Monsters of Men

by Patrick Ness

Eat–

  And they’re talking about the Mayor–

  Gathering around where he’s walking backwards towards them–

  Where Todd is making him do it–

  “Todd?” I say–

  And then the Mayor says, “Wait.”

  [TODD]

  “Wait,” says the Mayor.

  And it’s not a controlling thing he’s trying, not a buzz returning along the one I’m sending to him, the one that’s making him walk towards the ocean, to drown himself in it, to be eaten by the creachers that are swimming closer and closer, waiting to get a bite. He just says, “Wait,” like he’s asking politely.

  “I ain’t sparing you,” I say. “I would if I thought I could save you, but I can’t. I’m sorry bout that, but you can’t be saved.”

  “I know,” he says. He smiles again, full of sadness this time, sadness I can feel is real. “You did change me, you know, Todd. In a little way, for the better. Enough to recognize love when I see it.” He looks over at Viola and back at me. “Enough for me to save you now.”

  “Save me?” I say and I think Step back and he steps back one more step.

  “Yes, Todd,” he says, sweat forming on his upper lip, trying to resist me. “I want you to stop forcing me into the surf–”

  “Fat chance of that–”

  “Because I’ll go into it myself.”

  I blink at him. “No more games,” I say, forcing him back another step. “This is finished.”

  “But Todd Hewitt,” he says, “you’re the boy who couldn’t kill.”

  “I ain’t no boy,” I say. “And I’ll kill you.”

  “I know,” he says. “And that would make you just a little bit more like me, wouldn’t it?”

  I stop, holding him there for a second, the waves crashing in behind him, the creachers starting to fight amongst themselves, and boy are they big–

  “I never lied about your power, Todd,” he says. “Powerful enough to be the new me, if you wanted–”

  “I don’t–”

  “Or powerful enough to be like Ben.”

  I frown. “What’s Ben got to do with it?”

  “He hears the voice of the planet, too, Todd, just like me. Just like you will eventually. But he lives within it, lets himself be part of it, lets himself ride the current of it without losing himself.”

  The snow’s still falling, sticking to the Mayor’s hair in white bits. I realize again how cold I am.

  “You could be me,” the Mayor says. “Or you could be him.”

  He takes a step back.

  A step that I didn’t make him take.

  “If you kill me, it’s one step further away from being him,” he says. “And if that’s as far as the goodness of you has changed me, goodness enough to stop you becoming me, then that’ll have to do.”

  He turns to Viola. “The cure for the bands is real.”

  Viola glances at me. “What?”

  “I put a slow-acting poison in the first batch to kill all the women. The Spackle too.”

  “WHAT?” I shout.

  “But the cure is real,” the Mayor says. “I did it for Todd. I’ve left the research on the scout ship. Mistress Lawson can easily confirm it. And that,” he says, nodding at her, “is my parting gift to you, Viola.”

  He looks back at me, the sad, sad smile on his face. “This world will be shaped by the two of you for years to come, Todd.”

  He sighs deeply.

  “And I, for one,” he says, “am glad that I shall never have to see it.”

  And he spins round and takes one big stride toward the surf, then another and another–

  “Wait!” Viola calls after him–

  But he don’t stop, he keeps striding, almost running, and I feel Viola slip off Angharrad and both of ’em come over next to me and we watch the Mayor’s boots splash in the water and he wades in deeper, a wave nearly knocking him over, but he keeps upright–

  He twists back to look at us–

  His Noise is silent–

  His face unreadable–

  And with a yawning grunt, one of the shadows in the water breaks the surface, all mouth and black teeth and horrible slime and scales, surging towards the Mayor–

  Twisting its head sideways to grab his torso–

  And the Mayor makes no sound as the huge creacher slams him into the sand–

  And drags him back under the water–

  And as quick as that–

  He’s gone.

  {VIOLA}

  “He’s gone,” Todd says, and I share every bit of the disbelief in his voice. “He just walked in.” He turns to me. “He just walked right in.”

  He’s breathing heavy, looking startled and exhausted by what’s just happened.

  And then he sees me, really sees me.

  “Viola,” he says–

  And I take him in my arms and he takes me in his and we don’t have to say anything, anything at all.

  Because we know.

  “It’s over,” I whisper. “I can’t believe it. It’s over.”

  “I think he really wanted to go,” Todd says, still holding me. “I think it was destroying him in the end, trying to control it all.”

  We look back at the ocean and see the huge creatures still circling, waiting to see if Todd or I will offer ourselves up next. Angharrad sticks her nose right between us, bumping Todd in the face, saying Boy colt with enough feeling to bring tears to my eyes. Boy colt.

  “Hey, girl,” Todd says, rubbing a hand along her nose but still holding onto me, and then his face looks sad as he reads her Noise. “Acorn,” he says.

  “I left Bradley behind,” I say, tearing up again. “Wilf and Lee, too, but I don’t know what happened–”

  “The Mayor said Mr Tate failed him,” Todd says. “Said the Spackle failed him, too. That can only be good.”

  “We need to get back.” I twist in his arms and look at the scout ship. “I don’t suppose he taught you how to fly that?”

  And then Todd says, “Viola,” in a way that makes me turn back to him.

  “I don’t wanna be like the Mayor,” he says.

  “You won’t,” I say. “That’s impossible.”

  “No,” he says. “That’s not what I mean.”

  And he looks me in the eyes.

  And I feel it coming, feel the strength surging through him, finally free of the presence of the Mayor–

  He opens up his Noise.

  Opens it and opens it and opens it–

  And there he is, all of him, open to me, showing me everything that’s happened, everything he felt–

  Everything he feels–

  Everything he feels for me–

  “I know,” I say. “I can read you, Todd Hewitt.”

  And he smiles that crooked smile–

  And then we hear a sound up the beach, back where the trees meet the sand–

  (THE SKY)

  My battlemore makes the final leap onto the beach and for a moment I am dazzled by the ocean, the sheer huge fact of it filling my voice–

  But my mount races on, turning towards the abandoned Clearing settlement–

  And I am too late–

  The Knife’s one in particular is here with her horse–

  But the Knife is nowhere to be seen–

  Only the leader of the Clearing, grabbing onto the Knife’s one in particular, his uniform a dark blot against the snow and the sand, and he is holding the Knife’s one in particular close to him, imprisoning her in his arms–

  And so the Knife must be dead–

  The Knife must be gone–

  And I feel a surprising hollowness because of that, an emptiness–

  Because even the one you hate leaves an absence when they go–

  But those are the feelings of the Return–

  And I am not the Return–

  I am the Sky–

  The Sky who made peace–

  The Sky who must kill the leader of the Clearing in order to secure t
hat peace–

  And so I race forward, the figures in the far distance coming closer–

  And I raise my weapon–

  [TODD]

  I squint thru the snow, which is getting thicker by the minute–

  “Who’s that?” I say.

  “That’s not a horse,” Viola says, stepping away from me. “That’s a battlemore.”

  “A battlemore?” I say. “But I thought–”

  And the air is torn from my lungs–

  (THE SKY)

  He pushes the girl away, seeing me coming, and I have an open shot–

  I hear a voice behind me, shouting something in the distance–

  A voice shouting Wait–

  But it is hesitation that has hurt me in the past, being at the moment to act and not acting–

  And that will not happen now–

  The Sky will act–

  The leader of the Clearing is turning to me–

  And I will act–

  (but–)

  I fire my weapon.

  {VIOLA}

  Todd makes a sound like the world collapsing and grabs at his chest–

  His bloody, burning, smoking chest–

  “TODD!” I shout and leap for him–

  And he’s falling back onto the sand, his mouth open in pain–

  But no air is coming out or in, just raking, choking sounds in his throat–

  And I’m throwing myself down on top of him, blocking another shot if it comes, reaching for his burning clothes, which are disintegrating across his chest, just vaporizing away–

  “TODD!”

  And he’s looking into my eyes, terrified, his Noise wheeling wildly out of control, spinning with terror and pain–

  “No,” I say, “No no no no no–”

  And I can barely hear the hoofbeats of the battlemore still racing for us–

  Barely hear another set of hoofbeats behind that–

  Hear Ben’s voice echoing across the sand–

  Wait, he’s yelling–

  “Todd?” I say, tearing the melting clothes off his chest, seeing the terrible, terrible burning beneath, his skin bleeding and bubbling and still that awful choking sound from his throat, like the muscles in his chest have stopped working, like he can’t make them move to take in a breath–

  Like’s he’s choking to death–

  Like he’s dying right now, right here on this cold, snowy beach–

  “TODD!”

  And the battlemores are closing in behind me–

  And I hear the Noise of 1017, hear that he fired the weapon–

  Hear as he realizes his mistake–

  That he thought he was shooting the Mayor–

  But he wasn’t, he wasn’t–

  And Ben is riding in behind him–

  Ben’s Noise ramming forward with fear–

  But all I can see is Todd–

  All I can see is him looking back at me–

  His eyes wide open–

  His Noise saying, No, no, not now, not NOW–

  And then he says, Viola?

  “I’m here, Todd,” I say, my voice breaking, shouting with desperation. “I’m here!”

  And he says, Viola? again–

  Asking it–

  Asking like he’s not sure I’m there–

  And then his Noise falls completely silent–

  And he stops struggling–

  And looking right into my eyes–

  He dies.

  My Todd dies.

  {VIOLA}

  “Todd!” I shout–

  No–

  No–

  No–

  He can’t be dead–

  He can’t be–

  “TODD!”

  Like saying his name will make it untrue, will make time go backwards–

  Make Todd’s Noise start again–

  Make his eyes see me–

  “TODD!”

  I shout it again but it’s like my voice is underwater and all I can hear is my own breath in my ears and my voice rasping his name–

  “TODD!”

  Another set of arms crosses mine, Ben, falling into the sand next to me, his voice and Noise tearing to bits, saying Todd’s name–

  And he starts grabbing handfuls of snow to pack onto Todd’s wound, trying to freeze it, stop the bleeding–

  But it’s already too late–

  He’s gone–

  He’s gone–

  Todd is gone.

  And everything is suddenly moving so slowly–

  Angharrad calling out Boy colt–

  Ben putting his face close to Todd’s, listening for his breath, not finding it–

  “Todd, please!” I hear him say–

  But it’s like it’s from a great distance–

  Like it’s happening out of my reach–

  And there are more footsteps behind me, footsteps I can hear as if there were no other sounds in the universe–

  1017–

  Off his battlemore, his Noise reeling from his mistake–

  His Noise wondering if it was a mistake after all–

  And I turn to face him–

  (THE SKY)

  She turns to face me–

  And though she has no voice, I see enough to step back–

  She rises to her feet–

  I step back again, dropping my weapon onto the snowy sand, only now realizing I still held it–

  “You!” she spits, coming towards me, the chirping sounds from her mouth making a terrible sound, a sound of rage, a sound of grief–

  I did not know, I show, still stepping away from her. I thought he was the leader of the Clearing–

  (did I?)

  “You liar!” she shouts. “I can hear you! You weren’t sure! You weren’t sure and you fired anyway–”

  It is a wound from a weapon of the Land, I show. The medicine of the Land might save him–

  “It’s too late for that!” she shouts. “You’ve killed him!”

  I look beyond her to the Source who holds the Knife in his arms, packing more ice onto the Knife’s chest, knowing it does no good, his voice rending with grief, his human voice wailing from his mouth–

  And I see that it is true–

  I have killed the Knife–

  I have killed the Knife–

  “SHUT UP!” she shouts–

  I did not mean to, I show, realizing too late that it is true. I did not want to.

  “Well, you did!” she spits at me again–

  And then she sees my weapon lying on the sand where I dropped it–

  {VIOLA}

  I see the weapon, the white stick weapon of the Spackle lying on the ground, lying there white against the white snow–

  I hear Ben crying behind me, saying Todd’s name over and over again and my own heart is painful in my chest, so painful I can barely breathe–

  But I see the weapon–

  And I reach down and pick it up–

  And I point it at 1017–

  He doesn’t back away any further, just watches me raise it–

  I am sorry, he says, raising his hands slightly in the air, those too long hands that killed my Todd–

  “Sorry won’t bring him back,” I say through clenched teeth and though my eyes are filled with water, a terrible clarity comes over me. I feel the weight of the weapon in my hands. I feel the intention in my heart that will let me use it.

  Though I don’t know how.

  “Show me!” I shout at him. “Show me how so I can kill you!”

  Viola, I hear behind me, Ben’s voice choked with grief. Viola, wait–

  “I will not wait,” I say, my voice hard, my arm still raised with the weapon. “SHOW ME!”

  I am sorry, 1017 says again and even in my fury, I can see that he means it, I can see that he really is sorry that he did it, that his horror at it just grows and grows, not only for what he did to Todd but for what it will mean for the future, that his mistake will reach far beyond us her
e, that it’s a mistake he would take back for anything in the world–

  I can see all this–

  And I don’t care–

  (THE SKY)

  “Show me!” she shouts. “Or I swear to God I’ll beat you to death with this thing!”

  Viola, the Source says behind her, still holding the Knife in his arms, and I look into his voice–

  And the Source’s heart is broken–

  Broken so much it infects everything, reaching out into the world beyond him–

  Because when the Land mourns, we mourn together–

  And his grief overwhelms me, becomes my own, becomes the Land’s–

  And I see the full extent of my mistake–

  A mistake that may have ruined the Land, a mistake that may have cost us our peace, a mistake that may destroy the Land after all I have done to save it–

  A mistake that the Sky should not have made–

  I have killed the Knife–

  I have finally killed the Knife–

  The thing I have wanted for so long–

  And it has gained me nothing–

  Only knowledge of the loss I have caused–

  I can see it written across the face of the voiceless one–

  The voiceless one holding out a weapon she does not know how to use–

  And so I open my voice and I show her–

  {VIOLA}

  His Noise opens up in front of me and it shows me exactly how to use the weapon, where to place my fingers and how to squeeze it to send out the white flash from the end–

  He’s showing me how to kill him–

  Viola, I hear Ben say again behind me. Viola, you can’t.

  “Why can’t I?” I say, not looking back, keeping my eyes firmly on 1017. “He killed Todd.”

  And if you kill him, Ben says, where will it stop?

  This does make me turn around. “How can you say that?!” I shout. “How can you say that with Todd there in your arms?”

  Ben’s face is clenched and shuttered, his Noise giving off so much pain I can hardly bear to look at him–