Tobin set one end of the long staff on the ground next to the bonfire and held the other against his shoulder. Cephas lost sight of Cynda, but then she came tumbling through the flames, arms and legs stretched out so that her lithe body paralleled the ground. She tucked her head in and rolled in midair, bringing her bare feet around to land on the end of the staff just as Tobin pulled down on its other end with all his might, using his shoulder as the fulcrum of a makeshift catapult.
Cynda flew so high that Cephas lost sight of her again, this time because she was above the nimbus of light cast by the fire. When he spotted her, plummeting back down, straight toward him and staring him directly in the eye, he hurried to roll out of the way, forgetful of any need to stay on the platform.
He stopped when he saw the end of the staff swing around. Tobin held it across both shoulders like the burden staves the kitchen slaves of Jazeerijah used to haul two pails of water at once. Cynda reached out with one hand as she fell, caught the staff, and swung in a circle all the way around in a move that ended with her standing easily atop the narrow pole, hands in her pockets.
The crowd laughed and whistled. With a start, Cephas realized this was the first night he’d ever heard cheering that didn’t include calls for blood.
Cynda bowed, bending nearly double but maintaining her balance atop the staff, which Tobin kept still and solid as rock. She grasped the wood between her feet and brought her legs up into the air until she attained a position exactly opposite that from which she started. Then, in a display of steadiness and strength that Cephas would never have expected from so small a woman, she lifted one hand and held it out to her side, holding her whole weight above her as she scissored her legs back and forth in an elegant dance in the air.
For a moment, it seemed that her weight was too much for that single arm, because Cynda bent her elbow, but it became clear the collapse was by design. Her long locks of chestnut hair spilled around her face as she brought her lips close enough to the wood to give it a cheeky kiss, before she extended her arm straight again with sufficient strength to launch clear of the makeshift “aerialist” stage. Tobin must have anticipated the move, because he angled the staff back down, and when the halfling woman completed the arc of her last leap, she landed on the narrow ramp, ending her performance in a relaxed, languorous pose, reclining against the staff, legs crossed before her as if she simply warmed her toes by the fire.
Cephas joined the thunderous applause that the other members of the circus offered Cynda. The halfling acknowledged them all with a gesture, then turned to offer her own applause to Tobin, who waved her and the others off. “I only held a stick; it is nothing.”
“It was a great display of strength, my friend,” said Corvus, who joined them. Shan was nowhere to be seen, her place at the kenku’s side taken by the old man, Mattias. “Done with just the right amount of flair and finesse, as ever.” Corvus turned to Cephas.
“Tobin is our circus strongman. He is expert at making the audience believe that the things that are easy for him are difficult, and that the things that are difficult for him are easy. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good description of all our roles.”
Cephas appreciated the goliath’s extraordinary strength, especially after having faced him on the canvas, but asked, “Is a strongman a sort of clown?”
Tobin opened his mouth to speak, but Corvus held up a single taloned finger that silenced him. Even in his relaxed state, Cephas noticed that all the people of the circus grew quiet when the kenku raised his hand.
“Why yes, in fact,” said Corvus. “Just as Tobin’s performance offered us an example describing what all of us do, that word, ‘clown’-and oh, it’s an old one, Cephas, as old as any story Azad yi Calimport ever read-that word describes what most of us are. It’s a supple word. Though what Tobin meant when he told you he was a clown means something very particular. Something, alas, that he has yet to find the opportunity to master, given the demands of the road.”
Tobin blushed, looking anywhere but at Cephas. A kind-faced man, thin and wiry, stood and thumped Tobin on the back. “Here now, boss,” he said, “you know we’ve taken the big fellow as our ’prentice. And we all heard you tell him he could leave off bending steel and juggling village elders if he could find his own replacement.”
This time Tobin did speak, even though he made an unconvincing attempt at a whisper. “Quiet now, Whitey,” he said. “Please?”
Every eye turned to Cephas. Mattias spoke, looking at Cephas but directing his question to the kenku ringmaster. “You’ll try to claim you didn’t have this in mind, I suppose?”
Corvus appraised Cephas the same way that Cephas often did his opponents, measuring width of shoulder and deepness of chest, trying to gauge how hard the coming blows would fall. “I did not,” Corvus said to Mattias. “This is just another happy coincidence. Another wonder to delight all those good folk whose delight earns us our bread and wine.”
Mattias appeared unconvinced, but it was only Cephas who saw the old man’s expression, because everyone else gathered around Tobin and talked at once. They were congratulating the goliath on his new role, and the huge man was so overcome with joy that he began to cry.
Tears of joy; this was yet another new thing in a day full of them. And even though his instincts told him it was too soon to trust these people, there was only one thing to say when Tobin bent down and crushed him in a delighted hug.
“How much,” asked Cephas, “does a village elder weigh?”
Even here, alone and hidden from the view of any possible observers by far stronger shields than just the closed shutters of his wagon, Corvus took care to make it appear that he plucked the quill from his own heart feathers. He made a sound-a gasp of pain-and mimed a flinch to indicate the shock of pulling a living feather out by its root. Corvus practiced this little deception even now, this late, when the only people in the camp awake to appreciate the performance were those who had drawn the watch, who knew better than to disturb him, and Trill, whom he knew better than to disturb.
The quill, which he summoned with a mental command from the magical storehouse Mattias called his “nest,” did not come from a kenku, even though Corvus conceded that its oily black color and fanned plume were close enough to fool the inexperienced. Corvus remembered what he’d overheard Tobin tell the genasi while he was taking Shan’s wordless report. “ ‘Circus performers love unsophisticated audiences,’ ” he whispered, and for once he did not bother to use any voice but his own, a clear sign that he was alone.
Like lineage and heritage, sophistication and experience were close enough to the same thing for the purposes Corvus had for the young earthsouled genasi. Or the lad’s lack of them was, at any rate.
As he cut his own pen, so, too, had Corvus ground and formulated his own ink. The glass bottle he stored it in held no special distinction he knew of, beyond being perhaps two thousand years old and a shade of blue Corvus found pleasing; however, the ink’s ingredients would have earned him a small fortune from more than one wizard or ritualcaster-not to mention a life’s sentence or a headsman’s axe from any number of governments, depending on local laws.
He picked up the pen and dipped it into the ink. Opening his prized book to a certain page, he began scribing words that disappeared as soon as they were written.
Exalted Pasha, he wrote, your humble servant makes, herewith, a report on the progress of our shared venture.…
The words, inked in blood and powdered metals, faded. Their meaning did not. Corvus’s pen moved, and his message took flight, launching into the night sky of a shadowy mirror world of magic. Seeking purchase, the words were drawn to a page twin to the one that cast them away.