The Master Of Misrule Part 14

"Er ... Hold on.... Oh." Toby's face fell. "It's the Tower."

The Tower was one of the more infamous triumphs. As a prize, it gave the winner the ability to inflict destruction on a grand scale. As a move ... well, the omens weren't good. The image was of a crumbling edifice struck by lightning as falling bodies, their faces contorted in screams, plunged from its heights. At the top of the ill.u.s.tration was a broken crown.

And the four kings and queens were in a tower, all right. A skysc.r.a.per, by London's standards: a mirrored pillar of gla.s.s and steel that reared up among its fellow monoliths in a Game of Triumphs version of Canary Wharf. The state-of-the-art office fittings were sleek and minimalist, and looked solid enough. But that didn't count for anything in the Arcanum.

"Why would the High Priest send us here?" Flora asked.

"He must have left us some instructions. Or our Game Masters' decks." Toby began pulling out drawers and flipping through folders.

Cat snorted. "I don't reckon kings and queens of the Game keep their magic cards in a filing cabinet. In fact, I think we should cut our losses and-"

The door to the neighboring office opened.

"Not you again!" said a querulous little voice.

It was the High Priestess. She looked even more bedraggled than the last time Cat saw her, for the horns on her headdress were festooned with weeds, her damp hair hung in rats' tails and her gaudy scarves were sadly waterlogged.

"What-what are you doing here?" Cat asked blankly.

"I'm looking for my brother. We never used to be able to wander the Arcanum, but things are changing. Now he's lost among the cards and I can't find him." The girl sniffed plaintively and bent down to wring out her wet skirts. "It's all your fault. Whyever did you start that horrid flood?"

"I'm, er, sorry," Cat said. "It was my only way of winning the move."

Flora, Toby and Blaine exchanged looks. "So you're the High Priestess?" Blaine asked the girl. "The one who gives oracles?"

"The original and the best." She c.o.c.ked her head at him, suddenly cheerful again. "Mmm, what nice eyes you've got.... Brown, aren't they?"

This was followed by a smirk in Cat's direction. Cat ignored it. "We're looking for the Triumph of Eternity," she said determinedly. "In the prophecy you gave me, you said that only the cherubim could summon Eternity. And that we had to make offerings to them first."

"Did I? How peculiar. A cherub is a type of angel, you know."

"Well, yeah...."

"I'm only telling you because people often get them confused with Cupid. Who is entirely different and a lot more fun." The girl gave another sidelong glance at Blaine and gurgled with laughter. "But if you want me to prophesy what Cupid's got in store for you-or about anything else, for that matter-I'll need payment up front."

Cat had forgotten about the oracle's fee. "Anything shiny will do," she explained to the others. "Jewelry or whatever."

Blaine raised his brows. "Whoops. I must've left my diamond cuff links back at the squat."

Flora touched the little gold crucifix at her throat. It had been her sister's. She bit her lip.

"We can use this."

As quickly as possible, so as to get it over with, she undid the clasp and handed the necklace to the High Priestess, who nodded approvingly.

"Let the divination commence."

There was no burning oil or rolling eyes this time. Instead, the High Priestess wandered over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows and breathed on the gla.s.s. She used her finger to draw a wheel in the condensation. As she did so, the smoky vapor spread. Strange symbols appeared within it, runes or hieroglyphics of some sort, which the girl examined gravely. She bowed her crystal-crowned head and the bangles on her wrists chimed.

"Yes," she said. "The cherubim. They are the fallen G.o.ds of the Game's city. To find them, you must start with the Eight of Cups, and the guide who awaits you there. To summon them, you must renew their first offerings on the Game's board.

"The first offering is a knight, who sleeps entombed.

"The second is the fledgling of empire.

"The third is the Queen of Cats' King of Beasts.

"The fourth is led in triumph by its horns.

"These four will summon the cherubim. Yet only you can release them: outside the Arcanum, where the Game's play meets the play of your other world."

Then she breathed on the gla.s.s for a second time, and the mist faded away, taking the runes with it.

"All clear?" the High Priestess asked her audience.

"As mud," Cat muttered.

"Thank you very much," said Flora hastily. "You've been extremely helpful."

"Whatever." The girl yawned.

"That's funny." Toby frowned. "Can anyone else hear something? A kind of squawking noise?"

Everyone tensed. Their ears strained to pick up the sound. It quickly grew into a harshly croaking chorus as a flock of huge black-winged birds, the size of small planes, swooped into view. More and more joined them. Together, they formed a seething thundercloud of tattered wings and flashing eyes and claws. The sunset turned black under their shadow.

One moment the birds were high and distant; the next they were diving toward them, screeching loud enough to rip the sky in two. Their gaping beaks spat jets of forked lightning onto the city below. Before the five people in the tower could react, almost before they had time to be afraid, an explosion in the stories above set the whole building shuddering.

Through the window in front of them-its gla.s.s a mesh of cracks-they saw the monstrous flock streak away as swiftly as it had come, leaving a pulsing web of fireb.a.l.l.s in its wake. They were perhaps four or five floors below the top of the skysc.r.a.per, but they could feel the heat of the conflagration overhead, and spumes of oily black smoke were already uncoiling from the ceiling.

The High Priestess clapped her hands, eyes sparkling. "Oooh! Isn't this exciting?"

Ominous crashes and crackings sounded as tongues of flame began to lick into the room, their flickers tinged with blue. The office block immediately next to theirs was already a column of fire, boiling and writhing upward, and spitting out a shower of metal shards. Its flames had a curious blue tint, like those on a Bunsen burner.

"That'll-be-us soon." Blaine was racked by coughing. "Let's get out-out of here-"

Cat turned toward the threshold wheel, which appeared as a screen saver on one of the nearby computers. But before she could reach out to it, another blast ripped through the windows on the other side of the room. This time, the force of the impact slammed them onto the floor. Before their appalled eyes, a wave of fire rolled toward them.

There was barely enough time to scream, even if they'd had the breath to do so. Feeling as if he was moving in slow motion-though his actions were almost too instinctive for thought-Toby reached into his pocket.

A second later, the four of them, and the High Priestess, were enclosed in a sphere of flame.

This fire was bright yellow rather than livid blue, and its heat did not scorch their hair or skin. Instead, it seemed to beat back the conflagration's advance. Toby shakily held up the two pieces of his Ace of Wands.

"Fight fire with fire, right?"

Cat's eyes were watering so badly she could hardly focus on the computer screen and its wheel. Blinking hard, she ran her fingers over its lines to conjure the coin while the others crowded awkwardly around her. In order for several players to leave the same move at once, they all had to be touching the wheel when the coin was thrown. The High Priestess, meanwhile, was regarding the inferno admiringly. "This is much more dramatic than my move," she remarked to n.o.body in particular.

Cat stared down at her palm. "Something's wrong."

"What d'you mean?" Blaine rasped.

"The coin. It's ... different." It was tinsel-bright silver rather than gleaming black, with a laughing head on one side and a serpent's tail on the other. Just like on Misrule's scratchcards. The High Priestess giggled.

Outside their protective bubble, wicked blue flames rippled and roared.

With deep misgivings, Cat tossed the coin into the air. Instead of sinking back into the flesh of her palm and flipping the four of them into a new move, the coin transformed mid-descent into a chocolate b.u.t.ton. She rubbed disgustedly at the brown smear it left on her hand, then started to cough. Her breath tasted bitter in her throat.

"Let me try," Flora said hoa.r.s.ely. She traced the wheel and got the same sparkly silver coin. When she threw it, a little white mouse tumbled through the air. Toby's attempt produced a plastic whistle.

"Try to make a new threshold, Cat, with your die," he said.

The same thing happened.

"It's Misrule," said Cat despairingly. "He must have fiddled with the thresholds so we can't get out."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said Blaine. "This ace won't hold forever."

It was true: their sheltering yellow fire had begun to falter against the onslaught of the blue.

Toby's predominant feeling was one of outrage. "This-this is all wrong. There has to be another way. We're kings and queens!"

"Really?" the High Priestess remarked brightly. "Well, in that case, why don't you use the amulets of your courts? I'm sure they'd work the thresholds just as well as those boring old coins."

More blue flames pooled on the ceiling, down the walls and along the floor, which began to buckle and creak. Smoke was roiling everywhere; the rest of the room was barely visible, except for a fleeting glimpse through the windows of red-stained sky.

"But-but we can't find-we don't have-"

"Silly! They're in the palms of your hands."

Cat stared at the faint line of the wheel's scar. She tried to remember how the High Priest had described the amulets. Something to do with the "blood and bone of kingship." Blood and bone ...

She circled the scar with one finger, round and round.

And round again ... until there was a hardness at her fingertip, a chill heaviness growing out of her flesh. From the root of her bone, from the beat of her blood, she summoned the essence at the heart of Swords. Metal rising, coldness rolling. Silver. A plain silver ball the size of a marble. An amulet.

Cat held her trophy up as the others gaped at her through a blur of choking smoke.

"Told you," said the High Priestess. "Well, I suppose it's time I was off, too." She smoothed her muddy draperies and straightened her headdress before leaning down to spin one of her bangles on the floor. "Bye-bye, everyone. Have fun."

In the fleeting time it took for the hoop of gold's revolutions to slow, falter and stop, the girl had vanished. Meanwhile, the protection given by the Ace of Wands had almost burned out. A few seconds more and the place would be a fireball.

"Keep hold of me," Cat managed to wheeze. She did not know what exactly the amulet could do or how she should use it but there was no time to lose. So she hurled it at the computer screen, smack into the middle of the threshold.

This was not like the toss of a coin, which flipped a player, in a blink of eye and flash of metal, from one move to the next. As the die crashed into the wheel, everyone jerked forward. Their surroundings seemed to be whirling in one direction while they were irresistibly propelled in another. It was like being pulled in two directions at once while spinning at high speed.

Cat's last thought before the world changed was, OK, so now I know how a roulette ball feels.

The crimson clouds were the same. So was the wash of lilac sky and amber light, the square's railings and the stump of apple tree. Apart from their bloodshot eyes, and the reek of smoke clinging to their clothes, it was as if they had never left.

"Nice one, Cat," said Blaine creakily. His lungs felt swollen and raw as he took in deep, grateful breaths of air.

Toby was already circling a finger around his palm. "Do you realize what this means?" he said, repressing the last of his splutters. "We can conjure up cards just like the High Priest did! This must be how Game Masters control their deck."

Clutching his golden amulet, Toby bent to trace a rectangle on the trampled earth around the apple tree. A moment later he was holding up a card. He seemed to have plucked it out of nowhere, but there was a small stack of others beneath it.

"Two of Pentacles!" he exclaimed gleefully. "And look-here's the rest of my Pentacles suit."

Soon the others were following his example. Each found they had a number of triumphs in addition to their court cards-presumably the winnings their predecessors had collected before being deposed. All the same, there were some notable gaps. n.o.body expected to find the Triumph of the Hanged Man, but the High Priest, the Tower and all four aces were missing, too. None of the cards that Misrule had bestowed as prizes, or that they had played on behalf of the old kings and queens, appeared.

"It looks like once a card gets played, it's gone," said Blaine. "One strike and you're out. Well, we were warned our Game Master powers would be limited."

"But everything in the Arcanum happens for a reason," said Toby. "Like the High Priest leaving us the Tower to play. He must have known we'd get a new prophecy."

"I'm not so sure," said Cat. "Misrule could've planted the card on the old man as a trap. I reckon the Priestess turning up was a fluke."

"Either way, we've lucked out with our cards." Toby stroked the gilt edge of his deck admiringly. "Aren't they gorgeous?"

They discovered that if they moved the palms of their hands along the surface of a card toward their bodies, its ill.u.s.tration turned blank. Repeat the movement, and the picture returned. However, if they swept their hands over a card in the opposite direction-away from themselves-the card itself vanished. In this way, they could get rid of the whole stack in an instant. With their amulets literally at their fingertips, it didn't take much longer for a deck to be drawn up again.

The process was mesmerizing. Played about with like this, even the cards with dark a.s.sociations lost their dread. Cat gazed at the Ten of Swords-the scene of murder that had first ensnared her in the Game-as if entranced.

Flora's voice snapped her out of it. "All right, everyone. We've got the cards, the amulets and a brand-new prophecy. Any thoughts?"

Cat shuddered. "Well, whatever the offerings involve, they're only going to summon the angels. It's still up to us to release them, so they can use their powers on our behalf."

"Release them how? And from what?" Toby asked.

"From the Arcanum, maybe," Cat said. "Mystic Meg seems to think that means playing the Game here, in our 'other world.' "

"We can worry about that part when we come to it. At least we already know our next move." Flora held up a card. It showed a hooded figure in a desolate, moonlit landscape. "The prophecy said a guide was waiting for us in the Eight of Cups. The guide might be able to tell us more about the angels, and what kind of ritual is required to summon them. Let's hope we don't actually have to slaughter anything."

"There's only one way to find out," said Toby cheerily.

Cat prepared to raise a threshold with her die. She had her amulet ready as well, to use instead of Misrule's treacherous silver coins. But to her surprise, she didn't need it. This threshold coin was plain and dark, just as it should be. It looked as if Misrule's powers over the Arcanum were not as widespread as they'd feared. Perhaps the disruption to the Tower's threshold was a one-off.

Everyone's spirits rose. As Cat tossed the coin, her thoughts, like the others', were preoccupied with winning Eternity. How defeating Misrule might mean the recovery of their own rewards ...

She was certainly not thinking of the Minotaur, or his role in the High Priestess's first prophecy, and its hidden falsehood.

THE SETTING FOR THE TOWER had shared a close resemblance to the city they knew, but the Eight of Cups' location was unfamiliar. They were in a marshland of boggy pools, with rocky outcrops ahead and an overcast night sky above them. The other side of the threshold was apparent only in the remains of a garbage dump, for the wheel sign was in the spokes of a rusting bicycle propped against a waterlogged mattress and an old fridge. The reeds alongside sprouted lager bottles and syringes.

There was a stench of dirty water and rotting weeds. Ghostly lights flickered over the pools and within the chill mist that crept around them.

"Ugh," said Flora. "What a wretched place."

"It looked nicer on your card," said Toby. "And where's the moon got to?"

As if on cue, the ragged clouds melted away, and a mother-of-pearl moon sailed into view.