The Magnificent Magician
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce the Wonderful Wizard,
the Most Magnificent Magician, the Illusionist Extraordinaire, here from the frozen forests
of the far North, the Scandinavian Sorcerer, Mr. Sigurdson and his beautiful daughter, Miss
Belle!" Matthew Turner announced in his deep rich baritone.
That was our cue to appear out of the ether on the stage for our magic act. We didn't
really teleport, of course, only walked through a curtain of black cloth amid the snapping of
flash powder and smoke pellets that made it seem as if we appeared out of thin air. Stage
magicians have been using flash powder and smoke pellets for centuries, and I saw no reason
to change that now; save for making the flash powder easier to wipe off my hands and the
smoke scented with a pleasant wintergreen flavor so my eyes wouldn't water and the smoke
give me coughing fits.
I was dressed in a flamboyant red silk cape with a shimmery cloth of gold lining,
made for me by my talented daughter before we departed Asgard. It was long enough so I
could swirl it through the air with sufficient elegance, yet at the same time it was light enough
to conceal my hands when I was doing a trick or two. It also contained several pockets for
holding things. It came down to the tops of my mirror bright black boots, which were etched
with "mystical" symbols in gold thread. For the rest of my costume I wore skin tight silk
breeches, also black, and a flowing red silk shirt with golden embroidery about the cuffs and
high collar. Those had been made for me by Ava, since the Nis was able to sew ten times
quicker than Bella. I also wore my runestone and a large ruby pendant on a gold chain,
reputed to be an All-seeing Eye. It wasn't magical at all, though the ruby was real enough,
as was the gold chain. I also had a small wand of rowan wood, and this was magical, having
a few minor illusion and glamour spells built into it, though by and large most of my act was
done with sleight of hand and not true magic.
Belle's costume was the reverse of mine, where I had black, she had red, though her
cape was shorter and her hair tumbled down her back in a silvery gold froth of curls that
made her seem even more exotic looking than she already was. As my assistant, her job was
to distract the audience from what I was actually doing and hand me things. She did this
admirably well, men's jaws dropped to the ground the first time she appeared beside me on
stage that first performance and didn't close until after we'd taken our final bows. Like me,
she was a natural showman, smiling and delighting in the applause of the fickle crowd, which
is lifeblood to a true performer.
I had forgotten the way a crowd could make your blood heat and run hotter than fine
wine, making each trick you performed seem a thing of mystery and wonder. My tricks were
not all the common run of town fair magicians, like coins and scarves, and disappearing
women, though I performed those too. I used my mastery of fire to create rings which I leapt
through, landing unscorched on the other side. I juggled flaming knives and batons, making
them vanish into the air and reappear suddenly. I made it seem as if I walked on air, and I
called birds to my hand, and made a buffalo and a whole tribe of Indians stampede across the
stage in blue smoke.
I called upon volunteers from the audience, a young man, whom I then proceeded to
toss slender silver knives at, though the knives were harmless tin foil ones that wouldn't have
scratched a hair off of his head, however real they looked. The young man always looked
terrified, even after I'd assured him there was no real danger involved.
Next I picked one of those arrogant rich men who always comes to scoff at the
performances, and I proceeded to hypnotize him with my ruby pendant. I actually used a
small portion of my will for this trick and then I would tell him he now thought he was a
certain kind of animal—a donkey, a duck, a cow, a camel—and he would parade round the
stage on all fours acting like perfect idiot. The audience loved that one, especially after I
released the haughty man from my spell, and he recalled hardly anything of what I'd done,
but was the talk of the social scene for weeks afterwards.
Then I asked a young lady to come up, I usually always picked one who was not
wealthy, and proceeded to transform her plain dress into a gown worthy of a queen with a few
gestures and a wave of my magic wand. This was true glamour, not sleight of hand, and it
always drew gasps of envy from all the women in the audience and sighs from the men. I
gave the girl a good five minutes worth before I cancelled the spell, but I knew those five
minutes would be remembered forever, and as a parting gift she received a flower with a
small silver chain entwined about it. The flower was just a common prairies rose but the
chain contained a tiny bit of glamour in it, enough so that when she wore it, she would attract
a decent man. It was my way of evening up the odds of marriage and courtship, since many
of those women would never have a chance otherwise.
My last volunteer was usually a child, I alternated between boys and girls, and I used
the kid for my scarf trick, I tied the kid to a chair with multiple scarves, put the chair on a
revolving platform built into the stage, and then spun the kid around. When I stopped
spinning, the scarves had been transformed into one long ribbon of cloth and the kid was
sitting on the chair unbound. The children loved that trick and they begged to learn how it
was done. I never told them, of course, but I did send the lucky kid away with a colored scarf
with a quarter tied in it. (The secret to that trick was to make it look as if you were tying
multiple scarves when actually you were only using one scarf knotted several times, that
could unknot with a pull in the right direction.) I used a scarf of multi-colored silk and had
learned to tie quick release knots in order to make that trick work effectively.
I had learned long ago the value of giving away small trinkets during a performance,
people loved a generous performer, and it was always nice to go home with a souvenir. It
drew people into the show like bees to honey.
One of my favorite tricks was juggling colored balls of witchlight, I could make them
smaller or larger and sometimes I tossed them in a ring around Belle, who would then
pretend to dance like a harem dancer , spinning the colored balls about her waist like a hoop.
That always had half the men in the crowd falling down on their knees.
I also could make the witchlight into a ribbon which I skipped through like I was
jumping rope. I would then coil up the "rope" in my fist and open my hands, and the rope
was transformed into dozens of colored butterflies or doves that flew out over the audience
in silver sparkles.
Another crowd pleaser was my fire-breathing act, where I swallowed a torch and then
breathed fire. I lit a branch of candles with my dragon's breath, then invited a man up to
confirm that the fire was real. This was a feat of true magic, and one that only a skilled fire
magician could perform. Cast the spell wrong and you'd end up scorching your throat. (I
knew the same kind of trick was performed non-magically with a ball of pitch held between
your teeth, but I hate the taste of pine gum, and my way was more effective.)
My cape played a considerable role in my act. I used it to conceal things or make
doves fly out of it, or threw it over a box or Belle during the course of a trick. For my finale,
I transformed myself into a fox or a rabbit or a cat, and this was a true transformation, not a
fake. I explained it away as a trick to my fellow circus performers, and kept a real fox, a cat,
and a rabbit in a cage as decoys.
We performed one show a night, and at least five a week, depending on how long we
stayed in a town. We'd been with Turner's Traveling Circus for almost three weeks, just long
enough to reassure Matthew Turner, who was the manager and ringmaster of the show, that
we were legitimate performers and not con artists.
I could still sense Gungnir's presence, it was inside a wooden trunk in the wagon with
the accounts and the money, fiercely guarded by Mr. Aristotle Tims, the financier, who
claimed he had eyes like Argus, the one-hundred eyed watchman of Hera in Greek
mythology. He slept in the same wagon as the money box and it was said he could hear a
feather drop.
I could have gotten past him in a twinkling, but I knew it was bad policy to try and
snatch the spear first thing. Besides, I knew I could get it any time I wanted, and it was more
fun to pretend to be an honest circus performer. Bella and I had caught up to the gaudy
wagons the third day out from leaving Last Chance.
I had presented Matthew with the same story I'd given Travers, and asked him to hire
us. I'd given him a small demonstration of my skills, enough to convince him I was the
genuine article (which I was). He was very impressed and hired us on the spot.
Belle was disappointed that we did not find Leif anywhere around, I think she'd hoped
he'd joined the circus too. I told her I didn't think that likely, for he had no skills as a
performer the way I did and he'd stand out like a sore thumb. "Don't worry, girl," I
whispered to her in the privacy of our wagon, a rather small box bearing the name of the
circus on it, which would serve as our bed and storage room. It was drawn by two sturdy
draft mules, Pete and Patty. Heror and Flicker drew envious glances from more than a few
of the troupe, they knew quality horseflesh when they saw it. "We'll find my runaway
apprentice soon enough. A good thief never leaves the goods unattended for too long."
"Then you think he's here somewhere?" Belle asked softly. "But I can't sense him."
"He's probably under a masking spell. But he'll be back, mark my words. And then
we can confront him. For now, though, we're going to have to play the roles we've chosen
and make the best of it."
"I guess so," she sighed.
I patted her cheek. "Don't sulk. Now's your chance to mingle with mortals the way
you've always wanted. Have some fun, why don't you?"
"Why, you sound like you're enjoying this."
"I am. It's been too long since I've been among mortals and I've missed it. And
circus folk are a friendly lively bunch, once they get to know you. Now quit acting like the
sky's falling down and smile, before you turn into an old crone." I ordered, shaking my finger
in mock reproof.
That brought a smile to her face and she settled down to unpack, leaving me to groom
the horses and meet some of our fellow travelers.
Matthew Turner was a tall lanky man in his late forties, sun-browned from a lifetime
of exposure to the wind and the harsh prairie sun. He had close-cropped dark hair that was
starting to silver at the temples and lively blue eyes that watched everything about him with
the curiosity of a naturalist. When I'd first met him he was dressed in an ordinary pair of
jeans and a cambric blue shirt, wearing boots and a gunbelt with a Colt revolver on his hip.
A bright turquoise neckerchief kept the dust from his mouth, though his sombrero was
hanging down his back.
I learned that he'd been born out West, the son of a cowboy drifter and a pretty Irish
lass. He'd traveled with his parents all his life, as his father moved from ranch to ranch and
job to job. Luckily that kind of rootless existence appealed to him and when he grew tired
of hiring himself out as a cowpuncher at twenty-one, he'd joined a traveling Wild West show.
He stayed just long enough to fall in love with the owner's daughter, marry her, and get her
pregnant before striking out with his wife and his unborn child on his own. He planned to
open his own show, a circus similar to that of P. T. Barnum and the Bailey brothers.
He'd started small, with a dog and pony act, but one that was nevertheless a hit in the
small towns they went through. His wife, Alice, bore him a son named Matt. The boy later
died of one of those spring fevers so common to youngsters here when he was only three.
Alice never got over her child's death and only bore him another child afterwards, a daughter
they called Marissa.
By then the act had grown and Matthew expanded, moving back east which was
where the big crowds and money were. Before he became a true circus, he'd been a trick
rider, doing an act with horses and a Brahma bull named Smokey. Alice was a dancer,
schooled in ballet and the Spanish flamenco and they often combined acts.
Within three years they'd gathered a strong man, a few clowns, a Spaniard who did
a killer dog act, and several new kinds of wildlife, including a camel, peacocks, a monkey or
two and some large cats and a lion tamer. Later they acquired a troupe of acrobats, as well
as a cook and a physician.
By then Matthew was growing dissatisfied with the big cities on the East Coast and
longing for the grasslands of his youth. So he took his troupe back West. He didn't have the
money to compete with such high class acts as Barnum's or Bailey's, and his wanderlust was
itching to see new horizons.
So they returned to the Dakotas and wandered all over the Texas panhandle, Missouri,
and the like. By this time his daughter Marissa was old enough to be introduced to the show,
and at first she starred in an act with her mother, riding in front of Alice on a silvery horse
wearing a dress of glitter and spangles. But that didn't last long, for Marissa was an intrepid
soul, and soon she was begging her father to teach her how to ride standing up.
"She's a born horsewoman, my daughter," he'd told me proudly when he'd hired me.
"She can ride anything with hooves and a tail."
Marissa had also learned how to dance from her mother and when she was ten she'd
put together her own act as a bareback rider. Fourteen years later she was one of the premier
bareback riders in the West, one of the few women in the country who could do a quadruple
somersault off a galloping horse and land in one piece. She was billed as Marissa the
Marvelous, and a truer sentiment was never spoken.
"Her Mama would've been right proud of her," the circus manager said softly, his
blue eyes growing shadowed with an old sorrow. "But she never got a chance to see Marissa
do that stunt, as she died of the quinsy when Rissa was twelve. Since then I've been raising
her alone."
"Same as me," I said, jerking my head back at Bella, who was gazing curiously about
her at the painted wagons and the wheeled cages with the lions, tigers, and panther in them.
"I lost Belle's mother when she was just a baby and never felt right about marrying again, so
it's been just us two for all of forever. She might not have a mother, but I made darn sure
she got a good education."
"You sent her away to school then?" Matthew inquired, raising an eyebrow.
I shook my head. "Now, Mr. Turner, do I look like I've got money enough for a
private school? Even in Norway, such things are only for the daughters of rich landowners.
No, I tutored her myself. I was a university graduate."
Matthew nodded, looking pleased. "I always said an education is one of the most
important things you could have. I never had much formal schooling, I was always moving
when I was a kid, but I read everything I could get my hands on and my wife, she'd gone to
a fancy academy when she was a girl and she taught me French and Italian. She was one
sharp cookie, my Alice, and she taught Rissa her letters and numbers before she was five.
Said simply cause we didn't live in a town was no reason to neglect our minds."
"I quite agree." I said and meant it. Some people might think that circus performers
were uneducated rubes out to fleece honest folk, but I knew better. Matthew Turner was a
s honest as sunlight and he insisted the people who worked for him be the same. He was also
one of the most unprejudiced men I had ever met, hiring based on merit rather than
background and skin color.
The family of acrobats and tightrope walkers who were with the show, the Flynns,
were a band of Irish Travelers, driven out of their native country by superstition and hate.
Rumor had it that the Rom were the ones who forged the nails used to crucify Jesus and
thus were condemned to wander the earth forever, shunned by all for their wicked deed.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I knew that the Romans had no need to ask outsiders
to make nails for them, they had plenty of decent smiths in the army. Very likely that rumor
had been spread about in the Dark Ages as a means of stirring the populace against the
traveling folk.
The Gypsies, often called tinkers because they mended tin pots and pans and
sharpened knives, originated somewhere in India, from a mixture of races. They have since
migrated out of Indian and spread throughout much of Europe. They were given the name
"Gypsy" because the English thought they came from Egypt, hence the name Gyptian, which
was shortened to Gypsy. This is considered a derogatory term among them. They call
themselves Rom and they spoke their own language, Romani, and they had their own set of
customs and beliefs which often didn't match with those of other people, whom they referred
to as gadjikane, meaning foreigner in their language. The Rom had been wanders and traders
long before the birth of Christ and would continue to be so long afterward, it was in their
blood. Once they'd camped and lived on over half the Roman Empire, before so many settled
people had come and displaced them.
The Rom were known chiefly for their skills in music, dancing, fortune-telling, horse
trading, blacksmithing, and occasionally herbal potions, curses, and thievery. This last was
an unfair label, for while some of the Rom did indeed delight in deceit and trickery to
outsiders, most of them were a basically honest folk trying to earn a living.
Both Matthew and Marissa had a great respect for the Flynns, who were a mixture of
the Irish Traveler and the Rom of Hungary. Marco, who was the head of the Flynn family,
had taught the young Marissa how to perform several acrobatic stunts atop a horse, and his
wife Esmerelda had served as her foster mother after she lost her own. Marco and Esmerelda
had three children, their oldest, Maura, had since died of a fever. They still had a son, Nicco,
who was around eighteen, and a younger daughter, Rowena, who was eleven. They also had
a grandson, Hawk, who was the son of the late Maura, a nine-year-old scamp, his father had
been a Cheyenne who'd been adopted by the Flynns after his own tribe had been massacred.
Hawk's father was also dead, victim of the same fever that had killed his wife.
Belle and I were soon to become fast friends with the Romani Flynns, but more about
that later. The Turners also had a Spaniard, Don Pedro was his stage name, and his wife
Catalina, who performed a funny animal act consisting of five dogs and a marmalade cat.
The dogs ranged in size from tiny white poodles (Charles and Antoinette) to a large collie
(Laddie) and an even large Russian Wolfhound (Ivan) and then to a medium sized greyhound
(Bolt). The cat was called Amber, and she was the cleverest cat I'd ever seen. The Pedros
had taught her how to jump through a small hoop and ring a bell and even fetch a
handkerchief, not to mention to ride atop Laddie and Ivan. The dogs were superbly trained
as well, and all of them were treated like members of the family. Catalina often referred to
them as her children, since she was unable to have any.
The third major act in the troupe, before I came there, was the lion tamer show. This
was an exhibition of daring and skill performed by a British native of India who called
himself Johnny Midnight. He was around twenty-six or so, broad shouldered with a devilish
grin and curly dark hair with pale skin and brilliant amber eyes. He had grown up in India,
the son of a British merchant who worked for the East India Company. His father had wanted
him to go into the trade but Johnny refused, instead joining the army, and then when he'd
tired of that, decided to raise big cats and start his own animal show. He'd been with the
circus for about three years now.
His four cats had been raised from cubs by him, rescued from hunters and exotic
animal dealers, and were remarkably tame and gentle for such animals. His huge black-
maned African lion, Sahara, would sit with his head in his trainer's lap for hours, being petted
and scratched, purring thunderously. There was also an Indian black panther, Bagheera,
named after Kipling's famous panther, and the twin tigers, the orange Bengal Rajah and his
white sister, Tundra. All the cats had their claws and fangs, for Johnny refused to remove
them, saying they had been born with them for a reason and were as God had intended, to
take them away was both cruel and unnecessary. Indeed, while I was with them, I never saw
one of the cats offer so much as a playful nip to him or anyone else.
Belle loved the huge cats and could often be found near their cages, humming to them
or talking in the silent speech of animals to them. Johnny was amazed at the rapport she had
with them, for one and all of them would come up to the bars of the cage purring and let her
pet and stroke them.
Belle was utterly unafraid of them, though she respected their strength, and it was well
that Johnny never knew of her clandestine trips to the cages at midnight, where she would
pick the locks on their cages and turn each one free to hunt alone in the moonlight.
"The time of the cat is at night," she told me once I'd discovered what she was up to.
"They need exercise and the freedom to run. They get neither in those cages, comfortable
as they are. There's no harm in letting them roam the prairie at night, it sates their need to
hunt."
She had no fear the cats would not return, for she had extracted a promise that they
were bound to keep before setting them free to hunt at night. They had given her their word
to return before dawn and to stay away from the dwellings of men, of which there were little
out here. They were extremely grateful to my daughter and in return they allowed her to take
liberties with them that they permitted no one else save their human "father" Johnny. Bella
could groom Sahara's thick black mane, and scratch Tundra beneath her chin, and play tag
with Bagheera, and hand feed Rajah.
"She's got the touch awright," Johnny said to me one day while Belle was brushing
Sahara. "Maybe she should be an animal trainer stead of a magician, eh?"
I shrugged, not bothering to tell him that Belle was born a magician and that was why
she was so good with animals.
Jinx McDuff was the troupe's strong man, a giant of a man that had muscles that
could have rivaled Thor's, but he was gentle and sweet. His wife, Marie, was the costume
designer for the troupe, and she made all the clothes they wore for performances.
Other notable people were the three clowns, Bill, Miff, and Carl, who were masters
of slapstick and could have gotten a laugh out of a stone. Then there was Mrs. Eliza Bailey,
a widower who could cook dishes fit for the President himself.
There were only two members of the troupe I didn't like, and one of those was
Aristotle Tims, the financier, a lanky man with a pinched expression that made him look as
if he'd just swallowed a lemon. There was an air of the swindler about him that I noticed
from the first, and I was almost certain he was cooking the books, but I never caught him at
it. He was also the one who stood guard over the chest where Gungnir was, and he had a
habit of looking down his nose at the rest of us who performed that irritated me profoundly.
The last member was Dr. Boswell, supposedly a physician with a degree from
Harvard. I suspected he was nothing more than a drunken country practitioner, especially
after the debacle with Hawk's arm. Still, a doctor was needed, for circus performers suffered
more than their share of injuries, which was why Matthew had hired him.
But before I go into detail about that incident, let me tell you about the welcome I
received from Hawk and his family.