by Robin Jarvis
“I’m taking the boy,” the Jockey’s voice said gruffly.
“No!” Paul shouted. “I’m not leaving Martin!”
“Don’t take him!” Martin pleaded. “Not so soon.”
“Haw haw haw,” the Jockey laughed. “The rascal can’t go where you’re bound, Mr Maths Teacher. Assuredly ’twill be safer for him. I have been instructed to guide him to my Lady Labella and leave him in her gracious charge.”
“I’m not moving!” Paul objected.
“Wait,” Martin told him quickly. “Carol is Labella. Go – go be with her.”
“Does she know who she is? Is she back to normal too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But you belong with her. Go on, Paul, please.”
Paul didn’t know what to do. He wanted to stay with Martin, but he was also anxious to see his mother. If he left with the Jockey now, he’d feel like he was abandoning and betraying the person he loved as a father.
“Dad!” he cried wretchedly.
“I want you to go to her,” Martin urged. “Do it for me.”
The boy hugged him one last time. Stepping away was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done and he walked slowly towards the door, where the Jockey was waiting.
“Paul,” Martin said. “Give your mum a great big kiss from me and tell her how much I love her – in case I don’t get the chance to do it myself.”
Paul halted and turned for a final glimpse of him, caught in the wedge of light that spilled from the door. The boy couldn’t find any words to say goodbye and thought they’d stick in his throat anyway, but he had to say something. He tried to remember a line from one of Martin’s favourite films that would convey his feelings better than anything he could come up with and almost attempted “I’ll be back”, in the stilted style of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But he didn’t believe it and it would sound forced and phony. In the end, he simply raised his hand and made the Vulcan salute from Star Trek. Although he didn’t think there was any chance of either of them living long and prospering.
The chains rattled as Martin tried to do the same, but they were too short. Paul departed with the Jockey and the door of the tower closed, sealing Martin in complete darkness.
Once again the night-vision camera closed in on his face as he broke down.
“Is there no end to that man’s tears and self-pity?” the Ismus asked dryly when the screen cut back to him. “That was a little while ago. Let’s see how the notorious Martin Baxter, self-proclaimed champion of the aberrants and tedious blogger extraordinaire, is faring now. Time he stopped skulking and sulking in the shadows and finally joined our merry festivities. Bring him up into the open! Raise it!”
The command was for Bezuel, who was sitting at a control desk inside one of the stables. The Punchinello turned from the TV monitor and pressed a red switch. It sent a signal to the orchestra to commence playing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, then Bezuel pulled a lever.
In the blackness of the drum tower, Martin was sitting, hunched over and despondent. He had tormented himself wondering what each new roar and jeer of the immense audience out there signified and hoped Paul had found Carol safe and that she knew him. Then he began to suspect that those brief minutes with Paul were all he was going to get and he wouldn’t see Carol at all. The doubt and anxiety were crippling.
Suddenly the metal plating beneath him juddered as power snapped through to the hydraulics below. Then, with a mechanical whine, the circular dais began to rise and Martin realised he was chained to a platform lift. Smooth and steady, he felt it elevate higher up inside the tower – up and up. Gradually he heard the noise and echoes of the machinery alter around him and guessed the ceiling was getting very close. The lift showed no sign of stopping.
Martin flattened himself against the metal floor. Was this it? Was the Ismus going to squash him like an insect? That didn’t ring true somehow. That would be too quick, too private, in this all-engulfing dark. There had to be more to it than this. Yet he was still terrified when the back of his head touched the ceiling and he screwed up his face, expecting to be crushed.
But no, the ceiling was soft. It was just a stretched tarpaulin, pre-cut across the centre and gaffer-taped together. The rising scissor lift pushed Martin right through it and he was thrust up into the outside world. Lurching to his feet, he blinked in the harsh glare of the spotlights and the lift came to a stop.
“Behold!” he heard the amplified voice of the Ismus proclaim. “Martin Baxter as you’ve never seen him before. He’s come as Dung-Breathed Billy the Midden-Man. Was there ever a dirtier, filthier, more despicably base cockroach? I’m glad I’m upwind!”
The crowd hissed and booed. In the book, the midden-man was an unpopular character and had been cursed to receive fifty kicks a day from the villagers of Mooncot. Martin didn’t even notice their heckles. He was too busy staring around him, at the castle that spread out in every direction. This tower was part of the second curtain wall and he searched desperately for any sign of where Paul had been taken.
The huge structure of the Keep loomed away to the right and he saw the windows of the Great Hall blazing with candles. Had the boy been taken in there? That’s where Carol would be as the Lady Labella.
“Where are they?” he shouted. “Where are they?”
His cries were answered by the Jockey who came scampering across a temporary plank gangway that linked the unfinished drum tower to the sentry walk of the outer battlements. He was accompanied by two of the Black Face Dames: stern and ready to punish any sign of rebellion or resistance with violent force.
“What a commotion!” the Jockey declared. “Have patience. I am tasked with coming to fetch you to the Holy Enchanter. Your part in the entertainment is about to commence. Unfetter him, unfetter him.”
The bodyguards moved in to unlock Martin’s chains. The Jockey’s face wrinkled at the smell, but their blackened features remained fixed and severe.
“Where did you take Paul?” Martin demanded. “Where is he? Where’s Carol?”
“Follow me and these things, and more besides, shall be made known to you,” the Jockey replied, skipping back along the planks.
When the last iron cuff was unlocked from his wrist, Martin complied. There was nothing else he could do. But what was the Ismus going to demand of him? What further humiliation could be in store?
“While he wends his grubby little way towards me,” the Ismus addressed the camera, “let’s get some vox pops down in the crowd and see how you’re enjoying the show. Your opinions matter so much to me, they really do.”
The picture cut to a section of the barricade that surrounded the castle. It was a puny fence to keep out such vast numbers, but no one would disobey the Ismus by breaching it. The American reporter, Kate Kryzewski, had flown in to deliver her last story, with the biggest ratings any newscast would ever have.
Beneath an Armani Puffa jacket, designed to keep out a New York winter, she wore the patched rags of the kitchen girl, Columbine. A tambourine rattled at her hip and her feet were bare and blue with cold.
With a microphone in her hand and a cameraman walking backwards in front of her, she roamed the nearside of the barricade, speaking to the people at the front. They were all watching the evening’s spectacular on their phones or tablets or laptops and were full of praise.
“It’s good to see aberrants put to such a good use,” a group of middle-aged women dressed as wenches said. “Watching them try and run away from the beasts is the best fun we can remember here in these dreams.”
“Ooh, when the Jacks and Jills did that swap! What a brilliant trick that were. Our Ismus is so incredible. What’ll he do next?”
“Wish I had some of that minchet ointment. I’d fly up there and show him exactly what he could do next!”
The women whooped with raucous laughter.
“I keep voting for Mauger,” said a student, wearing one of the plastic suits of armour that had been a bestseller in Topman throughout the past yea
r. “It sucks he never wins.”
“And what about you, Ma’am?” Kate asked an elderly woman, wrapped in a car blanket, sitting in a deckchair.
The woman didn’t answer. She’d been dead for three days. The reporter gave a light, professional laugh and breezed on to the next group.
“Can’t wait to get our hands on Fighting Pax!” declared a couple dressed as an Under King and Queen. “To be in Mooncaster and never come back here… can’t happen fast enough. First thing I’ll do is order a feast from the kitchens. I feel as though I haven’t eaten for a week.”
“Well, not long till midnight now, Sir,” Kate told him. “Then we’ll all go together and I’ll get that feast sorted for you. There’ll be lots of geese to pluck and onions to peel for me tonight, that’s for sure. But what a send-off, huh? What a great show.”
“My best bit was when the spider things got the shouty girl,” said an eleven-year-old boy done up as a page. His face was pinched with cold and starvation and his voice was frail. “I wish the big jackals had eaten more of them shepherds. Is it time to go yet? I’ve got so much work to do at the real castle.”
“And what do you think of the Christmas story being told here tonight?” Kate asked a man sitting in front of a small tent.
“Load of tripe,” he answered. “Didn’t some people here used to believe that guff? Were they moonkissed? I’ve grown cabbages with more brains. Total codswallop. If they can’t even get the start of that story right, what other lies come after? If it weren’t for the Ismus doing it his way, it’d be unwatchable. I’d rather have seen him do the one with the terrorists and the guy in the sweaty vest though, to be honest. That would’ve been excellent.”
“Did you never celebrate this Christmas holiday here?” she asked.
“I can’t really remember. I think so. Yeah, I think I had three young kids in my dream family, so I guess I would’ve. No idea where they are now. I just want to get back to my strip of land and bring in the parsnips – and down a big bowlful of stew.”
Kate thanked him and turned her back to that ocean of faces.
“So there we have it. A unanimous thumbs up for tonight’s broadcast, but not so much for the Nativity baloney. I’m inclined to agree. I was never into half-baked fantasy either. This is the Two of Hearts, Columbine, signing off for the final time as Kate Kryzewski. Blessed be, everyone. See you real soon in the one true world – the Kingdom of the Dawn Prince.”
As she said goodbye, a slight commotion was rippling through the massive crowd. Something was travelling down one of the service roads and astonished voices were whispering the name Malinda.
25
IN THE REALM of the Dawn Prince, behind the encircling hills, dawn was creeping into the late summer sky. Upon Judgement Hill, rising far above Battle Wood, the octagonal tower of the Black Keep reared into the early morning. On its lofty summit, beneath the illuminated dome, the four silent, robed figures continued their age-old game.
The creature called Grumbles appeared from the hatch, bearing his silver salver, to collect the spent cards. Gazing out beyond the withered forest, across the plain, he saw the threads of smoke rising from the White Castle and the scorched fields behind the village. Thoughtful, and pondering on the meaning of these forbidding signs, he chewed the inside of his cheek.
Big events were transpiring over there. They would never impact on his life in the tower, but he still wondered what they were. The Ismus would be sure to tell him, next time he called.
Grumbles studied the sky. The strongest stars were failing with the climbing dawn. He lamented it had not been a better night for catching bats, and he smacked his lips hungrily; he’d fancied a fritter or two. He told himself he’d better be quick about gathering up the scattered cards: another day of fetching and cleaning lay ahead of him.
His goat-like hooves trotted nimbly to the stone table and he was soon busily occupied. The robed figures made no movement. As usual, they didn’t acknowledge his presence, but he knew just how important he was to them. Without their Conservius, the players would not be able to continue the game for long, oh, no.
Humming softly to himself, he glanced idly at the cards in the players’ skeletal hands and almost dropped the tray.
Two of the cards in that new deck were decorated in gold leaf. That made them the rarest and most powerful of designs. To his knowledge, in the entire history of the game there had only ever been seven gold cards in all of the countless packs that filled the floors of the tower. Fascinated and apprehensive, he edged a little closer in order to see what the nature of those cards were. One was the image of Sacrifice, but he could only see a gilt corner of the other.
Grumbles stepped away from the table and leaned against one of the pillars fearfully.
In the past, every time a golden card had been played the consequences had been catastrophic. They had changed worlds. And here were two of them! He lifted his eyes to the fading stars once more and pulled on his side whiskers anxiously. Doom and disaster were drawing nigh. Turning back to the game, he saw the bony hand of the figure that had turned to look at Lee cast the hidden card down.
Betrayal.
In the county of Kent, that ravaged terrain once called the garden of England, midnight was drawing closer.
“Did I hear somebody say they were hungry?” the Ismus called out. “Shall we take a break for sustenance before we hunker down and read Fighting Pax?”
The volume of the answering roar blasted painfully in the ears. The Ismus revelled in it and strutted round the console.
“But how can I provide for all of you out there, my dear subjects?”
This was the cue for a small child to step up on to the gatehouse roof and trot over to him. It was little Nabi. She had been given a costume to suit her character in Dancing Jax and in her hands she carried a large basket.
“Please, Holy Enchanter!” she piped up, tugging at the tails of his leather jerkin as had been rehearsed. “I could not help but overhear. I am taking this to my father, the Constable, for his supper, but you may have it if it will help.”
“Why!” the Ismus exclaimed. “It’s Posy, the snoop. How generous you are. But what is in the basket, dear child?”
“Five loaves and two fishes,” she said smartly.
The Ismus gave a knowing look into the lens.
“Sounds familiar,” he said with a wink. “Although they couldn’t even agree on how many loaves there were in that book of lies: five, seven – who cares? Let’s see what we can do with some fish and buns.”
The trumpeters played a fanfare. When the blaring notes ended, the sound of helicopter blades could be heard in the sky. Searchlights swept up and a fleet of 200 aircraft moved in from every direction. Hovering over the vast crowds, they disgorged millions of small boxes. Tumbling through beams of light, the containers fell into countless eager hands on the ground below.
“McManna from heaven,” the Ismus laughed as the lucky ones wolfed down Filet-O-Fish. Then he put a hand to his nose and coughed. “Oh, dear, what is that terrible smell?”
“It’s him!” little Nabi cried, pointing at the dishevelled, filth-covered man stepping on to the gatehouse roof, behind the Jockey and two of the Black Face Dames.
“Mr Baxter!” the Ismus greeted. “You’ll understand if I don’t shake hands.”
“Is he the midden-man?” Nabi asked. “I must kick him.”
“Later, child,” the Ismus told her. “This one has been kicked quite a lot already. Is that not so, Martin?”
Martin gazed out at the unimaginable numbers beyond the barriers and raised his eyes to the helicopters that were still circling and dispensing boxes to the starving mass of people.
“One last sick joke?”
“Rather like myself in skintight leather, Martin, it was impossible to resist. But there is a very serious and sensible purpose behind it. My worshipping public will need some strength in them, once they’ve finished reading. They’ve got to be strong enough to fight.”
“Fight? Who or what?”
“Each other, naturally.”
Martin stared at him in disbelief and revulsion.
“I’ve always maintained that wars don’t work. This is my final solution. For maximum lasting impact, you don’t turn country against country, you don’t march crusading armies into battle. The deepest, cruellest wounds are personal. You turn one person against the next, neighbour against neighbour, sister against brother, father against daughter, husband against wife, friend against friend, child against adult, blood against blood, suit against suit, number against number. They’re playing cards in the cut-throat game of my devising. And then…”
“Then?”
“Then the survivors, the ones left standing or merely unlucky enough to still draw breath, those murderers with blood on their hands are all unfriended and they suddenly realise what they’ve done. In a world without hope, where only despair and horror rule, what do you think they’ll do? Should be even more entertaining to watch.”
Martin felt sick.
“But you and Carol and Paul will be fine,” the Ismus assured him. “Don’t worry. I’ll guarantee your protection.”
“Expect me to believe that? You’re madder than you sound and that’s a real achievement.”
“Would you like to see your lady love?” the Ismus asked curiously. “See her and Paul together, mother and son at last?”
“Don’t taunt me, you son of – well, no one knows what you’re the son of, do they? You were the Devil’s cuckoo in the Fellows’ nest.”
“Don’t be boorish, Baxter. You already said all that in your monotonous blogs and ranting interviews. Such tinfoil-hat-worthy ravings, most amusing. Did you ever pause to consider how delusional and paranoid you sounded? You gave Dancing Jax fantastic publicity. I couldn’t have wished for a better global marketing campaign. I was delighted. So just answer me – do you want to see them or not?”
Martin nodded.
The Ismus grinned and strode to the centre of the roof, waiting for witchcam to come flying down for a close-up.