by Tim Pratt
Ray snorted. “Unless modern medicine has come a long way since my unfortunate incarceration, I don’t think a hospital would do him much good.”
“It’s just shock,” Marzi snapped, because she didn’t want to believe it might be something worse. “When I first saw the Outlaw, I repressed it for years. And I’m the destined guardian!”
“Don’t get too self-important,” Ray said. “I don’t know about being destined. You were able to do the job, and you were in the right place, so you got tapped. If I believed in Fate, I wouldn’t worry so much; I’d just figure, oh, well, Fate will take care of it. Besides, I don’t think your friend is suffering from shock. He probably didn’t even get a good look at the Outlaw—I imagine it jumped out of here like a cricket from a brushfire.”
“People in shock don’t . . . rattle,” Lindsay said. She stood by the bar, holding Jonathan’s hand.
“The Outlaw said something about touching Jonathan’s heart,” Marzi said. “I don’t know what he meant.”
“Hard to be sure,” Ray said, leaning back in his chair, looking at the ceiling contemplatively. “But the thing to remember is, it’s a wasteland walking. So . . . maybe it left a little piece of the wasteland lodged in Jonathan’s heart. Maybe it salted the earth in his soul.”
They didn’t speak. Marzi finally exhaled. “Can I fix him? You said I could change the world, I could imagine things, right?”
Ray sighed. “How should I know? Sure, maybe there’s a way. This is the medicine lands, everything’s-possible territory. But I couldn’t tell you how to do it.”
The bat-wing doors creaked, and a shrouded figure stepped into the saloon, dressed in scraps of ragged fabric; the overall effect was that of a dishrag with legs. Its face was completely hidden, veiled by brown cloth.
“Nobody move,” Ray said in a tight voice. “Sometimes, if you’re very still, they just go away.”
“What is it?” Marzi asked, barely moving her lips as she spoke.
“Something that lives here, in the medicine lands,” Ray said. “That’s honestly all I know. But they can be . . . unpredictable.”
It swung its shrouded head to the left, and to the right, and then focused on Marzi. It lifted its arm and beckoned her. “Marzipan,” it said, and its voice was rough, feminine, and familiar. “You are here, and your enemy is gone. This is not good.”
“Holy fuck,” Ray said, awestruck. “I’ve never heard a manitou speak before.”
“Um,” Marzi said. “I know you, don’t I? You seem—”
Suddenly the bar was gone, as were Ray and Lindsay, and Marzi found herself floating in the air above Santa Cruz. But this was a Santa Cruz transformed, streets filled with sand, half-starved vultures roosting on top of buildings.
“I told you to look for me,” the voice said, “in the West beyond the West. But you . . . forgot.”
“I had a lot on my mind,” Marzi said, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’d like to go back now, please.”
“I can answer a question,” the voice said, and Marzi opened her eyes. She was back in The Oasis. “I can be . . . something like an oracle.”
“Who are you?” Marzi asked. “Why do you want to help me?”
“I am an interested party,” it said flatly.
“That’s not good enough,” Marzi said, and crossed her arms. “Why should I believe you? For all I know, you’re another wasteland thing, trying to trick me.”
It laughed, and Marzi remembered the laugh, remembered that it had convinced her of the creature’s truthfulness during her vision. “You waste time, but I have always been curious, too. I understand. I am a creature of the desert, a spirit of the desert, like your enemy. But we have . . . different points of view. Your enemy is the spirit of utter desolation, of alkali flats and ashes. When you think of deserts, you think of . . . dead space, don’t you? All emptiness, sand, and dunes.”
“More or less,” Marzi said.
“But that’s not true, is it?” Ray interrupted. “Deserts are full of life, teeming with it—but very specialized life, good at hiding, good at surviving. Deserts aren’t just symbols of waste and desolation. The desert means other things, too—secret resources, beauty in unexpected places, hidden life. Right?”
“Yes,” the rag-thing said. “I am a creature of that desert. The living desert.”
“Why didn’t you ever come to me?” Ray said. “I could have used a little help!”
“You were doing fine.” The rag-thing might have looked at him. With the cloth over its head, it was hard to tell. “You had our enemy contained.”
“Sure, but it was a pretty rough go! I could’ve used . . . shit, even some company! Some support! I’ve been here for years, alone, going crazy, fighting the djinn endlessly. And you show up now?” Ray was red in the face, shouting by the time he finished.
The rag-thing stepped up to Ray without seeming to cross the intervening space, a trick that was disconcertingly like something the Outlaw would do. “I am not your friend,” it hissed. “I am the living desert. I am poison, and spines, and dehydration. I am the thirst that drinks whole rains in seconds. Not someone to chat with. I do not care if you’re happy, or if you live or die. I only want my enemy kept in check.”
Ray, leaning far back in his chair, nodded almost imperceptibly. His face was no longer red; it was pale and sweating.
The rag-thing stepped back, turned on its heel, and faced Marzi. “If you want me to help you, come to me. I live deeper in the West.”
“What do you mean?” Marzi said. “You’re here, now, and—”
“You’ll need time to think about the proper question. You must be careful. And it will do you good, to walk in the desert. Besides, I am not really here. I am too . . . big . . . for this place. I would flatten your buildings with my bigness. This body you see is a messenger. An outstretched hand.”
“If you’re so big, why don’t you smack the Outlaw down, then?” Ray muttered.
“Down to what?” the rag-thing said, amused. “We are of the same substance, he and I. I cannot hurt him. But I can help you hurt him. If you come to me, and ask your question, I will answer.” It turned toward the door.
“Wait,” Marzi said, panicked. What was she supposed to do, exactly? “Where do I—”
But the rags collapsed into a heap, and then seemed to boil, scorpions and little brown spiders and sand-colored lizards scurrying from the folds of cloth, racing for the door and cracks in the walls, gone before Marzi could think to step away, before Lindsay could finish drawing air to shriek.
“At least no one’s here,” Denis said, parking in the nearly empty lot just down the hill from the art building. “Fortunately.”
“There are too many trees here,” the godlet said. “I don’t like being surrounded by so much cover. It’s too easy to use it against me.” His voice was gravelly, more human with every word.
“I suppose,” Denis said. Santa Cruz University was not arranged in the traditional fashion, with buildings surrounding an open quad, and outlying facilities scattered as necessary on the outskirts. It was more decentralized than that, essentially a redwood forest with buildings scattered throughout, connected by a few roads and a number of footpaths. Denis had always felt the place had a nicely autonomous feeling—he didn’t constantly encounter throngs of pot-smoking, beer-swilling students as he had at his undergraduate alma mater. You could walk across campus some mornings and see no one else at all.
“On the other hand,” the godlet said, “a nice big fire on a dry day could cut this whole place down like a scythe through grain, couldn’t it?”
“The hills are alive with the sound of ashes,” Beej said, and giggled.
“To the studio,” the godlet said, and unfolded himself from the car. Jane, Beej, and Denis all emerged as well, Denis looking around nervously. What if someone saw him consorting with a moron, a mud-girl, and—and—a primal earth-monster in a cowboy hat? But there was no one else around. He led the way—thus choosing to have Jan
e and the godlet behind him, which was nerve-abrading, but at least he didn’t have to look at them—up the hill, through a stand of redwoods, around the back of a building, to an art studio’s side entrance. He reached into his pocket for his keys, but the godlet said, “No, let me. I like opening doors.” He stepped past Denis, brushing against his arm, and Denis staggered back against the walls as a wave—no, not a wave, more like a sandstorm, or a tornado full of ground glass—seemed to pass through his body invisibly. The world went gray, then beyond gray, to a colorlessness he’d never imagined. He gasped, coughed, and spat a little shower of sand. The grains sparkled as they fell. Jane was at his side instantly, stroking his back, cooing at him with concern, her mineral smell filling his nostrils.
The godlet glanced at him. “Sorry, pard. Didn’t think about that. Beej has been, ah, altered to the point where he can suffer my touch, and Janey is beyond such concerns, but you’re all ordinary glands and meat and weakness, and your kind and mine don’t mix. I took down six lawmen today, just by touching them. I didn’t make a point of leaving a piece of myself stuck in your craw, though. Count yourself lucky. Just be sure to stay clear out of my way in the future.”
Denis clutched at his throat, which had been lacerated dozens of times on the inside by the tiny bits of sand he’d coughed up. Color gradually leaked back into the world, and after coughing a few more times, Denis felt cleared of sand. “Water,” he said hoarsely.
“Soon, sweetie,” Jane said. “We’re busy now.”
The godlet touched the door, and it swung open, though he didn’t use a key or turn the knob. “If only all doors were so easy to open,” he said, then stood aside. “After y’all.”
Beej went first, then Jane, leaving damp brown footprints in her wake. “You, too,” the godlet said.
“You hurt me,” Denis said, looking into the godlet’s eyeholes, at the lazily turning blades there.
“Won’t be the last time, neither,” he drawled.
Denis narrowed his eyes, thinking of rust, the unstoppable process of oxidation, creeping over the godlet’s metal body—because it was a machine, a grinding machine, that would seize up, go dry, get vapor lock, lose ball bearings, break down into nothing.
A reddish speckle appeared on the godlet’s face and spread from there, pitting, corroding, etching the metal.
The godlet laughed. “Oh, Denis,” he said, almost affectionately. He held up an articulated-metal hand and looked at the flecks of rust now sprinkled there. “That’s nice, a good cosmetic touch. But you can’t hurt me. Your worldview isn’t that powerful—you’re outgunned. If you were in charge, you’d probably see me as a big ol’ thing on tank treads with pincers and such, and everybody else would see me as some sort of machine. But I’m a gunslinger, Denis, that’s the fundamental fact of my nature—and you don’t kill an outlaw with rust.” He chuckled, but with no real humor, as if he realized the nature of the conversation demanded gently mocking laughter, but didn’t really understand why. “Do you think I’d keep a viper like you around if you could hurt me?”
“Outlaws aren’t generally renowned for their intelligence,” Denis said. “I’d hoped you’d be stupid enough to let me hurt you, yes.”
“Outlaws aren’t known for book-learning, it’s true, but we do have a certain amount of cunning, and we’re not good at forgiving betrayals. You obey me, Denis, and maybe you won’t get crushed under my boot, understand?”
“I hear and obey,” Denis said, rubbing his throat, counting to nine in his mind.
“Master,” Beej said, poking his head out of the door. “I think you should come see this.”
“You first,” the godlet said, and Denis went inside, careful not to brush against him. He hadn’t been able to hurt the godlet, not this time, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be hurt at all. There might be other opportunities.
The studio was bright and spacious, with track lighting providing an even, uncritical light. Canvases in various stages of completion stood covered here and there, and workbenches broke the large space into individual artistic demesnes.
A rather attractive young woman that Denis knew slightly—her name was Caroline, he thought—was standing by a bench in the middle of the room, talking animatedly to Jane.
“—such a statement,” she was saying, her face full of wonder. “To make your body into your art! I’m so impressed! Are you performing anywhere?”
Denis shook his head in distressed wonder.
Jane shifted uncomfortably, moving her weight from foot to muddy foot, though once upon a time she’d have thrived on a conversation like this. “Not performing as such. It’s more a sort of open-ended thing, just . . . walking up and down in town.”
“Well, sure,” Caroline enthused, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “That’s what art should be, direct communication with the people, free from artificial barriers like the stage—”
“What is this?” the godlet asked.
“This is the grease that keeps the art world turning,” Denis said.
“Jane!” the godlet called.
Both Jane and the woman looked over. Caroline stepped back in alarm. Denis wondered what she saw when she looked at the godlet. Apparently not a god to be worshipped.
“Kill her,” the godlet said.
“Huh?” said Beej.
“What?” said Denis.
“But, goddess,” Jane said, glancing at Caroline, who was still staring openmouthed at the godlet.
“We’re not playing cowboys and Indians with cap guns here,” the godlet said. “This is serious. This is about planned extinction, human eradication. Kill that woman, Jane. She’s part of the problem, believe me, she’s a stinking sweating rutting spreading sack of scum, she’s mold with a mind, kill her.”
Jane took a hesitant step toward Caroline, who was beginning to realize the general outlines of her situation. “Jane, what are you doing?” she said. “That man, he looks so convincing, how much makeup did it take to make him look like that?”
“She’s not a man,” Jane said. “Why do you all keep calling the goddess ‘he’?” She took another step. Caroline’s lips tightened, and she picked up a utility knife and thumbed the catch to slide out the blade. She backed into a table and hesitated—she couldn’t get away now without turning her back on Jane and threading her way through the tables, and she was clearly reluctant to do so. Her hesitation was the end of her.
“Jane, no!” Denis said, not because he cared about Caroline especially—they were barely acquaintances—but because he didn’t want to see Jane puppeted around by the godlet.
To his surprise, it was Beej who stopped him, putting a greasy hand over his mouth, hissing into his ear. “The god will kill you, Denis, be quiet.” Seeing the wisdom in this, Denis nodded, and didn’t fight, but Beej didn’t take his hand away.
“I’m sorry, sister,” Jane said. “It’s for . . . the greater good.” She walked toward Caroline, slowly at first, but then seemed to steel herself, and rushed the woman. Caroline shouted and struck out with her knife, but the blade passed harmlessly through Jane’s stomach, coming out muddy. Jane reached out, her hand now twice its normal size, and seized Caroline’s face as if palming a basketball. Beej pulled his hand away from Denis’s face, perhaps uncomfortable with the parallel. Jane put her other hand around the struggling Caroline’s body, pulling her close, as if in an embrace. Caroline fought, punching, stamping down on Jane’s insteps, all with no effect. Gradually, her struggles slowed, and ceased—Jane was filling her airways with mud, Denis supposed.
Jane kissed Caroline’s forehead, leaving a smear of clay—like the word wiped off a golem’s forehead, Denis thought, extinguishing life—and then let her body fall to the concrete, mud-spattered, unmoving.
“Show me the shop,” the godlet said.
Denis stared at Jane. Jane stared at the dead girl.
Beej cleared his throat. “This way.” He walked to the door that separated the sculpture shop from the rest of the stud
io, opened it, and looked inside. “No one’s here,” he called, relief plain in his voice.
“Pity,” the godlet said, and went in after him.
Denis went to Jane and touched her shoulder, trying to ignore the body at her feet. “Are you all right?”
“I am only a vessel,” she said, still staring at Caroline. “I . . . contain the goddess’s grace. This was not my will. I am an instrument of Her will. That’s all.” She shook off his hand.
Denis glanced at the open door to the shop. “We can run,” he said quietly. “We can get away.” It had occurred to him that a way to keep Jane from chasing him was to run away with her. That would bring its own set of problems, but it was better than living in fear of her. His hopes of riding this out, of waiting for the world to make sense again and his life to return to normal, had died with the woman at Jane’s feet. This corpse was a signpost: Denis was heading for country from which he might never return, a place where all routines were ruined.
Jane looked at him, her face a mask of white clay, and after a moment she shook her head. “I am in a great power’s employ,” Jane said. “I have proven myself loyal, and I will be exalted. The harder the path, the greater the glory.”
“I’m not sure how you reconcile your feminist ideals with murder, Jane,” Denis said.
“I’m not a woman anymore,” she said, touching her mud-hips, her mud-chest. “I’ve changed. Feminism is irrelevant to my concerns, now. And this”—she gestured to Caroline’s corpse—“is not murder. When an earthquake brings down an overpass, and crushes the people in their cars underneath, that’s not murder. When a tornado blows apart a trailer park, and flings people into trees at hundreds of miles per hour, that’s not murder, either. It’s an act of god.” She pressed her hands to her belly, as if assuring herself of her own reality. “I have become an act of god. I am a natural disaster.”
Denis opened his mouth, but there was no answer to that. He wanted to say that natural disasters didn’t choose to kill people, but in a way, the conditional refutation of that assertion was in the next room, wearing boots and a cowboy hat.
