Part 2, Chapter I

Part 2: Autumn

 

I. Temples Made of Glass

 

            At dusk, we attained the bridge; a great many-arched monster it was, made of weather-smoothed stones that seemed as through dredged up from the memories of a more ancient time. Gated watchtowers were erected at both ends of the bridge and at its middle, manned by soldiers who were preparing to bar the way for the night just as we arrived. Orchid’s flattering words allowed us to pass through unmolested, and once we gained the north bank, the gates were shut behind us.

Because there was yet a long and rolling heath between Ambitus and our band, and because the hour was late, we pitch our camp on the riverbank. Though I didn’t feel as tired as the rest of the band appeared, the moment I lay down by the fire a heavy sleep gripped me. In it, I dreamt of spiders, a hundred-thousand in number, crawling all over my body and weaving a silk cocoon tightly around my chest until I was on the verge of suffocation.

            Startled, I awoke, gasping for air as I imagined the pressure against my chest to be the Twynn’s gripping currents.

            Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a mass of living, crawling tissue. It shuddered and pressed near; it was a hoard of spiders, I realized, so many spiders that together they seemed to form one flesh. Beneath my blankets they crawled, creeping up my arms and squirming beneath my shirt and trousers. I am still dreaming, I told myself. This is just another layer of the same dream; a trick of the mind. For I knew the mind in sleep was one to cast such illusions, showing me the campfire here and the wagons and horses there which the mind, deceived, would embrace as the real thing. Thus I comforted myself, until I felt someone clasp my chest. I must have fallen asleep, because when I felt those hands upon me my eyes flew open.

            “So there you lay, son of destruction,” a genderless, metallic voice hissed in my ears. “I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”

            When I turned and gazed upon the speaker, you can understand why I thought I must still be dreaming! At my side crouched a woman clothed in a translucent robe, who had not two, nor four, but six arms altogether, all twitching eagerly in various poses at her side. Though her skin was pale as death, her fingers like blackened talons. Her face, though delicate and beautiful, was distorted -- somehow wrong, somehow not quite human. Her eyes had no whites -- they were dark red and gleamed in the firelight, bulging from their sockets like precious gemstones. Dark circles ringed her eyes, making them all the more prominent. Around her brow fell long, dishevelled locks of jet-black hair, through which she peered.

            Believing no harm could be brought about by conversing with a dream, I asked, “And why might you await me, woman?”

            She tilted her head, clacking her teeth together as she did so. The sound sent a chill through my spine.

“They told me,” muttered she at last, “they told me one would come after me, far more perfect than I. They’d fix all the errors they made with me, they said. I wasn’t meant to be, they said. A miscalculation. A monstrosity. Good to see they set themselves aright before you came around; it would have been a tragedy if there was another misstep, another…” she clacked her teeth, “… miscalculation.” A note of hostility colored her voice.

Baffled, I replied, “I apologize for whatever I might have done to you, though I would not venture to suppose your claim valid, as this has all been a conjure of fantasy. A dream -- and you and I are in it.”

             For a long time, she remained quiet, peering at me with those empty, crimson eyes, so devoid of expression that they were impossible to read. “You are perfect,” she said at last, “as they said you would be.”

            The campfire flared up, and a crimson shadow briefly shaded the rigid planes of the woman’s face. She blinked, and again her voice whispered in my ear, “I will tell you a secret. Go not beyond the mountains in the North. They lie in wait there. They made you; they won’t hesitate to unmake you.”

            If I responded, I do not remember it. Darkness sealed my eyes, not the restful darkness but one filled with tossing and turning.

            The next thing I felt was a hand thump down on my back.

 “Git up, ya c**k-a-doodle!” I heard Quagmire growl. “Sun’s been up a good half-hour.”

            “I have the faintest idea what a half-hour is” I grumbled. Sitting, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as Quagmire continued to badger me.

“We’ll teach you soon enough, by the Crick! Now get moving -- the camp’s a mess!”

            After taking a gulp from my canteen, I set out to load the wagons and help Denthilde with the horses.

            I discovered the younger boy intent on one of our chestnut mares, which was sprawled upon the ground, its glassy eyes showing white as they rolled in their sockets.

            “What ails her?” I demanded.

            Denthilde, who’d been up until then unaware of my presence, shot up in a fluster, clasping and unclasping his hands as he struggled to meet my eyes from under the brim of his cap.

            “Oh, I don’t know! I didn’t do anything, honest!” He cried. “She was this way when I found her. Won’t take a step.”

            “Do you suppose we ought to end the creature’s suffering?” I asked, drawing out my sword. Inwardly, I cringed at the thought of leaving the beast in the open to fall prey to the gnashing teeth of predators.

            But Denthilde grasped my wrist before I could make another move towards the horse. “Gods, you’re off your knockers!” the boy exclaimed. “Well, go on -- go tell Orchid. I’m sure he’ll know what to do.”

            While I had a sudden urge to berate the boy for daring to order me around, I thought it hardly productive, and with my impatient to lay eyes upon the city of men ever growing I thought it best that we should depart as soon as able.

            So instead I slunk around the wagon, calling out, “Orchid!” --

            -- But the word never fully left my lips. There, looming above the fire’s dying embers as though she’d stepped straight from Sheol, was the girl from my nightmare: eight limbs, jewelled eyes -- not a detail lacking. The others were busy preparing to leave, ushering to and fro around the woman without so much as turning an eye upon her.

            Beside me passed Kindred, a bowl of oatmeal in her hands. I snatched her by the sleeves and hauled her close, knocking the bowl from her hands and giving her a start.

“Dark!” she exclaimed.

            “Do you see her?” I hissed.

            “See who?”

            “The girl by the fire!”

            She turned, looked at the girl, and then at me. A frown dimpled her forehead. “Yes, of course I see her! That’s Arachne. For goodness’s sake, it’s rude to stare!”

            “But I wasn’t starring!”

            The girl was gazing directly at us.

Without demonstrating any restrain in her cheer, Kindred waved, calling out, “Good to see you this morning, Arachne! You must be feeling better, are you?”

            Against my will, Kindred grasped me by the crook of the elbow and drew me closer to the woman.

Arachne’s lips contorted into a smile. “I am,” said she, in the same voice as I remembered from my nightmare, no less! “This weather suits me far better.”

            “The cold’s not bothering you at all?”

            “Not at all,” she clacked her teeth, eyes locking onto mine. “In fact, I feel rather… cleansed.”

            All of a sudden a spider scurried up her chin, resting on her meaty lower lip. Out from the corner of her mouth flickered her tongue, and the spider disappeared with a swelling of her throat. In awe, I turned to Kindred, but seemed oblivious to Arachne’s action.

“Have you met Dark, yet?”

            “I’ve heard the name mentioned,” Arachne replied. Then she stood, muttered over her shoulder, “Excuse me,” and left.

            Kindred tilted her chin, peering up at me. “She’s not a bad girl,” she said. “Very curious, isn’t she?”

            “Yes, she is.”

            “What’s the matter, Dark? You were being kind of rude to her.”

            “I was doing no such thing!”

            “You didn’t even say a word to her, though!”

            Blushing at the lunacy of my own words, I muttered, “I believe I may have seen her before, but only in a dream.”

            “That’s spooky.”

            “More than you can possibly conceive.”

            “Come on!” she quipped. “We’ll walk together until Denthilde gets done with whatever he’s doing. If there’s going to be creepy stuff things happening, I don’t want to be left on my own, please and thank you.”

            “I must find Orchid!” I protested.

            “Fine, then. We’ll find him together, and in the meantime you can protect me. Shall we?”

            We made for a peculiar sight, the two of us. She looped her arm through mine and led me on, skipping and humming to herself. Protection! -- she was a fine maker of excuses, our Kindred. But I could not bring myself to protest, for she led me by the arm with all innocence, humming and singing, no more than a child, her mind innocent to her body’s workings. A child -- that’s precisely how I thought of her, and so I allowed her to pull me along, humouring her with all fondness a parent towards a child.

            After the issue of our horse was sorted out (Orchid gave her a heavy draught of water and whipped her ‘til she stood), we set out, veering eastward. Denthilde joined Kindred and I’s company, and together we formed a chain of three with Kindred in the middle, and arm looped around either of us boys. He kissed her on the forehead, a dumb grin writ upon his face.

“Good to see you getting on fine and dandy with Dark,” he said to Kindred, and then to me, “Just remember, I don’t like sharing -- right, chum?”

            I wasn’t paying attention to Denthilde’s pandering, however; I was far too occupied with what appeared above the hilltops on the horizon..

            It was a dome, larger than any manmade structure I’d seen before. Hellstooth’s soaring peaks were but a little higher than it. So broad was the dome that it rivalled the Vale of Sinon in length. Inside, I could see the blurry, grey bulkheads of buildings, though I could make out no further detail of their construction from where I stood.

            “Well, ho!” Orchid cried out up ahead. “We’ve hit the mark, boys.” Turning to me, he hollered. “See there? That’s Ambitus. There’s not a finer hovel from one pole to the other -- that’s her!”

            Early that evening, we were so close to the dome that it filled the entirety of my vision. It was made of a transparent material, the likes of which I’d never beheld. Within it were structures like mountains, for they nearly brushed the top of the dome! These appeared to be made of the same material as the dome, but unlike the dome I could not see through them. In the setting sun, the faces of the distant buildings glinted gold, like the gilded columns on which the temple of my childhood and been built.

            “It’s transparent aluminum,” Orchid told me. “You could fling a bloody Chimera at it and it’d hold.”

            “Why can I see through the domes but not the buildings?”

            “It’s because they’re made of regular ol’ glass, I guess. Couldn’t say for sure. I think the dome was made ‘specially to let light in.”

            I asked him why the buildings weren’t designed in the same way, but he shooed me away, and I was left to wonder at the already numerous mysteries of the domed city.

            At the city’s gate, we were joined by a scattered but numerous crowd of travellers of all colours and varieties, though all equally shabby and weather-ridden.

            As Rupheo explained, there were four gates placed around the dome -- one to the north, one to the east, one to the south, and one to the west. Each gate took the name of one of Ambitus’s four Universities: Borealis, Orientalis, Australis, and Occidentalis respectively. These were houses of learning, one for history, one for mathematics, one for arts, and the other for sciences.

            We entered by the Australis gate, where men-at-arms were posted. When it came time for our caravan to pass through, one of the men, who’s cap sunk to the bridge of his nose and whose moustache was amply bushy, ordered Orchid to stop.

            “Passport,” he grunted, pushing his cap above his eyebrows.

            Orchid handed him a thick leather booklet, never a smirk absent from his face. “All here and accounted for, as you have it. One labourer to report unregistered; I’m afraid I’ll have to inconvenience you for a visa.”

            Immediately, the soldier looked to me. It was the ears, I suppose -- they had a gift for drawing attention wherever I went.

            “This one?”

            “That’s right.”

            “Looks a little tanned. Picking southern crop?”

            “Wouldn’t even think of it! All mine are fair hire.”

            The soldier gave us one last look-over before calling out to one of his fellow guards, “Hey, Gussa! You have any white slips left?”

            I was given a white slip of paper and told I would need to register. At the time, of course, I had no idea what that meant. The process of entering Ambitus was far more complex than I had imagined -- I’d thought it would be just like Augustine, where one could wander in and out whenever they pleased!

            The guards ushered us through the gates and into the courtyard. All around us huddled squat stone buildings that reminded me of dwarfed versions of the cathedral at the temple’s monastery.  Squashed porticos fronted the buildings, which were inset with small, round windows. Into the face of the central building, the words “UNIVERSITY OF AUSTRALIS” were graven.

            After passing through the university’s courtyard, the stone buildings and cobbled pathways -- the only sights with which I was familiar -- disappeared. Cobblestone was replaced by broad, black roads that were as smooth as the surface of a pond, yielding no cracks or creases. The buildings of stone became buildings of glass, catching the sunlight in each pane. When we walked alongside one of these, I could not see within it. Instead, our reflections shimmered across the building’s face, warped and stretched to an unnatural height. 

            All at once, I heard a loud screech. Turning, my heart nearly burst from my chest when I beheld a metal beast come upon me, a low roar rising from its throat.

            Orchid should have paid greater attention to me, for I was raised in timeless temple of the Sun and was not therefore accustomed to the technological marvels of Ambitus. Upon the creature I sprung, crashing into its glass-plated face. From its scabbard, my sword I drew, and struck the beast in (what I thought was) one of its glowing amber eyes. To my surprise the “eyeball” shattered and bits of amber-colored glass fell to my feet.

            As I wound up for another blow, the beast’s side suddenly swung open and out stepped a man.

“By the gods, man!” I cried. “Hast this beast swallowed thee whole?!”

            “The hell you doing, kid?!” he snarled. “Off the hood or I’ll pop your head off!”

            It was then that Orchid grabbed me by the hair and hauled me away, apologizing over his shoulder as he went. 

“Sorry, fellow! He’s new to the north. It’s his southern upbringing, see?”

            “Stay right where you are!” howled the man. “Someone’s paying for this!”

            “You’ve my sincerest regrets, sir, but I can hardly be blamed for every loon that puts a dent in your property. Good day!”

            The caravan was ushered along as fast as the horses could be driven, the man’s shrieks of anger following after us the whole way, but Orchid instructed me to pay him no heed. My incident seemed to put the others in a bright mood, though I could not understand why -- I was far too baffled from having seen a man emerge from the metal beast’s belly.

            It was Rupheo and Gulliver who approached me first.

“You first time, isn’t it?” asked Gulliver.

            “In the city? Yes.”

            “I could tell,” said Rupheo. “You near frightened the chap stiff! This isn’t the barbarous country you’re used to, Dark.”

            Gulliver winked at me. “Don’t mind him. Rups thinks everything outside the dome’s barbarous.”

            “If you’d rather I use the word ‘pre-modern’…”

            “ -- He was born in Ambitus, see, and never ventured out ‘til he was nearly my age. It was all that time in the universities, I think. Mama always said he was the smart one. Didn’t she, Rups?”

            “And you were just a panderer who went and hitched up with the circus, Gulliver. I’ve yet no bloody clue how you pulled me into this business of yours either. It’s a wonder where I might’ve gone if you’d never come along.”

            “You’d be on the other side of these walls right now with the rest of the Crowns!” chided Gulliver. “Now how about enlightening our friend Dark, hmm? Ye’ve got plenty of thoughts clogging up your brain… he might make use of one or two!”

            “First thing I’ll teach him is to stop glaring at everything that moves. Look at him! It’s not any wonder they give him looks -- he’s the manners of an ape, the boy! Right then -- let’s have a lesson, won‘t we?”

            If here I paint Rupheo with undignified strokes, mind you it’s none of his doing, but my own. To capture a man’s essence from the snippets of conversation is an unfair task. He was not, as his own words might suggest, a hard man by any rendering of the sense. The blood of a staunch traditionalist ran thick is his veins, and it gave him a skeptical character, wherein he rejected everything and anything that seemed outlandish or fanciful, but in retrospect you’d scarcely come upon a finer mind, nor a finer man. For though he showed it not through his words at all times, he was patient with me, and enjoyed being the one to teach me everything there was to learn concerning Ambitus.”

            “The thing you attacked,” he began, “was an automover.”

            “Pardon?

            “An automover. Engine, wheels, and half a ton of scrap metal. Junk, most of them are. Run off a wide-up generator, but they’re not efficient about it. A good crank will only keep your tires on the road for a half-hour’s worth of driving; that’s why many have gone back to horses. An awful pain, all of it, to have both clogging up the streets. You get both noise and s**t. Terrible way to start the day.”

            “You seem to know a good deal about the matter,” I remarked.

            “I’d better. Spent near a decade at the University of Occidentalis, studying how your domestic gizmos work. To nip at the truth, it was all waste. There’s not half a sense in what they teach. Technology’s gone to the gutter for a number of years -- more nobility’s to be had rolling around in politics these days than in the sciences.”

            “It sounds fascinating!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. “Might they allow me entrance into the universities, Rupheo?”

            Dragon overheard me, and turning, snapped, “Do we look made of money to you, whelp? Get your mind off it!”

            Ignoring her remark, Rupheo switched to another subject. “Now, did you catch an eye of the group we travelled with -- outside the gates, I mean?”

            “Yes, I did.”

            “Do you know why they’re here? -- Never mind, I don’t suppose you would. Well, they’ve blown this way for the Awakening Festival. That’s the one in spring, as far as you need to know.”

            “Spring?”

            “Bugger, all that sun made a raisin of your brain, didn’t it? Well. You’ll see soon enough. The Awakening Festival isn’t quite as big a thing here as the Solstice Fair, but we like to put on a show there from time to time. Poor money -- mostly drunkards in attendance. Same story with the Solstice Fair. Now Oktoberfest -- that’s the gem of the whole year, and it’s when we do most of our shows. You have no bloody idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

            “No, sir.”

            “What else did I expect? Come on -- Orchid’s looking to see you, I think.”

            Jogging, I caught up with Orchid. He was leading the head of the caravan -- our old, tuckered mare -- by the reigns.

“Just around the block up here,” he said, “there’s the central office. First order of the day is registering you so those gimps at the gate won’t be out for my skin.”

            As we turned at the end of the block, however, we found the way barred by a sandbag barricade, on which a sign reading “DANGER! DO NOT ENTER!” leaned.

            Beyond the barrier, the scene I beheld was nearly indistinguishable from that of the charred woods in Northern Augustine. Instead of ashen trucks, there rose from the vacant streets the blackened, steel skeletons of buildings, lonely and bare in the cold sunlight that radiated through the dome. Here seemed to reside an unearthly quiet, for unlike in Augustine, no breeze made the grasses shudder, and no beast or bird cried their forlorn yowls from afar. The city’s wreck seemed completely removed from nature, as if nothing had e’er drawn breath there to begin with.

            After some bustling about and several interrogations, Orchid lead our troop to the temporary registrar’s office, not two blocks from the city’s burnt section. It was a hovel of a place, not made of glass but of poor man’s brick, and the inside far surpassed the exterior in gross utilitarianism. There seemed to be a gauze that hung all throughout the air within the place, a putrid, smoky veil that made everything seem blurry and desaturated.

            “Doesn’t have any cards, does he?” asked the registrar, squinting at me through her thick lenses.

            “They don’t have that whitewash in Augustine, ma’am,” Orchid quipped.

            Taking one last peek at me, the registrar began to shuffled through a stack of papers, mumbling beneath her breath.

            There’d been a question on my mind I’d held pent up; Omar, conscience of my thoughts (if I had anything like a mother, she came closest thus) relieved me when she asked, “What happened to the old registration office?”

            “Fire. Civil war. What else is new around here?” Plunk, plunk. With ruthless efficiency, she stamped more papers than I dared to counted. “Scats between Luciphytes and Crowns. Porphyry’s taken -- that’s the news, anyways. A few executions. That’s just how it’s been this winter.”

            She glanced up at me, scowling. “Name?”

            “Dark,” I replied.

            “Last name?”

            “Pardon?”

            “Just throw the dog a bone!” Orchid hissed in my ear.

            “I don’t -- .”

            “Give her a name, pluck!”

            Nervous, I slipped my hands into my trousers, and felt something cool to the touch brush against my fingertips. It was the silver ring Eleanor had bequeathed me.

            “Autumnus,” I murmured.

            “Speak up,” said the registrar. “You talk like you’ve got a mouthful of rocks!”

            “Autumnus, madam. My last name is Autumnus.”

            “Dark Autumnus. That’s got to be the lousiest fake name I’ve heard yet,” she grumbled. Notwithstanding, she finished her mad spree of stamping and passed me a stack of papers and a little, leather-bound booklet like Orchid’s own. “Welcome to Ambitus. Now, scram!”

            As we neared the city’s center, the noise level increased, until we turned a corner and suddenly the towering buildings were replaced with a sprawling park, around which wrapped a long, shady avenue where vendors’ booths were set up. The park’s grounds were taken over by travellers like us, who had parked their caravans and set up camp there. Some performers were practicing their routines, arrayed in bright and colourful clothing. I saw one woman dipped in blue from head to toe, topped off with a feather headdress of navy that looked absurd atop her head, for it was nearly half the size of her body!  She was all spangled in gems from her belly to her breasts that, when she danced in the dimming light, flashed like stars at dawn. Elsewhere, mimes in billowing red shirts and pantaloons made poses. There were colours for every performance; performers for every color. You would never find so colourful a pallet in Augustine, not even among the rarest of flowers!

            As we pitched camp, Orchid announced that he would be performing at the opening ceremony of the Awakening festival.

            “A good lot of warning you’ve given us!” Dragon grumbled. “Who do you think is going to take care of the coin for you?”

            Orchid was sitting in one of the wagons, his legs flung out the back, with Omar curled in his lap. Before reaching Ambitus, she had switched her tribal garb and gold for knit sweaters and trousers like the men, and a softer, more domestic disposition gripped her now.

“Opening night is not for revenue, Dragon. It’s a free show for the public,” said Omar.

            “Bullwash and hogscat! Whoever signed you up for that one ought to know you don’t have the time…”

            “Of course I do -- that’s exactly why I volunteered!” Orchid chimed. “Old buddy of mine asked me. Come on, ma’am, raise those cheeks a little!”

            Denthilde snickered, earning him a bruised ear from Dragon.

            Fighting aside, we made it to the opening ceremony that night without any further difficulties.  It was held in the park beneath a red and yellow, pinstripe tent which glowed softly from within. Orchid required a stagehand, and since I was not yet familiar with his routines, Denthilde accompanied him.

            Under the tent, I sat apart from the others, who were preoccupied with getting drunk and being as loud as they could manage. It was, I soon learned, a tradition of the Awakening Festival to shed one’s diurnal sensibilities. With free drink served on behalf of the city, and the festival limping on long into the odd hours of the morning each day, there was opportunity in abundance for the exercising of stupidity. All of which resulted in a giant headache for me. I adored neither crowds nor noise, but I was too interested in witnessing the spectacle to avoid either. In particular, I was hoping to hear a fellow guitarist play -- I’d certainly gotten better over the past month, but with only my master’s playing to judge by, that was opinion only.

            But then Kindred plopped to the ground beside me and shattered my moment’s respite.

“Hey!” she shouted, barely audible over the noise.

            “Aren’t you making merry with the rest of them?” I asked.

            A grin spread across her face. “Who says ‘make merry’ anymore?! I just love the way you talk, Dark… but no, I don’t care much for drinking, and being loud and obnoxious is only fun with Denthilde around.”

            “And you think of me as an appropriate substitute.”

            “No. You’re just kind of interesting; and also, sober. There’s two highlights of your personality right there.”

            “Oddly, I’m unable to decide whether I should be flattered or offended.”

            “Just try not to think too hard about it, buddy.”

            It was difficult to pay attention to the show at hand with Kindred attempting to engage me -- but it was more than that. By the meaningless act of sitting at my side, Kindred’s presence caused me discomfort, though I could not say why (or, at least, I did not wish to guess at it).

Instead of asking Kindred to be quiet, I erred in telling her exactly what I was thinking: “If you must know, I can’t quite enjoy the show with you here.”

            There is not, I realize, a proper excuse for using such language when she had done nothing wrong. However, succinctness of word was simply one characteristic of mine that refused to know either bit or saddle.

            “Glad to hear you appreciate me,” said Kindred, turning from me.

            “If I have rendered any offense -- .”

            “No,” she smiled, running a hand through her hair, “it’s fine. That’s just what you’re like, and I’m okay with it. I’ll be quiet now.”

            Often I’ve wondered at a woman’s witchcraft, by which they know precisely how to make guilt’s fever burn. “You needn’t -- !”

            The trapeze artists onstage finished and the crowd responded with a drunken roar.

            “It’s quite okay!” she shouted. “I’m not going to say another word! I’m sorry!”

            Fuming, I turned my attention to the stage. There, a booth had been wheeled out, with a tiny red curtain drawn across the front of it. Suddenly, the curtain was whisked aside. Behind, there flitted about a puppet made in the likeness of a woman with -- what shall we say? -- voluptuous attributes. The crowd gave a roar and shrill whistles filled the night. I could bear only a minute or so of that awful, crass show before I was forced to turn away.

            That faint smile which tugged at the corners of Kindred’s mouth had never disappeared. She did not need me to speak in order to discern my thoughts.

“I know,” said she. “You came expecting something more cultured, right? We all do, at some point or another. Don’t expect to see the last of the low-brow stuff until Oktoberfest, though. Spring and summer is a much rougher crowd.”

            “I didn’t know what to expect. Perhaps a bit of dignity?”

            “Welcome to Ambitus.”

            She seemed eager to speak with me, but I was not in the spirit to do so, nor did I desire to watch the grotesque puppet show. In the end, I turned away from her, craning my neck so as to peer over my shoulder and examine the people behind me. To me, they were as a sea of pale, sweat-streaked faces. Whenever one caught me glancing at them, their lips would curl back with distaste, and so I spent half the night avoiding gazes, chasing awkwardly from one face to the next until I heard a voice announce:

“And now for our next act, we welcome Orchid Parnassus!”

            I whipped around to make a remark to Kindred -- something about Orchid, I forget what exactly. She was hunched over, arms drawn around her knees, the hollows of her eyes concealed by shadows. Though I could not read the expression on her face in the tent’s dim light, I could see her shoulders spasm lightly every now and then. It was the first time I’d ever seen a woman cry, and something about it disturbed me deeply.

            Onto the stage strutted Orchid, with him Denthilde, who helped him to light six torches on fire, which Orchid then proceeded to juggle. They wooed the crowd, the pair of them. I wish, Old Man, that I could describe for you in greater detail Orchid’s act that first night, but here again we encounter the trouble of memory. The whole performance through, I scarcely paid attention. It was magnificent -- that much I can recall, but my focus was at a loss. All I could think about was Kindred crying beside me. If she stopped, I know not -- I was too cowardly a man to check.