by Nathan Long
I put an arm around his shoulders. “If you say you’re getting cold feet now I’m going to throw you off the cliff.”
He gave me a sick little smile. “I was going to say nothing of the kind.”
“Good.”
We could see the fancy carriages dropping off fancy people at a pair of tall gold doors at the far end of the courtyard. That’s not where we went. The guards steered all the acts to a small door around a corner where a fat guy in a deep purple robe waved us into line. He looked like a snooty eggplant. “Hurry now, hurry. You’re late as it is already. They’ve begun the second meat course.”
The freaks parked their wagons and unloaded their gear as quick as they could while Eggplant bustled around with a list, checking people off. This is it, I thought. This is where they pull off our fake moustaches and feed us to the ki-tens. We tried to stay as close to the wagons as we could, but that wasn’t enough. We needed to look busy. I caught the midget’s eye. “Need any help?”
He scowled at me. “Look to your own kit... er, lass.”
Eggplant found us a minute later. “And you are?”
I could see the sweat popping out on Sai’s forehead. I was a little damp myself. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at Slim-Jim’s crew. “We’re with them.”
Eggplant raised an eyebrow. He called to Slim-Jim. “Are these yours, Jit-Bur?”
Slim-Jim gave us the once over. “Never seen them before in my life.”
My whole body tensed, ready to fight. It would have been pointless with so many guards around. But instinct doesn’t know from pointless. I heard Sai whimper beside me.
Eggplant turned on me, glaring. He put his hands on his hips. “Coin catchers, eh? Well, no-one gets paid who isn’t on this list, so you might as well start walking. And if I didn’t have such a kind heart I’d throw you out on your hindquarters.”
I almost melted with relief. He thought we were just angling for a spot on the show, not trying to sneak into Kedac’s bride’s boudoir. The plan had tanked, just like I’d thought, but at least we weren’t going to end up as ki-ten kibble. Now we could go back to the inn and drink ourselves stupid like I’d wanted to all along.
I hadn’t counted on Sai.
He crossed his wrists and bowed his head to Eggplant. “Please, noble master? We ask for no pay, just the opportunity to perform before his most benevolent excellency the Kir-Dhanan.”
Eggplant laughed. “An opportunity to pass the hat is more like it.” He harrumphed and made a big show of checking his list as I died inside for about the tenth time that night. Finally he looked up. “Well, you’re in luck. The Vinkolt sword-divers haven’t shown and the axe juggler had a little mishap while warming up, so we have a place open. What do you do?”
I had no idea what we did. I was a big pink freak. Wasn’t that enough? Fortunately—or maybe, now that I think about it, unfortunately—Sai, for once in his life, was firing on all cylinders. “She... she is, Mistress Jae-En, the demon giantess of far Oompaloo. The strongest being, man or woman, on all Waar.”
Eggplant shrugged, unimpressed. “A strength act?” He gave me another look. “Well, at least you have some novelty going for you.” He turned to Sai. “And what do you do, besides beg?”
Sai picked that moment to run out of ideas. “I... I, er... I. That is...”
I grabbed him by the belt and lifted him over my head one-handed. Sai squeaked like a kid getting a wedgie, which is exactly what he was. I smirked at Eggplant. “He makes funny noises.”
Eggplant and a lot of the other acts gaped. Eggplant opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish. “Astonishing. You... You may do very well. Very well indeed.”
I set Sai down. He collapsed to his knees, moaning. Eggplant pulled himself together and gave us a hard look. “You are welcome to any coin that freely comes your way, but if I catch you turning up your palms...” He made a chopping motion. “You’ll have no hands to count your riches with, comprehend?”
I nodded. Sai was too busy groaning.
The freaks had finished unloading their props, so Eggplant motioned for everybody to follow him through the door. I helped Sai up and we got in line. He was kinda pale. “Mistress, that was most... uncomfortable.”
“Sorry, Sai. It was all I could think of.”
We started down a tight hallway. Eggplant called back down the line. “You’ll be staged in the servants’ dining hall until your turn is called. Do not wander off. Anyone found in a forbidden area will be killed.”
Nobody else batted an eye. They probably heard it in every castle they gigged in, but Sai and I exchanged uneasy glances. Forbidden areas were exactly where we were going to wander off to.
The mess area was so low I had to duck my head every five feet so I wouldn’t knock myself loco on the heavy wood beams that held up the ceiling. It was hot and smelly too. Too many show folk packed into too little space: contortionists twisting themselves into pretzels, acrobats turning handsprings, jugglers, singers and acts I couldn’t even begin to guess at, all talking and sweating at once.
A woman in a dress that looked like she was being attacked by cheerleader pom-poms wasn’t helping any. She had some kind of dog act. They weren’t dogs, of course. They were little piggy six-legged red things, cat size, but with heads like a fruit bat’s: huge ears and noses that looked like they’d been turned inside out. It wasn’t their looks that drove me nuts. They made a noise like a pack of dentist drills gone feral, and of course everybody was trying to shout over them so it all got louder and louder. My little problem with enclosed spaces started to come on pretty quick.
I shouted in Sai’s ear. “What’s the deal? This fucking castle is huge. Why is this place so cramped?”
Sai looked at me like I’d asked why wheels weren’t square. “Why, to make room for the spaces where people actually live.”
“Don’t the servants live here?”
“Yes.” He looked toward the door we had come in and changed the subject like he’d answered my question. “Have you a plan, Mistress Jane? We have done remarkably well so far, but you see that both doors are guarded.”
I stared at him. He’d just blown off half the population of his country with one word and he didn’t seem to notice. Servants weren’t people. Nice to know. I had half a mind to give him an earful about it, but this really wasn’t the time. Some day when we weren’t up shit creek without a canoe. I checked out the doors.
There were two—the one we came in, back to the narrow hallway, and another one that led to a flight of stairs. Every ten minutes or so, Eggplant would pop out of that one and call for the next act, so it probably went up to the banquet room.
We didn’t have swords anymore, so fighting our way out would be a little tough, and even if we did have swords, fighting wasn’t the smartest option. People were going to notice if I just walked over and decapitated one of the guards, and the whole point of this shindig was to get in, talk to Wen-Jhai, and get out without anybody in the castle the wiser.
We needed a distraction—some kind of craziness that would pull the guards away from the doors. I looked around the room again. It was pretty crazy in there already. People were getting hot under the collar everywhere I turned. Everybody was in everybody else’s way. You couldn’t turn around without tripping over somebody’s feet or bumping somebody’s elbow. It wouldn’t take much to push it over the edge. If only those damn bat-pig things would shut up and let me think.
I almost smacked myself in the forehead. Duh! The bat-pigs. I turned to Sai. “Okay, I got it. Get ready to move.”
A whistle stabbed me in the ear. I looked up. Eggplant was waving at Sai and me from the stairs. “Strength act! Wake yourselves. Bring your giantess, little man. You’re on.”
Sai shot a glance at me. “Oh, but...”
I stood up. “We’re not ready.”
Eggplant laughed. “If you’re not ready you don’t go on at all. I’ll turn you over to the guards for wasting my time. Now hurry. Quick step, quick ste
p.”
What the hell could we do? I started for the door. Sai hung back. I grabbed his arm and pulled him along.
He squeaked. “But how can we...?”
I hissed in his ear. “Our only chance is to go do our song and dance, then come back here and hope we’ll still get to pull the fire alarm when we get back.”
“But we have no act! What are we going to do?”
“This was your idea. You tell me.”
“But I never expected...”
We reached Eggplant. He gave me a once over. “You go out like that?”
I looked down at my self. “Like what?”
He rolled his eyes. “Amateurs! You lose half your mystery before you start.” He called to one of the freaks. “Stiltwalker, lend this giant infant a cloak.”
The guy tossed Eggplant a long, green cloak, and Eggplant threw it at me. “Mystery. You see?”
I didn’t really, but I put the thing on anyway as he turned and waddled up the stairs. We followed his double-wide behind up two flights into a huge, steaming kitchen. The ceiling was as low as the mess hall. The cooks ran around with their heads hunched down, sweating into hot tub-sized kettles. At least it smelled nicer up here. Whole carcasses turned on spits in fireplaces bigger than New York apartments. Pots boiled on charcoal grills and nearly-naked serving girls took heaping platters of fancy grub from the cooks and ran out through a curtained door.
Eggplant waved us on. “This way. This way.”
We tiptoed through the chaos, dodging trays and carts and meat cleavers. I got a few stares along the way and heard one of the cooks say “fell in the flour bin” when he thought I was out of earshot.
I was too worried to take much in. What the hell were we going to do? I’ve never been real good in front of big groups of people. I’ve got no problem racing bikes or riding rodeo. That’s different. That’s a contest. I don’t think about the crowd. All I worry about is beating my opponent or the eight second bell. Here I was supposed to entertain people. I got the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. I mean, I can be the life of the party and tell a joke or two when I’m with people I know, but this... I had to pull a whole circus act out of my ass on the fly, for Christ’s sake.
And as if that wasn’t enough pressure, it had to be good too. If we just stood there with our faces hanging out somebody might peg us as fakes and, hello ki-tens. Even if that didn’t happen, Eggplant would probably boot us back down the cliff so fast we wouldn’t get a chance to try our sneak.
Eggplant led us out of the kitchen and across a wide hall to another doorway. Orange light came around the sides of a curtain and we could hear voices and laughter. He turned to us. “Wait here. I shall return for you when it is time.” He stepped through the curtain.
Sai and I looked around, there were guards posted at both ends of the corridor and serving girls walking through constantly. I shrugged. “Not yet.”
We peeked through the curtain. I shouldn’t have. My insides turned to ice. Through the door was a big room with high ceilings and too much decoration. Armor and weapons cluttered the walls along with animal heads out of an acid trip—chupacabras, jackalopes, flying purple people eaters, you name it, they were all there. And anywhere there was any leftover space there were big murals of studly guys hunting more unlucky livestock.
Below the tapestries the place was wall to wall people, all lying down on couches and stuffing themselves from little tables set in front of them. The couches were laid out in a big “U,” three deep on the two long sides with a single row on a raised platform at the curve, all facing into an open area in the center.
The platform was where all the big shots sat—sorry, lay—and looked down on all the not-so-big-shots. Everybody there was some kind of big shot. Even the guys furthest away from the platform were duded up like Mardi Gras floats. Over half the guys were navy brass, decked out in dress kilts and capes, with chests inches deep in medals. The women either wore the usual Oran bikini loincloth if they had the bod for it—or at least thought they did—or a less revealing toga deal if they needed to cover up.
Men and women shared couches. Most of the time the guy would lie with his head at one end and the gal with her head down the other so they could both reach the grub and watch the show, but some of the younger couples laid side by side and I could see a lot of groping going on in the dark.
The crowd was watching a couple guys in the center of the “U” who were doing a goofy Three Stooges sword fight act. There was a lot of butt-smacking and eye-gouging and snappy patter going on. They ate it up, laughing every time one guy’s harness dropped around his ankles and he fell flat on his face, or the other guy got a cut on his finger and cried like a baby. I cringed at the thought of having to go out there and follow them.
Sai pulled his eye from the curtain and looked at me, upset. “She is not there!”
“Who?”
“Wen-Jhai. I fail to see her.”
I looked again. I’d been so freaked by the size of the crowd that I’d forgot to search for our target. I found Kedac easy enough. His teeth were the brightest thing in the room. He was front and center on the platform, on an extra-fancy couch. Wen-Jhai wasn’t with him. There was another broad sharing his loveseat, a sultry, Sigourney Weaver type, tall, slinky, and as cold-looking as Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.
I raised an eyebrow at Sai. “Who’s the dragon lady?”
“Pardon?”
“The ice queen. Sitting with Kedac.”
He looked again. “Yes. Kedac’s cousin, the Dhanshai Mai-Mar. She runs his household. She...” He stopped and squinted. “How odd.”
“No shit. If this knees-up is all for Wen-Jhai, what’s Kedac’s cousin doing in the place of honor?”
Sai kept his eye to the curtain. “Eh? Yes, that too is odd, but there is something else. Why is my future brother-in-law here?”
“Wen-Jhai’s brother?” That didn’t sound so odd, considering.
“No no. My sister’s betrothed, Vawa-Sar. He sits just left of Kedac. What does he here? And dressed like an Ormolu dandy?”
I took a gander at the guy, a decked-out drip with trying-too-hard written all over him. His hair was too oily, his moustache too thin, his harness loaded down with too much gold. If he’d just relaxed he would have been decent looking. He was plenty tall and buff, but right now he looked like the guy who thought it was supposed to be a costume party.
“Uh-huh. He’s a dude alright.” I didn’t really care who he was. I just wanted to find Wen-Jhai and get this cluster-fuck over with. “But listen, Wen-Jhai not being here is a good thing, right? If she’s somewhere else in the castle it’ll make it a hell of a lot easier getting her alone for a little heart to heart.”
“You speak the truth, mistress, but none the less I am concerned. Could she be unwell? Hurt?”
“Maybe she’s got a couple of black eyes.”
Sai stared at me. “Mistress Jae-En, Kedac may be my rival, but to suggest that any Oran Dhan...”
“Yeah yeah, forget it. She probably just has gas or something.”
Sai looked like he was ready to slap me, but just then a wave of clapping and cheering came from behind the curtain and Eggplant poked his head through. “’Tis time, coincatchers. Do not make me regret my charity.”
My heart did a flip-flop. I’d almost forgot that we were supposed to go on. Eggplant held the curtain open and the two sword clowns stumbled into the hall, flushed and grinning. Their hands and hats were full of coins. Sai started forward, but I couldn’t move. Eggplant waved impatiently. “Come on, come on.”
Sai touched my shoulder. “Mistress Jae-En?”
It broke the spell. I blew out a breath like a horse and followed him out, heart hammering.
The crowd got quiet as Eggplant pushed us to the center of the “U.” I heard whispering all around me. “Demon.” “Giant.” When he got us into position before Kedac’s couch, Eggplant stepped in front of us and raised his arms. “Dhans, Kir-Dhans, Dhanans and Dhansh
ai, and most benevolent, generous Kir-Dhanan, we present to you now a surprise; an oddity so unique as to verge on the fictitious.”
The audience chuckled.
“And yet she exists. She waits eagerly to astound you with her extraordinary powers. Munificent Kir-Dhanan and nobles all, I give you Mistress Jae-En, demon giantess of far Oompaloo, the strongest being, man or woman, on all Waar!”
The applause from the crowd was just polite. They were going to wait and see. Eggplant turned to us. “Luck, coincatchers. The Seven be with you.” He stepped between us and headed for the curtain.
I stood there.
Sai stood there.
I stood there some more.
A woman giggled out in the darkness.
Sai elbowed me. “Do something.”
I nudged him back. “You do something. You’re supposed to do the talking.”
“Oh. Oh yes.” He coughed and stepped forward. “Er...” He stopped. Somebody else giggled. Sai blushed. I could see it even from behind him. It covered his whole back. He tried again. “Dhan’s and Dhanshai, Noble Kir-Dhanan, may I present to you Mistress Jae-En, the demon, er, the terrible demon giantess of far... of far...”
I hissed out of the side of my mouth. “Oompaloo.”
“Of far Oompaloo. The strongest woman, or man for that matter, on all Waar!”
Silence. Some joker spoke up. “Yin-Yir said that already. And better.”
Sai was sweating buckets. He swallowed. “Er... yes. Well... then the time for words it done!” He turned to me, holding out his arms like Vanna White showing off a leatherette livingroom set. “Mistress Jae-En, show us your strength.”
The whole room looked at me, wondering what I was going to do. I was wondering that myself. Well, first of all, I was boiling in the damn cloak Eggplant had saddled me with. I untied the strings from around my neck and shrugged it off.
The crowd gasped. I stopped. Oh yeah, I forgot. I was a freak. I didn’t need to do anything to make an impression. Now I got what Eggplant had been saying. Mystery. I’d been standing there letting the crowd wonder what I looked like without even knowing what I was doing.
