TOBY WAS IN TROUBLE. After Mia had gone, he tried to make his way back to where he had last seen the others, at the Eight of Cups’ threshold by the dump. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was hopelessly lost. The path, which had begun muddy, rapidly grew wetter and boggier. Soon he was floundering knee-high in a swamp. The more vigorous his efforts to free himself, the deeper he sank.
“Help!” he called out, and giggled weakly in spite of himself. It was all so pathetic. Stuck in a bog, bawling for rescue … Of course, there was no one to answer his cries. Everyone had gone, swallowed up by the marsh, led astray by its phantoms. The sludge was nearly up to his waist, and although he knew it would only make things worse, the spurts of panic rising in his chest made it impossible not to obey his body’s instinct to thrash its way out of danger.
“Help,” he cried again, at one of the mist-wraiths. Perhaps the ghost of Mr. Marlow was about to emerge and finish him off. Or Misrule himself. Although it was hard to be dignified when he was waist-deep in mud, he pulled himself as upright as he was able, ready to face what he had to.
“Toby,” said Flora flatly.
She was standing on a clump of reeds and was almost as white as the fog.
“Are you really you?” he asked suspiciously.
Flora sighed in exasperation. “Don’t be idiotic.” The mist lifted a little, revealing a scoop of yellow moon. “All right. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He resisted the urge to beg her not to leave him.
Splashing and squelches sounded from behind. And exclamations of disgust. “Ugh. This swamp … Vile … Everything stinks.…”
Flora came back lugging the mattress from the dump. She spread it across the reeds, making sure it would support her weight, and gingerly lay down on her stomach. Then she reached out to Toby. “Here, take my hand. Please try not to get more sludge over me than you can help.”
After several minutes of clumsy struggle, she managed to pull him free. The bog released him with a comical belch. Toby flopped out on the mattress, under the clear night sky, and laughed with relief. Then he looked around him.
“But, Flora … where are the others?”
After much discussion, Flora and Toby came to the same conclusions as Cat and Blaine. There was nothing to do but press on in search of the creatures from the prophecy, in the hope that wherever the others were, they, too, were able to continue the quest. They would just have to trust to luck, and the Game, that they would find each other again.
Toby held the Triumph of the Emperor, whose illustration included the image of an eagle on a scepter. Flora’s Triumph of Strength depicted a woman taming a lion. They decided to start with trying to find the eagle. The Emperor was an authority figure of sorts, so even if it turned out that they had misinterpreted the oracle, it was possible he could set them right again. “Plus, an imperial palace will be a big improvement on this swamp,” said Toby.
Flora was distastefully brushing mud off her trousers. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. This is the Arcanum, remember.”
Flora’s pessimism proved justified. Once they had raised a threshold with their die, the card took them to the shell of a building that might have been impressive once but now lay in ruins, open to the skies. A sallow dawn was just breaking. As wind moaned sadly through cracked columns and tumbledown arches, the monumental nature of their task struck them with new force. Both thought again of Cat and Blaine, and the treacherous marsh pools they had left behind.
After wandering through a series of empty chambers and courtyards, they reached the main hall, the entrance to which was partly blocked by a mound of rubbish, marked off by red rope. Close to, they saw it was more like loot: statues, paintings, tapestries, glassware and goblets piled in a dust-furred heap. The other side of the hall ended in a broken colonnade, with a broad flight of steps leading down to a terrace. A man was sitting on a throne beneath the portico.
His skin was as fragile and lined as a cobweb, and his beard was cobwebbier still. He was wearing a tarnished breastplate, and had a dried laurel wreath on his head. Propped against the throne was a golden orb and scepter with a heraldic eagle at the end, just like on the playing card.
“Good, er, morning,” Toby began. “I’m the King of Pentacles, and this is the Queen of Cups.”
“Then I bid you welcome,” the old man replied in a voice as withered as his laurel leaves. “For I am a king also, lord of all I survey.” He tilted his head to indicate the paved terrace and the cliff edge beyond. Below it was a windswept plain of dead trees and rocky ground.
“It looks very extensive,” said Flora politely.
The Emperor fidgeted with his beard, coughing, and leaned forward to peer at them with filmy eyes. “Hmm. You strike me as a strangely muddy species of Game Master. Kings and queens of the courts don’t go grubbing about in the Arcanum. They deal the cards and roll the dice, and scheme and gamble from afar. Which seems a poor sort of rule—but then, who am I to talk?” His tone grew melancholy. “An aged man is a paltry, tattered thing. I, who commanded the boundless reaches of empire! The soldiers and sages, the lords and ladies, golden smithies and starlit domes … They’ve all gone. Everyone, everything.” A tear slid down his wrinkled cheek. “Everything but my faithful Juno.”
“My queen of the heavens. See! She has been feeding, and now she comes back, replete.” His ancient face became almost childish with pride. “Come here, my darling!”
There was a sound of great wings beating the air as a gleaming shadow swooped through the columns to perch on the armrest of the throne. As the eagle folded its wings, its feathers ruffled with a curious creaking sound.
The bird was made of gold. From powerful talons to feathered breast to cruel curved beak—every piece was metal, except for its ruby eyes. It bent its head to allow the Emperor to pet its chill neck, and uttered a hoarse cry. Something like rust stained its beak.
“Did you feast well, little one?” the Emperor crooned.
A gust blew across the terrace, carrying with it the stench of rottenness. Flora moved from under the shadow of the portico onto the steps. In the wan light, she could see a pale heap lying on the terrace with a glistening dark hole in its side.
“My last visitor,” the old man told her. “A knight from your Court of Cups, I believe.”
“You—you fed him to the eagle?”
“The player failed. His task was to steal a flame from the mountain, but the torch blew out. And so his liver is meat for my Juno here.… I don’t see why this should disturb you,” he added fretfully. “You are Game Masters, not common knights. Your days of risk are over. You may come and go as you please.”
The eagle flapped its wings with a muffled metallic clash. Each golden feather looked razor sharp.
“You’re right,” said Toby abruptly. This wasn’t an occasion for deference, he had decided. It was time to show the Arcanum who was boss. “The two of us are Game Masters. And while you might be Emperor in these parts, we’re in charge of all the triumphs—including you.”
“Toby,” Flora hissed. “For goodness’ sake! We can’t just march in expecting—”
However, the Emperor did not seem affronted. “You wish for tribute?”
“Yes. We wish for the eagle, in fact. It’s part of our bid for the Great Triumph.”
The old man stared at the barren plain. “Ah, Eternity. I have vast deserts of the stuff; it is what all empires come to, in the end. As for their beginnings … Well, you must know the story of how the Game arose.”
“Of course,” said Toby impatiently. “The city lottery. But your eagle—”
“The city was a republic,” the Emperor continued, as if Toby hadn’t spoken. “A great republic, with winged and glorious gods. Yet when the city fell, the gods’ fame fell with it. Even their names are forgotten.”
Toby and Flora exchanged looks. Both remembered the High Priestess’s description of the cherubim: fallen gods of the Game’s city.
“There were no courts then,” the Emperor continued, “but four guilds, which ruled the city between them. And when the Game grew to greatness, and a temple was built in its name, each of the guilds dedicated an offering to the gods. The guild of farmers presented a bull; the guild of soldiers, a lion; the guild of priests, an eagle; while the merchants’ guild brought forth a man. And each was slaughtered on the temple’s foundations.”
Flora’s eyes darted back to the torn body lying by the rocks. Her own flesh crawled. With such origins, no wonder the Game was so bloodstained.
“Like the gods they were given to, those first sacrifices are embedded deep within the Game. Here they endure—bull, eagle, lion, man—though in each round their form is a little different, their purpose new.”
The Emperor combed his beard with shaking fingers.
“Now, most worlds are round, like an egg, but the Arcanum is the great checkerboard. It is said the temple’s foundation stones still rest at its corners. And you are set to renew the first offerings, and summon the gods of old.… Who knows what cataclysms will be unleashed upon our board?”
“That’s a risk we have to take,” said Toby. “Starting with Juno.”
He reached out a hand toward the bird, which spread its clanking wings, a span of at least eight feet, and snapped at him savagely. Toby flinched away just in time, as its husky cry rose to join the Emperor’s wheezing laughter.
Flora pulled Toby aside. “Slow down,” she said. “There’s no point making demands until we’re sure of what we want. Remember the words of the prophecy: ‘the fledgling of empire.’ That means a chick. A baby bird.” She turned back to the Emperor. “Excuse me, Your Majesty, but … does Juno have a nest?”
The old man feebly pointed upward. “She roosts on the mountain’s peak and guards its flame.”
“There,” Flora said to Toby with only a trace of smugness. “You see? We don’t need Juno, but Juno’s fledgling. So we have to find her nest.”
“Mmm-hmm. Onward and upward,” the Emperor mumbled. “Onward, upward …”
Toby followed Flora to the left side of the terrace, where a rough path wound farther up the mountain. Of course she was right about the wording of the prophecy; he was annoyed he hadn’t thought of it himself. And yet … He cast a final glance back at the throne: the doddering old man, the eagle preening its feathers, the scepter and orb lying in the dust like discarded toys. Something was niggling at him. But whatever the thought was, it remained tantalizingly out of reach.
The palace had been built on a wide spur of rock that jutted over the plain. Behind its ruined walls, the mountainside towered implacably upward, its summit shrouded in cloud. A dim glow smoldered within the vapor.
“Mount Doom, I presume.”
Flora pursed her lips. “If your next remark involves hobbits, you’re on your own.”
“OK. Last one to the top’s an Orc!” Toby retorted cheerfully as he started on the path.
It didn’t last long, meandering into a rough track that petered out among a scrubby patch of bushes. Soon the steepness of the slope forced them to climb at a sideways tilt, one hand clutching at the ground for balance, their skidding feet sending a scurry of loose stones rattling in their wake. Flora, who had wrenched her ankle before Christmas, found it particularly hard going. And it got worse. The rocks became more jagged and the bushes more spiny, and the thin soil was replaced with grit and ash. In spite of the cold wind and clouded sky, it was hot work. The higher they climbed, the warmer the ground felt beneath their feet, and a smell of sulfur began to taint the air.
When they finally clambered, breathless, to the summit, they found a scorched wasteland from which twists of vapor writhed and hissed upward. The air was thick with sulfurous heat; the cindery ground within was cracked with rivulets of molten red. Outcrops of rocks pierced the surface.
In the center of this wilderness was a tall tree, as jagged and black as the rock it grew from. One bough, however, right at the top, gleamed with gold. There was a thorny tangle perched on its tip; high above that, a shadow wheeled through the sky. Juno was circling.
To get to the tree would mean a deadly game of stepping-stones across the smoldering embers; to reach the nest would mean a dizzying climb through spiky branches, up to where Juno’s beak and talons would be waiting.
“This is hopeless,” said Flora.
“But not impossible.”
Crouching down on the farthermost edge of solid ground, Toby stretched out a leg to the nearest rocky foothold, testing the distance. “It’s not actual lava, you know. There’s a sort of ash crust keeping most of the heat in. And, look, I’m sure we could reach this bit of rock all right.”
“And where would we go from there? We’ll either get boiled alive or torn up for bird food.”
Toby was ready to dispute this but somehow couldn’t find the words, let alone the energy. His feebleness was more than just physical tiredness: the tainted air and stifling heat were making it hard to think. Instead, he got up to join Flora at the lip of the summit, looking out over the Emperor’s dominion.
Seen from this height, it was vaster than either of them could have imagined. Apart from the mountain on which they were standing, the entire view was flat and featureless: barren rock curving away to the horizon, as far as the eye could see. Toby raised his hand to the sky, spreading his fingers and then clenching them, as if to grasp the world—a globe of gray in the palm of his hand.
And at this thought another one came to him: beautiful, shining, perfectly formed. He laughed out loud.
“Flora! We’re looking in the wrong place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our baby bird isn’t nesting on Mount Doom. It’s been in the palace the whole time.”
“But the Emperor said—”
“He said where Juno’s nest was. He didn’t say anything about what we’d find in it.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’ll see,” he said maddeningly.
Before Flora could interrogate him further, he launched into a helter-skelter descent from the summit. She called after him angrily, but he ignored her and she had no option but to scramble behind him, and save her breath for the long climb down. It was quicker than their hike up, but not easier. Down they went, sliding and slithering among the dust and rocks and thorns, with grazed hands and bruised knees, grit in their eyes and stones in their shoes.
By now the sun was up, though it cast a poor, weak sort of light. When they finally reached the terrace, the ruined building looked less imposing than it had in the glimmers of dawn: its classical portico was municipal rather than palatial in style. Flora remembered the red rope around the treasure heap. On the other side of the threshold, she thought, there must be a museum where the relics of empire were more respectfully housed.
“Back so soon?” said the Emperor.
He was sitting up straighter, so that his chin was no longer slumped into his beard. For the first time, the remnants of strength could be traced in his profile, his proud hooked nose and fierce brows.
“We’ve come for that trib—tribute—you promised,” Toby panted before having to pause to get his breath back. “Our eagle. This time, though, we know what we’re looking for.” He pointed to the stone block on which the throne was raised, and the emblems of power at its side.
“ ’Tis all a Checker-board of Nights and Days,”
the Emperor quoted in a voice of surprising firmness,
He bowed his head.
“A fitting tribute and wise choice. I shall be honored to make the offering to Your Majesty.”
Slowly and stiffly, the old man bent to pick up the golden bauble that lay next to his scepter. He put it into Toby’s hands as Juno swooped back to perch at his side.
The imperial orb was much lighter than one might expect, and oval-shaped rather than spherical. Not a globe, but an egg.
Toby cupped it in his palms, feeling the cool sheen of metal. Juno gave a gentle caw. Toby dashed the egg against the floor.
The shining shell split cleanly across, and rang against the stone. Inside, there was a miniature gold eagle, as motionless as metal should be, but otherwise a perfect replica of the living one.
Toby reached for the figurine, and the world changed. Everything had turned to black and white. He was standing alone at the edge of a marble floor that was also a chessboard. Through its squares he thought he could see the model battleground from his bedroom, come to shadowy life. Or maybe it was the board Mia had shown him in the Chariot, the landscape and its inhabitants shaken into yet more disarray. It was as if the entire world of the Arcanum was contained on these checkers of black and white.
You must renew their first offerings on the Game’s board.…
Unsteadily, Toby bent to place the gold eagle on the black corner-square. As he did so, the board seemed to shudder.
And when he straightened up, he was back in the Emperor’s move. His hand was empty, but otherwise it was as if he had never left.