King\'s Table

The light danced shades of warm and cold on the walls as the lamp swayed slightly in a gust of wind from the open door. The room was cool, damp and anonymous. Hidden far underground. The walls monotonous. He saw the flickering red dots; aware of the recording. In the center of the room stood a round table. Four chairs, four fellow sufferers. They all lived on the promise of profit; of redemption; of ideas of lives unknown to them, carefree days. Until then, they were there, balancing on the hyphen between beginning and end. His hands were clammy. The wet sweat of fear between his fingers, drops big as pearls rolling over the taut skin of his ribs. His legs on autopilot. The four helmets guided them with their leather hands planted stiffly on their shoulders, they moved him and the others to their chairs and disappeared silently into the darkened corners of the room. Shrouded in shadow. Only visible the fleeting glimmers of reflected light on the visors. He did not dare to look and kept his gaze on the table in front. He had already seen his name. Engraved in the iron box which lay before him.

“J.E. Cabos”

The others also held their hands underneath the table. Cabos” hands were clenched tightly on his knees. Only when he noticed the absence of the other hands did he notice the tension in his fingers. He let go of his knees and immediately felt the soreness. He smiled briefly. The strangeness of the situation had suddenly dawned on him. He knew he could no longer change anything. It was not a day for backtracking, he could only go forward.

Involuntarily he tapped his thumb and middle finger together, a remnant of army times, each tap one hour, twenty-four taps in a day, one hundred and sixty-eight taps make a week.

“Remember as you write, start at the beginning, and you won”t forget anything,” his Commander once said.

Tap, tap, tap. Thirty-two.

He envisioned the man. Monday to Tuesday night. Be precise, he reminded himself. You want to know this if you get out of here. A little after four. You were in the bar that night. Why was it a little after four? How do you know? The man? Did he ask for the time? Yes? Yes! That was it. Go on. Back to the man. What felt right—what didn”t? Something about the time again? Did he not have a watch himself? He did—didn”t he? Why ask for the time then? A conversation starter, so he knew me. Yes. Stupid! You could have thought of this way sooner! Too easy to get carried away like – DON”T DO IT!

The man opposite of Cabos suddenly rose from his chair, but long before he stood straight the ice-cold click of the cocked hammer echoed through the room. Cabos instinctively turned away, waiting for the bang and the smell of gunpowder. The smell of iron and burning tissue and the dull thud as the body hit the ground. Yet, none of these things happened. Time crawled by anonymously. The chair creaked again. Cabos turned his head and saw the man had taken his seat again. The engraved box which had been in front of the man had disappeared. Minutes passed. Sounds in the dark corner behind the man. His guard returned his box. When he placed the iron on the table the contents rattled, ting-ting, two of them.

Cabos felt the temptation to touch his own box but the fear of doubling the possible singular contents held him back.

Tap, tap, thirty-four.

Out of the bar and into the streets. He could smell the strange air, this city was not his, these were not his streets. A car stopped in front of them. French plates, thirteen. Marseille. How far could I go in an hour, at that hour? Into the mountains? It was possible.

The door opened. A dark silhouette floated between quay and ship. Water and the quay of light and the ghostly middle road where the shadow reigned. The person turned, and the door closed before the light could reveal the mystery and the room returned to its heliocentric state.

Another hour passed. The door opened again, faster this time. An older man dressed in a light beige suit appeared. Cabos heard him whispering in French to one of the guards. Then he revealed himself in the rim of light. He was balding. The little hair he had left was thin and sun-bleached so white it looked as if there was a layer of fog floating on his head. He began in English.

“Dear Sirs and Madam,” his voice was serene, “today we are playing a King”s Table. That is to say; we will not concern ourselves with the possibility of other cards, the King as autocrat, so to speak.” He smiled briefly, his too-white teeth flashing. “In the game there are six aces, six kings, six queens and two jokers. I assume you are familiar with the rules?”

The man to Cabos”s right raised his trembling hand.

“Mr. Borges?”

“I- I don”t…”

“You do not what?”

“I don”t know the rules…” he admitted.

The man smiled, his fearsome white teeth showing again. There was no trace of pity in that smile. He clicked his tongue before he started talking again, “the rules are simple Mr. Borges, there are twenty cards in the deck and four players. The pot is divided and then the person to the left of the dealer starts the game. All cards are kings according to the players, according to the King”s Table, in fact, only the kings and jokers are playable. If someone is caught lying, then there is a penalty,” he nodded briefly at the box in front of Borges, “is that clear?”

Borges nodded, but it was clear to everyone in the room that it was not.

Perhaps it was out of respect for the players, perhaps out of respect for himself, but the game leader fanned out the deck to prove that all the promised cards were actually in the deck. He then gestured for all the players to open their boxes. Cabos” courage sank, he had long since figured out what was in the box, but when he saw the gold-shining casing he knew what kind of game was about to be played. The bullet tapped happily against the edges, around him, he heard the sound of the others, and he thought of the man opposite him who had already disadvantaged himself before the game had even started. Suddenly, he saw the guards started to move. They left their dark corners and joined up right behind the players. He heard the heavy breathing of his fallen angel. With four synchronized claps, the revolvers were laid on the table. Cabos swallowed hard. Six-cylinder magazine, once loaded, the chance is one in six.

“Lock and load, my friends,” smiled the suit.

Cabos obeyed. He picked up the revolver and shook out the round magazine, he fished the bullet out of the box and was about to load the magazine when he stopped for a moment. For a split second, the thought crossed his mind to fire his way out of this predicament, but he knew it would be in vain, he knew the helmet behind him was trained, and he knew he was no longer fast enough. The bullet slid in silently. Cabos grabbed the magazine and turned it as hard as he could, closing his eyes.

One, two, three, he counted in his head. On three, he flicked his wrist to the right and heard the magazine slide into place. It was out of his hands now, only the gods could decide his fate, and he had lost touch with them years ago. He placed the weapon beside him, where the helmet picked it up and placed it against the back of his head. Around him, the same scene was repeated.

The game master merely smiled. Cabos followed his gaze to the corners where the red lights were blinking. He tried to imagine the people watching these images. Would they be aware of— of course they were— where else did the money come from? He moved instinctively like the fish on the hook, and now he swam panicked against the edges of the bucket, waiting for the liberation of powers higher than himself.

“Is everyone ready?” the game leader asked nonchalantly, as if some objection could change anything about the situation.

The companions nodded. The cards were shuffled. Everyone was given five cards face down in front of them. The game leader repeated again that a King”s Table was being played. Cabos waited patiently for the signal that he could look at his cards. A short nod. The man called Borges tried so hastily to grab his cards he accidentally turned a few over.

Two aces, Cabos noted to himself.

“Lord Beltran,” the game leader spoke kindly to the man who had stood up before the game began, “since you start in a disadvantaged position you may start the game.”

Beltran nodded briefly, all the fear seemed to have been loaded with the two bullets in the gun and was now behind his head. He studied his cards carefully before placing two of them face down on the table and saying, “Two kings.”

The woman was next. Her hands were shaking. She looked from her own cards to those on the table. The blue checked cardboard stared at her without emotion. For a moment, her fingers lingered on the two rightmost cards in her hand, then they suddenly slid to the two leftmost cards and repeated – albeit stutteringly – Beltran”s words.

Cabos looked at his own cards again. Three kings, one Joker and one Queen, there was no way he could lose this round. Yet something was gnawing at him. Borges”s nerves had done him no good. He took his three kings and placed them face down on the pile, then turned his head and looked straight at Borges.

“Three kings.”

Borges began to shake even more violently. The metal against the back of his head seemed to press harder and harder. Mentally he was already dead. He looked at his cards, no kings, no jokers. He picked up a card at random, knowing his lie would not be believed. Suddenly, he slammed his hand down on the deck and shouted, “He”s lying!”

The game leader leaned over the table and turned over the cards one by one. “King, King…” he stopped and looked at Cabos” face and then Borges”s who stared back triumphantly, “Ace.”

Cabos looked at his hand and back at the table. His mind started to run wild; had he misread his cards? Was his calmness his undoing? How could he have been so stupid—?

The game leader clicked his tongue. All eyes shifted to him again. His left hand was pressed against his ear and the right carried the drawn pistol as it pointed straight at Borges, whose mouth fell open.

“Sir Borges, may I ask how many cards you currently have in your hand?” his voice was languid, the previous playfulness completely gone.

Cabos followed the gaze and looked at Borges”s hands that had planted themselves on the table, on top of his cards. The hammer clicked. Borges”s hands did not move. Cabos watched the smile slowly fade and fear reclaim its sovereign position. He watched the blood drain from the hands, and the shadow of the helmet move behind Borges. He watched all this happen, and yet he did not realize it until the explosion shot so deafeningly through the small room and Borges flew backward with his chair in a fountain of red and smoke and the idea of smells which had filled him with such fear earlier that evening were now loud and pungent in the air. The game leader bent over the table and counted the cards that had been left behind. With a slanted wink at Cabos, he gathered all the cards again and shuffled them again.

“The game remains much the same,” he began as the guard who watched over Borges began to drag the body away. He raised his voice to be heard above the commotion. “However, there are now five cards left,” he pointed to the hole to Cabos” right, “thanks to Mr. Borges.”

No one was listening. All the fellow sufferers were lost in thought. The cards were dealt expertly, and the remaining five were placed in the middle. The game leader nodded.

Cabos looked at his cards. Two kings. He tried to remain as cool as possible while considering the possibility of losing. One in six, he told himself.

“Mr. Cabos, as you were falsely accused of lying, you may begin.”

Cabos looked at his cards again. After him, it would be Beltran”s turn, with two bullets to the back of his head, Cabos considered it unlikely he would accuse him of a lie in the first round. He took his two aces and placed them face down on the table.

“Two kings.”

Beltran nodded and immediately followed Cabos with his own single King. It was the turn of the woman. She looked from her cards to the table and then to Cabos. There was an air of pity in her gaze Cabos could not place. Her thin fingers slid spidery along the cards. She picked up the outer two from the left.

“Two kings,” she muttered.

Cabos had no way of knowing whether she was lying. He still had two kings and one Queen in his hand. Cabos decided to play quietly, to wait and see, so to speak. He played one of his kings and watched Beltran”s reaction attentively, but he did not flinch and repeated his action from the first round. The turn passed to the woman, and Cabos looked at her tensely. She still had three cards in her hand.

“I- I-” she began, and she looked around the table desperately, both men averted their gaze from their watery eyes. “I have a child…”

No one looked. Even the game leader seemed momentarily distraught by the situation. She looked back at her cards. With a trembling lip, she placed all three cards on the table and turned to Cabos.

Then you shouldn”t have come here, he thought. He knew he couldn”t win the round if he let this move slide. Wasn”t it her fault she was here? Her fault she played this game! Why did he have to do it for her? His hands were calm. He knew what he had to do even though it hurt him. Cabos placed his cards face down on the table and put his hand on the pile in the middle. He heard her let out a muffled cry. He felt his own heart pounding in his throat and knew he was doing the right thing for himself, though it didn”t feel like it. The game leader just smiled. Cabos took his hands off the cards and closed his eyes. The voice came like a soft embrace.

“King,” the game leader began.

Cabos” eyes shot open again. He looked at the woman who was now staring back at him with a smug smile.

“King and King.”

Cabos tried to say something, but his throat was bone dry. Behind him, the hammer of the revolver was pulled back and cocked. The palpable moisture and the fragrant mustiness in his eyes. Shades warm, shades cold under the lamp but maybe it this was good, perhaps it this was better. The click of the safety mechanism hit like a bomb. One in six, he told himself for the last time.

About the Author

T. Scholtens is a Dutch writer based in Amsterdam. He mostly writes weird and speculative fiction.