Ned’s Circus of Marvels: The Complete Collection

“He did mention something about ‘great plans’ when I was on the Daedalus …”

“As for all the secrecy, your dad held out on you for the same reason as Benissimo did. The less you knew, the more safe your cover. As you’ve seen first hand, Barbarossa will use unspeakable means to get what he wants, Ned … unspeakable.”

Ned felt the last of the numbness thaw and the wound in his heart reopen. “Nothing I know is real …”

“Your parents, Ned, they’re real,” grunted George kindly.

“Are they? You probably knew my mum. I expect half the troupe knew both my parents and the girl … Lucy, she’ll be like a daughter to her by now. But I don’t, George. I don’t know them, or this world they come from, or even what I am, not really … not any more.”

George sighed.

“That makes two of us, old chap, at least it did. I never knew my parents at all. And I’ve read every tome on every species on both sides of the Veil and I’m the only ‘me’ I know of.”

Ned looked up to see what might have been tears forming in the giant ape’s black eyes.

“But if this circus of oddities has taught me anything, dear boy, it’s that your family is who you say it is and that your home is where your heart beats loudest.”

Ned thought of his dad and how he’d lived on the run to keep him safe, missing his wife and pretending to be something he wasn’t. He thought of the old poster he’d seen of his mum, how pretty she’d looked, how alive. And then how different she’d sounded in the letter; how alone and how afraid.

“We don’t know what kind of dastardly pact Barba’s made with the Demons, Ned,” George continued, “but if the Veil falls and they fight for him, there will be no stopping them. Unless …”

The great ape looked over at Ned’s bunk.

“That picture frame over there. It was meant for a picture of your mother, wasn’t it?”

Ned nodded.

“And you mean to tell me, that now you know she’s alive, and with Lucy Beaumont, you’re going to lock yourself in this room and mope?”

Ned said nothing, feeling a rush of emotion as it all finally clicked into place. Barbarossa had crushed his parents’ bravery and stolen his childhood. And no matter what he’d claimed on his ship, the Darklings Ned had seen weren’t fighting for freedom. They fought because they liked to kill.

Whatever Barba’s plan, his parents, the world on both sides of the Veil, needed him to be so much more than average, more than Grittlesby and jam sandwiches. Now was his chance … why wasn’t he leaping on it?

“Waddlesworth or Armstrong, it makes no difference. Turning people is what that brute does best. There isn’t a man or monster that’s lasted even half as long as you did. You’re special. And you’re the next Engineer. Now, old boy, you get out there and prove it!”

The Amplification-Engine

Ned burst into Benissimo’s trailer, jabbering wildly.

“When you told me the blood-key was a way for us to unearth Lucy, you knew the ring was waiting for me, didn’t you?”

“I hoped—”

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Ned rushed on, “but where I’m from people earn each other’s trust by being truthful. You’ve been lying to me all along, about everything, and if I’m going to do this, then I need to trust you, so you’re going to not do that any more, right?”

For the first time since they’d met, Benissimo – fearless Ringmaster of the Circus of Marvels – was at a loss for words.

“And while I’m at it, every time you give me an order, like ‘stay in your bunk’ or ‘wait outside the shop’ or ‘go to your trailer’, someone tries to hurt or kidnap me. So from now on you’re going to stop treating me like a baby, right? Because … because I’m an Engineer. And I know you don’t think I’m up to it, but right now I’m the only one you’ve got!”

“Being an Engineer is much harder than just saying so, pup. You have to have what it takes.”

“Do you know what …” fumed Ned, feeling all the injustice of the last few days, of his life, rise up inside him, “your brother might well be the end of the world on legs, but at least he’s polite!” Ned was on a roll now, furious anger pouring out of him like molten lava. “And at least he doesn’t look like he’s got a rat strapped to his top lip!”

Benissimo raised his eyebrow. There was a long pause. Ned held his breath and wondered if he’d gone too far, until Benissimo broke into the first actual smile Ned had seen since the two of them had met.

“Why are you smiling?” Ned suddenly found himself annoyingly disarmed.

“Because that fire inside of you now, the one burning so brightly in your belly, is what I’ve been waiting to see since you joined us.”

“Oh … right.”

But Benissimo’s smile faded as quickly as it had appeared, and he furrowed his great brows. Ned had already worked out that it was the kind of furrow he liked to use when he was about to give a warning.

The Ringmaster got up and began pacing his trailer. “I know you think I’ve been harsh on you, Ned, but I’ve been around a very long time, and I’ve seen a lot of people I care about die, and the truth is … I’ve lost the stomach for it, and sending you in to do your father’s job just doesn’t feel right or fair. You weren’t even born our side of the Veil – whereas most of your predecessors have been, for many decades now. Your lack of size, age and training, it all counts against you … but there it is. Your father isn’t here, and time is pressing. Barba obviously knows about you now, making your father’s distraction attempts futile. So we’ve sent out word, but what we don’t know is whether the message will get to him in time, or even if it will find him at all. Maybe he’ll make it back to us, but maybe he won’t. But if he doesn’t … it’s all up to you.”

Ned sighed. “No pressure then.”

“The fact that your gift passes down the bloodline doesn’t guarantee success. The Engineers in your family don’t always ‘connect’ right with the ring. Even those older, more learned in the ways of Amplification. Sometimes it has to go to the nearest relative, a sister, brother, uncle or aunt, to pick up the reins. If things go wrong … you could wind up with even more loose screws than Kit-Kat, or six feet under in a pine box. Once bound to the wearer, the Engine cannot be removed, not until their final breath. Your forefathers have tried and failed.”

“Failed?”

“Died.”

“Right. And what about the ones that bonded OK?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Some became corrupt, ruined by their greed for power. Many died in the thrusts and parries of battle against the Darklings. Some led more ordinary lives, in quiet times, others did not. They say one simply vanished off the face of the earth. A whole Engineer, just up and evaporated. You may have noticed, Ned, but you don’t have any other relatives. Your bloodline just doesn’t seem to last.”

“So not the best odds for survival?”

“Not the best, no, but despite my concerns, it seems there is something about you, something that Kitty saw in you when you first came to us, the very same thing that made you work that red button aboard my Marilyn, and stand up to Barbarossa where countless others have failed. Your dad also thought that you could do this …”

And Ned realised he was right. His dad had believed in him, even if Benissimo was still unsure.

“There’s one more thing,” continued the Ringmaster.

Ned wondered how there could possibly be anything else.

“If my brother manages to find and kill Lucy, the Veil cannot be saved. The same could be said for you and your dad, but for some reason my brother wants you alive, and is getting information about you from a source which I can only assume is within our circle. Miz and I have turned over every bunk and trailer a hundred times looking for the culprit, but we can’t find them, or work out how the messages are getting out. If you succeed in bonding with your ring, Ned, his spies will send their whispers, and when they do, he’ll come after you again, but this time with everything he’s got. The question is, are you up to it? Are you man enough to face whatever he sends us? To do what needs to be done?”

Just the thought of Barbarossa made Ned shudder. But the Waddlesworths or Armstrongs or whatever they were had done more than enough running. He might not be man enough, or even really boy enough, but he was certainly going to try.

“Let’s make a start tonight.”

The Ringmaster half-smiled. “Welcome to the circus, my boy.”

***

When Ned and Whiskers got to the infirmary, Kitty was sat at her desk in a particularly bright pink outfit, writing swiftly on pieces of parchment, one after the other. She was not alone. At her feet were the strangest assortment of creatures Ned had ever seen. They were green, very small and partly transparent blobs but with bright glowing eyes, warm, smiling faces and short stubby limbs. One had little wings that beat away furiously, another was short and stout with at least eight eyes, another had a mouth as wide as its waist. Like Kitty, they were writing on pieces of parchment, matching the speed and movement of her hands perfectly, as if joined by invisible thread. When they heard Ned enter, they squealed, changing colour from green, to yellow, to bright orange, before running behind the Farseer’s legs. Whiskers squeaked at them distrustfully from his perch on Ned’s shoulder, his fur on end, as though he’d been plugged into a wall socket.

“What … are … those?”

“Good evening to you too, dearie. These are my familiars, and be nice, please, you’re scaring them.”

“But what are familiars?” asked Ned, bending down for a better look.

“Good spirits are the closest thing that might make any sense, dearie, though they’re not human in origin. Familiars are, to the witching kind, friends, butlers, protectors and mischief-makers. Though I’d call this little lot of lemon-drops my family. You can come out now, boys, Ned’s one of us.”

One by one, the little creatures crept out from their cover.

“That’s better. Now Ned, this is Frimshaw, Hookscarp, Orazal and Groir.”

Each one bowed in turn, their colours changing to placid blues and washes of green. At the back of the infirmary, what Ned had thought was a shadow, started to move.

“Oh, and that’s Gorrn, don’t mind him,” whispered Kitty, “he’s a little shy on account of being so large and … colourless.”

Ned’s mouse still hadn’t moved a single hair, and his tail was sticking out as straight as a pin.

“All right, Whiskers, you can stand down now,” said Ned, and the little mouse scurried from his shoulder, down his leg and on to his foot, keeping his eyes firmly on the familiars as he went. “Were they with you on the Daedalus?”

“Oh no, my little lamb. I was taken in my sleep. Familiars only cross over to our realm when we’re awake. They can appear wherever we are, but only if they know where that is. Poor mites couldn’t find me.”

Whilst they worked, Whiskers sat with Ned and eyed the little creatures suspiciously. They helped Kitty prepare the last of her parchments before burning them and sprinkling the ashes around a chair at the centre of the infirmary.

Next, Frimshaw and Hookscarp poured rice wine vinegar around the room’s perimeter, before the others scattered M&M chocolates. Apparently M&M’s could befuddle an intruder’s mind, especially the red ones.

“What’s all that for?”

“A little insurance.”

“Insurance against what?” asked Ned, who was already dreading the answer.

“During the bonding process, part of you will be in the Shades. It’s the place we go to between asleep and awake,” explained Kitty.

“Is that how Barbarossa talked to me in my dreams? When we were on the Daedalus.”

“Exactly. Unfortunately for us, not everyone the butcher employs is from the outer world or the Veiled. Some inhabit the Shades. A bargeist is what happens when you mix a dead Darkling with the blood of a Demon. Sar-adin owns one. Like my boys here, bargeists can cross over from the Shades if they have your scent, and I’m fairly sure that after our stay on the Daedalus, his beast would have both of ours. Best to just keep your eyes closed. You can only see them when you’re scared, and if you do see one, you will be. Not very nice, let me tell you. But quite containable, if you know the way of it.”

“So you think once I put this ring on you might be able to help me find Lucy?”

“Most certainly, dear. I saw a link between the two of you when I first read your mind. Every generation of Engineer and Medic have a connection, which is magnified even further when they both come to bear their rings. Your father could work with Lucy – but it’s you two who are meant to be as one. After tonight, and a little time spent with your Engine, we shall have our first real chance at finding her.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Enter,” said Kitty.

They were joined by the Ringmaster and the Tinker, along with what looked like roughly half of his lab. Ned caught a glimpse of George pacing anxiously outside on all fours, muscles rippling beneath black fur, before the door closed behind them. Benissimo motioned for Ned to sit in the central chair, and handed over his ring.

“Well, my boy, if you think you’re ready, here it is. The moment of truth.”

Ned perched Whiskers back up on his shoulder. If he really was going to carry the weight of the world up there, then he would do so with his mouse at his side.

The Tinker got out a magnifying glass and held it up to the ring for Ned to see.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered.

And it was. Under the lens, Ned could see that what had appeared to be solid metal was in fact made from thousands of tiny strands. More astonishingly, they looked like they were moving, some together, others in different directions, forming shapes and patterns that constantly evolved from one thing to another. It was like looking at a kaleidoscope of moving metal.

“It looks like it’s … alive,” said Ned, admiring the patterns and the workmanship.

“Indeed,” replied the Tinker. “The folk that made it are no longer with us. So although we think the Source may use similar technology, the truth is, no one really knows, sir. We don’t even know what it’s made of; not exactly.”

“Kit-Kat, some privacy if you will?” said Benissimo, who was now impatiently twisting the end of his moustache.

Kitty mumbled something unintelligible, took a small black pebble from her pocket, and swallowed it. A mushroom of darkness blew up over their heads, so that they appeared to be under a perfectly black dome. The outer world, for all intents and purposes, had gone.

“Well, dear,” she asked, “are you ready?”

Ned took a deep breath, and put on the ring.

At first nothing happened. Then, ever so faintly, he felt an itching sensation on his finger, just where it touched the metal. The itching grew stronger and was followed by a little heat. He closed his eyes. Somewhere on a microscopic level, the ring was trying to connect with him. He could feel it. Its thousands of little live wires were literally burrowing into the pores of his skin. In no time at all, the faint itching became a burning.

Whiskers squeaked in mouse alarm and Ned opened his eyes and looked down at the ring. Hundreds upon hundreds of tiny metal wires were growing out of it. They moved like snakes – up his hand, his arm – becoming longer and longer till they reached his forearm.

“Err, g-guys, are you sure this is supposed to happen?” he stammered.

“Oh don’t worry, Ned, apparently your dad asked exactly the same thing!” grinned Kitty, who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle enormously.

“Twenty-eight percent connectivity and rising,” read the Tinker from his dials.

The wires started to twist their way up his arm. They were making a kind of pattern, like a giant loom stitching together cloth, only they were stitching themselves into Ned’s skin. The heat intensified and he had to hold back the urge to yell.

“Stay steady, pup, you’re doing just fine,” said Benissimo sternly.

But Ned did not feel fine, or steady. It was then that he had the feeling that someone else had entered the room. Ned heard a kind of growling, and the chattering of teeth, followed by paws padding across the floor behind him. He looked around, but could see nothing, so said nothing.

“Forty-six percent,” announced the Tinker.

“Guys, this is getting pretty weird,” said Ned.

“We’ll deal with the weird. Just focus on the ring,” barked back Benissimo.

But Ned still felt like something was horribly wrong. He heard a pained howl, and looked down and saw pawprints in the ash. Clearly they had an uninvited guest – Kitty’s first line of defence had slowed the bargeist, but not stopped it. He was about to say something when there was a sudden stabbing pain in his arm as the wires tightened their grip.

“Ow!” he spat through gritted teeth.

“The ring wants your undivided attention, dearie,” trilled Kitty.

“Sixty-two percent.”

His arm HURT. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the ring. But the bargeist had tiptoed over the vinegar and was now on the M&M’s. He could hear its horrid grunts as it gorged on the chocolates. It then occurred to him that Kitty hadn’t told him what would happen if it made it past her defences.

“Seventy-three percent, and … ahem, vital signs are … oh, that is strange …” said the Tinker nervously.

The ring’s wires crept further and further up his arm, under his T-shirt and around his neck.

“I don’t know if I’m enjoying this very much,” Ned hissed anxiously.

“Eighty-eight percent.”

“Don’t open your eyes, dearie, it can’t hurt you if you can’t see it,” chimed the witch cheerfully.

When he was a much younger boy, that logic might have worked with Ned. But not today, and certainly not now. There were angry snarls as the bargeist tried to break through the ash ring.

Whiskers squeaked furiously as the wires at Ned’s throat snapped tight, and burned. He tried to yell, but he had no voice.

“Ninety-five percent. Readings are not good, Bene. He can’t take much more of this!” yelled the Tinker.

The snarling suddenly stopped, and he felt the little footsteps of his mouse running down his back and heading for cover. Ned hoped for a moment that the thing had gone too till there was a horrid breathing noise and what sounded like the licking of lips. Ned snapped open his eyes and saw two long fangs floating in the air beside him. The more scared he became, the more of the bargeist he could see – teeth, lips pulled back, and then a blackened lolling tongue. The wires burned and tightened and the world started to spin into darkness.

“QUICKLY, KITTY!” ordered Benissimo.

“Gorrn, Groir … Now, please, my loves, be done with it.”

And with that, two of her familiars sprang out from hiding and lunged at the unsuspecting beast.

“Ninety-nine percent … his vitals, Kitty!”

Ned felt himself fall without moving, his friends, family, mission simply ceasing to be important. Overwhelming pain, unlike any other, shot through his arm, and from somewhere deep in the vast folds of the Shades, he felt a great, empty Darkness, longing to be free.

It watched without eyes and spoke without lips.

“Ned.”

“NED.”

“NEDNEDNEDNED …”

A hungry cacophony of hisses, mumbles and whispers, all calling his name, exploded in his mind.

“Ned?” called out Benissimo. “Can you hear us?”

“Something’s wrong … we’re losing him!” shrieked the Tinker.

“DO SOMETHING!” roared Benissimo, grabbing on to Ned’s shoulders and shaking him.

From somewhere beyond them all, somebody did indeed do something. In the midst of the blackness, Ned saw a pinprick of light, and felt an echo of a thought, a glimmer of a notion … that was not his own. He saw the girl’s hands first, and in them he saw a flower.

The Darkness did not like the flower.

French Steel

Everything seemed to move slowly and all to the pounding beat of his heart. That was, until his heart stopped. He did not notice George tearing Kitty’s door from its hinges, after she’d lowered the black-domed barrier. He was not aware of how close the Darkness had come to taking him, nor did he know how hard the Farseer had fought to stop it. The only thing he remembered clearly was the notion of a girl holding a flower, that and a room raw with shouting before George’s great arms carried him back to his bunk.

Much later, when Ned woke, the thought of the terrible voice and the girl who had reached out to him were still fresh in his mind. The voice had been ancient and frightening. Different again to the one aboard Barbarossa’s ship. But if not Barbarossa then who or what was it? He decided to say nothing about it, at least until he had a better understanding of what it meant. As for the girl, it must have been Lucy Beaumont. Kitty had been right – as soon as he’d bonded with the ring, their connection had come alive. He switched on his sidelight and studied his hand. The band of metal looked quite normal. From the outside you couldn’t tell that it was connected to him through the pores of his skin, as much a part of his nervous system now as the hand that carried it. He’d survived the bonding. Ned had become an Engineer, just like his father before him. It was at this precise moment that he felt something he had never felt before. Ned felt special.

“Well this is weird, Whiskers,” he whispered, but his Debussy Mark 12 was pretending to be asleep. “Oh and yeah, I’m fine, thanks pal,” he added, which was when his mouse turned over and started to snore.

Ned left Whiskers ‘recharging’. He was met outside by Monsieur Couteau who was waiting in full fencing gear, rapier in hand, with his customary expression of French severity.

“Monsieur Neede, follow me.”

“It’s actually Ned, Mister Couteau.”

“Swish! swish!” said Couteau, as the tip of his blade did just that in front of Ned’s nose.

“Monsieur Couteau, if you please, Neede.”

Ned had had little to do with the man since their run in with Barbarossa in Shalazaar, but had heard from the others that he took his job and the Ringmaster’s orders extremely seriously.

“Er, yes Monsieur Couteau,” replied Ned now, eyes fixed on the rapier’s tip, only inches from his nose.

With Ned’s new status as an Engineer, Benissimo had evidently given the French Master at Arms instructions to begin his battle training immediately. Having Ned taken again, by whatever means, was not an option. He needed to be ready for anything.

Couteau led them over to the big top, where Finn was wrestling with a level two tiptoe – a slim, grey-skinned, oily-looking creature that reminded Ned of something between a snake and a frog. He’d caught it giving nightmares to young children throughout the Italian countryside. The tracker was about to demonstrate how best to deal with the nuisance when Couteau dismissed the gathering for his one-on-one session with Ned.

One of the younger Tortellini boys smiled at Ned on his way out. “Good luck,” he said, as Ned realised that the smile had actually been more of a knowing smirk.