The lawyer’s office smelled like orange peels, and it made Todd’s mouth water. It was sick, wanting to eat at a will-reading. He was sure that he was some kind of freakishly horrible person to be thinking about eating now.

The palaple greed around him didn’t even take his appetite away. Damn, he wanted an orange! They wanted to feed on the carrion of Uncle Ralph’s life, and he wanted a goddamn orange. His mom gave him a nasty look, so he took off his headphones. He let the rest of the room sample his Perfect Circle CD for a few seconds before he hit stop on his MP3 player. The lawyer shuffled his papers and cleared his throat.

Silence crashed over the room; Todd was sure that a mental chant of “I want” caused it. The lawyer sipped from a glass of water and began. Todd closed his eyes and tried to stop thinking about oranges. The monotone droning of the lawyer’s voice lulled him nearly to sleep. His mind drifted, and he was standing in a grove of orange trees in sunny Florida. He laughed, in his mind, and spun around.

He jumped up and snatched an orange from its branch. Todd tore off the peel and took an enormous bite out of it. The taste was perfect, and the juice filled his mouth with happiness. Here was a good place; the kind of place where Uncle Ralph had to have gone.

At that thought, thunder boomed in the distance. Clouds were gathering in an all-too-familiar spiral pattern. Something squirmed wetly in Todd’s hand, and he reflexively dropped the rotting, worm-ridden orange.

The winds began to howl through the rows of orange trees. Unreasoning terror bubbled in Todd’s heart, sending him at a dead run away from the storn. The wind blew harder and harder, pulling down rotted orange after rotted orange. A shadow blanketed everything; the spinning and churning clouds thickened and drew together. The wind was whistling fast and hard in Todd’s ears as he fled, reminding him of the eerie, haunting sounds of the calliope. Lightning crashed, thunder hammered at his ears, and the rain began to fall. Sheets of it pounded him and turned the dirt to mud. Todd slipped on the peel of an orange and slid headfirst into the Florida mud.

The storm was after him. It wanted to consume him. Somehow he knew that it had consumed Uncle Ralph, and was coming for him, now. He tried to scramble back to his feet, but the mud sucked at him, drawing him down. He struggled, sinking more and more. The storm closed in, and the earth itself kept him prisoner, holding him until he was consumed. There was a sharp pain in his side, and he was suddenly falling.

He hit the floor of the lawyer’s office with a thud and a yelp. The smell of oranges had soured. Everyone was staring at him, and his mother was giving him a death-glare. “Honestly, Todd. The least you could do is stay awake.” He blushed purple and climbed back into his seat. The lawyer cleared his throat and continued.

“To my great-nephew Todd, I leave my house, and every posession in it.” Gasps and shocked curses were whispered from all around. “In the event that I pass on before Todd turns eighteen, it shall remain in trust to him. Arrangements for upkeep of the house and yard have already been made. It is my sincerest wish that Todd explore the house fully, and do with my belongings as his heart leads him. I also ask that his parents not stand in the way of this. Todd has my trust, and will not do wrong by it.”

It only took them three days to put uncle Ralph in the ground. He had had the last stroke in the morning. They had the viewing the next day, and today they’d put him in the ground. Just like that and everything was done… the man’s life, the man’s dreams, the man’s history, snuffed out, buried, and doled out to the hungry vultures. Seventy-two hours.

Todd put the black rose on the coffin. He backed away, and something inside him, something that he didn’t understand, screamed and clawed and tore out its hair. It couldn’t be over, something of it all had to live on, didn’t it?

Well, didn’t it?

The looks that everyone was giving each other said no, it damn well did not, and what will happen to me when they put me in the ground? Nobody was thinking of Uncle Ralph; they were thinking about being in that box themselves. Well, screw them. Todd knew that he was in a better place. Being here was for losers.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed toward his dad’s Buick gas-guzzler. His mom looked at him and started crying again. Could she get more emotional about this? Not fucking likely. What right did she have, anyway. Uncle Ralph was Dad’s uncle. Todd’s great-uncle, if you cared. His Dad was choked up, but not like Mom. He was still in control. He wouldn’t flip out until he hit the scotch.

Todd sat in the back seat as his mom got in the front. He looked out the window as the car was started. The trees and overcast sky slid by, and Tim just couldn’t think. His head was filled with memories of Uncle Ralph. The smell of pipe smoke, the rustle of old paper, and the music that his beat-up ancient calliope made. Uncle Ralph used to play on that thing all the time. It could remind you of the circus, or give you nightmares, depending on how you played it. Uncle Ralph had known how to play it.

“Todd?” His Dad’s voice was cracked and creepy.

“Yeah, Dad?” He sounded tired, even to himself. His Mom started crying again, but at least she was quiet this time.

“Uncle Ralph left behind a will.” Oh, great. Here it comes. Family bullshit about who gets what. Feuds started by vultures. “He mentioned you in it. Your mother and I can accept things for you, but if you’re up to it, I think old Ralph would have wanted you there.”

That figured. Now he was a vulture. He would have things that others felt they deserved, when all he wanted was to have everything about this just go away. He looked at his dad, who was concentrating on the road for all he was worth. There was the Christmas-eve excitement about gifts, just poking itself into Todd’s brain, making all of this more confusing and painful.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll go.” Another day off from school. What the hell.

The young boy, Tommy, that had vacated the contents of his over-full stomach into his lap earlier, turned his face from the scary man in front of him to the scary place that he had just been. The Rides.

The Rides… and, it was guessed, the Ridemaster… were encased in, and perhaps made of, a metallic webbing that looked like every cyberpunk movie ever made had vomited up its nightmares right on that spot. Every one except for the roller coaster. It was in the same draconic shape as when it had been… created? born? But now, it was a hulking, wooden, rattling beast. Its only metal pieces were rusted and conveyed every sense of being primitive.

They all worked. The roller coaster, the ferris wheel, the Tilt-O-Whirl, they all worked. One little boy had even vomited on the Ferris Wheel. Tommy. Neither Tommy nor his mother noticed the little metal spiders that were riding on his clothing like burrs. Inside the Rides, conduits of electricity, light, and thought flared, illuminating many of the tunnel-like areas of the Rides in an eerie glow. They resonated with a thought. “Little bastard.”

Here, Dragon was so free. He admired the craftsmanship of the clothes he had found himself in when he woke up. His trench coat and armor were stylized and adorned with runes in a flaring font that bordered on the remake of Lost in Space. His Warhammer was missing, but he sensed it somewhere amidst the technology that was surrounding him. He was connected to the Rides central annex by a cranial implant – a plug drilled directly into his brainpan. From here, his spiders were his eyes and his ears. They hadn’t spread over the Carnival very much, as the dust and general nastiness that made up the place, and the humans that populated it, would be detrimental to their sensitive equipment.

The roller coaster, though. That was the bitch of the situation. People were thrilled at his Rides. His re-made old ones, and his new VR Battle Mech Theater, and his new Perfect You ride. Each one was scaring the riders until they puked. “Little bastard.” And they loved every second. But the coaster was *killing* his spiders. It resisted every attempt he and the Annex made at upgrading it. It was far too much like that irrational, emotional, physically reliant creature that he had finally caged. He thought about it, and the hallways of the Rides pulsed with thought again.

“I’m not sure you exist.”

The coaster seemed to bristle, rattling in an alarming fashion. Somehow…. somehow it replied, in a snarling, lizard-like voice.

“I will be rid of you.”

The spiders that held the Rides together scuttled about in an alarming fashion as laughter echoed through the fiber, the copper, and the light.

Lightning cracked and thunder boomed. Every time the thunder would boom, Ania swore she could hear screams, not blood curdling… more like… eh. Who can describe it? Ania couldn’t even tell if it was man or woman. Ania just knew that someone was having fun or getting hurt.

Another arc of lightning split the night’s sky, and Dragon bellowed at it amidst the sternum-vibrating bass of the thunder. He was purely himself, for the first time in his memory. There was no confusion, no buzzing of human thought, no conscience. Simple and pure, this was the way he had always desired to be.

So why did it hurt so much?

Bah, that didn’t matter. He had kept himself to the rides for the last couple of days, as everything outside of it smelled of machine-magic. Not here, not in his lair. The rides were primal and made of the earth. The roller coaster was the only exception, and Dragon hissed at it in disgust. That thing reminded him of what he had shed, like a too-tight skin.

He bared his sharp, pointed teeth at the thing and raised his war hammer high. Lightning crashed again, and he roared as a voice whispered to him in the thunder.

“I’m not so sure you exist.”

Dragon soared through the skies and through time. This was perfectly natural, and in no way strange to him. Well, the “him” that he was at the moment.

He knew he was going back, but not too far. The words “Aqua Net” and “Bad Music” flashed from somewhere in his head, back where he was still human. Dragon shook his head and snarled. The shadow that was calling to him was what was important. The wooden horse needed to be part of the Shadow, as he was. It would become brethren. Clutch-mate.

Dragon bellowed again, softly landing in the grass. He looked around him, sniffing and tasting the air. Yes, this was the place. The air tasted like grease and gasoline and human. It was this strong in the trees, it would have been overpowering outside of them. He could see the square stone towers, and the light from inside them. They almost drowned out the stars… but it was not his place to punish them. Not today.

He positioned the carousel horse in the proper place, and peered carefully into the shadows. He could see what was to be slowly emerging from them. The Carnival would live here for a little while. He could hear the soft calliope music begin. Now was the time for ritual.

Dragon hefted his war-hammer high and roared defiantly at the stars. He struck the ground below him with all his might and all his will. The hammer began to glow… first red, then blue, then white-hot… wisps of smoke and flame shot out in six directions, then rose to greet the sky. The flames suddenly extinguished, and a twisted version of a carousel sat in their place. The new horse was there, as perfect as it had been before the flame, but in every other spot were the most finely wrought statues of mythical creatures both remembered and forgotten. Some of wood, some of brass, some seemingly of gold. The platform of the carousel seemed to be made of the very granite that was the bedrock of the park. The canopy seemed to be made of intertwined ivy and rose vines, trailing down both flowers and thorns. The carousel began to turn and emit the strangest song… it conjured images of dancing around a fire at a tribal gathering, fighting wars with those who do not respect, and coming of age in a society that knew what that meant.

Dragon nodded his wedge-shaped head in satisfaction at the carousel. He left it to survey the other rides that seemed to be growing out of the ground and the trees themselves. He would have to make sure that the technology-magic was playing as big of a part as the earth-magic. Peh. Humans.

“Stupid horse. Stupid cat.”

His nose burned. A lot. His back ached. A lot. His knees were sending lightning bolts of pain up and down his legs. A lot. And this gods-forsaken carousel horse was still on his back. And he’d walked a total of five miles in a generally eastward direction.

“Mother beetches.”

He unceremoniously dropped the wooden piece of art (it really was beautiful) onto the sidewalk. He stretched and grinned as about twenty pops resounded from his back. It was one of those nights where you just don’t say that it can’t get any worse, because it will.

“Well, at least it can’t get any worse.”

That’s when the Mack truck hit him. No, seriously. A big, 18-wheeled, Mack truck. Smacked right into him. It surprised him too. He wasn’t as surprised as the driver was when he discovered that Dragon wasn’t meaty chunks on the pavement. The semi rolled to a halt, and Dragon peeled himself off of the grill of the truck.

The driver blinked. He didn’t quite understand what he saw. His rational mind told him that something like this couldn’t exist, and was purely impossible. His instinctive side told him, “Run you stupid fuck!”. He just kind of stood there, torn. That was when the war hammer inverted the left side of his skull.

A hulking thing bellowed into the night, celebrating its kill. Its neck was far too long for it to be human, that and the slightly wedge-shaped head. It stood upright, though, and grasped a war hammer in a five-fingered (although scaled and taloned) hand.

No one credible believed their eyes when they saw the figure flapping lazily through the sky on scaled wings, holding a brightly-painted carousel horse in its feet, heading vaguely eastward.

You’d not believe how much it hurts when you apply Taco Bell hot sauce to a gash on the inside of your nose. You’re going to have to trust me when I say that it hurts a lot.

Ever since they’d left Caro, Dragon had slipped into the facet of his personality that most closely resembled his waking self. It hadn’t an entirely purposeful slip. Rather, it had been brought about by the desire to discover where he fit on this new totem pole, as well as his general lack of understanding of what was going on around him. Simply put, he was like this when he was unsure.

The good Doctor was inside having a cup of coffee with the mad craftsman. James and that… that… cat.. were at the restaurant. Songflower was defiantly not speaking to him after he had called Smoky a “paltry excuse for a defender of the border between the living and the dead”. She didn’t seem to know why she was pissed off, but she was. Dragon got out of the back seat and leaned against the back of the car and lit up a Djarum unfiltered from a tin deftly hidden in his armored trench coat.

This bit, with the Carousel horse, this was going to be important to him. He was supposed to be the Rides Master, after all. Spice up the old rides. Make new, thrilling, rides. And above all, design a roller coaster. Specifications and designs kept flitting in and out of Dragon’s mind, but none of those would work. Literally. They’d most likely defy the laws of physics and just sit there, not working. No, this aspect of the Carnival had to be coaxed out. It had to be grown, like a crystal grows, from the fire and ice of the Carnival. From that music that was the Carnival. Dragon took a deep drag on the clove and closed his eyes.

He could feel a City calling his waking self. He could feel his waking self calling out to others. He could feel the Carnival and its hold on him. He could feel the sting of the clove smoke on his tongue. Ah, how things change.