that he wouldn’t be tempted to read meaning into them—dying or not dying, he was too old to go getting religion again.
—Monster.
He turned his head, which caused his shoulder to throb with agony. A face looked down at him. Its red eyes shone.
All around the face hung what at first looked like shadow but was, in fact, a long black mane, shifting gently in the breeze. Beneath the face were two bony knees, drawn up. It was a woman of the Folk. She perched on a jutting rock ten feet up the slope down which Creedmoor had tumbled.
—No ma’am. I killed the monster.
—Poor thing. Broken thing. The red men made it from their fears. Perhaps we should have turned them back when they came here, but they seemed so weak, so harmless.
—I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am.
—No.
—Are you Ku Koyrik? Your voice in my head is familiar.
—Yes. Call me no other name.
—And what can I do for you?
—What is it like to die?
—I don’t recommend it. Say, ma’am, our conversation last time was interrupted, and if you don’t mind, I’d like some answers before I go, so: Do you know a gentleman by the name of Kan-Kuk? Looked much like you, used to pal around with an old General.
—Of course. You could call him my husband.
—Really?
—Or my brother.
—I’m liberal-minded, ma’am, that’s all right. And what was it that he promised the General, what—?
—No. I won’t tell you. I don’t trust you.
—Suppose I said I’d make you the same deal the General made Kan-Kuk?
—Not you.
—Or a better deal! You want to wipe away my masters, the enemy—well, so do I, so do I. If you wanted to wipe away all the rest of our world with them, I wouldn’t blame you and I wouldn’t say no; there’s a great cause I could die for—
—Never you.
—Why not me? What’s the old man got that I haven’t got?
—You’re broken. You belong to the broken things. I couldn’t fight them for you.
Creedmoor slowly turned his head back and looked up at the stars. He considered his various pains. After a while he said:
—Are you still here?
—Yes.
—Why?
—I have nowhere else to go. Now I am going mad.
—Do you plan to kill me? If so, better hurry.
—I don’t know. Perhaps I should. But then the woman will die, and the General will die, and we will have to begin again. And fail again. Our agony will be prolonged, and yours. And every time it gets harder.
—The woman? Liv? Shit. How?
—I have become less myself since we last met. It is hard for us to act here, hard to plan.
—Where is Liv? How will she die?
—Your enemies get closer. Too many to stop.
—The Linesmen?
—Yes.
—Shit.
—Your masters get closer, too.
—They do? Send them back.
There was no answer.
—Send them back. Please.
He gritted his teeth against the pain and turned his head once more. She was gone.
The stars crawled and shifted. Even by the standards of the skies out in the far West, there were an unusual number of shooting stars. Meanwhile, Creedmoor couldn’t feel any part of his body below the neck; instead his head floated on a vague cloud of pain. Hours passed. He wasn’t dead, but nor was he healing. His head itself was blessedly free of pain, until around dawn the word
—Creedmoor.
. . . formed in it, and his head swelled with blood and his sinuses burned.
—Creedmoor.
—Go away.
—We have fought our way across a great silent void to find you, Creedmoor. Nothing here echoes with our voices, and so we were blind and lost. We suffered. We came to save you.
—Go away.
—We know what you have been thinking. The servants of the Enemy are loyal; why are ours so ungrateful? But we forgive you anyway. We have always loved you, Creedmoor.
—You have?
—Of course, Creedmoor. Have we not always treated you well? Have we not—?
—You’re terrified, aren’t you? You’re desperate. This is grotesque. Are you about to grovel to me?
The sky lightened to gray, and the stars withdrew into the deep distance. Creedmoor’s left leg began to itch and ache. A shot of agony ran up his spine, but then his master reached in and firmly pressed it back down.
—You have always been our favorite servant, Creedmoor. Do not die. Do not suffer unnecessarily. We will never leave you again.
His shoulder wrenched itself back into its socket, making his whole body spasm. His bones ground together and reknit.
—I was never anybody’s favorite anything. My own mother regarded me as an embarrassing error.