by Patrick Ness
“You did well, Todd,” the Mayor says, riding up close behind me. “Very well indeed.”
“It was–” I say but I stop.
Cuz how was it?
“I’m proud of you,” he says.
I turn to him, my face a picture.
He laughs at my expresshun. “I am,” he says. “You didn’t buckle under extreme pressure. You kept your head. You kept your steed even though she was injured. And most importantly, Todd, you kept your word.”
I look into his eyes, those black eyes the colour of river rock.
“These are the actions of a man, Todd, truly they are.”
And his voice feels true, his words feel true.
But then they always do, don’t they?
“I don’t feel nothing,” I say. “Nothing but hate for you.”
He just smiles at me.
“It may not seem like it, Todd,” he says, “but you will look back on this as the day you finally became a man.” His eyes flash. “The day you were transformed.”
{VIOLA}
“It does seem to be ending down there,” Bradley says, looking at the projection.
A separation is opening up on the zigzag road. The Mayor’s men are pulling back and the Spackle are retreating, leaving an empty hill between them. We can see all of the Mayor’s army now, see the big cannons he’s somehow got, see his soldiers starting to gather themselves in some order at the bottom of the hill, regrouping to prepare to fight again, no doubt.
And then I see Todd.
I say his name out loud and Bradley zooms in to where I’m pointing. My heart rushes as I see how he leans into Angharrad, and he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive–
“That your friend?” Simone asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s Todd, he’s–”
I stop because we see the Mayor riding over.
Riding over to talk to Todd, like it was just a normal day.
“Wouldn’t that be the tyrant, though?” Simone asks.
I sigh. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” Bradley says. “I’m getting that impression.”
“No,” I say firmly. “If you ever doubt anything here, if you ever not know what to think or who to trust, you trust Todd, okay? You remember that.”
“Okay,” Bradley says, smiling at me, “we’ll remember.”
“But there remains the bigger asking,” Simone says. “What do we do now?”
“We were expecting dead settlements and hopefully you and your parents in the middle of it all,” Bradley says. “Instead we got a dictator, a revolutionary, and an invading army of natives.”
“How big is the Spackle army?” I say, turning back to the projection. “Can you fly up?”
“Not much higher,” he says, but he dials some more and the probe moves up the zigzag hill, cresting the top of it and–
“Oh, my God,” I say, hearing Simone take in a breath.
Reflected in the light of both moons and of the campfires they’re burning and the torches they’re holding–
A whole nation of Spackle stretches back down the river road above the falls in the upper valley, far, far bigger than the Mayor’s army, enough to overwhelm them in a flood, enough to never, ever be beaten.
Thousands of them.
Tens of thousands.
“Superior numbers,” Bradley says, “versus superior fire-power. A recipe for unending slaughter.”
“Mistress Coyle said there was a truce,” I say. “If there was one before, there can be another.”
“What about the competing armies?” Simone asks.
“Competing generals, really,” I say. “If we can sort those two out, then it’ll be easier.”
“And maybe we should start,” Bradley says to me, “by meeting your Todd.”
He dials the remote again until the view zooms back in to the men on horses, on Todd next to Angharrad.
And then Todd looks up, right at the probe, right into the projection–
Right into me.
We see the Mayor notice and look up, too.
“They’ve remembered we’re here,” Simone says. She starts back up the ramp into the scout ship. “I’ll get something for your ankles, Viola, then I’ll contact the convoy. Though I don’t even know where to begin explaining . . .”
She disappears into the ship. Bradley comes over to me again. He reaches over and gently squeezes my shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your parents, Viola. More than I can say.”
I blink away fresh wet from my eyes, not just at the memory of my mum and dad dying in our crash, but at Bradley’s kindness–
And then I remember, almost with a gasp, that it was Bradley who gave me the gift that proved so useful, the box that made the fire, the box that made a light against the darkness, the box that eventually blew up a whole bridge to save me and Todd.
“It flickers,” I say.
“What’s that?” he says, looking up.
“Way back on the convoy,” I say, “you asked me to tell you what the night sky looks like by firelight, because I’d be the first one to know. It flickers.”
He smiles, remembering. He breathes in deep through his nose. “So this is what fresh air smells like,” he says, because of course it’s the first time he’s ever breathed it. He spent his whole life on a ship, too. “It’s different than I expected.” He looks back at me. “Stronger.”
“Lots of things are different than we expected.”
He squeezes my shoulder again. “We’re here now, Viola,” he says. “You’re not alone any more.”
I swallow and look back at the projection. “I wasn’t alone.”
Bradley sighs again, looking with me. It flickers, he says.
“We’ll have to build a fire so you can see for yourself,” I say.
“See what?”
“That it flickers.”
He looks at me puzzled for a minute. “What you said earlier?”
“No,” I say. “Just now, you said–”
What’s she talking about? he says.
But he doesn’t say it.
And my stomach turns in a knot.
No.
Oh, no.
“Did you hear that?” he says, looking even more puzzled and turning around. “It sounded like my voice . . .”
But how could it be my–? he thinks and then stops.
He looks back at me.
And Viola? he says.
But he says it in his Noise.
He says it in his brand-new Noise.
[TODD]
I hold the bandage to the wound on Angharrad’s flank and let the medicine enter her bloodstream. She still don’t say nothing, but I keep my hands on her, keep saying her name.
Horses can’t be alone and I need to tell her I’m part of her herd.
“Come back to me, Angharrad,” I whisper into her ears. “Come on, girl.”
I look over to the Mayor, talking to his men, and I try to think how the hell it came to this.
We had him beat. We did. Beaten and tied up and we’d won.
But now.
Now he’s just walking round again like he owns the place, like he’s completely in charge of the whole goddam world again, like what I did to him and how I beat him is of no concern at all.
But I did beat him. And I will again.
I untied a monster to save Viola.
And now I’ve somehow gotta keep hold of the leash.
“The eye in the sky is still there,” he says to me, walking over and looking up to the dot of light the Mayor’s pretty sure is a probe of some kind. We first saw it hovering over us an hour ago when the Mayor was giving orders to his captains, telling ’em to build a camp down here at the bottom of the hill, to send out spies to see what we’re up against and send out other troops to find out what’s happened to the army of the Answer.
But so far no one’s been sent to the scout ship.
“They can see us already,” the Mayor says, still looking up. “When they want
to meet, they can just come to me, now, can’t they?”
He looks round us slowly, at the men sorting themselves out for what’s left of the night.
“Just listen to the voices,” he says, in a strange whisper.
The air is still filled with the Noise of the men but the look in the Mayor’s eyes makes me wonder if he’s talking bout something else.
“What voices?” I ask.
He blinks, like he’s surprised I’m still here. He smiles again and reaches out a hand to rest on Angharrad’s mane.
“Don’t touch her,” I say and I stare at him till he takes his hand away.
“I know how you feel, Todd,” he says gently.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do,” he insists. “I remember my first battle in the very first Spackle War. You think you’re going to die now. You think this is the worst thing you’ve ever seen and how can you live now you’ve seen it? How can anyone live after seeing it?”
“Get outta my head,” I say.
“I’m only talking, Todd. That’s all I’m doing.”
I don’t answer him. I just keep whispering to Angharrad. “I’m here, girl.”
“But you’ll be fine,” the Mayor says. “So will your horse. You’ll both be stronger. You’ll be better for it.”
I look at him. “How can anyone be better after that? How can anyone be more of a man after that?”
He leans down close to me. “Because it was exciting, too, wasn’t it?”
I don’t say nothing to that.
(cuz it was–)
(for a minute there–)
But then I remember the soldier dying, the one reaching for his baby son in his Noise, the one who won’t never see him again–
“You felt the excitement when we chased them up the hill,” the Mayor’s saying. “I saw it. It blazed through your Noise like a fire. Every man in the army felt the same thing, Todd. You’re never more alive than in battle.”
“Never more dead after,” I say.
“Ah, philosophy,” he smiles. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
I turn away from him, back to Angharrad.
And then I hear it.
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
I look back at him and I slap VIOLA at him.
He flinches but he don’t lose his smile. “Exactly, Todd,” he says. “I said it before. Control your Noise and you control yourself. Control yourself–”
“And you control the world,” I finish. “Yeah, I heard you the first time. I only wanna control myself, thank you. I ain’t got no interest in the rest of the world.”
“Everyone says that. Until they get their first taste of power.” He looks up again at the probe. “I wonder if Viola’s friends would be able to tell us what sort of numbers we’re actually up against.”
“Too many, that’s how many,” I say. “It’s probably the whole Spackle world up there. You can’t kill ’em all.”
“Cannons against arrows, my boy,” he says, looking back at me. “Even with their nifty new fire weapon and whatever those white sticks are, they don’t have cannons. They don’t–” he nods to the eastern horizon where the scout ship landed “–have flying ships. I’d call us just about even.”
“All the more reason to end it now,” I say.
“All the more reason to keep fighting,” he says back. “There’s only room on this planet for one side to be dominant, Todd.”
“Not if we–”
“No,” he says more strongly. “You set me free for one reason. To make this planet safe for your Viola.”
I don’t say nothing to that.
“And I’ve agreed to your condition and now you will let me do what needs to be done. You will let me make this planet safe for her and for the rest of us. And you will let me do this for you, because you cannot do it for yourself.”
And I remember how the soldiers followed his every command, throwing themselves into battle and dying, just cuz he told ’em to.
And he’s right, I don’t know that I’d ever be able to do that.
I need him. I hate that I do, but I do.
I turn away from him again. I close my eyes and press my forehead against Angharrad.
I am the Circle and the Circle is me, I think.
If I can control my Noise, I can control myself.
And if I can control myself–
Maybe I can control him.
“Maybe you can,” he says. “I’ve always said you had power.”
I look at him.
He’s still smiling.
“Now,” he says. “Settle your horse down for the night and get some rest.”
He sniffs in some air, it’s starting to feel cold now that we’re not thinking about dying every second, and he looks up the hill to the glow of Spackle campfires coming over the hilltop.
“We’ve won the first skirmish, Todd,” he says. “But the war has only just begun.”
And a Third
(THE RETURN)
The Land waits. I wait with them.
And I burn with the waiting.
Because we had our enemy beaten. At the foot of their own hill, on the outskirts of their own city, we had the army of men surrounded and at our mercy. They were broken and confused and ready to be conquered–
The battle was nearly won. We had them beaten.
But then the ground erupted beneath our feet and our bodies were thrown into the air.
And we retreated. We pulled back, stumbling up the hill over broken rock and damaged road to reach the hilltop to treat our wounds and mourn our dead.
But we were close to victory. We were so close I could taste it.
I still can taste it, as I look out onto the valley below, where the men from the Clearing make their camp, tend to their own wounds, and bury their dead while leaving ours in carelessly thrown piles.
I remember other piles of bodies, in another place.
And I burn again at the memory.
Then I see something from where I sit on the edge of the hilltop, beside where the river crashes into the valley below. I see a light, hovering in the night air.
Watching us. Watching the Land.
I get to my feet to go and find the Sky.
I walk down the river road, deeper into our camp, the night’s full blackness held back by campfires. Wet spray from the rushing river throws up mist, and the light from the fires gives everything a low glow. The Land watches me as I weave through them, their faces friendly, if weary from the battle, their voices open.
The Sky? I show with my voice as I walk. Which way to the Sky?
In answer, they show me the way among the campfires and secreted bivouacs, the feeding crèches and the paddocks for the battlemores–
Battlemore, I hear whispered just out of sight, whispered with no small shock and even disgust, as the word is not a word in the language of the Land, it is a word from the language of the enemy, of the Clearing, and so I make my voice even louder to cover it and I show The Sky?
The Land keeps showing me the way.
But behind their helpfulness, do I hear their doubts?
For who am I, after all?
Am I hero? Am I saviour?
Or am I broken? Am I danger?
Am I beginning or end?
Am I truly of the Land?
If I am honest, I do not know the answers either.
And so they show me the way to the Sky as I move through them up the road and I feel like a leaf floating on the river, above it, on it.
But perhaps not of it.
And then they begin to send ahead news of my coming.
The Return approaches, they show, one to the other. The Return approaches.
For that is their name for me. The Return.
But I have another name, too.
I have had to learn what the Land calls things, pulling words from their wordless language, from the great single voice of the Land, so that I can understand them. The Land is what they call themselves, h
ave always called themselves, for are they not the very Land of this world? With the Sky watching over them?
Men do not call them the Land. They invented a name based on a mistaken first attempt at communication and were never curious enough to fix it. Maybe that was where all the problems began.
“The Clearing” is the Land’s name for men, the parasites who came from nowhere and sought to make this world a nowhere of their own, killing the Land in huge numbers until a truce forced a separation, the Land and the Clearing for ever apart.
Except, that is, for the Land that was left behind. The Land that remained as slaves to the Clearing as a concession to peace. The Land that ceased being called the Land, the Land that ceased being the Land, forced even to take on the language of the Clearing. The Land that was left behind was a great shame for the Land, a shame that came to be called the Burden.
Until that Burden was erased by the Clearing in a single afternoon of killing.
And then there is me, the Return. So called not only because I am the single survivor returned from the Burden, but because my return has caused the Land to return here to this hilltop, after the years of truce, poised and ready above the Clearing, with better weapons, with better numbers, with a better Sky.
All brought here by the Return. By me.
But no longer attacking.
The Return approaches, shows the Sky when I find him, his back to me. He is addressing the Pathways, who sit in a semicircle in front of him. He shows them messages to take throughout the Land, messages which pass by so quickly I have difficulty reading them.
The Return will relearn the language of the Land, shows the Sky, finishing with the Pathways and coming over to me. In time.
They understand my words, I show back, looking out at the Land who watch me as I speak to the Sky. They use them themselves when they speak of me.
The words of the Clearing are in the memory of the Land, the Sky shows, taking me by the arm and walking me away. The Land never forgets.
You forgot about us, I show him, heat behind my words that I cannot suppress. We waited for you. We waited for you until our deaths.
The Land is here now, he shows.
The Land has retreated, I show, with greater heat. The Land sits on a hilltop when it could be destroying the Clearing now, right now, this very night. We outnumber them. Even with their new weapons, we–