The people in the coliseum were listless in their dusty, ragged clothing: shawls, skirts, scarves, and vests that had been bright and gay once, but now were only shrouds. The people who wore them looked little better: hollow-eyed, gaunt-cheeked, and thin, they sat by their fires and stared, or else they wandered—paced and hopped like crippled birds.
The Empire kept the Gypsies alive. Every day an armed contingent of soldiers came into the coliseum, walking straight forward like superstitious children walking into a graveyard, whose only hope of escape is to deny that the ghosts are there. They came armed, as though the weakened people of the Wandering Race were a threat to them, and they served something hot and sludgy, sometimes green but usually grey, from an iron pot they brought with them. Some days they gave out bread. Usually they brought water.
Every day Marja tried to collect two bowls of sludge, and every day they only gave her one. Sometimes they hit or shoved her so that her one bowl spilled out onto the sand. On those days, both she and Nicolas went hungry. When the soup wasn’t spilled, only Marja did. She would carry the soup carefully to the place where Nicolas lay on a pile of burlap sacks under a bench up one side of the coliseum, and she would tell him that she had eaten hers already because she couldn’t carry two bowls at once. He believed her and ate the soup, and it was good—because if he hadn’t, he might not have recovered from the beating the High Police had given him before sending their captives to the great theatre with all the others.
Marja didn’t starve, because an old Gypsy woman saw what she was doing and saved a little for her every day.
The Gypsies of the Seventh World were a people of song, but there were no songs—or stories, or even laughter—around the fires in the coliseum. So Nicolas grew stronger and Marja grew weaker, and the Wandering Race died by degrees under the leaden sky.
* * *
The Ploughman stood before his people in the great cavern he called the Hold. A ladder, fashioned in the Darkworld, leaned against one wall. The Ploughman climbed it so that he could be seen and heard by all. He looked down on the sea of faces, turned up to him in waiting. They were lined faces, grey and pale in the flickering torchlight, yet there was hope in their eyes.
Many of these men had stood with the Ploughman since his boyhood. They were his tenants, farmers from his land. He had long ago sworn to be a brother to them and not a lord. For that, they loved him. Some were old, some young. Women stood at the far end of the cavern, listening anxiously. Gypsies stood in family clusters, flashes of colour in the darkness. On the left, pale, large-eyed faces looked up: the faces of the Darkworlders. The Majesty’s seventeen sons were there, and the priest Divad, and others. And at the foot of the ladder, Libuse stood.
The Ploughman’s voice caught as he looked out at his people. He looked down to Libuse for strength. She smiled up at him. The torchlight brought out the gold in her light brown hair. The Ploughman took a deep breath and looked over the Hold again.
“My people,” he said. His voice faltered. He forced it back to compliance. “Over a season ago, many of you faced a threat to your families and to your lives. You stood with me, and together we overcame that threat. We determined to build a life for ourselves, and so you have done. You have carved life out of rock. None but you could have done it so well. Now there is a new threat. Once again I must ask you to fight with me. Once again we must take the battle to the enemy.”
He looked to the far end of the cavern. His eyes found Virginia’s. She stood in a dark doorway. Her eyes did not see him, though her face was turned to the sound of his voice.
“Have the High Police come?” a farmer asked. “We’ll beat them again. We’ll drive them out of the city.”
“My friend,” the Ploughman said, “I only wish it were that easy.” He heard himself continue. “In the battle above us, many of you saw creatures that were not of this world. Many of you lost brothers and fathers to their power. That Blackness is coming here once more, unless we cut them off before they can enter our world. To do that we must go to the place where the breach will be made and stop it. We must go to Athrom.”
There was silence for the space of a minute, and then voices clamored. The Ploughman held up his hands, but before they quieted, another voice rang out above them all. The lean form of Asa stepped out from the crowd.
“Tell the truth!” he said. His face was dark with storm clouds. The Ploughman met his eyes with difficulty. Something frightening burned in Asa’s amber eyes—something almost inhuman.
“Tell the truth,” he demanded again. “This isn’t about our colony. You have no proof any creature of Blackness will come here—only one woman’s word. This is about Gypsies.” Asa turned and faced the people in the Hold. “Word has come that the Gypsies are imprisoned in Athrom,” he said. “So the Ploughman will have us leave everything, leave our loved ones, just to save them.”
The Major stepped forward dangerously. “I wasn’t aware that you had loved ones, Asa. Sometimes I doubt if you even have friends.” The Gypsy leader raised his voice. “It is not merely that an entire race has been imprisoned. They are to be slaughtered. Can you leave them to that fate?”
“One woman tells you they will die,” Asa snapped back. “You are quick to believe her—a freak of nature who hardly believes herself. We cannot fight the High Police in Athrom. The Gypsies may not die if we leave them—we will certainly die if we don’t!” He faced the Hold and called out to the people, “What are the Gypsies to us? Why should we die to save them?”
Farmers and Darkworlders took up the call, shouting the questions like a battle cry. Gypsies in the crowd yelled back. The two groups seemed about to converge.
“Enough!” the Ploughman shouted. “Enough. Is it not enough that they are a people? That they are women and children and men, that they are hopes and dreams, that they are a generation descended from countless generations? If we let them pass from this world, then it is we who are less than human. Can we call ourselves men if we allow such a thing without even trying to stop it? I will not force any one of you to join the march on Athrom. It is a choice I leave to you. But I am going, if I have to go alone.”
In the momentary quiet created by his words, the Ploughman spoke again. “We have begun to build a new world here. Moments like these determine what sort of world we are building. Is this a place where mercy and brotherhood will rule? Or do we create for ourselves another Empire?”
The Darkworlders had pushed their way to the fore. Harutek spoke. “What proof have you that the Blackness will come here?”
The Ploughman looked down at the prince. “The word of a prophet,” he said. “And the testimony of my own heart. That is all.”
“We have long believed in prophets.” Divad, high priest of the Darkworld, stepped forward. “Such a threat is greater than your colony. If the Blackness comes here, they will destroy us as well. We have long waited for the day the Great War would begin again, for we wished to be on the right side. This would seem to be our chance to declare allegiance.”
“You have waited for the King,” the Ploughman said quietly. No one could hear him but those who stood close by—the Darkworld leaders and the Ploughman’s few friends. “But I fear he is not coming. At least not now.”
“It does not matter,” Caasi, Seventeenth Son of the Majesty, said. His face was impassioned. “We will fight with you.”
“Caasi, hold your peace,” Harutek answered. “Our father…”
“Must agree,” Caasi said. He turned back to the Ploughman. “Ride into Athrom, Sunworld leader. I will go with you, and an army of Darkworlders behind me.”
“No!”
Caasi turned to see Asa coming toward him. The dark man’s face held more than anger now. Fear was etched across it. “No,” Asa repeated. “The Blackness is great and powerful. You will be destroyed. If you cannot stop them…”
“Asa, my friend,” Caasi said. “When we sat in my father’s chambers you spoke of great and noble things. Why this change?”
“Indeed, Asa,” the Ploughman said. He descended the ladder and stood before the men. “You have never opposed me before—not openly. You have worked alongside us. And I have even heard you say that we are cowardly to remain here without acting. Do your opinions always change so quickly?”
Asa cowered before the rebel leader. Before he had always been tall; now he seemed to shrink into the ground. “You do not know,” he said. Even his voice was changing. He sounded unlike the man they had known—unlike any man at all. “You do not know what the Blackness is.”
The Ploughman took a step closer. “Do you?”
Asa made no answer. The Ploughman stretched out his hand. “Take my hand, Asa, and pledge faith to me. I will not force you to fight, but what I see in your face disturbs me. Proclaim allegiance, and I will trust you. If you do not, I cannot allow you to live freely here.”
“My lord, that is harsh,” Caasi said. “He may be a coward, but to imprison him…”
“No one forced him to come here,” the Ploughman said.
They were interrupted as the crowd parted. Virginia approached on Maggie’s arm. The seer’s green eyes were fixed on Asa. She walked forward slowly, fingers outstretched. The strange man towered above Virginia, yet he shrank from her. For a moment it seemed that he would bolt, but his feet stayed where they were. She reached him and touched his face with her sensitive fingers.
“He feels like a man,” she said to herself. “What is your name, you who have questioned my sight with so much fear?”
Asa crumpled to his knees. His voice was quiet and craven. “Undred the Undecided,” he said.
“You must choose,” Virginia said. “Creature of light or creature of darkness. Take allegiance, Undred. Your time has come.”
For a long time Asa remained frozen on the ground, staring up at Virginia with eyes full of conflict. Her fingers were still on his face. He stretched out one hand toward her and held it in the air, shaking.
“My friend?” Caasi asked.
Asa’s eyes shifted to the Darkworld prince and back to Virginia. Virginia let her hand drop to her side. Asa turned to face the Ploughman. He shook his head. “You don’t know,” he said, his voice a rasping half-whisper. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
The Ploughman spoke quietly, but his voice carried to his men. “Take him away,” he said. “Lock him up.”
Two ex-farmers stepped forward and took Asa by the arms. He hissed, a strange sound that echoed in the cavern and caused the lines of concern on the Ploughman’s face to deepen. The leader held up his hand as the men began to take Asa away. “Treat him kindly,” he said.
Caasi turned to the Ploughman, about to speak. Harutek stopped his brother with a hand on his shoulder. “Later,” the prince told his younger brother.
The Ploughman turned back to his people. “As long as the Empire has existed, the Gypsies have been free. They are imprisoned now in Athrom, and the Emperor will kill them if he can. We have been warned that such an evil will destroy us also, and I believe it is true. But even if it is not—I fear that, if we do not go, our hearts will be destroyed.”
Silence answered him. Libuse’s eyes were filled with tears, but she made no move to go to him. The Ploughman scanned the crowd, the faces that he loved and admired. Faces that looked to him to lead them.
“I go to Athrom,” he said. “Make no decision now. If you will come with me, make yourself known by tomorrow.”
He turned away, bowing his head so that no man could catch his eye. His stride was as strong as ever—stronger, perhaps, than it had been of late. As he left the cavern, he stopped to take Virginia’s hand.
“I have heeded your warning,” he said.
That night, the Ploughman brooded in his alcove, alone with his thoughts and his lady. She sat in silence, watching him, simply being the strength he needed. She shared his worry, his deep concern for his people, yet as she watched him, she smiled to herself. His strength had returned. It seemed she could almost see the old golden power hovering in the air around him.
So many things to worry about. The people—the decision they would make. The future of the colony seemed to lay in that decision. And then, if they did what was right and chose to go with their leader, the very real possibility of dying in Athrom.
A righteous death, Libuse thought. Golden. One her ancestors would be proud of.
The Ploughman said nothing, yet she could almost read his thoughts. He thought of the Darkworld, of the Majesty; he wondered what that aged ruler thought of his sons and their hasty allegiance. He wondered if Caasi’s promises were empty, or if he had become the catalyst the Majesty feared. If the Darkworld went to Athrom, it would truly change them forever. He worried about Asa—Undred the Undecided, locked away as the first prisoner of Pravik.
Outside of the alcove, a man cleared his throat. The Ploughman looked up, firelight glowing on his face. Libuse stood and moved to the door, drawing aside the curtain that separated them from the rest of the colony. A burly man, more pale and thin that he had been above ground, but still like an oak in his stature and manner, bowed slightly.
“My lady,” he said, his voice deep and quiet. “Will you give this to the Ploughman?” He held out a piece of paper, rolled tightly and bound with string.
“Of course,” Libuse said.
The man bowed again. “Thank you, my lady.”
She let the curtain fall, handing the paper to the Ploughman without a word. He took it and unrolled it in the light of the fire. His eyes scanned the parchment quickly, then returned to the top to read it again. He smiled. When he looked up at her, she could read relief in his eyes.
“They will go with me,” he said. “All.”
Libuse felt her heart leap, but she only smiled. “Thank the King,” she said.
* * *
Moll and Seamus stood on either side of the bed where Archer lay. Master Skraetock held out his bony hand. Archer took it. With Skraetock’s help he stood and took three steps through the train car. The children grinned at him with delight. He smiled back, and the smile tugged at the deep scratches on his face.
“Easy now,” Master Skraetock said. “Don’t overdo it. The infection may come back again.”
Archer nodded and looked around him. The slight smile on his face faded. “Where is Kieran?”
The children’s expressions changed in an instant. Moll started to answer, but Master Skraetock did first.
“He is gone, Archer.”
Archer looked around vainly, scanning the faces that looked at him, searching the shadowed nooks of the car.
“Gone?” he asked.
“He disappeared,” Seamus whispered. “The same day you got hurt.”
Archer pulled his hand away from Skraetock and wheeled on the Master. “Bring him back,” he said.
“I can’t,” Master Skraetock said. “I don’t know where he is.” But Archer heard the undercurrent in the Master’s voice—the unspoken meaning. They understood each other, the Master and Archer O’Roarke. They knew the truth.
The Nameless One had done it.
“What has he done?” Archer said, a sob welling in his chest.
“Children,” Master Skraetock said, “go now. Leave us alone for the moment.”
The two children who remained turned and left the car. Moll was crying, and Seamus held her hand as they left. When they were gone, Skraetock shut the door behind them and looked sadly at Archer.
“There was nothing I could do,” he said.
“Why?” Archer asked. “What would he want with Kieran?”
“I am not sure what you mean,” Master Skraetock said, in that veiled way that meant he knew exactly—that he knew the Nameless One was behind it all; that he had—had killed Kieran.
“I will take revenge,” Archer said.
Skraetock had his hand on the door; his back turned to Archer. “You are a child,” he said. “What can a child do?”
Archer closed his eyes, fists knotted. A tear slipp
ed out. He remembered Kieran’s words.
Maybe if we learn and become powerful, we’ll be strong enough to get away. We won’t be children anymore. We’ll be older. And strong.
The voice in his mind changed. It hummed the anthem Archer had heard every night since it was first spoken. Join us. You must join us.
“If… the fire…” Archer whispered.
Master Skraetock turned slowly. “What did you say, boy?”
“I want to be a man,” Archer said. “Like Michael and Kris of the Mountains. I don’t want to be a child anymore. Can the fire make me a man?”
In an instant the room was aflame. The fire was blue. It licked up the car all around Archer, but it did not burn. He shrank from it and heard Master Skraetock say, “The fire will make you anything you want to be.”
Inside of himself, Archer felt another fire rising to meet the one that blazed around him. It was not quite strong enough to reach the surface.
But that, he knew, could be changed.
* * *
The iron serpent roared over the tracks. In the engine room, amidst the coal and the heat, Michael, Stocky, and the others knew only sweat and heat, glare and backache, but they shoveled coal, and the engine screamed with power. Andrew’s lip split in the heat; Patrick’s face turned brown. Their eyes shone with determination.
Around them, the forests of Galce gave way to the open fields of Italya. The roads were quiet, yet a dark spirit seemed to hover over them—a spirit of sorrow and loss. In the heat of the engine room, Michael suddenly shivered.
“Are you cold, Michael?” Stocky asked incredulously. “Go sit down, man.”
In answer, Michael picked up a shovelful of coal and threw it into the fire. “We have to find them,” he said.
* * *
The day came that Nicolas could walk, if he limped a little; and his voice was strong enough to do what he wanted it to.
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