by Lavie Tidhar
He emerged out of a tunnel mouth. He was inside the giant crater. He heard a shout overhead and saw one of the carnie guards take aim at him from the rim. The Stranger drew his pistol and fired, and the carnie’s head exploded and he toppled over the rim and rolled down into the crater.
A hail of bullets rained down on the Stranger from on high and he ran, found shelter behind a storage shed. Shackled clowns ambled around him, oblivious. He held his fire. There had to be a way out of this hole. He risked a look out.
For just a moment, he thought he saw the flash of white gloves, a silent gesture. A carnie fired and hit a clown. The clown fell and lay on the ground, close by the Stranger’s hideout. He stared at the clown and the clown stared back, and the Stranger felt a terrible, burning anger as the clown died. This could not go on, he thought. He rose from his hideout then, oblivious of the danger. His guns were in his hands and he ran, and as he ran he fired back at his attackers, sending carnies toppling down.
They fired on him. They tried to take him out, but something else moved up there, something silent and unseen, and it killed the carnies like a vengeful Harlequin. A mining cart descended down on him at speed, loaded with carnies, all firing, their faces twisted in jubilant hate. He pulled out a stick of dynamite and lit it and tossed it into their cart and threw himself away, rolling. The cart exploded, throwing shards of wood and pieces of metal and chunks of flesh in all directions. Dust stung his eyes. When he could see again he found himself at the feet of a giant clown boss. The clown looked down on him with an inscrutable expression. His feet were shackled. The Stranger lit a second fuse and stuck the dynamite between two links of the chain and ran from there. The explosion tore the metal with a horrible wet sound. When the Stranger looked again the boss clown was free.
Something flitted across the face of the boss clown. He bent down and picked up a giant axe. He held it in his hands as if uncertain. Then he set to work.
The Stranger made it to the slopes. The shooting was more sporadic now, the carnies firing in disorder while return fire threatened them. He began to climb. Down below, the clowns had unshackled one by one. They held the tools of their forced trade as though unsure of what to do with them: axes and lanterns and spades. Some held the metal chains that had bound them. The Stranger scrambled up the slope and though bullets pinged near him, the shooters were soon silenced. He reached the rim and hands pulled him up, and he found himself staring at Temperanza’s grinning face.
“You’re the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived,” the Stranger said.
“The more I see of men, the more I like dogs,” Temperanza said. “Come on. You lot really messed this up again, didn’t you.”
“I thought everything was going brilliantly,” the Stranger said. He pulled out his gun and fired at Temperanza. She didn’t move. The bullet hit the carnie behind her, who fell to the dirt with a little surprised sigh.
“Did you take care of the General?” the Stranger said.
“You were supposed to do that,” Temperanza said.
“We got . . . distracted,” the Stranger said.
“Of course you did,” Temperanza said. She sighed. “Never send a man to do a woman’s job,” she said.
She walked and the Stranger followed. They traced the rim of the crater, searching for carnies, but many of the carnival men had abandoned their posts by then. On the other side of the rim, the Stranger thought he could see two tiny figures moving with a similar purpose, and he felt a sense of relief that his two comrades had come back from that other place. It was not meant for them.
The clowns were humming again. They had gathered down in the crater, a mass of Hobos and Augustes and Whiteface clowns, led by the boss clowns, armed with chains and axes and spades. The Stranger had never seen so many clowns all gathered in one spot. It was a full circus. And as they gathered they hummed, but it was a different sound now, a new, strong, joyous vibration that shook the rocks and burst the substance crystals, and then the clowns began to climb their way out of the hole. The remaining carnies saw what was happening, and the fight left them, and they ran. The Stranger and Temperanza met with the Kid and the Conjurer and the four of them made for the mansion. The clowns emerged from the hole and flooded across the desolate landscape of the mine, parting around the four travellers. They moved silently but with grim determination. The mansion towered above them on its hill. And as they marched across the plains to reach it, the great doors of Hole Manor opened, and the old general stepped out, and his three daughters were beside him.
As they stepped down to the plains, a hush fell over the circus of clowns. The General looked at them with his single good eye and sneered.
“You’re nothing but a bunch of clowns!” he screamed. “Nothing but a bunch of . . . a bunch of . . . !” Words deserted him. The Stranger watched him, and saw him then for what he truly was. Not a man at all, but an embodiment of an idea, just another denizen of the Escapement, re-enacting a role. The Stranger had travelled the Escapement for a long time, and he was destined to travel on it for a little while longer, and he had met those of the Major Arcana before.
“Nobody likes a clown!” the General screamed. “Freaky, creepy, twisted, maddened, evil, strange, other! You awful white-faced, red-nosed monstrosities! You, you . . . !” Words abandoned him again. The General pulled out his guns. His daughters laughed, a maddened shriek of sound that filled the air.
Then the clowns were upon them.
The Stranger watched Hole Manor burn. It burned in white cold flames, and the faces of ghosts from that other place kept emerging out of the billowing fire, mouths open in silent shrieks, but other than that it was strangely peaceful.
The Conjurer had disappeared in the melee. The Kid had gone looking for him but returned empty-handed. When he looked in his pocket, however, he found a short note, scribbled on an ace of spades, the contents of which he kept to himself. And a present: a miniature set of gold linking rings.
“I guess that’s that, then,” the Kid said. He tried to pull the rings apart but they just clanged against each other. He stared at them for a moment longer, then shrugged and put them back in his pocket.
“Did he say where he went?” the Stranger asked.
“Somewhere where there’s an audience,” the Kid said. “Somewhere where they still like magic.”
“I never liked magic,” Temperanza said. “All that pulling coins out of ears and breaking clocks and, you know . . .” She shuddered. “Spoon-bending.”
The Kid shrugged again. “I’m not much of a fan either,” he said.
The clowns had gone. Hole was left abandoned, its treasure piling uselessly where it fell. All that mined substance. It would be best, the Stranger thought, to disperse it widely. So much of it in one place distorted things.
“What will you do now?” he said.
The Kid looked at Temperanza and she smiled. “We thought we might ride together a while.”
“Oh,” the Stranger said, and he smiled too. They looked good together, the bounty hunter and the Kid, he thought. He hoped they wouldn’t get into too much trouble together—though he rather expected they will.
The Stranger bid them farewell as the sun set low over the horizon. He gave the Kid an awkward hug. “I’ll see you, Kid,” he said.
He tipped his hat to Temperanza, who nodded back. “Stranger.”
He left them then.
The Stranger rode out of Hole on a horse that bore no name, traversing the silent, now abandoned, ghostly landscape. The map was in his pocket. It felt good to ride alone again. He knew where he was going, and he knew who he was. The Plant of Heartbeat was within his grasp, he knew that now. It was close.
There was yet time.
The Stranger rode out of Hole and into the west, towards the setting sun.
ELEVEN:
THE HERMIT
The Stranger rode for many d
ays and many nights in the wilderness. The land was red rocks and dry creeks, which the Stranger crossed, and dead and blackened trees.
The sun rose each morning and set each night, and the Stranger’s shadow followed him from dawn until dusk by his side. He began to scent salt in the air and he thought he must be coming close to the Great Salt Lakes beyond which lie the Mountains of Darkness.
One night the Stranger saw the flashes of asterisks and curlicues and ankhs on the horizon that meant a storm was coming. He worried that the Titanomachy had ranged this far onto the edges of the world, and he changed his course to avoid the storm. He rode fast, his horse uncomplaining, and he came unexpectedly upon a maze of tall misshapen cliffs above dry riverbeds, and there he saw a light on top of the cliffs.
It was a single unwavering light, like a lantern hung out as a signal to travellers. And though the Stranger was wary of the Escapement’s traps, nevertheless he traversed the narrow paths that led up to the cliffs, until at last he came to a cave.
An ordinary oil lamp did indeed hang outside of the cave, on a stave driven into the ground. The Stranger dismounted from his horse and drew his pistol and both he and the horse entered the cave.
“Be not afraid, stranger. Come in peace.”
The voice was rough, as though its speaker was not much used to speech. The walls of the cave were covered in moss. It was warm and dry, and a small fire burned cleanly farther back. A heap of dry wood was stacked neatly nearby.
As for the speaker, he stood by the fire, dressed in a simple robe and leaning on a staff. His beard was long but kempt. His eyes were deep and keen. He carried no weapon that the Stranger could see. The Stranger settled his horse near the entrance and advanced to the fire.
“Here,” the hermit said. He went to the horse and patted him, and the horse snorted. The hermit brought out two small, wizened apples and fed them to the horse, who munched contentedly.
Outside, the storm seemed set to sweep over the canyon. Ankhs and crosses flashed like fireflies and the Stranger heard the tread of giant feet, and shivered. He had had enough of the machinations of Colossi and pupae.
“You have come from afar,” the hermit said.
“Yes.”
“From that other place.”
“Yes,” the Stranger said, surprised. It was seldom that such matters were discussed so openly on the Escapement.
“You carry a great burden.”
“You seem very perceptive, hermit.”
The hermit shrugged. “You travel alone to the edges of the world, stranger. Make the inference.”
The Stranger was forced to smile. “That seems fair. I am travelling to the Mountains of Darkness, to seek the Ur-shanabi.”
“The Plant of Heartbeat. Yes. I have heard that it flowers in the dark. But stranger, no traveller who crosses the twelve double hours of the night ever returns.”
“You know much of what lies beyond?”
“It is said that, beyond the Great Salt Lakes, the land is populated by herds of lions, and wild scorpion men. But whether that is true or not, I could not tell you. You must pay the ferryman to cross the waters. Beyond lies the tunnel.”
“I have a map,” the Stranger said. Perhaps he felt a little defensive. “From Jefferson & Norvell, Medici, of Jericho.”
“I heard Jericho has fallen.”
“You hear much, here in the wilderness?”
“I hear the loons cry, and the earth tremble when the wild Harlequinade passes,” the hermit said, complacently. “And they tell me that the old general who ruled over Hole is vanquished once again into the Doinklands, there to take on a new shape and form.”
“You seem remarkably well informed, hermit.”
Outside, the storm intensified. The hermit nodded, as though listening to something only he could hear. He pulled back his hood, and the Stranger took a step back when he saw the living shapes that moved over the hermit’s skin. The hermit disrobed, with quick, assured gestures, and stood there naked in the light of the flames.
The hermit’s entire body was covered in tattooed shapes, in bright inks of balloon-yellow and clown nose–red, mime-white and reptile-green. And as the Stranger watched, they moved, and he saw the intricate detailed mechanism of it, like tiny cogwheels moving in the exposed escapement of a clock. The mountains of the Grand and Petit Philippe were there, and the Big Rock Candy Mountains. He could see the River Nikulin as it flowed into the lake, and the ruins of Jericho, where stone statues as tall as cliffs now stood in awful silence. As he watched, a fist rose from the dirt of the Doldrums, and something awful and rancid resembling a clown shambled back into being with a cleaver in its hand. On the plains of the Thickening he could see men and women in wagons heading north and east and south and west, fleeing the Titanomachy, but many of them were not people at all but merely people-shaped, and shadows animated them. He knew then that the war was eternal, that it was within himself just as it was external to it. Shadow battles stone; the lizard scuttles from the glare of the sun. So it is said on the Escapement, though what it means, he never really understood till then. He saw the Conjurer ride far and small, a black dot with white gloves in a wide expanse of desert, with a merciless sun beating down. The bones of great creatures lay in the sand, and the Conjurer’s horse traversed the ribcage of some fallen giant. Ahead of him was a circus’s Big Top, several days’ ride still away. And he knew then that the Conjurer, for reasons of his own, was at last returning home.
He saw Temperanza and the Kid ride out in the Doinklands. They hunted a vigilante group of chasseurs de clown who were a day ahead of them, but they seemed to be closing the gap. Temperanza was laughing, her single eye twinkling in the sunlight. The Kid looked carefree and comfortable, riding beside her, a rifle slung over his shoulder. The Stranger realised, with some surprise, that they seemed happy.
The Escapement was inked into the parchment of the hermit’s skin. Or perhaps the hermit was himself the clock in which the Escapement ticked and moved. The Stranger found himself hypnotised by the constant shifting of the land on the hermit’s skin. Then he saw himself, riding away from the cliffs and the dry riverbeds of that confluence. The storm had passed and the Titanomachy moved on. In its wake the rider found the debris of the war: a rock turned into a gaping mouth, with red, swollen gums; a golden tree, with fruiting reading glasses; here and there, half-buried in the ground, the skeletons of fish which played lovely, haunting music when the wind passed through them.
The Stranger rode towards the west, through sunrise and through sunset, until he came at last to the shores of the Great Salt Lakes. All was quiet, and the air was filled with the calming smell of bromide, and no waves lapped upon the shores.
In due course he came to the place where the ferryman waited.
When the Stranger awoke the hermit was gone, and sunlight streamed in through the cave entrance. In the ring of stones the fire was dead, though the embers were still warm. He saddled the horse and set out, away from the canyon. The storm had passed harmlessly in the night. The air felt clear and fresh.
He made good progress riding all throughout that day. Yet by nightfall he came unexpectedly upon a maze of tall misshapen cliffs above dry riverbeds. He thought it must have been a tributary in some long vanished time.
The Stranger traversed the narrow paths that led up to the cliffs, until at last he came to a cave.
A burning torch was driven into the ground outside the cave.
“Be not afraid, stranger. Come in peace.”
He went into the cave cautiously. The hermit stood by the small fire, warming his hands.
“I hope this isn’t going to keep recurring,” the Stranger said.
“The road to the Ur-shanabi is seldom linear,” the hermit said.
“Please,” the Stranger said. “I need to find it.”
“Why?” the hermit said.
An
d so the Stranger told him. He found many of the words confusing, the concepts hard. It was like dredging up an impossible memory, carried for too long within himself. And yet he told him of the child, how when he was born he emerged from the womb like a miner covered in coal, how he’d cut the umbilical cord and then removed his shirt and held the little person to his chest, skin to skin, giving him warmth, sharing his heartbeat.
“I’d sit every night with him and give him comfort and wait with him until he fell asleep,” he said. “And I would do it till the end of time, if only time would let me.”
The hermit listened him out in silence. Then he said, “Time is the medium through which we travel, stranger. But our journeys start, and so they end.” He looked at the Stranger with compassion. “That first step must have a corresponding last.”
“All I seek is medicine!”
“All you seek is escape,” the hermit said. He removed his robe then, and the Stranger saw that the hermit’s body was made of many shards of mirror. As the Stranger watched they reflected at him the many places of the Escapement, so that he saw the sun set over the snow-capped Maskelyne range and the Copper Fields below, and he saw the acrobats soar high above the Fratellini plains, and a storm of glowing ichthys fish as it burst over the Doldrums. And he saw farther still, to the far end of a hospital corridor, where a man in a janitor’s uniform held a mop in his hands.
“And escape is futile,” the hermit said. There was infinite regret in his voice.
The man had gone to the bathroom again. When he opened the door he saw the janitor on the far end of the corridor. He stood and stared. A lake of water had spilled over the parquet floor. It separated him from his destination. The janitor came walking towards him, his shoes stepping in the water, plop, plop, plop. The man tensed, with his hands by his sides. It was nighttime, there was a darkness behind the window. The janitor stopped. He stared back at the man. The moment lengthened.