Free Briarpatch by Tim Pratt by Tim Pratt Page A

not a
built
thing, but was instead a metaphorical bridge made real by their presence, their act of observation.
    A few steps ahead of him, at the end of the bridge, he heard Bridget say “What the
fuck
!”
    Ismael paused, allowing himself a small smile. “Find something unpleasant?”
    “There’s a dead body,” she said tightly, gripping the rope-and-chain railing with both hands.
    “Could you be more specific?” Ismael was enjoying this despite himself. He hardly ever enjoyed anything anymore, but this inevitable confrontation with the memento-mori of his jumpers-to-be always pleased him. They figured out things were serious, when he took them over the bridge behind the woodshed.
    “It’s . . . it’s fucking
mauled
, Ismael.”
    “But does it have a face?”
    Silence. Then: “It can’t be. I know what it looks like, but it can’t be.”
    “Are you being cryptic on purpose?” Ismael said; it was a question Bridget often asked him.
    “It’s me, Ismael. The dead body looks like me.”
    “Well, step over it and let me off the bridge. I don’t want to keep swinging in the wind indefinitely. If it’s dead it probably can’t hurt you. Now, if you ever bump into a
living
version of yourself, that’s a different story. I’ve never heard of it happening, but if it does, I would advise you to run away, and hope your double does the same.”
    Bridget did a standing long jump over the corpse. Ismael stepped over calmly. He prodded the dead Bridget-double with his toe. It looked like some animal had torn her up pretty badly. “Sometimes they’re burned almost beyond recognition, but the face is always recognizable,” he said. “People don’t recognize their own arms and legs in isolation, unless they have distinctive scars or tattoos, but they know their own faces.”
    “What are you talking about?” Bridget stood a few feet away hugging herself, her back to the path that wound through high cliffs of red rock. She was cold again, probably with fear this time.
    “The body,” Ismael said. “Everyone who crosses this bridge finds their own dead body. If two people come, there are two dead bodies. I’ve never brought more than two at a time, but if I brought twenty, I’m sure there’d be twenty corpses piled here. That would be hard to get passed.”
    “So . . . it’s just some briarpatch thing?”
    “‘Just?’” Ismael marvelled at her. She seemed almost calm. “This is your own dead ravaged corpse, Bridget. If you pulled down its pants—well, the shredded remains of its pants—you’d find that same birthmark you have on your leg. I don’t know why these cadavers appear, if they’re a warning, or a sign that means ‘turn back now,’ or the briarpatch’s idea of a gift, or an apport from some other more or less likely universe, but it’s personal, and it’s meant for you.”
    “What’s an apport?” She knelt and looked at the body, her head cocked, revulsion replaced by curiosity.
    Ismael sighed, and his voice took on a lecturing tone. “Basically? An apport is an object out of place. Sometimes an impossible object in an ordinary place, sometimes an ordinary object in an impossible place. Spiritualist mediums would make flowers and fruit and feathers ‘appear’ out of nowhere, and claim they were messages from the spirit realm. An apport is anything in a place where it shouldn’t be—where it
couldn’t
be—with the assumption that it must have come from somewhere . . .” He waved his hands vaguely. “
Outside
. Beyond the ordinary world. Beyond reality as it’s generally understood.”
    “Huh,” Bridget said. “So everyone who comes here sees their own dead body?”
    “Yes. Sometimes dead from obvious causes, sometimes without a mark on them. Sometimes they’re wearing wedding rings when their living counterparts aren’t married, and sometimes they’re missing fingers or toes or have different piercings or the lack thereof, but they’re always