The Velle regarded Anna and me a while more. Then he nodded—he’d kept his part, he expected me to keep mine—and walked away.
I held Anna until she sat up again, her eyes alive as if seeing the world for the first time. But her brow remained troubled. She turned toward me.
“Lour?”
I still had her hands in my own. “You remember now what was missing.”
Fresh tears came. She nodded.
“I hate to ask it of you, my love, but here, tonight,” I nodded toward the discourse theater, “I have an argument to make. An argument to keep a society of men from erasing stories, or at least removing their meaning.”
“What stories, Lour?” Anna asked, her expression plaintive.
I hesitated. Maybe I’d gone too far with this. Asked too much. “Stories about the Quiet, Anna. And the Veil that keeps them captive in the Bourne.”
She began shaking her head.
“To most of the Grove, these are storybook rhymes.” I gave her a glimpse of what I was up against. “The annual position forum wants to refashion it all into mythology. No Veil, they’ll say. No Bourne. No Quiet. Or, if there are races there, they aren’t ill-formed of the gods and set against man. They’re simply . . . misunderstood.”
A small bit of ire crept into her face. I liked seeing it. “What do you need from me?” she asked.
Gods-damn I loved this woman. “I need you to tell your story. About being taken. Sold.”
Her face grew sad, heavy. “And what happened to me there too. That’s really what you’re asking.”
I wanted to tell her everything. About the League. About Darius. Even that she was awake because of a deal I’d struck with the Velle.
I said none of that. Instead I leaned in, touching my forehead to hers. Our gesture. She took a deep breath, and gave a painful smile.
She would do it. But I also understood that it would cost her. And I felt like a bastard for asking. But we both knew I didn’t have a choice. Not if I was to win.
I’d known it before this, but it was clear again: Anna was the braver of us. By many stars.
I helped her to her feet and together we went into the discourse theater, each of us walking as though we were just learning how. Anna from eight years of sitting. Me with broken bones and cane.
The murmuring settled to silence. Part of that, no doubt, had to do with those who knew Anna seeing her up and alert. Darius and his elite selection of panelists sat across from us. He wore a look of slight surprise. And amusement, if I was any judge. That was a mistake of youth: Raising the ire of a brittle old albino. Young arguers have a life ahead to consider. They don’t know it, but they feel a bit immortal. They don’t consider death. But I’d lived with that certainty my whole life. Frail thin, I was. Not just white, but bones like winter kindling. And something strange in my body, besides—that thing that turned a compass needle south. I knew I had nothing to lose, was the thing. And Darius there, with his smug look, had no idea I would play my last card and coin.
I settled Anna in a chair and limped into the circle with my cane.
I caught the eyes of Martin, seated behind Darius’s table in the second row. He gave me a wink—a stage encouragement, he’d explained to me once.
Darius stood. “The Aubade Grove College of Philosophy has put forward its forum position for this year. We’ve delayed publishing because of your challenge, Lour. Please tell me we haven’t wasted a week’s time for nothing.”
His smile annoyed me. It was the kind that needed to be slapped. “Oh, you’ve already deemed it a waste, because you don’t think you and you’re little cronies there can be beaten.” I looked over at Savant Bellerex. “And I’ll guess you’ve spent the week lapping the Savant’s hand like a currying mutt. To earn his favor. Young folks like yourselves tend to have more confidence when they inveigle. You understand what that word means, pup?”
Darius’s smile didn’t falter. “As irascible as ever, eh, Lour? Comedy is a good argument tactic. But maybe we can move on to your actual philosophical evidence?”
“I’d love that,” I said. “Unfortunately, as it happens, someone wearing a League-emblazoned cloak is rummaging through the annals at night ripping out the very pages I’d need to show you.”
I gave Darius a broad grin.
“I’m surprised,” I followed, “that you overlooked that bit of logic.”
“What bit of logic,” Darius countered, “your lack of understanding that the College of Philosophy does work to collate uncataloged thought into uniform volumes for further study?”
Good recovery. “That what you call it? Well, then, how shall I argue when these night workers clonk me on the head to keep me from getting my hands on their shorn pages.”
Darius laughed. “Are you sure, Lour, that you didn’t fall? I know you’re prone to it.”
The theater laughed with him. But I gave Savant Bellerex a dark look. It would be enough to put a crimp in Darius’s bid for a formal League charter in the Grove. For a while, anyway. Darius saw Bellerex’s expression, and knew it. Made him right mad, too, though he covered that with his politic grin well enough.
I decided to press the point. “You know, pup, maybe you’re right. Maybe I fell under this little Leagueman’s cudgel. So let’s put that aside. Perhaps if you could just produce a volume of this uncataloged work, we could end this whole hootenanny.”
Darius faltered. He opened his mouth to speak, and stuttered a bit, before shutting his lips.
That’s when I knew. That’s when I got to the why of this philosophical position being advanced by the League. It wasn’t about the gods. Or even stories about the gods.
It was stories, themselves.
Because for the beggar and whore, for the poor and careworn, for any who hadn’t two thin plugs to rub together, there was only one escape from the porridge lines and slums and worries. Only one thing they didn’t have to pay for. A story.
Religionists wanted tithes, obedience.
Governments wanted taxes, loyalty.
Reformers wanted donations, conformity.
These were the “others” Scalinou had talked about. The “others” that made us less self-reliant. The “others” that came between the League and their ambitions.
But there was one above all these. Above religion and government and reform.
Stories.
Stories brought relief, comfort. Hope. They cost nothing. And expected nothing in return.
Stories are gods. I shook my head at the realization. And the League knows it. They know that a powerful story will do more to ease a man’s burdens than all the credos or philosophical positions the League can write. And they want to control our stories.
Horse’s asses.
“Certainly,” Darius finally recovered, “just as soon as these volumes are ready, we’ll share them broadly.”
Sure you will.
“Now,” he cleared his throat, “as to your evidence? What charade . . . I’m sorry, what argument will you make for us today?”
I took a long breath. There’d be consequences for what I was about to say. Shame, too. But I’d already lived with that a while. And I didn’t suppose anyone in the theater could prick my conscience worse than I did myself.
“My wife,” I motioned to Anna, “has been to the Bourne.”
A chorus of whispers rose.
I saw Martin sit forward, like a man anticipating a story he might not want to hear.
“Really?” Darius asked. His incredulity silenced the theater.
“Yes, really,” I said flatly. “Let’s start with some ugly facts that even the College of Philosophy and your League of Civility can’t deny. There’s a human-trade across the Eastlands. People are being snatched. Enslavement, obviously. But to what end? Have we seen a rise in produce or shipped goods or any other measurable consequence of forced labor?”
“Wonderful question,” Darius retorted. “We should investigate—”
“You do that,” I said sharp
ly. “And while you do, I’ll just tell you the answer is no. Ugly as slavery is, it always, always results in economic boon.”
“You’re an economist now?” Darius countered.
Laughter around the theater.
“Hardly. Just old enough to care about more than what’s between my legs.”
The laughter this time came from the older of the crowd.
“And what does this have to do with the Bourne?” Darius came around to the side of his table, leaning against it, casual as you please.
“Oh, just this.” I shuffled forward some. “These people being snatched? They’re being taken into this Bourne you find so mythical.”
Darius leveled his eyes on me and sauntered close. “Then tell us, Lour. If your wife was snatched, how was she taken through this Veil you’d have us believe holds the Quiet there . . . And how did you get her back?”
It was a damned good question. I had to give him that.
I took a long moment to look around the theater. The silent expectation grew heavy. Then I looked back at Anna, who watched attentively. She knew none of what I was about to say.
“When Anna went missing, I left the Grove. Many of you remember that.” I nodded to a few who weren’t entirely repulsed by me. “I was searching for her, of course. Any husband would have done the same. After three years, I’d found she was hardly the only one abducted. People were being taken. Lots of them. This slave trade was real.
“So, I sought out a trader willing to take me with him when he went to sell stock to Quiet hands. Inside the Bourne.”
Darius furrowed his brow with exaggeration. “So, you’re saying you’ve been there yourself?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t pass through the Veil. Walking through a canyon in the Pall Mountains, I just suddenly couldn’t move forward.”
“But your trader friend could?” Darius asked, with a hint of mocking.
“Ayuh,” I replied, ignoring his condescending smile. “I’m sure it’s something to do with whatever makes a compass read askew in my hand.”
“And yet here is your wife,” Darius persisted. “However did you accomplish this nasty business with the beasts of the Bourne, then? And really, how much longer do you think we should suffer this ridiculous distraction?”
That’s when I did slap the insolent young horse’s ass. People gasped. It was like listening to one of the Rhea-fol plays. The comedic ones, where exaggerated reactions by the crowd are part of the fun.
It actually made me laugh. Darius wasn’t laughing though. And I knew I was on my last pardon.
I spared another look at Anna, and told the rest. “I had no idea why the races of the Bourne were buying humans. But I reasoned that if the only currency they cared about was human life, I’d simply buy my wife back from them.”
The silence that came was heavy. Serious.
I nodded to the cumulative disgust. “I found a prison in Sever Ens. Paid the guards there to hand over three women being held in the pit indefinitely for murder. Paid that same trader I’d found to take them into the Bourne and barter them for my wife.”
“You’re something of a trader yourself, it would seem,” Darius said, his slapped face forgotten.
“I’m not proud of it, if that’s what you’re hinting at.” I stared defiantly at him. “But I’d do it again.”
Darius’s eyes were alive with thought. When his face finally relaxed, he’d found his way forward. “Though we study the motivations that underlie a person’s criminal behavior, the College doesn’t condone crime . . . of any kind.” He leveled his stare on me. “And under no circumstance do we place the value of one life above another. It’s contrary to every philosophical position the Grove holds. I can’t imagine the pain of losing your wife, but what you did is unforgiveable.”
“By whom?” I asked, wanting badly to slap him again. “You? The College? The Grove? Or these gods it seems you’d like us to put away?”
He opened his mouth to retort. I didn’t give him a damn second.
“Because I don’t need the forgiveness of a bastard pup who struts the discourse theater like he’s nothing left to learn. And I don’t need it from a College that has treated me like a walking sickness because I don’t have the blush of health in my skin. And if this Grove of science is going to judge me, then it might as well start burning incense and saying prayers like the religionists it pits itself against. And I’d really love to know if you think I need the forgiveness of the silent gods.”
I stopped, glaring at Darius. He was caught, and he knew it. He didn’t want to admit of gods, or any of the rest of it. That was for damn sure.
The young debater stood his ground, though. And after several long moments, his wry smile touched light at his lips. Just enough that only I could see it.
“Very well, Lour,” he said as a parent shushing a headstrong child, “let’s suppose, for now, that all this is true. It doesn’t argue for the existence of Quiet races bent on our destruction. It suggests only some phenomenon in the Pall Mountains. And slavery. Strange and maybe disconcerting things. But not stories to guide our science, or even our beliefs. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I shook my head. Damn but this pup was good.
And that’s when I turned to Anna. Understanding, she stood and came to my side, stepping slowly.
She shared a long look with Darius, then me. There was sadness in her eyes, and trembling. But she started to speak anyway.
“What Lour says is true.” Anna swallowed loud enough that I heard it. “I was taken by a highwayman. I went up on the blocks and was sold. A pack of traders took me and several other women north over the Pall Mountains. Maybe two weeks’ travel beyond it. I was placed in a pen. There were stalls for us. Flat bread each day. Muddy water.”
Darius held up a finger. The bastard was interrupting. “And you’re telling us you were held by Quiet creatures?”
“Bar’dyn,” she said, no argument or anger in her voice. “Three strides tall. Skin like elm bark—hard, cracked, but pliable. And others. Smoother skin. Just as big. Wide, thick races. Powerful.”
“A land of giants,” Darius put in.
“Slight races, too” Anna added, “but just as . . . driven.”
“Driven to what?” Darius asked, making a show of impatience.
Anna took my hand. The way she did on those rare occasions when she needed what strength I had for her.
“I was bred.”
The anger in my mind almost put me down. My chest heaved, ached, for my dear one.
For maybe the first time, Darius had no response. I’d like to think it was a matter of decorum, as opposed to the calculated understanding that challenging such an admission would undermine his chances of winning the debate.
I caught a look at Martin’s face, grateful for the sympathy I saw there.
After a painful silence, Anna went on. “It wasn’t torture. Or amusement.” Her brow creased. “They’re trying to accomplish something. They’re trying to make something.” For all her strength, she began silently to weep. “Few of the children lived. Those that did were taken. The ones that I can remember, anyway. Sometime during those years, my mind left me. It’s like I was living backward.” She turned her eyes on me, and spoke in a broken voice. “Until the other night, when I awoke here, in the Grove, in a convalescent room. With Lour.”
Then she shut down. She shook her head. A bitter look like shame—but not exactly that—took hold of her face. And she stumbled from the theater on weak legs. Her story done.
No one spoke.
I’m not sure how long it had been before Savant Bellerex stood and came onto the discourse theater floor. In a soft voice, “Those portions of this year’s forum position that have to do with the Bourne and those that live there . . . will be removed.”
Darius had an argument in his eyes, but he kept his silence until only he and I stood on the theater floor. It was an odd kind of company we kept. For my part, I didn’t trust myself to move. Darius had sta
yed to say something.
“You win, Lour,” he conceded, a note of humility in his voice. “I still don’t think you had a story proof. But one thing I can promise you: the League will now come. I’ll see to it. Formally. Fully. And with time, the position we argued today will be adopted and published.”
“But not this year,” I mocked.
He ignored me. “You won’t see it, though. Because you’ll be gone.”
I’d anticipated this. Still, I hated to hear it. And it annoyed me, besides. “Gone, huh?”
“Legally, you could be sent to a nice pit for what you did,” he said, conversationally. “But I’ll spare you that. Just gather your things and leave the Grove.”
“Because I make you uncomfortable,” I said with a sour smile. “Me all white and fragile. Strange eyes and slow feet. I’m not a portrait of vigorous thought, am I? And I stick in your craw, hell the whole college’s craw, for that. Albino with bad bones.”
“By tomorrow,” he replied, and strode away, boot heels clacking.
I’d thought I was alone. When I took a last look around, I saw a figure in the shadows of the top row of seats. He stared at me a good long while. Then got up, and disappeared through a door behind him. But even at that distance, even not truly seeing who it was, I felt him. The indifference. The Velle.
The creature out of the Bourne thought I’d done him a favor. I wasn’t so sure.
He’d been right, of course. I’d have made this argument, anyway. But something was sticking in my own craw. How had he gotten through the Veil? If the stories were true, something was happening. Changing.
* * * * *
When I thought I could walk, I strolled with my cane through Aubade Grove on my way to find Anna. I took in the five great towers and their observation domes hundreds of strides above me. I walked the great circumference of the inner pentacle and all the college theaters and annals and halls. I would miss this place. I would miss the pursuit of knowledge and thought and understanding of the sky.
Oh, I’d keep at it myself, wherever I went. But I’d be alone. That much I knew, even before I reached Anna.
“Don’t let them do it, Lour,” she said in her convalescent room. “Fight them.”
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