I feel the first strike of Noise fly by me, a whooshing of concentrated words and sound and pictures rushing over my shoulder, straight for the men with rifles. I flinch away and dive for the ground–
Cuz the men start firing their guns–
And I’m right in the way–
“Todd!” I hear Viola shout but the rifles are firing and the men are screaming and I roll on the rubble, jarring my elbow, and whip round to see Corporal Pot Belly on his knees in front of Angharrad, his back turned, both hands on the sides of his head, screaming wordlessly down into the ground, Viola watching him, wondering what the hell is going on. Another guard has fallen on his back, fingers in his eyes, as if he’s trying to dig them out, and a third lies unconshus on his stomach. Two others are already running back into the city.
The Noise flies from the Mayor, louder and stronger than anything I’ve seen before.
Way louder than at the Office of the Ask.
Loud enough to take out five men at once.
Only Ivan still stands, one hand up to his ear and the other trying to aim his rifle at the Mayor but weaving it dangerously around–
BANG
A bullet smacks the ground in front of my eyes, sending dust and dirt up into them–
BANG
Another bounces off stones deep in the cathedral–
“IVAN!” I shout.
BANG
“Stop firing! Yer gonna get us killed!”
BANG
His rifle goes off right by Angharrad’s head. She rears up and I see Viola grab the reins, surprised, holding on for dear life–
And then I see the Mayor is walking forward and forward and forward–
His eyes on the men he’s attacking–
Coming past me–
And I don’t even think–
I leap from the ground to stop him–
And he turns and sends his Noise straight at me–
The world goes all bright, terribly, painfully bright, like every-one can see how much you hurt, everyone watching and laughing and nowhere to hide and YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING all bound up tight like a bullet right thru you, telling you everything that’s wrong with you, everything you ever done bad in yer life, telling you yer worthless, yer dirt, YER NOTHING, yer life ain’t got no point nor reason nor purpose and you should just tear down the walls of yerself, ripping apart who you are and either die or give it up as a gift, as a gift to the one who can save you, as a gift to the man who can control you, who can take it all away, who can make everything fine fine fine–
But not even Noise can stop a body when it’s moving.
I feel all these things and I’m still flying at him and I still hit him and I still knock him over on the steps of the cathedral.
He grunts as the air is crushed out of him and the Noise attack stops for a second. Corporal Pot Belly calls out and falls over and Ivan’s gasping for breath and Viola’s calling out “Todd!” and then a hand is around my neck and it’s pushing my head up and the Mayor is looking right into my eyes–
And this time it hits me full blast.
“Give me the rifle!” the Mayor is shouting, standing over Ivan, who’s crouched on the ground below him, hand over his ear again but the rifle still pointed up at the Mayor. “Give it to me!”
I blink, grit and dust in my eyes, wondering for a second where I am–
YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING
“Give me the rifle, Private!”
The Mayor’s screaming at Ivan, hitting him over and over again with Noise blasts and Ivan is sinking to the ground–
But his rifle’s still aimed–
“Todd!”
I see horse legs beside my head. Viola’s still up on Angharrad. “Todd, wake up!” she’s yelling. I look up at her. “Thank God!” she yells and her face is a picture of frustrayshun. “My stupid feet! I can’t get off the goddam horse!”
“I’m okay,” I say, tho I don’t know if I am, and I lean myself up, my head spinning.
YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING
“Todd, what’s going on?” Viola says as I grab a rein to help me stand. “I hear Noise but–”
“The rifle!” shouts the Mayor, stepping closer to Ivan. “Now!”
“We have to help him,” I say–
But I flinch back at the strongest attack yet–
A flare of Noise so white you can almost see the air bending twixt the Mayor and Ivan–
And Ivan grunts sharply and bites his tongue–
Blood spilling from his mouth–
Before he screams like a child and falls back–
Dropping the rifle–
Dropping it right into the Mayor’s hands.
He lifts it, cocks it and aims it at us in one fluid move. Ivan lies twitching on the ground.
“What just happened?” Viola says, too angry it seems to care much about the rifle.
I put my hands in the air, still holding the reins.
“He can use Noise,” I say, keeping my eyes on him. “He can use it like a weapon.”
“Just so,” says the Mayor, smiling again.
“All I heard was shouting,” she says, looking at the men lying on the ground, still breathing but out cold. “What do you mean, a weapon?”
“The truth, Viola,” the Mayor answers. “The best weapon of all. You tell a man the truth about himself and, well,” he nudges Ivan with his boot, “they find they have trouble accepting it.” He frowns. “You can’t kill him with it, though.” He looks back up at us. “Not yet, anyway.”
“But . . .” She’s not believing this. “How? How can you–?”
“I have two maxims that I believe, dear girl,” the Mayor says, coming slowly towards us. “One, if you can control yourself, you can control others. Two, if you can control information, you can control others.” He grins, his eyes flashing. “It’s been a philosophy that’s worked out rather well for me.”
I think about Mr. Hammar. About Mr. Collins. About the chanting I used to hear coming from the Mayor’s house back in my old town.
“You taught the others,” I say. “The men from Prentisstown, you taught them how to control their Noise.”
“With varying degrees of success,” he says, “but yes, none of my officers has ever taken the cure. Why should they? It’s a weakness to have to rely on a drug.”
He’s nearly on us now. “I am the Circle and the Circle is me,” I say.
“Yes, you were certainly making an impressive beginning, weren’t you, Todd? Controlling yourself while you did the most unspeakable things to those women.”
My Noise turns red. “You shut up about that,” I say. “I was only doing what you told me–”
“I was only following orders,” the Mayor mocks. “The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time.” He stops two metres away from us, rifle pointed firmly at my chest. “Help her off the horse, please, Todd.”
“What?” I say.
“Her ankles, I believe the problem was. She’ll need your help walking.”
I still have the reins in my hand. I have a thought I try to bury.
Boy colt? Angharrad asks.
“I assure you, Viola,” the Mayor says to her. “If you think about running on that beautiful animal, I will put more than one bullet through Todd.” He looks back at me. “However much pain it might cause me.”
“You let her go,” I say. “I’ll do anything you want.”
“Now where have I heard that before?” he says. “Help her down.”
I hesitate, wondering if I should slap Angharrad’s flanks anyway, wondering if I should send Viola riding off into the distance, wondering if I could get her safe–
“No,” Viola says and she’s already working her leg round the saddle. “Not a chance. I’m not leaving you.”
I take her arms and help her down. She has to lean on me to stand but I keep her up.
“Splendid,” says the Mayor. “Now let’s go inside and have that chat.”
“Let us start with what I know.”
He’s brought us into what used to be the room with the round coloured glass window in it but it’s now open to the air on two sides and above, the window still there, looking down, but looking down on rubble.
Looking down on a little cleared area with a broken table and two chairs.
Where me and Viola sit.
“I know, for example,” the Mayor says, “that you did not kill Aaron, Todd, that you never took your final step towards becoming a man, that it was Viola here who put the blade in all along.”
Viola takes my arm and squeezes it tight, letting me know it’s okay that he knows.
“I know that Viola told you the Answer were hiding at the ocean when I let you escape to go speak with her.”
My Noise rises in anger and embarrassment. Viola squeezes my arm harder.
“I know that you’ve sent the boy called Lee to warn the Answer.” He leans against the broken table. “And of course I also know the exact time and place of their attack.”
“Yer a monster,” I say.
“No,” the Mayor says. “Just a leader. Just a leader who can read every thought you have, about yourself, about Viola, about me, about this town, about the secrets you think you’re keeping, I can read everything, Todd. You’re not listening to what I’m saying.” He’s still holding the rifle, watching us sit before him. “I knew everything about the Answer’s attack this morning before you even opened your mouth.”
I sit up in my chair. “You what?”
“I had the army gathering before we even started Asking Viola.”
I start to rise. “You tortured her for nothing?”
“Sit down,” the Mayor says and a little flash from him weakens my knees enough that I sit right back down. “Not for nothing, Todd. You should know me well enough by now to know that I do not do anything for nothing.”
He sits up from the broken table, showing again that he likes to walk and talk.
“You are completely transparent to me, Todd. From our first proper meeting here in this very room until how you sit before me today. I’ve known everything. Always.”
He looks at Viola. “Unlike your good friend here, who’s a little tougher than I imagined.”
Viola frowns. If she had Noise I’m sure she’d be slapping him around a bit.
I get a thought–
“Don’t try it,” the Mayor says. “You’re not nearly that advanced yet. Even Captain Hammar has yet to master it. You’d merely end up hurting yourself very badly.” He looks at me again. “But you could learn, Todd. You could advance far, farther than any of those poor imbeciles who followed me from Prentisstown. Poor Mr. Collins barely worth more than a butler and Captain Hammar just another garden-variety sadist, but you, Todd, you.” His eyes flash. “You could lead armies.”
“I don’t wanna lead armies,” I say.
He smiles. “You may have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Viola says by my side.
“Oh, people like to say that,” the Mayor says. “It makes them feel better.” He approaches me, looking into my eyes. “But I’ve been watching you, Todd. The boy who can’t kill another man. The boy who’d risk his own life to save his beloved Viola. The boy who felt so guilty at the horrible things he was doing that he tried to shut off all feeling. The boy who still felt every pain, every twitch of hurt he saw on the face of the women he banded.”
He leans down closer to my face. “The boy who refused to lose his soul.”
I feel him. He’s in my Noise now, rummaging around, turning things over, upending the room inside my head. “I’ve done bad things,” I say and I don’t even mean to say it.
“But you suffer for them, Todd.” His voice is softer now, almost tender. “You’re your own worst enemy, punishing yourself far more than I could ever hope to. Men have Noise and the way they handle it is to make themselves just a little bit dead, but you, even when you want to, you can’t. More than any man I’ve ever met, Todd, you feel.”
“Shut up,” I say, trying to look away, not being able to.
“But that makes you powerful, Todd Hewitt. In this world of numbness and information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”
I put my hands to my ears but I can still hear him in my head.
“You’re the one I couldn’t break, Todd. The one who wouldn’t fall. The one who stays innocent no matter the blood on his hands. The one who still calls me Mayor in his Noise.”
“I’m not innocent!” I shout, my ears still plugged.
“You could rule by my side. You could be my second in command. And when you learn to control your Noise, you may have power to overtake even mine.”
And then the words thunder thru my whole body.
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
“Stop it!” I hear Viola shout but it’s from miles away.
The Mayor puts a hand on my shoulder. “You could be my son, Todd Hewitt,” he says. “My real and true heir. I’ve always wanted one that wasn’t–”
“Pa?” we all hear, cutting thru everything like a bullet thru fog.
The Noise in my head stops, the Mayor steps abruptly back, I feel like I’m able to breathe again.
Davy stands behind us, rifle in one hand. He’s led Deadfall up to the steps and is looking over the rubble to the three of us here. “What’s going on? Who are the men out there on the ground?”
“What are you doing here?” the Mayor snaps, frowning. “Is the battle already won?”
“No, Pa,” Davy says, climbing over the rubble towards us. “It was a trick.” He plants his feet next to my chair. “Hey, Todd,” he says, nodding in greeting. He glances at Viola but he can’t hold her eye.
“What was a trick?” the Mayor demands but he’s already looking angry.
“The Answer ain’t coming over the hill,” Davy says. “We marched way back deep into the forest but there ain’t no sign, not nowhere.”
I hear Viola take a little gasp, a bit of pleased surprise escaping from her even as she tries to hold it back.
The Mayor looks her way, his eyes fierce, his face thinking and thinking.
And he raises his rifle at her.
“Something you’d like to tell us, Viola?”