The Game of Triumphs

by Laura Powell

  Cat slumped down on the steps, swearing under her breath. Her right hand had pins and needles, and she absently rubbed it against her jeans. What had she been expecting to find today, anyway? All this time wasted on tacky books and the ramblings of random nutcases. She didn’t even know what she was looking for, she thought, as she stared into the garden. A gaggle of young guys in hooded sweatshirts were kicking a beer can around in a desultory sort of way. A tramp snored on a bench beneath a lopsided apple tree.

  She took the newspaper page from her pocket and stared at the dead man’s face, trying to imagine what she would say to a police officer. A man she couldn’t positively identify, a hunt that had vanished into thin air, a game that might have turned murderous … It was all so far-fetched, and that was before she got to the bit about Temple House and The Wondrous World of Tarot. But if she was right, and the murder victim was the man she’d met, other people might have seen something that night. And even if she didn’t understand what she’d stumbled into, the police might.…

  Still, knowing what she should do didn’t make it any easier to leap into action. Cat idled on the steps, fiddling with her hair and looking out over the square.

  Some sort of confrontation had started between the tramp and the boys in hoods. She wasn’t sure what was going on at first, because her vision was oddly unfocused, as if her eyes were out of sync. Then she blinked, and the unsteadiness cleared. She saw that the tramp had got up from his bench and was flailing his arms about and shouting, his ragged coattails flapping in the wind. His adversaries’ goading laughter increased. One of them kicked the can they’d been playing ball with so that it clattered against the man’s leg. It was the kind of scene you saw all the time. A young mother, wearily pushing a stroller along the pavement close to Cat, didn’t even give it a second’s glance. Nor did the couple climbing out of a taxi. Not even the boy at the other end of the square chucking pebbles at a tree-bound cat seemed to notice.

  Then something changed. The tramp’s voice rose again—harsh squawking, spat like a curse. The youths weren’t laughing anymore; they stood together, hoods down, and there was something predatory about their stillness. One of them raised his arm. It was a strangely formal gesture, half command, half salute, and it was only then that Cat saw each of the four was grasping something in his right hand. Not knives: short wooden bats, like truncheons. She scrambled to her feet, adrenaline surging in her blood, her vision blurry with shock. Time seemed to slow. The scene before her had the private leisureliness of a nightmare.

  And then the tramp took a card from his pocket and tore it in half. At once, the ground in front of him burst into flame.

  It combusted with a soft whump! and spread into a ring of fire that lit the entire square. The gray air above it shimmered with heat; the apple tree was showered in sparks of gold. Cat opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. It was as if her breath was frozen in her throat. She spun around, gesturing in incoherent appeal to the woman with the baby, who was just five feet or so away. The woman looked up at her strangled half cry, then immediately hunched back over the stroller, paying no attention to the conflagration or the circling youths.

  “Wait,” Cat croaked. “We have to—someone—we must—someone must stop—”

  But the woman was already hurrying away. Cat stumbled toward the railings, began to shout out something indistinguishable. The grass must have been soaked in gasoline and he’d thrown a match, that must be it.… It seemed impossible that the whole garden was not alight, yet both the tramp and his surroundings seemed immune to the flames. Meanwhile, the youths prowled, still tensed for action, occasionally jumping back as the breeze sent the fire licking toward them.

  “Help! Please!” Cat begged, although she knew it was futile. A spark blew onto her cheek, and she slapped at it frantically. At the far end of the garden, the other boy loitered, his baiting of the cat abandoned. He, too, was staring—but not at the blaze. He was staring at her. So were the couple standing on the opposite side of the garden. Their faces were wrinkled with distaste. A car turned into the square, purred smoothly past and then out again.

  It was then that the true horror of the situation took hold. Nobody else could see what was happening. As far as these others were concerned, the only strangeness in their afternoon was the crazy girl, babbling to herself and gesturing wildly at things that weren’t there.

  Cat clutched the iron railings so that the cold metal bit into her flesh. As she did so, she felt a twinge on her right palm. The mark of the wheel throbbed as it had in her dream; she could see the trace of it like a silvery, glowing scar. She cried out and closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears as if she could blot everything out, as if she could start over. And when she opened her eyes again, she was looking into a quiet London square. Not so much as a speck of ash remained; the empty beer can had vanished along with the tramp and his adversaries. Cat fell down on all fours and retched.

  For what felt like a long time she squatted by the railings, sick to the pit of her stomach. After the heaving subsided, she found she couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Uh, are you OK?”

  Somebody was crouched beside her. She nearly screamed before she realized that he wasn’t one of the hooded youths with the bats, that he must be the boy who’d been throwing pebbles. He had a blunt, tough face and his bitten fingernails were grimy, but his expression was concerned. Or maybe just curious.

  She licked her dry lips. “I felt a bit ill, that’s all. I’m all right now.” Get a grip, she had to get a grip.…

  “You should go home.”

  His eyes fixed on hers. They were very dark, and ringed with the bruising of fatigue. He looked like a street kid, with his grubby hands and shapeless clothes, but he wasn’t threatening. He was of her world. She felt an impossible urge to clutch hold of him as hard as those iron railings.

  But whatever impulse had brought him over was already fading, for he had got to his feet and was slouching away.

  The shaking and queasiness passed. Of course it did: Cat was tough, Cat wasn’t the type to fuss. She wasn’t crazy, either. Or dreaming. Or high. That’s what was so terrifying. Her cheek still stung from the stray ember; she could smell smoke in her hair. The roar of the flames and the tramp’s hoarse cries had been as clear and present as the uninterrupted grind of city traffic or the crying of the child in the stroller.

  Toby’s excitable voice echoed in her head. What had he called it? Not just a game: a gateway to another dimension. Cat gave a half laugh, half sob. Loneliness had become her natural state, but now she was a true exile. All thoughts of going to the police dissolved. No one would believe her, no one could help her.

  Except one, she thought grimly. Toby.

  WHEN CAT GOT BACK to the basement of Dark Portal, the book on Tarot had gone. There was, however, a folded-up piece of paper with her name on it tucked alongside the encyclopedia of Middle Earth. It contained a phone number and a hastily scrawled line:

  Hey Cat, hope you’ll get in touch sometime (?) Toby.

  Dizzy with relief, she found a bench not far from the shop and called the number, trying not to wonder what she’d do if he didn’t pick up. When he finally answered, she clenched her fist, hard. “It’s Cat. I need to see you.”

  “Hi, Cat! This is so great. I mean, it’s great you got in touch. OK, so what do you—”

  “I’m outside Dark Portal. Come now.” Then she hit the off button, not trusting herself to speak any more.

  They went to a run-down café around the corner. Toby was oddly proud of the place, glancing round with an almost proprietary air at the smoke-stained walls and grubby Formica. “This is the authentic Soho,” he told her. “It’s got real character, not like most of the neighborhood tourist traps.”

  Cat looked into her cup of overboiled coffee. What did this boy, with his cultured accent and ironically retro clothes, know about Soho’s “character”? She’d bet he didn’t live on the same street as a crappy casino and a strip
joint.

  Toby didn’t seem to mind her continued silence. His foot tapped nervously under the table, but away from the shop he seemed more relaxed. Pleased with himself. Cat noticed there was a fleck of milk froth on his upper lip. It was impossible that she could sit here in a normal café, surrounded by normal people, while the world as she knew it had just been wrenched into some parallel reality. Or Dark Portal. If it wasn’t so terrifying, it would be ridiculous.

  “Aren’t you going to ask why I called you?” she said at last.

  He glanced at her sidelong, his expression both sly and hopeful. “Well, I’m guessing it’s to do with the Arcanum.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” she said. Deep breath. “All I know … is that I, uh, saw something that wasn’t there. In the square by Temple House.”

  “Mercury Square.”

  “OK. Mercury Square. There was a tramp in the garden, see, and he got into an argument with some guys. They had these wooden … truncheon things and I thought there was going to be a fight.” She took a sip of coffee to steady her, feeling the hot liquid scald her throat. “But then the tramp pulled out a card from his pocket and tore it in half. And suddenly the ground around him burst into flame. A whole wall of it, just like that. The fire was protecting him, keeping the others back. The thing was … the thing is, nobody else—the other passersby—could see what was happening. They thought I was out of my mind.” She looked into her cup. “But I’m not, am I?”

  “I doubt it,” said Toby cheerfully. “What happened next?”

  “I’m not sure. I closed my eyes. I felt like I was going to faint. Then when I opened them again, everything was back to normal and the people in the garden had … vanished.”

  Toby linked his hands round the back of his head and leaned back in his chair. “Interesting. Your tramp must’ve been using the Ace of Wands to defend himself. It’s known as the Root of Fire.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Have a look.” He turned to rummage in his bag. “I bought this for you, just in case.”

  It was The Wondrous World of Tarot. Dumbly, Cat flicked through until she found an illustrated layout of the suit of Wands. The Ace was a disembodied hand grasping a flowering branch from which sparks flew.

  “Fire, see? Each ace represents one of the four elements. Like the Triumph of Fortune, they aren’t dealt by the kings and queens, but pop up in the Arcanum for the knights to find. As a kind of lucky bonus. They even have a limited power in our own world, though using them here isn’t as effective.”

  Cat could only stare back at him in incomprehension.

  “This should also look familiar.” Toby tapped a card called the Five of Wands, which showed a group of men in combat with thick wooden staffs. “From your description, I’d say it was the card you saw in play: the King of Wands’ knaves ganging up on some knight. But somewhere along the way, he found an ace, and their plans—literally—went up in smoke.”

  He rambled on some more but Cat barely heard any of it. She had turned to the next page, which was a layout of Swords. “Wands and Swords,” she whispered. “That’s how it all started.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Toby eagerly. And, haltingly, she did: everything that had happened from the moment she found herself standing by the heavy-breathing businessman in the Underground. But Toby didn’t seem particularly concerned with the knight’s fate. He was much more interested in her meeting with the kings and queens.

  By the end he was beaming. “I knew it! Ha! You’re another chancer, like me.”

  “Chancer?”

  “The Triumph of the Fool. No offence or anything; it just means you’re a bystander who accidentally altered the State of Play. That makes you part of the Game without being, like, an official player. It means you can move around the Arcanum without belonging to a court. Which means—”

  “Toby—”

  “But what you have to—”

  “Toby, wait—”

  “We can—”

  “SHUT UP! Shut up and listen.” Cat took a deep, steadying breath. “OK. Here’s the deal as I see it. A bunch of messed-up thrill seekers act out what’s on Tarot cards: murder, arson, assault, whatever. Which is sick. Probably the sickest thing I’ve ever heard. And you don’t even seem bothered that that man I met is probably dead. Even so, I get it. I can see how something like that works. But what I don’t get is how all this is somehow taking place in a crazy parallel dimension that the rest of the world can’t see.” To her shame, her voice had started to crack. “Meanwhile, you’re chattering away like we’re swapping tips on freaking Monopoly. You say we’re the same, but how do I know that? How do I know anything?”

  Toby looked stricken. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Hell—I can see I’ve gone about this all wrong. I’d forgotten what a shock it is—finding out, I mean. And I’m not a sociopath or anything … I promise.” He blushed furiously beneath the freckles. “But I’d been dreaming of finding something like the Arcanum for most of my life.”

  Cat bit her lip. “The Arcanum—is that what you call the … the … place where I saw the tramp and the fire? And the inside of Temple House?”

  “The Arcanum is where the Game is played: the Game’s board, you might say. It’s going into the Arcanum that brings a player’s card to life. If it’ll make you feel any better, it’s not technically a different world from ours. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “But—”

  “Picture it as the reverse of a card.” Toby sounded relieved to be returning to practical matters. He picked up the greasy menu on the table and turned it over in demonstration. “Or the two sides of a coin. The same thing, just a different view.”

  Cat’s brain felt blurred by the enormity of what was happening. She shook her head in frustration. “If the garden I was looking at belonged to the Arcanum side, I don’t understand how I was able to see it without … I dunno … saying the magic words or going through the magic door or …”

  “Sounds like you weren’t actually in the Arcanum proper, more like looking in. I expect that’s because you were so close to Temple House, which is common to both our side and the Arcanum—and not wholly belonging to either. There’s bound to be an overlap, especially if a card’s in play there.”

  “So how do you get in … properly?”

  “You toss a coin.”

  “Seriously.”

  “I am serious. Find a threshold, then toss the coin that’ll appear. Thresholds are like switches to flip you over to the other side. You come across them wherever there’s the sign of the wheel.” He held up the palm of his right hand, and she saw that he too bore a faint circular mark divided by four spokes. “This gets going when you’re close to one; like a compass, almost.”

  Cat stared at her palm, remembering how it had burned as she’d clutched the garden railings and looked into a world that shouldn’t have been there. She shook her head in frustration.

  “But when I met the knight being chased in the street, I wasn’t in the Arcanum—I couldn’t have been. Neither was he. The King of Swords said he’d ‘left his move.’ ”

  “You first saw him in the Tube, right? Well, there must’ve been a threshold to the Arcanum in the station. From what you’ve told me, it sounds like as soon as the knight realized what the Ten of Swords had in store for him, he lost his nerve and tried to back out. But it was too late for second thoughts, and the Knaves of Swords came after him anyway. Once a player takes his card into the Arcanum, he has to at least attempt to win it.”

  “Even if his move will end in murder?”

  “Nothing shown on the cards is inevitable. It’s how a player reacts to the challenge of the move that counts.”

  The Knight of Wands—Anthony Linebeg—had asked her for help, and she … Nausea rose in her throat.

  “The knight I met might have escaped,” she said unsteadily, “if it hadn’t been for me.”

  Toby looked at her solemnly. “He should never have involved you
in the first place. It was a stupid risk and you had no way to know. The only people with blood on their hands are the King of Swords and his knaves.”

  Cat thought of Alastor’s sleepy smiles, his tousle-haired charm. Her face hardened. Toby was right.

  “So the knaves are the kings’ and queens’ hit squad.”

  “Knaves are players who’ve tried to cheat. They might have got bystanders involved or attempted to sabotage other players, caused trouble at the Lotteries … that sort of thing. They have to pay a forfeit by acting as servants to the courts. Sometimes this only lasts for one move, sometimes for a whole round or longer.”

  She shivered. “Knights … knaves … I don’t get why any of them would gamble their lives on some crazy trial by ordeal.”

  “Duh! They do it for the prizes, of course. Don’t you understand? Once a triumph is awarded to a knight, its powers become real.” His eyes shone. “Think of what those cards represent! They can heal the sick, reverse time, make people fall in love, turn a person into a millionaire or a supermodel.… And that’s just for starters.”

  Cat thought back to the prize-giving after the Lottery, when the Knight of Pentacles had been given a silver die by the King of Swords. The powers of the Devil will be yours.

  “What does that mean for the girl who won the Devil last night? Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, you said.”

  “Exactly. She’s going to enjoy a lifetime of debauchery without any of the side effects. No more hangovers or trips to rehab.”

  “And the woman who did the Lottery … the one who wanted the Triumph of the Moon. What would she get out of it?”

  “Inspiration. If she wins that triumph, she’ll finish her book or painting or whatever it was, and it will be a guaranteed work of genius. Whatever you want, whatever you dream of, the Game can make it true.” He paused. “As long as you’re a knight, that is.”

  Toby’s eager expression faded. “We chancers can wander around the Arcanum, but we can’t really play—not for prizes anyway …”