He listened carefully—and a smile lit his face. Why, it was coming from the table in front of him! Someone or something was inside the table, gently rapping. What a splendid disguise for the masquerade. Lake tapped back. Whatever was inside the table tapped back twice. Lake tapped twice, answered by three taps. Lake tapped thrice.
A frenzied rapping and smashing erupted from the table. Lake sucked in his breath and pulled his fist back abruptly. A frisson of dread traveled up his spine. It had just occurred to him that the playful game might not be a playful game after all. The black table, on which he had laid his invitation, was not actually a table but an unadorned coffin from which someone desperately wanted to get out!
Lake rose with an “Uh!” of horror—and at that moment, the Stork returned, accompanied by two other men.
The Stork’s companions were both of considerable weight and height, and from a certain weakness underlying the ponderous nature of their movements, which he remembered from his days of sketching models, Lake realized both were of advancing years. Both wore dark suits identical to that worn by the Stork, but the resemblance ended there. The larger of the two men—not fat but merely broad—wore a resplendent raven’s head over his own, the glossy black feathers plucked from a real raven (there was no mistaking the distinctive sheen). The eyes shone sharp and hard and heavy. The beak, made of a silvery metal, caught the subdued light and glimmered like a distant reflection in a pool of still water.
The third man wore a mask that replicated both the doorknocker and the seal on Lake’s invitation: the owl, brown-gold feathers once again genuine, the curved beak a dull gray, the human eyes peering out from the shadow of the fabricated orbits. Unfortunately, the Owl’s extreme girth extended to his neck and the owl mask was a tight fit, covering his chins, but constricting the flesh around the neck into a jowly collar. This last detail made him hideous beyond belief, for it looked as if he had been denuded of feathers, revealing the plucked skin beneath.
The three stood opposite Lake across the coffin—the top of which had begun to shudder upward as whatever was inside smashed itself against the lid.
“What … what is in there?” Lake asked. “Is this part of the masquerade? Is this a joke? Did Merrimount send you?”
The Owl said, “A very nice disguise,” and still staring at Lake, rapped his fist so hard against the coffin lid that black paint rubbed off on his white glove. The thrashing inside the coffin subsided. “A good disguise for this masquerade. The frog, who is equally at home on land as in the water.” The Owl’s voice, like that of the Stork, came out distorted, as if the man had stuffed cotton or pebbles in his mouth.
“What,” Lake said again, pointing a tremulous finger at the coffin, “is in there?”
The Owl laughed—a horrid coughing sound. “Our other guest will be released shortly, but first we must discuss your commission.”
“My commission?” A thought flashed across his mind like heat lightning, leaving no impression behind: Raffe was right. I am to paint their sex games for them.
“It is an unusual commission and before I give you the details, you must resign yourself to it with all your heart. You have no choice. Now that you are here, you are our instrument.”
Raffe had never suggested that he must become part of the pornography, and he rebelled against the notion: this was too far to take a commission, even for all the money in the world.
“Sirs,” Lake said, standing, “I think there has been a misunderstanding. I am a painter and a painter only—”
“A painter,” the Owl echoed, as if it were an irrelevant detail.
“—and I am going to leave now. Please forgive me. I mean no offense.”
He began to sidle out from behind the coffin, but stopped when the Raven blocked his path, a long gutting knife held in one gloved hand. It shone like the twin to the Raven’s beak. The sight of it paralyzed Lake. Slowly, he sidled back to the middle of the couch, the coffin between him and these predators. His hands shook. The frog mask was awash in sweat.
“What do you want?” Lake said, guarding unsuccessfully against the quaver in his voice.
The Owl rubbed his hands together and cocked his head to regard Lake with one steel-gray eye. “Simply put, your commission shall be its own reward. We shall not pay you, unless you consider allowing you to live payment. Once you have left this house, your life will be as before, except that you shall be a hero: the anonymous citizen of the city who righted a grievous wrong.”
“What do you want?” Lake asked again, more terror-stricken than before.
“A murder,” croaked the Raven.
“An execution,” corrected the Stork.
“A beheading,” specified the Owl.
“A murder?” Lake shouted. “A murder! Are you mad?”
The Owl ruffled its feathers, said, “Let me tell you what your response will be, and then perhaps you can move past it to your destiny all the quicker. First, you will moan. You will shriek. You will even try to escape. You will say ‘No!’ emphatically even after we subdue you. We will threaten you. You will weaken. Then you will say ‘No’ again, but this time we will be able to tell from the questioning tone of your voice that you are closer to the reality, closer to the deed. And then the cycle will repeat itself. And then, finally, whether it takes an hour or a week, you will find yourself carrying out your task, because even the most wretched dog wants to feel the sun on its face one more day.
“It would save us all some time if you just accepted the situation without all the attendant fuss.”
“I will not.”
“Open the coffin.”
“No!”
Lake, his leg encumbering him, leapt over the coffin table. He made it as far as the bust of Trillian before the Stork and the Raven knocked him to the floor. He twisted and kicked in their grasp, but his leg was as supple as a wooden club and they were much too strong. They wrestled him back to the coffin. The Stork held him facedown on the couch, the frog mask cutting so painfully into his mouth that he could hardly draw breath. The Raven yanked his head up and held the knife to his throat. In such a position, his eyeholes askew, he could see only the interior of the mask and a portion of the maroon-gold leaf ceiling.
From somewhere above him, the Owl said, with almost sensual sloth, “Accept the commission, my dear frog, or we shall kill you and choose another citizen.”
The Stork, sitting on Lake, jabbed his kidneys, then punched in the same spot—hard. Lake grunted with pain. The Raven bent Lake’s left arm back behind him until it felt as if his bones would break.
He shrieked. Suddenly, they were both off of him. He flipped over on his back, adjusted his mask, and looked up—to find all three men staring down at him.
“What is your answer?” the Owl asked. “We must have your answer now.”
Lake groaned and rolled over onto his side.
“Answer!”
What did a word mean? Did a single word really mean … anything? Could it exile whole worlds of action, of possibility?
“Yes,” he said, and the word sounded like a death rattle in his throat.
“Good,” said the Owl. “Now open the coffin.”
They moved back so that he would have enough space. He sat up on the couch, his leg throbbing. He grappled with the locks on the side of the coffin, determined to speed up the nightmare, that it might end all the more swiftly.