The Tattooed Heart (Messenger of Fear 2)

Oliver vomited. Haarm was almost as badly affected. I wondered if he had ever encountered the Master of the Game, and if so in what guise he had appeared.

Messenger and the Master of the Game spoke the ritual words that consigned Oliver’s fate to the game.

“This is the game,” the Game Master said in a voice that was so perfect a re-creation of Graciella’s own soft alto that it sent a chill up my spine. “The game is called Hangman.”

“Hangman,” Oliver said, wary of believing his luck. “You mean, like guessing the letters in a word?”

The Master of the Game waved a hand and from the surrounding mist appeared a set that was reassuringly familiar, a large chalkboard with nine short horizontal lines for letters.

“A word,” the Game Master said. “Nine letters. Each time you miss, a body part is added. There are seven portions: head, shoulders, left arm, right arm, torso, left leg, right leg. You may guess only consonants. Each wrong guess adds a part. You may purchase a vowel, but doing so will cost you a body part.”

I saw Oliver relax a little. He was an intelligent boy and thought he would win. An intelligent boy, but not one familiar with the ways of the Game Master.

Unlike Oliver, I was not terribly surprised when rather than a glittery wheel, a shape that has terrified the wicked for centuries appeared at the far end of the stage.

It was a platform made of rough wood. It was raised atop thirteen steps. And on that high platform stood two stout upright beams buttressed at the base. A crossbeam connected the two uprights, and it, too, was strengthened by short angled segments. In all it formed a wide, upside-down U.

It was a gibbet. A gallows, lacking only a noose.

“Okay, my first letter is—”

But the Master of the Game was not done and Oliver fell silent as he saw “Graciella’s” mouth open wide, wider, too wide so that if she were real her jaw must have come unhinged.

A blue-black tongue, split at the end, shot from that mouth, and withdrew as though it had tasted the air and not liked what it found. The next details visible were eyes, one on either side of the tongue that now tasted again and withdrew, again and withdrew. These eyes were dully polished brass balls, split by pointed vertical ovals, forming the irises.

Snake’s eyes.

The head of the snake now pushed out, as big as “Graciella’s” distended mouth could accommodate. Inch after inch the scaled body followed, and then foot after foot, until the snake’s head drooped to the stage floor. Four feet. Six feet. Eight feet. More. It was impossible, of course, the snake in all its glory was bigger than the body from which it had emerged. But we were in a world not limited by the possible.

At last the tail appeared and the snake slithered quickly to the platform, slithered sidewinder style up the thirteen steps, curled itself around one of the uprights and maypoled around it till it reached the crossbeam.

By now Oliver could see where this was going. He tried to make a joke of it. “What, you couldn’t just buy rope?”

The Master of the Game was not bothered by the quip. The truly powerful do not need to insist on their power, they have merely to possess it.

The snake crawled out onto the crossbeam, looped its tail around the beam, and dropped its head. It writhed a little, but otherwise seemed content to hang there.

“Begin,” the Game Master said.

“Okay, no vowels, right?” Oliver licked his lips and I could see him sounding out various possibilities. “T!” he cried at last.

On the chalkboard the fourth line sprouted a letter T.

_ _ _ T _ _ _ _ _

“Yeah. Okay,” Oliver said, feeling a possible escape ahead. “Okay, next letter, D.”

What happened then was too sudden and too swift for human eyes to follow. The snake shot forward as fast as its own flicked tongue, it extended well beyond its own length. It moved so fast that it created a loud crack, like a bullwhip. It wrapped around Oliver’s neck and sliced bloodlessly through his flesh and bone.

The snake withdrew as fast as it had flung itself forward, and when it came to rest, Oliver’s head and neck hung in a living noose.

This at last brought a shocked cry from Haarm. I was proud of the fact that I did not react: I had already guessed the nature of this particular game of Hangman.

Oliver’s headless body remained standing. I might not have recoiled in shock, but I stared in fascinated horror at the sight of a still-living body, minus its head and neck, standing. Even more than the sight of Oliver’s head hanging from the noose, this fascinated me.

It was even more disturbing to Oliver who shrieked, somehow still able to speak though his lungs were now ten feet from his vocal cords. His eyes stared, incredulous, at his own body.

“This can’t be,” he said.