Ravenloft: Carnival of Fear by J. Robert King

Author:J. Robert King [King, J. Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-5607-6628-5
Publisher: Fanversion Publishing
Published: 2016-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Word of Morcastle’s murder and his ignominious burial spread through the rest of Carnival l’Morai that day. By evening, extra lamps were posted in the buzzing Performers Quarter, and doors to dressing caravans were tightly locked. Despite the normal flow of patrons, the boardwalks and sideshows were quiet. Watchful workers stalked the carnival, their belts bulging with unaccustomed daggers.

The refectory tent was the single noisy place in the carnival, burgeoning with performers who sought refuge in its lights and crowds and thousand eyes. What laughter came from the packed tables was loud and edged in anger, as though the performers could use sheer volume to keep the killer at bay.

Everywhere, in the refectory and on the boardwalk, fear hung in the air like thin smoke. And, as though summoned by that very fear, the next horror arose.

“He’s down here,” the man-giant said. He gestured toward the sideshow and shot a nervous, sidelong glance toward Marie. Although she clung to his hand and strode beside him, she fell farther behind with each step. Hermos studied her determined little face and clenched his jaw, curbing the impulse to sweep her up and carry her like a child down the sawdust-strewn path.

“Only a little farther,” he blurted for the fourth time.

Marie shook her head and muttered breathlessly, “You drag; I’ll follow.”

Hermos nodded. They rounded a crowded corner of the carnival, and forced their way through the milling throng. Beyond lay a lamplit lane of shops and stalls: a clairvoyant, an ale master, a tattooist, a salve-seller, a confectioner… . They reached the sideshows, a series of stalls set behind a wall of canvas. The inmates of the show were depicted in vivid paints on the canvas wall: the leopard boy, the calf-headed woman, the midget circus, the dwarves of Helms Deep, the goiter man.…

“He’s in here,” Hermos said, bypassing the hawker who fronted the sideshow. They wormed around a dozen patron-crowded stalls before Hermos came to a stop.

“What is it?” Marie asked. “Who is it?”

“It’s him,” Hermos replied, staring at the man on display before him. “The butcher, Dominick.”

Marie’s hand tightened on the man-giant’s arm. “He’s escaped?”

“No,” Hermos replied. “He’s one of us now.”

Dominick sat before them on a crate, but he was no longer the cocky, fearless monster that had stabbed Hermos in the seer’s tent. He was not the nine-fingered killer who had slain Panol and Banol, and Borgo the Sword-Swallower.

Dominick had changed. Gleaming metal blades jutted from his body everywhere. From the crown of his shoulders down to his bruised and inward-turning feet, the butcher’s naked body prickled with blades—long razors, jag-toothed saws, blocky cleavers, curved knives, glistening shears, stilettos… . Hundreds of them emerged from his skin, as though an army inside him were cutting its way out.

“Fabulous Karrick, the Man of a Thousand Knives…” shouted a runty hawker. The man stood on a ragged crate and gestured toward the butcher. “The only man in the world who can grow knives out of his very body….”

Marie winced, as though struck across the face by a fist, and she clutched Hermos’s hand.

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