‘I’ll be careful,’ Dom Magator assured her. ‘My Army buddy Rick Mantovani was killed in Iraq by friendly fire, but there’s nothing even remotely friendly about an Absence Gun, no matter who’s firing it.’
Jekkalon led the way between the smaller tents and marquees toward the back of the big top. Above their heads, the thunder and lightning were moving away now, but the rain was drumming down harder then ever. Jemexxa began to have an uneasy feeling that George Roussos might be close to waking up, in which case they would have to exit this dream as quickly as possible. Springer had warned them that if this happened, the dream wouldn’t simply collapse around them, leaving them standing by George Roussos’ bed, where they had first entered it. This happened with normal dreams and nightmares, but this dream wasn’t normal. This was Brother Albrecht’s dream, and George Roussos was only dreaming it because for some reason Brother Albrecht wanted him to.
If George Roussos woke up while the Night Warriors were still here, inside this dream, the only way for them to get out of it would be to wake up Brother Albrecht, if that were possible, or kill him.
They reached the back of the big top. Rainwater was spouting off the sloping roof and splattering on to the grass all around them. Inside, they could hear music playing — lewd, discordant blues — and people shouting and cheering. Every now and then there would be another drum roll, and another screech of trumpets.
Jekkalon made his way along the wall of black canvas, punching and tugging at it to find the flap from which they had escaped the last time they had dreamed that they were here. As he was still struggling to locate it, a motley group of clowns and circus hands suddenly appeared through the rain, less than ten yards away, accompanied by a woman with a pair of mechanical wooden legs, like the legs of two artists’ easels, all joints and struts and pulleys, which made her at least six inches taller than any of her companions. Her unnatural height was emphasized by a huge black tricorn hat that looked as if it might have been worn by an encephalitic pirate.
The Night Warriors turned their faces to the canvas so that no light would be reflected from the lenses in their helmets, and stood perfectly still. They stayed that way while the group passed them by, talking and tittering. One of the clowns shouted out, ‘Who’s this, then?’ and let out a laugh that was almost a series of screams. Xyrena thought for a split second that he must have seen them, but the group continued walking, and so the clown must have been laughing about somebody else altogether. The group disappeared around the next corner of the big top, and the last the Night Warriors heard of them was the arthritic creaking of the woman’s wooden legs.
After a furious search along the back of the tent, Jekkalon at last discovered the flap. He held it open while Xyrena and Jemexxa pushed their way through.
Unexpectedly, the big top was crowded with hundreds of people. All the gasoliers were alight, but even so the illumination inside the tent was strangely dim, as if they were looking at it through a fine gauze curtain. The air was humid and stuffy and smelled of wet soil and human sweat. Although there was so much music and drumming and cheering, the sound was muffled by the dark red velvet drapes that hung all around the auditorium. At least a dozen trapezes hung from the roof of the tent, swaying slightly, as if some acrobat had recently swung from one to the other.
This is just like a dream, thought Jemexxa, but of course it was a dream.
The Night Warriors kept themselves hidden behind the last row of seats. Xyrena said, ‘Dom Magator? The whole place is packed. Where did all of these people come from? There must be three hundred here, at the very least.’
‘They’re all of the people who are dreaming this dream,’ Dom Magator told her. ‘If you look around, you’ll probably see George Roussos someplace.’
‘Not from here I can’t. We’re right in back.’
‘That doesn’t matter. George Roussos isn’t important right now. The main thing is, can you see Brother Albrecht?’
‘I’ll take a look. Don’t go away now, will you?’
Xyrena lifted her head with its high gilded crown and looked cautiously toward the stage. At first her sight line was obscured by a bulky woman with frizzy red hair, so she took two or three steps sideways until she was standing at the end of the nearest aisle, and she could see most of the stage quite clearly.
On the left-hand side of the apron, a seven-piece band of black musicians was playing that slow, off-key blues number — one of those down-and-dirty blues numbers that would have had deeply suggestive lyrics if anybody had been singing it, like I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl. The band were all wearing brown-and-yellow-striped satin vests and immaculately-pressed brown pants, and it was only when Xyrena looked at them more intently that she realized what was so freakish about them.
Four of them were two pairs of conjoined twins, the sides of their vests slit open because their abdomens were connected with a thick band of skin. They were so closely connected, in fact, that their faces were pressed together, and the trumpeter and the clarinetist had to share the playing of their instruments — the trumpeter using his left hand to finger the register key of his twin’s clarinet, and the clarinetist using his right hand to mute his twin’s trumpet.
The other three were conjoined triplets. Two of them were joined at the side of the head, while the second and the third were joined at the shoulder, so that one of them had no left arm and the other had no right arm. Between the three of them they were playing banjo and alto sax.
They were accompanied by a pianist, who was sitting behind them at a shabby red upright piano. He was thin and pale, with a half-starved face and curly white hair, but what was immediately striking about him were the two curved horns which protruded from the top of his head, each of them at least nine inches long. Xyrena guessed that they must have been grafted on to his skull to give him the appearance of a devil or a demon or a faun. He was naked to the waist, with a scarred, emaciated back; but it was only when Xyrena moved a few feet to the right that she could see that he was completely naked. Not that he was exposing himself — he was covered from the waist down in shaggy white fur. He had no feet, only hooves, which he was using to jab at the loud and the soft pedals. He had been literally cut in half, and his hips and his legs replaced with those of a Rocky Mountain goat.
Xyrena was so horrified that she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Jekkalon and Jemexxa came up close behind her. ‘Holy moly,’ Jekkalon breathed. ‘I never saw anything like that in my whole goddamned life. Never. That is so gross.’
The pianist swept his fingertips all the way up the keyboard, to the plinkiest note at the top, plink! Then he sat with his horned head dropped down and his arms hanging limply at his sides and staring at the floor. A few moments later, with a collection of squeaks and honks, the jazz band petered out, too. The audience gave them a smattering of applause, but almost immediately they were drowned out by another ferocious drum roll, and another strident fanfare of trumpets.
Out of the red velvet drapes at the back of the stage burst a hugely fat man in a ringmaster’s top hat and a bottle-green tailcoat and shiny black knee-boots. He swaggered up to the footlights, cracking a ringmaster’s whip.
‘Ladies and gentlemen! And those who are both, or neither! Welcome to Brother Albrecht’s Traveling Circus and Freak Show! This evening we have gathered you here to celebrate the penultimate step toward the realization of our dreams! And when I say “realization” I mean “real-ization” — our seemingly endless nightmare at last made flesh! A triumphant return to the world of reality from the world of dreams in which we have been so cruelly and unjustly exiled for so long!’