by Sean Platt
The four men stared at Edward as if they’d never before seen a unicorn.
“That is what I want,” said Clint as if the thought had just occurred to him.
He turned to follow Edward. After a few steps, though, he turned back and bored his cool blue eyes into the lead bandit’s brown ones.
“You tell the boss that there’s a new gun in town. Two new guns, in fact. Tell him that those guns would appreciate a chance to meet with him about a job.” Then he shrugged, eying the remaining three men, all of whom were looking helplessly between Clint and the shattered handles of their revolvers.
“A man told me on the way in that this town was the sort of place where a man either gets rich or dead,” said Clint. “And I aim to grab me a fistful of dollars.”
CHAPTER FIVE:
TWO BOSSES
The barkeeper was a stocky man with a strangely jolly temperament, given the poison and dust that otherwise covered the town like a blanket. He wore a gigantic mustache and went by the name of Yardley.
Unlike the bandits outside, Yardley was totally unfazed by the sight of Edward squeezing his bulk between the saloon’s batwing doors. Clint, however, fazed him. He saw the marshal, noted his two guns, and then greeted him like royalty, running from behind the bar to pull out a barstool for Clint to sit on. He nodded to Edward and smiled, offering to drag a mattress down from upstairs. Edward declined, so Yardley pushed several barstools out of the way to give Edward room to stand beside Clint at the bar.
Yardley had surely heard the shots outside, but he didn’t seem to care. Clint was the one who entered the saloon, so clearly Clint had won whatever confrontation had occurred out front. And from that — from Yardley’s gleeful greeting of a stranger who’d bested the town’s bandits, Clint drew an expected conclusion: whoever this Dean fellow was, the townspeople didn’t particularly like the feel of his thumb.
Yardley brought them brew and two full turkey pies. He poured Edward’s brew into a bowl and made a small bow before apologizing that his barroom needed attending. He then busied himself behind them, wiping tables and chairs with a dry rag.
“Neat line you fed those fellows outside,” Edward said to Clint. “So now we’re going to work for the town boss?”
“Mayhap,” said Clint. He’d already shoved half of the pie down his throat and was feeling both sick and, paradoxically, much, much better. “I really just want to meet him to get the sprawl of the land. I figure the ‘rogue lawman in search of profit’ story might be a good angle that will get us in without getting us killed. After all, the man who runs a town knows the town. He’ll know where Kold is and what he’s been up to. We’ll be able to see if he’s teaming up with Kold, or if Kold has recruited his men to help find the Orb. And we’ll be able to see if Kold or Cerberus is possessing them… or doing whatever else a turned marshal can do.”
“The men outside reacted to you as if they’d never even seen a marshal. Or a unicorn,” said Edward.
Clint shrugged.
“You know who else usually knows the things that a stranger might want to know?”
Clint looked at Edward, his eyebrows up. In answer, Edward cocked his big white head toward the barkeeper.
Of course.
“Mister Yardley,” said Clint, turning on his stool.
“Yar, sir!”
“Who is ‘Dean’?”
Yardley stopped his cleaning. His eyes darted around the saloon, which was otherwise empty. Then he ran to the batwing doors and looked out and, once he’d satisfied himself that the bandits had left, returned to where Clint and Edward were sitting. He sidled behind the bar and poured himself a shot of something from a brown bottle. He downed it before speaking.
“Dean Dylan,” Yardley whispered. “He’s boss in this town. Well… one of the bosses.”
“One of the bosses?”
“The other is the preacherman, Parson Jarmusch. And yar, a preacherman makes for a strange boss, but he’s a boss, all right. You see, Dean Dylan is a very religious man. Dean was raised by the church as an orphan, then went bad in the convenient way that a religious man goes bad — which is to say that he stayed holy by attending services, but also began killing men and robbing caravans and organizing roving gangs, never seeing the opposites of his two lives’ bucking horns. He thinks he’s waving a ticket into NextWorld because he kneels and prays, rather a one-way pass to LowerWorld for all the souls he’s dispatched. He’s the most dangerous sort of man — one who does bad things with a clean conscience, thinking he’s doing Providence’s work.”
“But how can the preacherman be a boss over a man like that?” said Clint.
Yardley gave an exasperated shrug as if Clint were being exceptionally dim-witted. “Because the only way to hoist a bad man of faith — other than killing him, of course — is upon his faith itself. The parson is in his sixties and has known Dylan all his life, since he was dropped on the church’s doorstep as a babe. Dylan runs the town, but Parson Jarmusch still has the power to tell him whether or not he’s in Providence’s good graces. And usually, because the parson is normally a good man with a level head, he tells Dylan that he ain’t in good graces, and is headed straight for LowerWorld.”
Clint nodded.
“Dylan controls the town, but Parson Jarmusch controls Dylan,” Yardley continued. “Or at least, he keeps him on a leash. Ain’t nobody controls Dylan. But because of that leash, they hate each other. The parson hates Dylan because Dylan is an evil man who kills and robs. Dylan hates the parson because the parson holds the power of NextWorld over his head. He can’t bring himself to not believe the parson, and he can’t bring himself to end the parson. That’s how Dylan is. He’s funny. The holy is in his bones like a cancer, and though he wants to cut it out, he can’t. So he hates the parson, but he still listens to most every word the parson says. He would never draw on the man because it’d curse his soul.”
Yardley sighed, looking around his empty bar.
“But as bad as that was, it’s gotten worse. Used to be, Parson and Dylan squared off a fair share of sundowns but mostly held their calm. But over the past few weeks, something’s gone sour. Soured even more than you’d think a two-boss town — a town where the common man ain’t no boss even of himself, and can count on dying young and poor and defeated — would be able to sour.”
“What happened a few weeks ago?” Edward asked, nodding for Yardley to refill his bowl with brew and his plate with pie.
“A man came through. I seen him. He was a marshal, like you. Rode a unicorn, too,” he said, nodding at Clint and then Edward.
Clint almost jumped, “A few weeks?”
“Yar,” said the barkeeper.
“I was afraid of that,” said Edward, answering the question in Clint’s eyes. “I felt another slip as we crossed the river. The cracks that used to be near the Edge? They’re spreading to wherever the world is thin. Like it or not, it seems like Kold got a nice head start on us after all.”
“Kold,” said Yardley, nodding. “He’s your man? Well yar, he looked cold, at that. He was somehow wrong. The air around here went bad the second he showed his face. And his unicorn weren’t white, neither. It was black. And on the black horse, the man had a woman. She was all skin and bones and white as a sheet. Haunted and beaten. She sat freely behind the marshal, but her look was like she was tied. And your man, he went straight to Dean Dylan, like I heard you saying you were aiming to do. And after that, Dylan and his men both changed. For one, should anyone dare to ask them about the dark rider, they acted like they didn’t know nothing at all, like they’d never even seen him. But they stopped their robbing and killing and hoarding, what were good at first, but then they started tearing the town to pieces. Storming into homes. Kicking people out into the street. Burning buildings. Rummaging through the bank and the store like they was looking for something.”
Edward gave Clint a meaningful look. They’d seen this before. Dylan and his men were enchanted, as could be done to men of weak character. It wasn�
��t as bad as what Cerberus was doing to Mai, but it came from twisted unicorn magic all the same.
“But that ain’t all. Parson Jarmusch, he watched it and started speaking of the dark rider in his sermons, which of course Dylan attended. It was uncomfortable, since no one else would talk about the other, and nobody other than the parson would dare imply Dean Dylan was doing what another man told him to do. But Dylan was so erratic after the rider came to town that his hatred of the parson started to win out over his holiness. He confronted the parson. Beat him something fierce. And then the parson, who’s supposed to be holy himself, didn’t back down like you’d think an old man would. Instead, he started railing harder against Dylan and the rider, getting worse and worse. It’s like something snapped inside of Parson Jarmusch. His sermons have gotten frightening. All about old-world vengeance. And because the parson has sway in the town, he started to do as Dylan did: he asked his people to rise up, and he formed his own little group, and though I don’t blame him with Dylan being so newly violent toward him, it shocks me. The parson went from being a preacherman who could control the bad man to being something closer to an outlaw himself. I stopped going to his church and have been praying at home all week. It’s becoming like a… a whatsit…?”
“A cult,” said Edward. Clint looked over. He’d never heard the word, but he caught its meaning just fine.
“If that’s what you call it,” said Yardley, shrugging. “Whatever group it is that Parson Jarmusch has formed for himself, it behaves like a gang, and when Dylan’s men started tearing up the town, Parson said he knew what they were looking for, though he wouldn’t tell nobody what, and vowed to find it first… so that he could protect it from Dylan and the dark rider.”
Clint exhaled as he pondered Yardley’s story. He stabbed a piece of turkey pie with his fork.
“Two bosses,” he said.
“And us in the middle,” Edward replied.
CHAPTER SIX:
RUMORS
Based on his encounter with the bandits outside the saloon and their subsequent reactions, Clint supposed he had an open appointment with Dean Dylan whenever he chose to take it. But because the dark rider had been his nemesis since before he was dark, Clint decided it might make more sense to find the parson first and attempt to enlist his group’s help against Kold… hoping all the while that the adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” was true.
“The parson is not going to turn out to be your friend,” Edward said as they left the saloon and walked down the high street toward the church. Strangely, the church wasn’t under the bell. The town’s bell was simply a bell, and they had a dedicated man to ring it. It made no sense to Clint, but he’d seen stranger things aplenty.
“How do you know?” said the gunslinger.
“He’s a crazy holy man. You know many crazy holy men you’d want to sit with for brew?”
“Maybe the barman’s perception isn’t how things actually are,” said Clint. “Or maybe Dylan’s actions drove the parson to craziness. Maybe whatever he’s doing is justified. I once heard a story about a pacifist who vowed revenge because doing so was righteous. This might be like that. It’s a mistake to dismiss Parson Jarmusch as useless without at least talking to him.”
The unicorn sighed, knowing better than to argue.
A few minutes later, they arrived at a barricaded church. Edward gave Clint a look, silently asking if he thought a barricaded church seemed normal and friendly. Clint ignored him and knocked, and after a few minutes (and a few repeated knocks), a short man with a bald head and wearing a white robe opened the door. There had been much noise and clanking prior to the door opening, which seemed to suggest that he’d just unlocked many bolts and moved some furniture away from the door.
“Are you Parson Jarmusch?” asked Clint.
“Providence, no,” said the man. His tone sounded affronted, almost offended. “I’m Parson Willick.” He extended a tiny, pudgy hand. Clint shook it. His giant gunslinger’s hand swallowed the parson’s like a goliath spider encompassing prey.
“Where is Jarmusch?”
Willick sighed — a gesture that took over his whole body. “I have no idea, marshal. Have you come to arrest him?”
“Arrest him?” said Clint. He shook his head. “Nar, I’m not the law proper here. Don’t you have a sheriff or a marshal of your own?”
“Yar,” said Willick. “He’s out in Ever Rest Cemetery, under a nice gray headstone with a star at the top. His deputies didn’t get such nice sendoffs. They are in the woods somewhere, but we’re not sure where exactly. Nobody — not even the deputies’ widows — had the guts to ask Mr. Dylan where he disposed of them.” Willick shook his head, which seemed as heavy as a saddle. It was a gesture of resignation, as if he’d completely lost faith — in law, order, Providence, basic decency, and apparently his fellow parson.
Clint could tell how loose Willick’s lips already were, and knew how to make them looser. The man had a story to tell, probably because nobody else would listen. But before Clint could say anything, Willick jumped as if stuck with a pin. He extended his arm into the church, apparently realizing how rude he was being to his guests.
Clint started to follow Willick’s arm, but the small parson held up a hand to gently stop him.
“If you don’t mind, Marshal, I’d like to extend my invitation to enter to your friend first,” he said.
The small man looked directly into Edward’s eye, side-on as if he were used to conversing with equines. And then, after a quiet moment, Edward blinked his big blue eyes and did something Clint had only seen him do once before: the unicorn bowed his head.
Edward followed Willick’s arm into the church. Clint followed. Then Willick climbed over a pew that was resting on its back near the door and secured four separate locks, barricading them inside.
“Used to be, we’d never dream of locking this sanctuary, but times have changed,” said Willick with a shake of his head. “You saw how I thought you were here to arrest Jarmusch? Well, watch me betray my fellow clergy even further: the parson deserves locking up, Marshal. You’ll see that I’ve locked the door against him.”
Clint frowned. The door to the church was locked against its parson? Clint had assumed that the precautions were in place against Dylan, or against Kold.
“When did you do this?” Clint asked.
“Two weeks ago. The change in him was so dramatic and so rapid that at first I failed to believe he might be a threat — even after some of the things he’d said, and some of the measures he seemed willing to take against the newly heinous actions of Dean Dylan and his men. He used to be a calm man, but he’s different now. He stood right here, at the altar, and told the assembly that you couldn’t be afraid to get your hands a little dirty when it came to fighting evil. So he told the assembly to arm themselves, and beseeched them to march out with him to the rancho at the edge of town to take on Dylan’s men. He did this here. In a place of worship.” The parson shook his head.
“So you locked the doors?” said Edward.
“He was gathering followers like a madman gathers lost souls. When I told him to leave — that it was my church too, and that it was Providence’s church above all — he grew furious. He broke things. He threw whatever he could find. He grabbed one of the tall candlesticks and came at me. Some big, sturdy men in the assembly pulled him outside, and since then, yes, I’ve been locking the doors.” He shrugged, extending a hand toward the multiple locks.
“Question for you, then, parson,” said Clint. “Who would you rather have after you and in your town — Dean Dylan and his men, or the new and unimproved Parson Jarmusch?”
“Impossible to say. Providence help me, I fear and hate them both. The rancho that I mentioned? This town used to be prosperous, and we used to have our own small breed of magic royalty here. They once lived on a huge and beautiful stretch of land at the edge of our borders called the Rancho Encantato. Guess what happened to them when Dylan got old enough to carry a g
un and get people to follow him? He saw what he wanted and took it. This town used to bloom, Marshal. I believe even your people —” He looked at Edward. “— even consider this place to be of some magical significance?”
Edward nodded.
“Well,” Willick continued, “you see how Precipice is today. How it’s been for years under Dylan’s rule. Law can’t bloom here any more than a wet palm can bloom in dry soil. And since that stranger came to town… well, it’s grown so much worse.”
“The barkeeper told us about a dark rider on a unicorn of a different color,” said Clint.
Willick nodded, shifting his gaze between the two of them. “Yar. A black unicorn. I’m versed enough to know more or less what that must mean. The dark rider went to the darkest part of town, straight to the Dylan gang’s abode. I think he spellbound them. They don’t remember the rider, if you can believe that. They only know they have to kill more and destroy more and… and apparently search for something. Do you want to know what I think? I think this all has to do with black magic.”
“It does,” said Edward. “But Jarmusch? You think that what’s happened to him is due to black magic?”
Willick looked around the empty church as if deciding whether or not he should admit to something, then seemed to figure that the not-quite-legal marshal and the white unicorn were the best he was going to get when it came to confidants.
“There are rumors,” said Willick. “Very, very, very old rumors. Rumors so old nobody believes they have nar any truth. The rumors speak of this town as a holy place. They say there’s something here that can never be taken, though it can indeed be taken and used to do terrible things by the proper dark soul. They say our magic royalty were guardians of that thing, and that when they were murdered, the secret they guarded went with them. Dylan, who doesn’t put much stock in legends, searched the rancho when he first took it over, then settled into being a common thief and killer. But when the rider arrived, we heard noises from the rancho that sounded like Dylan’s gang were tearing it in half. Then the dark rider left, and last I heard he was searching an old copper mine outside of town, leaving Dylan’s men to do his work in Precipice. That’s around the time Parson Jarmusch grew truly obsessed with stopping Dylan. I think at first it was a noble, holy errand in his mind like a halo on his head — to stop Dylan from finding whatever the dark rider had tasked him with finding. But then the air’s black magic infected Jarmusch. I think he quit trying to stop Dylan out of righteousness, and instead started trying to stop Dylan in order to take the black magic for himself.”
