by Felix Gilman
Slowly she became aware of a steady tapping, as of stone on wood, coming from overhead. She looked up.
Red eyes watched her from the dark of the rafters.
Liv said, “I remember you.”
And from behind those red eyes, a long bone-white body unfolded itself, lengthening like a shadow, lowering itself down hand-over-hand from the rafters so that for one vertiginous moment it seemed to hang from the high beams by its knuckly feet, while its fingers rattled across the straw-covered earth, and its maned head was twisted at an impossible angle, regarding Liv with expressionless red eyes.
Then it sat by her, cross-legged, its long black mane covering its white skin and the ruby glitter of its body paint. A woman. Liv recognized her: Ku Koyrik, hound of the border.
Liv asked, “What do you want?”
There was no answer. Liv loosened the cloth round her ears; but there was still no answer. The Folk woman examined her silently.
“Did you do this?” Liv gestured at the sound of fighting all around—and now she noticed that there was shooting in the street outside the barn, terribly close. “Did you bring the Line here?”
The woman cocked her head curiously.
“Why did you let them pass? Why did you let us pass, for that matter?”
The red eyes continued their examination.
“What is the General’s secret? Is there any such secret? Do you know? What do you want from him? What do you—?”
Two words floated in her mind, in a cool firm voice, not unlike her own when she was at her best:
—Quiet. Too many questions. Listen.
“What do you want—?”
—Listen. There—
There was a crack and a stray bullet from out in the street punched daylight through the wooden walls of the barn and struck the Folk woman in the back of her black mane, crushing her long skull and spattering indigo blood across the straw. She fell forward dead. Her long bones clacked and rattled and settled themselves as if cast by a fortune-teller, meaning nothing.
A brief after-shower of bullets followed, thumping pointlessly into the hay bales. Then the fighting outside moved on.
There was a smell of smoke nearby.
Liv ran crouching to the half-open doors at the far end of the barn. As she shoved the General through and out into the mud, she turned briefly back, to see that the Folk woman’s blood still stained the floor, her body still lay tangled in the hay.
Outside, New Design was in flames.
Liv saw half a dozen Linesmen stagger out of a cut between barns, wreathed in black smoke, alien as Hillfolk or insects in their gas masks and eyeglasses and noise-bafflers. A crest of fire roared along the roof of the nearest barn and the whole building fell apart, sliding, burying the Linesmen in burning timbers—good.
And Liv saw a dozen townsmen running across the beet-field with their bayonets set, and a noise-bomb went off at their feet and they fell to their knees, clutching their heads, shivering and then going still, and Liv thought how the bombs produced that attitude of perfect submission.
Another dozen Linesmen turned the corner of the street. Three of them carried a large and battered machine between them. One of them looked up, pointed in Liv’s direction, and shouted something that was muffled by his mask.
Liv ran, pulling the General after her. He struggled and moaned and nearly dragged her off her feet, but she found her balance and kept running. From behind her, she heard the sound of arrows, rifle fire, screaming, as the Linesmen and a pack of the town’s soldiers met, to each other’s surprise.
Creedmoor emerged from an alley, shot three Linesmen in their backs, and kept walking, into another alley behind a large building that in a more normal sort of town would probably be a bar or a whorehouse but here was probably some sort of solemn democratic council-house. His head was starting to ache. He was afflicted with a sickening constant smell of blood and gunpowder. Some bastard a little while ago had put an arrow in Creedmoor’s shoulder, which seemed ungrateful, and though Marmion had healed the wound, it’d chosen to leave a horrible grinding ache, apparently out of spite. Creedmoor’s spirits were starting to sour.
—Enough, Creedmoor.
He emerged from the building’s shadow onto a wide muddy street. At the far end of it, a group of the locals were pressing back a rather smaller group of Linesmen, cavalry sabers and wooden pitchforks against bayonets.
—Enough, Creedmoor. This is over. What’s left of the town will survive. Take the General and move on.
—I never stay to see the end of things, do I?
—They will not thank you for saving them.
—Nor should they.
—You have proved your point; you have disobeyed us. We understand and forgive you.
—Because you must.
—But now come to heel.
There was a granary, a tall round tower of stone, on the western side of town. Liv dragged the General behind it. He shook and pulled away from her sweat-slick grip and fell in the mud at the tower’s foot.
She crouched beside him, took his hands in hers, and looked him in his wild and panicked eyes. “General. General. Listen to me. Do you trust me? Do you trust me or do you not?”
His eyes seemed to calm a little. His breathing slowed.
“We have to flee. There is nothing you can do for New Design now. The Line cannot have you. Creedmoor’s masters cannot have you. I do not know if your secret is real or a delusion of Creedmoor’s masters, but I will not let them have you in any case; you must stop fighting me.”
His eyes went cloudy, and wandered. His shaking stopped. Maybe there was something in him that understood her, and maybe there wasn’t, maybe it was just the rubble of his broken mind shifting meaninglessly; but whatever the reason, he stood calmly and let her lead him west toward the bridge.
The western side of town was quiet—the fighting was all in the east. The bridge across the western moat was unguarded, and beyond it there was a broad empty plain. Liv ran down a wide street, watched by empty windows, and was not far from the bridge when she heard footsteps behind her. The next thing she knew, Creedmoor had lifted the General into his arms and was walking alongside her.
“Thank you, Liv, for keeping him safe.”
She studied Creedmoor’s face. He stared at his feet and wouldn’t meet her eyes; his expression was heavy and flat.
“What happened to the Linesmen, Creedmoor?”
“What’s left of them won’t last long. The survivors of New Design are rallying. The locals’ll round up the last of the Linesmen and they can hold trials for them and make speeches and have a hanging if they like, but the old man and I will have to miss the show.”
The General struggled and moaned, and Creedmoor tightened his grip. “Easy there.”
“Creedmoor—”
“We’ve won, Liv. Three cheers. Now there’s nothing left to do but bring the General home.”
“Creedmoor, listen: You can defy your masters, you can—”
“Of course I can’t, Liv.”
He walked out across the bridge, the General twisting in his arms. He lifted his head and looked at her. His eyes were bloodshot and dark.
“Go back, Liv. Stay with the town. Consider yourself released from service, and I apologize unreservedly for ever bringing you out here. It was cruel and thoughtless.”
She kept walking alongside him, and he said nothing more. After a while he put the General down and allowed Liv to lead the old man by his arm, which seemed to calm him. They left New Design behind.
CHAPTER 50
MURDER
West of the town, a river ran down out of the hills. It had once powered the town’s mill wheels, and now it carried their broken burned timbers away back east. Creedmoor and Liv followed it west, herding the General between them. They carried him across the water where it was shallow and tacked northwest across grassland. The sun, rising at their backs, seemed frozen in its progress, as if uncertain, and the sky was a red that went d
ark and rotten as the day lengthened. Liv kept turning, thinking it was the fires of New Design that glowered at her back.
“Don’t look back now, Liv. You’ve made your choice.”
The General offered: “When he looked back to see if the princess was following him up the stairs of bone, he saw her only in the act of vanishing like a joke repeated too often. Transformed into stone, down in the deep warrens. Nothing from the Fairy-worlds, from the Under-worlds, from the Inner Lodges, may be looked at directly, without changing. . . .”
“See, Liv? The General knows. He’s livelier, don’t you think, now that sad old town’s behind us? Come on, old man.”
Grass gave way to stones and weeds and scrub, to a dry ashy plain. Clouds gathered and darkened but it did not rain. There was no cover anywhere. Creedmoor urged them on faster and faster, toward the always-distant hills. Creedmoor muttered, deep in thought, as if in a dream. He rubbed his head and snapped, “Faster, faster, old man.”
“Creedmoor—”
“No, Liv.”
“Creedmoor, listen. I know you don’t want to give him to your masters—”
“Are you appealing to my conscience, Liv?”
“Of course not, Creedmoor—I’m appealing to your pride. This is your last chance to be free of them.”
“That’s impossible, Liv.”
“Creedmoor—”
“They’re listening to everything you say, Liv, and everything I think. And they tell me to kill you. Now move faster. Some of the Linesmen survived New Design. They are still pursuing us.”
—Creedmoor.
—I am trying to think.
—Yes. We know exactly what you are thinking.
—I know that you know. So there we are.
—Creedmoor. Stop. Turn back. What follows us is only half a dozen Linesmen, battered and tired and confused.
—Aren’t we all. And how are they following us, anyway?
—You can kill them easily. Turn back. Come home.
—Maybe I want to keep going west. Out onto the wild shores. Take the General and walk off with him into the sea at the end of the world. We can dissolve together. You’ll never have his secret. What could you do to stop me?
—The Goad, Creedmoor.
—Not while the Line pursues us.
—This is pointless, Creedmoor. It cannot last. Sooner or later, you must make a choice. And there is only one choice you can make.
—I could snap the old man’s neck. You could kill me first by means of your fucking Goad, but you would not, because then the Line would have him.
—Yes. We would take our revenge on you later, at our leisure. Your name would be forgotten. You will not do it. You are not a brave or a good man.
—No.
—Come home, Creedmoor. All our Agents are unruly, and we love you for it.
They kept walking. The ashy plain rose steadily into the west. Liv dragged her feet through it. Her legs were numb and stiff. The sun blazed behind them. They walked in silence—Creedmoor rebuffed every attempt at conversation, and the General had fallen mute. By midday, they were far from New Design. The sky was full of swirling ink-blot clouds.
Six Linesmen followed behind them. They followed at a distance, not daring to come too close. The plains were broad and treeless, however, and every once in a while, the Linesmen came close enough that even Liv could make them out—a row of black specks on the horizon. On one such occasion, Creedmoor suddenly turned and fired, and then there were five. Creedmoor holstered his gun again and kept walking.
“What’s the point, Creedmoor? Why are they following us? There aren’t enough of them to fight you, they must see that.”
He shrugged. “No point. They have their duty.” He turned an awful cynical smile to her, and she understood, immediately and without doubt, what she had to do.
Her palms began to sweat and her gut twisted with fear. But she kept walking, following Creedmoor, and apparently he noticed nothing different in her stride or her expression or her scent; or at least he kept walking, too, his back to her, his head down.
Toward the late afternoon, they began to see lights on the horizon, behind the western hills, where storm clouds massed over the nameless sea. Not quite colored or quite colorless, the lights made Liv think of deep willow green, and blood red; very faint, so that they could only be seen from the corner of the eye, or for a second as one lifted one’s gaze from the earth underfoot. They towered and leapt as if they were dancing the world into being out of the thunderclouds.
Behind them the Linesmen crept closer. Creedmoor seemed to ignore them.
Toward evening, the flatness of the plain was interrupted by dunes, mounds, of the stuff that was like ash or sand or grit; at first they were little pockmarks, knee high, but soon the surface of the plain rose and fell like a frozen sea, and the General had to be dragged up the shifting side of ash-waves taller than Creedmoor and Liv put together, and progress slowed.
And near nightfall—as they crested, with great effort, a dune of unusual height and obstructiveness, each of them holding one of the General’s arms, dragging his limp legs, Creedmoor snarling and cursing as his feet slid and stumbled through the ash—Liv understood that there would likely never be any better moment, and so, in an instant, made her decision and acted.
She cried out, “I cannot do this anymore!” and she let go of the General’s arm and fell to her knees. Naturally the General fell, too, limp as a rag doll, and Creedmoor nearly followed them both down. He grunted in annoyance as he tried to maintain hold of the old man while keeping his footing on the shifting ash-slope. The General chose that moment to twist in Creedmoor’s arms and he staggered back, bracing his feet wide as he slid. And Liv, saying, “Sorry, Creedmoor, sorry, I’m just so tired,” stepped up behind him and put a hand on the small of his back as if to steady him, so that he grunted thank you, and with her other hand she drove her knife into him.
He made no sound of surprise.
She forced the knife up into the muscle of Creedmoor’s back, under his ribs. It was surprisingly easy. Sighing, Creedmoor fell backwards onto the knife and his own weight forced it in to the hilt. He let the General go, and the old man slid face-forward then in a tangle of limbs down the slope of ash. Blood poured from Creedmoor’s wound all down Liv’s sleeve. His arm spasmed, groping for the Gun at his side, so she twisted the knife and drew it, sawing somewhat through muscle and sinew and bloody fat, across Creedmoor’s side and out through his flank.
Even as she cut, the flesh seemed to close hungrily around the blade, as the power of Creedmoor’s demon set about mending him. She’d known that would happen, and the sight of it horrified her perhaps less than it should have; she felt very numb. She did not intend to let it stop her.
She gripped Creedmoor by the sweaty back of his collar and set about widening the wound so that it would not heal. She was no surgeon, of course, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t, in the course of her medical education, practiced with cadavers; and though she’d never excelled in that sort of work, she knew how to handle a knife. She concentrated on her memories of long-past lectures and examinations and tried to forget what she was doing. Blood soaked her.
Creedmoor’s arm worked its way to the Gun again and fumbled it from the holster, so she removed the knife and drove it back in under his armpit, slicing sinews, stripping the flabby meat of the underarm from the bone. The Gun fell in the ash with a soft thump and then a sudden echoing crash as it discharged pointlessly into the air, which Liv hardly noticed, because her ears were full of Creedmoor’s astonished bellowing. The Gun slid heavily down the slope, making sideways slithering marks in the ash like a snake in desert sand.
Liv laughed for no reason she could clearly understand, and in a moment of inspiration recalled the delicate operation of the tendons in the back of the leg, and sliced smartly at them, twice back and forth. Then she drove the knife twice more between Creedmoor’s ribs, her arm weakening, her hand shaking—and then again. Then, l
aughing and sobbing, she put her hands on Creedmoor’s ragged bloody back and shoved him down the slope.
He lay in the creeping shadow of his own blood. He was not yet dead, and already he was healing; he pushed himself up on his elbows as if to crawl, then fell again. He still made no intelligible sound. Liv’s hair had fallen soaked with sweat in her face, and when she pushed it back, she covered it with blood—which appalled her—so she took the knife and sliced away great handfuls of bloody hair—until the whole notion began to seem absurd, and she dropped the knife and laughed, and then sobbed, and then with great effort controlled herself. She could not straighten her clothes or her hair, because her hands were wet with blood, and she could not quite stop them fluttering idly at her side; but close enough, close enough.
Beneath her, Creedmoor was healing rapidly, but she no longer had the will to hurt him further. The moment had passed. She could not and would not do it again. Her heart pounded and her legs were unsteady. She went sliding down the slope to retrieve the General.
The General lay tangled in the wet ash. His shirt was torn and soaked with blood. There was a neat tiny bullet wound in his side. His breathing was labored, and there was a little blood in his eyes.
“. . . How?” she said. Then she remembered how the Gun had fired as it fell, and she’d thought nothing of it at the time.
Now the weapon lay a little way away, and it was still.
Creedmoor moaned, wrestled his torn and broken arm back into its socket, and sighed with deep satisfaction. He held up his hand as if testing the fingers; they spasmed. He tried to sit up but failed and coughed blood.
“I’m sorry, Liv,” he said. “But what did you think would happen? What did you think my master would do? If we cannot have the General, no one will.”
“He is not dead yet, Mr. Creedmoor. The bullet passed through. He may live.”