Excerpt

1. The Hitching

Clint touched his guns.

There were two of them — old, silver, and laced with scratches. Each pistol held seven bullets, as did every shooter carried by The Realm's Marshals. Back before Clint had packed those fourteen bullets, he'd been allowed only a single six-shot pistol like every other commoner outside The Realm. And sure, even though it was illegal, most of the outlaws in the Sands carried two guns or more. But getting your hands on a Marshal's seven-shooter was impossible. Even the darkest of dealers wouldn't pass them in the shadows behind a saloon, thanks to the Taboo.

But those days, for Clint at least, were about to be over.

He took the guns off and hung them over a chair in their belt, knowing their protections would keep them safe from the wrong hands. And set about missing their reassuring weight immediately.

In a few hours, Clint would surrender his guns for good, along with his right to Marshal in any town, be it inside or outside of The Realm. He'd hand them over along with his badge and go back to being plain old Clint Gulliver — no Marshal up front. He'd be left with a lone six-shooter, strapped to his right hip since he was a righty, and knew from endless experience that a straight draw was always better than the crooked aim from a cross-draw done wrong.

Surrendering his guns bothered Clint something fierce, but that wasn't even the worst of it. He could lose his hat, stubble, and anything else that made him a man, but what hurt most was the thought of losing his unicorn — the other half of the Marshal, as some who believed in magic veins and machinations sometimes said.

And, Clint thought, that was the last thing he should be thinking about right now.

Clint sat in the farback of the saloon, staring into the mirror. He decided he looked good, in his way of looking ugly. He appeared pleased, so far as his crooked, perpetually scowling face could look pleased. Yet he was torn. The Marshal was straightforward, cut and dried. He was rarely conflicted. But now he was torn between two great loves: the twisted love that came with Marshaling and his obsession to find The Realm … and Mai. Torn between fighting the leaking magic … and the brand-new feeling of being happy.

Marshal Gulliver. Happy. It was hard to wrap his mind around.

Clint wore his newfound happiness like another man's hat, every second assuming he'd have to give it back. It was a mistake, his wearing what passed for a smile. It was only a matter of time before Providence realized the error and took back what it should never have given the grizzled gunslinger to begin with.

Clint had seen much of the Sands, and most everything up and down the Sprawl. He had mostly been solo, neither happy nor unhappy, before Mai and long before setting up home in the town of Solace. It had been that way since he'd first ridden into the Sands with his back to The Realm, having finally given up on finding it with the obsessed dark man beside him.

But of course, solo didn't include Edward, the unicorn he was supposed to be giving up today when he surrendered his guns.

The gunslinger sighed then pushed gut stew into his boots. Today was a good day. So what if being happy wasn't quite familiar? Once upon a time, turkey hadn't gone into pie. Things changed. Edward would be happy in his retirement, maybe even write that defamatory book about The Realm that he'd been talking about forever.

Clint listened.

Out in the main room, the pianoman was banging out "She's Got a Way" three or four times faster than tradition suggested, pouring music from the upright in the front where the gathered townspeople sat, the music drifting all the way to the farback and into Clint's ears. The pianoman was playing the typical hitching set, of course, working through the usual Joelsongs. Next would be "Just The Way You Are," he knew — and that one was Clint's cue to enter the ceremony. To depart the farback and cross the main floor, and finally approach his happily ever after.

Then, after the swapping of vows, the pianoman would finish his set by playing "Piano Man," as tradition insisted, before concluding the ceremony and transitioning from hitching mode to celebration mode by smashing a pumpkin into the keys.

Clint adjusted his string tie a final time, sighed, stood from his bench in front of the mirror, then walked through the farback's batwing doors and entered the saloon's front room.

The gathered citizens of Solace turned to greet the gunslinger. The town was small. With the tables pushed back to allow for the hitching party to stage their ceremony, the saloon seemed downright giant.

Clint spied Mai across the room, past the waitingmen and the preacherman, standing beside her row of waitingwomen. She looked beautiful, dressed head to toe in pink.

She smiled as he entered, her hand twittering at her side like a nervous bird, seeming to want to wave — out of character for a wedding but plenty normal for Mai. The gunslinger smiled in turn. Very in character for a wedding, but out of character for Clint. Then his hands went to his sides, finding them slim and too fleshy.

I should have my guns, he thought. Crossing the aisle strapped with lead wasn't tradition, but a Marshal was wedded first in life to his shooters. Leaving them out of his new union felt wrong.

The pianoman kept banging the upright, finishing "Just the Way You Are" with a mellow voice as smooth as any Joelsinger in The Realm. For a second, the pianoman's song brought Clint to missing The Realm. Then he remembered his casting out and his long fruitless search, and the longing turned into a bolt of loathing. He shoved it down into his boots with the rest of his stew, reminding himself that he was at a wedding — his wedding, against all odds — and that a hitching was a time for joy, not resentment.

The room fell into a hush as the pianoman finished, and the preacherman started with his opening words, welcoming them all and reminding them that there was nothing greater than friends gathering together to witness two souls stitching their lives together like scraps in a quilt. He went on about the lovely day and the fair weather that would be remembered and remarked upon forever — or at least until the coming Harvest. He thanked Providence and the movements of the Sands for allowing them this great weather. Then he thanked it for leaving them what remained of the magic, given how very far they all were from The Realm.

The preacherman finished his opening address in the traditional way, with three claps and a wink. The assembly answered his call by clapping thrice. Clint should've done the same but couldn't bring his palms together any more than he could make himself sing along to the Joelsongs like everyone else. Margaret Partridge, who always had her nose in everyone's business, was watching Clint rather than the preacherman and gave him the reek-eye when he failed to clap. Clint ignored her, feeling a rush of nerves.

The preacherman raised his hand. Clint walked forward at his signal and stood beside Mai. Her hand found his, squeezing it in a strange reversal of roles. Clint was usually the strong one, but today he was a fish flopping on the desert floor.

"Dearly beloved," said the preacherman, "we are gathered here today to witness the joining of this man and this woman under Providence, in the town of Solace, if the movements of the Sands so will it."

"So will it," the crowd murmured.

"The Sands have spoken, and the union of Clint Gulliver and Mai Maneau pleases them. Does it please the assembled?"

The guests, seated behind Clint and Mai, answered in one voice: "So it pleases us."

Mai looked over, smiling at her man. Clint couldn't bring himself to smile at the crowd, so instead he smiled at Mai. The smile, like the happiness that was worn like another man's hat, felt strange. She returned his smile, her pink headpiece framing her smooth, pale face and shining brown hair.

Mai didn't look like a Sands woman at all. She was pretty enough to grace the cover of one of The Realm's glossy books. Like the swarm of men in the saloon, women of the Sands normally looked beaten — beaten by gritty wind and a hard life. Their skin was rough, like cowhide, with hair that was dull and mostly dead. Mai looked nothing like that. It was her radiance that had drawn him to her, is if he were metal and she were a magnet.

And of course Clint had always known and remembered what that meant: Mai wasn't supposed to be out in the Sands. She was supposed to be in The Realm. Her half-magic blood meant she had a home behind the walls. And that's where the gunslinger would take her if The Realm could ever be found. He swore it on his guns — be they a pair of sevens or a single commoner's six.

Margaret Partridge belched from her seat, stealing Clint's attention. Her eyes weren't where they were supposed to be. Margaret was staring out the saloon window, interested in something beyond.

"Clint and Mai," said the preacherman, "it is my pleasure to preside over your union. You wish to be joined forever under Providence?"

"We do," they said as one.

The preacherman turned to Clint. "Marshal, I've known you for nearly a year. When you came to this town, it was so dirty, a decent woman couldn't walk the street without worry of falling to the grip of roving gangs. Solace was no place to raise a child. Drunkenness and lawlessness ruled, until you changed it. You are a good man, brave and upright. Has life prepared you for the challenge of hitching?"

The preacherman held Clint's eyes while he waited for the answer. Clint buried an instinctive reach for his hips and lay the preacherman killt — a twitch that came to a gunslinger when any man stared without flinching.

"Yar," Clint replied.

"And are you prepared to tolerate Mai's friends, even when they annoy you, and feign interest in theater and dance to please her?"

The crowd should have chuckled, but something outside was stealing their interest. Clint turned, spying the entire back row, now all bodies twisted in their seats.

Mai elbowed Clint, returning his eyes to the front.

"Yar," he said again.

"And Mai," said the preacherman, "can you accept Clint's failure to notice changes in your hairstyle, from subtle to grand? Will you constantly pretend that the emissions from his rear don't sour your stomach and curl the hairs in your nose?"

Clint looked from the smiling preacherman to the congregation but found the saloon still missing its laughter. Behind them, Earl Lancaster, Bella Swinton, and Nicholas Willings all stood then went outside in a line. Instinct prickled Clint's gut. He was wishing for his guns when Mai elbowed him again.

The preacherman strained his neck, trying to see where the three had disappeared — and where the remaining assembly seemed to be looking — until he seemed to remember his place and returned his attention to the couple.

"By entering into this union, you pool your strengths and shore your weaknesses. Clint, you bring grit, bravery, and a stubborn disposition. Mai, you bring compassion, stability, and loving. And if I'm right in my suspicions — " He scratched his head. "You might even bring an increasingly rare share of magic, which even the … the … "

Bill Maynard, George Telford, and Hattie McDonnough slipped through the saloon doors and out into the street.

"The … the … "

Robert Beltham. Nellie Peterson and her two daughters. Queer MacElroy, the town oddity. Only Teddy, the orphan in half the town's employ, still had his eyes aimed front and center.

Clint looked at Mai's uncommonly beautiful face and felt a twitching sort of nervous, like everything was suddenly slipping away.

"The vows," said Clint. "The vows are next."

Mai turned, watching the chairs and tables empty to nothing.

"There's something wrong," Mai said.

Clint curled his lip. "Ignore it."

"I want to go out and see."

"Ignore it," he repeated. Then to the preacherman: "Come on. The vows."

The preacherman looked conflicted. Mai was distracted and wouldn't keep her eyes forward. It was pointless anyway, seeing as they were the only three people still in the saloon, save Teddy. Duty was the only thing keeping the preacherman from bolting outside himself.

"Do it," Clint growled. "Just finish quickly."

"This is ridiculous," said Mai. "I'm not getting married in a rush so we can run outside. We're here to be with these people."

"I don't want any interruption in my hitching," said Clint.

"We're already interrupted." It should've sounded harsh, but it sounded tender instead. Mai set the back of her hand to the rough of Clint's face.

"What do you think we … ?" Clint started to say to the preacherman, but the preacherman had already gone. They couldn't get married now if Clint insisted.

"Dagnit," said Clint.

Mai pulled him toward the doorway.

Outside, they found the assembly gathered around the Water Reader, his fingers dipped into one of the saloon's three rain barrels. His eyes were rolled into the farback of his head as he chanted in readerspeak. The assembly stood in an eager semicircle, ears perked for the stray word that left the Water Reader's mouth in plainspeak, so that they could predict his prophecy before he fell from his trance.

The crowd's faces were pinched in worry. Maybe terror. The assembly turned to Clint, as if begging him to do something — like shoot the Reader right now between his rolled-up eyes, before he could spit a prophecy to ruin them all.

"Mnmnmnm stone mnmnm falling town mnmnmn the winds sands mnmnmn … "

"Head back in yonder," Clint said to the townspeople. "He's mad, and there's my hitching to mind."

Mai hushed him.

"This is how you thank your Marshal?"

"Mnmnmnm hassle return shifting sands mnmnmnm to the ends the edge mnmnmnm … "

Hattie McDonnough looked up, her eyes wide. "No," she said. "No … "

"Shut it, Hattie," Robert Beltham snapped. "Let the man read the Sands."

"Mnmnmnm coming coming with the dozens mnmnMNMNM DARK SHIFTING SANDS MNMNMN."

Without a pause, the Water Reader's eyes snapped into place. He drew his fingers from the rain barrel and said, looking directly at Clint, "The Sands have told me that a bleak cloud is returning to Solace. They showed me dark riders. And at the front of the riders, I saw the face of Hassle Stone."

Queer MacElroy laughed. He was the only one.