The White City

by John Claude Bemis

The Gog peered down from the roof of his car.

  Ray cried out as the fox flipped and tumbled. Then the fox hit the ground and was still.

  “No!” Ray screamed. “No! No!”

  Grevol looked back over his shoulder, locking his coal-black eyes on Ray. He smiled.

  SI AND CONKER WALKED THE DARK PASSAGE HAND IN HAND. Si held her other hand aloft, for guidance and to light their way. She had begun trembling again, and Conker feared there was nothing left for him to say to alleviate the growing terror. They were deep within the Machine, and the Darkness was like a cloud—evil and encompassing and barring their ability to hope that somewhere the sun still shone.

  They were cold, a deep, bitter cold down to their bones, although the air was sweltering. Despite the tall ceiling, the acrid smell of fumes and pulsating noises of the machinery drew thick around them. Si pressed close to Conker’s side.

  “Will we know if the Gog is killed?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Conker replied.

  “And if Nel doesn’t defeat him?”

  “Hopefully Ray’s gone to Nel. Hopefully together they’re able.”

  Her voice came out as the faintest whisper, as if the Machine was listening, as if it would turn her fears against them. “But if the Gog kills them both …”

  “Don’t you think like that,” Conker said, also whispering, but urgently.

  “But if he does,” Si said. “If the Gog isn’t destroyed, even if we drive the spike into the Machine, Grevol will only build another one. Like after your father died. And who … who will be left to stop him?”

  Conker was quiet for a time before answering. “Redfeather and Marisol,” he said. “Maybe them.”

  “They’re not like Ray. They’re not like you.”

  “Hush on it.”

  “I can’t,” Si said. “I keep thinking we’re going to die, and all for nothing. That we’re making a mistake.”

  “We ain’t,” Conker said.

  “We might be.”

  “We ain’t. The Machine, it’s doing this to us. Don’t you see? It’s putting these fears and doubts in our heads.”

  “Do you think so?” Si asked. “Really?”

  “The Darkness,” Conker said. “It eats at you, don’t it? I feel it trying to stop us.”

  They struggled to continue forward.

  “Si?”

  Her voice trembled. “What?”

  “Do you remember when we were kids? That first time you performed in the medicine show? You were all covered in chains, tied up and twisted all around and stuffed in that box.”

  “Yeah.” She managed a weak chuckle.

  “I asked you how you could stand to be in that box. I said, ‘Don’t it scare you to be locked up in there?’ You remember what you told me?”

  “No.”

  “You said the time in the box weren’t nothing but a few moments. You just thought on what you’d do when you’d get out. What we’d do together after the show was over.”

  Si walked on in silence, her glowing speckled hand extended before her.

  “Si.”

  “Yeah?” she whispered.

  “This ain’t nothing but a few moments. One way or the other, it’ll all be over. And we’ll be together.” Conker’s voice lowered. “Don’t let this Darkness make you forget we’re together. You and me.”

  Si squeezed his hand. “Always.”

  Then she gasped and stopped walking. “Look, Conker. Ahead.”

  A faint sickly green light formed down the passage. “What is it?” Conker asked.

  They began walking, heading toward the eerie glow. As they did, they saw the light pulsate. Not rhythmic like a heartbeat, but erratic and jarring. Conker felt his stomach knot and his hold on the hammer weaken.

  As they went farther down, Si slowed and Conker couldn’t help but do so also. Each pulsation of the light shot waves of pain through him, electric and burning. Si uttered a groan and turned her head. “It hurts,” she said, and drew back behind him to shelter her. “What’s it doing?”

  “Trying to stop us,” he grunted. Conker had to force himself forward, each step bringing new and worsening shocks of pain. He held out the Nine Pound Hammer as a talisman before him. “Keep going.”

  “Conker,” Si said weakly. “Please no.”

  He had to pull her by the hand to keep her behind him. “Almost there.”

  They were still a dozen yards from the end of the passage. How would they ever reach it? How could they keep enduring this?

  The green light glowed from a circular metal plate mounted in the center of the wall of machinery. The metal skin grew transparent with each pulse, and beneath the surface a mass of gears and clockwork parts churned and writhed, insect-like.

  “The heart,” Conker said.

  It was horrifying to see, as if, should they come any closer, the machinery might begin growing within them. His knees buckled and he dropped the hammer as he fell to all fours. He ground his teeth and turned his head away from the painful pulsating light.

  He saw Si behind him, lying in pain on the metal floor. “I … can’t,” he gasped.

  Ray realized now that Grevol had wanted Nel alive. He had wanted all along to corner the old Rambler and use the poisoned connection in Nel’s leg to enslave him. But Ray knew Grevol did not intend the same for him.

  The Gog swung the walking stick toward Ray. He had only an instant to leap from the roof of his car before the glass exploded and the metal body ripped open. He fell, half propelled by the blast, until he landed with a gasp on his stomach atop one of the heavy iron spokes radiating from the wheel’s center. Quickly kicking a leg onto the flat girder, Ray climbed to his feet. The foot-wide spoke was horizontal—for the moment—and Ray ran swiftly down a few yards until he reached a supporting brace rising up from the massive spoke. After he got behind it, he looked back to see if Grevol was pursuing him and realized that when he had leaped, he’d landed on the spoke connected to the Gog’s car.

  Standing calmly atop his car, Grevol looked at Ray with the sort of playful malice of a hunter eyeing his trapped prey. “I have longed to see you again, young Ray.” Grevol spun the walking stick around in a circle.

  Ray turned to head farther down the spoke, but the angle of the walkway was growing too steep, and he had to hold on tightly to the support brace. The turning of the wheel would throw him from his spot, and Grevol—seeming to know this—watched eagerly as his car descended to the bottom.

  “Pity you can’t just fly away, little bird,” the Gog called.

  Ray put his heel on a metal bolt in the iron frame and climbed up toward the wheel’s center, as far away from Grevol as he could manage. But gravity and the wet metal played against him, and he began to slide. He threw a leg around the framework and held on tightly as his spoke reached the bottom and began to rise. When he saw that soon he would be dangling from the spoke, Ray clawed his way around until he got to his belly on the other side.

  He looked once more for the figure he had seen ascending the wheel but could not find him. Down on the Midway’s boulevard, black swarms of agents fought the pirates and Buffalo Bill’s men. The storm, Nel’s storm, had vanished, gone along with the old Rambler. The Darkness remained like a poisonous mist over the city.

  But Ray could not think of Nel or the Darkness, could not watch the battle raging below, could not consider what was happening with his friends. His spoke was rising up again, and as soon as it was horizontal, he had to be ready to run farther down it. As Ray got to his feet, his gaze fell to where a chasm opened in the ground below and a huge set of gears ground together. The engine that turned the wheel churned, sending clouds of steam and smoke into the air. Ray knew he would be crushed in an instant if he fell.

  The Gog stood placidly atop his car. “Fly, little bird. Fly.” He lifted his walking stick and pointed it at Ray.

  Ray had no choice but to roll off the spoke as the blast erupted from the buzzing knob. The brace he’d been hiding beh
ind twisted, and the entire wheel groaned and began to slow.

  Ray caught the next spoke below, gasping as his arms jerked painfully. He swung back and forth, dangling over that pit of gears and teeth. As he looked back up for a better hold, he spied the figure above him now on the wheel, leaping from a car to the one below it.

  “Most entertaining!” Grevol shouted. “Most entertaining indeed.”

  Ray struggled to hold on to the wet iron spoke, kicking a foot up onto the frame before he lost his grip, and knowing all the while that he was trapped.

  The Gog rode higher on his car, rising a hundred, a hundred and fifty, and then two hundred feet over the Midway. As the Gog was almost three quarters of the way to the peak, he swung out with his stick and the wheel stopped, giving a groan that shuddered through the enormous metal frame.

  As Ray climbed onto the top of the spoke, Grevol walked out along the one above him, watching Ray all the while. “I suppose it is time to conclude this, young Rambler,” he called. The smile left Grevol’s face. Then he stepped out and dropped. His boots clattered loudly as he landed on the girder before Ray.

  “Give me the rabbit’s foot!” he commanded.

  Ray backed away, glancing behind him at the long spoke going to the center of the wheel. There was another support beam just a few yards away, but he could never get behind it in time. He looked over the edge, saw the gaping pit of grinding machinery far below, and knew that trying to drop to the next spoke was too risky to attempt again. “I don’t have it.”

  “Don’t play the fool!” The Gog brought up the walking stick. The knob glowed and whirled with intricate machinery. Then Grevol’s eyes widened as a stricken look came over his face. “You don’t have it,” he gasped. “Where’s that foot?”

  “Gone,” Ray said. “It’s been made into something more powerful now.” A tingling rose from his chest, moving slowly down his arms. “Soon it will be driven into your Machine and you’ll—”

  Grevol snarled and swung the walking stick. Ray closed his eyes and held out his hands.

  The force of the blast hit his palms like a cannonball, propelling Ray backward. His shoulders slammed against the beam. Pain shot through his body, but it was quickly replaced by something else. Warmth flooded down his arms, filling him with strength. His toby was gone, but he knew he did not need it. He could draw on the powers of the Gloaming without it.

  Grevol watched with openmouthed incredulity as Ray walked toward him. Extending his hands, Ray let the magnetic force erupt from his palms. Grevol growled as the force hit him. He stumbled back a step and pushed his walking stick at Ray.

  Ray felt the magnetic force butt back against him, throwing his hands apart and knocking him on his back.

  “Your newfound tricks are amusing,” Grevol said. He began to lift the walking stick again when a figure landed on the roof of the car at the end of the spoke. Grevol looked back over his shoulder. “The prodigal son returns!” he said.

  Stacker Lee rose slowly, one hand to his tattered shirt front where the exposed machinery churned within his chest. He opened his mouth as if to speak but no noise came out. His hat, the fine Stetson, was gone, along with his razor and pistol. Stacker walked to the edge of the car and held on to the outermost support brace as he stepped onto the spoke. Slowly, he came toward them.

  “I feared you had abandoned me,” Grevol said. “But you’ve seen what my Machine can do, haven’t you? You’ve come home. All is forgiven, my general. I welcome you back. We will begin the grand work of leading mankind into a new, civilized world. Together, Stacker. But first let us finish with our little hoodoo conjurer here and then we will find where John Henry’s son has hidden the rabbit’s foot.”

  “It’s too late,” Ray said, struggling to stand. “Conker is in the Gloaming. He has the Nine Pound Hammer. He’s reached your Machine. He’s probably already destroyed it.”

  Grevol looked at the glowing knob on his stick and laughed. “He’s destroyed nothing. He’ll never be able to face the depths of my Machine. Even brave Conker will fall before its terrors.” Then Grevol reared up with the walking stick.

  Ray held out his hands to shield himself. As Grevol brought down the stick, the invisible force erupted from the knob. Ray’s cupped hands caught the brunt of the blast. Even so he was slammed back against the hard metal of the support beam. Struggling to hold his hands up for the next assault, Ray felt his legs give out, and he dropped to one knee.

  Grevol brought down the stick again. The blast was stronger this time, crushing Ray back against the metal brace. Grevol did not let up. He walked toward Ray pressing the knob at him. Ray gasped in pain, trying to hold his hand up, trying to drive the blast away. The iron girders at Ray’s back groaned from the enormous pressure.

  “You might be a Rambler,” Grevol said, “but I have destroyed Ramblers much more powerful than you.”

  The knob capping the Gog’s stick glowed brighter, and Ray felt his senses swimming. He could not withstand this any longer.

  Then the blast stopped crushing him, and Ray collapsed on the spoke. A flash of light filled the sky. The illumination was quick, quicker even than lightning. Just a flicker that almost seemed to be daylight cutting through the Darkness. Ray would have thought he’d imagined it except that Grevol had a bewildered look on his face. The wheel began turning once again.

  With an angry snap of his head, Grevol turned around to face Stacker. “What have you done?”

  Gasping for breath and reeling from the pain, Ray leaned to one side so he could peer around Grevol. Stacker Lee stood on the spoke a few paces beyond Grevol. The fingers on his right hand were dug into his chest. He was clutching the edges of his clockwork heart, slowly prying it out.

  Grevol held up a hand. “You forget yourself, Stacker!”

  Stacker shook his head and growled, “No … I remember at last … what it is … to be human again.” A snarl of pain gripped his face as he wrenched the clockwork heart from his chest. Caked in bits of blood and gore, the brass circle of gears and tiny parts in Stacker’s hand gave one final click and stopped.

  Sunlight broke momentarily through the Darkness, and Ray had to squint against the glare. Then the Dark descended once more. But little flickers of light, like lightning flashing in a thunderhead, crackled through the Darkness.

  Stacker’s clenched face relaxed, almost forming a smile, before he toppled from the spoke and fell.

  Conker lay on the floor, no longer able to move as the pulsating green light of the Machine’s heart sent waves of unbearable pain through his body. He wanted to reach Si, wanted to comfort her. They would not survive this much longer. He struggled to rise, desperate to reach her, but he could no longer move a single muscle.

  The green light stopped pulsing. For a moment, the tunnel’s end was dark except for Si’s hand. An eerie silence surrounded them as the mass of machinery stopped. Conker felt the fear and pain that had stymied him vanish. He sat up and felt in the dark for the hammer. As he found the handle, Si whispered, “What’s happened?”

  Then the noise of the Machine arose once more. A glow grew behind the metal plate and the churning gears illuminated as the Machine heart began beating again with its sickening pulse. Whatever had stopped it had only been momentary. Conker knew if they didn’t hurry, it would bring them down again.

  He stood and turned back to help Si up. “Where is the spike?”

  She stuck her trembling hand into her pocket and drew it out. She gasped with the next pulse as fresh pain was inflicted upon her. Conker felt it too but fought to push the pain aside.

  “We must do it!” he said, dragging Si forward. “You and me.”

  Tears rolled across Si’s cheeks, and she stared up at Conker with blind-eyed fear.

  “You can do it, Si. We can do this.”

  “We’ll be together?” she murmured.

  He pulled her against his chest, stroking her hair. “Yes,” he whispered. Si emerged from his arms and turned. She dragged each foot
forward until she stood before the metallic heart. The next pulse brought her to her knees. She held the spike up with both hands so the point rested against the pulsating plate. The horrible green light spasmed, and the little parts within shrieked in a furious hive of movement.

  Then another light grew, golden and pure. Conker watched as the convulsions that wracked Si’s body suddenly subsided. She looked back over her shoulder at him, her face fierce and lovely. He loved her for it and felt his own strength renew.

  “End it,” she said.

  Conker braced his stance, one leg outstretched before the other. He brought the Nine Pound Hammer back in a slow arc, measuring it off from the base of the spike so he would not miss.

  Before he could bring the hammer down, a roar grew from the depths of the tunnel behind them.

  “What is it?” Si cried out.

  With the hammer still ready to swing, Conker looked back into the shadow.

  A hard wind battered into them, and Conker lost his footing, replanting it as he stared and searched the dark for what was coming. Vapor carried on the wind, speckling his face and hair with cool moisture. Each droplet tingled against him, seeping into his pores and filling him with vigor. The roaring grew and grew until Conker saw what was making it.

  “Conker!” Si shouted.

  A wall of water rushed down the tunnel toward them.

  “Now!” Si shouted. “Strike it now.”

  Conker fixed his concentration on the spike, the golden glow within Si’s hands, the piercing green light erupting from the circular plate at the Machine’s heart.

  The Nine Pound Hammer was above him, the iron head suspended.

  He glanced down at Si. Her face was serene, smiling. “Wherever you go, Conker, I go.”

  He brought down the hammer. The head met the spike. It drove deeply into the screeching heart.

  The Machine erupted as a wall of water met the fiery explosion.

  Stacker’s body lay just beside the gaping maw of machinery driving the wheel. Grevol looked from his fallen general back to Ray. Occasional light crackled through the Darkness overhead. The wheel was turning again, and the spoke that Ray and Grevol were on was tipping higher. Ray tightened his grip on the metal edge, knowing in a few moments he would no longer be able to stay on.