Fain the Sorcerer by Steve Aylett Page A

enjoy these displays of buffoonery? ’ Fain asked the living wedge.
    ‘ These actions in the road are permitted, though for safety purposes we avoid understanding them. ’
    At that moment the prancing relic collapsed, dropping his three cups. Seeing that all three were empty, the artificial onlookers rumbled among themselves and wandered off. Fain loaded the old clown onto the Lizard King ’ s back and they took him to what he whispered was his home, a hovel heated by wasps. Given a sip of wine, the jester roused enough to damn his circumstances. ‘ Those creatures outside, they are dicehearts, mechanical people, and this is Diceheart City. ’
    ‘ I ’ ve seen a mechanical man before. Who made these? ’
    ‘ Drake the Adept, in an access of power like a sneeze. So here they are, created and abandoned, with no idea of the why of any of it. So different than ourselves? It ’ s very complicated, how I know this; and to understand it, you would have to become another person. No bad thing. ’
    ‘ How did you get here? ’ asked the Lizard King, whose bulk filled most of the room.
    ‘ I sought Drake the Adept, but was already in a desperate condition when I arrived — entering the city, I merely tripped and smashed nosefirst on the ground. The incident caused the fastest assemblage of bastards I ’ ve ever seen. Some chugged, some wheezed, but none attempted an expression never done before. If there was a chance of that, oh I ’ d gladly damage my muzzle again, try and stop me. But the city controls even such feeble projects. They have their hierarchy. Only the upper echelons have pincers, for instance. However, they did pay. Since then I ’ ve tried year after year to find what amuses those contraptions, but to little avail. All I have learned are the divers arts of the cornered man: snarling, begging, screaming, sobbing, whispering, fainting, feinting, painting, panting, ranting and, of course, sitting down. ’
    ‘ It sounds like being cornered is an education in itself. ’
    ‘ And cheap. Remember that. But now, you take the stupid hat and bells of irritation — I am finished. ’
    ‘ I don ’ t want to be a jester! ’ Fain protested.
    ‘ You can use it, ’ whispered Hex, who had been removed to Fain ’ s shoulder again.
    ‘ I won ’ t be advised by a tile. ’
    ‘ You need something, ’ said the old greybeard, ‘ and trick-magic is about misdirection. By concealing your desires, you may trick people into being cruel about the wrong thing. ’
    And with that, the jester expelled his vitality like a gas.
    The Lizard King moved into the old clown ’ s house, and Fain donned the scarf, cap and bells, setting out to annoy one and all in the street. He started to flourish a bit of velvet around, manipulating it as though about to produce something from thin air. A crowd of dicehearts began to gather. Fain continued to manipulate the velvet, looking increasingly desperate. After an hour of this, Fain was approached by a scuttling carapace constable the size of a horse. Eight spiderlike legs of bone conveyed a skeletal cage fronted by a titanic, yawping set of humanlike jaws. As it capered and tilted along, a song of illness choired from its hollows.
    ‘ The compropede will take you to be judged, ’ said an armorite with a head of metal thorns and eyes of cherry-coloured glass. ‘ You must be eaten into the cage. ’
    The jawed conveyance began to nip at Fain, who struggled as he was gathered horribly into the giant mouth and ejected into the cage on its back. Fain felt he was on the jolting cart to the gallows.
    The Diceheart Palace was topped by two massive milk-glass hands raised as if in prayer but slightly apart, and at such a height that Fain could only imagine he saw some fluctuation or effect between them. Fain was disgorged finally within a court of authority. At its head was what Fain took to be the diceheart autarch, a massive mechanical heart which unfolded like a rose to reveal a pearl