Pantomime (Micah Grey #1) - First Six Chapters *COMPLETE*

3 Summer: On Display (Part 1)

"The circus and carnival grew in popularity starting in the late 107th century. Scattered funfairs with simple illusions and sideshows evolved into detailed worlds of entertainment, with trained acrobatics, animal shows, feats of human strength and strangeness, and Vestige artefacts to try and add a sense of wonder and magic.

"Of late, the human oddities have grown stranger and stranger. Are birth defects rising, or are the performers merely growing better at their disguises?"

A HISTORY OF ELLADA AND ITS COLONIES, Professor Caed Cedar, Royal Snakewood University

I jumped out of my seat and squeezed past the burly man and through the crowds before the Policiers had even stirred from their chairs. I was one of the first at the carnival outside, and I smelled sizzling meats and the burning fuel of the gas lanterns strung between poles. The carnival was a long alleyway, flanked with booths in lurid colors, and I was certain I recognized some of the sellers as merchants from the markets of Sicion.

I wandered amongst the booths, keeping an eye out for the pointed helmets of Policiers. Merchants in mis- matched clothing sold jewelry and food. The women had daubed their eyes with kohl and tied their hair with scarves. Many of the merchants were foreign, for their eyes were shaped differently or their skin was darker than Elladans'. They spoke with thick accents or called out to each other in unfamiliar tongues. I started toward a jewelry stall run by a woman with skin as dark as the night and dressed all in scarlet.

"Come here, my boy," a voice behind me said, startling me from the scarlet-clad woman. It was not a Policier. The ancient man behind his counter motioned for me to come closer. The weathered wooden sign above the booth proclaimed him an "Alcymyst to Cure All Ills and Ails" in a wobbly script. His pale face was so wrinkled that it seemed to be slowly drawing in toward his shriveled, toothless mouth. He had a few stray white hairs bursting out of his head, ears, and nose.

"I can cure you," he said.

"Cure me of what?" I asked, skeptical. "Of your . . . disorder."

My eyes narrowed but my stomach somersaulted like the tumblers I had just seen. Very few knew what was wrong with me. "And what disorder is that?"

He peered closer at me. "Child, are you a boy or a girl?"

I said nothing, but my palms began to sweat.

He picked up a vial of pale blue powder. "This will cure you."

I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to appear both confident and derisive. A couple of passersby paused in front of the stall. "Cure me of what, exactly?"

Others were standing about the booth now. "You don't want me to say in front of these people," the alchemist said.

I bit the inside of my cheek. I stepped closer. "Then whisper in my ear what my condition is, and then I'll decide whether or not I need your cure."

He smiled. "Of course, of course," he said with a magnanimous gesture toward the people gathered. "You will be my first satisfied patient of the evening." By patient, he meant customer. He was stressing his syllables oddly as if to sound foreign, but I suspected he was born and raised in Sicion.

I shuffled over to him. He tilted close to me, touched my arm, and drew me even closer. He smelled of musty clothes and soured milk.

"You have a serious condition. You have been to many to see to it. None have been able to help you." He did not lower his voice much. The people leaned in to hear him better.