by Sean Platt
“I don’t know exactly how this will work,” Kold said again, as he’d told them on their walk down through the tunnels.
But, Clint thought, that didn’t matter. Kold and Cerberus didn’t need to know. Edward didn’t need to know. Even Clint didn’t need to know, because…
“Mai knows,” he said. And once he said it, he felt the Triangulum’s power begin to reach into his mind, wrapping tendrils of force around and into him, embracing him. The Orb inside of him talked to the Triangulum. The Triangulum talked to the Orb. To Mai.
In front of Clint, inches from his face, the air wavered like heat above a desert mirage. A horizontal sliver of light appeared at his feet and then scrolled upward, like an overhead door opening from the bottom. It was very familiar. Something he’d seen before.
“It’s a shimmer,” he said.
Kold looked around the room as if searching for something. Clint looked into the bright doorway and realized that just like in Aurora Solstice, he could see what was on its other side as plainly as looking through a window. He saw a street paved with yellow stone leading toward a massive, shining green tower. He saw green, green grass.
Then, spotting Kold from the corner of his eye as he searched the room and scoured every bit of wall and floor, he wanted to laugh. Or more correctly, Mai wanted to downright guffaw.
He can’t see it, Mai said. He commands the Triangulum, and yet it won’t let him see what it’s showing us.
“Just like how he couldn’t see you,” said Clint.
Kold peered beneath the machine as if looking for a lost coin, then poked his head up at Clint and said, “What did you say?”
He’s not supposed to enter. Not yet.
“Of course not.”
Someone else must enter first. Like a sacrifice.
“Like us at the Rio Verde.”
Kold marched forward, sounding urgent, almost angry. He stared at Clint, looking through the shimmer, oblivious. He said, “Who are you talking to?”
I knew what I was doing when I found you, Clint. But I always needed you, regardless.
“I know.”
In a very, very real way, I was fated to love you. It was meant to happen.
“I know.” There was something on his cheek. He resisted the urge to wipe it away.
Kold yelled, “WHAT DO YOU SEE?”
Go inside.
“I don’t know what will happen next.”
Nobody does. Not even Edward.
“It frightens me.”
I’ll be with you. And then, just as the gunslinger had felt her physical presence before, a small, soft hand seemed to squeeze his big, weathered one.
“Okay.”
Go.
So he did.
CHAPTER TEN:
UNFORGIVEN
Clint found himself standing on a road paved in bright yellow stones and surrounded by grass — grass that was deeper-green-than-green, so jade it turned the new life in Meadowlands dead and brown by comparison. The grass seemed to wave in the air as if speaking, whispering to Clint and sending him well-wishes.
The gunslinger turned his head, drawing the reality inside of himself and waiting for memories of The Realm to return. None did. It was as if the place were completely foreign and he’d never seen it before. It was as if he’d never marshaled behind the wall, never ridden a unicorn down Realm avenues, never been on the side of “good” and “right” back when it seemed The Realm had embodied them true.
In front of Clint towered a massive green castle. It wasn’t made of stone; its construction seemed to be crystal and it shimmered with an internal, ethereal light. Overhead was the same sun he’d always known, but it seemed closer and somehow warmer. Clint found with surprise that he could look directly at it without fear or damage. His skin prickled with soft fire. He felt like a man returning indoors from the cold, except he’d nar been aware he was cold in the first place. Clint had been out in the cold for so long he’d grown numb — and now, saved, his dying skin was returning to life.
The castle’s grounds were carpeted with the magical green-green grass to compliment the castle’s sparkling emerald facade, but beyond the grounds, beyond a fence (ornamental, not security; Clint could feel that there would be no need for security here, as the entire place seemed to be draped in peace), he could see a beautiful city of alloy and glass. In that it was alloy and glass, it looked much like NewTown in Meadowlands… but this city was different. Whereas Clint had sensed prejudice and ugliness when seeing NewTown through Pompi Bobo’s eyes and since, he could tell that this city was friendly, clean, and brimming with welcome. The feeling true was in the sweetly scented air.
Clint had stayed out of Meadowlands (and especially NewTown) as much as possible since Mai had died, but the few times Providence had sent him to visit he’d found that much of the veneer had peeled from the city. It was rich, and had all the luxuries a city-dweller could long for, but the laminate of wealth seemed to be paper-thin. There was crime in the alleyways between the expensive towers. Gangs ruled the underworld. There was garbage in the streets. People in fancy clothes, who seemed like they had it all, were rude and angry. Magic rose to the tops of the tall towers, with those in the highest buildings having the most and not wanting to share. Little sunk to the streets, to the underground train tunnels, which stank with an unceasing reek. But the city in front of him had none of that. Clint’s sharp old eyes could see every shining face and rosy complexion, every outfit with nar a tatter in its fabric.
The signs of decay that were prominent in the Sands and even around Meadowlands were entirely absent. The ground felt solid in a way that Sands ground never had. Clint saw no crumbling or destruction. He turned toward the horizon, looking down a long avenue and across a park splitting the glistening city. The gunslinger saw nothing beyond other than more city, rolling hills, and bright, colorful houses. He wanted to walk down the avenues as far as he could, to see where the sidewalk ended. He wanted to peer from The Realm’s edge to see if he could spot other worlds below as he’d seen The Realm in the sky for over half of his life. Did this place even know the other worlds were still there? Of course they would; they’d been sending stitching crews to repair veins in the desert. But did they know that at least one of the worlds below them was preparing for war? Was this paradise he found himself in even capable of war? He knew they had paladin knights, and he knew they had marshals. He seemed to recall being one, being a man who dealt death. But the thought was far off, drowning in a sea of bliss.
Clint was finally back behind the wall. He couldn’t believe it. He’d wanted to return to The Realm for all his life, and now he was finally here. He wanted to lie in the grass and stay forever. He’d kept his promise. He’d brought Mai home.
Mai.
Something cracked in the feeling suffusing him, and it was as if he’d remembered her from another life. But it hadn’t been another life. It had been mere minutes earlier. Seconds, mayhap.
Clint turned to look behind him and saw nothing but city and horizon. The doorway he’d come through had disappeared. Mai had said she’d be with him. So was she?
The gunslinger searched his mind, looking to find her. When he did, it was as if she’d been buried under debris. She gave the mental version of gasping for air, then seemed to surface as if she’d lain there forever, long forgotten.
“Mai?”
I’m here.
“We made it. We made it home.”
I know. But you must keep moving.
She seemed unappreciative, and Clint felt a frown carving across his face. But as Mai’s memory pressed into him, he felt her touching parts of his mind that had been buried for… oh… several seconds at least. It felt strange having those parts return, like feeling a numb limb prickle to life. Harsh and sharp, those parts of him agreed with Mai’s seeming lack of appreciation. He felt something slide away from himself, and recalled the time he’d surfaced from Edward’s bubble of glee back in the Dinosaur Missouri.
�
�What is this place?” he said. And of course he knew; it was The Realm, and the castle before him was Castle Spires, where the king and queen lived. But that wasn’t truly the question.
You’re feeling the magic, Mai said inside of his head. Don’t let it have you. Fight, Marshal. Stay angry and true. Remember the worst of what you’ve known. The men you’ve killt. Remember burying my body, planting my headstone. Pursuing Kold. Finding the Leisei, after the dooners had visited them.
Mai’s words, inside Clint’s head, were like embers from a fire dropped onto his skin. They sizzled, burning holes in the feel-good magic wanting to bury him. They felt heavy, like weights on his feet or iron on his belt.
He reached down, suddenly frantic. His guns were gone. He looked down and saw that his pants, shirt, and boots were the same, but that he carried no weapons.
You’re not a marshal here. Now go. Go to the castle.
As his mind sharpened, Clint began to notice that there was a presence inside his mind. It wasn’t himself, and it wasn’t Mai. It was, he thought, the Triangulum itself. The Triangulum had known he was coming; it had summoned him; it had expected him just as surely as he expected the sun to rise each morning. The Triangulum had given him the door he’d walked through, which meant that the Triangulum got a share of him… whatever that ended up meaning. Magic had intention and intention mattered to magic. But Kold had said the Triangulum was his — Kold’s, not Clint’s — just as Cerberus was Kold’s. Clint shook his head. It didn’t matter. The Triangulum’s aim was same as Kold’s, just as Mai’s aim was the same as Clint’s.
Somehow, some way, the gunslinger had to open a door and let the others in.
He walked toward the castle. There were two guards standing out front, both with bright pink hair, dressed in red uniforms and carrying tall staffs that looked like tridents. When he’d first looked toward the castle, the guards had held their tridents in an X across the doorway. But as the dusty, unarmed man approached, they pulled the tridents back, then tipped their heads and smiled.
“Welcome back, Marshal Gulliver,” said the one on the left. Clint looked at him in disbelief. If Mai hadn’t prodded him to conjure all those unpleasant memories to pop the bubble that the Realm magic had put him in, he imagined this would all seem very sing-song normal and happy. But now it just seemed suspicious.
“Welcome? Really?” he said.
The other guard used his right hand to gesture through the open door, into the castle. “Of course. His and Her Highness are expecting you.”
“You knew I was coming? And you want me here?’
The first guard smiled an insultingly large grin. His hair was spun sugar pink. It looked artificial, like a candy tuft perched atop his head. “Our most famous hero,” he said. “Our prodigal son. Sent into the Sands on a pilgrimage.”
“On a journey,” said the other guard.
“A journey to determine the extent to which our worlds have been damaged.”
“A walkabout.”
“A vision quest!”
“And now you’ve returned. And the king and queen will be so happy to have you back.”
“And soon, to have Sir Edward back.”
“Edward the Brave!”
Clint stepped forward, eyebrows low, watching the guards. “You know Edward?”
“Of course!”
“And you want him back, too.”
“With great expectations!”
The first guard gestured again, now with a pointed finger. “Go forward. You will see them.” He winked.
Clint consulted the voices of Mai and the Triangulum, which nudged him forward despite his doubts. He’d been sent here — by Kold and the others, not by the guards or Realm royalty — to warn the king and queen. At first that made no sense when Kold had proposed it, but then he realized that if he warned them, they’d ready their troops. They’d begin sending those troops out. And there, finally, would be the door Clint needed. So he wouldn’t tell them about the army. He’d just tell them about Kold. Enough of a threat to warrant heading out to fight, but not so much of a threat that it could be considered a danger to whatever forces this bubblegum kingdom might have at the ready.
He looked at the guards once more, then marched inside.
The castle was more than lavish. The entrance hall was as tall as the Triangulum chamber under the mountain, but was otherwise its opposite. The place he’d come from had been dark, dirty, and secretive. The castle was brighter than bright, its entrance hall pocked with endless skylights from which shafts of gorgeous yellow light shifted and churned with motes of dust. Still, despite the motes in the sunbeams, the hall itself wasn’t dusty. It was as if the dust existed only inside of the shafts, as if the light had been captured as decoration, specifically meant to lend the beams substance — open and welcoming, white and clean. The hall itself, from end to end and top to bottom, was fashioned from smooth white marble and bright emerald green. He could see the city through sections of the castle walls, tinged green by the crystal panels. Elegant tapestries plastered a few of the walls. Clint passed a table set with golden flatware and tall, lit candles. His feet whispered on a long, single-piece runner weaved in crimson and gold.
At the end of the chamber stood a man and a woman, both young and beautiful, shoulder to shoulder with their hands clasped in front of their waists. Giant white smiles sat on their faces as they watched him. Each wore green robes trimmed with white fur, speckled with black.
“Marshal,” said the king. “It is good to see you home.”
“So good,” the queen agreed.
Clint listened to the voices in his head, then blurted, “Dharma Kold is preparing for war.”
The king laughed. “Marshal Kold can huff and bluff all he wants. He’s been doing it since before he left. It’s why he was exiled.” The king cocked his head, looking almost apologetic. “Of course, you don’t remember, do you? He did something to you. He and that unicorn of his.”
“There’s nothing he can do,” said the queen. “We sent him out because he was an insurgent. A malcontent. We sent you after him.”
Clint looked over his shoulder, seeing the castle’s front door down the long entrance hall. He turned back to the queen. “The guards said I was sent out to assess the fractures.”
The king laughed again and waved his hand dramatically. “Oh, they speak in riddles.”
“You were sent after Kold,” said the queen. “And now you’re back. And we are so happy to have you.”
“And Edward,” said Clint.
“Of course. We will send for him.”
“When?”
The king smiled. “Soon enough. But first you must share our feast. As a welcome.”
Clint looked back again, seeing the sprawling castle lawn through the front door. The voices were speaking to him, but he couldn’t tell what they wanted to say. The Triangulum voice was most insistent. He felt it shape his lips — and so, because it seemed prudent, Clint said what it seemed to want him to say.
“How will you get Edward back here?”
The queen said, “Through a doorway. Like the one you came through.”
“You know I came through a shimmer?”
She giggled. “Oh, you sound like the commissioner of a stitching crew!”
“Of course we know,” said the king. “And of course we will open one for Edward. But first, we must celebrate.” He gestured toward the dining table.
“And you knew I was coming? I mean… that I was coming at all?”
The king nodded. “Of course. We opened your door.”
“The Triangulum Enchantem opened the door.”
“It may have seemed that way,” the queen said. “You control the Triangulum, so you spoke to it and it spoke to us. We heard. We opened the door. It’s the only way. Realm doors only open from the inside. You didn’t know that?”
“Nar.”
The queen giggled at his word, and part of Clint remembered that in The Realm, they didn’t use it. The
king said, “Of course. It’s always been that way. We sent Kold out from the inside. We sent you out from the inside…”
“To assess the fractures,” Clint interrupted.
“Yes.” This time, Clint was the one who almost laughed at the word.
“I thought I went out after Kold.”
“You did.”
“It was both,” said the queen, now seeming flustered.
“And we opened the door for you from the inside,” the king said, continuing as if Clint hadn’t interrupted. “So you see, Kold can bluster all he wants. He can build his army as big as he wants. He…”
“You know about the army?”
“Yes, we know it all. But it doesn’t matter. Unless a door is opened from here, in The Realm, he can never get inside. The wall isn’t an actual wall, and it’s entirely impervious.”
The king finished speaking, and both he and the queen re-clasped their hands at their belts. The white smiles re-formed, and it was again as if they were statues, left here for Clint to find.
The gunslinger listened for Mai inside his head. He didn’t know what should come next. He was flying blind. But she was silent. Clint could only hear the Triangulum. The Triangulum that was, now that he thought about it, growing louder and more insistent. More insistent than even his own voice. The Triangulum, he thought, that the king and queen said Clint had called to, and which had, in turn, called to them, telling them to open the door. The Triangulum, they’d said, that Clint controlled.
But he didn’t control the Triangulum. Dharma Kold controlled the Triangulum.
Clint felt a strange, incredibly powerful force seize his arm and thrust it upward, palm facing the king and queen. He had no control over it. He could feel the dark force inside him grabbing his muscles and channeling its tremendous power into him, through him like a portal. A web of blue light, like lightning, shot from his hand and struck the king and queen of The Realm, knocking them backward. They fell onto a raised set of steps, their eyes shocked.
