The Ask and the Answer

by Patrick Ness

  "Who is?" I ask.

  "You never met Mistress Coyle, did you?" He stretches one shoulder and then the other against his binds. "Remarkable woman, remarkable opponent. She might have beaten me, you know. She might really have done it." He smiles wide again. "But you've done it first, haven't you?"

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  "What do you mean She's destroying everything?"

  "As always," he says, "I mean what I say."

  "Why would she do that? Why would she just blow things up?"

  "Twofold," he says. "One, she creates chaos so it's harder to fight her as an orderly enemy. And two, she obliterates the safety of those who won't fight, creating the impression that she cannot be beaten, so that everyone's that much easier to rule when she's done." He shrugs. "Everything's a war to people like her."

  "People like you," I say.

  "You'll be swapping one tyrant for another, Todd. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you."

  "I won't be swapping nothing. And I told you to be quiet."

  I keep the rifle pointed at him and go to Angharrad, watching us both from a cramped space in the rubble. Todd , she thinks. Thirsty .

  "Is there a trough still out front?" I ask the Mayor. "Or did it get blown up?"

  "It did," the Mayor says. "But there's one round the back where my own horse is tied. She can go there."

  Morpeth, I think to Angharrad, the name of the Mayor's horse, and a feeling rises in her.

  Morpeth she thinks. Submit .

  "Attagirl," I say, rubbing her nose. "Damn right he'll submit."

  She pushes me playfully once or twice then clops off outta the rubble, making her way round the back.

  There's another BOOM. I have a little flash of worry

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  for Viola. I wonder how far down the road she's gotten by now. She must be getting near where the Answer is, she must be-

  I hear a little stirring of Noise from the Mayor. I cock the gun. "I said, don't try it."

  "Do you know, Todd?" he says, like we were having a nice lunch. "The attacking Noise was easy. You just wind yourself up and slam someone with it as hard as you can. I mean, yes, you have to be focused, tremendously focused, but once you've got it, you can pretty much do it at your will." He spits away a little blood pooling on his lip. "As we saw with you and your Viola."

  "Don't you say her name."

  "But the other thing," he continues. "The control over another's Noise, well, I must say, that's a lot trickier, a lot harder. It's like trying to raise and lower a thousand different levers at once and, sure, on some people, some simple people, it's easier than others and it's surprisingly easy on crowds, but I've tried for years to get it to work as a useful tool and it's only recently I've had any level of success at all."

  I think for a minute. "Mayor Ledger."

  "No, no," he says brightly. "Mayor Ledger was eager to help. Never trust a politician, Todd. They have no fixed center, so you can never believe them. He came to me, you see, with your dreams and things you said. No, no control there, just ordinary weakness."

  I sigh. "Would you just be quiet already?"

  "My point is, Todd," he presses on, "that it's only today that I've been able to even come close to forcing you to do

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  what I want you to do." He looks at me, to see if I'm getting it. "Only today."

  Another BOOM in the distance, another thing destroyed by the Answer for no good reason at all. It's too dark to see the army but they must be marching into town by now, down the road straight to here.

  And night is falling.

  "I know what yer saying," I say. "I know what I've done."

  "It was all you, Todd." He keeps his eyes on me. "The Spackle. The women. All your own action. No control needed."

  "I know what I've done," I say again, my voice low, my Noise getting a warning sizzle to it.

  "The offer's still open," the Mayor says, his voice low, too. "I'm quite serious. You have power. I could teach you how to use it. You could rule this land by my side."

  I am the Circle and the Circle is me, I hear.

  "That's the source," he says. "Control your Noise and you control yourself. Control yourself," he lowers his chin, "and you can control the world."

  "You killed Davy," I say, stepping up to him, gun still pointed. "Yer the one with no fixed center. And now yer really gonna shut the hell up."

  And then a low and powerful sound rumbles thru the sky, like some giant, deep horn.

  A sound God would make when he wanted yer attenshun.

  I hear whinnies from the horses out back. I hear a filament of shock race thru the still-hiding Noise from the people of

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  New Prentisstown. I hear the steady marching of the army's feet collapse into a racket of sudden confuzhun.

  I hear the Mayor's Noise spike and pull back.

  "What the hell was that?" I say, looking up and around.

  "No," the Mayor breathes.

  And there's delight in it.

  "What?" I say, poking the rifle at him. "What's going on?" But he's just smiling and turning his head. Turning it toward the hill by the falls, by the zigzag road coming down into town. I look there, too. Lights are at the top.

  Lights are starting to come down the zigzag.

  "Oh, Todd," the Mayor says, amazement and, yeah, it's joy coming thru his voice. "Oh, Todd, my boy, what have you done?"

  "What is it?" I say, squinting into the dark, as if that'll help me see it clearer. "What's making that--"

  A second horn blast comes, so loud it's like the sound of the sky folding in half.

  I can hear the ROAR of the town rising, so many asking marks you could drown in em.

  "Tell me, Todd," the Mayor says, his voice still bright. "What exactly were you planning on doing when the army arrived?"

  "What?" I say, my forehead furrowing, my eyes still trying to see what's coming down the zigzag road, but it's too far and too dark to tell. Just lights, individual points of 'em, moving down the hill.

  "Were you going to offer me up for ransom?" he goes on,

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  still sounding cheerful. "Were you going to give me to them for execution?"

  "What were those blasts?" I say, grabbing him by the shirtfront. "Is that the settlers landing? Are they invading or something?"

  He just looks in my eyes, his own sparkling. "Did you think they'd elect you leader and you'd single-handedly usher in a new era of peace?"

  "I'll lead them," I hiss into his face. "You watch me."

  I let him go and climb up one of the higher piles of rubble. I see people poking their heads outta their houses now, hear voices calling to one another, see people start running to and fro.

  Whatever it is, it's enough to get the people of New Prentisstown out of hiding.

  I feel a buzz of Noise at the back of my head.

  I whip round, pointing the gun at him again, climbing back down the rubble and saying, "I told you, none of that!"

  "I was just trying to keep our conversation going, Todd," he says, false innocence everywhere. "I'm very curious to know your plan for leadership now that you'll be head of the army and President of the planet."

  I want to punch the smile off his face.

  "What's going on?" I shout at him. "What's coming down that hill?"

  There's a third blast of the horn sound, even louder this time, so loud you can feel it humming thru yer body.

  And now people in town are really starting to scream.

  "Reach in my front shirt pocket, Todd," the Mayor says. "I think you'll find something that once belonged to you."

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  I stare at him, searching him for a trick, but all that's there is that stupid grin. Like he's winning again.

  I push the rifle at him and use my free hand to dig in his pocket, my fingers hitting something metal and compact. I pull it out.

  Viola's binocs.

  "Really remarkable little things," the Mayor says. "I do so look forward to the
rest of the settlers landing, seeing what new treats they bring us."

  I don't say nothing to him, just climb back up the rubble and hold the binocs to my eyes with my free hand, clumsily trying to get the night vision to work. It's been a long time since I--

  I get the right button.

  Up pops the valley, in shades of green and white, cutting thru the dark to show me the town.

  I raise them up the road, up the river, to the zigzag on the hill, to the points of lights coming down it--

  And-

  And oh my God.

  I hear the Mayor laugh behind me, still tied to his chair. "Oh, yes, Todd. You're not imagining it." I can't say nothing for a second. There ain't no words. How?

  How can this be possible?

  ***

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  An army of Spackle is marching for the town.

  Some of 'em, the ones near the front, are riding on the backs of these huge, wide creachers covered in what looks like armor and there's a single curving horn coming out the end of their noses. Behind 'em are troops, cuz this ain't a friendly march, nosiree, it ain't nothing like that at all, there are troops marching down the zigzag road, troops marching over the lip of the hill at the top of the falls.

  Troops that are coming for battle.

  And there are thousands of 'em.

  "But," I say, gasping, hardly able to get the words out. "But they were all killed. They were all killed during the Spackle War!"

  "All of them, Todd?" the Mayor asks. "Every single one of them on this whole planet when all we live on is one little strip? Does that make sense to you?"

  The lights I've been seeing are torches carried by the Spackle riding on the creachers' backs, burning torches to lead the army, burning torches that light up the spears that the troops carry, the bows and arrows, the clubs.

  All of 'em carrying weapons.

  "Oh, we beat them," says the Mayor. "Killed them in their thousands, certainly, every one within miles of here. Though they outnumbered us by a considerable margin, we had better weapons, stronger motivation. We drove them out of this land on the understanding that they would never return, never get in our way ever again. We kept some of them as slaves, of course, to rebuild our city after that war.

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  It was only fair."

  The town is really ROAR ing now. The marching of the army has stopped and I can hear people running about and screaming to each other, stuff that don't make no sense, stuff of disbelief, stuff of fear.

  I run back down the rubble to him, pushing the gun hard into his ribs. "Why did they come back? "Why now?"

  And still he grins. "I expect they've had time to work on how they might get rid of us once and for all, don't you? All these years? I expect they were only looking for a reason."

  "What reason?!" I shout at him. "Why--"

  And I stop.

  The genocide.

  The death of every slave.

  Their bodies piled up like so much rubbish.

  "Quite right, Todd," he says, nodding like we're talking about the weather. "I suspect that must certainly be it, don't you?"

  I look down at him, understanding coming too late like always. "You did it," I say. "Of course you did it. You killed every Spackle, every single one, made it look like it was the Answer." I push the rifle into his chest. "You were honing they'd come back."

  He shrugs. "I was hoping I'd have the chance to beat them once and for all, yes." He purses his lips. "But it's you I have to thank for speeding the plan along."

  "Me?" I say.

  "Oh, yes, definitely you, Todd. I set the stage. But you sent them the messenger."

  "The messen--?"

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  No.

  I turn and run up the rubble again, binocs back on, looking and looking and looking.

  There's too many, they're too far away. But he's there, ain't he? Somewhere in that crowd. 1017. Oh, no.

  "I should say, Oh, no is right, Todd," the Mayor calls up to me. "I left him alive for you to find, but even with your special relationship, he wasn't very fond of you, was he? No matter how much you tried to help him. You're the face of his torturers, the face he took back to his brothers and sisters." I hear a low laugh. "I really wouldn't want to be you right now, Todd Hewitt."

  I spin round, looking at the horizon on all sides. I spin round again. There's an army to the south, one to the east, and now one marching down from the west.

  "And here we sit," says the Mayor, still sounding calm. "Right in the middle of it all." He scratches his nose on his shoulder. "I wonder what those poor people on the scout ship must be thinking."

  No.

  I spin round once more, as if I could see them all coming. Coming for me.

  My mind is racing. What do I do? What do I do?

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  The Mayor starts whistling, as if he had all the time in the world.

  And Viola's out there-

  Oh, Jesus, she's out there in it-

  "The army," I say. "The army's gonna have to fight them."

  "In their spare time?" the Mayor says, raising his eyebrows. "When they've got a few free minutes from fighting the Answer?"

  "The Answer will have to join us."

  "Us?" says the Mayor.

  "They'll have to fight alongside the army. They'll have to."

  "You really think that's how Mistress Coyle is going to play it?" He's smiling but I can see his legs starting to bounce up and down now, energy coursing thru him. "She'll see herself and them as having a common enemy, now won't she? You mark my words. She'll try to negotiate." He catches my eye again. "And where will that leave you, Todd?"

  I'm breathing heavy. I don't got no answer.

  "And Viola's out there," he reminds me, "all on her own."

  She is.

  She is out there.

  And she can't even walk.

  Oh, Viola, what have I done?

  "And under these circumstances, my dear boy, do you really think the army is going to want you as leader?" He laughs as if it was always the dumbest idea anywhere. "Do you think they'll trust you to lead them into battle?"

  I spin round again with the binocs. New Prentisstown is in chaos. Buildings burn to the east. People run thru the

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  streets, running away from the Answer, running away from the Mayor's army, and now running away from the Spackle, running all direkshuns with nowhere to go.

  The horn blasts again, shaking glass outta some of the windows.

  I spy it in the binocs.

  A great long trumpet, longer than four Spackle put together, carried on the backs of two of the horned creachers, being blown by the biggest Spackle I've ever seen.

  And they've reached the bottom of the hill.

  "I think it's time you untied me, Todd," the Mayor says, his voice a low buzz in the air.

  I spin around to him, aiming the gun one more time. "You won't control me," I say. "Not no more."

  "I 'm not trying to," he says. "But i think we both know it's a good idea, don't you?"

  I hesitate, breathing heavy.

  "I've beaten the Spackle before, you see," he says. "The town knows it. The army knows it. I don't think they'll be quite so eager to discard me and unite behind you now that they know what we're up against."

  I still don't say nothing.

  "And after all this betrayal from you, Todd," he says, looking right up at me. "I still want you by my side. I still want you fighting next to me." He pauses. "We can win this together."

  "I don't want to win this with you," I say, looking down the barrel. "I beat you."

  He nods as if in agreement, but then he says one more time. "Things change, but they stay the same."

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  I hear marching feet getting closer to the church. A troop from the army's finally pulled itself together enough to come into town. I can hear them heading down a side road, toward the square.

  There ain't much time.

  "I don't even mind that you ti
ed me up, Todd," the Mayor says, "but you have to let me go. I'm the only one who can beat them." Viola-Viola, what do I do?

  "Yes, Viola, again," he says, his voice slinky and warm. "Viola out there among them, all by herself." He waits till I'm looking him in the eye. "They'll kill her, Todd. They will. And you know I'm the only one who can save her."

  The horn blasts again.

  There's another BOOM to the east.

  The feet of the Mayor's soldiers getting closer.

  I look at him.

  "I beat you," I say. "You remember that. I beat you and I'll do it again."

  "I have no doubt you will," he says. But he's smiling.

  VIOLA I think right at him, and he flinches. "You save her," I say, "and you live. She dies, you die." He nods. "Agreed."

  "You try to control me, I shoot you. You try to attack me, I shoot you. Got it?"

  "I've got it," he says.

  I wait a second more but there ain't no more seconds. There ain't no more time to decide nothing.

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  Only that the world's marching to meet up right here, right now.

  And she's out there.

  And I ain't never parting from her again, not even when we're not together. Forgive me, I think.

  And I go behind the Mayor and untie the rope.

  He stands up slowly, rubbing his wrists.

  He looks up at another blast of the horn.

  "At last," he says. "No more of this slinking, secret fight, no more running after shadows and all this undercover cloak-and-dagger nonsense." He turns to me, catches my eye, and I see behind his smile the real glint of madness. "Finally, we come to the real thing, the thing that makes men men, the thing we were born for, Todd." He rubs his hands together and his eyes flash as he says the word.

  "War."

  END OF BOOK TWO