The Fallable Fiend Read Online Free PDF Page B

wagons formed a rough circle—for defense, Ungah told me, in the event of attack by marauders. The cook’s tent and the dining tent were set up inside the circle, but the other tents were left in their wagons.
    We ate by yellow lamplight at one of a number of tables in the long dining tent, together with fifty-odd other members of the troupe. Ungah pointed out individuals. Half were roustabouts—workers who did such chores as erecting and striking the tents; harnessing, driving, and unhitching the horses; fetching food and water to the beasts; and carrying off their dung.
    Of the rest of the company, half—a quarter of the total—were gamesters: that is, men who, for a rental fee, accompanied the carnival and plied their games with the public. These games entailed wagers on such things as the roll of dice, the turns of a wheel of fortune, or the location of a pea beneath one of three nutshells, all nicely contrived for the undoing of artless marks.
    This left a mere sixteen or so performers, who appeared before the audiences. These comprised Bagardo himself, as ringmaster; a snake charmer; a lion tamer; a bareback rider; a dog trainer; a juggler; two clowns; three acrobats; four musicians (a drummer, a trumpeter, a fiddler, and a bagpiper); and an animal handler who, clad as a Mulvanian prince in turban and glass jewels, rode around the ring on the camel. There were also a cook and a costumer. These last, together with the snake charmer and the bareback rider, were women.
    The company was more versatile than this list implies. Most of these folk doubled at other tasks: thus the snake charmer helped the cook to serve repasts, while the bareback rider—a buxom wench clept Dulnessa—assisted the costumer in cutting and stitching. Some roustabouts, seeking to work their way into better-paying jobs, betimes took the stead of performers when the latter were sick, drunk, or otherwise out of action.
    After dinner, Ungah took me the rounds of the carnival, presenting me to individuals and showing me the exhibits. These included the camel, the lion, the leopard, and several smaller beasts such as Madam Paladné’s snakes.
    Ungah approached one long cage on wheels with caution. I sensed a distinctive odor about the cage, like that of Madam Paladné’s serpents but stronger. Ungah pulled back the curtain.
    “ ’Tis the Paaluan dragon,” he said. “Go not close, Zdim. It lies like dead thing for a fiftnight; then when some unwary wight comes too close: snap! And that is end of him. That’s why Bagardo has trouble getting the roustabouts to service the brute; have lost two men to its maw in last year.”
    The dragon was a great, slate-colored lizard, over twenty feet long. As we neared the cage, it raised its head and shot a yard of forked tongue at me. I stepped close, trusting in my quickness to leap out of harm’s way if it snapped. Instead, the dragon extended that tongue again and touched my face with a caressing motion. A wheezy grunt came from its throat.
    “By Vaisus’ brazen arse!” cried Ungah. “It likes you! It knows your smell as that of fellow reptile. Must tell Bagardo. Belike you could train the creature and ride about ring on it with the rest of parade. It seems stupid, and nobody had dared to meddle with it since Xion was et; but black wizards of Paalua train these beasts.”
    “It is a mickle of a monster for me to handle alone,” I said doubtfully.
    “Oh, this one only half-grown,” said Ungah. “In Paalua, they get twice as big.” He yawned. “Back to wagon; am fordone with today’s stint.”
    At the wagon, Ungah took a pair of blankets out of his chest and handed me one, saying: “Straw in bottom of the chest, if you find the floor too hard.”
    ###
    The next day’s sun had set when we came to Evrodium. The caravan’s halting place was fit by torches and lanthorns, which shone on the eyeballs of a swarm of villagers standing about the margin of the lot.
    “Zdim!” cried Ungah. “Bear