High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel by George R. R. Martin
Coming from around a stack of crates, he saw them and thought, No, God, don’t do this …
But he had. The proof was right there in front of him, the soft curves of people, all lying together. Their joker bodies were entwined, leaning against each other, arms interlocking, woven in an intimate tapestry. Completely still. As still as … death. He knew that’s what he was seeing. The truth of it twisted his heart, squeezed it so that he felt it physically, something dying in the center of him. Of course they’d turned on each other, driven mad, trapped in here in the dark. He should never have left them. Maybe, if he’d stayed, he could’ve … But what he could’ve done he couldn’t say.
He slid forward slowly, afraid of seeing the details, but knowing he had to. As he got closer, he began to make out individuals. Timur’s big frame hulked larger than the rest. There was Sezim, the little girl, still clinging to her doll with her three arms. And Bulat, flat on his back, the tiny lizard that lived below his skin just as still as he was, its head jutting out of the man’s cheek. Jyrgal leaned shoulder to shoulder with his wife, and Nurassyl was not far away, at the center of the entire group. It was too much to bear. Marcus ducked his head and, fingertips pressed against his closed eyes, he bawled out his misery. He was some time at this, as there was a lot of misery, and he didn’t want to do what he knew he still had to.
When his tears were dry and he couldn’t put it off any longer, he raised his head, took a deep breath, and continued looking for Olena. He found her all too quickly. She was at the far end of the group, lying on her back. One hand—the one wrapped in the bandages—she cradled close against her belly. The other stretched out to one side, the fingers of it interlaced with the stubby digits of one of the other joker children. Marcus pressed his body against hers. He felt the tears welling up again. He tried to blink them back, but they escaped him as he leaned over her.
Olena, I’m so sorry, Marcus thought. I should’ve been here. I’d rather have died with you. He suddenly remembered Father Squid screaming his long-lost lover’s name at the moment of his tortured death. Would he be the same? Years later, when he left this world, would it be Olena’s name on his lips? Yes, he was sure of it. And every day between this one and that would be a misery for not having her with him. I love you. I always will.
Thinking he would carry her outside, he slipped his arms under her. That’s when she opened her eyes and looked at him. She studied him a moment, and then asked, “Is it over?”
Marcus stared at her, stunned and uncomprehending. She sat up. Her arms slipped around him and pulled him against her. He felt the warmth of her breath and the brush of her lips against his neck, and he heard the emotion in her voice as she said, “You’re so bloody. Oh, God, you’re so hurt. But it’s over, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here. Tell me it’s over.”
Marcus wouldn’t have been able to answer even if his tongue-less mouth hadn’t been full of blood. He was too elated that she was moving, talking, holding him. He brought a hand up and hesitantly stroked her hair. She’s alive, he thought.
And not only her. Others began to move as well. Timur rose and stretched out his long arms. Jyrgal, waking suddenly, turned and whispered to his wife. She opened her eyes and answered him. One by one, all the jokers stirred. They sat up and began talking. They hugged each other. They smiled. They cried joyful tears.
How? Marcus wondered.
As if she heard him, Olena pulled back. She turned and watched the awakening with him, and she answered his unspoken question. “Nurassyl did this.”
Nurassyl. Of course. The boy was right there at the center of the group. Villagers crowded around him, touching him, thanking him. Some even bowed. The boy smiled and answered them softly, but his large, round eyes were fixed on Marcus. There was so much compassion on his face, so much beauty in his joker-blessed features. The boy lifted his arms and held his tentacled hands outstretched toward Marcus.
“Go,” Olena said. “Be healed. Be healed, Marcus.”
EPILOGUE
THE ANGEL WOKE IN a hospital bed, with a breathing tube down her throat, and an IV in her arm. A heart monitor beeped beside her head.
When she ripped loose the tubes and wires, the monitor began to scream. She remembered the battle she had with … the snake … like something out of a particularly nasty dream, but her body felt as if it had been real. Just breathing was agony.
And speaking of nasty dreams …
She glanced down to her stomach. The only marks on it were bruises and an incision, little more than a scratch from a sharp knife. She leaned over and vomited, but nothing would come out of her stomach, not even bile. She was racked by dry heaves, then heard her name being called.
“Angel!”
It was Billy.
Ray was as battered and bruised as he always was after a fight. He dragged a leg behind him as he entered her room. But the pain on his face was overshadowed by a solemn joy as he caught her up and hugged her tightly. It hurt like hell, but it was a good hurt.
“I wasn’t sure about this one, babe,” he said into her hair. “The only thing that kept me going was the thought … the desire to see your face.” He frowned, held her at arm’s length when she didn’t respond.
“Oh, Billy.” She discovered that she couldn’t meet his eye.
He pulled her close again. “Hey, Angel, what’s the matter?”
She was unspeakably weary. “I betrayed you, Billy,” she said. “I betrayed my world. I betrayed my God. I did terrible things and had terrible desires. I lusted. I blasphemed. I put myself above all others—”
“It wasn’t you,” he said softly, stroking her cheek with his fingertips. “We’re good now. Everything’s okay.”
“Is it, Billy?” She finally relaxed, leaning against his dirty and torn fighting suit.
“In time, babe.”
She nodded, though she knew that, if ever, it would be a long, long time. Save my soul from evil, Lord, she prayed humbly, and heal this warrior’s heart.
“Stop! Do you have clearance to be here?” the soldier asked. He was tall and fresh-featured, with blond hair showing under his blue UN helmet. He held his gun a little snugly, earnest instead of with the casual swagger he was used to seeing on the Russians. Marcus placed him as Scandinavian.
Marcus didn’t answer immediately. He gazed past the soldier at the entrance to the casino. There it was, not looking nearly as menacing now as it had the last time he saw it. Nothing in Talas looked like it had. Now everything was drab, fatigued, like even the stone and steel and cement had been through hell and back. Well, he had been, too. “Clearance?” he asked, speaking with a tongue that still felt shiny and new and perfect, a gift from Nurassyl. A pink tongue. Olena had already joked that people would start calling him IPT. “Come on. With all that happened, you still want to check people’s papers? It’s a war zone, all of it, and we’re the survivors. That’s all the clearance I need.”
“Yes but this isn’t just anyplace.”
“I know,” Marcus said. “People will vouch for me. I was at Baikonur with the Committee. Call them if you need to.”
The soldier considered this for a moment, and then let his official sternness fall away. He smiled. “I don’t have their number. I know you, though. I saw the video footage. Before all this started, you were here in Talas, weren’t you? You took part in the fights.”
Marcus inhaled. Oh, great. “Look, that was not like it seemed. I didn’t have much choice.”
“I know,” the soldier said. “I saw the one where you wouldn’t fight.”
Marcus met his grey eyes. “You saw that one, huh?”
The soldier said something, likely yes in Swedish or something. “I saw. You made me think about what I would do or not do to stay alive. It’s not an easy question. You know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah,” Marcus said. He exhaled, a long, tired breath. The soldier was probably a similar age as Marcus, but standing before him Marcus felt himself much older. Too old, really,
“You think it’s better that way? Not having to find out.”
Marcus shrugged. “Yeah, probably. But…” He craned around enough to see back to Olena waiting with the Kazakh driver assigned to take them to the airport. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
The soldier nodded. “This is true.” He stepped to the side and motioned that Marcus could pass.
The inside of the casino was a rubbish-strewn mess. Pretty much everything that could be overturned had been. Clothes and bottles and broken glass littered the floor, poker chips and bits of paper and stuff that wasn’t exactly anything but debris. He wove through the betting tables, the roulette wheels, passed the rows of slot machines. He paused for a moment at the mouth of the tunnel that led to the arena, a rush of memories coming back to him. He pressed forward. He was here for a reason. He was going to see it through.
The tunnel opened out onto the arena. The rows of seats, the glass enclosing the fighting ring, the netting above it. All of it looked smaller, more decrepit than he remembered, run-down like some amusement park that had seen better days. Baba Yaga’s box still hung over everything, but Marcus only glanced at it. He didn’t want to think of her if he could avoid it. He slithered down toward the ring and entered through a door that had been left open.
And there he was. Knocked over on his side, half covered in debris. Marcus righted the strange, twisted, achingly beautiful prayer bench that had been—and still was—Father Squid. He hefted it up and walked through the rubble toward Olena and a waiting truck and driver. The man helped him slide the prayer bench into the bed of the truck. “Hey,” Marcus said, “careful. This isn’t just a bench.” He almost said more, but he didn’t know how to say it. The man couldn’t understand him anyway.
He slithered over to Olena, who stood taking in the destruction with awed eyes. When he stopped next to her, she said, “It really all happened? Just like you said.”
“You still don’t remember?” She shook her head, and Marcus was relieved all over again. Just as she didn’t remember the nightmare of Talas, she’d been spared the ordeal of Baikonur. Back at the Cosmodrome, hidden in their ramshackle hangar, Nurassyl had come to their rescue. When things got bad and the beasts were howling around them and the villagers themselves began to lose their minds, he’d urged them to all hold hands, or tentacles, or flippers, or whatever. Once they were all connected, he opened his power to them, letting it flow from one person to the next until they were all soothed by it, letting them forget. He’d dropped them into a sleep so deep that none of the turmoil outside the hangar woke them. He’d gone with them, and thus they’d slumbered through a dream of forgetting as the world raged around them.
Afterward, Nurassyl had offered that same forgetting to any who wanted. Many did. Refugees and soldiers. Nat and ace and jokers alike, Kazakh and Russian soldiers, even a few Committee members. All of them, in their own way and for their own reasons, saw Nurassyl for the wonder that he was and deigned to ask for his healing touch. Marcus had been sorely tempted himself, but he chose to keep the memories. As much as he would’ve liked to forget, he knew he needed to remember: both the horror of the other dimension and the beauty of seeing this one return. And he’d promised to remember for Olena, to tell her everything so that she’d know, but wouldn’t have to live with the firsthand horror of it. Hopefully, she’d never have nightmares like Marcus was sure he would. No post-traumatic stress for her. And if she was sane, he stood that much better a chance of staying sane himself.
“Yes,” Olena said, “but you haven’t told me about my father. And this.” She held up her hand, the one with the coin imbedded in it. She wore a snug-fitting cyclist’s glove over it. Mollie had got it for her. Bought it legal-like and everything, she’d assured them.
“We’ve got a few long flights ahead of us. Let’s save it for there.”
“When we’re up above the world and all the things of it look tiny?”
Marcus liked the sound of that. “Yeah.”
“Let’s go, then,” she said.
“You’re really coming with me?”
She nodded her head. Leaning toward him, she tipped herself up on her toes and kissed him. “I always said I wanted to, didn’t I? First time I met you I said it. I knew. Now you know, too.”
“But I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Marcus said. He wasn’t really sure why he kept talking, but he couldn’t stop himself. “I might be in trouble. You know … all the stuff in the arena. I killed people. For all I know there’ll be cops waiting for me on the other end.”
“If there are I will give them an earful,” Olena said. “I’ll tell them you are Infamous Black Tongue, who helped save the world. It’s true, and soon everyone will know. You shouldn’t worry. You are a hero.” She climbed into the truck and fell into instant banter with the driver.
Marcus settled in the truck bed. As the vehicle began to move, he set a hand on Father Squid. “Father, I hope you don’t mind flying. I never asked you about that, but I guess you’ve been around the world already. This is just one more trip. Maybe the last one, all right?”
With his hand gripped around the prayer bench, Marcus looked up and took in the landscape scrolling by around them. This place, that had seemed so foreign at first, didn’t seem that way anymore. It occurred to him like it never had before that he was at home on the earth, even far away from the places he knew. The world just didn’t seem quite as large anymore, not when he could come all the way around the globe and find people he cared about, and who cared about him.
Still, it felt good to be going home, no matter what awaited him there. If the cops didn’t grab him he’d head straight to Jokertown. He’d take Father Squid to Our Lady of Perpetual Misery. Father Squid had said it was a sanctuary. Now it would be his sanctuary forever after.
Maybe, Marcus thought, it’ll be mine, too.
“Father,” Marcus said, “I’m taking you home.”
Michelle opened her eyes. Looking down at her was Joey. There was a fresh bandage on Joey’s forehead where Mollie had taken a bite out of her eyebrow.
“About fucking time you woke up.”
Michelle started to sit up and discovered that she was weak. Her hands instinctively went to her body to check for fat. She felt hipbones and ribs, then stopped. Time enough to put fat on later. But she hurt. She still hurt.
“There’s someone here to see you,” Joey said. There was an odd tone in her voice.
Michelle shoved herself up. She saw a joker girl sitting in the corner. Michelle took her to be fourteen or fifteen, about the age Michelle had been when she’d been emancipated from her parents. The girl wore faded jeans, low-cut Converse Chucks, and an American Hero T-shirt.
She had high cheekbones, wideset brown eyes, lush, full lips, and coppery dreads down to her waist. Her skin was the color of obsidian. Antennae rose from her forehead. When she stood, large, iridescent wings partially unfolded from her back.
“Adesina?” Michelle asked. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be her daughter. But she knew in her gut that this strange girl was Adesina.
“Hey, Mom,” her daughter replied, walking to the edge of Michelle’s bed. Her voice was recognizable as Adesina’s, but it was deeper and more resonant. Instead of a puppy-sized insect body, Adesina’s figure was human in size and shape save for four vestigial insect legs along her torso. She’d cut slits into her T-shirt to accommodate them.
“You’re so different,” Michelle said. She reached out and touched Adesina’s cheek. It wasn’t soft and warm anymore. It was cold and hard.
“I’m still the same on the inside. I’m still your daughter. You’re still my mom.”
“And you saved me,” Michelle said as her hand fell away from Adesina?
“It’s okay, Mom.” Adesina gestured to her body. “See, I’m fine. And you’re okay now, too.” But there was a slight tremble in her voice.
She’s not fine at all, Michelle thought. A hard lump formed in Michelle’s throat, and she tried not to cry.
All Michelle had wanted was to protect Adesina. That was her responsibility. It’s what mothers did. They kept their children safe. That was what everything had been for.
Going to Talas. The terror. All the death. Aero.
But she hadn’t protected Adesina at all. If she had, then there wouldn’t be this stranger standing next to her bed. The stranger her daughter had had to turn into to survive.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Michelle said. She couldn’t stop the tears now. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’ll talk later, Mom,” Adesina said. Her antennae twitched. “Everything will be all right. See, I’m safe now.” She paused, and when she spoke again the tremble was gone. “I’m who I’m supposed to be.”
The word had come to Barbara in Brussels. “Barbara, he’s alive.” Ink’s voice crackled over the speaker, and the words nearly made Barbara drop the phone from stunned fingers, that Lohengrin was alive.
“Klaus…?”
“Yes. Klaus. Tesseract sent him back to Jokertown. I made arrangements through the Secretary-General as soon as I heard. There’s a UN troop transport plane leaving from Brussels in an hour; I have you a seat on it…”