Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Despair filled the hollow in her chest. She had the insane thought that she could instead draw the dagger and bury it in the Websworn’s throat, but a single moment of hesitation saw him reaching for his own weapon. The will to fight faded. Her cold, bloodless fingers wound into her robe. She slipped the knife free and, fighting another retch, placed it in the Websworn’s waiting hand.

  His fingers curled about the handle and his posture relaxed. “That is all. Return.”

  Hands numb and fidgeting, she turned and made her way back inside the dormitory with Chelsea. The door clattered closed again, and the sound reverberated through their small room. They were trapped.

  The frightful look had returned to Chelsea’s face. “What are we going to do now?”

  Amanda dropped her bag to the ground. “I don’t know. We can . . . We can . . . ” But no words would come to her. She looked to and fro, chained down by the feeling that somewhere there must have been a trump card. There had to be something, some option she hadn’t considered. But there was nothing. What little self-defense they’d had was gone. “We . . . I need some time. Yeah, if I just had time I could think of something. That’s it, we just need a plan.” The sobs started in her throat, and before she knew it her eyes were running again. She sank to the floor in a blubbering heap, and Chelsea followed. The helplessness was too much. For a long while, they just sat there, huddled together, weeping.

  When their next meal came, they let it go cold.

  Chapter 25

  The Carnival Sword

  As Spinneretta and Kara crested the small hill leading to the fairgrounds, the whistle of fireworks cut through a calliope’s high-tempo, off-kilter fanfare. Bursts of rainbow sparks exploded overhead, illuminating the grounds of the carnival. It was as though they’d been set off specifically to welcome them. The smell of gunpowder—oddly comforting—wafted down from the clouds of smoke hanging low in the air. From outside the high chicken-wire fence surrounding the festivities, Spinneretta could make out the bright blur of colored tents interspersed with dull wooden booths. Tall, whirling things, half-hidden by the sprawl of stands and people, danced out of rhythm with the calliope’s tune. The things were undulating, beckoning them toward the clown-head ticket booth, which resembled a prop from some trite horror film.

  Vibrant sparks shimmered in Kara’s wide eyes, but they were outshone by the radiant smile on her face. “Come on,” she shouted, breaking into a run toward the gate, where a small crowd still awaited entry into the fair.

  A pang of apprehension clawed at Spinneretta’s stomach. She chased her sister’s retreating back, calling out to her. A wall of inattentive teenagers broke on either side as she pursued her all the way to the short line leading to the sinister clown’s mouth. How long had it been since she’d seen Kara this excited? Spark showers kept bursting overhead as they neared the entrance, and beyond the white, half-rusted turnstile hung a pompously ornate banner.

  The Carnival Sword

  The tickets were only five dollars apiece, but even that stretched the limits of their remaining funds. If they didn’t make it to Manix soon, they’d be in a world of shit. Spinneretta eyed the inside of her wallet. Two expired bus tickets to Salt Lake City, a twenty, a ten, and a pair of fives. With a small sigh, she slid the ten across the counter and through the tiny window in the glass. The woman on the other side tore two rectangles of paper from a reel and slid them back.

  “Welcome to the Carnival Sword,” she said. “Enjoy the Festival of Niiza.” The somber tone of her voice, barely audible over the music from just beyond the gate, seemed replete with despair.

  Spinneretta picked up the tickets and passed one to Kara, who snatched it away with a squeal of delight. With that, her sister rushed to the turnstile, nearly bowling over the unlucky teenager tasked with clipping tickets and stamping hands. With a grumble, Spinneretta slunk up to the gate just as Kara pressed through it, a grating rattle clamoring at her ears.

  Thirty dollars. How the hell are we supposed to get to Manix on that? The bus tickets, those fat, oblong things that stuck halfway out of her wallet, were stinging reminders of how much she’d thrown away and how close they were to complete destitution. Those damned tickets, the price of continuing undetected, the coin for the ferryman. She couldn’t even scalp them now, unless Pacifica’s return policies were more forgiving than Christ himself. And worse, that meant transportation was now directly competing with their need for food.

  “Welcome to the Carnival Sword,” the ticket checker parroted. “Enjoy the Festival of Niiza.”

  Momentarily distracted by the wet blue spot on the back of her hand, Spinneretta let the turnstile clank and take her into the twilit carnival, where her sister bounced up and down in glee as she looked around.

  The midway was filled with barkers and hawkers, games and riddles. The gaudy tents were packed deep along the sides, and the smell of oil-fried treats beat back against the stench of animal manure wafting in from wherever the petting zoo was. Old, dust-yellowed bulbs burned, lighting the midway with a tinted halo that seemed somehow foul, defiled.

  Eyes flashing with excitement, Kara spun around and looked up at Spinneretta with a huge smile. “Spins, can I have some money?”

  She gave her sister a long look. “Kara, you know we don’t have much left, and what we do have is for getting to Manix.”

  Kara frowned. For a moment, she looked as though she was about to cry, as though all her joy had been drained in a single moment. But then she nodded and gave a small grunt. “Yeah, okay. You’re right.”

  Spinneretta’s heart sank. Jesus, Kara, she thought. I hate those damn sad eyes. She sighed and pulled her wallet out once more. A twenty and two fives. And those damned useless tickets. She flicked the bills for a moment. The look of child-like excitement that had for a moment burned in Kara’s eyes—God, it had been forever. What price could she put on her sister’s happiness?

  A familiar remorse shook her. What the fuck am I doing? I can’t just drag Kara with me to her death. They were the same thoughts she’d had on the bus, but seeing Kara smile like that made them more real, heavier. But she’d already tried to convince her to stay behind, to no avail. And yet, even if Kara insisted on going with her to the very end, didn’t the girl deserve one last night of being a kid? She drew out the twenty and, trying not to think too hard about what that meant for the rest of their journey, handed it over.

  Kara’s eyes lit up like it was Christmas when she saw which bill she’d been given. “R-really? Are you sure?”

  Spinneretta nodded. “We already paid to get in. Not much you can do without spending something, I guess. Just make it last. Be sure to eat something with it.”

  Kara beamed and accepted the bill, holding it in both hands like a precious gem. “Thankies! I’ll pay you back for it, I promise!”

  And as Spinneretta watched Kara scamper down the midway through the bustling crowd of inattentive cretins, her footsteps slowed. Now. How can I leave her here?

  It should have been so simple. With Kara distracted by the festivities and Annika hopefully thrown from their tail, she could just slip away when nobody was looking. That would put her slightly ahead on the way forward, and leave Kara out of the coming fight with the King. But could she really leave her here on her own? Which was a crueler end: endangerment or abandonment? But even if she did leave Kara here and went off on her own, the girl would probably track her scent before she made it half a mile. Even with the screen of the carnival’s smells, she knew the Instinct would be able to pinpoint her location in a heartbeat. And worse, Kara would probably expose her spider legs in order to do so, and then what? If word of that got out, Annika would swoop down upon them. Or worse.

  She shivered as she imagined an unscrupulous barker hatching a plan to kidnap Kara and keep her prisoner in the freak show to bolster the carnival’s revenue. Unlikely? Perhaps, but she wasn’t convinced the chance was zero. Another sigh forced itself out of her lungs. Though it was hard to fathom it,
staying together was still the best option—or, failing that, an option she had little choice but to accept.

  Besides, she thought, Kara deserves better than having what might be her last night of happiness ruined by me vanishing. The thought stilled her quivering uncertainty. She found herself nodding as she drifted toward where Kara was perusing the games. And in the end, who am I doing this for?

  When she saw Kara smile like that, in her heart and soul she knew she was right. Kara’s innocent smile was the future. She had to face the Yellow King and the cult, not for herself, not for some sanctimonious greater good, but for Kara. She deserved a life without the fear of being chased down, without the guilt of the cult’s sins, without the Yellow King—that sword of Damocles—over her head. And so she’d have to find some other way to spare her the horror of the inevitable end.

  But as the night drew on, it became harder to keep the shadows of uncertainty and bleakness from invading her thoughts. Though the beacon of Kara’s happiness and excitement drove back the encroaching night, the despair soon began to chew at her. The carnival seemed to grow darker. She could have sworn that the calliope fanfare pouring out of the loudspeakers had dropped to an off-key facsimile of a jump rope anthem all but forgotten from her childhood. And from the murmurs of a crowd of school-aged children rushing by, she was all but certain the lyrics had been sung in hushed tones:

  Yellow King and Helixweaver

  The Chosen and the believer

  When they fight, within mists white

  How many dead stars will ignite?

  She shuddered. It had been no more than an illusion, she tried to convince herself. To the left and right, the barkers’ and carnies’ welcoming calls had become mocking jeers. A large tent, advertising a phantasmagoria, was covered in shapes too frightful for a benign attraction. Like a ball of maggots writhing through a half-eaten bird, the design enshrined a violet eye which—now that she thought about it—had decorated the Carnival Sword banner and nearly every tent they’d passed on the way. Beneath the worm-eaten bird designs, a sign on the tent read:

  Phantasmagoria: The Gospel of Niiza

  -AND-

  The Music of the Spheres

  (Shows every hour)

  BY INVITATION ONLY

  TICKETS NOT FOR SALE

  A frigid echo rang through her. Tickets not for sale? What the hell is that? Didn’t they want money? It was incongruent with the ostentatious tent, for it had all the trappings of a major attraction. And what the hell is Niiza? The Gospel of Niiza. Festival of Niiza.

  She saw a clown without eyes. A man gowned in a cloak of human skin. A woman whose whole body was swimming with maggots. Corn dogs battered in the bone meal of abandoned children. Toppled baby strollers folded and crushed into the gears of the Ferris wheel. A ring toss stacked high with open caskets. A shooting gallery lined with jars of fetuses, some malformed, others bursting free and spilling amniotic fluid and blood upon the—

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  Startled, Spinneretta sucked down a deep breath. She looked all around, her momentary terror receding behind the gaudy displays of anachronistic amusement. Everything was ordinary again, if still unsettling. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just don’t like the atmosphere.” Who the fuck likes clowns, anyway?

  Despite the anxiety eating away at her insides, she felt somehow at ease. Kara’s smile was still bright and innocent. And she’d throw everything away if she could just stop time and let Kara be that happy forever. But the path ahead, she knew, was fraught with peril and ended only in pain—for one if not the both of them. Even if Kara was determined to follow, wasn’t there some way to go on ahead and leave her to the wonderland of the rest of her life?

  A sardonic breath seethed from between her teeth. Wonderland. What’s wonderful about it? We have nothing. Alice is dead, crucified by the Cheshire—

  Her heart stopped, and she gasped. Was it another phantasm? A trick of the light? Between two groups of passing teenagers up ahead by the caramel corn stand, she was certain she’d seen something purple. A suit, a hat, a smile. But when the two groups parted, there was nothing beyond, save for the grease-stained wooden kiosk and the steaming kettle beside it.

  Holy shit. Her stomach trembled. What’s wrong with me tonight? This place is making me crazy.

  Kara gasped beside her. “Hey! Look over there! A fortune teller!” She pointed eagerly at a dark blue tent set up alongside a row of hat and trinket stands. There was another worm-ball bird-eye embroidered on the flap of the tent, and in front of it was an unattractive wooden sign advertising the presence of a psychic.

  Still shaking from her hallucinations—no, not hallucinations, I’m just tired is all—Spinneretta grabbed Kara by the shoulder. “Kara, fortune tellers aren’t real.”

  “Yeah they are, there’s one right there!”

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant that they’re nothing but—”

  But Kara was already pushing her way through the throngs of carnival-goers. “Come on! Maybe she’ll be like Mark and can tell us the future!”

  “W-wait, Kara, get back here!” Spinneretta pursued her, the fright of a few moments before falling behind her alongside the kettle corn and puddles of vomit. She ducked in front of a small crowd that nearly trampled her as they passed. A young man moving in the other direction bumped into her, but she was gone before he could mutter an apology. She sighed in frustration as she caught sight of Kara slipping into the psychic tent.

  The inside of the tent was covered in purple and maroon sheets. Bizarre trinkets and grotesque fetishes hung from the ceiling by fine wires. Strange signs and icons were attached to taut ropes along the walls. In the center of the tent stood a small round table. Upon its surface sat a crystal ball, a deck of overlarge occult playing cards, and a hand-carved statue of some weird bird. The statue was wooden, and the plumage on its body was rough and angular, as though unfinished.

  Behind the table, where Kara eagerly addressed her rapid-fire questions, there sat a middle-aged man with disheveled salt and pepper hair, who wore a green plaid shirt and plain jeans. He looked up at Spinneretta as she entered, and Kara shot her an excited glance over her shoulder. “See,” Kara said. “I told you!”

  The fortune teller showed Spinneretta a weak smile. “Let me guess,” he said. “Not what you were expecting?”

  Spinneretta blinked at him, confused. Outside, the music swelled in volume as a small group of performers passed the vestibule of the tent. This time, too, it sounded discordant and unwholesome.

  The man blew out through pursed lips and rested his head in one hand. “If you have come seeking answers, then I shall provide my services.” He sounded utterly bored, like an office worker volunteering for overtime.

  “So, so, you can tell the future, can’t you?” Kara asked. “That’s your power, right?”

  The man chuckled and gave her a noncommittal shrug. “Nobody can know the future, child. Those who claim the ability are charlatans. The most one can do is scry the essence of fate’s strands, and offer advice in light of the most probable outcome.”

  Kara hummed as though she understood, and then she was right back to jumping up and down. “Tell me my future!”

  Spinneretta grabbed Kara by the arm gently. “Kara, we should probably go.” He’s not going to tell you anything a Chinese restaurant couldn’t.

  To her surprise, the man began to laugh. “So eager to leave? I see that the skepticism is strong in you.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to avoid saying anything unnecessarily aggressive. “It’s just that we only have so much money to spend here.”

  “And you do not wish your sister to waste it upon false prophecies.”

  Startled by his self-deprecating bluntness, Spinneretta looked away. “I wasn’t going to say as much.”

  Kara groaned and pulled her wrist out of Spinneretta’s grip. “But he can help us! He can tell us what to expect when we get to Manix.”

  The man, se
eming to ignore the excited young girl, blinked slowly with that same weak smile. “I can tell you’re a smart girl,” he said, his voice deep and smooth. “Not deceived by vibrant doilies and stylized eyeballs. How very rare.”

  Spinneretta stared at him. “Wha?”

  But Kara wasn’t listening to either of them. “My fortune! My fortune!”

  The man gestured to a sign beside the table. “My rates are on the board. I do wish I could do this for free.” The sign, an old wooden thing painted black and decorated in chalk, read:

  Simple reading – $ five

  Special reading – $ ten

  Kara eagerly ripped a five out of her pocket, folded it, and slapped it on the table, just next to the strange wooden bird.

  “Thank you, madam,” he said.

  She giggled, altogether too excited to receive her carnival fortune.

  The fortune teller then leaned back in his chair and raised his hands in a bizarre gesture. After a moment, he brought his elbows down to the table and began to gaze into the crystal ball. “Hmm. Well, it is quite murky. Quite, quite murky,” he said in the same bored tone as before. “It seems you have a great ordeal ahead of you. I see a great solitude or tribulation that you are struggling through. Am I correct?”

  Kara gave an excited nod. “Wow, how did you know? Yeah, we’re, uhh . . . in the middle of something, I guess.”

  “As I suspected. The spirits whisper to me. They’re telling me that there is anger. There is anger and resentment behind you. You have worries. You are worried about what lies in the future.”

  Kara grew quiet and nodded, a solemn look on her face.

  Spinneretta cringed. You’re kidding me, right? You are worried about what lies in the future? Why else would anyone come to one of these houses of lies? At least come up with better generalizations. Jesus.

  “I can tell that you are far from those you love,” the man continued. “You have given up some measure of comfort, and deep down you are terrified of what this transition means.”