The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) (56 page)

“What is it?” he asked.

“They’re gone.”

Jack followed her stare into the
Wasteland, the sand empty; neither the Cast Outs nor the dregs were anywhere to
be seen, an eerie silence settling over the desert. The Tribe of Dust had
disappeared. For the first time in days, Jack could almost believe that the
Wasteland was as barren and lifeless as it appeared on its surface.

“Did the barrier fall?” Ellen asked
suddenly. “Are they inside?”

Without knowing how he knew, Jack
answered straightaway: “No, the barrier’s still intact.” It was smaller now,
too small, but it still held.
So where did they all go?

“I can’t tel—”

Ellen’s reply was cut off by a piercing wail from the east. Jack’s first
thought was of an animal puling out its dying breath in an agonized shriek, a
victim to the appetites of some mindless Wasteland monstrosity. But the sound
grew louder, the pitch deafening. No sense of pain in the horrific wailing,
just an autonomic tone, more mechanical than organic: the sound of tires over
hot pavement or the whine of an engine cycling up higher and higher; something
happening, something being set in motion that could no longer be stopped.

Ellen was next to him, flinching away
from the sound, ears covered. “What is that?”

He was shaking his head, eyes
searching the horizon for some kind of explanation. Then he pointed out into
the Wasteland and the mile-long shadow cast by the saloon. “Maybe that.”

A lone dreg raced across the
bone-white dust, impossibly fast, its mouth gaping wide as it bore down upon
them. From the widow’s walk, Nail snarled and lunged, flying out to intercept
it. Ellen ducked to keep from being hit by him, but Jack was less surprised. He
knew Nail would attack the dreg; charged with protecting the Caretaker, he
would attack anything that breached the barrier.

Others knew it also.

“Nail, stop!”

But the gargoyle would not be
deterred, focused solely upon the dreg, Jack’s words useless even as he spoke
them. And the Caretaker felt his limbs turn wooden, terror lodging ice-cold in
his spine and branching outwards, turning him to stone. He wanted to run, to
look away—
anything not to see this
. He could already feel the pattern, a
sense of the written future. He could not stop what was about to happen; he
could only watch it unfold.

A gunshot exploded, and Jack saw
Rebreather knee-deep in a shallow cut of the Wasteland—
So close! How could
the barrier have shrunk so far, and you not notice
? —his long rifle to one
shoulder, the barrel still smoking. White sand spilled from his coat and hat as
he stood, water sheeting from a rising leviathan.

Nail twisted abruptly upwards,
sensing the trap too late—
the dreg was bait! Bait to draw the Guardian
close—
but it was simply momentum and nothing more. One wing hung by a shred
of ragged, bloody skin, the bone shattered by Rebreather’s bullet. The
appendage shook like a wind-tattered sail, and the gargoyle crashed gracelessly
into the Wasteland in a cloud of bone-white dust.

From the far side of the barrier,
Rebreather ejected the spent shell, snapping back the cartridge to load a
second bullet. He leveled the rifle at the gargoyle’s head just as Nail
staggered to his feet, favoring the ruined wing while blood ran down his fur to
splatter the parched sand.

And for one sickening moment that
stretched out before him in a long ribbon of time winding away into eternity,
there was dead silence. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. The world was a
still-life, a grainy photo etched upon Jack’s retina, burned forever into his
mind. He heard Rebreather pull the trigger, a soft click that made him flinch,
not from surprise, but because he expected it, knew it,
saw it
.

But there was no second shot. The
rifle hissed like a splash of hot metal as orange sparks burst from the chamber
… and nothing more.

Rebreather cast the weapon aside, the
rifle shattering upon the sand: wood rotted to powder, metal pitted and
collapsed beneath the weight of its own rust. It existed upon the ground for
seconds only before being reduced to a shadow of discolored dust in the
featureless desert. The tall Cast Out drew the long sword from across his back,
and the stillness fell before it. The dust around his feet exploded in a charge
of dregs, their bodies boiling from the sand as they scrambled after Nail. They
bore into him, grappling and dragging and pulling him further and further from
the Saloon, closer and closer to the barrier’s edge. And even as he struck them
down one after another, the outcome seemed inevitable. Rebreather stood
waiting, sword ready, Gusman Kreiger and Reginald Hyde to either side of him.

Jack barreled down the steps, leaping
two and three at a time to reach the bottom, to save Nail. The gargoyle had
looked after him all this time, stood by him when all others assumed he was wrong,
misguided, or simply crazy; a useless dreamer in over his head. He had to save
Nail; had to somehow stop what was happening out on the Wasteland, change the
outcome. He was the Caretaker. He was supposed to take care of things. He was
supposed to run reality. What good was he if he couldn’t do
this
?

He was dimly aware of someone yelling his name, screaming it over and
over, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t wait to find out who or why. He had to
save Nail;
he had to!

More steps, three at a time, four!
Over thundering footfalls, the horrible sounds from without assailed him,
boring through the slat boards and wall planks to cut straight into his brain
like knives. Snarls and howls and screams of death. He turned through the
waiting room and burst out upon the platform, leaping over the tracks in a
desperate bound, narrowly missing his head on the platform overhang.

Nail!

A trail of mangled corpses led to
where the gargoyle was making his final, desperate stand. Jack watched a
gerrymander catch him about the waist, powerful legs driving into the sand,
gouging great furrows as it pushed Nail backwards another four feet. Nail’s
fist crashed down, smashing its spine. But as the dreg fell, limbs twitching
like a crushed insect that has not yet discovered its own failed mortality,
another immediately replaced it. Every victory cost the gargoyle ground, and
the Tribe of Dust was waiting.

Jack stumbled, falling to the sand,
and when he tried to get up, he felt a sharp lance sheer up his left ankle and
calf.

Nail!

The gargoyle was buried to his knees
in the sand, dregs clawing up from below the dust to tear at him, drag him
under, back down below like corpses’ hands thrusting up from the briny deep.
And he was covered in blood. The mangled wing had been completely torn away,
and something protruded from one of his forearms, possibly the splintered end
of a bone. Nail continued ripping and smashing at the Wasteland creatures, fur
bristling, wisps of blood fluttering from his nostrils. But still he was being
pulled away, drawn closer to the Tribe of Dust and Rebreather’s sword.

“Nail!” Jack screamed.

The gargoyle seemed to hear over the
din, and turned. One eye had been slit open, a jagged gash tearing the side of
his face leaving him partially blind. But the other found Jack’s, and for just
a moment, Nail stopped fighting, stopped resisting. The eye simply stared back
at him, the Caretaker of the Nexus and the Guardian of the Caretaker.

“Nail?”

Rebreather lifted his sword high over
his head, and Jack was tackled from behind, caught around the waist and dragged
down amidst the mangled and fallen bodies of countless slaughtered dregs. He
looked up to see Ellen on top of him, favoring one arm that he was dimly aware
she must have fallen on while taking him down. “Jack, don’t!” she begged,
trying to catch her breath and speak. “They’ll kill you!”

“But Nail—”

Rebreather’s sword cut the air,
striking the gargoyle between the shoulder and neck, cleaving down at an angle
that split the Guardian nearly in half. For one moment, the gargoyle’s arms
shot straight out, hands open as if in astonishment …
or surrender
.

Then Nail’s body sagged under its own
weight and was consumed by the Wasteland, dragged beneath the surface, gone.

The last remaining dregs bent to the
desert, and were sucked back below. Rebreather similarly disappeared. It was as
if the sand itself had turned instantly to liquid, returning the netherworld
demon from whence he came. Reginald Hyde leaned his head back to laugh and the
white ground swallowed him whole. The mounded dead dissolved into dust, little
more than vague shapes, empty outlines on dead sand to mark their passing. In
time, the wind would erase even that.

Only Kreiger remained, locked in
Jack’s stare, eyes glimmering with something like merriment, but which Jack saw
only as the smug delight of a gloating devil. For one brief moment, he saw an
expression of absolute hatred in those different-colored eyes. But the mask
fell quickly over Kreiger’s skin, leaving only his mocking stare as he slid
back down into the Wasteland.

Ellen was clinging to him, not
holding him back any longer, but simply holding him close, her fingers tangled
desperately into his shirt. In the twilight of the Saloon’s lengthening shadow,
she wept softly, whispering over and over: “It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. He hadn’t been
able to stop it. He hadn’t even seen it coming until it was too late. Kreiger
was a stone’s throw from the Nexus, and Jack knew he was no closer to being a
Caretaker now than he was eight days ago. He was not the Caretaker. He was just
a hapless dreamer.

Nothing had changed for him.

Nothing at all.

Except now Nail was dead.

FOOL’S PARADISE

The vending machine in the waiting
room had not disappeared, still buzzing and flickering with uneven consistency,
but more than half the shelves were now empty. Neither Ellen nor Jack felt much
like eating, anyway.

Jack sat on the floor. Ellen slouched
at the bar on the remaining stool and watched his vacant expression. Her wrist
hurt from the fall out on the Wasteland, and her elbows and palms were scraped
raw in places from the sand. Nothing a little cold water couldn’t fix. She ran
them under the faucet until her hands were nearly numb, the wounds run clean.
The icy water even made the throbbing in her wrist retreat to a dull ache.

Jack was more complicated. How did
you fix a wounded soul? Did he even realize how much of the Saloon had
disappeared? She did not recall the morning exactly; was more gone now than
before? All that remained in this room was the ticket booth, the bar, a single
barstool and the coffee machine. There was nothing behind the bar: no glasses,
no cups, no bottles of liquor or beer or flat soda-pop. Even the spill of
broken glass and coins was gone off the floor. Maybe this really was just a
dollhouse, and the little girl who owned it—
owned them, too
—had grown
up. Too old for toys, she was taking it all away one piece at a time, wrapping
each carefully in tissue paper and placing them into neatly molded storage
trays. They weren’t going to die, not any of them. They were simply going to be
put away, to disappear to some dark oblivion where all useless, unwanted things
eventually go.

But, however despairing or surreal,
Nail’s death cast a measure of doubt on that notion. They
were
going to
die. She had seen where Rebreather stood, and knew that for all of Kreiger’s
bluster, this threat was neither empty nor exaggerated. The barrier was going
away and Nail was the only one who could have protected them.

The thought of Nail made her heart ache;
it was like watching someone shoot a wounded dog. In many ways, that was Nail:
an over-protective watchdog … with six-inch fangs.

And now he was gone, cut down and
torn apart while protecting them.

Jack blamed himself. Not just for
Nail, but for everything. She glanced over at him, trying not to stare at the
redness of his eyes, the tears he worked to conceal. It would only make him
self-conscious, and she didn’t want to hurt him further. “Jack?”

He looked up, his face tired and
confused: old, worn-down and haggard; young, lost and bewildered.

“Is there…” She faltered, unsure
exactly what it was she was trying to say. There were so many things,
half-formed, insensible. The only thing she was certain of was the emptiness in
her heart. “Is there anything I can do?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. If
I knew what to do, maybe, but I don’t. I just don’t.”

An uncomfortable silence grew between
them, and Ellen realized for the first time in a week how big the Saloon was;
she was lost in it, small and frightened and alone. Once she relished the open
space, the solitude; so peaceful, so perfect. Every romantic’s unspoken
fantasy: alone in a deserted place with the man of your dreams, nothing but the
warm sand and the blue sky.

But it was different now. Everything
was different. The silence felt oppressive, a beast in the shadows ready to
pounce; always ready. And the solitude was no longer liberating, but lonely and
frightening and cruel. What had been so wrong about that first morning that it
couldn’t have lasted a little longer? Was it too much to ask?

Apparently it was.

The setting sun blazed through the
window behind her, lighting Jack’s face with bars of crimson and black, shadows
etched deep into his features. It burned the polished brass and copper of the
coffeemaker into a molten thing, hell’s furnace, a witch’s crucible. Jack threw
an almost careless glance at it, and a low bubbling sound came from within, a
faint gurgling like the hiss of a gargoyle’s breath.

“What are you doing?” Ellen asked,
hoping it did not sound too much like a reproach.

“I know what I have to do,” he said.
“And I’m running out of time. Oversight was right. I let myself get distracted
by things around me instead of doing what I was supposed to do. And now Nail is
dead.”

“Nail is dead because Kreiger and the
Cast Outs killed him,” she said. “They were afraid of him. Even if the barrier
fell tonight, they could never have defeated Nail, and Kreiger knew that. So
they killed him.”

“I should have seen it coming. I
didn’t.”

“You can’t blame yourself for Nail’s
death, Jack. And you can still beat Kreiger.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Nail was,” she said, searching for a
way to reach him. Jack was the natural Dreamline, only he was afraid, too
uncertain of himself to just let go of the ledge. “Nail was supposed to protect
the Caretaker of the Nexus. He died protecting you … protecting the Caretaker.”

Jack circled around to the back of
the bar, and fished out a mug along with a spoon, some sugar, and non-dairy
creamer. These things he found. He couldn’t have found two chairs for them to
sit on, a table to sit at, or much of a meal to eat, but Jack could always find
the fixings he needed for a cup of coffee.

“You can’t be serious?” Ellen said.
“You’re barely awake now. You’re eyes can’t even focus, and you want to fry up
your brain again? You may not survive this time, Jack.”

He looked up at her and she saw the
anger in his expression, the thin veil of his fear. “What do you want from me?
There’s only one way I know how to get out of here. It may not even work, but
it’s the only chance we’ve got.”

“Not this way.” She was looking at
the steaming cup in front of him, the contents like black poison.

“It’s the only way I know,” he
confessed. “I drink coffee and I play the same song over and over until my mind
loses its grip on reality and the story is released. I don’t control it; I
don’t direct it; I don’t even know anything about it until it starts to unfold.
I don’t make the story; I
find
the story. I wish to hell I could turn it
on and off, aim it like a gun and just pull the trigger. You don’t think I’d
like to be able to just sit down and write from eight until noon every day and
spew out a New York Time’s best-seller at the end of six months—or this
reality’s living equivalent? But I can’t. This is the way I know. This is the
way that works. And it’s the only way that—” He halted abruptly, swallowing
hard as though about to choke. “—that we can get out of here.”

“And if it doesn’t work, how will you
find the story then?” she asked. “If caffeine and the poor boy’s nutmeg high
doesn’t get you on the Dreamline, what then? Drop acid? Chew mushrooms? Boil a
mix of Wasteland dust, powdered scarabs and toad skin that will trip you out
and blow holes in your brain tissue? There’re no answers there, Jack. I know.
I’ve tried. I won’t let you do that to yourself.”

“
I’m trying to get you out of
here!
”

Ellen jerked back as if slapped, Jack
only staring at her as though he had actually hit her. Both their faces were
flushed, dark with emotion and failed daylight. The words hung between them in
the silence, and nothing could take them back.

“I thought you were trying to get
us
out of here,” she asked.

“That’s what I meant,” he amended,
looking away.

“Was it?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Ellen slid from the stool and walked
up the stairs, leaving him alone in the dark. She stopped at the top of the
landing, standing in the doorway of the room she shared with Lindsay.
Everything, she realized, was turning against itself in paradox: she hated the
loneliness, but was glad for it also; there were places to flee where no one
would see her, see the expression in her eyes, the tight fists she had made out
of her hands, knuckles white as paper. She didn’t want anyone to see; wanted to
throw up at the thought that someone might know, might find out that Jack made
her mad enough to want to punch him, and hurt enough that she wanted to cry
over him, and happy enough that she would have forgiven him all these
transgressions if he would only agree to stay with her.

Paradox. She wanted to be alone; she
wanted to be with him. She hated him; she loved him. She wanted to be a million
miles from this crazy place; she wanted to stay here forever, safe from
reality.

Nothing made sense, least of all
herself.

Standing in the doorway of the empty
room, staring at the hollow wafting of the silk canopy, Ellen concentrated,
holding her breath and listening intently for sounds from below. A part of her
wanted desperately to hear Jack coming up the stairs, coming up to see her, all
very romantic, very cliché; unrealistic to a flaw, she knew. It never happened
that way in real life, only romance novels and sappy movies that had little to
do with reality. Just pretend. Jack would not chase after her because Jack was
right. And Jack was wrong. He was wrong and right, and that was why nothing
made any sense at all. Jack could not change who or what he was. What he was
was why he was here in the first place. Nail believed Jack was a worthy
Caretaker. So did Jack’s predecessor, the Writer, though she had never met the
man herself. Only Jack failed to see that, and nothing—nothing! —she did would
make him open his eyes to the fact that there wasn’t a reality, not behind them
or in front of them for that matter, any better or more real than the one they
were in right here and right now. That was all that really mattered. Here. Now.

She listened, ears straining for the
slightest sound: the clink of a spoon circling the inside of a coffee mug,
footsteps upon polished floor, or just the sound of his foot slipping down across
the base of the bar as he leaned over a steaming cup of coffee and considered
her words.

But there was only silence from the
room below.

Ellen swiped a hand across her cheeks
quickly, brushing away tears she was only dimly aware of. “Damn you, Jack. Why
can’t you see this for what it is?”

But he did not. Whether he could not
or would not, she didn’t know. Either way, he did not understand.

But Ellen did. She understood what
would happen. She knew what Jack would try to do, right or wrong. And she also knew
what she had to do.

Slowly, her fingers began to work at
the buttons on the ill-fitting shirt, the snap of her jeans, the zipper. Piece
by piece, she removed each article of clothing and let it fall to the floor,
lost in the shadows of the growing darkness.

She understood.

Would Jack?

*     *     *

Raising the cup of coffee, Jack
inhaled the steam.

It was only coffee, smelling faintly
of hazelnut. Not like before. Not that concoction, origin unknown, brewed from
imagination, the Saloon, and dust-saturated Wasteland blood like the rich,
black tar he had left behind in his writing room. This was only coffee, nothing
added.

Just coffee.

He wasn’t sure he could do that
again. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be that lost, that …
dedicated
to the
Word. The last time, he had nearly misplaced himself along the way, becoming a
mindless conduit through which the world of dream was actualized. It didn’t
leave a lot of room for his own life; maybe none at all.

Unless you
make
room.
But that was a
different trick altogether, wasn’t it?

He had not been entirely truthful
with Ellen. The manuscript he had torn from her fingers that morning was about
her and the reality she would inherit. And he was sincere in his belief that it
wasn’t ready. He certainly wasn’t ready to pour it into the Saloon facade and
see it recreated in all its flawed wonder by the Nexus. Doing so would bring
the train. And the train would take Ellen Monroe away to her new life. The lie
was not the manuscript but the reason, and the reason had nothing to do with
the story itself.

It had to do with him.

He didn’t want Ellen to leave. He
didn’t care that every wasted moment in the Nexus brought the Tribe of Dust a
little closer to its dreams, brought Gusman Kreiger a little nearer to his
unsavory fantasy of ruling reality with the added bonus of being able to
strangle Jack with his own intestines.

But there was death, and there was
the idea of Ellen leaving on a train; leaving him behind.

This situation could not go on
indefinitely. He could feel the barrier tightening around him. Hastily applied,
some reflexive call upon energy as old as the universe itself that he had
utilized without any real foreknowledge or instruction, he was now a prisoner
of his own devising. And the prison was collapsing upon him.

He had to call the last train. If he
could do that, he would be the Caretaker. He could fashion his own focal lens
for the Saloon, recharge the Nexus, and drive the Cast Outs away. The scepter
would be passed, and he would be king, and there would be nothing anyone could
say about it. Kreiger would be left with the option of fleeing into exile to
take his chances in the Wasteland, or fighting with nothing but a useless
lightning rod, a giant, and a fat pedophile.