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– Chapter 20 –
Mervyn struggled to his feet and hopped around the court unable to put weight on his shattered knee. The pain served to clear the confusion from his head. Winded, with smashed ribs, and a shattered knee -- there was no way he could survive much longer. All it would take was one more slip and Keno would run him through with the stanza. He wondered what it would feel like or maybe he would be dead before he felt anything -- he hoped so. Mervyn knew he was staring death in the face, but he felt calmer than he expected. If he was going to go, he would do it with dignity and honour, and if Keno thought he had an easy win he was mistaken. I’m a human, Keno, and humans don’t die easily. He needed a miracle.
‘Strike rings, please.’ Mervyn jumped for the strike ring, but his hand closed on thin air and he fell back to the floor. He cried out as his bad knee crumpled all over again.
‘Manic Marvin’s struggling to reach the ring -- his injuries are really hampering him now.’ On the third attempt Mervyn found the ring with one hand. Keno stood shaking his head as if to clear it before jumping to his own ring.
‘Ready...’
With an effort Mervyn lifted his other hand to the ring and hung there waiting for the strike. So great was the pain in his chest he was forced to breathe in short sharp gasps. Keno squinted as his opponent.
‘Strike!’ With a great effort Mervyn heaved himself aloft. Pain lanced through his chest as the cracked ribs rubbed against each other.
‘Manic Marvin swings high, but Killer Keno’s on his case, if somewhat slowly. Both contestants are tiring now.’
Mervyn tried to stay aloft, but with a shattered knee and at least one broken rib he just did not have the strength to keep pushing off the sides. He came down for another big leap, but he miss-timed it and landed on his bad leg. He gasped as pain shot up his thigh and his knee failed him. He collapsed to the floor in a heap. Keno moved in with his stanza.
Above him, through the top of the swat pool, Mervyn could see the carousel, on the other side of Revlon, spinning merrily. In his mind, as Keno raised the glittering stanza above his head, Mervyn could hear the stupid tinny music as it turned. If he just lay where he was it would all be over.
Distantly, through the noise of the crowd baying for his blood, he thought he heard Loren’s voice. ‘Move Mervyn. Move -- please.’ Probably just his imagination. He hoped the other Misfits would not see his last moments. He felt nothing but loathing for this mob who wanted his death. Anger at the crowed replaced the numbness, and he move, crawling away from the point of the stanza with as much energy as his shattered body could muster.
‘Manic Marvin better move quicker or he’ll join Rizza the Rat in the next world.’ Keno raised his stanza ready to plunge it into Mervyn’s heaving chest.
‘Marvin’s still trying to crawl away -- it’s no use that leg just won’t support him.’ The crowd howled their approval.
‘This is it -- the Killer’s going for the chop. He savours the moment of victory, and here it comes... Come on, Killer, put him out of his misery...’ In disbelief the crowd watched Keno’s stanza fall from the champion’s grip and clatter to the ground. Keno’s knees buckled beneath him, and slowly, like a felled tree, the giant Rinhus keeled over and lay twitching on the floor of the swot pool. The crowd fell silent.
Mervyn had no idea what had happened. He turned at the sound of something heavy falling beside him, and was startled to see Killer Keno, purple tongue flopping out of his mouth, collapsed lifeless beside him. Was this some cruel trick? Something to extend the agony of death? Or was he already dead and his mind, unable to accept the reality of death, was conjuring up a miracle of its own?
A single shriek broke the silence, ‘Yes!’ In the back of Mervyn’s dazed mind he recognised Aurora’s voice. As if she had uncorked a bottle, the crowd exploded.
‘Keno’s poisoned himself. Keno’s poisoned himself,’ Loren shouted ecstatically. ‘Mervyn’s won!’ Tarun grabbed both girls and hugged them in relief.
Loren wanted to just sit and absorb the facts, but Aurora had other plans, ‘Come on, let’s go and congratulate him,’ she fought herself free of the crowd and led the scramble to get out. Loren followed in her wake still reeling from the climax of the tournament.
‘I’ll meet you there...,’ Tarun shouted heading in the opposite direction. ‘I’ll explain later.’
Round the side of the pool a nondescript door with an old-fashioned doorknob bore a sign announcing, ‘Manager’s office -- Contestants apply within’. At the threshold Loren held up a hand to stop Aurora. They could hear raised voices from within.
‘Where’s the rest?’ Mervyn’s muffled voice shouted. ‘There should be five-hundred here.’
‘That’s your one per cent of seat takings, less fifty for the damaged suit. No win, no prize money,’ a high-pitched voice explained firmly. Aurora crowded against the door to hear better.
‘That’s not fair,’ Mervyn shouted. ‘I did win, I beat him on points.’
‘Look, it’s all ‘ere in the contract: no prize money for a draw, and death by natural causes equals a draw.’
The pressure of two people crammed against the door proved too much for the frail lock. Without warning it burst inwards. For a moment the scene froze: Mervyn, battered and bruised, mouth agape at their entrance, a squat rodent in a bowler-hat standing behind a piled desk waving a sheaf of papers, Aurora staggering to catch her balance, the smell of sweat and old socks. The rodent’s hand snaking towards the desk caught her eye: danger.
Aurora regained her balance, ‘Death by natural causes, was it? More like killed by the poison from his own stanza,’ Aurora pointed accusingly at the rodent, presumably the manager, and waded in further. ‘Anything on the use of poisons in that useless contract of yours?’
The manager’s hand emerged holding a blaster, ‘You can’t prove it, so beat it.’ Loren’s heart dropped as Mervyn set his jaw in what she knew meant stubborn determination.
‘I’m not leaving here without my winnings,’ he said, his face contorted in fury. ‘Shoot me if you want, but that will only put you out of business,’ he spread his hands to show an imaginary headline. ‘Swot winner murdered by swingeing paymaster -- think you can survive that?’
The rodent recoiled form Mervyn’s fury and grinned toothily, ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t touch you Marvin, but your friends here have broken down my door and are trying to rob me.’ He pointed the blaster at Aurora’s head. For once Loren’s brain failed to find a solution: flight meant staying on Revlon tonight, to press on risked an unnecessary death. Her Ethrigan instincts screamed for her to negotiate, but anything less than the full five-hundred would leave them out-of-pocket. What would Mervyn do? Throw himself at the manager probably in the hope he could disarm him. She readied herself to jump.
A scuffle of feet at the door turned everyone’s head. Tarun, hands above his head, stood in the doorway, ‘It’s ok, we’re leaving. This isn’t worth dying for guys. We’re all going to back out slowly and leave you in peace,’ he said, ‘we don’t need your money that badly anyway.’ The rodent nodded agreement, and step by step Loren backed out with the others.
Mervyn cleared the door last, ‘And the name’s Mervyn,’ he shouted, then turned, and limped away. Tarun tried to help, but Mervyn shrugged him off.
‘We need to get you to an automed, Merv,’ Tarun said.
Mervyn shook his head and turned on his friend, he was shaking uncontrollably, ‘Tarun, I nearly died in there. If you think I did that for just fifty credits you must be joking.’
‘But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,’ Tarun said. ‘We can afford it -- we can do the automed, leave Revlon tonight, and even take our sleds with us -- we’ve got loads of money.
Loren looked at her friend suspiciously, ‘What were you doing while we watched swot, Tarun?’
Tarun beamed, ‘I gambled on
Mervyn’s victory.’
‘With what?’
‘Our sleds. The odds were pretty good at the beginning.’
Loren watched as Mervyn, wincing with pain, turned on Tarun again, ‘You gambled our sleds? What were you thinking? What if I’d failed? Cage would kill you if you’d lost his sleds.’
Tarun shrugged, ‘ We’re all dead if the Naga catches us again, besides, do you seriously think any of us would have survived the scandal of losing a student?’
For once Loren could see the logic in Tarun’s argument, ‘He’s right, Merv, there was nothing to lose, and everything to gain.’ Mervyn shook his head as if still confused.
‘Right then,’ Aurora said taking charge. ‘I’ll contact Valna and arrange our escape. You two get Marvin to the automed.’
Loren and Tarun grabbed Mervyn’s arms as he lunged unsteadily at Aurora. Together, they marched him away from a protesting Aurora.
‘I called you Mervyn. Honest. I said Mervyn.’