The Master of Misrule (2 page)

T
HE POSTCARD OR FLYER
was lying trampled on the ground, and the woman wouldn’t have noticed it if it wasn’t for the silver trim glinting up at her. It was late evening and she was trying to get across town to pick up her children from their father’s. Public transport was minimal on Boxing Day, and she had grown cold and tired waiting for the bus. In an otherwise dreary street, the card was an unlikely touch of glamour. There was a picture on the back, of a glittering blue circle or wheel on a black background. On the reverse side was a silver embossed coin, and written in ornate curly script:

Some advertising campaign, the woman thought. A new book or computer game. Or else it’s for one of those online gambling sites. She stroked the embossed coin and found that the silver flaked off easily, as on a scratchcard. A little icon of a man’s face, laughing, was revealed underneath: There was no real information, though—no telephone hotline or website, no PO box to write to with her winning claim.

But she put the card in her bag nonetheless. You never knew, did you?

C
AT WAS STANDING UNDER THE STATUE
of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. The post-Christmas sales were in full swing, and the damp sidewalks were teeming with bargain hunters. Illuminated billboards shimmered under a leaden sky.
HEADS YOU WIN
, their flashing words promised,
TAILS YOU LOSE
.

Behind her, winged Eros hovered, forever drawing back his bow. His body was slick from rain. The trickling of the fountain below the statue should have been a soothing noise, yet it set Cat’s teeth on edge. Her eyes smarted at the neon signs. Every nerve jangled as she clutched the coin in her palm. Her other hand held a card with a picture of a stern-faced woman bearing a sword and scales. It was called the Triumph of Justice.

The card was Cat’s next move in an ancient and infinite game of chance. Once she tossed her coin, London would vanish, to be replaced by the landscape of a world just the
other side of our own. The Arcanum. It was the Game’s board, and those who took their cards onto it would find their illustrations brought to strange and dangerous life.

Cat had played many cards and won many moves. Yet the fear that bit into her heart was sharper than ever before. Come on, she cajoled herself. One last time. Clenching her teeth, she tossed the coin into the air and straightened out her right hand. Its palm bore the scar of a four-spoked wheel: the emblem of Lady Fortune. All players in the Game of Triumphs carried her mark. When the coin landed on the wheel, the silvery scar on Cat’s palm and the disc of metal merged briefly into one.

She raised her head to see where the coin had taken her.

Nowhere.

London sprawled around her in all its damp, dirty splendor. The same shoppers and tourists thronged the pavements; the same buses and cars thronged the roads. The fountain trickled and adverts flashed just as they always had. The only difference Cat could find was on her playing card. The illustration of the Triumph of Justice had vanished, replaced by a dark horseman.

And then, through the splashing of the water, the buzzing of the crowd and the grind of the traffic, Cat heard a new sound. A heavy clip-clop.

An armored figure on horseback was approaching from Lower Regent Street, weaving through the traffic with unhurried ease.

The horse was pearly white, with a flowing mane and
tail. Its rider was clad in shining dark armor, and carried a banner of a white flower. Both should have belonged to a scene of romance, of faraway chivalry. As they drew nearer to the junction, they seemed to grow in stature, or else the scene around them began to recede. Clip-clop, clip-clop, rang out the hooves, as steady as the beat of a heart.

The horseman was only twenty paces or so from her now. Stuck fast to where she stood, Cat felt sweat beading clammily at the back of her neck.

Now other people were beginning to turn and look. Some pointed and exclaimed, applauding; others jeered, though their laughter had an uncertain note. Sickness rose in Cat’s throat as the knight lifted one gauntleted hand to open his visor. She knew what was coming; she had seen the card.…

There was no face: only empty sockets and the pale gleam of bone.

The Triumph of Death.

A woman to Cat’s left began to scream. The skeleton knight grinned; the sound of screaming spread. On and on, a high, shrilling note that split the air …

Cat woke up sweating; her throat felt like sandpaper.

She couldn’t find the switch for the blaring alarm, and in the end it only shut up when she knocked it off the table. Bel yelled something indistinguishable from the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Cat croaked in reply. She sat hunched over herself, clutching her pillow like a little kid with a teddy
bear. It was all she could do not to ask her aunt to come to her and help chase the bad dream away.

It had been like this the whole night long, and the previous night, too. Dream after dream, seething with menace, and though she had woken up after several of them, this had been the only one she could distinctly remember.

Cat stumbled out of bed toward a flap of peeling wallpaper in the corner of her tiny room, behind which a card was hidden. Thank God. The Triumph of Justice was still there, still safe, its illustration as vivid as it had always been. I’ve already won the Game, she told herself; it can’t hurt me anymore. All I have to do is claim my prize.

It was the lure of fabulous rewards that led players to the Game. The same cards that came to life as ordeals in the Arcanum could also be enjoyed as prizes—“triumphs”—in the ordinary world. Some players joined the Game in search of Strength or Fame; others, Justice; still more, Love. Yet these were only a few of the desires and transformations to be won.

Cat’s wish was intimately connected to the Game. Surviving its moves had been hard enough. Far harder, though, was the discovery that her parents had not died in a car accident twelve years before, as she’d been told, but had been murdered by someone in search of an invitation to the Arcanum.

First the Game had orphaned Cat, then it had claimed her as a player. And finally it had seduced her, with the promise of a prize that would give her everything she craved: disclosure, judgment and punishment.

Cat had been given her reward two days ago, on Boxing Day. The Triumph of Justice had all the answers, all her hopes for retribution, yet she still had not gone into the Arcanum to claim it. She could not shake off her nightmares’ sense of dread.

But enough was enough. Cat was sure that Toby, Flora and Blaine weren’t letting themselves be spooked by a few bad dreams. They were probably already reveling in their success, busy getting on with their new, brighter lives.

I’ll make my move today, she decided. No more excuses. I just need to get this over and done with, and then I’ll be free of it. I’ll be free of everything.

Bel was doing the ironing, singing lustily but with little tune. “I hope you’re a bit more bright-eyed this morning,” she said as Cat came into the kitchen. “You must’ve had a good twelve hours’ nap.”

She gave her niece a swift sidelong appraisal. Lately, she’d often shot Cat worried little glances when she thought she wasn’t looking. Though neither of them talked about it directly, Bel had been given to understand that Cat was having a hard time dealing with the true circumstances of her parents’ deaths. Bel knew nothing about the Game’s involvement, of course, but she blamed herself for making up the car accident story in the first place. It had been her attempt to protect Cat from the official account of the killings: a robbery gone wrong.

Cat tried to grin. “Got to make the most of my lie-ins before school starts.”

Her aunt’s nervous sympathy made her feel faintly ashamed, as if she was getting it on false pretenses. Cat was three when her parents died, Bel nineteen, and it had been just the two of them ever since. They’d never gone in for the touchy-feely stuff, and they could be tough with each other if needs be, but that’s why it worked. Theirs was a partnership against the world.

Bel didn’t look entirely convinced by Cat’s grin, but she returned to her singing anyway. She was about to start a new job at Alliette’s, a posh casino off Trafalgar Square, and was already fizzing with anticipation.

“Look,” she said, breaking off midchorus to gesture at the window. “It’s that boy again.”

“What do you mean?” Cat was listlessly pushing cornflakes round the bowl.

“I first saw him yesterday afternoon. Skulking around outside, watching our door. And now he’s back.”

Cat got up to stand by the kitchen window, from where she could see a tall figure slouched against the lamppost across the road. In his shapeless, dull-colored clothes, he looked like what he was: a street kid. It was Blaine.

“I passed him on my way out earlier. Must be one of our friendly neighborhood thugs.” Bel’s tone wasn’t entirely disapproving, though. Blaine had cut his hair since Cat had last seen him, so its former dishevelment was now a close-cropped brown fuzz. Even from here, she could see how it made the angles in his face more prominent, his eyes more deeply shadowed.

“It’s OK,” said Cat. “I know him.”

Bel was half entertained, half suspicious. “Oho! Do you, now?”

“Yeah. He’s, uh, a mate of some girl in school. He lent me a CD the other day. He’s probably just here to get it back.”

“Well, you be careful. He looks more the type to be grabbing handbags than sharing music.”

As if he’d heard her, Blaine looked up into the window and straight at Cat, who raised a hand in greeting.

“I’m going down.”

“Not in those pajamas, you’re not—”

But Cat was already hurrying between bathroom and bedroom, pulling on clothes. As she tugged a brush through the sleep tangles in her strong black hair, she caught her eye in the mirror and scowled. She was always pale, but this morning she looked positively ashen. Ferociously, she scrubbed her cheeks with a washcloth, hoping to bring a bit of color to her face.

Five minutes later, she was outside. The last time she and Blaine had seen each other was in Mercury Square, outside the ancient house where our world and the Game’s converged. There, at their shared moment of crisis and victory, Fortune’s Wheel had spun a new fate, and the Arcanum had whirled around them. Now they nodded in awkward greeting, hunched against the cold, as pedestrians and traffic clogged the street.

“How are you?” Cat finally asked when it became apparent he wasn’t going to start the conversation.

“Not bad.”

Not good, either, she thought. He looked as tired and drawn as she did.

Blaine coughed—a wet, rasping sound. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“So I heard. You could’ve just, y’know, rung the bell.”

“I got the impression that redhead wouldn’t give me much of a welcome.”

“Nah, you’d have been fine. Bel’s a softy.”

“She’s your aunt, right? You don’t look much alike.”

This wasn’t strictly true. They had the same gray eyes, the same stubborn mouths and the same tilt to their chins. But Bel, with her swaggering brightness and brashness, was—at a superficial level, at least—everything Cat was not. Blaine considered her again, straight-faced. “Wouldn’t like to mess with either of you, though.”