The Bloody Eye

7

Jozan hadn't been offended when the priest loaned him a mule to continue his quest, but he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with his virility as he kept having to look up to speak to this amazing woman. Alhandra's magnificent gray stallion stood a full hand and a half taller than the mule beneath Jozan. That didn't help him get over the preconceptions one gets as a cleric trained in an all-male order. He always thought of women as being either temptations or servants.

Alhandra certainly qualified as the former. At least, she would if you could get around her defense of pure competence. Or was that confidence? How would she not be a temptation, Jozan mused. Every time I try to speak to her I have to look up and see her auburn hair so brightly lit against the sky that it looks like she has a halo.

Jozan was beginning to think the female actually had a halo. After all, she appeared quite suddenly next to that altar. He still wasn't certain she hadn't come from another dimension, in spite of her story. She seemed so ready to face any eventuality. He'd always prided himself on his ability to look calm and strong on the outside, even when his insides were fluttering like the butterflies migrating in spring. He felt neither calm nor strong.

His meditation was disrupted by her disconcerting voice. "So," mocked Alhandra, "are you praying, planning, or meditating? Or have I mistakenly joined forces with someone who has sworn a vow of silence?"

"No vow, lady," mumbled Jozan, "just struggling with a personal demon."

"A personal demon?" responded Alhandra with just a hint of mockery. "Your order must be very important to warrant personal demons. Aren't there enough public demons to be exorcised without you choosing one for a pet?"

Again, Jozan found himself off-balance in his conversation with Alhandra. He didn't feel like he expressed himself well in his answer. "I assure you, milady, I did not choose this inner struggle."

Alhandra smiled. "Of course you didn't. No one ever does. We do get to choose how much time we dwell on such struggles, though." She saw the disconcerted look on the cleric's face and took a modicum of pity on Jozan. "I beg your pardon, brother. I gave up fighting inner demons long ago. I choose to face outward evil. I don't have much patience for those who indulge themselves."

"You're right, of course, but you don't understand my dilemma," he replied. "The man we seek was once my tutor. Calmet was supposed to help me succeed, yet even with his help, I failed. How can I succeed now without his help?"

Alhandra didn't know how to respond. When she said nothing, the cleric continued, "I do know this. Now, more than anything, I want to see Calmet suffer."

"Oh, my!" responded Alhandra. "You do have a demon to wrestle with. Of course, none of this will help us solve the immediate problem. What do you suppose the good father meant by the Black Carnival?"

Jozan wondered if the question was a test or if the paladin was baiting him. When he saw the quizzical look on her face he knew the question was sincere.

"I don't know," he answered. "It sounds bizarre. Some troupe that paints their wagons with night shades instead of the garish colors we expect from companies of players? I doubt it. Someone would have heard of such a troupe. No company can survive long without word of mouth. It sounded…" He paused for a moment, gathering his courage lest his upcoming suggestion be perceived as silly. "It sounded…the way he said it, I mean, as if it were something supernatural, something like the endless hunt."

Alhandra grimaced at the comparison with evil, supernatural spirits condemned to spend all eternity hunting for a prey they can never quite catch.

"I don't think it's supernatural," she suggested. "I think it's merely slaver argot for a slave caravan."

Jozan became defensive. If the woman already knew, he thought, why did she ask? He tried to keep the acid out of his voice as he spoke. "Sorry. I never heard the term before."

"I didn't say I had heard of it," she admitted. "I'm just guessing. It's at least as likely as your endless tour theory. I've never heard of immoral performers sentenced to eternal…or maybe I should say, infernal performances."

"No," admitted Jozan with considerably less defensiveness, "but my theory does seem more poetic. If wicked warriors are forced into an endless hunt after they die, why not sinful thespians consigned to an eternity of unsatisfying performances and unappreciative audiences?"

Alhandra tilted her head back and laughed with genuine enjoyment. "I like that. The next thing you know, we'll find that venal priests are forced to celebrate endless masses while congregations respond in blasphemy. Maybe debauched courtiers would be punished by an endless audience before an infernal monarch who natters incessantly about the most idiotic things-just like the real ones."

The paladin rode on, feeling more relaxed and confident in her traveling companion. She turned to speak to him once more and, to her surprise, he wasn't there.

Jozan had pulled up the mule three horse lengths behind Alhandra's mount. He was staring intently at the roadway when Alhandra turned her mount and returned to where the mule stood.

"What did you find?" asked the paladin.

Jozan shook his head and pointed at recent wagon ruts in the soft ground of the road. "I've apparently found hard evidence that my theory is wrong," he grunted.

"Slavers?" asked Alhandra.

"Wagons," he responded, "a caravan, at least."

"Think we can catch them?" challenged Alhandra.

"Depends on how fast this mule can move!" responded Jozan.

Both holy warriors kicked their mounts into a gallop. Alhandra's horse moved with a smoothness like gentle, flowing waves. Jozan's mule had a disjoined gait, but the cleric was determined to stay as close to the pounding hooves of Alhandra's stallion as he could.

For Jozan, it was a challenge to stay within a few lengths of the big stallion. Even though the mule's motion was uncomfortable, Jozan's hand brushed against his mace for confidence and he smiled. He might be the poorest possible cleric when it came to reading holy writ, but he knew he had the blessing of Pelor when it came time for holy battle. Both righteous avengers rode with a sense that they were making a difference, that injustice would be redressed.

It wasn't long before the squeals of dry axles and the rattle of old, poorly maintained wagons could be heard, even above the hoofbeats of the crusaders' mounts. The holy fighters rounded a bend in the road, fully expecting to see a chain of human misery and wagons dedicated to some gruesome occult powers. Instead, they saw a string of three wagons adorned with gaudy paint jobs and the unmistakable signage of a circus troupe.

When the passengers observed the speed with which priest and paladin were closing upon them, the lead driver halted his wagon and the other two followed suit.

"We are Chakyik," said the driver, raising his hand in a gesture of friendship. "We come in peace."

"Slavers?" asked Alhandra bluntly.

"Do we look like slavers?" asked the driver with the familiar accent ridiculed by every bard looking for a cheap laugh or a free drink in a busy tavern. "We are performers, entertainers to the Unvanquishable Tiger Lord himself."

Jozan was suspicious. "You're a long way from the Tiger Lord," he observed. "Why would you be here?"

A woman's voice, as old as an ancient tomb and crackling as though it were as dry, responded from behind the holy warriors. "Absence makes the applause grow louder," came the voice, a feminine version of the same much derided accent, "and the Tiger Lord was showing more claws than applause of late."

Both Jozan and Alhandra turned to face a woman in the road who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Jozan noticed the open door to the second wagon, but before they could say anything, the woman continued, "Your destiny is not with us." Her slate-gray eyes looked deeply into a rounded ball that seemed made of a rose quartz. "You seek the Black Carnival and those who half-see."

Jozan shrugged and turned toward the paladin. "Why do I get the feeling that everyone knows about this but us?" he asked with minor disgust.

"You need not find the carnival to stop the source," the old woman continued, unfazed by Jozan's sarcastic comment. "To seek the Black Carnival, root out the black hearts of men."

"Does everyone speak in riddles in your country?" asked Jozan, glancing at the paladin.

"Only the smart ones," answered Alhandra. She flashed the smile at Jozan that always caused him self-doubt and brought fresh color to his cheeks. Then, she addressed the old woman. "We thank you for the oracle, wise one."

But the old woman hadn't finished. "Pergue is the key," proclaimed the woman. "That is all I know," she concluded. "I can tell you no more." She fell silent and backed toward the wagon in the middle of the caravan.

"Do you trust her?" whispered Jozan.

"I don't know. What does she gain by lying to us?" responded the paladin sotto voce. "She doesn't even know us. Just a moment." The paladin faced the retreating woman and lifted her eyes toward the heavens. She spread her hands with palms upward and meditated, just as she had done when she first met Jozan. In a moment, she turned to the cleric. "By Heironeous's strength, I sense no evil auras here."

"Then," whispered Jozan, "I see no reason not to trust her. Pelor…and Heironeous, of course, work in strange ways." When the paladin nodded in agreement, the cleric spoke up. "Well, if Pergue is the key, I'm more than ready to open this lock."

His words stopped the old soothsayer in her slow retreat. She turned back to face Jozan and walked back toward him as though she were compelled by something inside her. She looked up from the orb and her gray eyes shone with the radiance of Pelor himself.

"One warning more. He who opens this lock must face the darkness in his own heart, as well." Before she resumed her trek back toward her wagon, she added, "If we have served you well, remember us in the future."

"Then, we'll meet again?" queried the cleric.

"Your god knows," responded the old woman, "but our own future is as murky to us as yours is clear. The one you seek is the source."

The cleric thanked the soothsayer and the paladin dropped a gold piece in the old woman's hand. Then the two warriors sidestepped their horses toward the road. Once out of sight and sound of the caravan, Jozan laughed robustly with a feeling of considerable relief.

"I should have studied harder on those ancient texts and languages. Everywhere I turn, I have to interpret prophecy."

The paladin nodded, but said nothing. She kept running the prophecy over and over in her mind. Jozan interrupted her speculation by speaking aloud.

"I suppose you realize," he chuckled, "this encounter leaves my supernatural theory in play."

"It does at that," admitted Alhandra with a trace of a smirk at the corner of her mouth, "at least until we get to Pergue."