by E. R. Mason
“I’m telling you there was no other way out of that tent,” Markman insisted as they headed back toward the house of glass.
“Oh, really, Mr. Markman. How can you be so gullible? There must have been.”
Unconvinced, he grabbed her by the arm and stopped. His unexpected touch startled her. “I’m a professional investigator, Ms. Cassell. I have a knack for seeing through people and their tricks. I’m telling you there’s more going on here than just...time distortions.”
Before she could respond, a loud fanfare rang out above the crowd noise. On their left, a brightly lit stage burst to life as a booming voice came over the loudspeakers. “Ladies and gentlemen! For your evening’s pleasure, the two greatest sword and fire masters alive! Please greet...the Cardoni Brothers!”
The gathering crowd applauded wildly as flames shot up from burners set around the stage. The orange, silken robes the two performers wore appeared to be fire resistant as the men walked among the yellow-orange jets, twirling golden-bladed swords in both hands. They danced in high steps around the fire, then drove their swords into the wooden stage, and knelt to bow between them.
“Of course there’s more going on here, Mr. Markman—more than you can imagine!” Cassiopia yelled above the applause and laughter.
“I can imagine quite a bit these days!” Markman yelled back.
The crowd roared again when one of the performers tossed a flaming orb into the air, as his counterpart spun 360 degrees and sliced it twice before it touched the ground.
“The fortune teller knew more than she was saying. We should track her down,” Markman insisted.
“We’ve been in here too long. We don’t belong here. On the next trip I’ll have more control.”
Markman looked back in puzzlement. In the background, something out of place was happening. While one entertainer was busy performing spectacular feats of swordplay, the other had withdrawn to one side and was peering intently over the crowd at Cassiopia.
“We’ve still got to find our way back through the maze. We better get going,” she insisted. They stared at each other defiantly, unaware that the performer watching Cassiopia had come to the edge of the stage. Sword in hand, he somersaulted into the crowd and began weaving his way toward her.
Markman shrugged off the impasse. He searched the distance trying to locate their destination. “It’s this way,” he shouted and began to push his way through the throngs of stage viewers.
From out of nowhere, the mysterious swordsman was suddenly on them. He grabbed Cassiopia rudely by the arm and began dragging her roughly in the opposite direction.
“You are my choice tonight!” he announced in broken English and yanked harder at the frightened woman when she tried to pull away.
She opened her mouth to call for help but felt Markman’s muscled hand grasp her other arm. For a moment she found herself the centerpiece of a violent tug-of-war, but abruptly a flash of movement changed the odds.
Markman’s right forearm was suddenly in front of her face, and clutched in his hand the dark-blue Berretta was leveled between the eyes of the would-be abductor.
“Bad idea, Sinbad,” Markman growled. “You’re two feet from dying, mister. It’d be worth dropping the blade.”
Stunned, the kidnapper hastily released Cassiopia as though she had become too hot even for him to handle. He froze where he stood, but opened his right hand, allowing his golden sword to fall to the dirt. From the corner of his eye, Markman caught sight of the second Cardoni brother and two allies jumping from the stage and barging through the crowd to assist their friend. An irreverent smirk came across the face of Cassiopia’s assailant. He too had seen that reinforcements were on the way.
Markman lurched into a jumping sidestep and drove a side kick into the stomach of his unprepared opponent. The man’s face became wide-eyed as he bent over and groped at his stomach. He tumbled over backward and crashed harshly to the dirt amid startled cries from the surrounding throng of onlookers. On the ground, he rolled from side to side, holding his chest and gasping for air.
Markman tugged at Cassiopia’s arm, pulling her into the growing crowd, stuffing the Berretta back in its holster as he went. So many people had gathered to see the fight that it had become very difficult to find a way through. Over his shoulder, Markman could see disturbances in the crowd where the pursuers were bullying their way in an attempt to catch up. Tightly he held to Cassiopia as she struggled to follow him through the waves of gawking strangers. Several stocky men cast threatening stares as he pushed his way past, but their animosity quickly dissolved into lust at the sight of Cassiopia.
They fought their way to the House Of Glass, only to find its entrance almost completely blocked by a long line of patrons waiting to buy tickets. Over the crowd noise, Markman could hear the shouts of warning being made by his pursuers as they badgered their way through the confused masses. They were closing. With an exasperated look at Cassiopia, he forced his way past the line and up the ramp to the mirrored entrance. The ticket taker, a man in dirty gray coveralls, immediately ordered them to stop. People waiting made rude gestures and demanded they go to the back of the line. At the top of the platform, Markman stopped only long enough to spot five men weaving and shoving their way through the crowd. With Cassiopia holding tightly to a fistful of his jacket, he led her into the corridor of glass. Once again, they found themselves surrounded by their own reflections.
Within the realm of Dreamland mirrors, progress came to an abrupt halt. Only a few steps inside, Markman banged into one of the heavy glass panels which was reflecting a passageway that did not exist. The large glass pane wobbled noisily from the impact, casting eerie images that were recreated a thousand times in the mirrors surrounding it.
He turned to Cassiopia as she struggled to catch her breath. “Will your little maze trick help us find our way in?”
She nodded. “Yes! It should. If we hold to one wall, we will always find the next passage. But it will lead us in and around larger chambers. They could catch up!”
“We’ll have to chance it. If we run into one of these panels hard enough we may break it. We could get cut to shreds.”
Cassiopia grimaced. She removed the homing device from her bag and stared down at it nervously. “I’m getting a reading. The homing beacon is somewhere ahead.”
In a low tone, Markman replied skeptically, “Which way is ahead?”
Ignoring his sarcasm, she led the way, keeping her right hand on the wall of smooth glass beside her. As sounds from the carnival began to fade, the sudden cry of the angry ticket taker’s voice echoed through the hall. Others had pushed their way into his amusement without paying. The pursuers had now entered the maze. An eerie, muted silence descended over the arcade.
Markman did his best to keep close as she wound her way around columns of mirrors and walls of silvery infinity. Their own fearful-looking reflections came from every direction. They stealthed along the claustrophobic surreality with no place to run and no place to hide. Markman found himself continually looking back, expecting an assault to occur at any moment. The persistent hunters were now keeping very quiet, moving like predators in search of prey.
Cassiopia felt earnestly for the hidden openings, not noticing the subtle change coming over Markman. His expression had become one of inward resignation to mortal combat. Skillfully she worked her way into a large circular chamber of repetitive reflections that went on into endlessness. Tall, wide, freestanding mirrors were scattered throughout the vague boundaries of the room. Patiently, she began to find a broken path around it, as hundreds of images followed along.
Suddenly, a loud crack broke the tense silence. The sound of shattering glass rang out in the air, followed by a whimpering cry of alarm nearby. “Son of a bitch! I’m cut!”
“Shut up, you imbecile, or we’ll cut you worse than that!”
A hollow silence returned. Cassiopia turned worriedly to Markman. The voices had been frighteningly close. She stiffened an
d began to quietly search even faster. Markman strained to focus on the optical illusions that were everywhere. He tapped nervously at the gun in its holster and realized it would be completely improper to fire it in a place surrounded by hundreds of innocent carnival-goers.
Cassiopia began to have trouble finding her way. Nervously she felt along the glass, but suddenly jerked to a stop and covered her mouth with one hand. A third figure had suddenly appeared within the multiple reflections being cast throughout the hall. A burly man, dressed in sleeveless gray coveralls, searched among the reflections. He appeared uncertain and angry. A fresh, red cut beneath his bottom lip was still bleeding. He brushed back his ragged, oily black hair with one hand, and strained to find the real people among the curtain of reflections. As he stood bewildered by the great many choices, he was joined by a companion—a man wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket and dirty torn jeans. His long red-brown hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Cassiopia and Markman froze. Both parties stared at one another, though the countless number of reflections made it impossible to tell who the real people were.
Without speaking, Markman motioned to continue.
Cassiopia moved breathlessly forward, her duplicates moving with her. The predators resumed their slow, confused search. They called out to their friends who were lagging behind in other culverts of glass. “Hey, you guys—we can see them, over here.”
Unexpectedly Cassiopia found a hidden opening between mirrors. She turned to alert Markman quietly, and was startled to find him gone. Reflections of him were everywhere, though the real person was no longer near enough to touch. She paused anxiously and wondered if she should hide in the next corridor or wait to lead him to it.
A sudden explosion of violence made her forget her indecision. Out of the dreamlike surrealism, the muscular, hairy hand of the man in black leather shot out and roughly captured her by her chin. So tight was his hold that it was immediately painful. She was yanked around to face the wild-eyed carnival worker. He was unshaven, dirty, and smelled of cheap cigars. He leered gleefully as she cried out and struggled, and then widened his grin and let out a low, throaty chuckle.
As the overconfident man celebrated, a reflection of Markman suddenly appeared beside him. Cassiopia opened her mouth to call out but was interrupted when the man’s head was violently yanked back by his ponytail. His bloodshot eyes bulged wide in pain as he tumbled over. Involuntarily he released his grip and flailed wildly as he tried to break the hard fall to the unswept blackened floor. Markman slid in alongside the man and knelt with him as he fell. The plywood floor sagged from the collision and the surrounding mirrors echoed his distorted image in a radical orchestration of twisting and bowing. The back of the man’s head slammed into the floor and bounced. His eyes became foggy and unfocused. Dazed he blinked up into Markman’s cold stare and attempted to raise his throbbing head from the floor. His last, out of focus image was Markman’s open left hand, slamming against his forehead, driving his fractured mind back down. With a stare of disbelief locked into his face, his eyes fluttered and closed.
Reflections of a body, prone on the hardwood floor now wavered around the mystical amusement. Tense silence returned as the mirrors slowly stilled. Three human images remained standing in infinity. The thug’s partner had watched everything. Cassiopia looked again to Markman and realized she was staring at a reflection. He had again slipped away.
With one hand on her heart, she looked down in disbelief at the sleeping body on the floor nearby. Before she could collect herself, the gruesome sounds of physical combat began to echo around her once more. The images in the mirrors became a blur of violence. Everywhere she looked, men were fighting. As her thoughts came back into focus, she realized it was Markman and the man in gray coveralls, trading blows, moving, and then clashing again. Grunting and slapping sounds echoed from every direction. She wanted dearly to yell at Markman to run but knew it would only help give them away.
Then, for an instant, there was a heavy stillness. Suddenly multiple images of the carnival worker, pummeling through the air surrounded her. The hideous sounds of glass shattering mixed with a gruesome, low-pitched scream rang out. All around Cassiopia, images of the man’s body crashed through shattering mirrors as it fell hard to the floor among the jagged, scattering glass. An adjacent chamber, suddenly visible through a newly made hole, cast its own wavering images of the man in gray lying in a bed of red stained glass.
She jumped at the touch of Markman’s hand on her arm. He leaned into her ear and spoke in a low tone. “Let’s go; the others are close.”
Flustered, she looked up at him and tried to point to the next corridor. As she did, a third figured abruptly appeared. She jumped back, shrieking in horror. “Scott, look out!”
With lightning speed, Markman spun to confront the danger. But it was not enough. The second Cardoni brother was there, with his razor-edged sword already raised. As Markman came about, the downward motion had begun. He moved to block too late. The curved blade drove down through Markman’s unprotected forehead.
Chapter 15