The Invasion of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  “Do any of them speak it well enough to pass for Mort?”

  “Only Galen, really.” Mace’s brow furrowed. “What’s on your mind?”

  “We’re going back upstairs now, but not everyone. Two of you go down to the dungeon and bring me Javel. Try to wake him up a bit.”

  But an hour later, when Javel entered the Queen’s Wing, Kelsea was disappointed to see that his earlier apathy had not changed. He looked around without interest as Coryn escorted him to the foot of the dais, then simply stood staring at the ground. Where was the man who had attacked the burning cage, all alone, with an axe? Kelsea wondered whether she would have seen the real Javel on the day Thorne had broken into the dungeon. Ewen had been very cagey about what had happened down there, but Mace finally got the whole truth from him: if Ewen hadn’t intervened, Javel would have beaten Thorne to death with his bare hands. That was the man Kelsea wanted to see.

  She was pleased to notice that Ewen had at least left off Javel’s manacles. There was no need for restraint; Javel merely stood there, straight and beaten, as though waiting for his own execution.

  “Javel.”

  He didn’t look up, only replied hollowly, “Majesty.”

  “You’ve done me a great service in the capture of Arlen Thorne.”

  “Yes, Majesty. Thank you.”

  “I have pardoned you. You’re free to leave the Keep now, at any time, and go your own way. But I would ask you to stay and listen to a proposal.”

  “What proposal?”

  “I’m told that your wife went to Mortmesne in the shipment six years ago. Is this correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Javel replied listlessly. “Thorne said so. He said he could get her back. But now I think it was all lies, and she’s dead.”

  “Why?”

  “She was a pretty woman, my Allie. They don’t last long.”

  Kelsea winced, but plowed forward. “Was your Allie pretty and weak, Javel? Or was she pretty and tough?”

  “A damned sight tougher than me, Lady, though that doesn’t say much.”

  “And yet you think she couldn’t have survived six years in a Mort knockhouse?”

  Javel looked up, and Kelsea was pleased to see a hint of anger in his eyes. “Why say this to me, Lady? Do you wish to make it worse?”

  “I wish to see whether you still care about anything at all. Do you think your wife would be happy to see you here now, like this?”

  “That’s between her and me.” Javel looked around him, seeming to notice Coryn for the first time. “You said I was free to leave.”

  “So you are. The door is behind you.”

  Javel turned and walked away. Kelsea sensed Mace bridling beside her, but to his credit, he kept quiet.

  “What will you do now, Javel?” she called after him.

  “Find the nearest pub.”

  “Is that what your wife would have wanted?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Javel kept walking.

  “Don’t you want to find out?”

  He halted, perhaps ten feet from the doors.

  “I have ended the lottery, Javel,” Kelsea continued, staring at his back, willing him to stay still. “No shipment will ever leave this country under my Crown. But that doesn’t redress the wrongs of the past, the Tear already in Mortmesne. What do I do about all of them, all of those slaves? The answer is clear: I have to get them out.”

  Javel remained in place, but Kelsea saw his shoulders heave, once, an involuntary movement.

  “Lazarus is thinking that I have other things to worry about,” she continued, with a nod to Mace, “and he’s right. My people are starving and uneducated. We have no true medicine. On the eastern border is an army that will crush us into dust. These are real problems, and so for a time I’ve let the others lie. But here is where Lazarus and I differ a bit. He believes that avoiding the wrongs of the future is more important than righting the wrongs of the past.”

  “So it is, Lady,” Mace muttered, and Kelsea threw him a quick, pained grin. She wished that Father Tyler were still here; he would have understood. But he had already gone back to the Arvath.

  “Lazarus means well, but he’s mistaken. The wrongs of the past are not less significant, they’re just harder to fix. And the longer you ignore them in favor of more pressing issues, the worse the harm, until the problems of the past actually create the problems of the future. And that brings us back to your Allie.”

  Javel turned around, and Kelsea saw that his eyes were wet.

  “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that your wife is alive, Javel. Let’s say that the very worst has happened to her in Mortmesne, the most terrible thing that your imagination can conjure. Would you still want her back?”

  “Of course I would!” Javel spat. “Do you think it was easy, watching her carted off in the cage? I would do anything to change it!”

  “You can’t change it. And since you can’t, I ask you again: do you still want her back?”

  “I do.”

  “Then here is my proposal. You will go to Mortmesne with two of my Guard. I will arm and fund you. And if you can get your Allie out, then I’ll know it can be done.”

  Javel blinked, his expression doubtful. “I’m not a particularly good fighter, Lady. I can’t even speak Mort.”

  “And you’re a drunk,” Dyer remarked from the wall.

  “Shut up, Dyer!” Kelsea snapped, thinking of Barty. Barty, she now suspected, had been an alcoholic. There was no way to know for sure, but a thousand tiny hints had been scattered throughout her childhood. “Your drunkenness, Javel, is not my primary concern. I want someone committed to the enterprise.”

  “I only want my Allie back.”

  “That’s all I’m asking you for.”

  “I’ll go.” Javel’s eyes gleamed . . . not with life, not yet, but at least with some purpose. “I don’t know how it can work, but I’ll go.”

  “Good. Take a few days for yourself, get your affairs in order. Lazarus will be in touch.”

  Javel’s face fell; he had clearly meant to leave right then. Mace stepped forward and growled, “Do yourself a favor, Gate Guard, and stay out of the pubs. This will be a tough trick even with a clear head.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Good. Devin, escort him to the Gate.”

  Javel followed the guard out the door with wandering footsteps, as though unsure of where he was going.

  “You’re mad, Lady,” Mace muttered. “The ways that this can fail . . . I can’t even list them. And you want to send two of my best men along with that ass.”

  “When it fails, they do call it madness, Lazarus. But when it succeeds, they call it genius, and the genius will be yours, for I’m putting this entire operation into your hands. I want to know nothing more about it.”

  “Thank God for small favors.”

  Kelsea smiled, but as the doors closed, she whipped around sharply. “Dyer!”

  He came forward.

  “Your mouth is a fine source of amusement to me, Dyer. But that means nothing if you can’t learn when to keep it shut.”

  “I apologize, Majesty.”

  “You speak passable Mort, yes?”

  Dyer blinked. “I do, Lady. My accent isn’t wonderful, but I am fluent. Why?”

  Kelsea glanced at Mace, who gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Dyer stared at them for a moment, then groaned. “Oh, Lady, don’t tell me.”

  “You’re going, my friend,” Mace cut in. “You and Galen.”

  Dyer looked up at Kelsea, and she was surprised to see real hurt in his eyes. “Am I being punished, Lady?”

  “Of course not. This is important work.”

  “To break a single slave out of Mortmesne?”

  “Think bigger, you prick,” Mace growled. “I’m sending you over there. Do you really think you’ll have only one agenda?”

&n
bsp; This time, it was Kelsea who blinked, but she recovered quickly. If she was already looking further down the road, it was no surprise that Mace was doing the same. The Mort rebellion, it had to be; Mace had made it something of a pet project in his limited free time. Under his direction, the Crown had already sent several shipments of goods to the rebels in Cite Marche.

  “I apologize, Majesty,” Dyer said.

  “Accepted.” Kelsea glanced at her watch. “Is it dinner yet?”

  “Milla says thirty minutes, Majesty!” a new man called from the kitchen doorway.

  “Call me when it’s ready,” Kelsea told Mace, climbing off the throne. “All of you have worn me out today.”

  In her chamber, she found the portrait they had brought up from the gallery, now leaning against the wall beside her fireplace. Kelsea stared at it for a long moment, then turned to Pen.

  “Go away.”

  “Lady—”

  “What?”

  Pen splayed his hands. “Things can’t remain like this forever. We have to move past what happened.”

  “I have moved past it!”

  “You haven’t.” Pen spoke quietly, but Kelsea heard the low hum of anger in his voice.

  “It was a weak moment, and it won’t repeat.”

  “I’m a Queen’s Guard, Lady. You have to understand that.”

  “I understand that you’re just like every other man in the world. Get out.”

  Pen’s breath hissed through his teeth, and Kelsea was pleased to see real pain in his eyes for a moment before he retreated to his antechamber. But as soon as he pulled the curtain closed, she collapsed in her armchair, regretting her own words. Here had been a perfectly good opportunity to repair the situation, and she had thrown it away.

  Why must I be such a child?

  Looking up, Kelsea caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror and stiffened. She wasn’t a child anymore; the ground had shifted beneath her again. A pretty—though stern—woman stared back at her from the glass. Even by the soft light of the fire, Kelsea could see that her cheekbones had become more prominent; they seemed to shape her face, pointing it downward toward a mouth that had somehow become lush.

  Kelsea gave a croak of laughter. If she had a fairy godmother somewhere, then the old woman must be senile, for she was granting the wrong wishes, those that mattered least. The Tear was in a shambles and the Mort army had begun its assault on the border, but Kelsea grew prettier by the day.

  Maybe this is what I wished for, she thought, staring at the mirror. Maybe this is what I wanted more than any other thing. A phrase from one of Carlin’s books recurred: blood will tell. Kelsea thought of the portrait two floors beneath her, the smiling blonde woman with no care in the world beyond her own pleasure, and felt like screaming. But the face in the mirror remained serene, mysterious, just on the point of deepening into beauty.

  “True Queen,” Kelsea muttered bitterly, and heard her voice crack. Her reflection blurred for a moment, became indistinct. She blinked, confused, and then found herself fading, that curious sense of incipient otherness, of becoming someone else, which she had experienced before. She should call Pen, warn him that she was starting on one of her fugues, but humiliation overwhelmed her, and for a moment she could not find her voice. The power of this particular memory did not seem to fade with the passage of time; at any moment it could rise like the tide, swamping Kelsea and drowning her in an ocean of shame. Why should she tell Pen what was coming? It would serve him right if she blundered into a wall or a piece of furniture, if she injured herself on his watch.

  You are being utterly childish. These aren’t real problems. Lily has real problems. The Tearling has real problems. Your little dramas aren’t even on the map.

  Kelsea tried to shut the voice out, but it was too right to ignore, and for a moment she loathed the sensible side of herself, that pragmatic core that no longer allowed her even the luxury of throwing a tantrum. The room faded around her, rippling, and Kelsea felt a moment of wonder at how close the two worlds seemed to be. Lily’s life and her own . . . sometimes it seemed as though they lay right beside each other, perfectly aligned . . . as though Kelsea could step over some line and simply be in a different time, in the America that was gone.

  “Pen!”

  He appeared in moments, his face stiff.

  “I’m going,” Kelsea murmured. The room was fading away now, and as Pen approached, she found that he was fading as well, until she could look right through him, into a sunlit room.

  “It’s all right, Lady,” Pen murmured. “I won’t let you fall.” His grip on her arm was good, strong and comforting, but Kelsea sensed that, in time, even that would fade.

  Chapter 8

  Row Finn

  The Frewell administration liked to propound the age-old fiction that women were frail and indecisive creatures, badly in need of homes and husbands to give them structure and guidance. But even the most cursory glance at the late pre-Crossing suggests otherwise. American women were extremely resourceful in this period; they had to be, in order to survive in a world that valued them for only one thing. Indeed, many women were forced to create secret lives, lives about which we know very little, and about which their husbands certainly knew nothing.

  —The Dark Night of America, GLEE DELAMERE

  After two days, Lily had run out of books. Dorian was a voracious reader, and she went through Lily’s hidden stash like lightning. Lily offered her a pocket reader, but Dorian dismissed it with a contemptuous sniff. “All the e-books are edited and purged. I worked a stretch in a SmartBook factory, and the government people were all over the place, editing content. Stick with hard copies; they’re harder to alter after publication. In the better world, there won’t be any electronics at all.”

  The better world. Lily had thought it was only a slogan, something that the Blue Horizon used to make its deeds seem more innocuous. But now she wondered. The tall Englishman, Tear, had seemed so certain that it was real. “There is no better world.”

  “There will be,” Dorian replied calmly. “It’s close now . . . so close that we can almost touch it.”

  That was the same thing Tear had said. The words had the ring of religious rhetoric, but Dorian seemed too practical for that. For that matter, so did Tear. In the past couple of days Lily had done several online searches, but the information was very sparse. There was a birth record for a William Tear from Southport, England, in 2046, and eleven years ago, a William Tear had been awarded the Military Cross for heroism with the Special Air Service. Lily had assumed that the Special Air Service was the British version of the old American Air Force, but after some more research, she found that the American analogue to the SAS was actually the SEALs. Now she was certain she had the right man. She had met plenty of paramilitary types through Greg, and the men always projected an air of invincibility. Tear had given the same impression, but it was combined with something else, something close to omniscience. For a few insane moments there in the nursery, Lily had been sure that he knew everything about her.

  There was no other information on Tear, which seemed impossible. Lily could look up her friends’ drug prescriptions—the legal ones, anyway—their genealogies, their medical records, tax statements, even their DNA sequences, if she felt like it. But William Tear had been born, had served in the British special forces, and that was all. The rest of his life had disappeared. When Lily searched for Dorian Rice, she found the same thing. The results yielded countless news stories, but they had all been published in the last few days and dealt with the explosion at the airbase. Greg had said that Dorian had escaped from the Bronx Women’s Detention Center, but there was no arrest record online. There was no mention of Dorian’s family, no birth certificate. It was as though someone had literally wiped Dorian and Tear from history. But only Security had the power to remove things from the net; the days when citizens could edit their own information had vanished with the enactment of the Emergency Powers Act.

 
; Lily longed to ask Dorian about herself, but she didn’t want Dorian to know that she’d gone snooping. Dorian had stopped jumping at every little thing, but she still displayed an odd paranoia that came and went. She didn’t want to discuss William Tear; whenever Lily mentioned him, Dorian would snap, “No names!” making Lily feel as though she had blasphemed somehow. Dorian was able to sit up now, to make her way across the nursery, but she still froze whenever the phone rang, and she didn’t like to be touched. She insisted on doing her own injections.

  Tear wasn’t the only topic that was off-limits. When it came to the better world, Dorian remained maddeningly evasive, speaking in vague phrases and giving no real answers. Lily couldn’t tell whether she was holding something back; maybe Tear’s followers didn’t understand the better world either, maybe they were just as much in the dark. And yet Lily was desperate to know. The vision she had seen that night with Tear had taken hold in her mind: a vast, open land, covered with wheat and the blue ribbon of river. No guards or walls or checkpoints, only small wooden houses, people moving along freely, children running through wheat.

  “When does it arrive, this better world?” Lily asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dorian replied. “But I don’t think it’s very far off now.”

  On Sunday Lily had to leave Dorian alone to go to church, and she fretted through the service. She barely heard the priest’s lecture on the sins of a childless woman, although, as always, the priest looked right at Lily and the other delinquents in his congregation. Greg put a hand on Lily’s back, trying to convey sympathy, she supposed, but the deep gleam in his eyes made her uneasy. Greg was planning something, certainly, and it could be nothing good. For a brief moment she wondered if he was scheming to divorce her; even after the Frewell Laws, the government would still ease the way for rich executives who wanted to shed barren wives. But Lily was beginning to see something now that she had never seen before: to Greg, she was property, and Greg wasn’t a man to give property away, not even if it was damaged. Lily wondered if things would change someday, when she became irreparably childless.