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Urszula draws to a halt near the foot of the cliff but stays on the unicycle, gently rocking back and forth to remain upright, as she tilts her head back to smile at us.
“Hello!” she hollers. “You made it further than I imagined you would. Bravo!”
“Keep going,” Baba Jen snarls, slapping Cal’s head, but he remains rooted to the spot along with Inez and me. Most of the thesps have come to a standstill too.
“I’m sorry,” I shout.
“Is that you, Archibald?” Urszula replies, feigning surprise.
“I’ll come down,” I cry. “Take me back and do whatever you want to me. Just let the others go.”
Urszula’s forehead crinkles as if she’s seriously considering my request, but then she laughs. “No. I’ve come here to cleanse Suanpan of Dermot’s thesps, and I won’t go home while a single member of your group is breathing.”
Urszula gets off the unicycle, letting it fall behind her, and points at the thesps. “Them first,” she growls, then lowers her finger to point at me. “Then you.”
“Not if I get you first,” I retort, and though it’s not a strong comeback, Cal laughs and claps my back, nearly sending me flying, which would save Urszula a job.
“Come on,” Cal yells. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Urszula glares at the big man, then aims a hand at the top of the cliff. She mutters something and concentrates, her eyes narrowing. For a few seconds — nothing.
Then a rumbling noise.
“What’s that?” I ask, but the others look uncertain too, except for Baba Jen, who scuttles down from Cal’s shoulders, presses herself hard against the wall, and starts cursing softly.
“Jen?” Inez says. “What –”
The revelation comes before she finishes asking the question, but it’s not Baba Jen who answers, but one of the thesps, higher up, who screams, “Avalanche!”
Before the echo of the shout has died away, several large boulders tumble over the edge of the cliff and pick up speed as they roll thunderously towards the highest-placed thesps. Some of the actors flatten themselves against the cliff, as Baba Jen has, while others try to race out of the way of the falling rocks.
The boulders hit, knocking out chunks of the path, and smashing into a handful of thesps, who scream as they’re hurled down the mountain.
I shut my eyes, not wanting to bear witness to their loss.
There are more screams as the boulders strike other sections of the path and a few more thesps. Then, even worse than the screams, come faint echoes of snapping, splattering sounds, and I have to breathe deeply to stop myself vomiting.
Silence returns, broken only by Urszula’s vicious cackling.
“How many did I get, Archibald?” She starts counting. “One, two, three... four, five... six. An even half-dozen. No, wait, I missed a couple. Seven and eight. Were they key actors? Will they be hard to replace?”
I open my eyes and stare miserably at the grinning empress. “Please,” I whimper. “No more.”
Inez lays a hand on my shoulder. “You’re not to blame,” she says quietly.
“But if I hadn’t beaten her... or rubbed her nose in it...”
Inez’s fingers tighten. “You’re not to blame,” she says again, forcefully this time.
“What’s your girlfriend whispering?” Urszula coos. “I’ll aim for her next, so you might want to stand aside.” She raises a hand, then pauses. “But first, do you want to beg again? Maybe I’ll be merciful this time.”
I gulp and almost repeat my plea, but Inez’s fingers tighten even further, drawing a wince from my lips. When I scowl at her, she nods sharply, and I know what I must say.
“Mercy?” I roar. “You wouldn’t know mercy if it jumped up and bit your bum!”
“That’s the way,” Inez says, releasing me.
“Yeah,” Cal grunts. “Give as good as you get, Archibald.” He half-turns and squints at the cliff above us. “Actually, that’s not a bad bit of advice.”
“What are you talking about?” I frown.
Cal’s still squinting — there’s a crevice just above us, where a chunk must have broken free long ago, and for some reason it fascinates him. Without looking at me, he says, “Keep winding her up. You too, Inez. Let’s see if we can draw a direct hit.”
It’s a strange request. Maybe he thinks that, despite her threats, she’ll stop if she kills me. Since that seems to be the best we can hope for, I lean forward and make a rude sign with my fingers.
“Come on, loser,” I shriek. “Chuck your stones at me and see if you’re better at this game than you were on the Spinner.”
Inez had opened her mouth to shout something insulting as well, but when she hears my taunt, she doubles over with laughter.
Urszula’s face darkens. I think Inez’s laughter stung her almost as much as my jibe. She’s the empress of Suanpan. We’re supposed to weep and wail, fall to our knees before her, awestruck and horrified. Instead Inez is laughing the way she would if I’d farted in class.
Urszula points to the top of the cliff and focuses. I hear the rumbling noise again, and Inez’s laughter dies away. We look up, waiting for the next rainfall of boulders, readying ourselves to leap left or right in an attempt to dodge them.
Baba Jen is jogging away from us, figuring she stands a better chance of getting out of this alive if she’s not by our side. Other thesps are also in motion, staggering up the path, trying to steal away while the empress targets us.
I’m surprised when the second avalanche comes, because this time it’s a single boulder, and it flies out quite a distance from the cliff before striking the wall, then ricocheting off another area further down, dropping in a carefully calculated arc as it swiftly sails towards the point where Inez and I are standing, like a guided missile that will destroy all around it when it hits.