by Patrick Ness
And I just catch my breath for a second and look out on the chaos, the Mayor recovering beside me–
And then I see–
Oh, no–
There, on the ground, pushed to the side by the water–
No–
James.
James, lying face-up, staring up at the sky above–
A hole through his throat.
I’m faintly aware of dropping my rifle, of running over to him, splashing thru the water and falling to my knees beside him.
James who I controlled. James who I sent over this way for no good reason other than my desire–
James who I sent right to his death.
Oh, no.
Oh, please, no.
“Well, that’s a damn shame,” the Mayor says behind me, sounding true, sounding almost kind. “I’m very sorry about your friend. But you did save me, Todd. Twice. Once from my own foolishness and once from a wall of water.”
I don’t say nothing. I ain’t taking my eyes off James’s face, still innocent, still nice and open and friendly, even when there ain’t no sound coming outta him at all.
The battle’s leaving us now. Mr O’Hare’s guns are blazing on distant streets. But what good will it do?
They got the water tank.
They’ve killed us.
I barely hear the Mayor sigh. “I think it’s time I met these settler friends of yours, Todd,” he says. “And I think it’s finally time I had a nice long talk with Mistress Coyle.”
I use my fingertips to close James’s eyes, remembering when I did it for Davy Prentiss, feeling the same hollowness in my Noise, and I can’t even think I’m sorry cuz it don’t feel like nearly enough, not like nearly enough at all, no matter if I said it for the rest of my life.
“The Spackle have turned terrorist, Todd,” the Mayor says, tho I ain’t much listening. “And maybe it takes a terrorist to fight a terrorist.”
And then we both hear it. Over the chaos in the square, there’s another ROAR, a whole different kind of roar in a world that seems to be made outta roaring.
We look east, up over the ruins of the cathedral, past the rickety brick bell tower, still standing, still looking like it shouldn’t.
In the distance, the scout ship has taken to the air.
On the Brink
(THE RETURN)
I am submerged in the Voice of the Land.
I am attacking the Clearing, feeling the weapons fire in my hands, seeing their soldiers die with my eyes, hearing the roars and screams of battle in my ears. I am up on the hilltop, on the rugged lip of it overlooking the valley below, but I am there in the battle as well, living it through the voices of those fighting, those giving up their lives for the Land.
And I watch as the water tank falls, though the Land close enough to see it fall die rapidly under the hand of the Clearing, each death a terrible tear at the voice of the Land, a sudden absence that pulls and pains–
But is necessary–
Necessary in small numbers only, the Sky shows to me, watching, too. Necessary to save the entire body of the Land.
And necessary to finish this war before the convoy arrives, I show back, hitting the strange word that I did not teach him.
There is time, the Sky shows, his concentration still on the city below, still on the voices that reach us from there, fewer now, more on the run.
There is? I ask, surprised, wondering how he knows for sure–
But I set my concerns aside, because the Sky’s voice opens to remind me of what is still to come tonight, now that the first goal of toppling the water tank is achieved.
One way or another, tonight is where the war will change.
Their water was the first step.
All-out invasion is the second.
The Land has not been idle these past days. The Land’s parties have attacked the Clearing unpredictably, from different directions at different times, hitting them hard in surprising and isolated spots. The Land are far more at one with the ground and the trees than the Clearing and can disguise themselves more easily, and the Clearing’s floating lights dare not get too close or the Land will shoot them down.
The Clearing could fire their larger weapons down the river, of course, hitting even the Sky himself, though they cannot know he watches them from so near.
But if they did fire, the river would come to drown them.
And there may be another reason. For why would the Clearing have such a powerful weapon and not use it? Why would they allow themselves to be attacked again and again, in increasing severity, and not answer back?
Unless, as we originally barely dared to hope, they had no more weapons to fire.
I wish I was down there, I show, as we continue to watch through the voice of the Land. I wish I was firing a rifle. Firing it into the Knife.
You do not, the Sky shows, his voice low and thoughtful. They will be desperate now. We have progressed this far because they have not made a coordinated response.
And you want them to, I show.
The Sky wants the Clearing to show itself.
We can attack now, I show, my excitement growing. They are in chaos. If we acted now–
We will wait, the Sky shows, until we hear the voices from the far hilltop.
The far hilltop. Our distant voices, the parts of the Land that go out to gather information, have shown us how the Clearing has divided itself into two camps. One in the city below, another on a hilltop in the distance. We have left the hilltop alone so far because they seem to be those of the Clearing that have fled the battle, those that are not interested in fighting. But we also know that the vessel landed there, and that the larger weapon was more than likely fired from there, too.
We have been unable to get close enough to see if they have more weapons.
But tonight we find out for certain.
The Land is ready, I show, barely able to contain my excitement. The Land is ready to attack.
Yes, shows the Sky. The Land is ready.
And in his voice, I see them.
The massed bodies of the Land to the north of the city and the south of it, too, gathered there slowly these past days, along paths the Clearing is unaware of, kept just distant enough for the Clearing to be unable to hear them.
And in the Sky’s voice I see another massed body, hidden, but ready and waiting near the far hilltop.
Right now, this moment, the Land is ready to march in full force on the Clearing.
And slaughter them all.
We will wait for news from the far hilltop, the Sky shows again, more firmly this time. Patience. The warrior who strikes too early is a warrior lost.
And if the voices show what we want them to show?
He looks at me, a glint in his eye, a glint that expands into his voice, that grows to the size of the world around me, showing what is to come, showing what will happen, showing all that I want to be true.
If, he shows, the voices from the hilltop find that the Clearing have indeed spent all of their big weapons–
Then the war ends tonight, I show. With victory.
He presses a hand on my shoulder, wrapping me in his voice, warming me with it, pulling me into the voice of the entire Land.
If and only if, he shows.
If and only if, I show back.
And in a low voice, maybe even one that only I can hear, the Sky shows, Does the Return now trust the Sky?
I do, I show without hesitation. I am sorry if I doubted you.
And I get a feeling in my stomach, a tingling feeling of prophecy and future, a feeling that it must happen tonight, that it will happen, that all I want for the fate of the Clearing is here and now, in front of me, in front of all of us, that the Burden will be avenged, that my one in particular will be avenged, that I will be avenged–
And then a sudden roaring splits the night in two.
What is it? I show, but I can feel the Sky’s voice searching, too, reaching out into the night, looking with his eyes a
s well, searching for the sound, feeling the rising terror that it is another weapon, that we were mistaken, that–
There, he shows.
In the distance, far away and small, on the far hilltop–
Their vessel is rising into the air.
We watch as it lumbers up into the night, like a river swan in the first heavy beats of its wings–
Can we not see closer? the Sky shows, sending it out far and wide. Is there not a voice closer?
The vessel, little more than a light in the distance, begins a slow circle over the far hilltop, tilting as it turns, and we see small flashes from its underside, dropping into the forest below, flashes that grow suddenly brighter in the trees, accompanied seconds later by booming sounds rolling across the valley towards us.
And here come the voices from the hilltop–
The Sky cries out, and we are suddenly under the flashes dropping from the ship, under the great booming explosions ripping through the trees, flashes everywhere from every side, impossible to run from, exploding the whole world, the Land’s eyes seeing the flashes and feeling the pain and then snuffing out like a doused fire–
And I hear the Sky send forth the immediate command to pull back.
No! I shout.
The Sky looks at me sharply. You would have them slaughtered?
They are willing to die. And now is our chance–
The Sky strikes me across the face with the back of his hand.
I stagger back, astonished, feeling the pain ring through my entire head.
You said you trusted the Sky, did you not? he shows, the anger in his voice gripping me so hard it hurts.
You hit me.
DID YOU NOT? His voice knocks all thought out of my head.
I stare back at him, my own anger rising. But, Yes, I show.
Then you will trust me now. He turns to the Pathways, waiting in an arc behind him. Bring the Land back from the far hilltop. The Land to the north and the south will await my instructions.
The Pathways immediately set out to deliver the Sky’s orders directly to the Land that waits for them.
Orders given in the language of the Burden so I am sure to understand them.
Orders for retreat.
Not attack.
The Sky will not look at me, keeping his back turned, but once again, I am a better reader of him than any of the Land here, maybe better than the Land is supposed to read its Sky.
You expected this, I show. You expected more weapons.
He still does not look at me, but a change in his voice shows me I am right. The Sky did not lie to the Return, he shows. If there had been no further weapons, we would be overrunning them this very moment.
But you knew there would be weapons. You let me believe–
You believed what you hoped to be true, the Sky shows. Nothing I could have said would have taken that from you.
My voice still rings with the pain from his slap.
I am sorry I struck you, he says.
And in his apology, I see it. For the briefest of seconds, I see it.
Like the sun through the clouds, a flash of unmistakable light.
I see his essentially peaceful nature.
You wish to make peace with them, I show. You wish to make a truce.
His voice hardens. Have I not shown the opposite to be true?
You are keeping the possibility open.
No wise leader would do anything else. And you will learn that. You must.
I blink, baffled. Why?
But he just looks back across the valley, back to the far hilltop where the vessel still flies.
We have awakened the beast, he shows. We shall see how angry it gets.
{VIOLA}
My comm beeps and I know it’s Todd calling, but I’m in the healing room on the scout ship, holding Lee’s head in my lap and that’s taken over all my thinking right now.
“Hold him steady, Viola,” Mistress Coyle says, bracing herself as the scout ship lists again.
“One more pass and then we’ll land,” Simone says over the ship’s comm system.
We can hear the low booms through the floor where Simone is dropping the hoopers, small packets of bombs linked together magnetically that spread out as they fall, blanketing the forest below in fire and explosions.
One more time, we’re bombing the Spackle.
After Lee told us they were coming, I helped carry him inside the scout ship where Mistress Coyle and Mistress Lawson immediately started working on him. Outside, even through the doors of the ship, we could hear the shouting of the people on the hilltop. Hear their terror, but also their anger. I could just imagine that half-circle of watchers, led by Ivan, demanding to know what Simone and Bradley were going to do about it, now that we’d been attacked directly.
“They could be ANYWHERE!” I heard Ivan shout.
And so as Mistress Coyle sedated Lee and Mistress Lawson washed the seemingly endless blood from his destroyed eyesockets, we heard Simone and Bradley stomp aboard, arguing between themselves. Simone went to the cockpit, and Bradley came into the healing room and said, “We’re taking off.”
“I’m operating here,” Mistress Coyle said, not looking up.
Bradley opened a panel and took out a small device. “Gyroscopic scalpel,” he said. “It’ll keep steady in your hand even if this ship flips over.”
“So that’s what that was,” Mistress Lawson said.
“Is there trouble outside?” I asked.
Bradley just frowned, his Noise full of images of people getting into his face, calling him the Humanitarian.
Some of them spitting on him.
“Bradley,” I said.
“Just hold on,” he said, and he stayed with us rather than join Simone in the cockpit.
Mistresses Coyle and Lawson kept on working furiously. I’d forgotten what an incredible thing it was to see Mistress Coyle heal. Ferocious and concentrated, all her attention bent on saving Lee, even as we felt the engines burn into life, felt the ship rise slowly in the air, tilting as it circled the hilltop, felt the first of the bombs explode far beneath us.
And still Mistress Coyle worked.
Now Simone is completing her last pass, and I can feel the heat in Bradley’s Noise about what we’ll find on the hilltop when we open the doors.
“That bad?” Mistress Coyle says, carefully tying the last stitch.
“They weren’t even interested in recovering the bodies of the people who were killed,” Bradley says. “They just wanted force and they wanted it right now.”
Mistress Coyle moves to a basin in the wall and starts washing her hands. “They’ll be satisfied. You’ve done your duty.”
“This is our duty now, is it?” Bradley says. “Bombing an enemy we’ve never met?”
“You took a step into this war,” Mistress Coyle says, “and now you can’t just step out of it. Not if lives are at stake.”
“Which, of course, is exactly what you wanted.”
“Bradley,” I say, my comm beeping again but I’m not ready to let go of Lee just yet. “They attacked us.”
“After we attacked them,” Bradley says. “After they attacked us, after we attacked them, and so on and so on until we’re all dead.”
I look back down at Lee’s face, what I can see of it under the bandages, the bottom of his nose just poking out, his mouth open and breathing heavy, his blond hair in my hands, sticky with blood. I can feel him underneath my fingertips, the injured warmth of his skin, the weight of his unconscious body.
He’s never going to be the same again, never ever, which makes my throat choke and my chest hurt.
This is what war does. Right here, in my hands. This is war.
In my pocket, my comm beeps one more time.
[TODD]
“Neutral ground?” says the Mayor, his eyebrows raising. “Now where might that be, I wonder?”
“Mistress Coyle’s old house of healing,” I say. “That’s what Viola said. Mistress Coyle a
nd the people from the scout ship will meet you there at dawn.”
“Not exactly neutral, is it?” the Mayor says. “Clever, though.”
He looks thoughtful for a second, glancing back down to the reports on his lap from Mr Tate and Mr O’Hare about how bad things are.
They’re pretty bad.
The square is a wreck. Half the tents were washed away by the water from the tank. Fortunately, mine was far enough back and Angharrad was safe, too, but the rest is a soggy mess. One wall of the foodstore collapsed cuz of the water, and the Mayor’s got men over there now, picking thru the leavings, seeing just how soon the end’s gonna come.
“They’ve really done a number on us, Todd,” the Mayor says, frowning at the papers. “With one action, they’ve cut our water stores by ninety-five percent. At the most reduced rations, that’s just four days, with almost six weeks to go until the ships arrive.”
“What about food?”
“We’ve had a bit of luck there,” he says, holding out a report to me. “See for yourself.”
I stare at the papers in his hand. I can see the squiggles of Mr Tate and Mr O’Hare’s handwriting skittering in blips and blobs across the page like the black micro-rats we used to get in the barn back at the farm, twisting and turning so fast when you lifted up a board it was hard to see a single one of ’em. I look at the pages and I wonder how the hell anyone can read anything when letters look like such different things in different places and are somehow still the same thing–
“I’m sorry, Todd,” the Mayor says, lowering the papers. “I forgot.”
I turn back to Angharrad, not believing the Mayor forgets nothing.
“You know,” he says, and his voice ain’t unkind. “I could teach you how to read.”
And there are the words, the words that make me burn even hotter, with embarrassment and shame and an anger that makes me wanna tear someone’s head right off–
“It may be easier than you think,” he says. “I’ve been working on ways to use Noise to learn and–
“What, in return for saving yer life?” I say, loud. “Don’t like being in my debt, is that it?”