The Half-Made World (73 page)

He was clean-shaven, for the first time in weeks. But he was also terribly thin, and terribly hot, as if fevered. There was a strength to his movements that seemed unhealthy, unsustainable. She was afraid he might be dying. She held him and whispered to him.

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 dark 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.