The Half-Made World

by Felix Gilman

  But no one was listening to Morton’s story anymore. No one had been for some time. Apart from Liv, everyone assembled at the table appeared to have had heard the story many times. As Morton talked, lost in his past, his young wife had leaned over the table and asked Liv: What were the houses of the outside world like? What was it like to live in a house of stone or glass? What was it like to wear silk?

  “And the Smilers?” Waite said. “Are they still doing their good works?”

  “I suppose so. I’ve heard of them. Sirs, I passed through that world very quickly. . . .”

  Waite nodded and smiled complacently. “Well, I’d like to hear more if anything comes to you. In the meantime, I’ll just have faith we’re doing well.” Morton and Rutledge murmured approval, as if Waite had said something clever or brave.

  Dr. Bradley quizzed Liv on medical science. It turned out, not to Liv’s particular surprise, that he had backwards ideas about the brain. No doubt he was a good field surgeon. She tried not to embarrass him. She did not entirely succeed. He scowled behind his mustaches. The right side of his face had been badly burned, so that it was blotched and red and shiny-swollen. His eyes were very blue, very intelligent and fierce.

  Captain Morton’s young wife filled the dinner party’s mugs—dented old metal steins, three shot glasses, a chipped china mug, the rest were of carved polished wood—with New Design’s rough wormwood-tasting brew. Only for the men; the wives and Liv drank water. Dr. Bradley drank rather too much.

  “Is the General in your care, now, Dr. Bradley?”

  He wouldn’t answer. She spoke quickly.

  “May I see him, Dr. Bradley? I was making progress with him, I believe, and I believe he has vital intelligence, something in his memories frightens the Gun, and perhaps we might make use of it to defend this place. Doctor?”

  Bradley barked, “He doesn’t need the help of strangers.”

  The table went awkwardly silent for a minute; and so Captain Morton proposed another toast to the General, to his heroism and unyielding courage and apparent unkillability: As if he’s as immortal as the ideas for which he stood—no, stands!

  “Though sadly reduced in stature,” Peckham said. “Like the idea, stuck out here doing nothing. Perhaps they’ll both get strong again together.”

  Bradley nodded and mouthed, Hear, hear. Rutledge scowled.

  The men knocked back the booze, save Waite, who, as a Smiler, was Dry.

  It took another round of drinking before anyone could ask Liv the real question. In the end, it was Justice Rutledge who asked, “And how goes the War? Where is the Line now?”

  “Kingstown. Kingstown is the westernmost Station. But they have forces as far as Kloan.”

  “Where is Kingstown, madam? Where is Kloan?”

  Liv told them; she gestured on the table to indicate the distance she and Creedmoor had traveled.

  They went silent. Waite’s smile froze. Bradley emitted a barking bitter laugh. Morton’s wife covered her mouth in shock.

  “Ah. When we came here,” Morton said, “we marched for many months. Nearly a year. From the farthest west of the settled world to the peace and fertility of the oaks, where we built New Design. . . . Now it’s a quarter of that. The world shrinks.”

  Liv went on, “And there are forces of the Line pursuing me. They may be only days away. Gentlemen, it may be possible for us to make an alliance with John Creedmoor, who—”

  “Never.” Bradley banged his stein on the table. “The fight comes to us. Again. At last.”

  The guests departed, and Morton retired to bed. Sally tried to refuse all help with the cleaning, but Liv wouldn’t hear of it. Liv took a brush and set to work.

  They chatted. Liv probed gently, careful not to spook the girl—and so learned that Sally had been born on the trek, and her earliest memories were of New Design; and that her brother was a promising young guardsman and a fine shot with both bow and rifle; and that she was a schoolteacher; and that Captain Morton was very kind; and that there was a dance coming up, which would be much the same as last year’s dance; and—

  “Dr. Bradley seemed an angry man,” Liv said.

  Sally dropped her dark eyes. “I couldn’t say.”

  “Some of you want war. Some of you want to come back to the world and fight.”

  “I couldn’t say, ma’am.”

  “How strong are you?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Where does Captain Morton stand?”

  “I really can’t say, ma’am.”

  “I don’t wish to upset you. I understand, Sally. This must all be a terrible shock. Why, you’ve been here all your life. Out here alone, quiet. Raising your children in peace. What if this changes everything? I imagine it’s different for some of the old men, who were used to war. For instance, Dr. Bradley and Mr. Peckham seem terribly eager to face the Line and Creedmoor both; and so does President Hobart, though he’s too young to remember. Justice Rutledge thinks differently, perhaps. Where does Captain Morton stand?”

  The girl shook her head and turned away. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t speak on these things.” Her voice was flat, but she nervously rubbed her pregnant belly.

  “Sally—what if there were a way of ending the War? What if I told you there was a secret that would end Gun and Line and bring peace to the world?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I really shouldn’t be talkin’.”

  CHAPTER 42

  THE SERPENT

  Creedmoor had left the tree line far behind, and walked on bare stone. Ahead of him, the mountain gathered into a spearlike peak, stabbing the sun. The sun was so bright that he could hardly see. The rocks baked and glittered. The beast led him on with traces of blood, scatterings of scale, and above all, the electric-oily-acidic stink of its spoor.

  —So let’s say I give the General over to the Knights of Labor. The union men are good in a fistfight, and they have chapters everywhere. They hate the Line, same as they hate all bosses; and they hate you, thieves and shirkers that you are. They hate me, too, after that incident in Beecher City, but maybe they’ll let bygones be bygones if I give them the secret to remake the world. How about that?

  No answer. It was still thrilling and a little terrifying to think such things—to be free to think such things.

  —We can go hide together in No-Town, I guess, but who knows if it exists, or where, and in any case what good will hiding do?

  He stopped to examine a rock on which the beast had sharpened its claws.

  —I can never remember these days which Barons and Mayors and Sheriffs are secretly on our side and which are secretly on the other side or if there are any at all who are just what they say they are, still. So best not give the General to any politician, then.

  There was something ragged in the edges of the thing’s claw marks. It had taken Creedmoor a while to realize that it reminded him of marks made by a drill, or a circular saw—nothing animal.

  —Or the Liberationists. Not much in fashion these days, too earnest, but they’re decent fellows to a fault; on the other hand, would they use the weapon or just make speeches about it?

  His eye caught a flicker of movement on the slopes above. A shadow moved between rocks. Had there been clouds, he’d have thought it was just a cloud shadow, but there weren’t, so he leapt to his feet and ran after it.

  —Or what about the Republic? Maybe that poor bastard back there was a solitary deserter, or maybe there’s more of them, in which case, maybe it occurs to me I should have just joined them in the first place, when I was a young man—I could have died nobly at Black Cap or Asher!—and maybe it’s not too late—maybe I’ll bring them this monster’s head as a peace offering!

  He leapt across a crack, then leapt again, caught the edge of a rock face above him, pulled himself, and kept running. In the distance ahead, something moved again between the rocks. Motion of legs first then long tail whipping behind, a suggestion of spines. It was even bigger than he’d imagined. />
  —I still might just publish it in the newspapers. I still might.

  Night fell with shocking suddenness, leaving Creedmoor stumbling in the dark. The world went red, then gray, then black. The rocks were looming shadows around him. He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes.

  —Lights, please.

  He squinted. Ahead of him was only blackness. No stars.

  —Be like that, then.

  He groped his way to a mass of rock, taller than he was, rough and still warm to the touch. He drew his weapon and crouched behind it.

  Suddenly his heart thumped and he felt short of breath. His night-sight was gone. He could hardly make out his hand in front of his face, not to mention that his hand was shaking. It was more than thirty years since he’d last had cause to fear the dark.

  The gifts of the Guns were leaving him.

  He tried to recall the climb up the mountain; he’d been strong, yes, and fast—but was he still as strong as he’d been back in the world? Maybe; maybe not. He began to count the aches in his legs and his back. Perhaps that was how it worked: The voice was the first thing to fall away, then the night-sight, then—what next? There was no way of knowing.

  If he were wounded, would he heal? Healing was probably the greatest of the Guns’ gifts, because without it, how could one dare be so reckless as the Gun demanded? . . .

  He reached for his knife, thinking to cut his palm, before remembering that he’d left his knife with Liv. And he couldn’t find a rock sharp enough to cut himself on.

  —So much for the experimental method, Doctor.

  The night was silent. The monster was waiting patiently for him. It was a sporting sort of monster, Creedmoor had to give it that.

  He considered running away—crawling down the slopes, maybe or maybe not breaking his neck. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d turned tail like a coward, and he could always lie to the Doctor when he got back; except, of course, that the monster, sensing weakness, would surely give chase.

  He pointed his weapon into the darkness and waited for the monster to come charging madly out of it. It did not.

  Would his weapon fire? He examined it thoughtfully. He’d certainly never bothered to load it at any point in the thirty years he’d carried it. He didn’t know how the Guns arranged for it to operate nor, until now, had he ever cared; but if the night-sight was leaving him, maybe next the weapon wouldn’t fire. He stretched out his arm, winced with anxiety, and tried but failed to find the will to pull the trigger. His hand shook and sweated, and he couldn’t face the thought that he might pull and learn the worst.

  —Shit. Shit.

  He sat with his head against the cooling rock for perhaps an hour, looking out into the darkness, until his fear dried up within him and blew away. He began to smile.

  —Well, then. We’ll see. We’ll see how things are, I guess. I always said I never needed you.

  He crept forward in the dark, groping with his left hand, holding his weapon outstretched with his right. Stones shifted beneath him. All he knew was that he was heading uphill. He proceeded through what felt like hours of darkness.

  It became obvious that the objects that rolled and snapped under his boots with a noise like gunfire were bones, and lots of them. He didn’t need to see to know that. The acid stink of the monster’s spoor grew worse and worse, and behind it, there was the smell of rotting meat.

  As he proceeded uphill, a sliver of yellow moon emerged from behind the peaks, like a door cracking open. Its light picked out details, made shapes out of the empty dark. He walked on a carpet of bones: mostly animal, some human, many too misshapen to say. The bones lay in a wide circle marked out by a dozen sharp toothlike rocks. And a patch of darkness that looked at first like a huge jagged rock shrugged its shoulders, swung itself round to face Creedmoor and opened two great yellow eyes like an Engine’s fog lamps.

  It snapped out a dark gray shape at him—something that might have been a clawed arm or a long snapping jaw—but he’d already leapt back, shouting.

  —Shit—

  And he stumbled as some poor dead bastard’s rib cage cracked beneath him and he fell sliding in the bones. Another limb, and he was pretty sure it was a limb this time, swung through the space where his head had been. He crawled. Its thick glistening tail whipped out and scattered bones all around him and slammed into his side with the force of an exploding rocket. He went flying. He lost his hat and, more important, his gun. He landed on his feet, breathing heavily.

  —Shit. Shit. I’ve changed my mind.

  He was in terrible pain but not dead or even crippled; so his strength had not entirely left him yet. Was it enough?

  He picked up a thighbone and held it like a weapon.

  The creature stood fifteen feet away from him. Its huge body blocked the moon, and so its details were impossible to make out. It reared up on a long cobralike tail, thick as a tree trunk; but there was also a suggestion of several skinny shuffling legs, many-jointed like the legs of an insect or the branches of a tree, of uncertain number, which might or might not have been functional. Its eyes were huge and yellow and empty. Its shoulders were spined. Behind them opened out what looked like wings—diaphanous, ragged, the left far larger than the right. Creedmoor considered the wings irrelevant, but tried very hard to count the bastard’s claws: he couldn’t. Its scales were not precisely gray—rather, it was no color at all, as if all the misguided energy of creation had gone into its spines and claws and teeth, and nothing had been left over for mundane considerations like what fucking color it was—it hurt the eyes even to look at it.

  The whole huge contraption whirled about its axis like a nightmare calliope, and its mouth or something not entirely unlike a mouth opened, and emitted a scream like a woman in terror, which was a sound that Creedmoor had never cared for.

  It rushed forward. Creedmoor ran to meet it. He leapt and jammed the thighbone into one of its eyes—the eye shattered like glass and went dim. One of the monster’s many claws slashed Creedmoor’s leg open to the bone. Its mouth descended on him, but he’d already flung himself to one side, where he rolled in bones and ended up lying on his back. He scrabbled among the bones and his hand found his gun.

  —Thank you. It fired.

  —Thank you thank you shit thank you.

  He blew two ragged holes in the monster’s torso. The moon’s yellow light spilled through them. The monster bled nothing at all, or possibly smoke, or possibly yellow light. It kept standing. Creedmoor fired again, and the monster’s other eye went dark and its head changed shape. He pulled the trigger a fourth time, and nothing happened.

  The monster surged forward, and Creedmoor slithered back, but too slowly, and it gripped his left shoulder with one clawed arm and lifted him and closed its jaws around his other shoulder and bit down. Its teeth worked like mechanical knitting needles, stripping flesh, cracking bone. Creedmoor’s shoulder was full of agony, but he couldn’t feel his right hand at all. He knew the gun in that hand had fired only because he heard the noise, he saw yellow moonlight pour through three more holes in the creature’s body, and it dropped him, and staggered back.

  He’d dropped the gun. He fumbled to pick it up with his blood-slick left hand.

  He fired twice more, into the monster’s central mass. One of its wings snapped off and trailed on the floor. The monster screamed again. Creedmoor shot it again. Its form began to collapse. Its internal strains revealed themselves. Some of its legs seemed to pull left and others right, and it screamed and thrashed but was helpless. He shot it twice more in its head, and it stopped screaming.

  Its tail lashed out and slammed into him, harder even than the last time. It launched him into the cold night air and he spun flailing over the rocks and out of the circle of bones and he blacked out for a moment but not before he saw the monster slump twitching and maybe dying among the bones and when he next knew where he was he was sliding and bouncing down the side of a steep rocky slope.

  He came to a rest on
a stretch of hard cold dirt, among arrow-leafed weeds, not far from a stand of pines.

  He was covered in blood and his agony had been replaced by numbness and he could not stand. Even if the gift of healing was still with him, he wasn’t sure it would be enough.

  —Shit.

  The stars chose that moment to come out.

  CHAPTER 43

  A STRANGER IN TOWN

  They let Liv walk the town as she pleased.

  In the square next morning, she saw a young man tied to the Whipping Post and given several short sharp strokes on his back. He looked drunk or possibly simple. He made an awful, heartbreaking noise.

  “A shirker, ma’am.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  There was no crowd of idlers watching. New Design was a busy town. Apart from the man with the whip, and his assistant, both hooded, only Mr. Peckham stood there. Peckham said, “A sad business. A shirker. Well known for it. We must all work together here. By and large, we do so gladly. This is a good place, madam. Some people even the strongest, most finely engineered republic cannot make useful without the rod. No teaching will mend them.”

  Two more strokes; two more yodeling screams. Then the young man was let down sobbing onto the blood-spattered earth. Mr. Peckham nodded. “A sad bit of business. A shameful necessity. Mrs. Alveruysen, would you like to see our sawmill?”