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