The Train of Two Horns

The rhythm beneath the floorboards was no subway screech: it was a rhythmic, metallic gallop over petrified timber ties.

Amalia opened her eyes inside a second-class compartment upholstered in scarlet morocco and draped in faded velvet curtains. Through the dropped sash blew a dry, warm draft reeking of salt crust and noonday glare. Outside stretched an endless salt flat, blinding white as a gypsum sheet beneath a cobalt sky so intense it hurt the retinas.

The train seemed infinite: dozens of double-decker passenger coaches coupled like an iron centipede racing across the void.

Down the mahogany corridor echoed the rhythmic click of a brass ticket punch.

The conductor appeared in the doorway. He wore the navy broadcloth of the desert line, polished brass buttons, and a peaked cap with a patent-leather brim. On his lapel gleamed a silver insignia shaped like a mariner's compass.

Óliver.

—Transit passes, please —he announced with the mechanical courtesy of a railway steward who had validated ten thousand coupons since dawn.

Amalia didn't reach for her pockets. She rose to her feet in the narrow compartment, blocking his path.

—I have no pass, Óliver. And neither should you.

The youth sighed with bureaucratic fatigue, lowering his punch.

—Miss, if you travel without validation you must alight at Salar Chico, and I must caution you the next westbound service passes in three terrestrial weeks.

—In the fishing village you brewed pot coffee and kissed my temple —she stated, her voice tempered by the agony of a thousand accumulated goodbyes—. In the river trench I held my rapier to your chest and you asked why you dreamed of my scarf. And in Canteras, when rain flew toward the clouds, you asked me for a match so you wouldn't have to look at my eyes.

Óliver's brow furrowed. For the first time, the conductor lowered the ticket punch completely.

—What... what are you saying?

—I'm saying we have spent twelve lifetimes chasing each other like fools across a shattered mirror —she declared, stepping forward and reaching her bare hand toward his uniform buttons.

The instant Amalia's fingertips brushed the brass button of Óliver's tunic, it was no ordinary contact of cloth and skin.

A violent, crackling blue electrical discharge snapped between their palms.

The compartment filled with the ozone reek of high-voltage lightning. The entire passenger coach lurched on the rails with a shriek of steel, as though an invisible hand had yanked the emergency brake cord.

Óliver stumbled backward, slamming his shoulders against the mahogany doorframe. He clutched his breast, heaving as though dragged from the depths of freezing water.

His eyes dilated in absolute wonder. His pupils caught a sudden gleam of pure, radiant amber, identical to the flickering gas lamps of Universe Two.

—Your jacket... —the conductor stammered, pointing a trembling finger at her sleeve—. Your denim jacket wasn't navy blue on the Canteras platform. It had frayed cuffs... and it smelled of your brother's tobacco.

Amalia felt the floor dissolve beneath her feet, but this time it was no tremor of dread: it was a wild, roaring, incandescent triumph.

—You remember —she whispered, closing the distance between them—. You finally remember.

Far ahead, in the locomotive's cab, the double horns of the desert express wailed a jagged chord as the cobalt sky began to fracture into spiderwebs of violet light: the architecture of the multiverse had begun to crack.