A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  Morrow’s pulse leapt in sudden quickstep under a wave of gum-mouthed arousal, jerking him a half-pace forward—’til he felt the texture of the ground beneath his boots change, that was. Which sent him jolting back with a startled yawp—eyes gone wide, heart hammering only with fear.

  Sometime during Chess’s vampire indulgence, the sky had begun to pale, the east going indigo, then grey. Predawn light fell across the plain, showing how ground that had once been stony Arizona desert was now, for near fifty yards in every direction, a rich, thick, rolling grassland. Even as Morrow stared, more leaves from no plant he recognized came pushing up out of the soil, bursting into blossom with a puff of soporific perfume—the verdant scent of springtime, run rampant.

  Onward and outward the greenery crept, freshly brilliant, utterly alien. And how the Enemy grinned to see it go, as ’round its skeletal feet the foliage rippled and grew, strange trees shooting up like fountains, hideously animate. Life, wrenched sap-dripping raw out of dead earth—but wrong, core-down and further, for all its vivid wonder. While dawn light slowly brightened on the spreading field of green, Morrow could almost hear a general phantom choir screaming in each new breath.

  “Oh, shit, Chess.” He found he’d buried both his hands in his hair, yanking painfully, as if hoping the pain would clear his head. “What did we do? Christ, what did we do?”

  But Chess wasn’t listening. He was abruptly all a-droop, down on one knee, left hand buried deep in this strange rich earth and crumbling it ’tween his fingers, like he wanted to inhale it whole—while the other hovered somewheres near his belt-buckle, within easy reaching distance of either weapon.

  “There, now. Thasss . . . better.”

  His voice thick with sleepy languor, like he’d just had the almighty best fuck of his entire screw-happy life.

  No no no, it ain’t better at all, Morrow thought, suddenly sick. This . . . this is just wrong.

  God help him, he’d made sacrifice to a false idol, following the counsel of a sorcerer and the urgings of a demon—how could he have expected anything else?

  For lack of anyone else, Morrow rounded on the Enemy, demanding: “Did you do this? Or did you make him?”

  I compel no one. The creature’s empty grin never altered. True sacrifice cannot be taken by force. You sought salvation from danger, and made offering to the Flayed One; it was accepted. His power renewed the earth. All by your will, and his, as such things always go.

  “‘Renewed’? Aw, give me a damn—look, this is Chess’s power, right? So why can’t he make it do what he wants? Why won’t these . . .things . . . obey him?”

  Because they are him, conquistador. The Enemy swept one arm in an encompassing arc. All this is born of Xipe Totec, and will return to him, for he is the remade Land. And just as his deepest nature is to run wild, to reject any rule so furiously he will not even rule himself, so things born of his power reject even that power’s rule.

  Glancing down at his hand, Morrow was legitimately startled to see how faded the scar had already become—like years had passed. “So blood’s the key, then. Feed Chess a little, and he can get a handle on this shit? Control it?”

  The Enemy gave a great sigh, like a cold wind. Yes . . . and no. With blood enough, my brother may turn back our sister’s sendings, shape his spells according to will, rather than whim. But each time he does, this—a glance from horizon to horizon—is the cost. A winding back, a change, deep in the earth itself. A widening of the crack between worlds.

  “So we’re fucked either way, is what you’re saying.”

  “And ain’t that news,” Chess remarked. The pistoleer lay on his back, all a-grin like a cat in catnip, buried almost to the eyes in ferns and orchid blossoms; he looked up at Morrow, and winked. Concluding: “Y’know, Ed, occurs t’me that you might’a forgot this one fact: gods, and ‘godly’ folk alike—they damn well lie.”

  He rolled over on one side to face the Enemy, grin sharp once more with the wild edge that was pure Chess Pargeter. Adding, as he did—“So I don’t see any reason we should trust what you say, neither, come to think on it.”

  Well, ’at’s yer privilege, love. The thing’s voice was suddenly thick with the cooing accent of a Limey whore, though horribly, it stayed cavern-deep and rasping; recognizing it, Chess lost his smile. You never did listen to anyfing I ’ad to say, so why start now? But might be as someone else is headin’ yer way, wiv ’is own fings to say on the matter. You might even like ’is ideas somewhat worse’n mine.

  “Don’t talk like her no more,” Chess told it, dead-voiced.

  Very well. Its voice changed once more, clarifying, a sharpened obsidian blade. But do not wait so long to play your given part, next time. For next time, your acolytes’ desires may not be so easily denied. . . .

  A moment later it was gone, with only deep indentations in the freshly arable earth—bare of green, when everything ’round it shared the same viridian hue—to show where its massive weight had once rested.

  Abruptly, Morrow found himself sitting down. “Well, damn if I know what that was,” he said, more to himself than Chess, not really expecting an answer.

  Yet Chess surprised him. “The Smoking Mirror.” He lolled again, exhausted, barely able to twist Morrow’s way. “You saw him the once already, Ed. When the Rev put you on like a shirt, and I had to shove everything I’d seen straight through your head. Must’a caught on then how him and me had a little powwow when I first woke up, after . . .” He trailed off. “After.”

  Morrow nodded slowly, remembering the storm-flood of images. “He’s like that Lady Ixchel, then. A . . . god, for real.” That word still felt strange on his tongue, especially when spoken outside of church. “But does that mean he’s on our side, or what?”

  Chess yawned and stretched, movements kicking up rich-smelling pollen. “Aw, hell, Ed, don’t think any of ’em’s on any person’s side. Does seem like he wants to fuck up whatever the Rev’s tryin’ to pull, though. That’s good enough, for me. . . .” He stopped at Morrow’s frown. “What?”

  Wordlessly, Morrow pointed. Chess turned.

  A glitter moved on the western horizon, pale and sharp in the twilight still lingering there. Something about the pattern of its motion reminded Morrow inexorably of a man, running, but too impossibly fast for anything human. And it threw light back in ways no flesh ever could.

  Morrow was abruptly on his feet, knowing they probably had only minutes. Chess made his as well, if a great deal slower than Morrow had. Rolling his eyes again, more drunkenly amused than exasperated, he observed: “Christ, it don’t never end, do it?”

  “Chess, you really do need to do somethin’.” Morrow’s hands clenched; though he suspected his guns would be useless, he still itched to draw them. “That thing’s gettin’ way too close, whatever it is.”

  Chess shrugged. “Bet you eights to aces I can kick its ass.”

  “But I can’t.” Morrow moved to look him straight in the eye. “Now—do you care?”

  Chess met his eyes; his mouth twisted, still bright with Morrow’s blood, hungry for more. But after a second: “Screw it,” he said, and squooched up his face with a grunt.

  The air slapped blunt against them both, a phantom bedroll swung hard. Morrow staggered, boots connecting hard onto dry earth. All of an instant, there was a whitewashed two-storey building towering up above, a sign over the main doors proclaiming it the Cold Mountain Hotel. “Rooms to Let,” said a smaller one, beneath. Though light leaked from inside, the street around was thankfully empty, the whole town apparently still catching up on their last few minutes of good night’s sleep.

  Easier than last time, by far, Morrow realized, for him to jump from here to there; by the look of it, he ain’t even breathin’ hard. That can’t be good.

  The world reshaped itself to Chess’s liking now—tried its level best to anticipate his whims, however fleeting. This was what godhood maybe meant, in its most casual sense—godhood without responsibility, writ small an
d mean, with all the parts of that state that might possibly be of some benefit to others extracted and thrown away, replaced with nothing but vengeful idleness.

  Unaware or all uncaring of his companion’s train of thought, Chess grinned wide; seemed like the journey’d sobered him some, at least. “Think I might be finally gettin’ the hang of this mode’a transportation,” he said. “Hell, I don’t even feel like pukin’ my guts out. Just thought how I wanted someplace safe to sleep, and what do you know—”

  “Got any cash?” Morrow asked, cutting him off. “’Cause . . . we left all our gear back there, just like the last go-round.”

  “Aw, crap.” Chess shook his head. “Money. Well . . .”

  He turned out his pockets one by one, yielding nothing but dust and grit. Then shrugged, and fluttered his fingers—and watched a stone four yards away pry itself from the ground, skipping right to his hand, as if summoned. He closed his eyes and ran his other palm over it, opening his fingers.

  The stone shone under dim lamplight, seamed with purest gold.

  Chess smirked. “Close enough.”

  Chapter Five

  Now:

  Though the girl at the door—innkeep Colder’s only daughter—barely came up to Morrow’s armpit, that fact seemed not to bother her at all. Those wide-spaced grey eyes held his gaze, mild but level, utterly unafraid.

  Something ’bout her, Morrow thought, not knowing exactly what. Yet more hexation? Or had it just been that long since he’d stood so close to something in a skirt wasn’t a drab, whore, witch, or some ancient god unconvincingly dressed up in lady-meat?

  “Hey!” Chess broke in, from behind. “I said, come the fuck in, if you’re comin’. And shut the damn door, while you’re at it.”

  She nodded, and did. Observing, at the same time, “That’s quite the dirty mouth you’ve got on you there, Mister Pargeter, for a man in dire straits.”

  “Oh, do tell. Well, as to that—I’ve got a whole raft of other bad habits, to boot. Care for a demonstration?”

  “Not tolerably,” the girl replied, shifting her stare to his. And Chess’s initial half-smile became an outright bark of laughter, less insulted than oddly impressed.

  “Find I halfway like this one, Ed,” he announced. “Yourself?”

  Morrow shrugged. “Think we should probably ask Miz Colder here what it is she wants, if you’re done admirin’ the sound of your own voice.”

  Chess laughed once more, and swept her a mocking bow.

  Sad thing was, thus far, Morrow’d liked his stay at Colder’s better than any other place he’d been since last year. Certainly helped that Chess’d spent the first three days deeply asleep, exhausted by his arcane overexertions. If Morrow’d been a different sort, in fact, he might’ve thought hard on cutting out while the getting was good, and seeing just how far that took him, ’fore Chess came hunting after.

  But he wasn’t—and besides, he knew better. Wasn’t Chess, alone, who wanted him in his current place. And he sure didn’t hope to see either Rook’s ghost-self or that thing again—the Enemy, horrid chest-doors all a-clack—anytime soon, if he could help it.

  So he ate civilized food, drank sparingly, and enjoyed the sadly unfamiliar chatter of perfectly normal people for once, while he had the opportunity. Right up until the morning he came halfway down to breakfast, then froze on the landing at the sudden realization that Colder’s front rooms were jammed chock full of the exact same folk had chucked trash at ’em down Mouth-of-Praise’s main street, a mere week previous.

  Morrow busted back in and turned the lock, only to find young Mister P. abruptly awake once more—lounging ’round their room, a mysterious bottle in hand.

  “The hell you been?” he demanded.

  “Tryin’ to figure how best to get us both out of here ’fore the wrong folks catch sight of us.” Chess stared. “You do know there’s most of Doc Glossing’s neighbours down there right now, takin’ our names in vain to Sheriff and Marshal alike?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Thought you knew every damn thing, these days.”

  “Yeah? Well . . .” Chess made a face, took another long swig. “. . . not today, I guess. My head hurts.”

  Which made it Morrow’s turn to stare, because—now he thought to think about it—his travelling companion bore the hangdog, hungover demeanour of somebody just coming down off a too-long bender. Leaning far enough forward to catch a whiff from the bottle, Morrow wrinkled his nose: aniseed, heavy enough to cure leather.

  “Didn’t know they served absinthe here,” he said.

  Chess hefted it, considered the sloshing green liquid. “Don’t know as it was, when I first started in on it,” he allowed.

  “So you do got some mojo left in you, at least.”

  Chess bridled. “Damn straight! I just . . .” And here his angry eyes wandered off again, lost focus in a creepish fluttery way that reminded Morrow of Chess’s own dead Ma, “English” Oona, pulling hard on her Hellfire-filled junk-pipe. With effort: “That stuff, in the desert . . . turnin’ the Weed to vine, and whatnot . . .”

  “Yeah, that was something, wasn’t it? Just did what the Rev said to—gave you blood, made my prayers.”

  Chess shook his head, and winced. “Felt real good at the time,” he muttered. “A bit too damn good, entirely.”

  He scratched at his beard’s fresh scruff, absent; not like the Chess Morrow knew to be so ungroomed, and heedless of it. But here he sat nonetheless, sweat-slicked, smelling of turned earth and dead flowers. Too distracted even to bother flirting, embarrassed and itchy, yet palpably jonesing for more . . . yeah, a lot like Oona, from what little Morrow had seen of her, ’fore the Rev cooked her insides out on Chess’s say-so.

  Morrow thought hard on what he was going to say next, strategizing. Hoping Chess was far too distracted to even bother with picking the words from his brain before they could tumble out his mouth.

  “Don’t look too rested, for all you been laid up in bed so long,” he began.

  Chess took another pull. “I ain’t,” he agreed, fairly pouting.

  “Bad dreams?” Chess shrugged. “Well, shove on over, then; make some room for a man to sit. And—maybe, you know, we put our heads together, might be we can figure out . . . somethin’ to do about it.”

  Jesus, he was bad at this! But it was all he could think to offer: get Chess’s mind off new hungers, and back to his old ones. So he gave up on words and sat down as well, forcibly nudging Chess over with his hip. Uncharacteristically, however, Chess merely gave way—went limp and made room, without even looking up.

  Morrow bit his lip. “You should think about keepin’ the beard longer a while,” he said finally. “Fair-to-middling sketch of you up at the trading post, but it’s got you close-cut. Might be that’s the reason they keep askin’ if I’m really your brother.”

  At least that made Chess snort. “Oh, you poor innocent,” he replied. “That ain’t it at all. Thing I want to know is, though, why’s it always my face on those Goddamn playbills? You were there just as much as I was, every step of the ride.”

  “Uh huh. Good thing that with you there, nobody ever remembers me.”

  “You feeling ill-done by, Mister Morrow?”

  “Not hardly. But they do got my name, even if there wasn’t room left for my mug, and five grand for any as brings me in. . . .” He trailed off. “But not alive,” he finished, stomach abruptly cold.

  Oh, he’d known his bridges were well and truly burned, but somehow the sight of that explicit figure—black typeface smeared on crackling yellow paper—had finally brought it home how there really was no going back. Because those men he’d once counted closer than his own brothers really would gun him down if they felt they had to, rather than take him upright.

  Chess’s eyes were on him now, sharper than he’d looked to find them. “You know,” he offered, “once I’m ace-high again, I could glamour you up some too, you wanted to stick ’round. Wear a new face, take a
new name . . . get jobs, even.” At Morrow’s startled snicker: “Hey, might be I got skills you’re not privy to. Running a faro table, for example.”

  “Faro’s a nincompoop’s pastime.”

  “’Course it is—the crookedest game around. But seein’ how I was raised up, I can deal it, in a pinch. We could take these up-stood fools for everything they got.” Chess glanced sourly out the window. “The whole lot of nothin’ that is.”

  “These’re good citizens, Chess. You got no call to twit ’em behind their backs.”

  “Oh, these fine law-abiders can kiss my queer ass, Ed—yours, too. Hell, I could probably make ’em.”

  “I’d take it as a personal kindness if you didn’t,” Morrow said, stiffly.

  Chess grinned at that, brief but dirty. “What’ll you trade me?”

  And soon enough, Chess was dripping whiskey-turned-absinthe in Morrow’s mouth, those deft shootist’s hands busy on every part of him—doing things he’d never looked to, but certainly couldn’t claim he wasn’t enjoying, now circumstance had put him in their path.

  A minute or so in, however, Chess drew back—sat up straight in Morrow’s not-uninterested lap and regarded him, somewhat sadly.

  Morrow blinked up at him. “What?”

  “Who is it you’re trying hardest to convince here, Ed? Me, or you?”

  Morrow flushed, half-insulted, half-guilty. It seem like I’m uninclined? he wanted to retort. Yet he still recalled Chess saying, of Rook: He ain’t queer all the way to the bone, like me. Dismissive, but with a sort of rueful hurt hid underneath. An understanding that no matter how fast he and the Rev cleaved together, there was always a possibility they might yet be cleft apart—rent from each other by sheer distinction of nature alone.

  As, indeed, had happened.

  But she’d been a special case, had dread Lady Ixchel. No regular siren, no mere provoking drab. The Rainbow Lady pulled hard, over unfathomable distances—and those she called came, without delay, or recourse.