Marie the Blind Juggler

Marie was a blind juggler conscripted into the service of Carnival L'Morai and the Puppetmaster, whereupon she met Hermos. They led a rebellion against the Puppetmaster for a time until Marie became marked by the brand of the carnival's master, signifying she had been chosen to become the carnival's new leader. Hermos noticed this and broke her neck, informing his fellow rebels that she had called the order for the rebels to escape L'Morai. This cemented her image as a self-sacrificing hero and martyr to the cause of the carnival Troupers.

Detailed History

Before the Carnival

Before coming to Carnival l'Morai, Marie resided in the City of l'Morai with her father, a cobbler named Francis Martinique. She was known back then as Yvette Martinique. Unlike her father, Yvette showed a loathing toward the Carnival freaks and performers typical of the City's people. She became involved in the hunting of freaks who abandoned the carnival to live illegally and secretly in the City. At just over 18 years old with the command of afew soldiers, she uncovered a group of such fugitives marked for death. However, in so doing, she unwittingly outed her father as the one who gave them shelter. For his crime, Francis was taken away. After discovering the truth, Marie went to free her father, but they were discovered. Francis lost his life fighting the City's soldiers in a feint to convince them he was using Yvette as a hostage and forced accomplice.

Despite Frances' ambitions to ensure Yvette's life and freedom, she was taken into custody and judged guilty by the Council of l'Morai according to the twisted Statutes of l'Morai. The Statutes prescribed the horrid punishment known as the living death for Yvette's crime, which involved the stripping of her memories and condemnation to the Carnival as a freak. The Cityfolk blinded Yvette and replaced her identity with that of Marie, the Blind Juggler. Marie lived for a time believing she had grown up in Carnival l'Morai and that she had lost her sight and her father to to the Fever. At the Carnival, she made friends with some of the other performers, such as Anton and the other harlequins Borgo, a dwarf sword-swallower and one of the longest lived carnival performers, gave her a small, finely detailed quartz statue of a tree. Another performer, Hermos the Man-Giant, took note of the beautiful juggler, though only in passing.

Investigate Early Murders

One day entering her caravan, Marie came upon Borgo's dead body, run through with a sword, along with his apparent murderer. The murderer escaped, but not before she cut him. In the aftermath, Hermos and another performer, the stage magician Morcastle, came to her assistance in pleading the case there was a murder gendarmerie of l'Morai. The gendarmes ultimately dismissed Borgo's death as an accident and even disturbed the crime scene when Marie, Hermos, and Morcastle further insisted it was murder. Although their efforts failed, Marie and Hermos bonded over the fairy tales they both knew as children and Hermos' faith in a pantheon of animal gods. In addition, the Puppetmaster, puppeteer and ringmaster of Carnival l'Morai, promised to Marie he would see into the matter.

A second murder was discovered soon after, a bloody trail leading away from the wagon of Panon and Banon with both of the conjoined twins missing. Footprings led across the black heath, a place freaks wee forbidden by law from passing across. Marie, Hermos, and Morcastle crossed anyway, following it into a forest where they found the bodies of Panon and Banon, cut apart from each other. Moreover, there were many more dead bodies of other dead performers buried in unmarked graves, numbering into the hundreds, in this forest, referred to only as the forest of a thousand graves.

Inside the forest, Marie and her allies were accosted by the gendarmerie heath patrol, charging them with the capital offense of entering territory restricted from freaks despite their protestations of the graves of many murder victims. A violent conflict ensued with the defeat (though not death) of the gendarmerie and the flight of Marie and her allies back to Carnival l'Morai.

Trials

The gendarmerie came looking for the trio soon thereafter. However, the Puppetmaster intervened and declared Marie, Hermos, and Morcastle would be judged by boardwalk trial, whereupon they were placed in the stocks and allowed to plead their case to passersby. Those in favor of their guilt could spit or throw refuse on them, whereas those believing in their innocence could leave ducres. Lord Odieu heard their description of the incident and the murderer and matched it to Dominick the Butcher. Convinced to set them free, he let set down a considerable amount of money for their freedom.

Soon thereafter, Dominick was captured at Carnival l'Morai and, after further investigation by the gendarmerie, put on trial in City l'Morai. With Jurist L'Arist as their representative before the Council of l'Morai and the general public, Marie and Morcastle made their plea. In the end after both sides presented their arguments, it was not the factor or evidence of the case that convinced the people of Dominick's guilt put the testimony of his son and other Cityfolk that resulted in Dominick's conviction. Egged on by Marie's impassioned speech to speak truth about Dominick's wickedness, many citizens, Dominick's own son included, came forward and spoke of his character, with many not even related to the case. The punishment was living death, that, according to L'Aris, was a sort of exile from City l'Morai, but did not go much further into it.

Morcastle's Death

It was not until after the trial that Marie discovered a piece of physical evidence potentially exonerating Dominick. L'Arist advised her not to meddle further, because a reversal of the trial could result in in severe punishment for Marie and Morcastle for perjury. Morcastle secretly observed Dominick's punishment, in which throngs of townspeople stabbed and tortured him as some sort of magical collar kept him from death. Morcastle, Hermos, and Marie later reconvened and decided to try to undo what had happened, hoping Dominick still lived figuring this torture the townspeople inflicted upon him was part of the "living death". Marie and company planned to ask the Puppetmaster for help once he returned from City l'Morai.

Another death soon followed. Morcastle the Magician was slain in the middle of a magic trick, his prop sabotaged to make it look like an accident. Marie implored the Puppetmaster to help her investigate, but he told her only that he would protect them. He further admonished her an ominous warning not to dig any deeper into the mysteries that be. However, this was not the end of the matter for neither Marie nor Hermos.

A Perverse Discovery

Sometime after Morcastle's burial, a new addition was brought to the carnival. Karrick the Man of a Thousand Knives, the man who could generate knives from his body. Marie and Hermos discovered Karrick was in fact Dominick the butcher, and that the living death involved not only the replacement of a person's memories with false ones but a radical transformation into a freak condemned to live within the Carnival forever.

Further investigation led into the Puppetmaster's office, where they discovered the Puppetmaster was not only behind the deaths but also these were apparently (legally) justified deaths as all the people murdered had literally been marked for death by tattoos. Moreover, it seemed like Dominick's punishment was not unique- Marie, Hermos, and many of their fellow performers were once citizens who due to transgressions against the Statutes, however minor, had undergone the living death. They were all part of some twisted system of serial abuse and murder.

The Rebellion

Suddenly what was merely an investigation turned into a quest for liberation as Marie and Hermos gathered the other carnival performers together to plan and prepare for escape and the capture of the Puppetmaster. As Marie set a big tent ablaze to force the cityfolk to flee, a group of carnival folk attempted to capture the Puppetmaster, who locked himself in his wagon. Three of the rebel carnival folk tried to go in in after him without waiting for help, only to meet their deaths.

Marie offered the Puppetmaster a free trial if he came out, but the Puppetmaster refused. Thereby, Marie organized the carnival folk to set his building ablaze. The Puppetmaster eventually emerged, monstrously disfigured and still burning but very much alive. Moreover, he was enough to force his way through the horrified crowd, destroying anyone or thing that got in his way. Marie called Valor Ceres to lead a number of the brute squad to stop him once and for all.

The actions of the carnival folk did not go unnoticed. The Puppetmaster escaped, and returned with a group of City l'Morai soldiers. The carnival folk held them off for a night, but dissension brew within the ranks of the carnival folk.

Old antipathies between the carnival folk combined with differences views on handling the stragglers to make carnival folk attack carnival folk. A schism formed around the fate of the "murderer" Felix the Hunchback, whom had killed another carnie, Kougan in self defense. However, Felix's defenders were not blameless, as some of them acted out of bigotry against ogres or simple antipathy for Kougan. Lines were drawn. Despite Marie's intercession, the carnivol folk violently turned on each other, and Felix was murdered by the gray ogre. It was only the threat of attack from city soldiers that kept the carnival folk from destroying one another. This time the gathering enemy force was an army.

War and Surrender

With what word they received ahead of time, the carnival folk prepared for war. Although the carnival forces held off the soldiers for a time with unusual tactics, the carnival folk became pinned inside the carnival arena. The Puppetmaster called for Marie's surrender, to which he would spare the other rebels. As things took a turn for the worst, Marie consulted the oracle, Oreaux. The war had obscured his sight, making his prophecy occluded and uncertain. All he could see was that they could not escape the arena, that there was a future filled with death. When asked if Marie should give herself up, Oreaux saw an aura of darkness- that is death- about her, though perhaps not the rest of the carnival folk.

Things got worse when the Puppetmaster called forth the dead, both rebel and soldier, to rise again as his undead minions. Morcastle was among them. Filled with guilt, Marie gave herself up. The Puppetmaster took her to the City of l'Morai, where she was put on trial. Memory of her past was restored to her, and the guilt she felt at her father's death compounded with the guilt she felt at the deaths and likely deaths of her friends. She could say little in her defense. She was found unanimously guilty. She was sentenced to thirty lashes with the scourge, and should she survive, execution the following morning. She endured the lashing, and was brought to her jail cell beneath the Council Hall.

An Insidious Choice

Waiting for her execution, she was visited by the Puppetmaster. He revealed the grave truth of l'Morai: the carnival folk were created solely as targets for abuse, vilification, and ultimately destruction at the hands of the city folk, so as to prevent the bile-filled city folk from turning on each other. Moreover, her rebels were doomed to be destroyed at the hands of the City's people, unless the rebels agreed to go back to their old jobs. Such a task would be impossible under the leadership of the Puppetmaster, as the carnival folk would never trust him again. Only if Marie took up his role as carnival master, and become the Juggler, as he had become the Puppetmaster, could things return to the way they were, for the carnival folk trusted Marie.

The Puppetmaster had experience, he claimed, as he had been in Marie's place at one time. Six decades ago, he was the leader of Carnival l'Morai rebels. Like Marie, his attempt ultimately failed, and, like Marie, he was given the same choice. Forced with dooming his followers and friends to death, he chose to accept the mantle, and the cursed ruby pendant of l'Morai, passed dowm through the centuries by carnival master to carnival master, going all the way back to the original Juron Cygne. To don the pendant would mean becoming its cursed thrall, forced to serve the hateful interests of the City before the carnival folk and prevent future rebellions.

Return, Death, and Legacy

Given the sinister choice, Marie chose to save her friends and accept the pendant. She returned to Hermos and the others at the carnival arena, and told them they must rebuild the Carnival, surprising them with her apparent change of heart Marie told her followers lies, that she was exonerated, that the true killer- Francis the cobbler, had been discovered and dealt with, but their dream of a life outside the carnival was a foolish one. They needed to rebuild.

Most of them followed her order to tear down the walls sealing the arena, but Hermos noticed the change in her. Once the two were alone, he asked what the City had done to her, and if she was even the real Marie. Though she feigned ignorance of any change, Marie became tearful. Hermos took Marie into her arms. She did not push away, but instead allowed Hermos to quickly break her neck, sparing her a horrid existence as a thrall to the curse pendant. He then told the carnival folk that Marie had given one last order: they needed to escape, to gather everyone and escape through a tunnel through the arena and out of the breach point in the wall. She would remain behind to stall for time, Hermos said before leading them away from l'Morai once and for all. Thus, Marie's legacy became one of a hero and a martyr.

Appearances

• Novels
  • Carnival of Fear (only appearance)

• Sourcebooks
  • Champions of the Mists (mentioned only)