The Game - Laurie R. King [121]
This was going to hurt.
But as the knife began its downward descent, as the mechanical device now built into the bottom of the upturned cart clicked open and gave way, as the lit pyrotechnic sputtered in my ear, my eyes flew open again, for in that brief instant, a stray splash of light had illuminated a pair of figures at the back of the crowd. But I was too late: By the time my eyes came open again to seek them out, the trick knife had collapsed against my body and I was dropping to the rocky ground beneath the cart, artificial blood flying all over and the flash blinding everyone but Holmes. Cursing furiously under my breath, I shook free of the chains, fighting to turn over in the restricted space without overturning the cart and giving myself away, while Holmes raised his voice above the sudden clamour that the flash always stimulated, telling the villagers that the sacrifice had been taken up by the gods. I pressed my bare eye to the side of the cart where a small crack let in the torchlight, searching for the figures.
Even without my spectacles, the turbans caught my eye: red and high, with a gleaming white device over the forehead; and beside them, a smaller, bareheaded man, his features indistinct—but I didn’t need to see them.
The maharaja of Khanpur had caught us up.
There were more guards, I saw, closing in on our rustic stage as the villagers faded quickly back behind the protection of their walls. I lay helpless, waiting for strong hands to lift the cart and drag me away. But to my surprise, the maharaja seemed more interested in Holmes than in me.
“How did you do that?” he asked, speaking Hindi.
“Oah, my lord, it is the Arts,” Holmes replied.
“It is trickery.”
“My lord, no trickery. I am a follower of the Prophet, but my skill is in the hands of Vishnu and Shiv.”
“I wish to see it again.”
“I will happily come to your court and—”
“Good,” the maharaja said, and turned away. I let out the first breath in what seemed like several minutes, but too soon. The prince’s hand came up in command, and through my thin crack I saw figures in red puggarees closing in on the cart—or rather, on the cart’s owner. Holmes had only time enough to bend over where I lay and speak what sounded like an incantation, but which was actually a command, in German: “Stay there, then go for aid.”
There was a scuffle and Holmes’ querulous voice demanding explanation, followed a minute later by the sound of a motorcar starting up. Then, awfully, silence.
Chapter Twenty-One
I crawled out from beneath the shiny wagon, rubbing unconsciously at my wrists and at the bruise on my hip that came with every fall through the trap-door. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I asked myself. We’d avoided the maharaja because we feared he might recognise me; we hadn’t even considered that he might go to the effort of hunting down a magician to add to his collection, however temporarily.
I pulled my spectacles from my pocket, but clarity of vision had little effect on clarity of thought. Holmes had said, “go for aid,” which meant that he didn’t think I should wait around for him to be returned. “Aid” could only mean Geoffrey Nesbit, but even if the man was at home in Delhi, it could take him days to get here. And I couldn’t see that walking openly into a telegraphist’s to send a message would be the most sensible action: Clearly, the maharaja had ears throughout his country, or he’d never have found the magician Faith had seen in Khanpur city.
Think, Russell!
I had, it seemed, three choices. I could wait here; I could go after Holmes by myself; or I could ask Nesbit for help. And if I forced myself to overlook the alarming method by which the prince had laid hands on the magician—not an easy thing to do, to ignore my body’s nearly overwhelming impulse to race down the road in the wake of the car—I had to admit that Holmes was very probably in no great danger. Yes, he had been abducted in an alarmingly similar fashion once before, and yes, that time the