The Gold Thief. Justin Fisher
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alt="Image Missing"/>ut before Ned could ask anything else, they were joined by the man who would likely have most of the answers. His gaze was as fierce as ever and his moustache had lost none of its twitch. He wore a crooked top hat, a beaten military jacket with gold braiding, and red and white striped trousers. At his hip, as always, was a coiled whip that slithered ever so slightly and with a will of its own.
“All right, all right, I think the boy’s had enough hair-ruffling for one day.” It was Benissimo, the circus’s Ringmaster and leader. Behind him, hanging back, was a man Ned had not seen before. He seemed at odds with the rest of the troupe. He wasn’t wearing any of the more flamboyant circus garb. He had short cropped dreadlocks, wore a black evening jacket, worn Adidas trainers and a faded green and yellow “I LOVE JAMAICA” T-shirt. He smiled at Ned but said nothing.
“So this is him and here he is,” said Benissimo, squaring up to Ned. “Let’s get a proper look at you. Still not particularly tall, face not outwardly bright – hello, pup.”
“Hello, goat-face.”
Benissimo gave him something between a smirk and a scowl.
“As good as it is to see you, I shouldn’t wonder it spells trouble for my troupe and their tents.”
Ned looked around him, at the gathering of weathered faces. “You seem to have found enough of that without me.”
“You know me and my Marvels, Ned, we like to keep ‘busy’. Tell me, is what I’m hearing right, about the intruder in your house?”
“Yes, and he would have got me if it wasn’t for the mirror.”
“Whoever he was, he must have been skilled. From what we heard from the Olswangs before they went off-radar, he subdued your parents in moments.”
“I think he got the Olswangs too,” said Ned. “Their door was broken.”
“We suspected as much.”
“And the man? Do you know who he is?”
“No,” said Benissimo, before seeing the look on Ned’s face – and on Lucy’s too. “But fear not, I’ll have every friendly eyeball on both sides of the Veil looking for him before the day’s out. We will find them.”
Somehow, hearing that from Benissimo eased Ned’s mind. When Benissimo put his mind and troupe to a problem, the problem, no matter the odds, was always solved.
The circus’s newest addition gave a fake cough and looked at the Ringmaster expectantly. If anything, the man in the “I LOVE JAMAICA” T-shirt looked rather lived-in, but had the sort of broad smile that put you instantly at ease.
“Ned, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Jonny Magik. Jonny, this is the ‘Hero of Annapurna’ … well, the other one,” he added, with a nod to Lucy.
Ned cringed at hearing his nickname.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s just Ned, actually.”
“You’ll get used to it,” chuckled Jonny. “You know, some people call me a conjuror, others a shaman, but in the end they just settle on ‘Magik’.”
“Names aside, Jonny,” Benissimo declared, “the boy’s parents are missing and we need to find them. There’s not one of us here today that don’t owe the Armstrongs a debt.”
There were agreeable rumblings from the troupe, but at the mention of Ned’s parents, Jonny Magik’s easy manner slid from his face. If Ned didn’t know any better, he’d think the man was visibly sweating, and as Ned drew nearer, peering at him, the shaman recoiled. It was a slight enough movement to go unnoticed by most, but it was there nonetheless and Benissimo had spotted it too.
“That indigestion still bothering you, Jonny?” asked the Ringmaster.
“Oh, you know, Bene, it comes and goes,” he winced, now seemingly quite unable to meet Ned’s eyes.
“Why don’t you go and have one of your rests, eh? The two of you can catch up later,” said a concerned Benissimo, before ushering the man away.
As soon as he was gone, the Ringmaster turned his attention to the troupe.
“Right, you lot, back to work – there’s tents need pitching and Darklings that need feeding.”
“But, Ned, boss, we just got him back,” they murmured.
“Well, he’s not going anywhere, is he? Now go on – hop to it!”
Reluctantly the gathered troupe disbanded. Even Alice finally did as she was told, leaving Ned with Benissimo, George and Lucy.
“Ned, we need to talk, alone,” said Benissimo.
Lucy frowned, then pursed her lips into an expression that clearly said, “I don’t think so.” George, on the other hand, let his face fall into a wrinkly plea, albeit a silent one.
The Ringmaster’s moustache twitched. It was a thinking twitch and only a little irritated. He looked to Lucy, then George, then back to Lucy again before settling on Ned.
“Oh, very well. The three of you – my quarters in ten minutes.”
Whatever had just happened with the new guy, Ned was quite sure that it had little to do with indigestion. It had felt and looked much more to him like Jonny Magik was uneasy with the mention of his parents. But why?
Before he could ask anyone about it, they were interrupted by the pattering of two very small feet. Ned turned to see an out-of-breath gnome who had come running over from the Glimmerman’s tent.
“Your friends, sir, the jossers,” he breathed. “They’re awake and I think they would appreciate your company.”
The rest of the Glimmerman’s mirrors had now been covered up with intricately decorated tapestries, giving the whole dimly lit scene the feeling of being inside a giant Persian rug. Had either of the two jossers the eyes to notice, they would have seen that the patterns in the tapestries were moving, in hypnotic calm-inducing rhythms of colours and shapes.
“Trig-ono-metry, is it, dear?” nodded Abi patiently.
“Yeah, there’s probably loads of stuff you lot don’t know about, like pistachio ice-cream, do you have pistachio ice-cream?!”
“Oh, I think so, dear, yes, I think we’ve got plenty of pistachio ice-cream.” Which was when Abigail turned to Ned and Lucy. “Poor lad, his mind is completely frazzled, haven’t seen a josser this bad since, well, you, Master Ned.”
Her words seemed to have no effect on Archie at all and as soon as he spotted Ned he broke into a manic, over-enthusiastic smile.
“Hello, Ned! I knew you were a wizard. You’re all wizards here, aren’t you? You know, we always knew you were a bit different, brilliant but different. Imagine that, our friend Ned, a wizard.”
“You