Wildcard (36 page)

“Beautiful times, Karl. I am ever so pleased
to see you again. I appear to be in a bit of a spot.”

“Good to see you, too, RJ. I’ve been looking
for you.”

“Yes, well. Likewise, which I suppose is the
short version of my arrival in such a predicament. How did you find
me in this madness?”

“The bartender pointed the direction and
Higgins gave me this, um”…Karl indicated his mount, “…camel.”

RJ pinched his nose between his fingers,
grimacing against the head-ache. “They loaned you something? They
sent me out here to die on account of an ill-advised wager. Filthy,
despicable people. Must be nice to have an innocent face.”

“Actually, they rented it to me. Somebody
left money for me at the bar. Guess they knew I was coming.”

“Lucky for you, wish they’d done that for
me. Say, do you have any water?”

Karl handed him one of his square wooden
canteens. “Keep it, I’m flush.”

“No pun intended, of course.” RJ reached for
the canteen, chugged hard and fast.

“Pun? What?”

“Water? Flush? Toilet?”

Karl laughed his boy laugh. “No, not
intended. Funny, though. Good eye, RJ, for someone doing as…”

“As what?

“Well, you just look rough is all. But, hey,
your old buddy Karl’s here to help.”

RJ performed a toasting gesture with the
canteen, then finished the contents. Karl refilled it from one of
the big water sacks. He dismounted and pulled some lunch out of the
saddle bags. They sat in the shade of the camel to eat.

“What do we do at this point, my
friend?”

“The Wound,” Karl said. “We find the
Wound.”

“The what?”

“Didn’t you listen when Juniper read that
poem?”

“Juniper read any number of poems to us, I
daresay. He was rather enamored, to his demise, of the stuff. Puts
one in mind of a drug addiction.”

“Juniper read one that caught everyone. The
Wound. It was kind of scary, really.”

“I remember, don’t worry. I was afraid you’d
say that, too. You don’t suppose I could obtain a camel of my own,
do you? I’d prefer to go elsewhere. Never have been very keen on
the medical arts.”

Karl laughed. “Probably not. But this one’s
big. Wanna share?”

“If it’s my only option, I suppose I must.
How do you propose we find this wound? Go back to town and
ask?”

“No, unfortunately it’s the other way. I can
feel it. But maybe there’s more towns.”

“Somehow, I rather doubt that.”

Karl pointed to a high outcrop. “Let’s climb
up there and see what we can see.”

There was a road in the distance, strangely
colored, a glowing yellow. It was the only mark of civilization as
far as they could see. They headed to it. The terrain changed close
to the road. It was lined with trees and made out of yellow brick.
A house was half smashed on the edge. A young girl was crying
beside it.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” RJ said. “It’s a damned
fairy tale. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Let’s find out.”

“Miss Dorothy?”

She startled, then looked up at RJ. He was
stunned by a stab of instant love and longing.

“How did you know my name?”

“I…uh…”

“Lucky guess,” Karl said. “You OK, RJ?”

“Yeah, just a little…” he twitched his head.
“Wizard of Oz, huh?”

“What,” Dorothy asked. “Who’s that?”

They didn’t answer. “My house just landed on
this poor woman.”

“Take her shoes,” Karl said.

“What?”

RJ nodded. “Take her shoes. You’ll need ‘em.
Trust us, we’re quite certain.”

Dorothy stared dumbly at the shoes. RJ took
them off the dead witch and put them on her, embarrassed by the
excitement of touching her young feet. He felt manipulated; she was
too young, but something, or someone, was making her sexy to him.
He couldn’t resist her.

They set off down the road. Dorothy played
her part like an actress in a role. She ignored them when they
talked about any non-Oz items. Her chasteness burned holes in RJ
and he frequently had to masturbate in the bushes. She caught him
twice, almost like she had radar, but he was so damned by her, he
couldn’t help it. He was mortified but compelled. She didn’t
understand what he was doing and seemed to think he was
urinating.

It soon became apparent that Karl was the
scarecrow and RJ the cowardly lion. They had no tin man, which made
it awkward at those points where he was meant to solve a crisis,
but they managed without him. At least he didn’t slow them down by
rusting when he cried.

Toto was a yappy, little dog. He tracked mud
on their sleeping gear and probably would have smelled when wet if
they could smell. Even Karl didn’t like him.

They got Dorothy to the wizard finally, in
the emerald city and palace. He ignored her mostly, and spoke to
them. He spoke with the stilted articulation of a caricatured
professor, every letter pronounced with an extra dimension of
mischievous television drama, and he looked like Vincent Price.

“You require a brain, don’t you?”

He handed Karl a Trident with a slight
magical flourish, then with another gave RJ a book entitled
‘Chance.’

“You need courage, RJ Sublime, but your time
has not yet come. The key to your bravery is the woman child
Delirious, who will make you bold and cost you all illusion.”

They asked him what it meant, but he refused
to answer, so RJ moved on to the question of their presence there,
and what Oz had to do with them.

“8-ball world is a collectioning of myth and
legend. Why wouldn’t you be here? These situations abound in this
place.”

“But they’re wrong,” Karl said. “They’re
twisty.”

“Yes. Good, young traveller. Perspicacious,
in fact. But why so?”

“It’s being manipulated.”

The wizard nodded an acknowledgement.

“But who are you?”

“No one. Just the Wizard of Oz. I am an
icon.”

“An icon?”

“A human semblance without pronounced
sentience.”

“But, you appear real, sir.”

“I said I had no sentience, not that I was
unreal. A rock has no sentience; is it real? And why, for that
matter, does a film character seem real?”

“We can interact with you, you’re answering
our questions. Who created this?”

“Frank Baum.”

“Who?” RJ said before Karl could.

“The author of the Wizard of Oz.”

“Oh, that’s dumb,” Karl said. “He didn’t put
you here.”

“Agreed,” said RJ. “Enough
double-speak.”

“Well, like I said, this world has all these
pieces.”

“Who created the arrangement? How did you
come by that wrist device you gave to Karl?”

The wizard acted aloof, smiling
mysteriously.

“What do you have to do with the swordsman?”
Karl asked.

“Perhaps I am the swordsman.”

“But you said you were an icon.”

He waved his hand dismissively, numerous
rings sparkling and causing the two men to blink.

“Who is the swordsman?” RJ asked.

“Excellent question,” the wizard said. “If
you gain that knowledge, much will be revealed.”

“‘Much will be revealed,’” RJ scoffed. “You
are pretty thin, aren’t you?”

“You have other tasks before you meet him.”
He turned and strolled to sit on his emerald throne as he said
this.

“Why are we involved in this theater piece,
though? Why didn’t the author of this shenanigans simply give us
Trident and this…book.” RJ shook the book at the wizard to
emphasize his point.

“Why indeed?”

“Jesus, what kind of a nitwit are you? What
is this demonstration, a mere show of power? Is one of these
Manufactured Entities simply flexing their muscles?”

“Is it Wildcard?” Karl asked.

“Ah,” said the wizard, stroking his chin.
“Nothing is as is it seems. Nor is it otherwise.”

RJ fumed. He hated this go-nowhere trickery
and wanted someone to smack the wizard. Unfortunately, that wasn’t
his style, nor was it Karl’s. “Quit speaking in riddles.”

The wizard ignored him. “In our land, this
truth is simply less…” he waved his hand around, searching for the
bon mot… “blatantly expressed.” His expression brightened and he
leaned forward. “More obvious. You should learn it, Gambler, it’s
your new home.”

Karl turned his head to his friend and
bobbed it a tiny amount. “Right,” he said. “This is your place, RJ.
This place and you, it’s…” he pointed his finger sharply at him…
“symbiotic. This is your place.”

RJ closed and flung his hands out in
frustration. “Fine. Wonderful, it’s my place. It’s…” He smiled
without opening his eyes. A chill ran from his heart, then he
flushed warm to his fingertips. He grinned at Karl. “It is! Dammit,
you’re right.” He spread his arms wide and rotated, taking in his
new domain.

Karl got choked up.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m…I’m great. Sorry, it’s
silly, it’s just…it’s nothing.” He wiped his eyes with the heels of
both hands. “I’m just so happy for you. Really. I’m glad one of us
found it.”

“Aw, fuck.” RJ sighed heavily, reached out
slowly and thumped Karl three times on the center of his chest in
punctuation. “You will find her.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll find her.”

They stood there awkwardly, until the wizard
turned and looked at Dorothy, who had been as still as a broken
robot. “It’s time to return home, young lady.” She friend kissed
RJ, clicked three times, and was gone. The wizard faded and the
emerald palace dulled and changed into the red, rocky
landscape.

The landscape smoothed into an easy flatness
behind them, in the direction they had come from. Ahead, the rocks
steadily rose, mazing out into a jagged labyrinth. Canyons ran off
in all directions with sheer cliff sides. Stacks of rocks seemed to
hang in the air, the perspective skewed by larger rocks resting on
smaller ones. Karl clipped on the Trident and handed RJ the book.
They looked at the easy walking land behind them, at the camel,
and, in front, at the high and dark peril.

“Goddammit.”

“Yeah,” Karl agreed. “But let’s look at that
book. There might be something good.”

“I say we attempt communications first.” He
nodded at Trident.

They tried and it was useless. “Maybe later.
We definitely could use the Sergeant’s advice. Or Trident’s.”

They decided to make camp overnight. Karl
scoured for wood and managed a pitiful fire while RJ cooked a
non-taste meal of beans and dried peppers. “How’d you get here,
RJ?”

“You mean Wildspace? I just walked into the
8-ball bar in Philly. I went to bathroom and when I left I was…
kind of there. I don’t know. I think somebody wanted me here, so
I’m here.”

Over dinner, RJ opened the book.

“Chance, by Juniper and Dartagnan. “The
first chapter is called the land of two cubed spheres.” He scanned.
“There’s a lot of technical gibberish about the composition of the
world. Here’s something called the q-code…absolute
interpenetrativity…is that a real word?…” He flipped a few pages.
“Says it has higher randomness characteristics. Spontaneous
generation of puzzles…they can be manipulated by ‘a skilled q-code
artisan and, of course, a high tier Manufactured Entity.’ That’s
what’s happened to us, Karl. Hmm, something called psychic
mirroring, whatever that refers to.”

“Sounds creepy.”

“Yes, it does. Hmm, catalogues of the
mythology here. Quite extensive, but it says nothing is ‘actualized
without intent.’ I take it to mean that a person has to…cause an
event to happen.”

“Or find it. Dorothy seemed isolated in her
story. Maybe these things just cycle over and over until somebody…”
Karl fluttered his hands in a word search, “…uses them?”

“Anyway, it talks about the theory of how a
person can summon them, if I understand what I’m reading. How you
can create myth and put it together in different situations.”

“It’s a play world, RJ. Perfect. You’ll have
a blast here.”

RJ thumbed through, then riffed his lips in
a baffled noise. “Good Lord, most of this is cripplingly technical.
It’s far out of my comprehension. Oh…” he raised a finger at a new
discovery… “and here we are. Part II. This looks more…something.
Understandable. It’s written by Dartagnan. Juniper authored the
initial section. Hmm. Well, a poem by Wildcard graces the
introductory page, and a fine subject matter, I must say. The title
is ‘Gambler.’”

RJ adjusted the book to get more light from
the fire.

In the land of two cubed spheres

bald teaching does not occur

veiled sensibility hovers mistlike over all
action

penetration to truth, impossible

for no truth hides behind this machine

no statement made, subject to the
malleable

the strong and the wicked

those with insight into interdependence

can make of this land what they wish and
will

but, if he reduces himself from love

the Gambler will find here his home

“I don’t follow ‘reduces from love,’ but I
like it here,” RJ said. “I do.”

“Even after getting back-horsed on a
donkey?”

“Back-horsed? That’s what they called it?
And it wasn’t a donkey, it was a mule. Don’t you know the
difference?”

“I never saw it! But…no, actually, I
don’t.”

RJ returned to the book. “Dartagnan now.
Aha! The land of two cubed spheres. Two to the third power. Two
cubed.”

“Eight.” Karl bobbed his head in
comprehension, then finished his spoon’s journey to his mouth. “And
spheres, of course…”

“8-ball world. Yes, indeed, very clever,
that.” He turned the page. “Dartagnan mentions me by name, not just
by title. ‘RJ Sublime will, it seems, call 8-ball world his home,’
blah blah blah, already heard that, thank you. Oh, lovely. I can,
it seems, ‘master the phenomena, and claim the realm, but…’ oh,
dread. I must make a great sacrifice to do so. ‘Reduces himself
from love,’ again.”