by Pearl North
Nevertheless, he held the pen as he would any other pen and found that despite its size, it felt balanced and secure in his grip. He looked at the door and imagined it opening. He composed a sentence in his mind: “The door in front of me opens.”
As he wrote the words in midair, they appeared, glowing with golden light, and the end of the pen opened up like a flower blooming. Particles of light rose up from the blossom like pollen and dispersed. As the words faded, they heard a click and the door opened before them.
Po and Ayma looked at each other in wonder. A second later, Ayma took his hand. Po put the pen in his satchel. They would have to make the Plain of Ayor green next, but first it seemed like a good idea to get out of there right away. They left the old theater and sat down on the steps outside.
He took the pen and wrote, “The Plain of Ayor is a green and fertile land.”
Haly stood in line with the others, waiting for her morning ration of food. She had never been so hungry for so long in her entire life. Her legs shook, and though she had just awoken, exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her. Increasingly she was sensitive to light, and had difficulty seeing in the dark. She recognized the signs of malnutrition, and she was far from the only one suffering. In front of her stood Arche. Arche’s beautiful hair had lost its shine, and as she stepped forward she stumbled. Lack of coordination. Haly reached out to steady her but barely had the strength to clutch at her robe. Muscle weakness.
Haly held out her bowl to Burke, whose once robust plumpness had dwindled to slack. Worst of all was the dull look in her eyes. It was a crime against nature for Burke, one of the most prized minds of the Libyrinth, to be reduced to drudgery and endurance. No more were the book discussions, the lively conversations around the console in the main hall, the exploration of concepts as diverse as nanotechnology and rule of law. From sunup to long after dark they all worked the fields, and then they fell exhausted in their beds and got up the next morning and did it all again.
Burke put a spoonful of barley and a quarter of a carrot in Haly’s bowl. They looked at each other, the truth so obvious it did not need to be said. This hardship, this sacrifice, was not enough. This meager ration of food would run out in the next week or so, and despite their best efforts, they were still two months away from the first harvest.
It was old news. Haly, Gyneth, and Peliac had taken inventory over a week ago and made the calculations. Those who had family in the nearby villages had already left. But people were struggling there, too. For those who remained at the Libyrinth, there was no place else to go.
They’d had no news of either Clauda or the Chorus of the Word. Haly hoped that wherever they were, they fared better than those they’d left behind. The shameful truth was that getting through each day took just about all the energy she had, and there was little left with which to worry about her absent friends.
Haly ate her food slowly, chewing each mouthful thoroughly to get every bit of nutritive value from it. She had just finished when Gyneth came running into the dining hall. “Come quick! Something’s happening outside!”
He might have caused a stampede if everyone were not as exhausted as she was. People filed out into the Great Hall. The doors of the main entrance stood open, and for a moment Haly thought her vision was getting worse. Green light flooded in from outside.
Shouts of fear, despair, and bewilderment rose up from the collected population of the Libyrinth. Haly hastened outside and stopped dead in her tracks, unable to make sense of what she saw.
The sand was green. Haly knelt and scooped up a handful, expecting to dislodge a layer of some sort of freak snow or rainfall the color of newly sprouted barley shoots, but no. The grains themselves were green, as if they were always meant to be. She ran to the fields. Here the tilled earth had taken on a deeper, richer hue of green—more like mature bean plants.
“What is it?” said Ock, his voice laced with panic.
Haly felt the same way. She shook her head. Was this some kind of dream? She tried to wake up. It wasn’t a dream.
The ground rumbled.
“Look at the barley!” Ock cried.
The barley shoots looked greener and more robust than she remembered. Was it just the light reflected from the green soil?
The ground trembled. “What’s that now?” yelled Peliac, dropping the handful of dirt she’d been examining.
“I don’t know,” said Haly, but a moment later they had their answer as up from the ground shot silverleaf bushes—thousands of them. Everyone was jumping out of the way as the things erupted up from the ground right beneath their feet. It was a macabre dance, too bizarre to be truly funny. The barley fields, which did in fact look increasingly robust, were suddenly overrun by the silverleaf bushes, which were quickly passing the bush stage and becoming trees. They were growing right up through the barley shoots, uprooting them. In moments the entire new planting of barley was decimated.
22
The Lit King
“Change it back, change it back!” cried Ayma as she and Po watched what they had wrought. The ground everywhere was green, even the paving stones which were being torn up right and left as silverleaf trees erupted from the ground.
Po picked up the pen again. What could he write that would undo the damage that had been done?
“Hurry!”
“What Po just wrote about the Plain of Ayor being a green and fertile land never happened,” he wrote.
In an instant, everything was as it had been. It had worked. Ayma hugged him.
“I think we’d better leave making the land rich up to Selene,” he said.
“Or Censor Siblea,” said Ayma. “He’ll know what to do.”
Po let go of her. “Will he? You put a lot of faith in him.”
Ayma tilted her head and looked up at him. “Well, you put a lot of faith in her. I don’t care how many books she’s read—”
“But Siblea is just an old man.”
“—she’s still just a woman.”
For a moment they stared at each other. And then they both laughed.
“Let’s just get them away from the Lit King, okay?” said Ayma.
Po nodded and looked at the pen. “But how? I’m afraid if I write the wrong thing…”
“Well, it worked with the door. The problem with the second thing you wrote was—” Ayma broke off.
“No, go on. It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about criticizing me. Just say it.”
“It wasn’t specific enough. It was open to interpretation.”
“So we’d better not say anything like, ‘The Lit King sets the chorus free.’”
“Because that could mean that he just kills them all.”
Po nodded. “How about, ‘Selene, Hilloa, Jan, and Baris are alive and well and standing in front of Po and Ayma on the walkway to the old theater.’”
“You forgot Censor Siblea.”
No he hadn’t. “Okay, him too.”
Ayma thought about it. “There could be other people with those names.”
“Then how about, ‘Those known to Po and Ayma by the names—’”
Shouts interrupted him. From the alley across the street poured a crowd of people wearing brown robes. They had mind lancets. Po gathered up the pen and grabbed Ayma’s hand. They ran to the side of the old theater. Between the old building and a high wall was a narrow alley choked with weeds and trash. He ushered Ayma in ahead of him. Halfway down the length of the building, he heard the mob behind them, crashing through the underbrush. Po took off his satchel and held it out to Ayma. “Take this and run. I’ll slow them down and you can get away.”
“No,” she said.
“Please. If they catch you and harm you, what do you think will happen then?”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. Po would fight them and be killed, and then she’d be alone with them. She took the satchel and ran.
Ten paces later, the Lit King’s people caught up with him.
They drove him to the main aven
ue of the citadel, where they proceeded to march him toward the temple. They passed through the doors of the mammoth building. The entrance looked like a huge mouth, gaping open. It swallowed him. They came into a courtyard. Robed figures hung from gibbets driven into the ground, their lifeless bodies slowly twisting around and around. Po stared at them as he passed, trying to see if any of them were members of the chorus, but he couldn’t tell.
They left the courtyard and ushered him across a large, marble-floored entrance hall and down a set of stairs to a dank place beneath the temple. They walked down a long, dreary hallway lined with doors. The old woman who’d been among the group at the theater opened a door at the very end. “Your accommodations,” she said, and giggled. The guards shoved him inside and slammed the door shut.
Selene, Hilloa, Jan, Baris, and Siblea sat blinking up at him. They were in a stone cell that was just barely large enough to hold them all. Dirty straw covered the floor. It looked like it hadn’t been changed since the prisoners rebelled and a foul, stale funk hung in the air.
“Seven Hells,” swore Selene. “They got you, too.”
In the dim light it was difficult to make out details. “Has anyone been harmed?” asked Po.
“Not really,” said Hilloa.
What did she mean by that?
“Not yet,” said Baris.
Po’s gaze landed on Siblea. He sat a bit apart from the others, his back against the wall. He’d barely even glanced up when Po arrived. “How were you taken?” Po asked him.
Siblea lifted his head and stared at Po. “The barley merchant betrayed us.” He had a bruise around his eye, and blood crusted at one corner of his mouth.
“What about Ayma?” asked Hilloa.
“She got away.” He wanted to say that she got away with the rose, which was really a pen, and he was dying to ask Selene about everything that had happened with Endymion, but if they were overheard…
“Where were you two?” asked Baris. “Did you find anything?”
“Don’t answer him,” said Selene. “If we don’t know anything then we can’t talk when we’re questioned.”
“Questioned?” Po had heard rumors about Singer interrogation techniques, how ruthless and effective they were. Would the Lit King, having been a prisoner of the Singers and likely subjected to such tactics, reject them? Or would he relish the opportunity to turn them on others?
“Did you experience something strange, maybe half an hour ago?” Jan asked him. Selene gave him a look.
A half hour—was that all it had been? The truth about the Lion’s Bloom and his many questions about Endymion hammered inside his head, but all he said was, “Yes.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Hilloa.
As if in answer to her words, the sound of a key in the lock broke through their muttered conversation like a thunderclap. The door opened and eight big guards with mind lancets entered, followed by the old woman and two other women who carried chains and manacles. The big guards stood around the chorus in a circle, mind lancets at the ready. If they resisted, they’d be subdued and chained anyway. Po’s stomach turned as Selene and Hilloa each were manacled in turn. Both stared at him. Hilloa shook her head, but it was the expression of warning on Selene’s face that stopped him from attacking the guards.
They were taken back up the stairs and into a great assembly hall, with tier upon tier of balconies and an enormous statue that had been defaced. The statue man’s nose was gone, his face was painted with spirals, and the words “illiterate pig” were painted on the front of him.
At the statue’s feet, in a chair made more ornate with apparently whatever was at hand, sat a man, one leg draped negligently over an arm of the chair. His face was covered with scars.
The man wore a robe with an intricate black-and-white pattern all over the fabric. And he had a crown made of silver and gold wires, braided and looped together. He held a book in his hands and he read it to a group of young women. They wore very little and they sat at his feet, looking up at him in rapt and reverent attention.
“You know I am not used to such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the atmosphere,” he said, reading from it. His smooth tenor carried well across the amphitheater. He looked up and saw the chorus, and he set the book aside.
He smiled. It was an odd effect with all the scars.
Po watched Siblea. He was pale, trembling. “Thescarion.”
“Yes. How flattering that you remember me. But of course you and I did quite a bit of work together, attempting to purify my soul. It didn’t work, as you see; or rather, I was already too pure for you and your false religion. But now I may commence attempting to purify you. I confess, I did not think we would encounter each other again in this world. What good fortune—for me, anyway, and for all of those whom you tortured.”
Siblea swallowed. “Thescarion. I…”
The other man laughed. “Speechless for once, eh? You won’t be for long. It will be interesting to see how you respond to your own methods.”
“We were in error, Thescarion,” said Siblea. “I freely admit that. But we’ve been Redeemed and we’ve discovered the power of the Word. It was much as you said it would be. Take me, punish me if you must, but these others are your brothers and sisters in the Word. Do not harm them.”
Thescarion gave a wry smile. “If they are with you, I do not doubt that they are clever. We have had word of what occurred at the Libyrinth. This so-called Redemption. It’s heresy. No true Redemption could occur when its most ardent supporters moldered in prison, underground, neglected and forgotten, even by their tormentors. No. They are at the least false prophets, and if they are with you, they are surely much more than that. Let us give them a demonstration of what they can expect if they give my people trouble. Shall we, Siblea?”
He nodded to three of the guards. Two of them seized Siblea by the arms while the third unlocked his shackles. Baris attempted to defend him but another guard struck him with a mind lancet and he fell to the floor, gasping.
The guards brought Siblea forward. The Lit King snapped his fingers at the women sitting at his feet. “Fetch the chair!”
The women scattered only to return moments later carrying a chair that was equipped with straps to hold the occupant immobile. “No,” muttered Siblea, his voice a low moan, hopeless. Po strained against his own chains, desperate to stop whatever was about to happen.
Siblea was placed in the chair, and then the Lit King stood up. He snapped his fingers and another attendant appeared carrying a box with a handle. The Lit King opened it and drew out a knife and a small stone jar.
Po saw Siblea’s larynx bob at the sight, and a faint sheen of sweat appeared upon his skin. The Lit King stood before Siblea and looked him up and down appraisingly. “Hmm. Where shall we begin?” He put on a show of giving it great thought, pacing back and forth, placing one finger to his chin. Suddenly he whirled to face Siblea once more. “I know! How about where you began with me?” And with that he closed on Siblea, took the knife, and placed it on Siblea’s cheek.
Po watched in horror as the Lit King carved a long, curving spiral on Siblea’s face, starting at his cheekbone just below the eye and curving up to his temple and then across his forehead. During this, Siblea bit his lips and trembled, but he did not cry out. At last there was a great, bloody cut from Siblea’s right cheek, across his forehead and around to his other cheek. His face was covered in blood. Po found he was shaking. At least it was over now.
But it wasn’t. The Lit King wiped the blood away from the cut, which continued to ooze, stood back and surveyed his work, smiled, and then took the jar from his attendant’s hand. He removed the lid and with a small spoon, lifted out a powder.
“It’s lye,” Selene whispered.
Very delicately, he put a little of the powder on the cut on Siblea’s face.
Siblea screamed.
Little vapor trails of acrid fumes drifted up from where the caustic chemical ate into Siblea’s w
ound. Po shut his eyes as the Lit King scooped up more of the powder and repeated the process on the next section of Siblea’s wound. “These lines are to remind us of our inseparable connection with the Song that runs through all things,” said the Lit King between Siblea’s screams. “And so you might ask why I, a lit, would place them upon you, a Singer. But the answer is simple.” He paused as he applied more lye and Siblea’s cry became weaker. “Because I can.”
23
492
Ayma took the satchel from Po and ran for all she was worth. She came to the end of the alley. Behind her, she heard the zap of a mind lancet and Po’s yell. She wanted to turn back, but she knew what would happen if she did. Both of them would be captured, and worse, the pen would fall into the hands of the Lit King.
She turned to the right, pelting down a small side street. Fortunately it was empty, so there was no one to take notice of her. But where was she going to go? Her first thought was to take cover in her father’s tavern like a mouse hiding in its burrow, but immediately she realized that was the worst place she could go. If Censor Siblea’s activities had been discovered, they would be watching the place.
She turned another corner and slowed to a walk. Huddled close against the wall, head down, there was no reason now for anyone to take notice of her, and running would only attract attention. Besides, walking gave her a chance to think.
She didn’t know that many people in the citadel anymore. Most of them had left on pilgrimage. Those remaining, mainly the wives and daughters of her father’s friends and business associates, might also now be under the scrutiny of the Lit King’s mob, because Siblea had held a resistance meeting in her father’s establishment. At the very least, they did not need to borrow her trouble.
In the end, there was only one place she could think of to go.