The White City

by John Claude Bemis

  “How can that be?” Sally asked.

  “This world is not the world of the material. It is a spirit world.”

  “Is he dead?” Sally cast a sharp glance at her father, who was squatting before the pile, inspecting a small object before tossing it aside irritably. “Is he a ghost?”

  “No,” Quorl replied. “He is not a ghost. He is flesh, but wholly different here.” Then he called out, “How did you come to this place, Li’l Bill?”

  Li’l Bill dropped the object back to the pile and stood. He looked back over his shoulder at them, his brow knit.

  “Do you not remember?” Quorl said.

  Li’l Bill paced a few steps, a finger pressed against his temple. “Yes, I know … so many tangled memories. I know. Somewhere in here.”

  After watching him ponder laboriously another moment, Sally said, “You fought a Hoarhound, Father. It took your hand.”

  Li’l Bill nodded. “Yes, one of his clockwork hunters. It had me … trapped for so long. And then I was freed.”

  “What happened then?” Quorl asked.

  “Lost,” Li’l Bill replied. “I was lost, I reckon. I wandered.” He shook his head as if struggling to clear his thoughts. “I came to a place of darkness. There were roots. Yes, I reached its roots.”

  “The roots of the Great Tree?” Quorl said.

  “Yes.” Li’l Bill’s eyes widened. “Such darkness. Such menace. The howl of his engines.” He covered his ears as if being once again tormented by the noise. “I ran! I had to get away. I knew there was naught but death there and I couldn’t save the Tree. Not then, anyway. Not yet. I wandered until I escaped the Darkness, until I found this place, a fierce distance from the Gog’s clockwork. I’ve called to them. They will save it.”

  “Who will save the Tree?” Quorl asked.

  Li’l Bill blinked hard and cast his hand back at the lake. “Them! The sirens. They’re coming, don’t you see?”

  Quorl looked at the lake and narrowed his eyes.

  Li’l Bill continued, “Yes. There is so much to be done. Look!” He hurried over to the pile and picked up a blackened object. “See! See, I’ve got a job of work to do yet. Oh, I do. Been making these.” He placed it in Sally’s hand and went back to the pile. The object was not a stone as she had thought, but a piece of iron that had been shaped by his hammer. It was heavier than Sally had imagined and looked like a pinecone before its bristles had opened.

  Quorl looked skeptically at it and seemed about to say something to her when Li’l Bill came back with a handful of similarly fashioned objects. “I made them also.” He dropped them with a clatter to the floor and went to collect others until dozens and dozens littered the area around Sally’s feet. She looked closer now at the pile. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of the metal cones.

  “What are they, Father?” she asked.

  Li’l Bill came back with another scoop in his forearm. “To stop the Machine. Been practicing. Don’t you see?” Irritation rose in his voice. He dropped the cones and rammed his fingers up into his knotted hair. “But they ain’t right. I need it! I thought he would bring it to me.”

  “Who?” Sally asked, exasperated. “The sirens?”

  He looked at her squarely, his manic energy suddenly gone. “Your brother, Sally.”

  “Ray?”

  He smiled. “Why, of course. Where is he?”

  Sally felt a wave of sickening fear come over her at the thought of her brother. He had been trying to find her, to help her, when the Gog’s agents had captured him. And poor Jolie … she could not think about what had happened to her.

  “He can’t come, Father,” she managed to say.

  “But he … he has it.” He began to pace back toward his forge. “I can’t make it until he brings the rabbit’s foot to me. He will bring it to me.”

  As Li’l Bill went back to sifting through his pile of iron cones, Quorl came closer to Sally. “Coyote? Why do you not tell your father that you have the Toninyan? You have what he wants.”

  “He’s gone mad,” Sally said, looking down at her feet.

  “Not so mad as I first thought,” Quorl replied.

  She shifted anxiously. “It’s too late,” she said. “I can’t save him.”

  “You won’t know until you try,” Quorl said, his voice growing deeper and more urgent. “I know it has been a shock to see him this way, but you must—”

  She spun around. “Don’t you think I want him the way he was? I want my father. I want him to be a Rambler again with all my heart. But I … I can’t give him back his powers!”

  Quorl’s ears flattened and he turned his head questioningly. “Why not? There is nothing to lose by trying.”

  “Yes, there is.” Tears welled up, and Sally tried to swallow the awful knot in her throat. “There is, Quorl. I can’t give him back his power. If I do, the Machine will never be destroyed.”

  “I don’t understand,” Quorl said. “Your father was a powerful Rambler. To return his hand will return his powers, as it did with the Rambler Nel.”

  “But Mother Salagi told me that a weapon must be made, a ‘light to pierce the Dark.’ Only this weapon can destroy the Machine.”

  “What does this have to do with your father?” Quorl asked.

  Sally took out the rabbit’s foot. “This is the ‘light to pierce the Dark.’ This must be used to make the weapon.”

  Quorl stood frozen. He locked his blue eyes on her. “Then you are faced with a grave choice, Coyote,” he said at last. His voice held no anger, no chastisement, no resentment, only a gentle grimness. “You might help your father, but what will be the cost in doing so?”

  “It’s not a choice, Quorl. We both know I can’t give my father back his hand.” She put her face in her hands, tears spilling into her palms. When she looked up, Li’l Bill had stopped his task. He squatted on his haunches and looked curiously over at her. As he rose slowly and approached Sally, Quorl turned and left them.

  Li’l Bill sat on the floor next to her and gathered her against his side with an awkward arm. “Why are you crying, child?” he asked.

  The simplicity of his question and the genuine concern in his voice overwhelmed Sally, and she buried her face against his shoulder and wept.

  “I came here to save you,” she said. “I wanted to give you back your powers. I wanted you to be a Rambler again, to be my father, to come away with me and be with me and Ray back at Shuckstack, but … but I can’t save you.”

  He smoothed the curls of her hair with his hand. “It would not matter,” he said. “I’ve been in the Gloaming too long. I cannot return to what I once was.”

  She looked up at him, blinking away the tears, surprised by how calm and lucid he seemed. “But you said you needed Ray to bring you the rabbit’s foot.”

  “Not so that I could become a Rambler again.”

  “Then why?” Sally asked.

  He sighed and stared up at the cavern’s ceiling, his ghostly eyes distant for a moment. “John and I failed last time. We thought if I helped him cross into the Gloaming and he destroyed the Gog’s engine with his hammer that the enemy would be defeated. We were wrong. The Gog’s master, the Magog, inhabits the Machine. To destroy it, we needed a weapon of light to drive into the Machine’s heart. A weapon John and I did not possess at the time. That is why I hoped Ray would come. I need him to help forge this weapon. He has it.”

  Sally looked over at the pile of cones her father had been making. He said he had been “practicing,” and she thought it had been madness that had driven him to forge the innumerable iron cones. But now she understood.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Sally said, and her father lifted an eyebrow.

  He had been practicing making the spike, the weapon Mother Salagi had said was needed to destroy the Machine.

  “Father,” Sally said. “I have it.” She placed the rabbit’s foot in his hand.

  “HOW FAR AHEAD IS IT?” JOLIE ASKED AS THEY CRESTED THE next ridge. Nothing but ro
cky sawtooth mountains surrounded them.

  Ray held out his hand to feel for the Hoarhound. “I can’t tell.”

  They raced on, ridge after ridge, higher and deeper into the mountain wilderness. They had rested only when Jolie needed to lie beneath the icy waters of a stream. Their food was nearly out. Ray wanted to try again to take crow form, to test the power once more, but he knew how much it weakened him. He needed all his strength for whatever was to come.

  At last they entered a dark spruce forest. Ray stopped as he saw black forms swooping from the branches ahead. Jolie put a hand to her side as she tried to catch her breath. “What are they?” she asked.

  “Ravens, I think.” Ray called out to them in the speech of crows. A large, grizzled bird flew toward them, landing several yards away before hopping closer to Ray. The raven gave a few low croaks and cackles.

  “What does it say?” Jolie asked.

  Ray looked up with surprise. “They’ve seen them. A wolf, a girl, and a monstrous white devil. They passed through, but he’s not sure where they went. They heard sounds of fighting, but then they disappeared. I can feel the Hound this way.”

  They raced through the forest until they reached a waterfall cascading down from an enormous bluff. As Ray came out from the shadows of the trees, he froze. A boot lay on the ground. And at the edge of the pool, he saw a rucksack, its contents drifting in the water. The water nearest to the waterfall was topped with ice, but as the pool became a swift-flowing stream, the ice broke apart and was carried away in chunks.

  “What’s happened to her?” Ray gasped. “Is she in the water? She … she hasn’t drowned, has she?”

  Jolie dove through the slushy ice and after a moment emerged in the middle of the pool. “I do not see anything. But I hear the echoes of voices.”

  “Like what you heard before in the river?” Ray asked.

  “The voice is clearer, stronger here,” Jolie said, coming out and wringing the water from her hair. “There are several voices now. But I cannot tell if it is—”

  A loud thud sounded, stopping Jolie’s words. She and Ray looked about. Another thud came, along with a crack.

  Ray’s eyes stopped at the base of the waterfall. The torrent of water seemed to be breaking over a large boulder at the bottom of the bluff. “It comes from that rock.”

  “That is not rock,” Jolie said. “That is solid ice.”

  “Why would the waterfall freeze at the bottom like that?” But Ray’s eyes widened as he realized. Another powerful blow cracked the ice at the foot of the waterfall. “The Hound is trapped.”

  “Not for long,” Jolie said.

  “Do you think it has Sally in there?” Ray gasped, feeling the toby trembling against his chest.

  Jolie drew her knife, but before she could say anything, a final blow threw enormous frozen blocks out into the pool. The Hound burst from the waterfall and landed on the opposite side of the pool from them. Water and mist froze to its hide, plating the creature in a thick armor of frost. The ice on the surface of the pool crackled as it grew solid.

  Jolie grabbed Ray’s arm. “Quick! We must run.”

  “What about Sally?” he shouted.

  “Being torn apart by that Hound will not help her!”

  The Hound brought its mechanical eyes around until they locked on Ray. It stepped onto the frozen pool and began across.

  Jolie pulled Ray so hard he staggered. “Go! Go!” she shouted.

  They ran toward the trees, back into the shadows, leaping over fallen branches and racing through the undergrowth. Ray scanned the forest. Was there a place to hide? Was there a way to escape? They might be able to climb a tree, but the Hound would have no trouble knocking it down, and they had no more of the sagebrush.

  The Hound roared. Its heavy steps thundered in pursuit. Cold saturated the forest. Saplings wilted around them. Leaves curled black. Ray and Jolie wound through the trees, not knowing where to go, only running.

  Ray could hear the Hound breaking through trees and nearly upon them. He risked a glance over at Jolie.

  “I can distract it,” Ray panted. “You can get away.”

  “You know I will not let you do that,” she said.

  The whine of churning gears and the clank of steel teeth were a few yards behind them now. A bitter cold surrounded them.

  “All right, then,” Ray said. “You ready?”

  Jolie flipped the knife around in her grasp, the blade down. She gritted her teeth and said, “Now.”

  Ray turned in one direction while Jolie split the other way. He swiveled behind the trunk of a tree and looked back. The Hound rushed toward him, jaws snapping. Ray rolled, barely managing to escape as the monster plowed into the tree, cracking the trunk and ripping up the roots on one side.

  Ray scrambled to his feet as the Hound came around the tree. But before it leaped, Jolie landed atop the Hoarhound’s shoulders. She punched her knife into its throat and ripped back the frosty hide, exposing churning black machinery. The Hound snapped its snout back but was unable to reach her.

  As Ray searched for a way to help Jolie, he felt the toby blazing against his chest.

  The Hoarhound bucked, trying to throw Jolie from its back. She stabbed at its head with the knife. Metallic clanks sounded with each blow, but she was unable to penetrate the monster’s skull. The Hound flung its jaws side to side. Jolie plunged the knife, this time at the Hoarhound’s steel eye. The blade sank, and the Hound unleashed a roar.

  She brought the knife up to strike once more but paused. The blade was broken at the hilt.

  The Hound rocked forward furiously, and Jolie lost her grip. She flew, tumbling end over end into the frost-brittle leaves.

  “Jolie!” Ray shouted.

  The Hoarhound swung its snout around to him. Steel gleamed from the Hound’s exposed skull. The one eye was ruined, dangling from the socket by a jumble of cables.

  Ray raised his hands protectively. The strange tingling he felt around the Hound was there. But it was stronger. There was something more, like an invisible resistance pushing back against his outturned palms.

  The beast growled and then turned back to Jolie, where she lay dazed on the ground.

  “No!” Ray cried. But the Hound was already lunging.

  A welling of heat rose from the toby, flooding through his body and down his arm. A magnetic pressure grew in his hand and erupted from his outturned palm. The Hoarhound suddenly flipped to one side, missing Jolie and crashing to the forest floor on its back. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but Ray held his hand out. The Hound flipped back to its paws and looked from Ray over to Jolie.

  She scrambled to stand and ran toward Ray. The Hoarhound’s claws dislodged clumps of dirt as it charged after her. Ray squeezed the toby with one hand. He extended his other hand toward the stampeding beast. Once again the repellent force burst from his palm. The Hound’s front legs collapsed, and its clattering snout hit the ground hard.

  “What did you just do?” Jolie gasped as she got behind Ray.

  Ray didn’t answer. He stared at the Hound. He focused on the heat welling from the toby. He focused on drawing out the repellent power, holding off the Hound for as long as he could.

  The Hoarhound slowly rose to its feet.

  A strange quiet seemed to have come over the forest. Ray could hear Jolie breathing behind him. He could hear the gears clicking within the Hound’s neck as it lowered its head menacingly. Frost seeped from its jaws, causing the forest floor around it to crackle with rising splinters of ice.

  The Hound crouched, ready to leap. The toby pulsated against Ray’s skin over his heart.

  “Get back,” Ray said to Jolie through gritted teeth. He planted his feet wide and leaned forward with his arm outstretched.

  The Hound sprang. Its jaws opened wide as it came down on Ray.

  Jolie screamed.

  Before the Hound reached him, it bashed into an invisible barrier and fell. Ray pushed the repellent force against the Hoarhound
. The creature roared and snapped its icicle teeth, their tips catching on the invisible barrier. As Ray stepped closer, the Hound’s mouth was wedged open. He could see twirling machinery in the depths of its throat.

  The Hoarhound brought its head to one side, battering the invisible barrier. Ray braced his heels as he felt the blows strike again and again. The Hound turned to reposition its attack, and Ray reached out, locking its metal skull in the magnetic spell.

  The Hound writhed, struggling to escape. Ray dug his heels into the dirt and held tight. How long could he hold off the beast? Maybe long enough for Jolie to get to safety. But he knew she would never do it.

  Her hands gripped his shoulder. “Stay focused. Do not lose your concentration.”

  Ray pushed forward with the spell.

  “You can destroy it,” she said. “You can do that, Ray.”

  Ray held out his other hand, feeling the power grow. His muscles trembled against the might of the Hound struggling to escape.

  “Destroy it!” Jolie urged.

  Ray pushed harder, putting all of his strength into the enormous effort of crushing the Hound.

  The ground shook and the dirt shifted around the Hoarhound’s paws. A crack opened in the earth. Stones and loose soil slid into the fissure, and the Hoarhound began to fall in with them. A pair of spruces beyond the Hound tipped together, their roots breaking from the earth.

  The Hoarhound thrashed and kicked to escape the sinkhole. Ray stepped forward, pressing with all his might. The Hound sank to its waist. The repellent pressure forced the Hound’s head to one side. Ray took another step and crushed the Hound into the hole.

  He felt the pull of the open void. Earth and stones and debris were sucked down. In a moment, he would be pulled in with the Hound.

  Jolie clutched his waist. He kept his attention on the Hoarhound, only vaguely aware of her shouting as he dragged her with him. The earth collapsed beneath the Hound until only its head was still exposed, the jaws clapping desperately.

  And then the dirt closed over it and the Hoarhound disappeared. Only a patch of upturned earth remained where the Hound had been consumed.