by Im Not Mister Mxyptlk
Welcome, dear reader, to the very first post of the adventures of The Queen's Royal Society of Rogues and Rapscallions, Royal Society of Rogues for short! In this post we will meet The Amazing Mr Kaleidoscope, magician extraordinarie, a particularly odd fellow, one who certanly holds in himself more than meets the eye...
A particularly luxurious carriage parks in front of the circus, particularly luxurious even taking in consideration that the other carriages surrounding the circus this night aren't precisely inexpensive. The driver rushes to the ground to open the carriage door for his passanger, but before he can reach it, the door is opened from the inside. Seconds later, the distinguished passanger comes out of the carriage.
"I-I am terribly sorry for not being on the ground sooner to open the door for you, master..." the driver says, his voice filled with embarassment and fear.
"Don't concern yourself over nothing, good man," the passanger says, "I am perfectly capable of opening doors all my myself"
"Yes. Yes. I'm sorry, master," the driver replies, a bit more calmed.
"No need to apologise. And please, don't call me 'master'," the passanger states, and with that she walks to the entrance of the circus.
On her way to the entrance, her eye sees a poster that catches her attention. It reads: "The Amazing English Circus is proud to present the world-famous illusionist Mr Kaleidoscope". Under these letters, the face of a man with glasses and a magician top hat is depicted. His face is rather thin, and coming from under the hat a few strands of black hair can be seen. But the oddest thing about the face in the poster are the glasses he wears. Not only because they are bigger than normal glasses, but also because they have spiraling lines in them.
Inside the circus tent, we can see that the drawing on the poster outside is no exaggeration. The magician performing at the center of the tent is indeed wearing glasses bigger than normal with spiraling lines on them. He is dressed exactly like you would expect a magician to be dressed; a black suit with a white shirt underneath, a black bow tie on the shirt neck, and long black pants. The only discrepancy with the way he is depicted outisde, is that he looks younger than in the poster. Around twenty-five winters old, perhaps.
Our at least in apparence wealthy independent lady sits on one of the front row seats, clearly reserved for her, and watched the ending of the spectacle, that was about to come to an ending when she arrived. Mr Kaleidoscope's act was anything but a normal magician show. He would not make animals appear and cut young women in half. Instead, he would blind the audience with bright lights coming from apparently nowhere and marvel them with amazing illusions they could only have seen before under the influence of the opium.
After the show ended, our companion-less lady approaches a circus employee and inquires about the whereabouts of Mr Kaleidoscope's dressing room. At first he is reluctant to help the lady invade the magician's privacy, but after some rather heavy persistence from her part he is more than willing to co-operate.
She opens the door of the dressing room, and finds the famous magician sitting in his desk, with a bottle of whiskey and a glass half full with the same thing in front of him. Though he is giving his back to the door, he does not turn to see who has opened it, nor he seems concerned about it.
"You were late," he states, without turning to look at his visitor.
"That was on purpose," she replies, "I have seen that show at least a dozen times. It's beggining to bore me, to be honest"
He laughs. Then he proceeds to stand from his chair and walk to stand in front of the lady. His top hat is on the desk, but he is still wearing his big glasses. "Miss Ethel Graham," he says.
"Mr. Jarvis Zigg," she replies, offering her hand.
"Oh, call me Kaleidoscope, please," he says shaking her hand. Had this been any other woman, he would have kissed it. But, since he alredy knows Ms. Graham, he prefers to avoid being slapped and shake, as if she was a man.
"I like Jarvis better," she says. "And let me tell you, making the name Jarvis look good in comparison is a hard thing"
"You hurt me!" he says with a short laugh. "Here, lets walk"
They step outside the dressing room and start walking on the surroundings of the circus.
"Tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Ms. Graham?"
"Oh, spare me the fake courtesy, Jarvis," she says in a serious tone. "You must know what I'm here for"
"I was hoping it would be different this time, Ethel..." he says, sighing. "So, Her Majesty is in need of my services, again"
"This time it's more serious than the last, Jarvis"
"It always is..." he says. "What do I have to steal this time? Or does she expect me to rape and murder this time as well?"
"Jarvis!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Now tell me, what is it I have to do?"
"I'm afraid this time the mission is too big for just you to handle, Jarvis. You will require assistance on this one"
"Assistance? From whom?"
"The first part of the mission," Ms. Graham says, handing a folder to Mr. Zigg, "will be recruiting the people who shall help you. Here's all the information you need about them"
"But why do you need me to recruit them, Ethel? Isn't a normal agent able to do something like that?" Mr Zigg says, looking over the files inside the folder.
"You are a celebrity, Jarvis. Her Majesty trusts that they will listen to you"
"But, Ethel!" he exclaims, "Some of these people... They are not even from the the Kingdom! How am I suppoused to persuade them to help our country?"
"It's not just our what country what's in danger this time, Jarvis. When I say it's more serious than the last time, I mean it. Besides, you will find that you have something in common with some of these people. Some of them are quite like you, actually"
"I don't think there's anyone quite like me, Ethel"
"You would be surprised," she says as she looks at him in the eye and smiles. "As always, you have unlimited budget on Her Majesty's account. If you start travelling as soon as possible, Her Majesty would really appreciate it"
"I'm sure she would..."
"Now I will leave to examine those papers more closely, Jarvis. Good bye," she says as she starts walking away from him in direction to her carriage.
"Good bye, Ethel"
"Can I ask you a question, Jarvis?" she says as she stops and turns to look at him.
"Go ahead, please"
"How did you know it was me when I walked into your dressing room? I didn't know it was among your... 'abilities'... to sense people... And God knows I wasn't using a perfume you could have recognized"
He smiles, and taps his finger on his big glasses.
"Oh, that's right," she says, "those damn things"
She walks away once again, leaving Jarvis Zigg, Mr Kaleidoscope, with the files that will help him locate and persuade the people who shall be his companions in the future...
Continued in Chapter 2