Roll up, roll up. Welcome to the Circus of Thorns...
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To punish the gods of old, the rising religion known as the Church of the Golden Goddess, imprisons them in the legendary Circus of Thorns. Bound by dark magic they're forced to entertain t...
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On the last day of the season, the Goddess came, as the whispers that carried from town to town predicted. Her procession of gold - ornate carriages and wagons full of faithful disciples, with the gods and beasts who had never left her side during the war. Together, this golden snake slid along the countryside, leaving the fire and smoke spewing dragon that was London in its shadow.
The Golden Goddess and her Church of the Divine walked forward, toward the gathering of gods and clowns and jugglers. Villeneuve, her most loyal of servants, standing anxiously in front. She was beautiful and ancient, youthful and terrible. Hair like liquid gold, robes the purest of ivory, eyes wicked with mischief.
No one spoke. Villeneuve held his breath as she approached. He kneeled and gently, with the touch as soft as the breath of a tiger, she touched his head.
"Rise. Those loyal to me, need never kneel before me." Her soft voice shattered worlds as he rose to his feet. She turned to her prisoners, appraising her Circus of Thorns. If her eyes lingered on Odin the longest, no one seemed to notice. "Now, dear Ringmaster. I believe I came here for a show."
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The show was no different from any other. The acrobats did not soar higher, the clowns did not induce more laughter, the roars of monsters were no more ferocious.
When it was the Beast's turn, she waited behind the curtain, her animals growling quietly around her feet. River waited with her, watching as her eyes lingered on him. Tonight they weren't glowing. They watched him with a sadness he couldn't comprehend.
The Beast sighed. And River knew that the old god had, as always, got his way.
"Whatever Odin asked of you, don't."
The Sorceress merely chuckled. Her eyes told him everything.
"But why?"
She leant down, her face close to his and for the first time she smiled.
"So, there are no more burdens to carry."
Before River could argue anymore, she was gone.
And so she danced, as always, and if this dance was a little more vibrant, the animals moving with more potency, with more ferocity, then neither Villeneuve nor the Goddess noticed. If the air of the tent suddenly seemed heavy with fragrance, one that made River's head ache, one that was both familiar and new and wrong. From behind the curtain, River watched, knowing horrors were to come but unable to halt a plot that he didn't know.
And then came the cries, the first a gut-wrenching pain, uttered by a priest in robes of blood-red, before he fell to the ground. And then another. And another.
The Goddess was slow, in her arrogance, dazzled by the dance until she saw. That where her followers had stood, now wings were flapped, two legs became four, empty words became the howl of hounds.
