Bannerless

by Carrie Vaughn

  Kath herself marked the end of the old world when she came to live at the clinic. For her, that was definitive proof that things would never be the same again, that the old world was truly gone, that the Fall had already happened and no one had noticed. Kath and other diarists of the time didn’t talk about the new world yet, the culture that grew up on the Coast Road. They hadn’t been convinced they would survive that long. They went from one day to the next, grateful to have made it so far.

  They began marking time according to seasons and harvests as had been done centuries past, because it was easier. None of the first survivors could remember exactly when they’d built the barricade to protect the clinic from marauders, or when they’d torn it down because the marauders were gone. They could remember the last Super Bowl and World Series and Olympics and the last movie they’d seen or concert they went to, but not when it was decided that there wouldn’t be another. The Fall didn’t leave a definitive mark on the memory of society, not like such a disaster should have.

  But personal memory remained. Kath always remembered exactly when her parents died, exactly the last time she spoke with her brother, and exactly when she herself left the old world behind. Right to the end, she’d been able to tell stories about her friends, the people who’d helped her and taken care of her, and spoken of where and how they died, from accident, disease, or simple old age. The world might not remember, but she would.

  The worst storms were the ones that changed you. The ones you remembered not for how bad they objectively were, but for how much damage they did to your own world. Banners, planted in memory.

  //////////////////////////////////////////////////

  Enid was surprised when Dak actually showed up at the committee room, after their last talk and all she’d implied. He knocked on the door, and she called him in. It was late; he carried a lantern. She had another pair of lanterns resting on the table. The light spread to the edges of the room, but it was muted, casting both their faces in shadow. Reminded her of those old days around campfires. In dim light, they probably both looked younger.

  He stayed by the door. “Miran said you wanted to see me? You ready to take Tomas back to Haven, then?”

  Ah, that was why he’d come so easily. His offer was still on the table, and he expected her to give up the investigation. Just like that. “Have a seat, Dak. Please.”

  She had a chair pulled out and waiting. His look darkening, he set down the lantern and sank into the seat. Clasped his hands together and watched her closely. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him so nervous.

  What did he know? And how much would he tell her? Or would he storm out of the room if she pressed too hard? He’d always avoided her hard questions. He’d always fled rather than face difficulty. Then why was he here? Why had he stayed?

  “What is it?” he prompted, after she’d spent too long considering. “What’s this about?”

  “I can’t figure it out,” she said. “Why did you decide to settle down? You used to hate complications. Couldn’t sit still for them. Yet here you are.”

  “People change.” A pat phrase, easy to say. He watched her steadily.

  “I suppose,” she said. “Was it love? You fall in love with someone and couldn’t bear to be parted?” That would have been romantic, to think that he had fallen in love—really and truly this time—and changed because of that.

  He chuckled. “Love means lots of different things, Enid.”

  Another easy answer. She wondered if he’d ever loved her. She couldn’t remember him ever saying the words to her. Not that it mattered. And what would he say if she asked him that now? Another easy, poetic answer, no doubt.

  “Then why?”

  “Another interrogation.”

  She shrugged. “If you like.”

  “Maybe I just got tired.”

  Dak likely didn’t know himself. Maybe he was trying to re-create that thing he’d lost as a child, without even realizing it. Maybe he wanted something he couldn’t get from wandering, and maybe Pasadan was just the place he happened to be when he decided to stop.

  Sometimes, you could interrogate someone for hours and never get the answer you wanted to hear. Sometimes, people just went silent.

  “Never mind. It’s none of my business. Not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Then what did you want to talk to me about?”

  She inhaled, considered the words she wanted to say yet again—she’d come up with several different versions of this speech—and finally said, “How long has Ariana been thinking about how to summon investigators to go after Philos?”

  His whole body was so rigid he barely flinched. He schooled himself to calmness. “Well, you’ve been busy.”

  “And to think, everyone thought I was just going to go away.”

  “What do you think happened here, Enid? What sort of scenario have you come up with?” He’d recovered quickly; his voice was light again, like he was telling one of his stories. An entertainment, light and frivolous. As if none of this mattered.

  “Ariana didn’t feel she could confront Philos directly. So when an opportunity to call for an investigation presented itself—she took it. I want to know if she saw an opportunity, or if she’d been planning this. If she’d created an opportunity.”

  “And why do you think I know the answer to that? You know I’m almost a stranger here myself.” He spread his hands, a gesture of innocence. A simple man, a humble musician, entirely blameless. If he could keep asking questions, he would never have to answer one himself, and he’d be so friendly about it, you might not ever notice.

  “You’re right, Dak. People change. And I no longer have the patience for your charm.”

  His smile froze. She let the pause drag, and drag, until he finally chuckled. “At least you think I’m charming.”

  She almost—almost—chuckled with him. “I need an answer, Dak. Forget I’m an investigator. I’m just a person trying to figure out what really happened, so I can do what’s best for the whole town. Help me.”

  “You never could let go of a mystery,” he said.

  “Ah. You do know me.”

  He looked away, maybe even blushed. “Yeah. A little.”

  “How long was Ariana planning to lure investigators to Pasadan?”

  He bowed his head. “As long as I’ve known her. We . . . we talked about it. She confided in me, I suppose.”

  “And you agreed to help her?”

  His smile twisted. “The price for joining her household. She didn’t want to be the one to confront Philos, to submit a complaint against him. She worried about it affecting her own standing in town. Worried Philos might take some kind of revenge. But if she could get someone else to do it . . .”

  “Someone who was already on the outs with everyone. Sero.”

  “And she couldn’t be seen talking with him, so I did it. If you could call it talking. Man barely said a word, seemed to resent every moment I spent with him. Never met anyone like him. I think he only tolerated Miran because he didn’t want to scare her. Sweetest person any of us know. He refused to help Ariana, of course. She even offered him a place at Newhome. We could have all been one . . . big . . . happy . . . household.” He sounded bitter. Like the gray in his hair, the tone didn’t suit him.

  He might have thought it was good fun, conspiring to manipulate investigators, to point them like a weapon. And then it had all gone so terribly wrong.

  She said, “That was you, who’d run from the shed. Who got the blood on the wall.”

  “I didn’t kill him, Enid. He was like that when I found him . . . you have to believe me.” He leaned forward, balanced on the edge of his chair, nearly falling out of it.

  “I know, Dak,” she said softly. He slumped, back curling over his lap. The breath went out of him.

  “I—I went to talk to him one more time. Ariana thought if we just pushed him enough . . . but no, she never talked to him, she didn’t know how he was. How . . . willful. But I wen
t, to make her happy. He wasn’t in the house, which meant he was working in the shed. The doors were closed. Weird, because he never closed the doors when he was working. Left them wide open, for air. I knocked. No answer. So I looked in . . . and there he was.” He gave a weak, sad laugh. Wiped his eyes, which were shining. “I went in to check, to see. Touched the pulse at his neck, but he was already cold, you know? Must have got blood on me then. Didn’t even notice. I closed the door behind me, and . . . I ran. Just ran. Wanted to get away from there, didn’t want to be anywhere near there in case someone thought it was me. I didn’t want to have to answer any questions.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me you were the one to find Sero’s body? You could have told me what you saw.”

  He spoke to his hands, folded in his lap. “I didn’t trust you. Not in that uniform.” The statement sounded like an accusation. She should have expected him to say something like that, but it still came as a blow. He’d trusted her once. He knew her. Didn’t he? Maybe not.

  “What did you do next?” she asked.

  He leaned back, now slipping into his usual easy manner. The worst was over; he could relax. “I went to Ariana and asked her what to do. And she . . . she said we could use this. Said to keep quiet. I’m sorry, Enid. I should have told you everything, I’m sorry—”

  She held up a hand. Spoke as gently as she knew how. “Do you have any idea who might have been inside that shed when Sero died?”

  When he didn’t answer immediately, she resisted leaning in. Grabbing the collar of his tunic and shaking until his brain rattled.

  Then he shook his head. “Or maybe he just fell. Maybe . . . maybe he closed the door and fell, and it was an accident—”

  “Did you see Miran there?” Enid asked. “She went to talk to him one last time that morning. Did you see her?”

  “You can’t think that poor sweet girl—”

  “I don’t know; that’s why I’m asking.”

  Except Enid did know. She did.

  “Enid. Just . . . stop. Just go home. Haven’t you done enough to wreck this town?”

  “Dak. It wasn’t an accident,” she said.

  His mouth hung open. “You—you’re sure?”

  “I think . . . I think I might need your help for this next part. Sero deserves what little justice we can offer, don’t you think?”

  She thought he was going to focus on the uniform again. Make some jab at the brown cloth and tell her once again how much damage she’d done, how much damage those other investigators had done to his young self and family. Say that one person’s death didn’t matter in a world that had lost billions. If he got up to leave and never spoke to her again, she might not have been surprised.

  But he finally said, “Yes. What can I do?”

  //////////////////////////////////////////////////

  Late that night, Enid went to the household that had managed Sero’s pyre and asked them if they had the resources for another. “I’m very sorry to have to ask you to prepare another one so quickly. I can make sure your fuel supplies are restocked from Haven. Will it be possible?”

  The man who had tended the pyre before gaped at her for a moment, blinking in the light of her lantern, then nodded. “Yes, should be. We can have it ready in the morning, I think. I—I’m sorry about your partner.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Does the committee know? That you’ve asked for a pyre, I mean.”

  Enid’s smile felt toothy, predatory. “They will.”

  The next morning, Ariana was the first to find out, when Enid and the pyre-tending crew arrived to collect Tomas’s body. Enid hardly looked at Tomas before covering him with a shroud. She had said goodbye already and didn’t want to keep saying it over and over. As they left the cellar, Ariana and half of Newhome poured out of their kitchen, confused as sheep in a storm. Dak stood off to the side, wary.

  Enid got between the onlookers and the stretcher and its bearers. Shielding Tomas.

  “What’s this? What’s going on? Investigator Enid?” Ariana asked, hands on her hips.

  “We’re burning the pyre for Tomas this morning,” she said. A wind was starting to pick up; clouds gathered on the horizon. They needed to get this taken care of before weather moved in.

  “But . . . I thought . . . We assumed you would want to take him home. That you would want to carry him back to Haven as quickly as possible—that his own household would want to see his pyre. That would be more . . . proper. Wouldn’t it? We all assumed you would be leaving.” She spoke like she was trying to convince Enid. Push her out the door, even.

  That was hardly surprising. The woman had requested an investigation to get at Philos, with no real understanding of what she was bringing down on her people. She might have deserved pity, but Enid didn’t feel inclined to it.

  “He died during an investigation,” she said. “They’ll understand. And I’ll be finishing what he and I started.”

  Ariana’s mouth opened at this. “But . . . but . . .” Gaped like a fish, she did.

  Dak stepped in. “Let her do what she needs to, Ariana,” he said calmly.

  Ariana stared at him with apparent disbelief, and Enid wondered what kind of betrayal she thought was happening here. Did she wonder whom Dak was working for now? “But—” she started, and her voice broke.

  Enid turned her back, discouraging argument, and escorted Tomas’s stretcher to the pyre built just outside of town. The stretcher bearers carefully arranged him, and it might have been her imagination, but they still seemed to flinch from the uniform, even though the man wearing it couldn’t harm them now. Symbols, it was all symbols.

  The man tending the pyre offered her the torch, which she lit from a lantern, then touched it to the fuel of the pyre and stood back to watch. The flames rose, engulfing the body until it was just a shadow, and she whispered goodbye, over and over.

  Ariana and Lee came to watch with her, standing a short distance away. Respectful, but out of reach. Neither wore their gray committee sashes and hadn’t since her first day in town. They probably only wore their sashes for hearings and the like, and this—they didn’t know what this was.

  Philos did not come. Miran did, but not Kirk. A good number of folk from Pasadan watched from farther back. Not necessarily anyone who’d interacted with Tomas, and no one here really knew him. But it was likely they’d want to say they were there when the investigator died at Pasadan. That would make an excellent bit of gossip. A good story for the fireside. They were welcome to it, and Enid ignored them.

  A familiar shape came to stand beside her as the flames did their work to the sound of cracking wood and the scent of ash. Dak, who didn’t make a move to touch her. She’d have liked to be held by someone just then, but she was thinking of Sam.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “No, not really,” she said. “Eventually I will be.”

  “You’re the strongest person I know, Enid,” he said, looking away and returning to stand by Ariana, who seemed to be fine with him there.

  It was time, Enid decided. She wasn’t getting anything done standing here watching the fire. As soon as she finished this, she could go home, and she desperately wanted to go home. She thanked those tending the pyre one more time, then went to speak to Ariana and Lee.

  Enid wished she still had Tomas looming at her shoulder. Would anyone listen to her, without him beside her?

  Well, Dak had.

  “I’d like to meet the committee at Sero’s homestead now,” she said to the pair. “Will you come with me?” Enid looked over the gathering again, just in case, but still no Philos.

  Ariana stared. “You did it. You found out what happened.”

  “I might have. But I need confirmation. Philos needs to be there, too.”

  “I—I don’t know if he’ll come,” Lee said, wringing his hands. “Right now—he’s despondent. I think he’s aged a year just since last night.”

  Enid felt no sympathy for the man. “I’ll
go get him myself, if you think it’ll help. And where’s Kirk?”

  “Haven’t seen him,” Ariana said.

  Enid hadn’t seen him since the day before yesterday. He wasn’t there when she and Tomas had uncovered the hoard at Bounty. Had the boy actually fled? And what did that say?

  “Miran.” Enid turned to find her right there. Not eager. Her shawl was stretched tight across her shoulders, from hugging herself. Whatever happened, she would see it through. Braver than her beloved, she was. “You know where Kirk might go if he wanted to hide?”

  She hesitated. “No. No, I don’t.”

  Lying, Enid was sure. That was fine. “Right, then.”

  //////////////////////////////////////////////////

  Enid felt like a magician, revealing wonders.

  First, she went to Bounty to find out the state of things. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see that the entire place had burned to the ground. That Philos would turn out to be one of those types who would destroy what he’d built rather than see someone else knock it down. But the place was just as it had been yesterday, the pretty sign still standing, the buildings and gardens just as they should be. The door to the secret cellar and the honeysuckle vines had been put back to the way they were, all neat and innocuous.

  The usual bustle of a busy household was absent—everything quiet. No one seemed to be working; the loom was still. The only sounds were the murmuring chickens.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked Ariana.

  “Common room, I think,” she said. “Are you sure this is necessary? I was hoping we could just leave Philos be.”

  Enid turned on her, glaring. After all Philos had done, after he’d potentially undermined the entire community, she could still say that? Would she argue that Philos and his household should avoid punishment, too?