They dismounted. The sun set, and the Stranger built a small fire by the side of the balloonery building. The Stranger watched the Kid’s hands. They moved in a practiced, absent-minded pattern: the old disappearing handkerchief routine. As much as he looked he couldn’t see the silver thumb-tip as it was being used in service of the act.

“When I recovered I ran to the fire. The house burned. I ran inside . . .” The flames illuminated the Kid’s face.

His eyes were open and he stared into the flames. “My mother was inside. I was too late to save her.”

“I’m sorry,” the Stranger said.

“Yes.” The thumb-tip was back around his neck. “There was nothing left for me in Bozoburg. There was hardly much left of the town. I picked up a pair of guns, and followed the Rasmussens into the Doinklands.”

“Did you ever catch them?” the Stranger asked.

“No.” A bitter smile twisted the Kid’s face. “I did find them, though, eventually. By then they were incarcerated in the local jail of a town called Soo’s Creek. I was just in time to see them hang. . . .”

The silence settled around them. Insects buzzed around the fire. The horses neighed softly. And the Stranger thought of the Escapement.

It was a land where people lived and laughed and loved and died, a land like any other land. It did not require people for it to be there, but nevertheless people came, and changed it by their being. He thought of the farmhouse, and who might have lived there once, and had they been happy, and whether they had children. It felt like a place that once echoed with the laughter of children. And he thought about his quest.

He did not know if the Escapement were real, for what was real? The world was filled with impossible things, like the joyful laugh of a child. He closed his eyes. Behind them were only white walls, an antiseptic smell, the hum of machines. A doctor whispered something, there was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. Sir? Sir? Visiting times are over.

He shook them away. When he opened his eyes the Kid was there, still, staring into the flames. His hands moved through the old routine, making a handkerchief appear and disappear.

“And the Conjurer?” the Stranger asked. “Did you ever find him again?”

“No,” the Kid said. His hands moved, the thumb-tip hidden. The handkerchief disappeared and reappeared.

“No,” the Kid said. “But I will.”

Clochards

SEVEN:

CLOCHARDS