the last breath. But Mr.
Bernardius believes that would be no different from prison. I don’t
know why he insists on it, but I wonder if, perhaps, he once had to
do something against his will, and now he thinks that everyone
should have a choice.

However, each decision has its
consequences.

Someone named Klaus once performed in our
circus. He was no intellectual giant, but he had his virtues:
honesty, friendliness, a winning simplicity of character. Klaus was
an unusual demionis, one of those who, like Mr. Bernardius, did not
fit into a certain type. As he aged, Klaus’s skin turned into
metal, impossible for a bullet or a knife to break through. He was
tall, almost seven feet, broad-shouldered, and incredibly strong.
His steel skin and his size gave him a menacing look, but as I
said, he was a nice guy. Klaus loved children. They were constantly
calling him names of comic book characters—The Man of Steel, Iron
Man, Colossus. So we began to write on our posters: “Today in the
arena – the true Man of Steel!”

Klaus
performed feats of strength. He could
bend a length of scrap-iron or lift over his head a platform with
fifteen to twenty children standing on it, all squealing with
delight. But his most popular trick was called “Bullet in the
Heart.” Klaus performed it with Mr. Bernardius. The ringmaster
entered the arena, loaded a Colt 1851 Navy Model, and shot it from
thirty feet into a barrel of water, which had previously been
examined by a volunteer from the audience. When the bullet pierced
the barrel and the public was convinced that the gun was real and
loaded with no blanks, Klaus stepped in. The giant bared his steel
chest, put his arms out to the side, and Lazarus pulled the
trigger. Ringing from the impact of metal on metal resounded, and
Klaus ripped a flattened bullet from his chest. The demionis
proudly showed it, and then threw it into the auditorium, like a
baseball player throwing a ball into the stands.

I think Klaus was one of the few
demionis who really enjoyed perform
ing. He liked to be the center of
attention, to be some kind of star. If some kids wanted to play
with the man of steel after shows, and they always did, he never
refused. In general, Klaus liked living in the circus. Until
Melissa appeared.

Right off, I didn’t like her. It is said
that it is impossible to judge a person by their face. But in my
lifetime I’ve seen so many faces of people and demionis that I’m
rarely wrong. Melissa was pretty. But her beauty was of the unkind
sort. With such a face, she could have played a villainous empress
in some fantasy movie for teenagers. She had long, thick black
hair, big dark eyes expressing only contempt, and high cheekbones.
I could never tell how old Melissa was. Sometimes it seemed to me
that she was twenty-five, other times slightly over forty. In any
case, she always tried to look younger and strongly emphasized the
“values” of her body. This woman always had a cigarette. She tried
smoking as Marlene Dietrich, but it didn’t work. I think any men
who had some experience with women instantly saw through Melissa
and tried to stay away from her, but among the circus inhabitants,
women have always been in the minority. And Klaus lost his
head.

He accidentally met
Melissa
at
one of the shows, and he spent that night outside the circus. The
next morning he returned, woozy and happy, and we moved to the next
town. We didn’t know that Melissa had followed us. To Mr.
Bernardius’s dismay, the woman became a regular at our shows. At
first, she tried to go backstage, claiming that her boyfriend lived
in the circus, and she had a right to visit him. When we politely
refused her, she tried to put pressure on Klaus, who attempted to
bring her into his trailer by force. But Blanche and Black quickly
brought the giant to reason. Even the invulnerable Klaus couldn’t
manage two ogre brothers. Unable to enter the circus, Melissa
decided to lure Klaus out. The giant started to spend his nights
not in the trailer, but in cheap motels, where his sweetheart
stayed, traveling behind us. Of course, this couldn’t last long.
After a time, Klaus came to Mr. Bernardius, and, stuttering with
excitement, asked the ringmaster to give him money for his
performances. Klaus needed it to get out of the circus.

All Lazarus
’s attempts to reason with Klaus
failed. The giant kept saying that he was an independent man and
that there were things in his life more important than the circus.
Eventually, Mr. Bernardius relented and gave Klaus money. For the
first time, I saw the tentmaster give one of his black candles to a
demionis. With this candle Klaus could find his way back to the
circus after he finished his business in the human world. It was a
risky move. If the candle got in wrong hands—for example, a
Judge’s—it all could have ended badly.

So Klaus became the first
demionis for whom the circus
was not a home but a workplace, where he returned
when he found himself low on funds. At first he was embarrassed to
ask for money, but then he did it with confidence, sometimes even
showing dissatisfaction if, in his opinion, Mr. Bernardius did not
pay enough. Klaus always showed up on a huge black motorcycle. He
said that he had always dreamed of owning one, and his
outfit—leather jacket, gloves, and helmet—hid his appearance in the
human world. Klaus tried to look like a confident man who controls
his life, but the change in him was obvious. He became nervous and
abrupt, and sometimes he smelled of alcohol, though the former
Klaus, as we knew, had never touched the bottle. The steel giant
always came to the circus with Melissa. Each time we saw her, she
was wearing more expensive and tawdry dresses and jewels. Mr.
Bernardius and I agreed that Melissa could not afford such
spectacular outfits, nor Klaus his motorcycle, with the money he
received for performing in the circus.

We
finally learned how Klaus made his living
away from the arena when the police arrived for the first time.
They accused him of robbing a bank, read him his rights, and
handcuffed him. To everyone’s surprise, Klaus did not resist the
cops and just smiled. Later, he explained to us that he did not
want to make a scene and alarm the audience. He said no handcuffs
could restrain him. His strength allowed him to break them like a
thread at any time, and he could push aside the bars of a cell and
leave whenever he wanted. He wasn’t afraid of police batons and
bullets. Of course, we explained to him that his actions violated
the Pactum, and sooner or later he would have to pay for it. But he
justified himself by saying that no one had ever been killed or
even injured during his robberies or shootouts, just knocked out.
Mr. Bernardius threatened to take away his candle so that he could
never go back to the circus. However, these threats were empty. Out
of pity, the ringmaster let the “Man of Steel” back into the circus
again and again. Klaus’s visits were infrequent but regular. And
then they abruptly stopped.

Seven months after our last
meeting with Klaus, Melissa came to the circus. She looked
as beguiling as
ever, only more tired, and her thick head of hair was shot with
gray. She said that Klaus could not come and refused to tell us
when we would see him again. It seemed to me that she had been
ready to tell us more, but abandoned the idea. Instead, she handed
me a black candle and gave Mr. Bernardius a hefty package. Not
waiting for him to unwrap it, she got into her used silver Mercedes
and left.

In the package lay
a demionis, a baby.
It was a strange creature. It was not like Klaus or Melissa. It was
proof of what unpredictable forms devilish blood can take. The
child’s body was covered with rare wiry fur, all four fingers of
its hands ended in soft claws, and its round mouth was paved with
small teeth in several rows. The baby was very weak, and despite
all my efforts, it survived less than a week. We never heard from
Klaus again.

A couple of years
later, I read in one
of the newspapers that a bank robber had been shot by police during
a raid on a bank. The news article mentioned a 43-year-old woman,
identified with the letter M. The woman’s mug shot remotely
resembled Melissa, although without makeup it was difficult to
judge for sure. Upon reflection, I decided not to tell Mr.
Bernardius about the article.

“
Swallow me whole, I will live in
your soul.”

Eleven
, “Flow Like A River”

When Judge Caius and little
Zaches
,
bynamed Zinnober, noticed from their different positions how a car,
its headlights off, left the circus encampment at high speed,
wobbling from side to side, they did not doubt for a second that
Martha was at the wheel. At the same time, though in different
places, they got into their own cars and followed her. The thrill
of the hunt gripped Caius, and he had to hold back so as not to put
his foot to the floor and catch Martha. She would lead him to his
goal, he told himself. He must not frighten her away.

Martha did not care about
her
pursuers.
The pain turned into a thread of light that would lead her to Greg,
and she focused on it. She was driving almost unconsciously,
without paying attention to the road or road signs. She hadn’t
remembered to turn on the car’s headlights, and did so only when
another car suddenly appeared as she rounded a curve. The driver in
the oncoming car had to wrench the wheel to avoid a collision, but
managed to maintain control after a long skid. Martha drove on, led
by the thread of pain.

Zaches was horrified.
H
is task was
to follow the circus, and he liked doing it. He saw Martha every
day, even though she had no idea he was there. Caius paid no
attention to him. But this headlong rush to nowhere, for hours, was
too much for him. His palms were sweating so much they often
slipped off the wheel. He was afraid of speed, had fear of the
unknown and fear of Caius, who was driving between him and
Martha.
Martha
. For her, he suppressed his fear.

Martha was trying not to lose
the thread leading to Greg. It strove to escape, like a
snake
from
the hands of a fakir, and sometimes broke off for a few moments.
But invariably Martha would find it again, even though every time
she was afraid that her luck had run out. What frightened her most
was that she did not know how far away Greg was. Ten miles? A
couple of hundred miles? Would she get to him that night? These
thoughts were like blood-sucking mosquitoes, they dug into her, and
it was impossible to drive them away. Cracks in the asphalt looked
like mocking grins in the beam of the headlights. The very road was
making fun of her. Several times the car jumped dangerously on the
asphalt, forcing an occasional oncoming driver to veer away
suddenly. The road was difficult and endless. The night was dark
and starless. And that night, three different cars followed each
other to their common destination. Destiny is a part of
destination. Destination is where your destiny leads
you.