This was the moment of his decision, he must seize it.
It was like walking away from a pan of boiling water. Eventually it would dry up, bubble and warp. There would be damage. It would not get better before it got worse. But then, it would be over.
CHAPTER 24
THE LAW OF MERCY
The wives Mr. Capulatio sought were not easy to find in the commotion of the outlaw carnival. John identified at once that it was several different groups, with correspondingly different tents and different booths and different-looking people, milling together now as though assembled for a bazaar or a trading fair. But their faces were odious to behold. Each man, each woman (and there were some women, he was surprised by that—he’d always heard they were not allowed on the carnival circuit) strode about fixed by some purpose of violence, and the wind was drawing up now as the first fires of evening were lit, the torches that lined the long rows and seemed to form the basic organization of the paths. Heads on pikes, everywhere; at every turn John felt he might walk straight into one. He stepped gingerly, his arms held out before him, like he was afraid of walking through a cobweb. How awful that would be, to touch noses with one of those things, his own face pressed up to one of those sunken green snouts.
They had left Mizar with the wagon, in a circle with other wagons. The livery of the Sousa family stood in contrast to the black carnival wagons, painted with skulls and rocketships and other magical things. Mizar looked helpless as he stood there beside it, still in his servant’s jacket. John told him to stay put and stay hidden. You’re an old man now. Do what old men do and take a nap, he’d said, cruelly perhaps. It was difficult for him to ever know how he sounded to Mizar, who only nodded congenially as he always did and at everything, every sight he had ever seen and every command he had ever been given. Then Mizar had crawled up into the wagon and tossed back a swig of water from a canteen hung on his belt. John envied that, the water—Mizar, eternally prepared.
Then John and Tygo were walking with David all over the wretched dirty camp. Past frying whole goats, women in black masks, past buckets and basins and vats of soapy-looking blood. His head swam. John found it was abuzz with motion, small movements and large ones, torch-shadows flickering, men stacking things, men draining things, people pouring from this place to that one in anticipation of some grand signal. Or so it seemed. But how? he’d asked Mr. Capulatio—David—trotting along behind him as they looked for his two wives. He did for an instant wonder if that was a code word—wives. So lost was he here, and Tygo beside him, taking it all in with a face like a docile sheep, but as tense beside John as if he were about to have a tooth extracted. But how? John had asked again. How is it they are so well prepared?
He imagined the scramble inside the palace compound. And he was glad to be out here, though he did wish someone would give him a weapon. A knife. Anything. David had laughed at John’s question. These are carnival men. They’ve been waiting for war since we got here. They barely need to put on their shoes.
Finally they stopped walking, when David was approached by a crone. She was horrifically old, with a hair-form that sagged—perhaps she’d been caught in the rain. She was fat, her face painted as crones often do before executions, with two long ocher smears beneath the eyes and above them. John drew back slightly. The woman whispered to David for a long time, and his expression fell with every passing second, though he was nodding in agreement with whatever unhappy news she bore. Nothing on her face registered emotion. “Ah,” said David. “What I feared.”
“What is it?” asked Tygo. His face was wet with sweat—John had not realized how hot it was in the carnival, with all the fires raging around them. The crone had caught them just as they passed a thicket of Heads on pikes, perhaps fifty of them, propped up almost like a memorial. To what John couldn’t even imagine. The Head closest to him appeared to be a child. But no, he looked closer: it was a man, just shrunken with age and rot, the eyes sewn closed with red string.
David sent the crone away. “She brings me news of my First Wife.” Then he glared. “Appalling news.”
“Well?” said Tygo.
“You’re not my advisor, what does it matter to you?”
“You can’t waste your men on storming the castle. It will do you no good, and it will cost hundreds of lives. Let’s go away, now. Back to Kansas. It’s unsafe here. The lights in the sky—”
“Yes,” said David. “The Return.”
“No,” Tygo hurried. “That word I said, tellochvovin. It means ‘falling death.’”
David vacantly nodded, and John shook his head.
“The lights are meteors! We’ll all die if we stay here,” Tygo shouted.
“The lights are the shuttles.” David glanced toward the grove of Heads on pikes. For a moment he seemed to be considering dashing among them, hiding there perhaps. “I haven’t got time for this. The crone has delivered very disappointing news. Orchid has taken my second wife, my Sigil.” He paused, wrapped his hand around one of the pikes. “This is very worrying to me, actually. She is in my estimation the finest executioner ever to live in this world. She has a way with the blade … O! I see your faces, gentlemen! Damn her injury. It’s not about strength. It is about … well, it is about magic.” He cradled
