“There’s no other way out, Mr. Quince,” Jack said softly.
“Why, Jack?” he yelled. “Because you haven’t found it? I know your kind. You settle; take what life gives you and piss about how unfair everything is. Well I don’t settle, Jack. You’ve been here for two days, and you said yourself you don’t know what you’re doing. So how do you know there’s no other way out besides your cockamamie idea? Face it, Jack. You’re doing what you were told because that’s all you know how to do. I’ll bet it’s all you’ve ever done, and you hate your life all the more for it. Just like there’s a part of you that wishes you were more like me. You just don’t have the guts.”
Jack felt his jaw tighten. “The only way out of here is the train. And the only way to get the train back is to prepare the tickets. And the only way to get the tickets ready is for me to write them. Five of us. Five return tickets. It’s that simple.”
“Really?” Leland said. “If it’s so simple, what are you going to do about them?”
A hundred yards away, three men stood where once there was only empty desert. The central one wore an ivory-colored suit, face shadowed by a brimmed hat, a curious staff in one hand. To his right, an enormous man with a smooth face and head wearing an open robe of dark satin and loose-fitting pajama pants, his pale, oiled skin obscenely visible. And to their left, a tall man in a heavy gray coat and broad hat wearing a retrofitted gas mask from World War I, his clothes powdered in dust as if he’d been conjured from the wasteland itself, some kind of demon. Weapon belts crossed his chest, the pommel of a sword visible over his left shoulder, a curious variation of a long rifle gripped in his hand.
The Writer’s warning rang clear in Jack’s mind, displacing everything from the last twenty-four hours with its sheer urgency. He tried to speak but couldn’t, his throat closed as if choked with a mouthful of dust, bone-white, while words reverberated through his brain: Cast Outs! The Tribe of Dust!
“One of them might have an idea how to get out of here,” the businessman said as he started across the hardpan.
Jack followed him into the wasteland, thinking that Mr. Quince was, about this, dead wrong.
THE LINE IN THE SAND
Gusman Kreiger watched the misfit collection cross the sands, the relative safety of the Nexus left behind.
“This is what comes from entrusting power to crippled, self-indulgent dreamers. The center of all the universes, the apex of all creations, past, present, and future, rendered an abomination. The Nexus could be anything. Instead, it is a worn down, western cliché with inconsistent architecture and sub-standard wiring.” He shook his head. “I should have made Algernon suffer more.”
Rebreather and Hyde were both silent, a rarity for the latter. Kreiger shrugged. “Well, done is done.” Then to Rebreather he said, “It will not be possible to kill the Caretaker outright. There is still too much of Algernon in that place. Even dead, I do not believe he would leave his protégé defenseless, and until I ascertain how much she knows about herself and her new powers, I’ll not risk all on foolish bravado. Still, she should understand the extent of our resolve.”
He held up a single bullet, blowing across it, breath nearly visible like the skirls of heat upon the desert. The casing shined like gold, the lead tip as dull as a demon’s claw. He handed it to Rebreather, who immediately chambered the round into his long rifle.
Kreiger cast a brief, withering stare at the approaching quintet, his focus on the young woman with the dirty blonde hair and wan expression. Such an unlikely choice, Algernon. “Select one of the constructs … and make her understand.”
“Spare the little one,” Hyde said, a petition for the sake of polite etiquette like a request not to forego an after-dinner sweet. “I rather like her.”
Kreiger turned an eye to the corpulent magi, a half smile even as he wrung the metal of the tall lightning rod, blue-white light bleeding out from the stamped iron and crystal of the staff as if trying to escape the channel that drew it in and held it captive, a slave to the wizard’s will. But Gusman Kreiger was not so easily denied, and dragged the power back. “Once we obtain the Nexus, you may have anything or anyone your tragically overactive imagination can conjure, even the skinny, young woman Algernon has chosen as a successor. A fine, little playmate, as pliable and willful as only reality can make her, unlike your fading dream creatures or those pathetic constructs that surround her. But until that moment, all is fair game.”
Hyde stared at the group coming closer, eyes moving longingly between the soft innocence of the child and the wild soul of the young woman. Kreiger knew his thoughts, and found them useful, if somewhat repugnant. The strongest magic was the magic that came directly from the source, directly from the Nexus. And that magic was the magic of making. With it, anything could be made. Anything!
Hyde wiped the glistening sides of his mouth with soft, meaty fingers, gaze lingering upon the approaching group with morbid intensity. “They’re here.”
* * *
Leland Quince stopped ten feet from the trio, hands tucked in his pockets, waiting for one of them to make the first move. It was a game, a play where all the performers were aware of the duplicity, the contest, the ever-shifting rules. The first to step forward or extend a hand acknowledged the superiority of the other. Most mistook it for courtesy.
But staring at them, Leland became more and more convinced that these three were unlike stockholders or CEOs or even house majority leaders cozening influence; these three might not respond to reason. The fat one, who from a distance resembled a corn-fed Hollywood mogul stereotype, some hedonistic pervert oozing blubber from his silk-pajama attire with his manicured nails and prissy face, appeared more sinister as he grew closer. His leering expression was both cunning and bestial, his skin lavishly tattooed and pierced with a ragged assemblage of animal bones like some carnival sideshow. Then there was the tall, post-apocalyptic movie villain, his outfit cluttered with cruel, archaic weapons, the fabric permanently saturated with dust, wrinkles worn deep and polished like river-carved stone. An outdated gas mask covered his face, respiring loudly in the awkward silence. He held a long rifle loosely in one hand. And the third, the one who looked the most normal—the one who inspired Leland to walk out in the first place—simply tipped an amused expression at him, the kind one gives a dog that has chosen to lift its leg to a sofa in the middle of a formal dinner party.
Leland did not speak, did not nod, only stared and waited. They would come to him. Fuck all, he was not so far outside of his world that he could not still assess a situation, know a thing’s worth within moments: its secret value, its greatest flaw. The man with the staff and the cunning eyes exuded power, raw power Leland could smell the way a shark smells blood in the tide. Not power on a conventional scale, not something that could be bought and sold, political clout or wealthy favors. No, this was true power: pure, unadulterated, able to take on any form, any fantasy, any purpose. This was power with the potential to be anything. Anything!
And this man had it.
Jack was clueless, but not this one. Leland could feel it. The man with the staff and the white suit would find a way out of this place. And those who helped him would be raised up, made powerful; not as kings, but gods!
As for those who did not, God’s mercy on them.
* * *
Ellen was a half-step behind Jack as he approached the newcomers, and instinctively afraid, certain that these three were the Cast Outs Jack mentioned. The one with the staff wore his polished veneer like a disguise, his skin a costume; underneath, he was no different from the monsters he kept company with. The fat one with the tattoos followed her movements with his eyes, stare raw and slick, stripping her away, looking nakedly at her and sending shivers up her spine. She crossed her arms tightly and glanced at the last, the mask unreadable, dangerous. They were the three wise men on smack, mescaline prophets come to offer tidbits of wisdom and handfuls of opiates and acid-blots, Halloween tricksters from an LSD trip you wished l
ike hell would end.
“Jack, stop!” she blurted out, not sure why; knowing only that he mustn’t go near them. None of them must ever be within arm’s reach of these three.
Jack looked at her, not understanding but heeding her advice all the same. He’s too trusting, she thought, but wasn’t sure why she thought that was a bad thing. Jack stopped a pace apart from the businessman, a kind of rudimentary border forming between the two groups, no-man’s land.
“Algernon mentioned you,” the elegant man said with a peculiar accent, looking only at Ellen. He tipped his hat to reveal two different colored eyes: one bright blue, the other a green found in the slippery skin atop still water that hides something deep and cold and frightening. How many people have you killed? she wanted to ask, but thought in that same moment that she didn’t want to know the answer.
“I admit,” the man persisted, “I was a bit surprised at his choice of replacement. Frankly, I thought Algernon’s tastes ran the other way. But he was always a man of surprises.”
“Who—”
“I’m sorry, didn’t Algernon mention me? Shame on him; I’m a rather important detail for someone in your position. Still, he didn’t have a lot of time. I take responsibility for that. I am Gusman Kreiger and these are my associates, Reginald Hyde.” The fat man tipped his head, eyes narrowing as a smile tightened his lips, leaving Ellen with the sensation that he had just reached across no-man’s land and caressed her. “And this is Rebreather.” The tall man did not move at all, a monolith of stone, dangerous and unreadable.
“Who’s Algernon?” Ellen asked, inching closer to Jack. She did not understand why, did not care to understand why, only that Jack was familiar and safe, a friend of only a few hours, but a friend all the same. Maybe her only friend.
Kreiger stared at her as if trying to fathom her intent. Then he laughed. And Reginald Hyde laughed too, the sound high and effeminate. “Oh, my sweet, he has certainly left you in the lurch if he did not even tell you his real name. What kind of a fool follows a crazy, old man to the edge of madness on the basis of faith?”
Ellen turned to Jack. “Is he talking about the Writer? The one you told me about?”
Jack didn’t answer, only glaring at Gusman Kreiger.
“Well, not to worry,” Kreiger said. “This whole nightmare can be over soon if you’re willing to be reasonable. Algernon may have told you very little, but he told me a great many things, even things about you. I don’t think he intended to, but a gerrymander can be very persuasive. Algernon told me almost everything before I had him torn apart and the walls of some out-world back alley painted with his blood—the same out-world he plucked you from. So you understand I’m very serious when I say that I would like you to listen to reason, Caretaker.”
“She’s not the new Caretaker,” Jack said, stepping forward. “I am.”
Kreiger glanced to Rebreather. “It’s the hero, then.”
The tall Cast Out raised the modified long rifle, an adaptation of firearms borrowed across many wars—some unremembered, others not fought outside his reality—as if it were nothing more than an extension of his own monstrous arm, his fingertip a hollow bore of blue steel, and fired point-blank at Jack’s head.
* * *
Jack heard Ellen scream his name too late. Scarcely able to register what was happening, he barely had enough time to utter a surprised grunt, one hand moving as if to bat the shot aside, shooing it away like some bothersome gnat. The explosion ringing in his ears, he was knocked flat on his back, the left side of his head on fire.
He shot me! He fucking shot me! The thought repeated over and over in his brain like the curses of a gibbering idiot as he lay there, eyes squeezed shut, hands clamped to the pain; throbbing; burning.
Ellen and Alex hovered over him. She was pulling at his hands, saying something to him that could not quite penetrate the rampant inner screaming: He fucking shot me!
Already the initial intensity was beginning to subside, the fiery pain becoming a horrible ache, pulsing waves like a cracked tooth. Soon, everything will go dark. But not just yet. This place is so bright.
“Christ, are you made of steel?” he heard Alex say, his voice distant, ears still ringing.
“Is he okay?” It was Lindsay, the little girl who was quite probably dead in another reality blessedly removed from this one.
Ellen’s hand strayed near his face, fingers trembling as they wavered timidly between touching and not touching his forehead, and he saw her blink with astonishment. A smile touched her face, not the reaction he had expected.
“He’s okay,” Ellen whispered. “The bullet, it … I think it … bounced.”
Bounced? How was that possible? He was so close he actually saw the rifling in the barrel. How could anyone survive that? How?
He was not the only one surprised. Rebreather turned sharply on Gusman Kreiger. “That one has the protection of the Nexus! He is Algernon’s chosen!”
Kreiger looked down on Jack and the small group attending him, a glimmer of rage barely concealed behind his gaze. “Algernon lied. With his dying breath, he lied. Impressive.”
“Stay away from us,” Jack said, sitting up. He had hoped it would sound like a grand and sweeping proclamation, but terror had reduced his voice to a creaky whisper, and the very act of sitting made him momentarily dizzy, his skull pounding with every heartbeat. He supposed he should simply be glad he hadn’t peed himself.
“I’m sorry, little man.” Kreiger cupped a hand to his ear. “You have something to say to me.”
Jack let Ellen and Alex help him back to his feet, trying to ignore the throbbing in his head. He felt a wet trickle down his temple that turned cool against his cheek, probably blood. “I said, stay away from us! Stay away from me. Stay away from the Saloon. These people are under my protection now. You don’t belong here, Cast Out. These people are safe from you with me.”
“Boldly spoken, charlatan. Anything to back it up?” Kreiger asked, extending the point of his staff.
As the tip of the lightning rod drew down on Jack, it began sparking with blue white energy as if rubbing the end of a grinding wheel. For a moment, it looked as if it had pierced the surface of water, the air rippling at its touch, its length refracted.
“As I suspected,” Kreiger said, pulling the staff back. “That’s one, Caretaker. Your wall may keep me and mine at bay for a while, but not forever. You’re on borrowed time, as much a prisoner as I am an exile. But what you see as safety is actually the limit of your tether, so bark and growl all you like; you’re fooling no one. You don’t belong here. You had no idea what you were getting yourself into and you still don’t. This wall won’t hold, and when it comes down, your tiny world will collapse and take you and everyone around you with it.
“But we can still reach an accord, one you’ll find acceptable. We’ve been where you are now. The details are different for every Caretaker, but the task remains the same. You must take control of the Nexus, make its power your own, a servant to your will. Fail and be cast into the Wasteland.”
Roots of lightning coursed from Kreiger’s staff to burrow into the bone-colored sand and send dregs sprouting from the hardpan like eager weeds, gangly limbed beasts with long nails, crooked tusks and malevolent eyes. First a dozen, then a hundred, they stood tall and still as statues, soldiers awaiting their general’s command. The combined rasp of their breathing overwhelmed the desert’s silence, the thick snuffling of air through animal muzzles. No two were exactly alike, variations on a theme: primitive, alien, savage. Jack felt the others inch closer to him. Lindsay uttered a frightened sound, and Ellen whispered his name urgently as if somehow thinking there was something he could do.
“The Wasteland is a hard place, boy—” Kreiger began.
“My name is Jack.”
“The Wasteland is a hard place, Jack,” Kreiger amended. “A hard place with hard rules. There is no life in the Wasteland, only loose ends, misplaced allegories and tails of forgotten dream
s like the hollow seeds left behind by a moment of misguided self-indulgence. All that exists here are the carnivores, the hunters and scavengers. And the collective dregs of the Wasteland, the most vicious skinkers, gerrymanders, dust runners and more, answer to me. Did you expect we’d come to you wringing our hat brims and scuffing our feet, Jack, begging for your mercy, alms and sour gruel? No, Jack. Your wall may keep us at bay for a time, but like yourself, the Cast Outs do not truly belong here, strangers in a strange land. This barrier is no protection against the creatures of this world.”
Rebreather swept the array of beasts with his hand, and they started forward, a wave of abomination.
Jack was pushing backwards, his feet slipping on dust that felt insubstantial as he collided with the others, motionless before the advancing hoard.
“There’s another one behind us!” Leland shouted, gesturing in horror.
Jack looked back as the first Wasteland creature crossed the middle ground, that place he had so boldly declared inviolable, and saw what Leland was pointing at: a black object falling at them like a meteor, its features obscured by the brightness of the sun.
The nearest dreg turned its face up in time to watch its own headless body collapse to the ground. A second fell beside it, the gargoyle from the Saloon having buried a clawed fist into the creature’s chest like punching through so much wet wallboard. Then it turned to face the Tribe of Dust, wings outstretched, arms and jaws spread in challenge, and roared, fresh blood dripping from its claws.
Rebreather brought the dregs to a halt, frozen like leaderless zombies in a bayou graveyard. If Nail’s attack surprised the Tribe of Dust, they didn’t show it. “And that would be two, Jack,” Gusman Kreiger said softly. “I was wondering how long it would take for him to show up.”
The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) Page 17
