Circus of Marvels

by Justin Fisher

  “Well, if you think it will do any good?”

  “Think? Oh no, my little apricot, there’s no room for thinking. You have to know.”

  The Tinker tried to explain in a bit more depth.

  “The Amplification-Engine works at an atomic level, using your thought as fuel. Whatever you hold in your head, it uses as a template, literally reforming the atoms you focus on, till they become something else. It takes pure mental focus to create enough energy. In other words, you need to do more than just think about it – you need to become one with the vision in your mind’s eye in order for the ring to make it so. There can be no doubt.”

  “So if I want to make water, I need to feel wet?”

  “See, Tinker? I told you he’d pick it up quickly,” beamed Kitty.

  The minutian presented him with a small leather-bound book, no bigger than a man’s wallet.

  “The Engineer’s Manual, Master Waddlington, passed down through your family for generations. Your father gave it to us for safe-keeping when he left the Veil.”

  For the first time, Ned felt a sense of ownership towards the Armstrong name mixed with the fear that he was not strong enough to carry it. But he didn’t bother to correct the Tinker – he knew what he meant. On the book’s cover embossed in gold was a small ring, and beneath it a row of unintelligible symbols. It had a clasp along one edge, which Ned unclipped carefully.

  WHOOSH!

  There was a loud yawn of stretching leather as the Manual sprang to life, leaping out of his hands.

  “OW!” shouted Ned, as he received a violent and leathery slap to the face from the Manual’s rapidly expanding cover. The tiny pocket book was now a large and heavy tome, hundreds if not thousands of pages long.

  “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Ned grinned, marvelling at the pure magic of it, despite his stinging cheek.

  “Course we did, dumpling, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun if we’d told you.”

  In front of him, were the combined notes and experiments of the world’s Engineers. Its first entries were in symbols he’d never seen and some were in languages that were no longer spoken. There were countless blueprints and diagrams, notes and sketches – many focused on how to work the ring. It was like looking through a family album that went back thousands of years. Suddenly Ned’s little family was something else, something vast and connected. It was a good feeling, like being home again.

  The Tinker cleared his throat and continued his explanation. “The methods of Amplification, they’re all in there, sir. The single grain is the building block with which all Engineers begin their journey. Air to fire would be simpler, a matter of speeding up the atoms till the air ignites, but compressing them down to make sand means changing the mass as well as the form, so it’s a good place to start your learning. Metal will turn to stone, all right, but you’d probably need all the air in this room to make a ball of lead from scratch; not advisable if you want to breathe. If you can grasp the principles, though, then you can make just about anything.”

  The last entry, and easiest to read, explained the importance of holding a clear picture in your mind’s eye, and how practising with any number of construction sets and building blocks might help a young mind become more attuned to the art of Amplification. It was easy to read because it was in his dad’s handwriting. At the bottom of the page was a simple message:

  Look before you leap.

  It made Ned’s stomach knot. It was clearly a message intended for him. Even in his absence, his dad was trying to watch over him.

  “He used to say that a lot.”

  “It’s the Engineer’s way, lamb-chop. It’s called Seeing and it’s what we’re going to start with. Now, empty your noodle and relax. You need to think of the air first, then see it form into a grain of sand. If you can, try and feel it changing. Hold the end vision in your mind, as if it were under one of the Tinker’s lenses. See every microscopic detail. The more clearly you see it, the better the transformation.”

  Kitty’s words became soft and Ned’s thoughts drifted. ‘Seeing’ air felt next to impossible to him, but in his mind’s eye he imagined it as best he could. He held it there, a nothingness that shimmered with form. Soon it thickened in wisps of undulating motion till he blew it up in his thoughts so much so that he could almost visualise its tiny molecules being drawn together. This was the hard part, the change in mass – from gas, to liquid, to solid and all at once. Harder and harder he pushed his brain till beads of sweat started to trickle down the side of his face. Finally something solid started to form before his mind’s eye in hues of orange and brown. In his head he saw its tiny ridges, every miniscule imperfection. He thought of it like the blueprints and instructions he had followed over the years – the pleasing way that parts felt in his hands; how the details all fitted together; how they made sense of each other …

  “That’s it, oh crumbs, that’s it …” whispered Kitty.

  And all of a sudden the machine on his finger came alive, its microscopic parts moving as one. A tickling sensation flowed from his finger up his arm and ran right into his mind. A strange power seemed to flow between Ned and his ring in a high-pitched, humming loop. The air around him buzzed with static, making the hairs on his neck stiffen, till he heard a crackle of energy.

  A ripple formed between Ned and the world. Light folded in on itself, bending the image in front of him with the faint sound of air being drawn together.

  “Wow …” breathed the Tinker.

  Ned opened his eyes. There, inches from his nose, was a perfectly formed grain of sand, just as he’d seen it.

  “Wow indeed, dearies, wow indeed. What did I tell you, Tinker?” said Kitty, beaming. “Just as clever as his daddy. Now, my little bag of sweets, you’re going to turn it for me.”

  “Turn it?”

  “Imagine it spinning, Neddles, atom by atom, and it will spin. Just try not to force it, or you’ll take out your eye.”

  Ned did as she asked. It was like trying to juggle a ping-pong ball with a hairdryer. Ned quickly found he couldn’t really move the grain itself, just suggest where it went to in his mind. He felt the turning all the way to his belly, so much so that it made him queasy. Again, the ring at his finger hummed with life, and to his utter and complete amazement, the little granule turned in the air.

  “A vital part of Amplification, sir, essentially telekinesis. Your sort call it Telling,” said the Tinker.

  Ned reached up and plucked his grain of sand from the air. A grain of sand which, until he’d thought of it, had not existed. Since his thirteenth birthday, Ned had experienced one impossibility after another. Walking, breathing fairy tales, and monsters straight from nightmares, all of them real. Magic was real, flying tents were real, even wind-up robots the size of a mouse … they were all real. Nothing, however, was more incredible, more life-changing or strange, than the minuscule grain of sand on the tip of his finger. Average boys like Ned Waddlesworth did not make things with their minds. But he was Ned Armstrong, and he was no longer an average boy.

  For a moment Ned’s mind raced with possibilities. “Can I make anything?”

  “Not quite, Master Ned. It does have limits – gold, silver and precious gems. They’re all off the menu, so to speak,” explained the Tinker.

  Ned’s dreams of limitless wealth evaporated before they’d even formed.

  “Well, that’s a bit disappointing.”

  “Steady your paws, little leopard,” urged Kitty. “Precious knick-knack’s are nothing to what you and your ring will be making eventually. Seeing and Telling a single grain is only the first step. You’ll need to learn much more to mend the Source of the Veil’s power. Normally we wouldn’t try this quite so quickly, but with time being what it is, we’ll need to start you off on multiples.”

  “Multiples?”

  “Making and moving more than one thing at a time; bringing together complex parts. Tricky. We’ll try two grains of sand first. Now be ca
reful, we don’t want you spraining your head, not when it’s so nice the way it is.”

  He shut his eyes and slowed his breathing. His mind took him back to the shimmering air as it jostled into position. There was the high-pitched hum again, between Ned and the ring, followed by another crackle of energy, till finally, miraculously, he saw two grains of sand forming in front of him.

  “Turn them both, dearie. In opposite directions. Gently now my pear-tree, and for as long as you can.”

  The first started to spin, just as it had before, but as soon as he focused on the second, they both started to wobble and disintegrate. He panicked, trying to compensate with one and then the other, till they slipped from his invisible hold and tumbled to the floor, evaporating back to air as they did so. A part of him felt as though he were tumbling with them, and he reached out to steady himself.

  “That was really hard.”

  “Actually, dear, it’s only ever as hard as you make it,” answered Kitty.

  The room was still swaying. “But the granules … I couldn’t stay focused on more than one at a time.”

  “The only limit is what your mind is trained to believe is possible or not. If I’d asked you to Amplify a whole bag of sand it would be just as easy, dear, but only if you let yourself think it. When your daddy went on stage he could turn a knife into a metal spider’s web, a pane of glass into a pool of water. To reach that level, you need willpower, and your resistance to Barba shows you have it in spades. You also need belief, in yourself, your own imagination, and what you’re trying to create. This is not beyond you, Neddles, it’s within. Believe me when I tell you this – no one shone brighter than your parents, in or out of the circus ring,” said Kitty warmly. “Mark my words, little Armstrong, in time you’ll do the same.”

  It was the first time the elderly witch had used his real surname. It hurt because he wanted so desperately to believe that this was who he was. To be like they had been, to be the same.

  “If you say so,” he mumbled.

  “No, dearie, if you say so,” said the Farseer, this time without a smile.

  Just then, a grim-faced Benissimo came pounding up the stairs, his whip writhing like a snake on fire, his top hat askew.

  “Murder and mayhem, mud and mischief! You had best all follow me.”

  “What is it, boss? What’s the matter?” asked the Tinker.

  “Madame Oublier has sent news – and it is not good!”

  Oublier and Co

  Madame Oublier was Prime of the Twelve, the governing council that watched over all of the Veil’s circuses. Their word – and by definition, hers – was law amongst the travelling kind. She was also, like Kitty, a Farseer – a woman with the gift of sight. She had sent as envoys two agents from her pinstripe brigade bearing a letter. To not entrust the news to an air-modulator, largely accepted as the Veil’s safest form of communication, could only mean two things. The news was both highly sensitive and extremely dire.

  Mystero and George were already waiting in the Ringmaster’s trailer to hear what the pinstripes had to say. It was Ned’s second visit there, though he’d been too frantic to take it in the first time. Benissimo’s quarters looked as if they had been lived in by a hundred Ringmasters before him and were strewn with the costumes, wigs and weaponry of his trade. His standing mirror was so covered in photos of troupes gone by, that there was little mirror left to actually see into. Looking about the trailer, Ned realised that the Circus of Marvels was more than a troupe that required a Ringmaster – to Benissimo, it was his family and home.

  The oversized ape and head of security were sitting far apart and George looked upset, not animal-rage upset, more gentleman-seriously-miffed upset.

  “You OK, George?” asked Ned.

  The ape’s fur bristled.

  “Apparently that is for our clammy-handed head of security to decide.”

  “George, no one is suggesting that you’re the actual spy,” said a stern-faced Mystero. He was in his solid form, and his suit looked as tired as he did. The constant checks on the troupe’s security were clearly taking their toll.

  “But you want to search my container?”

  It was Benissimo who answered.

  “George! This is not the time for hurt feelings. Ned was taken from your quarters, and Miz merely needs to inspect it for tickers.”

  If an ape’s face could go red with anger, then George’s would have been scarlet. Instead he busied himself with the angry elimination of a banana.

  Ned gave George a sympathetic smile, then took his seat with the Tinker and Kitty.

  “Now, if we’re all ready to be civil …?” said Benissimo, pausing to peer at George before he began reading Madame Oublier’s letter.

  “Bene, I am forced to send envoys as the news they bring is grave. Secrecy is of the utmost importance, for I suspect more than one rotten apple in my basket and suggest you look to your own over the coming days.

  “The Veil is indeed failing, old friend. For now, our circuses and operatives on the outside are containing things as best they can. The human press may not have joined the dots, but those in power are beginning to. They don’t know what they have yet, but they know they have something. We are not dealing with a foolish incursion by that idiot Bigfoot, or Nessy showing off in Scotland, nor is it a few isolated sightings of fair-folk forgetting their glamours. As the Veil continues to falter, piece by alarming piece, we can only wonder at what will be revealed next. I leave it to the pinstripes to explain further, as I do not trust even the ink or paper that this letter is scribed upon. If the child’s sighting of the Shar’s insignia aboard your brother’s ship is true, then I fear a cabal of enemies has already formed.

  “Keep your eyes open on the road ahead, I see a perilous ride for us all …”

  Benissimo finished reading, and looked to the two men with matching slicked-back hair and pinstripe suits standing quietly by his side. The same two men that Ned had seen with Finn in France. They bowed politely to Benissimo, then Kitty, before the stockier of the two cleared his throat and began.

  “Masters … over the past twelve months, myself and Mr Cook, along with the other pinstripes have been monitoring activity in every nook and cranny of our borders. I have to report that the amount of high-level Darklings crossing over has increased at an alarming rate.”

  The other pinstripe laid out a collection of magazines and newspapers, from the josser side of the Veil. Most of them were local, small-scale papers with tiny readerships, but all had one thing in common: their leading stories revolved around unexplainable phenomena.

  ‘FLAME-BREATHING

  REPTILE IN PARIS SEWERS!’

  ‘HALF-EATEN HUMAN REMAINS

  FOUND IN MOSCOW SUBURB!’

  ‘WHAT CREATURE MADE

  THESE CLAW MARKS?’

  ‘ELDERLY LADY ATTACKED IN SLEEP

  NEAR BATTERSEA POWER STATION!’

  From England to India, America to Australia, the Veil was faltering and at an alarming rate.

  “With all these rumours circulating, we’re seeing widespread panic on our side of the Veil. The more defenceless of our folk are understandably terrified and would be far more so if they knew the extent of the problem. More troubling still is our timeframe. That is to say, what is indicated by the lengthening duration for which the Veil falters each time. The science guilds and the elder librarians of Aatol have cross-referenced the dates and lengths of incident with their geographical positioning and I’m afraid the Astronomicus has given us its date, Masters – we have just thirteen days. The level thirty-sixes – the Demons – are less than two weeks away from breaking through.”

  Mr Small’s words lay over the room like a great dark blanket. For the first time since Ned had met the man, Benissimo hung his head, and both George and the Tinker looked like they’d forgotten how to breathe. Only Kitty remained unshaken. To Ned’s complete amazement, she was happily thumbing the pages of a Hello Kitty sticker book.

  “Ooh, snap
, two matching lollies!” she squealed, though she had no way of seeing that they were no such thing.

  “Really, Kit-Kat! You could at least take this seriously,” scolded Benissimo fiercely.

  “Oh, but I am, dearies! Has the room forgotten our young Engineer? The brave wee boy who will save the Veil?” said Kitty, though without her usual mischievous grin.

  All eyes turned to Ned, who gulped and looked at his lap sheepishly.

  “Kitty, the prophecies are all good and well,” said Benissimo, clearly trying to watch his words, “and we are all no doubt grateful to the boy for agreeing to help in his father’s absence. But we are clearly running out of time. Can we really put our futures in the hands of, of … a child?”

  Kitty gave the faintest of smiles.

  “I did. On your brother’s ship. I knew the boy would resist the butcher’s magic and that he would find me, just as I knew he’d bond with the ring, and with the girl. Is the Beaumont girl herself not a child? Is she not as much a gamble?”

  “He’s had no training.”

  Ned felt another pang of jealousy. It was true, he was horribly ill prepared, whereas Lucy had no doubt always known about her gift. Had his mother trained her, made her better than Ned?

  “Now is not the time for sowing doubt, Bene, not when we are asking so much.”

  “Fine. You’re right,” said Benissimo, now looking at Ned. “Tell me, how goes his tutoring?”

  Ned had to force himself not to walk out of the room. The Ringmaster was back to talking about him as though he wasn’t even in the room.

  Kitty suddenly looked less defiant.

  “Tip-top, though it’s only his first day and—”

  “And how long did it take his father to come into the fullness of his gifts?” interrupted the Ringmaster.