The Master Of Misrule Part 5

The chancers watched as a series of silver coins was scratched away and a sequence of laughing heads and forked tails was revealed. At first, the recipients responded with nothing stronger than a baffled smile or shrug. But soon their reactions grew more extreme. Winners punched the air in triumph. Losers recoiled, grew pale. Banner posters and billboards proclaimed: And it was the image of the cards that flashed around the mirrors now: reproduced in newsprint, beamed through airwaves, projected onto screens.

A burning wheel towered over a city skyline. This was the chancers' own London, free of the transformations and exaggerations of the Arcanum-except for that circle of azure flame. Beneath it, a crowd swelled. Every age, every profession, every kind of person was there. Some looked merely curious, but many bore the flush of desperation or greed.

The wheel spun to the sound of fairground jingles. Once again a wild wind blew, sending sparks and cards flying. These had no lettering or silver coins on them: their ill.u.s.trations belonged to the Game of Triumphs deck. Nevertheless, the crowd surged to catch them, leaping and stumbling, trampling over each other in their l.u.s.t to win.

The scene changed.

A gray morning. Quiet streets, tense faces.

The Day of the Lottery.

Let me be lucky....

Be lucky, people murmured to themselves, whether fearful or excited or resigned, as they waited to receive their fate. Thick, gilt-trimmed cards that appeared out of nowhere to lie on doormats and desks, in handbags and briefcases, the folds of a newspaper or coat.

Many of the cards were blank except for a single line.

Others bore pictures that the chancers recognized: ill.u.s.trations of violence and transformation, fantasy and horror. But these cards did not need to be taken into the Arcanum for the experiences they depicted to come true.

Justice. Two of Swords.

Six of Wands. Love.

Death.

Their images came thicker and faster in the mirrors. Sometimes they were the flat ill.u.s.trations from the cards; sometimes it was like looking into the Arcanum itself. Soon the gla.s.s was a kaleidoscope of moving color: rainbows and starbursts and s.h.i.+vers of light, all breaking, sliding, slithering into one another.

Until the mirrors returned to Misrule and his wheel.

The sun shone cold and black in a crimson sky, and skeleton trees grew root-first from rocks that writhed and squirmed. A ruined city sprawled around. The river that ran through it did not flow with water, but with yellow sand. Snakes swam through the air, and birds dragged themselves across the ground with leaden wings.

Dead leaves twirled in the wind that whipped around the wheel and out of the mirrors, tangling the chancers' hair and tugging at their clothes. The leaves blew around them also-except they were not leaves, but the charred remains of triumph cards.

The Master of Misrule looked straight into their eyes. This time, they could hear his laughter. The wheel's blue flames burned cold as ice, and its reflection whirled on every side, so that they seemed locked in a prism of freezing fire. The light grew fiercer, whiter, spitting and hissing from each frosted shard of gla.s.s, until at last there was a mind-shattering crash as the mirrors fell to the floor, and the room plunged into darkness.

In the sudden silence, the four chancers could hear the laboring of their breath. The High Priest, meanwhile, was swaying with exhaustion. When he spoke again, they could see the effort it took to hold himself upright.

"Your city is the first to come under Misrule's spell, but it will not be the last. Already, you have seen his calling cards appear on your streets. Soon he will enslave chance to his will, corrupting its powers so that it is no longer one force among the many in men's lives, but the only one. Do you see, now, what you have done?"

All around them were sc.r.a.ps of burned cards and jagged heaps of gla.s.s. Cat's face swam out at her from one of the bigger pieces.

"n.o.body wants a load of flying snakes and skeleton trees," Cat said, more aggressively than she felt. "But I don't see how all that doomsday stuff can come out of a few scratchcards."

"Then you should have paid more attention." The old man scowled. "To play even one of those scratchcards is to disturb the natural balance of luck in the world. With every head or tail that is uncovered, the more power Misrule gains. When he is ready, he will launch his Lottery, and deal the first round of fates from his wheel.

"You know the cards in the triumph deck, and how one card's lot has a thousand variations. At first, perhaps, the changes in fortune may be simple, and small. Some players might uncover a secret. Others might go on a journey or meet a stranger. Many will find new hope. Still more, sudden loss. As you saw, a number of cards will be blank. But whoever is dealt a new fate shall not escape it.

"For as Misrule's Lottery increases its grip, the nature of the cards will change. They will take on the Game's powers to summon angels and demons, resurrect the dead, create new G.o.ds. They shall burn towers and drown cities. Men will walk through their own pasts and see their most monstrous dreams made flesh.

"Human life is already erratic and perilous, threatened by crisis on every side. How many rounds of the Lottery will be played, how many different destinies will each man endure, before your civilization becomes as broken as my temple and as anarchic as the Arcanum? It will not be long, I think, before ruin takes hold."

There was a shaky silence.

Flora raised her bowed head. "Very well," she said quietly. "Tell us what we have to do."

The High Priest seemed to have aged since they had entered the ballroom, for his face was more heavily lined, with an unhealthy green tint. "Tomorrow I will deal you a new round of cards," he said, "and we will see what hope is left in the Arcanum. But tonight ... tonight my strength is done. I want you gone from my temple."

"Can't we first-"

His eyes flashed. "What, you think it is an easy thing, to conjure visions in the scrying-gla.s.s? I summoned ghosts and demons for you, the image of Misrule himself! It was too much for the mirrors and nearly too much for me. No, I want you gone. Leave me, leave this place."

"But we'll come back tomorrow," Toby insisted. "Us four will come back, OK, and you'll show us what to do?"

"Regrettably, there is no other choice," the Priest replied sourly as he picked up his broom.

USUALLY, WHEN THE CHANCERS left Temple House or a move within the Arcanum, they found that little time had pa.s.sed on the other side of the threshold. But although it seemed like they couldn't have been in the house for more than an hour, they stepped out to discover that night was drawing in.

The four of them stood on the pavement in a disconsolate huddle.

"The King of Swords warned me that the Hanged Man's card used to be called the Traitor," Cat said at last. "At the time, I just thought he was trying to pull a fast one on me. D'you think we can believe what we saw of Misrule? Can we trust the Priest?"

Flora roused herself a little. "Unfortunately, it seems to fit with what we already know, and I don't just mean the scratchcards. When I was ... was in Grace's move, they-the Spinners, that is-said we'd done a great wrong. They accused me of making the Game 'crooked.' "

"Exactly," said Toby solemnly. "And Mia herself showed me what a mess the Arcanum was in."

"It's not the Arcanum's welfare we have to worry about," Blaine said grimly. He coughed, and the noise echoed hollowly round the square.

Flora winced. "G.o.d, you sound awful."

"Sounds worse than it is. I think it's the damp."

"You're still staying in that bas.e.m.e.nt place, aren't you?" Cat asked.

"The squat, you mean," Toby muttered.

Blaine shrugged.

"Well, no wonder you're ill," said Flora. She looked better than she had earlier: the dull, fixed look had gone from her eyes. Flora was beginning to accept that, perhaps, the disaster of the Eight of Swords had not been her fault. On one level, she recognized that the stakes they were now playing for were so high that all other concerns were meaningless. Yet as long as Flora could still play the Game, she reasoned, Grace still had a chance.

She smoothed down her hair. "I think you should come home with me," she announced.

"What?"

"I think you should stay with me until you're better. My parents went abroad this morning and I've got the house to myself. There's heaps of room."

Blaine half laughed. "I'm sure there is. Very kind of you and all that, but I'm fine where I am. I know how to look after myself."

"I'm not offering out of charity," Flora said stiffly. "I don't know exactly what we've got ourselves into, but however this crisis develops, we're going to have to go back into the Arcanum to deal with it. In which case, each of us needs to be as strong and resilient as we possibly can. And, frankly, if you're camping out in some squalid underground hole, you're going to get worse, not better, and won't be good for anything."

"She's right," Cat said, though she sounded reluctant about it.

Blaine didn't say anything at first. A chill wind sent cigarette b.u.t.ts and newspapers scuffling down the pavement, and he stooped over in another coughing fit. Finally, he straightened up and looked at Flora. "OK, fine. Whatever. I'll crash at yours."

In the brief time it took for Blaine to get his belongings from the squat, Flora had plenty of opportunity for second thoughts. They had said goodbye to the other two soon after leaving Mercury Square, and Flora agreed to wait for him at the top of Langdon Street. She disliked Soho at the best of times, and tonight its boozy garishness sc.r.a.ped at every frayed nerve. At the end of the road, a bus was pulling up to its stop. The advertising banner between the upper and lower decks was a swirl of silver, black and glitzy blue, and proclaimed: Flora bit her lip. How had everything got so hideously out of control? Her invitation to Blaine already seemed nonsensical. She and Blaine had never had anything to say to each other. In ordinary circ.u.mstances they would never have anything to do with each other. This was also true of her and Cat and, to a lesser extent, Toby, too, but the hostility between her and Blaine had been mutual and instinctive from the start. Of course, after everything they'd been through in the Arcanum-where, arguably, she owed him her life-their antagonism had been left behind. In some ways Blaine knew her better than Georgia or Tilly or Charlie ever could. They were partners of a sort, she supposed, but that didn't make them friends.

It's going to be a disaster, she thought. And what on earth will I tell Mina?

Mina, the Seatons' housekeeper, was meant to be keeping an eye on Flora over the rest of the holiday. Her parents had left to catch their flight early that morning but she hadn't got up to see them go. She hadn't seen them the evening before, either. After she had dragged her battered and frozen body back from the Eight of Swords, she had managed to shut herself in her bedroom before they returned from the Avoncourts'. Flora got migraines occasionally, so her parents knew from experience to leave her alone in a darkened room. They had exchanged commiserations through the door, and left her to it.

But Mina had caught her on the way out that morning. She had responded to Flora's appearance with dismay, looking only partially placated by her story of getting on the wrong side of a cat. Tonight Mina was staying with her daughter in Willesden, so that was all right. But what about tomorrow? The arrival of Blaine would be a lot more difficult to explain than a few scratch marks.

And of course, while all these worries were running through her mind, Flora knew that none of it really mattered, that it was all just padding against other, real, unbearable things. At the edge of every thought was Grace and the cage of briar-swords, and layered over this anguish was the new one of Misrule's wheel of flame, the trials that must lie ahead. But she couldn't think of any of that now, mustn't think about it, or else it would be like sinking into the snow again, not into peaceful oblivion, but cold and pain, where the black bonds tightened and tightened....

"Oh, there you are," she said brightly when Blaine appeared at the corner. "Good to see you're traveling light."

"That's kind of the point when you live on the streets."

Yes, no doubt about it: this was going to be a disaster.

Only a few streets away, Cat was pa.s.sing a corner store when her palm p.r.i.c.kled, letting her know that a threshold had appeared close by. She didn't think she would ever be able to wholly ignore the Arcanum's call, to go past a threshold without feeling an itch to see what lay on the other side. This time, she wondered if some knight had already used it to play their card, and what Misrule's disorder might cost them in the Game.

But it wasn't just the Game's other players who were at terrible risk. It was everyone going about their business around her, unaware that all their hopes and fears and plans for the future were about to be gambled away.

On impulse, Cat veered off her way home and began walking in the direction of Trafalgar Square instead. Bel had been in training at Alliette's today, and should be finis.h.i.+ng around now. Though Bel wasn't big on coddling, her self-a.s.surance was the generous kind, and comforting in itself. She had a way of dismissing difficulties with a snap of her fingers and flounce of her hair; just by being with her, Cat felt the world's rough edges smoothed out.

Alliette's was a very different affair to the Palais Luxe, the distinctly unpalatial casino opposite their flat. It was a Georgian town house with awnings in black and green, and a concierge almost as stately as the High Priest. Bel had enjoyed describing its glories to Cat; apparently, the splendor of the decor was outshone only by that of the clientele. "Royalty, too!" she'd said gleefully. "Well, once or twice. And mostly the foreign sort."

Cat went round to the staff entrance. Bel was just leaving, in the company of a muscular bartender. She was doing her special laugh and shaking out her hair in a way that would have been sure to make Greg, her most recent boyfriend, look even more doleful than usual. Cat quite liked Greg, with his kind, drooping face and disreputable store of local knowledge, but it was starting to look as if Bel had moved on. Bel had a low boredom threshold-it was the same with men as with jobs and places. They had spent the last twelve years moving back and forth around the country, often for no reason other than Bel "getting the itches."

"The sad fact is," Bel was saying to her friend, "part of me still believes that round one of these corners, I'll find a street paved with gold."

He laughed. "Every immigrant's dream."

"And it's high time I woke up from it. Specially since here and now's my second attempt at surviving this city."

"So what happened the first time around?"

"Trouble, that's what."

"Man trouble?"

Bel matched his flirtatious tone. "Is there any other kind?" Then, turning, she saw Cat. She looked startled. "Puss-cat! What are you doing here?"

"I was just, y'know, pa.s.sing. Thought I'd walk you home."

Brief introductions were made, goodbyes said. Cat and Bel sauntered along St. James's and toward Trafalgar Square.

"You never told me you'd lived in London before."

"Didn't I? There's nothing much to tell."

"But you've never even mentioned it."

"Yeah, well." Bel cleared her throat self-consciously. "Attempt number one didn't count for much. Ran out of money, options, mates. Trouble, like I said. So this time around I wanted a whole new start." She aimed a playful kick at a pigeon. "And I've got one, haven't I? Now that I'm at Alliette's, me and you are on the up. We play our cards right, and there's no one and nothing to stop us. Gold pavements all the way!"

Cat was still frowning.

"Cheer up," said Bel. "You look like one of those gamblers who've won a tenner and dropped a grand. And speaking of gamblers, you know anything about this triumph card gimmick?"

Cat's body tensed. "The scratchcards?"

"That's right."

"Nope," she answered, trying to keep her tone light. "You haven't found one, have you?"

"Fat chance. Andy in accounts has a friend whose wife did, though. She got her hands on a heads card. Just lying in the back of a taxi, it was. Now, she was on her way to the hospital to have a mole taken off her back. It'd gone cancerous, you see. But when she took her clothing off in the surgery-what do you think happened?" Bel smacked her red lips in relish. "The sodding mole had only gone and vanished! Not so much as a freckle left, never mind a cancer cell."

"Impressive," Cat managed to say. "All the same, if you found one of those scratchcards, you wouldn't ... play it, would you?"

"Depends how lucky I felt at the time. I've still got hopes of winning a head, and seeing the man of my dreams walk through the door."

"Don't joke. What if you got a snake's tail instead? Something really bad might happen-like a road accident or a mugging. Even a heart attack."

Bel came to an abrupt halt. "Hey," she said. "What's all this? You don't actually believe this scratchcard c.r.a.p, do you?"

"You're the one who brought up the miracle mole."

"I was only messing with you! You know how these stories get blown out of proportion. Like urban legends." She took another look at Cat's face. "All right. Doesn't matter. If it'll make you feel any better, I promise to stay away from the scratchcards."

"You swear?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die." Bel put on her special saintly expression, hands clasped in prayer. "Mind you," she added, a little regretfully, "luck's one of those things everyone wants and no one can buy. It's a good notion for a lottery."

Later in the evening, Bel announced she was going out dancing, with instructions to Cat to tell Greg, if he called, that she was working at Alliette's. As soon as she was alone, Cat fetched the Triumph of Justice from its hiding place. She spent a long time watching how its pearly sheen glowed in the dark. In light of the others' experiences, she had to tell herself that playing it could end only in disappointment or deceit. She would not risk throwing her die and bringing the card to life across the threshold. But she would carry it with her into the Arcanum tomorrow nonetheless. It was her stake in the Game, and she wasn't ready to give it up.

Afterward, she watched a trashy cop show and went to bed early. She left the light on in the hall and the TV still on in the kitchen, so that its babble would numb her mind. She was afraid of what she might dream.

When Toby returned home, he found his parents writing notes at either end of the dining room table. They could almost have been twins, with their crooked spectacles and short, rumpled hair, their identical frowns of concentration. As the only child of two writers, Toby had always known that his parents led other lives in worlds of their own making. Watching them now, however, he was conscious of his superiority. After all, no imaginary world could compete with the one he was a flesh-and-blood hero of.

And now he wasn't just a champion of the Arcanum. He was a defender of humankind!

"I'll be in my room," he announced. "I've got stuff to do."

His father grunted. His mother waved a vague hand.

They both went back to their footnotes.

Toby, meanwhile, went to stare once more at the Escher print above his bed. He looked at his wavering reflection and thought of the visions in the mirrors, and the Lottery of Luck, and a certain neat irony in the order of things. He thought of school.