by Liv Daniels
Leina was prepared. From her perch atop the thatched roof of one of the storied buildings, she raised her arm in signal. Perfectly in sync, her companions, also atop the roofs, released their hold on the heavy racks of honeycomb. Down into the alleys they fell. The moment seemed to be suspended in time, and then the thunderous impact came. The monsters didn’t see what was coming until they were struck. In an instant, those that survived were in an uproar, monstrous eyes darting rapidly left and right in uncertainty, many-toothed mouths roaring their confusion. Then there was a great cheer among the townspeople, and they came upon the monsters, brandishing their pitchforks and fishing poles so fiercely that one would have thought they were warriors of the most frightening kind.
And so the monsters that had terrorized the people of Cavlin for their whole lives now ran from them. The honey on the ground stuck to their feet and caused some of them to reel over into the sticky mess and onto their injured accomplices, but those that fell were up and fleeing as soon as they could escape from the honey. The people were invigorated. They cheered and shouted and shook their fists at the retreating brutes, their tormentors no longer. In that moment, no matter how many raids were to come, they were freed from a lifetime of fear.
From her perch on the roof, Leina smiled at the ragtag jubilance below. She turned to Lucian. “Are you sure the governor won’t be angry that we did this without his consent?”
Lucian laughed, wiping some sweat from his brow. Hauling the heavy racks from the governor’s house to these rooftops had been no easy task, but he and the other men hired for the governor’s blockade had managed it, and thus had turned that which was meant only to shut in to a much better use. “As long as he’s safe, he doesn’t care. It will be quite alright. I thank you. You have given us the spark that we long needed.”
Leina smiled. “When is the next election for governor?”
“A few months. Why?”
“I highly suggest you run.”
Lucian scoffed. “You don’t just run for governor. No one has dared to run against the Florenzo clan for as long as I’ve been alive.”
Leina shrugged. “Well, you’ve got something nice for your resume now. Try it.”
The people were cheering for the Masked One now, which meant it was quite time to leave. Leina had one more stop to make. She waved and descended into the trapdoor in the roof, then slipped from the house into an empty alley and was gone.
Chapter 11
When Leina returned to the curiosity shop near the harbor, she found the young shopkeeper in tears.
Leina was immediately at her side. “Are you alright?”
The shopkeeper, surrounded by shattered glass and splintered wood, rose quickly from where she had been kneeling and attempted a grateful smile. “These are not your troubles. You should leave.”
“No, really,” said Leina, leaning against an overturned shelf. “What is it?”
The woman sniffed. “They destroyed everything, and took all the money I had. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Leina considered. She could give what money that she had to the shopkeeper, but it would hardly be enough. There was only one other option. “The monsters have colored bands on their ankles to identify them. Did you happen to see what color the ones that took your money were?”
“One was blue with a white stripe, and the other white with a blue stripe.”
“I will go after them then.”
The shopkeeper shook her head emphatically, took hold of Leina’s shoulder in panic. “No! You cannot do that. It’s too dangerous.”
“No more dangerous than the other ten things on my checklist. Really, I want to.”
“I do not ask you to do this.”
“You don’t have to.”
The woman smiled gently, and the droop in her shoulders straightened. “Thank you. That is why the people love you—because you have a great heart, always seeking to do what is right.”
Leina was instantly curious. “That’s why? Not because of the things I do?”
“No.” The woman shook her head. “It is for who you are. Your works are only a result of that. You have given us something to aspire to, hope that those things which we have long since forgotten are not dead.”
“Thank you,” Leina said, and she meant it. There was something that she could accept in that.
***
The only hope of catching the monsters, Leina knew, was to reach the mountain pass before them. She didn’t have much of a plan as to what to do when she intercepted them, and the sun was darting moodily in and out of clouds, so her light trick couldn’t be relied upon. Anyway they were probably expecting it this time. Never use the same trick twice. That was what Max always said.
But the first thing was to catch them. All the surmising in the world wouldn’t help if she didn’t get to the pass before them, and they had left Cavlin at least ten minutes ago. So she ran. She kept to the rocky, tumbled coast, knowing that the monsters would take a straighter path to the mountain pass, through the lavender fields. That was just as well; Leina was happy to let the monsters deal with the bee-ridden fields rather than brave them herself. She could only hope that they were not travelling too quickly, and that she would be able to pass them.
She reached the pass after about thirty minutes. All was still. That could be a good sign, but Leina feared otherwise. She knelt to the ground to examine it for footprints and found that the dusty ground was stamped with the marks of many heavy feet. She was about to turn away in despair, but suddenly stopped. Silly. Of course it would be. They were here yesterday, and there has been no rain since. There’s no way to tell whether they’ve come before you.
If that was the case, all that she could do now was wait. So, after scanning the horizon to make sure that they were not near, she scaled a steep nearby slope to get above the pass and carefully climbed down to her accustomed hiding place on the ledge, concealing herself behind a scraggly sage brush. And she waited. A wind kicked up and the clouds, ever increasing in density, passed in front of the sun with greater speed, teasing the World with rays of light and then snuffing them out. As Leina watched the pass she was lulled into some void of thought. All that she could think of clearly was the blinking light, blinking light…
Then they came, and Leina realized in a panic that she hadn’t thought of a plan. She watched for the two monsters that the shopkeeper had described, but didn’t see any that fit the description. More came and passed, and as she watched Leina sped through her mind for any idea of how to get the money. But she felt incapable of thinking in any direction other than in circles, and almost all of the monsters had already passed, and she was suddenly afraid that she would only watch and do nothing.
She shifted her focus from the monsters’ ankle bands to what they were carrying. Even though they had ultimately been ousted, they had still managed to come out of it with plenty of loot. They carried broken pieces of furniture on their shoulders, and pushed carts laden with food. There were no prisoners, however, to accompany them this time.
At the very end of the caravan, Leina could clearly see two monsters, one with a heavy sack slung over its shoulder which Leina was willing to bet contained the money. The other had a long armored tail that swung viciously behind it. As they marched past, Leina looked to their ankles, and sure enough, one band was blue with a white stripe and the other was white with a blue stripe. She let them pass, sweat dripping from her forehead despite the chill.
What could she do?
At last she stood up and called out loudly from her perch. She had always wondered if monsters could be reasoned with, and now seemed as good a time as any to find out. She had run over variations of the conversation in her head many times, but hadn’t expected to actually use it unless she was desperate. Which, at the moment, she was.
All at once, the monsters stopped and turned to glare at her.
“Hello,” Leina said, letting her cloak aside. She knew that at this frequency the reflection of the sun wou
ld only annoy the monsters, but all the better. Immediately recognizing her, some of the monsters jumped and grappled at the sheer wall in an effort to reach her. But she laughed. “You won’t get up that way. The only way is to go around outside the pass, scale the mountains, and climb down. But before you could do that, I would be gone. For the moment, I have the upper hand. So I suggest that you listen to me.” The sun shone particularly brightly for a moment, causing the monsters to cover their eyes and cower against the opposite wall of the narrow pass. Then the light was obscured again, and they eyed her with their shallow, empty glares.
“There are many things about me that your master would dearly like to know,” Leina continued. “If you give me that bag of coins”—she pointed to the monster that still had the bag slung over its shoulder—“then I will tell you who I really am. Given all that you’ve pillaged from sorry Cavlin, that money is worth practically nothing to you. Dangerman won’t miss it. But the information that I can give you is beyond price.”
Unfortunately, the monsters weren’t at all impressed. They stared at her with a purpose, and a lack of acknowledgement of anything outside that purpose, that could not be altered.
“Never, Masked One,” said the monster with the bag of money. “When you are not looking, someday, we will catch you, and then we will squeeze much more out of you than that.” The others grunted in approval.
Leina shook her head. “You’ll regret this, I promise you.” But she was already regretting it herself. Now she had to resort to her only other plan, which was likely not to end well.
In one swift movement, she leapt down from the ledge and lunged for the bag. She secured it in a vice grip, digging her fingernails into the burlap. The monster grunted in rage, swinging madly back and forth to dislodge Leina from the bag slung over its shoulder. The other monsters hung back, watching, but Leina knew that they wouldn’t hesitate to close in on her if she became a more serious threat.
Leina hung on doggedly, but her grip was failing. The one with the long tail joined the struggle now, slashing at her with its claws. Finally, it swung its tail at her, and she lost her grip entirely.
If you can’t win, find a way not to lose. That was the piece of advice that was running through Leina’s head in the moment after the impact that seemed to stretch for minutes and beyond. In this kind of situation, there was only one way not to lose. So Leina spent that unnaturally suspended moment resisting the screaming impulse to brace herself. Instead, she remained totally limp. It was an unspeakably smooth feeling, sailing through the air in perfect abandon. Leina tried to put all of her focus on that, but in fact it was the most unnerving part of the situation.
She hit the ground with a sharp impact, choking in her effort not to scream or groan. Then she lay still.
There was an interminable silence as the monsters stared at Leina’s unmoving figure. One jabbed her in the ribs with its toe, but she only flopped under the pressure like a ragdoll. The monster grunted. There was a harsh yell from somewhere ahead, and the monsters fell back into formation and were gone.
No, monsters could not be reasoned with. At least Leina had learned that.
Chapter 12
What the monsters didn’t realize was that Leina had slashed a small hole in the money bag with a knife borrowed from a fisherman in Cavlin. The monsters were a kind of creature that didn’t often pay attention to small details. Sometimes, however, details of that kind could be important. Since the one with the money was at the back of the line, Leina doubted that any of the other monsters would notice.
She waited a long time after the monsters’ indelicate stomping had faded away. Then, with a groan of pain, she got up and brushed the dust off of her cloak. The sun crept out from behind a cloud, shining its light on a glittering trail of coins that stretched out into the emptiness of the Desert. Leina smiled.
Though it was painful to walk, Leina judged that she hadn’t been injured seriously. So she slipped off her cloak to use as a bag and followed the twinkling path, picking up the coins as she went.
***
The shopkeeper was staring pensively through her broken window. When she saw Leina coming down the street, her face brightened and she rushed to the door. “You are back!”
Leina heaved her bunched-up cloak through the doorway. She opened it, and a gold glittering mass spilled out onto the floor. “Every last coin.” Leina didn’t mention it, but a good portion of her own money was there too, foolish though she knew it was to give it up.
The young woman fingered the money in astonishment. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need,” Leina said, and turned to the door, eager to leave.
But the shopkeeper rushed to the back room, and returned extending the book that Leina had been looking at earlier. “Please, take this. For free.”
Leina shook her head. “You should keep it. Sell it and fix your window.”
“No one wants to buy a thing like that anyway. Please, it’s a gift.”
Leina took the book. “Thank you. I have very much wanted something to read. It will help me more than you know.”
“You are strange to so value an ancient novelty.” The shopkeeper stopped herself abruptly. “I mean—that’s what most people…”
Leina smiled patiently. “Yes, it seems that that is what most people think. They don’t know what they’re missing. But if it means that I get free books like this, I’m afraid that it makes me less inclined to tell them my secret.” And she laughed.
On the way out of town, Leina flipped the borrowed knife back to the fisherman at the dock with a word of thanks. Then she returned to the woods.
***
Leina returned to Cavlin often after that. As she walked the streets, she would often hear children whispering, “It’s the Masked One!” She had to turn her face so they didn’t see her chuckling, but sometimes she would disappear down the next alley with a swish of her cloak, just to humor them.
There had been no raids in Cavlin since the monsters had been driven off, almost two weeks. The people were at greater peace now than they had ever known in their troubled lives. Every time she came, Leina saw progress—one day a window had been fixed, the next a new fence built to replace the one that had been broken in so many places. The people worked with greater care now, and with a softer light in their eyes, as if they actually expected their work to last more than a moment in the endless grind of time. Leina only hoped that it would. One day Leina helped an elderly couple build a birdhouse. “Just because we can,” said the woman with a defiant laugh that had a youth beyond her age. Such a laugh hadn’t been heard in Cavlin for years beyond imagining. Leina took in the sweet fragrance of the lavender, and then she laughed, too.
Sometimes Leina would walk in the Desert near the border. If she saw a band of monsters, she would cause them what little annoyances she could. But as time went on, it became clearer and clearer that she did not know what to do. She supposed that she was waiting for something to happen. Something to make her mind surer, or to provoke her to action. But in the back of her mind, she knew that she would have to be the one to make something happen. She just didn’t know what, or maybe it was only that she was loth to shatter the peace of her current existence. Something of her heart was in Cavlin.
But at last, something came to break Leina’s comfortable state of inaction. That morning, she arrived early in Cavlin to restock on food. The first thing that she noticed was that the city had been plastered with brightly painted wooden signs that read, “Vote Lucian Juliano for Governor.” That made her smile.
But when she emerged from a small shop after making her purchases, she discovered an unintended repercussion of this change. It came in the form of Governor Florenzo, marching angrily down the street with a small band of followers. Not eager for a confrontation, Leina tried to slip back into the shop. But she was too late. Florenzo marched toward her with his fists in tight balls at his sides.
“You! Usurper!” He narrowed his eyes in
a way that suggested that he thought he had made a very clever observation. He released one of his balled fists and pointed a finger at her threateningly.
“Yes?” Leina said calmly, hiding her annoyance behind the mask on her face.
Florenzo knit his brows in anger, absently swiping at his moustache, which was slick with sweat. “Look at what you’ve done! You’ve caused nothing but trouble since you first came here. Recklessly put us all in danger. I don’t care who you are. And now… this!” He marched over to one of Lucian’s signs and kicked it angrily, but his kick was weak and the sign remained undamaged. This only made him angrier. He kicked it again.
As they watched the scene, Florenzo’s followers shuffled their feet nervously. Probably he had hired them just to protect him should the monsters reappear. For all Leina knew, Florenzo considered coming out from his mansion sanctuary a great act of bravery.
Florenzo turned back to Leina, coming up close to her in an effort to be threatening. But in fact, he was much shorter than Leina and she found him hard to take seriously. She smiled down at the fuming governor.
“If I ever see you here again,” Florenzo shouted shrilly, “I’ll see to it that you are arrested. I will not have Cavlin in such disorder. Is that clear?”
Leina sighed. She wished that she could make Florenzo understand, but she knew not how. “Just let me say one thing. When I’m gone, look more closely at your city, and your people. See them for what they really are. They are enlivened, because at last they resisted the evil that has ground upon them for their entire lives. They are rebuilding, and becoming whole again. I take no credit for anything that has happened here. Just don’t let them fall back to what they used to be. They have come so far. And… don’t be mad at Lucian.”
That last plea was a mistake. “I am mad at Lucian!” Florenzo screamed. His voice broke, and the declaration faded into a series of loud coughs. When he recovered, he whipped his head back to stare up at Leina, his eyes bloodshot. He shook his fist at her. “Now out!”
