The Native Star (19 page)

“Maybe not,” Caul said. “But sangrimancers—men who practice
real
magic—have better weapons than squinks and Trines.”

He moved quickly, his hand going to his throat and the two-chambered pendant that rested there. In one smooth movement he brought the alembic up and stretched the hand toward Emily, simultaneously speaking words that were dark, low, guttural. His hand was wreathed in brilliant shifting light, but he did not throw the magic; he just kept speaking, the power dancing around his fingertips growing brighter and brighter.

Emily’s right hand shot up as if grabbed. She tried to set her feet, scramble for purchase on the slippery fir needles, but it was no use—she was pulled inexorably toward Caul and the magic gathering around his fist. Dag grabbed her, tried to hold her back, but Caul just spoke louder, and more quickly, and Dag was dragged along with her, skidding toward the chanting sangrimancer. When Emily was within Caul’s reach, he shot up his other hand to grab her throat, his fingers nearly circling it. The magic that had drawn her to him evaporated into the stone with a loud pop; nausea billowed through her, mingling with pain and asphyxiation.

Dag threw himself at Caul, but Caul sidestepped, slamming a heavy elbow into Dag’s back as the lumberman stumbled past. Before Dag even hit the ground, Caul kicked him square in the gut, hard. Dag crumpled, groaning.

Then Emily could see nothing but Caul’s face as his huge hand squeezed more tightly around her throat. But she could hear Stanton’s voice, booming cadent Latin. And she felt sudden little impacts coming from all around them. Little stones were whizzing through the air. Pebbles, cobbles, hand-size rocks, sharp little chips of granite—all were flying with tremendous force right at Caul’s head. The big sangrimancer winced, ducking, but the projectiles were battering him with the viciousness of a bee-swarm.

“Sometimes smaller weapons serve better,” Stanton said, each word keen as the edge of a knife.

The stone was attracted to vast concentrations of power, like the one Caul had summoned, but less powerful spells—like the séance, or Stanton’s ever-ready fingersnap flames—could still work if she was far enough away …

The storm of small missiles pelted Caul mercilessly, peppering his face and arms, leaving bloody cuts and welting bruises. Thrusting Emily roughly to the ground, he seized his alembic and stormed toward Stanton.

With a roar, he threw his body against the protective magic of Stanton’s Trine. The alembic glowed in his hand as he slammed his shoulder against the Trine’s magic again and again, as if he was trying to break down a heavy door.

Finally, drawing a deep breath, Caul gave a rumbling bellow from the deepest part of his gut—a roar that saturated the air with fury and hatred and terror. The sound echoed in the darkness, not fading but rather growing louder and more horrible. As it did, Emily saw the little projectiles fall away, dropping dead and still on the ground. Then, with a rush of massive power, Caul crashed against Stanton’s Trine a final time.

With a screaming sound of shearing metal, the invisible walls broke, shattering in a shower of glittering gold. Stanton staggered, his long legs almost buckling beneath him. Pain contorted his features, but he managed to raise trembling hands in a posture of defense.

“Run,” he whispered, so softly that Emily was surprised she could hear him. “Emily,
run!”

Caul charged, brushing aside Stanton’s defense and throwing him to the ground. Pinning him with one knee, Caul pressed the alembic hard against Stanton’s chest, hissing guttural words of cursing. Stanton screamed, convulsing horribly as Caul’s foul power tangled around him like red-hot wires.

Caul was going to kill him.

With a wild cry, Emily threw herself at Caul, leaping onto his back, scrabbling over his shoulder to grab the hand that held the alembic. When she finally got it, she pressed the stone in her palm against his monstrous fist. She felt the hugeness of the magic at his command, felt the stone struggling to absorb it. Her stomach roiled; the world spun. A piercing wave of fresh nausea knifed through her belly.

Caul lurched to his feet, leaving Stanton splayed like a blown-down scarecrow. Emily clung desperately as Caul wheeled, trying to throw her off. Finally, he got hold of her shoulder, and with a grunting heave, he sent her flying. She slammed into the ground hard, the breath punched from her body. The world spun in blackness, and when she could see again she saw that Caul was standing over her, his eyes calm and still.

“You troublesome
skycladdische
bitch,” he said softly. He reached to his belt, pulled out the long silver knife. She stared up at him, unable to move.

Caul reached down. He bunched the collar of her shirt and jerked her upward. There was the sound of ripping fabric as her shirt tore away, leaving her throat exposed. The knife flashed down. Caul was going to kill
her
, she realized suddenly. Everything moved terribly slowly after she realized that.

And then, for no good reason, she opened her mouth and said the word “hemacolludinatious.”

Caul’s hand, in which the knife gleamed, slowed down even as the rest of the world sped up. Finally Caul stopped moving entirely and stood frozen, his knife trembling inches from her throat. He stared at her, his eyes glossy and unfocused. A smile broke out over his face, and a tear trembled in his eye, and his cheek flushed with rage. He gave a strangled cry—half a laugh, half a sob—and slowly sank to his knees, releasing his grip on the fabric of Emily’s collar as he did.

The silver knife dropped to the ground, clinking against granite gravel. Caul bent his head, burying it in his hands for a moment, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Then he lifted his head to the sky and screamed, then he was seized with violent tremblings of laughter.

Emily stared at Caul, perplexed. From the corner of her eye she saw Stanton climb to his feet, unsteady on his legs as a newly foaled colt.

“What did you say to him?” Stanton rasped.

“A word,” Emily said. “It popped into my head. I don’t know what it means.”

“What word?”

“Hemacolludinatious,” she said.

Stanton blinked at her. He looked astonished and horrified all at once.

“That’s not a word, that’s a neologism.” Stanton rubbed a hand over his mouth, and Emily saw that the hand was trembling. “You Sundered him.”

“What do you mean, Sundered?”

“Military sangrimancers use a special magical technique to keep themselves under complete emotional control at all times.” Stanton stared down at Caul. The man was clenched in a twitching ball, sobbing and snarling and clawing at the ground with dirty fingers. “They lock themselves up inside their own minds. Memory, emotion, everything. They keep just one key. A made-up word … a neologism. Speaking it when a man is unprepared is … horrible. It sends the sangrimancer crashing back into himself, crushing him under his own betrayed humanity …” Stanton’s voice trailed off into a mutter. “You Sundered him. My God.”

The loud sound of a train whistle broke in sharply. The train was coming up the hill. It couldn’t be more than five minutes away. She put her hand to her mouth.

“Dag!” she muttered, rushing back to where the big man lay. She knelt by him, touched his face. To her great relief he stirred, moaning, his hands pressed against his belly.

“Emily?” he said. “Emily … are you …”

“We’re safe,” Emily breathed, looking over at where Stanton was crouched beside Caul’s crazily spasming form. Stanton had put a hand on each side of Caul’s head and was muttering something in Latin.

Tears streamed down Caul’s cheeks as he struggled ineffectually against Stanton’s grip. “I won’t f-f-forget forever!” He stumbled over the words as if his tongue were being jerked from his mouth. “I won’t forget you or h-h-her either … I will f-f-find you …”

Teeth clenched, Stanton terminated the magical recitation with three loudly barked commands:
“Lacuna! Caesura! Oblivio!”

He jerked his hands away from Caul’s face. Caul slumped back, abruptly silent, his head lolling. Stanton reached down, taking the alembic from Caul’s clasped hand. He stood, staring into the distance for a moment, as if he’d forgotten where he was.

“Is he dead?” Dag looked up at the Warlock with new respect. “Did you kill him?”

Stanton didn’t answer, but threw the sangrimancer’s alembic to the ground, crushing it under the heel of his boot. The glass shattered with a pop and hiss.

“I didn’t kill him,” Stanton said. “I’m not a murderer.”

“Then what did you do to him?” Emily rose, putting a hand on Stanton’s shoulder to steady herself.

“Put him to sleep, made him forget. Forget us …” Stanton’s green eyes were strangely unfocused. “Forget everything. He’ll wake up in a few days, but …” Stanton did not complete the sentence. Instead he stared off into the darkness, his eyes fixed and unseeing. Emily gave him a shake.

“Mr. Stanton?” she said. “Are you all right?”

“All right?” Stanton slurred the words like a drunkard. “No, I’m not, I’m fine …” Then he stopped speaking entirely.

The train was coming up the tracks, the beam of its headlamp a brilliant knife slicing the darkness. Emily found that she was no longer leaning on Stanton for support; rather, he was leaning on her. His eyes were sliding closed and then opening abruptly, as if he were trying to keep himself from falling asleep.

“Your train’s here.” Dag climbed to his feet slowly, straightening with a wince. “Let’s get you both on it.”

Emily looked at Dag, as if seeing him for the first time.

“Dag …” she whispered.

“I understand now, Emily,” he said.

The huge black train pulled to a stop with a vast rushing of steam and a piercing squeal of hot brakes. Dag threaded an arm under Stanton’s, shifting the weight of the Warlock from Emily’s shoulders to his own. Stanton’s eyes fluttered briefly; he looked up at Dag and mumbled, “Yes, I’d like coffee with the eggs, thank you …”

“Is he going to be all right?” Dag asked Emily as he dragged Stanton toward the passenger car. There was a loud hiss from the front of the train as the fire tenders jerked down the water pipe and sent cold mountain water gushing into the engine’s tanks.

“I don’t know,” Emily said as they approached the closed door of the passenger car. The conductor leaned out the window, his face registering slight alarm. Emily could see her little group reflected in the man’s eyes—three shabby men, torn and bloodstained, drunk, probably.

“Two for New York,” Emily blurted, digging into Stanton’s pocket for the purse of money Dag had brought. “The cheapest you got.”

Emily dearly hoped the conductor couldn’t see Caul’s motionless form lying a few feet off. Apparently he couldn’t, for while he hesitated a long moment, he finally took her money, tore off two tickets, and punched them slowly.

“I’ll help you get him on,” Dag muttered, and he lifted Stanton up the step into the car. With a bit of wrangling, he managed to get the lanky Warlock into one of the wooden bench seats.

The train whistle gave a curt blast; the conductor gestured impatiently to Dag.

“We’re going!” he snapped. “Buy a ticket or get off!”

Dag turned to climb off the train. Emily stopped him in the vestibule, the little space between the cars.

“What about Caul? He’ll wake up eventually, Mr. Stanton said—”

“I’ll drag him way up one of the old timber roads. Easy to get lost up there, right?”

“And you’ll watch out for Pap?” she said. The train gave another whistle; the conductor gave an impatient growl.

“We’re goin’, mister!”

“I’ll see that he’s safe,” Dag said, ignoring the conductor.

The train began to move. It gave a jolting lurch forward and then began to rumble out of the clearing. Dag swung out of the open door, holding onto the side railing, but Emily caught his hand one last time.

“Thank you, Dag,” she murmured. “Thank you for everything.”

He pulled her close and kissed her with bright, brief intensity. Then he leapt from the train, disappearing into the darkness.

Emily stood in the vestibule for a long time. The conductor reached past her to close the door, making a sound of weary disapproval. She touched her lips where Dag had kissed them. They felt strange indeed. Then, shaking her head, she went back to Stanton.

The cheapest seats were in the emigrant cabin—a large drafty car with a coal stove at each end and hard wooden benches. Given the late hour, most of the seats had been folded down so that passengers could stretch out to sleep. The coal-oil lanterns that swung in gimbaled fittings in the ceilings were turned down low. The faint yellow light made everything seem dingy and mysterious at the same time.

Emily slid into the seat next to Stanton, elbowed him softly.

“We’ve made it, Mr. Stanton,” she whispered to him. “We’ve made it!”

But Stanton did not reply. His head lolled against the window. She shook him again. The train was gathering speed now, rattling and jolting.

“Mr. Stanton?” she said. He did not wake. She shook him harder, giving him little slaps on the cheek. He still did not wake.

He’s just tired
, Emily assured herself, swallowing hard. She laid a hand on his chest to feel if he was breathing. He was. Well, that was a good sign at least. Looking at her own hand on Stanton’s chest made her remember the way Caul’s hand had pressed the alembic there, just over where Stanton’s heart was, and the sizzling wires of magic, blood red and rot black, that had surrounded him …

Just tired
, she repeated to herself, letting her hand drop and closing her eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mother Roscoe’s Eye-Opener

Her own exhaustion made it easier for Emily to convince herself that there was nothing sinister about Stanton’s abrupt slide into unconsciousness. Almost as soon as she closed her eyes the train’s soothing clatter rocked her into a deep, dreamless sleep. She was jolted awake by words that seemed to be shouted directly into her ear:

“Fresh candy! Candy and cigars!”

Bolting upright from where she’d slumped against Stanton’s shoulder, she found that the train had stopped. Brilliant sunshine streamed through the dusty windows of the car. A glance out the window at the name on the station indicated that they were someplace called Wadsworth. Young boys were walking up and down the aisle.

“Nice oranges from California, last you’ll get!”

“Papers, getcher papers! Books just a dime! Full-color covers, gents! Thrilling exploits, madcap mayhem, wild adventure …”

“Can I see?”

The request came from a girl sitting in the seat across from them. She was plump and blond, with smooth skin and bright brown eyes. She wore a poke bonnet and a clean white apron over a cream-colored dress that was sprinkled with tiny pink rosebuds.

The newsboy lifted the flap on his battered canvas satchel so that she could paw through his assortment of brightly colored pulps.

“Have it … read it … thought it was awful dull …” she muttered to herself as she discarded one after another. Finally, she seized on one with a happy cry. “Oh! Haven’t read this one before! I’ll take it!”

Clutching the treasured find to her chest, the girl dug into a little woven purse and pulled out a dime. When the girl saw that Emily was watching, she blushed.

“It’s a Jack Two-Fist,” she said, as if Emily should know what that meant. Then the girl looked away shyly, but not before letting her eyes linger on Stanton with some concern.

Emily glanced at Stanton. She nudged him with her shoulder, hoping he’d stretch and groan. She laid a hand on his cheek; his skin, always quite warm, was now burning hot.

Her first impulse was to grab him by both shoulders and give him a really tooth-rattling shake, but the girl was right there. So, Emily went to address herself to more immediate concerns.

Being dressed as a man, she certainly couldn’t use the “ladies’ rest,” so it was with great apprehension that she picked her way back to the “gentlemen’s rest” at the rear of the car.

It was as disgusting as she expected. There was a dicey-looking chamber pot, and a trapdoor in the floor through which said pot was supposed to be emptied. Men being men, however, it seemed that most dispensed with the chamber pot altogether and opted for the more direct and inaccurate route.

Using the room’s tiny cracked shaving mirror, Emily freshened her costume, brushing at the dirt on her suit and hastily smoothing her hair back up under her brown hat. Then she scrutinized herself. It was the first time she’d gotten a good look at herself in her masculine disguise. The hard traveling and meager accommodations had conspired to make her look more like a young man than she would have thought: grimy, angular, and … yes, ruthless. Her hand went up to her throat. The collar of her shirt was torn where Caul had grabbed her, the top two buttons missing from where they had been wrenched off. She clutched her collar, holding it closed. The last thing she needed was someone getting a look down her front.

On the way back to the seats she paused at the water spigot, where there was a dented tin cup for common use. She filled it and went back to where Stanton was sitting. She tried to force the water through his dried lips. Most of it ran out of the corner of his mouth.

Emily’s hands trembled as she returned the cup to the spigot, balancing herself against seats to keep her footing on the rocking train.

Why wouldn’t he wake up?

The train stopped in Mill City for lunch. Those who hoped to hit the lunch counters left at a flat run, for the train stopped only briefly for meals and sometimes pulled away without so much as a warning whistle. But Emily couldn’t even think about eating, and wanted to take advantage of the empty car to employ more desperate means in her attempt to wake Stanton. Unfortunately, the blond girl stayed behind, too. She was using the coal stove at the end of the car to boil water for tea.

Emily swore under her breath as she laid a hand on Stanton’s damp, pallid forehead. He was hot as a flatiron, and his face seemed thinner. His closed eyes seemed to be sinking backward into his skull. It was as if he were made of wax, and melting from the inside.

When the water boiled, the girl shook dried tea into a little china pot, and brought it back to the seats. Then the girl opened her basket and took out paper-wrapped items.

“Would you like a sandwich?” She offered one of the little bundles to Emily. “I made lots.”

Emily didn’t want it. Her heart was beating anxiously against her stomach, making her feel lightheaded and vaguely queasy. But the girl’s face was kind, her look vaguely imploring. Emily took the sandwich, unwrapped it. The thick-sliced homemade bread was spread with farm butter and strawberry jam. It was very good. Emily found herself wolfing it down in three bites and wishing for more.

“I haven’t seen you eat today.” The girl produced a tin cup from her basket and offered Emily a cup of tea. Emily shook her head. “I guess you’re down on your luck.”

“Nah,” Emily said. Having already become aware of her limitations in the field of masculine mimicry, Emily resolved to keep her utterances as syllabically limited as possible.

“My name’s Rose,” the girl said. “Rose Hibble.”

“Elmer.”

“Is your friend drunk?” Rose asked, nodding at Stanton.

“Uh-huh,” Emily said. “Thanks for the sandwich.”

“My uncle Sal was a drunk,” Rose said thoughtfully. “You know how they say about people, ‘drunk every night but Sunday’? Well, he was drunk on Sundays, too. Used to go into church to argue with God. Blamed if he didn’t win nine times out of ten!”

“Hmmm,” Emily murmured, hoping that the sound would indicate her lack of desire to hear more about Uncle Sal.

“I’m going to Chicago.” Rose cocked her head. “Where are you going?”

“New York,” Emily said, then immediately wished she hadn’t. She shouldn’t be talking at all. Why wouldn’t Stanton wake up? She was no good at being cagey and secretive and sly. He was the credomancer, he was the one trained to manipulate the minds of men …

“New York!” The excitement in Rose’s voice scattered Emily’s thoughts. “How exciting. Me, I’m going to Chicago because my Aunt Kindy owns a hat shop. She employs a dozen girls, and she needs a clerk, and I’ve studied two years at the Nevada Women’s College—mathematics and accounting and penmanship and bookkeeping—and so Mam said, ‘Rose, you go on out to Chicago and put some of that education to good use.’ Aunt Kindy is a good old soul, a godly woman, not too strong in the head, especially with her multiplication, and Heaven knows, you have to have your multiplication if you’re going to run a business …”

The river of thought continued from this gushing fount of information. Rose exhaustively elaborated on the theme of Aunt Kindy’s lack of mathematical skill before progressing through the life history of every member of her family, footnoted with her opinions on everything from the price of cornmeal to the proper way to iron sheets. Mostly, however, she talked about her dime novels.

“I brought some doozies with me!” She opened her heavy, lumpy carpetbag to reveal a rainbow galaxy of excitement and adventure. She showed them to Emily one after another, offering a precise and detailed description of each. Emily wondered why Rose didn’t notice that they were all the same story, just with different names.

“… and then Tom, the Straight-Shooting Outlaw, rides into the gulch and unties her, and pulls her up on his white horse, and they ride off into the sunset,” Rose exhaled at the end of another one of these recountings, closing her eyes.

“And the corrupt Sheriff Black and his posse of thugs get killed in a rock slide, right?”

“No, they get scalped by redskins. There’s this chief who owes Tom a favor because he saved his daughter, a beautiful Indian princess, from a raging grassfire.” Rose gave Emily a scornful frown. “Rock slide, phooey!”

Emily chewed her lip as Rose pulled another book out of her bag and began describing it. So many of the books featured noble outlaws, flamboyant and reckless, the kind that signed their names in bullets but never really killed anyone.

Well, being an outlaw was nothing like that at all. It was frightening and uncomfortable. You didn’t get to change your clothes, you had to use filthy bathrooms, you had to watch your friends die …

Emily’s heart jumped and she had to swallow to shove it back down her throat. She glanced over at Stanton. He looked worse than ever. What on earth was she going to do?

The afternoon wore on. Rose kept talking. They entered the desert, cutting across the ghostly alkali plains that rolled out before and behind them, a smooth blank sheet. And Rose kept talking. At least she didn’t seem to require much response. Her nonstop patter quickly became as much a part of the background hum of the train as the clack of the wheels.

As afternoon became evening and Stanton still hadn’t woken up, Emily knew she had to do something. The other passengers were beginning to comment. There were murmurs about “the sick man in the corner.” People held handkerchiefs over their mouths as they passed, and everyone gave Emily and Stanton a wide berth. Everyone except Rose.

“If you’re going through to New York, you’ll have to change trains in Ogden,” Rose observed. “I guess you’ll have to carry him, huh?”

“Yep,” Emily replied, as if she had to tote drunken associates all the time.

She had to wake him up before Ogden, before they had to switch trains. She couldn’t drag a full-grown man around without attracting attention she couldn’t afford to attract.

That night, when the conductor came by to fold the seats down into beds, Emily didn’t know what to say.

“It’s all right.” Rose smiled at the conductor, nodding toward Stanton. “The poor man needs his rest. I can lay my head against the window.”

Emily laid her head down and slept, hoping that Stanton would surprise her the next morning with one of his ill-tempered quips.

But he did not. He was still bleakly unconscious as they approached Promontory early the next morning.

She knew she was licked. She had to get him to a doctor. If he didn’t wake up before Ogden, she’d drag him off the train and have him carried to one. And then …?

And then, well, she’d get back on the train. She had to get to New York. That’s what Stanton would want her to do, and she certainly owed it to him to make the right choice.

When the train stopped for breakfast, Rose got off. She was gone for quite some time—long enough, indeed, that Emily worried she might not make it back. But as the train gave its final whistle, Rose dropped into the seat across, her face flushed and her blond hair wisping around her face. She gave Emily a knowing grin.

“I figured it was time we got some help from Mother Roscoe!” she said. She showed Emily a small paper parcel that bore the stamp of the station’s dry-goods store. Rose took out its contents one by one. Blackstrap molasses. Fluid extract of coca. Ground coffee beans, calomel, and brandy.

“What’s all that for?” Emily said.

“It’s for your friend. My mam used to stir some of this up whenever my Uncle Sal was having a bad time of it. She called it ‘Mother Roscoe’s Eye-Opener.’ I don’t know who Mother Roscoe was, but I’ll wager she had lots of eyes to open in her time.” Then, using the tin pan she’d boiled her tea water in, Rose began to mix the ingredients, using an alarmingly heavy hand with the coca extract. The girl swirled everything around, then put the pot on the coal stove.

“It has to boil for a bit,” Rose said as the train lurched and got under way. In a bit, the smell of sickly sweet steam filled the cabin, and the girl took the pot off the boil and set it aside. When it was cool, she poured a little into a tin cup and showed it to Emily.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Emily said.

“Oh, yes, perfectly safe.” Rose lifted it to her lips, drank deeply. Her eyes went wide and she hiccupped. “Tasty, too! You think you can make your friend drink it?”

Emily took the cup, sniffed it. She swallowed a mouthful. It was sweet and bitter at the same time, and there was an aftertaste of metal filings and rust. It burned going down her throat, and even the small sip she’d taken made her heart thunder in her chest. It made her feel like she could leap out of the train and run all the way across the continent under her own steam. Yes, Mother Roscoe certainly knew how to open eyes! She lifted the cup to Stanton’s lips, digging her fingers into the hinge of his jaw to make his mouth open.