Held in secret and locked tightly away like a treasure the town didn’t know what to do with. It made her think of those fairy tales in which a stranger brings a chest of gold, or a goose that lays golden eggs, or a wondrous machine that weaves invisible threads, or a spirit that answers every question put to it and knows every hidden secret, or what have you, into a simple village not prepared for such intrusions of the wondrous or the significant; tales in which the peasants’ greed for the strange treasure would lead them to idleness, to anger, to violence, to wives poisoning husbands, to sons murdering fathers out in the empty fields; and in which, always, the headman, or mayor, or priest, would lock the treasure away, or bury it in the hills, hoping to bring peace again, and sometimes that would work, and sometimes it wouldn’t.
Liv wondered if the President came to visit the General, at night, in secret, to stare at his blank ancient face. She wondered about Woodbury, about Morton, about Peckham, about Warren—who was privy to the secret?
Liv could hardly blame them for trying to hide their plans from her. She’d brought their hero to them, yes, but not for their sake, not for any sane reason at all. She’d brought him ruined. She’d come out of nowhere. And above all else, she had come in the company of an Agent of the Gun. She was tainted by her association with Creedmoor. She could hardly fault them for feeling that way; she sometimes felt that way herself.
Where was Creedmoor? Had the monster got him, or the Line? Had his masters reclaimed him? She felt very alone.
CHAPTER 46
CREEDMOOR IN THE SHADOWS
—They’re gone.
—You should not have left them alone. But we will forgive you if you find the old man again.
Creedmoor came running, cursing, and crashing through branches that whipped his face and tore his blood-soaked clothes. He knew when he was half a mile away from the clearing where he’d left her that Liv was gone, and she’d taken the old man with her. Their scent had gone stale—and there were strangers.
—Not the Line. I know their smell. The red men.
—Who, Creedmoor?
—What the Folk woman called them.
—We forgive you for talking to her, Creedmoor. Nothing matters but finding the General. Run faster.
The voice in his head was on the verge of hysteria now. Beneath its calm flat tones there was an echo of shrieking. If it didn’t hurt so much, he would have found it funny.
He burst out into the empty clearing.
—Gone. Creedmoor. You went trophy-hunting, you abandoned your charge.
—I left him with Liv.
—The woman has betrayed us. You should have killed her.
—Maybe.
—If we find her, you must kill her.
—We’ll see.
Creedmoor left the clearing behind.
—Faster. Take to the heights.
So he rose into the high crown of the nearest oak, ascending in slow forceful leaps from branch to branch, through the cold canopy of leaves, standing at last on a single narrow uppermost limb, a green sprig, wrist thin, which he willed to bear his weight. He looked out over the green world, east, back the way he’d come.
—They’re coming. Faster, now. Closer.
—Yes, Creedmoor.
—We had a week or more’s lead on them when we went hunting that serpent. How did they come so close?
The Linesmen weren’t in sight yet, and there was no stink of them on the wind—stale sweat, grime, coal dust, fear and shame—but Creedmoor could hear them, the thudding of their flat feet, the wheezing of their fat throats, the rattle and dull clank of their rifles and bombs. And the treetops shivered with their passing below.
—While you were idle, Creedmoor, while you were adventuring, they gained on us.
—We’ll lose them again.
—Our Enemies close in around us. The world narrows as we reach its edge. We feel a trap, Creedmoor.
—Linesmen are too stupid for traps. Without their Engines, they are stupid. Simple bad luck is our only enemy.
—Ordinarily we are the bringers of bad luck, Creedmoor.
He caught up with the Linesmen a little after dark. They marched through the night holding buzzing electric torches, wheeling their heavy guns, heads down, wordless, implacable. He crept apelike through the branches above them and watched them go by—from a safe distance, of course. Linesmen did not, as a rule, look up; they were afraid of the sky. But still, they had devices, so it was safest not to go too near.
It was hard to count their numbers—the Linesmen but scattered among the oaks in