The White City (17 page)

As Ray searched for a way to help Jolie, he felt the toby blazing against his chest.

The Hoarhound bucked, trying to throw Jolie from its back. She stabbed at its head with the knife. Metallic clanks sounded with each blow, but she was unable to penetrate the monster’s skull. The Hound flung its jaws side to side. Jolie
plunged the knife, this time at the Hoarhound’s steel eye. The blade sank, and the Hound unleashed a roar.

She brought the knife up to strike once more but paused. The blade was broken at the hilt.

The Hound rocked forward furiously, and Jolie lost her grip. She flew, tumbling end over end into the frost-brittle leaves.

“Jolie!” Ray shouted.

The Hoarhound swung its snout around to him. Steel gleamed from the Hound’s exposed skull. The one eye was ruined, dangling from the socket by a jumble of cables.

Ray raised his hands protectively. The strange tingling he felt around the Hound was there. But it was stronger. There was something more, like an invisible resistance pushing back against his outturned palms.

The beast growled and then turned back to Jolie, where she lay dazed on the ground.

“No!” Ray cried. But the Hound was already lunging.

A welling of heat rose from the toby, flooding through his body and down his arm. A magnetic pressure grew in his hand and erupted from his outturned palm. The Hoarhound suddenly flipped to one side, missing Jolie and crashing to the forest floor on its back. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but Ray held his hand out. The Hound flipped back to its paws and looked from Ray over to Jolie.

She scrambled to stand and ran toward Ray. The Hoarhound’s claws dislodged clumps of dirt as it charged after her. Ray squeezed the toby with one hand. He extended his other hand toward the stampeding beast. Once again the repellent
force burst from his palm. The Hound’s front legs collapsed, and its clattering snout hit the ground hard.

“What did you just do?” Jolie gasped as she got behind Ray.

Ray didn’t answer. He stared at the Hound. He focused on the heat welling from the toby. He focused on drawing out the repellent power, holding off the Hound for as long as he could.

The Hoarhound slowly rose to its feet.

A strange quiet seemed to have come over the forest. Ray could hear Jolie breathing behind him. He could hear the gears clicking within the Hound’s neck as it lowered its head menacingly. Frost seeped from its jaws, causing the forest floor around it to crackle with rising splinters of ice.

The Hound crouched, ready to leap. The toby pulsated against Ray’s skin over his heart.

“Get back,” Ray said to Jolie through gritted teeth. He planted his feet wide and leaned forward with his arm outstretched.

The Hound sprang. Its jaws opened wide as it came down on Ray.

Jolie screamed.

Before the Hound reached him, it bashed into an invisible barrier and fell. Ray pushed the repellent force against the Hoarhound. The creature roared and snapped its icicle teeth, their tips catching on the invisible barrier. As Ray stepped closer, the Hound’s mouth was wedged open. He could see twirling machinery in the depths of its throat.

The Hoarhound brought its head to one side, battering the invisible barrier. Ray braced his heels as he felt the blows strike
again and again. The Hound turned to reposition its attack, and Ray reached out, locking its metal skull in the magnetic spell.

The Hound writhed, struggling to escape. Ray dug his heels into the dirt and held tight. How long could he hold off the beast? Maybe long enough for Jolie to get to safety. But he knew she would never do it.

Her hands gripped his shoulder. “Stay focused. Do not lose your concentration.”

Ray pushed forward with the spell.

“You can destroy it,” she said. “You can do that, Ray.”

Ray held out his other hand, feeling the power grow. His muscles trembled against the might of the Hound struggling to escape.

“Destroy it!” Jolie urged.

Ray pushed harder, putting all of his strength into the enormous effort of crushing the Hound.

The ground shook and the dirt shifted around the Hoarhound’s paws. A crack opened in the earth. Stones and loose soil slid into the fissure, and the Hoarhound began to fall in with them. A pair of spruces beyond the Hound tipped together, their roots breaking from the earth.

The Hoarhound thrashed and kicked to escape the sinkhole. Ray stepped forward, pressing with all his might. The Hound sank to its waist. The repellent pressure forced the Hound’s head to one side. Ray took another step and crushed the Hound into the hole.

He felt the pull of the open void. Earth and stones and debris were sucked down. In a moment, he would be pulled in with the Hound.

Jolie clutched his waist. He kept his attention on the Hoarhound, only vaguely aware of her shouting as he dragged her with him. The earth collapsed beneath the Hound until only its head was still exposed, the jaws clapping desperately.

And then the dirt closed over it and the Hoarhound disappeared. Only a patch of upturned earth remained where the Hound had been consumed.

Ray dropped his hands and fell backward.

Jolie was still holding him around the waist, panting and trembling. Ray rolled over. He rose up weakly on his elbows and clutched the toby. It was still now. He listened to the sounds of the forest returning—wind in the treetops, birds calling.

Ray looked over at Jolie. She lay, winded, on her back. “What about Sally?” she murmured.

“The waterfall,” Ray said. “She might be back behind it.”

Stumbling with exhaustion, they made their way to the pool. Ray picked up the
Incunabula
and placed it along with the rest of Sally’s belongings in her rucksack.

Jolie pointed. “Up those boulders. There seems to be a way behind the waterfall.”

Ray followed her up the ice-slick rock. Although the spray dampened his clothes, he managed to avoid the powerful stream of falling water by staying close to the bluff and ducking beneath an overhang of ice still left by the Hoarhound’s prison. Once he and Jolie were behind the fall, he looked around at the shallow cave.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“I thought they might have been trapped by the Hound’s
ice,” Jolie said. She knelt and touched her fingers to the ground. “It is all rock. There are no prints. No sign of whether they came this way.”

Ray slipped Sally’s bag from his shoulder. “But she left her belongings. At least part of them. And the
Incunabula
among them. She wouldn’t have done that unless she was attacked suddenly. Maybe she and Quorl ran away somewhere.”

“Then why would the Hound have come up here? It trapped itself accidentally behind the fall. It would not have come into this cave unless there was a reason.”

“So why aren’t they still in the cave?” Ray asked.

They looked at each other, and Jolie nodded. “The Gloaming.”

“Yes,” Ray said. “They crossed through this cave.”

“How can we follow them?” Jolie asked.

“We can’t! I don’t know how.”

“But you can, Ray.” Jolie stepped closer to him, looking him fiercely in the eye. “You are a Rambler. You can cross.”

“I can barely take crow form—”

“You have to believe you can.” She pointed back toward the waterfall and the spruce forest on the other side of it. “Look at what you did to the Gog’s Hound. How do you think you did that?”

“The toby,” Ray said uncertainly. “Or maybe something from this wilderness.”

“No,” Jolie said sharply. “Do you not see? You did that. You! And you can cross. How did your father reach the Gloaming?”

“By taking animal form,” Ray said.

“And Little Bill brought John Henry into the Gloaming to destroy the first Machine. You can carry me across too. Through this cave. I know you can.”

Ray took the toby from around his neck and knelt to open it up. He took out B’hoy’s feathers. Nine black feathers. A momentary ache filled his chest as he longed for his friend the crow. He couldn’t bring himself to say so, but he did not think Jolie was right. It was the toby that gave him his powers. So maybe his old friend’s feathers could guide him across.

He put the toby back over his neck and nodded to Jolie. “Okay.”

Ray took a deep breath and gazed down at B’hoy’s feathers. Then he closed his eyes and let the darkness surround him. He concentrated on the mountain above them, the roar of the waterfall behind them, the wilderness surrounding them.

He took a step forward and then another and let his body grow light. He flapped his arms and felt feathers catch the air and lift him. He opened his eyes and saw the waterfall before him. He rose up on beating wings and turned before he reached the wall of water. Soaring around in an arc, he saw Jolie watching him with awe. She laughed and turned to face the back of the cave. “I am ready,” she called.

He whooshed down and caught her shoulder with his talons. Jolie disappeared.

He flew forward, feeling her within his grasp but with no weight to hold him down.

Light flashed as he soared into the rock. The cave was gone. The noise of the falls had disappeared. He saw faint branches and leaves and a vast distance below. A deafening groaning
surrounded him, the sound of an enormous tree swaying. Ray flapped hard against the wild winds, struggling to follow the branch until lights flashed once more.

He flew out into a cavern. A great wolf—the rougarou Quorl, Ray realized, although he had not seen him before—looked up with alarm and leaped to his feet. Ray drifted over him and saw Sally run to Quorl. Away from the two, over by a dark lake, stood a man with a tangled beard, dressed in little more than rags. He watched Ray’s flight with a bright smile. He looked older and stranger than the man from his childhood, but Ray knew this man. It was his father.

Ray descended between his father and Sally and Quorl. He opened his talons, and Jolie reappeared. As his feet met stone, he collapsed. Jolie tumbled and knelt, half dazed, at his side. Ray looked at his hands—for a fraction of a moment they were wings. Then they were fingers, the black receding into pink.

Sally ran to his side and took him around the neck. “Ray!” she cried. “I thought I would never see you!”

Dizzy with emotion and the effort of crossing, Ray squeezed Sally. “You found him, Sally. You did it. You found Father.”

A
FEVERISH SHAKING RACKED
R
AY
. S
ALLY PUT HER HAND TO
her brother’s damp brow. “What’s wrong, Ray? Are you sick?”

“No,” he said. “It will pass. It’s from crossing … from taking crow form. It happened before, but it was worse the last time. Is there something to drink?”

Sally said, “We’ve nothing to drink.”

“Here, Ray,” Jolie said. She tipped the waterskin to Ray’s mouth.

Sally watched Jolie anxiously, her lips trembling to find words. After Jolie took the waterskin back, she glanced up at Sally.

Sally stammered, “Jolie … we … Quorl didn’t mean to bring the avalanche down on you. It … it was all just a terrible accident!”

Jolie nodded to the rougarou. “I know. There are no ill feelings between us. All is forgiven. Think no more on it.”

Ray felt his strength returning. He shifted, turning to look for Li’l Bill. “Father?” he called.

Li’l Bill was coming from the lake and stopped when he was still several yards away. “Ray? You are … so grown. I only remember the little boy. The one who took the lodestone, and now …” He looked from Ray over to Jolie and back. “And you, Jolie …” He gave a frail smile, a knot drawn between his brows.

Ray did not know what to do, but Jolie rushed up to him and hugged Li’l Bill. He awkwardly patted her back with his one hand, but a rush of emotion showed on his face. “Children, my mind has been clouded with darkness for so long. But now, with you all here, with the
Toninyan
returned, I feel it clearing.”

“The
Toninyan
?” Ray asked, confused.

Li’l Bill nodded toward the lake. “The lodestone I gave you. The one that is now in my rabbit’s paw. I can see that we have much to share. We ought to sit together and talk. Come.”

As they gathered in the lantern light, Ray told about Omphalosa and the pursuit of the steamcoach, his discovery of the agents’ aim and meeting up with Jolie. “I didn’t know,” Sally said. “If they had caught us …”

“They did not, thanks to your brother,” Jolie said.

Sally looked stricken with guilt until Ray said, “It’s okay, Sal. Tell us what happened to you.” Sally recounted her journey before ever leaving Shuckstack, and Ray and Jolie were shocked to hear that she had returned Nel’s leg and his Rambler
powers. “Then you can save Father! You can take the rabbit’s foot—”

“Hush now,” Li’l Bill said kindly. “Let your sister finish. She’s the one that ought to explain why she can’t.”

Ray’s heart sank at those words, but he listened patiently. As Sally continued, he looked at his father, noticing how odd he looked, how ghostly he had become. At first he thought it was simply the Gloaming, since everything here had taken on a strange quality. But he realized, while Sally and Quorl and Jolie and even the rock of the cavern looked more richly colored, his father seemed as bleached as something from the wastelands he and Jolie had crossed.