something.
“Sorry,” I said. “But I guess you needed my real name to make that work. And way back when we were first making our deal, I had a feeling I shouldn’t give it to you.”
In case you’re wondering, the “Billy” part was right. And I was “Billy Fox” to a lot of people, including the guys I gambled with. But “Fox” was actually short for “Foxcroft.”
“Very clever,” Timon snarled. “But sometimes clever people are so busy being clever that they miss the obvious.
I stiffened my index and middle fingers and stabbed them into his eyes. Moe himself couldn’t have done it any better. Timon yelped, staggered backward, and clapped his hands to his face.
“How about now?” I asked. It was the only sound in the room. He and I had been talking too softly for most people to realize we were arguing, but everybody was staring now.
Timon lowered his shaking hands. His eyes were a raw, seeping mess again. It made me hopeful and sick to my stomach at the same time.
“Grab him!” he screamed.
Some of the Tuxedo Team started toward me. Whether or not they’d heard about the big plan, they were too scared of Timon to disobey a direct order.
“You better think this through,” I told him. “Remember, nobody else will play for you. That’s why you needed to partner up with me in the first place.”
“Well, if I’m about to lose my lordship, then I don’t have time to deal with you as you truly deserve. But I promise to make these last few moments truly painful.”
Hands grabbed me from behind.
I’d been afraid this would happen. Timon couldn’t just knuckle under to extortion. That would cost him the other lords’ respect, and be just as bad as losing his lands. And the eye poke had only made it worse.
But I hoped he might still agree if I left him some wiggle room. If he didn’t have to cave completely in front of everybody. “Hang on,” I said. “Don’t you want to hear my second offer?”
“No.” He lifted his grubby, still-trembling hands toward my eyes.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” I said, talking fast. “I’ll beat the Pharaoh and win you all six fiefs. Then, when your eyes are okay, you and I will play a game. You’ll put up Tampa, and I’ll put up me. If you win, you can do any horrible thing you want to me. Or, for the rest of my life, I’ll be that loyal, obedient flunky you wanted me to be.”
His fingers with their black, ragged nails stopped a couple inches short of my eyes. I told myself I’d known all along that they would. Because the lords were addicted to gambling, and I’d just offered him a game.
“Are you talking about more poker?” he asked.
“I actually had some other ideas. You guys play all kinds of games, right? We can work out the details later.”
He smiled a nasty smile. “There’s one condition I insist on nailing down right now. However we play, we’ll do it in dream.”
I’d been expecting that, too. Because, while he and his buddies were hooked on gambling, they sure weren’t hooked on playing fair. “All right, but I’ve got a couple conditions, too.”
“You’re in no position to make any.”
“I’m doing it anyway. And you should check the time. Oops, sorry, I forgot you probably can’t see the hands on the clock. Anyway, the break’s almost over. In just a couple minutes, one of us needs to sit down at the table. It can be me, with everything it takes to win, or you and your handicap.”
“What do you want?” he gritted.
“First, swear right here and now in front of the other lords and everybody else that you’ll follow through on the deal like we’ve laid it out so far.”
“I swear it,” he said, “by sword, cup, rod, and stone.”
I hoped that meant something. As usual, I really had no idea.
“Second,” I said, “we need a referee. Somebody to help us work out rules that give me some kind of a chance, and then to enforce them. I’m thinking the Pharaoh. You guys all respect him, and since he can set up little ghost worlds of his own, I’m guessing that if you let him in, he can operate in yours.”
“Are you and he working together?” Timon asked. “Did you arrange this in advance?”
“I swear by the sacred Nile,” the Pharaoh said, “he didn’t.” Davis had pushed his wheelchair up close for a good view of the show. “I also swear that if you choose me to officiate, I’ll do so impartially.”
“Why would you bother?” Timon asked.
The mummy shrugged. “It should be an interesting contest, and how else would I obtain a view?”
Timon turned back to me. “I agree to your terms. Now beat him.”
The bodyguards took that as their signal to let me go. I did have a “biological requirement,” so I hurried to the john, slurped some water from a drinking fountain, and then rushed back to the table.
As I sat down, the Pharaoh said, “A week ago, you didn’t even know the Old People exist. Now, you’re trying to seize control of a fief. Nobody can say you lack ambition.”
I grinned. “Tell that to my teachers, the major who wanted me to put in for Ranger training, and my ex- fiancee.”
“Nonetheless.” He blew out a swirl of smoke. “Although it doesn’t really matter anyway, since I’m going to win the current contest.” He did a Hindu shuffle. Apparently, like the weave shuffle, it was just for fun or show, because then he moved on to the standard riffle-and-box technique you see in every casino.
For a while, we traded chips back and forth. Then I caught a run of good hands. I bet them, he folded, and before long, my stack was bigger than his.
He lit a fresh cheroot. “Perhaps I was overly optimistic.”
“It’s still anybody’s game,” I said, although really, I felt good about my chances.
“You were shrewd not to share your true name with anyone. Names have power in my-or should I say our? — style of magic no less than in Timon’s. Raise twenty thousand.” He pushed the chips out.
“Make it sixty thousand more.”
He mucked. “In fact, the creator god Re was all powerful precisely because no one else knew his name. None of the other gods could match him, any more than any of us lords has thus far proved able to contend with you.”
“Really.” I was paying attention, but not a lot. I liked his stories but figured they were meant to distract his opponents, and I wasn’t going to let this one distract me now. “I call.”
He dealt the flop. It had the king of hearts in it. “Re took on human form and ruled as the first pharaoh,” the mummy said.
The card flickered. Just for an instant, the crown turned into a King Tut headdress, and the sword, into a hooked stick. The fancy robes disappeared and left the king with a bare chest and a loincloth.
“Hey!” I said. I flashed the Thunderbird, but I wasn’t fast enough on the draw. The king already looked normal again by the time the emblem appeared.
“Is something wrong?” the Pharaoh asked.
“You changed the king. The way it looked.”
“Not intentionally, I assure you. But sometimes, when people like us speak of the sacred mysteries, a bit of power stirs and plays on its own.”
“Then maybe you should ‘speak of’ something else.”
“I could. But then you’d miss out on acquiring one of the keys you need to unlock your abilities.”
“A free sample of what you’ll teach me if I throw the game?”
He smiled. And when he continued the story, I let him.
Maybe that was stupid. But really, if he insisted, how was I supposed to stop him? Anyway, I couldn’t see how that one little blink of magic had hurt me. The picture on the card had changed, but it had never stopped being what it was, with red K’s and heart symbols in the corners. So I just kept the silver bird with its long straight wings hanging in the air.
“For hundreds of years,” the Pharaoh said, “Re was a great monarch. He ruled well, and his kingdom thrived in peace and plenty.”
