This Isn't What It Looks Like (31 page)

Before they could argue, she disappeared behind a tree.

The Jester was still a good thirty or forty feet ahead of her. Whenever she got too close, he would speed up. When she lagged
too far behind, he would slow down. Because the monocle refused to stay in her eye socket, she had to hold it up. Whenever
she needed her hand to move brush or leaves aside, she had to remove the monocle—meaning often as not she couldn’t see the
Jester. But he was always there when she looked through the monocle again. It was if they were connected by an invisible thread
that might slacken or tighten but would never snap.

Eventually, he stopped and let her come much closer.

“Hi,” she said shyly.

He put his finger to his lips to shush her. Then pointed ahead to where the path ended at a large oak tree.

He smiled at her. Then he vanished.

She felt suddenly very sad and bereft. Why hadn’t he spoken? Why had he led her all the way out here only to disappear?

She ran to the oak tree and saw that on the other
side of it was a dirt road not unlike the one she had walked on in the beginning of her journey into the past. Up ahead was
a small gas station. It looked old, abandoned.

Then she saw him. Not the Jester. Lord Pharaoh.

Correction: then she saw
where
he was. She couldn’t see Lord Pharaoh himself.

He had taken off his helmet, and his seemingly empty suit of armor appeared to be sitting astride his horse all by itself.

Just as she raised the monocle to her eye, he looked up and saw her. His face was now visible to Cass, but hardly more alive.
He looked even emptier inside than he had before.

Cass felt her ears prickling with fear. Be brave, she told herself. The Jester wouldn’t have led you to him if he didn’t think
you were strong enough to face him.

Lord Pharaoh broke into an ugly smile. “Cassandra, is it? They tell me that is your name. It suits you—the bearer of bad news.
I knew when I first met you that you would be a blot on the future.”

The ancient alchemist dismounted. “I hear from my… what shall I call them?… my modern-day colleagues that you are a terrible
pest.”

Off the horse, he was no less imposing; he towered over Cass when he reached her.

She took a step backward—and found herself up against a tree.

“If you’re talking about Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais, they… they wish I was just a pest,” Cass stammered, trying to sound much tougher
than she felt. “Did they tell you that every time they tried to stop me,
I
stopped them?”

“They told me enough!”

He gripped her shoulder with his cold, steel-clad hand. She shrank from his touch but could not wriggle free.

“Now is your chance to make up for your sins and those of your ancestors.”

“My
ancestors
?” Cass managed to whisper.

She didn’t know whether it was due to his ghostly state or to some other alchemical trick, but she could feel Lord Pharaoh’s
supernatural strength. She had no doubt he could strangle her with a single hand.

“That infernal jester. And that heathen bandit-woman. Do you not know what they did?”

Cass shook her head. It was all she could do not to cry.

Lord Pharaoh shook his free fist in fury. “I was
this close to getting my hands on the Secret, this close—”

“But you never found it?” Cass fervently hoped this was the case.

“Oh yes, I did—
I
found it!” said Lord Pharaoh, enraged. “Those tomb robbers who dug it up didn’t know what they had—ignorant thieves! I came
to them about a small statue of the goddess Mut. When I saw that torn piece of papyrus, I forgot all about the statue. I knew
right away that it was worth more than all the gold in all the tombs in Egypt. On the back were hieroglyphics that could change
the course of history.”

“The Secret?”

“Yes, the Secret, you little fool… Before I could translate a single hieroglyphic, those sniveling scavengers snatched the
papyrus away from me. They could see how much I wanted it and kept demanding more and more money. Until I had no choice but
to have those vermin exterminated.”

“You killed them?” asked Cass, horrified.

“A minor detail. The important thing was for me to fulfill my destiny. You see, I was—I
am
—the only man on Earth capable of understanding the Secret. I who have studied all the ancient arts. I who have
mastered alchemy like no man before or since. I who have made life with my own hands—”

“But the Jester got the Secret first?” Cass guessed.

“He and that thieving woman—confound them! They ambushed my manservant moments before he was to deliver the papyrus to my
doorstep. Imagine, Lord Pharaoh foiled by a pathetic comedian and his wife!”

Cass nearly smiled, realizing that this meant the Jester and Anastasia had married, but her face remained frozen.

“Naturally, my servant paid with his life. Now, unless you want to pay with yours, you will tell me how this rock works.”

He dangled the lodestone in front of Cass. It was the first time she’d seen it up close. As Max-Ernest had noticed previously,
it was shaped like an eye and had a vein of gold running through it. It spun around. The back of the pendant was polished
silver and it flashed in the sun.

“A lodestone attracts metal, yes, but what use is that to me? If I grind it into a powder, will a spirit rise? If I crack
it open, will I find a pearl? The gold thread that runs through the stone, is that the key? I thought perhaps your jester
would have
left a message on the back, but the back is smooth as glass. It’s like a mirror, but you remember what it is to be a ghost;
I cannot even see my own reflection in it.”

He closed his fist around the lodestone.

“What is the lodestone’s secret? Where is
the
Secret?”

“I don’t really know,” said Cass truthfully.

Then she remembered what the homunculus had said about Lord Pharaoh.
His weakness is vanity. Show him a mirror and you will gain a minute.

“But I can show you your reflection in it.”

“How?” His tone remained sour, but she could tell his curiosity was piqued.

“Hand me the stone and I’ll show you.”

Lord Pharaoh hesitated only briefly. “If you try to run off with it, I will find you, and I will destroy you.”

“I know,” Cass assured him, although she knew nothing of the kind.

As soon as Lord Pharaoh dropped the lodestone in her hand, she felt it pulling toward the monocle. The stone fit snuggly within
the rim of the monocle, almost as if their dimensions were designed to match. Cass quickly glanced through the monocle to
confirm you could see through to the reflective silver
surface on the back of the stone, then she held it up for Lord Pharaoh to see.

“Ah, what an obvious trick. I’m almost disappointed.”

Although Cass could no longer see Lord Pharaoh’s face—to her naked eye, he was invisible again—if she craned her neck she
could see his reflection through the lens of the monocle. Despite his dismissive words, he was gazing steadily at his own
image. The homunculus had been right about him. Lord Pharaoh was very vain. Even as a ghost.

“Here in your time, I would be over five hundred years old. And yet I look like a young man, do I not?”

Cass thought he looked like an old snake, but she didn’t think it necessary to say so. “Definitely. I’ve never seen anybody
with eyes like yours.” (That last part was true at least.)

“Oh, don’t try to flatter me,” said Lord Pharaoh, but you could tell he was pleased.

Cass had to think quickly. She had only two potential weapons on hand: the monocle and the lodestone. Given the choice, of
course, there was one she would much prefer to keep: the one that would lead her to the Secret.

“Now watch this—if you pull the monocle
farther away from your eye, it kind of catches the light,” she said, improvising.

“What are you showing me?” asked Lord Pharaoh, irritated to have his reflection pulled away from him.

“Just keep looking at your reflection—”

In one motion, Cass grabbed the lodestone with her left hand while reaching back and then forward with her right, throwing
the monocle as hard as she could in the direction, she hoped, of his forehead.

From her vantage point, it looked as though the monocle stopped in midair.

“Ow—what are you doing, you little rat?!”

Lord Pharaoh caught the monocle as it dropped.

It stopped him for only a second. But it was enough time for her to start running.

Glob was fine—once Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji had given him a few handfuls of trail mix, that is. He’d been hiding in the cave
for over two hours, terrified but safe.

“Is it just ’cause I’m so hungry, or is this really good?” asked Glob, his mouth full of Cass’s trademark combination of chocolate
chips, peanut-butter chips, potato chips, and banana chips (and no raisins
ever). “I usually hate trail mix. It’s so… healthy.”

“Don’t worry, Cass’s isn’t very healthy,” said Max-Ernest. “Everything in it’s either fried or has sugar.”

“Oh good. That makes me feel better,” said Glob, taking another handful. “I wonder if Cass would want to sell bags of it through
my blog. Or maybe she would license the recipe? I know a lot of really good marketing people. It’s all about branding. And
with my reader base—”

“I doubt it, but you could always ask,” said Max-Ernest, cutting him off.

Yo-Yoji held up his hand. “Quiet, dudes. Listen. I think that’s her….”

A second later, they heard Cass screaming their names.

“Max-Ernest! Yo-Yoji! Where are you?!”

They pulled themselves out of the cave just in time to see Cass running toward them. Behind her was an apparently empty suit
of armor, running after her like a horseless Headless Horseman.

“Whoa—,” said Glob.

“Come on, help me break this off,” said Yo-Yoji, grabbing a tree branch roughly the size of a knight’s lance.

Together, the three boys pulled the branch until it snapped, throwing Glob to the ground. “Ow!”

“Are you going to fight him again?” asked Max-Ernest. “You’re crazy.”

Yo-Yoji was about to argue, then said, “You’re right, I just got a better idea. Both of you, get out of sight.”

As the other two boys moved away from the trail, Yo-Yoji crouched behind a bush. As soon as Cass had run by, the sound of
Lord Pharaoh’s heavy steel boots could be heard. Yo-Yoji thrust the branch out across the trail, wedging it against a rock
on the other side. He held it with both hands about a foot above the ground. He was counting on Lord Pharaoh’s eyes being
on Cass—and they were. Lord Pharaoh’s steel-clad shin rammed into the branch, and he fell forward just as Yo-Yoji had hoped.
Yo-Yoji simultaneously pulled up on the branch, forcing Lord Pharaoh’s legs into the air and his invisible head to the ground.

“Now, run!” Yo-Yoji shouted to the others as he started booking it.

Glob and Max-Ernest scrambled back onto the trail, then started running as fast they could. Cass was waiting just ahead. With
Cass and Yo-Yoji taking turns pulling Glob along, they all ran back toward
the Renaissance Faire, stopping only when they’d reached the other side of the dry riverbed. Looking back, none of them could
see Lord Pharaoh. But of course that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

Cass felt the familiar chill. She was sure that he was watching them. And that sooner or later she’d be meeting Lord Pharaoh
again.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Cass.

They didn’t stop running again until they reached the school bus.

G
ood sirs, m’lady, how many in your party tonight?”

The three young Terces Society members had hoped to get to work immediately cracking the mystery of the lodestone, but Glob
had absolutely insisted that they join him at Medieval Days Restaurant that evening. As it turned out, he had a more than
sufficient number of coupons stashed in his pockets to cover dinner for a dozen people. And a good thing, too, because there
were six Nuts Table regulars sitting at the Round Table at Medieval Days (
one
of the Round Tables, I should say): Cass, Max-Ernest, Yo-Yoji, Benjamin, Glob, and Daniel-not-Danielle (who had been so happy
at the news of Glob’s safe return that he’d begged his father to take him to dinner). Seven if you count Max-Ernest’s baby
brother, PC (but since he was too young to sit in a high chair, the “serving wench” said not to count him). And eleven if
you counted the four parent chaperones who, it was agreed by all, would sit at their own table farther away from the jousting
stage and all the mayhem and who, of course, were not Nuts Table regulars in the first place.

Needless to say, Medieval Days was not an easy place to concentrate. The combination of clattering dishes, screaming children,
and jousting knights
made it difficult to hold a conversation, let alone to study a five-hundred-year-old object for clues about an ancient Egyptian
secret. Not that they could have spoken very freely with Glob and Daniel-not-Danielle present anyway.

None of that stopped Max-Ernest from surreptitiously examining the lodestone under their table. Alas, he was no more able
to find a secret message written on it than Lord Pharaoh had been. When PC started grabbing the lodestone, Max-Ernest gave
up and passed it under the table to Cass, silently communicating with her that they would examine it again later.