by Robin Jarvis
“No,” Evelyn said sharply.
“What’s the matter with you?” Conor asked Maggie. “Say something! You don’t have to do this, she can’t make you go.”
“Leave her alone!” Evelyn ordered. “I need Maggie with me. I won’t be able to do this single-handedly – but you’re not coming and that’s final.”
“I’m not stopping here, babysitting this snitching trash!”
“Don’t condemn Eun-mi too harshly. You don’t know what she’s been through.”
“Oh, come off it! Name one person who’s had it easy!”
“She’s a very damaged, troubled young woman, has been for a very long time – long before Dancing Jax. And she isn’t a traitor, not really. She didn’t tell the Ismus everything. She could have, there’s a lot she might have said, but she didn’t betray me completely. She didn’t mention our secret weapon. There’s still a chance and I’ve got to take it.”
“What secret weapon?”
“I’m hardly going to tell you that, in front of so many cameras, am I, dear boy? Now, Maggie, will you accompany me? He’s right, I can’t make you.”
“Of course I’ll come,” Maggie said brightly.
Evelyn smiled. “I’m so glad. Thank you, dear.”
“You don’t know the direct way,” Conor interrupted.
“We’ll manage. I think we’ll be just fine from now on. You take care of Eun-mi. Get her out of here and tell her I understand. No, tell her… we both understand – and there’s nothing to forgive.”
Evelyn retrieved her rifle. Then she and Maggie skirted the wall, entered a colonnade and vanished from sight.
Angry at being left behind, Conor glowered down at the collapsed wreck that was Eun-mi.
“Snap out of it,” he said harshly. “We’re sitting ducks here. I’m not going to get killed because of you.”
Every moment they remained in that spot brought danger ever closer. If he couldn’t get her to move, he’d have to drag her. There were more howls and screams outside the castle walls now. He tried not to imagine what was happening and just hoped the service roads were still clear. If they could make it to the car park, he reckoned he could start a vehicle and get them away.
“Right,” he said, reaching under her arms to hoist her to her feet.
The girl’s reaction at being touched was astonishing. Before he knew what was happening, she’d lashed out, kicked his legs from under him, and had one hand round his throat, the other poised above his face, ready to smash down.
“Get off!” his strangled voice cried. “What are you doing? I was trying to help you, you daft cow! Don’t freak out!”
Eun-mi breathed hard. Her training in Juche Kyuksul meant she could snap his neck easily if she wished. But at that moment she needed him.
“I must find sister,” she said. “Dead or alive. I must find Nabi. Where will she be? Answer!”
Conor had no idea. She applied a little more pressure to his throat.
“All the courtiers are in the Great Hall,” he spluttered. “If she’s anywhere in the castle, she’ll be there.”
“You show,” Eun-mi commanded, jumping up, grabbing her rifle and wrenching him to his feet.
“A please would be nice,” he said ruefully.
The girl clutched at his arm and, when he saw the desperation burning in her eyes, he wished he hadn’t been so unpleasant earlier.
“Please,” she begged. “Nabi – she is only six.”
Conor took up his sword. “Follow me.”
Racing back the way they’d come, they used the royal gates that led directly to the inner ward. Passing through the final entrance, the awful spectacle of the Keep reared before them. The Christmas tree was still blazing and the infernal light that beat from the Waiting Throne made its flames appear pale and colourless. The shimmering figure of Lucifer was brighter and more intense now, drawing strength from the hate and violence of the awakened Jaxers around the world.
Shielding his eyes, Conor pointed at the Keep.
“The Great Hall is in there!” he shouted, above the din of the raging fire and the fury outside.
Eun-mi nodded in gratitude. “You not need to come further.”
“I’m kind of committed now. Besides, playing the hero isn’t an easy habit to kick – either that or I genuinely am dumb.”
Running across the cobbled yard, into the full searing glare blasting down from high above, they reached the foot of the steps leading to the Great Hall. The hacked body of a knight lay at the bottom; his blood trail marked every step. From inside the hall came the clamour of battle: the clashing of steel against steel, bloodthirsty shrieks and screeches of death.
Without hesitation, Conor and Eun-mi rushed up and burst through the ornately carved doors.
A scene of carnage and barbarism awaited them. The members of the Court were slaughtering each other. The Royal Houses were at war: Under Kings fought one another and their households were engaged in bitter combat. Under Queens ran at their enemies with daggers, knights hewed their rivals with brutal blows, pages were choking the squires and serving wenches attacked the ladies-in-waiting.
The banqueting tables were now duelling platforms and obstacles to brawl across. Chairs had been smashed across heads, cutlery had become weapons, candlesticks were bludgeons and the tapestries were burning. Even the minstrels in the gallery were killing one another. Strewn across the floor, amid the debris of spilled food and golden dishes, the screens of the many discarded e-readers still displayed the text of Fighting Pax.
Dodging and ducking the riotous chaos, Eun-mi scanned the Great Hall for her sister. Nabi was nowhere to be seen.
“You take that side!” Conor shouted. “I’ll go this – and we’ll meet at the far end! She has to be in here!”
Eun-mi agreed. Dashing into the bloody conflict, she searched frantically. It wasn’t easy. Jaxers barged in front and against her, blocking the way as they fought. But they were blind to her presence; she wasn’t one of them and she could weave through unchallenged.
A number of bodies and severed limbs already littered the floor, but Nabi wasn’t among them. Her sister checked every possible hiding place, without success. She wasn’t cowering beneath the tables, or concealed inside the wooden chests beneath the windows. Where was she?
On the right-hand side of that enormous room, Conor’s progress was hampered by his costume. Still dressed as the Jack of Clubs, he was fair game to any of the Court who had a quarrel with him after reading Fighting Pax. A man he recognised as Sir Darksilver roared across one of the tables and vowed to slice his head off, when he was done dispatching Sir Gorvain, whose armour he was currently belting with a mace and axe.
Diving under the arm of a lord who made a swipe at his head with a goblet, Conor stumbled over a body on the floor. Looking down, he saw it was a boy dressed in the same clothes as himself. Two daggers were in his chest. Beside him was the Jill of Spades’ replacement and her throat had been cut. Conor lurched away.
The stained glass in the windows throbbed with the fiery light outside and lurid colours splashed across the uproar, heightening the confusion. Unbridled hate and savagery charged the air that was already thick with smoke from the burning wall hangings.
Suddenly Conor saw the wooden screen that covered the way to the kitchens and heard a young girl’s voice crying out behind it. Leaping over upturned stools and a pile of broken earthenware, he threw himself round the screen, ready with his sword, hoping he wasn’t too late.
No doubt about it, there was Eun-mi’s sister, and Conor crashed in on a deadly confrontation between her and the Queen of Diamonds. One was prostrate on the floor, the other stood over her, a meat cleaver raised, about to swing down and chop.
But it was Nabi who was about to deliver the fatal blow. The cleaver was in her small hands and she was cackling malevolently. Conor snatched her backwards and knocked the weapon from her grasp. The little girl shrieked in protest and twisted round to scratch and bite him. Conor t
owed her into the Great Hall and Nabi resisted with every step. Then a new ferocious shout went up and Sir Darksilver vaulted over the tables to stand in their way.
He was the tallest of the knights and towered over Conor. The Jaxers who became that character were always thick-set and had spent too many hours in the gym flinging free weights about. As this man was the prime example of Sir Darksilver, he was burlier than most and, when he flexed his arms, the chain mail round his biceps strained and the leather straps bound about his thick wrists creaked. The heavy mace he wielded might have been made of balsa wood, for all the effort it took for him to spin it round.
“There are matters of honour between us that can only be settled by blood,” he growled at Conor threateningly. “Thou art a craven deceiver. I was unhorsed at the tournament through perfidy. I have already slain mine esquire. Now I shall send thee galloping after him.”
He swept the mace through a wide arc and brought it crunching down on the table. It splintered in two.
“That shall be the way of thine head,” he swore, lumbering forward.
Conor was completely outmatched. He didn’t have a hope of fighting this hulking giant. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to use his sword against a human being anyway. Jackals and Punchinellos were one thing, but this was a man, a person possessed by the power of the book, who didn’t know what he was doing. But he knew he had to defend himself or die.
“Run for the door,” he told Nabi as he released her. “Get out of here.”
The girl shook her head vehemently. “I’m going to set fire to Lady Marlot’s wimple!” she cried, springing away to seize a fallen candlestick. “I’m going to burn her hair off!”
The shadow of Sir Darksilver fell across Conor and the mace was ready to dash out his brains. The boy flinched at the sight of it and staggered backwards.
Suddenly there was a yell and Eun-mi came charging along the broken table. The knight turned, just as she launched herself at him, feet first. A perfectly aimed kick caught him on the jaw and his head whipped round, spitting teeth. He toppled like an oak tree and she landed on his breastplate to deliver a controlled, chopping blow to his neck.
The armour rattled and the knight went limp.
“Bullet would be quicker,” Eun-mi said, “but I not enjoy it so much.”
Her confidence restored, she looked at Conor with an expression of immense satisfaction.
“You killed him?” he asked.
“No, but maybe better if I do. He die in here soon.”
Then she ran after little Nabi, who was just about to set a flame to the headdress of a woman who was strangling another.
Eun-mi swept her up in her arms and they hurried from the Great Hall.
“Let’s grab a car!” Conor said as they ran down the steps outside.
Eun-mi hugged her struggling sister tightly, then handed her over.
“You go,” she told him. “Take Nabi. Take her safe place.”
“What?”
“Take this also,” she said, giving him the Kalashnikov. “Protect Nabi.”
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“I cannot leave,” she said with iron resolve. “I made pledge. I must restore the true order. I must be a human rifle, a human bomb, a dagger in the hand of the Eternal President.”
Conor couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“You’re not serious!” he shouted. “You’ll be dead is all you’ll be! There’s nothing you can do! It’s the end of everything. Give up. It’s over! Best we can hope for is to keep moving, try to find somewhere miles from anywhere – until they hunt us down.”
Eun-mi raised her beautiful face. The evil that blazed on top of the Keep was more powerful than ever and the night sky burned the colour of dark blood. Again she felt her courage weaken, but she saw something else up there, something that gave her the slenderest of hopes and she knew she had to risk it.
Glowing cinders swirled through the air as the flames around the Christmas tree perished, leaving it a charred skeleton. Around the castle the sounds of death were beginning to change. Anguish and horror were taking their place as Jaxers began to remember their true selves and realise the atrocious crimes they had just committed. Despair and madness engulfed the world.
In every country, across every continent, people were stumbling and reeling backwards, their hands wet with blood, their bodies aching from desperate struggles. As the insanity that had seized mankind abated, they looked around them and were filled with loathing and disgust. Awakening from the power of Fighting Pax, they discovered their cities were burning; monstrous creatures crawled and stalked the streets and screeched in the sky above. The planet was in uproar, but, most hideous of all, everyone who stirred from the book’s spell was confronted with the dreadful truth that they had just committed murder.
In every town and village, people were staggering away from what they had done. Bodies dressed as characters from that vile book, or merely with playing cards pinned to their clothes, lay at their feet. Billions were dead, most killed by members of their own family, or by friends or lovers. Tormented cries engulfed the world and, on every TV screen, every mobile device, the image of Lucifer upon the iron throne continued to shine, reigning supreme and presiding over their pain and desolation.
In Conor’s arms, little Nabi had ceased kicking, her energies spent, and her head drooped. Then, groggily, she raised her face. When she saw Eun-mi, she cried out to her in Korean. Conor let her go and the sisters embraced.
“Enough,” Eun-mi said shortly. “You must be brave and do as I say. This boy is a friend. Go with him. Do not question. There is no time. This is an order of Kim Il-sung.”
Nabi gasped, then her small face crumpled in misery.
“No tears,” Eun-mi commanded sternly. “The People’s Army does not weep. You must be strong, have courage.”
Kissing her forehead, she turned to Conor and urged him to leave.
“Come with us!” he begged her. “Please, Eun-mi, don’t throw your life away.”
Her features grew hard.
“Not Chung Eun-mi any more,” she said. “I choose new name, one without disgrace of General Chung Kang-dae.”
“I don’t care what you call yourself. Just don’t be bloody stupid. Come with us.”
The girl wasn’t listening. Turning back to the Keep, she stepped up to the scaffolding and began to climb.
“All you women are crazy!” Conor yelled. “Stubborn and crazy!”
Little Nabi fought back the tears. Picking her up, he ran across the courtyard, towards the inner gates and the car park beyond.
“Eun-mi!” Nabi wailed. “Eun-mi!”
Climbing swiftly, her sister shook her head with vigorous denial and lost the military cap of her uniform. In the baking, infernal winds that tore around the Keep, her unnaturally white hair came loose and streamed about her.
“Not Eun-mi,” she proclaimed proudly. “I am Arirang!”
Evelyn and Maggie hadn’t gone far when Evelyn put a hand to her forehead.
“Oh, gracious!” she exclaimed, halting in a short tunnel that cut through the inner curtain wall. Her voice bounced around the curved ceiling and she dabbed at her neck with a lace handkerchief.
“I’m rather too long in the tooth for this dashing about. In my vim and vigour days, when I was on tour with Bunty, my musical partner, I had to lug a cello, saxophone, harp and violin about, all in one go, from venue to venue. But the four-hundred-metre dash was never one of my triumphs.”
Tucking the handkerchief in her sleeve, she looked at Maggie with concern.
“You feeling quite yourself, dear? You’re most frightfully quiet.”
The girl stirred. The hellish light flooding the castle reached even into this passageway and it threw a bloody cast on her young face.
“It’s been a long night,” she replied.
“Assuredly so,” Evelyn agreed.
“What is this secret weapon?” Maggie asked curiously. “How
can it possibly work?”
Evelyn turned a benign smile on her and was no longer out of breath, but calm and pragmatic as ever. “That was just a ruse to get you away from the others, dear,” she said mildly. “Although I do have a couple of hand grenades tacked to my crinoline, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“Excuse me?”
“I had to keep the other children safe, you see. Just as I insisted the girls get away from you as soon as possible. I couldn’t risk you harming them, now could I?”
The pretence of innocence slipped from Maggie’s face.
“You’ve known since then?”
Evelyn nodded. “I suspected you weren’t Maggie, as soon as I saw you. She and Gerald were very close, you see. He even daydreamed of adopting her, if the world ever returned to normal. Silly old fool that he is.”
“Chocolate mincies,” the girl declared with dawning realisation. “That was a test, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, it was. My lovely friend Maggie would have known what they were. That really did break my heart. I actually felt it tear in two; isn’t that interesting?”
Evelyn paused and waited until she was sure she could continue without her voice cracking.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” she said. “This isn’t just temporary, Maggie is gone.”
Speckles of black mould broke out over the girl’s face and when she next spoke it was with the voice of Austerly Fellows.
“It takes time to absorb every memory,” he explained. “And I’d only just moved in and taken root when you… gatecrashed. I am but a splinter after all – a seedling that hasn’t yet reached its potential.”
“I thought so, but I had to be certain.”
Evelyn forced herself to look at the blooms of mould on that dear face. It made it easier to aim the Kalashnikov.
“Funny thing about the AK-47 assault rifle,” Austerly remarked coolly. “The Russian factory that produces them is staffed almost entirely by women. They machine the parts and assemble them. In that way, I suppose, you could almost call it a woman’s weapon. Ironic, isn’t it? Considering both of us are merely masquerading as one.”