by Sean Platt
A pair of Teedawges screamed past, firing guns. Both looked at Clint and Boricio, seeming to wonder why they were frozen in battle. The unicorns projecting the shield waited patiently.
“Dylan Brooce didn’t make it,” said Boricio.
Clint nodded.
“And Oliver is over there, shooting from behind that grassy knoll.”
Clint looked over, saw a muzzle flash. “We should go,” he said.
“To Oliver?”
“To Edward.” Clint gestured forward, toward the stalls. A way had opened. Marshals were shooting in every direction, gray unicorns were lobbing spells, and white unicorns were obliterating everything in their path. The very air was screaming. There were no machines left; everything was hand to hand, gun to gun. Killt men and elves littered the battlefield. Clint stared at the scatter, thinking he could have ended up killt himself thousands upon thousands of times, but something had always protected him — mayhap magic, or mayhap just Edward. Mayhap luck. Or mayhap Mai.
With the thought, the gunslinger searched for Mai inside himself, suddenly panicked. But then he found her inside, right where he’d left her. She was more present, and he could hear her words. She no longer sounded suffocated — possibly because the Triangulum was no longer right beside her, now a world away.
There was a harsh, high-pitched battle cry that sounded like Hiiiiii-yah! from behind them, followed by the sounds of a hammer striking meat in rapid-fire succession. A dozen thumps thundered through the air.
Clint and Boricio spun to see Rigo standing exactly as they’d last seen him, now with twelve marshals dead in a circle around him.
“Oh maaaan,” Boricio whined.
They passed the gates. Through the first pasture. Over a hill.
When the stables were within Clint and Boricio’s sight, The Realm finally sent its reinforcements.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
REINFORCEMENTS
The world shook with a tremendous explosion. The unicorns’ protection over Clint faltered as they turned, surprised, and dropped his shield.
Clint spun to see wave after wave of identical soldiers storming toward him. A perfectly square shimmer had opened to his left a hundred yards distant, and what looked like The Realm’s entire army and arsenal poured from inside it. There were vehicles that looked like giant clockwork beetles, captained by men sitting in clear domes at their tops. There were flying alloy things not much larger than two human bodies side-by-side, equipped with huge guns. The Sands army was powered by steam and spark. Clint could feel through Mai’s presence in him that The Realm’s army, on the other hand, was powered by magic. The battle that was about to ensue would be like a bug under a boot heel.
As the ranks of identical soldiers — much larger and stronger-looking than the Teedawges, and carrying weapons that looked like glowing scatterguns — raced toward them, Boricio dove one way and Clint dove the other. He wouldn’t have the unicorns’ protection anymore, as they’d broken off to regroup. They hadn’t run far, though; they’d circled around and had already started blasting at the soldiers from the sides as if trying to chew their lines in half. But the soldiers had shields, so at first all the unicorns could do was to knock them down. A single, directed blast from a unicorn would lay one dead, but there were simply too many of them for single blasts to make a difference.
The soldier things (which had to be Realm archetypes) moved not toward the remaining Meadowlands forces, but directly toward Clint. The gunslinger felt almost flattered by their assessment of him as a threat, but then realized that the soldiers weren’t converging on him; they were headed toward the stables, which were behind him. The realization made him think of something Oliver had said: Put the unicorn in a cell and protect him, because as long as no harm comes to him, the worlds keep ticking.
The Realm believed that the unicorn’s death — that “the death of Edward the Brave” — would herald the opening chime of the apocalypse.
The prophecy.
As he thought on it, Clint realized: They’re here to protect Edward. And on the heels of that, he again wondered whose side he should really be on.
Kold’s army was annihilating buildings across town; Clint could see the tall alloy and glass structures tumbling under bright beams from the giant black walkers. He could see the blasts of spells as the others in distant unicorn corps fought Realm forces. An enormous explosion pounded the ground, causing everyone at the stables to double-take, and a massive black cloud, like a mushroom, bloomed from the city’s center. How much of The Realms’ forces did those he was seeing around him represent? Had they sent a small brigade to protect the stables, and left a larger one to fight Kold — to keep him from the other targets Oliver had mentioned in the armory, the Ministry, and the Realm Core? If the Core was the center of The Realm’s magic, that’s where Kold would be. He’d destroy it, shatter The Realm, crumble the worlds, and bring about the apocalypse true.
Clint leapt aside, skirting the advancing troops and taking cover behind a stock of alloy barrels.
Where was the Core? Clint scanned the horizon, looking past the burning city, and saw no clue. He turned back to the battle, seeing shots continue to erupt from the grassy knoll. Clint wondered if, without the white unicorns’ protection, he could reach Oliver. Oliver would know at least roughly where the Core was. And, Clint thought, mayhap they should head through a shimmer and find it in order to help protect it as best they could. What could go wrong if they left the stables? The forces they were supposedly fighting against would do their job for them, and keep Edward safe. Might it not make more sense to find Kold?
And… what? Fight against him?
It was the same question, and Clint nar knew the answer. Should he find the dark rider to stop him from destroying the Core, or should he assist him in its annihilation? Should he fight with the Sands forces to take the stables, or with The Realm’s forces to protect them?
He stopped, thought, and tried to feel Mai’s essence as he sat behind the barrels, temporarily protected. He wanted to ask her if anything he did mattered. For Kold. Against Kold. Against the Realm, which meant against the forces fighting to protect Edward. Would it really do any harm to let the unicorns be, to let them remain in captivity?
But Mai was silent, and Clint frowned as he recognized that silence. It wasn’t the silence of Mai’s absence. It was the same silence Edward had given time and time again — a silence that said, I could tell you, but I won’t.
Before Clint could make up his mind whether to leave or stay, the decision was yanked from his hands. He heard an enormous bass shriek and looked up to find himself staring into the eye of one of Kold’s enormous black tripod devices. Out of instinct, Clint drew his guns, but doing so was idiotic. Not only was the thing ostensibly on his side, but he couldn’t possibly harm it if it wasn’t. So he holstered his guns, then looked past the walker to see where it had come from and realized that a new tear had ripped the world’s fabric behind the stables. And this one, unlike the shimmer the Realm archetypes had come through, was indeed a tear. The walkers, flying machines and zeppelins, and thousands of Teedawges were raging through it, closing in on their adversaries.
Clint looked into the huge machine’s eye, then back at the surge of forces streaming into the yard around the stables. Did the rip mean Kold had already struck the Core with that last big blast, and the worlds were already starting to fall apart? He looked back to the horizon and saw the city’s center in flames, the emerald castle no longer standing. The machines and magic were no longer there. They had come here.
Then, as if to prove the point, new rips appeared everywhere around the stables. Clint felt like he was inside a bag being shredded by an angry tiger from the outside. Blackness yawned from a dozen fissures, and forces streamed from all of them. Giants. Archetypes. Unicorns. Elves. Morlocks. More tanks; more airships; more steam-cycles; more faux-gunslingers and ropers. They clashed with Realm reinforcements: marshals, paladins, Royal Guards, something Clint hadn’t seen before that
was surely a troop of wizards. The sky filled with electricity and smoke and the ozone scent of spark. Steam belched. Artillery and small-arms fire crackled. Bodies and machines fell.
Clint’s cover was obliterated by one of the clockwork beetles. Clint looked up, saw the driver, aimed his pistol and fired. His bullet glanced harmlessly off the device’s clear canopy. The driver smiled, advanced, and fired at the gunslinger. Clint dove, then crawled for cover. The beetle was struck by a blast from a white unicorn, and then a second beetle struck the unicorn, killing it unceremoniously. Clint turned, finding himself facing a regiment of advancing Realm archetypes. If they were like Teedawges, he’d have to hit their thinkboxes to send them down. But they were shielded, and though the unicorns could penetrate those shields with a direct hit, Clint wasn’t sure that his bullets could.
He ran across an opening, found cover, and started to fire. His guns thundered and he exhaled; the archetypes he’d struck had fallen and stayed there. So he fired repeatedly, keeping his cover and moving as needed, counting his shots and timing his reload.
But the gunslinger had no bullets left. He’d run dry as the Sands.
He ran back to the gate, knowing a hit would finish him. But there was nothing else he could do. He didn’t know who he was fighting for or why, and one man could nar make a difference, but he had to keep shooting. As forces from both sides converged on the stables and as The Realm tattered around them, he knew his only choices were to fight or surrender. And a gunslinger didn’t die with his hands in the air.
He rolled, then grabbed at a gunbelt from a pile of killt marshals. He couldn’t fire their guns and wouldn’t want to, but he could use their bullets. Clint took six reloaders — all he could carry — and filled his chambers with loose shells. He pocketed another two handfuls of shells and stood to face a massive line of advancing Realm archetypes. He was a trifle to them; they were after the rows of fighting machines behind him. Clint fired anyway. The archetypes shot their glowing shotguns, which erupted and made craters in the ground that could only come from magic rounds. Again he dove, this time under bodies and through debris, trying to find his way out. They were close, their boots mere yards away. There was a bellow from above and a great beam of energy shot from one of Kold’s walkers and scorched through the line of archetypes from behind, reducing them to piles of ash. Its victory was short-lived; several of the small flying machines that had come through one of the Realm army’s shimmers (more were opening all the time, turning the stable grounds into something that resembled a sieve) circled the tripod’s legs trailing cables. They pulled the cables tight and the great machine teetered and fell into a converging team of gray unicorns.
Bodies fell from every direction. Artillery fired and exploded. Magic fire burned. Clint saw Oliver struck by an archetype’s bullet and fall.
Clint found the battleground’s edge, skirted it, then approached the stables, as near as he dared. He found an alcove in the storm, temporarily protected, and looked around. He wasn’t the only one who’d found the alcove. A bit further down, in repose as if waiting, was a square-jawed man with a dimple in his chin. Beside him was a helmeted guard.
“Clint,” said Morph.
“Oliver and Brooce are gone,” said Clint without preamble. The battle had exhausted him, leaving no time for niceties. The truth was at least real and distinct, like the blow of a hammer.
“I know,” said Morph.
Beside Morph, Z nodded, the movement of his head small and his expression inscrutable behind his black visor.
The gunslinger said, “We’re going to lose.”
“Well, that depends,” said a fourth voice.
Clint turned and was unsurprised to see Dharma Kold standing behind him. Clint was tired and apathetic. He simply looked at his old friend and enemy, waiting.
“Depends on what?” he said.
“On what you mean by ‘lose’.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
IN EDWARD’S CELL
The world turned hazy gray, but it wasn’t just Clint’s vision that changed. All of his tactile sensations were alive as well, and all were entirely repulsed. Whatever nothingness he was tumbling through was gray and sticky, like wet spiderwebs or the last bit of an ancient dinner that had been left in the icebox to spoil. He flinched as he swam through the stuff, finding it entering his mouth, nose, and the very pores of his skin. And just when he was near losing his mind with disgust, he found himself landing solidly on hard clay topped with straw. In front of him was something massive and white.
Kold was beside him, looking pleased. His hands glowed a light green, then faded to their normal color. On his other side were the two others — Morph and Z. Morph wore the same look of total disgust Clint imagined on his own face. Z’s expression was, of course, unreadable. But his body language seemed equally revolted. Clint wished he were dressed like Z. None of his skin was exposed, so he might not have felt whatever had just happened.
Kold said, “Impressive what a little Triangulum control will do for you these days.”
Clint’s mind was foggy, still stuck in the disorienting experience of whatever had just happened. For a moment, he could barely remember who the other three were. It took the gunslinger a minute, looking at his hands, to remember he’d grown old. Then his head cleared and he started to recognize the snaps and booming of battle, now sounding muted and further off.
He looked at the white thing on the ground in front of him. It was Edward.
The unicorn was sluggish and unresponsive. Once Clint realized he’d somehow gotten inside Edward’s cell (which would make what he’d just experienced Kold’s filthy version of a fold), he raced to Edward’s side, crouching behind his back and rubbing his still-shiny coat. Edward was a lump of flesh. He was alive, but he was weaker than Clint had ever seen him. The gunslinger’s hand moved toward Edward’s great white head, feeling his shallow, uneven breathing. He touched the stub of his horn, rough at the top as if cut off with a saw.
“Why didn’t you just magick him out?” said Clint.
“Because of that black pool of what looks like oil outside,” Kold said. “The Triangulum in me is… well… sort of in league with it. We have an agreement — let’s just say it’s an ‘equally beneficial but tenuous alliance.’ ”
“The pool,” Clint repeated. “The pool is the Darkness.”
“Well,” said Kold. “Darkness, anyway. It was on my tail for the longest time. I believe it was also on yours, or perhaps you were on its. You see, Edward doesn’t like The Realm. I hate The Realm. But that thing outside? It’s the antithesis of The Realm. The Realm hoards white magic, and that upsets the balance and causes an equal amount of black magic to accumulate. Nasty stuff. But you know what they say… the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Clint thought of the times he’d run up against the Darkness and found himself having doubts about Kold’s sentiment. Sometimes, it was possible for a man to have two distinct enemies, equally insipid.
“I can’t just magick Edward out of here,” said Kold. “We have an agreement, your ‘Darkness’ and I. We first met when Cerberus… well, when he first let me borrow his magic and became his ‘different color,’ say. Over the past decades, that… being… out there has been helping me open cracks. Turns out it rather enjoys doing it, and as it opens more cracks, it grows. The pool out there — have you seen it up close? It’s enormous! — has been growing for sixty years, give or take. And while things were becoming all white-magicky and blossoming in Meadowlands — grass growing everywhere, magic machines running at full steam, sick people being healed, and even old dead wives returning to life — the Darkness just kept on growing, too. We’re almost part of each other, it and I. And so while I control the Triangulum, it sort of does too.”
Clint stroked the big white unicorn’s mane, feeling his rough breath, the slow rise and fall of his body. “And here I thought you were ‘part of’ me and Edward,” he said.
“Oh, but I was! We were in this to
gether — including you and Edward.”
“But the Darkness…”
“… wants to destroy The Realm, as do we.”
“I don’t want to destroy The Realm,” Clint said. Outside, however, the endless thunder suggested he might be the only one.
“And,” Kold continued, ignoring Clint’s protest, “it understands the prophecy, and the need to keep the unicorns here, frightened by its growing darkness, which prevents them from regrowing their horns. Just like the men outside.”
“So now you’re in league with The Realm in keeping him captive? The Realm and the Darkness?”
Kold shook his head. “Very little is black and white, even magic. The Realm holds Edward captive while also keeping him safe. We came here to destroy The Realm —” He waved away Clint’s protest. “— and to prevent the apocalypse. But the Darkness? It craves the apocalypse. We have two choices. We can ally with The Realm against the Darkness and allow The Realm to slowly reap the magic from the world, or we can ally with the Darkness to destroy The Realm and maybe have a chance at the magic’s restoration. Do we end things now or end them later? Do we let some suffer or let all suffer? Do I help you, Clint? Do you help me? Or are we enemies true? The same goes for that black pool out there. You battled it as an enemy, but it seeks a restoration of balance, the same as you do.”
Clint looked down at Edward. The unicorn seemed moments from death. In the past, that wouldn’t have worried him, but the gunslinger had seen gray and white unicorns dying all day.
“I didn’t want this,” Clint said, stroking Edward behind his ears.
Beside him, Morph shifted positions. Z leaned with his back against the wall. Straw crackled beneath them. The Realm. The dagged Realm. Edward was a Chosen One in his own right, and here they’d put this proud, vain creature in a horse stall on straw.
“If you didn’t want it, you have The Realm to blame,” said Kold. “I’m a bit your enemy, and that dark pool of oil is a bit too. But The Realm is entirely your enemy.”