This Isn't What It Looks Like (28 page)

Other than Cass, the only living thing in the tent was a fly buzzing around a dusty shaft of sunlight. Not even the tree stump
was there.

Cass stared at the booth, shaken.

It was true: she
was
seeing things. And hearing them, too.

She looked down, expecting to see the monocle lying on the ground. It wasn’t there, either. Strange. But by now she was so
unsettled, so insecure about her perceptions, that she couldn’t be certain she hadn’t left the monocle someplace else earlier.
Or perhaps she’d never had it at all and she’d just imagined the monocle as she’d imagined the Seer?

Distraught, Cass was about to exit when she noticed the coin slot next to the fortune-teller’s hand. It read: 25
CENTS
. On impulse, Cass dropped a quarter into the slot.

The carnival-style lights that circled the booth started to flash and the robot fortune-teller nodded jerkily.

“
Greetings, traveler. Clara the Clairvoyant sees all
,” said a recorded voice that sounded nothing like the Seer’s.
“Ask your question. Then read your fortune.”

Cass looked over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone, then whispered, “Was what I saw real? Was Cassandra here?”

A bell rang and a small card appeared in the fortune-teller’s hand. Gears creaking, the fortune-teller lowered her mechanical
arm and dropped the card into the dish at the bottom of the small opening in the booth window.

What am I expecting? Cass asked herself as she
took the card. It’s probably just going to tell me what my lucky number is or something.

She turned the card over.

As above, so below
, it read.

Cass was so startled she almost dropped the card. That was when she saw what the fortune-teller was wearing. The monocle magnified
the automaton’s pale blue eye the same way it had the Seer’s. Only the automaton’s eye was marble.

“So she
was
here…. You
are
here…,” Cass whispered.

The fortune-teller’s bell rang; and as Cass watched, the fortune-teller lowered the monocle and dropped it into the dish reserved
for the fortune-telling cards.

“You want me to… take that back?” Cass stammered.

The bell rang. And the fortune-teller dropped another card into the dish next to the monocle.

You have a gift. You will have need of it.

Cass blinked, unsure whether the message was an answer. Did it mean the monocle was a gift? Or was it another reference to
second sight?

Again the bell rang. Again the fortune-teller dropped a card.

You are haunted by the past.

“Do you mean
haunted
haunted?” Cass asked nervously. “Or just, like, worried about the past?”

Again the bell. Again a card.

As before, so now.

Thoroughly mystified, Cass waited for another card to drop. But none appeared.

She pulled the first card out of her pocket and placed it on top of the others.

Your lucky number is seven
, it now read.

Cass walked out, clutching the monocle tight in her hand and wondering if this was what it was like to be crazy.

Inside the tent, the fly continued to buzz.

When Cass emerged from the fortune-teller’s tent for the second time, Max-Ernest was standing alone.

“What happened to Yo-Yoji?” she asked, blinking in the sunlight.

“He went to go sign up for the joust.”

“You mean, like, to be in it? That’s crazy!”

“How else are we supposed to get close enough to Mrs. Johnson? She’s been surrounded by Amber and Veronica all day. Plus that
secretary lady—”

“I can’t believe they would let Yo-Yoji sign up. I thought kids weren’t allowed.”

“We’re not. That’s the beauty of it! If he
wins, he gets knighted by the Queen. If he gets caught, he gets sent to the principal. He sees Mrs. Johnson either way. It’s
win-win. How ’bout that?”

“How ’bout that…?” Cass didn’t like the plan (mostly, I suspect, because it had been concocted in her absence), but she didn’t
have an alternative plan to offer.

“By the way,” said Max-Ernest, lowering his voice. “I figured out what the warning was that Pietro sent me. What you said
before about Lord Pharaoh and the Secret, it reminded me.”

“Yeah, what?” asked Cass, still focused on the joust.

“Well, I got this note—it was in code but it said LORD PHARAOH LIVES.”

Cass snapped to attention. “Did you just say ‘
Lord Pharaoh lives
’?”

“Uh-huh. I thought it was from the Midnight Sun. You know, like kind of a taunt. But now I think Pietro must have written
it. I just can’t figure out why.”

“Well… it could be true,” said Cass slowly. “Did you think of that?”

“True that Lord Pharaoh is alive? But he would be five hundred years old,” Max-Ernest scoffed.
“Besides, didn’t Mr. Cabbage Face say he ate him? We even saw Lord Pharaoh’s grave—”

“You’re right, it was a crazy idea.”

Cass shivered. A horrible, horrible thought had occurred to her, but she pushed it away.

The important thing was to get her hands on the lodestone. To learn the Secret.

Y
our Majesty, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, barons and baronesses, lords and ladies, knights and damsels, lads
and lasses, yeomen and serfs, peers of the realm, and—whom did I miss?—students from the Xxxxx School, let the games begin!”

Standing in the middle of the stadium and dressed in a suitably bright and ballooning satin outfit, the announcer, or “Master
of Arms” as he’d introduced himself, lowered his bullhorn and raised a trumpet to his lips.

“In the real Renaissance, I don’t think they would’ve had Porta-Potties next to the royal stands,” complained Max-Ernest,
who was sitting in said stands next to Cass. The Porta-Potties were directly behind them, and the smell was distinctly unpleasant.

“Trust me, in the real Renaissance, it was worse,” said Cass. “People just went wherever they wanted to.”

“Gross…. How do you know where people went in the Renaissance, anyway?” asked Max-Ernest. “—Oh right, I forgot.”

“Actually, you’re right. How do I know? I don’t know anything anymore,” said Cass grimly.

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” asked Max-Ernest. He had seen Cass in many moods in the
past—but never in a self-doubting one. It was disturbing to his sense of order.

Cass shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t mean anything….” She wasn’t about to tell Max-Ernest the true reason behind her state of
mind. Not today, anyway. If she told him about her experience—or non-experience—with the Seer, he would probably rush her
to the hospital.

As they spoke, about twenty knights on horseback (or men and women dressed as knights on horseback, I should say) rode into
the ring. Each wore a number over his or her breastplate and each held a flag, some representing nations, others representing
local businesses or bowling leagues.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I now present the finest knights in the kingdom,” declared the Master of Arms. “They have come from
all over the country, indeed from all over the world, to compete in a contest of skill and will. The winner will be honored
by the Queen herself.”

He proceeded to introduce the contestants, each of whom had adopted a grand title for the occasion: Sir Daniel the Daring,
Sir Michael of the Moors, Lord Phillip the Fair, and so on.

Cass and Max-Ernest applauded when they heard Yo-Yoji announced:

“And here, from Feudal Japan, comes Sir Yoji-San, the Samurai Knight!”

Yo-Yoji rode into the ring on a feisty black horse. He was dressed in traditional European-style armor (a couple sizes too
big) but holding a samurai sword and carrying a Japanese-style flag (decorated with what I can only describe as some sort
of anime alien—or perhaps it was meant to be one of Cass’s sock monsters). As his horse pawed the ground and jerked his head
this way and that, Yo-Yoji squirmed in his saddle; he looked as if he might fall off before the games even began.

“Since when does Yo-Yoji know how to joust, anyway?” asked Cass.

“He doesn’t. I don’t even think he knows how to ride a horse,” said Max-Ernest. “But he knows all about swords from all those
kendo lessons with Lily. Plus he has samurai experience, remember?”

“Oh great. I’m sure this will be a piece of cake, then.”

“Quiet! The Queen speaks!”

A hush fell over the crowd. Mrs. Johnson stood up in the royal box.

“Loyal subjects, we thank you from the bottom of our royal heart for being here today on this great occasion,” she said, attempting
to maintain her
English accent as she shouted into a bullhorn. “Brave knights, who among you will be our champion? To earn our patronage,
you must have the courage of a lion and the cunning of a fox, the eyes of an eagle and the ferocity of a wolf, the heart of
a bear and the mind of a… well, never mind. May the best man win!”

The crowd clapped and cheered, “Long live the Queen!”

I regret to say Yo-Yoji’s first effort was not auspicious. Despite his vaunted samurai experience, he passed by the quintain
entirely, got thrown from his horse, and wound up pole vaulting over his lance—a neat trick but hardly a way to earn points
in a hastilude.
^*

Happily, he was able to stand up immediately afterward, a bit bruised but mostly unscathed. The audience’s laughter was, as
you can imagine, uproarious.

Soon, however, the games turned from military showmanship to direct combat. Now on foot, the knights competed in a round-robin
of hand-to-hand matchups featuring a variety of weapons, including not only swords but flails, battle-axes, and spears—all,
of course, stage props and not real weapons. (This was, after all, not a real knights’ tournament but a
staged event at a faux Renaissance Faire.) I am pleased to inform you that Yo-Yoji’s performance improved greatly with every
matchup. Highly trained by martial-arts master Lily Wei, Yo-Yoji was light on his feet and extremely deft with the sword and
flail especially. He had an unerring instinct for when to thrust, when to parry, and when to leap over the heads of his opponents
(well, perhaps not literally over their heads, but he did jump quite high considering the weight of his armor).

By the time the knights were supposed to remount their horses, Yo-Yoji’s score, previously the lowest, qualified him for the
final round of jousting—the result of which would determine who would become the Queen’s champion.

The competition had come down to four contestants.

Compared to the first round of quintains, the targets were smaller, the stakes higher. But luck was on Yo-Yoji’s side. The
first of the four contestants seemed to lose his grip on his lance at the last moment, so that he barely grazed his quintain
and earned a low score of four. The second contestant, fighting a gust of wind, missed his target entirely.

Yo-Yoji was next. When the Master of Arms’ whistle sounded, Yo-Yoji spurred his horse. This time,
he sat firmly in his saddle—it was clear he intended not to be thrown off again—and he held his lance straight, connecting
near the center of his quintain and earning a more-than-respectable nine out of ten points.

A moment later, the whistle sounded once more. The fourth contestant was about to make his move when suddenly his horse bucked
as if spooked by something. The unfortunate knight was thrown to the ground. While he shouted for his horse to stop, the horse
tore off in the direction of the stables, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake.

“Is it possible Yo-Yoji just won by default?” asked Cass.

Before Max-Ernest could answer, there were shouts and cries from the other end of the stadium. Like everyone else in the audience,
Cass and Max-Ernest turned to see what was causing the commotion.

“This is part of the show, right?” asked Max-Ernest.

A hitherto unseen knight had charged into the ring. His tall horse rearing, he broke through the ranks of the other knights—causing
their horses to buck and rear in turn. He seemed to have an
agitating effect on everyone present, whether equine or human.

“You on the gray horse! What are you doing here?” cried the Master of Arms. “This tournament is for people who have reserved
spots only—I’m sorry, you will have to leave the ring immediately.”

But the mystery knight did not leave. On the contrary, he reined his horse and settled in the center of the stadium. The picture
he created was unnerving, to say the least. Whereas the other knights all wore brand-new armor that sparkled in the sunshine,
he was clad head to toe in dark and rusty sheets of steel that reflected no light, even though his horse was standing in full
sun. A medieval-style helmet masked his entire face, a single narrow slit enabling him to see but not be seen. Scale-like
gauntlets covered his hands and forearms, giving them the quality of dragon talons. And he wore steel boots on his feet that
looked heavy enough to sink a ship. His horse, meanwhile, was a good five or six hands taller than the other horses, and a
great deal wilder-looking.

“Please, can somebody escort this man out of here?” The Master of Arms was gesticulating in all directions. A handsome silver-haired
man dressed as a Renaissance courtier, with a wide ruffled collar and
black boots, walked up to him and whispered in his ear.