The White City

by John Claude Bemis

Ray opened his mouth to answer, but couldn’t muster the effort. His mind swirled with blackness, emptiness, despair.

  “Ray.” Redfeather spoke firmly and slowly, making sure Ray could understand him. “Nel is fighting the Gog. He needs you. He cannot defeat him.”

  Ray managed to murmur, “Doesn’t … matter … anymore.”

  “Yes, it does!” Redfeather snapped, shaking Ray by the shoulder.

  “Redfeather, don’t …,” Marisol began.

  Ray felt he couldn’t hold his eyes open any longer. Redfeather wrapped his arm around Ray’s shoulders, helping him sit upright. Ray’s head slumped, his body as limp as a doll’s.

  “Listen, Ray!” Redfeather said. “Listen. You will not fall to the Dark. Don’t you remember what Water Spider told us? You’re a Rambler. Like your father. Greater even than your father! Don’t you remember? Water Spider said you could resist the Darkness if you mastered the Darkness within you.”

  Ray struggled to think against the black gears growing in his mind. Hadn’t his father told him this also, in the Gloaming? What were his words?

  The only one who can stop the Gog and the Magog is the one who has mastery over his own Darkness. The one who can stand against his own black clockworks.

  What was his Darkness? Ray thought it had been having to watch Jolie leave to sacrifice herself to heal the Wolf Tree and free her captive sisters. Or giving Si the spike so that she and Conker could destroy the Machine, even though it meant marching to their deaths.

  But he had been willing to go with Conker. He too had been ready to die to stop the Gog. That had not been his Darkness. That had not been what had driven him to despair. Ray knew their sacrifices had purpose.

  But then he’d seen the Magog’s terrible visions of what was to come—of all that the Ramblers had fought for adding up to nothing in the dark world of machines and soulless cities that lay ahead. But hadn’t the Magog also shown him his friends falling before they had done their parts in stopping the Gog? He’d seen Marisol and Redfeather dead. But here they were, Marisol leaning over him with tears on her cheeks and Redfeather with his arm around him. His dear friends. They had not fallen. They were alive.

  The Magog … the vision it had shown him, it had not been true, or at least it had only been a possible fate, the darkest possible one. Nel was alive and still trying to stop Grevol. And Jolie might still make the siren spring that could save the Wolf Tree. Conker, he, and Si might still be able to reach the heart of the Machine.

  And the world ahead, it would change. That was inevitable, just as the Magog had said. But it wasn’t inevitable that it would be a world that would turn people into the ashen-faced slaves that Grevol desired. Mankind might still hold on to its humanity. There might still be a place for a Rambler.

  It was as if an ember formed. A small and singular spark taking flight from a bed of dead coals. The flame grew and grew, becoming a blaze.

  Ray reached out to grasp Redfeather’s left hand.

  Redfeather looked up sharply. Marisol leaned back in surprise. “Ray?” Redfeather said, pulling him to his feet. “What’s happened?”

  Ray staggered a step, but then felt strength flood into his body. A tingling feeling moved from his chest to his arms. “Where is Nel?” he asked.

  Redfeather held up his hand as it burst with flames. “Let’s find him.”

  Marisol said, “This way,” notching an arrow before pushing back the bushes.

  They ran around the back of the building. Buckshot-hard pellets of hail roared down from the storm. But Ray felt no cold, no weakness. He ran, with Redfeather and Marisol at his sides.

  A terrified group of Javanese tribesmen stared out at them from their grass hut displays as the three passed. Continuing to circle the building, Ray came up behind the Pirate Queen taking cover from gunfire roaring across the Midway’s boulevards. Marisol and Redfeather took positions against the wall, their weapons ready.

  “Ray!” Mister Lamprey barked. Piglet was there, along with Hobnob. They held guns, but the small yellow-haired thief kept switching the Colt from hand to hand, scratching at his palms.

  “This is it,” Hobnob simpered. “I’m quits after this. Never felt myself cut out for this sort of work—”

  “Shut up and be ready with that peashooter!” the Pirate Queen shouted, loading the massive cartridges in her guns. “And, Ray, what are you doing here?”

  “Have you seen Nel?” he asked, knowing there was no time to explain it all.

  “The wheel,” she said. “Last I saw, he and Grevol were at the base of that wheel.”

  Mister Ferris’s wheel. The symbol of the Expo. The towering monument to the progress of the age. Ray would need no help finding it.

  “Can you cover us?” Ray asked.

  “With pleasure,” the Pirate Queen said, chomping on her cigar.

  Piglet peeked around the corner, and immediately a bullet resounded off the stone inches from her face. She looked back and smirked. “They’re waiting for us.”

  “Wouldn’t want to disappoint them,” the Pirate Queen said before stepping out into the boulevard and roaring, “Looking for me, you dandies?” From under her coat, she brought out the pair of fat-barreled guns that were too big to be pistols and too small to be cannons. Each weapon boomed with great clouds of smoke.

  The agents ducked behind a cart as it splintered with gunfire. Piglet and Mister Lamprey ran past her, firing their rifles and screaming as they charged and drove the agents from their hiding places. Hobnob followed, but as soon as a bullet rang off the cobblestones by his feet, he dropped his gun and smashed the dandelion hat to his head, dissolving in a cloud of seedpods.

  Redfeather said, “Follow me.” As he disappeared around the corner, Marisol and Ray sprinted after him. Marisol paused halfway across the thoroughfare to send a volley of arrows at the agents. The three kept running, keeping low until they reached a stack of beer kegs.

  “There are more Bowlers ahead,” Marisol said.

  Ray peered around the leaking barrels to see the black-suited agents battling against the pirates and Buffalo Bill’s men.

  “We’ve got to find better cover,” Redfeather said. Ray looked hastily around and then pointed. “That booth!”

  “Good enough,” Redfeather said.

  They ran as gun battles raged around them. Ray jumped across the counter of a tin-sided ticket booth, landing on the dusty wood floor. He fell against someone hiding. The person gasped and cocked a pistol, but Ray quickly pushed the barrel down.

  “Gilley, it’s me,” Ray said.

  “You scared the blazes out of me,” the young cowboy said, his freckled face pale and his eyes wide.

  “Glad you’re okay,” Ray said.

  “Me too,” Gilley said. “It’s a miracle I’m in one piece.”

  Redfeather and Marisol burst through the door and crouched beside Ray and Gilley. Redfeather said, “What now?”

  Ray peered over the counter. Staying low, Redfeather and Marisol came up beside him to survey the scene.

  The towering wheel rose hundreds of feet above the Midway. Dozens of locomotive-sized cars were mounted to it, for visitors to ride and view the Expo. Although they were empty, the cars rose up and around and back down, following the huge circular path. Just beside the base of the wheel in an opening in the ground, the engine driving Mister Ferris’s ride rumbled. Its pistons and gears clattered as they turned the great pulleys attached to the wheel’s axle.

  A line of agents encircled the base of the wheel. Ray saw bodies lying on the ground around them—some were Buffalo Bill’s men, some were agents of the Gog. The shell of a Hoarhound smoldered to one side. From the black scorch marks radiating from it, Ray guessed the monster had been struck down by a bolt of lightning.

  By the bottom of the wheel, the Gog stood with his back to Ray. He swung his walking stick like a conductor of some mechanical orchestration. Nel was pinned between the pit with the churning engine and the cars coming by every few moments. A
s each of the huge cars swung down, he had to duck to keep from being crushed.

  As the next car rose over him, Nel held out a vial of glass that glowed suddenly. Lightning flashed down on the Gog. Ray’s vision turned white. He pulled back from the counter, to squeeze his eyes shut as the light lingered in his sockets.

  “He needs our help,” Marisol said.

  “You’ll never get past those agents,” Gilley said. “Iron Tail tried to attack them, but I think he was shot.”

  A whirlwind of seedpods filled the booth. As it began to coalesce into a form, Gilley backed nervously against the wall.

  “It’s okay,” Ray said. “It’s just Hobnob.”

  A moment later, the little thief pulled the dandelion hat from his head and fell back against the wall, panting.

  “You okay?” Redfeather said.

  “Do I look okay!” he squeaked.

  “Is the Pirate Queen coming?” Ray asked.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Hobnob said piteously. “None’s the difference.”

  Marisol stole a glance over the counter. “I see her. She’s coming this way with Lamprey and Piglet.”

  Redfeather said, “There’s still too many agents between us and Nel. Even that one-woman army can’t get us through all of them.”

  Ray looked over the counter with Redfeather to see how Nel was doing.

  The old Rambler held up his hands and pushed his palms toward Grevol. A gale-force wind battered down, ripping at the Gog’s coat. The Gog turned to one side to brace against the force, then flung out his walking stick.

  The next car came down faster, and Nel was not ready this time. The enormous side of the car crashed into him. As it rose, Ray expected Nel to be lying on the ground, but he was not there at all.

  “Ah, Joe Nelson,” the Gog laughed, his voice carrying faintly on the wind. “You toy with me.”

  Nel clambered atop the rising car. The Gog walked slowly forward as the next car came down to the ground. When it reached the lowest point, he took hold of a bar running along one of the windows and stepped onto a metal lip on the side of the car. As his car rose behind Nel’s, the Gog deftly climbed onto the roof, and the agents tightened their circle around the wheel.

  Ray felt his hands tingle as warmth flowed from his chest down his arms. If he could only get up on the wheel, he might be able to help Nel. “We need a distraction,” he said, his eyes settling on Hobnob.

  Hobnob nodded in agreement, and then his eyes sprang wide as it seemed to dawn on him what Ray was suggesting. “No. No. Why’s it always me that gets sent into this sort of madness? ‘Just go lift the key from the sleeping sheriff, Hobnob.’ ‘Just go hobble the rangers’ horses, Hobnob.’ ‘Just hold Rosie’s jaws while I give her medicine, Hobnob.’ Well, none of them worked, so why’s this going to?”

  “You’re right,” Ray said. “It might not work. But either you could agree now to help and get going, or we’ll ask the Pirate Queen to convince you.”

  At that moment, several people bumped against the side of the booth. “Ray, you in there?” the Pirate Queen called from the other side of the wall.

  “Yes,” he said. “Along with Hobnob and—”

  The Pirate Queen growled, “I was wondering where that little yellow-headed coward ran off to. Send him out here so I can speak with him.”

  Hobnob strangled the dandelion hat and cursed, “Tarnation! So what you want me to do?”

  Redfeather replied, “Use your hat. Get on the other side of that line of agents. Then get their attention so they turn around. Just long enough for us to make a good charge.” He held up his hand, flames lapping through his closed fingers. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “After this I’m quits,” Hobnob mumbled. He slapped his dandelion hat over his nest of hair and faded.

  As the last of the pods drifted away, Ray said, “You all ready?”

  Gilley slid the last bullet in his revolver and shut the cylinder. “I’m ready.

  Marisol notched an arrow, and Redfeather put his palms together, allowing the flames to encase both hands. He called out, “My lady, get ready to follow us.”

  “Aye,” she growled.

  Ray peered over the counter and saw Hobnob appear behind the line of agents.

  “Any of you boys got change for a dollar?” he said.

  The agents swung around, baffled for half a moment by the little thief. Hobnob quickly put his hat back on as gunfire opened up on the spot where he’d been.

  Redfeather kicked open the door. “Here we go.”

  He dashed out from the ticket booth, running toward the agents who were still turned around and searching for Hobnob. Redfeather whipped out both his hands, sending streaks of flames at the backs of the agents’ coats. There were shouts as clothes caught fire. Many dropped their weapons as they fell to the ground or ran in panic. Redfeather continued to lash out with the flames. As the other agents gathered their wits and lifted their rifles, Marisol volleyed arrows and Gilley opened fire from behind the counter. The roaring Pirate Queen charged along with Lamprey and Piglet, guns blasting. The agents scattered back toward benches and behind trees.

  Ray ran, heading straight for the base of the wheel. He leaped over fallen agents and others rolling on the cobblestones to extinguish their flames. He was almost there when an agent came out from around the wheel’s engine room and blocked his path. Ray froze as the agent’s pistol leveled on him. He cocked the hammer back with his thumb. “Got you,” the agent sneered.

  Ray heard hooves thundering on the boulevard. The agent had only an instant to turn his head before a Comanche horseman struck him with the butt end of his rifle. Horses charged past Redfeather and the Pirate Queen and the others as the Comanches joined in the battle.

  Ray reached the base of the wheel and watched the next car lower. He grabbed the door handle, shouldered the door open, and fell inside as the car rose back up. The storm beat against the car like war drums. Ray looked up through the rain-blurred window for Nel and Grevol.

  The two were atop each of their rising cars, casting spells at each other. Nel drew on the powers of the world—storm and hail, lightning and wind. The Gog drew on the powers of his machinery—electric charges, magnetic forces, eruptions of light and heat that came from the glowing knob atop his walking stick. The two ducked and dodged, leaping around the roofs of the cars, bracing against the raging storm and each other’s spells.

  As Ray forced the door open into the howling wind, he saw the ground below. More agents and more of Buffalo Bill’s men had joined the fight, converging below the towering wheel. The agents who had been driven back by the Comanche fighters came back with reinforcements. From down the boulevard, groups of Hessian cavalry and vaquero horsemen emerged, firing round after round. Then there was the Pirate Queen, barking and cursing and leading a band of her pirates. Marisol was now at Redfeather’s side, firing arrows as he slung whips of flame. The battle was growing, and here the final stand would take place.

  Ray reached for a handhold to get up onto the roof, his fingers half frozen. He tightened his grip and with a grunt hoisted himself up.

  The car swung with the storm, and his foot slipped on the rain-slick metal. Ray slammed against the side of the car. He squeezed hard so as not to lose his grip on the bar. Rivulets of rain poured into his eyes, and he brushed his face against his soaked shoulder to try to see. He pushed with the toes of his boots but found no foothold. Looking up, he saw Nel’s car reach the peak of the wheel.

  Nel shot down a twin lightning flash that brought Grevol down on one knee. Grevol held up the walking stick with one hand as the lightning illuminated his body, a thin black phantom within a sun-bright crackling of electricity. But then the lightning coalesced, sucked into the knob of the walking stick. Grevol rose, laughing.

  Nel’s car began its descent, the Gog now above him. Grevol leaped for Nel, his coat flapping out bat-like in the storm. He knocked the Rambler backward and caught Nel by the throat.


  “You are not whole, Joe Nelson,” the Gog said. “You possess within your leg the link to my Machine.”

  Ray kicked and struggled to get atop the car, desperate to reach Nel in time.

  Nel grabbed at the Gog’s hand where it locked on his throat. His eyes were bulging and he gasped for breath.

  The Gog lifted the walking stick, pointing the glowing knob at Nel like a sword ready to be plunged. A whirling noise rose from the knob, tiny gears churning and growling.

  “Don’t fear. I don’t intend to kill you, Mister Nelson. I could have thrown you from this wheel already if that had been my aim.” A wide smile slithered across the Gog’s face. “No. You will join me. You will be one of my clockwork servants!”

  Ray’s feet pressed against the wet metal of the car. His arms shook as he drew himself up. When he was over the edge, he dropped to his stomach and rolled over. He rose and, with a leap, landed on the roof of the car above Nel and the Gog.

  For a moment, Ray thought he saw a figure, a mere shadow, climbing onto a car at the bottom of the wheel. He narrowed his eyes to see who it was—Redfeather or Big Jimmie or someone else who might be of help. Or were the agents coming to help their master?

  “Let us finish this, shall we?” the Gog said, bringing the knob to Nel’s chest, pressing it over his heart. Nel’s gaze flickered up to Ray, and the Gog glanced over his shoulder. Nel used the moment and kicked, catching Grevol in the stomach. Grevol shouted and bore down on Nel, thrusting forward with the walking stick. But Nel was not there.

  A silver-furred fox twisted and broke from Grevol’s hold. The knob of the walking stick struck the roof of the car with a flash of greenish light. The blast sent the fox sliding across the rain-slick metal until his hind legs fell over the edge.

  His car was swinging again in the wild wind, and Ray clung tightly as he leaned over the edge and looked down.

  The Gog spun around, reaching out with his free hand to grab the silver-furred fox. Nel scrambled, his claws scratching at the wet metal. The Gog’s gloved fingers reached for the fox’s neck but met empty air.

  The fox fell. Nel fell.