The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus & His Traveling Circus by Clive Barker

Author:Clive Barker [Barker, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2012-11-13T10:35:04+00:00

HOW MR. MAXIMILLIAN BACCHUS' TRAVELLING CIRCUS

REACHED CATHAY,

AND ENTERTAINED

THE COURT OF THE KHAN CALLED KUBLAI

HOW THEY SOUGHT

THE BEARDED BIRD,

and how, at last, Angelo was lost

~ * ~

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to sunless sea."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This is the final story about Mr. Bacchus and his Travelling Circus, and the journey to Cathay in Asia the Deep, and it concerns how they finally reached that fabled country, and entertained the court of the Khan called Kublai in Xanadu, how they sought the bearded bird in the measureless caves, and how, at last, Angelo was lost.

Having left the town perched at the World's Edge far behind them, Mr. Bacchus and his Travelling Circus had crossed the Himalayas, pausing for a day to stand and hear the Yeti sing, and the road to Cathay no longer twisted like a snake on a forked twig, but led, straight as lines on Mr. Bacchus' palm, to another range of mountains. Iron-grey and foreboding, they rose before the tiny caravan as it rattled along the narrow road, their needle points piercing the pale winter sky. To either side of the road the landscape was changing. Through the windows of the caravan misty scenes appeared, one upon another, water-logged rice-fields, with back-clothes of dark trees and mountains; forests of bamboo, masking helmeted warriors on black, snorting horses; smoke-wreathed temples guarded by squatting stone lions with wide jade eyes; and bridges over somber rivulets that bore the last yellow aspen leaves to the salt sea.

The people who passed the caravan on the road moved slowly, as if in a dream, their robes rising behind them in the wind. Once or twice, a troop of soldiers galloped up the road and past the caravan, on towards Xanadu, their mirror-shields glinting in the December light. But nobody attempted to stop the Circus, and Angelo drove Thoth on past the temples and the bridges and the fields, towards the mountains. Gradually, as they left the flat landscape behind them and drove through a pass leading up to the cloud-draped pinnacles, it became colder, and sharp flakes of snow appeared in the wind.

"Well," commented Malachi, "If this is the kind of weather we can expect in Xanadu, I suggest we turn back."

"Within Xanadu," replied Mr. Bacchus, "there is always light and warmth—even though the clouds that hang about the towers forever hide the sun."

"How's that possible?" said Hero

"Ah," said Mr. Bacchus. "The Khan called Kublai is a man of great wisdom. He devised a rocket, which flew up to the sun and broke a piece off. Now they keep the fragment in the palace of Xanadu, to provide eternal day."

"Rubbish," cried Malachi. "Credulous rubbish!"

"And why is that, crocodile?" asked Mr. Bacchus, testily.

"Because," said Malachi with a grimace, "it was proven by the Pharaoh Akenaten that the sun is a golden eye burning in the Heaven, and if anything were to go near it, it would be reduced to smoking ashes within the space of aria.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.