4

The boys, unaware that they had closed their eyes, opened them. It was night, hot and vaporous. For a moment Tom caught the odor of mustard flowers: he felt drowsy and heavy-limbed, and his legs ached. Collins sat in the circle of light, but on a tall wooden chair, not the stool he had made to appear that morning. Over the black suit was a black cape fastened at the throat with a gold clasp. Tom tried to move his legs, and smelled mustard flowers again. 'Oh… no… ' Del said, looking into the woods, and Tom snapped his head sideways to see.

Dark trees funneled toward a lighted open space. A boy and a tall man in a belted raincoat were striding down the funnel. The boy, Tom sickeningly realized, was himself. He looked at Collins, and found him leaning back in the owl chair, legs crossed, smiling maliciously back. The magician pointed back to the scene: Now!

When he looked back, the man and boy were gone. The open space at the end of the funnel of trees was a theater. A crowd rustled on its chairs, fanned itself with programs. Plum-colored curtains swung open, and there they were, he and Del, Flanagini and Night. Very clearly, Tom saw Dave Brick sitting fat and ignored and alone at the back of the theater.

'Yes,' Collins said. And a curtain of flame sprang up before the scene. Wall of flame, Tom thought: he heard the panicky, rushed sounds of many bodies moving, muffled shouts and commands.

Everybody out! Everybody out!

Stop in your tracks!

My bass!

They're hot! They're going to burn!

Get up off the floor, Whipple.

Just as Tom had been yanked back more than forty years while Collins had described his earlier life, just as he had seen Speckle John and Withers and the corporal with the professional smile, now he saw these moments again - the boys piling up first at the big outside doors, then at the door to the hall, screaming, clubbing each other, Brown yelling for his precious instrument, Del stumbling blind through piling smoke…

a young man in immaculate formal dress, white-face, and a red wig stood on the altered stage. The fire had whisked away like fog.

'No!' Tom shouted.

Herbie Butter waved his hands, and the light momentarily died, flickered red with a suggestion of flame, and returned to show a wooden hut deep in a painted wood. Up a trailing path came a young girl in a red cloak, carrying a wicker basket from which poked the heads of half a dozen blackbirds…

The lights died and the stage disappeared into the funnel of trees.

'And one more,' Collins said.

From one side of the narrow avenue before them a man in black cape and black slouch hat stepped out from between the trees. A moment later, a wolf came out to face him from between the trees on the other side. The wolf bristled, crouched. It looked starved and crazy, unwilling to do what it had to do. The man braced his feet; the wolf snarled. Finally it sprang. The man in the cape drew a sword from his side - he must have been holding it ready all along beneath the cape - and thrust it forward, impaling the wolf. With terrific strength, the caped man lifted the sword and held it straight in the air. The wolf's paws dangled over his hat. He stepped back into the cover of the line of trees.

Wolves, and those who see them, are shot on sight, Tom remembered.

'I put a hurtin' on Speckle John,' Collins said. 'I held him wriggling on my sword. Ha hah! He is still on my sword, children. In that sense, my farewell performance at the Wood Green Empire has not ended yet. But we will get to that in time. I want you to sleep outside tonight. A welcome may come, or it may not. You will find sleeping bags behind the second tree on the left side of the clearing.'

He stood up and pulled the cape about him as if he were cold. 'I must tell you that only one of you will prevail. Two cannot sit in the owl chair. But this is not a contest, and he who is not welcomed will lose only what he never had.

'But listen to me, little birds: the one who prevails will have Shadowland, the owl chair, the world. There will be a new king, whether it be King Flanagini or King Night.'

For a second he was outlined in black, etched against the wood; then he was gone. Tom saw four square flattened patches of grass where the chair had been.

'It won't be you,' Del said. 'You don't deserve it.'

'I don't even want it,' Tom answered angrily. 'Del, don't you understand? I don't want to take anything away from you. I only came here because I wanted to help you. Do you want to live like that - like him?'

Del hesitated a moment, then turned away to look for his sleeping bag. 'You wouldn't have to. You could live any way you wanted.'

A hard and certain thought occurred to Tom. 'If he'd let you. Why would he want to give up now? He's old, but he's still healthy.'

Del was lifting something out of the leaves behind the tree Collins had indicated. 'Because he chose me. That's why. You're just along for the ride. You never even wanted to be a magician before you met me.'

'Aren't you my friend anymore?' Tom asked in despair.

Del would not reply.

'I'm still your friend.'

'You're trying to trick me.'

'How can I? You're better than I am.'

Carrying his sleeping bag back to the clearing, Del at last looked at him. Pure triumph shone in his eyes.

'But, Del, no matter what happens, I don't think he's going to… I think it's all a trick. On us.'

'Get lost.'

'Oh… ' the letter from Rose, which Tom had forgotten, scratched him beneath a rib. He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty. Half an hour late! He looked back in agony at Del, and saw that he was trying to get into his sleeping bag. His eyes were clamped shut and he was crying. One of his heels had snagged on the zipper and he could not free it without opening his eyes.

Tom went over to him and grasped Del's foot. He moved it over the zipper and into the bag. 'Del, you're my best friend,' he said.

'You're my only friend,' Del said, almost blubbing. 'But he's my uncle. This is where I come. You're only here once.'

'I have to go away for a little while,' Tom said, kneeling by Del's side. 'When I come back, let's talk, okay?'

Del's teary eyes flew open. 'Are you going to see him?'

'No.'

'Promise?'

'I promise.'

'Okay.' His face hardened for a moment. 'You wouldn't even let me in to see the Grimm Brothers.'

'I was just surprised - the room was different.'

'But you saw. You saw you and him. Like I said.'

'It's some kind of game. I was never with him. I would have told you.'

'I was feeling so alone,' Del said.

'When I get back,' Tom said, and turned to run across the clearing. Hey, where are you going? he heard Del wail; he did not answer.