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.