The Master Of Misrule Part 18

"My partner there." She gestured to the cage in which the lion was prowling restively. It was not the only big cat waiting in the wings: a panther and a tiger were dozing in cramped crates against the wall. "The Lion's Den is a thrilling climax for the show. After me, it's the most popular act." Her green eyes glinted. "But that only involves players who have failed to entertain. I'm sure royalty such as yourselves will have no trouble impressing the crowd."

Toby beamed. "You want us to join in the show? Excellent."

"What kind of entertainment?" Flora asked suspiciously.

"Well, you could test your nerve on the Wheel of Death." Cybele pointed to a pockmarked circular target board painted with Fortune's Wheel, and with ankle and wrist straps fastened to the spokes. "It's very simple: one of you spins while the other one throws the knives. Then there's the Iron Maiden." She indicated a gla.s.s box pierced with metal spikes. "Our contortionist can get in and out in under two minutes. But if confined s.p.a.ces don't appeal, maybe you'd like to improve on the Starlight Sisters' aerial display."

They looked behind her onto the stage, where two trapeze artists were skimming through the air at dizzying heights.

Toby gulped. "Uh ..."

"It's only fair to warn you that my patrons are accustomed to the very best," Cybele purred. "The most daring, the most beautiful, the most exotic ... It will not be easy to win their applause. So whatever you decide on for your act, I hope for your sake that it'll be a crowd-pleaser." She shrugged sleekly. "Otherwise, you might have to try your luck in the Lion's Den, after all."

"I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE" was the first thing Blaine said once they'd arrived in the Four of Swords and begun to look around them.

They were in a graveyard that was so large, with tombs so grand, it was almost a marble city. Cypress trees soared into the soft blue night, and torchlight warmed the white stone. Tiny lizards darted through the shadows.

"Was it when you first joined the Game?" Cat asked.

"No. When Misrule gave me the Knight of Wands, this was the move my so-called prize took me to. Should've guessed when I saw your card."

The Arcanum never created the same setting twice, and the first time Blaine had seen these effigies, they had been in the sculpture gallery of a dilapidated museum. The life-sized monuments were lavishly adorned with decorative pentacles, swords, cups and wands, and they all had carved figures on them, lamenting over urns, kneeling in prayer or lying in stately rest.

"There're knights sleeping in tombs as far as the eye can see," said Cat. "How are we to know which one is the man we need for our offering?"

She moved to look more closely at the effigies. Though they were uniformly dressed in flowing robes or chain mail, the statues were otherwise individual portraits, depicting men and women of all ages and physical types. Their faces were very peaceful. Although the memorials didn't bear any names, they did have epitaphs: DEARLY BELOVED. MUCH LAMENTED. SADLY MOURNED.

Cat looked at Blaine hesitantly. "I s'pose you must have, uh, checked them before, in case you recognized your stepdad."

"Yeah. Took hours. I'd know his ugly mug anywhere but there was no sign of him-alive or dead." Blaine remembered the long, lonely wander among the galleries, examining each carved face for Arthur's features, regarding each shadow with suspicion in case his stepfather should suddenly spring out from the gloom.

His face hardened at the memory.

"I wonder what's the point of this move," Cat speculated, partly to distract him. "What a player has to do to win it, I mean."

"We don't have to win anything. We just have to find the right stone bloke."

After wandering around for a while, they reached one of the tree-lined paths that quartered the cemetery. In the center of the junction where the four paths met, there was a block of white marble with an iron sword thrust in the center, so that half its blade was buried. Cat thought it might be a war memorial, but instead of a list of fallen soldiers, there was a single line inscribed on the marble: UNSHEATHE THE SWORD, SUMMON THE SLEEPERS.

Blaine raised his brows. "DIY instructions-the Arcanum must be going soft."

"Was the sword here the last time?"

"Might've been. I wouldn't have paid much attention to it if it was. Arthur was the only thing I was bothered about." He reached toward the platform. Then he stopped. "Sorry. It's not for me to go grabbing. You're sword royalty, after all."

Cat smiled and shook back her hair. She jumped lightly up onto the block and grasped the hilt. The iron was bitingly cold, but when she tugged it, she felt the blade s.h.i.+ft, deep within the stone. She was Queen of Swords indeed. "Whew. Here goes...."

As she began to pull out the sword, the cypress trees s.h.i.+vered, and torch flames danced. Blaine was seized by a sudden foreboding.

"No, Cat, wait-"

Too late. The sword slid cleanly out of its marble sheath. And the city of the dead awoke.

It began with a grating, grumbling sound, faint at first, and very slow. Stone lethargically sc.r.a.ped on stone. The effigies were stirring on their monuments.

Blaine and Cat watched with a fascination that turned to horror as the moving statues began to crumble at the edges and turn to dust. As the powder blew away, it revealed the bodies encased beneath. The memorial closest to them was of a woman holding a rosary; the figure's stony curls and smooth cheeks disintegrated to expose a skull, which turned and stared with empty sockets and a moldy-toothed grin.

"This," said Blaine, s.n.a.t.c.hing up one of the flaming torches, "is not good."

Cat tasted a bubble of nausea. "G.o.d. It's like being in a zombie flick. Only with really special effects."

At that moment, one of the little lizards scuttled past the skeleton-woman's crumbling skirts. She stabbed at it, clumsily. Although her bone finger brushed only the end of the lizard's tail, the creature froze. In the blink of an eye it was covered in fine dust. Seconds later, this had solidified into stone.

"Not your average zombies, then," Blaine managed to say.

Cat's grip tightened around her sword.

"Look-there." She pointed down the eastern avenue. It led to a mausoleum even grander than any of the other memorials they'd seen: a black marble temple that had previously been shrouded in darkness. Now the building was lit up from the inside, and all the stained-gla.s.s windows were ablaze.

Could it be a refuge? Or was it a trap?

It didn't matter: there was nowhere else to go. One touch from a dead hand, and they would be rotting inside stone themselves. And so they began to run.

The sleepers' awakening was gradual and started from the head. When Blaine and Cat began their flight, nearly all of the dead were free of their stone casing only from the shoulders up. The frames underneath were mostly skeletons of brittle yellow bones. However, not all the relics were so ancient.

Corpses shrugged off dust from shriveled sinews to which sc.r.a.ps of skin and garments still clung. Even more hideous were those in states of recent decomposition. A few bodies were almost intact, though exuding a green clamminess and gusts of mold. Others were bloated and black and crawling with maggots. The smell of putrefied flesh hung sick and sweet in the air.

Yet as Blaine and Cat flung themselves down the avenue, their weariness almost overwhelmed the fear. I'm worn out, Cat thought resentfully. It isn't fair. Then one of the cadavers lunged out, sweeping an emaciated hand so close to her arm that she could almost feel the breeze of its pa.s.sing. Suddenly it was as if she had been the one sleeping. Beside her, she heard Blaine's breath rasp.

Many of the dead had worked free from their monuments by now, and were joined in a shambling pursuit. As Cat and Blaine reached the last ten feet or so before the mausoleum's doors, they were close to being surrounded by a ring of cadavers who advanced slowly but persistently, oozing foulness. Some even had the power of speech. More recent corpses, who were still in possession of their tongues, gave soggy cries of rage and threat. Others gibbered with blackened gums.

Blaine lashed out with his torch. Cat, meanwhile, brandished her sword in a series of clumsy thrusts.

The sudden attack seemed to disconcert their pursuers. More by luck than skill, a shove of Cat's sword and a flaming swipe of Blaine's torch managed to fell two of the corpses at the same time. Their fellows drew back a little.

"Quick," Blaine panted. "Now's our chance. Run."

A STAGEHAND SHOWED TOBY and Flora to a cramped dressing room along the corridor, and informed them that their curtain call would be in fifteen minutes. The room was stuffy, and smelled of sweat and cigarettes. A froth of discarded costumes-chiffon, tulle and lace-littered the floor.

Toby tried on a feathered hat. "I can juggle a bit. At any rate, I don't usually drop the b.a.l.l.s more than a couple of times."

"I doubt that and my collection of dumb-blonde jokes are really going to cut it," said Flora crisply.

"What about a vanis.h.i.+ng act? One of us could disappear through a threshold."

"It would be rather an anticlimax when that person failed to appear again. Besides, we've already lost Cat and Blaine; I don't think we should risk splitting up."

"You're probably right." Toby turned to finger a set of silver-and-blue pom-poms. "Flora ... Don't you think it's strange we haven't seen any sign of Misrule since the Tower?"

She sighed. "If Eternity's the Great Triumph, and the only one he can't meddle with, it's quite possible he can't interfere with our search for it, either. His trick with the threshold coins didn't work, did it? Not now that we're kings and queens."

"I suppose. I just thought he'd put up more of a fight."

"Don't speak too soon. There's still time for him to appear in a puff of smoke and start throwing thunderbolts." Flora sat down in front of the mirror. The dressing table was littered with garish cosmetics; automatically, she began to sweep a cleansing wipe over her face. "Right now, though, worrying about what Misrule is up to is a distraction we can't afford."

"The Show Must Go On."

"Yes. And we have to find a way of starring in it."

Toby snapped his fingers. "I've got it."

Flora waited.

"And?"

"Seems obvious, really. It'll be a risk, of course. It has to be. That's what makes a performance exciting. But if we can pull it off ..."

"Toby. What are you talking about?"

He doffed the feather hat. "A card trick."

Flora drummed a hairbrush against the table in exasperation. "Are you being deliberately stupid? Do you honestly think Catwoman is going to be impressed by a bit of fancy shuffling? We need magic and spectacle and-"

"Exactly. That's why it'll need to be an Arcanum card trick."

Toby drew up his cards, skimming expertly through the deck. "I was remembering what the High Priestess said in the Tower, about the boundaries between the moves breaking down. How characters from one card can now stray into another."

"So?"

"So how about we bring something exciting from another card into this one? Something magical and spectacular, like you said."

"Can we do that?" Flora asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. "How would it work?"

"I'm not entirely sure," he confessed. "But I think we could raise a threshold, draw a card ready for the next move and ... tear it? That's how you play an ace. Of course, there's a risk that it won't work and we'll have destroyed a card with nothing to show for it."

"Or else we unleash something much worse than a few lions." Flora frowned. "I don't know. It's a clever idea, Toby, but ..."

"It's our only idea. We're nearly out of time, let alone options."

There was a sharp rap on the door. "Two minutes, please," said a voice outside.

"There you go." Toby rubbed his hands. "Let's pick a card. And, Flora, don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you should put on a bit of lipstick or something. You're looking awfully washed out."

The stage was even larger than they remembered: acres and acres of empty s.p.a.ce. High above them was a bewildering web of furled-up backdrops, grids and pulleys. Immediately in front, the glare of the lights made it difficult to view their audience. Toby found this a relief, but for Flora, the fact that she couldn't properly see the hundreds-thousands-of eyes fixed on her only made her feel more exposed.

Toby cleared his throat and heard his microphone crackle.

"I'm the King of Pentacles," he announced.

"And I'm the Queen of Cups," said Flora.

There was a stirring in the stalls. Somebody coughed. Several people laughed.

Toby's face burned. "Ladies and gentlemen, erm, honored guests, tonight is your lucky night. Yes. Because we've got something very special for you. In fact, we're going to perform a card trick."

The audience rustled and hummed, discontentedly. He pressed on.

"First off, my beautiful a.s.sistant will prepare the Magic Rites and Incantations...."

Flora gritted her teeth but decided that now was not the time to dispute job t.i.tles. Instead, she shone her best party smile over the footlights, and bobbed a curtsy.

Her hand shook as she rolled the die along the stage. For added effect, Toby waved his arms in what he imagined were mystic gestures as a threshold wheel appeared on the floor, its patterns cast by a spotlight's lens. "Abracadabra! Hocus-pocus! Supercalifragilisticarcanumalidocius!"

Watched by the faceless, murmuring crowd, Flora held up the card they'd selected.

The Magician would have been the obvious choice, but neither she nor Toby possessed the triumph. Instead, Flora had taken her idea from the Eight of Cups; much as she had loathed the marsh and its treacherous mists, it occurred to her that now was the time to turn the Arcanum's trickery to their own advantage. And so she had suggested the card immediately preceding it. The Seven of Cups showed a figure watching a billowing cloud in which fantastical visions appeared: a serpent and dragon, a castle, a ghost ... an angelic head and wreath of laurels ... a chalice spilling jewels. Its formal t.i.tle was "Reign of Illusionary Success." They would just have to hope that their own chance of victory wasn't about to vanish into thin air.

"With this card," Toby was saying, "we are going to conjure marvels for you. A world of mystery and miracles! Prepare yourselves to be amazed!"

At his signal, Flora tore the Seven of Cups.

Nothing happened.

Toby licked his lips nervously. "Any moment now." Nothing.

"Sometimes the, er, magic needs a while to take effect...."

The silence of the waiting, watching spectators was stifling.

"L-ladies and gentle-gentlemen," Toby tried. "Ladies and-ladies-"

Laughter now. And grumblings. Far back, somebody booed. Then somebody else did, much closer.

"If you'll just be patient, I'm sure ..."

He shot an agonized glance at Flora.

Flora didn't return it. Her eyes were fixed on the threshold, where, at last, something was happening.

The threshold was growing. The flat patterning of the wheel-bright white light on shadowed ground-stretched out, from a circle the size of a bicycle wheel to a disc wide enough to encompa.s.s the whole stage. Dry ice began to rise from each long spoke.

Flora and Toby retreated to the side of the stage, their backs against a length of velvet curtain.

In the wheel's axis, where the four spokes of light met, something was thrusting and wriggling. Out of the center of the threshold, a knot of smoke-snakes began to coil and uncoil across the stage. The reptiles' bodies were almost transparent, their skins as thin as a soap bubble. Gasps of consternation rose from the stalls as the reptiles squirmed toward the footlights.

"Remember," Flora had told Toby as they left the dressing room, "whatever happens, this time we know that nothing's to be trusted. Whatever or whomever we see, none of it's real." Now it was Toby's turn for instructions. "Don't look so startled," he told her through the side of his mouth. "We're supposed to be in control of this show. Keep smiling."

Multicolored sparks were shooting from the wheel's axis, followed by puffs of much denser smoke. And suddenly there was a new creature onstage, its ghostly body scaly and horned, with wide, hooked wings: a smoke-dragon that pounced on the smoke-snakes and gobbled them whole, beating its wings in triumph before taking to the air and swooping into the auditorium.