"Yes, thank you. How much are the tickets?"

"How much do you wish to pay?." She reached down behind the
table and lifted two wooden crutches. She put her weight on these
and slid from the table. Vaulting her body forward between the two
sticks she hopped. Stopping to wait for the two, Chris and Hadji,
to catch up with her, she turned awkwardly.

"What's wrong?" Chris enquired.

She froze him with a glare. "Nothing is wrong. But perhaps you
find me an odd fish because I don’t share your human pediments."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." Waddling like a puppy she led them towards the
wagon. "My name is Shshtar," she said and Hadji Sy.id, the Berber,
explained: "The name Sh.shta in Arab means the "Rain"."

Sh.shta leaned on one crutch and rapped on the side of a wagon
with the other. "Mama," she called. "We have an audience!"

The whole side of the wagon started to fold down like a drawbridge.

Shshtar turned to Chris. "She is not really my Mama. We call her by
her stage name, Kali, because her true name frightens people.
She likes family to call her Mama. Sometimes!"

"Kali is name of the mother God in the Hindi," Sy.id explained
in a hushed voice. By now the drawbridge side wall had folded
down opening to make a stage.

"What's her real name?"

"She is Madame Cyclogeia..." said the Mermaid, Ishtar,
sitting down on the edge of the stage.