The Half-Made World

by Felix Gilman

  She took the stairs down and stepped out into the second-floor corridors just in time to see John Cockle emerging from the General’s cell, leading the old man with him. Cockle had his arm around the General’s shoulder and was gently urging him forward on his unsteady legs. Cockle had a heavy kit bag slung over his shoulder. He met Liv’s gaze, and his eyes were terribly cold for a second; then he smiled. “Taking the old man for a walk, Doctor. Fresh air’s good for the lungs.”

  There was a tension in the air that Liv did not understand.

  “He’s not due for a walk, Mr. Cockle. We don’t want to strain him.”

  The General smiled vaguely. Cockle’s own smile stiffened. Liv’s late husband Bernhardt had been a Professor of Natural History and an amateur taxidermist; Cockle’s smile was now like the glint of the glass eye of one of Bernhardt’s stuffed foxes.

  “Please return him to his cell, Mr. Cockle.”

  “Can you begrudge an old man fresh air and light, Dr. Alverhuysen? On this day, when we are reminded of death’s constant shadow, can you begrudge him that? He’s heavy to hold, though; will you help me with him?”

  “I will not, Mr. Cockle. Please return him to his cell.”

  “No, Doctor.”

  “I will call for assistance.”

  Cockle sighed theatrically. The next second—she did not see Cockle move at all—the General was slumped against the doorframe, and Cockle was pointing at her an implement that she realized—it was not immediately obvious to her—was a gun.

  “Come here, please, Dr. Alverhusyen.”

  She considered her options. She said no.

  Cockle scowled.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Mr. Cockle. I suppose you’ve gone mad. But you can’t menace me with that thing. You cannot harm me. The Spirit of the House will not allow it.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, ma’am.”

  She took a small step backwards. Cockle seemed to think for a second. Then he ran at her. He was terribly fast; he had crossed the length of the hallway and clamped his rough hand over her mouth almost before she could scream; but not quite.

  —You should have killed her, Creedmoor. She has raised the alarm. Things will be bloodier now.

  —A whim. I’m rather surprised myself, to be honest.

  —Kill her now, then.

  —No. I think not. She may be useful to us.

  He wrapped a surgical rag around her mouth and dragged her by her arm. When she struggled and moaned, he took a little green bottle of chloroform from his pocket and waggled it significantly in front of her eyes. She stopped struggling. Dragging them by their arms, poking them in their backs, he herded Liv and the General down the hallway.

  The stooped form of Mr. Root Busro stepped into Creedmoor’s path from an adjoining corridor and turned sad eyes in Creedmoor’s direction. Busro looked neither frightened nor particularly surprised. Creedmoor gestured him out of the way, and he stepped mildly aside.

  Creedmoor stopped in passing. “If I shot you, Mr. Busro, what would happen to me? And all the other things in your head? Where would we live if I unhoused us?”

  Busro shrugged.

  “To break the world. It’s a tempting proposition.”

  —Kill him or don’t, Creedmoor. We have places to go.

  “Ah—go on, then, Busro. Keep yourself well, for all our sakes. Come on, Doctor.”

  Busro wandered away, and Creedmoor dragged Liv and the General down the stairs, down the hall, and toward the stables.

  Aha! Footsteps, rushing; then at the other end of the hall, a half dozen men came running or, in some cases, limping.

  Renato was at the fore. He wasn’t stupid, Renato: he sized up the scene quickly. Renato was an old soldier, Creedmoor recalled—Renato, too, had probably dragged more than a few women struggling away from their homes in his time.

  “Cockle, have you gone mad? Let her go. The old man too.”

  “Or what, Renato? I am armed and you are empty-handed. I will be passing through.”

  Renato looked so disappointed! Or so Creedmoor thought; it was hard to be sure, with the scars on Renato’s face, and the red domino covering his maimed mouth. But Creedmoor was well familiar with other people’s disappointment.

  Renato folded his arms and stood in the middle of the hallway. The other men stood beside him. Arms folded—those who had two arms—they blocked the hallway. They stood calmly.

  Renato sighed. “You may’ve gone mad, Cockle. But you’re not a fool. You know the rules. You know what would happen if you fired. But you won’t. Put it down. Let’s talk.”

  —Kill him.

  —Must we?

  —Of course. He is dangerous.

  The gun fired, and the greater part of Renato’s head burst bloodily across the wall.

  —Did I do that or did you?

  —It makes no difference, Creedmoor.

  The other men fell to the floor, hands over their heads, and waited for the Spirit to strike.

  Nothing happened.

  Nothing happened—because of what the Kid had done, a little over an hour previously.

  Creedmoor had given him the master keys to the House.

  “From the office of the Director himself. Consider yourself honored. Now, go do it. As we discussed. Quickly.”

  “What about you?”

  “Smashing their rifles. Administering sedatives to their horses. And so on. Two-man operation. Quickly, quickly, poor Daisy’s funeral can’t keep them busy forever, and it isn’t every day a much-loved vegetable dies. Run! Or your best approximation. Go on.”

  Panting, cursing, the Kid limped from door to door, knocking and calling the occupants out. The keys gave him a certain authority. Besides, the inmates needed little persuasion. They were always eager to see the Spirit.

  Some of the near-catatonics and depressives had to be dragged out and damn near shoved down the corridor, but the Kid was determined; he was deadly keen to prove himself to Creedmoor.

  The Kid collected some thirty or forty of them. Creedmoor had said that should be more than enough.

  The Kid led them down through the hallways and the basement corridors and into the tunnels in the rock, where the wheelchair-bound had to be lifted and carried over the shoulders of their fellows.

  As they neared the Spirit’s cave, some of the more eager of them ran or limped on ahead.

  The Kid loathed them: their crippled flesh—their craven need—their cowardice and ugliness.

  They crowded past him and into the Spirit’s cave. They sat or slumped in reverent silence around its pool. They bathed in its soft red light, the gentle drip-drip of the waters.

  The Kid felt the Spirit’s touch as a softening in his bowels; a coolness in his mind; a warming pleasant itch in his scars and his stump. He resented it; he was damned if he would let that thing feed on his essence, lap at his wounds, steal his bitterness from him. He gritted his teeth so hard, he opened the stitches on his face and his wounds dampened. He stood at the entrance to the cave, leaned on his stick, scowling, ready and eager to force his fellows back in if they tried to leave. They did not; they sat there. Most of them had their eyes shut. The light bathed them all.

  “Get in,” he said.

  They looked nervous.

  “Go on. All the way in. Why not? No one’s here to stop you.”

  They waded in. Two of them first, then another, then another, then a stampede. They laughed and moaned as the water lapped at them.

  After a while, the Kid thought maybe the light was dimming—guttering—thinning—sleeping. The constant drip of the water lost its rhythm, and then went silent.

  It went dark. The Spirit was sated. It slept. The Kid turned and limped as fast as he could back up the tunnel.

  —Kill the rest of them.

  —No.

  Creedmoor strode right through Renato’s men and past them, dragging the General with one arm, pushing Liv in front of him with the other.

  —Do not
do that again.

  —Do not make it necessary, Creedmoor.

  The stables were not far away; a left turn and a left again.

  “Can you ride?”

  Liv shook her head, then, looking terrified into Creedmoor’s cold eyes, seemed to change her mind and nodded her head yes. Creedmoor wasn’t sure what to make of that—and anyway there was only one undrugged horse left in the House—the others standing now drowsy and trembling—and so he had her sit on the same big bay horse as him and the General. Creedmoor snug in the middle; the General in front, lanky bird-boned body held tight in Creedmoor’s lap; Liv behind, holding tight to Creedmoor if she knew what was good for her. So awkwardly arranged—it would be bearable for just long enough—they rode out into the gardens, where the funeral was breaking up in confusion, and what was left of the staff ran for cover at the sight of Creedmoor’s little band. One or two of them tried to shoot—they’d gone and grabbed their rifles from the armory—and their weapons clacked dully and did nothing.

  They fled.

  Creedmoor turned his attention to a purple-flowering bush not far from the fence, from under which poked out a pair of expensive and well-shined shoes that could belong only to Director Howell.

  “Mr. Director, sir! Yes, you; come out of that bush, sir. You dropped your spectacles; take a moment to pick them up. There. There you go. Stand up straight. Will you do me a kindness, Director? Will you open the gates?”

  Creedmoor tossed the keys; the Director fumbled the catch and picked them up off the ground. His face was scratched and his neat vest was torn from the thornbush he’d hidden groveling in. He hunched for fear of Creedmoor’s Gun—fair enough! fair enough!—and scuttled over to the garden gate, the House’s rear entrance, and unlocked the bars and bolts, and sidled crabwise away. Creedmoor considered shooting him—it seemed unfair that the man who made his career from the House Dolorous was himself unscarred. Marmion urged,

  —Kill him. He may still organize a force to pursue us.

  . . . and it gave Creedmoor enormous pleasure to spite it.

  So Creedmoor rode out of the gardens of the House Dolorous, with the General and Liv balanced precariously before and aft. The hoarse and desperate shouts of the Kid echoed distantly in his ears—the Kid stumping along on his stick after him crying: “You promised! Take me with you! You promised!”

  Creedmoor rode out and into the rocks and dust of the canyon. Not as fast as he would have liked, with the woman and the old man to hold on to; but he spurred on the horse a little anyway, in a moment of high spirits. Liv moaned but did not dare let go.

  Behind them a wind was gathering and the dust was rising and the pressure was building. The Spirit was perhaps waking from its sated stupor, hungry again for more pain, more sorrow. . . .

  Liv looked back. Out of a blue sky, gray rain clouds formed over the House, and it seemed they swelled and settled into the form of fat haunches and shoulders and pendulous arms reaching out desperately after them. A sad giant; a baffled god. A wheeling flock of birds formed its hair. Its eyes were glimmers of sun, and it wept light as it reached for them.

  It tries so hard, Liv thought. She felt it tug weakly at her soul, and her soul answered. It tries so hard, but it cannot heal everyone, cannot protect everyone, not in this terrible world. The horse jolted beneath her. It cannot cure the world. Creedmoor yelled something. We woke it! We made Gun out of our spite, and Line out of our fear, and this poor thing out of our sorrow. Liv was very afraid for herself, but for a second, as she prayed for it to reach out and save her, she was able to pity it.

  . . . but they’d left it too far behind; they were too hard to reach, and it let them go, and recoiled into its lair. The clouds dispersed. The birds moved on. The gray form unraveled. And the overburdened horse came up over the edge of the canyon and onto the red plains. The sky was very wide and blue and cloudless; the sun hung so high and golden, it was like it was daring Creedmoor to steal it. He breathed in dusty air deeply.

  “Once upon a time,” the General said, “there was a high tower, where a young girl was visited by white birds. She . . .”

  Creedmoor laughed and let the old madman ramble.

  Two roads led off into the hills. From the west road there was the sound of roaring engines, coming closer. Wheels and shouting men and clumsy weapons being readied. No surprise; of course they had been waiting and watching for this moment.

  Creedmoor felt Marmion’s dark burning strength in his veins; he felt the world go slow and cold and brittle around him while he grew faster and hotter and more terrible with every second.

  —Two motorcars; carrying at most twenty men; at most two heavy motor guns. More will follow, but for now there are two.

  —Fair odds.

  —Many more will follow.

  —An honest fight. A clean fight.

  —If you like.

  BOOK THREE

  WESTWARD

  CHAPTER 25

  FLIGHT

  Liv kept her eyes firmly closed. She thought yearningly of the tonic for her nerves, which was behind them now—far behind perhaps—she had simply no idea how far they had come. She was thrown from side to side. She held on to Cockle’s back as tight as a frightened child, hating him, fearing him, not understanding. The muscles in her back and shoulders and arms were in agony. Her gag smothered her, and she was light-headed. The horse’s hooves were a mad, meaningless din. From behind, there was the sound of roaring motors, shouting men. Cockle turned and laughed and there was another noise, right by her ear, the loudest thing she’d ever heard in her life, so loud that for a moment all sensation left her. She felt herself floating in darkness; lifted up helplessly from her body and its aches and terrors; set aimlessly adrift in a cool no-place among black waves. The sensation somewhat resembled falling asleep.

  A small clear part of her mind said: This is the beginning of a dissociative state, the onset of fugue, occasioned by shock and trauma. You are going mad, Liv. Again.

  She disagreed. It was the world below that had proved itself mad—had proved itself to be, behind its rational façade, a world of broken forms, meaningless turbulence, terror and incoherence.

  Another part of her analyzed her situation. This is politics. This is history. Cockle is an Agent of the Gun. Therefore the men pursuing him are servants of the Line. Or perhaps vice versa. You are not important. Therefore, somehow, the General is. Plans are in motion. Oh, Liv, you have become involved in history.

  She disagreed. There was no logic to her situation.

  And yet another part of her was wordless, long gone, dreaming of history, adrift across the red plains of the West, its wars, its bitter myths, lost in images of blood and battle and destruction and madness. The lies of the Child’s History—progress, purpose, virtue—turned inside out, revealing horror. Four hundred years of the Great War. She dove deep, looking for meaning, past politics, past the bloody fall of the Republic, past the battle of this and the battle of that and four hundred years of cruelty visited on and occasionally by the Folk and back to the first colony at Founding, which now seemed like a mistake in itself, the frightened colony huddled behind its walls against the alien woods, mad and dark and shifting. . . .

  Cockle pulled her to the ground. Her legs gave way and she sprawled in the dirt. She opened her eyes. It was night and cold and they were among pines. Needles pressed sharply into her palms. She did not know how much time had passed or where she had been.

  She tore at her gag, released it, and coughed and retched until a thin trickle of fluid ran from her mouth.

  The horse was a huge steaming shadow at the edge of the pines. A few feet away, the General sat stiffly against the trunk of a pine. Cockle stood above her, smiling. He held out a hand. “Are you all right, Doctor?”

  She looked him in the eye. He kept smiling.

  She swore to herself that she would not beg.

  She begged.

  “Please, Mr. Cockle, let me go. I know nothing, I have nothing, I cannot
help you, I will only slow you down. I am a stranger here and—”

  “Doctor—”

  “And no one will pay for my release. Let me go, Mr. Cockle, I will tell your pursuers whatever—”

  “Doctor—”

  “Please, Mr. Cockle.”

  “Call me Creedmoor. Cockle was a nice enough fellow, but he’s gone now. Stand up. No?”

  He lowered his hand and shook his head sadly.

  “If you were caught by what’s pursuing us,” he said, “you wouldn’t lie to them. Not that I doubt your good faith or your word as a doctor. But no one lies to them. Their methods of interrogation are more methodical than ours. And what would be left of you afterwards wouldn’t be you anymore, which I’d regret. So we are in this together now, Doctor.”

  “In what, Mr. Co—Creedmoor. In what?”

  He waved a hand vaguely in no particular direction. “Everything. The Great War. We’re coconspirators, Doctor. No doubt it’s obvious to you which side you find yourself on—I am far too handsome and charming to be a Linesman.”

  He sat down with his back against a tree, facing her, and began to roll a cigarette. He looked up at her and smiled.

  “I brought my vices with me. I apologize for taking you without warning. I imagine you miss your nerve tonic. Not to worry! We’re going to meet my very old friend Dandy Fanshawe in Greenbank, and he’ll have all the opium you need to float all the way back east with us if that’s what you’d prefer. One more reason to stick with me.”

  “The tonic is a medication, Creedmoor—”

  “As you please.” He lit his cigarette, took one long drag on it, then extinguished it between finger and thumb. “No light tonight,” he said. “No fire, either, sadly.”

  “Why am I here, Creedmoor?”

  “Why are any of us here? They don’t tell me everything, Doctor. One of the things you think before you take up the Cause is that when you do, you’ll be in on all the great secrets of the world; not so.”