“I don’t have the key, Lucious.”
“No, I suppose Horatio has it…” Iliff could hear the frown in his voice. He quickly recovered his enthusiasm. “You, Iliff! You could speak up for me. Yes, you understand what I did.”
“I do,” Iliff admitted. “But it didn’t work.”
“You know the dangers of darkness, of foulness. You know that even the smallest concession would have led to the corruption of this place. Quickly now, get us the key so that we can go out and see the pile of them.”
Lucious’ eyes jerked here and there. For a moment Iliff could feel his mad thoughts flapping inside his own mind. He pushed them out.
“We did not defeat them,” Iliff said. “They’re still here. They’ll always be here.”
“The key!” Lucious shouted over him.
Iliff stood silently.
“Hurry!”
Iliff backed away from the door, then turned with the lantern and walked down the corridor. He paused when he reached the stairwell. Though faint, he could still hear Lucious’ voice imploring him, reaching for him. He looked back, but the darkness beyond the lantern light was too dull to see inside. Iliff placed his foot on the bottommost step of the stairwell.
“Goodbye,” he whispered and then ascended.
Chapter 26
Late in the day, Stype stood on the dais at the end of the Great Hall, preparing to address the multitudes of Fythe. Iliff and the other members of the Assembly stood to either side of him and behind. The Assembly had convened earlier, where Stype revealed to them the day’s bleak developments.
Now Stype raised his arm for silence. “I am not as elegant in speech as my father,” he said. “Nor as articulate as Horatio, our late captain. And so although I am full of feeling this day, I can only speak in my manner. The Garott came at us in great numbers last night. They came under our walls, then over them. And though we fought hard, they pushed us from the town. Many good men fell before them. I am sorry to you who lost sons, husbands, and fathers. They will be honored and delivered to the sea forthwith. They will voyage to the Far Place and be at peace.”
Several in the crowd cried out, and all bowed their heads.
“I am afraid there are more grim tidings,” Stype said. “The Garott sent a message this morning. They demand our unconditional surrender. And they demand it be done by nightfall.”
“What will it mean to surrender?” a woman called up.
“They hold us to the death of their general, so their terms are harsh.” Stype’s eyes shone toward her. “We would surrender to them the Keep and town and the lands around them. We would be sent far from here. Never to return.”
The voices of the crowd rose at once.
Iliff stood at the edge of the dais, his mind still numb with the thought of being driven out.
“I thought they needed us,” an elderly man shouted above the din.
Stype raised his arm again. “It appears that was the thinking of a faction of the Garott, one headed by their late general. It is not clear who commands the Garott now, but they do not share his ideas. Our choices are to surrender as they demand, or wait out a siege and hope they exhaust their supplies. They haven’t the numbers to breach the walls here, but neither have we the numbers to drive them from the town.”
The same man spoke again: “What if we surrender only to be…” His voice fell off as he pulled one of his grandchildren to his side.
“They have pledged our safe passage,” Stype said. “And in an act of good will, they have begun bringing us our injured and fallen.” He looked toward Skye. “Though there can be no assurances, my sister feels their pledge to be honestly given.”
“And what happens if we don’t surrender by nightfall?” another man called.
“They did not say,” Stype answered.
The noise of the crowd climbed in debate. Iliff could hear some speaking out in favor of surrender and others pleading that they not give up their beloved cottages and lands so readily, that they at least attempt to hold out. A woman near the front waved her arm toward the dais. “And how has the Assembly voted?”
Skye glanced at Iliff as she stepped forward. “The Assembly has determined that you should decide,” she said. “Whatever our course from here, it should be commonly chosen. Now please, a show of your hands. Who here is in favor of remaining?”
About half of the hands in the Hall went up.
* * *
The Assembly remained on the dais as the Fythe went about organizing themselves. Those who wanted to surrender and those who preferred to hold out sat and spoke to one another in small groups. Upon reaching consensus, each group would merge with a larger group and begin anew. The meetings were civil, and a certain spirit of community that had been lost with the erecting of the stone walls seemed to be returning to them. Iliff saw it in their faces, in their warming colors.
Skye came to his side. “How will you feel if they choose to surrender?”
“I don’t welcome the idea of being driven out,” Iliff said. “But I will support their decision.”
“We can always rebuild,” she said.
Iliff thought of the prison and then the defensive walls of the township. The first had been unable to keep him inside, the latter unable to keep the world outside. Heartache and ruin had followed from both.
“I’m not sure I would know how,” he said, not bothering to hide the images.
“Perhaps it is that you are not destined to live among walls, Iliff. Perhaps that is why they seem to fail you.”
“Are you suggesting I leave?”
Skye looked on him for a moment. “Tell me,” she said. “Why did you stop seeking the Sun?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Then I will tell you,” she said. “These failed walls. You see them, you even blame yourself, but you do not see what lies beyond them.”
“And what’s that?”
“Your release, Iliff.” Her eyes glistened. “Your freedom.”
* * *
It was nearly nightfall when the people reached their decision. An elder Fythe came to the dais to make the announcement. “We will stay,” he said. “It is our hope that the Garott will exhaust their supplies. And when they seek a truce this time we, the Fythe, will listen.”
The Great Hall shone with applause.
While members of the Assembly stood and spoke to the people about the need to ration food and adjust their labors to the demands of life under siege, Iliff excused himself. He walked from the Great Hall and ascended the southwest tower of the Keep. Stepping out into the cool dusk, he greeted the guards at the top of the tower and walked to the westernmost crenel.
Below, Fythe guards lined the inner and outer walls of the bluff, their numbers especially dense on the side facing the town. Farther below, in the town itself, torches flared along the far walls. Most of the Garott labored behind the large wooden screens, several of which they had pushed all the way up to the workshops. Beyond the screens Iliff could hear the sharp raps of commanders and the answering murmurs of the multitudes. Preparing their end of the siege, he thought. He walked across the tower and looked over the gray lake and into the woods beyond.
Was it true? he wondered. Would his walls only ever fail? And was it also as she suggested, that they failed because he was meant to go into the world? To seek the Sun, to see it at last? He looked at the blocks beneath his hands, then at the mortar that bound them. He closed his eyes.
Leaving the protection of stone. Venturing into the world alone. He was not sure he could do either, not again.
Suddenly, the guards on the tower began to speak at once. Iliff turned to find the four of them crowded into a crenel, peering down into the town. He was almost to them when they spun and dove to the floor. One of them shouted up at him just as the tower shook. Iliff cried out and fell backward. It was only when he struck the far merlon that the guard’s warning registered:
Incoming!
And now Il
iff understood what was happening. The screens. The stones. The ultimatum. The alternative to surrender was not a siege, after all. The Garott had found Lucious’ catapults. They intended to bring down the Keep.
Chapter 27
Iliff fled the damaged tower and arrived at the entrance to the Great Hall just as the Keep shook again. Screams sounded; mortar fell from the ceiling. Men and women huddled to the ground, their crying children tucked beneath them. Iliff made his way to the dais where the Assembly members held one another. Several of them looked up at him in bewilderment.
“It’s a bombardment,” he whispered. “We must get the people to the lower levels.”
Projecting the same calm command as she had in her first and only meeting as queen, Skye rose and called into the Hall for the people to gather before the door. Iliff and the other members of the Assembly went throughout the crowd, helping the old and injured to their feet. More booms sounded, this time at the outer edge of the bluff, it seemed. The Keep rattled around them. Skye began to lead the frightened lines of people from the Hall, down the main stairwell.
Iliff called to the members of his wall crew. He had lost nearly half of them outside, and of those who had survived, several were injured. Now he sent the twelve who remained to retrieve the carts that held the ingredients and tools for mixing and applying mortar. Fortunately, Gilpin had had the foresight to suggest these be stored in the Keep as well as down in the township.
There came more concussions from the outside and then what sounded like stones collapsing into a pile. Stype ran inside shortly, his blue eyes blazing. A bevy of guards followed.
“They have breached the outer wall,” Stype called into the Hall.
“Are they near? Are they coming through?” Iliff asked.
“No, our archers hold them at bay. But they are moving their screens and redirecting the catapults.”
Iliff looked over the walls of the Great Hall. Their final bastion.
“If we are going to hold out,” he said, “I will need the help of whatever guards you can spare.”
Stype nodded, then turned and gave the order.
* * *
Iliff stationed guards in the largest rooms and along the main corridors of the Keep. As Iliff mixed the mortar in one of the boxes, he shouted instructions to the guards who pressed around him. The other members of the wall crew did the same at the other stations. Iliff had just finished preparing his mortar when the Keep clapped and shook. Faint cries sounded from the lowest levels.
“Watch the walls!” Iliff shouted. “Be ready to seal them!”
The Keep shook again, this time more violently. It took several moments for the shuddering that followed to cease. Iliff looked over the stone walls as he went from station to station. All of the walls remained intact, thank goodness. But for how much longer? A clamoring of many voices rose from the Great Hall. Iliff returned there in a sprint to find the crew and guards standing on the dais, staring up at a deep fissure still wending a diagonal course from the floor toward the ceiling. Smaller fissures split away in sharp rivulets. Iliff’s mind flashed back to the prison.
“Hurry now, hurry!” he cried at the men, clapping his hands.
He directed guards to set up lanterns, and ordered trowelers into position. Then he seized the largest spade and began to shovel loads of mortar onto the boards for the porters. He listened to the stones above them grate and groan.
“Follow the fractures!” he shouted. “Don’t let them open any further!”
Iliff called five of the guards to him and pointed to the ingredients around the mortar box. “You will be in charge of the sand,” he said to one, “and you gravel,” he said to the next, “you limestone, you clay, and you water. Add them exactly in the amounts I tell you!”
The men crouched around the box and set to work. Iliff shouted and pushed and pulled the swelling mortar and scooped it onto the boards. More guards arrived and joined the effort. Soon the groaning of stone was being countered by the clinks and scrapes of many trowels. Porters appeared at Iliff’s side with empty boards. Iliff worked furiously to dole the mortar out while keeping the mortar fluid in the box. Sweat poured from his brow and flecked off his arms. His thoughts became feverish.
“Listen to me!” he screamed. “We must become like soldiers of a regiment. We must wield our tools like weapons. Our labor will be hard and our fight unrelenting. This is a battle of wills. Never shall we draw back or battle with weak arms!” In his fury, Iliff was only dimly aware that the words were not his, that they had been spoken in another time and place, but he could not stop to recall where or by whom.
“Listen!” he continued. “Watch the man beside you, don’t let him falter. Don’t let him say that he is too tired or the effort futile. For should one man fall, the battle will become desperate indeed. There may be no getting it back. But I tell you, together we are mightier than this foe! Together we shall overcome and triumph at last! All stone will be sealed and all walls made solid, and they will endure in this way—”
Something crashed into the Keep directly above them. The four walls of the Great Hall shifted, and the main fissure tore open. Rubble rained down in sheets. The men before the wall ducked for cover, while Iliff crouched beside the mortar box, certain that the Hall was finished.
When the rubble settled, a tremendous silence followed. All looked up. Through waves of dust still sifting past the lanterns, Iliff saw that the ceiling and walls held. He got to his feet and made his way to the cleft. Several shelves had opened along its broken length. He probed one with his long spade. He was inside nearly to his elbow before the metal clicked against stone. He counted the shelves, then turned to the room of grim-faced men.
“We’re going to need four,” he said, “the smallest among us, to crawl inside and begin the repair work at the rear.” His thoughts felt more feverish than ever. “It’s dark, perilous work, but necessary. For the deeper the crevice, the greater the Enemy’s advantage. Now, a show of hands! Who’s up to it?”
Several arms went up. “Very good,” he said. “You, you, you, and—” He was preparing to point to the final man, when he noticed that he was a full head shorter than the others. “You there,” Iliff said. “Remove your hood.”
The man hesitated, then pushed the cloak from his brow. Only when the sweep of light hair fell back on his shoulders did Iliff recognize him.
“Newt!” he cried. The sight of him shocked the fever from his thoughts. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you below with the others?”
Newt began to shrink back, but then caught and straightened himself. He lifted his chin toward the wall and cleared his throat. “I can help,” he said. “I can reach where the others can’t.”
Iliff looked from the boy to the wall.
“Please, sir,” Newt said.
When Iliff turned back, he saw the way the boy’s young eyes swam between uncertainty and resolve. He saw how he believed his escape through the wall to have been the cause of all of this. Newt wanted to make up for it, to win back the trust of his fellows. Though the men towered and murmured over him, the boy’s eyes remained on Iliff’s.
Iliff sighed. “All right,” he said. “Come with me.”
While the guards readied the other three men and helped them into their clefts, Iliff squatted beside the lowest shelf. The men had buttressed the opening with several planks of wood. Newt’s pale face peered out between two of them. Iliff paused to listen beyond the wall before instructing him.
“Begin at the very rear,” he said. “Work quickly but be sure to fill every space. Throw out your empty boards, and fresh boards will be delivered at once.” He looked hard at Newt. “Above all, be careful. Should the stone shift or creak—even in the slightest—get out at once. Do you understand me?”
Newt nodded.
Iliff began to stand from the crevice, then stopped. The sight of the boy turning and wriggling into the darkness recalled to Iliff the horrible image of him crammed beneath the shelves of Luc
ious’ closet.
No, he told himself, this is different.
But how was it different? Was he not preparing to sacrifice the boy just as Lucious had? Was he not also telling himself that it was justified in light of the threat that faced them? He thought of Lucious raving in his dungeon cell, done in by his own fear and fanaticism.
Iliff reached his arm inside the crevice and found Newt’s pant leg.
“Come from there,” Iliff said, pulling away the wood planks with his other hand.
Newt’s surprised eyes appeared from the deep dark.
“Quickly!”
Shouting sounded from the towers, and in the next moment, a large stone grazed the top of the Keep. Iliff listened to it rumble down the far side of the bluff and plunge into the lake. He hurried to help Newt from the crevice, lifting him to the floor. The boy stood clutching the trowel.
“What… what is it?” he asked.
Iliff was opening his mouth to explain when two stones collided into the Keep, one right after the other. The walls dividing the dozens and dozens of small cells collapsed against one another, and the whole Keep lurched to one side. Stone blocks split and fell from the archways. Iliff pulled Newt to the floor. Guards fled from the fissured wall just as the shelves smashed closed, snapping and spitting out the remaining wood planks.
The Keep trembled, as though in a pained exhale, then fell still.
Iliff sat up and looked over the damage. Newt sobbed beneath him, and Iliff brushed stone dust from his hair.
“It’s all right,” he told him.
Hurried footfalls sounded from the towers. Stype appeared in the doorway as guards rushed beyond him and out the Keep’s main door. His eyes searched the Hall until they found Iliff.
“Get your men to the lower levels,” he called. “The inner wall is failing.”
“Where are you going?” Iliff asked.
“Outside to defend.”
Lights and Shadows (The Prisoner and the Sun #2) Page 17