The Game - Laurie R. King [61]
With the villagers warmed up, I retired to the sidelines while Holmes came forward to claim the light. His portion of the act was more dramatic, closer to the heart of the magic arts, and demanded a fine understanding of the sensibilities of the audience. If he went too far, drew too heavily on the mysterium of awe, the rustic folk would retreat, might even turn on us, fearing that we brought true darkness into their midst. Holmes had to read them at every instant, keeping them on the edge of discomfort and mystification without allowing them to slide into open fear, convincing them of his power, but only over the inessentials, transforming a mouse into a sparrow; setting fire to an inert glass of lhassi; and separating and re-joining two sets of clashing rings, one of silver bangles, the other big and brass; and setting into motion the dancing figures in a cloud of perfumed smoke, projected from the phantasmagoric lantern he had brought from home. As a climax, he drew me from the shadows, passed his hand over my face to put me into a trance, and then levitated my senseless form some feet above the earth.
Very basic stuff, dependent on quick hands, firm distraction, and simple equipment sold in magic shops the world around (or, in our case, made to specification by Delhi metalworkers). We garnered a handful of coins and a lot of wary glances, and moved on in the dawn when the buffalos were back ruminating in the lanes and the grindstones had begun to sing, with the snow-topped Himalayas little more than faint pink ghosts riding high above the horizon. The menfolk interrupted their morning ablutions to watch us leave, while the women pulled their curious babes back inside the gates of their humble compounds, just in case.
During the days of our partnership (or, as he no doubt viewed it, of his management of this road show) Bindra had grown ever more cocky. He was, after all, a city boy among farmers—he kept himself aloof from the village children, occasionally deigning to answer them while he worked on the cart by the light of the lamp, and it occasionally seemed to me that his moon face was older than those of the others his size. He did not understand how our tricks were done, but by this time he was convinced that they were tricks, and that was enough to make him superior to the gullible. On this, our sixth morning on the road, he got the donkey started, then hesitated, and turned to me.
“Teach me to draw a coin from an ear,” he commanded.
“You have not the purity of spirit,” I said blithely.
He was not impressed. “I do not believe it is the spirit that does the act. It is a trick of the hands, and I wish to learn it.”
“I cannot teach it,” I told him, and that was the end of it for the moment. I did not imagine the boy would let it drop, however; nor did I imagine the way in which he would force me into teaching him.
With the morning sun behind us and Bindra and the cart far enough ahead to give the dust time to settle, he discovered a new game. My first inkling of it was when the road ahead of me exploded into a flare of light, painful and completely blinding.
“Damn!” I cried, and raised my hand to block it—only it had stopped. I blinked furiously, and when I could see the road again, it was as before, with the boy and the glittering cart. At first I thought one of the looking-glass stars had caught the light, although they seemed too small for that. Then I noticed the boy’s hands, holding the folding ladies’ looking-glass up before his face.
“Bindra!” I shouted. “Khabadar! Shaitan ka batcha!”
He turned around to walk backwards, shrugging his shoulders at me, all innocence.
A few minutes later it happened again. Deliberate, the little brat, I knew. The kid needed something to keep his hands busy—oh.
“He really is something,” I muttered to Holmes, and trotted ahead to dig the cloth practise balls from the cart.
I took out