Quest for the Sun (14 page)

‘Jamie, are you crazy?' hissed Richard.

‘We may seem a little on the young side,' Jamie told the boy, ignoring Rich, ‘but you're young too. You provide training, it says so on your billboard. And I'm already trained. I went to Circus Arts School one holidays —'

‘Your parents — where are they?' Borg demanded.

‘Well, it's a long story …' began Gen.

‘Dead — all dead!' Jamie interrupted loudly. He arranged his face into a mournful expression and gave a small, pathetic snuffle. ‘I guess … I guess you could say we're victims of fate, desperate and helpless, with nowhere to call home.'

‘Indeed.' The man's crooked mouth twisted into what I guessed was supposed to be a kindly smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. The boy was frowning at us, obviously unconvinced.

‘And what did they teach you at this
circus arts school?
' he asked. ‘You seem an unlikely —'

‘It matters not, Lyulf,' interrupted Borg smoothly. ‘As the boy says, full training is provided.'

‘But the girls —'

‘What of them?' growled the man. ‘The public likes nothing better than to watch young maidens in the arena, and if they do not last as long, what of it? And the chatterbot will be useful to collect the takings, if it can be trained.' Blue-bum gave an indignant chitter. ‘Let us waste no more time. Fetch parchment and quill — I wish to be well away by nightfall.'

The boy disappeared into the largest caravan and emerged holding a piece of dog-eared parchment and a ratty-looking feather. He passed them to Borg, who sat on the top step, rested the paper on his knee and began to write, with many frowns and pauses.

The five of us took advantage of the chance for a lightning council of war. ‘What d'you reckon?' hissed Rich. ‘Do we give it a go?'

‘I don't think we have much choice,' I whispered. ‘Do keep still and shut up, Blue-bum!' He was jigging about on my shoulder, chattering in my ear and tugging my hair, still nose-out-of-joint about Borg's comment, I was betting. Trying to ignore him, I went on: ‘We don't know the way to Limbo, and even if we did, it sounds as if it would be dangerous to travel there alone.'

‘I say we do it!' said Gen. ‘Remember Kai and his
tapestries of fate
? Things happen for a reason — and anyhow, it sounds like fun.'

‘I suppose I could use my gymnastics,' said Kenta doubtfully; ‘though I don't much like Borg. Can we trust him? And there seem to be an awful lot of injuries …'

At that moment the boy sidled up to us. With a wary eye on Borg, he spoke, in a voice almost too low to hear. ‘You must be desperate indeed. Are you certain you wish to join us? Once the contract is signed and we have left Four Winds, there can be no going back.'

‘Well, we do have just one question,' whispered Kenta. ‘Why —'

‘Right: who will be first?' Borg was striding towards us, holding out the parchment and quill. Jamie snatched it eagerly, scanned it and signed his name with a flourish. Then he handed it to me with a whispered, ‘Here you go: Adam, our ticket to Limbo!'

Less than two minutes later we were all signed-up members of Troupe Talisman.

To our delight we were given a caravan to ourselves, though it was the smallest and shabbiest, and also allocated a doleful-looking flea-bitten glonk the colour of an old carpet, with one ear longer than the other. We immediately christened him Gloom, and set to work trying to figure out how to harness him to the shafts of the caravan.

A cheerful voice interrupted us. ‘That be back-to-front. His tail goes through that loop, not his nose.'

I stumbled round, blushing, my arms full of tangled leather. A slim figure in a tight-fitting black bodysuit and cloak was watching us. At first, seeing the sharp angles of the face and the short-cropped dark hair, I thought it was a boy, a year or two older than us. But then she spoke again, stepping forward and taking the harness from me with a sidelong smile, and I realised my mistake. ‘My name is Blade. Who be you?'

‘We're the new circus performers,' said Jamie proudly. ‘I'm Jamie.' By the time he'd introduced us the harness was fitted and Blade's nimble fingers were doing up the last buckle. ‘So I guess that makes seven of us — if you don't count Borg and the other men.'

‘Eight,' she said briefly, nodding towards Borg's caravan.

‘You found someone?' Lyulf was busy with the trailer, which contained the circus equipment. Jamie'd been itching to get a peek, but Borg had ordered him gruffly away. ‘It'll be stuff like the Big Top — that's the tent — juggling batons, stilts,
a unicycle, maybe even a flying trapeze …' Jamie had told us.

‘Then you had better fortune than I did, Blade,' Lyulf went on. ‘I came back empty-handed, nothing but abuse from the townsfolk, and to hear that apothecary, you would think fire-tongue was silver dust.'

‘And so it is, in our business,' said Blade. ‘We dare not leave without it, Lyulf.'

‘There will be some growing wild along the way, though it is early in the season. Closer to Limbo, perhaps …'

‘Fire-tongue!' breathed Jamie reverently in my ear. ‘That'll have something to do with fire-eating, the most dangerous act there is!'

But my attention was focused on the exchange between Lyulf and Blade. I figured the more we could find out about the circus set-up and our new companions, the better.

‘I don't know how much use he'll be,' Blade was saying. ‘I asked if he had any experience, and he said he did. But … well, you know how they are.'

‘What's his name?' asked Gen curiously, staring across at Borg's caravan. A tall, strongly-built figure was deep in conversation with him — or rather, Borg was firing questions at him while the man stood impassive as a rock.

‘I don't know,' said Blade. ‘He was standing near the docks. The galley from Karazan had just come in, and at first I thought he was waiting for someone. But everyone was already off and still he stood there. So I asked if he was from Karazan.'

‘And what did he say?' prompted Jamie.

Blade shrugged. ‘Nothing.'

‘Nothing?' echoed Lyulf.

‘He's … well … different,' said Blade. ‘But when I said we were looking for performers, leaving for the Borderlands tonight, he seemed keen enough to join us. And you know Borg,' she finished, with a meaning glance at us. ‘He's hardly fussy.'

‘In what way is he different?' asked Kenta.

‘He doesn't talk, for one thing. Could be he can't. They cut
people's tongues out in Karazan for speaking out against the king. And for another …'

She didn't finish — didn't need to. At that moment the tall man turned away from Borg and stared towards us. At least, I assumed that was what he was doing: it was hard to tell. His face was completely hidden by something I thought at first was a kind of helmet … but then I saw it was a shapeless mask, a leather hood over his head with two slits for eyes.

Lyulf grunted, almost as if he was approving, or even amused. ‘Well, it seems we have one at least with a ready-made stage name. He can be the Masked Man. And if he doesn't talk, so much the better — he won't argue.'

But Blade was watching him with a small frown. ‘I hope I did right,' she muttered. ‘He'll keep to the company of the men, or so I hope. And I'd counsel you all to stay well away from them. They're hardened, professional performers: a rough lot, made the more surly and ill-humoured by injury and idleness.

‘And now, we're ready to leave.'

We took up our place at the rear of the straggling cavalcade, and by nightfall, as Borg had promised, we'd left Four Winds far behind.

Much to our relief, what Blade said was true. From the start there seemed to be an unspoken division between the men, who smelled of dirty dressings and unwashed flesh, spoke in growls and grunts and behaved as if we didn't exist, and our cheerful campfire. Borg kept to the men's group, ignoring us as much as possible, barking the occasional order and generally treating us with dismissive contempt which seemed at odds with his initial eagerness to sign us up. And the Masked Man seemed happy to keep to himself.

‘So tell us about your circus course, Jamie,' said Rich after our first breakfast, a silent meal of lumpy porridge made by Lyulf and choked down by all of us to be polite.

We were parked up among some trees beside a river, the caravans and trailer grouped in a rough circle with the campfires in the middle. Borg had growled something about a ‘training session' and stumped off, presumably to fetch the equipment, leaving the five of us — you could hardly count Blue-bum — to do the clearing-up.

‘Yes,' said Gen, ‘show us some tricks, Jamie!'

‘Well,' said Jamie, looking rather bashful, ‘all I can do is juggle a bit with three balls … sort of, and not for very long. I'm out of practice.' He hesitated, then took a deep breath and went on: ‘The course was part of a youth programme my parents sent me on. It was supposed to help with
personal and social development, confidence, cooperation and creativity.
I think Mum and Dad hoped I'd make some friends.

‘But actually it turned out to be a dumping-ground for problem kids over the holidays. You'd be surprised how many things kids like that can find to do with juggling scarves and fire torches.' He swallowed. ‘It wasn't much fun for me. Though I guess it was for them.'

I didn't know what to say. He was staring miserably at the ground, mouth set in a determined line, chin trembling. Then suddenly Gen was giving him a hug that made him blush bright scarlet. ‘Never mind, Jamie. You've got
real
friends now. And you've joined an
actual
circus, not some silly course. Hopefully Blade will be the one to teach us; she's really nice.'

‘It's an odd name, isn't it?' said Kenta. ‘I wonder —'

She broke off as Borg appeared, staggering under the weight of a battered wooden crate the size and shape of a coffin. The equipment had arrived. Hastily we stowed the dishes away and kicked out the fire, then gathered round to look. Juggling batons, stilts, a unicycle, Jamie had said … I couldn't wait to try it.

Borg opened the little leather bag that hung on a thong round his neck and withdrew a tiny key. We held our breath as he opened the padlocks and slowly lifted the lid.

I blinked. Had he brought the wrong box? Where were the devil sticks and the clown outfits? I looked at the others, and saw my own bafflement reflected on their faces.

The box was full of weapons. Swords, long and short, made of metal and of wood; tridents like the one Kai had used; nets, staffs, daggers and spears; weird things like spiked knuckle-
dusters; clumsy-looking gloves made of steel and leather and woven chain-mail, and what looked like padded Frisbees.

The Masked Man strode up, arms piled high with huge shields the size of cartwheels; they must have weighed a ton, but he carried them as easily as if they were a pile of pancakes. He dropped them on the ground with a ringing crash, dust puffing out all round. Was it some kind of joke? I stared at the stuff, not even beginning to understand. On my shoulder Blue-bum was still and silent; his little hand twisted firmly into my hair for balance. For once it felt oddly comforting.

For what seemed a long time no one spoke. Then Gen piped up, in a strangled bleat: ‘What …' Her voice trailed away.

Why ask the question, with the answer right there in front of us? We'd joined a circus all right — but not quite the kind of circus we'd thought.

 

Borg stalked off to fetch his ‘sword-master' and while we waited we discussed the contents of the box in agitated whispers.

‘Maybe they're juggling swords,' said Jamie. ‘In some circuses —'

‘Yeah, right, or they're planning to teach us sword-swallowing for starters, before we graduate to fire-eating,' growled Rich. ‘Face it, Jamie, we've been conned.'

‘But I don't understand,' said Kenta. ‘Are they bandits, or what?'

‘Not bandits; gladiators.' Lyulf was standing a few paces away, arms folded. He had an unnerving knack of appearing silently out of nowhere, moving quietly as a cat.

Gladiators! It was the one thing in the world I knew something about, from my ill-fated Gladiator Project. A memory of hours hunched over the computer at Highgate flashed through my mind, vivid images of clashing steel and blood-soaked sand mingling with the orphanage smells of overcooked cabbage and disinfectant. Without meaning to, I found myself glancing up at Blue-bum, remembering how,
as Weevil, he'd stolen my project and passed it off as his own … his bright button eyes met mine full-on for a second, then squeezed tight shut.

I'd always thought being a gladiator would be way cool — the olden-day equivalent of an Olympic gold medallist … my heart did a flip-flop of mixed nerves and excitement and I felt the beginnings of a grin tug at the corners of my mouth.

But Gen spun to face Lyulf, eyes blazing. ‘Why didn't you tell us? You said it was a circus — and so did Borg! And anyhow, gladiators don't …'

Lyulf watched expressionlessly as she wound gradually down, realising the pointlessness of what she was saying. They might not exist in our world, but she could hardly say so — and here they all too obviously did.

‘I suppose it's just a question of definition,' said Jamie, always a stickler for accuracy. ‘Come to think of it, in Ancient Rome the gladiator tournaments were called
circuses
— it's where the term originated. They taught us that in …' Then Jamie too gulped and was silent.

‘Now it all makes sense,' said Kenta. ‘The men — the
hardened professionals
— haven't hurt themselves falling off the high wire.'

‘No wonder Blade told us to stay away from them,' whispered Gen.

‘They are brigands, criminals, cut-throats,' said Lyulf grimly. ‘Blade counselled you well.'

‘But what happened to them? If they're as tough as you say …'

Lyulf shrugged. ‘We cannot always choose who — or what — we fight. Those who remain were the most skilled — and the most fortunate, believe me.'

‘Well, Lyulf,' I said evenly, ‘maybe you'd better tell us a bit more about your kind of circus. We might as well know what sort of outfit we've joined.'

Lyulf gave a small snort that could have been amusement,
but still he didn't smile. ‘The circus is an ancient tradition of the Borderlands,' he said, ‘and other lands further afield. Borg is the the ringmaster. He owns the circus. He employs trained fighters — gladiators — to take part in contests between other troupes, or champions who volunteer for combat. Sometimes there is a tournament in one of the bigger towns —'

‘And that's where the real money is to be made,' chipped in Blade cheerfully. ‘Don't look so down in the mouth. Whatever you thought a circus was, it couldn't be better than this. Excitement, danger, success — even fame, for some.' She nodded towards Lyulf. ‘Pitting your skill against all comers — whether man or beast, warrior or phantom — and never knowing what the next day will bring. Nothing adds as much spice to life as not knowing when it is to end!'