The Extraordinaires 2

by Michael Pryor

  Evadne eased past him, her eyes shining in the lantern light. ‘We have a show to put on, Kingsley. I hope you’re ready.’

  ‘I am, and there’s no-one I’d rather put it on with than you.’

  She stood on tiptoes and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘And I’ll say the same to you.’

  Kingsley could feel the spot on his cheek where Evadne’s lips had touched rather more than he could feel the rest of his body. ‘Even though it’s dangerous?’

  ‘Especially since it’s dangerous. We’re a good team, Kingsley.’

  ‘That we are.’

  A drum roll. Evadne caught his arm and turned towards the wings. They could hear Troilus’s voice. Evadne came so close Kingsley could feel her heartbeat; it was racing even though her face was calm.

  He’s good, Kingsley thought as Troilus continued his introduction. He covered Evadne’s hand with his. He could do this for a living.

  ‘For one night only,’ Troilus stretched out the moment. ‘Fresh from engagements in the mystical east and the mysterious north, I am delighted to give to you, I’m honoured to give to you, I’m humbled to give to you . . .’ He faltered and looked to the ramshackle wings. ‘Who exactly are you?’

  Kingsley stared. They hadn’t thought of names!

  Evadne saved the day. While Kingsley stood there, she pushed past him, flipped her way to the front of the stage and stood with her hands on her hips. ‘Hello everyone! I am the Amazing Serafina and this is Zoltan the Magnificent!’

  Kingsley followed Evadne’s lead. He bounded onto the stage, roaring like a lion. A relieved Troilus leaped into the wings.

  Kingsley gave silent thanks for his height and the width of his shoulders. Done up as he was, no-one would think he was only months past his seventeenth birthday. He strutted about the stage as if he’d lived decades with a whip coiled on his hip, a gold earring in each ear, and an oiled moustache as broad as a bicycle handle. While the accordion and fiddle quickly swung into a mish-mash Hungarian peasant tune, he glowered, he slapped his hands together, he poked at the stage setting and he stomped his boots while Evadne stood, amused.

  The audience loved it, and Kingsley thought only part of it was the guaranteed reception they’d rehearsed earlier. Trained as he was not to look at the audience, this time he had to keep an eye on Gompers, to make sure he was – at least – tolerating the performance.

  He was. While he may not have been beaming, or whistling, or cheering as everyone else was – including his guards, who had all taken a shine to Evadne – Gompers was standing in the front row. His arms were crossed and his features set in what Kingsley hoped was a neutral and receptive arrangement.

  Kingsley concluded his bravado-filled entrance by coming to Evadne’s side. He stood, feet well apart, hands linked behind his head and scowled. ‘This is a night for magic,’ he bellowed. ‘So magic I do for you.’

  This time, when he slapped his hands together, he was rewarded with a flash and puff of orange smoke, thanks to the striker and the flash paper he’d had down his collar and retrieved while his hands were behind his head. The audience gasped and Gompers actually jumped, before looking about suspiciously.

  Excellent.

  Evadne tumbled and cartwheeled. Kingsley produced cards from thin air and made them vanish again – his back-palming practice had been successful – then he had some fun simply skimming them over the heads of the audience, spinning them wildly with a snap of his wrist. Producing a chain of multi-coloured scarves was pretty but hardly taxing; it was made more entertaining by Evadne’s whirling as he produced them, winding them around her body as she spun. Kingsley noted that Gompers applauded carefully after Evadne’s lissom and colourful curtsey.

  Kingsley waved her aside and then swaggered to the centre of the tiny stage. He glowered at the audience. ‘I need some hearty men,’ he growled. ‘Men who are strong, powerful, full of blood and nerve!’ He bent and swept an arm over their heads. ‘Who among you is big enough?’

  Ready for this, the Trojans clamoured for the chance. ‘Good!’ Kingsley threw back his head and laughed. ‘There are men among you yet!’

  He held out a hand. With her juggler’s precision, Evadne tossed a coil of rope. Without looking, Kingsley opened his fingers and snapped them shut when the rope struck them. ‘Here! Good rope! Strong rope! Rope to tie a giant!’

  He threw it to the nearest of the Trojans. ‘Come, all six of you, tie me up! Use all the knots you can! Zoltan the Magnificent defies you!’

  Wild applause greeted this sally. After that, the act ran smoothly. So smoothly, that Kingsley had time to wonder if Dr Ward could have reached the farm buildings and begun his reconnaissance.

  Kingsley kept up his taunting. As with most rope-tying escapes, the audience volunteers began well, concentrating on wrapping the rope tightly and fastening it at each round with complex knots, but all Kingsley had to do was keep his chest well expanded and his shoulders flexed. When he relaxed, the slack created was enough for ninety per cent of the escape.

  As usual, the volunteers eventually fell back on simply winding the rope around Kingsley from neck to ankle, finishing with a knot behind his back. Of course, if they had started with him in the middle of the rope and then used both ends for knots, things would have been much more difficult, but such was rarely the case.

  ‘Back!’ Kingsley roared when they were done. He flexed a little, felt sufficient slack and then did his best to show signs of dismay. After that, the escape was mostly showmanship.

  The audience was delighted by his feigned distress. He wrenched himself about in a manner designed to be dramatic and to signal that the ropes were fiendishly well tied. As Kingsley staggered and heaved he actually had to be careful not to let them slip over his shoulder, lest the whole tangle fall loose.

  After some apparently fruitless effort, Kingsley fell with a crash so alarming that he momentarily worried about the soundness of the afternoon’s carpentry. He rolled about, roaring his imagined frustrations, adding grunts and exclamations of pain for good effect.

  Matters were made more difficult when he caught sight of Evadne, off stage. She had one hand clamped over her mouth, while the other held her stomach in an effort to muffle her giggling. Of course, the infectiousness of this caught him, and it took a supreme effort to prevent himself from bursting out laughing himself.

  Concentrate! he admonished himself and he rolled away so he couldn’t see her.

  When he judged that enough was enough, Kingsley wrenched his arms around, rose to all fours and shook like a dog emerging from a swamp. Then he sprang forward and left the ropes behind him.

  ‘Free!’ he roared. ‘People may live in chains, dreaming of freedom, but Zoltan the Magnificent makes the dream come true!’

  The applause was wild. Gompers joined in, but his clapping was almost mechanical in its regularity.

  Kingsley held up both hands. ‘Easy, my friends, easy. Now is the time for a mystery.’ He shook his head. ‘Zoltan has travelled far, seen much. What I bring to you is something that is beyond the beyond, something that cannot be known.’ Meaningless, but atmospheric. ‘Many have sought for the secret I am about to show you, but few have seen it. You, my friends, are the lucky ones. Serafina, the box!’

  Evadne wheeled the ebony box to the middle of the stage, near the rear, centring it over the discreet mark they’d measured out earlier. She opened the front door to display a red interior, totally bare and unadorned. She closed the door and spun the cabinet around on its casters, thumping it with a fist, to show that it was solid on all sides.

  Kingsley was proud of the ebony cabinet. Evadne and he had laboured over it in between engagements, on and off, for months. The red oriental script on each side had been carefully chosen from one of Evadne’s oldest books, and it was her steady hand with a fine brush that had painted the script on the lacquered ebony. The cabinet of mystery was a classic, but thanks to their combined skills, Kingsley was sure he had a twist that would surprise. />
  ‘This cabinet is a mystery of mysteries,’ he said, adding to the drama while giving the Trojans who were moving through the audience more time. Three key figures were arranging themselves behind Gompers. ‘Its secrets have puzzled a thousand scholars, a hundred thousand scholars, all scholars everywhere!’ Hyperbole is best done large. ‘But now, to test the cabinet – the cabinet of fear, the cabinet of horror, the cabinet of the riddle of the universe – we need a volunteer!’

  Cheers, whistles, shouts, and the three key Trojans sited directly behind Gompers gave the man a hefty shove in the back.

  Amid laughter and more cheering, Gompers staggered forward and barely caught himself on the edge of the stage. While he looked up angrily, Kingsley roared: ‘We have a hero who cannot wait to challenge the cabinet! Applaud him! Cheer for him! Honour him!’

  This was a crucial moment. Kingsley was relying on the mightily powerful effect of the crowd. It took remarkable steadfastness to stand back and resist the crowd, to look around and say ‘No, I’m not doing it’. If Gompers walked away, the plan would be ruined.

  Gompers glared at Kingsley for a moment, then nodded. Kingsley stifled a sigh of relief, then gestured. Gompers stalked to the stairs on the side of the stage. He mounted them and came to Kingsley’s side. ‘You are brave, my friend,’ Kingsley said, ‘are you not?’

  Gompers sized up Kingsley, but did not respond. He was no pliant volunteer. He stood, eyes narrowed, a reluctant participant. Every inch of him was saying ‘Get on with it’.

  ‘But just how brave are you?’ Kingsley went on.

  Gompers snorted.

  Kingsley held out a hand and came back with a long, curving sword that Finny had thrust on him from the wings. ‘Brave enough for this?’ Kingsley said.

  Gompers was unmoved as the crowd roared and, for a split-second, Kingsley thought the man was going to turn and march away. The momentum that the crowd imposed on him had its way, however, and he gave a single, sharp nod of acceptance.

  Kingsley gestured with the sword and Gompers stepped up to the cabinet. He looked at Evadne, who smiled and opened the door.

  Gompers touched the door of the cabinet. He ran his fingers along it. Kingsley tapped him on the shoulder with the sword. ‘Inside, hero!’

  Gompers shuffled around and faced the audience. He crossed both hands over his chest and stepped backwards into the cabinet. He stood there, with a scowl not far from his face.

  ‘Glorious!’ Kingsley roared, then he seized the door of the cabinet. As he went to slam it shut, he paused for an instant, for Gompers had lifted a finger and fixed him with a look. ‘This is good for me,’ he said.

  Kingsley blinked. He closed the door. He shrugged and addressed the audience. ‘Now, for the miracle!’

  He paced, slashing the sword through the air and glaring at the cabinet as if it were his worst enemy. He growled, he snarled, he glowered. He stamped his feet, he grimaced, he would have plucked at his beard if he’d had one. Then he brandished his sword and went to lunge at the cabinet with it – but he stopped short. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you have seen that before. It is much too easy!’

  Instead, he took a step back and pointed at the cabinet. With a crash – provided by Finny behind the stage – the cabinet disappeared.

  Kingsley loved this moment in stage magic: the silence. If an illusion were performed correctly, with the perfect blend of preparation, suspense, theatricality and audaciousness, the final flourish always produced a momentary stillness before the applause, a collective expression of wonder and disbelief. Only silence was the appropriate measure of the mystery made real in front of them.

  Of course, it needed to be followed by thunderous applause – and it was.

  The ebony box was another product of Evadne’s inventiveness. Thanks to the arrangement of springs, levers and hinges, the box had folded in on itself: sides first, then the top plunged straight down so all that was left on the stage was a slim black rectangle a few feet square and a few inches in height. Kingsley let the applause roll on, then he gestured grandly at the flat black tile. Instantly, it sprang up and resumed its shape and size.

  Evadne flung the door open to reveal the interior was empty.

  More applause, more thunderous than the last, and the musicians – on cue – struck up a lively mock peasant tune. The whole audience cried out and joined in, sweeping Gompers’s underlings into a wild and abandoned dance.

  Kingsley took Evadne’s hand, kissed it, and they bowed. ‘What a team we make,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth.

  She squeezed his hand.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Kingsley and Evadne hurried through the makeshift wings. They barely glanced at the gagged and bound Gompers who was in the keeping of Finny and a pair of well-armed Trojans. Kingsley was pleased to see that he could tick off Phase One. Then the music ended and Kingsley ticked off Phase Two, which was confirmed when they saw Gompers’s guards standing with hands up, surrounded by more armed Trojans. Some of the guards still had tankards of ale in hand, others had mouths full of food. ‘Tie them,’ Kingsley ordered. ‘Properly.’

  He darted into one caravan while Evadne went into another. Kingsley ripped off his stage costume and quickly dressed in something more practical – serge trousers, shirt, woollen jacket – and emerged two minutes later with his walking stick to find Evadne waiting for him. She’d stripped off her wig and her hair was wild and loose. Kingsley had half a second to admire her practical but stylish change of outfit before she seized his hand and they were off.

  The farmhouse was dark and of Dr Ward there was no sign. The lock proved only a momentary barrier. Kingsley had it open as quickly as if they’d turned a door knob. They stepped into an unlit kitchen so ordinary that Kingsley thought it could serve as a museum piece: ‘The Rustic Kitchen’. An abundance of humble wood in dressers and beams. Some china proudly on display on shelves. A hulking great iron stove large enough to cook for a horde of barbarians, and six uniformed guards sitting at a large wooden table, enjoying mugs of tea.

  Since there was no possible way of hiding, Kingsley cried out and held his cane at the ready. The guards, dumbfounded by this sudden disturbance, were still motionless when Evadne brought her Malefactor’s Lament to bear.

  With a solid metallic thwang, a fine mesh shot from the barrel of the outrageous firearm. It flew across the room and enveloped the guards before they could get to their feet. Immediately, they sagged bonelessly and their heads met the table. One started to snore like a sailor.

  ‘They’re asleep?’ Kingsley looked at Evadne, who was twisting a brass knob near the trigger of the pistol. ‘What sort of lament is that?’

  ‘A non-lethal one. I prefer to think these are blameless hirelings. Or ruffians who may benefit from a second chance, at least.’

  A staircase against the east wall led down and, with no other obvious option, Kingsley and Evadne charged down it only to meet an iron door with a much more challenging lock. This one needed both of Kingsley’s better lock picks and fifteen seconds before they were through – only to be confronted by as drastic a contrast in interior design as Kingsley could imagine.

  ‘They’ve been preparing this place for months,’ Evadne breathed. ‘Years, perhaps.’

  All Kingsley could do was agree as he surveyed the three arched corridors stretching into the distance. Walls, floor and ceiling were clad in gleaming white tiles. At regular intervals, bold electric lights studded the arched ceilings. The light they cast rippled along the shininess of the tiles and made the corridors look like tunnels boring through the heart of a glacier.

  Kingsley was frozen, too, by imagining the busyness of the Immortals preparing dozens of redoubts or hideouts or refuges across the length and breadth of the country. He realised, then, that he’d been underestimating the Immortals. He had been lulled by their peevishness. Partly because of their aspect of petulant children, they were easy to dismiss as simply mischievous. Estimating the energy and planning that must have
gone into this underground lair forced him to revise his opinion of them. They were malevolent in a way that came from long-learned patience.

  Evadne cocked her head. ‘Listen.’

  Kingsley didn’t have to. He’d already heard the music that was echoing down the corridor directly in front of them and he was struggling not to respond. The music was erratic and swirling, faint and fainter, and it was wild in a way that made his blood surge. Instantly, he was battling an urge to abandon everything – cares, responsibilities and the trappings of civilisation – and to find the true wilderness in which to live.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, through gritted teeth as Evadne took a step forward. He took her forearm. ‘It’s calling to me.’

  Kingsley had never before thought of music as wild. Music was a product of culture, of civilisation, at all levels. In grand chambers full of gowns and tiaras, in taverns and churches, around campfires and workplaces. Music was an expression of people communicating with people.

  This music, however, was different. It was primitive and it roused his wildness as much as the smell of blood did. It spoke to him of running free, of roaming the open plains and prowling through the jungle. It was full of danger, too, of the thrill of the chase and the fear of being prey.

  His Inner Animal was responding. His breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. His hands were clenching into fists and his nails cut into his palms. He trembled.

  Kingsley staggered. Evadne caught him and held on. ‘The music’s gone,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘It hasn’t gone.’ Kingsley could hear it, faint and distant. More than that, he could feel it lodged in his bones, in the back of his throat, and in his mouth was a taste he couldn’t ignore.

  ‘We’ll withdraw,’ Evadne said.

  ‘No.’ The effort hurt him. ‘We must go on.’

  ‘Which way?’

  He pointed towards the source of the music. ‘That way.’

  With steely strength, Evadne shuffled him around until he was facing her. She took both his arms at the elbow. ‘Are you being heroic?’