The Six-Gun Tarot (17 page)

“He doesn’t love me anymore,” Lucifer finally said softly.

“What?”

“The Host, He doesn’t love us anymore, Biqa. He treats us like slaves—like mindless servants. You were the first among us to see that. You were right, my old friend. We should have risen up when He banished you, but we were all so certain He would change his mind.”

The insects began to chant again, the endless mantra that was the chorus of life. The two stood silent for a time. A black cloud of flying things swirled, dived and then scattered across the bloody sky.

“I wasn’t banished,” Biqa said. “I was given a commission. My job is to guard that … thing. The oldest one, the biggest one. The one we couldn’t kill. I wasn’t banished. I thought I was for a long time, but I got over that. I think I understand what He’s trying to do here.”

Lucifer nodded. The intent of his regard was palatable, like a draught of celestial mead tapped from the souls of unborn suns. He smiled and gripped Biqa firmly by the shoulder.

“My beloved friend, it was you who first showed us the way. You, the first victim of His absurd obsession with this place, with these … primates. Think how many will join us when they see I have brought you home. They will see He is not all-powerful, nor infallible. You, Biqa, you will be my greatest general, my brother, second only to me in the new order.”

“Why do you not call Him by his name? God—when you speak of Him, it is with such hatred. Why?”

“Because … Because He is not worthy of our love, of our respect, anymore. Because He favors these … things, born in the slime, with the stink of the finite on them, over us—His perfect, beloved firstborn. Because He lets them stagger and crawl and blunder their way across His divine plan, while we, while you, Biqa, must blindly serve.”

“You’re jealous of them?” Biqa said, nodding toward where the group was still digging for roots. “Them?”

Lucifer’s countenance darkened and the sky followed. The monkeys sniffed the air, jumped and howled at the first rumble of thunder. They scampered into the high grass, heading back toward the shelter of the trees.

“Enough,” Biqa said. He laid his hand on Lucifer’s shoulder. “Stop.”

The Morning Star spun, his eyes glowing shards of rage. A flaming blade was in his hand. He pushed Biqa back and leveled the divine sword at the dark angel’s throat.

“How dare you! What does it matter to us, to you, what the Divine does to some mortal insect? They are dust, Biqa, dust! We are infinite.”

Biqa’s own sword, burning with the wrath of the creator, crossed Lucifer’s blade. “It matters to the one Who created us, to the one Whom we pledged to serve. And you, Lucifer Day-Son, you are not the Divine; we are merely His soldiers, you and I.”

“Is that all you are, Biqa, a good soldier? Tell me, are you content to remain here on this cancerous ball of filth and decay while your precious Almighty denies you the totality of creation, the light of infinite clarity, the balm of His love? Are you? Or will you act, as you just acted to defend those little rodents?

“He needs us Biqa, to save Him from the folly of His madness. Once He lit the cosmos and saw He was not the First … It shook His reason, stole His judgment. We can help Him. Are you strong enough to serve Him best by disobeying Him? ”

It was difficult to keep from bowing before Lucifer. His presence, his demeanor, had grown so much since the days when they had first met. He
was
as God, truly. There was sincerity, conviction in his cadence, a desperate strength in the pleading in his voice.

Then Biqa summoned his courage and looked Lucifer in the eye. What Biqa saw there took the weight from his blade and steadied his trembling hand.

“What do you want here, Lucifer,
really
?” he said from behind his resolute steel.

The angel of light laughed and took a step back, his sword dismissed into the ether. “You’ve toughened up down here, Biqa,” he said. “Any of the Host in Heaven I gave that line to would be sobbing and begging me to please let them help the doddering old fool. But not you.”

Biqa said nothing. His blade hovered inches from Lucifer’s heart.

The Day Star smiled and turned his back on sword and its wielder. “I truly am here to free you, Biqa. You and your charge.”

“What? You are insane.”

“The Voidling is the only thing He truly fears. It is the only thing unknown to Him. With it free, wrecking this wretched playground of His, we could make our demands and perhaps He would see the folly of his actions. Order will be restored.”

“Whose order, Lucifer?”

“Does it matter? His? Mine? The Earth will be gone, your need to be here—gone. You will be free.”

The point moved closer to the Morning Star’s chest. The flames flared.

“Freedom is opportunities, Lucifer. While you were above, mastering the dubious trick of speaking words your heart does not mean, I have had the opportunity to practice my swordplay.”

“Lying,” Lucifer said. “It’s called lying.”

“Well, I haven’t mastered that trick yet, so let me assure you that when I tell you I will run you through if you do not leave now, I mean it.”

Lucifer turned; the smile was gone from his lips. “Trust me, stay in his world long enough and you will master lying. This, however, is truth: I will not call for you when the revolution is over, Biqa. I will have your name struck from the Book of Hosts. Any who speak of you will have their wings torn from them and cast to this cold, broken, forgotten relic, Earth, to join you in eternal exile. You and the dead monkeys. You are a fool, Biqa.”

“Fair enough, but this is what I choose. That thing must never be free. It would tear this world apart and then chew its way up to Heaven and devour it whole. I don’t agree with God’s decision to destroy them, but I do understand it. It is not
of
the Void, Lucifer; it
is
the Void. It seeks an end to the light, to all creation, all that intrudes on its endless darkness.

“I disagree with God and I do question His methods and ultimate goals, but I also know I owe Him my existence and my loyalty. He is on to something here, Lucifer. Something truly of the Divine.”

“Divine rodents … I know, I know—monkeys. Whatever. You’re still a fool—to believe in an unknowable thing, to trust in someone Who you admit you do not understand. To clutch that to your breast and cling to it, believing its ineffability will hold you up. Foolish.”

“Faith,” Biqa said. “It’s called faith.”

“Touché. I’m afraid I have yet to master that one myself. Good luck to you, Biqa, guardian of your little patch of rock, defender of the monkeys. You are the first of the Host to ever challenge me.”

“I won’t be the last, I can assure you.”

The angel rose from the shackles of the Earth, flying into the bloody eye.

“Lucifer!” Biqa called out.

The First Beloved turned and looked down upon him, his presence competing with the brightness of the sun.

“If things don’t work out … you are welcome to visit.”

“I may even if they do work out,” Lucifer said with a sly wink.

Biqa watched him recede into the light and then vanish. He dismissed his blade, letting it scorch the ground where it fell and then flicker out.

He walked down the hill through the high grass, toward the cave where the group now huddled in terror. A warm breeze caressed the grass; it swayed to the rhythm of the world’s breath. It caressed him too, whispering, but Biqa could no longer remember what the words meant.

The Wheel of Fortune

Murders bring out a crowd. By the time Jim had ran to summon Highfather and Mutt and returned, a group of Chinamen had gathered around the banker Stapleton’s body. A few boarders, roused when Jim had generated such a ruckus telling Mutt, also joined the expedition to Johnny Town. A few more night owls, loitering outside the Paradise Falls, saw the party armed with rifles and lanterns and tagged along out of morbid curiosity. Word got around fast; a white man was dead in Johnny Town.

Highfather rolled the body over onto its back while Mutt held the lantern. Jim noticed that every doorway, every window, had a shadow in it, watching, chattering quietly in an alien tongue. None coming too close to get involved, but all close enough to observe and comment. Highfather ignored the crowd, for the most part. He did turn to the burly tattooed man who had pursued Jim into the alley. He and a few of his fellows were with the body when the sheriff arrived.

“Did you chase this boy?” he asked the Chinaman. The man shook his head, fixing his eyes on Jim. Highfather turned to Jim. “Is he the one who chased you in here?”

“Yes sir,” Jim said, glaring back at the tattooed man.

“The boy … he try to come in saloon … He no old enough,” the man said. “I chase him off, tell him to come back when older. No hurt.”

“That’s a lie!” Jim shouted.

Highfather shook his head curtly and gestured for the boy to step back. Highfather plucked a wicked-looking hatchet, with an emerald ribbon attacked to its handle, out of the tattooed man’s back pocket. He handed it to Mutt. “I think we’ll discuss this back at the jail,” the sheriff said to the tattooed man. “See if we can’t get the truth out of everyone.”

“My employee has given you the truth, Sheriff Highfather,” a melodic voice said, rising above the murmur of the crowd, cutting through it. The crowd parted.

The old man’s beard was white, like sunlight reflecting off ice. It fell almost to his knees and stood out in stark contrast to his silk robe of shimmering emerald. His eyes spilled out into the shadow, black water moving under a moonless sky. He was Chinese and the four men who ringed him all bore tattoos like Jim’s pursuer. They held hatchets in their hands, low at their sides, emerald ribbons fluttering.

“Ch’eng Huang,” Highfather said. The old man bowed, slightly. “You know how things work. Your man is a potential witness to a murder, maybe even a suspect.”

“I assume the boy is a suspect as well?” Ch’eng Huang said. Angry shouts went up from the other white men. The Chinese began to move to defend the old man, but Ch’eng Huang raised a single long-nailed finger and everything stopped. Silence fell.

“Purely in the interests of fairness,” the old man said.

“I know this boy, Huang,” Highfather said. He stepped toward Ch’eng. His quartet of defenders parted for the lawman. No one, not even in Johnny Town, wanted to confront the Man Who Could Not Die. “I know he isn’t a member of a murderous gang of cutthroats and opium fiends, like your Green Ribbon Tong.”

Ch’eng nodded, his face placid.

“Certainly, and I know this man to be an excellent employee and devoted husband with a beautiful infant girl at home. I assure you, he is not your killer. I give you my word as a … community leader, Sheriff.”

Highfather leaned in closer to Ch’eng and lowered his voice.

“Don’t think I won’t run you and all your hatchet boys in, Huang,” he whispered. “All I want to know is why your people were messing with the boy and what Stapleton was doing here. Don’t even try to pretend that you don’t know. You know every bug that crawls through the walls of these streets.”

“True enough,” Ch’eng said. “I hold my responsibilities to my people as something of a sacred duty. Also, Sheriff, be quite sure that any attempt to extricate me and my employees from our community would be a very costly proposition. Even for a dead man like yourself. Neither of us can afford such a contest of powers, yes?”

Ch’eng looked at the tattooed man who had chased Jim.

“Kada thought the boy had stolen property from me. He was mistaken. As for the late Mr. Stapleton, he was enjoying the hospitality of the Lotus Lantern until about an hour ago. He departed for home. Alone.”

The crowd shifted, like troubled seas. A voice like rotgut pouring over gravel boomed above the heads of the onlookers.

“Make way! Make way! Damn your yellow hides! Step aside for a man of medicine, I say!”

Dr. Francis Tumblety, his eyes red from whiskey, or the hour, perhaps both, pushed his way through the street. He was a stout bullet of a man, with coal-black hair, slicked to his pate, bifurcated with a long, narrow part. His eyes were like a fish’s out of water, bulging and dark. A massive, drooping mustache fell from his upper lip to well below his chin. It was hard to tell if it was waxed or just greasy. The doc always looked like he hadn’t had a decent bath in months and he usually smelled that way too. Occasionally he’d remember to cover the stench up with a little Bay Rum hair tonic, but most of the time he just didn’t give a damn.

The doc was wearing his military bang-up over a dirty undershirt and suspenders. The threadbare dark blue overcoat was still covered with his various medals. Some townsfolk said that the medals were fakes; others joked that they were the only thing holding the foul-smelling coat together.

“Doc, we need to know what killed this man and when, if you can manage it,” Highfather said to the scowling physician.

“Bah, child’s play, Jonathan, for one schooled in the esoteric arts of the Hippocratic healer.”

Tumblety gave a sour look to a Chinese woman in the crowd and then knelt, with a groan, to examine Stapleton.

“We better get him back to my office,” he said. Tumblety snapped his fingers in the direction of two of the Chinamen looking on in the crowd. “You two yellow scalawags, there! Chop-chop! Pickee up the dead man, Mr. Charley. C’mon, damn your lazy bones!”

The two men looked at each other, then Ch’eng Huang. The old man nodded once, curtly. The two men wrestled Stapleton’s body up off the ground and followed the swiftly retreating doctor.

“Jonathan, I’ll have your answers by mid-morning!” Tumblety bellowed. “See you then!”

With the departure of the remains, the crowd began to disperse.

Highfather turned back to Ch’eng. “Much obliged. I know the doc can be a caution.”

“He is an ignorant simpleton. Surely you know that blowhard is no more a doctor than I am a Mormon.”

“Yeah.” Highfather scratched his head. “But he’s what we got. Anyway, thanks for your folk helping with Mr. Stapleton.”

“Please give my regrets to the Widow Stapleton,” Ch’eng said.