Thread: Carnival: Shadows And Whispers Under The Big Top (Dane Stalling & darkangel76)

The girl flushed so prettily, Albert thought, and she used such tired old excuses. Surely he wasn't meant to believe them! No, she had an innocent face, but she played the well-practiced and ancient game of man and woman everywhere. Pursuit, capture, halfhearted protestations, surrender. You're in shock, my dear, it would be tremendously unwise to go abroad in your condition, he said, You need careful and close attention to your wellbeing. The girl had slipped by him and was fumbling with the lock, trying to open the trailer door, ready to go into public with her corset nearly hanging open. She must not be as modest as she seemed. He moved behind her, put his hands on her shoulders gently. Her fingers fumbled the lock and he smiled. He felt the old hardness fill the front of his tights. A little look at that landscape might put an end to her objections. He pulled at the corset ribbons gently again, loosening them one by one and when the last one hung loose, he pressed himself against her back, her softness against his hardness. Why so quick to escape your protector, my little bird? He spoke low into her ear, his breath blowing the fine red tendrils of hair against her face. The barker's words kept coming back to him, You don't have to fly just yet. You're safe with me. He slid a hand up over her left breast and squeezed. ---- The Doctor sipped a cup of hot water from his plain china and his glasses seemed to wink in the bright lamplight. The thought of preventative manipulations had never occurred to him. He felt a rush of understanding, of possibility. Science could improve humanity. Not just putting out fires, but preventing them, and he would be at the center of it, treating a most pernicious malady. Perhaps one day a treatment would even bear his name. Miss Stella was still speaking, something about travel. ...not only invest, but oversee. Yes, he said, to himself, Yes. The man with the frayed hat noted this last in a beaten notebook and labeled the page Proof of Assent. He hardly noticed that Miss Stella and her entourage had gone. He had the vague sense that he had dismissed them, or that she had dismissed him, but his mind was burning with ideas. He had to talk with someone. He pulled the lever that blew the little whistle in Callum's trailer. He needed a builder. Of course, he wouldn't be able to treat all those women himself. He needed help at first- someone he could train in the therapy, someone with a good mind and nimble fingers while they worked up a device. Callum knocked on the Doctor's door. it was late and his ears still rang dully, but the Doctor didn't call if it wasn't important. Come in, come in. I don't know what happened in your show today, but you netted almost as much as the big top. Of course, that will be reflected in your compensation. That's not what I want to talk about, though. The Doctor pushed the old book at Callum. I want you to study this. Learn the techniques and I want you to practice them. I need a helper... a handy-man to do some of the more strenuous work for me. We'll work out the details as they come up. We'll have to make arrangements about your, ahem, countenance, but that's a job for Elspeth. That's secondary. Here's the principal thing we can make coin for life and change the world in the doing. I need you to make an engine that will produce the identical effects of the therapies in the book. One that might even improve upon the techniques described. Do you think you can do that? Callum looked at the cover of the old book doubtfully. It was all alchemy as far as he was concerned, duck teeth and rabbit scales. I won't know until I read about it. Then maybe I can say whether I can fashion a device or no. The Doctor was in high spirits. Callum could see his teeth and he rubbed his hands together like he did when he had a new act in the circus or a new freak in the show. You're a clever sharp finger worker, the Doctor said, You tell me any pieces you need- any gearworks or fittings and I'll get them for you. You'll make us coin swimmers, you will. Off to your tinker shed, and bring me your thinking on the road tomorrow. The doctor dimmed his lamp and undressed carefully, hanging his white smock and pants precisely in the pressing-closet. He put on a nightshirt. His mind skipped all along the lines of his plans. He would need a test subject who could keep her mouth shut. It wouldn't do for his research to be stolen by gossipy tarts. He closed his eyes, and only then did he take off his glasses and lay them carefully on his bedside table. ---- Mairon Aubrey stood in the light of his stage, the lights dark, exactly as it was when he had an audience. Tonight he had only his sister, sitting on his far right. He pulled cards from the air, disappeared pocket-watches and made them appear again from pockets or his hat. I saw the slip on that one, Maya said. She was sitting in the nightmare zone, the place where the audience was most likely to catch the trick and destroy the illusion. You didn't see it, you heard it, Mairon said, continuing with the trick, impaling the Queen of Hearts on a spike on his draped table. The card seemed to bleed. He took it off the spike and held it up, showing it to his audience. He covered the card with his handkerchief and when he whipped it away, he had a sheep's heart in his hand. The blood slid down his forearm and dripped off his elbow. Ugh. Can't you just make it a bird or a frog like you did in Uskyld? Mairon grinned at his sister and pulled his sleeve down over the blood. They like the gore in these old towns. Besides, it feeds the little thieves after the show. I've never had to throw one in the rubbish pit. The Great Jad is nothing if not economical. His smile faded. The Castor twins were about some mischief, giggling and whispering to each other outside his tent. How those girls tormented him. Flirting and propositioning him in public, then fleeing in private. Barker Clive had teased him jealously about taking his clutch of rodents to his wagon, but he had never laid a hand on either one of them. And there was a new girl lurking, dark, with a black bird. He had only caught her with the corner of his eye. She slipped away every time he turned his head toward her. He was supposed to be the illusionist. Things ought not to disappear from him.