Unmaking Percy

Part III - VI, continued (The Dizzy Tent)

"You're the one who cursed Tombert" Percy spoke into the sorcerer's eyes.

"It is not a curse" he muttered, his eyebrows pressing together in a frown. "It is a gift. My power is to bestow gifts onto others. But of course, not everyone likes their gifts. I see you came here with your friends?"

The sorcerer glanced beyond Percy to where Evans and the others stood.

"What would you have me bless them with, boy?" he murmured. "There are a thousand blessings I could burden them with. I can make everything they touch turn to gold. I can give them stupendous strength that will crush everything, even that which they don't mean to crush. I can make them hear everyone's thoughts until they go mad with it. Come with me up there. I won't harm you."

Percy trembled slightly under the sorcerer's gaze. He gagged in his own horror at the thought of opening his mouth again. He nodded feebly, and the sorcerer gestured at the rope ladder. Percy threw a panic-quick glance behind him, hoping to spot his friends; but the crowd had thickened like fog. He placed a teetering, tottering foot on the first step of the ladder. As they climbed, Percy felt the man's chest graze the heels of his feet, so close did he follow. He could try to kick. He didn't.

His foot landed precariously on the structure above the stage. He saw before him a mad tangle of crisscrossing walkways, ropes and pulleys, cables and weights. Below him, through the gaps in the wooden planks, he saw parts of the stage and the audience, in shredded ribbons of colours and light. Something pressed against his back, and he shuddered for a moment as he remembered the dagger; but it was only a hand, guiding him forward.

"I was the first to discover them" said the sorcerer behind him as they walked on. "They were playing in backwater taverns back then, with fools who barely looked up from their ale. But I heard them. I understood at once how brilliant they were."

The nervous demeanour that Percy had noticed in the man was still there: a twinge in his voice, a tremor in his gestures, a shiver in the air around him.

"I never gave a gift so gladly. They deserve to be heard. And they deserve to be followed. I've followed them ever since, too. How could I not? I've never wanted anything more."

They were nearing the end of the walkway. Percy swallowed: the railing to keep people from falling off was barely there. Beyond the walkway, he saw the lake and the moon spilling its silver on the waters, a quiet world far from the loud life below.

Exasperation and fear prised his mouth open again.

"Sure. Whatever you say. And why the fuck are we up here?"

That squirming, chilling feeling took hold of him once more. Snakes and eels writhed up his throat, and then, morbid and elegant, a ruby ring dripped from his lips. He immediately clamped his hands over his mouth.

The sorcerer stared at him with a blankness that was almost painful to behold. They stood at the edge of the walkway now, with Percy's back turned to the lake and the forest beyond. The tent swayed in watercolours before him.

"We are here because they do not want me" the sorcerer said. "I made them what they are, what they should be, and yet... they do not want me. We are here because they want you. I do not think you would last long, but that is not the point. The point is that they want someone that is not me."

The man leaned down, just enough to pick up the ring that had fallen from Percy's mouth. He held it for a moment, shining it under the moonlight before sliding it on to his finger, all while looking into Percy's eyes. His stare was frost-rimmed. Percy felt the ice of it sear his mind.