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hand!”
    He unrolled the canvas I had helped him tie up. Inside was a bundle of stakes longer than I am tall. Our task was to drive these stakes at intervals into the ground and attach the canvas to them, to enclose the carnival and thwart the curious locals who wished to see but not pay. Ungah chose a place on the perimeter of the lot and pushed the first stake into the soft ground. He set a small stepladder behind it and pressed the handle of a mallet into my hand.
    “Get up there and drive stake in,” he directed.
    I mounted the stepladder and gave the stake a tap.
    “Hit hard!” cried Ungah. “Is that your best?”
    “Mean you thus?” quoth I, swinging the mallet with full force. It came down with a crash, splintering the top of the stake and breaking the handle of the mallet.
    “Zevatas, Franda, and Heryx!” yelled Ungah. “Meant not to smash it to kindling. Now must fetch another mallet. Wait here!”
    One way or another, we got the canvas fence up. Meanwhile, the tents had been erected and the early confusion had subsided into an orderly bustle. Horses neighed, the camel gargled, the lion roared, and the other beasts made their proper noises. I asked: “Shall we put on a show tonight?”
    “Gods, no! Takes hours to get ready, and everybody too tired. We pass the morn in preparation and, if rain hold off, do one show. Then off on the road again.”
    “Wherefore pause we here so briefly?”
    “Evrodium too small. By tomorrow night, all marks with money have seen the performance, and game players be cleaned out. Stay longer means battle with the marks. No profit in that.” A gong sounded. “Dinner! Come along.”
    ###
    We were up with the dawn, readying the day’s performance. Bagardo came to see me.
    “O Zdim,” he said, “you shall be in the tent of monsters—”
    “Your pardon, master, but I am no monster! I am but a normal, healthy—”
    “Never mind! With us, you shall be a monster, and no back talk. Your wagon will form part of the wall of the tent, and the marks will move past it on the inner side. Ungah will be next to you. Since you occupy his cage, I’ll chain him to a post. Your task is to fright the marks with hideous roars and howls. Speak no words of Novarian. You’re not supposed to know how, you know.”
    “But sir, I not only speak it, I read and write— ”
    “Look here, demon, who’s running this circus? You shall do as told, like it or not.”
    And so it befell. The villagers turned out in mass. From my cage, I heard the cries of the gamesters and the rattle of their devices, the tunes of the musical band, and the general uproar. Bagardo, splendidly attired, ushered a host of marks in with a florid oration: “. . . and first on your right, messires and mesdames, you see Madam Paladné and her deadly serpents, captured at inconceivable risk in the reeking tropical jungles of Mulvan. The large one is clept a constrictor. Were it to seize you, it would wrap you round, crush you to a jelly, and swallow you whole . . . Next, messires and mesdames, is a demon from the Twelfth Plane, evoked by the great warlock, Arkanius of Phthai. I knew Arkanius; in fact, he was a dear friend.” Bagardo wiped his eyes with a kerchief. “But in evoking this blood-thirsty monster of supernatural strength and ferocity, he left a corner of his pentacle open, and the demon bit his head off.”
    Some of the audience gasped, and a few of the women uttered small shrieks. A mark, in a rustic accent I could scarcely understand, asked: “How didst that take him, then?”
    “Arkanius’ apprentice bravely cast a spell of immobility . . .”
    I was so fascinated by Bagardo’s account of my past that I forgot to roar until he scowled at me. Then I champed my jaws, hopped up and down, and did such other antics as seemed called for.
    Bagardo gave an equally fictional account of the capture of Ungah, who sat on the fought chained to a post, behind a railing to keep the marks at a safe distance from his