Prologue

It had been a while since Menda had been back to Plonding. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing Mosea but it was time for her yearly meeting with the council. The first thing she had done was get a room at the inn so she could take off her bag, and let Calbas do what he wanted as she organized her bag again.

 

“So what are you planning to do first?”  Menda looked over to Calbas, the cursed coat, as he sat on the window sill looking out at the town. She was surprised how much had changed in the few years they had known each other. When she first met him she was simply a battery that he needed to move and now he was a companion she never wanted to be without.

 

Menda sighed. “Well,” she zipped up her bag and moved over to the desk, “I need to wait till it gets closer to sundown to wait in line. I don’t have a set date so I don’t need to do that today.”

 

He turned to look at her “So take a break and look around town.”

 

Menda chuckled. “I’ve been rubbing off on you,” she said in a sing-song voice. Calbas was silent, and Menda laughed as she headed to the door to the room. “Will you be joining me?”

 

He nodded, moving over to her and deforming draping over her arm. She placed him on and waited for him to make himself weightless on her. She walked along the streets. Every once in a while she could see a colorful tent peaking over the outer walls.

 

There wasn’t anything new in town so she decided to check what was outside the walls. When she passed the gate she waved to the guards before turning to see the tent she saw it was a circus.

 

“Huh I guess they don’t have a location in town for guests.” she said walking closer to the sign to read it “The Curio Circus” was painted cleanly in a rainbow of colors. She looked at it for a while.

 

“What? Is there something wrong?”

 

“I feel like I know this circus from somewhere…”

 

“It is the circus where Denre works.”

 

Menda’s eyes went wide “Oh, it is. You know what we are going to do tonight? We are going to go to their show.”