The Master of Misrule (26 page)

Since there was nothing else for it, the two of them went to stand by the gates to the arena, accompanied by a fanfare from the band and a frenzy of flag waving from the spectators.

“The Minotaur’s not acting the same as he was with the
High Priestess,” Cat muttered. “It’s almost like he’s been doped or something.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Now that he was freed from the cage, they could see that the creature’s body was bruised and battered, and that his movements lacked the savage force, and indeed grace, that Cat remembered from before. His bloodshot eyes were dull. But he was still formidable—over eight feet tall, his musculature as craggy as a rock.

Cat tested the weight of the collar. Her throat felt very dry. “How do you want to do this?”

“Our best chance is to sneak up on him from behind, I reckon. I’ll distract him with the prod and try to draw him off.” Blaine rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms, as if preparing for an ordinary fight. “Then you can try to work your way around and throw the collar over him from the back. After that … Well, let’s hope it’s somebody else’s turn to deal with him.”

“OK.”

“We’ll be fine. I promise.”

Cat nodded as coolly as she was able. “I know.”

Together, they walked through the gates. The band had ceased playing and the crowd was utterly silent, except for the crying of a child somewhere. On the screens at either end of the arena, their own faces loomed into the sky.

Blaine went forward to meet the monster.

The Minotaur lowered his head at Blaine’s approach, snorting and blowing. As his bare right foot raked the
ground, he raised a cloud of dust. A moment later, the Minotaur swung round to stare at Cat, and the leather collar. Before he could lumber in her direction, Blaine made as if to run at the creature, then swerved away and back at the last moment.

And so the dance began. The beast’s wits were certainly befuddled, for he seemed unable to make up his mind as to which of his adversaries he should take on first. The Minotaur’s reactions were so sluggish that Blaine felt as if he was locked in a crazed version of blindman’s buff as he swooped first near, then far, pausing to draw the creature in, only to sway out of his path at the last minute. If Blaine showed signs of being backed into a corner, Cat would make a sudden movement or give a shout to draw the Minotaur off, to rapturous applause from the crowd. Similarly, whenever the Minotaur seemed ready to lunge at Cat, Blaine’s feints with the cattle prod would goad him into another change of direction. Yet the creature was never distracted long enough for Cat to creep up behind him, or get close enough to risk flinging the collar around his bulging neck.

And as the flies droned in the heat, dust rose from the sand and the crowd whooped, it became apparent that while the two humans were beginning to flag, the beast was regaining his speed and strength. They couldn’t keep this up for much longer. A couple of times, Blaine got in a jab with the cattle prod, so that the creature flinched from the electricity’s fizz and backed off, tossing his head and bellowing. Yet as the Minotaur grew angrier, he also became more alert, as if the shocks had sharpened his blunt wits.

The creature grew bolder, until the moment came when Blaine slashed at him with the prod and the Minotaur didn’t bawl or back away. Instead, he used his brawny arms to block any further assaults, and began to close in on his tormentor.

This time his advance was steady, purposeful and impervious to all Cat’s attempts at distraction, all the screeches from the stands. In the Minotaur’s shadow, Blaine looked like a small child waving a stick.

Cat realized that it was now or never.

She raced across the arena, and leaped up against the beast’s broad, muscled back.

T
OBY WAS IN TROUBLE
. After Mia had gone, he tried to make his way back to where he had last seen the others, at the Eight of Cups’ threshold by the dump. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was hopelessly lost. The path, which had begun muddy, rapidly grew wetter and boggier. Soon he was floundering knee-high in a swamp. The more vigorous his efforts to free himself, the deeper he sank.

“Help!” he called out, and giggled weakly in spite of himself. It was all so
pathetic
. Stuck in a bog, bawling for rescue … Of course, there was no one to answer his cries. Everyone had gone, swallowed up by the marsh, led astray by its phantoms. The sludge was nearly up to his waist, and although he knew it would only make things worse, the spurts of panic rising in his chest made it impossible not to obey his body’s instinct to thrash its way out of danger.

“Help,” he cried again, at one of the mist-wraiths. Perhaps the ghost of Mr. Marlow was about to emerge and finish him off. Or Misrule himself. Although it was hard to be dignified when he was waist-deep in mud, he pulled himself as upright as he was able, ready to face what he had to.

“Toby,” said Flora flatly.

She was standing on a clump of reeds and was almost as white as the fog.

“Are you really you?” he asked suspiciously.

Flora sighed in exasperation. “Don’t be idiotic.” The mist lifted a little, revealing a scoop of yellow moon. “All right. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He resisted the urge to beg her not to leave him.

Splashing and squelches sounded from behind. And exclamations of disgust. “Ugh. This swamp … Vile … Everything
stinks.…
”

Flora came back lugging the mattress from the dump. She spread it across the reeds, making sure it would support her weight, and gingerly lay down on her stomach. Then she reached out to Toby. “Here, take my hand. Please try not to get more sludge over me than you can help.”

After several minutes of clumsy struggle, she managed to pull him free. The bog released him with a comical belch. Toby flopped out on the mattress, under the clear night sky, and laughed with relief. Then he looked around him.

“But, Flora … where are the others?”

After much discussion, Flora and Toby came to the same conclusions as Cat and Blaine. There was nothing to do but
press on in search of the creatures from the prophecy, in the hope that wherever the others were, they, too, were able to continue the quest. They would just have to trust to luck, and the Game, that they would find each other again.

Toby held the Triumph of the Emperor, whose illustration included the image of an eagle on a scepter. Flora’s Triumph of Strength depicted a woman taming a lion. They decided to start with trying to find the eagle. The Emperor was an authority figure of sorts, so even if it turned out that they had misinterpreted the oracle, it was possible he could set them right again. “Plus, an imperial palace will be a big improvement on this swamp,” said Toby.

Flora was distastefully brushing mud off her trousers. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. This is the Arcanum, remember.”

Flora’s pessimism proved justified. Once they had raised a threshold with their die, the card took them to the shell of a building that might have been impressive once but now lay in ruins, open to the skies. A sallow dawn was just breaking. As wind moaned sadly through cracked columns and tumbledown arches, the monumental nature of their task struck them with new force. Both thought again of Cat and Blaine, and the treacherous marsh pools they had left behind.

After wandering through a series of empty chambers and courtyards, they reached the main hall, the entrance to which was partly blocked by a mound of rubbish, marked off by red rope. Close to, they saw it was more like loot: statues, paintings, tapestries, glassware and goblets piled in
a dust-furred heap. The other side of the hall ended in a broken colonnade, with a broad flight of steps leading down to a terrace. A man was sitting on a throne beneath the portico.

His skin was as fragile and lined as a cobweb, and his beard was cobwebbier still. He was wearing a tarnished breastplate, and had a dried laurel wreath on his head. Propped against the throne was a golden orb and scepter with a heraldic eagle at the end, just like on the playing card.

“Good, er, morning,” Toby began. “I’m the King of Pentacles, and this is the Queen of Cups.”

“Then I bid you welcome,” the old man replied in a voice as withered as his laurel leaves. “For I am a king also, lord of all I survey.” He tilted his head to indicate the paved terrace and the cliff edge beyond. Below it was a windswept plain of dead trees and rocky ground.

“It looks very extensive,” said Flora politely.

The Emperor fidgeted with his beard, coughing, and leaned forward to peer at them with filmy eyes. “Hmm. You strike me as a strangely
muddy
species of Game Master. Kings and queens of the courts don’t go grubbing about in the Arcanum. They deal the cards and roll the dice, and scheme and gamble from afar. Which seems a poor sort of rule—but then, who am I to talk?” His tone grew melancholy. “An aged man is a paltry, tattered thing. I, who commanded the boundless reaches of empire! The soldiers and sages, the lords and ladies, golden smithies and starlit domes … They’ve all gone. Everyone, everything.” A tear slid down his wrinkled cheek. “Everything but my faithful Juno.”

“Juno?”

“My queen of the heavens. See! She has been feeding, and now she comes back, replete.” His ancient face became almost childish with pride. “Come here, my darling!”

There was a sound of great wings beating the air as a gleaming shadow swooped through the columns to perch on the armrest of the throne. As the eagle folded its wings, its feathers ruffled with a curious creaking sound.

The bird was made of gold. From powerful talons to feathered breast to cruel curved beak—every piece was metal, except for its ruby eyes. It bent its head to allow the Emperor to pet its chill neck, and uttered a hoarse cry. Something like rust stained its beak.

“Did you feast well, little one?” the Emperor crooned.

A gust blew across the terrace, carrying with it the stench of rottenness. Flora moved from under the shadow of the portico onto the steps. In the wan light, she could see a pale heap lying on the terrace with a glistening dark hole in its side.

“My last visitor,” the old man told her. “A knight from your Court of Cups, I believe.”

“You—you fed him to the eagle?”

“The player failed. His task was to steal a flame from the mountain, but the torch blew out. And so his liver is meat for my Juno here.… I don’t see why this should disturb you,” he added fretfully. “You are Game Masters, not common knights.
Your
days of risk are over.
You
may come and go as you please.”

The eagle flapped its wings with a muffled metallic clash. Each golden feather looked razor sharp.

“You’re right,” said Toby abruptly. This wasn’t an occasion for deference, he had decided. It was time to show the Arcanum who was boss. “The two of us are Game Masters. And while you might be Emperor in these parts, we’re in charge of all the triumphs—including you.”

“Toby,”
Flora hissed. “For goodness’ sake! We can’t just march in expecting—”

However, the Emperor did not seem affronted. “You wish for tribute?”

“Yes. We wish for the eagle, in fact. It’s part of our bid for the Great Triumph.”

The old man stared at the barren plain. “Ah, Eternity. I have vast deserts of the stuff; it is what all empires come to, in the end. As for their beginnings … Well, you must know the story of how the Game arose.”

“Of course,” said Toby impatiently. “The city lottery. But your eagle—”

“The city was a republic,” the Emperor continued, as if Toby hadn’t spoken. “A great republic, with winged and glorious gods. Yet when the city fell, the gods’ fame fell with it. Even their names are forgotten.”

Toby and Flora exchanged looks. Both remembered the High Priestess’s description of the cherubim: fallen gods of the Game’s city.

“There were no courts then,” the Emperor continued, “but four guilds, which ruled the city between them. And
when the Game grew to greatness, and a temple was built in its name, each of the guilds dedicated an offering to the gods. The guild of farmers presented a bull; the guild of soldiers, a lion; the guild of priests, an eagle; while the merchants’ guild brought forth a man. And each was slaughtered on the temple’s foundations.”

Flora’s eyes darted back to the torn body lying by the rocks. Her own flesh crawled. With such origins, no wonder the Game was so bloodstained.

“Like the gods they were given to, those first sacrifices are embedded deep within the Game. Here they endure—bull, eagle, lion, man—though in each round their form is a little different, their purpose new.”

The Emperor combed his beard with shaking fingers.

“Now, most worlds are round, like an egg, but the Arcanum is the great checkerboard. It is said the temple’s foundation stones still rest at its corners. And you are set to renew the first offerings, and summon the gods of old.… Who knows what cataclysms will be unleashed upon our board?”

“That’s a risk we have to take,” said Toby. “Starting with Juno.”

He reached out a hand toward the bird, which spread its clanking wings, a span of at least eight feet, and snapped at him savagely. Toby flinched away just in time, as its husky cry rose to join the Emperor’s wheezing laughter.