The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files)

by Frank Tuttle

  A peek behind the machine revealed a hidden hand-turned crank and a stool for a clown. I gave the crank a whirl, and blue sparks arced from the machine’s whirling innards. If they imparted me with any life giving spirit essence, powerful or not, I didn’t feel it.

  Magog the Were-Bear, Slithins the Snake with a Man’s Head, Carabel the Wood Sprite—all bore the same sad signs of being hauled and patched and painted, year after year, mile after hard carnival mile.

  I slipped out of the Hall or Horrors through the back way, stepping over one of the trunk-like limbs of the Ravenous Cave Hydra, which was bleeding tufts of sooty cotton from a foot-long gash down its mottled side.

  I returned to the midway and watched as Malus the Magnificent gobbled down a sandwich. At that, he was surpassingly proficient.

  When next I passed the Queen of the Elves, she’d rolled off her bench and was face-down in the hay-covered mud. I paused to spread her tattered robe over her hindquarters and drew a warning growl from a passing Ogre.

  “I’ll quote you on that,” I said, and then I hurried away.

  I stepped in mastodon shit on the way back to Rannit and the stink followed me all the way home.

  It was late afternoon, the sun just beginning to sink behind the rooftops along Middling Lane. Darla and Gertriss sat on our porch, huddled close together, deep in conversation.

  The man on the roof gave the lightning rod a final blow with his hammer and waved his ragged hat at me. The lightning rod he’d installed was crafted in the shape of a capering devil, its fists raised toward the sky.

  “Welcome home, darling,” said Darla, as I clambered down out of the cab. “Look what I got us!”

  I paid the cabbie. Shango started down his ladder. Gertriss moved her chair away from Darla’s and waved at me. Her smile showed late and left early.

  “Hello, lovely,” I said, opening our gate. The iron hinges squealed. I keep them that way. Sometimes business follows me home. I winked at Gertriss as Darla came sprinting forth to greet me.

  Her nose wrinkled three long strides away. “You have a certain odor about you, dearest,” she said, smiling. “Have you taken up animal husbandry?”

  I made the three paces and caught her up. “I’m firmly against animals marrying,” I said. One of us kissed the other, I can’t say who. “Aren’t they burdened enough already?”

  “You beast,” she said. She laughed and held her nose. “Honey, what is that smell?”

  “Mastodon,” I said. “No, really,” I added when she raised her right eyebrow. “On my honor as a Captain. This is the smell of mastodon dung, my dear, applied to the sole of a new pair of Rush Street leather brogans. Earthy, isn’t it?”

  “They’ll have to be burned,” she replied. “Buried too. Leave them here. Come say hello to Mr. Shango. He says you’ve met.”

  Mr. Shango approached, wiping his knobby hands on a rag. “Evening, Mr. Markhat. I’m all done here.”

  “Yes you are,” I said. If Darla caught the edge in my voice she didn’t let it show. “How much are you charging, today?”

  “Tell you what.” He turned and looked up at the pointed steel rod he’d attached to a gable. A thick copper line ran from the rod down across my wall and into the ground. The line was secured with neat copper straps, spaced equally all the way down. “You pay me what you think it’s worth. And you tell your neighbors my name.”

  Had it been earlier in the day, and had Darla not been smiling up at me like she’d just produced a puppy in a basket, I might have returned Mr. Shango’s lightning rod by way of shoving it up his britches.

  But it was late. My feet stank and hurt, in that order. I hadn’t had lunch, and my plans for the evening involved another hike up and down the trail to Dark’s Diverse Delights.

  So I fished in my pocket and when my fingers closed around the silver crown coin Ubel Thorkel had given me, I tossed it right at Shango’s sweaty face.

  He caught it, and he smiled.

  “I admire craftsmanship,” I said. He pocketed the coin with a nod.

  I stepped out of my ruined shoes. “I’d be much obliged if you’d take these with you,” I said. “You can wear them next time you’re out past Curfew. Even the thirstiest vamp will turn tail and run.”

  Shango guffawed, but took the shoes. His cart squeaked and rattled all the way down the street.

  Darla smiled at me, an unspoken question in her eyes. I’d just given the man a month’s good wages. I didn’t regret it. The last time a mysterious stranger had given me a coin of considerable worth it had taken me walking out of Time. I wasn’t eager to repeat the process.

  “Let’s sit for a bit,” I said, offering her my elbow. “Now, what are you ladies plotting?”

  I took a seat on the porch. Darla returned to hers. Gertriss stayed put.

  “We were just talking,” said Gertriss. “Nothing important. What’s this about Troll horses? Did you make it out to the carnival?”

  Neither of the cups of tea beside their chairs had been touched. Neither steamed.

  I nodded. “Made it to the carnival, met the carnival master, even got the grand tour,” I said.

  “No sign of the Ordwald girl?” Gertriss saw Darla’s brief look of confusion and filled her in on the case.

  “No sign at all,” I said, when she was done. “The carnival master was friendly. Talkative, even. Of course he mistakenly thought I was a reporter, but I can’t be expected to correct every mistaken belief people adopt.”

  “Of course not,” said Darla. “So. What’s this carnival like?”

  “Oh, it’s a wholesome, harmless diversion, I said. “A place where simple pleasures can be safely pursued by apple-cheeked children and their plain, homespun parents. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the midway is manned by cherubs.”

  Darla cocked her head. “So you don’t think they took this man’s daughter?”

  “I think I wasn’t the only one lying,” I said.

  Darla grinned. “So we’re going to the circus?”

  I nodded. “Gertriss. You up for an evening of thrills, chills and the stink of mastodon crap?”

  She shrugged and crossed her legs. A single man might have dropped to one knee right then and fumbled for a ring, but I have my Darla, and my Darla has her gun.

  “Sure, boss. Can I borrow an outfit, Darla? This one isn’t right for walking.”

  Darla grinned and clapped her hands. “We’re going to the circus! I have the perfect outfit, hon. How many guns are you carrying?”

  Inside they went, tittering like schoolgirls while counting off the number of hidden vampire handguns they’d be concealing beneath their skirts.

  Left alone on the porch, I picked up a cup of cold tea, drank it down, and watched my new lightning rod cast a shadow, long and thin like a knife, out across the street.

  Darla opted for a long black skirt, a dark blue blouse, and a black jacket. Gertriss chose a similar outfit, with a green top to complement her eyes. Both wore black boots and dark coats, and neither clanked when they walked, though I suspected each bore a half dozen weapons of one sort or another.

  I found a pair of boots that didn’t require polishing and changed my tan hat for a black one. I had a Mark Six in a fancy shoulder holster that didn’t show a bulge through my coat, a small two-shot Mark Nine in my right pocket, ammunition hidden inside my belt, and my old Army knife in my right boot.

  I felt prepared to face down even the surliest of ferry clowns.

  We took our time. I didn’t want to arrive until there was already a crowd. Another conversation with the carnival master wasn’t worth the risk of being exposed as a finder.

  Funny thing, about the other finders the Ordwalds had hired. I’d learned that two hadn’t ever shown up to report or be paid. A third had refunded their advance and shown them his door.

  I didn’t inten
d to join the ranks of the missing.

  So we dined before heading for the wilderness. The ladies got admiring stares, while I got glares that openly questioned my worthiness to be in such delightful company.

  “Luck beats skill every time,” I announced in response to one such pointed look. Darla poked a fork in my direction.

  “Don’t gloat, dear,” she said. “It doesn’t become you.”

  Mind-readers. That’s what you women are. One day one of you needs to teach me the trick.

  Later, we rolled up and joined the line of cabs waiting to disgorge their passengers, all of whom were bound for the carnival.

  Many bore waybills. Many more had children in tow, all ages, from toddlers in bulky prams to surly teenagers desperate to be anywhere else but where they stood.

  Clowns shuffled about, passing out waybills and enduring the blows and kicks of strangers. I recognized one of them from the ferry and led my little band off in the other direction.

  Once beyond the wall, we had our choice of walking the mile to the ferry or hiring any of the assorted farm-wagons vying for our business at the edge of the woods. We opted for walking, since the bulk of the crowd did the same.

  The lanterns along the way lit up the posters. What had seemed cheap and crude in the harsh light of day was rendered lurid and dramatic in the dark. I heard gasps as we passed the poster proclaiming the terror of the Man of Bones, whistles and hoots as we drew near the Queen of the Elves.

  “She’ll catch pneumonia if that’s all she wears,” said Gertriss.

  “More likely the rotgut whiskey will get her first,” I said. “Same with Bones there.”

  We kept walking, staying in the middle of the throng. Business was going to be brisk for the carnival’s first night.

  We slipped aboard the ferry without incident. I didn’t recognize any of the clowns, and they didn’t appear to take note of me. We paid, were pushed and shoved toward the back rail, and after a time the ropes lying in the water picked up and a mastodon trumpeted as it dragged us across the River.

  A man close to me cussed and went down to his knees. Gertriss yanked his face around toward her and slapped him hard.

  “Keep your hands to yourself,” she said, as casually as if she was commenting on the pleasant evening air. “Next time I’ll slit your ugly throat and dump your ass in the river.”

  People laughed. Darla slipped her hand in my pocket, where I’d reached for my two-shot revolver.

  “Let’s have a nice quiet evening,” she said. The grimacing man managed to get to his feet before shuffling quickly away.

  “It was nothing, boss,” said Gertriss. “Forget about it.”

  I shrugged, but kept an eye on the man for the rest of the trip.

  When we stepped off the makeshift ferry and onto the other side of the Brown, everything changed.

  Lights. The sky was full of lights. It took me a moment to figure out that they’d raised their balloons and hung lanterns along hundreds and hundreds of lines. They turned the sky into a spider’s web, and hung moving, bobbing stars on the strands.

  The walkway was flanked with mastodons. Ogres stood among them, bellowing and beating the air with flaming whips. The whips would lash out at anyone who strayed too close. They never struck their targets, but sent them squealing and hopping back for the safety of the crowd.

  We surged forward, funneled toward a series of gates manned by clowns, by fire-breathers, by jugglers, by dancing girls. At the gates, coins quickly changed hands, patrons were waved through, and the turnstile closed, ready for the next.

  I had a pair of red tickets in my pocket, but I hung onto them and paid for us three to enter, just like the rest. I doubted that Thorkel had marked the tickets he gave me earlier, doubted that the gate staff had orders to tail anyone presenting a special ticket.

  Maybe, not so long ago, two other finders doubted the same.

  Sometimes peace of mind is worth sixty pence.

  Our smiling dancing girl waved us inside. The turnstile arm clicked open, and Dark’s Diverse Delights beckoned us forward.

  Chapter Six

  The air smelled of fresh-cut hay and beef cooking and mastodon sweat.

  The slilth, taller than I’d ever seen it, gamboled about on the bald hills just beyond the carnival’s borders. A few faces turned up toward it, watching it eclipse the fat harvest moon, but most of the crowd paid the walking engine no heed.

  Music blared. Half a dozen tents had their own bands set up out front, each trying to out-shout the rest. Barkers barked, exhorting the ambling masses inside their attractions, each bellowed promise of thrills more grandiose than the one before it. Smoke and steam from tiny snack stalls wafted here and there, no two the same, none easily identifiable.

  There was an upright riding wheel in the distance, slowly turning against the night, its seats full of gesticulating riders. Other rides bobbed and turned, whirling this way or that, each rise or fall accompanied by screams and hoots.

  Clowns wandered through it all, capering and gibbering and enduring whatever abuse the crowd felt they’d earned. I suppose spirits were generally high, because I only saw one clown struck in earnest, and only then after he pinched a man’s nose.

  Darla walked on my right and Gertriss on my left. Darla was all smiles. Gertriss was anything but.

  “What do you think, ladies?” I asked.

  “Charming,” said Darla, smiling. “In a sinister, evil fashion, of course.”

  “Not sure yet,” said Gertriss. “We need to split up. See the sideshows.”

  “You’ll attract too much attention, going off alone,” I said.

  “Chauvinist. But you’re probably right.” Gertriss glanced around, focused on a bespectacled young man wearing a bowler hat at least a size too large, and grabbed him by his elbow.

  “What’s your name, brown eyes?” she asked, putting a lot of purr into it.

  He took in the sight of her, and his face went beet red. “Um,” he said. “Er.”

  She smiled and stepped in close. “Breathe now,” she said, slipping her arm around him. “Your name.”

  “Orville,” he said, with the urgency of a drowning man grabbing at dry land. “Orville, um, Watson.”

  Darla had to hide her guffaws behind her hand.

  “That’s a nice name, Orville. My name is Gertriss. This is my uncle Marty,” she said, nodding to me. “He won’t let me see the side-shows by myself, which is mean of him. It would be awfully sweet of you to take me. Will you do that, Orville? Take me to a few side-shows? Keep me safe?”

  I bit back a chortle of my own. Gertriss was carrying enough firepower to take down a charging Troll. In a fight between one of Buttercup’s stuffed toy bears and Orville, I’d be hard pressed not to bet on the toy bear.

  “Are you a young man of manners and comportment, Mr. Watson?” I asked, fixing him in my best Army drill sergeant glare. “Will you treat my niece with utmost respect and flawless consideration?”

  Gertriss put her hand on Orville’s shallow chest. He gobbled out a heartfelt if slightly incoherent promise to keep her safe and unsullied.

  “I suppose it’s all right then,” I said. “Meet back at the gate in two hours. Or else.”

  I made a slicing motion across my throat. Gertriss hauled him off before he could bolt. Darla burst into laughter.

  “Men truly are simple creatures,” I said, as Darla took my arm. “All save me, of course. I was immune to your artful wiles.”

  I picked out a side-show tent and steered us toward it.

  “She’s worried about Evis,” Darla said. Evis is my best friend. Sure he’s a halfdead, a walking abomination if you believe the Church, but he has good taste in beer and enjoys a fine cigar and I never heard a priest say anything that made a lick of sense anyway. Evis is also Gertriss’s best friend, although in a wholly diff
erent sense.

  “Why?” I asked. “I thought they were past all that.”

  “So did she. But now she says he’s avoiding her. Cutting dates short. Ducking her altogether, at times.”

  I frowned. The barker saw us approach and waved us ahead. “That doesn’t sound like Evis,” I said.

  “Step right up, folks!” cried the barker, a short fat man in a bright yellow suit and matching orange hat. “Do you dare confront the mystery that is Clara and Clota, the two-headed woman?”

  “I know a guy with two heads, back home,” I said, flipping him a copper. “Maybe we should introduce them.”

  He laughed and waved us inside.

  Clara and Clota shared one torso, three arms, three legs, and the same distinctly abrasive personality. Halfway through their song and dance act, Clara started cussing Clora and soon three fists were flying and three feet were kicking. Darla and I sought the exit as a pair of clowns grabbed each head by its hair and yanked the faces apart.

  Darla shivered. “That was disgusting,” she murmured.

  Next we sought out the Man of Bones. His tent was filled with a sweet, cloying mist which glowed in the lanterns aimed up from the floor. Music swelled, the effect only slightly marred by the musician’s inability to keep a tempo, and finally the Man of Bones himself stepped into the light.

  People gasped. Give Bones that. In the swirling mist and the dark, cleverly applied paint did manage to project the illusion of bones in motion. Unless you looked too close, or too long.

  The gasps soon gave way to guffaws, and when the first thrown bottle sailed onto the stage, the living skeleton made a very vital gesture and stomped off into the shadows.

  Malus the Magnificent was next. He made his girl appear, then float, then vanish, and I was pleased to hear only the faintest of well-cushioned thuds from beneath the stage as she made her magical exit. Malus produced a rabbit from his hat, changed water to confetti, and caused a man’s handkerchief to hang dancing in the air. By the time the handkerchief danced, though, his audience realized no more barely-clothed young women would be taking the stage and most wandered away, Darla and I among them.