The Magic Trick (The Card Game #2)

Ch 3 - The Bizarre Bazaar

CHAPTER III

THE BIZARRE BAZAAR

It was a ride of several days back to Aryk, but the distant peaks of the Middle Urals were never-swaying Eastern beacons. The boys kept away from roads, preferring solitude in the endless forests and meadows where cool streams flowed across the warm earth. At night the stars blinked like diamonds in the sky, and only then did Blizzard break away from the party to fulfill his lonely ritual of crying to the moon.

With not much to do in his waking hours but ride, Viktor’s thoughts wandered in the saddle, often returning to the summer behind them. Every one of those days he had worried that their castle escapade had exposed their identities to the Leopard, but the assassins had never come.

Maybe my posters saved us after all, Viktor thought. The whole town thinks Maksim’s long lost son was killed that night ... Maybe the Leopard’s satisfied.

But in his heart, Viktor doubted it. The Leopard knew three other masked youths had broken into his castle, and he would want their heads before the end.

But whose end—his or ours? Viktor wondered.A year ago the miner Petya had sacrificed his own life for the blood brothers, and Viktor hadn’t forgotten the man’s warning to never enter combat with the Leopard. ‘He can’t be killed, and don’t attempt to! Nothing is worth the price you’ll pay!’

Viktor’s fists tightened around his horse’s reigns. Was it possible that the Leopard really did have some type of protection, something beyond the physical? Did it matter either way? The Leopard had been trained in arms since childhood, as had many of his followers, and Viktor knew any one of them would grind he and his friends like wheat if they ever engaged in a battle. Still, there were other ways to bring a man down.

The Ghosts are the key, thought Viktor, a phrase that had become the cornerstone of his and Romulus’ nightly talks. If they could find the Ghost boys and free them, those old Saint Demetrius students could testify to everything—from Nocktayl’s childhood to the Leopard’s murder spree to Molotov’s lordship. Scholars from such prestigious backgrounds would be the one source that the government could not ignore. The Ghosts are the key. Find them, free them, and let them testify.

It was on the afternoon of the fourth day that the Romani horses began to stamp the ground in delight. Their party had ascended a familiar slope for some time, and now the surrounding forest had thinned. The only barrier that separated them from home was Aryk’s western river.

Suddenly Viktor had the urge to run far, far away from this place. He had rations, a Romani horse, and a week’s head start before Molotov’s school opened. But even if he could escape, would it be true freedom? What would become of his family, of his friends? Would he leave them to toil and bleed under the Leopard? Would he let all the souls who had perished in the Card rebellion die in vain? No. Never. Viktor knew he couldn’t leave, because that was the thing about serfdom—it didn’t just chain the body to the land, it chained the spirit.

Deigning to cross the river, the blood brothers rode to a flat bend where the current was slow. They stripped off their outer clothing and held it over their heads, and then they waded in, using the Romani horses, that were excellent swimmers, as buoys. Back on land, Romulus slapped their flanks and the steeds shot off toward the Southeastern Slopes, Blizzard chasing after them and nipping playfully at their hooves.

“Why’d you do that?” said Viktor, watching the horses shrink in the distance. “You know the Gypsies are going to want to hear about Saint Demetrius.”