The Shadowed Path (24 page)

“Fine, fine. Do what you want. But go tonight. Word has it the show arrives and leaves without warning. I want to know what we’re up against.” With that, Linton bustled out of the forge.

Jonmarc and Trent looked at each other for a moment. “Linton never ceases to amaze me,” Trent said, shaking his head. “Pump the bellows,” he ordered, and Jonmarc went to fan the flames. “Of all the nonsense—”

“What’s a monstrosities show?” Jonmarc asked.

Trent shoved the iron rods back into the fire. “Just what it sounds like. A traveling show of monsters.”

“Monsters?”

Trent shrugged. “Depends on your definition. Oddities. People and animals that aren’t what you’d expect. Calves with two heads. A cat with a paw where its tail should be, or a dog with no ears, or a monkey with a third arm. Someone who can put a nail through his flesh without bleeding, or swallow fire. I heard tell of a man with an axe blade in his skull. Didn’t kill him, and he couldn’t take it out, so he charged people a skrivven apiece to look at him.”

“Better than begging, I guess,” Jonmarc said.

“Maybe,” Trent replied. “Not many other places folks that different could get work, or much use for animals like that. But there are dark stories that maybe some of them weren’t born like that.” He struck the iron, ending the conversation, but his comments made Jonmarc all the more curious.

Across the caravan grounds, Jonmarc heard the bell clang the seventh hour. He and Trent were just banking the fires and closing up the forge for the night. “Go ahead and get dinner,” Trent instructed. “Then meet up with Kegan and the others. I’ll roust up Corbin and Zane and we’ll follow you.” He paused. “Jonmarc—”

“Yes?”

“It won’t do for you to wear your swords, but take a knife. I don’t like the feel of this.”

Jonmarc felt a thrill of excitement as he left the forge. He had become used to the attractions of the caravan, and knew nearly all of the performers. It had been quite a while since he had watched a show with the kind of keen interest he saw in the face of the caravan’s patrons. The monstrosities show sounded like fun.

“Over here!” Dugan hailed him. Dugan and Kegan sat on a log near the cook fire, each with a trencher of stew.

Jonmarc lined up to get his dinner and a tankard of ale. A hunched woman got into line behind him. She wore a long gray robe with a cowl, and her gray hair was matted like a bird’s nest.

“Watch yourself,” the old woman muttered.

Jonmarc turned, frowning. “Did you say something?” He glanced around, thinking that he had stepped on her hem.

“In the shadow place,” she murmured. “Things are not what they seem.”

“You want your stew or not?” the cook grunted, and Jonmarc turned around, reaching for his trencher.

“The taken ones are watching you,” the old woman muttered. “Beware.”

“Show’s over for the day. Keep your predictions to yourself,” the cook snapped, shoving a trencher toward the old woman.

Jonmarc went back to join his friends, and cast a glance over his shoulder. “Do you know who what is?” he asked.

Dugan frowned, following his gaze. “The old woman?”

“She’s new. Just came on a few towns back,” Kegan said. “She’s a seer and a hedge witch. Says her name’s Alyzza.” He gave Jonmarc a look. “Why?”

Jonmarc shook his head. “No reason. Just hadn’t seen her around. Strange duck.” He took a drink of ale. “You talked to Linton?”

Dugan nodded. “He must be plenty worried to give us each a copper to check this place out.” Dugan was one of the most fearless people Jonmarc knew. As an apprentice rigger, Dugan scaled the high poles inside the caravan’s tents and ran lines to keep the canvas in place. It was dangerous work, but Dugan seemed to relish the risk.

“Is Pol coming?” Jonmarc asked.

“You mean Corbin’s nephew?” Kegan asked. “The one with the pox scars?”

Jonmarc nodded. “Have you met him?”

Kegan shrugged. “Only once. Keeps to himself, like you did when you first joined up. If he just lost his family, I don’t imagine he feels much like talking.” Kegan lacked Dugan’s daring, and did not share Jonmarc’s love of sparring, but he always knew interesting gossip, thanks to spending his days among the healers.

“Here he comes,” Dugan said.

Pol ambled toward them, head down. By torchlight, the scars on Pol’s face were not as noticeable as in daylight. From the way the young man hunched his shoulders and let his hair fall, Jonmarc guessed that Pol felt the weight of his disfigurement. Seeing him, Jonmarc was conscious of the long scar that ran from his ear down under his collar, a permanent memento of all he had lost.

Pol shuffled through the food line and stood just outside the circle where Jonmarc and the others ate. “Room for one more?” he asked in a tone that said he would not have been surprised to be turned away.

“Plenty,” Kegan said, sliding down to make a space on the log. “You in for the adventure tonight?”

Pol nodded, still not making eye contact. “Should be interesting,” he said without looking up.

“I’m thinking it’ll be pretty tame,” Jonmarc said. “After all, we’ve had
vyrkin
and
vayash moru
here in the caravan. Most people think they’re monsters, but they’re not. After that, what could still be strange?”

“My grandfather told stories about a show like that,” Dugan said. “Said there were creatures who were cursed by the Lady, maybe even some that crawled out of the underworld.”

Kegan rolled his eyes. “I heard the master healers talking about it. They said such things happen when the body’s humours are shifted. Things get off center, odd, like when a wagon’s wheel isn’t on the axle right.”

“Guess we’ll see for ourselves,” Jonmarc said. “You ready to go?”

Linton had loaned them a wagon for the occasion, more proof that the caravan master was seriously worried. When Jonmarc and the others reached the wagon, they found Trent, Corbin, and Zane the knife-thrower waiting for them, along with Karl. The men were dressed all in black, astride black horses so that they blended into the night.

“We’ll follow you,” Trent said. “And we’ll wait outside the show. If all goes well, no one will know we’re there.”

Jonmarc had seen battle with Trent and the other men. Left unspoken was just how much trouble they could cause if things did not go well. Jonmarc’s hand fell to the hilt of the large knife in its sheath on his belt. Wearing his swords would have been conspicuous, but Jonmarc would have felt better with a bigger blade at hand. He noticed that Dugan and Pol also wore knives. Kegan carried a stout walking stick.

“Tell me again why healers can bash someone over the head with a stick, but using a knife is forbidden?” Jonmarc asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I could, but you still wouldn’t understand,” Kegan replied. It was an old debate between them, mostly in jest.

Dugan already sat in the driver’s seat of the wagon. “Come on!” he urged. Jonmarc swung up beside him, while the others piled into the back. It was already dark, and Jonmarc watched the sides of the road for wolves. The ride to Dunleigh took less than half a candlemark, but Jonmarc found himself on edge, unable to get Alyzza’s warnings out of his mind.

“There it is,” Dugan said, pointing.

Pitched at the crossroads was a large tent, larger than the biggest of the caravan’s enclosures. Torches burned on posts along a pathway leading to the tent, and the tent glowed with fire from within. As they drew closer, Jonmarc saw a large banner hung across the entrance. ‘Monstrosities’, he read. Beneath it was another banner in red, ‘Come and see’. Outside the door stood a man collecting coins. A small line waited to enter.

Dugan pulled the horse and wagon off the road and threw the reins over the branch of a tree. Jonmarc knew that Trent and the others would keep an eye out for thieves. He glanced toward the shadows of the tree line, and spotted the men, although with their dark clothing and black horses, he would not have seen them if he had not known where to look. Reassured, he jangled the coin in his pocket. “Let’s go,” he said to the others.

Jonmarc and Dugan walked in front, with Kegan and Pol behind them. An unusually short, fat man held a chubby hand out for their coins. “One copper each,” he said in a voice that sounded like it belonged to a roustabout.

The man watched them as they entered as if he thought they might set the tent afire. They walked past the tent flap, and stopped.

“Well now, that’s not quite what I expected,” Dugan murmured.

Stages were set up all along the tent’s walls, each with a stranger exhibit than the last. In the center of the tent, several performances were underway. A small cluster of visitors milled about, tittering and pointing.

“Let’s see what there is to see,” Jonmarc said, heading toward the nearest stage. A man led a slow parade of animals across the platform, each more hideously deformed than the last. A two-headed calf balked at the lead, its second head hanging blackened and shrunken from its neck. Behind it was a sheep with three extra legs protruding from its body and hobbling its gait. A dog with a badly misshapen head followed, and a pig with two snouts.

Some of the onlookers jeered and laughed. Jonmarc felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. “There’s something very wrong here,” he said quietly.

“Agreed,” Dugan replied.

On the next stage, an unnaturally muscular man held a huge snake. When Jonmarc and his friends drew closer, they realized that the snake was covered with large growths that rippled as it moved.

“Do you see the face?” Kegan whispered over Jonmarc’s shoulder.

Jonmarc could not take his eyes from the snake. Beneath the scales and despite the elongated snout, the eyes that looked back at him were human.

“Just keep going,” Jonmarc murmured. He glanced behind them and saw Pol straggling behind. “Keep up,” he whispered. “We don’t want to get separated.”

The next stage had a large banner that read, ‘See the Spider Girl’. A thin girl was on her hands and knees on the stage, with four sets of arms and legs. As Jonmarc and the others watched in horrified amazement, she reared back on two limbs, then moved through a series of contortions that defied even the skills of the acrobats Jonmarc had seen with Linton’s caravan. Her body twisted and bent in places Jonmarc was certain there were no natural joints, and beneath the torch light, her skin had a gloss to it that looked like a carapace.

‘The Human Bull’ the next banner proclaimed. Kegan caught his breath as they came into view. The creature on stage was neither man nor beast. The head was broad like a bull but with human features, although a thick brass ring pierced the creature’s nose. Massive shoulders ended in hooves, like the forequarters of a bull, while the bottom torso and legs were those of a man. The creature’s skin was mottled with patchy bits of ox hide. The eyes in the distorted face were human, and as the beast was prodded to turn and parade for the jeering crowd, those eyes fixed Jonmarc’s gaze with an anguished stare.

Every stage held a new transmogrification, each more hideous than the last. The ‘
Stawar
-Man’ had the heavy head and shoulders of the big predatory cat and the spindly legs and scrawny body of a half-grown boy. It seemed to Jonmarc that whatever power had made the combinations took the weakest and ugliest portions of both.

Some of the wretches on the stages appeared to have been twisted and tangled by an angry god. Arms or legs were elongated far beyond their normal lengths, jointed backwards like a dog, or bent in unnatural ways. Under the banner of ‘The Boneless Wonder’, a gelatinous mass flopped on the stage like one of the creatures fished out of the deep sea, save for the desperate, all-too-human eyes.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jonmarc muttered.

But before they could turn, a ring of torch light flared in the center of the tent. The aimless crowd turned to stare at the figures moving into the flaming ring. One was an impossibly tall man dressed in a black frock coat and trousers, with high black boots. In front of him scuttled a half dozen pathetic creatures, grossly twisted and altered. Each was an unholy combination of human and animal parts, cobbled together by nightmares. The master snapped a white whip and the cursed beings limped and hobbled through their paces.

“Is that whip what I think it is?” Dugan wondered in horror. Pol edged closer for a better look.

“It looks like a spine,” Kegan murmured, and his face had gone pale.

The audience cheered and clapped, catcalling and pointing. As the man with the frock coat took his bow, the torches flared again, and the next stage in the middle of the tent became the center of attention.

“Look at that,” Dugan whispered as a man made his way on stage. His gait was hitched and his shoulders stooped, but all the audience cared about was the slender iron shaft that appeared to impale his skull, its ends obvious on either side of his hairless head. A woman shambled behind him. Hundreds of needles protruded from her skin everywhere on her body, as her scandalously brief scrap of clothing made clear. Behind her staggered a man with a lance through his belly, its point clearly evident poking through his shirtless back, its broken shaft penetrating his belly.

“I really think we need to go,” Jonmarc hissed urgently. Kegan and Dugan seemed to share his uneasiness, but Pol was staring at the center stage with rapt attention. “Come on,” he said, tugging at Pol’s arm. “We’re leaving.”

The tent had grown more crowded since they had entered. Jonmarc had to shoulder his way through the press of people. He glanced behind him, catching a glimpse of the others, only to be cut off again by the mob. It felt as if he were swimming upstream, caught in a current, and the tent’s doorway looked much farther away than he remembered walking. Odd thoughts flitted through his mind, images best forgotten, random impulses that did not feel like his own. Impatiently, Jonmarc brushed them aside, focused on the door.

“You don’t want to leave now,” the fare man chided. “Things are just starting to get interesting.”

Jonmarc pushed past him. “I’ve seen enough,” he growled, striding toward the door. Everything he had seen disgusted him, yet as he stepped toward the darkness outside the tent, out of the warmth of the torches within, it felt as if something tugged at his sleeves and caught at his ankles to make him stop.