Darker Than Weird: Fourteen Tales of Horror

The Rude Mechanicals and the Highwayman

It wasn’t the seasonal gravity maelstroms or the swarms of psychic predators that kept us away from the Great Thoroughfare. It was the widespread tales of the highwayman known as the Surgeon.

Rumors of his perfidy rippled like ultrasonic waves from the Greater Urbille to the outer Affinities. In those distant territories where the living and the undead mingled, where villages of despair rotted at the feet of carven mountains, we heard tales from wounded travellers and weeping merchants. He stood tall and lithe as any Beatific, they said, and wielded an ancient blade faster than death. A dark cloak wrapped him like a shroud, and he wore a cruel face of sculpted bronze. To look into his burning opticals was to see your own demise, or so claimed the survivors of his attacks.

One constant ran like a silver thread among the scattered tales of his infamy: Each robbery ended with a single execution. These victims, they said, were chosen specifically by the highwayman. Others claimed they were chosen entirely at random. This point was often debated with dreadful passion.

The leader of our troupe was Sala North, the master performer so famous among the Urbille’s Beatifics, Clatterpox, and Goblinkind. We were fourteen in number: ten Beatific actors and a quartet of Organic apprentices. At the end of this journey we four adolescents would receive our long-awaited Beatification. We would trade in our spongy flesh-faces for the infinite variety of porcelain visages that were the pride of Beatific society. Our fragile calciferous bones would be replaced by gleaming silver skeletons, our living brains housed inside perfectly crafted skulls of that same bright metal.

Some travellers said the Surgeon had once been a maker of Beatifics, a certified Surgeon who served the Potentates of Urbille in perfect faith, until he went mad and abandoned his practice. Now he prowled the outer edges of the Affinities, preying on whomever he chose, sparing some and slaying others. He was a demon, a defiler, a tale to frighten travellers. I only half-believed his legend. Still our troupe took the Lesser Thoroughfare now, staying well away from the Surgeon’s hunting ground. None of us expected to cross his path out here, not even the ones who believed he was real.

The Rude Mechanicals had crossed a hundred Affinities and performed sixty-seven shows since our outward journey began. Our return to the Urbille would be the highlight of the year. The Beatifics would welcome us in their thousands and open their ancient marble amphitheatre, the Théâtre d’ Ames Rire, to the spectacle of our stagecraft. We looked forward to such a grand reception after months of performing in muddy plazas, crowded graveyards, and crumbling ruins. The living and the not-quite-dead, the human and the inhuman, we entertained them all. But there was no audience like a hometown crowd — an Urbille audience.

Several more Affinities stood between us and the city, yet these were the Empty Lands. There would be no more performances until we came to the center of the Celestial Nexus, where the Urbille thrived and pulsed with a thousand different kinds of life.

“What a dreadful place,” Harmona said. She tossed back her cloak and glared at the twin suns dominating a scarlet sky. The gargantuan cacti on both sides of the road sprouted millions of purple-veined blossoms. The wind blew furnace-hot and without mercy.

“You don’t like the desert?” I asked. Teasing her was irresistible. She had complained about the cold for the last three days. Now there was only heat and dust. And thickets of stubborn cacti.

“Is that what this place is?” Harmona said. “I thought we had stumbled into Hell.”

We trailed at the end of the road-weary procession. Half our number walked ahead of the six-wheeled steam carriage. It puttered along rasping and wheezing, belching pale vapors. The rest of us walked behind the conveyance, which was piled high with barrels of oil and coal, crates of costumes and backdrops, and a few bags of dried fruit and meat for the Organics. We always kept the steam carriage in our middle, ever since the time we had lost it for seven days. It ran out of fuel in the middle of an electrical storm, and we crossed into an adjacent Affinity before noticing our machine was missing.

Eventually we backtracked and found it, but looters had stolen all our gear. Not much of a concern for the Beatifics, who required neither food nor water. But for Harmona, Brix, Chancey, and myself — we pitiful Organics — such provisions were essential. Another reason to anticipate Beatification: On the day we relinquished our sweaty flesh for gorgeous clockwork bodies of metal, wire, and springs, we would leave behind our such genetic frailty. On that same great day, soon to come, we would join the ranks of Sala’s journeyman actors. Our apprentice training would be complete, and we would be true Rude Mechanicals at last.

“Which Hell?” I said. “Depending on which culture you study, there are apparently a great number of netherworlds.”

Harmona blinked at me as a cloud of dust blew across the road. We could barely see the black asphalt beneath the drifts of yellow sand. The Lesser Thoroughfare stretched on before us like a disappearing dream, winding through the arid landscape toward the next porte, which lay somewhere far ahead. Our homeward journey would be so much easier and faster on the Great Thoroughfare. But we avoided that route only because of the highwayman. Some might have called us cowards, but the troupe was trying to protect its most vulnerable members: Us. The frail Organics.

“You’re far too literal,” Harmona said. “Pass me your canteen. Mine’s dry.”

I gave her a drink. The steam carriage diverted its course to avoid a boulder lying in the roadway. A lucid dome containing its human brain glistened with condensation at the center of the baggage strapped to its roof. The vital organ, attached to the coal-fired engine by a clever array of neural filaments, floated in a tank of bubbling nutrient fluids. The vehicle possessed enough intelligence to avoid obstacles, but not enough to sense when it was about to run out of fuel. Skiptrain checked its gauges every few hours and refilled its furnace with handfuls of black anthracite.

Not for the first time I wondered what crime some poor Organic had committed to deserve such a fate. Prestigious or wealthy citizens of the Urbille transitioned from Organic to Beatific, while the poor gave up their flesh for Clatterpox bodies — clumsy coal-powered, barrel-shaped frames. Yet even the Clatterpox were superior to our sentient steam carriage. Clatterpox had arms, legs, and voices. They had names and a society of their own based in the Rusted Zone. Our faithful and nameless carriage had none of these things. Perhaps it was the brain of a madman or an idiot. In either case, it served well as the bearer of our troupe’s necessities. It had done so for longer than anyone could remember.

Sala North walked at the head of our humble train, as always. She wore her travelling face, a finely sculpted mask of gold and ivory. On stage she wore only the most delicate and intricate of porcelain faces, but such things were not made for trekking across the Affinities. She carried a staff of dark metal, lighter than iron, with a head of living green flame. The glow of this flame had guided us through Affinities of perpetual night, realms of everlasting fog, and lately the darkness of sudden dust storms. She was our Flamekeeper, our Stagemaster, our Foster Mother, and the ticking heart of our ensemble. The original Rude Mechanical, and the director of all our performances. We all loved her.

I loved Harmona too, and I believed that she loved me. We mingled our bodily fluids in bouts of spontaneous intimacy whenever we could find a private moment. My love for Sala North was that of a son for his mother, or a student for his mentor. My passion for Harmona was the all-consuming heat of Organic lust. We would outgrow these physical expressions of intimacy when we gained Beatific status.

Not for the first time, I wondered if our relationship would survive the transition. Beatifics blended their minds, not their bodies. Only disaffected Organics joined flesh to flesh, as such antics were wholly forbidden in the Urbille. But out here on the open road Harmona and I were free to indulge our biological urges. We kept our mergings discreet, and our Beatific friends did not chastise us for it. They had all been Organics once, some of them centuries ago. They remembered what it was like to be young and feverish.

“How many more Affinities?” Harmona sighed.

I shrugged. The troupe plodded along, a trail of red dust rising in our wake.

“Not even Sala can answer that,” I said. “Keep your mind focused on the Urbille, and what waits for us there.”

She turned her soft blue opticals toward me and grabbed my hand. Her skin was hot and damp against mine. I wondered if her new Beatific opticals, miracles of glass and wire and miniscule gears, would retain that same delicious color. Beatifics often chose a new optical color when they transitioned. The wind howled and dust raked across the road.

“What waits for us,” she repeated my words.

“You’re not…scared?” I asked.

She smiled. Her broad lips were chapped and sore. Still her beauty stunned me, even as beads of sweat rolled from her hair and streaked her dusty forehead.

“Are you?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Our days of hunger and thirst will be gone. We’ll be as durable and fantastic as Sala. Beatifics at last. The pride of the Urbille.”

She spat into the dirt. “You know, if we weren’t actors, we wouldn’t be able to afford the surgery. We’d be forced into Clatterpox bodies. Lumbering monstrosities belching steam and smoke like this dull carriage.”

Sala North had adopted four orphaned children ten years go. She taught us the noble arts that made us performers. Only our association with her qualified us to join the Urbille’s elite class. Our Conversion surgeries would be part of the troupe’s official recompense. A reward for ten years of service and dedication to craft. Nothing was more precious in the whole wide Urbille.

I nodded. “Would you still love me if I was a Clatterpox?”

She leaned over and kissed my cheek, then wiped the dirt from her lips.

“You think I love you?” she said. “Whatever gave you that idea?” Her grin was a crooked promise. She squeezed my hand in her own. She wouldn’t be able to do that when our hands were no longer spongy flesh.

Brix and Chancey walked alongside us, while Hangdog, Specious, and Aristotle formed the Beatific rear guard. Brix and Chancey never complained. They were as fragile as Harmona and myself, their dirty faces wrapped in scarves covering mouths and noses. Half-empty canteens hung at their belts alongside poniards in leather scabbards. Sometimes I thought they grew jealous of my relationship with Harmona. We had grown up together, and they loved her too. But Harmona had chosen me. I had no idea why.

“Pylons!” The shout came from the front of the procession. Sala’s right-hand man Albertus gazed at the horizon through a telescopic lens. He’d spotted our next porte. The troupe quickened its pace in expectation. None of us liked this lifeless desert Affinity, not even the Beatifics. They didn’t feel the heat, but the atmosphere here dried out the oils that kept their interior mechanisms running smoothly. Spending much longer in this place would be dangerous for all of us. The blowing sand would clog their gears as soon as the supply of lubricating oils ran out.

A flock of winged fungi rose from distant dunes and swept toward the procession. Their bodies were writhing masses of tendrils attached to bulbous middles, and their wings reminded me of pale, leprous bats. I counted at least two dozen of the creatures. They lurked here to prey on anyone trying to use the porte. There was nothing else to lure prey in this desolate place. We hastened toward the pair of tall black obelisks that appeared on the horizon.

Sala North stopped and stood on the side of the road like a commanding general. She pulled back the hood of her cloak, exposing her gold-and-ivory face. It sparkled madly in the double sunlight. She raised her staff high and shouted at us through the wind.

“Quicken your pace!” she bellowed. Albertus ran to stand beside her, pulling his long rifle and aiming it at the swarm. The steam carriage kicked itself into a higher gear and we ran alongside it. Harmona would not let go of my hand, so we ran in lockstep. I looked back and saw bolts of green flame flaring from Sala’s staff. The blast of Albertus’s rifle shattered the wind’s moaning, and a fungal beast exploded in mid-air.

The black pylons grew taller and more distinct before us, great monoliths that narrowed as they rose toward the sky. Their three-sided tops were flat, and runic formulas were carved into their stony sides. Ages of wind and dust had eroded the formulae but they were still barely visible. For a moment I feared their power was spent. If so we would be stranded here in this place of dust and death.

I looked back again and saw the fungi swarming about Sala. She flash-fried clumps of them with gouts of jade fire. Albertus cast away his spent rifle and drew his sabre. He had chosen a grim face of iron for this journey, and his opticals gleamed red as blood in their deep sockets. It was a demons’ face. A face made for killing. A mask sculpted to defy the dangers of any given Affinity. On stage Albertus was a master thespian, but long before he joined the Rude Mechanicals he had been a great warrior. Now and again he told us tales of ancient wars, and the horrid slaughter of battles long forgotten by the Urbille.

Watching him skewer and hack at the flying beasts, I realized he was still very much a warrior. This gave me hope that Harmona and I would still be ourselves after Conversion. Our love would endure the loss of our Organic bodies as Albertus’s warrior spirit had endured Beatification.

Beyond the pair of obelisks the dusty road stretched on through the bleak wasteland. One by one our company ran between the pylons and disappeared from sight, shunting through the invisible vertical plane of the porte. They had already arrived in the next adjacent Affinity. When the steam carriage finally rolled through, nearly half our number had already passed over.

Harmona and I raced toward the porte. Only a few more steps to go. Behind us one of the fungus creatures attached itself to Chancey’s head, its tendrils writhing about his face and ears, seeking any entry to his brain. It was difficult for the beasts to pierce a Beatific’s metal skull, but Chancey’s bone skull would give way far easier. Brix pulled his dagger and sliced at the creature. Black gore rained across Chancey’s head and shoulders, but the creature released him. It fell to the ground squirming and bleeding. Brix and Chancey ran toward the porte while Specious stomped the wounded thing into the dirt.

Skiptrain fired his ancient pistol, thunder exploding from his raised fist. Harmona and I plunged through the porte. The sounds of battle ceased instantly as the fabric of etheric reality contorted for one brief second — no sound, no gravity, no heat or cold, only a gulf of eternal nothingness that could smother us like tiny flames beneath a tidal wave. Then it was over, and we stood on the other side of the porte.

Chilling rain spattered our faces as we kept running. The steam carriage rolled on before us. The road stretched gray and shining like a serpent’s back across the flat ground. A forest of shaggy willows rose on either side of the Lesser Thoroughfare. Rainwater dripped from hanging branches, stirring ripples in pools of blackish slime.

“Wonderful,” Harmona said. “Another swamp…”

She had wanted to take the Great Thoroughfare. We had endured one unpleasant Affinity after another, and there seemed no end to them. The main road would have been far easier, but Sala had insisted we avoid the highwayman’s path at all cost. I trusted her decision, even if it meant trudging through a series of hellish landscapes. The Urbille lay somewhere ahead of us, and that’s all that mattered. That, and Harmona’s hand in mine.

They came through behind us: Sala, Albertus, and Skiptrain, the last to arrive. The fungi would not follow through the porte. Such creatures abhored the spaces between the worlds. Rarely would any threat follow a caravan through the portes. The trick was surviving long enough to reach the next pair of pylons. We had done well enough so far.

“Did everyone make it?” Sala asked. The gears inside her chest popped and creaked as her interior cogs slowed to their regular speed. The opticals behind her gold-and-ivory face stared through the rain as she counted our numbers. She nodded. The steam carriage had stopped to wait for us. The quartet of Organics gathered about the green flame atop Sala’s staff, huddled like moths about a guttering gaslight. We had gone instantly from dry, scorching day to shivering in the cold, wet night. Such extremes were common when moving between Affinities. Beyond the tops of the willow trees constellations of strange stars lay hidden behind the scudding black clouds.

“Set up the big tent,” Sala said. “We’ll camp here until morning. Perhaps the rain will stop by then.”

“I don’t like the look of this place,” said Albertus. He peered into the gloom of the marshland. Whatever looked back at us from the sodden wilderness must have surely trembled before his killer’s face.

“Oh, let’s take the Lesser Thoroughfare,” Specious said. “It’ll save us from the horrible Surgeon…” The opticals in his aluminum face rolled with a mocking expression, and his fingers wiggled in a parody of fear.

“The highwayman is real,” Skiptrain said. “And it was Sala’s decision.”

“Right,” said Specious. He removed his face and wiped a spatter of fungal gore from its surface. His naked silver skull gleamed dully in the glow of his opticals. He replaced his face and trundled off to help set up the tent.

An hour later we had achieved some little comfort. The rain pattered on the canvas roof. We four set in a circle about a small fire that Chancey had built to warm our skins. The Organics formed an inner circle at the center of the greater one. The Beatifics didn’t need a fire’s warmth. At that moment I envied their durable bodies, so immune to fatigue, cold, and hunger. It wasn’t the first time I envied them so. Harmona shivered, so I pulled her closer.

Brix stirred a pot of stew over the flames. Our four bellies growled. The Beatifics spoke among themselves, deciding on the details of future performances, while the Organics ate quietly in their midst. We drank rainwater caught in tin cups. It was cold but satisfying, perfect compliment to the hot stew. I felt the food warm my guts in a pleasant way, and that warmth spread into my arms and legs. I would miss the sensation when it was no longer possible or necessary to eat.

“Are you looking forward to it?” Harmona whispered after the meal. Her head lay against my left shoulder.

“You mean Beatification?” I asked.

“What else?”

“Of course,” I said. “Every child of the Urbille dreams of his Conversion Day.”

“True enough,” she said. Her hot breath warmed my neck. “But most children do not get to see the things we’ve seen or go to the places we have been.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. Only you matter to me, I thought, but didn’t say it.

“It does!” she said, pulling gently away. She stared into my opticals. Hers were full of dancing flamelight and sparkling wetness. I had grown addicted to staring at those lovely opticals. They would change — we would change — as all things must.

But we would change together.

“I know,” I told her. “I know.” I squeezed her hands in mine.

She smiled at me. I saw sorrow in the smile.

“You say the kindest things.” She would have kissed me then, I sensed it, but we were surrounded by the Beatifics. It would have been too brazen, too insulting to merge our flesh when they could see us doing it. The rain fell from the upper dark, and we had no idea what lay beyond our ring of firelight. There was no chance of sneaking off to cuddle and conjoin tonight.

“Are you frightened?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “But also excited. We’ll be Rude Mechanicals.”

“We already are,” I said.

“No, we’re apprentices. As long as we wear this flesh that is all we can be.”

She was right. “That is the custom. Who are we to deny it?”

She nuzzled her cheek against my arm. “Will you still love me when we no longer share this wonderful weakness?”

“Yes,” I said. I meant it.

We lay down on one side of the fire, Brix and Chancey on the other. About us the Rude Mechanicals sang and whispered and chattered all night, keeping their opticals on the dark swamp that engulfed us. Some practiced soliloquies or traded lines at the edge of camp. I fell asleep with Harmona in my arms.

The whirring shuffle of mechanical bodies awoke us in the dead of night. The Beatifics were standing about the rim of the tent. Those with weapons held them tightly in jointed fists. Sala’s green flamed danced at the top of her staff.

“What is it?” Harmona said. We rubbed sleep from our soft opticals, stood and wrapped wet cloaks about ourselves. The fire was still alive, but it had burned low. The rain had stopped. A strange silence lay across the swampland. A trio of yellow moons dominated the sky, perfectly placed among swirling constellations of stars. The marsh pools were mirrors of moonlight.

“What is it?” I repeated Harmona’s question. Brix and Chancey were too frightened to speak.

Hangdog turned his opticals toward us for a moment. He wore a face of gray metal with painted crimson lips. “Phantoms,” he said. “Wild ones. Stay in the tent.”

We peered beyond the shoulders of the Beatifics as they stood like sentinels about the tent. Spectral shapes flickered between the willows. They glided slowly through the trees without leaving so much as a ripple in the pools. Harmona pressed herself against my back, clutched my shoulders. I wrapped my fingers around the hilt of my poniard, knowing it would be useless against these ghosts. Brix and Chancey came close to us. I heard Chancey’s teeth chattering.

“These are no moaning fizzleshades,” said Hangdog. “They’re dangerous.”

The luminous spirits of dead men surrounded our camp. Each one resembled the body that had once carried it through the living world. They had shed those fleshy skins long ago — as Harmona, Brix, Chancey and myself would soon shed our own. Yet our brains and spirits would find homes in finely sculpted mechanical bodies. The brains of these men had decayed long ago with the rest of their forgotten flesh. I imagined their rotted remains lying under the swamp, fodder for legions of worms and insects. Nothing left of them but moldy bones and creeping phantoms.

Some of the ghosts wore antique armor, split and dented in the battles that had killed them. Some wore great bronze helms decorated with winged dragons or devilish horns. Their skinless skull-faces were like those of unmasked Beatifics, but these were pitted bone hung with shards of dessicated flesh. Beatific skulls were smooth, silver, creations of perfect beauty. There was no beauty in the faces of these restless dead.

“What do you want?” Sala North asked. She raised her bright staff high, bathing the phantoms in her green light.

The ghosts only stared at us. They encircled the camp as the Beatifics had encircled the tent. The fire suddenly died, as if someone had poured water on it.

“Leave us!” Sala shouted. The phantoms ignored her. I could not tell if they meant us harm. They might fly forward at any moment to drain our living souls, feast on our essence as the vampires of the Organic Age used to feast on blood. But they only stared.

“They’ll fade when the sun rises,” said Albertus, settling the butt of his rifle in the mud between his feet. “No bodiless spirit can withstand the daylight.”

“How long until dawn?” Hangdog asked.

Albertus shrugged. “No idea.”

“We just had to take the Lesser Thoroughfare,” Specious complained again.

Sala called for quiet. The voices stopped. In the silence a rumbling sound grew closer. A pattern of repeating thunder. Hooves beating against the muddy road. It grew louder as we listened.

Harmona held her breath. Her body trembled against mine. I felt the heat of her skin even through our damp clothing. In that moment of cold terror I cherished her perfect warmth.

“It’s the highwayman,” she whispered. “The Surgeon.” I thought she might weep, but she was too scared even for tears. So was I.

“But how?” said Chancey. “He doesn’t haunt this road.”

“Apparently now he does,” said Brix. I almost laughed at his flippancy in the face of doom. A whimper-like sound was all I could manage. My stomach tightened with fright. I wondered if the Beatifics felt any fear at all. Did fear manifest from the brain or from the body? If the former were true, then the Rude Mechanicals could certainly know terror. They stood tall and dauntless all around us, staring at the black road ahead. If they were as frightened as we Organics, none of them showed it.

A rider on a dark steed rode out of the shadows. The horse was a construct of black metal, gleaming sharply in the humid air. Its opticals were slits of crimson, the light of twin flames. Steam billowed from its snout, and its jointed legs beat steel hooves against the earth, slamming the road with violent speed. Its pace decreased as the rider approached our camp.

In the saddle the Surgeon sat tall and grim. A wide-brimmed hat kept his face in shadow, but his opticals gleamed silver through that patch of darkness. His cloak flapped like a pair of gargoyle wings, settling slowly about his shoulders as the horse slowed. The phantoms parted before him, and the steaming horse walked closer to us.

“We know who you are,” Sala North said. She held the flaming staff between herself and the rider.

“Then you know what I want,” said the highwayman. His voice was cold, slicing through the air like a blade.

“We are an acting troupe, not a merchant caravan,” said Sala. “We have no wealth to give you. Go and rob someone else.”

The highwayman laughed, but there was no joy in it.

“I know who you are too, Sala North,” he said. “And what you are.” His steed stepped closer, and Sala’s light turned the black leather of his garb to glimmering shades of green.

His gloved hand reached up to remove the scarf that hid his lower face. A naked silver skull gleamed at us. “You are like me,” he said. “A victim of the Potentates. A slave of the Urbille.” I wondered why he wore no sculpted face. Why defy this basic custom of Beatific society? Perhaps it was part of his rebellion against the established order.

“We are nobody’s slaves!” Albertus said. He aimed his rifle, but Sala reached out and forced its barrel toward the ground.

The highwayman had not yet drawn the sword that hung at his belt. I saw a long-handled pistol there too, and another holstered on his right thigh. They were not modern Urbille guns, but relics of some distant Affinity. I could not guess at their power, but we had all heard the tales of his deadly blade.

“I say again, we have no money,” Sala told him. “Leave us in peace.”

The highwayman slid from his horse and stood facing our leader. He was close enough now that she might reach out and smite him with her weapon, or send a flash of emerald fire to scorch him. She did neither. A strange respect existed between them. Had they known each other in some previous incarnation? What had Sala not told us about this uncanny outlaw? One hand hovered above the pommel of his sword.

“If I draw this blade, someone here will die,” said the highwayman.

“I’ll burn you to ash,” said Sala.

The highwayman nodded. “You might. But not before I kill at least half your troupe. These hungry phantoms obey the spell of my will. Best to meet my demands. Do so and you can be on your way.”

Sala’s voice broke the ensuing silence.

“What do you want then? Tell us.”

The Surgeon’s opticals looked beyond the ring of Beatifics. He looked at us now, the pale Organics standing next to the dead fire.

“The Organics must come with me,” he said.

“Never,” said Sala. The green fire blazed from her staff.

Quicker than any of our opticals could follow, the highwayman swept his blade from its sheathe, a flash of silver moonlight. A high-pitched tone rang through the night. Sala’s head rolled from her shoulders and fell into the mud. The long blade slid back into its scabbard with a hiss. Sala’s body fell forward, and the flame of her staff extinguished itself.

Albertus raised his rifle but a swarm of phantoms fell upon him, tearing him apart with ectoplasmic claws and teeth. In seconds he was nothing more than a pile of broken gears, torn wires, and silver bones. One of the ghosts carried Sala’s severed head to the highwayman, who tore off its gold-and-ivory mask. He fitted her face over his naked skull, staring at us through Sala’s stolen visage. Her skull glistened like a silver orb, balanced on his open palm. There was no blood, only a few drops of oil. He dropped the skull into the ashes of the cookfire.

Harmona leaped forward, but I grabbed her arms and pulled her back. It had all happened so fast. Nobody knew quite what to do about it. We all stood there, Beatific and Organic alike. Except Harmona. Tears burned on her scarlet cheeks.

“Do something!” she cried.

“There’s nothing we can do,” I said. It was true.

The highwayman walked into the midst of our camp wearing the face of our dead founder. The Beatifics moved out of his way, each of them surrounded by a halo of spectres. We were helpless, completely at his mercy. Tears filled our soft Organic eyes.

“Come with me now,” said the highwayman, “and none else will perish this night.”

He reached an empty hand toward us.

We said nothing. Moved not an inch.

“Why?” Harmona said. “Tell us why.” She glared at him with more courage than I had ever possessed. Right then I loved her more than I ever had.

“To save your lives,” said the Surgeon. “If you return to the Urbille, you will die. All four of you.”

“You’re a liar,” Harmona said. “And a murderer!”

She would have torn Sala’s face from him, or at least tried to. I held her tightly.

“You must believe me,” he said. His opticals swiveled toward each of our wet faces, one by one. “I’m here to save you.”

“You killed Sala!” Harmona shouted.

The Surgeon shook his head. He removed the gold-and-ivory mask and his silver skull regarded us intently. “She was already dead,” he said. His hand gestured to the helpless Beatifics. “All of us are…”

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Chancey. He sobbed as he met the Surgeon’s stare.

“It will,” said the highwayman. “Return to the Urbille and you will be destroyed. Replaced by an automaton with your lifeless brain inside its silver skull. Oh, you will believe you are still alive, but you will not be. Your brainless bodies will be given secretly to the Potentates of Urbille. They will devour your flesh, as they devour all flesh that grows in the city. A machine will replace you, but it will not be you. It will only be a prison for your immortal soul. One from which you will never escape.”

“How…” I said. “How can you know all of this?” He was telling us the truth. Somehow I sensed it. He had no reason to lie. He could have killed us right then, or have his phantoms drag us away. But he wanted us to come willingly. He wanted us to see the truth.

“I know it,” he said. “Because I used to create those machines. I robbed the living of their bodies to provide sustenance for the Potentates. I transplanted thousands of brains into hollow shells, never suspecting what I was really doing. Not until…” He decided not to finish the last sentence. A great sorrow hung about him like an unseen fog. I felt it as surely as I felt Harmona’s warm body in my arms.

“You…you really are a Surgeon?” Harmona asked. She relaxed in my arms, and I let her go. She too sensed the truth of the highwayman’s words. She felt his aura of mingled sadness and revelation. I saw it in her face. She believed him too. Perhaps it was his subtle magic that bewitched us, as it had charmed the wild phantoms.

“My name is Wail,” said the highwayman. “I used to be called Doctor Wail.” He lifted Sala’s gold-and-ivory face again, stared at it. “Sala North was one of my finest creations. Or so I believed. Now I understand the reality of things. I did not create her. I destroyed her, as I have destroyed so many.”

If his glassy opticals could shed tears, he would have been weeping then. Waves of raw emotion radiated from his slim body. Suddenly I knew why his words rang with truth. He was an empath, a sender and receiver of emotions. Brix and Chancey knew it as surely as Harmona and myself. Our fear had given way to sorrow while he spoke.

The Beatifics stared at us now, awaiting our decision. They could not feel these broadcast emotions. Emotions were wholly Organic things, like body heat and salty tears, and the sharing of bodily fluids. I examined their well-designed faces, imagined each naked silver skull just beneath their masks. Skiptrain stood closest to me. It seemed impossible that he and the rest of the Rude Mechanicals weren’t truly alive — that the entire population of the Urbille were merely machines who believed themselves to be living beings. Yet I knew it was true. The Surgeon’s words, and the rush of his honest emotions, had convinced me. Convinced us.

I touched Harmona’s shoulder, turned her to look at me.

There were no words. We wrapped our arms about each other, our lips pressed together in desperate hunger. We no longer cared if the Beatifics witnessed our merging.

Brix and Chancey embraced beside us. The Surgeon said nothing.

“Where will you take us?” I asked.

“A safe place,” said the highwayman. “Where the Potentates and their gendarmes cannot reach you. Others are already there. Hundreds like you. An Organic army.”

“Why are you building an army?” Harmona said.

“Why does anyone build an army?” said the highwayman. “There will come a day when we storm the Urbille and take it from the Potentates. On that day the living will reclaim the world. A new Organic Age will begin. You will help to build it.”

The irony struck me like a physical blow. A dead man with the semblance of life would lead an army of the living to reclaim a dead city that believed itself alive.

“What are the Potentates?” I said.

“Carnivores,” said the highwayman.

I took Harmona by the hand. “We will come, if you keep your promise not to harm any more of the Rude Mechanicals.”

The Surgeon bowed from his waist and restored Sala’s face to the front of his skull.

I turned to Brix and Chancey. They looked at one another, then at Harmona and me. “We’ve got to stick together,” Brix said. “We frail Organics.”

Harmona picked up Sala’s fallen staff. The green flame re-ignited at its head. She looked at Skiptrain, who nodded. The staff would be our memento of Sala’s generosity, her kindness, and her towering talent. It carried her stubborn power inside its metal.

We followed the highwayman away from the tent, to where his black and steaming steed awaited. He sang a brief incantation and the wild phantoms dispersed, gliding into the shadows of the swamp.

“Can you teach me that song?” Chancey asked.

“That and many more,” said the highwayman. “All in good time.”

The first rays of a golden morning broke over the tops of the willows. The Rude Mechanicals gathered about their silent steam carriage. Their opticals were still fixed on us. I could not guess what they thought of us now. Did they understand? Did they admire our sacrificing ourselves to save them? Did they believe that was all we were doing?

Skiptrain raised his arm and waved goodbye. I waved back at him.

The black horse blew a fresh cloud of steam from its nostrils as the Surgeon climbed into its saddle. It carried him from the road onto a narrow causeway running between the pools of marshwater. Harmona and I walked on his right side, Brix and Chancey on his left.

He led us deep into the green beauty of the marshland, and we followed him across several Affinities, taking routes unknown to travelers from the Urbille.

We decided to form a new acting troupe once we reached our destination. Our hard-won skills would not go to waste. We were Sala North’s legacy. We would never become Beatifics, but we were still actors. We would never be Rude Mechanicals, but we were free to be ourselves. We would entertain our fellow Organics in the noble tradition to which we had pledged our lives.

Sala North had taught us how to act.

The Surgeon would teach us how to live.