8. Curse Plague (1)
8. Curse Plague (1)
After three weeks of vacation in Rouge, we set out for the next city.
Our second target was Yeterinpurk, the northernmost of the Six Great Cities, in the Kiev Empire.
Unable to use an airship, we began our journey by carriage.
Originally I'd planned to follow the river down to the sea and travel by ship, but two problems made that impossible.
The first was that there simply wasn't a ship willing to take us.
The cabaret performances had earned us a measure of fame and chipped away at some prejudice, but that reputation was still confined to Rouge — the kind of thing only industry insiders knew about.
For superstitious, conservative men like sailors, the appearances of my troupe members remained deeply off-putting.
It would've been convenient if we could have secured the Bergson Trading Company's Emerald Silk, the vessel we'd taken to Rouge, but as the company flagship its schedule was far too packed for a long voyage to somewhere as distant as Yeterinpurk.
And with Anais no longer traveling with us, asking for such a favor was out of the question.
She'd parted ways with us to return to Vegas on company business.
The second reason we couldn't take a ship was Maya.
As it turned out, she was dreadfully prone to seasickness.
She could barely endure the jostling of a carriage and spent the whole journey lying inside one. Every time we stopped to rest and she climbed out, her already pale face had gone even whiter; it was pitiful to see.
So Yurakne had taken to riding with her, looking after her along the way.
I'd wondered whether someone as proud as Maya would accept that so readily, but thankfully it seemed to be working out without friction.
Motion sickness, I knew, comes from a mismatch between the semicircular canals' sense of balance and the other senses.
In her case, possessing spatial awareness far superior to an ordinary person's probably amplified that sense of disconnect.
I considered giving her the "Gravity Field Semicircular Canal" modification.
With that trait, you could do a handstand on the edge of a cliff and still feel like you were standing on flat ground.
But I left it at the idea. I was worried it might, in some way, eat into her talent.
I'd once read an article about a pianist revered for a genius touch — he'd undergone dental nerve treatment and lost that innate gift entirely.
Modifications involving the senses required extra caution.
Especially for a genius like her.
If Maya ever lost her talent because of a careless decision on my part, I don't think I could bear it.
Stopping the carriages frequently to rest was the best course.
Fortunately, the roads toward Kiev were well-maintained, and my troupe members — perhaps having picked up some teamwork through the big performance — were covering more ground per day even at a measured pace than they used to.
Thanks to that, five days after leaving Rouge we reached the border region between Charlotia and Kiev.
While the troupe rested in a clearing, I climbed a nearby hill.
To the west, the northernmost edge of the Sierra Madre Mountains — the Roof of the World — hung like a folding screen; to the east stretched the vast inland sea of Hues Bay, large enough to swallow an entire nation.
To see mountain peaks thousands of meters high and the horizon at the same time — it opened something in the chest.
I stood on the hill, the wind against me, and drank it in.
A bell rang in the distance to mark mealtime.
I descended back to the clearing where the carriages were parked.
Lunch was chicken and potatoes I'd bought with Yurakne yesterday from a village we passed through, steamed together with tomato sauce.
In the early days we'd kept meals simple while traveling, but since an assistant cook had been assigned to help Yurakne, the range of what she could prepare had expanded considerably.
"Well? The potatoes! Are they cooked?"
"Mm, they're good! Nicely done, huh?"
At Ella's praise, the ratman squeaked with satisfaction and retreated.
The fellow was named Lupe, and ever since he'd taken charge of the concession stand kitchen, he seemed to have developed a genuine interest in cooking. At every meal he glued himself to Yurakne's side, learning the craft.
The ratmen had originally eaten only leftovers, worn nothing but a single cloth below the waist, and slept curled up under the carriages.
But the hotel life that fate had thrust upon them had started to change their habits.
Now they dished their food neatly onto plates, stitched together pilfered hotel towels into clothes — this was when I learned that the towels I'd assumed Umon had shredded making whole roast chickens had actually all been repurposed by them — and even slept on simple bedrolls spread across the floor.
I smiled as I watched the ratmen in the corner of the clearing scooping chicken and potatoes from their bowls.
The notion that they were inherently filthy and unsanitary was, it seemed, more a matter of environmental prejudice.
"But why can't we just take an airship? It'd be way easier to fly straight over the mountains and the sea."
Umon was a ten-year-old who'd been living alone with his mother in the mountains until recently.
That curiosity about the world hadn't faded. Every time he saw something new, he asked the people around him about it.
In the past, Ella had been the one to field most of those questions.
The other troupe members had all been isolated from society and lacked basic common sense. She was the one who'd at least heard things; she knew more.
But our circus's sole highly educated member had since taken over that role.
"Airships can't fly west of the Sierra Madre. The polar light that surges down from the North Pole ruins the delicate magic circuits."
"What's polar light?"
"The bedrock of our world is composed of minerals with a powerful magnetic field, and the sun's—"
"It's the belch of Demon Gods from the Abyss. They devour so many souls that they let out the residue into the void — a big, satisfied buuurp. The curse of the wraiths in the polar light keeps crashing airships, so nobody flies them there."
Ella cut in over Maya's explanation.
Maya shot her a sidelong glare.
"Don't interrupt. Especially not with nonsense like that."
"It's what we all grew up knowing. Bedrock? Magnetic fields? What even is all that?"
"Scientific fact."
"Boring."
Maya turned her head, as if unwilling to waste another word.
Ella spoke to Umon, who looked stuck in the middle.
"You'll probably get to see the polar light a few times in Yeterinpurk. They say it ripples across the sky like a glowing curtain."
"Uh... so airships can only be used east of the mountain range because of that?"
"Yep. The wraiths in the polar light can't cross the blessing laid upon the Sierra Madre."
Maya let out a soft click of her tongue, but Ella pretended not to hear.
Watching them, I let out a small laugh.
Maya wasn't normally the type to show her irritation so openly, but dealing with motion sickness had clearly frayed her nerves.
After lunch the troupe gathered around to read an article in a recently published issue of Bread and Circus.
Under the headline "The Monster Circus Opens a New Horizon" was a group photo of everyone — I had no idea when it was taken. Listening to Ella read the article aloud brought the memories of that day vividly back.
The overall assessment was decent.
The script I'd written, the hosting Ella and I had done, the troupe's costumes — all of it earned favorable remarks.
Except that three members' acting had been rated a flat-out failure.
In a sense it was only one, but...
"Those critics... they blind or something?"
"Acting, acrobatics — both garbage, they said?"
"Hmph."
Dunedol and Sebram voiced their displeasure loudly, and even Hansten — the most level-headed of the triplets — scowled.
The three of them would be angry that their scores had dragged down the average, and mortified in front of their comrades too.
As I listened to the others soothe them, I skimmed through Christian Guide.
It also carried reviews of the other circuses that had been tested at the Rose Windmill Cabaret.
Pandora Magic Show ★★
Composition A, Artistry B, Acting B, Direction B, Individuality B
: The skill of escape-art master Louini lives up to his name. However, declining stamina hurts his performance, and heir training is lacking. Recovering to three stars seems unlikely.
Silver Screen Circus ★★
Composition D, Artistry A, Acting D, Direction S, Individuality A
: The spectacle alone is top-notch, but the abysmal character work and juvenile dramatic structure embarrass the audience.
Papael Circus ★
Composition C, Artistry S, Acting C, Direction B, Individuality C
: As befits a troupe led by a Rekachev graduate, the artistry is exceptional. Beyond that, however, it falls short of being called first-rate.
Mango Troupe
Composition C, Artistry C, Acting A, Direction D, Individuality C
: The ambitious dream of a cabaret ace dancer. Did Maroine learn nothing beyond dance? Lucky to have earned a star on home turf, but this won't carry them far.
Morning Star Circus
Composition B, Artistry B, Acting B, Direction C, Individuality D
: Decent acrobats, a decent stage — but impossible to shake the impression of a junk drawer. At least Minova's emceeing gives it some flavor.
Monster Circus
Composition A, Artistry D, Acting D, Direction D, Individuality S
: Has elevated what was once little more than a human exhibition to a passable level. The members' acting leans heavily on makeup, and their skills remain too embarrassing to call acrobatics. Would recommend using actual props rather than clumsy illusions.
"How does that magazine rate us?" Yurakne asked.
I managed an awkward smile.
I couldn't bring myself to read such harsh criticism aloud.
Ella took one look at my face, gave a snort that said what did you expect, and answered.
"Christian Guide isn't going to have anything nice to say. That place does nothing but complain."
The two major circus magazines, Bread and Circus and Christian Guide, each had a strong personality.
Bread and Circus delighted in detailed descriptions and analysis, as if recounting a show to children, while Christian Guide preferred to leave brief critical notes aimed at readers who already knew performance inside and out.
"Isn't Christian Guide the one that awards us stars?"
To reach the Circus Grand Prix Finals, you needed seven stars.
Six of them were granted by the Six Great Theaters, but three were substituted by the star ratings given by Christian Guide, or so I'd heard.
In other words, even if you passed all six theater trials, if Christian Guide didn't grant you at least one star, you wouldn't reach the finals.
"But our troupe doesn't have a single star?"
Ella replied with an irritated look.
"I checked earlier. We're not the only ones. Morning Star and Mango didn't get any either. Papael has one, and you need to be around Silver Screen or Pandora's level to get two. I knew it wasn't easy to earn a star from Christian Guide, but I didn't realize they'd be this stingy."
"Ha-ha-ha, Pandora and Silver Screen with two stars? Astonishing. I wonder how impressive the troupes with three stars must be."
Out of the 118 circuses participating in the Grand Prix, half — like us — had received no stars at all.
And only three troupes had earned three stars.