The Nine Bishops

In her dreams, his face was unmistakable. She had no real memory of him, but somehow she felt with utmost certainty that it was her father. They shared the same dark hair, the same slightly lopsided smile. In the dream, he was always smiling. She never dreamed of her mother and couldn’t begin to remember what she had looked like. Yet her father’s face felt familiar in her dreams.

What differed from one night to the next was his eyes: sometimes they were green, other times blue. Once, she saw them yellow and purple. Her favorite dream was when they appeared brown. That was when he most looked like her.

He always said the same three words, words she cherished. Today, with his eyes an icy blue, he said the three words as usual, but this time he seemed about to say more. In her dream, she leaned forward eagerly.

Then she felt a jolt. She was pulled away from the next words that parted his lips, and the dream vanished.

Mika woke up with an icy splash of water to the face. She bolted upright, to find Esteban, the circus ringmaster, standing over her with a bucket in his hands, wearing his usual ridiculous outfit: a red jacket with a white button-up shirt and a yellow vest, bow tie (blue today) and black top hat. She saw with relief that he didn’t have his whip with him, only the rusty bucket.

Esteban, who was half a meter shorter than Mika, with black hair and tanned skin, was an unimpressive mage whose sole magic strain was temperature control. Unlike the great mage Bishop Tempest, whose ability to control temperatures meant the entire Kingdom of Seemos enjoyed a moderate climate with neither harsh winters nor droughts, Esteban could employ his magic only in small ways—like making sure the water in his bucket was as cold as possible before he dumped it onto Mika. At least this time it wasn’t steaming hot, she thought, feeling the water soaking deeply into her clothes. Cold stings less.

“Wake up, Filth!” Esteban demanded, sneering in that high-pitched voice that made many of his circus workers snicker behind his back, though they would never dare laugh in his presence—an act with potentially dire consequences for Filth, who possessed no magic at all.

“That’s not my name,” Mika said under her breath.

“Get up and go back to work!” he growled at Mika. I have a name, and it is not Filth, she thought.

Mika often expressed that thought to herself, though she knew her place in the world. She was a Filth, a person with no magic and no name. It was a truth she knew would never escape her. All mages had the innate ability to discern a Filth from a mage, an ability the Filth did not enjoy. However, Mika knew who all the mages were, regardless. Not one was kind to her.

“What are you doing, you lazy—. Remember who calls the shots here, Filth!”

Since most mages did not respect a man like Esteban, he demanded respect from the Filth who served him.

Mika had fallen asleep while taking a break from her work in the circus tent. She was normally allowed a break at this point in her shift. But Esteban had said he’d punish any Filth caught slacking off today. She’d assumed he was bluffing, but apparently, he hadn’t been. Mika shuddered to think what he might have done to her, without any fear of consequences.Esteban punished the Filth who served him depending on the seriousness of the offence, from a quick, stinging smack of the whip to a deeply painful public lashing. The most severe punishment available to him was a branding, which any mage had the authority to use against a Filth. Mika had never seen one—Esteban valued his workers too much, despite his cruelty. She knew what it meant, though. Exile. By law, any Filth over the age of sixteen had to work for a mage—their only way to make a living—or be imprisoned by order of the king. Filth who had been branded were cast out and forbidden to work. They could be hunted down and captured by the Hunters, an elite, crown-sponsored tracking organization, never to be seen again. Some Filth speculated these fugitives were captured so that elite mages could practice their magic on them—a fate some decreed worse than death. Others spoke of a city somewhere in the west where branded Filth, who traveled together because they had no one else to turn to, might find refuge.

Mika had worked for Sir Esteban’s Amazing Stationary Circus and Reclaimed Pandemonium Afterglow Show—a ludicrous name in which Esteban took great pride—for nearly two years, since she turned 16 and her uncle Sam had made arrangements for her to join the crew, where he could protect her to a degree. She knew Esteban was not so rash as to brand the low-paid Filth that served him, whom he needed to support his business.

As Ringmaster, Esteban oversaw circus performances and announced the acts, all of them starring mediocre mages, that catered to an audience of Filth who craved cheap entertainment. Lucky for him, most Filth could not read or write. Mika doubted that anyone who could read or write would take his show seriously.

The cost of entry was just one bronze, which was one reason most mages did not respect Esteban’s performances. Mages wouldn’t waste their money to see cheap magic tricks, since Esteban’s show did not leverage any spectacular magic. Second, no mages in their right mind wanted to surround themselves with Filth. Mages avoided interacting with Filth as much as they could. Lastly, the circus was in the heart of the south end of the kingdom, nicknamed Southie. Filth were much more numerous here than mages, who tended to view the south as a low-class dump and preferred northern Seemos, where King Ven Fallon presided from Castle Vania with the Bishops and elite mages, or eastern Seemos, where the eight public mage guilds were located.

Other parts of Seemos were basically just campfire stories to Mika. The only place she had ever known was Southie, and in fact she hadn’t gone far beyond the circus grounds. It simply wasn’t safe; being a Filth at the wrong place at the wrong time could mean death. She had promised her uncle and protector, with whom she shared a tiny shack on the circus grounds, that she would not leave without him, though her longtime dream had always been to go east.

There, mages could legally freelance their magic and make a name for themselves. Even a Filth could make a decent living by serving in a mages’ guild. Most Filth who had any sort of education went east. It was where the sun rose and the sun set. The Filth nicknamed it Home.

Mika’s uncle was secretly giving her an education—something denied to most Filth unless it suited the needs of the mages—so that someday they both could go Home and find a better life serving in a mages’ guild.

Among the Filth, whose status was beneath that of even the lowliest of mages, the ability to read and write was rare except at the most elite level. If there was no good purpose for their knowledge, Filth found to be decently educated could be fined, beaten, imprisoned, or even branded. The only thing Esteban hated more than Filth was an educated Filth, so Mika’s secret learning was dangerous. She and her uncle therefore pretended not to be able to read.

Despite the potential consequences, Mika spent most nights rigorously studying, which was why she’d been so exhausted as to fall asleep during her shift. She was already learning advanced levels of math and science, something only a mage in a guild would usually know. Mika was determined to go Home.

Shivering and wet, she rose from her napping spot in the shadows under the bleachers and, under Esteban’s disgusted gaze, went back to work. For the first time in ages, instead of her usual job of organizing props for the performers, she’d been given the task of setting up a special platform where guest mages could view the performance apart from the Filth rabble.

Esteban had everyone working extremely hard for the following day’s performance, because he was expecting a group of investors who were interested in expanding the circus to other parts of Southie. He’d told all the Filth that if the show didn’t go off perfectly he’d lash every one of them, which was enough motivation to keep them working diligently.

As she laid the planks together, Mika kept a wary eye on the Jackal, the mage she loathed most of all, who was practicing his act in the ring. Mika hated everything about him, from his repulsive slick black hair to his pale white skin. The Jackal always had the smell of alcohol on him. He’d get unpredictably angry with the Filth, and he treated all Filth as his personal property. His magic was a weak form of telekinesis. He was a mediocre mage at best who could realistically control no more than two small objects at once.

Mika couldn’t bear to look at him without recalling the incident three years ago that had cost the life of her beloved Aunt Bella, the only Filth ever to appear in the circus’s acts. The Jackal had started a new act that involved levitating two daggers at once and aiming them at targets. Bella, whose beauty was recognized even by the mages, though they were loath to admit it, was appointed to be his assistant. That was after Sam convinced Esteban that she could help bring in a full house every night.

The crowds adored her, and her alone. And no wonder: Bella had rich brown hair, soft hazel eyes, and a dimpled smile that would make any man blush.

The Jackal made no bones about the fact that he hated being upstaged by her. After Bella’s first week, the circus was selling an unprecedented number of seats. Her job was simple but eye-pleasing: she held the targets for the Jackal. The crowds cheered her on, completely disregarding Jackal’s uninspired performance.

In response to Esteban’s refusal to take her out of the show, Jackal told him he was going to up the stakes. He decided he would juggle three daggers in the air and have them hit three targets Bella would be holding, and told Esteban he’d been training for the task.

Not surprisingly, he failed. It was obvious he hadn’t trained at all and was struggling to maintain control of the daggers. Somehow, he made it through his act to the culminating event, the dagger toss. He began to use his magic to throw the daggers at the targets Bella was holding.

The first two daggers missed the targets by a slim margin. By the time Jackal threw the last one, he had lost control completely, and the flying dagger sliced into Aunt Bella’s jugular. Mika’s uncle saw the whole thing from the holding area at the side and rushed out to stop her bleeding, but when he got to her she was already gone.

Fortunately, Mika was not there to see it, since this happened before she was of age to work at the circus. That didn’t change the fact that the event deeply traumatized her uncle. It took almost a year, and a great deal of tenderness from Mika, before he smiled again.

Today, Mika noticed grimly, the Jackal was smiling as he tossed his knives in the air. He had gotten everything he ever wanted. Esteban had been angry at first, but still needed him in his circus, so ultimately Jackal got his solo performance back.

That was how it was for Filth. Even though Sam did not think Bella’s death was an accident, he never acted against Jackal, Esteban, or any of the other mages in the circus. He continued doing his work as an advance man, quietly returning from his trips away with textbooks for Mika, and methodically planning their escape.

After fastening the last bolt in the platform, Mika’s work on the stage for the rare mage visitors was complete. She shook heavy thoughts from her head and concentrated on her hopes. In less than two weeks, I’ll be eighteen, old enough to work in a mages’ guild.

Tonight, Sam would be returning after four weeks away soliciting circus business—a job he was extraordinarily good at and which had kept him in Esteban’s good books for years. His return meant three things.

First, she would probably get new books. Mika had already finished her studies from the book he’d brought back on his last trip: An Advance Discourse on the Cosmics. It was a colossal book, but it was practically review. Mika had already read almost everything there was to know about astrology, even though she was a Filth. The information would be useful and could help qualify her to serve in a guild house.

Second, it meant they were close to their last performance at the circus. Years of planning were about to culminate in their heading Home in just three days’ time.

And third, it meant she might finally learn what had happened to her family before she came to live with her aunt and uncle at the age of six.

Mika had a fantastic memory, which had helped her become a quick learner of even the most difficult of concepts, if she simply had books to study them. She could recall everything she had ever read, but there was one thing she couldn’t remember: her own past.

Why can’t I remember such an important thing? Mika often wondered. She could not remember her parents, except for the dream image of her father and his three words: I love you. That’s all that was left to her.

Mika had often asked her uncle about her parents, but he always said it was too soon to tell her. Mika was fairly certain that even he didn’t know, but entertained the thought anyway. After Bella died, Sam said what they needed most was to care for each other. But he promised that after they left the circus, on the way Home, he would tell her all about her childhood and her family.

Mika had spent almost twelve years at Esteban’s circus, two of them working. It was the only reality she knew. It was a reality she was not ready to accept. Something inside her always pushed her to do more; to be more than a circus hand. Now, she just wanted to know the truth.

Something about her last dream has been different. If only Esteban hadn’t wakened me from my dream today, she thought, perhaps my father would have told me more.

Once her fourteen-hour shift ended, Mika headed home to a cold supper of bread and cheese in the one-room shack on the property, formerly a storage shed, that Sam had wangled from Esteban years ago. It had a flap for a front door, a fire pit, table, and two beds that served doubly as their dining chairs. It wasn’t much, but they could call it their own. Once, three of them had shared it, but now it was just Mika and her uncle.

Before going to bed, Mika left a couple of circus props lying near the door, where she knew Sam was likely to trip over them and wake her when he returned. She couldn’t wait to see what he brought home for her. Just a few more days, she thought as she tucked herself into bed, and I’ll finally know about my past.