Manna, Desistos, Gaia, Pyros, and Hydra.

  The five Primordials ruled over our world for millennia, each a nature spirit representing the apex of a branch of magic. They were immortal, invincible tyrants with no consideration for human life. To them, we were little more than toys. To us, they were gods.

  Until six hundred years ago, when they disappeared.

  Nobody knows what happened. Anything involving the disappearance or death of the Primordials should have been recorded with the greatest of details—and yet, no matter how we search, we can find no concrete mentions of that event.

  However, we know that the Primordials did not go silent into the night. Before their disappearance, the Sea of Sands was not a desert, but a lush continent, and sporadic, fragmented records speak of a battle so large as to threaten breaking the world. These are all the clues we have.

  It is like the entire world’s history of that time period was wiped clean.

  What happened to the five Primordials? Did they kill each other? Are they alive, and if so, where? Are they dead, and if so, where are their corpses? Beings of such power do not just disappear. The only suspect location is the Throat of the Earth in the Sea of Sands, that bottomless lake, but despite the world’s best efforts, despite diving countless miles, no sign of a bottom has been reached.

  What happened to the five Primordials, and why is it not recorded? How did the Sea of Sands come to be? How and why were the entire world’s historical records erased? What unimaginable power could have caused this?

  Even six hundred years later, we have no answers, and these questions are collectively referred to as the Great Enigma. I wish they are solved in my lifetime, for I die to know.

  - From the introductory chapter of The Great Enigma by Arabon the Mindful

  “Mmm, hmm, hmm. Oh, another one. Yay!”

  Maria pocketed the mushroom she’d been holding, smiling as she stood back up. She then skipped to the next tree and got ready to collect its mushrooms, too. Maybe, if she showed all these to her mom, she’d cook a nice soup!

  Spring had come a month ago, and all of nature had been blooming ever since. Maria’s days were filled with beautiful flowers and fluffy calves and cute puppies and the scent of vanilla as her mother extracted the juices. This is great! Maria thought and smiled.

  Suddenly, she paused, hand still reaching for a mushroom. A series of odd sounds reached her ears—honking and bashing, banging and whistling, blowing and trumpets and huffing and puffing and all the nice loud sounds that she knew well.

  These were travelers! Musicians!

  Maria forgot all about mushrooms and excitedly ran through the woods to the road, the wide dirt path from where the sounds came. She reached it in a few minutes, stuck her little face through a bush, and saw—

  Well, she wasn’t sure what she saw.

  There were trumpets and carried drums, there were packs of colorful fabrics forming a tower on a slow wagon, there were jugglers and dancers and musicians, and there were animals parading under shiny colors, but these weren’t normal people, for some of them were made of bones.

  Four tall men danced ahead of everyone, surrounding another who was somehow juggling his own head. A bone-man, this one large and terrifying, was carrying two massive drums and playing both at the same time—not too exquisitely. And did he have axes for hands?

  A fox with ribbons flying over its bony body walked beside him, yelping, jumping, and rolling on the ground, while a large bone-boar with little bells on its tusks pulled the wagon and joyfully shuffled its feet in an awkward attempt at dancing.

  On the cart sat a bone-man with a colorful pointy hat, absorbed in the sheets of paper he was holding and not at all participating in the festivities, save for the small, red, rolled-up, pipe-like thing on his lips. When he blew it, as he reluctantly did every few seconds, the thing unrolled and made a funny-sounding whistling-spitting noise, a sort of ‘prrrt.’

  Driving the cart was another funny-looking man in a long, multi-colored robe with a trumpet on his lips, an instrument he clearly didn’t know how to play, but he was trying. He noticed Maria, let go of the trumpet, waved, and said, “Hi! We’re the Funny Bone Circus! Awesome, right?”

  Maria released a pointy shriek and fainted.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  ***

  John, Harry, and Dick stood with their arms crossed in front of the village gates, all three of them wearing a necklace of wood nettle.

  “A circus, you say,” spoke John.

  “Exactly, my good sirs.” The necromancer smiled widely. With his extravagantly colorful robe, the stuffed sack he was holding, and the pointy party hat on his head, he really didn’t look half-evil. “We are the Funny Bone, the new wandering circus of Escarbot. Could we have the honor of performing in your village?”

  “Why would a necromancer start a circus?” Harry asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “I have to make a living somehow, and shoes don’t sell well in the spring.”

  “What do shoes—”

  “As a token of our gratitude,” the necromancer continued—Jerry was his name—“we’ve prepared some gifts for you.”

  Removing the sack from his shoulder, he opened it on the ground and took out handful after handful of little wooden horses.

  “What are those?” Dick asked.

  “Toys, my friends! As a circus, our purpose is to bring smiles on the lips of children and grown-ups alike. How could we possibly show up without a few toys?”

  “Are these for free?” John asked, picking up a wooden horse and turning it around. He had to admit it was well-crafted; he could even tell apart the individual hairs on its tail!

  My little John Jr. would love this… he thought of his modestly named son.

  “Of course they are, my good sirs. We seek only to bring happiness; why would we shy away from a few gifts?”

  “But you’ll charge for your performance.”

  “Of course.” The necromancer gave them a wide, good-natured smile. “We have to make a living, don’t we?”

  John, Harry, and Dick exchanged a look. “He did bring wooden horses,” John said. “Nice ones, too.”

  “And he seems friendly,” Harry added.

  “I don’t want to spoil the fun,” Dick said, pointing behind the necromancer, “but have you noticed the hellish army over there?”

  A bunch of undead stood behind Jerry—dressed so ridiculously that they couldn’t scare a cat, but deadly nonetheless.

  “Come on, Dick, don’t be a dick.” John scoffed. “He even brought us gifts. What more do you expect him to do, blow you?”

  “That’s right, that’s right, he brought wooden horses. Doesn’t get more harmless than that. They can’t even neigh.”

  “Your children will even be able to host mock races,” the necromancer cut in. “I bet these can keep them occupied till the summer.”

  Occupied? The eyes of John and Harry, who had children, shone. They wanted nothing more than to get those little disasters out of their feet.

  “See?” Harry looked at Dick. “Totally harmless.”

  “Harmless, besides being a necromancer.” Dick crossed his arms.

  “Come on, Dick. This guy is clearly doing his best. No one evil would dress like that.”

  “No offense, sir,” John quickly intervened.

  “None taken. That was more of a compliment.” The necromancer smiled.

  “Hmph.” Dick considered it, once again looking over the necromancer and his group of undead. “You’re right, I guess…but no funny business, you hear me?”

  “We intend to do lots of funny business, sir,” the wizard replied in all seriousness, “but none of it suspicious, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Look, Dick, he’s even funny by himself; imagine what he can do with a whole circus.”

  “Just camp outside the village.” Dick, the most reluctant of the three, sighed. “We’ll keep the goats away from you—we know the undead fear them. Just give us a great show, okay?”

  “Of course!” The necromancer smiled again. That the undead feared goats was another baseless prejudice he didn’t care to correct. “Thank you for understanding, my good friends. Now, there are a few details to be discussed. Boney?”

  A skeleton emerged from the bunch and approached them, somehow managing to make his skull seem ready for business. In his bony hands was a sheet of paper, and on his lips, a red, rolled-up, pipe-like thing which could unroll and make a funny-sounding ‘prrrt.’

  “The name’s Tom Boney,” the skeleton said, entering business mode, “and I have a few things to discuss with you. For starters, we plan to host three shows in your village, with the price of admission at three taels a head—two for the children. Equivalent exchanges will be accepted at our discretion. Moreover, we would like your village to provide us with materials at a premium price to facilitate our performances. Specifically, we need pig fat, strong rope, colored fabrics…”

  Boney kept speaking. The three men never knew what hit them.