“It’s obvious,” the Mayor says. “I will be the one who goes.”
“Over my dead body,” Mistress Coyle snaps.
The Mayor smirks. “I can accept that as a condition.”
We’ve all crammed into a little room on the scout ship. Me, the Mayor, Mistress Coyle, Simone and Bradley, with Lee, his face covered in scary-looking bandages, on one bed and Viola, looking awful, on another. This is where we’re having the most important talk in the human history of New World. In a little room that smells like sickness and sweat.
Peace, the Spackle said to us, Peace coming thru loud and clear, like a beacon, like a demand, like an answer to what we’ve been asking.
Peace.
But there was something else there, too, something digging round in my head for a minute, like when the Mayor does it but faster, sleeker, and it weren’t like it was coming from the Spackle in front of us neither, it was like there was some kinda mind behind his, reaching thru him and reading me, reading my truth, no matter if I was quiet–
Like there was just one voice in the whole world and it was talking only to me–
And it heard that I meant it.
And then the Spackle said, Tomorrow morning. On the hilltop. Send two. He looked round to all of us in turn, stopping on the Mayor for a second, who stared back at him hard, and then he turned and left without even seeing if we agreed.
That’s when the arguing started.
“You know full well, David,” Mistress Coyle says, “that one of the scout ship people has to go. Which means there’s only room for one of us–”
“And it won’t be you,” says the Mayor.
“Maybe it’s a trap,” Lee says, his Noise rumbling. “In which case, I vote for the President.”
“Maybe Todd should go,” Bradley says. “He’s the one they spoke to.”
“No,” the Mayor says. “Todd stays.”
I spin round. “You don’t get a say in what I do.”
“If you’re not here, Todd,” the Mayor says, “what’s to stop our good mistresses from planting a bomb in my tent?”
“What a splendid idea,” Mistress Coyle smiles.
“Enough bickering,” Simone says. “Mistress Coyle and I would make a perfectly good–”
“I’ll go,” Viola says, in a quiet voice that stops all of us.
We all look at her. “No way,” I start to say, but she’s already shaking her head.
“They only want two of us,” she says from the bed, coughing heavy. “And we all know that can’t be the Mayor or Mistress Coyle.”
The Mayor sighs. “Why do you two still insist on calling me–?”
“And it can’t be you either, Todd,” she says. “Someone has to keep him and her from killing us all.”
“But yer sick–” I say.
“I’m the one who fired the missile into the hillside,” she says, quiet. “I’ve got to fix it.”
I swallow. But I can see on her face how much she means it.
“I can actually agree with that,” Mistress Coyle says. “Viola will be a good symbol of the future we’re fighting for. And Simone can go with her to lead the talks.”
Simone stands up a little straighter but Viola says, “No,” coughing some more. “Bradley.”
Bradley’s Noise sparks with surprise. Simone’s would, too, if she had any. “The choice isn’t yours, Viola,” she says. “I’m Mission Commander here and I’m the one–”
“They’ll read him,” Viola says.
“Exactly.”
“If we send two people without Noise,” she says, “how’s that going to look? They’ll read Bradley and they’ll see peace, for real. Todd can stay here with the Mayor. Simone and Mistress Coyle can keep the scout ship in the air above the talks at all times to keep us safe, and me and Bradley will go up that hill.”
She coughs again. “And now you all need to leave so I can rest up for tomorrow morning.”
There’s a silence as we all think about this idea.
I hate it.
But even I can see the sense of it.
“Well,” Bradley says. “I suppose that settles that.”
“All right then,” the Mayor says. “Let’s find a place to have a few words about terms, shall we?”
“Yes,” Mistress Coyle says, “let’s do that.”
They all start filing out, the Mayor taking one last look round before he leaves. “A mighty fine ship,” he says as he disappears out the door. Lee goes, too, using Bradley’s Noise. Viola starts to say he can stay but I think he’s leaving us alone on purpose.
“You sure about this?” I ask her, when they’re all gone. “You don’t know what could be up there.”
“I don’t like it much either,” she says, “but it’s how it has to be.”
And she says it a bit hard and she’s looking at me and not saying nothing.
“What?” I say. “What’s wrong?”
She starts shaking her head.
“What?” I say.
“Your Noise, Todd,” she says. “I hate it. I’m sorry. I hate it.”
He looks back at me, puzzled.
But he doesn’t sound puzzled. He doesn’t sound like anything.
“It’s a good thing that I’m quiet, Viola,” he says. “It’s gonna help us, help me, cuz if I can . . .”
He trails off because he’s still seeing the look on my face.
I have to turn away from him.
“I’m still me,” he says quietly. “I’m still Todd.”
But he isn’t. He isn’t the same Todd whose thoughts spilled out all over the place in a big, colourful mess, the one who couldn’t tell a lie if his life depended on it, who didn’t tell a lie when his life did depend on it, the Todd that saved my life more than once, in more than one way, that Todd who I could hear every uncomfortable thought of, who I could count on, who I knew–
Who I–
“I ain’t changed,” he says. “I’m just more like you, more like all the men you grew up knowing, more like Bradley used to be.”
I keep looking away from him, hoping he can’t see how weary I feel, how my arm throbs with every breath, how bad the fever is gouging me out. “I’m really tired, Todd,” I say. “It’s only tomorrow morning. I have to rest.”
“Viola–”
“You need to be out there with them anyway,” I say. “Make sure the Mayor and Mistress Coyle don’t set themselves up as interim leaders.”
He stares at me. “I don’t know what interim means.”
And that’s close enough to the Todd I know that I smile, a little. “I’ll be fine. I just need some sleep.”
He still stares. “Are you dying, Viola?”
“What?” I say. “No. No, I’m not–”
“Are you dying and yer just not telling me?” His eyes are boring into me now, filled with concern.
But I still can’t hear him.
“I’m not getting better,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to die any time soon. Mistress Coyle’s bound to find something, and if she can’t, the convoy has all kinds more advanced medical stuff than the scout ship has. I can hang on ’til then.”
He’s still staring. “Cuz I couldn’t stand it if–” His voice is thick. “I just couldn’t take that, Viola. I just couldn’t.”
And then there it is–
His Noise, still way too quiet, but there, burning away underneath him, burning away with how he’s feeling and how true it is and how worried he is for me and I can hear it, just faintly but I can hear it–
And then I hear, I am the Circle–
And he goes quiet again, quiet as a stone.
“I’m not dying,” I say, looking away from him.
Todd just stands there for a second. “I’ll be right outside,” he finally says. “You call if you need anything. You call me and I’ll get it for you.”
“I will,” I say.
He nods, his lips held tight. He nods again.
Then he goes.
I sit there quietly for a while, listening to the ROAR of the army in the square outside and the raised voices of the Mayor and Mistress Coyle and Simone and Bradley and Lee still arguing.
But I don’t hear Todd.
Bradley sighs loudly, after what seems like hours spent bickering round the campfire, shivering against the freezingist part of the night. “So it’s agreed then?” he says. “We offer an immediate ceasefire on both sides, with a line drawn under all past actions. After that, the issue of the river and then we start laying the groundwork for how we can all live together.”
“Agreed,” the Mayor says. He don’t even look tired.
“Yes, fine,” Mistress Coyle says, grunting with stiffness as she stands. “It’s getting on towards morning. We need to get back.”
“Get back?” I say.
“The people on the hilltop need to know what’s going on, Todd,” she says. “Plus, I’ll need to get Wilf to bring Viola’s horse down here because she’s certainly not going to be able to walk up that hill. Not with that fever.”
I look back to the scout ship, hoping Viola’s at least sleeping inside, hoping she actually does feel better when she wakes.
Wondering if she lied about dying.
“How is she really?” I say to Mistress Coyle, getting up after her. “How sick is she?”
Mistress Coyle looks at me for a long, long moment. “She’s not well, Todd,” she says, very serious. “I just hope everyone’s doing everything they can to help her.”
And she leaves me standing there. I look back at the Mayor, who’s watching Mistress Coyle walk away from me. He comes over. “You’re worried about Viola,” he says, not asking it. “I agree she’s looked better.”
“If something happens to her cuz of that band,” I say, my voice low and strong. “I swear to God I’ll–”
He holds up a hand to stop me. “I know, Todd, even more than you think.” And again, his voice sounds as true as anything. “I’ll have my doctors redouble their efforts. Don’t worry. I’m not going to let anything happen to her.”
“Me neither,” Bradley says, overhearing us. “She’s a fighter, Todd, and if she thinks she’s strong enough to go up that hill tomorrow, we have to believe her. And I’ll be there to make sure nothing happens, believe you me.” And I hear in his Noise that he means every word. He sighs. “Though I guess that means I’m going to need a horse, too.” Even though I don’t know how to ride one, his Noise adds, a bit worried.
“I’ll ask Angharrad to take you,” I say, looking over to where she’s munching on some hay. “She can watch over both of you.”
He smiles. “You know, Viola once told us that if we were ever in doubt about what’s happening here, that we could count on you above all things.”
I feel my face get hot. “Yeah,” I say, “well.”
He gives my shoulder a hard, friendly pat. “We’ll fly back down here at dawn,” he says. “And who knows? Maybe peace by the end of the day.” He winks. “And then maybe you can show me how you keep so quiet.”
He, Lee, Simone and Mistress Coyle make their way back to the scout ship, Mistress Coyle leaving her ox-cart behind for Wilf to pick up. Bradley makes an announcement on a speaker for everyone to move back. The soldiers do, the engines start to grind, and up it rises on a cushion of air.
I hear the Mayor’s voice before the ship’s even halfway back to the hill.
“Gentlemen!” he shouts, his voice twisting and turning hard into the men nearby and echoing thru to every man in the square.
“I report to you, VICTORY!” he shouts.
And when the cheering starts, it goes on for a long, long time.
I wake as the ship bumps back down on the hilltop and the bay doors open.
I hear Mistress Coyle shout to the waiting crowd, “We are VICTORIOUS!”
And hear the huge cheer even through the thick metal walls of the ship.
“That can’t be good,” Lee says, back in the next bed, his Noise imagining Mistress Coyle, arms thrust into the air, people picking her up on their shoulders and carrying her for a victory lap.
“That’s probably not too far off,” I say, laughing a little. Which sets me on a long chain of coughing.
The door opens and Bradley and Simone enter.
“You’re missing the rally,” Bradley says sarcastically.
“She’s allowed her moment,” Simone says. “She’s an impressive women in a lot of ways.”
I make to answer but the coughing comes again, so strong that Bradley takes out a medicine pad and puts it on my throat. The cooling of it feels better immediately, and I take a few slow breaths to get the fumes into my lungs.
“What’s the plan, then?” I say. “How much time do we have?”
“A couple hours,” Bradley says. “We’ll fly back down to the city, and Simone will set up the projections for both down there and up here, so everyone can see what’s going on. Then she’ll keep the ship in the air for however long our meeting lasts.”
“I’ll be looking out for you,” Simone says. “Both of you.”
“Good to hear,” Bradley says, quietly but warmly, then he says to me, “Wilf’s bringing Acorn down for you to ride up, and Todd’s giving me his horse.”
I smile. “Is he really?”
Bradley smiles back. “A show of faith, I’m guessing?”
“It means he expects you to come back.”
We hear two sets of footsteps coming up the ramp outside, and continuing cheers, too, though not as many as before. And the voices that approach are arguing.
“I don’t find this acceptable, Mistress,” Ivan is saying as Mistress Coyle comes in the door before him.
“And what makes you think your idea of acceptable is in any way relevant?” she snaps back, that fierceness in her voice that would cow most people.
Not Ivan, though, not quite. “I speak for the people.”
“I speak for the people, Ivan,” she says. “Not you.”
Ivan glances over at me and Bradley. “You’re a-sending a little girl and the Humanitarian to meet with an enemy big enough to annihilate us,” he says. “I can’t say as that would be the overwhelming choice of the people, Mistress.”
“Sometimes the people don’t know what’s best for them, Ivan,” she says. “Sometimes the people have to be convinced of things that are necessary. That’s what leadership is. Not shouting your head off in support of their every whim.”
“I hope you’re right, Mistress,” he says. “For your own sake.”
A last look at all of us and he leaves.
“Everything all right out there?” Simone says.
“Fine, fine,” Mistress Coyle says, her mind clearly somewhere else.
“They’ve started cheering again,” Lee says.
And we all hear it.
But it’s not for Mistress Coyle.
Boy colt, Angharrad says, nuzzling me. And then she says, Boy colt yes.
“It’s for her, really,” I say. “If something happens, I want him able to get her outta there even if he’s gotta carry her, okay?”
Boy colt, she says, pressing against me again.
“But are you sure, girl? Are you sure yer okay? Cuz I ain’t gonna send you nowhere if yer not–”
Todd, she says. For Todd.
And I get a thickness in my throat and I have to swallow a coupla times before I can say, “Thank you, girl,” trying not to think what happened the last time I asked an animal to be brave for me.
“You’re a remarkable young man, you know that?” I hear from behind me.
I sigh. There he is again. “I’m just talking to my horse,” I say.
“No, Todd,” the Mayor says, coming over from his tent. “There are some things I’ve been meaning to say to you, and I’d like you to allow me to say them before the world changes.”
“The world changes all the time,” I say, hitching up Angharrad’s reins. “At least it does for me.”
“Listen to me, Todd,” he says, real serious-like. “I want to tell you how much I’ve grown to respect you. Respect how you’ve fought by my side, yes, how you’ve been right there through every challenge and danger, but also how you’ve stood up to me when no one else would dare, how you’ve really won this peace, while all around you the world was losing its head.”
He puts a hand on Angharrad, rubbing her flank gently. She shifts a little but lets him.
So I let him, too.
“I think you’re the one the settlers are going to want to talk to, Todd,” he says. “Forget me, forget Mistress Coyle, it’s you who they’re going to see as the leader here.”
“Yeah, well,” I say. “Let’s wait till we get peace first before we start handing out credit, okay?”
He breathes out a cloud of cold air thru his nose. “I want to give you something, Todd.”
“I don’t want nothing from you,” I say.
But he’s already holding out a piece of paper in his hand.
“Take it,” he says.
I wait for a second but then I take it. It’s got a line of words written across it, dense and black and unknowable.
“Read it,” he says.
I suddenly get real mad. “You looking to get hit?”
“Please,” he says and it sounds so gentle and genuine that, even angry, I actually drop my glance back down to the paper. It’s still just words, written in what I think is the Mayor’s hand, a dark thicket in a line, like a horizon you can’t get nowhere near.
“Look at the words,” he says. “Tell me what they say.”
The paper flickers in the firelight. None of the words is too long and I reckernize at least two of ’em as my name–
Even a dummy like me knows that much–
And the first word is–
My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.
I blink.
That’s what it says, right across the page, every word burning clear like the sun.
My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.
I look back up. The Mayor’s face is all hard concentrayshun, looking deep into me, no buzz of control, just a faint hum.
(that same hum, that one I hear when I think I am the Circle–)
“What does it say?” he asks.
I look down–
And I read it–
I read it out loud.
“My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.”
He lets out a long breath and the hum dies away. “And now?”
I look at the words again. They’re still on the page but they’re slipping from me, slipping from their meanings–
But not all the way.
My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.
That’s what it says.
That’s what it still says.
“My name is Todd Hewitt,” I read, saying it more slowly cuz I’m still trying to see it, “and I am a man of New Prentisstown.”
“That you certainly are,” says the Mayor.
I look up to him. “That ain’t real reading, tho. That’s just you putting words in my head.”
“No,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about how the Spackle learn, how they must pass on information. They have no written language, but if they’re connected to each other at all times, they don’t need it. They just exchange their knowledge directly. They carry who they are and what they know in their Noise and share it in a single voice of themselves. Maybe even a single voice of this world.”
I look up at that. A single voice. The Spackle who came to the square. The one voice that seemed to be the whole world talking. Talking to me.
“I didn’t give you words, Todd,” the Mayor says. “I gave you my knowledge of reading, and you were able to take it from me, in the same way I shared my knowledge of how to stay silent. I think that was the opening of a larger connection than even I imagined, a connection like the Spackle have. It’s a blunt and inelegant process right now, but it could be refined. Just think of what we could do if we mastered it, Todd, how much knowledge we could share, and how easily.”
I look at the paper again. “My name is Todd Hewitt,” I read quietly, still seeing most of the words.
“If you let me,” he says, his voice open and honest-sounding, “I believe I could give you enough knowledge to have you reading your mother’s journal by the time the settlers arrive.”
I think about that. My ma’s book. Still cut thru with Aaron’s knife stab, still hidden away, read only once in the voice of Viola . . .
I don’t trust him, not never, he ain’t redeemable–
But I’m seeing him a bit different, seeing him as a man, not a monster.
Cuz if we are connected somehow, connected in a single voice–
(that hum–)
Maybe it’s a two-way thing.
Maybe he’s showing me how to do stuff–
And maybe I’m making him better in return.
We hear a distant booming, the familiar one of the scout ship taking to the air. In the eastern sky, the ship and the sun are both starting their rise.
“We’ll have to return to this discussion, Todd,” the Mayor says. “It’s time to go make peace.”
“A big day, my girl,” Mistress Coyle says to me where we’re all gathered in the healing room as Simone flies towards the town. “For you and for all of us.”
“I know how big it is,” I say quietly. Bradley’s watching the screens to monitor our progress. Lee’s stayed back on the hilltop to listen out for how things go with Ivan throughout the day.
I hear Mistress Coyle laugh to herself. “What?” I ask.
“Oh,” she says, “just the irony that I’m putting all my hopes into the girl who hates me most of all.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say, realizing that, despite all that’s happened, it’s true.
“Maybe not, my girl,” she says, “but you certainly don’t trust me.”
I don’t say anything to that.
“Make a peace, Viola,” she says, more seriously. “Make a good peace. Make it so well everyone knows it was you who did it, and not that man. I know you don’t want a world where I’m in charge, but we can’t let him be in charge of it either.” She looks over at me. “That has to be the goal, no matter what.”
I feel the nerves in my stomach. “I’ll do what I can,” I say.
She shakes her head, slowly. “You’re lucky, you know. So young. So many chances ahead of you. You could turn out to be a better version of me. A version of me who’s never forced to be so ruthless.”
I don’t know what to say to that. “Mistress Coyle–”
“Don’t worry, my girl,” she says, standing as the ship comes in for a landing. “You don’t have to be my friend.” Her eyes get a little fire in them. “You just have to be his enemy.”
And we feel the small bump of the landing.
It’s time.
I get myself up out of bed and to the bay doors. The first thing I see when they open onto the square is Todd at the front of a sea of soldiers, standing there with Angharrad on one side and Acorn and Wilf on the other.
In the midst of the ROAR of the soldiers watching us and the Mayor watching us, too, his uniform pressed and sharp and that look on his face you want to slap off, and the probes in the air broadcasting everything back to a projection on the hilltop for the crowds there to watch, and with everyone gathering behind me on the ramp, all of us ready to start this huge, huge thing–
In the midst of all this, Todd sees me and he says, “Viola.”
And it’s only then I really feel of the weight of everything we’re about to do.
I walk down the bay door, the eyes of the human world on us, the Spackle world, too for all I know, and I brush past the Mayor’s outstretched hand and let him give his greetings to everyone else.
I go straight to Todd between the horses.
“Hey,” he says, that crooked smile on his face. “Are you ready?”
“Ready as anyone could be,” I say.
The horses chat to each other over us, Boy colt, girl colt, lead, follow, with all the warmth that one herd animal feels for another member of its herd, two happy walls boxing us in for a moment against the crowd.
“Viola Eade,” Todd says. “Peacemaker.”
I give a nervous laugh. “I’m so scared I can barely breathe.”
He’s a little shy of me, I think, after the last time we talked, but he takes my hand. Just that. “You’ll know what to do,” he says.
“How can you be so sure?” I say.
“Cuz you always have. When it’s counted, you’ve always done just the right thing.”
Not when I fired the missile, I think, and he must see it on my face because he squeezes my hand again and suddenly that’s not enough, even though I still hate not hearing his insides, even though it’s like talking to a photograph of the Todd I used to know, I push myself into him and he puts his arms around me. He presses his face into my hair, smelling god knows what awfulness of fever and sweat, but just to be close to him, to feel his arms around me and to be surrounded by all that I know of him, even if I can’t hear him–
I just have to trust that it’s still Todd in there.
And then, somewhere out in the world nearby, the Mayor starts his bloody speech.
The Mayor’s climbed up on a cart near the scout ship, standing above the crowd.
“Today is both a culmination and a new beginning!” he says, his voice booming thru the Noise of the soldiers gathered in the square, of the non-soldiering men of the town gathered there, too, a Noise which amplifies his voice, so there ain’t no one here who can’t hear him, everyone looking back at him, weary but hopeful, even the women, some of ’em at the edges even holding kids, who they usually do their best to keep hidden away, but every face, young and old, wanting what the Mayor says to be true.
“We have fought our enemy with great cunning and bravery,” he says, “and we have brought him to his knees!”
There’s a cheer for this, even tho it ain’t exactly what happened.
Mistress Coyle’s watching him, her arms folded, and then we see her start walking over to the Mayor’s cart.
“What’s she doing?” Bradley says, coming over to me and Viola.
We watch as she pulls herself up on the cart till she’s standing next to the Mayor, who shoots her a glance of death but don’t stop his speech. “This day will be remembered by your children and your children’s children!
“GOOD PEOPLE!” Mistress Coyle shouts right over the top of him. But she’s not looking at the crowd, she’s looking up into the probe broadcasting back to the hill. “TODAY IS A DAY WE WILL REMEMBER FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!”
The Mayor raises his voice to match hers. “THROUGH YOUR COURAGE AND SACRIFICE–”
“HARD TIMES WHICH YOU MET WITH FORTITUDE–” shouts Mistress Coyle.
“WE HAVE ACHIEVED THE IMPOSSIBLE–” shouts the Mayor.
“THE SETTLERS ON THEIR WAY WILL SEE THE WORLD WE’VE CREATED FOR THEM–”
“WE HAVE FORGED THIS NEW WORLD FROM OUR OWN BLOOD AND DETERMINATION–”
“We should leave,” Viola says.
Me and Bradley look at her, surprised, but then I see a glint of mischief in his Noise. I ask Angharrad and Acorn to both kneel and I help Viola on the back of Acorn. Wilf gives Bradley a hand getting up on Angharrad. He don’t look too sure on her, tho.
“Don’t worry,” I say, “she’ll take good care of you.”
Boy colt, she says.
“Angharrad,” I say back.
“Todd,” Viola says, echoing her.
And I look back at Viola and I say, “Viola.”
That’s all, just her name.
And we realize this is it.
This is it starting.
“A SHINING EXAMPLE OF PEACE IN OUR TIME–”
“I HAVE LED YOU TO A GREAT VICTORY–”
The horses start moving thru the square, past the speech cart, thru soldiers getting outta their way, heading towards the road, the one that leads to the Spackle hill.
The Mayor’s voice falters a little as he sees what’s happening. Mistress Coyle keeps bellering cuz she’s looking up into the probe and don’t see ’em yet, not till the Mayor says quickly, “AND WE SEND OUR AMBASSADORS OF PEACE ON THEIR WAY WITH FULSOME VOICES!”
The crowd cheers on cue, cutting Mistress Coyle off midstream, something she don’t look too happy about.
“Viola’ll be all right,” Wilf says as we keep our eyes on her, shrinking down the road. “She always comes thru.”
The crowd’s still cheering but the Mayor hops off the cart and comes over to me and Wilf. “And they’re off,” he says, his voice a little peeved. “Rather earlier than I expected.”
“You woulda talked all morning,” I say. “And they’ve got danger waiting for ’em up that hill.”
“Mr President,” Mistress Coyle grimaces as she passes by us on her way back up the ramp of the scout ship.
I keep watching Viola and Bradley until they disappear outta the square, then I move my eyes to the big projeckshun Simone set up while everyone was speechifying, hovering huge over the ruins of the cathedral, the same image broadcast back to the hilltop, the image of Viola and Bradley riding down the road, heading into the dead zone of the battlefield.
“I wouldn’t worry, Todd,” the Mayor says.
“I know,” I say. “Any sign of funny business and the scout ship’ll blow the Spackle sky high.”
“Yes, indeed,” the Mayor says but in a way that makes me turn, that way he has like he knows more than he’s saying.
“What?” I say. “What have you done?”
“Why do you always suspect I’ve done something, Todd?” he asks.
But he’s still smiling that smile.
We ride out of the last edge of town and through a field of burnt bodies, still here after the burning arrow attacks, scattered everywhere like felled trees.
“In a place of all this beauty and potential,” Bradley says, looking around, “we just repeat the same mistakes. Do we hate paradise so much we have to be sure it becomes a trash heap?”
“Is that your idea of a pep talk?” I ask.
He laughs. “Think of it as a vow to do better.”
“Look,” I say. “They’ve cleared a path for us.”
We near the bottom of the hill that leads up to the Spackle camp. Boulders and stones have been moved out of the way, along with Spackle bodies and the remains of their mounts, remains put there by artillery from the Mayor, a missile from me, and a bomb from Mistress Coyle, so we’ve all had a hand in it.
“It can only be a good sign,” Bradley says. “A small welcome, making our path easier.”
“Easier to walk into a trap?” I say, nervously gripping Acorn’s reins.
Bradley makes to go up the path first, but Acorn puts himself in front of Angharrad, feeling her hesitation, trying to make her more comfortable by appearing confident. Follow, his Noise says, almost gently, Follow.
And she does. And up we go.
As we climb, we hear the hum of engines in the valley behind us as Simone pilots the ship into the air, where it’ll watch us like a hawk hovering on an updraft, ready to swoop down with weapons if anything goes astray.
My comm beeps. I take it out of my pocket and see Todd looking back at me. “You all right?” he asks.
“I only just left,” I say. “And Simone’s already on her way.”
“Yeah,” he says. “We can see you, bigger than life. Like yer the star of yer own vid.”
I try to laugh but it only comes out as coughing.
“Any sign of danger,” he says, more serious, “any sign at all you get yerself outta there.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. And then I say, “Todd?”
He looks at me through the comm, guessing what I’m about to say. “You’ll be okay,” he says.
“If something happens to me–”
“It won’t.”
“But if it does–”
“It won’t.” He says it almost angrily. “I ain’t saying goodbye to you, Viola, so don’t even try. You get up there, you get peace, and you get back down here so we can make you well again.” He leans in closer to the comm. “I’ll see you soon, all right?”
I swallow a little. “All right,” I say.
He clicks off.
“Everything okay?” Bradley asks.
I nod. “Let’s get this over with.”
We climb up the makeshift path, getting closer to the summit of the hill. The ship’s high enough to see what’s waiting for us. “It looks like a welcoming party,” Simone calls over Bradley’s comm. “Open ground with what has to be their leader sitting on one of their battlemore things.”
“Anything threatening?” Bradley asks.
“Nothing obvious. But there are an awful lot of them.”
We ride on and, in the wreckage of the hill, I see we must be at about the point where Todd and I ran to get away from Aaron, leaping across to the ledge under the waterfall, the same ledge where the Spackle lined up and shot their fiery arrows, the same ledge that’s not there any more, not after I blasted it away–
We keep on past the place where I got shot and where Todd beat back Davy Prentiss Jr–
And we near the last rise, only bits of it still there in its original shape, but close enough to the last place Todd and I thought we were safe, looking out onto what we thought was Haven.
But instead, it led us to this.
“Viola?” Bradley says, his voice low. “You all right?”
“I think the fever’s rising again,” I say. “I was drifting off there a little.”
“Nearly there,” he says gently. “I’ll greet them. I’m sure they’ll greet us back.”
And then we’ll see what happens, says his Noise.
We climb the last bit of the ruined zigzag road, climb over the top of the hill.
And into the camp of the Spackle.
“They’re nearly there,” I say.
Me and Wilf and the Mayor and everybody else in the square are watching the big projeckshun above the ruins of the cathedral, watching as Viola and Bradley and two horses that suddenly look real small walk up into a waiting half-circle of Spackle.
“That has to be their leader,” the Mayor says, pointing to the one standing on the biggest battlemore in the row of ’em waiting there. We watch him as he sees Viola and Bradley crest the hill on the horses, that half-circle of Spackle giving ’em nowhere to run except back the way they came.
“First they’ll exchange greetings,” the Mayor says, his eyes not leaving the picture. “That’s how these things start. And then both sides will declare how strong they are and then finally they’ll give an indication of intentions. It’s all very formal.”
We watch Bradley in the projeckshun, who seems to be doing exactly what the Mayor predicted.
“The Spackle’s getting down,” I say.
The leader of the Spackle slowly but gracefully swings a leg back over the animal. He gets down and takes off this helmet thing he was wearing, handing it to a Spackle next to him.
Then he starts walking cross the clearing.
“Viola’s getting off her horse,” Wilf says.
And she is. Acorn’s kneeling to let her off and she gingerly steps to the ground. She turns from Acorn, readying to meet the leader of the Spackle, who’s still coming towards her slowly, his hand outstretched–
“This is going well, Todd,” the Mayor says. “Very well indeed.”
“Don’t say stuff like that,” I say.
“Hey!” Wilf suddenly shouts, sitting forward–
And I see it–
There’s a rumble thru the crowd of soldiers as they see it, too–
A Spackle is running from the half-circle–
Breaking ranks and running towards the leader of the Spackle–
Heading straight for him–
And the leader of the Spackle is turning–
As if he’s surprised–
And in the cold morning sunlight, we can see–
The Spackle who’s running has got a blade–
“He’s gonna kill the leader–” I say, getting to my feet–
And the ROAR of the crowd rises–
And the running Spackle reaches the leader, blade up–
Reaches him–
And goes past–
Past the leader whose arms move to stop him–
But he avoids ’em–
And keeps on running–
Running towards Viola–
And that’s when I reckernize him–
“No,” I say, “No!”
It’s 1017–
Running flat out at Viola–
Carrying a blade–
He’s gonna kill her–
He’s gonna kill her to punish me–
“Viola!” I shout–
“VIOLA!”
Dawn is coming, the Sky shows. They will be here soon.
He stands above me in his fullest armour, intricately sculpted clay covering his chest and arms, far too ornate and beautiful to ever be worn in battle. The ceremonial helmet teeters on his head like a spired hut, matched by an equally heavy ceremonial stone blade at his side.
You look ridiculous, I show.
I look like a leader, he shows back, not angry at all.
We do not even know if they will come.
They will come, he shows. They will come.
He heard my vow to defeat the peace. I know he did. I was too angry to try and hide it, though he would have probably heard it anyway. And yet he has kept me by his side, so unafraid of my insignificance he cannot even pretend to see me as a threat.
Do not think I give away peace for nothing, he shows. Do not think they will have free rein to do with this world as they choose. There will be no repeat of the Burden, not while I am the Sky.
And I see something in his voice, something deep down, flickers of something.
You have a plan, I sneer.
Let us say that I do not enter into these talks without preparing for every eventuality.
You only say that to keep me quiet, I show. They will take all they can get and then they will take more by force. They will not stop until they have taken everything from us.
He sighs. The Sky asks again for the Return’s trust. And to prove it, the Sky would very much like the Return by his side when the Clearing comes to us.
I look up to him, surprised. His voice is truthful–
(–and my own voice yearns to touch his, yearns to know that he is doing right by me, by the Burden, by the Land, I want to trust him so badly it is like an ache in my chest–)
My promise to you remains, he shows. The Source will be yours to do with as you please.
I keep watching him, reading his voice, reading everything in it: the terrible and terrific responsibility he feels for the Land weighing on him every moment, awake or asleep; the concern he feels for me, for how I am eating myself alive with hate and revenge; his worry for the days to come and the weeks and months after that, how no matter what happens today, the Land will be for ever changed, is already for ever changing; and I see that, if forced, he will act without me, he will leave me behind if he must for the good of the Land.
But I see, too, how that would grieve him.
And I also see, hidden no doubt along the Pathways’ End, he has a plan.
I will come, I show.
The pinkness of the sun starts to show on the far horizon. The Sky stands in his battlemore’s saddle. His top soldiers, also in ceremonial dress, also with ceremonial stone blades, are arranged in a broad half-circle that encompasses the ragged lip of the hill. The Clearing will be allowed here, but no further.
The voice of the Land is open, all of them watching the edge of the hill through their Sky. We speak as one, shows the Sky, sending it through them. We are the Land and we speak as one.
The Land repeats the chant, tying them together in a single bond, unbreakable as they face the enemy.
We are the Land and we speak as one.
Except for the Return, I think, because the band on my arm is hurting again. I push the lichen away to look at it, the skin around it stretched badly as it attaches itself to the metal, bloated and tight with scarring, painful every moment since it was first put on me.
But the physical pain is nothing compared to what is in my voice.
Because the Clearing did this to me. The Knife did it. It is the thing that marks me as the Return, the thing that keeps me for ever separate from the Land as they chant around me, raising their single voice in a language the Clearing will understand.
We are the Land and we speak as one.
Except for the Return, who speaks alone.
You do not speak alone, the Sky shows, looking down at me from his steed. The Return is the Land and the Land is the Return.
The Land is the Return, comes the chant around us.
Say it, the Sky shows to me. Say it so the Clearing know who they are dealing with. Say it so that we speak together.
He reaches out a hand as if to touch me with it but he is too high, too far up on his battlemore. Say it so that you are the Land.
And his voice is reaching out to me, too, surrounding me, asking me to join him, to join the Land, to allow myself to become part of something bigger, greater, something that might–
The vessel of the Clearing suddenly rises into the air across from us, holding itself there and waiting.
The Sky looks out to it, the chant continuing behind us. It is time, he shows. They come.
I recognize her immediately. My surprise is so sharp the Sky looks down at me for a quick moment.
They have sent her, I show.
They have sent the Knife’s one in particular.
My voice raises. Could he have come with her? Would he–?
But no. It is another of the Clearing, his voice as loud and chaotic as any of them. And it is chaotic with peace. The wish for it is all over him, hope for it, fear for it, courage around it.
They wish for peace, the Sky shows, and there is amusement in the voice of the Land.
But I look up to the Sky. And I see peace there, too.
The Clearing ride their mounts forward into the half-circle but stop a distance away, looking at us nervously, his voice loud and hopeful, hers the silence of the voiceless.
“My name is Bradley Tench,” he says, through his mouth and his voice. “This is Viola Eade.”
He waits to see if we understand his language and after a brief nod from the Sky, he says, “We come to make peace between us, to end this war with no further bloodshed, to see if we can correct the past and make a new future where our two peoples can live side by side.”
The Sky shows nothing for a long moment, a quiet echo of the chant rolling unceasingly behind him.
I am the Sky, the Sky shows, in the language of the Burden.
The man from the Clearing looks surprised but we can tell from his voice that he understands. I watch the Knife’s one in particular. She stares back at us, pale and shivery in the cold of early morning. The first sound she makes is a swarm of coughing into her fist. And then she speaks.
“We have the support of our entire people,” she says, clicking her words only from her mouth and the Sky opens his own voice a little to make sure he understands her. She gestures to the vessel still hovering out from the hill, ready no doubt to fire more weapons at the first sign of trouble from us. “Support to bring back peace,” she says.
Peace, I think bitterly. Peace that requires us to be slaves.
Quiet, shows the Sky down at me. A command, softly shown but real.
And then he climbs down from his battlemore. He swings his leg behind him, stepping to the ground with a solid thud. He removes his helmet, handing it to the soldier nearest him, and he begins to walk towards the Clearing. Towards the man who, now that I can read his voice more closely, is only newly arrived, a forerunner of all those who are still to come. Still to come to push the Land out of its own world. Still to come to make all of us the Burden. And more will no doubt come after. And more after that.
And I think it would be better to die than let that happen.
One of the soldiers next to me turns, shock in his voice, telling me in the language of the Land to quiet myself.
My eyes fall on the ceremonial blade he carries.
The Sky makes his way slowly, ponderously, leaderlike over to the Clearing.
Over to the Knife’s one in particular.
The Knife who, though he no doubt fretted and worried about peace, though he no doubt intended to do the right thing, sent his one in particular instead, too afraid to face us himself–
And I think of him pulling me from the bodies of the Burden–
I think of my vow to strike him down–
And I find myself thinking, No.
I feel the voice of the Land on me, feel it reaching out to quiet me at this most important moment.
And again I think, No.
No, this cannot be.
The one in particular slides down from her mount to greet the Sky.
And I am moving before I even know I mean to.
I grab the ceremonial blade from the soldier next to me so fast he offers no resistance, only a surprised yelp, and I lift it high as I run. My voice is strangely clear, seeing only what is in front of me, the rocks on the path, the dry riverbed, the hand of the Sky reaching out to stop me as I pass him but too slow in his elaborate armour to do so–
I am crossing the ground towards her–
My voice is growing louder, a yell emerging from it, wordless in the languages of the Burden and the Land–
I know we are watched, watched from the vessel, watched from the lights that hover alongside it–
I am hoping that the Knife can see–
See as I race forward to kill his one in particular–
The heavy blade high in my hands–
She sees me coming and stumbles back towards her mount–
The man from the Clearing shouts something, his own mount trying to move between me and the Knife’s one in particular–
But I am too fast, the space too short–
And the Sky is shouting behind me, too–
His voice, the voice of the entire Land booming behind me, reaching out to stop me–
But a voice cannot stop a body–
And she’s falling back farther–
Falling against the legs of her own mount, who is also trying to protect her but is tangled up with her–
And there is no time–
There is only me–
Only my revenge–
The blade is up–
The blade is back–
Ready and heavy and dying to fall–
I take my final steps–
And I put my weight behind the blade to begin the end–
And she raises her arm to protect herself–