by Sean Platt
Clint squinted at the still-vacant trail spread out behind them. They were halfway to High Rock with plenty of time. He wanted to be early enough to stake out and hide, which meant getting there before Kold, Stone, or any of the others arrived.
“Kold and I walked together for many endless miles,” he told Teddy. “You lose track of time and reality near The Realm and along the fault lines. It’s part of The Realm’s magic. I’ve no honest clue if Kold and I rode together for a month, a year, or ten years. We simply kept on, dipping into stew holes whenever we happened upon them, snaring game for food, and occasionally finding a town where we could pay for a shave, maybe a room, and a couple times some company. Time passed like blurs inside a dream, like one of those scenes in the flicker talkies where the view smears to show confusion. For the longest time it was hazy but tolerable, and we got along, both holding onto our marshal’s guns and our companions —“
“He means their unicorns,” said Edward.
Teddy nodded. Pinto placed one hoof in front of the other, taking faster steps than Edward in order to keep up.
“We were both angry when we left The Realm, and that made us dangerous. Behind the wall, it was our job to be dangerous — the proper sort, anyway. When we were banished, they let us keep everything that made us marshals. If they’d tried to take our guns, our unicorns, or even our stars, we’d have killt them dead. They knew they’d never see us again anyway, so they simply let us go, knowing we’d be lost a half-mile past the wall and out of their hair forever. So after leaving, we made plans. Dreamed dreams. But Kold’s dreams and plans grew disturbing. His unicorn didn’t balance out his human aggression like Edward does for me — one very important part of a healthy human-unicorn pairing. Kold’s unicorn, Cerberus, only fed his hunger for discord. You’ve heard the expression ‘a horse of a different color’?”
Teddy nodded.
“The expression means, ‘something entirely different,’ and is based on a literal change in the color of a unicorn, which makes that unicorn something very different indeed. Enough time on the trail, and I started accepting my whereabouts. Kold took to wrassling with his. Kold’s unicorn fed his anger, or maybe on his anger. Everything changed. At first, the changes were subtle. Unicorns are supposed to be bright white, like Edward. They’re fiercely independent. You don’t ever command a unicorn, and never dare insult them. Kold’s unicorn, though, became a dull white, then a dusty gray, and started to follow his say-so. That’s when I knew it was time to leave. It was Edward’s idea, nosing me awake in the middle of the night, casting a cone of protection around us as we trotted off into the depths of the Sprawl. That was the last I saw of Dharma Kold, though I’ve heard plenty stories since.”
“As have I,” said Edward. Clint noticed with surprise there was no scorn in his voice. He was speaking to the kid, on his crappy horse, as if he were an equal. “We have a kind of radar. There are unpaired, nomadic unicorns all over, and we’re all connected. I can ‘talk’ to any who are close, and those I reach can ‘talk’ to any within their range. In this way, we can cover great distances inside our minds and magic. Sometimes we even reach out and ‘talk’ to horses, though it’s very different. We must be up close, and horses are dumb animals, so we can only pull rough color from their thoughts — things they’ve seen as they’ve seen it, without interpretation. Based on all I’ve seen, across stories told by both horse and unicorn, there is a recurring tale of a dark rider, tearing through the Sands on a unicorn of pure, obsidian black.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Most unicorns are strong. As the marshal said, we’re independent. We partner with humans of merit, but always willingly and never as servants.”
Clint shrugged the rucksack that he, the human, was carrying, darkening the ink around Edward’s point.
“But some of us are weak, just as some humans are. Weak unicorns wish to lose themselves to the bliss of surrender, just as some humans relish the loss of control — allowing another to take charge, hold the reins, and make all the decisions. It’s tempting to do, but also a damnation. A unicorn of a different color has surrendered control of its magic to its rider.”
Teddy’s mouth fell open. “He’s more powerful than you,” he whispered to Clint. “That’s why you’re being so careful.”
“That’s an understatement, since I’ve no power. I’m a man. Kold’s unicorn has made him more than a man. It’s made him magic.”
“How can you beat a magic man?”
“Carefully,” said Clint. “The thing to remember is that the amount of magic between Cerberus and Kold is unchanged from the days when Cerberus had it all. It is simply under human control now, and housed at least partly inside a human. It’s also influenced by a human’s more base emotions and needs. Cerberus is black, like the magic itself, but Edward still holds as much magic as their pairing does now and more than Cerberus does alone. And I’m a better man than Kold, when he is only a man. I could always outgun him.”
“So you can beat him?” Teddy looked hopeful.
“I seriously doubt it,” Clint said. “It’s complicated, but the short version is, purity almost always loses to pollution when the two are served in equal shares. Acceptance versus will. You can’t ram purity and acceptance into something like you can with hatred. Make sense?”
“Nar.”
“Okay, I’ll put it this way. If you wish to keep breathing, here’s what you should do: ride ahead, gather your things from Solace, and head to Sojourn immediately. If you find my woman, Mai, tell her that if I don’t meet her in Sojourn, I’ll meet her in NextWorld.”
Teddy shook his head. “I’m standing with you.”
Edward turned to the kid. “You’re such an idiot. What are you going to do? I know you’re a boy and believe in the fantastic, but the gunslinger just said he can’t stand against Kold — and he’s a marshal, trained in The Realm, partnered with a unicorn. Who are you?”
“I’m your ward!”
“No, you are not,” Clint said.
Teddy stared ahead, his face tight and determined. Edward could magick him across the sands, but the kid would only ride back. Could Clint really blame him? The boy was an orphan, making his own way in a dead-end town. Adventure, in whatever form he could find it, was all he had to live for.
The kid finally broke his pouting silence. “You can’t beat Kold?”
Clint said, “I very seriously doubt it.”
“Then why are we headed to High Rock?”
“To find them as they meet, and disrupt what we can before we die.”
“I have a better idea,” said Teddy. “Let’s ride back into Solace. Get the town to evacuate. Then run off ourselves.”
“Your plan is to run?” said Clint. “You’ve a lot to learn if you wish to carry that gun like a man.”
“Run and live versus stay and die. Even an orphan knows which is better.”
“Then do it yourself, like I already suggested.”
“All for one,” said the kid. It was probably his way of saying he’d be doing whatever the marshal did, and nothing less.
“The town won’t evacuate.” Clint shook his head. “People never flee peril, even when the alternative’s doom. Sure, they could make Sojourn, but only as paupers. They’d need to abandon their houses, possessions, and places of business. They’d march or ride into the Sands with only what they could carry on their backs. Most folks aren’t that strong. Most need the warm and fuzzy of the known.”
“They’d leave if you told them what you just told me,” Teddy said. “And you’d have… what? An hour before the soonest they could arrive, if we ride straight?”
Clint pulled a watch from his pocket, opened it, and checked it against the sun. “Yar,” he said. “An hour. But they’d never leave. Even if they did, it’d never be all of ‘em.”
“Is that why you’re staying — to protect those who refuse to leave?”
“Yar.”
“If a few stay, screw ‘em,” said
Teddy.
“What percentage, young Theodore, is worth surrender? Where should a gunslinger draw the line at how many people die before a good man will intervene?”
“You said you can’t do anything to help them.”
“Nar.” Clint shook his head. “I said I can’t win. That’s different.”
Teddy turned to Edward and addressed the unicorn directly. “You seem selfish. Are you sure you’re on board with this?”
Edward offered a small, equine chuckle in exchange for Teddy’s moxie. “I’m proud, and I’m nearly immortal. I’ll do what I can to assist the marshal, but how and where he choses to die is his decision.”
Teddy sighed, shaking his head.
“Same goes for you,” Edward added. “The one choice forever in a man’s control is the way he faces his death — the one thing that is truly his. I would never presume to tell you how to die, either.”
A few beats passed in silence.
“Although if you were to ask for suggestions —” Edward couldn’t help it. “— I’d suggest getting out of town, seeing as you won’t make it through the first shot.”
CHAPTER NINE:
HIGH NOON
Another fifteen minutes of silent riding and they hit the outskirts of High Rock.
No one spoke. The only sounds in the Sands, outside of the wind’s angry whisper, were the steady ticking of hooves — one set large and slow, and another smaller and faster — slapping the packed dirt of the trail.
By the time they were within a mile of High Rock, Clint had devised a way to get Teddy out of the way. He said that if the boy insisted on being Clint’s ward and sacrificing himself on the marshal’s mission, that was his business. He repeated: You are choosing certain death and are a fool for doing so. Then, once Teddy’s defensive wall was higher than the walls of a tall closet, Clint sighed, pushed a barrel of breath from his lungs, and gave the kid his mission.
“Ride into town,” he said. “You may be shot by bandits on your way, since I suspect Stone may have summoned groups from the east who will have to ride through Solace before meeting up with the others at High Rock. Be vigilant.” He paused. “You sure you want to do this?”
Teddy nodded.
“Fine, fine. Your choice, even if it’s turkey stupid. If you manage to survive, head to the Otel and find Mai. If she’s not left town, which I suspect she hasn’t despite her earlier claims, help her pack and force her onto a carriage. Use your gun if you need to, then ride with her to Sojourn. You’ll be pursued, if you ever make it that far, and will surely be killt on your way. Try to get as many of the bad guys as you can before you die.” Clint turned to Teddy and put a hand on his arm. “I ask again: Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?”
The kid’s face was set. “I’m sure.”
“You’re choosing certain death. For nothing.”
“My choice, Marshal.”
“Yar. So it is.”
The kid tipped him a salute, then slapped his pathetic horse on the rear and rode off toward town as fast as he could.
Barely out of earshot, Edward said, “Kids are stupid.”
“It’s better to speak of nobility over stupidity.”
“Better?” Edward said. “Maybe for you. But stupidity is so dominant in that one, I had to turn to keep from laughing. The kid will be sneaking through town with his gun drawn, hiding behind barrels on his way to the Otel. He’ll try forcing your woman into a carriage if she’s still around, but if I have a feeling for Mai at all, and I see no reason to think I don’t, she’ll likely wallop the boy and smack the gun from his palm the second she sees it. If they get on the carriage, he’ll make the entire trip with gun drawn and pulse racing, eyes bugging out from his face on the lookout for bandits.”
“But he’ll survive.”
Edward laughed. “Shall I try and convince you that your noblest mission would be to skip the Rock, run into Solace, and hop onto that carriage with the two of them?”
“Just look ahead to the Rock. See anything yet?”
“No. The Rock is clear. And I can’t feel any other unicorns, either. Strange in itself.”
Clint had a spark of hope, but it was squashed by Edward immediately.
“That doesn’t mean Kold isn’t riding Cerberus,” he said. “I was losing the ability to sense Cerberus even back when he was ashy grey. I think it’s because we’re on the wrong frequency. Or maybe because the magic is under the command of…” Edward stopped, as if unwilling to say more.
They crossed the final stretch to High Rock, hitting the end of the trail at two o’clock — a full hour before the bandits were due to rendezvous with Kold and Stone.
High Rock was aptly named. In the middle of the Sands trails — ten minutes on horseback outside of Solace — sat a small, isolated hill. Town rumor swore High Rock was some sort of burial mound. At the top of the hill was a massive boulder, buried halfway in the sand. The rest of the rock stuck out of the sand like a finger pointing at the sky.
High Rock made no sense, and shouldn’t have existed. The Sands were mostly sand, but High Rock sat at the top of a tall hill that looked like little more than a giant dune, though clearly it wasn’t. The endless winds that often obscured the trails never beat down the hill. It was as if the entire hill was the rock itself, with a thin skin of filth and soil sticking to its ugly windward face.
High Rock was a curiosity, especially since stones were so small in the Sands. The Rock seemed to have been dropped there by Providence, just like the church said it was.
Kold and Stone probably chose High Rock as their meeting spot since it would be impossible to surveil without being seen. From the top of High Rock, a person could see miles of sand, broken only a by few objects that might provide some possible cover. Anyone meeting at the top would know they were being watched… unless, of course, the watcher rode with a unicorn.
Clint and Edward waited, concealed from the trail in a shallow depression behind a small cluster of cacti. A quarter hour passed, then another. Then another.
With only fifteen minutes before the scheduled meeting time, Edward cast another umbrella, and they vanished from outside view. The riders wouldn’t want to be late. Based on their frightened conversation at the stew hole, Clint figured the group would arrive soon to avoid their leaders’ anger.
Another five minutes were gone from the clock. It was nearly time, but still no riders crested the horizon. Clint rubbed his still-smooth chin, his brow furrowed.
“Something’s been bothering me,” he rasped, breaking their shared silence for the first time since hitting the top of High Rock.
The unicorn turned. His horn was glowing lightly. Sparks flew out from it and into a giant dome.
“Yar?”
“Stone knows we’re in Solace, which means that Kold does too. But if I put myself in either pair of spurs, this don’t make sense. They’d both know our Water Reader would see ‘em coming, and that I’d ride out to meet them before they hit town, and that I’d do so only after sussing out their intentions. It’d be natural to choose High Rock as a spot to palaver since you could see anyone coming for miles, but if I were jingling their spurs rather than mine, I’d be thinking that the town marshal and his unicorn could still hide anywhere beneath a magic umbrella”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s too dumb, what they’re doing.” Clint shook his head. “It’s so dumb, it’s almost blind. They’re coming to Solace in plain view to anyone magic, or with access to a Reader, and riding as light as a feather. Seven men, and only one of them strong enough to make a difference. When we rode out, we predicted dozens. That many, even without a dark rider on a unicorn of a different color, could overwhelm us. Seven’s a cactus without any needles.”
“They’re counting on Kold.”
“I don’t buy it,” said Clint. “Kold is a marshal, which means we’re kin in thought. Any man who chambers fourteen shots and rides a unicorn wouldn’t do this. It’s too dumb.”
&
nbsp; “Maybe the theft of his unicorn’s magic has made him stupid.”
But Clint heard doubt in the unicorn’s words. The one thing magic didn’t do was make its user stupid. Edward said it plenty of times: magic made a creature smarter, further-seeing, insightful, able to see seven steps ahead…
As the obvious clicked into place, Clint’s hand fell instinctively to his gun. He turned to Edward. The unicorn, reaching the same conclusion, was staring back.
“He wanted me out of town,” Clint said.
The gunslinger had done exactly what he was supposed to. He’d heard of an approaching threat, then rode out of town with barely a thought to greet it. If Kold and Stone had come from the other direction while Clint and Edward were waiting….
Edward’s umbrella disappeared and the unicorn tossed his head impatiently at Clint. The gunslinger swung his body onto Edward’s back as the unicorn’s powerful haunches churned beneath him. Edward gathered immediate speed as Clint twisted his hands through Edward’s mane and fell into his most familiar rhythm, moving with his mount, loose enough to hold his balance through the gallop.
“How long?” said Clint.
“Normally ten or fifteen minutes,” Edward yelled over the wind and the thundering of hooves. “But this is a special occasion.”
Edward’s horn started to spark as if it were grinding against steel, glowing beyond its normal pinkish-yellow hue and into a dull, throbbing red. Sparks erupted in a cone around his horn, as if the unicorn were pushing his way through something solid.
The thundering of hooves grew distant as the world went dim around them, like someone had lowered the oil in the lamp of the world. For the thinnest sliver of a second, the world was a featureless, silent black before returning to its rightful color. The cone of sparks disappeared, and thirty seconds of riding out from High Rock, Clint found himself at the farback of Solace’s high street as Edward panted and shook beneath him.