Duality by Rowan Erlking (classic books for 13 year olds txt) 📕

Bernum rushed back to the circus with all the haste his aching feet could muster. He didn’t exactly know where the performers slept, but he needed to break into private quarters that night to start some negotiations. Omoni’s amphitheater had a larger upper wall that Bernum thought might contain rooms. If his guess was right, those rooms probably housed those foreigners, since Omoni would want to keep a close eye on his investments.

Near the back curtains, Bernum spied three local sweepers with their brooms, pushing out peanut shells along with seed casings the crowds had dropped in the stands. Someone was hosing down the concrete steps, calling to the others to hurry up. Bernum crept behind the dust bins then looked up at the narrow windows in the stucco face. They were starting to light up with whiffs of perfumed smoke blowing out. Someone was up there. He just hoped it was whom he was looking for.

“Alright!” A sweeper stamped his feet through the door, dumping another pan full into the dust bin. “I’ll do it, but don’t you start with that stuff about me not doing my share. I’ve had it with you acting like I haven’t been working as hard as you do. I clean up after those animals when you are flirting with the dancing girls. I’ve seen you.” He stomped back, swinging his pale as if he would swat the person he was talking to with it. “Just because I’m not going around bending over for every tiny piece of trash doesn’t mean I’m not working….”

 Bernum smothered a cough, peering at the ashes that still lifted into the air, then he slipped right behind the sweeper, stooping low with hushed feet to keep behind him without being seen. He followed the man in only as far as the bales of hay. Then Bernum crouched on all fours, squeezing between the stack and the tent wall. He rolled under the tent flap into the now dark amphitheater where most of the footfalls were distant. Everyone had gone home.

Keeping an eye out for the guard while crawling up off one knee then the other, Bernum remained in the shadows. There were plenty of them with the lamps out, so all he had to do was make sure his feet didn’t give off any noise when he walked. The exit on the other side of the ring was close to the stone stairs that Bernum was sure would take him up into the living quarters. Heading directly to them, he listened for anything that stirred.

Those were the longest twenty yards he ever had to cross.

His foot rested on the first step without so much as a pat. Bernum walked on the balls of his feet, carrying himself upward five steps before he met the switchback that took him yet another five steps. Pausing on the landing, Bernum craned his neck, listening. There were some more calls from the sweepers who were now carrying out the trash cans. The metal bottoms of the cans scraped off the floor as they heaved them up. One worker cursed, dropping it on his toe. Then he shouted out.

Holding his breath, Bernum rushed up the next five steps, halting at an open doorway. The curtains in it were apart enough to let light into the stairwell. He could see the open wood floor of an eating hall, mostly empty. Inside it, he saw that squashed, short clown with two of the other clowns—though those two were dead drunk, slumped against the tables.

“What you do here?” the little man snapped, marching towards Bernum with a hop from his seat.

Bernum slipped into the room and pulled the curtains closed, sticking a finger across his mouth. “Shh! Merchant Omoni doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Well, you not must be here!” The little man stamped his foot, now searching about for the others. “You must be get our papers!”

Looking around also, Bernum cringed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Look.” He shoved the little clown back, moving further from the doorway. “I need to talk to that wizard of yours. Do you know how to get in contact with him?”

Blinking, the little man then stamped on Bernum’s foot with his booted heel. He ran off.

“You not get. I no help you!”

Bernum limped, clenching his toes with a whimper. He watched the little man scurry back through the curtains, going up the stairs. Frowning, Bernum realized he had no choice. He had to face those warriors, assassins, and demons again. Though he didn’t want to be in an enclosed space with those folk for any length of time, they really gave him no other option. He followed the clown with a stumbling hop back to the stairwell, leaving the other two snoring in their ale.

It was only one more flight of stairs. The switchbacks halted at another curtained doorway, this one closed, though Bernum could see through it a little due to the glowing hearth fire and candles. Beads kept the curtain from blowing open, yet it swayed with indication that the little man had been there. Taking a breath, Bernum pressed his back against the wall, looked to the right, and rapped on the side of the doorway.

“Hello? Can I come in?”

Two daggers flew out, striking the far stairwell wall. There were two breezy slices in the curtain now.

Someone cackled inside.

Slumping, Bernum called in again, “I know you think this is funny, but I don’t have time to mess with you right now. I have something I want to discuss.”

“Go away, Magician!”

It was a Perri accent he heard. Bernum frowned. He hadn’t really spoken to any in the crew except the Blue Lord and the KiTai warriess. He wondered if they were even there.

Drawing in a breath he said, not even moving into the opening, “Look. I have an idea on how I can get those documents you wanted. But you have to trust me.”

“Why should we trust you?” The Blue Lord suddenly seized Bernum by the shirt while coming up the stairs, and dragged him into the room. “You have not kept your word at all. You are good-for-nothing.”

The red warrior walked up right behind him. Her piercing pale-green eyes said the same thing.

Stumbling into the room, Bernum’s hate ward forced the Blue Lord to let go of the corner of his shirt once he straightened up.

Bernum stepped even further from the demon, dusting himself off, at least his front. “Just hear me out. Ok? My situation has changed a little.”

“What kind of change?” the warriess asked, her lips puckering with a mocking twist. “That merchant figured you out?”

Bernum made a face at her. “No. But I just met someone that might make things better for us. I don’t know if Malkia told you, but she summoned a demon to handle the merchant. And—”

The circus performers broke into snickers. Some openly mocked him with curses in their foreign languages as they snorted and stomped their feet.

“You moron.” The warriess snorted the loudest, walking over to the winged ‘man’ with white and black hair. “If a demon could get us out of this mess then we would be long gone from here already.”

Nodding as his cheeks grew hot, Bernum said with an impatient glance to the doorway then to the Blue Lord’s glowing eyes, “Yes, I understand that. But this demon is different. I just met him and—”

“What? You trust him more than us?” the KiTai woman snapped.

The Blue Lord drew up his chest, heaving breaths with clenching fingers. His feet shifted with an ache to tromp on Bernum.

Rolling his eyes, Bernum opened his mouth to say the demon was a magister. But before he could, a thump sounded on the windowsill and one of the candles next to it blew out.

Everyone looked up, including the drunk performers hunched over in their cots, their heads wobbling like dolls’. Bernum recognized the dark cloak that swished in. Relaxing, he marched over to the window as the straw-haired white man pulled the hood off his head and hopped inside. “Don’t you use doors?”

Every conscious circus performer sprang back, pulling their arms in, hands on weapons.

Jonis shrugged, taking another step down to get comfortably inside. “The window worked.” He then looked to the crowd that filled the room. “These are the performers, huh? So, who’s going to help us?”

With a shout, the Blue Lord tromped forward, heaving his sword out of his sheath and bringing it down on both Bernum and Jonis.

But the blade never touched skin. Though all Bernum could do was duck with the hope his hate ward would save him, he didn’t even feel the weight of the impact.

Blinking one eye open, his eyes set on the broad blade Jonis had been carrying on his back, now held just five inches from his face, braced up against the Blue Lord’s curved sword. Metal scraped against metal. Bernum ducked back farther.

“This is what you negotiated with to help you?” the Blue Lord shouted at Bernum over his sword. “A Cordril?”

Straightening up, Bernum backed away from the pair even more, blinking at Jonis’s straining shoulder muscles, then at the equally intimidating Blue Lord’s taut neck and arms. As he backed further, he said, “He’s no different from you, Blue Lord.”

“Blue Lord?” Jonis glanced back over his shoulder, his boyish expression puzzled only.

“His kind slaughtered my ancestors!” The Blue Lord shoved off Jonis. He then backed away to take another hack at the young Cordril soldier.

Bernum glanced once more at Jonis before saying to the dark skinned, blue-eyed warrior from the south, “I thought you said you weren’t a Sky Child.”

Growling, the Blue Lord stomped around to spar with the white demon again. The others darted out of his way, scattering to the walls where they perched, anticipating the outcome.

“I’m not!” The Blue Lord then charged.

Jonis swung around. He deflected the weapon almost as if he were dancing. That cloak of his swirled out like a skirt.

Shoving back, Jonis said, “Well, I’m confused. You’re scared of me, but you say you aren’t a Sky Child. Either you are or—” Jonis blocked another strike, throwing it off hard. “Oh, for pity’s sake! I don’t have time to play. Bernum, are these the performers we needed to talk to?”

Bernum was too stunned to answer, watching them both.

The Blue Lord swung in again.

This time Jonis banged the southern weapon away as if he’d take the Blue Lord’s head with it—yet his sword point hardly grazed the blue-eyed demon’s chin. With a leap, Jonis smacked the Blue Lord’s sword hand to the side then grabbed the southern demon’s face with his long white fingers.

Everyone heard the crackles as their skin connected. Blue-white sparks rippled between them. Both pairs of eyes connected as if they suddenly were of one thought.

Then Jonis let go.

The sparks snapped off with a crack. Jonis stroked his hand with a cringe, backing next to Bernum again. His eyes remained on his opponent.

Motionless for nearly a minute, the Blue Lord then lifted his eyes—but he no longer raised his sword. He blinked once at Jonis then he looked to Bernum.

The Blue Lord bowed to him. “My apologies. I had no idea.”

Bernum blinked. He looked to Jonis who was still breathing hard. Jonis did not