Trouble shook his head. "Not how; I want to know how to do it. I want to move things with my mind, as can you."
No One smiled. "How do you know I have this power?"
"I am able to do that simple trick in my sleep!" The magician snorted. "It was either you or ghosts!" Trouble grinned. "And I do not believe in ghosts."
"What if I cannot teach you what you wish to know? You might not be able to learn."
Trouble gestured with his head toward where Tarzaka had disappeared in the darkness. "You have a similar arrangement with the woman, do you not?"
No One studied the magician for a long time. Then he shrugged and looked at the flames. "I was already in her debt. But I have no reason to believe that she can ever learn the things that she wants to learn." "Yet she travels with you."
"She hopes that the eggs can teach her the things she wants to know."
"Perhaps they can do the same for me." Trouble wet his lips. "And I might have something else that could interest you, No One."
"What is that?"
"I think you want to know how I cloak my mind against your thoughts. Do I speak the truth?"
No One sat up, studied the magician, then pushed himself to his feet. "You read minds?"
Trouble shook his head. "No. I cannot. But I can prevent others from reading mine. My younger brother, Tribulation, can read minds. I had to learn how to prevent him from reading mine if I was ever to have a thought of my own. I learned to stop him." He looked at No One. "As I stopped you."
No One looked into the darkness, then turned back to the magician. "Once we come to the eggs, I will do what I can if you have been useful in finding the eggs." "The other?"
No One shrugged. "I have had little occasion where protecting my mind was necessary." He frowned and, for a moment, pondered the reach of his mother's thoughts. He slowly nodded. "Yes. I would learn the other, as well. But we must find the eggs, and you must help. That is the price." Trouble held out his hands. "We strike a bargain." "Wait here. I'd best find out what's happened to Tarzaka." The magician shrugged. "She is off whining someplace. Why bother?"
"She might be injured."
"What is that to you?"
No One looked from the darkness to the flames, then from the flames to the magician. No One frowned, shook his head, and looked into the darkness once more. "Wait here." He left the fire and walked after the fortune teller.
He found her, far from the camp, sitting atop a roadside stump. "What are you doing?"
She sat huddled in the darkness. "Go back to the fire, No One. You cannot understand what I think with your crippled head."
"Make yourself plain."
Her dark form shook its head. "Nothing. I meant nothing. Go back to the fire."
"Then come along."
"No." Her head lifted and her eyes looked at the stars. "It is unfair. It is so unfair."
"That Trouble and I can see the probable and you cannot?"
Her head snapped in No One's direction. "Yes!" She stabbed a finger at her breast. "I am the fortune teller! I am!" She looked back at the stars. "I am the only one of us who wants to be a teller of fortunes. What force is it that chooses who is to receive these things? What sarcasms occupy its mind?"
No One laughed. "You would look for fairness in a world created at the hands of a madman? You look for justice within Arnheim's perverted legacy? What would you call fairness, Tarzaka? That if I desired it I would be granted the skin, face, or form of a freak? That if I wanted to make others laugh, I would be granted the skills of the clowns?" Again he laughed. "You ask nonsense questions, and are full of fantasy." No One looked toward the camp, then back at Tarzaka. "Trouble has agreed to help us find the eggs. Are you coming?"
She issued a brief, bitter laugh. "And now a loutish thief joins our little band." Tarzaka shook her head. "Trouble can be your audience now. Why do you need me?"
"I don't need you! I never did!" No One stared at the dark figure for a long moment. "Tarzaka, what do you mean about my audience? When you say that, what do you mean?"
She turned toward him, the shadow of her hood making her faceless in the starlight. "You can do so much—so much that I want to do—yet you know so little, No One. So little." She waved her hand in the direction of the camp. "Go back to your new disciple, No One. I will be along later. For now, leave me alone."
"Tarzaka—"
"Just go, bull-killer. Go!" Her hand dropped to her lap, and No One could hear her crying. "Just go."
He paused, then turned and walked toward the camp with slow steps.
TWENTY-SEVEN
For all of the next day the trio walked southwest on the road to Arcadia. That night they halted next to a large lake and built their fire at a place where the stars reflected from the lake's still waters, placing the limits of the sky in that direction beneath their feet. As Tarzaka prepared the cobit, and Trouble attempted to regale her with nonsense tales of the swamp, No One stood on the lake's shore looking out across its surface. In the dark, the far shore was invisible between the stars of the sky and the stars of the water.
What must it be, he thought, to leave the hopelessness of this prison behind? What would it be to move among those many suns?
He studied the constellation called the Big Lot; four extremely bright stars forming a rectangle. It was said that the two stars forming the Forty-ninth Street side pointed to the place from which O'Hara's Greater Shows originated. But the sun being pointed at was not bright enough to appear in the sky. Other constellations contained or pointed at the suns of other stands the old show had played. It was said that the dim tip of the right tusk of the constellation of Ming was the sun around which orbited the planet Ahngar. Ahngar, one of the old show's wintering grounds. Ahngar, the home of Sergeant Spook Tieras, retired bullhand. "At least old Spook can see his homestar," No One said to the night air.
He turned and walked up the slight rise to where Trouble and Tarzaka were sitting before the fire. Tarzaka looked up at him as he came within the light from the fire. "The cobit is done."
After No One sat down and was finishing his cobit, Trouble held out his arms. "Such silence! Here we have a fire, a pleasant night, fortune tellers and a magician. We should have entertainment."
No One's face remained impassive. "After your endless jabbering upon the road today, I welcome the silence." The magician shrugged. "My talk might not be worth a storyteller's copper, but we do have a bargain. Show me how you ruined my trick. How do you move things with your thoughts?"
No One leaned upon his pack. "And for this, you show me how you cloak your mind?" "Yes."
"Very well. Take out your cards and perform your trick." Trouble reached into his robe and withdrew his worn deck of cards. He handed the deck to Tarzaka. "Go through the deck and choose a card, then show the card to No One." The magician spread a thick cloth upon the ground before him.
The fortune teller flipped through the deck, showed the Boss of Animals to No One, then looked at Trouble. "And now?" "Shuffle the cards and hand them to No One." Tarzaka did as she was instructed. Trouble nodded at No One. "Shuffle them again." No One shuffled the cards. When he was finished, he returned them to the magician. Trouble took the cards and spread the deck faces down upon the cloth. Once, twice his hand passed over the cards, and then he reached down, picked up a card, and held its face out toward Tarzaka and No One. The card was the Boss of Animals.
No One nodded. "Well done. Now perform the trick again." Trouble gathered up the cards, shuffled them, then handed the deck to Tarzaka. This time the fortune teller picked the Four of Shovels, showed it to No One, then shuffled the cards and handed the deck to No One who also shuffled them. No One handed the deck to Trouble. The magician spread the cards as before, pulled out a card, and faced it toward his two companions. It was the Nine of Wheels. Trouble raised his eyebrows. "And?"