Greg Smith: Circle Of Souls-Prolog

Victor Rasmussen awoke from a deep, exhausted sleep to escape the dream. His eyes opened. His next breath hissed through his teeth. A shiver passed through him as the memory of the dream reached out to hold him. He recalled it as clearly as a sharp piece of reality: Azar-Diam, the carnival's magician, had come to him in the dream. And the strange man had been in serious trouble.

Victor groaned as he swung his feet to the tarp-covered ground and sat up on his cot. His muscles complained of yesterday's roust. The carnival tents had been erected in record time as a dark bank of storm clouds approached from the west. And Victor had been in the thick of it, hauling stays and sinking stakes, from the minute the long caravan of vehicles halted on the broad field ten miles north of Baton Rouge, until the first raindrops hit the red and white striped roof of the big main tent.

He ran callused hands through his thick sandy hair, staring through the flaps of his tent into the dark August night. He scratched his beard, worrying about the magician.

Perhaps it was because he and Azar shared a sense of solitude, even amid the bustling community of the traveling carnival. Perhaps it was that they shared something stronger, something that Victor had never been able to identify. But Victor felt a surprising kinship with the man.

Victor remembered the moment he first saw Azar-Diam, six months ago, when Azar's smooth stride carried him into the midst of the beehive activity of a tear-down. The carnival had finished a particularly strong week in Northern California, when Azar mysteriously appeared as if from nowhere.

His skeletally thin seven-foot frame seemed to float through the chaotic activity around him as if he were walking through a peaceful meadow. He walked up to Victor with a disarming smile on his face and inquired politely where he could find the proprietor of the carnival. Victor tried not to stare as he pointed to where Spike Lannigan, the owner of Lannigan's Land of Wonders, was supervising the transfer of the cats into their trucks.

Victor dropped the coils of rope he had been packing into a trailer and followed at a distance, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

Azar's appearance was no less remarkable than his magic. His long white hair was combed straight back from his broad forehead---a forehead nearly twice as high as Victor's own, made more unique by the walnut-sized lump in its center, as if Azar were growing another eye---to fall in thick banks around his shoulders. The man's eyes were like none Victor had ever seen, liquid and deep, of a blue so pale they were almost white. And Victor had stared into those strange eyes on many evenings since, as the two men talked and Victor drank, never to become accustomed to their penetrating gaze.

Azar-Diam found Spike and introduced himself with a bow. Spike muttered something around the butt of his cigar and turned away, yelling at a handler to be careful of Queenie, the show's biggest and most tempermental lioness.

Victor had been standing a stone's throw away, lighting a Lucky Strike, when the tall stranger gestured and Spike's cigar seemed to sprout wings and fly away. Victor watched the white dove that rose higher and higher in the air over Spike's gaping mouth until the match burned his fingers. Victor shook his hand, dropping the match, as the bird circled, banked, and flew away.

Spike hired Azar-Diam that day. And Azar's career took off like that fluttering dove. Azar's skills were nothing short of amazing. His feats staggered even the most jaded. No one knew how Azar performed his magic.

Victor's favorite had always been Azar's finale---a huge bird of fire that appeared from his long-fingered hands to soar in grand arcs around the main tent. The cheers were always the same---after a moment of stunned silence, the crowd would go wild. And Victor's voice was always among them, cheering as loudly as his lungs could manage.

Azar-Diam guarded his secrets as did any other magician. And Victor wasn't alone in suspecting that those secrets were darker and more terrifying than anyone knew---yet he was alone in his knowledge of Azar-Diam's alleged past.

After promising to keep it between them, Victor listened as Azar spoke of his home. Azar confessed more than once that he had exiled himself from a fabulous subterranean city, secret and ancient: Ilethelme, hidden in the heart of Mt. Shasta. Victor listened to the incredible stories of Azar's past, of a race of descendants of the fabled continent of Lemuria, and of the people who still existed within the mountain.

Victor learned of how the lure of the surface world had become too strong for Azar-Diam to resist, and of how the magician planned to return to his home someday with tales of the world beneath the sun.

He now stood, his spine cracking like dry kindling under his feet. He groped in the dark, found his faded denim pants and his worn steel-tipped boots, and hurriedly put them on. Victor found a shirt, but tossed it back to the pile of clothes on top of his trunk. The night was hot and humid, and there was an urgency in the air that seemed to pull him forward as he pushed through the flap door of his tent and into the night.

Sharp stars and a silver moon stared down, lighting his way. The sights and smells of the carnival surrounded him as he walked briskly in the direction of the magician's tent: the sights and smells of home. Victor Rasmussen, now twenty-two, had been with Lannigan for seven years, and he couldn't imagine any other life for himself now.

Victor had always been a wanderer and a loner, surviving the post-Depression years by his wits and by the strength God had given him.

People had come and gone through those years like ghosts. He kept contact with none of them, not even his own sister, the only family Victor could claim. Victor's father never returned from World War I, and his mother died of pneumonia while Victor was still in his teens. After his parents died, Victor quit school and began his travels, riding the rails across the country and learning about life the hard way: by living it. He had been passing through Buloxi when he saw the brightly colored peaks of Lannigan's tents in the distance, and he had hired on without ever looking back.

Victor's steps quickened as he circled the main tent toward Azar's tent. He waved off an invitation to a late-night crap game, where five boisterous roustabouts kneeled around a wooden table top set flat on the damp grass, tossing dice by the light of a lantern that was hung above them on a turnbuckle of guy-wire. Victor wondered if they would be playing later, on his way back. But there was no time now. He ran past them, nodding his thanks as he hurried by.

The dream-image of Azar-Diam seemed to hover ahead of him, urging him forward. There had been fear and pain in the magician's pale eyes. Terrible fear. Terrible pain.

The laces of his boots whipped his legs to the tempo of his steps. His breath deepened. He couldn't imagine what could possibly strike such fear into a heart as strong and brave as Azar-Diam's. Victor had always believed that the magician feared nothing. But he remembered those screams, and he couldn't deny that something had terrified the man.

He ran past the Gypsy wagon and the cook tent, barely avoiding the guy-ropes in the darkness. He squinted ahead. Azar's tent was open, the flaps hanging limply in the still air. A light shone from within, but Victor could see nothing silhouetted in that light. Victor ran full speed toward it, sure that the magician was close to death---though he couldn't tell himself how he could be so certain. The dream-message had given no details, but the expression on Azar's face had told him much.

Azar-Diam stood behind a long low table, dressed in the colorful robe he always wore. He held his arms out straight, as if he had been crucified to an invisible cross. His face was contorted in pain.

Victor stopped, his fists clenching. "I had a dream! Somehow I knew you were in trouble---Azar! What's happening?"

Victor's brow lowered. He followed Azar's eyes. On the table in front of him rested a neatly folded black velvet cloth. Victor could see from the way the velvet lay that there was a small object inside. He reached for it, snatching the velvet to unwrap it.

Victor watched the magician, unsure of what to do. He saw nothing attacking the man, yet Azar seemed to be beset by agonies that he could barely endure. "How can I---?"

"Listen! Azar spat through his tight jaws. "You can't save me---too late---for that now." He sucked a breath through his teeth, his eyes clamping shut. "I trust you, Victor." The last syllable became a long moan. "Take the Book. Protect the surface world from its power. No one must ever touch it. No one! Ever!"

The magician's answer made no sense. He spoke in a language Victor had never heard, then: "The spirits of the Book tricked me---controlled me in my sleep. Made me touch the Book---with my bare hands." He hissed again, shaking more violently. More words Victor couldn't understand stuttered from Azar-Diam's lips. The man moaned, shaking as if an electric current coursed through him. "Book---is a spell. Great power. Seven souls c-captured---to keep the Xian within the spell. S-soul freed if---a new one---is trapped to take its place---in the Circle of Souls."

Then the first wounds appeared. They looked like tooth-marks sinking slowly into the flesh of Azar-Diam's neck, but there was nothing visible to make them. Victor backed up a step as the wounds began to bleed.

Victor realized through a haze of horror that there had to be more than one invisible mouth to inflict so much damage. He swallowed hard, his eyes burning as he watched the unseen fangs sink into Azar's face.

Victor stood transfixed by the sight of Azar's state. He wondered if he were still dreaming as the invisible jaws continued to bite into the magician's body. Blood blossomed on his robe and ran from his face. Azar-Diam's eyes dimmed as Victor watched in a stasis of shock.

Victor wanted to tell Azar to fight, but he knew there was no way to fight that which could not be seen. Victor could almost feel the man's pain as the teeth tore into Azar-Diam again and again. Victor watched Azar's pale flesh shred until it had become a mass of dripping wounds. Finally, he had to look away.

"The B-book!" Victor heard in wet croaking tones. He turned back, wincing at the sight of Azar. The teeth were tearing him apart. Bone glared through the deeper wounds. The blood had slowed, draining from Azar's body in sluggish rivulets through the scores of bites.

Splashes of Azar's blood covered the table and the velvet cloth upon it. Victor didn't want to touch it, but reached forward, his hand shaking.

As Victor gripped the velvet-shrouded Book, Azar wheezed his last breath and fell. Victor snatched the Book away as the magician's body slammed onto the table. Azar's head hung, his life gone. Victor held the Book in both hands, wondering what to do. He knew he should take it far away and bury the thing where no one would ever find it.

Victor took the Book and left Azar's tent. No one had been attracted by the man's wails; the world outside was oblivious to the horrible scene he had just witnessed. He made his way back to his own tent, grieving the fate of Azar-Diam, hefting the surprising weight of the Book in his hand.

When he entered his tent and tied the flaps, he set the Book down carefully on his cot. He slowly lifted the velvet. The cover of the Book was gold, with characters etched onto its surface that were unreadable. He lifted the cloth farther and noticed the single jewel set into the center of the cover.

Using the velvet, he carefully opened the Book. Its pages, all twelve of them, were also of gold. And they, too, were covered with symbols that meant nothing to him.

Vague sensations crept over Victor as he looked at the cryptograms. He heard indistinct voices. He shivered with the impression that he was being watched. He shut the Book quickly, his eyes darting to the front of the tent.

He wanted to get rid of the thing. He saw himself standing on a high cliff, throwing the Book over the edge of it into misty depths below.

Victor rewrapped the Book carefully and placed it in his trunk. Sadness and fear twined his heart. He would honor his friend's last request. And he would never stop wondering what powers the Book concealed.