Tearing Down The Statues

by Brian Bennudriti

  “Mine always rub off.”

  Misling watched her in order to acknowledge in his way, then eyed the boy to see what insight he could provide.

  “Do you want to wrestle?” The boy’s wide smile was pocked with two missing teeth.

  Misling shook his head to decline, then wiped a stream of sweat with his thumb. Once the boy had run off, the girl’s soft face hardened shockingly – wrinkled and angry, calling to mind the sudden onset of a black storm cloud shutting out the sun.

  “You who have whored your freedom, taste the rape of the chained!” Her tone was different and icy, like someone else was speaking through her. The Recorder stared on, suddenly lost.

  “Stay away from the bell tower.”

  “Where is your father? Are you ill?”

  “My daddy says you’re a watcher and a listener; but you won’t be when they’re through with you. You won’t be.”

  It was for him as if her words were garbled in rushing wind, “Who are these people? Why would you say such a thing?”

  “They’ll hear you breathing. It’s hard to hold your breath when you’re scared. Stay away from the bell tower, Recorder. Stay away.”

  She tapped his forehead once more before rising and sprinting in a zig-zag, darting in and out of the resin automata tending the fields, towards the direction from which she’d come. He watched, pale as a corpse, till Ring called for him. There was no warning, no evident or clear reason why this absolute stranger in such a form as a young girl who had so briefly before been lost in joy on her father’s shoulders, had at once then turned dire prophet. The girl had by this point vanished into the barley fields; and Misling was startled and shaken as he stood and rejoined Hastine.

  The woman took no notice of Misling and had pretty brown eyes although the skin of her face was rough and dry and unhealthy. Ring was sitting cross-legged tossing the thundercloud-colored carab about in his hands, only glancing occasionally at Misling. The three of them were seated around a stone firepit in chairs and at an intimate table with the unmistakable sheen of ProMat, a programmable matter which could readily be dissolved and tanked or repurposed into other geometries. They had evidently been there for some time and were deep into a discussion apparently driven by the passionate tentman. Misling only with some effort regained his stoicism – he straightened his shirt at times like this, when he needed balance.

  “…your age have no idea the scale of violence that went on years ago. Pampered, and never having had to fight for your way of life. It’s a different way of looking at your world to think someone out there doesn’t want you to go on doing what you do every day.” Hastine was continuing his discussion as if Misling hadn’t rejoined.

  “That’s so, is it, Hastine?” Farmilion appeared coming back from behind a tent, straightening his fly after urinating. He was smiling mischievously; and now that they were all standing it was more clear how short and fat he really was.

  “And that’s what you were thinking in those days when Talgo was burning the shipyards, high and grand pontification on the unfortunate twists in the nature of man and how very courageous you were for facing it full-on, and not perhaps where there might be a quiet place to have a sip and talk to a pretty woman, ay Selisa?”

  Selisa smiled at Farmilion as he gently tapped her chin; but Hastine kept to his agenda despite the chiding.

  “Your grandfathers saw horrible times and times of the highest human expression…great wars, economic collapse, and disasters. Your fathers remember the deaths of great men or what they were doing when they heard news of events that shook the world. But your generation is left with nothing to believe in. We killed your religion and left you in those tall shadows. Whether it’s blasphemy, I can’t say. That’s a matter of faith. But when we let slip the glue that founded and adhered our civilization for thousands of years, we truly failed you…because we replaced it with nothing.

  “Really, Hastine.” Farmilion chided him.

  “So what do you stand for then?” He pointed to his right at nothing obvious, and in his urgency began to improperly include Misling in his eye contact.

  “I stood at the Yagrada dock and watched a hundred thousand men submerge into the battle of Sarling. That’s now just a date in a textbook – schoolkids don’t even know why they went. When we’re stuck with lunatics like old man Talgo’s sons and bloodthirsty fiefdoms clawing at our walls, your generation sits waiting on the next calamity to give them an identity.”

  Hastine and Selisa stood to follow Farmilion once he’d motioned towards the wrecked troop tower, indicating they would finish their conversation from its height looking out over the broad city. Misling waited till Ring followed suit.

  “Well I’m not a local; but it seems to me everyone around here is drafted into the military, so I’m not sure where you’re coming from. You seem to have a pretty clear vision of what you’re looking for. What is it you’d have done?” Ring found a seat beside Hastine and rested his foot against a railing. Selisa rolled her eyes, no doubt having heard Hastine’s answer to this before.

  “Oh, you’ve done it now, little stranger. It saddens the tragedy that such well-intentioned and respectful curiosity is to be repaid with what is to follow.” Farmilion patted Ring’s shoulders playfully.

  “Don’t any of you start with me, he asked my opinion. War is not self-evidently evil, it’s a function, like money or weddings or laws. Most are justified, I’d say. Sets limits for those who require them. Boundaries. It’s naïve to think otherwise; and the need renews every generation when the limits age and start to be questioned – when it’s not clear they still hold. My problem is the void of leadership in high places. When a soldier is laid as sacrifice for a hill or piece of ground, it wasn’t Goodman Farmilion’s twists in the nature of man that put him there, it was his general. We need better leaders; and I’m not sure democracy does that. I’m not sure dictatorship does that either.”

  “I’m sorry, did you answer my question?”

  “We throw Judge Talgo out and his weird son. We keep that misfit, Revin as far away from the Judgeship as possible. Either put Marshal Peri in charge or better yet, establish a parliament and draft them from a pool of free citizens nominated by the city. Have them serve for four years, then return to being a private citizen with no chance to build an empire or get entrenched in ridiculous politics.”

  “Like a roaring burner to a balloon, you inflate my pessimism with your expectations of our countrymen, assuming such a deep bench of talent and motivation, such an ability to overcome steep learning curves in only four years that our nominees will be inexhaustible. I imagine only a handful of cycles in, we’ll be posting wild wanoa from the field into offices and smacking their backsides in hopes of their relearning speech.”

  Farmilion continued, but broke into laughing, “Possibly, they’re our only hope to simplify the taxes.”

  As they chuckled and shifted their positions for idle comfort, Misling looked again for the little girl in the barley field. Farmilion took the carab from Ring’s hand and tossed it over the twisted railing.

  “It’s bugging me. Tell us your story; and let’s give Goodman Hastine a chance to catch his breath. My little professor doesn’t break from his introversion often; and you’re a happy surprise. I hope we’ve not met, my memory is quite soft.”

  Misling engaged as he hadn’t till this point, fully locking on Ring’s face for an answer. Ring’s knowing grin was different from before, as if he were deciding between a secret or a falsehood. He was looking out over the city, pocked with rises and towers, with ultramarine Balcister crowded among slate gabled apartments and alpine rises to the east and the bustling immigrant neighborhoods to the west. Much of the city was shrouded in its cluttered rooftops, drawing the fancy that one could walk from one end to the other simply on slate and copper domed roofs if not on its elevated covered walkways. Blocked only by the highest cliff with its sculpted waterfall, the view of the valley was beautiful. Ring’s hesitation ended at las
t.

  “I’m interested in making certain visitations…five of them. You’ll appreciate this, Goodman Hastine. I want the world to be different because I was here…to be better…I want to be remembered; and I need to see certain things to understand the essence of the age.”

  “Five, is it? Will that quite do it? What’s made your list?”

  “Our tent city, no doubt, is one.” Selisa joined in. “You worked the place like a politician before stepping in with us saying you were looking for the Recorder like he doesn’t have a blazing sign on his head.”

  Farmilion continued when Ring offered nothing further except perhaps a slight sense that the guess wasn’t right at all, “It sounds so mythological, I absolutely love it. And the central market, where the Salt Mystic first stepped from the flats to tell of her visions…you met the little professor there. That was on your list as well!”

  “That’s a fair bit of ground to cover in one morning.”

  “Blast it, Hastine! I’m trying to puzzle out his list. Keep quiet! The essence of the age…you’ll need to hear from the military. A battlegroup then, perhaps one deployed in the flats.”

  “I spent the summer in the white fleet.” Ring answered both Hastine and Farmilion at once.

  “The Augur”, Selisa added, drawing wide eyes from Farmilion, who stood and locked hands at his back hips to pace in thought as he mumbled an agreement.

  “Have you spoken to it?” Ring asked Farmilion.

  “I have no idea. Would think I would remember.” He glanced to Misling, who shrugged in response.

  “So the white fleet, the central market; and our own fabulous moveable village are in your bag. You’ve plans to pay a call to the Augur, a disturbing and mysterious experience I’m told. But I’m at an impasse to determine your fifth stop, my ambitious little novelty. Young master Recorder must join you in these final visitations, it’s too intriguing to leave it alone.”

  Misling’s back straightened at the news, his mouth inappropriately gaping. Hastine spoke before Misling could interject.

  “What are you to do once you’ve sorted all this out, then? How are you to make a difference?” Hastine was impatient for details, but was ignored again.

  “But where could your fifth visitation be? What would you pick apart to see the clockworks of our very times?” At Farmilion’s question, they each looked at Ring’s face. He eventually answered.

  “The Rauchka sniper.” He shrugged.

  Each of them apart from Misling gave voice to their interest as they connected his dots. Hastine however, wasn’t yet bought in.

  “What could that thing possibly tell you of any importance? It’s monstrous and irrelevant.”

  “What do you think, Misling?” Ring pulled in the Recorder, engendering curiosity in at least Selisa and Hastine. Farmilion took to the name straightaway before Misling could react.

  “What did you call him? Misling…does it mean something? It’s brilliant. I love it. Your name is Misling now. It’s absolutely what you’ve needed, you magnificent and noble castaway.”

  The Recorder began to place his eyebrows against his thumb and index finger in order to process or perhaps unplug from what he was hearing; but Ring pressed for a reaction.

  “Will you see the Rauchka sniper with me? I won’t start any trouble.”

  Misling looked to Farmilion, who announced the plan’s settlement. Hastine refined further, “Farmilion will be joining Selisa and I at Balcister the day after tomorrow for lunch. There is a café by the fountain where the event readers go. I’d like to hear about your visitation. If we’re not there, we’ll be in the tower at the bank. Just wait for us.”

  The four of them settled their arrangements, inviting Ring to sleep on board Farmilion’s dirigible rover before getting started in the morning. Quite awkwardly, when he saw the group breaking up, Misling stepped in and gave Farmilion a clumsy hug, shutting his eyes just briefly before glancing nervously around himself. It was the kind of clumsy an ostrich or big crane might be, lumbering about on a cold morning.

  Farmilion chuckled and patted his arm, “Dear boy.”

  It was a sweet moment, not lost on Ring, who only nodded and grinned. Ring and Misling stepped back down the curved ladderwell to have a look at it, leaving the others to a walk to the hilly paraball fields where an afternoon game was assembling. No one mentioned the hug; and the Recorder probably wouldn’t have discussed it anyway.

  Instead, Ring smiled widely as the two of them approached Farmilion’s vessel, intrigued by the rover’s eccentricity. He ran his hands over the colorful and grotesque figurehead on its bow: a sculpted very young girl’s face and arms outstretching an icicle sword as if hopelessly warding off dragons. The rover had a sparse windshielded cabin, but a railed open area astern much like a pleasure boat, resting on a flat bateau-like keel rather than rails as more expensive rovers did in those days. There were visible patches on the hull and a bright green painted graffito along the starboard length which said, ‘this too will pass’.

  Four long and narrow gasbags the color of polished brass were arranged in a diamond when viewed from the front, providing better stability in high winds than a single larger bag. They were ornately illustrated with thin black celtic swirls and looked to be of greater worth than the rest of the ship as if they had been gifted or stolen. It was a vehicle intended for leisurely pace and lift sufficient only to raise it above rocks and terrain such that a drive fan moved it along. Ring sauntered directly to the helm, eyeing strange controls which looked to be an imitation brass.

  “Please do not launch this vessel.”

  “Misling, when are you going to tell me what the little girl said to you? You were clearly out of sorts from the moment she left you; and you stared after her during what I thought was an incredibly pivotal discussion.”

  “Please do not launch this vessel. It is evident you have difficulty remaining still. Perhaps if you went for a run…”

  “Why so nervous? It floats. What did she say?” Ring slid the lee helm throttle forward, drawing a deep hum from the drive fan, then smiled at his success.

  “She seemed to be quoting something, or perhaps delivering a message. It was possibly a garbled threat.”

  “And her words were…”

  “’You who have whored your freedom, taste the rape of the chained.’” At that, Ring’s face showed he may have heard it before. He was put out a moment before slipping back into a grin.

  “Odd. You’re having a strange day, aren’t you, little professor? Is that all she said?”

  Misling hesitated, using the time to think while he looked out over the weed choked precipice leading down the mountain face into the valley, the direction the rover was beginning to slide.

  “That is all she said.”

  Ring watched the Recorder’s face a moment, judging something, then leaned forward over the chestnut helm wheel to look into the broad river valley.

  “What in the world did she mean by that?”

  “Rover vessels run low to the ground, and drift in high winds. One does not slide such a vessel down the side of a mountain. Farmilion’s intentions were for you to rest in advance of your visitation tomorrow, not to joy ride and place his property in jeopardy.”

  “Oh, we’ll be fine. Air’s thicker down there. We should sail over it like butter.”

  Misling bowed under the opening and headed for the railed platform behind the cabin to leave. Although the rover was only a moment from the mountainside, he stopped. Ring watched him, happily surprised he hadn’t left already when the Recorder peered back through.

  “It is irresponsible! Do you truly believe you can change the world?”

  Ring draped his hand over the helm wheel to brace himself as the rover slid over the weeds and brush beginning to tilt.

  “I have no idea. But it will be fun to try.”

  4 A CANNON OFF THE WHEELS

  It isn’t any longer common knowledge what Denai was really like in those days, a floating met
ropolis whose gleaming white towers and curves rose above the ocean encircled by a weathered stone wall. Like shaken hornets, merchant submarines and cargo ships swirled within its wide, crowded harbor. Invisible from the surface, long sleek buildings jutted down into the ocean eventually converging into a spoked wheel construction in the depths popularly known as, “The Reaches”. It was from this seedy neighborhood of casinos, drug labs, and brothels that the real governors of Denai ruled, a cadre of untouchable dons managing extensive organized crime networks which outright bought the loyalty of the citizens.