by Sean Platt
“They’re just ropes,” said Clint, chewing a toothpick, his shoulders bouncing slightly as he rode atop Edward’s back. “I have guns.”
“I do too, normally,” said Stone. “But I wouldn’t cross the gang. Sure, they’re ‘just ropes.’ But rope gang ropes are lassos of a different nature.”
“Are they magic?”
“In a way.”
“In a way?”
“Either the men are very, very good, or they’re very, very good and have ropes infused with magic. I nar know which, and don’t think they do either. We hijack magic together, and they use the Realm devices to take their share. I know they need it, and I know they use it. Whether it’s in the ropes or not, I couldn’t tell you. But this, I can say: back at the campsite, had the gang been there, they could’ve snatched the dooner arrows right out of the air.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Clint, staring forward and not giving Stone the satisfaction of meeting his eyes.
“Believe it,” said Stone. “Because I’ve seen ‘em catch bullets.”
Clint sorely missed Edward’s biting wit. Edward would never have allowed Stone to say the ridiculous things he was saying. But Edward had gone stupid. He’d become a walking, talking contradiction.
“What kind of a rider are you?” he chided Clint when they stopped at a stew pool to dip some water for their waterskins and to moisten their lips. “All you carry is turkey pie and jerky. Why don’t you carry anything for your horse? Don’t you have any oats for me?”
Clint just looked at him, trying to decide if Edward was actually back to himself and just messing with him. The unicorn’s eyes never wavered.
“You’re not a horse,” Clint replied.
“Of course I am. Hooves.” He stomped a forehoof on the ground. “Big lips and teeth.” He flapped them. “Big tail, and a sturdy back you ride upon.”
Clint made a grand gesture. “You’re a unicorn.”
Edward laughed.
So Clint pulled his shaving mirror from his pack and showed Edward the horn on his head and the way he didn’t wear any tack like horses did. But Edward wasn’t buying it, thinking it all an elaborate joke. But then finally, Clint thought of an unassailable argument.
“Horses don’t talk,” he said.
“Of course not.”
“But… you’re talking.”
Something lit Edward’s eyes. It looked like a realization.
“Then I must be a man. Give me a hat like yours,” he said.
Clint put his face in his hands. It was no use.
For the next mile, Edward tried to talk either about horse matters or his perception of human matters, but eventually he forgot entirely what he was, then forgot that he could talk. Only every once in a while (usually when Clint said something directly to him) did the unicorn bother to say anything. He looked shocked every time, as if surprised by his own words. Then he’d ask for oats, and poop on the trail.
Still, the rope gang stayed hidden. Clint could almost feel them watching. From time to time, as they rounded corners in the trail, he drew one of his guns and waited, ready for ambush. Stone watched him and laughed, swearing that one good rope could easily snatch that gun from his hands before the gunslinger was even aware that something had gone missing. So Clint pulled his second gun and rode without hands and Stone laughed harder. Clint knew he was giving the outlaw an upper hand by giving him something to laugh at, but he let it go. And as they drew closer to Aurora Solstice, they stopped and Clint wrapped him back in the shackles. Stone looked hurt, again reminding him that he’d saved the gunslinger’s life. At least twice.
Buckaroo consulted his timepiece and said that while a shift did indeed appear to be occurring, he still predicted the shimmer on time, at 3:10pm local time, right there in Aurora. He said the shift was muddling his read of an exact location and that he’d have to wait until closer to departure to be sure. They still had plenty of time.
Around noon, as they rode into the town, Clint decided to pay for a room at the Otel using Havarow’s money so that they could rest and refuel in peace while waiting. The Otel even had a barn. Normally, Edward would blow up buildings at the thought of being placed in a common barn beside horses, but the unicorn seemed to have virtually no lucid moments left, and the likelihood of him snapping out of it and becoming suddenly offended seemed remote. Clint was beginning to fear for Edward, wondering and seriously doubting he could complete his journey without a clear-headed unicorn. He certainly couldn’t face Kold and Cerberus. He couldn’t rescue Mai. He couldn’t find the third Orb, or prevent Kold from doing so. He couldn’t return to The Realm. Which, now that he thought about it, made this whole errand sort of pointless. Clint had been nursing vague plans to force his way through the shimmer behind Stone, but was it worth it without Edward? What would he do once he was through, other than face the authorities and be exiled for the second time?
He didn’t have long to think on it because as soon as Clint, Stone, and Buckaroo got comfortable in their second-floor Otel room, the shouting started outside.
Clint looked out the window and saw that the street had filled with men twirling ropes. It was the gang, with a clear ringleader at the center. They appeared to be putting on a sort of show for the townspeople, circling their lassos into familiar shapes. One rope somehow made a square in the air. Another made a heart. Another made the outline of a pistol.
The townspeople gathered to watch.
“Who among you has a coin!” shouted a man in a striped vest at the center of the group.
Over Clint’s shoulder, Sly Stone said, “That’s Gunther Jethro. You’ll like this coin trick.”
Clint shouldered Stone roughly away, cuffing him to the floor.
Outside, a woman in a blue dress and a large flowered hat held up a coin.
“Toss it into the air! High!” shouted Gunther Jethro.
The woman did. Then there was a flash of Jethro’s rope, which shot out and then returned to his hand like a bird. He held up the coin for all to see, then tossed it back to the woman.
“You, boy!” Gunther then said. “Those two strips of alloy there. Pick them up.”
The boy stooped to the town’s dusty street and picked up two thin strips of alloy.
“Toss ‘em both in the air. One here and one there. At the same time.”
The boy did as Jethro asked. This time, two other men shot out a pair of ropes. One rope seemed to strike each of the strips, and then the ropes ran into each other. Jethro reached up and snatched something from the air. He held it up and the crowd oohed and aahed. The two strips of alloy were formed into two interlocking circles, like two links in a chain.
“More! More!” the boy yelled.
“You want to see more?” said Jethro, addressing the crowd.
The crowd applauded, cheering their agreement.
“And do you want to see just how much harm we can do to all of you with these ropes?”
The crowd began to mumble, unsure what Jethro could mean and taken off-guard by the lightning-quick change in his tone.
Gunther Jethro began to circle his rope overhead. It again formed the outline of a gun, then changed to a dagger before settling into the shape of a noose.
“There’s a man in that Otel named Sly Stone,” Jethro said, pointing and pitching his voice for all to hear. “He’s being kept by a lawman who has no right to waylay him. We can’t approach because the lawman’s hands are too fast, and because being the murdering thief he is, won’t hesitate to leave us killt. But you can approach. And because there is something we need here today, you must know one thing, and it’s this: we can approach you.”
The skin on the back of Clint’s neck tightened behind a hundred rising hairs. From the corner of his eye, he could see Stone watching from the window beside him, a knowing smile widening his face.
“In two hours,” Gunther Jethro yelled to the crowd, “we will begin taking some of you at random. When we do, we will see what our ropes can do to tho
se people. But there is a way out! You see, anyone who so much as attempts to subdue the lawman holding our brother will make his or her whole family immune to our ropes. And anyone who manages to free our man will receive ten thousand rupees, or ten thousand dollars. So you understand — I am a fair man! If you help me, I will help you.”
Murmurs rumbled down the street. Many of the people wore pistols on their hips. Hands naturally fell to their guns.
“Help us free our brother and you will live,” said Jethro. “But fail to help us… and you will die.”
The heads of the townspeople turned to the Otel windows, up toward Stone in one window and Clint in the other.
It was 1:02pm.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
TICK TOCK
An hour passed. Clint split his time between the window and a large chair across the room, where he sat while staring at his prisoner.
The ultimatum in the street had changed the town’s demeanor. When they rode in, everyone had waved to the man on the unicorn, knowing who he was and what he represented. Out at the Edge, few people had seen a Realm marshal. The same was mostly true in deep Sands towns like Solace, Sojourn, and Precipice. But Aurora Solstice was a fair step closer to the old center, and while most people still hadn’t seen a marshal, they knew true what he was, and considered him a force as white as his unicorn.
But all of that had suddenly changed. The twin promises of retribution against the town and a reward for anyone with aggression enough to try stopping Clint had turned every person on the dusty streets into a sworn enemy. So far, no one had tried storming the Otel, but it was only 2:00. As time grew short, the people outside would become desperate.
The gang had remained outside, shouting through the windows, performing more and more ominous rope tricks. One roper demonstrated how his lasso could squeeze a wagon wheel into splintered kindling. Two others had pulled a thick alloy faucet in half as easily as stretching taffy. The gang had roped several townfolk — pulling them from inside buildings and through an open second-story window — and had brought them into the circle they’d made in front of the Otel, then laughed and let them go. The people of Aurora Solstice knew the men with the ropes meant business, and were currently more afraid of the twelve of them than of a vaguely-remembered tall and dusty man with a gun.
Clint had poked out the window at around the hour mark. The ropers had turned to watch him, curious, as he’d leveled his weapon at a very white, almost-albino looking man and used a bullet to knock him down. Both the man and his whirling rope fell to the dirt. One man shouted, “He killed Teedawge!” and several of the others seemed mildly annoyed, but mostly they did nothing other than to lasso themselves some thick alloy shields. Otherwise, there was no reaction. They’d watched him take aim. They’d watched him fire. They’d watched one of their own fall. But it had been very transactional, as if they’d been willing to sacrifice a man to see what Clint’s guns looked like and what he would do with them.
It made Clint’s already jaded blood run cold.
With an hour to go before the gang’s deadline, Stone sat in an overstuffed chair in the Otel room’s corner, his back straight and both feet flat, shackled hands curled in his lap. He looked nothing if not in command.
“Why are you doing this, Marshal?” he said. “Why are you carrying out that idiot paladin’s mission? You’re no longer with The Realm. If anything, you’re against it. You’re like me. We’re both riding on the other side of the wall, with the same if not similar aims.”
Clint sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room, away from the windows. He could hear shouts from the gang amid surprised exclamations from the town outside. He kept the room door in his sights, should someone try to barge inside. He didn’t answer Stone. He sat with his face set, mentally willing the chronometer in Buckaroo’s pocket to move faster.
“You have nothing to gain,” Stone continued. “You’ll take me to the shimmer, and you’ll push me through. Realm authorities on the other side, in Yuma province, will take over. They’ll put me on trial, and declare me guilty before the second blink. It will be easy. I am guilty. I’ve stolen untold amounts of magic to sell on the black market. And for my guns.” He nodded toward his matching shotguns, sitting beside Clint’s chair. The gunslinger had removed them from Edward’s saddlebags before leaving him in the barn.
Stone continued. “Why does The Realm deserve sole dominion over the magic? There’s hardly any left in the whole of the Sands, thanks to the leaking. All that’s left, save what can be sifted, is in the veins. The Realm splits the veins, repairs what is in their — and only their — best interests, and keeps fractures from spreading toward their precious city while simultaneously diverting magic toward them — and only them. Where are our magic veins out here in the Sands, Marshal? Don’t we deserve to have use of them? Don’t those people out there deserve it?” He gestured toward the window.
“Are you referring to the people currently being terrorized by your rope gang?” said Clint.
“They’re Gunther’s gang.”
“Are they yours or are they Gunther’s? Make up your mind, Stone.”
Stone sighed. “Fine. I’ve ridden with them. And they are no good, but they are good for me. Without them, I’m one man. One man can’t split veins, and one man can’t take over a stitcher by himself.”
Then, with an oddly sincere gesture of attrition and apology, Stone tipped his hat to Buckaroo, who’d run such a stitcher, and taken many losses.
“Are you claiming to be Hood of Legend?” asked Clint. “Stealing the magic so you can give it to those who need it?”
Stone laughed. “If you trade ‘give’ for ‘sell,’ then yes. A man must pay for pie and brew somehow.”
Again, Clint wondered why he was still holding tight to this mission — now to the point of putting a town of innocents in peril. What did it matter if he could get Stone to the shimmer? Why did he care if Stone was brought to trial? Did he care? But then he decided that the truth was that yar, he did care — but only because he had once been a man of the law, and such instincts ran deep.
“You’re a criminal,” said Clint. “Just like your brother, Hassle.”
“We’re nar alike, beyond sharing parents. And if you ever imply I’m like him again, I will cut you in two and spit on each half.”
That surprised a chuckle from Clint.
“You aren’t looking to right wrongs,” he said. “You’re stealing magic to suit you.”
Stone cocked his head and replied, “I can do both.”
Clint wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he said nothing.
The clock crawled forward. Buckaroo consulted his timepiece as if by compulsion. He declared that he’d calculated with a relatively certain precision that the shimmer would be not quite a quarter of a mile away. He gave Clint the location and told him that blessedly, the shifting seemed to have stopped. So Clint traveled the route to the shimmer in his mind. They’d come by it when they’d ridden into town; he knew exactly where it was and how difficult it would be to get there. Then he peeked out and watched the ropers, all of whom ducked behind their shields the moment his deadly eye showed through the window.
More time passed. The gang continued to shout the time out to the nervous townspeople at regular intervals.
You now have a half hour to seize the marshal before we sacrifice one of your own.
You now have twenty minutes.
You now have fifteen minutes.
The gang’s deadline would be up a few minutes after three. The shimmer that would briefly connect Aurora Solstice to The Realm’s Yuma province would appear at precisely 3:10 and would, according to Buckaroo, last for 131 seconds. If they left at three sharp, they could diffuse the gang’s time bomb and then maybe… maybe make it to the shimmer. Buckaroo could take dozens of gunshots without harm, but things would be harder for Clint. Clint would be making the trip with a man in shackles who he’d practically have to drag, and without a unicorn to heal him if he got
roped or shot.
Or perhaps more accurately: When he got roped or shot.
“You’re still trying to work out how to transport your prisoner, aren’t you?” said Stone, sitting placidly in the large chair. “Let me go, Marshal. Let me return to my gang.”
“The gang that you say is full of bad guys, despite your being Hood of Legend?”
“The gang that helps me get what I need, because nobody else will give it.”
Clint rubbed his chin, thinking. There were only a few minutes left before the deadline. If he surrendered Stone, all of this might go away. The gang might release the town. He might still have to face the gang itself, but he could handle a bunch of men with ropes. And without Stone, the shimmer — and hence the need to hurry and probably make dumb mistakes — didn’t matter. He couldn’t go through to The Realm without Edward anyway.
But something about it still wasn’t right, and after a moment he realized why.
“We will go to the shimmer as planned,” he told Stone, “because if I don’t hand you to The Realm, you will continue to split seams. You will continue to unravel the fabric of the world.”
“So?” Stone sat forward in his chair. “So what if I do?”
“Rips will widen. The world will crumble. There are only a handful of veins left, and Havarow told me you’d sabotaged stitching operations on most of ‘em. It may take a thousand years, but the unraveling will grow inevitable.”
“And what if it does?” said Stone. “What if the fabric rips apart?”
“Armageddon.”
“Then what?”
Clint just stared.
“Your unicorn mutters in his sleep. Are you really after the Triangulum?”
“We seek to keep it from the wrong hands. Yar.”
“Ah,” said Stone. “And what will the right hands do with it? Hasn’t your friend told you of the balance? About why unicorns partner with humans? About why there is always light and dark, purity and pollution?”
Clint shook his head. “What are you speaking of, Stone? Plain English preferred, pleasem and thankoo.”
