by V M Jones
That night I slept without stirring, without dreaming. And when I woke there was an edge to the darkness — a broad bar of dusty-looking gold hanging under the greyness.
We were sailing towards it.
Four winds
With every hour the light grew brighter, the strip of clear sky wider and closer. Soon, below it, we could make out the unmistakable smudge of land — and the following morning we sailed our little craft into a harbour busy with boats and bright with sunlight.
No one had been surprised when, in sight of land, the tiller started working again; now Rich steered us deftly between the vessels lying at anchor while the rest of us stared round, eyes squinched to slits against the dazzle reflecting off the water.
After days at sea, in near-darkness and almost total silence, my senses were reeling. Colour was everywhere — sails every shade of the rainbow; sailors scurrying about on deck and townsfolk thronging the quay, their clothing a kaleidoscope of every hue imaginable. Small square buildings in the cool pastel shades of ice cream crowded the hillside — pale green, baby pinks and blues, and white so bright it made me squint.
All around us was a cheerful hubbub of sound. The splashing of oars, the flutter of flags, the crackle of canvas in the breeze; the squawk and squabble of seagulls; voices calling and joking from boat to boat; the brassy fanfare of some kind of band on the wharf.
But most of all — the smells! A stinking stream of sewage emptying from the bilge of a beat-up fishing boat; the clean tinge of paint and the tacky tang of tar; the silvery scent of fish, fresh and not-so-fresh; a greasy whiff of roast meat that made my mouth water; the powdery dryness of dust … and beneath it all the loamy richness of fresh-turned earth.
Everywhere white teeth flashed in tanned faces as men and women bustled about their business, nimble-footed children shrieking and giggling round their feet. It was as different from Karazan as day from night. But it was how Karazan had once been, I was sure — and how it could be again.
‘Look!’ squealed Gen, pointing. ‘Over there, Richard! There are moorings where you can tie boats up, and a market on the waterfront.’
Rich parked the boat with a bone-shattering bump beside a barge loaded with barrels, and Jamie used one of his famous scout knots to secure it to the rusty ring set into the dock. Taking down the sail was easy this time; I folded it carefully and stashed it in my pack, then shouldered it and hurried after the others up the slippery steps to the pier.
In Arakesh we’d felt horribly conspicuous, as if we were being constantly watched, but here no one paid us the slightest attention. Even if they had, in our salt-stained clothes, tousled and grimy and no doubt stinking to high heaven, we blended in with the crowd.
‘I think I’m going to like it here in Limbo,’ grinned Rich as we were swept along between the stalls. Protected from the sun by striped awnings and manned by cheery-looking vendors, they were laden with everything from bolts of cloth to wooden carvings, from intricately carved chalices to musical instruments. There was even a stall selling weapons — daggers and richly embossed shields; armour and wicked-looking double-edged battleaxes.
We passed what I guessed must be an apothecary: a musty-smelling cubicle tucked away in a corner, every surface covered in weird-looking bottles and jars of potions and powders, dried leaves of every size and shape you could imagine hanging from the rafters. A russet-haired boy was at the counter, having a heated argument with the storekeeper.
But it was the food stalls that drew us like magnets. Trestle tables groaning with jars of honey and pickles and preserves; bakers’ stalls with crusty loaves; a cheesemonger in a striped apron with a lethal-looking cleaver and cheeses the size of wagon-wheels and brightly coloured pyramids of glossy, juicy-looking fruit.
‘Look over there,’ said Rich. In the shade of a tree at the edge of the village green a whole sucking pig was sizzling on a spit. A woman wandered past, a little boy tugging at her hand. Smiling, she bent to listen to him, then passed a coin to the vendor. He carved off a couple of slices of meat, sandwiched them between two slabs of bread and passed them to the boy.
I looked at Rich, Rich looked at Jamie — and Jamie just kept staring at that sucking pig. Then we were hustling towards the stall, me fumbling in my pocket for the coins we’d been given in Drakendale, the girls tagging along behind.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to the stallholder, ‘do you accept Karazan money here?’
‘And why wouldn’t I?’ he replied, holding out a hand the size of a ham. ‘This be a trading post, don’t it? Any coinage be good to the merchants of Four Winds.’
‘Four Winds?’ Jamie echoed, aghast. ‘But … isn’t this Limbo?’
‘Limbo?’ the man gave Jamie an odd look that made me wish he’d kept his mouth shut. ‘Nay, lad, this is not Limbo. And you should thank the twin moons ’tis not — for you’d find nothing there but dust and emptiness.’
‘And people, of course,’ chipped in Gen craftily, giving him her best smile.
‘People? Nay, lovely lassie, there be no people in Limbo.’ He was assembling our door-stoppers as he spoke; now he pressed the last one into my hand.
‘Yes there are!’ objected Jamie. ‘There must be, otherwise where would Mei —’ Rich gave him a kick and he broke off abruptly, turning pink.
The man frowned. ‘Well, doubtless you know best, young smartboots,’ he said, selecting a small six-sided gold coin from the assortment I was holding out.
Jamie was onto him quick as a flash. ‘Surely they can’t be that much? A couple of silver ones, maybe …’
‘I will take silver if you prefer, but you will be the losers. Do you not know that silver and gold be of equal value in Four Winds and the lands beyond? Now take your food and your questions elsewhere.’
Rich gave Jamie a warning glare and took over, speaking as politely as possible through a mouthful of bread. ‘Could you tell us where Limbo is?’
‘Best ask Master Know-all,’ grumbled the man, but then he saw Gen’s woebegone face and relented. ‘Truth to tell, I know not. If you’re after tales of Limbo, them’s the folk you should be asking.’ He nodded towards the far side of the green.
‘Who?’ asked Gen. ‘The villagers?’
‘Nay, the travelling circus,’ he said with a dismissive jerk of his head. ‘What there is of it. But you’d best be hurrying, for they were packing to leave, last I heard, and a good thing too. Barbaric, that’s what I call it but that’s Borderfolk for you …’ He turned away to serve another customer.
‘A travelling circus!’ whispered Jamie, eyes sparkling. ‘I love circuses. They’re not barbaric as long as they don’t have animals. I did a Circus Arts course once —’
‘What there is of it …’ interrupted Kenta thoughtfully. ‘What an odd thing to say. I wonder what he meant?’
Rich stuffed the last of his doorstopper into his mouth. ‘Let’s find out.’
The travelling circus wasn’t hard to find. Like Jamie, I’d been hoping for a striped marquee and a string of brightly painted wagons; but it turned out to be a cluster of dilapidated caravans with Troupe Talisman painted on the sides and a rickety-looking trailer parked up under a tree, with several mangy-looking glonks tethered nearby.
As we drew closer we slowed and huddled together, shuffling our feet and whispering. ‘What now?’ muttered Rich. ‘Do we just find the guy in charge and ask for directions to Limbo?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Kenta. ‘Though I don’t see many people about.’
But as she spoke a figure strode towards the caravan, scowling fearsomely, hair blazing in the bright sunshine. The boy from the apothecary. Though he was just a kid our age wearing ordinary clothes — breeches, loose shirt and leather jerkin — I knew instantly he must be from the circus. It was partly the way he moved, with the fluid ease of an athlete or an acrobat and partly the placard he was dragging in the dust behind him. Being upside-down made it hard to read, but behind me Gen whispered the words aloud: ‘Join Troupe Talisman
today! See the world and discover your hidden talents in the Brotherhood of the Arena. Hiring now! All training provided. Enquire on village green.’
‘Quick,’ hissed Rich, ‘grab him!’
Too late. The boy disappeared round the side of the caravan, and there was a crash that could only be the placard being thrown to the ground.
‘Well?’ growled a deep adult voice. ‘What fortune, Lyulf?’
‘Ill fortune!’ snarled the boy. ‘I tell you, Borg, we waste our time. The people of Four Winds have their faces set against the circus arts. We would do best to pack our goods and go.’
‘And then what? It will be a moon at best before our injured are fit to perform. I say we stay and see what the next boat brings. There be strange tales on the lips of townsfolk and travellers alike — something is afoot in Karazan: change blows in the wind, for good or ill I know not. You know as well as I that we garner the flotsam and jetsam of fate, the desperate who have no refuge. If there is darkness and destruction across the water, the debris will drift on the tide and we should be here to harvest it.’
‘What’s he on about?’ muttered Rich.
‘Dunno,’ whispered Jamie, ‘but I say we butt in and find out what we need to know before they pack up and go.’
‘I left Blade at the harbour,’ continued the boy. ‘They say the wind has dropped in Karazan, but there is word of a galley before sunset.’
Cautiously we edged round the caravan. A short distance away a huddle of dark figures was hunched over a sullen fire. One head lifted momentarily; it was swarthy and unshaven, the eyes sunken and dull. I glimpsed a splinted leg stuck out at an awkward angle, a head swathed in filthy bandages, rough crutches flung where they lay.
Then my whole attention was on the bearded, dark-faced man glaring down at the boy. The moment we appeared he switched his gaze to us and it wasn’t friendly. He had a rugged, almost savage face, and his black beard did nothing to hide a livid scar that ran from eye to chin, pulling the corner of his mouth down in a permanent snarl. ‘What do you want?’
We exchanged awkward glances; then Blue-bum, perched on my shoulder, gave my earlobe a tug. ‘We were just wondering … someone said you might know the way to Limbo.’
‘Limbo!’ Instantly the boy’s full attention was on me and I felt myself flush. It was like being in the full beam of a searchlight. Shorter than Rich and me, but somehow older-looking: strongly built and muscular, with a strangely adult-looking face and something smouldering in his eyes I’d never seen before: a fierce, almost animal fire.
‘What business have you in Limbo?’ growled the man.
‘Their business is not yours, Borg.’
I glanced at the big man to see how he’d take a telling-off from someone so much younger but he ignored it and carried on staring at us through narrowed eyes.
‘We are looking for … someone … there,’ I said evasively.
‘But the stallholder said no one lives there,’ chipped in Jamie. ‘It isn’t true, is it?’
‘Limbo lies on the far side of the Borderlands,’ said the boy. There was a slight hesitancy about his speech, a carefulness as if he’d once had a stammer, or was having to mentally translate what he was saying from another language. There was the trace of an accent, though none I’d ever heard before.
‘But do people live there?’ persisted Jamie.
‘Aye — and nay.’ The boy switched his gaze to Jamie, then back to me, as if weighing up whether to tell us more. ‘Limbo is not a city. It is a barren wasteland peopled by creatures of the wild, a buffer between the Borderlands and … that which lies beyond. They say a band of nomads lives there: the Lost Tribe of Limbo, men call them.’ He shrugged. ‘But I have never seen them.’
Rich gave me a painful dig in the ribs which said louder than words Yes! We’ve hit the jackpot! Though I tried not to flinch I saw from the boy’s eyes that it hadn’t gone unnoticed — not much did, I suspected.
‘So you’ve been there?’ Gen was saying eagerly. ‘To Limbo?’
‘We travel there, but only to the borders — never beyond.’
‘So,’ said Rich, all business, ‘what direction do we go? Is it far?’
Man and boy exchanged a glance. The man’s mouth twisted, and for a moment I thought the boy might be about to smile. ‘You cannot journey to the wildlands,’ he said flatly.
‘Why not?’ demanded Rich. ‘You do.’
The glance again. Without answering, the boy shrugged again and made as if to turn away.
‘Why can’t we?’
‘The nature of the circus arts allows us to travel in safety where none other dare,’ growled the man, continuing in an undertone, as if to himself, ‘though our arts bring their own perils from the lands beyond.’ He scowled at us. ‘We have work to do.
Farewell.’
But Jamie hustled forward, pink-faced and earnest. ‘We need to get to Limbo, to find … to find our friend. And you’re looking for circus performers. Well, how about us? We’ll join your circus; you take us to Limbo.
‘What d’you say?’
Troupe Talisman
‘Jamie, are you crazy?’ hissed Richard.
‘We may seem a little on the young side,’ Jamie told the boy, ignoring Rich, ‘but you’re young too. You provide training, it says so on your billboard. And I’m already trained. I went to Circus Arts School one holidays —’
‘Your parents — where are they?’ Borg demanded.
‘Well, it’s a long story …’ began Gen.
‘Dead — all dead!’ Jamie interrupted loudly. He arranged his face into a mournful expression and gave a small, pathetic snuffle. ‘I guess … I guess you could say we’re victims of fate, desperate and helpless, with nowhere to call home.’
‘Indeed.’ The man’s crooked mouth twisted into what I guessed was supposed to be a kindly smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. The boy was frowning at us, obviously unconvinced.
‘And what did they teach you at this circus arts school?’ he asked. ‘You seem an unlikely —’
‘It matters not, Lyulf,’ interrupted Borg smoothly. ‘As the boy says, full training is provided.’
‘But the girls —’
‘What of them?’ growled the man. ‘The public likes nothing better than to watch young maidens in the arena, and if they do not last as long, what of it? And the chatterbot will be useful to collect the takings, if it can be trained.’ Blue-bum gave an indignant chitter. ‘Let us waste no more time. Fetch parchment and quill — I wish to be well away by nightfall.’
The boy disappeared into the largest caravan and emerged holding a piece of dog-eared parchment and a ratty-looking feather. He passed them to Borg, who sat on the top step, rested the paper on his knee and began to write, with many frowns and pauses.
The five of us took advantage of the chance for a lightning council of war. ‘What d’you reckon?’ hissed Rich. ‘Do we give it a go?’
‘I don’t think we have much choice,’ I whispered. ‘Do keep still and shut up, Blue-bum!’ He was jigging about on my shoulder, chattering in my ear and tugging my hair, still nose-out-of-joint about Borg’s comment, I was betting. Trying to ignore him, I went on: ‘We don’t know the way to Limbo, and even if we did, it sounds as if it would be dangerous to travel there alone.’
‘I say we do it!’ said Gen. ‘Remember Kai and his tapestries of fate? Things happen for a reason — and anyhow, it sounds like fun.’
‘I suppose I could use my gymnastics,’ said Kenta doubtfully; ‘though I don’t much like Borg. Can we trust him? And there seem to be an awful lot of injuries …’
At that moment the boy sidled up to us. With a wary eye on Borg, he spoke, in a voice almost too low to hear. ‘You must be desperate indeed. Are you certain you wish to join us? Once the contract is signed and we have left Four Winds, there can be no going back.’
‘Well, we do have just one question,’ whispered Kenta. ‘Why —’
‘Right: who will be first?’ Borg was
striding towards us, holding out the parchment and quill. Jamie snatched it eagerly, scanned it and signed his name with a flourish. Then he handed it to me with a whispered, ‘Here you go: Adam, our ticket to Limbo!’
Less than two minutes later we were all signed-up members of Troupe Talisman.
To our delight we were given a caravan to ourselves, though it was the smallest and shabbiest, and also allocated a doleful-looking flea-bitten glonk the colour of an old carpet, with one ear longer than the other. We immediately christened him Gloom, and set to work trying to figure out how to harness him to the shafts of the caravan.
A cheerful voice interrupted us. ‘That be back-to-front. His tail goes through that loop, not his nose.’
I stumbled round, blushing, my arms full of tangled leather. A slim figure in a tight-fitting black bodysuit and cloak was watching us. At first, seeing the sharp angles of the face and the short-cropped dark hair, I thought it was a boy, a year or two older than us. But then she spoke again, stepping forward and taking the harness from me with a sidelong smile, and I realised my mistake. ‘My name is Blade. Who be you?’
‘We’re the new circus performers,’ said Jamie proudly. ‘I’m Jamie.’ By the time he’d introduced us the harness was fitted and Blade’s nimble fingers were doing up the last buckle. ‘So I guess that makes seven of us — if you don’t count Borg and the other men.’
‘Eight,’ she said briefly, nodding towards Borg’s caravan.
‘You found someone?’ Lyulf was busy with the trailer, which contained the circus equipment. Jamie’d been itching to get a peek, but Borg had ordered him gruffly away. ‘It’ll be stuff like the Big Top — that’s the tent — juggling batons, stilts, a unicycle, maybe even a flying trapeze …’ Jamie had told us.
‘Then you had better fortune than I did, Blade,’ Lyulf went on. ‘I came back empty-handed, nothing but abuse from the townsfolk, and to hear that apothecary, you would think fire-tongue was silver dust.’
