You play the game.
The gaslit drawing room is hot and crowded with people dressed for a masked ball, all silks and satins and glittering jewels. You don’t remember how you came to be standing here. Hungry eyes watch you from behind bejeweled masks and painted fans. Hells, even the eyes on the bobbing peacock feathers on the ladies’ headdresses seem to bend toward you. Fresh meat, someone whispers.
Layers of silk brush your legs. You’re wearing a long-sleeved chestnut-colored gown. Your right palm itches. You open your hand to see words scratched in raised red welts: Find the door.
You take the glass of pale blue wine offered by a passing footman and sip it to cover your confusion. It’s sweet, with a strangely chemical tang.
There’s a closed door visible behind the shifting crowd, outlined in gilded paint. A woman lets out a shrieking laugh as you grasp the door handle. You don’t even reach the hallway beyond before your mouth fills with blood.
You play the game.
The hallway carpet is such a deep crimson that a bloodstain would never show. On the walls are a series of tapestries depicting the pursuit of a stag by riders on shadowy horses. In the last scene, the stag is torn apart by a pack of red-eared hounds and grey hunting cats.
At the end of the hallway, music is playing behind a double set of oak doors. The silver door handles are shaped like cats, teeth bared in a silent snarl. As you open the door, the handle twitches, stabbing your palm. Black lines writhe up your wrist and the music is drowned out by the ringing in your ears.
You play the game.
You are watching the dancers eddy and swirl, trying to plot a path across the ballroom when a handsome person in a gold brocade jacket grabs your hand and pulls you into the dance. They steer you through the complex steps without speaking, neatly avoiding the other dancers. When the dance ends, your partner bows to you then flicks a knife from their sleeve. The blade is buried in your chest before you can react. You hit the ground to the sound of well-mannered applause.
You play the game.
As you edge around the ballroom, your eyes meet the queen’s, seated on a raised dais at the end of the ballroom. The young man at her side starts to rise, frowning, but the queen raises a hand and he subsides. You dash out the open doors to the terrace before anyone can stop you.
Above you, the tipsy stars reel and spin to their own wild music. There are no doorways here, only endless tangled hedges of roses. You give up on finding a way out through the darkness and turn back, but the roses close in around you.
A hunting horn sounds from behind you, followed by yelps and howls. Panicking, you try to force your way through the nearest hedge. The brambles wrap inextricably around your body and lift you up. You hang suspended on the thorns, the cloying scent of roses filling your lungs until you can’t breathe.
You play the game.
You’re male this time, dressed in tight-fitting brown breeches. Something blocks your peripheral vision. You touch your face and find a mask of deerskin, topped by two small antlers. You want to take it off but no ribbons hold it in place. It seems to merge seamlessly with your skin.
You climb the marble staircase, careful not to touch the polished banister. On the landing, tall windows overlook a vast paved plaza, studded with leafless trees that appear to have burst up through the paving. A horned moon sets a light dusting of snow aglow. Faintly through the glass you hear a distant belling of hounds.
When you turn away from the window, a woman in a grey velvet dress is there. She’s wearing a cat mask and a gold collar. She smiles, showing teeth that look unusually pointed.
She steps forward and you retreat, feeling the cold window glass against your shoulders. She considers you for a moment, then unlaces the front of your shirt, the tip of a pink tongue protruding as she concentrates on the knot. She runs one hand teasingly across your chest, then stretches to whisper in your ear. Hello, prey. Her smile widens, as she places both hands on your chest and shoves.
As the window flies open and you fall backward into the darkness, that wicked little cat smile follows you all the way down.
It’s always night when you die and it never stops hurting.
You play the game.
Fifty-seven painful deaths bought you the knowledge that twisting a particular bronze sconce on the third-floor opens a hidden door that leads to a book-lined room. Watch for the tripwire. The room is lit by a blazing fire, orange light flickering across gilt-edged bindings. A chess table sits between two tall-backed armchairs. You skirt round the deerskin rug and take a seat.
On the table sits a red lacquered box containing a collection of playing pieces carved from black jade and yellowed bones. Each one has a finely detailed face, as if they were modelled after a living person. As you run your thumb over the queen, her tiny face contorts and tries to bite you. Trying to still your shaking hand, you lay each piece out with a firm click, handling them by the base rather than the head.
As you set down the last piece, all the shadows in the room gather together in a dark rush and settle into the chair opposite you. Where a head might rest, twin points of white glow. A tendril of darkness reaches out and caresses a piece, then moves it forward.
Behind your opponent’s chair, the outline of a door slowly brightens, drawn in glowing yellow lines that you dearly hope come from the rising sun.
You play the game.
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S.A. McKenzie is a New Zealand writer of offbeat and blackly humorous science fiction and fantasy stories featuring time-traveling rabbits, carnivorous unicorns and man-eating subway trains, because someone has to speak up for these misunderstood creatures. Find her online at www.hedgehogcircus.com. |