The White City

by John Claude Bemis

  “Ray …,” she muttered weakly.

  “Shh,” Ray said. “Sip this. Slowly now.”

  “Where … what’s happened?”

  “Just drink,” Ray said. As she drank the steaming liquid, Jolie began shivering uncontrollably. Ray hoped this meant she was improving.

  He poured himself a cup of the hot tea and drank it in a gulp. Warmth was returning to his frozen body.

  With night falling, Ray nursed Jolie until her trembling subsided. He fed her bread and, later, a stew made from the onions and cabbage he’d taken from the miners. Jolie was too weak to speak but gazed at Ray with a gentle and grateful expression.

  Later in the night, Ray said, “Jolie. I have to know. Was Sally … was she with you when the avalanche fell? Is she …”

  “She escaped.”

  Ray exhaled with relief. “Did you speak to her?”

  “She is in danger, Ray.” Jolie managed to sit up slightly. “Quorl … there was something wrong with him. He has changed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was savage. Terrifying. Those eyes …”

  “What about them?” Ray breathed.

  The flickering firelight danced shadows across Jolie face. “They were the eyes of a monster.”

  SALLY WANDERED THROUGH THE TALL GRASS OF THE VALLEY. “Quorl! Where are you?”

  She had only stopped to drink at the river and to clean up, and then moments later, when she looked around, he had gone. The valley was huge and sweeping—grasslands punctuated by occasional forests and, on the far side, blue mountains that sprang up from the valley floor into jagged peaks. It suddenly looked bigger and more desolate than she’d thought. Sally looked around for something to climb on, something to help her see where he might have gone.

  “Quorl,” she called out, her frustration edging toward panic.

  She heard something ahead and tore her way into a thicket of bushes. Pushing the branches aside, the thicket ended abruptly, and Sally fell forward onto her hands and knees. She looked up and gave a startled gasp as she saw the rougarou. “Quorl! Why did you—”

  She froze and then leaped to her feet.

  Quorl was sitting atop a moose carcass. Blood stained the rougarou’s snout as he bit into the moose’s side and crunched into the sinew and bone. Sally backed away in horror. Quorl had hunted for her. She never would have been able to come this far if he hadn’t. And she had seen him eat his catch, but this was different. From the flies buzzing about and the stench of rot, she knew this was a carcass he’d found, not something he had caught.

  “Quorl!” she said sharply. “Get off that and come with me.”

  He kept eating, and if he understood her words, he gave no acknowledgment.

  She dug into her rucksack and pulled out a handful of bistort bulbs. “You like these. Remember? Please come away from that thing, Quorl.”

  He eyed the bulbs but then returned to tearing at the moose’s leg.

  “Quorl, did you hear me?” she snapped. “Get up! We’ve got to find Father. Don’t you remember what we have to do? I need you. I can’t reach him without—” Her voice broke and she brushed angrily with her sleeve at the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  He had promised he would lead her, that he would take care of her. But what if he had gone too far? What would happen when he was no longer a rougarou but became entirely a wolf? How would she find her father then?

  Quorl had stopped eating, his dark eyes on her.

  Sally took a deep breath and said firmly, “Get up now.”

  Quorl let go of the moose and rose to his feet.

  Her voice trembled as she said, “You can’t leave me again. Okay? Do you understand, Quorl? You promised, remember. You can’t leave me.”

  Whether he understood her or not, Sally could no longer tell. But Quorl came toward her with his head lowered.

  She took out the rabbit’s foot and watched as it rotated in her palm until the little claws pointed to the sawtooth mountains rising from the far side of the valley floor. She took a few steps in that direction, peering back at Quorl. He looked back at the dead moose, his tongue dangling from his blood-speckled jaws, but then he trotted after her.

  As they crossed the valley, Sally decided she no longer cared anymore whether she was able to return her father’s Rambler powers to him. Mother Salagi had told her that only her father could make the spike that was needed to destroy the Machine, but she no longer cared whether he did that. All she wanted was to find him. Just to escape this wilderness and see him at long last.

  If he could be her father, to watch over her and take care of her and be in her life, she wouldn’t care what else happened.

  By nightfall, she camped in a grove of aspens at the far side of the valley. When she woke the next morning, Quorl was still there. She was not sure whether to be relieved or not.

  She found a pass leading up through the mountains. The climb was brutal, more like going up a ladder than walking. They rose above the timberline into meadows of hard creeping plants and stunted shrubs. Sally looked at the looming mountains and steely sky ahead.

  “How much higher can we go?” she wondered aloud.

  She half expected Quorl to make one of his philosophical comments such as “There are paths that go higher,” but Quorl said nothing.

  They crossed the high mountains. Quorl stayed near as they traveled, but he no longer hunted for her or helped her gather roots and berries. Sally got by on the foraged food still in her rucksack, but by the time they reached a shadow-filled forest of spruce several days later, her supply was at its end.

  After walking a short ways into the alpine grove, Quorl stopped and lifted his nose to sniff the air.

  “What is it?” Sally asked anxiously. “Is something out there?”

  Quorl trotted forward, his ears held high. Sally had to jog to keep up with him.

  “Wait, Quorl,” she panted. “Slow down.”

  The rougarou whined and began racing through the trees.

  “Please, Quorl!” Sally called, running as fast as she could. “Slow down.” She wound through the dark evergreens as Quorl got farther and farther ahead.

  “Come back—” she began to yell, when her boot sank into a hole of loose dirt. Her foot twisted and Sally flipped sideways and fell. Pain shot up her leg. As she sat panting and trying to catch her breath, she eased her foot gently from the hole. Pulling up the hem of her dress and rolling down her sock, she saw her ankle had begun to swell.

  “No, no …,” she gasped. She tried to stand, but as soon as her weight was on the foot, it gave way beneath her, erupting in fresh waves of pain. She looked around at the dim forest. She could no longer see Quorl, no longer hear his whines, no longer even remember which way he had gone.

  A croak broke from the woods. She peered up to find a black congress of ravens watching her from the branches overhead. Sally tried once more to stand, this time careful not to put so much weight on her twisted ankle. She hopped a step and then shuffled another step, reaching out to hold on to a tree trunk for support.

  “Quorl!” she called.

  The ravens flapped their great black wings as they startled from the branches. Sally’s voice echoed through the trees and vanished into the misty woods along with the ravens.

  She began sobbing into her hands. What would she do? She had the rabbit’s foot. It was still pulling her toward her father, but how would she cross into the Gloaming to reach him? She had to find Quorl. He would come back. He had to. She was limping along, calling out his name, when she emerged from the forest.

  An enormous rock face rose up before her. A waterfall beginning hundreds of feet above cascaded down in a torrent of noise and misting spray. As Sally sank to the ground, she watched the last orange glow of the setting sun fade from the mountain wall.

  WHEN THEY CAME DOWN INTO THE VALLEY, RAY CIRCLED THE mare and leaped from the saddle. He knelt in the tall grass and inspected the path of broken stems. Pushing back the blades revealed a fo
otprint pressed into the soft earth. “She came through not more than two days ago,” he said. “We’re gaining on them.”

  Jolie looked down at the other trail parting the grasses. “Only because he is growing worse. When I tracked them up from the plains into the mountains, Quorl and Sally walked side by side. But now—”

  “I see it,” Ray said, and got back into the saddle. “He’s not following a straight course like she is. He’s drifting from side to side.”

  “Like an animal distracted by every scent and smell,” Jolie said grimly.

  Ray nodded. “Right, like an animal.”

  He surveyed the valley ahead and the distant mountains. “There’s a lot of open country between here and that range.”

  Jolie rubbed Élodie’s mane. “The horses are exhausted.”

  “Let’s get them down to the river first, then they can rest.”

  With a crack of the reins, the horses set off through the belly-deep grasses. When they reached the river, Ray and Jolie dismounted and let the horses eat from the thistle growing along the banks. Ray dug up some of the starchy thistle roots to roast later. Under the tufts of grass, he found large, fleshy mushrooms and bright orange chanterelles. He cut up some to share with Jolie.

  As they ate, Ray said, “Jolie, what happens after we find Sally?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your sisters,” Ray said. “Are you … well, you said before that you belonged with them. Will you go back?”

  “To the Terrebonne?” Jolie asked, her expression growing serious. “With the Machine still out there? Ray, the Gog must be stopped. I would not run from all there is to do, no matter how hopeless it might seem at times.”

  Ray nodded as he picked up another mushroom. “Good.”

  “But that still does not answer your question,” Jolie said. “Where do we go after we catch up with your sister and Quorl? Chicago?”

  “Where else would we go?” Ray asked.

  She shrugged. “Do you not want to know what the rabbit’s foot is pulling to?”

  “It’s not him,” Ray said. “It can’t be him. Even if he’s alive—and I have no reason to think he could be—my father’s in the Gloaming. How could the lodestone possibly be pulling to something in the Gloaming? It doesn’t make any sense that—”

  The black mare whinnied and turned her head to the east. Ray and Jolie looked back. All they saw was the forest of cottonwoods from where they’d come. Élodie stamped her hooves anxiously.

  “I thought you said the steamcoach could not follow us up into the mountains,” Jolie said.

  “It can’t.” Ray lifted his hand and held it out. He felt the jolt of current immediately.

  Jolie’s eyes were wide. “I do not see any smoke.”

  “Because there’s no steamcoach out there. Get on Élodie!” he shouted as he leaped up into the saddle. “It’s the Hound. They’ve sent the Hound after us.”

  The horses splashed across the river, and once they reached the far bank, Ray and Jolie drove them into a hard gallop. After they had covered a mile or more, Ray glanced back. On the other side of the river, a white form emerged from the cottonwoods.

  Ray kicked his heels into the mare’s haunches and leaned low across her neck, yelling, “Go! Go!”

  The two horses raced side by side, hooves thundering. Ray searched for Sally and Quorl’s passage, some sign of where they made their way out from the valley, but he had lost their trail. There was no time to stop and track them.

  He looked up at the range ahead. “Do you see any sort of pass?” he shouted.

  Jolie’s eyes searched along the mountains. “I see gaps between the peaks, but to reach them would be impossible.”

  “Over there!” Ray steered the mare toward a grove of aspens slightly to the north. The mountains behind them came together in a narrow gap. “See that pass? It starts just on the other side of these trees.”

  “Can the horses climb that?” Jolie asked anxiously.

  “Probably not.” Ray pointed to the looming range. “But it’s all too steep. We don’t have time to search for a pass that the horses can manage!”

  “So what should we do?”

  “Get into the trees,” Ray said. “Just keep riding.”

  Giving one last look back, he saw the pale form of the Hoarhound coming through the tall grass and knew they had only minutes before the Hound would reach the trees. Leading the horses into the dark grove, they ducked from low hanging branches and wound through the ferns and underbrush and around fallen branches and boulders.

  “There it is,” Jolie said as they came out the other side of the forest. A steep gully of broken rocks and debris jutted up into the mountains. “The horses cannot climb that.”

  “We’ll go on foot,” Ray said. “And we don’t have time to argue about it. There’s no other choice.”

  Jolie leaped from Élodie’s back. “All right, but we cut the saddles and set the horses free.”

  Ray looked back as he dismounted. The trees were too thick for him to see how far away the Hound was, but he couldn’t hear it yet.

  “Okay,” Ray said. “But hurry.”

  When they had gotten the saddles and harnesses stripped, the horses stamped their hooves anxiously, seeming uncertain of what to do. Jolie nuzzled Élodie’s snout. “You are free. Go.” She clapped her hands and the horses set off together, galloping swiftly away.

  A roar broke, rumbling through the forest and echoing off the mountainside.

  Ray shook his head and pointed to the pass. “We won’t get beyond that first bend up there before the Hoarhound catches us.”

  “We cannot go back,” Jolie said, clutching the handle of her knife.

  Ray frowned at her knife. “And we can’t fight it either! Our best hope is to hide. Up that tree,” he said, running toward a tall leafy aspen.

  “The Hound will have us cornered—”

  “He already does,” Ray said. “Climb!”

  Jolie went first, grabbing the lowest branches of the aspen and hoisting herself up. “Higher,” Ray said, climbing swiftly behind her.

  Ray and Jolie scrambled to a cleft in the trunk nearly forty feet up. As Jolie scanned the forest below, she said, “If it sees us up here, it will topple this tree at the roots.”

  Ray was already taking out the saltpeter and a half-burned branch of sagebrush. “Then we’ve got to hope this keeps it from seeing us.” He blew the saltpeter powder in his palm into a flame. After lighting the leaves, he dropped them into the jar.

  Ray waved the sagebrush jar to scatter the smoke around them. The fragrant smoke drifted down through the limbs and leaves toward the earth. “Say nothing,” Ray whispered, shifting his boots to find a secure perch. He and Jolie faced each other with the forked trunk at their backs. Jolie took a deep breath and looked down.

  A snort sounded below. The Hoarhound’s heavy footsteps approached until at last the beast came into view, winding its way slowly through the trees. Ray waved the jar once more, and Jolie had to put a hand to her mouth to stifle a cough.

  From their high vantage, the clockwork monster looked more like a pacing bull. The ground crackled with frost under its heavy paws. The cold drifted up on the breeze. As the Hoarhound neared the trunk of their tree, it stopped and sniffed the ground.

  Jolie squeezed the branch overhead anxiously, the skin across her knuckles tight and pale.

  The Hound took a few more sniffs, then turned its enormous head side to side, searching the forest but not looking up. A guttural growl grew in the monster’s throat. Ray tensed.

  With a sharp exhale of frost, the Hoarhound bounded forward and trotted up toward the gully. When the monster had left the grove, Ray sighed with relief.

  “I was certain it smelled us,” Jolie whispered.

  “The sage masks our scent,” Ray said, holding out his hand to feel for the Hound. “Keep still and wait. It’s not left yet.”

  “Ray,” Jolie said with a note of alarm. “The jar.”


  The sagebrush in the jar was burning out. “Take out the branch,” Ray said, tilting the jar her way as he got back out the saltpeter. She reached her slender hand in through the mouth to remove the sage, but it crumbled to ash.

  “Is there any more?” Jolie asked.

  “That was the last branch.” Ray extended his hand toward the gully.

  Jolie said, “Well, it will not matter if the Hound does not—”

  Ray’s eyes widened. “It’s coming back!”

  “What do we do?” Jolie asked, tensing again.

  Juggling the jar and saltpeter tin, Ray opened the haversack. “Hurry! Look for even the tiniest piece. A few crushed leaves. Anything!”

  As Jolie dug through the satchel, Ray watched for the Hound. He saw flashes of white, still at some distance, winding through the forest as the Hoarhound prowled.

  “A leaf!” Jolie said.

  “Give it here so I can light it.” Ray tried to pass the jar and tin of saltpeter to Jolie while taking the sage leaf, but in the scramble, the leaf dropped.

  “Catch it!” Ray hissed.

  Jolie reached, but the sage flittered just past her fingertips. “I missed it!”

  Ray heard the frost-crackled steps of the Hound coming nearer. He looked down at the leaf of sage, drifting to the ground. He knew the Hound would spot them without the charm. All it would take was one glance up. He had to get the leaf.

  Ray shoved the haversack, the jar, and the tin into Jolie’s arms.

  “It is gone!” Jolie whispered urgently. “You cannot get down and back in time.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  He closed his eyes. He forced aside the thought of the Hound, the thought of the danger he and Jolie were in, the need to reach Sally. He leaned forward and dove through the branches.

  He heard Jolie gasp, but he let the sound blend with the rushing of wind in his ears. He focused on the aspen, the forest, the mountains. He fell.

  Ray sensed that he was about to hit a branch and opened his eyes. He waved his arms and felt the feathers catch the air and lift him up in time. Flapping his crow wings, Ray circled the trunk, spying the Hoarhound sniffing at the ground and edging closer to their tree.