The Palace of Laughter

by Jon Berkeley

  “Bingo,” said String to himself. “Now all I have to do is find the right key.” He began to try the keys one at a time. Most fit the lock but would not turn. One turned a fraction and got stuck fast, and he tugged and rattled it impatiently. Time was running out, and there was a nasty smell of rotten bananas from the room he was trying to open that was making him feel slightly sick. Suddenly the key turned, and the lock opened with a click. String smiled. He pictured the girl sitting frightened and alone in the corner of the room. She was small, maybe five or six, and she may even already be tied up. He did not think he would have much trouble with her one way or another.

  It would have been better for String if he had pictured an enormous black beast, with eyes like holes in the darkness itself, crouched on the other side of the door and filled with a howling madness, for that was what was waiting for him as he chuckled to himself and rattled the keys in the lock.

  He turned the handle to open the door, but as he did so it burst outward and sent him flying across the corridor. He slammed into the opposite wall, knocking himself out cold, and slid to the floor, as the nameless hairy beast barged out of its cell with a barking cackle and loped away toward the elevator.

  Miles Wednesday, tired, triumphant, but still Tangerine-less, searched the empty theater for his missing bear. He looked in the discarded clown’s hat from which Tangerine had emerged in the first place, and he searched among the other props that littered the ring, but he could find no sign of him. Silverpoint had remained to help him, while Lady Partridge went outside to look for Genghis’s keys.

  The boy and the angel picked their way slowly around the ring, turning over everything they could find. Miles called Tangerine’s name, but the vast empty building seemed to answer with a forlorn cackling, as though the crazy laughter were still leaking from the stone walls themselves. He called again, and the cackle answered. It sounded louder this time, and it made the hair stand up on his neck. He had heard that sound before.

  “Silverpoint,” he said. Silverpoint straightened up, tucking something quickly into his pocket, and turned to him.

  “I think The Null is in this building,” said Miles.

  “You think what?” asked Silverpoint, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “That,” said Miles, pointing over Silverpoint’s shoulder with a trembling finger, “is The Null.”

  The creature crouched there, almost filling the doorway. Its red mouth hung open in the hairy blackness. Silverpoint turned and stared. The Null launched itself down the aisle suddenly, heading straight for him. Silverpoint stepped backward, sending a bolt of lightning toward the beast, which howled with pain but did not stop its headlong charge. There was a rustling sound like someone shaking out a starched sheet, and Silverpoint’s magnificent wings spread from his shoulders, tearing through his chef’s jacket as though it were wet tissue. The creature bowled into him before he could get off the ground, and they rolled over and over across the floodlit ring, an angel and a demon in a ball of sparks and fury. There was another crackle of blue fire and a roar of rage, and a moment later The Null was charging on toward Miles on its feet and knuckles, smoke rising from its burnt hair, and Silverpoint lay motionless on the floor, his eyes closed and his wings outstretched in the greasy sawdust.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  LITTLE

  Miles Wednesday, upside-down and oil-coated, hung by his jacket from The Null’s ebony fist, high above the empty ring in the Palace of Laughter. After knocking Silverpoint out, the black beast had come straight at him, grabbing him without slackening its pace, and had begun to climb one of the ornately carved pillars that circled the ring. It climbed swiftly, and Miles dangled by a handful of cloth, hoping at first that the jacket would rip and let him drop, and then that the jacket would hold so he wouldn’t fall. He held his breath against the smell of rotten bananas and singed hair. He could see Silverpoint, far below and stretched out still on the floor like a drawing of an angel in flight. He saw a small orange dot clamber from the pocket of Silverpoint’s destroyed jacket, and even in the grip of the nameless beast he felt a moment of relief that Tangerine had been found.

  At the top of the pillar was a carved capital, with laughing stone faces peering from between curling leaves. With a grunt The Null climbed onto the flat ledge above the capital and hauled Miles up after it. The ring was like a saucer far below. Miles looked at The Null’s mighty jaws, and remembered the splintering sound as they demolished the bone it had swiped from him back at the Circus Oscuro. The beast let go of his jacket and grabbed him tightly around the chest with its hairy arms. The breath left his lungs with a whoosh.

  Miles felt like a marshmallow in a nutcracker. He pushed against The Null’s chest with all his strength, and found himself looking straight into the blackness of its eyes. As the beast squeezed tighter, it seemed that the eyes sucked him into a fathomless universe of pain and howling darkness that was trapped inside its bony skull. He could not bear to look any longer, and he squirmed and wriggled, as much to get away from that terrible void as to try and free himself from the beast’s bear hug. He was becoming dizzy from lack of air, and still the beast squeezed tighter. He could hear vague sounds of shouting from below, but he could not look down. As his vision began to fog over he looked across at the laughing stone faces on the next pillar, as though they could somehow help him. He imagined that one of the faces swung open, and he felt an odd desire to laugh. “Now I’m seeing things,” he thought.

  He saw the face of Little appear where the stone face had been a moment before. The Null squeezed tighter. Little’s face was followed by her hands gripping the stonework, and she seemed to pop from the hole in the pillar, wings fluttering in a cloud of soot, and glide through the air toward him. She was calling something to him, but he could not hear her over the sound of his blood roaring in his ears. The Null let out a howl and swiped at Little as she came close, still gripping Miles with its other arm. She dodged the blow, and swooped around to land on the ledge behind them. With the last of his strength Miles tried to free himself from the monster’s hold, but his struggling did not loosen The Null’s grip in the slightest. He could feel his ribs cracking, and he saw the beast lash out again at Little. It felt as though he were watching from somewhere far away. She tumbled from the ledge, then recovered herself and flew back toward them, hovering just out of reach of The Null’s hairy arm. He could feel his consciousness slipping away, but before the blackness could overtake him he had the strange notion that he could hear the sound of singing.

  It began like a single voice from a half-remembered dream, and grew stronger and fuller until it swept right through him like a flowing river of light, a sweet blend of birdsong and breeze, of bells and rushing riverwater, and a thousand other sounds of warmth and life and sunlight. It was the most beautiful song he had ever heard, and his pain and fear melted away before it. All the dreams and hopes, the sorrow and simple joy that he had ever felt seemed to be woven into the music as it swirled through him and around him, and the brightest thread of all, the shining sound that held it all together, was the sound of laughter—real, warm laughter glinting through the weave of life and friendship like a thread of gold.

  Miles realized that he was breathing again. The Null’s deathly grip around his chest had loosened. It let him go, and in his dizziness he almost fell forward into space. He saw Little smiling at him, still just out of reach, as she came to the end of her song. He knew that the beautiful sound that had quieted the beast and saved him from death must be her real name, the name that she could never utter without binding herself to Earth, but still he did not want the music to end. As the last few notes died away, Little’s wings melted into her skin and sadness overtook her smile. Miles watched helplessly as she fell toward the ring far below, just a small girl tumbling over and over with no magic, no wings, no song left to lift her.

  The ring was crowded now with people, looking up toward them. He could see Lady Partridge standing there among the
blue-uniformed policemen, and the three tiny figures of the Bolsillo brothers, holding between them something that looked no bigger than a coin. Little fell straight toward them, and they shuffled first to one side, then to the other, never taking their eyes off her. After what seemed like forever she landed right in the middle of the trampoline, for that is what they were holding, and bounced high into the air. The assembled policemen broke into applause, and suddenly the whole scene transformed itself into a simple circus act. A troupe of fools dressed in pajamas and misbuttoned uniforms ran in circles around a fat lady, while a tiny acrobat bounced gracefully on a trampoline held by three tiny clowns, and Miles was struck by the strangest of feelings. Perched high above the floodlit circus ring like a trapeze artist awaiting his cue, he felt truly at home for the first time in his life. It was as though he had always belonged here, and the circus had just been waiting patiently for his return.

  Miles turned to look at The Null, sitting slumped against the pillar, its fearful eyes closed and its huge jaw slackened into something that looked almost like a smile. He leaned back against the pillar beside the stupefied beast. His cracked ribs began to ache. “And where do you fit in, I wonder?” he asked, as tiredness swept over him and he slipped from consciousness.

  Miles Wednesday, monster-squeezed and song-saved, awoke on a lumpy sofa in a firelit room. He could dimly see people sitting around a fire that blazed in the hearth, talking in low voices. He tried to sit up, but a sharp pain shot through his bruised ribs. “Ow!” he hissed.

  The talk around the fire stopped, and everyone turned to look at him. “So you’re back from the uncharted regions, Master Miles,” barked Baltinglass’s voice. “I hope you planted a few flags along the way!”

  “Sit up carefully, my dear,” said Lady Partridge, “and I’ll get you a mug of cocoa.”

  Miles eased himself into a sitting position. He had been bandaged tightly around the ribs and propped on soft cushions, and the bones had been removed from his hair. He could see now that he was in Baltinglass’s living room, dimly lit by a couple of candles that the old man had managed to dig out of his supply depot, and the flickering light of the fire in the hearth. Baltinglass of Araby sat in a leather armchair by the fire, a large gin and tonic in his hand in case the malaria chose that moment to ambush him. Lady Partridge rose from another armchair, cats spilling from her lap as she made for the kitchen. Fabio, Gila and Umor perched on an assortment of stools, and Little sat on the rug in front of the stone hearth, smiling at him for all she was worth and looking none the worse for her fall from the ceiling of the Palace of Laughter.

  “Where’s Silverpoint?” asked Miles.

  “Resting in the bunk room,” said Baltinglass. “Had a tussle with a yeti, so they tell me. Could’ve sworn he had a couple of broken bones when I looked him over at the Palace of Laughter, but when we brought him back here to set ’em, I couldn’t find so much as a fracture. Tough as a Magyar, that lad. Hasn’t come round yet, though, so we’ve left him in his cot.”

  “And Henry!” said Miles, feeling a sudden stab of guilt at the thought of the small boy suspended in the night sky. “We have to go back for Henry. I promised!”

  “It’s all right,” said Little. “The policeman rescued Henry.”

  “My own nephew, Radovan Flap, rescued the boy,” shouted Baltinglass. “Climbed up in the dark with a lantern hanging from his belt and brought the lad down single-handedly. No shortage of pluck, that young Radovan. Gets it from his mother’s side, may the gods play a happy tune on her old bones. Would’ve gone up myself, but the lad wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Little came and sat on the end of the sofa, shooing a couple of cats out of the way. The soot had been cleaned from her hair, and she was wearing an old dressing gown many sizes too big for her.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “A bit bruised, but I’ll be fine. But what about you? What about—”

  Little put her finger to her lips. Miles lowered his voice to a whisper. “Why did you have to sing your name?” he asked. “You can never go home now, can you?”

  Little shook her head.

  “Couldn’t you…couldn’t you have found The Null’s own name to sing to it, and kept yours to yourself?” whispered Miles.

  “I looked for its name,” she said, “and I found the place where it should be, but there was only a black hole in the One Song itself, as though the name had been torn out and stolen.” She winced at the memory, then smiled at Miles. “Besides, I want to stay here with you. You need a little sister.”

  Miles searched her face, but could see no sign of regret. He felt a warm feeling spreading from his stomach.

  “Won’t you miss it? The Realm, and…and flying?”

  “Of course,” said Little, “but I’ve found something better.”

  “What could be better than flying, and that beautiful music?” He could still hear an echo of Little’s Song in his ear, and he hoped it would never fade away.

  “The One Song is beautiful,” agreed Little, “But…” She searched for the words. “But up there, I only got to sing it. Down here I can live it. Down here I can have real friends.” A smile lit up her face. “And that reminds me…”

  She reached in her pocket and took out Tangerine. She handed him to Miles. The small bear wriggled out of his hand and climbed to his shoulder, where he snuggled against Miles’s ear. The familiar feel of his worn fur seemed to ease the ache in Miles’s ribs, and the smile of contentment on his face stretched even wider.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “Told you so,” said Umor from the edge of the fireplace.

  “It’s really his,” said Gila.

  “Then it must be him,” said Fabio.

  “Has to be,” said Umor.

  “He doesn’t look very dead,” said Gila. Fabio shushed him with a frown.

  “Where did you grow up, Master Miles?” asked Fabio.

  “In Pinchbucket House,” said Miles. “It’s an orphanage. Why?”

  “Can you remember where you got that bear?”

  Miles shook his head. “I’ve had him all my life. I know I had him when I came to the orphanage, because the Pinchbuckets never gave us anything.”

  “We can remember,” said Gila.

  “Eleven years ago to the day,” said Fabio.

  “Which makes it your birthday.”

  “Happy birthday, Master Miles.”

  Miles looked at the three tiny men, wondering what kind of game they were playing. “What do you mean?” he said. “Even I don’t know when my birthday is.”

  “It’s a long story,” said Fabio.

  “We thought you were lost, a long time since,” said Umor.

  “Or dead,” said Gila. He rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief, and finding none, blew his nose on the corner of Fabio’s jacket.

  “But I’ve never met you before I came to the Palace of Laughter. How could you know about me?” asked Miles in bewilderment.

  “We were there the night you were born,” said Fabio.

  “We gave you that bear when you were only hours old.”

  “Before you even had a name.”

  “Your father, Barty Fumble, was our boss, Master Miles.”

  “He was like an uncle to us.”

  “Or an aunt.”

  “Not really. He was big and strong, with a beard.”

  “So was the bearded lady.”

  “Whatever happened to her?”

  “I heard she opened a barber shop in Nape.”

  Miles stared at them with his mouth open. “Barty Fumble was my father?” he said. “Of Barty Fumble’s Big Top?”

  “Ah, you’ve heard of Barty Fumble’s Big Top?” said Umor.

  “Of course,” said Miles. “A ti…a friend told me the story. But Barty left the circus and took his son with him.” He tried to picture the big bearded man in the dead of night, leaving the circus that was his life, stricken with grief and carrying his infant son in his arm
s. “Me,” thought Miles. “Barty Fumble’s boy.”

  “Then…what happened to Barty…to my father? Where did he go?”

  Fabio sighed. “I wish I could tell you the answer to that, Master Miles.”

  “He left in the dead of night,” sniffed Gila.

  “And we never heard from him again,” added Umor.

  “Nor of you, neither, until yesterday.”

  Miles could scarcely grasp this astonishing news. In the space of a minute he had gained a little sister, and learned that the father he had always believed to be dead was none other than Barty Fumble himself, and that he might still be alive. He was surprised to find tears welling in his eyes as he realized, too, that there was no such hope for his mother. An entire family history had stepped into place behind him. It was a history he already knew something about, and it certainly explained why he had felt so at home perched high above the circus ring in the Palace of Laughter.

  Little echoed his thoughts. “That’s why the tiger said you had the circus in you,” she said, smiling. “I told you tigers never lie.”

  Miles nodded. It was all too much to take in, and his head swam with the details. Was it just coincidence that Barty Fumble too had counted a tiger as his friend? And why did he leave his child to grow up in the mean grasp of the Pinchbuckets? Suddenly he had answers to questions that he had always carried at the back of his mind, but they brought more questions in their wake, and he was not sure that he wanted them. He had always told himself that both his parents were dead. It was a simple story and a hard one, but knowing the truth seemed to make things much more complicated.