The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files) Read Online Free PDF Page A

burned, by the dozens, but the thick fabric blocked every beam of the midday sun. I took a single step before the flap closed behind me, and then I stopped, lest I barge into a shelf filled with priceless glassware or the pointy end of a freshly-sharpened sword.
    I blinked away the dark, took a quick look around, and nearly turned and ran.
    The tent’s walls were covered with faces. Hollow-eyed, mouths agape. Hundreds of faces, frozen in the midst of as many throatless screams. Amid the faces hung heads of hair. Men’s hair. Women’s hair. Children’s hair, fair and dark, long and short, young and old, locks draping and spilling across those below, some fluttering though the air was still.
    Between the faces and the scalps drooped butchered limbs. Arms and legs, hands and feet, shoes and gloves and shirts and trousers.
    A tall wide shelf lined with jars covered the back wall. Each jar was filled with dark fluid, and each jar contained something that moved, turning slowly, pressing white against the glass before retreating back into the murk. I saw half a dozen battered wooden trunks, each marked with strange script that crawled and writhed in the candlelight.
    I smelled cinnamon and lilies. Saw a tiny copper pot boiling on a wrought-iron brazier, books in a tumbled heap beside a ragged wicker chair. A big pre-War iron safe hid in a nearby patch of shadow, only part of its dials and levers concealed by a tattered throw-rug. In the far corner sat a spinning wheel, slowly turning of its own accord.
    Then I blinked, and the faces became masks, and the shocks of hair wigs, and the arms and legs prop limbs, things of wood and metal and paint.
    A man sat behind a crude desk formed by a pair of beer-kegs and a half dozen warped planks. He wore a bright red Marine lieutenant’s dress coat, a pristine black top hat, a yellow linen shirt, and a blood-red scarf. The toes of polished black boots peeked out from under his desk.
    His hair fell in long golden tresses from beneath the hat, framing his gaunt, pale face in the flickering candle-light. His nose was long and thin, his eyes were sunken and dark, and his teeth gleamed like new porcelain china out of lips so red I knew they’d been painted.
    He rose, removed his hat, and executed a fluid formal bow.
    “Welcome to my world,” he said, smiling a close-lipped little smile. “I am Ubel Thorkel, master of Dark’s Diverse Delights. My men tell me you write for a newspaper.” He nodded at the paper I clutched in my hands. “May I see it?”
    I gave it to him. “Mortimer Bustman, city desk,” I said. He didn’t offer to shake hands and neither did I. “People in Rannit are curious about your carnival.”
    He sat, opening the paper so that I could no longer see his face.
    “Are they now?” he said.
    “Oh, they are indeed,” I replied. “Mr. Thorkel, do you have any idea how many Rannites start each day by reading the City Daily ? Our circulation is well over twenty thousand, and growing by the week. Why, a paragraph in our Diversions section could bring in hundreds of visitors to your carnival, the first few nights alone.”
    He lowered the paper and stared up at me.
    “My men suspect you are a tax man, Mr. Dustman.”
    “The name is Bustman,” I replied. “We both know even the Regent of Rannit can’t collect taxes on a traveling carnival encamped outside the city walls. But I don’t work for the Regent. I’m just here to write about your carnival, Mr. Thorkel. We haven’t seen a traveling show in years, and people are eager to read all about you.”
    The walls of the tent shut out noise as well as light. There’d been a gang of workmen hammering tent-stakes into the ground when I entered. I hadn’t heard a single hammer blow since passing through the flap.
    I didn’t like the man’s eyes. They looked dry, as if both were glass with irises and pupils daubed on with paint.
    He spoke. “Why don’t you tell me the truth, Mr. Bustman?”
    “I just did.”
    He