depravity of the Agents of the Gun. He flipped back . . .
—No.
He stopped at the frontispiece, which showed a severe and sharp-nosed man in a splendid red uniform. Dark skin, silver hair.
—No. Surely not. Is this who we’re looking for?
—Perhaps, Creedmoor.
—But he’s dead.
—Perhaps not.
—Is this him? I can’t tell. It might be. Thirty years have passed since this was printed, and the picture flatters him and he has not aged well but the resemblance is there. Is it him?
—We cannot be sure. Possibly.
—The Doctor doesn’t know.
—A stupid woman.
—Some said he died at Black Cap Valley. Some said he went bandit and died under the Line ten years after Black Cap. No one ever said he survived mad in hospital. Is it really him? Hah! You sent me here to find the General Enver. Why? What do you want him for? Tell me your secrets—I’ll find out anyway. I’m lucky, after all.
They reached out and stung him—a tiny taste of the Goad. A gesture of pique. He’d annoyed them. His sinuses burned, and one eye went bloodshot.
“Are you all right, Mr. Cockle?”
“Quite all right, Doctor. Quite all right.”
She held out the little green book of fairy tales. “You were going to read to the patients.”
“Right. Of course.” He put down the Child’s History and read them fairy tales.
He read them a fairy tale about a message in a bottle. Meanwhile, the voice in his head whispered to him:
—Listen, then, Creedmoor. We give you our trust. Do not betray it.
—How could I?
—Late last year, the Line seized a town called Brazenwood. They drilled there for oil. Among the wreckage, in a pawnshop, in the pages of a girl’s ridiculous journal of flowers and fancies, they found the General Enver’s last letter, to his granddaughter, who is dead, recording his last journey into the mountains. Which mountains, and where? We do not know. The Line does not know either, or so our spies tell us. The letter speaks of the First Folk, and a weapon, which lies somewhere. . . .
CHAPTER 19
THE SPIRIT
Liv went to the Director’s office in the morning. She found him making notes in a journal. He put it aside, stood to greet her, and instantly resumed their conversation as if it had never been interrupted.
“I have something to show you, Doctor.” He put on a tweed jacket and folded his glasses and put them in his pocket.
“So you said. And here I am, Director.”
“Excellent. Now, you have never asked about our Guardian, I think. About our Guardian; our Spirit; our familiar; our genius loci. Our Egregore. Or what have you.”
“I suppose I haven’t. I think I saw enough of it.”
“You’re from the North, of course. The old world. Where reason and science are respected. Where things are made and ordered. Where men are ruled by men. And by women, too, of course. Such things as our Guardian must seem very strange to you. Almost barbaric, perhaps? No, no; that’s all right. Will you take my arm?”
“Of course, Director.”
“Walk with me.”
They walked into the halls of the West Wing, and downstairs.
“My father,” the Director said, “was a medical doctor by training, and a mine owner by inheritance, but an anthropologist by vocation. Like Dr. Hamsa, he studied in Jasper. He was once fortunate enough to visit your alma mater, Doctor, in the very far distant north; did you know that?”
She said, “I did not.”
“A beautiful place, I hear. We must talk about it sometime. One of these evenings.” He smiled at her. It occurred to her that he was unmarried, and probably lonely. However, she could see no polite way to withdraw her arm from his.
They passed through the kitchens.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Doctor. Have you met the Hillfolk of these parts?”
“The Folk?” She preferred not to discuss the attack on Bond’s caravan. “I suppose so. I’ve seen them working as slaves in the fields. I believe I saw some watching me from the hills as our coach passed along the roads. They are so very thin and pale and hairy; their long manes remind me of trolls from a children’s story. That fierce red paint all over their bodies.”
“The red markings are signs of seniority and wisdom. And seniority in the case of deathless reborning creatures is not to be sniffed at. . . . Free Hillfolk, you say? Not chained in the fields? If you saw them, then they wished to be seen. The red markings are not paint, incidentally. What they are is not clear.