by Andrew Post
“I am,” Clyde announced, fighting a smile. “But I won’t take Gorett’s place. Not until it’s official.”
Nevele looked perplexed at his answer, but Clyde gave her a stealthy wink.
Someone shouted, “Why should we trust him?”
“So you’re going to continue to chase Gorett, the bugger?” Flam’s voice boomed from somewhere way in the back.
Clyde was glad Flam was aiding him in this way but wasn’t too pleased with the question. But it was a good move. Send out a question that involved action instead of suspicion, and that would surely prick up more ears. When Clyde answered, he focused on Nevele.
She looked back at him, nodding encouragingly as he spoke.
“No, I’m not going to chase him. And I’m not going to take the throne, either. Gorett can run all he wants. He can even return with the Odium in his allegiance if he desires. Given enough time, Geyser will be strong enough for any foe, with all of you back safe and sound now . . . I will never make any of you leave your homes.”
Far back, beyond even Flam, Greenspire and his group of skittish underlings edged back out of the hall, went to the doors, and quietly excused themselves. They left the hall but didn’t turn left toward the palace’s exit. They were going deeper into the palace, but what for?
Clyde realized he was getting distracted. “There . . . there will be plenty of time for all that. I think this is just the beginning of a new age for Geyser. And unless you’re a weaver who can see the future, no one knows what’ll happen next. And to be honest with you, I like it better that way. We’ll just take it as it comes. Whatever Gorett does, we’ll be a reaction to it. We’ll not seek him; nor will we invite him to fight us. We’ll take it one day at a time.”
For a moment or two, everything seemed good, the crowd at ease.
But then things took a strange turn.
A middle-aged woman toward the front stepped forward. “My son was killed by the Odium. Don’t his killers need to be brought to justice?” She held a bloodstained knit cap with limp, dangling straps.
Clyde clutched the arm of the throne. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am, and I assure you we will find the individual or individuals responsible and do something about it. Geyser, as I understand it, had a court system, and at once we’ll get that up and running again and—”
Another voice. “What about my husband? He died trying to keep those hateful men from burning down our house.”
His face felt hot. “Again, if and when they return—”
A man cried out, “So you’re not going to chase them? You’re just going to let them show up and do what they did again? I thought this city was going to be safe. I thought you said—just a minute ago—that things were going to be different!”
More people cried out.
“We have to do something.”
“I won’t live here if I can’t send my kids to school without wondering if they’ll ever come home to me!”
“We can’t let them continue to do this!”
“If you choose to do nothing, you’re a fraud. Pyne never would’ve sat back and let them come to us!”
The room erupted into cheers.
Clyde simply stared at this sea of angry faces.
Nevele was covertly waving him on.
“One at a time,” he said.
No one stopped shouting.
Clyde raised his palms, his hands twin white blossoms unfurling as he stretched his fingers out as far as they’d go. “One at a time.”
When they noticed him, the noise tapered off and soon the hall was silent again.
“One at a time,” Clyde began for a third try, “tell me exactly how you feel.”
“What good will that do, huh? Will it mean you’ll actually do something?” one sweaty man barked. “Because talk is cheap, and after what Gorett put us through, we’ve had more than enough of that shite.”
A few bellowed their agreement.
Looking at that man, balding and hollow in the cheeks, Clyde drew a deep breath. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he said as pleasantly as he could, “I’d like it very much if you went first, sir.”
The man scoffed. “And do what? Tell you how I feel? What I—?”
“Yes.” It felt rude, but Clyde had to interrupt. Otherwise, they’d be there all night.
The man softened slightly, but he still looked wary. “And will that bring back my house, my job?”
“No, it won’t. But to make progress, to get over any problem, one has to go about things with the right mindset. We can’t hope to get back the things we lost”—for a flash he saw Mr. Wilkshire’s face—“but all we can do is move forward. And that, I know, is hard to do. Quite possibly one of the hardest things to do that there ever was. But it cannot be done with a head full of bad thoughts, regrets, anger. And while I won’t take the throne, I’d still like to be a person of service. I’d like to help all of you the best I can. And that is all I can promise—that I’ll always be here to help.”
Nevele moved forward, took one step onto the dais, and turned around to face the group. “Gorett couldn’t take the city from us. We’re Geyserians. We know what it means to be a tough lot. Spend a couple of summers up here, and you’ll know that.”
The people, ever so quietly, let out chuckles.
“And Clyde is a Pyne. He’s technically next in line for the throne, but he doesn’t want it. He wants to help all of you first because that’s more important than any . . . stupid chair.” She waved dismissively at the throne.
“Just give him a chance, okay? I know a lot of you folks know me, have seen me around, and even if you don’t trust weavers, ask a certain Mouflon at the back of the room and you’ll learn that anyone can have their mind changed. Give him a try, okay? Just . . . talk to him, and you’ll see.”
The man wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. “What’ll happen to us when we get our concerns off our chests, though? Will we—?”
Clyde stepped forward. “You’ll feel better. That’s all that’ll happen.”
Nevele angled herself close to Clyde’s side and whispered in his ear, “You’re about to have a few thousand people telling you all sorts of things. I hope you know that. I mean, is it going to work, even? What about the people who are just mad and didn’t do anything wrong? I thought you were a conscience sponge, not a . . . grump sponge.”
The crowd shifted, talked among themselves.
Flam, all the way in the back, offered a wave.
Clyde peered at the man at the front, still sweating, but his face was somber and his eyes at half-mast, a mask of impatience. He wanted answers—and he deserved them.
“All I can do is try,” Clyde said. “One at a time, please come forward and state your concerns.”
The surging crowd began to form a line.
Clyde sat on the top step of the dais and listened to each concern, Nevele next to him. After a few minutes of elbowing, Flam sat at his other side. They heard them out one at a time. As they mentioned the names of those they’d lost, Flam pricked his tongue and jotted down the names on a piece of parchment from his satchel.
Each story was sadder than the last. Some people confessed to having looted their neighbors’ houses. Some confessed having set up friends to take the fall for their own crimes. Some even breathlessly admitted to murder, unraveling horrid and sad stories of vengeance.
It was dawn by the time the last person finished speaking with Clyde and departed.
Flam had fallen asleep a few times, and Nevele had long ago run her hands ragged from all the seamstress work she’d performed—a small service she offered to those waiting in line.
Exhausted, Nevele fell onto Clyde and rested her head on his shoulder.
He put his chin on the crown of her head and threw an arm around her. Outside, beyond the open doors, he could see that hardly anyone had gone home. Everyone was still outside on the palace lawn. He heard laughter, story swapping. They were not at all the same crowd they had been.
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He just hoped they would not suspect him of causing the epidemic of untied shoelaces and random tripping for the next week.
Even if they did, he’d take it in stride. He had his friends to help him now.
Epilogue
Landing Is the Hard Part
The citizens returned to their homes, power restored. Banners on every post called for strong men and women, fabrick weavers or not, to come to the palace to take up arms against the inevitable return of Gorett. Clyde had appointed himself the steward, the temporary holder of the throne, until it could be officially reclaimed. The title of Executioner was retired altogether, but Tiddle Flam felt quite comfortable being known as Sir Flam, Chief Security Officer of the Patrol.
Nevele reprised her role as the Royal Stitcher, mending and repairing clothes not only for the palace workers but offering her services as a seamstress to the townsfolk as well, even setting up a shop in the town square. Margaret’s Mends, it was called.
It was there that Clyde found her the day he stopped by the blacksmith’s to pick up Commencement, a sword once again. The smithy on duty had warned him when taking on the project that doing this would weaken the metal, but Clyde didn’t care. He would lead by example, even if the Odium would continue to use guns. When he’d given the thirty spots to the smithy for the work, he’d said, “Only bad guys use guns.”
Nevele came around from behind the counter. Every wall of her shop was crowded with the various types of garments she could create. Enormous spools of thread in varying colors and types hung throughout, the strands running every which way about the shop in a system only Nevele understood.
She was still wearing bandages on her face and neck to cover the sections of herself that she hadn’t been able to retrieve. They would grow back in time. Though she was, for now, incomplete, she was in the habit of sweeping back her hair. Accept it, she seemed to say each time. I have.
She’d been busy. So many citizens had lost their homes and, with them, their clothes. She clearly found peace in her part-time role outside of the palace as entrepreneur. She’d even found time to assemble a new wardrobe for herself. None of her new clothes had hoods, including the gown she now wore.
“How’s it feel?” she said, tugging at the hem of Clyde’s new embroidered jerkin, complete with ox hide shoulder pads and silk cuffs. Geyser fashion was always strange, but Clyde felt it necessary to appear as a man of the people.
“I adore it. But honestly, I miss the tails.”
She laughed, cupping his cheek. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “I kind of do.”
“Well, the next one, then, maybe.” She noticed the sword at his back. “Is that it?”
“Yep.” He drew Commencement from its sheath—careful to not slice any of Nevele’s new garments hanging around him. He offered it to her to hold. “This is it.”
“They kept the handle.” The swirling souls were still there, the only part of Commencement Clyde insisted they not rework for fear of losing its original artistry. “It’s heavy.” She weighed the longsword resting in her open palms. “But I suppose that’s appropriate, given its history and all.”
He developed a faraway look in his eyes.
She smiled and touched his arm.
Clyde snapped to, nodded, smiled. “Yes.”
“Hey, look at me. You’ll do fine.”
“I know. And so will you.”
She smirked. “I am already doing fine.”
She set the sword aside and sent her threads to the corners of the shops, pushing the drapes closed one by one. When they had sufficient privacy, she pulled her to him by his tunic and brought their lips to collide.
The bells rang outside the shop, marking the noon hour. Music played from street performers entertaining the lunch crowd seated at sidewalk cafés. Autos rumbled past Margaret’s Mends as the steward and the Royal Stitcher shared a kiss.
After closing up shop, they would return home to the chateau and share a moment in the garden, standing side by side while looking at the grave among the rosebushes and sculpted hedges made to look like dragons, enormous rabbits, and the like.
They would share tea there, mint of course, making sure to add the sugar before the tea, a tradition.
They would watch Rohm assemble igloos on the tabletop with sugar cubes and ask his permission before taking one for the next cup of tea.
And before the first sip of each fresh cup, Clyde and Nevele would raise their cups to their friend Albert Wilkshire.
Awake.
Awake and . . . wet? Aksel tried to sit up and found every square inch of his body was being stabbed simultaneously by what he could only imagine to be a million tiny spears. Looking around, he decided he hadn’t landed in some thorny hell for his afterlife but had splatted squarely in a patch of cacti.
He hadn’t had much choice where he landed, but he had to admit falling in this cactus patch was slightly better than slamming arse first into the Lakebed’s rocky floor. He tried three times to sit up and finally made it.
After moving himself around so that he was on his hands and knees on the shattered heap of cacti, he ducked and weaved through the branches until he could see soil that didn’t have something pokey growing out of it. Before long, he was cut to ribbons, but soon the thorns didn’t bother him so much. The pain in his hand was much worse, after all.
Every few steps, he’d look at it: Dreck’s mark in his palm. Bright red and already scabby, the one-by-one-inch square in his palm would scar. But until then, every little breeze and accidental bump made it come alive as if he were giving a high five to, well, cactus thorns.
He got lost in the patch more than once. The problem was that the farther he crawled, closer to the outermost edge, the larger the thorns became. Three times he had to stop and reevaluate his path. He looked around. Forward. Just keep going. Exactly as he’d told Ricky when they’d been chained to the stationary bikes. He took his own advice and barreled on, one agonized pull at a time.
Light up ahead. He chased it.
He felt like the cacti patch spit him out, as if it were birthing him.
Sunlight poured over him, and he lay in it, flat on his back. He laughed stupidly. Happy, in the face of all.
Here he was, ending up just as Moira said he would if he chose not to help her and Karl. Without weapons, in the desert, shoeless. He double-checked if he was in fact shoeless, because he’d certainly have a laugh if he were. Well, he had one boot on still. So that much was a step up. He laughed some more.
But his laughing subsided.
Ricky.
He didn’t get expelled from the camp; he didn’t volunteer for the nomad’s life. He got killed. Aksel couldn’t help but blame himself for that.
He got to his feet and turned to the cactus patch. Carefully—very carefully—and with the foot that still had the protection of a boot on it, he kicked one of the half-broken limbs until it snapped free. He upended the thing, ignoring the pricks it gave his palms, squeezed despite the pain, and drank the surprisingly tart cactus water.
A strange breeze tickled his face. Feeling for his eye patch, he confirmed that it too had been lost. “Come on.”
Of course, patch or no, he was better off than he was before. Sure, he was penniless, cast out of the Odium after being in their service for less than three hours, but still, he was alive.
Neck Steve was dead, killed by Aksel’s own hand. That was no good. Aksel would have the hardest time of all with that, he knew. He wasn’t the first man he killed, but he’d try to make damn sure from this point on he was the last. He would’ve preferred Dreck to occupy that position. Even falling to what he assumed was his death at the time, Aksel had scolded himself for barely winging the pirate.
He tossed the drained cactus aside, wiped his chin with the back of his wrist, and looked to the sky. There would be no way to summon a ride from down here. And by the look of his immediate surroundings, there was nothing to see whatsoever. He
turned in a circle, just to verify. Yep. Nothing. No people, buildings, vehicles. His shoulders dropped, and he blew out a sigh.
“Quite the fall.”
Aksel gasped and spun—his DeadEye telescoping out.
Moira stood before him, Karl at her side. Karl snapped some device shut—undoubtedly what they were using to follow him—and pocketed it.
But how? Oh, right. They hadn’t removed the DeadEye to disarm him. They’d removed it to make an addition onto it.
Aksel groaned and turned away. Where could he dramatically stomp off to? They were in the middle of nowhere. He turned back to face them, sighed in frustration. His DeadEye ratcheted back into his head, and he closed the eyelid over it. He sized up Moira and Karl, letting it be known in his face he wasn’t happy about how things had gone with his time as a pirate.
Moira wasn’t wearing any sort of hood. Too windy out here to keep one up, anyway. Her face was like a freshly bleached tunic. Her eyes were like black marbles from corner to corner. She swiped raven hair behind her ear. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but her lips—just a touch pinker than the rest of her—remained closed.
He tried to play off the startle of seeing her unhooded but doubted it was effective.
“You did well,” Karl said.
“You call that well? Were you not watching? They threw me out of the ship, man.”
“Still,” Karl said pleasantly, “you did well.”
“How do you know? I haven’t even told you anything yet.”
Moira took a moment before saying, “You didn’t have to.”
Aksel’s brow furrowed. “You knew what was happening? The whole time?”
She offered a small nod.
“Well, in that case, thanks for all the help.” He snapped off another piece of cactus and squished it in his palm to use its water to wash his face. “Really. I mean . . .” No sarcastic line found him. Ricky was dead, and Aksel had barely escaped with his life. The reality of it hit him now. Hard.
He had to sit.
Karl stayed put, but Moira stepped closer. She moved her cloak to one side so she could kneel in front of him, revealing a black flight suit underneath. She was small. She said nothing, just stared at him.