Bauchle Meyne picked up a long pole. He was not fool enough to get within reach of Satan's talons.
'Show yourself!' he cried.
Satan did not speak the trade-language, but Bauchle Meyne made himself well enough understood with the end of the pole. Satan stared at him without moving until the young man stopped poking at him, and, with some vague awareness of his captive's dignity, backed up a step. Satan looked around him, his large eyes reflecting the light like a cat's. He faced the prince. The heavy chains clanked and rattled as he moved.
He raised his arms. He opened his hands, and his fingers unfolded.
He spread his great red wings. Wizard-light glowed through the translucent webs. It was as if he had burst into flame.
The prince gazed upon him with silent satisfaction as the crowd roared with surprise and astonishment.
'Inside,' Bauchle Meyne said, 'when I release him, he will fly.'
One of the horses, brushed by Satan's wingtip, snorted and reared. The cart lurched forward. The postillion yanked the horse's mouth to a bloody froth and Bauchle Meyne lost his balance and stumbled to the ground. His face showed pain and Wess was glad. Satan barely shifted. The muscles tensed and slid in his back as he balanced himself with his wings.
Aerie made a high, keening sound, almost beyond the limits of human hearing. But Satan heard. He did not flinch; unlike the troll, he did not turn. But he heard. In the bright white wizard-light, the short fur on the back of his shoulders rose, He made an answering cry, a sighing: a call to a lover. He folded his wing-fingers back along his arms. The webbing trembled and gleamed.
The postillion kicked his horse and the cart lumbered forward. For the crowd outside, the show was over.
The prince stepped down from the platform, and, walking side by side with Bauchle Meyne and followed by his retinue, proceeded into the carnival tent.
The four friends stood close together as the crowd-moved past them. Wess was thinking. They're going to let him fly, inside. He'll be free ... She looked at Aerie. 'Can you land on top of the tent? And take off again?'
Aerie looked at the steep canvas slope. 'Easily,' she said.
The area behind the tent was lit by torches, not wizard-light. Wess stood leaning against the grounds' wall, watching the bustle and chaos of the troupe, listening to the applause and laughter of the crowd. The show had been going on a long time now; most of the people who had not got inside had left. A couple of carnival workers kept a bored watch on the perimeter of the barrier, but Wess knew she could slip past any time she pleased.
It was Aerie she worried about. Once the plan started, she would be very vulnerable. The night was clear and the waxing moon bright and high. When she landed on top of the tent she would be well within range of arrows. Satan would be in even more danger. It was up to Wess and Quartz and Chan to create enough chaos so the archers would be too distracted to shoot either of the flyers.
Wess was rather looking forward to it.
She slipped under the rope when no one was looking and strolled through the shadows as if she belonged with the troupe. Satan's cart stood at the performers' entrance, but Wess did not go near her friend now. Taking no notice of her, the children on their ponies trotted by. In the torchlight the children looked thin and tired and very young, the ponies thin and tired and old. Wess slid behind the rank of animal cages. The carnival did, after all, have a salamander, but a piteous, poor and hungry-looking one, barely the size of a large dog. Wess broke the lock on its cage. She had only her knife to pry with; she did the blade no good. She broke the locks on the cages of the other animals, the half-grown wolf, the pygmy elephant, but did not yet free them. Finally she reached the troll.
'Frejojan,' she whispered. 'I'm behind you.'
'I hear you, frejojan.' The troll came to the back of his cage. He bowed to her. 'I regret my unkempt condition, frejojan; when they captured me I had nothing, not even a brush.' His golden grey-flecked hair was badly matted. He put his hand through the bars and Wess shook it.
'I'm Wess,' she said.
'Aristarchus,' he said. 'You speak with the same accent as Satan - you've come for him?'
She nodded. 'I'm going to break the lock on your cage,' she said. 'I have to be closer to the tent when they take him in to make him fly. It would be better if at first they didn't notice anything was going wrong ...'
Aristarchus nodded. 'I won't escape till you've begun. Can I be of help?'
Wess glanced along the row of cages. 'Could you - would it put you in danger to free the animals?' He was old; she did not know if he could move quickly enough.
He chuckled. 'All of us animals have become rather good friends,' he said. 'Though the salamander is rather snappish.'
Wess wedged her knife into the padlock and wrenched it open. Aristarchus snatched it off the door and flung it into the straw. He smiled, abashed, at Wess.
'I find my own temper rather short in these poor days.'
Wess reached through the bars and gripped his hand again. Near the tent, the skewbald horses wheeled Satan's cart around. Bauchle Meyne yelled nervous orders. Aristarchus glanced towards Satan.
'It's good you've come,' he said. 'I persuaded him to cooperate, at least for a while, but he does not find it easy. Once he made them angry enough to forget his value.'
Wess nodded, remembering the whip scars.
The cart rolled forward; the archers followed.
'I have to hurry,' Wess said.
'Good fortune go with you.'
She moved as close to the tent as she could. But she could not see inside; she had to imagine what was happening, by the tone of the crowd. The postillion drove the horses around the ring. They stopped. Someone crawled under the cart and unfastened the shackles from below, out of reach of Satan's claws. And then -
She heard the sigh, the involuntary gasp of wonder as Satan spread his wings, and flew.
Above her. Aerie's shadow cut the air. Wess pulled off her cloak and waved it, signalling. Aerie dived for the tent, swooped, and landed.
Wess drew her knife and started sawing at a guy-rope. She had been careful enough of the edge so it sliced through fairly quickly. As she hurried to the next line, she heard the tone of the crowd gradually changing, as people began to notice something amiss. Quartz and Chan were doing their work, too. Wess chopped at the second rope. As the tent began to collapse, she heard tearing canvas above where Aerie ripped through the roof with her talons. Wess sliced through a third rope, a fourth. The breeze flapped the sagging fabric against itself. The canvas cracked and howled like a sail. Wess heard Bauchle Meyne screaming, 'The ropes! Get the ropes, the ropes are breaking!'
The tent fell from three directions. Inside, people began to shout, then to scream, and they tried to flee. A few spilled out into the parade-ground, then a mob fought through the narrow opening. The shriek of frightened horses pierced the crowd-noise, and the scramble turned to panic. The skewbald horses burst through the crush, scattering people right and left, Satan's empty cart lurching and bumping along behind. More terrified people streamed out after them. All the guards from the palace fought against them, struggling to get inside to their prince.
Wess turned to rejoin Quartz and Chan, and froze in horror. In the shadows behind the tent, Bauchle Meyne snatched up an abandoned bow, ignored the chaos, and aimed a steel-tipped arrow into the sky. Wess sprinted towards him, crashed into him, and shouldered him off-balance. The bowstring twanged and the arrow fishtailed up, falling back spent to bury itself in the limp canvas.