by Scott Lynch
I took it gingerly, keeping my fingers well away from the trigger. I hadn’t often handled guns, but I resolved not to flinch.
“Now,” said False Note. “Point it directly at me. Place your finger on the trigger. Apply the required pressure.”
I gulped. So much for resolving not to flinch!
“Master,” I said, “Before I do that, I just want you to assure me that—“
“Your life is in immediate danger,” he said, the same way most folks would mention the weather. “I’m counting to a certain number in my head. If I reach it before you pull that trigger, I’ll be leaving this place alone and I’ll sell that barely adequate horse of yours in the next town.”
Even by invitation, even under such a threat, even knowing that he had all his arts and an obvious lesson up his godsdamned sleeves, honorable reader, I assure you that pulling the trigger was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, drunk or sober.
But I believed him. I pulled.
The hammer fell with a snap-click that echoed across our little camp. That, and nothing more. I stared at the gun like an idiot.
False Note held up a single cartridge. I groaned.
“You watched me load, but you didn’t see me load five,” he said. “I handed you a hammer over an empty chamber, but you didn’t even check.” The gun vanished from my hand; it felt like a breeze blowing past my wrist, and between blinks the revolver was his again. “Presence of mind. Do you begin to see what I mean? How can you expect results if you can’t demand excellence from yourself in all the simpler matters?”
“I’m sorry, Master False Note.”
“Why are you apologizing to me?” He unloaded the gun. “You’re the one living his life half-awake.”
False Note finished unloading, and while he stowed the pistol back in his gear, I carefully re-seated the shells inside the wooden box. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. I sulked while staring into the fire, and he was gracious enough to let me.
“I’ll do better,” I said at last. “And it isn’t like the horse is my fault, master.”
“Get some sleep, Stray.” I think one corner of his mouth might have crept upward just a fraction of a hair’s width. “We’ll resume your instruction tomorrow evening. With Jononzal Resplendent Thorn.”
3
The gods had other plans.
All memory of rain was banished by the next afternoon. A sun hotter than spent brass ruled a cloudless sky from horizon to horizon. We negotiated a tricky slope or two and threaded our way down into a long canyon, running north-south, that False Note said would open up again within shouting distance of the Bloodiron River.
I first spotted the stranger at about half a mile, through gently rippling whorls of heated air and dust. All I saw at first was a large dark mass, but as our mounts slow-trotted down the canyon the shape gradually resolved into a man lounging on a rock in front of a horse.
I licked my chapped lips nervously. Without the distraction of a gun in my hand my wits were sharp again, and this fellow fairly glowed with the self-confidence of someone used to handing out more trouble than he received. His presence in False Note’s direct path was not auspicious.
He was a Castalan, born brown and weathered browner, not quite as dark as your dutiful narrator but at that moment much better dressed. He was a dandy, yet there seemed nothing impractical about his elegance. His open coat flared in the back but was cut well clear of the holsters at his belt. His conical bamboo hat trailed expensive black silk ribbons, but the chin strap was cinched tight for action rather than comfort. Sunlight flashed on his boots, shod heel and toe with silver, and on his pistols, which had polished grips of the same.
“Hail, strangers!” He spoke with good cheer, and as we neared I could see that he was doing something to a length of rope coiled beside him. “You fixed for the Bloodiron?”
“That’s the idea,” said False Note.
“Well, this might not be the right canyon for it.”
I was close enough now to see that the stranger was deftly tying a row of fat round knots into one end of his rope, cinched tight together like the segments of a rattlesnake’s tail.
“Unless the gods moved the Bloodiron while my back was turned,” said False Note, “I must respectfully disagree.”
“Oh, the river’s there. This canyon just might not be the one to bring you to it.” The stranger, finished with his knots, stood up. “I suppose it depends. You wouldn’t by any chance be a… music lover, now would you?”
A hot breeze stirred the dust between the stranger and False Note, who reined in his horse and peered down at the man from a distance of ten yards.
“I don’t think you’d appreciate the sort of tune I play,” said False Note.
“Hell, I’m broad-minded.” The stranger spun his coil of rope lazily in one hand. “I dance to anything, and I dance with all comers. Silverheels, they call me.”
I whistled softly. My readers will no doubt recognize the name of the bounty tracker who allegedly followed the Ghost Heart Brotherhood from Desilvair to the Dreaming Desert, and as a matter of record correctly deduced, in one night, which of the five hundred prize greps of General Ten Fists’ herd had swallowed the general’s signet ring. To have such a one chasing us! But of course I was as inconsequential to him as a spare handkerchief in False Note’s pocket.
“I happened to ride into Ain’t That Something two days after a peculiar and memorable event,” said Silverheels. “However, I didn’t expect to overtake the very architect of that affair north of the river. Frankly, that kid’s horse has slowed you up.”
I ground my teeth together and jerked Hand-Me-Down to a halt behind False Note’s horse.
“You do know who’s coming after you?” said Silverheels.
“I do,” said False Note. “Though I would be very surprised if she sent you.”
“Of course she didn’t.” Silverheels’ grin showed just about all of his teeth. “Her interest in you is what you might call deeply… philosophical. Mine’s strictly financial.”
“You mean to sell me to her,” said False Note.
“She was ready to hire me to help track you. I figure she’ll pay a hell of a lot more when I have actual possession.”
“When?” said False Note.
“Oh, indeed. When.” Silverheels grinned again. “After all, I ain’t no diversion parlor deadbeat.”
He clicked his heels together, bowed slightly, then shook a lasso loop out of his rope and began twirling it, politely waiting for False Note to get down from his horse. My master did this with a sigh. Dirt crunched under his boots, and there Silverheels’ forbearance ended.
The lasso flicked out faster than a scorpion’s tail. False Note bent like a reed, faster still, and the lariat cracked against empty air. The other horses took this as a matter of course, but Hand-Me-Down whinnied and bucked, and it was all I could do to stay in the saddle.
Silverheels pressed False Note, his rope hissing and snapping like a bullwhip, one hand working the lasso and one hand working the heavily-knotted tail. This exploded out, again and again, blasting clouds of dust into the air as False Note leapt and whirled, staying untouched.
I could tell False Note was impressed by the fact that he made a play for his saddlebags, where his weapons were stowed. Silverheels let the knotted end of his rope pendulum toward himself, then kicked it straight and hard into False Note’s horse’s rump. The horse bolted and galloped off, and False Note had to tuck and roll as those menacing rope ends once again swooped and howled around him like the blades of an out-of-control windmill.
I got Hand-Me-Down settled, then realized that I ought to do something other than gape. Armed only with this vague sense of obligation, I started to swing myself out of the saddle. All this achieved was to remind Silverheels that I existed. The knotted end of his rope shot out again, but this time it smacked into Hand-Me-Down’s head with a noise like a mallet hitting a flour sack. My damned horse turned into several hundred pounds of taffy
under me. Then, just as suddenly, I was in the air.
Silverheels’ lasso had me, tight as an iron band, pinning my arms to my side. The world became a roaring, rushing blur— I had disjointed impressions of bright sky, brown rock, and a fluid dark shape that had to be False Note. Whooping and laughing, Silverheels used me as a weighted flail in his efforts to knock my master senseless. The only person going senseless was me, however. With each whirl an invisible hand squeezed the insides of my head tighter and tighter, and red-black shadows blotted out the corners of my vision.
The earth came out of nowhere and landed directly on my face. Then darkness, then silence.
Then dust up my nose.
I came to coughing and sputtering, sitting in a me-shaped furrow in the dirt. I hadn’t been out for long; Silverheels’ lasso was still cinched tight around me but the line was slack. My master had taken the rope at a point between myself and the bounty hunter, and now something like a tug-of-war was going on. Twelve feet of rope, straight and hard as an iron bar, linked the two fighters as they shuffled and strained for leverage. Silverheels smiled through it all, plainly exhilarated, while False Note glared sternly, as though the Castalan was just another student failing to grasp his lessons.
Arm-length by arm-length, step by step, the men closed the distance between them. Eight feet, six feet, four feet. At last, with a noise like an old tree cracking in half, the rope snapped. A fountain of dust exploded. False Note and Silverheels rebounded apart, flung like sling stones.
Even the bounty hunter’s horse took that as a sign to back off. I stumbled up and lurched out of the way as it pounded through the spot where I’d been sitting.
“Here, kid,” said Silverheels, who was back on his feet. “See the Dust Road up close.” One boot flashed in a silver arc. From the forward point of his kick a cloud of dust rose like a man-sized wave and rushed toward me. It hit with a curiously liquid but irresistible pressure, and once again I was down on my backside, coughing and stunned.
“Let me sketch a few pictures in the dirt for you too, old man,” said Silverheels. “Lean Wolf! Sated Wolf! Rushing Rabbit!”
As he spoke he kicked the canyon floor. From the first kick the dust rose in a sharp crescent, like a new moon. From the second it rose in an enveloping globe, a full moon. From the third it became a smaller, tighter-knit sphere. Each of these dust constructs bore down on False Note with the speed of a charging horse.
My master swept his wide-brimmed hat from his head and wielded it as though swishing away flies. With three blindingly fast swats he knocked the dirt constructs apart. While the dust was still settling harmlessly in front of him, he plucked a heavy stone from the ground, dropped it into his upturned hat, then let it fly toward Silverheels like a discus.
“If astronomy’s your pleasure,” said False Note, “let me show you some stars.”
The whirling hat struck the bounty hunter just above his left ear, cutting the strap of his conical hat and knocking it away. Silverheels took a tumble. No longer grinning, he sat up and frantically fumbled for his pistols with hands that had temporarily lost their cleverness. Alas for him, by the time he found his holsters they were empty. False Note stood over him calmly, the former contents of those holsters in his hands.
“Looks as though I submit,” said Silverheels, spreading the fingers of his empty hands. A dark red line trickled down the side of his face.
“Stray, you all right?” said False Note. He thumbed back the hammer on one of the pistols, and Silverheels winced.
“I suppose I’m honored just to have a role in the proceedings this time around, master.” I finally loosened the lasso and shrugged myself out of it. Dust puffed from the creases of my clothes, and I sneezed.
“The boy’s fine,” said Silverheels. “I wouldn’t have hurt him none. Not permanent.”
“That’s right,” said False Note. “Now, where was she, last you heard?”
“Her? Closer than you might think,” said Silverheels. “She knew you were in Abuldane not a month gone. She figured that mess at the lantern festival had to be your doing. Got a right posse working for her, too. Scouts spread far and wide, some names you might recognize. The Brass Halves, for instance. You do have yourself some enemies.”
“I made some enemies,” said False Note.
“There’s truth.” The bounty hunter put a finger to his bleeding head and puckered his lips. “In Abuldane she was fixing to hire an airship to get herself an eye in the sky. Maybe use it as a base to run her search. That’s the last I know. That was three weeks ago. Now, you got the bulge on me fair and clear. I don’t suppose you could find it in your heart to let me go, on account of bringing you all this information?”
“All you brought me was a pair of guns,” said False Note.
One shot echoed through the canyon.
False Note stared at the body for a moment, then knelt and removed Silverheels’ holster belt. This he buckled around his own hips before sliding the gleaming silver-handled pistols into it.
“Are you certain you’re well?” said False Note.
I nodded. I was scraped and bruised, but the worst damage had been confined to my pride, and as you’ve seen by now it’s nothing if not elastic.
“No tea lessons tonight.” False Note collected his hat, shook the rock out of it, and put it back on. “No fire. We cross the river as soon as we can. Fetch your horse.”
I took a few steps toward Hand-Me-Down, who was struggling to get back to her feet. Suddenly there was another loud bang from behind me. I jumped, and Hand-Me-Down toppled, a dark hole in her forehead.
“That’s not your horse any more,” said False Note. “Take the bounty hunter’s.”
I salvaged my gear from Hand-Me-Down’s corpse, then stumbled dumbly past the body of Silverheels.
“We just… leaving him like this?” I said.
“I light pyres when they’re available.” False Note ran a hand soothingly through his horse’s mane, then gracefully regained the saddle. “But I don’t chop wood when they’re not. Mount up.”
4
We crossed the Bloodiron the next day, after detouring east until we reached the steam ferry at Last Chance Landing, which billed itself as the final “regular and civilized” crossing this side of the Last Horizon. The rains had swollen the river, and False Note claimed it would have been unwise to use any of the nearby fords. He bartered our way onto the ferry with shells and assorted junk from Silverheels’ saddle bags.
The ferry hissed and chugged across the phlegm-colored water like an asthmatic dragon, breathing intermittent gouts of black smoke as sunburnt mechanics pounded the engines with hammers, fists, and harsh language. Nobody bothered us. In fact, I was fairly certain that several people had spotted the distinctive pistols False Note wore, and kept a nervous distance because of them.
For several days after that we rode past dusk and roused before dawn. Our path was due south, toward a dark line of rolling hills that grew slowly on the horizon. Beyond them lay the Rolling Steppes.
Once we reached the hills, False Note slowed our pace and resumed what I can only describe as my drills. By night we discussed tea and the scrivener’s arts; he began requiring me to transcribe his lessons in the dirt with sharpened sticks. By day he quizzed me verbally, playing call-and-response games with words, sums, and historical dates.
At first I simply tolerated this. After a while I remembered my vow, and I began to apply myself to the exercises, to the “simpler matters” he was so adamant about. False Note’s satisfaction was expressed only in nods and grunts, but I fancied that these were, for him, effusive praise.
He was a disquieting master whose manner has already been encompassed in my brief narrative; he lived a life of wary reserve punctuated by rare passionate outbursts of violence or philosophy. Under his spell as I was, a prey animal somehow adopted by a predator, I was sharply sensitive to each slip of his mask, each half-contemplated smile, each genuinely friendly nod.
This ba
rely perceptible untightening of his demeanor was what sustained me through hot days and cold camps, through slim rations and saddle burns. There were no more booby-trap questions, no more games of chicken with pistols loaded or otherwise. For reasons of his own, False Note had decided he liked me.
I let that thought warm me because I didn’t yet know what those reasons really were.
5
For a week we crossed the steppes. Then one morning a dust cloud rose behind us, thin and brown and very persistent. False Note made no effort to step up our pace, and as the sun crawled across the sky the cloud grew larger.
“Master,” I said, “forgive me for intruding on your business, but you’ve got a real peculiar notion of what constitutes running from these people.”
“We’re not running, Stray. I mean to be followed, but on my own terms.” He reined in and squinted at our pursuit. “I think it’s time to leave another bread crumb on the trail.”
Our ambush was a simple bait-and-switch operation. My readers will not be surprised to discover that for this little drama I was chosen to essay the role of “bait.” We let our pursuer (for it had become clear that only one rider was at hand) close within a few hundred yards, then we bolted and ducked behind a small hillock. False Note leapt from his saddle and rolled into cover while I kept going with both horses, making noise and raising dust of my own. Before our would-be interloper rounded the hillock and copped to the rather simple deception, the crack of one gunshot echoed flatly across the steppes.
When I brought the horses back, False Note was standing over the sprawled body of a woman. Her black hair and brown duster both fluttered faintly in the dry breeze, and her horse paced nervously about fifty feet from where she’d toppled. False Note was reading a piece of paper.