Papa Lucy & the Boneman

by Jason Fischer

  Nothing would save her father now. She had let down her end of the bargain, and the god had no reason to spare Horace Rider from the riverlung. These living concerns were replaced by a sense of peace as she let the cares of the world wash away from her soul. She and her father would be together soon, the last of the Riders, reunited in the land of the dead.

  A way began to open for her, an invisible door to elsewhere. Her soul took an eager step towards release, but something seemed to catch her foot and to hold her back.

  She looked down to see the Cruik curled around her ankle and watched in horror as she was drawn away from the release of death and into the staff itself. The last she saw of the world was the Jesusman’s face splattered with her life fluids, and then she was walking in the sunlit palace.

  She trod the familiar halls, barely noticing when the big doors closed behind her with a finality. The other guests greeted her enthusiastically, and she had the vague feeling that she had passed some rite of passage, that she belonged here. She smiled, and it didn’t matter that her mouth was just a slit in a featureless mask, her eyes pinholes.

  There were many games and parties held in the house, and Jenny found herself welcome in every room, barred from no one and nothing. As she took a turn at croquet, a passing thought came to her. There had been a man by that fountain, a friendly man with a dog. He’d given her guidance the last time she visited, stern words but well meant.

  The fountain bubbled away peacefully, but there was no man. She shrugged away the thought. It was a big house and perhaps he was walking his dog in one of the other gardens.

  A shade lurked in the colonnades that watched as the newest guest began to lose her identity and sense of self. He knew that soon she wouldn’t know her name and that one distant day the games and merriments would stop for her too. There would be nothing left for her but the shady corners of the house, and then oblivion.

  The shadow man took a brief walk with what remained of his dog, and then the thought passed. He was content to be here, to stand in this corner. Everything was perfect.

  “My Rider is dead,” Lucy said suddenly, pushing away a terrified barber. “She’s dead, Sol!”

  The sorcerer hammered against the hood of his convertible, shaving cream dripping from his head. He shook with fury and cursed the heavens. Booting the low stool as hard as he could, Lucy called up a mark of fire that rendered the chair into flame and ash before it could touch the ground.

  The Boneman came running to do his best to limit the damage as Papa Lucy raged, destroying the camp around him. Despite his effort to contain his brother’s destructive energies, a lick of lightning escaped from Lucy’s mouth. It danced across the car, shocking the life from the unfortunate barber as he ran for safety.

  “That Jesusman killed Jenny,” Lucy said, wild-eyed and panting. “He killed her, and now he has the Cruik.”

  “He’s there already? In the Waking City?”

  “When I fought Hesus in the Aum, I shook a handful of secrets out of him. Look.” Lucy made a mark on the Boneman’s forehead that sent him into a vision of the Waking City. Lucy’s war camp disappeared and there was nothing but a blank spot in the Waste, the suggestion of something just beneath the surface pushing through the world veil. Marking that spot was a naked man inked with the marks of Hesus. Bloody and grinning, the Jesusman brandished Turtwurdigan’s heart like a trophy.

  Reeling, the Boneman fell to his knees. The vision faded. It was no wonder Lucy hadn’t shared this with him yet. If Hesus had scried the truth of the future, victory was anything but certain.

  Once more he stood in the presence of his brother, who had regained some of his composure. Lucy was emptying a can of hair spray into his new mohawk and teasing the hair up into a garish fan.

  “I pressed the Rider as hard as I could, but that bloody Jesusman got to the Waking City first,” Lucy said, applying a can of hair colouring. “We’re up against it now.”

  “He won’t take the Cruik. He can’t,” the Boneman said calmly. “Not in the way you think.”

  “What do you mean, he can’t?” Lucy said. “It’s right in bloody front of him. He just has to pick it up.”

  “You’ll want him to,” the Boneman said. “The moment he touches that staff, he is yours, heart and soul. The Cruik serves you.”

  A lie. He’d been there when Lucy bound the staff with brass and blood, but the Boneman had seen enough to know that the Cruik only served itself.

  Whatever it took to keep Lucy on target, he would say it. Just that small glimpse of Turtwurdigan’s remains had been enough to twist his gut. He remembered that bright light, and then the heat, the burning…

  “Yes,” Lucy said, finally cracking a smile. “That would be nice and ironic. One of his serving me.”

  Whipping out his megaphone, Lucy chivvied his monstrous army into motion, driving around the camp and delivering choice insults. Few of the conscripts were close to humanity but they rose grumbling from their rest, a vast force of mutants and gibbering machine-things.

  Before them lay more trackless Waste, but the Boneman felt the pull of the gaping hole in the world veil that lay just beyond the horizon. Less than a day away.

  He fought down the bubble of fear, the knowledge that Turtwurdigan was waiting for them. She’d robbed him of his body and was coming back to finish the job. It was time to put the spirit that slept in the glass down for good.

  “Let’s go, brother,” Lucy said as he pulled up next to the Boneman. The door opened by itself, and the mohawked sorcerer patted the bench seat with a wide grin. “We’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Lanyard stepped back with a curse when the woody corpse melted into a shepherd’s staff. He’d seen a lot of weird stuff since swearing oath to Bauer, but the sight of that hooked pole gave him the shivers. He nudged it carefully with his boot, but his murderous enemy was just a walking stick now.

  Then, he found himself admiring the craftsmanship of the staff and the elegant curve of the hook drew his eye. The brass hoops drew in the sunlight, and the whole thing seemed warm and clean, like it would be pleasant to the touch…

  “Lanyard!” Tilly cried, appearing at his side and clutching his reaching arm. “Don’t. It’s not right. Leave it.”

  “Piss off.” He snarled and shook her loose. He blinked as she held her gun to his head and took his eyes from the staff long enough to see her frightened face. The Carpidian girl desperately pulled Lanyard to one side.

  “It’s the Cruik,” she shouted, slapping him across the face. “It belongs to Papa Lucy.”

  This news registered in his foggy mind. He’d seldom had time for the mummery and nonsense of the Family religion and had but a passing familiarity with their rite and trappings. But just like everyone else, he’d heard some of the folklore surrounding Papa Lucy’s magical staff.

  “That’s what your Taursi friend was scared of,” Tilly babbled. “The Grook. He meant to say Cruik. Papa Lucy sent that to kill us. Lanyard, please!”

  He pushed the girl aside, all the pain in his body forgotten as he reached for the Cruik. It whispered to him and showed him what he might achieve if only he would stoop down and pick up the sorcerer’s weapon.

  The Cruik could heal his broken body. With it he could hurl those cars at his enemies, sweep down the very buildings on their advance. Fire, power, the ability to live forever, it could all be his. Hadn’t Bauer abandoned him to die here? Where was Jesus when his final warrior needed him?

  Lanyard could rely only on himself and the tools at his disposal. His Jesus guns were all well and good, but with this staff at his command? It was the ultimate weapon.

  The Cruik was perfect.

  “Yes,” Lanyard said and reached for the staff, smiling. Then, a gunshot. Lanyard felt a searing pain in his leg. He saw the spreading patch of blood on his thigh and fell to the ground. Tilly stood over him with her pistol smoking. Now the gun was aimed at his heart.

  “I’ll do it,” she said through her tears.
“I’ll kill you.”

  The agony of this new wound brought him back to full awareness. The seductive lure of the Cruik was an annoying mutter in the back of his mind. He dragged himself away, leaving a worrying blood trail in his wake.

  The Cruik lay in the middle of the road where he’d left it, whispering, promising many things. He traced a mark of warding in the air, and the corruptive influence of Lucy’s staff faded into background noise.

  “You’re a good girl, Tilly,” Lanyard mumbled. “Good shot too.”

  “Father let me shoot at bottles,” she said as she put the gun into the front pocket of her smock.

  Using his belt to stem the blood flow, Lanyard jabbed the bowie knife into his wounded leg, screaming as he dug around searching for the bullet. He flicked it loose, and it fell to the tarmac with a clinking sound.

  “I deserved that,” he gasped. “If I do it again, give me another.”

  “You won’t live to pull out a second bullet,” Tilly said. She used a road flare from the lawman’s car to heat up the knife. She cauterised his wound, and there was nothing left to say, just the screams that fought through his clenched teeth and the hissing of his flesh as it cooked.

  — 23 —

  The Waking City was before them, a skyline of golden towers that rose above the Waste. The Boneman thought it was beautiful and terrible, a shining fragment of something that belonged in the old world. But of course it was much more than a bleedthrough.

  Where does your little gateway lead, Lucy? he pondered. What other world are you leaving me for?

  Though Papa Lucy itched to advance, the Boneman begged him to pause and insisted that his undead troops required maintenance before they could advance on the city. Papa Lucy settled down to play backgammon with something that used to be a buggy, but now resembled a fleshy ball of arms and wheels.

  “Be quick about it,” Lucy said as he rolled the dice.

  By far the largest contingent of the Family’s army were the risen corpses at the Boneman’s command that were formed into neat squares. He walked through their ranks barely noticing the putrid stench of rot. Waving away a cloud of flies, he looked over the mouldering soldiers and made pretence of investigating his own sorcery. The magic that kept these bodies walking would hold true until he released it. He held thousands of souls hostage, denying every one of them the peace of the Underfog.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he told the nearest revenant, a coin-rider turning to rot. The dead man stared at him dully. The Boneman sensed the resentment of his trapped spirit.

  The bones were starting to shiver and splinter. The Waste was quickening his necromancy’s corruption. Some of the corpse soldiers had turned the way of the living, merging with vehicles and stone. A cluster of skeletons had formed into something approaching a giant horse, comprised of at least fifteen bodies.

  The Boneman tolerated this ungainly structure, thinking wistfully of his own horses. It seemed a sycophantic move by his underlings to raise his pity.

  “Just a little further,” he told his servants, patting the dead gunman on the shoulder. “We’re almost done. You’ll be released soon.”

  He was little better than Lucy, he realised. At least his brother’s mind-slaves were still alive.

  At that moment he was tempted to undo all of his magic, to release every single dead warrior into the peace of death. Faced by rank upon rank of dead faces, he was sickened by the depths of his dependence on his brother.

  Is there anything I won’t do for that prick? he thought.

  “What are you doing?” Bertha said, stomping over with a coterie of madwomen in tow. She wore a set of thick iron plates of armour for the imminent assault. “We need to take down Turtwurdigan. Right now. Have you lost your nerve, Sol?”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” he said. “Without him around.”

  In the camp, Lucy raised his fists in triumph, pleased with the results of his game. His opponent rumbled and belched out a cloud of exhaust, limbs slumping with dejection. They might not have very long.

  “I’m scared, Baertha,” he said. “But I’m no coward. Turtwurdigan can’t live, not after what she did to us. We finish this today.”

  “Why are we stopping here then?” Bertha said. “Let’s get on with this.”

  “Listen,” he said, laying a hand on her monstrous forearm. Their broken bodies were grotesque enough, but as their flesh touched, it proved that humanity was a distant memory. Bertha flinched and drew away.

  “Please,” he said. “What happens after Lucy opens his gate and abandons us forever? There’s nothing here for him.”

  “You’re brothers.”

  “There’s nothing here for him,” the Boneman repeated.

  “Our little family is finished, Sol,” Bertha said with a sigh. “If we survive this day, if our business is finally done, it’s—it’s probably right that we go our separate ways. It’s been a long time coming.”

  “We’ve only got each other now,” the Boneman said softly. “Please, I want to give it one more try. Baertha, I love you.”

  A tear suddenly leaked across her broken face, and Bertha struck like a snake, knocked him over with a swipe of her claws. Coughing up dust, he struggled to rise and watched as his monstrous wife stormed away.

  “What’s the point of forever if you’re alone?” he called out, but she did not stop.

  Fos was busy with the axe. The remaining Leicester statue stood vigil over the sacrifice, every inch of marble daubed with blood. Most went willingly, and only one man broke and ran. He died with a dozen bullets in his back.

  “Better a clean death here, one in service of your god,” Fos thundered. “Make your peace. It’s time.”

  Mothers, babies, the old, all went to Leicester-We-Forget to take up a seat in his bloody hall. Fos made a neat stack of the heads. He let one of his nephews take over the axe work when his old arms grew too tired to lift the hatchet.

  The sun began to set on that butchery. Fos took the axe and gave his nephew over to the Leicester-We-Forget. The boy met his death without so much as a whimper. A final peace, and now it was his turn.

  Fos Carpidian stood alone surrounded by his dead kin. Kneeling at the base of the statue, he calmly hefted a pistol and held it to his temple.

  After taking a moment to collect himself, the old man pulled the trigger. His final thoughts of Tilly were cut short by the crack of the gun. His brains painted the stone plinth.

  Then, nothing but the silence of the dead.

  The sun drew towards the horizon and the blood dried. Scavengers came out of the Range to feast on the stacked bodies. But they scattered in terror when the impossible happened. The bloody statue moved like a man, climbing down from the plinth and walking through the corpses with a heavy but careful tread.

  With every step it grew, the stone frame pulsing with a terrible force, drawing mass and life from a distant place. The red statue was soon twice a man’s height, and still it was growing, the marble tunic cracking and reforming over and over.

  The Leicester swept its impassive gaze across the sacrifices as if mourning those it once knew. Hefting its stone rifle, the bloody warrior opened a doorway to somewhere else and stepped through into a golden light.

  Tilly pulled a tarpaulin over the Cruik taking care not to touch it. The girl carefully rolled the staff into a bundle and bound it tight with a roll of duct tape.

  Broken and weary, Lanyard sat with his back to a car, the bright glass of Turtwurdigan resting in his palm. He had nothing to fear from the spirit now. As it fed from the sunlight, its bizarre rantings seemed to comfort him.

  It tests her, the glass said. Fallen fools promise much.

  Tilly paused for a long moment halfway through winding the tape around the bundle. The girl frowned, moved her lips silently. Shook her head. Snapping out of the trance state, she rapidly finished her work and threw the wrapped Cruik to the ground in disgust.

  “Kid’s stronger than me,” Lanyard told the spirit in the g
lass. “Ten years old and she sees through its bullshit. Not me.”

  Tilly dragged the bundle towards the barricade, and the Leicesters covered the staff with bleedthrough junk. Finally, a row of heaving statues overturned a truck onto the pile. Whoever wanted the Cruik would have a hell of a time pulling it out from underneath all of that.

  The Papa comes! Turtwurdigan interrupted, a moment of clarity amid its constant raving. The Family comes!

  With a twisting pain in his guts and the gunshot wound throbbing, Lanyard slowly drew himself up and onto his feet. Drawing out the telescope, he watched as thousands of twisted figures emerged from the Waste, a terrifying host that filled the sky with dust.

  Papa Lucy’s horde were making straight for him and the golden towers behind his junk wall. Sensing the intruders, the remaining Leicesters drew into a ragged line, with Tilly’s big marble friend at the centre. Barely fifty of the stone guardians remained. Lanyard wondered if they would be able to slow down the assault.

  He knew then that he was facing his death and living his final moments. Despite Bauer’s intervention, despite his courage in taking up the most lost of all causes, there was nothing he could do to stop the world from ending. His entire journey was a farce.

  “What am I meant to do?” Lanyard shouted, shaking Turtwurdigan as if that would provoke an answer. “How am I meant to stop an army? How do I kill a god?”

  Be strong, Hesusman. A fast wind blows.

  Using farsight, the Boneman spotted the Jesusman. He cut a pathetic figure, a wasted man staggering around behind a hasty barricade. If this was the last of Hesus’s disciples, Lucy had little to fear. A young girl stood beside him. He briefly wondered if this was the man’s daughter or his slave.

  Before the Jesusman’s junk wall he recognised a handful of John Leicester’s soldier animates, leftovers from the old war. It seemed strange that these constructs would be guarding the Waking City. He had thought John’s servants had all been wiped out during the pogrom.