Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

“If you like.”

“And what did you do with the others?”

“Others?”

“That poor mob of fools he had following him around, the others who escaped from the asylum.”

Cabal smiled. “Have you ever heard of ‘care in the community’? You’re entirely right; they’re harmless. They just needed some direction in life.”

“They’re in your carnival?”

“As staff, I assure you. My freaks are all volunteers.” The smile slid away into nothing. “By and large.”

Barrow snorted. “I understand you.”

“No. No, you don’t. You read between the lines, but what’s written there defeats you. Might I make a suggestion, Mr. Barrow?”

“You can make it.”

“In two days, we will be gone from your lives. You can let us do our jobs and bring a little excitement into the lives of the people here, and everybody will be happy. No unpleasantness, no ill-feeling.”

Barrow pursed his lips. “If I could really believe that, I’d be delighted to agree.”

“But you can’t.”

“But I can’t. I don’t believe this story about a dead man climbing down from his gibbet just to make a balls of your public relations. Not for one single, solitary second. What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

Cabal tilted his head at the excited townsfolk, who were washing up and down the length of the carnival train. “That kind of idiot,” he said. “It’s unfortunate for both of us that I’m wrong.” Riggers were beginning to unload the flats from the train. Cabal and Barrow watched them. “I have a long night ahead of me, Mr. Barrow. You’ll forgive me if I take my leave of you, I’m sure.”

After Cabal had taken a few steps down the platform, Barrow called after him, “I’d be happier if you took leave of my town.”

Cabal stopped and looked back at him. “Your town? You’re not your brother’s keeper. Remember that.”

“Is that it? No threats?”

“Threats, Mr. Barrow, are the preserve of blowhards and cowards. I am neither.” He walked back to Barrow until they were toe to toe. “I don’t even give warnings.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

“By and large,” said Barrow, too quietly for Cabal to hear. Then he turned, too, and walked back towards town.

As the two walked away from each other, they were both thinking exactly the same thing: “That man is going to be trouble.”

CHAPTER 11 in which Cabal preys upon misfortune and there is unpleasantness

It was an utter impossibility that the carnival be up and running the night it arrived. Yet, with less fuss and much less time than putting out a picnic table, a full-fledged carnival featuring thirty sideshows, stands, rides, and exhibits was lit up and functional. Nobody could explain how it had been done; by coincidence, the crowd of two hundred and fifty citizens at the station were all facing the other direction at the time. They all jumped in unison as the steam calliope started up behind them, all turned, and said minor variations of “Oooooh!” one less “o” here, one more exclamation mark there.

“A first-night special offer!” cried the tall, dark-haired pale man with the charisma, while his brother, the tallish, blond pale man who only ever seemed to deploy a smile as an offensive weapon, stood behind him, arms crossed. “Entry free!”

The good folk of Penlow on Thurse had been brought up to believe that it was rude to refuse a gift, so they politely filed in under the archway of gleaming painted woodwork and light bulbs. Barrow walked until he stood beneath the arch and looked up. For a second, it seemed to say Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here, but after a moment it definitely proclaimed how the crowned heads of here, there, and everywhere regarded the carnival as ideal entertainment for those of inherited money and limited gene pool, this being regarded as a fine advertisement in some quarters. Barrow decided that he had been mistaken but that his subconscious was trying to tell him something. Forewarned and forearmed, he entered.

Johannes Cabal, necromancer and unwilling carny-huckster, watched the crowd and fretted. This was their penultimate night, and things just weren’t… right. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The crowd seemed to hang together, moving like an extended family from tent to ride to sideshow. Beneath the constant calliope music and the cheerful banter of the barkers lay near silence. People just stopped and looked and moved on. There was a small sensation when somebody bought a toffee apple from a concession stand. “What’s wrong with them? I thought I was supposed to be a hero now. Why are they still so suspicious?”

Horst appeared at his elbow, where he most definitely hadn’t been a second before. “They’re nervous. I may have given them an explanation for the station, but that doesn’t mean that they have to like it. This place reminds them that something weird has happened, something inexplicable and out of the ordinary. Face it, Johannes, I doubt anything out of the ordinary has happened in this place since some passing peasant thought it was a clever place to start a town in year dot. Did you see that fuss over a toffee apple? They couldn’t have been more astounded if we were selling lark tongues in aspic. This place may be a washout.”

“It can’t be a washout. It’s the last port of call. Two souls. I have to get two souls or this whole thing has been a waste of time.”

“And ninety-eight souls.”

“Ninety-nine. My life is forfeit.”

Horst looked at him sharply. “What? You never said anything about that!”

“Strangely, it wasn’t the sort of thing that I like to dwell on. What does it matter? If I don’t get my soul back, then I can’t continue my researches.”

“You just leave a trail of metaphysical disaster behind you, don’t you? You made a mess of your life, my life, however many people you doomed in the eight years and thirty-seven days I was stuck in the cemetery, and now you want to spread the good word to another hundred. And for what?”

“You know damn well.”

Exasperated, Horst shook his head. “No, no, I don’t.” He wagged his finger in his brother’s face. “I used to know. I even sympathised, idiot that I am, and look what it got me. But for what now? I don’t know. I don’t think you do. I think you just carry on this way because if you stopped and asked yourself, ‘Gosh, Johannes, why am I such a total shit to everybody?’ I don’t think you’d be able to give yourself an honest answer.”

Cabal flared. He slapped Horst’s hand to the side. “I don’t care what you think. I am supremely unconcerned by what you think.”

Horst shrugged. “Great. So long as we understand each other.”

“No, no, we don’t understand each other. Or at least you don’t understand me. You never concentrated on anything in your life. You don’t understand what it is to be dedicated. You don’t understand what it means to go to sleep and wake up with the same thought and for that thought to always be there.”

“That’s not dedication.”

“No?”

“No, that’s obsession.”

“And this is your big effort to understand me, is it? A label. I shouldn’t have expected anything but.”

“It’s not a label. Look at yourself. Ye gods, Johannes, you were going to be a doctor! You wanted to help people.”

“Doctors. Frauds and quacks. Just trying to hold back the dark and full of pat excuses when they fail. Too stupid or too scared to bring back the light. Not me. Not me! I’ll be the modern Prometheus no matter what I have to do, no matter how dark I have to make it before I can find the secret.”

“And what if there is no secret to find? What if it’s beyond mortals? What then? What about you?”