Queen of the Struggle

by Nik Korpon

  The announcement comes that we’re about to stop, which I use as a reason to end the conversation.

  “I’m just saying.” He pauses for dramatics as he checks his seatbelt, and goddamn if he isn’t my kid. “That’s like killing your friends because Fannae Morrigan asked you to. And I know you’d never do that.”

  I don’t give him any response.

  In an engineering miracle, the train hushes to a stop at the platform with barely any jostling. I grab our bags from the overhead racks and toss them to the boys. I figure they’re old enough to carry their own stuff. I check the map displayed near the station’s entrance to find our housing. Ødven arranged for us to stay in a small lodge, which is supposed to be a five-minute walk from the power center. But judging by the map – which consists of about ten streets branching off the main one – it doesn’t look like anything is more than a five-minute walk from anything else.

  We step out into the street, and the first thing I notice is that there are no sidewalks. There aren’t many cars either. In fact, I think as the wind picks up, blowing in from the sea through short, stumpy evergreens, there isn’t much of anything. I pull my hood up and motion for the boys to do the same, but they’re twelve and therefore impervious to both discomfort and advice.

  “Our lodging is down this street, on the left,” I tell the boys, then set off.

  “You don’t have anything to say?” Donael says to me as we walk.

  “I’ve said everything I need to, son. You just need to listen.”

  Though it’s a small town, most of the buildings are connected to each other, probably to break the wind and retain warmth. Each has a façade of dark wooden planks, likely to absorb whatever heat they can from the sun. Some have white trim, some green, some red. On the top of each house is a tall, sharply pitched roof with an inclined gulley in the valley between properties, presumably to drain snowmelt during the winters. Given that there’s no snow on the ground now, just frozen scrabbled land, I conclude this is what passes for autumn up here, and the realization that their winters are even colder than this turns my blood to slush.

  Walking down the main street in town we see two restaurants, a bar, a market, and a general store. There are less than a dozen people out. One woman chases her three kids down the street then herds them into the general store, past a man wearing all black who stands in the doorway. The man stays put a moment longer, glancing across the street to a gigantic man leaning in the doorway of the bar, then heading inside to help the woman. I get the creeping feeling we’re being tracked. A younger lagon man ambles along, the woman beside him holding a baby wrapped in blankets. That woman must be pretty brave, because I wouldn’t leave my kid around a lagon. A heavyset lagon shambles down the street with a huge bag flung over his shoulder. As he turns to enter the market I catch a glimpse of his long beard. He looks familiar. It takes a minute before it clicks: the man who bumped into me in Vårgmannskjør. His beard was a good hand-length longer, though. And that was back in the city, not here. They must be relatives. Still, it’s strange.

  “Are we going to start another riot?”

  I stop in place, my shoulders slumping. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m not saying it like it’s a bad thing. It’s just, you know,” Donael fumbles for words, “it seems like that’s a lot of what you do.”

  “That’s not why we’re here.”

  “Maybe it should be.”

  I take a deep breath, tasting the cold, crisp air, then glance around to make sure no one’s moving in on us. “There’s more to revolution than just blowing shit up.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like self-determination, freedom of choice, being able to chart your own…” I pause, realizing what he’s trying to do, then shift course, eager to get off the street. “Know what, that isn’t important right now. Right now, we just need to appreciate that we’re all together.”

  “For shit’s sake–”

  “Hey, watch your mouth.”

  “What?” he says, and he actually seemed surprised. “Emeríann says it all the time.”

  “Well,” I say, knowing that she does, “she’s a grown up. When you’re a grown up, you can say whatever you want.”

  He mutters that’s bullshit but it’s quiet enough that I can pretend I didn’t hear rather than get in another argument.

  Besides, we’re already at our place. It’s a house used for members of Ragjarøn when they visit Rën. The exterior is made of dark wood planks in the same style as the rest of town, layered atop one another with some kind of caulking to keep the heat in. As we step up onto the porch, the house senses the proximity beacon in my pocket and the door unlocks.

  The interior is what I anticipated from the outside, an old house from centuries ago but with the modern technology of today. It’s a lot of dark wood, a nice fireplace in the center, some woven rugs in what I assume are traditional patterns scattered around the floor; then there are several voice-activated control boxes on the walls, handling everything from temperature to music to the window shades. I’ve seen ones like these in Tathadann houses, but never had the opportunity to use them. I’m not sure if I should be impressed by the ease of use or worried they’ll become self-aware and annihilate us in our sleep. The boys dump their bags just inside the door and bound toward the couch, Donael jumping and doing a half-pike before crashing into the cushions while Cobb just runs smack into it and smashes his body against Donael’s. At least Donael seems to have lost his revolutionary ambitions for a minute. I carry our bags into our rooms, which are made out in much the same fashion.

  The kitchen, however, is the polar opposite of the rest of the house. Every appliance – some of which I can’t identify – is gleaming metal, with blue tile floors and white walls. I stand in the middle of it, thinking how happy Emeríann would be to have a kitchen like this. Even the refrigerator and cabinets are stocked, enough that we won’t have to go to the market for a couple days. Whether or not I can recognize any of the items is a different question.

  I wrangle the boys and take them out, ostensibly to explore the town but really because I want to go back to the man at the general store. I want him to know immediately that I’m aware he’s watching. The man stands behind the counter, conspicuously not looking at us as we peruse the shelves filled with fishing rods and cooking utensils and an assortment of what appears to be jerky. I can still feel his eyes on us. We used the same techniques during the Struggle. At the end of the aisle, I find the clothing and pick out boots and gloves for the three of us, then some balaclavas and goggles in case we end up here for a while. I return to the fishing rod section and scan the shelves. There’s not much of a selection of knives – nothing like I had at home – but I grab a six-inch hunting knife with a serrated blade. That’ll do for now.

  I carry our gear up to the counter, and it’s not until I set it down that I realize I have no wallet and no way to pay.

  “I’m going to leave this here a second,” I tell him. “I left my wallet–”

  “You’re the new delegation, from the city?” he says. His accent makes his words come out cold.

  “Why? Is there an account I can charge this to?”

  “Never been here, have you?” He takes our gear from the counter and sets it in a paper sack.

  “No, obviously.”

  “I can tell.” He says it like he’s divined something from the larger mysteries of the universe, and not because we look different from most people here and are the only ones constantly shivering asking questions. “You’re staying down the street?” He shakes his head as if returning to a fond memory.

  “Just a day or two.” I have no idea how long we’ll be here but this man radiates something that’s just off and I don’t want him knowing more about me than he has to.

  “Just bring me payment when you can.” The man slides the bag across the counter. “I can trust you, yes?”

  “We appreciate it,” I say, then feel an icy splinter in me r
ealizing I just willingly aligned myself with Ødven. “The boys and I appreciate it. We’re still getting used to the cold.”

  The man says, “Cold?” then coughs out a laugh. “Just you wait, bröder.”

  We drop our things inside the door then continue to walk around town. If I’m supposed to help restore order, I should at least get an idea of what disorder looks like. Judging by the bit we’ve seen, I’m of the mind that Ødven and I have very different conceptions of it.

  We head west, away from the station, toward the sea. The boys spend most of the time picking up any pebble or rock they see lying around and chucking them as far as they can. I have half a mind to stop them and point out the cliffs nearby, tell them that the pebbles they’re throwing were likely part of those dramatic outcroppings at one point, same as the small rocky beach that makes up the border of town. Then I realize they’d probably be bored to all hell by my circle of life observations, so I warn them not to hit anyone, including each other.

  Before long, the street dead-ends. Fifty feet of rugged grasses give way to the beach, which tapers off into the frigid waters of the sea. The boys come up beside me. I lay my arms across their shoulders, the wind pressing against us as we stand at the edge of the world.

  “If you squint hard, you can see Ardu Oéann from here,” I say.

  Cobb clicks twice.

  “No, he’s just joking.” Donael pauses. “You are joking, aren’t you?”

  Inland, to the left, sits what looks like a small cemetery. Beyond the cemetery is a squat metal dome, maybe thirty feet in diameter and with ten small metal domes arranged around it, all of them completely incongruous with the rest of the town. It looks like an ancient burial ground, but the fencing that runs around it, and signs warning people to stay away mean it’s probably not, which means I automatically want to investigate. It’s too far for me to go now, especially with the boys, so I’ll have to have a look later.

  Donael chases Cobb into the cemetery, both of them hopping over the tombstones – in Cobb’s case, setting his hands on top and pretending to jump then running around them. My eyes dance across the names, a habit I picked up in Eitan. I think it’s a part of my brain looking for men I’d fought with over the years, though few of them would have been buried in a cemetery. Their bodies were more likely burned by the Tathadann or interred in mass graves after being collected from the battlefield.

  I’m walking through a row when a name catches my eye: Gaagnir Nilsson.

  That one sounds familiar, where none of these others do. I continue down the row, searching for the name in my memory when it finally hits me: the man with the towels in Vårgmannskjør, the one Ødven called out to in order to show me how many people they were helping. It must be a coincidence, albeit a weird one. Perhaps it’s a common name in the north.

  “Who are you?” Donael says.

  “I am the alpha and the omega. Who are you?” I look up, wondering what he’s talking about, and see he’s looking over my shoulder. I turn and see three people standing behind us, a man and two women.

  The man is now wearing a thin black jacket that looks quasi-military but I immediately recognize him as the man from the general store.

  “You need something?” I say, squaring up my chest.

  “I thought that was you.” He smiles and shakes his head, his dark brown chin-length hair brushing against his skin. “You’re finally here.”

  “Excuse me?” I reach for my hip by instinct, then realize I didn’t have my pistol on me when they grabbed me from Eitan, and I left the hunting knife in the bag with our gear. Stupid, Henraek. But judging by the man’s appearance – tall and wiry – I’d guess I could beat him in hand-to-hand.

  “Henraek Laersen, leader of the Struggle in Eitan City. Helped overthrow the Tathadann party with your partner Emeríann Daele.” He steps toward me and I clench my muscles. “We’ve heard all about you.”

  “Who the hell is we?” I step to my left, putting myself between these people and the boys. I’m just now getting a good look at the women. Twins, it seems, though one appears to be a lagon. But now that I’m closer, I can see that she doesn’t actually look like a lagon. She doesn’t look… right… either. Wispy is one way to describe her. Like her membranes are barely holding on. And when a car passes along the street behind us, I can see something like that shadow of the car on her. No, not on her – through her.

  “I’m Dyvik.” He holds out his hand, a broad smile making his cheeks even gaunter. He gestures to the woman next to him. “This is my wife, Lyxzä.”

  Then he points at the woman next to her, the one who is perpetually receding into the light. “And this is Lyxzä’s ghost.”

  14.

  EMERÍANN

  Brighid gathers me before I can even finish my breakfast. Just like last night, my meal this morning saw a serious uptick in terms of quality from what I’d been given before. Part of me thinks she’s still thanking me for saving her ass during the ambush yesterday. Another part thinks she’s trying to cushion the blow that comes after killing one of your close friends. A deeper, darker part of me thinks she’s trying to lull me into complacency before flipping the tables.

  We climb into a car – a real car, with a roof and everything – and head north. It’s just the two of us this time, which is a little strange and, in some way I’m not ready to acknowledge yet, kind of nice.

  Winding through the city, I’m overwhelmed seeing, all at once, the changes the last six months wrought on the city’s landscape. It started with the Gallery and the water distribution plant. After those two fell, it was like they sent shockwaves through the city, destabilizing everything else. Two of the commercial centers north of Macha were completely destroyed by Tathadann forces, and those took out two more when they tipped over. Eitan’s silhouette is flatter now, but also more contrasted, the buildings taller than three stories sticking up like skyscrapers. It makes me wonder about the future, whether the structures will ever be rebuilt as tall as they had been or if people will keep everything small – harder to knock over, and quicker to rebuild if another revolution comes.

  “What’s important enough for us to drive all the way up here?” I say to Brighid.

  She nods out the front window in place of an answer. The mountains sit a bit back in the distance, a group of block buildings rising up before them.

  “High-rises?” I say. “You looking to invest in real estate? You might’ve been gone a while, but you know only amadans do that here, right?”

  “It’s not the buildings I’m interested in,” she says as the car pulls to a stop. “It’s the people inside.”

  She grabs a set of binoculars from the back seat and hops out of the car, then climbs up the side of a brick wall that had once been part of a home. I scramble up behind her. She looks through the binoculars a minute, then hands them to me.

  “What do you see?”

  I scan the building but don’t see much. Once or twice it looks like somebody passes by a window, but otherwise the building appears deserted.

  “A couple lagons, maybe. Nothing really.”

  “Turn on the thermal imaging.”

  I do, and the screen lights up. Where before it looked like there were only three or four people, now I can see dozens milling around across three floors. Positioned at the perimeter are armed guards, rifles resting against their shoulders. Some people inside hold what look like pots and skewered animals. A burst of light shoots up where flames flare after someone lights a fire. I yank the binoculars from my eyes, blink at the change in color.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Do you know who those people are?”

  I let out a sigh. “I’m guessing you’re going to tell me.”

  “These are rebels who had commandeered the building. Obstructionists. We surrounded them and captured them. Then we started using it as a holding center. Some are your friends. People you probably fought with, drank with, conspired with. So I understand that this is not going to be e
asy to hear.” She looks at me for a measured beat. “These people are the problem, the reason Eitan is being held back.”

  “Oh, go to hell,” I say, but she holds her hand up, and there’s something incredibly composed about her that makes me fall silent.

  “This isn’t a Tathadann screed. This isn’t death to all rebels or any of that authoritarian decree masking as liberation frequency. This is me, talking to you.”

  Her voice is different from how it normally is, graver. More sincere. More human.

  “These rebels are within their rights to protest, but you have to ask yourself what they’re protesting.”

  “Um, the slaughter of their friends and comrades?”

  She gives me a look that nearly makes me laugh.

  “They’re protesting anything that’s not them, just like I said last night,” she says. “That’s why we captured and detained them.”

  “Who’s in there?”

  “The most influential one we can identify is a man called Cantonae. Perre Cantonae.”

  I recognize the name immediately. He led the charge for that whole cadre of insurgents, the ones who thought Henraek and I weren’t going far enough after taking down the Tathadann. He’s a real asshole.

  “But what we want to do…” Brighid pauses a minute, collecting her thoughts. “To best benefit everyone, we want to raze that whole complex.”

  “You’re going to destroy all that housing on a whim?” Even as I say it, I recognize the irony. But that was in service of a larger good. This is just destruction.

  “Have you been inside there? You know there’s a reason the old and infirmed party members are shipped up there, right? If there was still a functioning government, they would be brought up on war crimes for letting people live there.”

  I start to reply but figure it’s better to stay quiet, let her say her piece.

  “Twenty years ago, those places were beautiful. Fit for Tathadann elders. But no one’s touched them since they were built. Those places are falling apart now. The electricity pulses when it’s actually working. The floors are tilted. There’s black mold in most of the kitchens, where they cook. Once the new detention facility is complete, we’ll raze the buildings,” she quickens her pace, not giving me a chance to interrupt, “so that we can build new housing. Housing anyone is eligible for. Housing that is current and affordable and more efficient than those giant units they built. We’ll fit four families for every two they had. Can you imagine what we could do for people here, what we could provide, with Ragjarøn’s technology and resources?”