A Book Of Tongues (36 page)

Morrow
felt
Rook’s
grip
slacken — confusion
welled
up,
weakening the bond it bled through. And suddenly, for all his
furious fear of the Rev’s supernatural trickery, Morrow found it ten
times more terrifying to consider how Rook maybe might not really
know
the exact parameters of what he’d set in motion.

“
You . . . remember that? But you weren’t supposed to —
”

“
She
tell you that, you stupid donkey?” Chess roared. “And you
believed her? Well, look
this
over a spell!”

He slapped his palm to Morrow’s forehead, sent memories
geysering into Rook’s mind through Morrow’s like superheated
steam. Where far off, Rook’s mouth opened wide, opening Morrow’s
with it.

(Mexico City, near a full fifth of it, levelled. Pinkerton’s voice
echoing, from Morrow’s mind:
This sort of thing starts bloody wars. . . .

(Oona Pargeter, gutted, metamorphosing into a black inhuman
giant with obsidian ribs and a stone plaque for a foot:
I’m your
Enemy, son — yours, an’ every other’s . . .

(Lightless cracks in the earth, felt more than seen, seeping slow
poison and dream-sickening corruption. One beneath the ruins of
Mexico City, one in a Tampico hotel room, one under the salt-flat
plains of a devastated town named Bewelcome. A half-dozen others,
opening even now — as they “spoke” — in various strange and silent
places.

(And that
voice
once more — Oona’s, but not. Informing all three
of them at once, with a scornful, half-crazed cheer:
Went on ahead
and ended the whole world, him and you, with your Godlessness: that’s
what you did. Sure ’ope you’re happy now. . . .
)

Did you really think you could go down so far and come back
up alone, little kings? Little priest-consort, little sacrifice-turned-god, little husbands?

The mind-flood cut off at last, a sluice-gate slamming shut.
Morrow collapsed to his knees, painful-sharp aware that Rook had
just nearly done the exact same thing over a thousand miles away,
only holding back for fear of
her
attention.

Shock and awe, not just at how bad things really were, but also
from the sheer scope of what’d come along with it, from Chess:
hatred, true as a blade. Not just the spite of a born pariah for the
world ringed ’round against him, nor the casual cruelty that had
always let him kill as surely and impersonally as a force of nature,
but a near-Biblical fury, a desperate pain and loathing, which could
come only when unlooked-for
love
found itself abruptly used up,
betrayed, destroyed.

A low sound rippled up from Morrow’s chest, and he felt sick to
realize Rook was laughing.

Chess’s green eyes widened. “You motherfucker,” he whispered.
“What makes all this so
funny
, to you, again?”

“
You, darlin’,
” Rook wheezed, “
you. ‘My only love, turned to my only
hate.’
” He made Morrow get up, regaining control. “
Listen, Chess — I
made a mistake. I know that now. I need for you to set it right, even if you
gotta kill me to do it.
”

Chess smiled. “Oh, you don’t have to fret yourself none on
that
account. I’m comin’ for you.”

Rook made Morrow’s mouth smile in reply, oddly gentle. “
I know.
”

“I think . . . I might be stronger than you, now.”

Morrow felt Rook’s hold start to fade, releasing him one part at a
time, yet saving his mouth for last. “
Sure hope so,
” Rook murmured.

Why?
Morrow thought, numb. But the answer wasn’t long in
coming.

“
Listen. You hear that?
”

“What?”

“
Shut up, darlin’.
Listen.”

Chess opened his mouth. Stopped, brows furrowing. Then turned, a hound tracking a cry on the wind. Helplessly, Morrow
strained his own ears, more than half certain it was pointless —
’til he heard it too, at last, a distant echoing howl sliding through
Rook’s hex-senses into his. Rook’s grim consent pulsed within him,
a wordless nod:

You need to know, Ed, just as much. If not more.

It came from nowhere in the graveyard. Only the faint noise
trickling in from nearby streets, the mutter and rumble of human
traffic, made any real sound here. But behind that there rose a
noise that Morrow could name, immediately — a high, nasal wail,
underscored with rattles, clacks, and irregular thumps, strange
glassy crashes, guttural growls and roars. And not a single note in
all this cacophony that sounded even halfway human.

Morrow’s skin didn’t just crawl. It lurched, as though his
primordial fear was trying to rip it from his body. And a sickening
second later, his stomach plunged as he realized the fear was as
much
Rook’s
as it was his own. Which meant —

Oh, shit, we’re well and truly fucked.

No beginning, and no end — only an insistent grinding, a key
turning in some locked door so large it kept two whole worlds
separate.

But — no more. Distant dark places full of hateful, clamouring
things. Fissures forming.

Chess scrubbed at his mouth, hard, and looked straight through
Morrow’s eyes, into Rook’s. “All ’cause of us, ain’t it?” he demanded.
“’Cause you ripped me outta the dead lands, and left the door
open behind you — some almighty sorcerer
you
are, for all your
Goddamned airs. Your new wife know how bad you fucked up yet,
Reverend?”

Rook set Morrow’s lips. “
Suspect she’s startin’ to, yes. But then
again, for all I know . . . she might not really care.
”

Chess shrugged at that.

“
’Course,
” Rook pointed out, “
it ain’t just about me and her, Chess,
or even me, her and you — you know that. There’s that other fella, too.
”

The Smoking Mirror.

“He says he don’t mean me any harm.”

“
Maybe, maybe not. They’re not like us, as you may’ve already
figured — but some things
are
gonna change, no matter what. ’Cause he
come up the same way we all did . . . and he sure didn’t come up alone.
”

Chess made as though to snap a harsh line back, but something
gave him pause. He looked down again, instead, sagging slightly,
like the air in his lungs’d gone stale.

Quiet, he said, “He told me I . . .
was
him, now. One sort of him —
or half, at least. ’Cause you fucked up in the makin’ of me, just like
I said.”

“
That’s right.
” Rook leaned closer, Morrow straining against him
as he did — the resultant motion subtle at best, though Rook seemed
to consider it significant enough to fight for. And heard his own voice
drop even further, as Rook finished: “
But . . . you don’t
have
to be
.

“
For here we have the key to write you a new gospel, Chess,
” came
the words, out of Morrow’s mouth. “
Every god needs a prophet. Every
crusade, a messiah. John to Jesus, Stephen to the Apostles. She showed
me how to make you something I didn’t have to kill, or be killed by . . . and
we’re gonna show
her
that just ’cause she and her kin want back in, don’t
mean we’ll leave the world to them without a fight.

“
Make the common folk fear him, as much — or more — as they’ll
fear those who come in his wake, Ed.
” And as the world blurred out to
black, Morrow thought he saw Rook’s face swim up to hang before
him, dark eyes deep and burning. Chess, the graveyard, the faraway
wailing of the cracked world, all were gone. “
Spread the word of the
Skinless Man, that the only way to save themselves is to let blood in his
name. Draw it in a bowl, tip it out the front door, circle the house. Tell
them what will happen to any as says no. Spill your worst nightmares on
their heads — then tell them to pray that’s all they endure. Or the Skinless
Man will end them in ways no man can even think about and stay sane —
let alone know yourself responsible for.
”

Rook did not smile, but the awful intention in his eyes was threat
enough. “
Then by the time her kind have returned for good, every hex
and every soul they might’ve claimed for their Machine will be already
marked as ours, instead — and they’ll have to either accept their place
under our rule, or go back to the Hell they built themselves. Forever.
”

So caught up in his vision was Rook that, for a moment, Morrow’s
vocal cords slackened. He managed to draw in a rasping breath.

“And you think Chess’ll do all this — let this all
be
done, in
his name — just on our say-so? ’Cause you made him a god?”
Astonishingly, he found a hacking laugh of his own. “Ain’t the way
any god
I
know’s supposed to act.”

Rook blinked. Then he returned the laughter, a dark, smoky
chuckle. “
Well . . . knowing him the way we both do, Chess ain’t too likely
to be a god of
love
, is he?
”

And that last was so crazily, hysterically, absurdly true that
Morrow found himself laughing right along, while the darkness
washed away into the graveyard’s dust-choked dimming sunlight —
and Chess stared at him in furious horror, hearing two voices echo
from one throat.

“I’m right Goddamn
here
, Goddamnit!” he shouted, at the both
of them.

The final absurdity was enough at last to bust Morrow free of
Rook’s waning spell. He staggered, caught himself. Shook his head
as Rook’s influence boiled off faster than black tar cooking. “Two
of you stuck together at the hip and such, for
how
long?” he gasped.
“Plighting your troth for all the world, play-actin’ the part of two
souls in one body, or a heart torn in half reunited. And . . . in the end,
Reverend
, after all you’ve seen and done — you don’t hardly know
that little fucker at
all
, do you?”

Switching mid-word to thought, without meaning to, it all
crashing out of him in one great wave hurled up against the thinning
black cloud of Rook’s shadow.

Chess Pargeter. Who’s never done what anyone wants, for any reason,
if he could help it — anyone but you, Rook. Chess, who’s never been no
man’s tool and no man’s toy — but yours
.
Chess, who’s only ever played
the fool for love, and only back when he didn’t dream there even was such
a thing. But now he knows better. Because . . .
you
taught him
.

Chess tilted his head a bit at that, those poison eyes musing.
“You maybe need to get on back to ‘your’ woman, Reverend,” he said,
without much heat. “That’s what I think. ’Cause we all three of us
know just how pissy she can get, when things don’t exactly go her
way.”

He raised his hand in distinct imitation of Songbird, a backhand
salute, to push every last trace of Asher Elijah Rook from Morrow’s
bruised soul.

Just past where Bewelcome glinted, Rook snapped back to himself,
aching but whole. He touched a hand to his mouth, still feeling the
trace of Chess’s kiss on Morrow’s lips.

“Is it done, husband?” Ixchel asked, from behind him — a dark
figure on a darkening landscape, sky already shading down to dusk,
hanging back with a strange courtesy. Willing to wait at least a few
beats more for him to . . . commit himself, he supposed, given the
gravity of what they were about to set in motion, and all.

“I believe so,” he answered. “One way or t’other — he’s coming.”

She came up behind him, rested her forehead against one
shoulder blade, inhumanly affectionate. “He shall come. He has no
choice. All this was fated a thousand years before your births. Are
you ready to prepare him the Way?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he replied, at last. And felt, rather than saw, her
smile.

She took his hands in hers as he turned to face her, fisted them
together in profane prayer, and began to chant. Within moments
Rook heard himself echoing her as the spell enveloped them, aligned
them, before unfurling itself, parasol-wide, across the land. Power
fanned out from Bewelcome’s salt-flat ruin in a hundred directions
at once.

Down ley lines, the invisible currents of power running through
air and soil. Along the rails of the Pacific Overland and its tributaries,
near two thousand miles of steel. Through the continental copper
mesh of Western Union’s telegraph lines, chattering with Morse
code. The spiderweb reached out all ’round them, lighting up, a
silvery-glint net cast over half a continent to catch — their own kind,
gathering and weaving together any who fell somewhere between
those strands.

Sending out the impulse:
Come. Come seek out Ixchel, the Mother of
Hanged Men. Come stand before Her priest-king, to offer up your service.
Come to build the First City of the Sixth World — the world of wonder, the
world of power. Come, and join New Aztectlan.

Not every mark would prove receptive, obviously. Songbird and
Chess, at the very least, would fight the call as hard as possible, and
Rook didn’t doubt that they’d succeed.

Many others either wouldn’t try, or would try and fail — and
then they’d end up here, lost and delirious, throwing themselves
headlong into the famous Machine’s endless suck-hole. As many as
necessary, for Ixchel-Ixtab-Yxtabay-and-all-the-rest’s purposes.

Yours as well, Reverend, supposedly. Yours as well.

For leagues on every side, the wires hummed and sang, lit and
clicked.
We call this category of crime
“
lightning-theft,
” Rook told her,
without moving his mouth.
Means commandeering telegraph wireservice without payin’ for it — committing bank-fraud, or suborning fools
to commit it for you, under duress. It’s a Federal offence.

And this, predictably, she found more amusing still — though
he couldn’t quite figure if her hilarity was sparked more by the
ridiculousness of the charge, or the insanity of having one centralized
government, supposedly, to reign over a hundred thousand separate
territories that’d barely each support a law of their own.