by Patrick Ness
“My name is Bradley Tench,” he says, through his mouth and his voice. “This is Viola Eade.”
He waits to see if we understand his language and after a brief nod from the Sky, he says, “We come to make peace between us, to end this war with no further bloodshed, to see if we can correct the past and make a new future where our two peoples can live side by side.”
The Sky shows nothing for a long moment, a quiet echo of the chant rolling unceasingly behind him.
I am the Sky, the Sky shows, in the language of the Burden.
The man from the Clearing looks surprised but we can tell from his voice that he understands. I watch the Knife’s one in particular. She stares back at us, pale and shivery in the cold of early morning. The first sound she makes is a swarm of coughing into her fist. And then she speaks.
“We have the support of our entire people,” she says, clicking her words only from her mouth and the Sky opens his own voice a little to make sure he understands her. She gestures to the vessel still hovering out from the hill, ready no doubt to fire more weapons at the first sign of trouble from us. “Support to bring back peace,” she says.
Peace, I think bitterly. Peace that requires us to be slaves.
Quiet, shows the Sky down at me. A command, softly shown but real.
And then he climbs down from his battlemore. He swings his leg behind him, stepping to the ground with a solid thud. He removes his helmet, handing it to the soldier nearest him, and he begins to walk towards the Clearing. Towards the man who, now that I can read his voice more closely, is only newly arrived, a forerunner of all those who are still to come. Still to come to push the Land out of its own world. Still to come to make all of us the Burden. And more will no doubt come after. And more after that.
And I think it would be better to die than let that happen.
One of the soldiers next to me turns, shock in his voice, telling me in the language of the Land to quiet myself.
My eyes fall on the ceremonial blade he carries.
The Sky makes his way slowly, ponderously, leaderlike over to the Clearing.
Over to the Knife’s one in particular.
The Knife who, though he no doubt fretted and worried about peace, though he no doubt intended to do the right thing, sent his one in particular instead, too afraid to face us himself–
And I think of him pulling me from the bodies of the Burden–
I think of my vow to strike him down–
And I find myself thinking, No.
I feel the voice of the Land on me, feel it reaching out to quiet me at this most important moment.
And again I think, No.
No, this cannot be.
The one in particular slides down from her mount to greet the Sky.
And I am moving before I even know I mean to.
I grab the ceremonial blade from the soldier next to me so fast he offers no resistance, only a surprised yelp, and I lift it high as I run. My voice is strangely clear, seeing only what is in front of me, the rocks on the path, the dry riverbed, the hand of the Sky reaching out to stop me as I pass him but too slow in his elaborate armour to do so–
I am crossing the ground towards her–
My voice is growing louder, a yell emerging from it, wordless in the languages of the Burden and the Land–
I know we are watched, watched from the vessel, watched from the lights that hover alongside it–
I am hoping that the Knife can see–
See as I race forward to kill his one in particular–
The heavy blade high in my hands–
She sees me coming and stumbles back towards her mount–
The man from the Clearing shouts something, his own mount trying to move between me and the Knife’s one in particular–
But I am too fast, the space too short–
And the Sky is shouting behind me, too–
His voice, the voice of the entire Land booming behind me, reaching out to stop me–
But a voice cannot stop a body–
And she’s falling back farther–
Falling against the legs of her own mount, who is also trying to protect her but is tangled up with her–
And there is no time–
There is only me–
Only my revenge–
The blade is up–
The blade is back–
Ready and heavy and dying to fall–
I take my final steps–
And I put my weight behind the blade to begin the end–
And she raises her arm to protect herself–
{VIOLA}
The attack comes from nowhere. The leader of the Spackle, the Sky, as he calls himself, approaches us with greetings–
But suddenly there’s another running towards him, a brutal stone blade in his hand, polished and heavy–
And he’s going to kill the Sky–
He’s going to kill his own leader–
At the peace talks, this is going to happen–
The Sky is turning, seeing the one with the sword come and he reaches out to stop him–
But the one with the sword ducks past him easily–
Ducks past him and runs towards me and Bradley–
Runs towards me–
“Viola!” I hear Bradley shout–
And he’s turning Angharrad to come between us but they’re two steps behind at least–
And the ground is empty between me and the one running–
And I’m stumbling back into Acorn’s legs–
Girl colt! Acorn says–
And I’m falling back to the ground–
And there’s no time–
The Spackle’s on me–
The blade’s in the air–
And I raise my arm in a hopeless attempt to protect myself–
And–
The blade doesn’t fall.
The blade doesn’t fall.
I glance back up.
The Spackle is staring at my arm.
My sleeve has dropped back and my bandage has come off as I’ve fallen and he’s staring at the band on my arm–
The red, infected, sick-looking band with the number 1391 etched onto it–
And then I see it–
Halfway up his own forearm, as scarred and messy as mine–
A band reading 1017–
And this is Todd’s Spackle, the one he set free from the Mayor’s genocide at the monastery with a band all his own that’s clearly infected him, too–
He’s frozen his swing, the blade in the air, ready to fall but not falling, as he stares at my arm–
And then a pair of hooves strike him hard in the chest, sending him flying backwards across the clear ground–
[TODD]
“VIOLA!”
I’m screaming my head off, looking for a horse to ride, a fissioncar, anything to get me up that hill–
“It’s okay, Todd!” the Mayor shouts, looking at the projeckshun. “It’s all right! Your horse kicked him away.”
I look back to the projeckshun just in time to see 1017 hit the ground a buncha metres from where he was just standing, tumbling down in a heap, and Angharrad’s hind legs coming back to the ground–
“Oh, good girl!” I yell. “Good horse!” And I grab my comm, shouting, “Viola! Viola, are you there?”
And now I see Bradley kneeling down to Viola and the Spackle leader grabbing up 1017 and pretty much throwing him back to the other Spackle, who drag him away, and I see Viola digging in her pocket for her comm–
“Todd?” she says.
“Are you okay?” I say.
“That was your Spackle, Todd!” she says. “The one you let go!”
“I know,” I say, “if I ever see him again, I’m gonna–”
“He stopped when he saw the band on my arm.”
“Viola?” Simone breaks in from the scout ship.
“Don’t fire!” Viola says quickly. “Don’t fire!”
“We’re going to g
et you out of there,” Simone says.
“NO!” Viola snaps. “Can’t you see they didn’t expect that?”
“Let her get you outta there, Viola!” I yell. “It’s not safe. I knew I never shoulda let you–”
“Listen to me, both of you,” she says. “It’s stopping, can’t you–?”
She breaks off and in the projeckshun the leader of the Spackle has come near ’em again, his hands out in a peaceful way.
“He’s saying he’s sorry,” Viola says. “He’s saying it’s not what they wanted . . .” She breaks off for a second. “His Noise is more pictures than words, but I think he’s saying that one is crazy or something.”
I feel a little stab at this. 1017 crazy. 1017 driven crazy.
Course he would be. Who wouldn’t be after what happened to him?
But that don’t mean he gets to attack Viola–
“He’s saying he wants the peace talks to continue,” Viola says, “and oh–”
In the projeckshun, the leader of the Spackle takes her hand and helps her to her feet. He gestures to the Spackle in the half-circle and they part and some more Spackle bring out these thin strips of wood woven into chairs, one for each of ’em.
“What’s going on?” I say into the comm.
“I think he’s–” she stops and the half-circle parts once more and another Spackle comes thru, his arms full of fruits and fish and a Spackle next to him carries a woven-wood table. “They’re offering us food,” Viola says and at the same time I hear Bradley say, “Thank you” in the background.
“I think the peace talks are back on,” Viola says.
“Viola–”
“No, I mean it, Todd. How many chances are we going to get?”
I fume for a second but she’s got a stubborn sound in her voice. “Well, you leave the comm open, you hear?”
“I agree,” Simone says on the other channel. “And you be sure to tell their leader how close they came to being vapours and rubble just now.”
There’s a pause and in the projeckshun, the leader of the Spackle pulls up straight in his chair.
“He says he knows,” Viola says, “and that–”
And then we hear it, the words coming thru, and it’s our language, in a voice that sounds kinda like us but like it’s made of a million voices saying the exact same thing.
The Land regrets the actions of the Return, it says.
I look at the Mayor. “What’s that sposed to mean?”
{VIOLA}
“The honest truth,” Bradley says, “is that we can’t leave. It was a one-way trip, decades long. Our forefathers saw this planet as a prime candidate for settlement, and the deep space probes–” he clears his throat in discomfort, though you can already see what he’s going to say in his Noise “–the deep space probes didn’t show any signs of intelligent life here, so–”
So the Clearing cannot leave, the Sky says, looking beyond us at the scout ship hovering there. The Clearing cannot leave.
“I’m sorry?” Bradley says. “The what?”
But the Clearing has much to answer for, the Sky says, and his Noise shows us a picture of the one who ran at us with a blade, the one with the band on his arm, the one that Todd knew–
And there’s feeling behind it, communicated directly as feeling, outside of language, feelings of terrible sadness, not for us, not for the interruption to the peace talks, but for the one who attacked us, sadness coming now with images of the Spackle genocide, images of 1017 surviving it and finding the rest of the Spackle, feelings of how damaged he is, how damaged we made him–
“I’m not excusing that,” I interrupt, “but that wasn’t us.”
The Sky stops his Noise and looks at me. And it feels as if every Spackle on the face of this planet is looking at me, too.
I choose my words carefully.
“Bradley and I are new here,” I say. “And we’re very eager not to repeat the mistakes of the first settlers.”
Mistakes? says the Sky, and his Noise opens again with images of what can only be the first Spackle War–
Pictures of death on a scale I hadn’t even imagined–
Pictures of Spackle dying by the thousands–
Pictures of atrocities at the hands of men–
Pictures of children, babies–
“We can’t do anything about what’s happened,” I say, trying to look away but his Noise is everywhere, “but we can do something to keep it from happening again.”
“Starting with an immediate ceasefire,” Bradley adds, looking stricken under the weight of the pictures. “That’s the first thing we can agree on. We’ll make no further attacks on you, and you’ll make no further attacks on us.”
The Sky merely opens his Noise again, showing a wall of water ten times as tall as a man, rushing down the riverbed where we sit, wiping out all before it as it slams into the valley below, erasing New Prentisstown from the map.
Bradley sighs and then opens his own Noise with missiles from the scout ship incinerating this hilltop and then more missiles falling from orbit, falling from a height the Spackle couldn’t hope to retaliate against, destroying the entire Spackle race in a cloud of fire.
The Sky’s Noise gets a satisfied feeling, like we were just confirming what he already knew.
“So that’s where we stand,” I say, coughing. “Now what are we going to do about it?”
There’s a longer pause and then the Sky’s Noise opens again.
And we begin to talk.
[TODD]
“They’ve been at it for hours,” I say, watching the projeckshun from the campfire. “What’s taking ’em so long?”
“Quiet, please, Todd,” the Mayor says, trying to catch every word over my comm. “It’s important we know everything that’s discussed.”
“What’s there to discuss?” I say. “We all stop fighting and live in peace.”
The Mayor gives me a look.
“Yeah, okay,” I say, “but she ain’t well. She can’t just sit up there in the cold all day.”
We’re around our campfire now, me and the Mayor, with Mr Tate and Mr O’Hare watching with us. Everyone in town’s watching the projeckshuns, too, tho with less interest as time goes on cuz watching people talk for hours ain’t that interesting, no matter how important. Wilf eventually said he needed to get back to Jane and took Mistress Coyle’s ox-cart back to the hilltop.
“Viola?” we hear over the comm. It’s Simone.
“Yes?” Viola answers.
“Just an update on our fuel, sweetheart,” Simone says. “The cells can keep us hovering here through the early part of the evening, but after that you’re going to need to start thinking about coming back tomorrow.”
I press a button on my comm. “Don’t you leave her there,” I say. I see the Spackle leader and Bradley both look surprised in the projeckshun. “Don’t you let her outta yer sight.”
But it’s Mistress Coyle who answers. “Don’t you worry, Todd,” she says. “They’re going to know how strong and committed we are if we have to run this ship dry.”
I look baffled at the Mayor for a minute.
“Broadcasting for the folks on the hilltop, are we, Mistress?” he says raising his voice so the comm can hear.
“Would everyone shut up, please?” Viola says. “Or I’m going to turn this thing off.”
This sets off another chain of coughing in her and I see how pale and thin and small she looks in the projeckshun. It’s the smallness that hurts. Sizewise, she’s always been just smaller than me.
But I think of her and I feel like she’s as big as the world.
“You call me if you need anything,” I say to her. “Anything at all.”
“I will,” she says.
And then there’s a beep and we don’t hear nothing more.
The Mayor looks surprised up into the projeckshun. Bradley and Viola are talking to the Spackle leader again but we can’t hear nothing anyone’s saying. She’s cut off all sound.
“She wasn’t shutting me up,” I say. “It’s you all trying to butt in.”
“Stupid little bint,” I hear Mr O’Hare mutter from the other side of the campfire.
“WHAT did you say?” I shout, getting to my feet and staring bullets at him.
Mr O’Hare stands, too, breathing heavy, looking for a fight. “Now we can’t hear what’s going on, can we? That’s what you get for sending a little girl to–”
“You shut up!” I say.
His nostrils flare and his fists clench. “And what are you gonna do about it, boy?”
And I see the Mayor move to intervene–
But, “Step forward,” I say–
And my voice is calm, my Noise is light–
I am the Circle–
And Mr O’Hare steps forward without hesitating–
Right into the campfire.
He just stands there for a second, not noticing anything. Then he gives a yelp of pain and leaps straight into the air, the cuffs of his trousers on fire, already running to find water to put ’em out and I hear the Mayor and Mr Tate laughing and laughing.
“Well, Todd,” the Mayor says, “very impressive.”
I blink. I’m shaking all over.
I coulda really hurt him.
I coulda, just by thinking it.
(and it kinda feels good–)
(shut up–)
“Now that we’ve obviously got some time to kill while the negotiations continue,” the Mayor says, still laughing, “what do you say we engage in some light reading?”
And I’m only just recovering my breath, so it takes another long minute before I realize what he means.
{VIOLA}
“No,” Bradley says, shaking his head again, his breath clouding up as the sun gets closer to setting. “We can’t start with punishment. How we start sets the tone for everything that follows.”
I close my eyes and remember him saying the exact same thing to me what seems like for ever ago. And he was right. We started with disaster and it was pretty much disaster straight on through.
