The Invasion of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  “Lazarus.”

  “No. Not the name they gave you in the ring. Your real name.”

  He stared at her, stricken. “Who—”

  “What’s your name?”

  Mace blinked, and Kelsea thought she saw a bright sparkle in his eyes, but a moment later it was gone. “My first name is Christian. I don’t know my surname. I was born in the Gut, to no parents at all.”

  “Fairy-born. So the rumors are true.”

  “I will not discuss that phase of my life, Lady, not even with you.”

  “Fair enough. But you will clean the place out.” The room wavered before Kelsea’s eyes, torchlight becoming electric for a moment before fading back. She wanted to see . . . she didn’t want to see . . . she heard Lily screaming. Kelsea clenched her fists, willing the past away.

  “You talk like one condemned, Lady. What do you mean to do?”

  “We’re all condemned, Lazarus.” Kelsea’s head jolted as a blow landed across her face. Lily was beginning to lose hope; Kelsea could feel despondency creeping in, a deadened numbness that echoed all through her mind. “You might need to take me back up, Lazarus. I don’t have long.”

  “We can go back through the tunnels.” Mace played with the wall for a moment, opening one of his many doors. “Where do you go in your fugues, Lady?”

  “Backward. Before the Crossing.”

  “Backward in time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you see him? William Tear?”

  “Sometimes.” On her way through the door, Kelsea reached up to touch her mother’s canvas, the painted hem of her green dress, feeling rogue regret surface in her mind. No matter how hard she tried to hate the smiling woman in the portrait, she would have liked the chance to speak to her, at least once. “You knew my mother well, Lazarus. What would she have thought of me?”

  “She would have found you too serious, Lady. Elyssa wasn’t one to feel anguish on behalf of others, let alone of circumstances that couldn’t be changed. She surrounded herself with similar people.”

  “Was my father a good man?”

  A pained expression darted across Mace’s face, then was gone, so quickly that Kelsea might have imagined it. But she knew she had not. “Yes, Lady. A very good man.” He gestured into the darkness. “Come, or I’ll end up carrying you. You’ve got that look about you.”

  “What look?”

  “Like a drunk about to pass out.”

  With a last glance at her mother’s portrait, Kelsea followed him into the tunnel. Through the walls, she could hear the murmur of many voices, even in the middle of the night, people too worried to sleep. They were all in equal danger now; lowborn or highborn, the army outside the wall would not make distinctions. Kelsea tried to picture the coming dawn, but could get no further than the end of the New London Bridge. Something was blocking her vision. Burning fire spread through Kelsea’s arms, a tingling pain that moved on to her chest before attacking her legs. The pain intensified, and Kelsea halted in the darkness, unable to move. She had never felt anything like this; each nerve in her body seemed to have opened up wide, become an infinite conductor.

  “Lady?”

  “Make it stop,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears leak beneath the lids. Mace fumbled for her in the dark and Kelsea grabbed his hand, clung like a drowning man. “I don’t want to see.”

  She couldn’t hold herself up; it felt as though her nervous system had collapsed. All muscle control had gone from her legs. Mace grabbed her, lowering her softly to the ground, but the pain didn’t stop. Every cell seemed to be on fire, and Kelsea screamed in the darkness, writhing on the rough stone.

  “Take them off, Lady!”

  Kelsea felt him tugging at the chains around her neck, and she slapped his hand away. But she didn’t have the strength to fight him off. None of her muscles were working correctly, and the pain controlled everything. She tried to roll away, but could only wriggle helplessly on the floor.

  “Quit, dammit!” Mace dug a hand beneath her neck and lifted her head from the floor. Strands of hair ripped from her scalp.

  A warning, the dark part of her mind whispered. That’s all he needs.

  She concentrated on the hand that held the sapphires, first pressing, then digging. Mace grunted in pain, but did not let go, so Kelsea clawed at him now, opening up scratches.

  “I know how valuable your hands are, Lazarus. Don’t make me take them from you.”

  Mace hesitated, and she pressed even harder, digging inward toward the muscle until he swore and scrambled away.

  Kelsea pulled herself into a sitting position, then rested her head on her knees. The pain had begun again, in her legs this time, and she realized now that she had no choice. Lily’s time was an open doorway, and there was no going halfway through.

  “Lazarus,” she croaked into the dark.

  “Lady?”

  “I’m going back. I can’t stop it.” She stretched out on the floor, feeling the blessed coolness of stone against her face. “Don’t try to take them off while I’m gone, either. I’m not responsible for what might happen.”

  “Keep telling yourself so, Lady.”

  She wanted to snap at him, but now Lily was upon her, Lily’s mind slipping inside her own the way a hand would slip inside a perfectly fitted glove. The pain had faded again; Lily had taken refuge in her own imagination, her vision of the better world, fields and a river seen from atop a hill. Kelsea recognized the view: the Almont, as it looked from the hills of New London, and the Caddell stretching into the distance. But there was no city yet in Lily’s dreams, only the wide-open land running toward the horizon . . . a clean slate. Kelsea would have given anything for that land, that opportunity, but it was too late.

  “Had enough yet?”

  Kelsea barked laughter, a helpless doglike sound. She looked up and saw the grinning, sharklike face of the accountant, and the laughter died in her throat.

  I said, have you had enough?”

  Lily blinked as sweat ran into her eyes, stinging and blinding. She had found that once she answered an innocuous question, it became that much easier to answer a question that mattered. Now she held silent.

  “Ah, Lily.” The accountant shook his head sadly. “Such a waste of a pretty woman.”

  Bile collected in Lily’s throat, but she swallowed it down, knowing that if she got sick, it would make everything hurt more. She blinked the sweat from her eyes and shot a glance at the assistant who controlled the box, a tall, bald man with dead, watery eyes that seemed to focus on nothing. The assistant had come and gone many times, bringing pieces of equipment, or notes which the accountant would read quickly, his eyes advancing and then returning in a precise typewriter fashion before handing the note back. Then the assistant would leave again. But now he appeared to be here for good, his finger on the console that made agony travel all over Lily’s body. Tiny wireless electrodes seemed to be strapped everywhere; they hadn’t put one between her legs yet, but Lily felt certain that they would get there in time.

  She had no idea how long she had been in this room. There was no time, only the lulls that the accountant gave her, she felt sure, to contemplate what he might do next. She could have asked him for the date, but even that seemed like it might alert him that something was going on, that time mattered somehow. She was trying to hold on until the first of September, but in truth, it could already have been the fifth or the sixth for all Lily knew. Her muscles throbbed, her hand throbbed. They had stitched the wound in her scalp, but no one had tended to her hand, and the burning hole in her palm had blackened and then crisped over with pus, like a crust on a filthy pie. The assistant’s comings and goings were the only way to mark the passage of time. Sometimes the accountant would leave the room as well, shutting off the lights. Another purposeful maneuver, Lily was sure, leaving her alone in the dark.

  And yet she was not alone. With every hour that went by, Lily became more aware of the other woman. She came and we
nt, sometimes merely flickering on the edge of Lily’s consciousness and sometimes right there. The feeling was nothing Lily could explain to anyone, even herself, but nevertheless the woman was there, just beyond a thin veil, feeling Lily’s pain, her fright, her exhaustion. And this woman was strong; Lily could sense that strength, like a great lamp shining in the darkness. She was strong the way William Tear was strong, and that strength buoyed Lily up, kept her from opening her mouth and screaming out the answers the accountant wanted to hear. As the hours went on, Lily became more and more certain of something else: this woman knew about the better world. She had seen it, understood it, longed for it with all her heart.

  Who are you? Lily wanted to ask. But then the assistant pressed the button again and it was all she could do to cling to the other woman, like a child to its mother’s knees, begging for solace. When the electricity was on, Lily forgot all about the better world. There was only pain, white-hot agony that flared beneath her skin, wiping everything else away . . . except the woman. Lily tried to think of Maddy, Dorian, Jonathan, Tear, but she could feel herself wearing down. Several times, the pain had ceased just when she was at the point of begging them to stop. She thought of her old life, when she used to be afraid of bee stings, and the thought made her giggle, a dark and senseless giggle that died on its way to the walls of the room, this room that was the only thing left.

  “Keep on laughing, Lily. You can end this at any time.”

  The accountant’s voice betrayed irritation. He was growing tired, Lily thought, and this gave birth to new hope: at some point, wouldn’t he have to go away and sleep? They could give her to someone else, of course, another interrogator, but the accountant didn’t strike her as the sort who would let go. He was a hunter, waiting patiently for the moment when she would break, and he wouldn’t want the satisfaction of that moment to go to anyone else, not when he had done so much to loosen the lid.

  The pain stopped, and Lily’s entire body sagged with relief. Earlier, she had been trying to think of positive things to cling to, and at this odd moment, one occurred to her: she didn’t have children. If she had, these people would certainly have made use of them by now. She wondered whether Mom was in some kind of custody, whether they had come to the nice suburban neighborhood in Media and hauled Mom away.

  “Come on now, Lily. You know you’ll give it up sooner or later. Why prolong this? Wouldn’t you like some food? Wouldn’t you like me to let you sleep?”

  Lily said nothing, noting with relief that the assistant was standing up and leaving the console. The accountant was a busy man; his assistant was constantly fetching him messages, and Lily thought he must have many other projects. But God help her, she had his full attention now. Behind the glasses, those round, birdlike eyes pinned her where she sat.

  “Tell me a little something, Lily, and I’ll give you a break for a while. Just tell me why you went to Conley Terminal the other night.”

  Lily felt her consciousness beginning to waver. Her vision had blurred again. There could be no harm in answering the accountant’s question . . . after all, he already knew, didn’t he?

  Focus!

  Lily’s mind sharpened for a moment. Those words were not Dorian’s, not Maddy’s. And now she realized that she was actually hearing the other woman, her thoughts inside Lily’s mind, so tightly wrapped that Lily might have mistaken them for her own.

  The other night.

  It definitely wasn’t August 30 anymore. Had William Tear and his people gotten away? Lily would have given her life for the correct date, but she couldn’t ask.

  The assistant left the room, the door booming closed, and for no reason at all, Lily suddenly thought of her father, who had died years ago. Dad had hated President Frewell, hated the proliferation of Security offices in each city and town. But there was no organized resistance then. Dad had been a fighter with nothing to fight for, no one to fight with.

  Dad would have liked William Tear, Lily realized now, her eyes stinging with tears. Dad would have fought for him.

  “Last chance, my girl.” There would be no respite; the accountant had moved over to the man to console himself. Lily clenched her toes in preparation, grabbing the arms of the chair. The accountant sat down and smiled pleasantly at her, a predator’s smile in a bureaucrat’s face, then clucked in mock concern.

  “Tell me, Lily . . . whatever turned a nice woman like you into a cunt like this?”

  He reached for the console, and the lights went out.

  For a long moment, Lily could only hear her harsh, frightened breathing in the darkness. Then she heard shouts and cries in the hallway outside, muffled by the metal door. Beneath her feet, the ground trembled, and Lily was seized with joy, a fierce joy that bordered on ecstasy in the dark.

  September first! her mind exulted. She knew, suddenly, that it had come, the end of the old, diseased world. September first!

  Somewhere, far away, an alarm began to squawk. More muffled screams echoed from the hallway. The accountant’s chair scraped back, and Lily drew up into a ball, expecting him to find her at any moment. She could hear the grating crunch of his feet on the concrete floor, but whether he was near or across the room, Lily couldn’t tell. She began to feel her way around the arms of her chair, looking for a sharp edge, a nail, anything, tugging as hard as she could against the short reach of the handcuffs. This was her only chance, and if she didn’t take it, if they managed to get the lights back on, the pain might go on forever.

  The door thrummed, a deep metal gonging sound, and Lily jumped, banging her head against the back of the chair. Several sharp beeps punctuated the darkness: a gun being loaded. Lily could find no sharp edges on the arms of the chair—of course not, she thought, of course there wouldn’t be—and so she began to work on one of the handcuffs that bound her to the chair’s arms. She was fine-boned, with thin wrists, but no matter what she did, the cuff wouldn’t slip off the protrusion below her thumb. She continued to pull at it, not stopping even when she felt the first trickle of blood. Sometime in the last forty-eight hours, Lily had discovered the great secret of pain: it thrived on the unknown, on the knowledge that there was a greater pain out there, something more excruciating that might yet be reached. The body was constantly waiting. When you took away the uncertainty, when you controlled the pain yourself, it was infinitely easier to bear, and Lily yanked at the handcuff, gritting her teeth, hissing the pain away through pursed lips.

  The door boomed again, a much deeper sound, metal hitting metal, and a moment later the hinges burst apart, emitting a silver rectangle of light from some sort of halo device. When Lily was little, they used to take such lights camping, but this one was infinitely brighter, turning the door into a rectangular sun in the darkness. Lily threw up a hand to cover her eyes, but it was too late; she was already blind, her eyes burning, leaking salt. The room was full of gunfire, quick sharp clicks and the metallic ping of bullets bouncing from metal walls. A thin slice of pain tore across Lily’s bicep. The backs of her eyelids seemed to be on fire.

  “Mrs. M.!”

  A hand clasped her shoulder, shook her hard, but even when Lily opened her eyes, all she could see was white fire.

  “Jonathan?”

  “Hold still for a minute.”

  Lily held still. There was one sharp crack of metal, then another, impacts that reverberated all the way up her arms.

  “There, you’re out. Come on.”

  “I can’t see.”

  “I can. But I can’t hold you up. You need to walk.”

  Lily let him pull her to her feet, though pins and needles awoke roaring in her feet and calves. She stumbled along, Jonathan’s arm tucked behind her shoulders. To her left, she heard a gagging rattle, the sound of someone choking. She could see shadows now, bright beams of flashlights in the darkness. The choking intensified, becoming a loud gargling sound that made Lily wince, and then it ceased.

  “We have to go!” a voice squealed, so high and panicky that Lily couldn�
��t tell whether it was a man or a woman. “They’re bringing the secondary backups online! The power’s already on in Building C!”

  “Keep your pants on,” a woman drawled, and Lily swung toward the voice, though all she could see was another bright blue shadow.

  “Dorian?”

  “Come on, Mrs. M.” Jonathan took her arm, pulling her along. “Gotta move, time is short.”

  Is it September first? But there was no time for her to ask. They hustled her out the door—Lily skinned her elbow on the busted frame on the way out, but said nothing—and down the hallway, which was still dark. Lily blinked continuously, trying to force her sight back. Scattered light arced across the hall—flashlights—and Jonathan’s hand urged her to go faster. Lily heard pounding on the doors as they passed; people were still trapped in there, behind magnetic locks, and now Lily understood Jonathan’s urgency. All Security facilities were supposed to have several sources of emergency power in case of a failure; Dorian and Jonathan must have sabotaged more than one, but they had not killed them all. Beneath her feet, buried deep in the stone, Lily felt intermittent thumps as someone tried to bring the building back online.

  A figure stepped into the flashlight beams, some ten feet in front of them, and Lily halted, recognizing a Security uniform. The man was big and rangy-looking, and he held up a huge black machine rifle, one that could fire either bullets or darts; Greg used something very similar whenever he went deer hunting with his cronies in Vermont.

  “Where are you going with her?”

  Behind Lily, someone snarled, a soft sound that made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

  “She’s being transferred to Washington.”

  Lily knew that voice: it was the accountant’s assistant, the bald man who had spent most of the night with his hand on the console. He was on Jonathan’s other side, still in his uniform, but when Lily screwed up her eyes to focus, she saw that his face was a grotesque white mask of panic. She was beyond surprise now, beyond reaction; the presence of the assistant merely registered, poking the bubble of her mind with a soft finger, then retreating.