by Sean Platt
“Exactly,” Edward said. He was laying down to conserve energy, but with his protections folded, the unicorn was coming back to himself. He stood, now entering the rough circle of men and immediately dominating it. “That’s because he’s not the Darkness.”
Clint raised a hand in protest, but it had already become Edward’s conversation.
“I told you earlier that he wasn’t the Darkness, but nobody listens. I told you we had to ride on, to make Elf Meadows, which is where I felt menace true, but who wanted to come on this errand? Who wanted to stay on this errand? I’ll hint you gunslinger — it wasn’t the one who understands what it is that we’re facing. Nar. It was the men, who thought they knew best. It’s the men who always feel they know best.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Clint.
“When I was a colt,” said Edward, cutting him off, “The Realm didn’t exist. Humans came, and at first we were curious. A bit of dark to our light — and there was good in you, too. In a way, we fit. Unicorns have always understood the balance. We’re pure white. You had dark inside. We didn’t flinch from that, and found souls that became the precursors of gunslingers, and at first those pre-gunslingers wielded magic before they could wield iron. That magic worked through you as it worked through us. Then men learned to manipulate magic, and they built. Before we could stop it, or knew that we should, the balance had tipped. The Realm thought it was doing the work of the white. But they wanted more and more of the white for themselves, to do their work and make The Realm like NextWorld here, on this plane. In doing so, they grew greedy. Do you see? They wanted only good, but even doing that upset the balance. They caused the first sparks of unrest in the Core. Their overabundance of white set the dark to leaking.”
“I don’t understand,” Clint said. He didn’t want to say it, but it was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Edward didn’t rise to the obvious bait. He would usually make a quip about how of course Clint didn’t understand; he never understood. But now he seemed past jokes. And in a way, that made things worse.
Instead of replying, the unicorn shook his head.
“I do,” said Stone, stepping forward. “I do understand. This is about the vein.”
Edward nodded. Understanding passed between him and the bandit like a secret.
“Your man. He’s been following the magic vein. He’s been following the one remaining true source of magic in the Sands straight to its wellspring. Now you think he’s found it, or that he’s close.”
“That’s what I fear,” Edward said. “And while we’ve been here, fighting another villain of the week, he’s found what he’s after. The vein pointed the way. One in Solace. One in Precipice. One in Meadowlands.”
“The Orbs,” said Stone. “The Triangulum.”
“A way in,” said Edward. “A way to end it all.”
Clint looked from one to the other. Off to the side, Whitney seemed confused. Buckaroo belched steam. Pompi, looking large and strong and clueless, sat on the clay and picked at fingernails the size of dinner plates. Stone and Edward understood something Clint didn’t, and the gunslinger repressed a flash of irritation for being excluded.
“He needs for Meadowlands to prosper,” said Stone.
“Which means that San Mateo can’t,” said Edward.
“What are you two talking on?” Clint asked, annoyed. His fingers, duly healed as a by-the-way when Edward had dropped the protections on the barn, felt itchy. He fingered the grips of his pistols compulsively.
“There won’t be any more shimmers, will there?” Stone asked Edward, ignoring Clint.
“Nar,” the unicorn said. “Only one way in. One way out. With Armageddon in between.”
Clint’s patience snapped. He shoved Stone hard with one hand, and Edward with the other. He stepped between them, eyes wild, staring death into both of the others. He scowled and said, “You will tell me what’s happening here and stop playing at secrets or so help me I’ll…”
A gunshot rang out in the distance.
“What’s that?” Whitney cried out, as if he’d never before heard a firearm discharge.
“Our cue,” said Edward.
Clint was still furious, unwilling to be interrupted. “Our cue?”
“Our cue. To play our part,” said the unicorn. “Lee is calling to us. We’re supposed to go to him, and we will.”
“And what will we do when we find him?” Clint asked, thinking of the birds, and how narrowly they had escaped the first attack.
“Then we’ll end him,” said Edward.
“Really. So simply?”
“Oh,” the unicorn said, shaking his giant head. “I doubt it will be simple. But this is the way out. Because we must follow the vein, and on the vein between San Mateo Flats and Meadowlands — between us and both Kold and the Core’s dark magic — stands Independence Lee.”
“He’ll be ready,” Clint said.
“Of course he will. It’s his purpose.”
“Then why should we go after him? Why not ride out of town and let him be?”
“Gunslinger.” Edward looked him in the eye. “Do you trust me?”
“Nar.”
“Yar, you do. You don’t want to, but you do. And one day, when there’s time and we’ve played enough of our part, I will explain all of this to you. But I know what’s happening now. I know why Kold has done what he’s done. I know why he drained Mai and left her. I know what will come next. And in order for it all to happen, you must do as I say.”
Clint had never been more livid. Edward always seemed to know more than he let on, but this was the first time the unicorn had so clearly dangled such an insulting carrot. He knew so much, yet refused to tell. And yet he expected Clint to obey him mindlessly like a slave? It was beyond infuriating.
“I’ll nar do as you say,” the gunslinger growled.
“Yar, you will,” Edward said. “You must. And right now, we’re following Lee’s call, and we will heed it, and we will end him. We’ll clear this town so that it can bloom without this dark cloud above — a cloud not made of black magic, but of simple malevolence.”
“I won’t go.” Clint sat in the dirt, pouting like a child. Edward never treated him as a partner. He treated him like a lackey instead.
“Yar, you will,” Edward said.
“Why should I?”
“Because,” the unicorn said, staring the gunslinger in the eye, “if we can clear San Mateo, you may yet get your beloved back.”
Clint’s hard expression dissolved. He thought of Mai, alone in the Otel. Mai, a husk of who she once was.
“You said a soul can’t be regrown.”
“It can’t,” said Edward.
“You said she was empty, and that there was nothing in her to regenerate.”
“Fight,” said Edward, “and you may yet live to see me proven wrong.”
CHAPTER NINE:
STREET FIGHT
Clint held a palm up to Whitney. “Stay.”
Whitney, who’d watched the exchange between gunslinger and unicorn, said, “I won’t do what you say.”
Clint punched Whitney very hard in the face. He was furious with Edward, furious with Stone, and furious that he had to battle a man who wouldn’t fight for himself but commanded thousands and thousands of birds. The last thing he would accept was insolence or insubordination from a civilian hanger-on.
“Stay,” Clint repeated. This time, he didn’t hold his palm out to Whitney. He held it down as the man lay with a bloody nose on the deck outside the Otel.
Whitney nodded, assenting. Then he stood and walked back into the Otel, silently agreeing to watch Mai while the others faced Lee, just as Clint ordered.
They had emerged from the barn slowly — all but Edward, who emerged without hesitation. Sly Stone, who seemed to share much of the unicorn’s knowledge, came out with only a cursory glance around. Whitney cowered across the courtyard with his coat hanger out and ready, his eyes darting in tiny circles. Clint had drawn both o
f his guns and was watching the roofs, skies and corners. Pompi ducked through the door and pulled out his massive hammer. Buckaroo, who for some reason refused to unsheath his chest cannon, shambled behind them all, muttering nervously. Not a single bird squawked.
The streets were vacant.
Clint said, “Where is everyone?”
“In their houses, I’d wager.” Stone drew one of his guns and racked it, then held the one weapon with two hands, keeping it ready.
They cut through the town’s middle, headed down Main. Clint looked around at San Mateo’s arrested progress with fresh eyes, Edward’s words clanging in his mind. The fat constable had said that Lee and his birds kept projects from being finished. Edward had echoed the sentiment, saying that San Mateo couldn’t be allowed to grow so that Meadowlands, which otherwise might compete with it for resources, would. That meant something. Clint tried to understand, but couldn’t.
The Darkness. Independence Lee. Kold, who might already have his hands on the third Orb, ready to reunite the Traingulum. And, Edward had said, Armageddon in the balance.
The morning was overcast and chill. A slight breeze roamed the streets, wicking between Clint’s hat and the tops of his ears. The town was entirely quiet, with only the occasional flicker of activity inside houses and businesses. No one came out to greet them. Clint couldn’t blame them; the bodies of crows still littered the streets, and all of San Mateo’s windows were shattered. The Otel, like all the other buildings, was littered with broken glass. Inside, apart from broken furniture, glass, and disturbed papers, the building was no different than it had been. Clint had run upstairs to check on Mai before commanding Whitney to stay with her, and had found her the same as he’d left her — unconscious but alive, now speckled with shattered glass from the broken window.
Clint didn’t know where their group of five was headed. Edward didn’t even seem to know, but walked at the head of their group as if he held the world’s purpose at the tip of his horn. Eventually, he reached the road where they had entered the town, sniffed at the ground, and kicked at a few dead crows with his hooves. Then his ears perked up and he sort of snorted, turning toward the saloon.
“The Liberty Valance?” said Clint. Beside him, Stone was about to say the same thing, but the gunslinger tossed him a look to remind Stone that the unicorn was his partner, and that he was the marshal here, and fully in charge.
“I think so.”
They rounded the corner and discovered that San Mateo’s every machine and vehicle was now parked in front of the saloon. They were three carts thick, and the carts were piled high with alloy scraps, steam devices, and fragments of wood and stone. Inside, they could see Lee’s hat atop his tall head as he paraded back and forth.
“He has hostages,” said Stone.
“So what?” said Clint, raising his right pistol and leveling it at a stagecoach. He was firing marshal’s bullets. He could punch through every obstacle, and Edward could tell him exactly where to aim. If they hadn’t already decided Lee wasn’t filled with the Darkness (he seemed to be merely directing it, though the birds themselves clearly were influenced), this would have been the clue. Lee wouldn’t have bothered to bunker in because bullets wouldn’t harm him, and he’d know obstacles wouldn’t stop Clint from shooting true.
“You can’t shoot,” said Edward.
“Why not?”
“He’s in a crowd. You’ll hit him, but you’ll hit someone in front of him… and probably someone behind him, too.”
Clint, his gun still aimed, pulled back the hammer. “And?”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Edward.
Clint looked sidelong at the unicorn. “I’ve been a do-gooder for four long years. Longer if you count marshaling in Solace. Where has that gotten me?”
Edward’s horn flashed. Clint felt his gun slapped downward. It had the feeling of a disrespectful reprimand, and Clint felt his cheeks redden with anger.
“I’ve about had it with you,” said Clint.
“Save it.”
“Aim me true. I care nar for hitting innocents.”
“Yar, you do,” said Edward. “Spare me your pride. I know you feel wounded and belittled. Get over it. There’s more at stake here.”
Clint turned his gun toward Edward.
“Nice,” said the unicorn. “At least we’re through posturing.”
“I know I can’t kill you,” said Clint, “but I’ll bet it would hurt.”
Stone, making sure the gunslinger could see him, put a hand on Clint’s arm and slowly lowered it. Then he put a hand on Clint’s chest, tapped it, then tapped Edward’s great white chest as the unicorn stared arrogantly down at Clint.
“Good guys,” said Stone. Then he slowly pointed a finger at the saloon. “Bad guy,” he added.
Clint snarled, “I remember a clown who used to be a bad guy.”
“Well, that man in there isn’t as charming as I am,” said Stone.
Clint slipped his pistol back into its holster. “Fine. So, what? Our all-knowing unicorn host blasts all that out of the way?”
“He would,” said Edward, “but our ugly and far more stupid co-host thought the woman in the Otel needed protection.” His horn glowed, casting a faint beam of yellow light back the way they’d come. As they’d headed away from the Otel, they’d begun to notice crows watching both the posse and Mai’s Otel window. The message in their eyes couldn’t have been clearer: We know what you’re doing, and we know how to handicap your most powerful member.
“You’re useless,” said Clint.
Edward refused to nip at the taunt, and instead began to use what unencumbered magic he had to see inside the saloon.
“Buckaroo,” said Clint. “Blast that stuff away with your canon.”
But the thinking machine didn’t hear. He was twenty feet off, hiding behind a stagecoach.
“Fantastic,” said Clint, putting a hand on his narrow hip.
They were hiding behind a hay wagon. As Clint huffed, a hand the size of a table reached up and casually pushed a huge stack of hay aside, providing a better view.
“Pompi help,” said a voice.
Clint looked over at the giant. “Pompi. Do you think you can clear the way so I can take a shot?”
It was their best option. With Edward occupied protecting Mai, Clint and Sly were the only ones capable of fighting their way inside. Pompi’s hammer wouldn’t be precise enough, and even Stone’s weapons would probably be too scattershot. It was Clint’s pistols or nothing, and he had to be able to see to do anything.
“Pompi smash,” said Pompi quietly.
“I smash,” Edward corrected, just to be a jerk.
“I smash,” Pompi repeated.
“On three.”
Stone unholstered his guns.
“One…” said Clint.
But Pompi apparently didn’t understand the idea of counting down, because the minute the gunslinger said one, the giant jumped up, placed his enormous hands flat against the side of the wagon, and shoved. The entire hay wagon shot toward the mess in front of the saloon, colliding with stagecoaches and machines and exploding into splinters. The hay hung in front of them like glasses atop a yanked-away tablecloth, then spilled back on Clint, Stone, and Edward. The unicorn deflected the spill with a small umbrella, but Stone was knocked flat, one of his shotguns discharging and turning three falling bales of hay to purple vapor. Loose hay sprinkled down on Clint, itching him madly.
Before the hay hit the ground, the huge giant with his disproportionately huger hands had reached the pile in front of the saloon. Clint waited for him to draw his hammer from its sheath, but instead he raised his hands like two boulders, bellowed, “I’M GONNA WRECK IT!” and brought both fists down on top of the pile.
The mountain flattened, slamming into the dirt like a fencepost driven by a sledge. Pompi was sweeping his big hands back and forth, legs bent, clearing the way. A stagecoach flew across the side street and crashed into a second-story window. Someone
screamed. A hunk of alloy and stone slammed into the barber shop next door, shearing its posts. Wood and rocks filled the air, and as Stone and Clint ran forward (leaving Edward behind to shoot whatever paltry spells he could while occupied), they held their hands overhead, ducking low to avoid being struck. Something that might have been a bureau or a dresser slammed into the street beside Clint, opening on its joints like a blooming flower.
The front of the saloon was cleared in a second. Pompi moved forward and, with one huge swiping motion to the right, severed all of the vertical posts along the saloon’s front deck, causing its roof to sag. That didn’t escape Pompi’s attention; he knew he was supposed to clear the way and the roof was now in it. So he reached up with one hand and, like snapping a twig, ripped the huge hanging section of roof away and tossed it aside. With it came the saloon’s front window and facade, and then there was nothing between the occupants and the giant.
A sudden scatter of gunshots from inside the Liberty Valance sent Pompi retreating around the corner.
There was no time to check on the giant. Clint and Stone were at the saloon’s front, ducking behind the remaining debris. Pompi had almost done too good of a job, leaving precious little shelter. Stone hunkered behind a piece of plywood barely large enough to cover half of himself and not nearly enough to stop a common bullet. Clint, seeing his options were few, stood tall and sighted directly down his barrel. But there was no shot.
“Neat trick!” sang Lee’s voice from behind a huddle of three Liberty Valance servers. “But if you like tricks, check this one out!”
The crows weren’t gone. They’d been hiding.
At some unspoken command from Lee, they spilled from every corner, building, and eve. They’d been crouching in wait like humans in ambush. All at once, like a black tide suffusing a pond from its edges, the crows raced toward them.
Pompi saw it coming and dove, wrapping one giant arm around the two gunmen. Clint felt himself pinched against the giant and against Sly Stone. One man looked at the other. The birds were close; they came with their beaks open and talons out. Pompi reached behind himself with his other hand, unsheathed his giant hammer, then started to spin it. The world became a blur. The giant was shockingly fast. As he spun, the birds struck the hammer and puffed into white smoke, the sound of a thousand sequential poofs like the purr of a steam machine. Smoke filled the air, obscuring their vision. Clint felt himself becoming dizzy, and beside him, Stone held his free hand over his mouth. When Pompi stopped, the first wave of birds dispatched as a billowing cloud around them, Stone stumbled off and vomited. Then he had his guns out, just behind the marshal, and the three of them stood back to back to back.