Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [135]
They moved apart from one another, so as to disorient Wynne. Who would he really want to catch? Stella, the girl that he thought he had stolen from Gabriel and who had stolen the roll from him? Or that d’Allier for whom there would be, he had promised, no third chance of escape? Stella was the one he had been following tonight, but d’Allier was the closest. He would be the chosen one.
A blast threw Wynne off balance. A little phial had exploded not far from him, and a few glass splinters had peppered him. He started again, his rage increased, veering toward Mougrabin, but quickly changed his mind, as he reckoned this one was dangerous. D’Allier was better game, and almost in his reach. A promise is a promise. He would pay for the others.
Gabriel, meanwhile, had regained the yards he had lost but, blame it on his lifestyle, was not much of a sprinter. His body shook in exhaustion and fear. He entered the esplanade, dazzled by the dawning sun, already losing his breath, with Wynne pumping his legs like pistons just a few paces behind.
The Jack Frost Palace loomed, blindingly, in front of him, a mere hundred yards away. It was his last chance. Mougrabin and Stella had disappeared. Maybe he was saving them by sacrificing himself. Maybe he was just unlucky. He was gasping, a side stitch stabbing him, by the time he reached the security barriers that protected the public from the crumbling castle. He tried to jump over them but stumbled, then regained his balance and darted toward the gate, while Wynne now swiftly escaladed the clanging rails behind him.
The place was like a maze, full of open courts and inner gates, but hesitation was not an option, though any dead end would be fatal. He panicked as Wynne’s shadow almost reached him.
“Stop! Stop right now!” cried the policeman.
Gabriel was perhaps not, as he had dreamed he was, one of those men who turn around, knife in hand, to face the enemy. Especially without a knife. But he was stubborn enough to keep on running, turning left or right as soon as he could, although his lungs were about to burst and his legs were giving in. He went through another gate, but this time there was no exit, just a circling wall, its crenels about ten feet high. He was trapped. Wynne was coming closer, with the strides of an ogre. Gabriel nervously searched his pocket, looking for some weapon, and all he found was the polar kangaroo amulet. He clutched it and closed his eyes.
“Kiggertarpok,” he thought, “please …”
As Wynne entered the court, he saw Gabriel leaping over the wall.
Gabriel felt as if he had been lifted by a crane and tossed through the freezing air. He willed himself to land on a parapet, and did it almost neatly, balancing himself with whirling arms. As he turned away to look down, he saw Wynne hurl his top hat onto the snowy ground. And he saw that outside the castle, on each side of the gate, Mougrabin and Stella had regrouped and, knives in hand, were silently waiting for the policeman to come out.
In front of Gabriel, the city spread its whiteness, its frozen canals gleaming like fire under the ascending sun. By and by, little black figures streamed from all directions, gathering for the victory parade.
CHAPTER XXX
Fairy Tale Tactics
How should the mind, except it loved them, clasp
These idols to herself? or do they fly
Now thinner, and now thicker, like the flakes
In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce
Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour
Of civic tumult jam the doors, and bear
The keepers down, and throng, their rags and they,
The basest, far into that council-hall
Where sit the best and stateliest of the land.
Alfred Tennyson, Lucretius, 1868
The lightly yellowish edition of the Arctic Illustrated News of March 1, 1908 AB (After Backward) has always been a prized treasure among newspaper collectors, and is the only item in Brentford Orsini’s collection: not only has it been deemed extremely rare, but it is also one of the most fascinating documents of that very special moment in the history of New Venice.
In five dense