The stars: twinkling knives waiting for you in a galactic closet. That great spotlight, Luna, casting a pallor on the desert valley below.

My Stallion swallowed pavement with its glowing maw, demon-core engine drilling loudly through the murk.

A sharp curving road leads you to a vista: chaparral valley cutting askew through hills below. The carnival was nestled there in that valley, an amphibian nest riddled with tiny glowing rainbow eggs.

My grip tightened on the wheel, eyes roaming on me in the rearview, pushing me, goading me. A hobgoblin who with each passing day I knew less and less and yet had always been there with me. Perhaps a strange form of amnesia. I passed bits of memory to these new eyes like a sycophantic painter displaying labored canvas to a would be patron. Some he detested, scoffed, others he relished, pulsed with lusty madness.

There is no good. There is no evil. There is only glory.

So the book The Red Prince said.

That he liked most of all.

My Stallion's engine crackled toward cold as I stepped out onto desert, its hard pan and shrub, its moon lizards skittering into crevices. I’d parked in a rocky alcove off a lonely dirt road, the carnival lights not a mile further down.

I joined the procession of lively silhouettes walking from rows of cars and trailers and motor caravans and trucks and tented wagon engines, this giant herd of vehicles arranged in a radial band half enclosing a dirt lot the size of a town made up of a dizzying swath of festive lights and games and booths and tents. That heart of the festival looked like an enormous shanty town thrown up by omnipotent street urchins. I paced through the rainbow of tents, long rows of rusty framed booths rimmed with exotic clothing and jewelry and toys and decor and knick knacks and plants, the odors of elaborate cuisines and their sizzle, a ferris wheel spinning like a strange machine mining the earth for candy, other machinery towering, glowing with festive bulbs outlining their artistic edges (a bat winged colossus, a hand holding an enormous bottle of wine, a dozen rides in various intricate shapes, one a caterpillar, another a fixed tumbling box), a huge crowd corralled around a stage where some bards were lit by lanterns synchronized to the playing of their raucous ear blasting metal instruments and the thrashing of their long hair—chn chn chnchnchn ya got me baby ya got me, devoured bloody devoured—above me: the swooshing laughter of riders and rattle of their enchanted bicycles and the buzzing of the enormous artifact dragonflies they chased, or chased them—they flew and looped too fast to tell.

This festival’s throngs looked like drugged families milling about clownish barns and surreal tents. It was mostly peoples of the night. Gaunt humies, beardies too, but the ones from deep underground, skin lapiz lazuli and shale. Tieflings with their demon horns and ashy skin, scurrying gnomes, charcoal Arborreans striding on tree trunk legs, a slithering Naga in the distance, skittering Kobolds. Notorious dark elves too. Night people of every kind.

Hands in my jacket, I kept wandering among the shadowy crowd, taking measure of the place.

That pulling sensation of being watched.

My eyes flicking: a shadow gliding behind a booth’s string lights.

Paranoia perhaps.

“Come see Tubo, the strongest gnome on Hybrid Earth!” A gangly mal in a top hat and curled mustache shouted to onlookers. I dropped a few silver into the ticket machine, and went inside this frame of beams with a huge tarp over it, crystal lanterns ringing its conal cavity. Gawking admirers sat on wooden bleachers. In the center was a gnome balancing a thick metal pole on one arm. At the top of this pole was a big wood platform, and on top of this platform was a flogging elephantis, looking like a shy kid being presented at her birthday party. Skimpy chelanas in dark stockings were asking for an audience volunteer to climb on, to show it was no illusion.

I walked out of that tent back into the milling crowd outside, still curious how they were pulling off the strong mal act. I didn't see the characteristic subtle buoyancy of telekinesis (nor felt its subtle mental pressure in the air), and the gnome’s limbs didn’t seem flush with sudden uncanny biomanced strength. A very powerful potion or enchantment, both long term, that might do it. Or god blood perhaps.

A haggard looking fortune teller with a bandana and far too much pasty makeup leaned over her wooden booth table, gave me the wild-eyed stare of the homeless. “Heyp! Heyp! I won't just tell you your fortune young mal, I'll change it!”

A tent maze that upon entering, looked so elaborate all it promised was tedium. People laughing and splashing as they tried to run on barrels floating in an enchanted waterfall replica of some kind. Two drunk fems arguing over a giant toy bear. A circle of people sitting on cushions and sharing a hookah pipe. Dead ends.

I stepped up to a slovenly Satyr hosting a dart booth. “How much to play?”

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“30 silver for three darts.” He scratched his goatee with the ease of someone reading in bed. “Anything on the outer rim gets you a keychain, one on the inner one gets you one of these car dice. Bullseye gets a prize from the second row, 3 bullseyes gets you 300 silver or a prize from the top row.”

“I'll try not to run you out of business,” I joked.

He spun the wheel. I threw the darts one by one. Two on the outer rim and one, with all my concentration, on the inner one.

“You got a prize.” He handed me the fuzzy car dice.

“That's swell. By the way, I was told that a fellow named Grivonne runs this place. You know where I could find him?”

“Wuh. Well.” Two blinks snapped him out of his lassitude. “Who are you with?”

“Myself. I'm just thinking maybe I’ll join up. Live the carney life.”

“Yeah I don't know. If you don't mind fella. I got a line.”

I thought about snidely pointing out the misting fan by his cloven hooves, but instead walked away and let the line keep moving. The fan was a mundane artifact that blew an invisible vapor, made the booth like a desert mirage, made it almost impossible to aim right—almost. Concentration surged. My fingers scooped a pebble off the ground, my elbow flicked like I was giving the world’s fastest 90 degree salute. The pebble smacked right on the bullseye, left the goateed Satyr gawking.

Sometimes you have to amuse yourself.

Perhaps the individual booth tenders weren't ideal for information.

I walked around a bit more, taking in the festivities.

I came across perhaps a more promising candidate standing between two tents. It was a jackal-looking mal with the trademark pose of security, arms folded, back slouched, so tensely bored that their legs are numbly rooted to the ground. I got a better look at him as I approached. He was real wiry, made his canvas outfit look baggy, the warm lights above making its navy fabric look more like gray. His jackal face didn't protrude into a full snout but he still had that wet canine nose, the puffed split below it, a broken tooth snagging on a dark glistening lip, mangy fur all along his arms. A steel lightning stick dangled from his belt, its weighted end sculpted into the face of a clown, one eye blackened by charred blood.

“Say, this carnival seems like quite the place to work.”

“It's not bad. Rreegh.”

“You got a light?”

“Grgh. No.”

“Sure ya do.”

“What?”

Using some sleight of hand I pulled a thin lighter from behind his twitching ear, the string lights above making its flesh translucent, exposing its thin red veins.

“See?” I sparked the lighter and lit my tree cig.

“Mrahhh. The hells?”

“I'm a magician. Not a real mage. You know, a stage magician. I'm hoping to join up.” A deep inhale like I was surrounded by flowery fields. “Life on the road. Performing for a crowd. I live for that stuff. I think it would suit me.”

“Good luck. Hreeeghh.” He seemed amused, if a little dismissive of my magician skills. “That's funny. Eeegheee.”

“See, I'm getting better. A little stage humor. I incorporate it into my routine. Well anyhow, I've heard that the person I should talk to about all this is this mal, um someone named Grivonne. Where might I find him? You know?”

“Don’t know. Shrrrgh. What’s your name?”

“You can call me Red.”

“If I see him I’ll let him know you were looking. Rrmmph.”

He turned and walked down the narrow space between two tents. I figured I’d shadow him from a safe distance.

As I walked a silhouette scurried out of the darkness, blocking my path. A small hooded figure.

The faint sound of my jacket’s rubbing leather as my arm moved a fraction of an inch, readying to draw my cannon.

“Hobgabarrin,” the figure said in an aged fem voice.

I was taken aback, even startled by someone using the old fashioned term for a hob. “You know me or something?”

“No, I don’t. But I’ve been waiting to meet you. You see, the cards showed I would find a brave son of Mog here. You must be him.”

The figure stepped closer and pulled her hood back. The fading fabric revealed an old Wahira face, an old Hobgoblin femna, that is. Her skin was a warm leather, wrinkled like an old glove, her hair was in two thick braids, iron gray with streaks of snow in it. On her large pointed ears dangled heavy earrings, earrings bearing the symbol of Mog, the Hobgoblin god whose believers said was now living in exile, hidden away in the sun or the bowels of the earth or some other rumored haunt.

“You've been following me. I don't take kindly to it.”

“That's what you say? To your elder?”

I stood there a long moment, looking down at her tiny frame with its homespun robe, shawl, and worn leather sandals revealing calloused feet and cracked nails, considered the angles... I brought my hand to my chest and leaned my conya down slightly in feigned reverence, addressed her in a courteous greeting, if insincere. “Mae wahira. Ka le bikayotl nikaltaki mitsmeet lisharaz. I am called Teek, of the Fangrells of Philamonvia.”

“And I am called K’matli of the Nurtepec of Aztlan.” She raised a small hand in blessing. “Ka pakini shaysed. It's good to see a malnovi still show respect. Mm. But respect is one thing wisdom is another. Come. We should lose ourselves to evil eyes.”

She led me away from that corridor of booths, glancing subtly to make sure we weren’t being followed. We came to some wooden tables where revelers were eating cotton candy, chili frogs, deep fried everything.

We both plinked coins at a booth for fruit drinks and found an empty table and sat down.

“So what's all this about you seeing me in some cards?”

“I never said you. I said a brave son of Mog.”

“Right. Whatever. If this is your carnival con... I'd say hurry up and get to the con part. You want some coin to read me my fortune? Let me tell you, no scryer on Hybrid Earth could figure that one out.”

“Mm. You forget that oracle cards are an art long practiced by our people. It is even recognized by the Masons.”

“The Archons? Yeah. They call it Cartomancy—look, why were you following me?”

“I had to be certain you could help.”

“Help?”

Her dense braids shone like gray corn leaves as she gazed about the tables. “You have to be more careful who you ask about the troll.”

“Oh yeah? What do you know about him?”

“He’s not just the ringleader of this carnival. He can be trusted even less than... a rogue.”

My fingertips grazed the table’s wood ridges as I leaned closer. “If you mean because he doesn't pay his debts—”

“—No. No. Not that.”

“Then.”

Sagging muscles sank further along her deeply indented jowls. “This is is no ordinary carnival.”

“How so?”

“The real carnival, how he really makes his coin is the carnival within the carnival.”

“Where is that? Is that where I can find him?”

“If I show you will you help me?”

“That depends.”

The fruit juice colored her misshapen teeth. “Why are you looking for him? Gold?”

“Let’s just say Grivonne dined and dashed.”

“What?”

“Dined. Dining. He ate and didn’t pay. I’m trying to collect the bill.”

“Dining. Yes. Yes. Let me show you how he dines.”