“Take my hand, oh, brothers, sisters, take my hand and walk with me . . .”
The voices were faraway but growing closer. Beating drums accompanied them. No, not drums — the sounds of thousands of marching feet.
Pong turned back to Manit. He rubbed a thumb over his tattoo, hoping that his gamble had been worth it. Otherwise, everything was about to go disastrously wrong.
“Do you know what Somkit told me about you?” said Pong. “He said you always did the right thing. If that’s really true, then I need your help. I have to get to that bridge. After that, I’ll turn myself in to you, and you can take me to Banglad. I swear.”
Manit looked down at Pong’s wrist. “It’s no good. You can’t stop anything tonight. The Governor himself is going to be there, and you can’t stop him. None of us can.”
“Please. Just get me to the bridge and let me try. I’m the only one who’s got a chance.”
Manit grimaced. The sounds of the crowd grew louder and louder. “How can you be so sure?”
Pong ran his finger along his red-and-gold bracelet. “I just have a hunch.”
Manit sighed. “Take a seat,” he said, climbing the steps to the bridge of the cruiser. “Kid, you’re lucky I believe in hunches.”
Nok held tight to her staff with sweaty palms. What should she do? Leave? Join her father on the other side of the bridge? This felt like a test she hadn’t prepared for.
The line of police parted, and the Governor stepped out in front of them, flanked by the armed guards of his estate. Like the police, they carried long wooden staffs at their sides. Daggers swung from their hip belts.
The people fell silent as the Governor walked forward. He wore a pristine white robe that pooled in silky puddles at his feet. If he was shocked to see so many Gold orbs in the crowd, he didn’t show it. The look on his face was calm, in control. He scanned the marchers coolly for a long moment. Nok didn’t think anyone around her was even breathing.
When the Governor finally spoke, his voice reverberated across the silence. “Citizens, I don’t know who has persuaded you to gather here in defiance of the law, but it is time to end this foolish escapade.”
A short man wearing glasses and a waiter’s apron stepped forward from the crowd of marchers. Nok caught sight of Somkit standing just behind him.
“Your Grace,” said the man with the glasses. “We are marching within . . . within our rights. We have come bearing a message.” He nodded to the crowd. “The people are suffering. For years we have lived in shadow, growing poorer and bearing impossible burdens put on us by your laws. We have come here to ask — to . . . to demand — that we have a say in the laws that rule over our lives. It’s time for things to change.”
The little man wasn’t a confident speaker, though Nok could tell he was trying. His shaky voice seemed to give the Governor strength.
“If you are so concerned about the law,” said the Governor, “then you should know that you are breaking it as we speak.” He gestured to the guard on his right, who pulled out a sheaf of papers and held it high. The Governor pointed to the document. “I have decreed that any demonstration against me is a threat to our city,” he called out. “And those who participate will be punished with the harshest sentence.”
Worried murmurs rippled through the crowd. “The harshest sentence?” people asked each other. “What does that mean? Jail?”
The marchers rocked on their feet, but no one moved from their position.
The Governor stepped closer to the crowd, eyeing them with frustration, as if they were disobedient pets.
“Think about what you are asking for,” he said to the crowd. “Do you really want to go back to the days before I came here, before we had order and light? Surely now you remember the dangers of fire. Or have you forgotten what it was like when the people of this city wallowed in ash and died in the mud?”
The Governor continued, recounting the horrors of the Great Fire. His deep voice rumbled. His cold eyes moved across the crowd, settling for a few seconds on one face after another. The people couldn’t help but listen, mesmerized by his terrifying descriptions of those dark days. Nok was just as entranced as everyone else, but then he said something that broke her concentration.
“The law is the light, and the light shines on the worthy. . . .”
Those words again.
She had always found comfort in them, but tonight it was as though she were hearing them for the first time. And they didn’t sound right at all.
Nok had been grasping for that light her whole life. She thought that if she were perfect in every way — if she were the best spire fighter, best student, perfect daughter, perfect everything — she’d be worthy enough for the light. But she’d gotten it all backward. So had the Governor.
Nok turned and looked at the people standing all around her. The orbs they carried shone softly on their faces, making it look as though the people themselves were glowing. It reminded her of what she had read in that book about the history of spire fighting: everyone has an ember burning inside them.
Nok unbuttoned the cuffs of her uniform and rolled her sleeves up to her elbows. Her scarred forearm, hidden from the sun for years, looked pale in the Gold glow of the orbs.
“Whoever stands against the rule of law,” the Governor said sternly, “stands with the darkness. Citizens, I ask you to look at your own ranks. Criminals. Beggars.” He sneered at the short man with the glasses. “Those who plot against me. Just look!” he cried, pointing to the shuttered western shore. “The law-abiding citizens of the West Side have shut their windows against you. If your cause has any merit, why do no people of worth stand with you?”
“They do!”
Everyone gasped and turned.
“They do!” Nok cried out again as she ducked through the front line of the crowd. She strode to the midpoint of the bridge, into the empty space between the Governor and the throng of people. Thousands of eyes stared at her.
“Nok!” cried a voice from behind the line of police. Nok’s father rushed forward but was stopped short by the Governor’s guards. “Let me go!” he shouted, fighting to free himself. “That’s my daughter! Nok!”
Behind her, Nok heard the crowd whispering:
“That’s the Law Commissioner’s daughter!”
“Commissioner Sivapan?”
“Yes, yes — that’s her!”
The Governor stood very still. Only his eyes moved, watching her like a cat.
Nok planted her feet. She swept her bamboo staff out in front of her slowly, making the motions that signaled the start of a spire-fighting match.
A collective gasp went up from the crowd behind her. The Governor’s guards held their own staffs ready. Everyone knew what a skilled spire fighter was capable of, and the ones who had heard of Nok Sivapan knew just how skilled she was.
Nok looked into the Governor’s cold eyes.
“Everyone on this bridge is worthy,” she said. “And we’ve found our own light.”
Without breaking her gaze with him, Nok bent down and set her staff on the stone at her feet. Slowly, she backed away until she’d joined the front line of marchers, who were all watching her in shocked silence.
“Hey. Hey, Nok,” whispered a voice beside her.
She turned her head to see Somkit. He smiled at her and held out a Gold orb dangling from a string. Nok took it from him and held it up. Everyone in the crowd with orbs lifted them high.
The police exchanged confused glances and looked to the Governor for guidance.
He was seething. He raised his hands, and the tension on the bridge ratcheted even higher.
“You think you don’t need me?” he said calmly to the crowd.
The icy confidence in his voice made Nok tremble.
“You want to return to the way things were before? So be it.”
He swept one arm out to the east, over the rainbow lights of the city. His fingers spread wide. His arm shook. The air thinned and the temperature drop
ped. The Governor curled his fingers tight into his fist.
In that instant, every orb on the East Side of the river went dark.
Manit cut off his headlights and motor and coasted up to the base of one of the bridge’s stone pillars. “There’s a ladder there on the side of the pillar. You see it?” he said, pointing to the crumbling carvings. “It doesn’t go all the way to the top, but it almost reaches. If you can just climb the last few feet, you can swing yourself up over the side. I’ll stay down here and make sure nobody sees you from the water.”
Pong craned his head back to see the top of the bridge. “Okay,” he said, swallowing down the dizzy feeling rising from his stomach. “Here I go.”
He swung his arms and jumped from the boat onto the pillar, grabbing the ladder with both hands. The metal ladder had rusted, which made it easy to grip. He’d left his sandals in Manit’s boat, and his bare toes clung to the rough metal. The bridge wasn’t nearly as high as the cave ledge he had leaped from, but he still didn’t want to look down. He climbed past the timeworn carvings of dancers, and he imagined them whispering to him. Keep going, they said. Almost there.
Pong slowed as he neared the top, rehearsing the words he planned to say to the Governor. He didn’t have much more time to get them straight. Something was happening up on the bridge.
Someone was speaking in deep, rolling tones. It was the Governor. But what was he saying? Pong couldn’t make out his words.
He climbed up faster.
The Governor stopped talking. Suddenly, a girl’s voice cried out: “They do!”
The crowd above Pong gasped as one. Something had happened. What was it? The girl said something else, but it was too quiet for Pong to understand.
Pong had now reached the end of the ladder. He looked down. Surely Manit hadn’t left him, but Pong couldn’t see anything except the inky water beneath him.
He heard the Governor’s voice again, briefly, and then he saw something he never imagined possible.
The lights of Chattana went out.
Pong stared, openmouthed, at the eastern shore. The entire shoreline had gone dark. Above him, the crowd on the bridge cried out, and then he heard anguished wails coming from the place where the city should be.
The sight sent a tremor of dread through Pong. He had to hurry.
The few orb lanterns that lined the bridge were still lit, and the Gold orbs that the marchers carried cast just enough light for him to see where he was climbing. Slowly, Pong rose up on his toes and reached for the bridge railing. Using all his strength, he hauled himself up.
Pong paused with his face peeking up over the side. There was enough light for him to see, but enough shadows to hide him. The crowd of marchers whispered worriedly. The Governor stood a few yards to Pong’s left, just west of the bridge’s midpoint.
The Governor held both arms raised. He pointed his hand to the lamps above the bridge. He clenched his fist, snuffing the lights out one by one.
Pong quickly swung his legs up over the rail of the bridge and dropped onto the stone. The Governor pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and raised his right hand out over the crowd.
“You have made your choice.” The Governor glared at the crowd with cold certainty in his eyes. “You do not deserve my light!”
The air crackled. Pong’s scalp tingled as his hair rose on end. In the Governor’s right palm, a huge ball of light began to swirl, as blindingly bright as the center of a star. It swelled, bigger and bigger. People in the crowd cried out, but the bridge was too packed for anyone to run. The Governor reared his arm back, as if getting ready to hurl the enormous mass of light forward.
Pong’s heart sank. His plan wouldn’t work. There would be no talking, no reasoning with this man. Not even summoning Father Cham’s memory or showing him the bracelet would change his mind.
The bracelet!
Pong looked at the Governor’s left wrist. Yes, there it was: something that no one else had noticed. Something that even Pong had failed to observe those four years ago, when the Governor had been only inches away.
A braided bracelet, identical to Ampai’s, identical to his own.
May you bring the light back to Chattana.
Pong knew what to do. Shielding his eyes against the bright glare, he rushed toward the Governor.
Before anyone could notice him, Pong seized the Governor’s wrist and held on.
Pong’s hand was on fire. A fire with no flames.
As soon as he grabbed the Governor’s wrist, the raw light swirling in the Governor’s right hand went out, throwing the bridge into darkness. A surge of energy pulsed out from the Governor and flowed into Pong’s fingers. It was the strangest sensation: a burning without pain.
Pong kept his grip on the Governor as the Gold light flowed into his palm, down his left wrist and into his arm.
“What — what are you doing?” gasped the Governor, trying to pull away. But Pong did not let go.
The guards surrounding them started forward but then pressed back in fear as the tattoo on Pong’s left wrist began to glow.
A liquid Gold light flowed, trapped beneath Pong’s skin. The only place it could get out was through the letters of his tattoo. Thin lines of light streamed out of his prison mark. They shot out into the black night and reflected against the low clouds.
“Pong!”
Somkit rushed forward to help his friend. He grabbed onto Pong’s right arm to pull him back to the safety of the crowd. “Ah!” Somkit gasped, looking at his own wrist in shock. “What’s happening?”
Light flowed from Pong into Somkit’s hand. The same streams of Gold light poured from Somkit’s crossed-out tattoo.
The Governor growled like a beast and raised his other fist to strike Pong. As he brought it down, a streak of jet black shot out from the crowd. Nok flew to Pong’s side and crossed her forearms in front of her, blocking the Governor’s fist. In a classic spire-fighting move, she gripped his wrist in both her hands and twisted his arm back. And then she, too, gaped down at herself in shock.
Rippled beams of light shone out from the tattoo under her scarred skin.
The Governor cried out and shoved the children away from him. He tore himself free of their grasp and stumbled backward, out of their reach.
But even though they had let go of the Governor, the light coming out of them didn’t fade. Nok, Pong, and Somkit held on to one another, confused and awed at the light that still shone from their wrists. For a long moment, the three of them stood alone, glowing like human lanterns on the dark bridge.
And then the crowd came forward. Gently, timidly at first, they put their hands on the children’s shoulders. Then they reached for one another, holding hands, linking their bodies together. The gasps rippled through the crowd as one by one, each person felt the surge of light flow through them and burst out into the darkness. Even those without prison marks glowed softly, like paper lamps. The shouts of the people turned from shock to awe and then delight.
“Look at me! Oh, my goodness, look at you!”
“Can you believe it?”
“Look up, look up! I’ve never seen anything like this!”
The low-hanging clouds reflected the light that beamed from the bridge. The night was lit bright as daybreak, bright as their city. One after another, the guards on the west side of the bridge lowered their staffs. Some backed away and left. Others dropped to their knees in wonder, and a few joined the crowd and embraced their neighbors.
Pong stepped back from the crush of people, toward the bridge rail. A few steps away, the Governor stood staring at the mass of illuminated bodies. His face was twisted in fury. His chest rose and fell with angry breaths.
He raised his arm over the crowd just as he had before, when he’d snuffed out the lights of the city. He held his fingers outstretched and clenched them tight. When nothing happened, he did it again, and again. No matter what he did, he could not shut off the light that poured out of the people of Chattana.
P
ong met his eyes. “This light doesn’t belong to you,” he said.
A voice shouted, “Nok!”
A disheveled-looking Commissioner Sivapan broke through the line of kneeling guards and grabbed his daughter. They embraced, and then he lifted her up in the air. They laughed as he twirled her around and around. She held both hands overhead, like a little child, sending dazzling streams of light up into the sky.
Pong turned and spotted Somkit’s round face smiling at him from the crowd. Somkit held up his hand and flicked his fingers in and out of the beautiful beams. Pong smiled back.
As he took a step forward to join his friend, his body jolted to a stop. Two hands gripped his shoulders. The last thing Pong saw was the rage in the Governor’s eyes as he yanked Pong toward him, and then hurled him over the side of the bridge.
Years before, when Pong was a very small boy living at Namwon, every Sunday he and Somkit would sit by the river gate and watch an old man and his grandson on the riverbank near the prison.
The grandfather would slide his body into the water while his grandson sat on the shore with a basket. The grandfather would take a huge breath and then use the dock posts to push himself down under the surface.
Somkit and Pong would watch the grandson watching the water, waiting for the old man to come back up.
“What’s he doing?” asked Pong once.
“Crabbing,” said Somkit. “Down at the bottom, there are great big crabs crawling around in the mud.”
They waited and waited, and still the man didn’t come up. They kept waiting, but the man stayed submerged.
“Gosh, how does he know when he’s got one?” asked Pong.
“He just feels around until one clamps onto his fingers,” said Somkit.
And then, just when they were sure the old man had definitely drowned, he shot up to the surface, holding a gigantic black crab in his hands for the delighted grandson to put into the basket.
All Pong would think about was how terrifying it would be to be down at the bottom of the dark river, waiting to get pinched by the claws of scratchy-backed crabs.
A Wish in the Dark Page 22