The Wizard of Karres

Petey B—I know; I've nosed around. They think it's all misdirection and mirrors!'

Hulik spread her hands. 'You see?' she said to Pul and Pausert. 'There's something else I don't think you've noticed. Outside—people are always asking personal questions about you—who are you, where are you from, where are you going, who do you know, what's your business? Hadn't you noticed, not even Himbo Petey asked very much about us.'

'Well . . .' said Pausert slowly, his brow wrinkling as he thought back. 'I guess you're right.'

'I've been monitoring his data-access, Captain,' said Goth. 'He just did superficial checking on us, to make sure we weren't well-known violent criminals or something. After that, he didn't seem to care.'

'He doesn't care,' Hulik said firmly. 'Showboat people are often people hiding something, or running from something, trying to live something down, or trying to forget something. That's why nobody goes poking their noses in where they're not invited. I expect if I ran full security checks on everyone on the Petey B, there wouldn't be more than a handful of people who would pass. Everybody has a secret, and in order to keep their own secrets, they protect the secrets of everyone else in the family. We're part of the family now, and if any outsiders come poking around, asking questions, they'll get as many stories about us as there are people they ask, and not one of those stories will be anything like the truth.'

At that, Goth started to chuckle. 'That explains why Mannicholo was telling the Clown Master that the captain and the Leewit and me are all cousins that Ethulassia talked Himbo Petey into hiring away from a big, important theater company on Rellart where we were all stars!'

Hulik echoed Goth's chuckle. 'And last I heard, you, Pul, are actually a were-dog from Kolatte—and you're the real ventriloquist, because Hantis is a mute!' She smiled, and began to comb out her wig. 'The stories will only get wilder and less believable. Everyone will make a up a different one, to help protect us, without any of us even hinting that we need protecting. So we're as safe here as we could be anywhere outside of the Empress' palace.'

'That may be true,' Pausert said grudgingly. 'But what about our mission?'

'The mission is only going to end badly if we get caught,' pointed out Hantis. 'So we'll just have to be patient, and do what we can, when we can, until we can break away without being chased.'

'And right now, I think that means doing your escapist show over on Sideshow Alley,' said Goth, looking meaningfully at his chrono.

Pausert left, shaking his head. They were probably right, but he didn't like it. If anything, he was even more worried, because the longer they stayed here, the harder it would be to leave. After all, wasn't this a dream come true? Didn't everyone want to run away to join the circus? The trouble was, running away was the last thing he wanted to do.

* * *

Pausert woke up in the darkness, and relled vatch. Hello, Big Real Thing! it saluted him cheerfully.

For once, he was happy to salute it back. Hello, Silver-eyes, he thought at it. I have a question for you.

Oh, a question! Now I know you're a real thing. Dream things don't ask questions.

He thought about asking the vatch if it was different from other vatches, but realized that was a stupid question and would deserve a stupid answer. After all, if the vatch had asked him if he was different from other humans, he'd answer 'yes,' of course. Any human would.

Do all vatches get bigger and smarter when they eat vatch stuff? he asked instead.

Silver-eyes laughed—a new difference. It used to giggle. Bigger, sure. Not always smarter, though. A lot of the big ones are really stupid.

But you do get smarter and bigger?

Of course. That's why I want more vatch stuff. Being smarter is a lot more fun than being stupider.

Are there more vatches who can do that? If he was going to run into a plague of uncontrollable vatches, he wanted to know about it.

Not many. And when we get smart enough, we can go to the (*) place.

The thought of (*) seemed untranslatable. But the clear sense Pausert got was that it was a place that was very desirable—and very much 'not here.' He decided not to ask Silver-eyes any more questions about it. It probably wouldn't mean anything to him, and it just might be one of those strange klatha things that would turn his head inside out if he did understand it.

I've thought about something you can do for me, then. I'd like it if you can make trouble for the dream things that start to make trouble for us. Not the ones that only pretend to make trouble, he added hastily, like the ones in that show-story that the others and I play in, or the way the clowns toss the Leewit around. I mean real trouble.

Like when you were trying to hide Little and Teeth? That was a neat trick, the way you twisted light around! I never would have thought of it myself until I saw you do it.

What Pausert got along with the words 'Little' and 'Teeth' were impressions of Hantis and Pul that concentrated on the Nartheby Sprite's relative height and Pul's formidable jaws. Pausert thought about trying to get the vatch to identify them by their names, but it was probably a lost cause.

Yes. If that sort of person is going to make trouble, I'd like you to make their lives as difficult for them as possible. For once, he reflected, he was not going to have to worry about people seeing impossible things. This was a circus, and anything that appeared impossible would, without a doubt, be chalked up to smoke and mirrors and stage-trickery.

I might, agreed the vatchlet. Since that was probably the most he was going to get out of the creature, the captain left it at that. It had already promised not to make trouble for them, which was more than he had ever gotten out of a vatch before this.

Feed me?

Can you bring me something to feed you with? he countered.

Think so.

Its presence faded away, and he started to drift back to sleep again, when he suddenly relled something big, and right on top of him!

With a muffled, startled yell, he formed klatha hooks and sank them into the thing. The vatch was almost as startled as he was, even more so when it knew it had been caught. It literally ripped itself off his hooks and vanished.

Silver-eyes appeared the instant it was gone, and he sensed it dancing with impatience when it 'saw' the bits of vatch stuff clinging to his hooks. Feed me!

Once again, Pausert realized, Silver-eyes had lured a big vatch into the area. He was irritated at the little vatch—it could have at least given some warning!—but he gave it what it wanted. And, once again, saw it growing just a tiny bit bigger.

I'll watch, it said then, in a 'voice' that seemed a bit more mentally resonant. Then it faded away again. Unable to make up his mind if he had done a good or a bad thing, Pausert turned over, and finally got back to sleep.

* * *

There seemed to be no immediate fallout from the agreement the next day. Which was just as well, since the theatrical company was now in rehearsal for a second play in the morning, while continuing the performances of Romeo and Juliet in the evening, and one of the works they'd already had in their repertoire in the late afternoon. That one was called Twelfth Night and required a much smaller cast.

Contrary to Himbo Petey's glum predictions, the audiences here seemed to have no objections to a play that ended in tragedy, but Richard Cravan decided that the second play put into performance with his augmented cast should be a comedy. He chose A Midsummer Night's Dream in order to use Hantis and Pul. Pul, Goth and the Leewit were creatures called Fairies with fairly extensive speaking roles; Hantis was the Puck-creature that Cravan had mentioned by name, and Hulik played one of the two romantic parts, a girl by the name of Helen. As usual, Cravan himself acted as well as directed, playing King Oberon; Ethulassia was Titania, his