"If you like. A questioning. Well, so-"

"Well, what if I was a Linesman, Professor? A long time ago."

"Mind you, you're tall for a Linesman."

"The Folk are driven from Line lands. Did you know that? The Line will not f.u.c.king tolerate them. A foreign and unpredictable element. A relic of the old world. They fight back sometimes but it's better if they hide. First the Line sends poison-gas rockets then Heavier-Than-Airs then soldiers, then it's fighting in the tunnels, knife-to-knife."

Snow stung my face. The ice creaked underfoot and I shuddered. Carver stepped lightly at my side.

"You could see things down there," he said. "A soldier could."

"I bet you could."

"Things that would make you want to walk away. Change your name. Travel. Things that would make you know the world was bigger and older and different than you thought it was."

I said nothing, just drank. Carver took a drink too.

"Or let's say I was a missionary," he said. "The Silver City church sends missionaries among the Folk. The Liberationists visit 'em. Maybe I was one of them. You could see something that would change your way of thinking."

"That's possible," I said. "There's no shortage of missionaries in the world."

He walked behind me, saying nothing.

"You'll laugh, Mr. Carver," I said, "but from time to time I've thought that you, well, that is, that if you were to grow out your beard a little more, you might look kind of- I mean, maybe on your mother's side some way back, if you know what I mean- kind of like one of them yourself- that is-"

I recall that I slipped on the ice, and he reached out to steady my shoulder, and that I turned so that we were looking into each other's faces.

He said, "I know what you saw, Ransom. I saw it too, once- long time ago. Out of the corner of my eye- you know what I mean, right?"

We were quite far out on the ice by then, and all alone.

"I suspected when I first saw your job-advertis.e.m.e.nt. Something about it. I knew when I first saw the Apparatus. I knew how it worked. I knew what you'd stolen."

"Not stolen."

"I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe anyone would dare."

"Well," I said.

"I thought, someone has to keep an eye, someone has to see- well, what does it matter? It's over now."

He let go of my shoulder and turned back toward land and was soon lost in the haze of snow.

I did know what he meant, though I guess you do not, because I have not yet found a way to write about it.

I would like to say that I kept on alone across the ice until I found that light on the other sh.o.r.e but as a matter of fact, drunk though I undoubtedly was, my nerve failed me. I was not worried that the ice would break but I couldn't bear the darkness or the solitude. After a little while I turned back too.

It was near midnight when I returned to the Hotel. Creedmoor still sat by the fire. He was still drinking. He had his pistol out by his side as if he no longer cared about keeping secrets. Maybe that was why he was alone in the room. With the hand that wasn't drinking he held one of his charms, the head of a big black beetle suspended from a piece of string. I think he'd purchased it in Hamlin. He sipped his whiskey and held the string and watched the head dangle. He sensed my presence but he didn't look away from the beetle.

"There's a trick to it," he said. "It's got warning magic. Folk stuff, you know? It knows enemies. It's alert to vibrations in the Ether."

The beetle's head rotated slightly, but not in any way that struck me as magical.

"I can feel your skepticism, Professor. It won't work if you don't believe."

"I beg your pardon," I said. "I'll try."

I wanted to ask him why he had turned away from the service of the Gun. I wanted to ask him how he had accomplished that feat, since according to the stories the Gun did not let its servants go lightly. I wanted to ask him what the weapon he sought was and where it was. I wanted to ask him what his plans were, and I wanted to know what it was like to have been something more than human and then to be human again, and old.

"You've been drinking, Professor."

"I have."

"Professor Ransom," he said. "There are a number of people I might choose to spend my last night on earth drinking with. All of them are my enemies now and most likely it is one of them who is coming to kill me. You are not among their number. Leave me alone."

CHAPTER 9.

THE SHOWDOWN.

I woke at first light, vomited in the pot, and attempted to perform the Ransom Exercises despite my head-ache and the narrowness and odd angles of the room. Then I went out into the hall and banged on Carver's door.

"Nothing has changed," I said through the keyhole. "The show goes on. Meet me by the water."

I checked on the horses and the wagon and tipped the hotel's boy so generously that he showed no trace of reluctance when I asked him to help move the Apparatus down through the snow to the lake, even when he saw the size of it.

"That's nothing," I said. "Just wait till you see it come alive."

A pair of the hotel's other patrons followed us down. They were business-travelers stranded by the early snow and they had nothing better to do. One of them helped and one of them just criticized the way we were doing things.

Soon enough Mr. Carver came down the road. Despite the cold he was not wearing a coat, only his shirtsleeves. I did not remark on this, or on last night, or on anything else, and nor did he. I was right- nothing had changed. There was still work to be done and it did not matter who had said what or who kept what secrets. There would be time enough to talk again in the next town over, or the next, or on the road. That was my opinion. I told him so, and he thought for a moment, then nodded.

Piece by piece we moved the Apparatus out onto a wide flat rock in a clearing by the edge of the lake.

By daylight I could see that the light on the other side of the lake was only somebody's house. I stood and waved for a while but I don't know if they saw. But somebody from the town noticed us, because not long after that a flock of small children came and sat on the rocks and observed us. One of them got up and ran back into town and they came back with more children, and some grown-ups too. Miss Elizabeth Harper came down to the lake and I greeted her by that name, though I knew it was not truly hers, to show that I did not care. She smiled and asked what I was doing and I said I was doing what I always do, and that I had thought long and hard last night and I saw no reason to do anything different. I said I did not plan to just sit and wait for what ever might come. She looked at the Apparatus for a long time and then she said she agreed entirely, and she started to help too. She and some of the children under her direction strung up the lamps through the trees at the edge of the clearing. She painted the harry ransom white rock illuminations in red on a white sheet and hung it as a banner between two sticks at the edge of the water. Mr. Carver a.s.sembled the Apparatus and tested it, reporting with a thumbs-up and some cursing that nothing critical had been damaged in the incident of the wolves.

I strutted on the rocks and then stepped out onto the ice, as if it was a stage. I was in full flow of salesmanship, in such fine form that I can remember almost nothing of what I said all afternoon, except that I promised them all a show to remember. I promised them an end to the cold dark nights of winter. I promised that n.o.body would forget the time when Harry Ransom came to town.

John Creedmoor did not come down to the lake. I later learned that he spent the morning stealing blasting-powder from the unattended offices of the White Rock Lumber Company, and readying caches of it about town. I did not know he was doing that and I might have tried to stop him if I had. But then if I had been gifted with foresight I would never have come to White Rock at all.

Afterwards I imagine Creedmoor spending the afternoon pacing up and down Main Street in his long coat, hands darting to his guns at every sound and at every pa.s.serby, constantly consulting charms and magics that even he knew were worthless.

And I imagine the giant Knoll running all night and all day across the mountains, head down and pushing through waist-high snow as if it was nothing at all, following scents, the whispers of the wolves, the voices of his masters that only he could hear. I do not care to speculate on what those voices sound like.

The Mayor of White Rock came down with a group of local worthies, including the lawyer who sold me his flask the night before, a butcher, the representative of the White Rock Lumber Company, and a Nun. They asked what I was doing and I waxed poetic. They asked if it was dangerous and I a.s.sured them it was not. They said that it was a bad year for business with the early snow, and with rumors of War scaring off travelers anyhow, and I said that I would not take anyone's money even if they offered it to me- I said they should see this as a free manifestation of grace, like an apparition of the Silver City. The Mayor liked this figure of speech very much though the Nun disapproved.

More and more of the town came down to watch. They wore hats and furs and families stood close together for warmth, and one or two small fires were started. Food and drink were shared. I paced and talked and shook hands and smiled and talked, about the Apparatus and about Light and about East Conlan and what I had seen on my travels and about the War. I do not know what exactly I might have promised them. I do know that I said that this was my last show, that they should gather their friends and bring their children if they had to carry them and drag out their old folks and wrap them up warm because there would never be another chance to see what they would see. They liked hearing this but though I think only the children really believed me.

Meanwhile Carver sat on the pedals and smoked, and Elizabeth Harper stood beside him and they talked together, Carver nodding and shaking his head and sometimes shrugging. They seemed to be planning something, or maybe that is just hindsight. Anyhow I did not pry.

The sun moved behind the mountains and night swept across the lake and engulfed us all.

I turned and gave the signal to Mr. Carver. Most nights the signal was that I raised my arms, like I once saw a Jasper City conductor doing in a picture-book. That night my mood was different and I stretched out my arm with two fingers extended toward the Apparatus like a pistol and mimed a shot. Carver grinned wider than I would have thought possible and threw the switch and hurled himself into the pedaling. Motes of light swarmed the Apparatus as the Process began. They swarmed Carver himself and made his teeth shine and his long hair drift. It occurred to me that I had never really watched him at work before- ordinarily I would not stand with my back to the crowd. There was some applause though not as much as one might have liked. There never was. The light swelled and encompa.s.sed Miss Harper, and it made her angelic for a moment, and then she turned and retreated into the shadows among the trees. Carver ceased his efforts but the light kept growing. It vibrated in the Ether and filled the gla.s.ses hung among the trees around the lake in too many colors to name, even if there were names for all of them, which there are not. Now there was more applause. Then there was a distant m.u.f.fled crash from back up in the town and all heads turned toward that, even mine.

While I worked down at the lake John Creedmoor paced back and forth across Main Street. The town emptied out around him until he was alone. I do not think anyone would have stopped as they pa.s.sed by and invited him down to the lake with them. I can imagine the look on his face. You would have crossed the street to avoid him. I imagine him pacing, alone, not knowing where everyone had gone and not caring. It didn't excite his curiosity. He was pleased to be alone because it meant he could listen more closely for the noises of his enemy. Night fell on him. He drew his gun and holstered it a dozen times. He may or may not have noticed the light coming from the lake but if he did it didn't mean anything to him. I do not know how to describe what he heard when he finally heard his enemy. The growling and the feet of the wolves- it's the animal in us that hears them first, I think. Then there were some scattered screams. Then the pack turned the corner onto Main Street and came rushing down it, and Creedmoor turned and dropped his walking stick and ran as best he could through the snow and into the Grand Hotel. The lobby was empty and dark. He ran upstairs. He was panting already. The wolves were slowed by the front door for a moment but came crashing through the window. Creedmoor lit the taper on the cache of blasting powder he'd left by the door of his room. Then he went up one more flight of stairs with the wolves not six feet behind his heels and out onto the roof where he jumped out across a narrow but deep chasm and onto the second-story roof of the Hotel of the Opals. He hurt his ankle and his hip when he landed. There was a tremendous crash and dust and fire burst from the windows of the Grand and rocketed into the air and then the Grand started folding itself inwards. Creedmoor laughed. He laughed as he got to his feet and started shooting at the wolves that prowled the rubble-choked street below. Anyhow that is how I imagine it.

Around this time three wolves came out of the woods near the lake, and that was more than enough wolves to send the townsfolk of White Rock screaming and scattering. The fires were kicked over in the snow and the stampede knocked down the banner that read the harry ransom white rock illuminations and trampled it into the slush. Not every adult had the presence of mind to keep hold of their children. I looked in the crowd and the trees and the swinging stained-gla.s.s shadows for a glimpse of Miss Elizabeth Harper but I could not see her.

One of the wolves snapped at the back of a fleeing child and I shouted out and it turned and came bounding toward me instead. I stumbled back and slipped and fell and hit my head on the Apparatus. The wolf circled but something about the Apparatus seemed to scare it or confuse it, or maybe it was Mr. Carver that it disliked, but in either case it circled and circled and then suddenly turned and ran into the trees.

I said, "What now, Mr. Carver?"

He shrugged.

"It won't end well," he said. "Nothing ever f.u.c.king does." I saw that he had the ax with him. It was sitting across his lap.

John Creedmoor shot at the wolves. By now some of White Rock's townsfolk had come back up to Main Street to see what had happened, and some of them saw him at work. Their curiosity did them no good. Wolves s.n.a.t.c.hed at stragglers and brought down the lawyer and the Nun and some old folk. Panicked townsfolk fell in the b.l.o.o.d.y snow and tried to flee on all fours. Wolves got Golda, the horse. Mariette had already perished in the collapse of the Grand Hotel. Wolves broke the butcher's windows and dragged meat out into the street. Discipline broke down among the pack and the town descended into chaos. Discipline was never the natural state of the Gun's servants and it could not be sustained for long.

A giant turned onto Main Street and stopped to examine the scene.

A Portrait of Mr. Knoll If I mean to be honest, and I do, I have no choice but to report that Knoll was not so huge as the rumors described him. He was not nine feet tall. He was probably no more than seven. But he was huge in a way that went beyond numbers and words, huge in a way that the rumors did not do justice. He seemed to brush aside trees and buildings. To be in his presence was to know how small and weak and fragile you were.

He wore a bearskin, like the rumors said, or at least it was something ma.s.sive and furred and filthy. It was heavy with snow, like a tree. Beneath it was a big gray soldier's coat, filthy and threadbare and torn. He wore stiff frozen breeches stuffed into big black boots.

His head was a giant's head, and oddly triangular in shape, as if he had had a difficult birth and nothing had gone quite right with him since. He had a wide jaw framed by a wild beard, and a tall tapering skull with patches of long black hair growing from it, among patches of pale scalp that looked scarred. His eyes were small and mean but sharp. His nose was large. I dare say it was broken but nothing about his giant's face was quite right anyhow so who knows. There were countless bits of bone wound into his belt and his bearskin and I did not know what any of them meant to him.

He wore his gun in a leather sling over his back. It was long, ornate, handsome, and sinister.

Back then there no books about him, no songs. He had no legend yet. If you could bring yourself to look him in the eye you could see that he was still young- maybe no older than I was. He was new to the service of the Guns. I do not know what cave or solitary shack they found him in. I think they chose him to be a tracker, a hunter. He spoke only with difficulty, like it was a newly acquired skill. He was halfway between animal and man. He was a thing of darkness.

Creedmoor leaned over the roof of the Hotel of the Opals and shot him in the left shoulder.

The giant took a step back and bared his black teeth and snorted with contempt. He lumbered slowly through the snow to the Hotel's front door and kicked it open and squeezed his way inside. Another one of Creedmoor's caches of blasting-powder went off on the floor upstairs and the roof fell in on Knoll's head, as Creedmoor limped off down Main Street, shooting any beast that came too close to him, most likely shooting some of the townsfolk too if they tried to stop him or slow him, dropping his precious bullets in the snow and not stopping to pick them up because his hip hurt too bad to bend.

The second explosion started some fires here and there on Main Street. From where I was, down by the lake, the glow of those fires was just barely visible through the trees, and greatly outshone by the Apparatus, whose energies continued to grow and cycle and feed on themselves unabated. The gla.s.s hummed with the strain of containing it all and the air crackled. The light had mostly settled into something golden in color. The Apparatus was warm and getting warmer and Carver and I were in the middle of a slowly expanding circle of thawing snow and glistening wet trees and patchy gra.s.s.

Miss Elizabeth Harper emerged from the trees. Her shirt was torn and there was blood on it that did not seem to be hers. She held a small silvery pistol in her hand.

"Harry," she said. "I'm sorry. But we have no choice."

The collapse of the Hotel of the Opals did not slow the giant for long. He shoved the rubble aside and walked out of it. He was scorched and bruised and bad-tempered but the demon in him rose up in the saddle and whipped him on, screaming in his head until his eyes went b.l.o.o.d.y.

Creedmoor was at the far end of the street. He turned, saw the giant standing in the ruins, and took a shot which maybe hit and maybe didn't, I do not know and will not guess, it made no particular difference either way. The giant lowered his head and for the first time broke into a run and Creedmoor had time to do no more than turn his back and take a single step before the giant was on him. He felt the back of the giant's hand cuff his ear and he was lifted off his feet and landed sprawling in the snow on his back.

The giant stood over him. He put his foot on Creedmoor's leg, where his knee was twisted, and pressed down.

"The other one. The woman. Where?"

"I won't help you. I don't serve your masters anymore. I won't go back. I'm free and bigger than all of you. You're n.o.body. I was doing terrible things before you were born. I am John Creedmoor, I killed a hundred men at Devil's Spine, you're n.o.body. Who do you think you are? I will not serve. They'll remember me forever, the man who defied you."

That is what I imagine him saying.

"Who asked you to serve? The woman. Where?"

"Go to h.e.l.l. You're n.o.body."

"Knoll."

"What?"

"I'm Knoll."

Knoll lifted Creedmoor out of the snow. Creedmoor drew his knife and Knoll slapped it aside, breaking the blade and two of Creedmoor's fingers.

When Elizabeth Harper walked back into the town it was in flames here and there, and parts of it were in ruins. The townsfolk were reduced to a state of panic in which they were scarcely more human or less dangerous than the wolves. The town doctor and his a.s.sistant tried to seize her and she was forced to wave her pistol at them until they retreated.

The giant Knoll had taken up residence at the Bank of the Opals. The remaining wolves lay at his feet or prowled around, and sometimes he kicked them out of spite and impatience. He had torn open the vault and scattered its contents in the snow, along with all the unsent letters. He kept Creedmoor on his knees and would not let him stand. He had tracked down the Mayor of White Rock and the Nun and nailed them both by their hands and feet to the fence out front with nails from the general store. The Nun survived the night but the Mayor did not. Every few minutes he bellowed out his demand that the woman be brought to him.

As soon as she stepped onto Main Street he scented her. She saw his head loom from the Bank's window, and then she started running.

Knoll stopped to nail Creedmoor to the floor by his left hand, for safe-keeping. Then he followed after Miss Harper. He took his time. He had her scent now and was in no hurry.

She burst out of the trees and into the clearing by the lake, into the light and warmth of the Apparatus. I think it had never before worked quite so well as it did that night. It was twice as bright and twice as beautiful as it had been when she last saw it. It was warm enough that the ice on the lake was melting. I like to think the beauty of it stopped her short for a moment.

She was panting and sweating and her clothes and skin had been torn by branches. She stumbled across the clearing to the Apparatus, where Carver waited. They made urgent signs at each other. I stood in the trees on the far side of the clearing and watched her approach.

Seconds later the giant appeared. I caught glimpses of him shoving through the trees and I just about disgraced myself with fear. His heavy shoulders, his heavy head turning this way and that, like he was sniffing.

I think until I saw him I had imagined I might talk my way out of this predicament, as I had so many others, as I had talked my way into it. That would not happen. The thing that came through the trees could not be reasoned with, could not be joked with or cajoled. He belonged to another world, one that I had no business in.

Knoll shielded his eyes as he stepped out into the clearing. The light of the Apparatus seemed to offend him and he let out a deep angry growl. He looked around, blinking, and caught sight of Carver.

Carver spat and raised his ax in both hands.

"No," Knoll said. And he drew and fired. The bullet took off the top of my friend's head before he could speak. Red blood slapped across the Apparatus's innards. What was left of Mr. Carver fell to its knees, then over on its side. The ax fell from the dead hand.

Knoll came over and stood over the corpse. He kicked it with his boot as if to see what would happen. Then he raised his head and grinned hugely, showing broken and yellow teeth, and he turned his gun on Miss Harper.