by M. K. Hobson
False business fronts loomed along either side of the main street, and they all bustled with end-of-day activity. A shop clerk was bringing in wares that had been displayed on the sidewalk. A large man with an apron and a bushy mustache was sweeping a slab doorstep of uneven granite. A girl in a dirty pinafore was washing the bakery’s front windows. All along the road, hitched horses pawed impatiently, eager to head home.
They came to a stop in front of a large store, built of heavy blocks of rough-hewn serpentine. Stanton swung down and looped Remus’ reins around the hitching rail.
“If you’d be so good as to wait a moment …” Emily liked to think he was saying it to her, but she got the distinct impression that he was speaking to the horse. When Stanton emerged, he held out a pair of white kid gloves. She frowned at them.
“Don’t want to attract attention, do we?” he prompted innocently, giving the gloves a little shake. She snatched them.
Of course it wouldn’t do to have folks staring at the glowing rock in her hand. But he didn’t have to get her something so damn dainty. So this was his version of a tugged collar, eh? She jerked the gloves on, resolving to get them dirty as quick as she could.
Riding on a little farther up the street, they came to a hotel proudly dubbed the Nonpareil. At the polished oak reception desk, Stanton pulled out the small black silk purse Emily had seen before, again withdrawing coins to pay the clerk. He signed the ledger in a jagged angular script: “Mr. Dreadnought Stanton and sister.”
“That’s it? Sister?” Emily limped up the carpeted stairs on legs that had somehow turned to jelly during the course of the day’s ride. “Would it have killed you to come up with a name?”
“I have three sisters, Miss Edwards. I didn’t think you’d appreciate being burdened with any of their names.”
“Try me,” Emily said.
“Euphemia, Ophidia, and Hortense.”
Emily wrinkled her nose. “What fool did the naming in your family?”
“My father is the fool in question. He is a man who feels the need to publicly memorialize his esoteric and obsessive passions—passions which have included the later history of Rome, reptiles, eighteenth-century Flemish aristocracy, and clipper ships.” Pointing to a door, he handed Emily a key. “Early start in the morning. Downstairs by seven.”
Downstairs by seven, Emily mouthed in a snotty voice as she let herself into her room. It was small but trim, with a cheery pot of gardenias on the windowsill. The bed looked soft and inviting, and Emily would have gladly fallen right into it, but travel was a grimy business. On her way to fetch some hot water, chipped china pitcher in hand, she passed two women. Their heads were held close together in intense, private conversation. She caught a snippet as they passed:
“… at least, that’s what the men downstairs were saying.”
“To think we were going to take that very road! But the train will be able to get through, won’t it?”
“They say the train is the only safe route to Sacramento until the government troops arrive …”
And then the women passed out of earshot, and Emily was left to stare after them. She was still thinking about their conversation as she carried her pitcher of hot water back up to her room and washed her hands and face in the basin. She smoothed her hair, and then she went and knocked on Stanton’s door. He opened it a parsimonious crack, eyeing her warily.
“Take me down to dinner,” she said.
“Allow me to acquaint you with the word ‘please.’ It’s all the rage in the better social circles. And if you’re hungry, have dinner brought up to your room.”
“There’s news afoot. Something about the roads not being safe, and government troops being dispatched. I want to know what’s going on.”
“I’ll ask around later,” Stanton said.
“Come on, Dreadnought dear.” Emily attempted to mimic a sisterly wheedle. When that failed, she tried to push the door open. Stanton pushed back with surprising force. After a moment, Emily gave up with a stomp of her foot. “Listen, I won’t be treated like luggage. You can’t just stow me in a room and forget about me. I want to know what’s going on! If we’re going to ride through Sacramento on those beasts of yours, I want to know what’s wrong with the roads.”
“Fine,” Stanton sighed. “I am a bit peckish. But please remember, Miss Edwards—you’re supposed to be impersonating my sister. So far we must seem about as fraternally matched as the cuckoo and the nightingale.”
“I’ve always thought the cuckoo a rather clever bird,” Emily said thoughtfully, as she led the way downstairs. “I mean, they know how to get things done, don’t they?”
Stanton did not answer, but busied himself with straightening his tie.
Downstairs, they were given a place at the common dining table. Men were drinking by the fire, talking low among themselves. A woman brought them plates of food, and Emily was surprised to find that Stanton was “a bit peckish” kind of like the Pacific Ocean was a neat little puddle. She watched him eat a whole roasted chicken, a serving bowl of buttered potatoes, a jar of pickles, and a dozen biscuits with butter and jam.
“Travel takes it out of you, I see,” she commented, as she watched him pour a pint of heavy cream over half an apple pie.
“A Warlock has to maintain his reserves of energy.”
“Where do you put it all? You’re skinny as a rail!”
He gave her a look that indicated he deemed such discussion presumptuous. He’d already given Emily that look exactly eleven times that day. She’d kept count.
“I have an unusual metabolism,” he said, but Emily had already lost interest in Stanton’s metabolism. She was watching the men by the fire. Their discussion had become intense, with the words “roads” and “military” rising above the din.
“Go find out what they’re talking about!” she whispered fiercely, elbowing Stanton in the ribs. He frowned down at her.
“I’m digesting,” he said, shifting a little farther away from her.
“Digest faster,” Emily said. “Unless you want your sister wading into the middle of a bunch of ruffians!”
He was clearly appalled, though he tried unsuccessfully to hide it. She seized the advantage.
“Or how’d you like it if ‘Euphemia’ called out for a shot of whiskey, neat?”
Stanton rubbed his eyes. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m trying to eradicate the image of my eldest sister bolting a shot of whiskey. I’m sure the headache will clear presently.”
“Then for the sake of your aching head, I won’t ask you to imagine Euphemia climbing up on the table to sing the one about ‘Madcap Molly, Maid of the Million-Dollar Mine.’”
Stanton shuddered. He dropped his napkin on the table. “All right. I’ll go and glean whatever limited information they might possess. Just finish your dinner and please stay quiet.”
Over her coffee, Emily watched as Stanton went to the bar. He purchased a cigar, then installed himself by the fire, busying himself with the little movements of smoking: clipping the cigar end, piercing it, lighting it (with a lucifer from the box on the mantel, Emily noticed; no finger-snap flames here among strangers). He smoked contemplatively, adding nothing to the conversation but listening with extravagant casualness, as if the men were trading choice stock tips.
When Stanton had finished smoking, he strolled back to where Emily was sitting.
“Well?” she said.
“Wasn’t a bad cigar for a nickel.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Come along, then.” He offered her his arm. She stood and took it, then startled. He was astonishingly hot, as if burning up with fever. She looked at him, scrutinized his face.
“Are you sick?” She yanked the glove from her hand, touched his cheek. He pulled back as if alarmed.
“You’re hot as the bottom of a kettle!” It was as if he’d been sitting in the fireplace, instead of standing next to it.
“I’m fine,” he said, curtly. “I told yo
u, I have an unusual metabolism. Now, if you don’t mind?”
Pulling her glove back on, she took his arm again and they went upstairs toward the rooms.
“All right, here’s the big news. Aberrancies.” Stanton spoke as if the word itself was tedious. “Apparently there’s a spate coming from a pit mine close by the main road to Sacramento. Causing trouble for some of the travelers here. There’s talk of government troops being dispatched to clear the trouble.”
Emily stopped short. “Aberrancies?”
“Hardly unusual. Incidents involving Aberrancies have been increasing steadily over the past twenty years. Especially out here in the West.”
“Why would we have more Aberrancies?”
“Their appearance is correlated with certain geological irregularities. Mining—pit mining especially—often exposes these irregularities.”
“Aberrancies are caused by mining?”
“No, Aberrancies are not caused by mining.” He sighed as they came to the door of her room. “Rather, they are an unfortunate by-product. It’s all rather complicated—”
“Explain it to me.” Emily leaned against the wall next to her door.
“Not in the hallway of a public hotel.” As if pretending to be her brother gave him the right to talk to her like one! “It’s just too common.”
“Not as common as having your mad sister pound on your door until you tell her what she wants to know.” Emily narrowed her eyes. “I think you can guess, Mr. Stanton, just how common I am willing to be.”
Stanton glared at her. Emily smiled sweetly.
“Your comfort with extortion is an extremely ugly personality trait,” he said. Then he sighed. “I’ll make it as simple as possible. Deep within the earth lies the Mantic Anastomosis. In layman’s terms, it is a vast interconnected web, like a filigree over the whole globe. This web is made of a special type of mineral—a mineral almost never seen aboveground.”
“Native Star,” Emily said, her thumb stroking her palm. Stanton nodded.
“According to accepted theory, this mineral web is part of the cycle by which magic is absorbed, purified, and released. The Mantic Anastomosis exudes magic slowly, and the magic is knitted into all living things. When those things die, the magic returns to the earth and the cycle begins anew.”
“Yes, I know all about the cycle of magic. Pap taught me,” Emily said. “But everyone knows magic can’t be held within things that never lived. So how can it be stored in a rock?”
“It is theorized that magic binds to the mineral structure of the web, is attracted to it by some kind of magnetism. Therefore the power is not actually within the mineral itself, but held close to it.” He paused, suddenly looking exasperated. “But see here, you wanted to know about Aberrancies. If you’re after a broad-based tutorial on magical theory, we’ll be here all night.”
“All right,” Emily said somewhat reluctantly, for she did like to learn despite her general resistance to being taught. “Aberrancies.”
“Humans have been developing techniques to concentrate and extract magic since the dawn of history. But it is only in the past two hundred years—since most civilized people stopped burning Witches and Warlocks wholesale—that any large-scale, modern application of magic has been developed. Over the past century, research has begun to suggest a correlation between the use of magic in ever-more concentrated forms and an increase in the harmful toxic residuals in the Mantic Anastomosis.”
“So humans working magic dirties up the rock web somehow?”
“Close enough,” Stanton said. “Aberrancies are understood to be the result of the Mantic Anastomosis cleansing itself of these toxic residuals. By some process not entirely understood, the web segregates this highly unstable material. It is called geochole—Bile of the Earth.”
“Black Exunge.” That was the skin-shivering term always used in Mrs. Lyman’s pulp novels.
“Yes, I believe that’s what it’s called popularly,” Stanton said. “When large boluses form, it works its way out through thin places in the earth.”
“Like mines,” Emily said.
Stanton nodded approvingly. “The foul substance binds to any living thing that comes into contact with it. The result is horrible mutations, both physical and spiritual.”
“What about people?” Emily looked at Stanton. “They work in mines. Has a human ever been …”
“There was a famous case in Ohio before the war. A young man encountered quite a large black bolus and did not have the sense to know that it was something that should not be touched.” He paused, and Emily wondered if he was going to give her another lecture about grabbing things willy-nilly. “He terrorized an entire county before a detachment of military Warlocks was able to put him down.”
“He couldn’t be cured?”
Stanton shook his head gravely. “Death is the only cure—preferably a quick and merciful one. There is a period of vulnerability during the mutation. They’re easier to kill if you catch them early.”
“This man in Ohio … They didn’t catch him early?”
“He grew to fifty feet tall and smashed an entire township with his bare hands,” Stanton said. “Fortunately, such cases are extremely rare. Most Aberrancies are nothing more than a small animal, or insect, that has the misfortune to be present when a black bolus is expelled. In such instances, large-caliber silver bullets are typically sufficient.” Stanton cocked his head and looked at her. “You certainly are interested in Aberrancies.”
“Aren’t you?” Emily countered. “Oh, well, of course I suppose you’ve seen a hundred Aberrancies and dismissed them with a snap of your fingers.”
“It takes more than a finger snap,” Stanton said. “But forewarned is forearmed. We’ll ride well south of Sacramento, and avoid the area in which the Aberrancies have been reported.”
“I still think we should take the train,” Emily grumbled. “You won’t win any points with your professors if I get eaten by an Aberrancy.”
“You will not be eaten by an Aberrancy,” Stanton said. “Besides, the train does not stop everywhere we need to go.”
Emily registered the cryptic comment about going places the train didn’t, but decided she’d harassed Dreadnought Stanton enough for one evening. She smiled brightly at him and extended a hand. “All right then, you may retire. Downstairs by seven!”
He took her hand and gave it a wan shake.
“Good night, Miss … Euphemia,” he said.
“Good night, Dreadnought dear!” she chirped.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Aberrancy
The next morning after breakfast, Stanton made a trip to the general store, and when he returned the horses were loaded with supplies—mostly foodstuffs, Emily guessed—for the ride to San Francisco. The next leg of their journey would take them down the North Fork of the American River, high and wild with fresh snowmelt, down to where the rich Sacramento Valley spread like a green tablecloth. The morning was cool, and though a haze filmed the horizon, the pink-streaked sky held the promise of another warm, clear day.
“We should make good time today.” Stanton’s pleased tone suggested that making good time was a virtue right up there with Justice, Courage, Wisdom, and Moderation.
But the joke was on him, Emily thought, because there was no way anyone—especially not a clock-watching Warlock—was going to persuade her to remount that equine rack of torture. And in her constellation of aches and pains was one bright glowing sun of discomfort that she preferred, for obvious reasons, not to discuss. She simply insisted on walking the first few miles to stretch her legs.
As she limped before Stanton and his plodding horses, she imagined a smirk against her back. A couple of times she spun, trying to catch the Warlock out, but his face was always set with a placidity that suggested the deep contemplation of the noble virtues previously mentioned. She made a note of it; this Dreadnought Stanton was far sneakier than she’d given him credit for.
Finally, she could stand it no
longer. Sore or not, she wasn’t going to be licked. Jerking the reins from where they were hitched to Stanton’s saddle, she muddled her way up onto Romulus’ back. This was not accomplished without considerable awkwardness and indignity. Finally, though, she sat stiffly, her back staff-straight, teeth clenched.
“I take it your legs are sufficiently stretched?” Stanton asked.
In reply, Emily used those legs to give Romulus a petulant nudge in the ribs and held onto the pommel for dear life as the animal leapt forward in a lively canter.
It was not until they stopped to eat lunch that Emily decided to speak to Stanton again. She doubted that her silence represented any kind of a punishment, but it certainly suited her better. Just outside Colfax, off the main road to Auburn, they came across a pleasant meadow where the horses could graze on juicy new spring grass. Leaving Romulus with Stanton, Emily wandered off to answer the call of necessity. Following the sound of rushing water, she discovered a lively little creek at the foot of a timbered hill. She knelt for a drink.
Tucking her gloves into the pocket of her buffalo coat, she felt the rasp of the comfrey Pap had given her, and something else, something cool and smooth. It was a coin, one of the gold eagles Stanton had paid over. Emily clutched it in her hand, a wave of affection for the old man warming her whole body. Swiftly, she transferred the coin into the silk pouch around her neck for safekeeping.
“I’m going to make it right, Pap,” she murmured. “I promise.”
When she came back, she saw that Stanton was no longer alone. He was speaking with three men by the side of the road. They were all dressed in solemn, dusty black and were mounted on skinny rib-sided nags that swished their tails with boredom and annoyance. The only words Emily caught were Stanton’s: