The Master of Misrule (9 page)

He had cast off the plain, dark clothes they had first seen him in for motley-colored robes, and he stood, arms outstretched, in the center of a wheel of blue fire. As the wheel spun and sparked, cards flew out from its axis and into the wind its whirling raised.

Before long the cascade of cards grew so frenzied it was as if the mirrors were filled with static. Yet when the fuzz and crackle cleared, the scenes revealed were remarkable only in their ordinariness. Pubs and offices, supermarkets and railway stations. There were cards there, too, though—glinting silvery blue on black, rich with possibility.… An allure that only grew stronger as people picked them up from pavements and doormats, or shook them out from magazines.

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 illustrations belonged to the Game of Triumphs deck. Nevertheless, the crowd surged to catch them, leaping and stumbling, trampling over each other in their lust 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: illustrations 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 illustrations from the cards; sometimes it was like looking into the Arcanum itself. Soon the glass was a kaleidoscope of moving color: rainbows and starbursts and shivers 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 glass, 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 scraps of burned cards and jagged heaps of glass. Cat’s face swam out at her from one of the bigger pieces.

“Nobody 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 gods. 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-glass? 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.

U
SUALLY, WHEN THE CHANCERS
left Temple House or a move within the Arcanum, they found that little time had passed 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. “God, you sound awful.”

“Sounds worse than it is. I think it’s the damp.”

“You’re still staying in that basement 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 butts 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 scraped 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: