The List

by Patricia Forde

  “I’ll untie the horse.”

  “No. Me. I do it. You go home.”

  “My turn.”

  “Go, man! Go home to your new mate!”

  They both laughed then. Letta scooped up water to wash the blood off her face. She heard the man retreat.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!”

  Then nothing. She waited. Had they both left? A few minutes more. Then the barrel jerked.

  “Hup, boy!”

  She felt the barrel being lifted. It swung right and left, then tapped off the wall of the tower, sending her flying. Her shoulder submerged in the water and then the barrel was swinging again. Right, left. She tried to move with it to lessen the impact. How much farther? She couldn’t bear to think how high the tower was. She had been afraid of heights all her life. She thrust the image away. Concentrate on the motion: Right. Left. Bang! The barrel hit the wall again. Her head bounced off the side. And then it stopped. She shifted position and the barrel swayed. She knew then that she was hanging from the rope at the top of the tower. Still outside the tower. She tried to remember what Marlo had said.

  The horse pulls the rope, and the barrel goes up to the top of the tower. There are two more men up there. They roll it in, open it, and tip the salt water into the tank to be cleaned.

  Were the two men still there, waiting for her barrel? Her heart raced at the prospect. If they were, they would open the barrel and tip her into the tank.

  She waited. Maybe she would be left here, forgotten. She had a vision of her dirty wet face staring up from the bottom of the barrel, swinging like a metronome, while life went on outside.

  Then another thought struck her. Had Colm managed to get the barrel up here and then been forced to leave? Would she be here all night waiting to be discovered in the morning? The minutes stretched. The cold was unbearable now. Her teeth were banging together, her jaw ached. And all the time, she was straining to hear something, anything.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been there. She tried hard not to move. Moving caused the barrel to swing and made her stomach lurch. And then suddenly, she felt a massive pull as the barrel was hauled to her right. She could hear the man grunting with the effort. She prayed it was Colm. Then a loud bang. Her body shuddered from the vibration.

  “There!” she heard the man mutter to himself.

  Was it the same voice? She couldn’t tell. Did he know she was in here? Maybe not.

  Footsteps.

  Footsteps receding.

  Then silence.

  She didn’t dare move. She had to be sure. Somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard a door slam. Had she imagined that? Wait. Patience.

  She counted slowly to one hundred. Then another hundred. Gingerly, she tested the lid. She pushed. It stayed firm. She pushed again, harder this time. Panic threatened to drown her in its wake. She knelt up in the barrel and with all her strength pushed against the lid. Crash! The noise was deafening as the lid flew off and landed on the steel platform.

  Letta cowered, covering her ears with her hands, all the stress of the past hours catching up with her. She waited for the whistles, the sound of running feet. But there was only silence. Gradually, her heart slowed. She placed her hands on the sides of the barrel and levered herself into a standing position. After three attempts, she managed to throw her leg over the edge and let herself fall to the floor.

  Only then did she take in where she was. The barrel stood on a narrow platform. The tower had a roof to protect the water from contamination, but there was a large gap in the wall behind her through which the barrel had come. It had stopped raining, but a bitter wind gusted through the opening, making her feel as if the entire tower was exposed to the elements. In front of her were two large tanks, one raised slightly higher than the other, both tanks filled to the brim with water. Pipes made from woven canvas connected the tanks. Letta had heard about the filters invented by the Green Warriors that allowed water to travel from one tank to the other but did not allow salt to pass through at all. The lower tank was the desalinated water, to which the warriors added chlorine. This was obviously where Noa would put the Nicene.

  A narrow walkway stretched between the tanks. To Letta, the walkway appeared to float there, with nothing on either side but a steep void.

  To her right, she could see a staircase leading down to the hall below. I have to get to the stairs, she told herself. Looking down made her dizzy, so she tried to look straight ahead. Carefully, with her back still pressed against the wall, she took off her boots, now sodden and heavy, cursing the vertigo that made everything so difficult.

  The knife was still there tucked inside her sock. She took it out carefully and laid it on the floor beside her. Then she took off her wet socks. Feeling her bare feet on the ground helped her feel more balanced. She picked up all her belongings, and slowly, never leaving the safety of the wall behind her, she headed for the stairs.

  When she got there, she sat on the top step and tried to catch her breath. She was sure she was going to be sick again. She knew it was illogical, but the feeling of standing up there, with nothing below, terrified her. Yet she had done it, she told herself, wiping the cold sweat from her face. She had done it.

  The staircase was a dilapidated structure with gnarled wooden treads and a rough banister. It stretched down to a cavernous space below, an entrance hall of sorts, whose floor was tiled with blocks of stone. There were two large windows on one wall checkered with small lozenge panes sunk in black lead. The walls were covered in flaking limestone plaster that had once been painted in a gray-green color. The only decoration was a circular slab of pure white marble, engraved with the image of a gray wolf’s head. Letta stared at it, transfixed.

  She would go down there, she thought, and find somewhere to hide and wait. Werber had been certain that there would be no one inside the tower at this hour. Besides, there was nowhere to hide upstairs with the tanks, and she knew she would be overcome with vertigo if she stayed. She walked down slowly, clinging to the old wrought-iron banister flaked with rust as the stairs curved in on themselves, making her feel disoriented and slightly dizzy. Beside her, a narrow window extended almost to the roof, but it was already too dark to see anything. Finally, she reached the bottom.

  A fluttering noise made her look up just in time to see a family of bats fly across the vaulted ceiling and disappear. On the wall opposite the large windows, she saw another door, almost invisible, flush to the wall, with only the shadow in the plaster betraying it. Carefully, she pushed against it and felt it give. A corridor stretched in front of her about twenty strides long. Her bare feet glided noiselessly over the stone floor. A few strides later, she noticed the flooring had changed. Now she was walking on cold marble. The paint on the walls was new, not flaking as it was everywhere else. The smells had changed too. Before, she had only smelled damp and decay. Now what assailed her nose was sharp and clean and medicinal. In front of her was a laboratory of some sort. Two long benches neatly arrayed with glass bottles of different shapes and sizes. The room itself had one long window on the far wall, with a wide ledge beneath it, but it was too high for her to see through. But best of all, there was a line of hooks on which hung three white suits. Boiler suits, she thought they were called.

  “Yes!” she muttered to herself.

  Within seconds, she had divested herself of all her wet clothes. She used one suit to roughly dry her body and then put on the second suit. It was too wide and too big, but she turned up the legs and arms and pulled it around her as tightly as she could. She was still cold, but she felt cleaner. She thought about putting the second suit on over the first one for heat, but she was afraid it would make her too clumsy. When the time came, she would have to be able to move quickly. She picked up the knife and sat on the ledge under the window to wait for Noa.

  • • •

  It was
time. The Green Warrior handed him the canister. He held it up to the light. It looked so innocent. But he knew its power. He had banked two full weeks’ worth of water. Man could only survive for one hundred hours without water. At first, the people of Ark would drink, going to the water stations as they always did. Then he would open the pipe in Tintown, where they would be grateful for the extra water. Finally, the Desecrators and the rebels in the forest would find the main pipe unguarded, and from it, they would steal what they needed. No force required from the government.

  The water would flush them out, driven on by their own thirst.

  He tried to imagine the days that would follow.

  The silence that would descend.

  Eternal silence.

  Chapter 24

  #150

  Dawn

  New light, early day

  The night passed slowly. It was cold in the old tower. Letta put her boots back on and shoved the knife in beside her bare foot. Then she crossed the hall again and perched halfway up the stairs. For the first hour or two, she sat waiting to hear a noise at the front door or see it move, but eventually, she relaxed. She had no idea if or when he would appear.

  Her body ached, her head was beaten and bruised from her trip in the barrel, but she blocked it out, trying to focus on what she had to do.

  She saw the dawn break. A soft shaft of light fell from the high windows. She stood up, and balancing on the tips of her toes, she managed to see the outside world through the narrow window. The sight below made her draw her breath in sharply. Out at the far boundary wall stood row upon row of people, a raggle-taggle army, strewn out in no particular order.

  The wall was high, and the very top of it was lined with shards of broken glass. But the rebels had scaled it. Even as she watched, a man appeared at the top of the walkway. An ally on the ground took a step back, then slung a metal hook with a rope attached in his direction. The hook found a hold, and instantly, the man shimmied down and jumped to the ground, joining his colleagues.

  There were no gavvers to be seen. In the dark of the night, the rebels must have taken care of the ones who had been on duty at the tower. But more would come. She was sure of it. Noa would not come here to do this final act without backup.

  A shiver ran through her. She tried to shut out the images of carnage that tormented her. The Creators were no match for the gavvers. She looked at the lines of people again. Creators, people from Tintown, all standing together, facing death. Above them, barely visible in the distance, was Noa’s house. Had he already seen them?

  She tried to find Marlo in the crowd, but the light wasn’t strong enough. She knew he was out there though, waiting.

  A slight movement caught her eye. She strained to see what it was. A gray wave coming across the fields. Gavvers. Had Marlo and the others seen them?

  The harsh sound of stone scraping on stone interrupted her thoughts. She was alert instantly. She stood up, bracing herself. Her hand went to her boot, and she pulled out the knife. She climbed the stairs, her feet clumsy on the pocked treads, never taking her eyes from the hall below.

  There it was again. No doubt this time. Stone moving. Stone growling somewhere beneath her. She looked down, just in time to see the gray wolf turn, to the right then to the left. As she watched, the marble circle was pushed up from beneath, and the stone slid to one side. The wolf had moved, and in the void beneath, Letta could clearly see the top of a man’s head.

  She looked up. The staircase seemed higher than she remembered it. She didn’t want to go back up there to the top of the tower, but she had no choice. Noa was about to make his entrance. Sweat broke on her forehead. She put her hand on the banister and started to climb the remaining steps.

  She had almost reached the top of the stairs before she glanced down again. In a pool of early morning light, she saw Noa’s hunched figure emerge from the hole in the floor. He straightened up, trembling slightly as though harried by some inner gust of air. And then a second head emerged. A head and then a body. Werber. He stood beside Noa like a startled ghost.

  “Stay!” she heard Noa say. “Let no one in.”

  “Yes, master,” Werber’s familiar voice floated up to her.

  If they looked up now, they would see her. She tried not to breathe. She put her foot on the next tread. Would it creak? She couldn’t remember. The tread took her weight with a slight groan. She stopped. Had they heard her?

  “No one comes up the stairs.” That was Noa’s voice. “Do you understand?”

  She climbed the last two steps quickly. Silently, she slipped through to the tanks.

  She thrust the knife into her pocket and made her way along by the wall. The empty barrel stood there, as if waiting for her. She crouched down behind it. Timber creaked beneath her. He was climbing the stairs. Was he coming up alone? She listened hard. One set of footsteps. That meant Werber had stayed below, as ordered.

  Her heart quickened. There it was again, another step and then another. He had reached the top of the stairs. Could he see her? She thought she heard him sigh.

  Then more footsteps, nearer now. Her body tensed. He stopped. There was an eerie silence. Moving stealthily, she peered around the side of the barrel. He was standing with his back to her, out on the walkway between the water tanks, looking down to where the clean water was held. His head was bowed as though he were praying, and he was holding something in his hand.

  Noa turned slowly. She could see the canister, the long fingernails splayed across it, its silver case glowing in the low light of the dawn. It would only take him a second to open it and poison the water. Gavvers could come at any minute, but for now, he was alone. She couldn’t stop him from here though. She would have to go onto the walkway. She stood up. She watched as his head pivoted in her direction.

  “Letta!” he said sharply, a deep frown furrowing his brow. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” she said.

  She moved along the wall, her eyes riveted to the scene before her.

  She was at the walkway now. How could she walk out there? There was no handrail. Nothing to hold on to. Nothing to stop her tumbling down…down…

  “Well, Letta?”

  She had to get closer to him.

  She stumbled forward, stepping onto the narrow platform. She dared not look down. Even so, she was intensely aware of the sheer drop on either side of her. The walkway seemed to swing up toward her, making her head spin. Black dots danced in front of her eyes.

  “Go back, Letta! Go back before you fall.”

  His voice was gentle, and she wanted nothing more than to obey him.

  “Look down, Letta!” he said. “See how high up you are. What if you stumble?”

  Don’t listen to him. Concentrate. I have to distract him, she thought. Keep him talking. She took another step. Every atom in her body was screaming at her to lie down on the ground, to curl up in a ball, eyes closed.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

  Even as the words left her lips, she heard a massive roar from outside. Orders were being given. Urgent commands. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but there was no mistaking the tone. The gavvers had reached the far boundary. Despite herself, her eyes went to the opening in the wall.

  “They will all die,” Noa said, following her gaze. “Like lambs to slaughter.”

  Lambs to slaughter. Marlo!

  The cold words crawled toward her like cockroaches.

  “Please,” Letta said, “listen to me. You may be powerful enough to destroy language, but even you are not powerful enough to bring it back. ‘Extinction’ is the saddest word of all. Benjamin told me that you told him that a long time ago.”

  Focus, she told herself. Focus! Don’t let him deflect you.

  “There must be another way,” she said, though her ve
rtigo was attacking her again, leaving her mouth dry and her head light.

  “No!”

  The word had the force of a bullet, making Letta take a step back. Her stomach lurched.

  “No. There is no other way. I cut out their tongues. I instigated List. Nothing works, Letta. Language is what makes man ungovernable.”

  Letta felt the blood rush to her face.

  “But it is also what makes us human and different to all other creatures on the planet.”

  She had to be near enough to him to grab the canister should the chance arise.

  Noa laughed.

  “Different? Do you know that we and the common fruit fly share the same biological structure? Not so different, Letta. But we are the only ones who can take an idea and plant it in the mind of another. Like the Desecrators did with you.”

  His voice trailed off. Letta struggled to line up the words in her head as she imagined the people outside were lining up their soldiers. The room was spinning around and around. She put her hands out to steady herself.

  “We need words,” she said. “Why can’t you see that? We can think because we have words. Without them, we won’t have memory to look at the past or imagination to glimpse into the future. Without words, we will be imprisoned in the here and now forever.”

  Noa shook his head. “Would that be so bad?”

  “Yes!” Letta shouted. “Of course it would. The here and now is only the smallest part of who we are. Each of us is all that we have been, all our stories, all that we could be. You of all people should know that.”

  Her throat constricted. Emotion was hitting her in waves, but she struggled against it.

  Noa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We won’t need words—”

  “Of course we will,” Letta threw back at him. “Words have the power to change everything.”

  Her voice cracked. She bit her lip, trying to steady herself. Her head was swimming, a cold soup of muddied thoughts.

  She could feel her body being drawn to the edge of the walkway. She had to keep talking.