Chapter 10: Kooza

The Innocent was tracing the seams on his seat, and wishing that he and the King had something to at least play tic-tac-toe on or something to talk about, when Christian vaulted into the driver's seat out of nowhere and started scrambling with the ignition. He looked as if he'd been attacked by a gang of shrubs, and he was missing a shoe, but he'd come back. And...

"Is that the wand?" the King demanded. "Yes," Christian told him breathlessly. "And we are being chased by a trapeze artist. I just jumped out of her window." Innocent stared at him, and then looked around wildly for Tia. Hopefully she was still making her way downstairs.

"What, the second-story window?"

"Yes. There were bushes. Damn this stupid car, get into gear already!"

They swerved out of their parking space just as Tia slammed through the front door and started sprinting toward them. "Oh, no, you don't!" Christian shouted cheerfully at her. "Byeeeee, Tia! - Damn that woman, she's fast... move, cars!"

Tia was fast. She managed a grab at their trunk as they pulled onto the road, and when it was apparent that she wasn't going to manage to hitch a ride that way, she went running toward one of the other two cars in the parking lot. Christian cursed. "That is her car? I was sure... All right, m'friends, hold on!"

And they were off, down the street at a speed only moderate enough to narrowly avoid crashing into buildings. Innocent thought that he was never going to want to get into a car again. Especially since, looking in the rearview mirror, it appeared that Tia was following them just as fast as they were going.

"CAR CHASE!" the King shouted, going from depressed to hyperexcited with no noticeable transition. "Shut up," Christian told him. And then, "Shit. There is no way I can do this with one hand. Hold th - no, wait, don't." He clamped the wand between his teeth, both hands now free to help along the not-crashing-into-buildings aspect of things. Considering that the wand itself looked to be going just as spastic as Christian or the King, Innocent wasn't exactly sure about the safety of this maneuver.

"You do know that's a highly dangerous, unstable magical item you've got in your mouth, right?" the King said helpfully, apparently thinking along the same lines.

"Sudd uch." Then, because apparently Christian was still Christian even when sparking blue and being chased by an insane circus performer, "Das ut ee sed."

"What?"

"Dass. Hwut. ... egger ind. Sudd uch."

The light was rather pretty by this time of day, actually, rather yellow. It appeared that Christian's and Tia's cars were about evenly matched, because the trapeze artist stuck to their tail like she was being towed by them. Innocent had no idea what they were going to do when they got to Kooza - he assumed that was where they were going, anyway.

Christian took the wand out of his mouth for long enough to tell him. "We make a run for it, okay? You, my friend -" the King, who was only visible about half of the time at this point - "can stay here, but you, my young friend, are coming with me. I'll see if I can beat her to the tent, and I'll try and find the Trickster. But you need to come too. Okay?"

Innocent nodded, and Christian stuck the wand back in his mouth. Tia was screaming things at them which he couldn't quite hear above the wind. It was all he could do to stop his shirt from being blown off, actually. He wished that Christian had somehow had time to actually re-convert the convertible before he started driving them everywhere at ninety miles per hour.

Seeing the yellow-and-red tent top appear behind the buildings felt like coming back to a home that wasn't home anymore - what was going to be in there? Would they be safe if they got there? Maybe - and this was a cheering thought - the tent wouldn't let Tia in. But that was assuming that Christian beat her across the parking lot in the first place.

The race they had been running was nothing to the one that they were about to start. The car full of Koozians had something like a five-second head start when they pulled into the empty parking lot. Christian started taking them toward the chain-link fence, but when Tia began to pull in front of them, blocking their path to the tent, he hit the brakes and abandoned ship, running toward the fence. He had insanely long legs, and Innocent, as he abandoned the King and scrambled out after the thief, wondered how he hadn't noticed them before. Tia ignored him, focusing on the man with the wand, and both of them got to and over the fence well before Innocent. He scrabbled and wriggled his way to the top of the fence, breathing hard and unable to focus on anything but the chain links in front of his face. He had no idea what was going on by or in the tent.

Neither Christian nor Tia was in sight when he finally dropped to the ground on the other side of the ten-foot fence. The tent actually opened its flaps for him as he approached, and he hurried inside, tripping over seats and and losing what little wind he had left before his eyes adjusted.

"Trickster!" Christian was shouting, sounding echoey and abnormally loud in the mostly empty tent. "Trickster!" He was running up the bataclan stairs, somewhere around the second story, searching for a man who was apparently not here anymore, and Tia was presumably after him. Innocent started to follow them, and stopped when the two of them emerged on the top floor. They were both glowing enough to illuminate the circle of railing, the brightest light in the dim tent. Christian still had the wand, at least. But there was only one way onto and off of the top level, Innocent remembered, and Tia was currently standing in front of it.

"Wand, Pickpocket," she said, and held out her hand for it in a gesture eerily reminiscent of the Trickster. Was it the Innocent's imagination, or was she becoming more Tricksterlike, here inside the realm she'd been absent from for so long?

Christian grinned nervously and backed away from the trapeze artist. "No, Tia. You are not getting this again."

"Why not? Why not, Pickpocket? Tell me, where's your Trickster now? He's dead, Pickpocket. That means you answer to me, and right now you are disobeying my direct orders."

"The Trickster is not my boss," Christian snapped. "I don't have a boss. If you can command Kooza, then command this wand into your hand! But you can't, can you?"

Tia shrugged easily. With a tanktop on, you could see how muscular she really was, and it was a bit scary. There was absolutely no doubt that she was originally from this realm. "Not yet," she said. "So I'm going to have to come over there and take it."

"Ooo. Scary."

And then Christian was backed up against the railing of the bataclan, holding the wand out of Tia's reach behind him as she slammed him against the gold metal, just over waist-height. "Twenty-five feet," she snapped. "Twenty-five feet is how far you have to fall. See if your fat little friend - yes, kid, I see you over there - see if he can catch you then."

Christian swallowed. "Tia," he began, and stopped, wincing.

"Stop calling me that. That's not my name anymore." The trapeze artist stared at him from a distance of about four inches. "I can collect that wand from your dead hand just as easily as I can take it from your live one. It's your choice."

"We're going to die anyway," Christian said quietly, barely audible from where the Innocent stood frozen, staring up at the two of them.

"Your choice, again." And she shoved him in the chest, hard, over the railing. Innocent's shout caught in his throat as Christian somehow managed to twist around and grab onto the filigree of the railing with one hand, still holding onto the wand with the other. He readjusted his grip, trying to climb back up, and the trapeze artist kicked his fingers hard, rattling the railing. His grip dropped onto the rim of the third story, and she lifted her foot to stomp on his fingers again.

At which point Christian apparently realized that he was in possession of a magical wand, and had better use it while he still could. He flicked his free hand at the woman standing over him, and though Innocent couldn't see anything, he felt it - something up there, affecting the air. The trapeze artist certainly felt it - she shouted, and staggered backwards a step or two, fighting something invisible which was apparently wrapping itself around her. Amazingly, she appeared to be winning, and as she fought her way back toward Christian, who was flickering on and off like a light with a bad connection and whose fingers were slowly slipping off the narrow rim of the bataclan, he glanced down toward the kid on the edge of the stage who was staring up at him openmouthed.

From then on in Innocent's memory, everything was a series of images, strobe-like vignettes of happening caught in slow motion.

"Innocent!" Christian shouted. "Catch!"

He tossed the wand in a slow underhand arc to the Innocent, who caught it easily...

...The world went white, as if everything there ever was had been eradicated completely...

...The lights came back, and the trapeze artist was laughing, saying "What was that supposed to do?"...

..."Look behind you," Christian told her, an edge in his voice which Innocent couldn't quite make sense of...

...The Trickster tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned...

...The Pickpocket's shout was eradicated by another flash of light, this one warm and purple and as far emotionally from the first one as emptiness was from fullness...

...And then the warm lights and the warm colors were back, and time flowed normally again, and Tia Rapez was gone.

Innocent sprinted up the stairs to the third story as fast as he could. When he got there, Trickster was kneeling and pulling Christian back into the bataclan. Innocent's enormous urge to hug him was quelled as soon as the Trickster turned and looked at him with eyes that were intense and, just for this moment, not familiar at all. He, and the rest of Kooza, looked more like their old selves than they ever had.

"Phew," Christian said, pulling himself upright on the railing and grinning at the Trickster. "That was a close one, huh?"

The Trickster nodded, and then turned to Innocent and nodded again, as one craftsman to another. Innocent handed him the wand, and, looking up at him, realized that he had grown a bit since he had been in Kooza last. The difference in their heights wasn't quite as much as it had been once.

The Trickster smiled at him, and then disappeared. To get things done, no doubt.

"Holy shit," Christian said, spoiling the moment a bit. "Let us not do that again, my friend, huh?"

You called me Innocent back there. But the Innocent didn't say anything. He never did. He just nonverbally demanded an explanation to everything that had happened in the last five minutes.

"You're linked to the Trickster," Christian explained to him. He was still catching his breath against the railing. Innocent joined him in leaning on it. "So if you have the wand, it's like he has it too, you know? But it only works in Kooza, which was why we couldn't do it before." He stared at the Innocent for a bit. "I wonder if..." Then he shook his head. "No. This wasn't a test. But you performed admirably anyway, my young friend. No less than we would expect from our heir."

What?

But Christian was already changing the subject, turning to stare down at the stage, on which the charivari had assembled, gathering staves and scythes. It looked, Innocent thought, like they were about to go on a very large bird hunt. "You probably won't be seeing much of me anymore," Christian said. "The Trickster doesn't want me around you. I am not really a good influence." He laughed.

Innocent hugged him, in lieu of Trickster. It was not unsatisfying. And then the Pickpocket was gone too, leaving the Innocent alone on the tower, looking out over this realm, this strange kingdom of magic and madness and joy. This place where he undeniably, completely belonged.