The William P. McGivern Fantasy MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Fantasy Stories from the Pulps

When Destiny Dealt

First published in Fantastic Adventures, September 1942.

On the lane leading to the main entrance of Morris Bros. Mammoth Circus there was a small tattered tent in front of which crouched an incredibly aged, wrinkled and dirty crone.

Marie Carillo noticed the tent and the woman as she was returning from her afternoon walk. She stopped and turned to the sullen, powerfully built young man who was walking beside her.

“Look, Manrico,” she said, a note of surprise in her voice, “this tent and the old hag were not here when we walked by an hour ago. She is not part of the circus, is she?”

The young man glanced at the tent without curiosity. His brown face was impassive, but when he looked back to the girl at his side his flashing eyes betrayed his inner longing.

“What does it matter?” he murmured. “When we have only an hour a day together must we waste it in idle speculation?”

The girl glanced about nervously. “Such talk is dangerous, Manrico. Supposing someone should hear you? My husband, perhaps.”

“Your husband is a fool.” Manrico spoke passionately. “He doesn’t know the meaning of love. When I have you I will show you how a man should love a woman.”

“Please,” Marie Carillo said breathlessly. “You mustn’t speak of such things. My husband will never let me go. I am afraid, even now, that he is becoming suspicious of us. If he does he will discharge you from our act.” Manrico laughed contemptuously. “The Laughing Carillos would be finished then,” he sneered. “Where could he find another trapeze artist to work with him? I stay only to be near you, my sweet.”

The couple had paused before the small tent which had provoked their discussion and the wrinkled old crone was regarding them with steady, unwinking brown eyes.

They were an attractive pair, she as slim and graceful as he was powerful and large, and the old woman nodded her head slowly as she appraised them. Years of work on high trapezes had given their bodies a fluidity and grace that was evident in their every action. He wore a white silk shirt, open at the throat, and the perfect muscles of his torso rippled under the light covering each time he moved his arms. The girl wore a mannish coat over her slim square shoulders, and except for the darkness of her coloring she might have been another Diana, tall, proudly straight and superbly beautiful.

The old crone drew a deck of cards from her dirty red and white wrapper and grinned toothlessly at the couple standing before her tent.

“Your destiny is in the cards,” she mumbled. “Death, love, hate and birth all reveal their secrets in the pattern of the cards.”

Manrico looked down at the woman in irritation.

“Shut up, you old hag,” he snapped.

“Please, Manrico, let us have our fortunes told by the old woman,” Marie said. She smiled at him coaxingly. “Please, it would make me happy.”

“All right,” Manrico sighed. He turned to the old woman, who had scrambled to her feet at Marie’s words.

“The Senora wishes her fortune told,” he said. “We do not have much time.”

The ancient seer grinned in acquiescence. With a clumsy parody of a bow she proceeded them into the small hot tent. She seated herself behind a table in the center of the tent and motioned them to take seats on the opposite side.

“This is a great deal of foolishness,” Manrico said.

Marie gripped his arm suddenly. She pointed to the cards the woman was spreading over the table.

“Look,” she whispered. “The backs of the cards—”

“What is so remarkable?”

“The clown faces on the backs of the cards,” Marie said, a little breathlessly. “Some of the faces are laughing, some are crying—”

The old crone looked up at Marie.

“That is life. Some cry, some laugh,” she said.

“But—”

“My sweet,” Manrico said irritably, “you are amazed at the clowns. Why? Because we wear clown suits during our performance?”

“Yes. That is why. It seems — somehow peculiar. As if these cards were really made for us.”

“Nonsense,” Manrico said. “They are an ordinary deck of cards. You could buy a thousand packs like them within fifty feet of this tent.”

The old crone smiled at his words and shook her head, almost sadly. She drew a card from the deck and shoved it toward the girl.

Marie studied the card and a flush of excitement stained her cheeks. The picture on the back of the card was that of a beautiful girl, head thrown back, hair streaming. And there was a small heart-shaped beauty mark under her left eye.

“Manrico,” she whispered tensely. “This girl on the picture — it is me!” Her hand strayed automatically to her cheeks and her fingers wonderingly touched the small, heart-shaped birth mark under her own left eye.

Manrico stared at the card for a long moment and then he glanced at Marie. There was a worried look in his eye and a dark frown clouded his features.

“It is some trick,” he growled uneasily. He turned angrily to the old crone. “Where did you get that picture?”

The old woman grinned toothlessly and shrugged her shapeless shoulders. She began a rapid shuffling of the cards, her dirty, claw-like fingers moving with flashing dexterity.

Marie watched the cards anxiously and there was a strange excitement in her eyes.

“I feel so strange,” she whispered to Manrico. “Something inside me seems to be crying out a warning.”

The woman dealt the cards rapidly into three piles, faces up. Then she assembled them into a geometric pattern on the table, mumbling strange, unintelligible words to herself as she did so.

When all the cards were arranged the woman stared at them for a long minute and then shook her head worriedly and scooped them up in her gnarled old hands.

“No, no,” she muttered. “It cannot be.”

“What’s the matter?” Marie demanded.

The woman didn’t answer. She shook her head from side to side and began redistributing them again. When she had completed the pattern the second time she looked from Manrico to Marie and there was a fearful doubt in her eyes.

“It is the same,” she said, in a voice that was little more than a croak. “There can be no mistake. The cards of destiny do not lie. There is blackness ahead.”

“What does that mean?” Marie asked.

The crone swayed from side to side and her voice was barely a croon as she muttered, “Death, death.”

Manrico stood up angrily.

“Are you trying to frighten the Señora?” he cried.

“Señora?” the old woman repeated. A sharp bright light glinted in her shifting eyes. “You are married?” she demanded of Marie.

“Yes.”

“To him?” she indicated Manrico with a long bony finger.

Marie’s cheeks grew hot.

“No.”

“But you are lovers?”

Manrico took Marie’s arm. “Come,” he said. “This old fool talks too much.”

“No,” Marie said. “I want to hear what she has to say.”

“The cards indicate another man,” the crone said. “A tall fair man. For him, is the blackness.”

Marie drew a sharp breath. “Tony!” she whispered.

“He will die. His time is soon. The blackness is near.”

Marie shivered, although the tent was uncomfortably warm.

“I–I think we must go,” she whispered to Manrico.

But Manrico’s cheeks were now flushed with excitement.

“Not yet,” he said sharply. “This was your idea. Now we will hear her out. What else is there in the cards, mother?”

Again there was doubt visible on the old woman’s withered face.

“It is not all clear,” she murmured.

“What is there for the Senora and me?” Manrico persisted.

“Love.”

“And life?” Manrico demanded.

“It is not clear,” the old woman mumbled. She rocked from side to side and ruffled the cards with uncertain fingers.

Manrico mopped his damp brow, noticing as he did so, that his hands were trembling.

“Will — the other man die first?” he asked.

The old woman nodded emphatically.

Manrico sat down and a flood of relief surged through him. His hand found Marie’s and he pressed it tightly.

“And for us?” he asked again.

“Each other’s arms,” the crone replied. “Until death separates you.”

As the woman spoke she gathered the cards together and stood up. Manrico led Marie from the tent and then turned to pay the old woman, but she waved him away, almost angrily.

Manrico shrugged and put the money back in his pocket. As they walked toward the main gate of the circus they said little to each other. Manrico’s thoughts were boiling furiously and beneath his impassive exterior he was raging with repressed excitement.

When they passed the gate and entered the grounds of the circus he stopped and took Marie’s shoulders in his powerful hands.

“You heard what she said?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Marie answered, “I heard.”

“Then why must we wait any longer? He is going to die; that old witch said so. There is no reason to stay with him. You must tell him now that you are leaving him.”

His hands dug into the girl’s shoulders and his eyes blazed into hers with an almost hypnotic force.

“Maybe the old woman was lying,” Marie said desperately.

“She knew of Tony,” Manrico said harshly. “She knew of us. The card with your likeness is proof of her powers. Maybe she’s in league with the Black One, but I’d gamble my soul that she has told us the truth.”

“All right, Manrico,” Marie said, a little breathlessly. “I–I will go to him and tell him that I am leaving. But you must come with me. I cannot face him alone.”

“I will come with you,” Manrico said savagely. “He is in his tent now, preparing for our act tonight.”

He took the girl’s arm and strode toward a long line of performers’ tents, almost dragging the girl in his haste. At a tent with an insignia of three laughing clowns stitched to the main flap, he halted.

“He is inside,” he said. “There is no time to waste.”

“Manrico, I am afraid.”

“You fool!” Manrico burst out savagely.

He jerked aside the flap of the tent and shoved the girl forward.

“We have wasted enough time as it is. This thing must be done now or not at all.”

The girl stepped into the tent, her face white and strained. Manrico followed her.

At a littered dressing table in the tent, a tall, blond man was applying make-up. He looked around at Marie and Manrico.

“You’ve been gone quite a while,” he said. “We’re due for the Grand March in another hour, you know.”

“I know,” Marie said. She twisted her hands together anxiously and glanced up at Manrico in mute appeal, but she received no comfort from his stony, impassive face.

“There’s something I want to tell you, Tony,” she said.

Tony, her husband, turned back to his dressing table and inspected his lean face in the mirror. He had applied the white paint in an inch-wide streak about his mouth and it lent a ludicrous appearance to his pale, finely drawn face.

“We haven’t time to talk,” he said. “You can tell me later.”

He stood up from the table and straightened the blouse of the baggy clown suit he was wearing.

“No,” Marie said, “I can’t tell you later. You must listen now.”

Her husband turned and faced her and his eyes moved slowly from her to Manrico. There was a lurking fear in his eyes, now. The subconscious, instinctive fear of a man who has steeled himself for grief but who has a horrible dread of its arrival.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Manrico and I love each other,” Marie said quietly. “I intend to marry him. You must give me my freedom.” There was a complete and terrible silence in the room and her words seemed to echo endlessly, beating against the brains of the three people in the tent.

Her husband stared wildly at her and his eyes were black and hot against the whiteness of his face. He started to speak but no words passed his lips. His mouth twisted with his effort and the line of white grease paint spread and writhed in a pitifully comical fashion.

Manrico stood with his arms folded over his deep chest, his face expressionless.

“Well,” Marie said, a touch of irritation in her voice, “aren’t you going to say something?”

Her husband seemed not to hear the words. He sank slowly down on the stool before the dressing table, and his shapeless clown suit seemed to collapse about his shoulders. His features twisted as if he were in physical pain. He said slowly, “I love you, Marie.”

“If you do,” Marie said, “you must want me to be happy. And I love Manrico. I can’t be happy without him. You must let me go.”

“No,” he said. His voice was strained and harsh. “No.”

Marie smiled slightly. His pain and helplessness at the prospect of losing her increased her confidence and gave her a feeling of power.

She said, “You can’t keep me. I didn’t know the meaning of love when married you. I know now that I never loved you, not even for a day.” She was slightly shocked at hearing her own words, for she realized that she was saying things with the deliberate intention of hurting him.

He looked at her with haggard, pleading eyes.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Marie,” he said hoarsely.

“She knows perfectly well what she’s saying,” Manrico said coldly. “She is in love with me and I am in love with her. We have been, for over a year. And nothing is going to keep us apart.”

“I will not let you go,” Tony said dully. He seemed as a man in a trance. His powerful hands were twisted together until the knuckles gleamed whitely in the semi-darkness of the tent.

“I will not let you go,” he repeated.

Manrico’s face reddened in anger.

“This is not the twelfth century,” he said stormily. “Marie is not your slave.”

Tony did not seem to hear. His head was bowed and his face was as hard as carved wood.

“There’s no use talking,” Marie said, turning helplessly to Manrico.

Manrico put his arm around her waist and led her to the tent flap. He glanced back at Tony and saw that he was reaching blindly, automatically, for a bottle of whisky on the dressing table.

He smiled grimly and followed Marie from the tent. They walked a dozen yards in silence, and Manrico watched Marie closely, a speculative, musing smile on his lips.

Finally he said, “Well, where does this leave us?”

Marie shook her head impatiently.

“I don’t know. He’s in one of his moods. Nothing can ever change him now.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Manrico said cryptically.

“You don’t know him as I do,” Marie said. “His will is like iron. Oh, I don’t know what to think or do.”

Manrico glanced about to make sure there was no one within earshot. Satisfied, he turned to Marie and his smile was not pleasant.

“You are wrong when you say that nothing will change Tony,” he said. He looked steadily into the girl’s eyes and the grim smile on his face faded to a cruel determination. “Death will change him.”

“Manrico!” Marie gasped.

“Yes, death!” Manrico said softly. “While he lives he will always stand between us. He must die! Have you forgotten? His death was foretold in our cards. It makes no difference whether it occurs tonight or twenty years from now. That is destiny. Only to us does it make a difference. Whether we will be together in happiness or split apart forever by his selfishness depends on whether he lives or dies.”

“But it isn’t right,” Marie protested fearfully. “It would be mur—”

“Don’t say it, sweet,” Manrico said softly. “We will only be fulfilling the designs of destiny. Didn’t the cards promise us each other’s arms until death separated us? We cannot fulfil that fate until he is forever out of the way.”

“It’s dangerous. Something might—”

“There’s no element of danger in the plan I have figured out. Tonight there will be an accident during the act. A very unfortunate accident that will cost Tony Carillo his life. It will be as simple as falling off a high trapeze,” he added with grim humor.

“How can you be sure this ‘accident’ will take place?”

Manrico smiled faintly.

“Leave that to me. In our first act he leaves his trapeze, swings through the air and I catch him with a hand-lock, you remember?”

“Yes. In that exchange I catch his trapeze when he leaves it. But how does the ‘accident’ happen?”

“Simple. I do not catch Tony. I miss his hands by just a little bit. It is very unfortunate. Everyone is very sorry. But Tony is falling to the ground and it is too late to do anything about it.”

“Won’t someone suspect?”

“Not likely. As we left his tent I noticed that he was about to take a drink. He might take two or three. He is shocked, nervous. People will notice this and when he falls they will decide that he made the mistake of taking too much drink. If no one happens to notice that he has been drinking, we can remind them of it. The plan is flawless.”

Marie turned her face away and a tremor passed over her.

“I am afraid,” she whispered. “Are you sure this is the right thing we are doing?”

“It is the only thing we can do, my sweet,” Manrico assured her passionately. “Hurry, now, and dress. We have only a short time.”

An hour later, the vast main tent was completely filled with a festive crowd. Outside, the stars were visible as a billion pin-pricks of silver light against the mighty black canopy of the sky.

Manrico stood with Marie under the main archway, waiting to file into the center ring. Tony stood a little apart from them, silent and haggard. Not once did he so much as glance at them.

Manrico noticed with satisfaction the flushed face and burning, feverish eyes. Tony had been drinking.

Suddenly the band struck up the march which was their cue. Their appearance was greeted with cheers and laughter from the well-packed stands. Manrico smiled thinly beneath his paint. A clown suit might mean fun and comedy to the spectators but they didn’t realize how deceptive were the costumes and grease paint of the Laughing Carillos this night.

The master of ceremonies introduced them lavishly, and then they were ascending the ladders that led to the trapezes, high above the heads of the crowd, in the tip-top peak of the big top.

Tony and Marie ascended one side and Manrico went up alone. When he reached his platform he tested the trapeze carefully. He glanced down and saw that the net was being removed. That was part of the act. He smiled. Tony would have a nice straight drop — onto the hard-baked earth.

The drums of the band were rumbling a spine-tingling crescendo and the cries of the crowd had faded to a tense, excited murmur.

Manrico looked and saw that Marie had reached her platform which was a dozen feet above Tony’s. He waved to her and he could see her white smile.

Tony’s face was set in rigid lines, completely devoid of expression. Manrico experienced a grim pleasure from the thought of how that expressionless face would change and writhe when it started downward...

After a last check of the trapeze ropes, Manrico swung out into the air. Marie and Tony both stepped from their platforms and swung in sweeping arcs toward him — Marie a dozen feet above his head, Tony exactly parallel.

They swung back and forth gathering momentum while the band below built a pulse-quickening pillar of sound beneath them. Their first maneuver was actually their climax for it was the most spectacular in their repertoire.

Manrico caught Tony and Marie somersaulted to the trapeze vacated by Tony — that was the trick. It required perfect timing and precision.

Manrico smiled as he swung higher and higher. There was no danger for him in this maneuver. Ordinarily he caught Tony. Tonight, it was even simpler — for he wasn’t going to catch Tony.

Two more swings and then Tony would be sailing through the air, hands extended, grasping—

What would he think as he missed and plummeted downward?

There wouldn’t be time for thought, Manrico knew.

He fell backwards and hung by his knees as he completed the first swing. Above him he could see Marie arcing gracefully downward. Her long, slender body streamed through the air, a vibrant, beautiful poem of motion.

Manrico completed his second swing and his eyes flashed the cue to Marie and Tony. They both nodded imperceptibly and he knew that they were ready.

Tony swung forward to meet him, hanging by his hands. Manrico could see his face clearly. And he saw that Tony was smiling. Smiling exultantly, triumphantly, happily.

Manrico had no time for thought for at that same instant Tony’s hands released the trapeze bar — and with a flash of instinctive reckoning Manrico knew that Tony had released the bar a split second too soon, six feet before he should have!

And he was not flying toward Manrico’s outstretched hands as he should have been! He was falling swiftly and certainly to the hard-baked earth a hundred and fifty feet below. And the triumphant, exultant smile was radiant on his face as he dropped.

It happened too quickly for thought. But quicker than thought were Manrico’s instinctive reflexes. And even as Tony started to fall, his horrified eyes flashed up to Marie’s trapeze and a shout of warning clawed at his throat.

For Marie had left her trapeze and was dropping in a graceful, soaring arc to Tony’s trapeze — Tony’s trapeze which his deliberate fall had thrown six feet out of place.

The full import of Tony’s act crashed into Manrico’s brain with the speed of light. There was no time to think, less in which to act.

Marie was falling through the air — and Tony’s trapeze was swinging tantalizingly away from her clawing fingers.

With cat-like quickness Manrico grabbed his trapeze bar with one hand, slipped his knees from the bar and swung forward in a desperate lunge.

His free hand caught Marie about the waist as she hurtled by — and his other hand tore away from the trapeze with a savage wrench.

Marie’s shrill scream beat at his ears and her arms clutched about his waist as they fell.

The cards had not lied.

They were to have each other’s arms until death parted them.

And Manrico had been wrong about one thing. There was time to think on the way down.