Firetale (18 page)

I wanted to do something
important, to live in a big city. I believed that I had all
the
qualifications for this, and not just for traveling the
dusty outback in an old truck in a company of disgusting creatures
that despised me. My life seemed pointless to me, my hopes
shattered. For a long time, I’ve put up with my existence with the
help of, shall we say, potions. They relax me, immerse me in dreams
of another life. I knew there was a risk of getting too used to
them, becoming too dependent on potions and dreams. But it happened
faster than I expected. One thing calmed me—the old man did not
seem to notice my condition. Although looking at his impassive face
one could never be sure.

I admit
that sometimes I was overwhelmed with
the hope that Mr. Bernardius would learn about my addiction and
report it. Then I would be punished. I would be removed from the
circus. Or eliminated. Anything. Then, when my mind cleared, I knew
fear would never let me reveal myself. But now I’m not afraid. Fear
has devastated me, ruined me. I have no strength to fight fear
anymore. I reached the point where the regrets of my broken dreams
outweigh the desire to live. I haven’t taken potions for three
weeks. I’m cleaner than I’ve been for more than a year and a half.
My mind is clear and sharp, and I am conscious of my actions. I
thought about the reasons that could stop me, but I found only one.
What if my sudden death ruins someone’s life? Is it possible that
some young, untrained archivist, unable to cope with his desires,
could end up in the same sorry state as me?

But the more I thought about it,
the more
I
convinced myself that this would not be possible for a second time.
I don’t comfort myself, but I know my masters would not allow the
same mistake twice. And so I say goodbye with a light heart. I know
where to find myself after death. I hope that this entry will
explain my motives. And I hope that where I am going, they will be
less strict.

Eternally yours, Jacob.

“
Tongue tied, nerves as big as boulders.”

Blind Melon
, “Car Seat (God’s
Present)”

The Judge
’s senses gave a jingle even
before his Scarab Stout reached the circus encampment. The
spectators, gathered for the show, stared at his car and, judging
by their exclamations, took him for an artist who was running late
for the show. Some onlookers even tried to talk to him, but Caius
ignored them. He confidently walked to the main tent. Never in his
life had his sense for mongrels screamed so loud inside his head,
like a banshee predicting death.

In a bright,
old-fashioned
, and a bit cartoonish jump-stand stood a charming
dark-haired woman with huge eyes and a sensual scarlet mouth. Caius
showed her his invitation. He saw a human, but knew she was a
mongrel. He was one of the best Judges, and his sense never failed.
Yet his thoughts were confused. One mongrel should not cause such
feelings. Feelings interfered with clear thinking. Caius wanted to
get back in his car, take a harpoon, and turn this show into a
bloodbath, but he decided to behave calmly and wait for the
beginning of the spectacle before taking the next step.

The
size of the main tent did not
surprise him, but he was struck by its oddness. Caius was not a big
fan of entertainment, knew little about fun, and a traveling circus
seemed to him a relic of the days when there was neither TV nor
radio. Therefore the Judge was not surprised when it turned out
that the “Lazarus Bernardius’ Circus,” as it was called on the
bill, exactly matched his archaic ideas. Coming into the tent, the
Judge took his seat in the grandstand and looked around. The other
spectators were definitely people. In none of them, neither adult
nor child, did Caius sense a mongrel. The audience was whispering
excitedly. Someone next to the Judge boasted that he had been in an
actual traveling circus, and there had been a constantly unpleasant
smell of damp, old age, and animals, but this place was nothing
like that. Therefore, the circus expert doubted that this circus
was real and that the show would be worth the couple of bucks he
had paid for a ticket. The expert’s friend told him to shut up, but
his words about smells in the circus alerted Caius. It did smell of
wood, iron, dust, and spectators, but not of animals.

The Judge
’s thoughts were interrupted
when the arena was plunged into darkness. A deep voice from the
darkness greeted the audience, and when the light appeared again, a
tall old gentleman was standing in the center of the arena. He wore
a suit from the 19th century, a top hat, and a gray beard down to
his waist. The old man introduced himself as Lazarus Bernardius and
said that his circus had been traveling around the country for
almost one hundred and fifty years, and claimed he had been with it
from the very first show. In the auditorium, children gasped, and
adults snorted. The old man promised a good show, and as his final
words faded, darkness engulfed the arena again.

A cheerful little tinkling
tune
began,
and when the tent was once again illuminated, Caius and the viewers
saw a little man with a street organ standing in the center of the
arena. The musician was very short; his head would barely reach the
knee of an adult and looked like a melon, a little flattened on top
and bottom and too big for his tiny body. His face was a light
orange color. Caius sensed a melonhead in the little man. On the
continent, such were relatively recent, and those who saw them
often mistook them for victims of genetic mutations, products of
mad scientists or government experiments. Like all Judges, Caius
knew about melonheads, one of the most senseless and helpless
mongrels, though their weakness did not make them more
easygoing.

While the man was
playing
,
more shorties jumped out from behind the scenes in the arena. They
looked like a dozen twins. They sputtered and sang something in
their high-pitched voices, galloping around the musician and
turning handsprings. During the dance, one of the melonheads
stumbled and fell. Another one tripped on him, couldn’t keep his
balance, and ran into a third. The latter comically slapped the
second’s face, and when the first one tried to disengage them, he
was beaten by both. The orange men fought with each other, yelling
something thick with their thin voices. Some used techniques from
wrestling, grasping each other and throwing opponents around the
arena. Only the musician remained untouched, and he continued to
play a fast, ringing melody.

Suddenly
the men stopped fighting and
rolling around the arena, and began pointing up. The shrill cry of
an animal sounded, and an unimaginable cross between a bird and a
lizard flew from under the dome, right at the orange men, its wings
spread wide. The creature had only a rear pair of limbs, and
instead of front limbs, it had broad membranous wings covered with
scales. It had a long snake-like neck and the head of a lizard, and
its thin tail bore a stinger that looked like an arrowhead.
A
wyvern
,
thought the Judge. He was boiling inside, and his suspicions about
the circus were strengthened.

The serpent spewed flames. They were
bright, but more like harmless fireworks than terrifying dragon
fire, and they landed in the center of the arena. The melonheads
scattered in every direction. Two of them dragged away the unwary
musician, who blinked, pretending surprise. When he came his to
senses, he changed the roller in his street piano, which began to
play a heroic tune. Upon hearing it, the orange men surrounded the
wyvern. He hissed menacingly at them, flew low, and produced whirls
of sparks, scaring the melonheads. Sometimes the serpent dived and
grabbed one of the men, and his fellows would try to catch him and
pull him down. During one of the dips, two melonheads caught the
wyvern’s tail. The serpent tried to shake them off and breathe fire
on them, but did not succeed.

The other orange men
clutched
the
legs of their brother, which dangled from the monster, and dragged
him to the ground. When the wyvern was quite low, a few men pounced
on his long, flexible neck and finally pinned him to the arena. The
musician played a triumphant melody, and the others shouted a
victory cry. They hoisted the defeated “dragon” onto their
shoulders, waved to the audience, and then dragged him behind the
scenes.

Then an incredibly handsome man
appeared on the scene. Judge Caius
had never considered himself a connoisseur
of male beauty, but something about this man attracted him. He
thought perhaps he might like to have a friend like him, maybe even
a brother. But his sharp senses told him that a mongrel was on the
stage, although he could not guess his secret. The man bowed,
winking playfully at some of the girls in the hall, the smile never
leaving his face. While he was engaged with the audience, a monster
appeared behind him. How beautiful was the artist, so ugly was the
monster. Judging by the breasts and rounded hips, this creature was
a female. Her legs were fused into one, tangled hair concealed most
of her face, which was mottled with wrinkles, but it couldn’t hide
the single big eye in the middle of her forehead, bloodshot and
covered with a fleshy eyelid. In some places, the monster-woman’s
skin looked more like the bark of a tree, and her hands were like
crooked branches. Caius remembered the name of the monster.
Patasol
. They once lived on the border with Mexico, but they had
not been heard of in a long time.

The spectators shouted at the handsome man
to turn around. He put a hand to his ear, pretending he could not
hear what was said to him, and joked with the people in the hall.
The monster was approaching him in short hops, and when it seemed
she was ready to grab him with her hand-branches, the artist,
without turning to her, moved to another location to entertain the
audience. This went on several times until finally the man did turn
around as the audience shouted at him. Horror filled his face, but
did not make it ugly. Hand-branches seized the man by the
shoulders; the beastly woman drew him to her and opened a mouth
full of crooked yellow and black teeth. But instead of biting the
victim’s head off, she kissed him, and in the same moment the
monster began to change. She decreased in size, her single leg was
divided into two, and the bark fell from them onto stage, exposing
girlish legs, slender and tanned. The leaves and branches
disappeared from her hair, and her face no longer had only one eye
but two, and her red mouth was full of beautiful white teeth. The
Judge recognized the girl from the jump stand.

Then
a mimi
appeared on the scene, an incredibly tall
mongrel with bronzed skin covered with white tattoos. The mimi was
ten feet tall, and thin beyond belief. He entertained the audience
by turning to the side and becoming invisible. If too many people
in the audience clapped and sighed at the same time, the mimi
trembled like a piece of fabric in the wind and uttered a sad and
lingering moan. When his act ended, the mongrel lay on the arena,
becoming a living drawing on the floor before crawling behind the
scenes.

The sad mimi was exchanged for two ogres,
very similar in appearance, except that one was gray and the other
green. Both had the same gloomy muzzles and heavy jaws, wore shabby
bowler hats, and were dressed like longshoremen of the 30s.
Frowning and harrumphing, the ogres performed stunts with weights;
they bent iron bars, raised a wrecking ball over their heads, and
crushed bricks with their bare hands or sometimes against each
other’s heads. To do this, one of the ogres took off his ridiculous
bowler, showing the audience two short horns, while the second one
hit the top of his head with a brick, crumbling it to
dust.

The more the Judge watched the
show, the
fewer doubts he had. This circus consisted entirely of
mongrels, from the old ringmaster to the melonheads. So maybe when
Bernardius said he’d been managing the circus for nearly one
hundred and fifty years, it wasn’t a joke. The Judge felt
incredible excitement, as always, when an interesting case loomed
before him. A beam of light under the dome caught a girl on a
trapeze. Caius’s sense for mongrels raged within him, and pain was
bursting inside him, as if his whole being was ready to explode.
For a moment, he forgot how to breathe. It seemed to him that if he
sighed, his lungs would explode, unable to withstand the pressure,
and if he did not breathe, the rush of blood in his veins would
stop. Caius felt divided. While one part of him tried to remember
how to breathe, painfully trying to cope with the senses raging
inside him, the second was calm and pacified. He was contemplating
his life, confessing what he had done. He thought about all the
sentences he had passed just to amuse himself or brag to the other
Judges. He thought of Danny and the werewolf girl, and was ashamed
of the feelings he had experienced over her dead body. But he did
not have pity for himself. He believed he could change, that life
would get better, that there was hope even for him. While the
aerialist girl hovered under the big top, he felt incredibly good.
Recognizing his own sins had helped him recover
spiritually.

The girl
’s straps folded and unfolded,
raising her to the top of the dome, and then dropping her to the
floor. She had a surprisingly good body, but looking at her the
Judge felt no lust or passion, only admiration and
gratitude.