seconds, a piece of card dropped into a tray set into the base beneath the glass. Grinning at the comments of his friends, the boy took the card and read it.
It seemed to take a long time to read those few lines, but after the first words his eyes widened a little, and the smile slowly faded from his face as if massaged away by invisible fingers. He went back and began to read the words again, then onwards to the end. Then, ashen-faced, he turned and staggered out of the arcade, his suddenly concerned friends asking him what was wrong.
Cabal watched them go grimly. He walked over to Madame Destiny, made a show of finding a coin in his pocket, and leaned down to put it in the slot. As his face grew close to Destiny’s on the other side of the glass, he whispered, “Very amusing for you, no doubt, but hardly in line with what we’re trying to do here. The intention is to tempt them in, not scare them off like rabbits.” Unseen by any but Cabal, Madame Destiny raised a finely painted eyebrow. With another reverberant twang, a new card dropped into the tray, despite no coin being inserted. He read it where it lay.
MADAME DESTINY KNOWS ALL AND SEES ALL.
VERY AMUSING INDEED. I HAVE TO HAVE A LITTLE FUN.
MADAME DESTINY’S ADVICE:
THERE ARE RICHER PICKINGS TO BE HAD.
Despite the insubordinate tone, there was good news here, and Cabal was cheered a little by the knowledge that Madame Destiny seemed to know of at least one alternative prospect. “Richer pickings … Where precisely?”
Madame Destiny’s eyes rolled in their sockets until she was looking directly at him. She held his gaze for a second, then looked back down into the crystal. The strange light bloomed within, and with a whirr of gears she gently fluttered her fingers across the surface of the ball, never once touching it. A click, a twang, and a new card fell into the tray, covering the one already there. Cabal took them both, dropped the older in his pocket, and examined the new one. It read:
MADAME DESTINY KNOWS ALL AND SEES ALL.
MADAME DESTINY’S ADVICE:
BEHIND YOU.
Cabal turned. He was now facing the arcade’s entrance. Beyond it was a surging torrent of humanity, washing from here to there and back again. No single face stood out, no one figure drew his attention. Cabal scowled. “This is no use,” he said in an undertone that he knew Destiny could still hear. “I need some better indication of whom I am looking for than …” His eyes darted down to reread the card, and he stopped. For now the card read:
MADAME DESTINY KNOWS ALL AND SEES ALL.
MADAME DESTINY’S ADVICE:
AHEAD OF YOU.
Experimentally, he tried turning the card through ninety degrees. Madame Destiny’s advice underwent a metamorphopsychotic[2] transition and now read, “TO YOUR LEFT.”
Cabal nodded slightly, impressed. Considering she was essentially half a mannequin, a small cabinet, and just enough cogs and gears to make a tolerably accurate mantel clock, she certainly had her uses. Cradling the fortune like a cardboard lodestone, Cabal set off in search of his prey.
He walked headlong into the crowd and, inured by nature and habit against the complaints of those upon whose feet he trod and whose peanuts he spilt, he proceeded to close upon his mark. First, he used a rough triangulation to give him a very approximate range and bearing. Then he put his head down and ploughed a path through the mass, leaving a wake of disgruntlement. AHEAD OF YOU, said the card. AHEAD OF YOU.
Abruptly Cabal’s headlong pursuit foundered upon an immoveable rock, all wrapped in a Sunday suit. He looked up, and a brow beneath a bad haircut beetled down upon him. Cabal quickly checked the card again. MADAME DESTINY’S ADVICE now read, THAT’S HIM. APOLOGISE. QUICK.
Cabal tucked the fortune teller’s card away into his breast pocket and touched the brim of his hat. “Good evening, sir,” he said to the large man, “I’m terribly sorry I ran into you like that. My most humble apologies.” The man glared at him, his hands rapidly curled into fists, and he went pale. Cabal knew more than enough about the intricacies of the endocrine system to appreciate that a man who goes pale with anger is a great deal more likely to strike out than one who goes red. Unbidden, Cabal’s free hand moved across to his cane, took the silver skull at its head firmly in his grip, and twisted it slowly until the catch disengaged. He knew Horst would probably regard running a rube through with a sword cane as poor public relations, but in Cabal’s book, “The customer is always right” became academic the instant the customer drew back his fist.
“Please, no, Ted!” A woman appeared around the windward side of the mountainous man. She was as pale as the man — Ted — but for different reasons. Her dark make-up showed livid against the white skin. “Please! He’s not worth it!”
Cabal — who at one time or another had been pursued by village mobs, town mobs, the police, the army, two Inquisitions, and sundry other concerned citizens — was entirely positive that he was worth it. The phrase on her lips, however, had the air of a formula worn by use into a ready invocation, a cantrip against the extremities of Ted. Under such circumstances, Cabal was prepared to forgive her presumption. For Ted, on the other hand, he had conceived a strong dislike, and those for whom Cabal developed a strong dislike rarely prospered.
“Please, allow me to introduce myself,” said Cabal, releasing the head of the cane and using that hand to tap his chest as he spoke. The gesture also confirmed the presence of one of Trubshaw’s contracts, folded and ready in the inside pocket of Cabal’s coat. “I am Johannes Cabal, joint proprietor of this carnival.”
Ted seemed to calm down with remarkable rapidity, Cabal noted. Obviously cowed by authority. His dislike for Ted deepened.
“Allow me to apologise once again for my earlier clumsiness. Please, I’d like to make it up to you in some way. Is there some attraction or sideshow for which I can offer you a complimentary ticket? An exhibit?” Ted’s eyes scanned back and forth, apparently considering his choices. His expression gave no assurances that he would come to a conclusion soon. “A stall, perhaps?”
“You like to shoot,” suggested the woman in a small, cautious voice.
Ted thought about this, then nodded.
“He likes to shoot things,” the woman said to Cabal.
“I shot her dog,” added Ted.
It took an effort, but Cabal didn’t show even the flicker of a reaction.
“If you’d come this way, please, sir,” he said in neutral tones, indicating the way to the shooting gallery.
The shooting gallery was, in common with all the carnival’s stalls, a carefully judged amalgam of every fairground shooting gallery that had ever been or ever would be, an archetype, a functional mean. It offered the opportunity to shoot at tin silhouettes of little men standing to attention, tin silhouettes of caricature ducks, and tin silhouettes of clay pipes, which processed and spun across a pellet-peppered backdrop. The weapons it offered were break-barrel.22 air-rifles — Cabal had been mildly amused to discover that they were ageing Webleys, of the same manufacture as the.577 Boxer revolver currently lying in his desk drawer — their sights all artistically crocked so as to be worse than useless. In return for the feat of striking down moving targets with ill-maintained rifles, the stall offered the chance to take home desperately ill goldfish, disconcerting Kewpie dolls, decorative knick-knacks of dubious quality and taste, and ill-proportioned baboons stuffed with kapok.
Cabal arrived with Ted, the latter carving a channel through the crowd much like a surly ice-breaker. In their wake, Ted’s girlfriend, Rachel, walked quickly, head down, giving apologies to anybody who looked like they were owed one. Cabal quietly explained to the stallholder that Ted was to be allowed five free games, and to be awarded any prize that he might win just as if he had paid. Bowing a little too stiffly to be truly unctuous, Cabal withdrew to a safe distance and observed.
Ted turned out to be an effective marksman, inaccurate sights or not. He cracked open the rifle as if it had
