I let him pick up the chair, though. I was pretty sure that if I tried to do that, I’d fall down again.
“You can end this,” the Pharaoh said.
I tried to work up some spit and then swallow away the hot, foul taste in my mouth. “I’m working on it.”
“You can end it right now. I promise to be the best master any apprentice wizard could hope to find. I promise to rule Tampa with kindness and generosity.”
“Says the guy who was willing to murder all of Queen’s babies just to win a game.”
He sighed. “If that’s your final word, on your own head be it. You realize, at this point I can simply play conservatively and wait for you to die.”
He probably could have, too. Except that I hung on for a few more minutes. Until the clock struck four, and the blinds jumped again.
They’d been big enough to matter before. Now they were finally so big that you just couldn’t sit out more than one or two hands in a row. Your stack would shrink to nothing if you did.
I didn’t plan to sit out any of them. I meant to shove all in every time pre-flop, without even looking at my cards. Because I knew that with five more to come, any starting hand, no matter how shitty, can beat any other. And I was out of time.
I got away with it once. The second time, the Pharaoh peeked at his down cards and smiled. He had something good, and so, of course, he called.
I looked at what I had in the hole. Eight-three off-suit, about as rotten a starting hand as there is. I don’t know how I could have suddenly felt sicker than I did already, but it sure seemed like it.
But then my luck kicked in. A three came out as part of a rainbow flop, and an eight came on the turn. I’d lucked my way into two pair, and I was almost positive the Pharaoh hadn’t improved.
By then, I don’t suppose I was able to keep what I felt from showing in my face. Anyway, the Pharaoh somehow realized I was ahead. I could tell it from the way his dry, sunken eyes narrowed, and the way his mouth tightened. A speck of dry rot dropped from his lower lip.
As he dealt the last card, I was suddenly sure he was going to use magic to turn things around. Maybe to change the river into something that matched a pocket pair and made trips. I flashed the Thunderbird and poured energy into it. Timon had said that defense was my strength, and I just willed my power to protect me.
It took so much out of me that I passed out. When I came to, it was to the sound of chips rattling and clinking.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I realized I was slumped across the table. I shoved at it and groggily lifted my head. It looked like I’d only been out a few seconds. The Pharaoh was raking chips from the pot.
The pot that didn’t belong to him. Because he’d turned over pocket jacks, and the river was a blank. Which meant he’d never improved.
“No,” I wheezed, and spit dripped out of my mouth. Heart pounding like it was going to tear itself apart, hand shaking, I fumbled over my cards. “Two pair. I win. You’re out.”
“If I simply take the chips anyway,” he answered, “do you think that you can stop me?”
“‘There’s gamesmanship,’” I quoted, “‘and then there’s mere brutality.’”
He looked for me for a second, and then laughed. “Touche, mortal, touche. The pot and the tournament are yours.”
And just like that, the pain and the sickness disappeared. In fact, I felt great. It was like all the life the hex had sucked out of me flooded back in an instant.
I stood up and shook the mummy’s hand. His fingers felt light and brittle like papier-mache, and even though I’d figured out he wasn’t as fragile as he looked, I still made sure I didn’t really squeeze.
The spectators applauded, some politely, some like they meant it. A’marie was one of the ones with a big grin on her face. I winked at her.
Then I noticed the one guy who wasn’t clapping. No points for guessing it was Wotan. His bloodshot eyes glared at me, and his hairy, tattooed hands repeatedly clenched on the scabbard of the ruined sword lying across his thighs.
I didn’t like all that hatred coming my way, but I told myself that with the tournament over, it didn’t really matter. Timon was my problem now. I looked at his face, but his polite little tight-lipped smile wasn’t easy to read.
Whatever he was feeling, satisfaction, relief, resentment, or, most likely, a mix of all of them, I guessed I ought to say something to him. I nodded and said, “There you go. We did it.”
Wotan stood up. “‘We?’”
“Yeah,” I said, “we. Timon coached me. He taught me magic. I couldn’t have made it without him.”
Wotan shrugged those ginormous shoulders. “I’m sure that’s true, human. I just wonder whether you really believe it. Because, if you respected Timon as is his due, how could you ever have dared to treat him as you did?”
Leticia glided up to him and touched him on the forearm. I felt a little tingle in my arm just from imagining how it felt. “The game’s over, darling man,” she purred. “It’s time to relax and share a toast.”
“And for Timon to take possession of his winnings,” said the Pharaoh.
The Tuxedo Team brought in a little wooden chest. One guy carried it, while four others surrounded it like guards. They set it on the poker table and then brought out six musty-smelling rolls of parchment tied with faded ribbon. I figured they were the deeds to the fiefs.
The lords gathered around in the pool of light under the chandelier, and then everybody but Timon swore an oath renouncing all claim to whatever he or she had bet. The Pharaoh gave up Pedernales, in the Dominican Republic; Wotan, Dubois, Wyoming, and a bunch of land surrounding it; Queen, a piece of Mexico City; and Leticia, Cincinnati. She also read a statement Gimble had left behind forfeiting Toms River, New Jersey. It was quite a haul, and Timon’s tight little smile gradually changed to a smirk.
At the end of the ceremony, the same servant who’d taken the deeds out of the box started putting them back in. But Wotan picked up one of them before he could get to it. “Tampa,” he said.
Timon scowled at him. “Yes. Tampa. One of my dominions.”
“For now, at least,” Wotan said. But he didn’t take the hint and put down the deed. “An interesting place. Now that I’ve seen it, I’d have to say you staked the finest fief of any of us. I hate to think of it passing into the hands of someone undeserving.”
“It’s not ‘passing’ anywhere!” Timon snapped. “The fool hasn’t got a chance!”
“I understand why you feel that way,” Wotan said. “It would be astonishing if a human could beat you, especially in dream. But then again, he beat the rest of us.”
“Look,” I said to Wotan. “Timon and I made a deal, and we’re going through with it no matter what you say. So mind your own damn business.”
“Billy has a point,” said Queen. “He and the dream walker did agree. We all witnessed it.”
Wotan smiled an ugly smile. “True enough. I was just making conversation. Apparently no one else wants to hear it, so let’s drink instead.” He tossed the parchment back into the box.
A’marie brought in a dusty old bottle of champagne. It turned out to be for lords only. Even the stooge who’d actually won the tournament didn’t rate a glass. And they could have given me Queen’s share, because she only took a couple drops, dribbled over the gray sludge in the bottom of her flute.
The other lords toasted Timon, and the rest of us served up a second little round of applause. When it died down, Wotan said, “Now the tournament is really finished. That means the human isn’t Timon’s champion anymore.”
I wasn’t sure why that was important, but I felt a cold little twinge of uneasiness. Trying to hide it, I said, “I thought you were going to lay off.”
“As did I,” the Pharaoh murmured.
“I’m just saying,” Wotan said, “now that the mantle of the champion is gone, it makes sense to take a look at what was underneath. And clearly, it’s human, even if it does have a drop of our blood and some of our power. It certainly didn’t grow up among us. It doesn’t understand our traditions, and it hasn’t really given its fealty to any lord. Otherwise, it would never have showed Timon such disrespect.”