A Tree of Bones

by Gemma Files

  Oh God, shit on a shingle . . .

  From behind Ludlow, however, a new voice suddenly intruded — no, not so much new, as unfamiliar. It was Asbury, sounding firm, awake, adult for almost the first time since he’d met the man — not the sad old drunk of the last few months, but that legendary figure he’d heard tell of back in New York, in San Francisco. The man whose eccentric brilliance and machinery it’d spawned had spent the last few years bent on the insane goal of turning magic into one more branch of science . . . and almost succeeded in that aim, give or take a few disasters.

  “Hold still, Mister Ludlow,” the Professor said, levelling his Manifold’s latest iteration at Fitz Hugh’s arm, the web, the spider beyond. “This will take a moment — and it may hurt.”

  Ludlow felt, more than heard, the magnesium-filament surge; the blue flash travelled from Manifold to him, using his very flesh and blood as a conductor, then down along the web itself, a living wire, to freeze the spider in its multiple tracks. A brief yet intense struggle ensued, Geyer and Ludlow both similarly transfixed — Geyer in amazement, Ludlow drawn rigid with discomfort and shock admixed.

  And then — it was over. The spider bowed its awful head, mandibles clicking out a rhythm that mimicked the Manifold’s own clockwork whirr, and rang for all the world like a signal of surrender. That same cone of dimness and silence Asbury had evoked in the desert fell over all three — four, if you counted their new “pet” — and shielded them from harm by erasing them from notice. Insects and combatants alike bypassed them as though they weren’t even there, ’til the combined in- and out-rush thinned, and they were left alone once more.

  Now treating the sticky rope which still connected it to Ludlow as a combination of leash and bridle, the spider knelt down further, a bison-sized camel. Geyer let out his breath, telling Asbury: “That’s a neat damn trick, Professor. How’d you manage it?”

  “More easily than you might suppose, Mister Geyer — the Manifold was constructed first to track and measure hexation, then to channel it. And what are these things made from, if not hexation-stuff itself . . . pure arcane impulse given shape through the Word, spell-directed, then taking on a kind of flesh which, can apparently outlast even removal from its originator?”

  “Uh huh. Well, at any rate; thanks for that.”

  “You’re very welcome, sir.”

  On either side of Hex City’s ill-defended limits, Mexes and hexes made fierce battle, with Texican interference; the first wave of spiders were all either crushed or fled, leaving a perimeter of wounded men and leg-broke steeds behind, along with a slew of corpses, human and equine. Longer they were in the suddenly docile spider-thing’s presence, meanwhile, the more violently Asbury and Geyer’s horses kicked and squealed and snorted, like they’d had their noses rubbed in pepper. Geyer dismounted and let slip the reins, slapping its flank, not even turning to watch it flee.

  Instead, he squinted down at their Manifold-hypnotized captive, as if making calculations in his mind which Ludlow frankly feared to hear voiced, before venturing, at last: “Seems tame enough, and I can’t help but think it’d make good time, ’specially up walls. So, Doc, Mister Ludlow . . . how d’you think it’d take to being saddled?”

  Distracted by his own thoughts, Ludlow couldn’t keep track of Asbury’s answer, though it seemed to be in the affirmative. Telling himself, instead, no matter what was decided on: It is beyond my control now, all of it — has been, for quite some time. I preside here at the birth of hundred new things, recording them for posterity: truly, an age of terrible wonders!

  That’d more than do for a cut-line, anyhow.

  In the Moon Court, Ixchel’s blood-cultists knelt naked in a spiral, all pseudo-Christian modesty discarded, praying for their Lady’s triumph in a language none of ’em actually understood. The women passed stingray spines through earlobes, nipples, labia, shedding life-essence in drops, lactating a steady red stream; they thorn-roped their tongues, chanting words of blood, while their men pierced and re-pierced through frenums, urethrae, foreskins with volcanic glass shards, twisting to enlarge the holes in order to slip their own braids of maguey-fibre stuck with cactus through again and again, running their own flesh ragged. The overflow they dripped on the same sort of bark paper that demon who’d once been Clo now wore in her hair, then burned in a great stone bowl filled with incense, the chamber’s centrepiece; the smoke went up slow and creepishly concentric, describing an almost symmetrical set of loops and coils, like a serpent couching to strike.

  As repayment for their devotion, some smallish part of Ixchel must’ve been ensuring the wounds — which surely would have felled any lesser worshippers — kept on healing ’emselves perpetually, whatever else the rest of Her might be doing at any given time: hardly a kindness, really, at least not such as Eulalia Parr’d been raised to think of. But then, considering what she’d seen up above in their frantic duck-and-dash to reach this place, she really hadn’t expected any better.

  Between the rampaging Mexes and those horse-sized spider-things, Yiska, Songbird, Carver, Sophy and the terrified, barely manageable Gabriel had only just managed to get Eulie to the Temple’s gate alive. She’d ordered them to flee the instant she crossed into this sanguinary edifice — “It’s no place for any of you,” she’d told them, overriding their protests. “Any not sworn to the Oath who goes in there, they won’t come out. Ever.”

  Jonas had argued, of course: “Least let us guard the way out for ya!” he’d tried to insist. “Suppose things get even worse up here?”

  Eulie had only laughed. “Private, things seem ’bout already as bad as they’re ever likely to get.” But really, she thought to herself, it probably wasn’t a good idea to ever assume that, ’cause going by her recent experience, at least, things could always get worse.

  So she squared her shoulders and stepped into the incense-choked, torchlit stone hall, gathering force ’round herself like a boiled-leather coat. Called out as she did, louder than anybody’d probably ever heard her speak, outside of Hank and the others: “Which of you were little miss Marizol’s kin? Marizol, mama y papa? I got news you need to hear, ’fore you go any further.”

  A dozen eyes in as many shades of dark, black to brown to grey to blue, looked up at her, startled, as she crossed the hall — she “heard” their internal whispers clearly, for all her gutter-learned marketplace Spanish wasn’t up to the task of exact translation: Bruja! Cual es su nombre? Una de los Fennigs, los traidoras! Call Her, before we are distracted, La Madre, La Muerte Hermosa —

  “First one tries to call the Lady, I’ll stop their throat for ’em, swear to Christ. Ahora, rapidamente! Any of y’all got a daughter named Marizol went missing a day or so gone, now’s the time to speak up . . . c’mon, nobody? For serious?”

  There was one second more of baffled silence, before a woman from the Court’s left-most quarter ceased her labour and rose knees to toes, straightened gamely tall, still leaking from every which way.

  “Mi hija,” she said, slowly. “Marizol . . . she’s my girl, si.”

  “Her you gave to the Lady, right? As her pet, her treat?”

  From a worship-knot away, a man Eulie could only assume was probably Marizol’s Pa tried to jerk himself up too and failed, sheer, raw weight of hardware through wounds tugging him back down again; he spat at her: “Marizol, la Dama call her especial! Chosen, like in old time — meant for better things. Like una mujer San, la virgen de Guadalupe.”

  “Si,” Marizol’s mother chimed in. “So we give, yes. Like we give everything. Because la Dama give back, jus’ like she say, and never lie. Never.”

  Cries of ecstasy, of faith renewed, went up on every side — the cultists scourged ’emselves afresh, drawing yells, along with sanguinary tribute. And this time, Eulie could fair see the power as it came eddying out, in burning updraft ribbons. One of the longest and loudest-coloured fluttered up from Missus Marizol, the other from Mister, knotting together ’til they braided. It was enough to turn
Eulie’s stomach.

  Without any notion of considering it beforehand, she leaned forward to deal Missus M. a rifle-shot slap ’cross her red-soaked chops.

  “You fool dupes!” she hissed. “Know what your Lady gave Marizol, her better thing? A Goddamn grave, is what — like she gave my gal Clo, and my man Hank. Like she aims to give us all, hex or no. She sucks you dry and you thank her for it. Her, who runs up the tab and never pays for nothin’!”

  She found herself shaking, and wondered a titch at the sheer outrage welling up inside her. Saw only poor Marizol, skull-cracked by that sumbitch Pinkerton’s bullet, falling headlong into Saint Terra with no chance to wipe that silly, appeasing smile from her face. And laid overtop came Marizol’s mother with one hand up to her cheek, tears starting at her eyes’ corners, as though Eulie’d dealt her a hurt worse than any of the others she’d just spent God knew how many hours inflicting on herself.

  How dare you! was what that wounded look cried out, so like Marizol’s own; how dare you tell me truth, ’stead of these pretty lies the Lady sells. How dare you show me it was me and her Pa drove her into yours and Berta’s arms, sent her running for Camp Pink on faint hope of rescue, on the idea that a man should practise what he preaches. . . .

  This was almost as much ripe horse-crap, though, and Eulie well knew it; her own brand, or maybe even Hank’s, who’d preferred to gamble his two remaining wives’ freedom on the chance he could talk what’d become of the first one down, before she gutted him like a fish. For the plain truth was — and she could admit it now, at last, at the end of all things, without even resenting it — though he’d claimed to make ’em all the same pledge, it always had been Clo he’d loved best.

  Sissy; oh, sissy. Think I’ll say a prayer for you too, sometime soon — probably right as you’re comin’ to pull my head off, I had to start takin’ bets.

  Saw Marizol’s Daddy staring daggers at her, then, like he’d pay big coin to jump over and throw a punch, he could only bring himself to work ’round the fact he’d just poked his pecker full of holes. So Eulie marshalled herself one last time and told the Moon Court at large, clear and cold as Christmas: “You’re gonna kill yourselves for her, faster than slower, and the plain fact is, she don’t even deserve it. And all I’m sayin’ is maybe you need to think on that a bit, ’fore you end up like Marizol — like everybody else ever did what that old-as-Jesus bitch wanted, or didn’t want, either.”

  “That’s brave talk, all right, yella gal,” came Sal Followell’s no-nonsense voice, cutting in. “Problem is, though, we’re the ones gonna have to try an’ live with her, after this mess is done with.”

  Eulie turned to snap back, hands on hips — and faltered as she saw who was towering behind Sal in the doorway: the black-coated bulk of Reverend Rook himself, fingertips tented on his breast like a hanging judge already pondering sentence. He seemed more sorrowful than angry, but Eulie’s heart quailed, nonetheless — Rook had always looked saddest just before wreaking his worst. And if she defied any order he gave, she’d bust her Oath wide, rendering herself helpless or dead within the minute.

  “Chu and the Shoshone are shepherding folk into the Temple,” Rook told Sal. “Should have the last of ’em in within minutes. Once they’re inside, we can bring up the wards, and then it’ll just be a matter of waiting ’em out ’til her Ladyship’s strong enough to settle things — if her supply ain’t been cut off in the meantime, that is.”

  Sal’s mouth flattened to a hard line, once again addressing herself to Eulie. “See, you dumb little snip — ? But no; I can’t fault you none for tryin’ what you felt you had to, after Hank and Clo. Still, and this is important . . .” She stepped forward and took Eulie firmly by the shoulders, like a mother hoping her gone-wanton daughter would see light without needing further correction. “There ain’t no beating Her, not now, not ever — you try, you die. And even if you could win, we still all die! Go back to livin’ like thieves and Gypsies, hidin’ from each other and the world, with those of us who survive tearin’ each other’s hearts out just to sup on ’em.” She shuddered in a breath, voice steadying again. “Them out there just got a little time ’fore they meet their fate — an’ then it all begins again, Eulalia. Don’t throw your life away when there ain’t no need, or point.”

  Eulie glared at her. She’d always loved this mountain-stubborn old woman, bound fast to her in potential slavery by at least a quarter-blood, but the lump in her throat felt too hot by far to choke back. “So everything — Hank, Clo, their babe — it was all for nothing? Or worse, for this?” She swept a hand at the filthy, slaughterhouse-stinking Moon Court. “Those really the only choices we got, Sal? Us, who can do most any damn thing, now we got somewheres to stand together?”

  Without warning, Sal’s flinty eyes spilled tears, shocking as water from the rock. But even as she nodded, lips actually moving to shape the word Yes —

  “Maybe not,” Rook said instead, offhand, as though it was some interesting thought had only just occurred to him. He reached into his pocket, withdrew a small spruce twig, unornamented, at least not visibly. Which he took in both hands, without prayer, or fanfare . . .

  and snapped.

  Time stopped.

  Morrow had lost count of how often he’d skimmed death’s edge and dodged away at the last second, these last few years — but splayed now on the cold ground, heart’s blood pouring out into Chess so fast he could barely breathe, he had just enough strength left to realize that this might be the last time, if not quite enough left for fear. Only a dim awe, vague resignation . . . and a second later, the weirdly delighted urge to laugh, when Chess glared at the two inhuman Powers and roared, without preamble —

  “Which one of you fucks got my heart?!”

  Tezcatlipoca smiled and pointed to Ixchel, as though it’d seriously ever been in doubt.

  Automatically, Morrow looked at the goddess as well, and felt a twinge of nausea. What a desperate joke it seemed, now, to think she could ever have been beautiful — swollen-jointed, leather-skinned, mask face torn askew. She seemed more animate rawhide than human. With a shock, he realized the hole he’d put in her head himself had reappeared, though nothing — not blood, nor foetor — trailed from it now. Long dry rips down her naked chest and belly showed sickening glimpses of yellowed ribs, shrivelled organs, dust-dry black veins.

  And behind that exposed chest-lattice, something shadow-hidden, distending and collapsing with such force that it seemed as if whatever lay beneath the bone was fighting its captor as furiously as Chess himself would.

  Ixchel, for her part, neither smiled or frowned, mouth froze in a paralytic’s sneer, one corner furled to show her entire left-hand row of upper teeth. Only stared at Chess with a vivid hunger in her black eyes — the single part of her, really, that still seemed alive — before spreading her arms, as if to embrace him in welcome. He almost seemed to hesitate, at the sight.

  No!

  A bolt of terror galvanized Morrow; he managed to lift himself a bare inch, hurl a warning at Chess, sending it down the path of blood as the link flickered toward extinction.

  No, damnit! Don’t let her —

  Here his strength gave out, thudding him back to the earth, but Chess glanced over at him — into him — and winked. Crouched. And hurled himself backward, slamming spine-first into Tezcatlipoca’s chest, his body seeming to burst, exhaling a crimson cloud that billowed up ’round the god, penetrated him from every angle, pumping blue skin purple and red Weed even redder. Tezcatlipoca staggered, fell to his knees with the vines boiling and writhing ’round him, ’til gradually he began . . . to laugh.

  Yeah, well, Morrow roused himself enough to think, dimly. What else?

  Louder and louder this Fifth World’s self-proclaimed Enemy guffawed, as if he finally understood the punch line of the best joke ever told. Then reared back up just as the swinging panels of his ribcage broke apart, two small, scar-knuckled fists punching them wide like saloon doors. Bare feet came next
, kicking out through both blue-skinned thighs as if shrugging off garb made from sodden papier-mâché. The whole head split and moulted like a crab’s shed shell, guffaws blended into a wordless yell of triumph, as Chess Pargeter — naked as the day of both birth and re-birth, before he thought to re-clothe himself in purple once more — lunged to his feet with red-gold lightning crackling from his eyes, a cowled halo drooping from shoulder blades to forearms like fiery wings, then trailing down ’round his fists in death-dealing frills.

  “Yeah!” he announced. “That’s better! ’Cause this here’s my flesh and nobody else’s, let alone some dead monkey-god’s, no matter the size of his Smoking Mirror! There’s one Chess Pargeter only, and I’m damn well him!”

  With the same shimmying shudder Morrow’d seen him use on a gulp of absinthe, Chess shook the last shreds of Tezcatlipoca’s blue skin from his body and met Ixchel’s gape head-on, eyebrows sketching his curly red forelock.

  “Oh, so what?” he asked her. “Didn’t think I really meant to just pour a whole fresh bunch’a blood-power into you, when I know that’s all you drink? Come on. I ain’t that dumb.”

  Ixchel blinked, or struggled to. But . . . how . . . you are no variety of god, not anymore — only a ghost, fleshless, without root. How could you possibly unseat the Night Wind whose slaves we all are, one thing with four names, Father of Every Magic?

  Because I allowed him to, of course, a terrible voice said, behind her — the creature in question’s own, freed at last from its human trumpet’s confines, echoing unchecked like the black between stars. For there it was, humped back up with its skull-and-crossbones cape flapping free as it loomed over them all, one foot tucked under it and the other reflecting their shocked faces back at them, done over in shades of obsidian.