Walking the Labyrinth: Prologue Part Two

A young man with curly reddish-gold hair came into the room. He wore a capacious raincoat, though there had been no hint of rain that evening.

"Corrig!" several people called. He turned and grinned, showing the same gapped teeth as the rest. From his raincoat pockets he drew a bottle of champagne and several cut glass-goblets, and set them on the piano.

A woman brushed against Andrew. "Of course you'll have some," she said in a low voice. "You're our guest tonight."

Callen handed him a glass. The red-haired man popped the cork; it shot through the air and seemed to leave a purple trail behind it. He filled Andrew's glass.

Andrew took a sip, and then, surprised, sipped again. It was very good--he hadn't tasted anything as delicious in a long time.

"All right," he said. His notebook and pencil had somehow gotten back into his pocket He set the champagne glass down and took them out again. "When did you people start touring together?"

"Centuries ago, really," Thorne said "Well, not us of course, but our family."

"Ah," Andrew said. This was something he could use. He took another sip of champagne, then finished the glass and held it out for more. Corrig filled it to the brim. "So, your family has a tradition of performing."

The woman he had met in the green room came in the door. She still wore the green and silver kimono but the turban was gone and she had large black glasses, men's glasses, over her eyes.

"Thorne!" Callen said. "Come help us. This young man is asking us all sort of questions."

"Thorne?" Andrew said. "I thought you-" He turned to the woman with the cigarette. "I thought you were Thorne. Callen's sister, you said."

"I'm Callen's other sister," the woman said. "Fentrice."

A man carrying a trumpet followed Thorne into the room, then a woman with bells on her wrist and ankles. The small space was filling with people: a woman with a snake around her neck, a man leading a tiger. Andrew couldn't remember seeing that many on stage. Dozens of gold statues were propped up against each other in the corner; Andrew looked for the woman who had kissed him but couldn't find her anywhere. Someone was playing the piano, thumping the wooden top to keep the beat.

He turned, turned again. A woman smelling of jasmine and tobacco ran her scarf across his face, and for just a moment the room turned gauzy green, as if seen underwater. He pushed it aside and tried to focus but could only see fragments: coins, jewels, stars. Two women danced in front of him. A voice sang.

"Got a dog, got a cat,
Got a car, got a flat,
Got everything but you, my baaaby...."

Where was Callen? He pushed his way through the crowd, past people wearing headdresses of feathers, circlets of flowers. A man in clothing a century old gripped the hilt of a sword.

Ahead of him stood the red-haired man, Corrig, pouring from another bottle of champagne. Callen was talking earnestly to him. "Callen!" Andrew said.

"Ah, there you are," Callen said "Where did you go off to? Have some champagne."

Andrew took another glass, drank. When he looked up most of the crowd was gone; a single white feather floated through the air.

He cleared his throat. "How--how did you do that?" he asked.

"Trickery," Callen said.

"Illusion," Thorne said.

He turned. Where had Thorne come from? His notebook had gotten lost again. He patted his pocket, then looked up and saw Corrig holding it out to him. He took it, opened to the first page. It was filled with writing he couldn't read, eyes, triangles, suns. He turned to the middle.

"We've been touring all over," Callen said. "Boston, Philadelphia, Denver. Last month we were in England."

"England," Andrew wrote. He frowned. There had been something he had been about to ask but he couldn't remember what it was now.

He drank more champagne. The room seemed to contract down to the size of the glass in his hand; everything else was spinning around that one point. He looked up. The red-haired man was grinning at him.

The piano music started up again, joined by a trumpet and a clarinet this time.

"Devil take the car and flat,
Hang the dog and shoot the cat,
Don't want anything, babe, but you...."

It was an effort to move his head, to raise pencil to paper. He closed his eyes.

He woke up on the trolley home with no memory of having left the theatre. He got off at the stop nearest his apartment, climbed the stairs and fell into bed without taking off his clothes and shoes.

The sun coming through his window woke him the next morning. He cursed; his editor would be expecting his article. He groaned, sat up, and rubbed his forehead. If he was lucky he would have written some of it last night.