Ian McDonald - Desolation Road

His name was Trick-Shot O’Rourke. He had diamond fillings in his teeth and a gold inlad cue. His suit was of the finest organza silk and his shoes of Christadelphia leather. He called himself many grand things: “The Champion of the World,” “Sultan of Snooker,” “Master of the Green Baize,” “The Greatest Snooker Player the Universe Has Ever Known,” but he was a fading star and everyone knew it, for a man who was all those things he claimed to be would not be playing for ten-dollar jackpots in the snooker room of the Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel. Yet even at its dimmest, his star was brighter than any of the other cuemen in Desolation Road and he had amassed a considerable pile of bills by the time he asked for any more challengers.

“I know one,” said Persis Tatterdemalion, “if he isn’t in bed yet. Anyone seen Limaal?”

A patch of darkness detached itself from the darkest table in the darkest corner and coiled toward the snooker table. Trick-Shot O’Rourke regarded his opponent. He guessed his age to be between nine and ten, that indefinable and painful age between boyhood and manhood. Young, confident; look at the way he folds his cue chalk back into his vest pocket. Which will he be: gritty grinder or master tactician, prince of potters or king of psywar?

“How much down?” he asked.

“How much do you want?”

“The whole wad?”

“I think we could match that.” There were nods of consent from the faces at the bar. They seemed to be grinning. A pile of ten-dollar bills built up on the counter.

“Toss for break?”

“Heads.”

“Tails. I break.” Where did a nine-year-old man-boy learn such selfassuredness? Trick-Shot O’Rourke watched his opponent bend to the cue.

—He is like a snake, thought the hustler, lithe and elegant. But I think I can beat him.

And he played with all his might and spun the thread of his skill so fine that it seemed it must snap, but the thin, hollow-eyed boy must have drawn power from the darkness, for each shot he played was as carefully composed and executed as the one before. He played with a deadly consistency that wore Trick-Shot O’Rourke away like a grindwheel. The old hustler played five frames against the boy. By the end of the fifth he was tired and stale but the boy was as fresh and accurate as when he had broken off in the first. He stood back in blatant admiration of the boy’s skill and when the final black gave the boy his three-two victory, the professional was the first to congratulate him.

“Son, you’ve got talent. Real talent. I don’t mind losing a hundred dollars to an opponent like you. It was a joy to behold. Let me do you one favour, though. Let me tell your fortune.”

“You tell fortunes?”

“By the table and the balls. Never seen it done before?” Trick Shot O’Rouke took a wide roll of black baize from his case and spread it across the table. The baize was divided into sections, each marked with arcane symbols and peculiar names in gold lettering: “Self Unseeing,” “Changes and Changing,” “Vastness,” “Behind him,” “Before him,” “Beyond him.” TrickShot O’Rourke formed up a triangle of multicoloured balls and placed the cue ball on a golden spot marked “To come.”

“Rules are simple. Just drive the cue ball at that pack. It’s all up to you what side, what spin, what angle, what speed, what swerve, what screw, and from the way you scatter them I can interpret your fortune.” The skinny boy picked up the cue and wiped it with a rag. “One word of advice. You play the rational game; you’ve probably got it all worked out where you want to put the balls. If you do that, it won’t work. You’ve got to switch off the mind and let the heart decide.”

The boy nodded. He sighted along the cue. A sudden crackle of dark energy made everyone shudder and the cue ball burst the pack of coloured balls apart. For a second or so the table was a quantum nightmare of ricocheting spheres. Then all was rest again. Trick-Shot O’Rourke hummed and hawed around the table.

“Interesting. Never seen one like that before. Look, see. The tangerine ball, journey, is resting in Golden Trove, next to the Crimson Heart ball, which lies equally in Golden Trove and God’s Mansion. You’ll leave here, soon, if the Fleetingness ball is anything to go by; also someone to love who you will find in this place of fame and fortune, but will not be of it. But this is the best bit. See that turquoise ball, Ambition; it’s resting right on the cushion in Strife next to the grey Darkness ball. I would interpret this to mean that you’re going to come into conflict with a mighty force of darkness-possibly even the Destroyer himself.”

It was all-of-a-sudden cold in the Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel. Limaal Mandella smiled and asked, “Do I win?”

“Your ball’s next to the cushion. You win. But look, see there, the white ball, the Love ball, hasn’t moved from the break-off point. And the Answers ball, the lime green one, lies in Great Circle while the purple Questions lies in Changes and Changing. You leave here to seek answers to your questions, they will be found only when you return home where your heart is.”

“My heart? In this place?” Limaal Mandella’s laugh was ugly, too old for a boy of nine.

“That’s what the balls say.”

“And do the balls say when Limaal Mandella must die, old man?”

“Look at the black Death ball. See how it lies next to Hope on the line between Word and Darkness. You will fight your greatest battle where your heart is and in losing it you lose everything.”

Limaal Mandella laughed again. He clutched his heart.

“My heart, old man, is in my chest. That is the only place my heart is. In me.”

“That is a true saying.”

Limaal Mandella rolled the black Death ball with the tip of his forefinger.

“Well, we must all die and none of us can choose the time or the place or the way of it. Thank you for the fortune-telling, Mr. O’Rourke, but I want to make my own future out of the balls. Snooker’s a game for rationalists, not mystics. Say, isn’t that deep thinking for a nine-year-old? But you played well, mister, you played the best. Time this nine-year-old was in bed, though.”

He left and Trick-Shot O’Rourke gathered up his magic balls and fortune-telling cloth.

After that night Limaal Mandella became convinced of his greatness. Though his rationalism would not allow him the generous oracle of the balls, his heart had seen his name written large in the stars and he began to play not for love or money but for power. His greatness was buttressed every time he smashed some visiting geologist, geophysicist, botanist, plant pathologist, soil engineer or meteorologist. The stake money was meaningless, he used it to buy drinks for the house. The name of Limaal Mandella passed up and down the line, together with the legend of the boy from Desolation Road who was unbeatable as long as he remained in his hometown. There was no shortage of young headhunters eager to disprove the legend: their defeat only reinforced it the more. Like the tumbling planets of his childhood nightmares, the rolling balls crushed all Limaal Mandella’s opponents.

Sometime in the early morning of his tenth birthday, his coming of age, when the covers had been pulled over another victory on the baize and the chairs upturned on the tables, Limaal Mandella went to Persis Tatterdemalion.

“I want more,” he said as she washed glasses. “There has to be more, there has to be somewhere outside of here where the lights are bright and the music’s loud and the world doesn’t close down at three minutes of three. And I want it. God, I want it more than anything. I want to see that world, I want to show it how good I am. There are folks out there, up there, who knock worlds around like snooker balls, I want to take them on, I want to match my skill against theirs, I want out of here.”