by Adam D Jones
“Please.” Amelia squeezed Marshal tight. “Please, ask again.”
“She’s trying,” Raine said, as he realized it. “She’s trying to tell us.”
Dawn snapped her fingers. “But she can’t! She has to keep it a secret.”
“And her scrambled brain is doing its best to explain,” finished Marshal. “Amelia, I’m sorry for fussing. That control rod in your head is keeping you from doing what you want, isn’t it?”
Amelia let get of his arm and smoothed his shirt sleeve.
“This is all fascinating,” interrupted Hild, “but useless if she can’t explain anything.”
“Oh, she can,” said Dawn. Her eyes lit up and she rubbed her hands together. She approached Amelia, reached up, and began feeling around on her scalp. “I’ll have to do a little looking around in here...”
Marshal backed away.
27
The infirmary was only large enough for Dawn, Raine, and Marshal to gather around the table where Amelia had agreed to lay down. She waited on her back, looking up at the ceiling with an unsettling serenity.
Raine heard shuffling behind him and turned to see the Lodi crowding into the hallway and looking over one another, trying to peer in.
Dawn pushed her fingers through Amelia’s hair just above her forehead. She felt around with her fingertips until she found what she was looking for.
“We need to shave this area,” said Dawn. “Only a little...just enough for me to get to the rod.”
Amelia frowned. “It would be easier if you shaved all of my hair. Or most of it.”
“You need to be able to look normal.” Dawn parted the hair around the old scar. “I’ll leave enough hair on your head to cover our work.”
Marshal shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re going to do this.”
“I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone removed a control rod.” Dawn smiled. “Haven’t you? Hasn’t everyone?”
Marshal sighed. “I can safely say I’ve never been curious about opening someone’s brain.”
“I’m not doing brain surgery.” Dawn took a pair of scissors and cut some of Amelia’s hair near the scalp, right above the spot between her eyes, and then began lathering that area with soap. “I’m just doing...skull surgery. I don’t think we’ll get to the brain. But you never know.” Dawn used a razor to shave the scalp, clearing just a little space around the hairline scar.
Raine had always wondered about the rods. The small scar Dawn had revealed on Amelia’s head confirmed that the rod couldn’t be very large. A piece of metal hid underneath that scar, made of alchemical recipes that had stripped Amelia of her ability to choose anything for herself, leaving nothing behind but a human-shaped machine. He supposed she’d been a murderer, or some enemy of the state, before the surgery made her into a husk. The Republic normally got its test subjects by emptying prison cells.
Dawn’s scalpel touched the shaved skin and Amelia gripped the sides of the bed.
“I thought she couldn’t feel pain.” Raine reached down and touched one of Amelia’s hands. Keepers were trained to be empathetic shepherds of their people, and even though Amelia wasn’t a Lodi, Raine’s instincts couldn’t help but share in her pain.
“She can feel it,” Dawn said through the cloth she’d wrapped around her face. “But she doesn’t care about it. Still, very intense pain has been said to affect them a little.”
Raine withdrew his hand. They deserve to feel pain.
Dawn cut the skin and the red blood seeped out. “Someone get that.”
Raine and Marshal looked at one another.
Marshal, the only battle-hardened person in the room, couldn’t hide his trembling arms, and Raine thought he was barely keeping himself from running away at the sight of what Dawn was doing.
Fine. Raine quickly put on a pair of gloves laying by the bed and grabbed the cleanest rag from a shelf.
“Just keep the blood from flowing everywhere,” Dawn said.
Raine held the cloth against the back of Amelia’s head, where it would catch the flow.
“Higher,” said Dawn. “Hold it just at the start of the wound. Then the blood will try to clot.”
She leaned closer, furrowing her brow. Dawn worked the wound with the scalpel, making small incisions, but, judging by her facial expression, Raine could tell she wasn’t getting anywhere.
Dawn put down the scalpel and rummaged around in the tool bin. “I need something stronger...it’s embedded further than I—here!”
She turned back to Amelia, brandishing what looked like an ice pick.
“What are you going to do?” asked Marshal, still avoiding looking directly at the surgery. “You can’t remove anything with that!”
“Relax.” Dawn bent over her patient and pointed the pick. “She’s been a husk so long some of her skull has grown back over the rod. I just have to chip the bone away.”
Raine tried not to, but he cringed at the first scraping sound. Amelia inhaled sharply and her eyes focused harder on the ceiling. After a few more scrapes, her eyes closed and her head settled into the cushion. She’s not conscious anymore. Too much pain.
Dawn finally stopped scraping and took up a pair of thin pliers. With enough calmness to be a husk herself, Dawn slowly drew out a piece of metal.
The watching crowd leaned in to see the small object. It was no larger than two pieces of rice laid next to each other. Dawn dropped it into a metal pan.
“Time to stitch,” she said.
◆◆◆
Raine left the room once the stitches were in place. Amelia wasn’t awake to answer questions, and Raine needed to step outside and breathe fresh air before the feeling in his stomach escaped through his mouth.
He strolled along the grounds, his head in the clouds, until his wayward steps took him to the door of the Bookhouse. Realizing he would be alone, Raine quietly rushed inside. He pushed the door closed and then leaned against it, savoring the dark, quiet building he had all to himself.
This time, when his shoes stepped onto the middle of the floor he noticed the slightly hollow sound under his feet, telling him that something hid under the floor boards. He quietly knelt and began running his hands along the beams. Raine crept around on his knees, feeling the weight of the books towering above him, the weight of the centuries of history represented there, and the weight of the Gifted looking to him through the ages.
I don’t deserve to be one of them.
Raine reminded himself what Dawn had discovered by looking at the map: it wasn’t his fault. The Sovereign was already on his way to kill the Lodi before Raine started asking too many questions about Dae stones.
His fingers finally found the gap between two floorboards. Must have run my fingers past that part ten times by now. He began tracing the line, which was so narrow it seemed to disappear in places, until he found a corner. He continued following the outline of the large panel in the floor, all the way around, until he had traced a large square in the dust.
Found you. He looked around. Now...how do I—
The door opened and Aquillo stepped inside. “There you are, brother.” Aquillo shut the door with a smile. “I know what you seek.”
“Just looking around.” Raine stood and dusted his hands. “This is all new to me. A Bookhouse with books.”
Aquillo blinked, his eyes adjusting to the light, then looked down. “You found it without my help.”
“Hmm?”
Raine made an innocent face, but Aquillo scoffed.
“Just a floorboard,” insisted Raine.
“You know better than that. But what you don’t know is that you’ll need a key. See?” Aquillo knelt near one corner and pushed aside a small covering, revealing a key hole. “You’ll find another at each corner.”
“Who has the key?”
Aquillo rose and shook his head. “Who do you think?”
“Nilus?” Raine asked with a hopeful wince.
“If only, my brother.”
Raine sighed. Hild has it. Might as well pry the moon from the sky. The two men walked to the stairwell and sat next to one another on the lowest step.
“Why do you call me that?” asked Raine.
“What?”
“’Brother,’” Raine whispered. “The Lodi don’t call me that. Not now.”
“I’m not very good at being a Lodi. Too much time in the city, I’m afraid.”
“You’re...Chastened?” Raine could not keep the surprise out of his voice.
“You don’t approve when some Lodi bend their necks to live better?”
“No—it’s not that!” Raine said in a hurry. “I don’t mean that at all. I’ve just never met a Chastened.”
“I was born into it, in case you’re wondering.”
“I was.” Raine watched Aquillo’s fallen face. “So, how did a Chastened Lodi end up here.”
Aquillo leaned back, his lean face watched the dying afternoon beyond the windows. “Nilus.”
“The Bookkeeper found you?”
“No. Allow me to back up.” He rubbed his chin for a few moments. “When I was a young boy, living in Gamon, some of us noticed the Republic families couldn’t tell us apart. Mostly because they never bothered to get to know us. So, we hatched an idea. My buddy and I decided to switch places for a day, each working for the other’s boss, to see if anyone would notice.”
A pause. Raine waited, letting the story fill Aquillo before it flowed from his mouth.
“I didn’t bother to ask who he worked for,” said Aquillo. “And I didn’t think about what day it was. I worked as a banker’s scribe—the last thing on my mid was the touring.”
The touring. Raine tried to remember why that sounded familiar. “The touring...when the Patricians visit the provinces they represent.” Raine’s hands clenched. “You mean your friend—”
“Took my place at the banker’s guild while I was trapped with a Patrician on a long trip. By the time we returned, the Patrician knew my face. I could not trade places again. And, trust me, no Lodi wants to work for a Patrician. To the bankers I was a mere tool, just another pencil or inkwell, but to that Patrician I was a symbol, something he could hate and hurt at his pleasure.”
Raine sat back. “How long were you with him?”
“That Patrician had my services for eight years before I met a Lodi asking questions about old books. My position gave me access to rare editions, so I gave him one in return for a trip back to wherever he was going, anything to get me out of the city. He turned out to be one of Nilus’s people, and I’ve been here ever since. Five years now.”
Aquillo’s voice wavered, not finding the tone one uses when a story reaches its end. He’s holding back. Raine watched his face and waited, giving him time to say more.
But the door opened instead, and Marshal stuck his face in.
“Fellas, Amelia’s waking up.”
◆◆◆
They rushed to the longhouse where Raine and Marshal pushed through the Lodi to the surgery room. Amelia sat on the edge of the bed while Dawn checked the bandage she had managed to settle within her hair. Amelia stared forward, enthusiastic as a stone.
She looks the same.
“Most changes made by the control rod are permanent,” said Dawn, addressing the onlookers. She tapped down on the edges of the bandage. “Her ability to withstand pain won’t change, and she probably won’t regain her personality—that was surely wiped out by the emanations of the control rod.”
“Then what exactly did we do?” asked Marshal.
“It’s a control rod, Marshal. She’s not under anyone’s control anymore. She can learn to decide for herself.”
“Learn?”
“I’m just guessing. No one’s ever done this before, not that I know of, but I suspect she won’t change her habits easily. It’s a big change, like losing a limb. Or gaining one.” She patted Amelia on the shoulder. “You’re done.”
Marshal cleared his throat. “Amelia, how do you feel.”
She looked up at Marshal, her green eyes meeting his kind face, and said nothing.
Instead, she rose and walked to the door. The Lodi parted for Amelia and followed her to the large room, all the way to the oversized map hanging on the far wall. Seeing Aquillo standing near, she wordlessly reached into his apron and retrieved a charcoal pen.
With a slender finger she traced along the map until she came to a Lodi settlement in the south. After thinking for a moment, she drew an X over it. The Lodi gasped as she drew more Xs over cities at every corner of the map.
Amelia faced the room, addressing them coldly. “Nearly every one of your settlements has suffered attack, and sandships are currently on patrols to locate each caravan. We estimate only five hundred Lodi remain.”
28
Hild pushed through them. “Five hundred! Are you sure?”
Amelia placed the charcoal back in the pouch on Aquillo’s apron. “This information was presented to me three weeks ago. The Republic military is spread out across the desert, finding every frontier settlement in every direction.”
She sounds exactly the same! Raine had expected Amelia to change, to act normal, but she still stood and moved like an automaton, or a statue. Her speech came out stilted and too even. Barely human.
Hild stared at the map. “And...the caravans? The Republic knows...”
“The Republic traces their movements,” said Amelia. “We...the Republic is aware of their travel patterns. The Sovereign’s forces are all currently expended on the search.” She looked over the room, filled with angry faces. “Is there anything else?” she asked.
She can’t even tell she’s anathema. I envy her.
Hild looked deeply at the map, her face slowly falling.
“Amelia,” whispered Marshal, “come with us.”
Marshal led them through the door, back outside. Before they left, Raine could hear the Lodi starting to buzz with worried discussion.
“Why are we out here?” asked Amelia. “I have more information to share.”
“They need time,” said Marshal. “They need to process all of that. It can’t be easy.” He put his hand on Raine’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, son. Do you need to go back in there and be with them?”
I wish I knew.
Marshal and Dawn were as close to him as any of the wide-eyed Lodi in the longhouse. “I’ll let them talk without me. That’s what they’re accustomed to.”
Amelia faced the desert, her eyes scanning to the west. “No campfires. No dust clouds to indicate carriages, either.”
“Why aren’t they in sandships?” asked Dawn.
“I do not know,” said Amelia. “I speculate that sandships are too obvious in the event they wanted to hide their presence.”
Marshal looked into the distance. “There could be anyone hidin’ in those hills, just out of sight.”
“Without campfires?” said Dawn.
“Possible. An army marching on dried food isn’t unheard of. I think Hild needs to get packing and get out of here for good. Raine, where will they go?”
“No one knows that.” Raine let his mind wander to the east, where the continent stretched out in an endless desert. “Only a few of us know about The Dunes. Any alternate place is going to be a very well-guarded secret.”
Amelia stood in front of Marshal. “I’ll start walking a tight perimeter.”
She took a step, but Marshal grabbed her arm. “Amelia...you don’t have to. I mean, I want your help, but I’m not giving you orders anymore.”
Amelia stared back, and this time Raine was sure he could see real emotion in her eyes. Her lips trembled. Raine had seen that look on the faces of frightened Lodi, but never on a husk.
Amelia was afraid.
What are you scared of? Talking to Marshal?
Amelia stopped searching for words and turned to begin her rounds, walking around the buildings while casting her eyes in all directions.
“I thought she would be different,” said Raine.
“She is.” Dawn watched Amelia carefully. “Did you see her face just now, when Marshal said she didn’t have to go on patrol? I think she nearly broke under the strain of making her own choice. It’ll be a long time before she figures out who she is.”
◆◆◆
The Lodi began to pack traveling essentials and Raine did his best to help. Hild revealed she had sent a few people east, well beyond the range of any known maps, to find possible relocation spots. They didn’t have much to go on, but the little information the scouts brought back was better than nothing.
“We’ll leave at First Light,” she told all of them. “There’s no use going now and being tired in a few hours. And if the Republic’s almost here it won’t matter. Take only what you need.”
At this, Raine turned his gaze toward Nilus, the Bookkeeper, catching the old man in a grim pose of determination. He knows he can’t take them. A Bookkeeper without any books.
When supplies had been gathered, the Lodi sat quietly in front of the large map, gazing at the eastern edge where the cities and rivers stopped. Only a few mountains had been drawn, those which could be seen from a distance. The rest was an unknown and harsh frontier.
◆◆◆
“Raine!”
It was a whisper. A hiss.
“Get up!”
Raine barely heard the voice even though he could feel someone’s breath in his ear. He opened his eyes and saw nothing in the dark room. I can’t have been asleep more than an hour.
Someone was touching his shoulder, and Raine finally recognized the voice. Aquillo. The scribe.
“Come.”
Silent as a cat, Aquillo crept past the sleeping men and woman and stepped out of the room.
Raine sat up and rubbed his eyes. He had fallen asleep in the main room of the longhouse, in the middle of the floor. A few other Lodi slept in huddled corners, but Raine had become accustomed to sleeping wherever he lay, not needing to feel secure by walls and blankets.
