Laura Anne Gilman - [Devil's West ss] - Gabriel's Road

by Gilman

  GABRIEL'S ROAD

  A NOVELLA OF THE DEVIL’S WEST

  LAURA ANNE GILMAN

  CONTENTS

  passim

  1

  2

  3

  4

  passim

  5

  6

  7

  8

  passim

  9

  10

  11

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Laura Anne Gilman

  About the Author

  About Book View Café

  Copyright © 2019 Laura Anne Gilman

  Cover Art: Alma Ortega

  Cover Design: Natania Barron

  Editor: Leah Cutter

  Copy Editor: Sarah Craft

  Production: April Steenburgh

  Print ISBN 978-1-61138-797-1

  eBook ISBN 978-1-61138-796-4

  for everyone who has ever thought “there’s nothing I can do” and did it anyway.

  No story begins at the beginning. Before there was wind there was water, and before water there was bone, and before bone there was magic, but magic does not exist without wind, water and bone.

  So too, every story begins before the start.

  1

  The Banks of the Mudwater, Then

  THE LAST CLEAR memory he had was a voice, worried, male. Not his. "This is madness. You'll die before you make it to the river."

  "If I don't make it, I'll die. You think this is what I want? This is everything I didn't want. It’s not giving me a choice." Then hands tossing clothing into a valise, latching it shut with fingers that trembled.

  His voice. His hands.

  After that, time disappeared, a cracked slate half-wiped clean, the remaining letters indecipherable. There was hazy recollection of retching over the side, knees sore on wood, his stomach heaving painfully, bile in his mouth and fever in his bones. Then the feel of water lapping at his arms and chest, and a bluish haze and blessed nothingness.

  Briefly he’d risen enough to grasp at the smell of sick and mud, and then he lost even that, sinking back again into the bluish haze where nothing hurt. Nothing tugged at him, dragging him back against his will.

  You'll die.

  You'll die.

  Awareness returned slowly, the faint curl of light over the mountains. But it remained dark where he was, a thick fog wrapped around him, muting sound and sensation. It bothered him, that lack of sensation, enough that he fought it, as though sheer force of will would push the fog from him.

  But nothing changed, and he fell back, finally, exhausted.

  You'll die.

  Had he died?

  Am I dead? The thought, oddly, did not disturb him.

  "Nah, stop that." An ancient voice, and he had conflicting thoughts of a wizened willow-stick, twisted and fragile, and a bar of iron, fresh-cooled from the forge.

  Elder. And, Medicine woman.

  "Stop that," the voice said again, and with her voice came other sounds, chanting in a language he did not know, the rise and fall of the words like the flow of tides, no possible end or beginning but a constant circle, turning in on themselves like….like... He knew what it was like but it would not come to him, the idea lingering in that blurred haze just beyond his reach.

  "Stop fighting so hard," the ancient voice told him, a gentle scold. "Let it come and let it go."

  Let what come, and let it go where? The question tickled at him, then faded. He thought there were hands on him, though he could not have said where his body was, or where it was being touched.

  "We've healing yet to do, and it won't be done with you interfering."

  He wasn't dead, then?

  The hands, real or not, were warm, so warm he had no choice but to follow them, to fall into the cup of them as the tides rolled over and misty shores closed in around him, and all he could hear was chanting, filling his ears and sliding into his bones.

  Heal, the voice said, inside the fog, under the waters, inside him, and his body had no choice but obey.

  THE FOG SEEMED thinner when he resurfaced. The chanting had paused, or stopped entire, and silence wrapped around him, a curious silence waiting for something to fill it.

  He tried to speak, but all that came out was a pained grunt. In the shadows around him there was the sound of cloth moving against cloth, something heavy shifting. Trying to see what it was, he realized his eyes were still closed. Opening them took effort, his lashes gummed together as though he'd slept too long after too much drink.

  At first the world was a pale pink blur, then something pressed on his... shoulder, yes, his shoulder, he could feel his body now, piece by piece, and a whisper came, instructing him to close his eyes once again.

  Obedient, he did so. Something soft and damp touched his eyelids, wiping slowly until the whisper instructed him to try once again.

  This time his lids opened easily, the pink blur resolving into the soft flicker of firelight. He breathed with the knowledge of firelight and eyes before turning his head—yes, he had a head, and a neck and chest and limbs, warmly wrapped in furs — to see who the soft voice belonged to.

  A young boy looked back at him, maybe nine but no more than eleven, whose wide black eyes made him think of... something, but he could not recall what, or who.

  "You are awake," the boy said, shaping the English words carefully, as though still uncertain of them. "I will fetch grandmother." And then he was gone, moving quickly but quietly. Without him, the space seemed to echo.

  His thinking was slower than his eyes, but the word came back to him: tent, he was in a tent, an almost-familiar branch-and-hide structure curving overhead.

  He was in a tent. And awake. Alive. Yes. The thought surprised him, but he didn't know why. He had been asleep. For... a long time, he thought. Had he been ill?

  "Ill and then some, Listens to Two Voices."

  That was... not his name. But he would not dare say that to the woman who now knelt beside him. He had not heard her arrive any more than he had heard the boy leave, and he thought vaguely that should worry him. Instead, he studied her. She was ancient, the boy's oak-hued skin replaced by the gnarls of willow, folded and creased until she looked as though she might shatter in a strong wind.

  Tent. Elder.

  He tried to remember how he had come to be here and could not. The last thing, the only thing he remembered was pain, urgency, and water.

  Water. He flinched, half-expecting to feel the sluice of water against his skin, dripping from wet hair and clothing. But the weight of a blanket over him was dry, his skin fire-parched, his scalp itchy from dirt.

  Instinct made him reach out, told him there was water nearby; a rushing stream, tumbling over rocks and pooling, full of fish. There was an odd feeling at knowing that, satisfaction mingled with sadness. In the States, that awareness had been muted, bearable. Ergo, he was no longer in the States, logic confirming what instinct had already told him.

  The States. Philadelphia.

  Gone now, beyond his reach.

  Dry lips cracked painfully, until he tasted blood on his tongue.

  "Grandmother," he said, testing the word out, and he would have winced at the raven's croak his voice had become, although he could not have sworn what it sounded like before. His fingers moved in tradespeak, restless against the weave of the blanket. "Where am I?"

  She placed a hard hand on his bare chest, fingers spread, and pressed down. "Home," she said. "You have come home, Two Voices. Now sleep, and heal."

  He had no home. He wanted to argue with her, to question, but with that hand on him, he had no choice
. He slept. And in the morning, he rose, and returned to life.

  But he did not heal. Not entirely.

  2

  The Territory, Now.

  IT WAS past dusk when the man realized that it was dusk, that day had come and gone and he had no idea what had become of it, or where it had even begun.

  Who, an owl called out overhead. His head turned, tracking its flight slowly, cautiously, as though he were one of the meadow-things it might hunt.

  "Who?" the bird asked again, and then responded, "you."

  "Me," the man said, but the word held no more meaning than the owl's cry, the word dry and empty on his tongue. He could recall no name, no sense of self to pin on his flesh.

  He looked down, seeing a flint striker in his hands, a small pile of kindling set within rocks in front of him. That was what he had been doing when the owl distracted him: making a fire. Yes.

  His body knew what actions to take, and yet it took too long for the fire to catch, his hands stiff and chilled, reluctant to bend or turn. The flint seemed equally reluctant to spark; the kindling branches gathered into a square reluctant to burn despite their crackling dryness.

  It was him, his fault. He was rain and river, creek and spring, and fire fled from him as though he might douse it.

  The thought surprised him, bitter and brackish-tasting. He looked down at his hands again, half-expecting them to flow blue-clear and liquid rather than bone and flesh. But he saw only skin under the rising moonlight, pale and rough. The nails were ragged but the beds below were clean, as though they'd never been dirtied or bloodied before.

  They had been. Often. Recently.

  Who? an echo of the owl asked, and he could not answer. He felt no alarm at the absence, merely accepted it as he accepted the flint in his hand and the kindling in front of him, and the owl and the moon overhead. He was. They were. Facts. You could not dismiss facts, only argue them into meaninglessness. Someone had told him that once, someone...

  Memory danced just out of reach. Let it go, a whisper told him.

  He let it go.

  He flexed the fingers holding the flint, watching the knucklebones shift. Water and bones. The words meant something, but he could not recall that, either. He flexed his fingers again, watched the skin draw tight, deep creases and needle-thick scars turned white by age.

  Behind him something heavy moved, and he stilled even as a sense deeper within him recognized it as not-a-threat, familiar, belonging.

  Horse. The warm shape moving behind him was a horse. His mind's eye described the gelding without having to look back, its square head and low haunch, along with the knowing that the horse was his, and that it would alert him if danger came from behind.

  The horse was his. He was not alone. That thought focused his hands enough to strike tinder properly, a tiny red spark dropping onto the kindling, and he cradled the infant flame until it spread, placing larger pieces of kindling in a pattern until they caught in turn, then carefully placing small branches around it, gauging the proper moment to place more over the flame until the fire leapt up, embracing the fuel and settling itself into a steady blaze.

  The crackle and hiss was a welcome sound, and he held his hands out to the flame, letting warmth slowly return. How long had he been cold? Not long, not because the cold felt like a new thing, but because there was no damage to his hands, no numbness to his face or skin. He glanced up, away from the firelight, and let the moonlight reveal that here was no snow around him. The air was chill, and the ground underfoot still frozen, but he was not at risk for frostbite so long as he kept dry and near the fire. These facts slotted neatly into place, reassuringly solid.

  But he knew, too, that he had been damp. No, not damp, sodden to the skin, clothing drip-heavy, and he shivered in revulsion. He had been soaked, drenched, water in his nose and ears as though he'd been submerged—

  A wave of nausea roiled through him, salted bile filling his mouth.

  Let it come and let it go a voice said again, and he thought for a crazed instant it had been the horse before another memory returned. Years before, his mouth filled with muddy water and his body wracked with fever, and the medicine woman who had walked him out of the river.

  Old Woman Who Never Dies.

  And as though the medicine woman had placed her hands on him once again, he remembered himself.

  His horse, Steady, was behind him, and the fire was before him, and his name was Gabriel. Gabriel Kasun, also known to some as Two Voices.

  And he had left Isobel in Red Stick.

  That memory struck him like a sharp blow, bending him forward at the waist, and he twisted his fingers at the back of his head, tangling in his hair as though to yank the stands out by the root. He was Gabriel Kasun, mentor to the Devil's Hand, and he had abandoned her to whatever was coming, to the unrest that was rising in the city of Red Stick, left her without a word of warning or explanation.

  The facts were unchangeable. They had been in Red Stick. He had brought them there for what should have been winter quarters, a place for Isobel to rest and recover after nearly a year of riding the Road, learning how to be the Devil's Left Hand, learning the powers she had Bargained herself for.

  Instead, they had ridden directly into unrest and rumor, the sickness that seemed to be spreading throughout the Territory, bubbling there like pus under a wound. And Isobel had been driven by her Bargain to be the blade that lanced it, the silver that cleansed it.

  It was what she did. It was what she was. But he should have been by her side, at her back, ready to lend whatever support she needed. He was her mentor, her guardian, her teacher.

  Instead, he had left her without a word, had ridden to the edge of the river, the Mudwater, and...

  And done what? What had happened once he got there?

  The gap of memory remained, red-hazed and terrifying, and he stepped back from it, not yet ready to look deeper.

  Let it come and let it go.

  The medicine woman's words brought no comfort this time. Whatever his reasons, he had abandoned Isobel.

  Never mind that she was well-set to deal with the situation, that she was the only one who was set to deal with it; never mind that he had known when they rode into Red Stick that he'd taught her and taken her as far as he could. Never mind that he had not left her alone, that the marshal was with her, that the river-witch was with her. He had still left her without a word, without a warning, driven by his own weakness and fear, and he had no sense of how much time had passed since then.

  That thought brought his head up sharply. "Where am I, anyway?"

  A Rider's sense of the Territory, once learned, was a map constantly unfolding in their head, the feel of the Road underneath their boots a steady, reassuring presence. But here...he could feel none of that.

  Slowly, firmly, he stilled his panic. There were yet places in the Territory where the Road did not travel, the weight of human passage light enough not to have pressed a trail for others to follow. But this close to Red Stick, he was surprised not to at least feel it nearby...

  But he did not in fact know that he was close to Red Stick; he had no idea how long he had been outside himself.

  Facts. He needed more facts.

  Rising to his feet, Gabriel looked around more carefully, taking note of his surroundings. He had made rough camp in a shallow meadow, gear piled to one side of the fire, a crude circle drawn in salt marking the site, invoking hospitality and rider protections. He hadn't been so far out of his mind, then, that he'd forgotten basic skills, or survival. He supposed that was a good thing.

  There was a hill rising directly to his left, the grass silvered under the moon and starlight, a ridge of trees standing sentinel halfway up, where the owl had flown. To his right and front, the meadow sloped gently before rising again. And behind him...

  He took a deep breath before turning to look.

  It took him a moment to find it, but the wide, flat ribbon of the Mudwater lay behind him, glimmering in the moonl
ight, distant enough that he thought there must be two, three days steady ride between them. Red Stick itself, its high wooden walls, was hidden again in one of the endless curves, devil alone knew how far downriver.

  There was no sign of the Road, or even a half-broken track to tell him how he had arrived at this place. No sign of anything save the fire he’d built, and the salt circle he’d laid down.

  Hesitant, as though half-expecting a rebuke or worse, to hear nothing at all, he calmed his breathing, eased his too-tight muscles, and let himself reach for the Road. It was nothing he had not done a thousand or more times in his lifetime, had taught others to do, had done as naturally as breathing. It would not mean anything if there was silence, would not mean that his connection to the Territory had been cut, and if it had, it would be nothing more than he'd once begged for.

  Despite that, he did not draw breath until an answering touch came, the scrape of warm rock against skin. It was distant, muted, telling him nothing more than what he had already determined, that he had ridden north and west of Red Stick, away from the Mudwater.

  Away from Isobel.

  Guilt dug claws into his chest, but with it also came a sense of sick relief. With the distance he'd traveled, there was no going back. Whatever had happened was done, and if she had succeeded or failed, it was her story now, not his.

  He had discharged his obligation. He owed nothing to anyone.

  You would be in my debt, if you did this, the devil had said that day in Flood, when he’d offered to take on a Greenie girl with the strong-boned face and fine eyes.

  But there was no debt. There was no binding on him, that the devil could yank. While Gabriel might have ridden into the town of Flood thinking to test himself against the Master of the Territory, in the end he had not wanted anything the devil had to offer. His offer to mentor that young girl had been made not to the devil but Isobel herself, free of cost; that the Old Man had accepted on her behalf should not change that.

  He had done as he had promised when he offered to take an uncertain, ambitious child on the Road and teach her how to survive. He owed nothing more, and nothing was owed to him.