“But in time of threat?” asked Horatio.
“We cannot tell for how long any threat might linger or, indeed, whether it will ever leave. For even in times of peace, threats can gather. But threat or no, the Kingdom does not belong to me. It belongs to all those who live and labor here, who share its burdens and rewards.”
“Here, here,” Lucious called.
“As such,” she went on, “members of the Assembly will no longer be appointed. You will now be chosen by your peers. This is my second and final decree as queen.”
No sooner had she sat, Lucious was on his feet. “Did you not hear the captain?” he cried. “We are at war. This is no time to upset the order.” He turned to the rest of the Assembly. “The crucial progress you have made this past year, the sacrifices. Are you going to just give them over to the whims of—of the mob?” He looked wildly about. “Well? Well?!”
When no one answered, Lucious turned to Iliff. He could feel Lucious’ thoughts flailing inside his own head. Iliff cleared his throat.
“When is this to happen?” he asked.
“The voting will be held tomorrow,” Skye answered. “After the day shift has returned and before the night shift sets out.”
* * *
“The people tire of this labor,” Lucious said from behind his tankard. “I hear them. They whisper that the enemy will not return… that they are denied their simple labors for nothing.” He let his cup list to one side, righting it just before ale spilled onto the table. “They want to get back to their… their gardens and their… looms.”
“Perhaps they do,” Iliff said, watching Lucious carefully. Though he had nearly finished his own tankard, it was only his first. He had not nearly kept pace with his host. “But I believe the people understand the threat to be real. I’m sure they’ll be willing to sacrifice a little more for the protection of the township.”
Lucious shook his head. “You’ll see,” he said. “Their memories are short. The attack is fading. My heroism…” He waved his hand in resignation. “This time tomorrow I’ll be the former Assembly member.”
“You don’t know that,” Iliff ventured. “And even if the worst does come to pass, there are still members who believe in the defenses, members who are likely to retain their seats. Probably a majority of them.”
“Yes, but for how long, I ask you. They rule at the pleasure of the people now. If the people say, ‘Nay, we are tired of all this toil, tired of all this stone,’ so too will the Assembly. They will outnumber us soon enough.”
“Well, it’s not as if they’re going to dismantle the walls.”
“Not tomorrow or the day after,” Lucious mumbled. “But soon enough. I don’t mind the closeness of stone… perhaps it’s somewhere in my making…” His head dipped. “But these people are given to light and space. They’ll only tolerate being shut in for so long.”
The King had spoken the same warning from his sickbed. But with the closeness of the Garott, with the thought of Troll somewhere out there, Iliff had pushed the warning from his mind. But now he remembered that a year for him would seem like three or four to the Fythe. Perhaps the threat of attack did appear ever more remote to them. Perhaps they were beginning to feel restless. He had never stopped to consider that the people might not share his fears, that there were other reasons for their colors becoming subdued in the last months.
But without the support of the people or an understanding sovereign, what chances would his walls have? Iliff shook the table until Lucious moaned and propped himself onto a forearm.
“What are we to do?” Iliff asked.
Lucious’ smile was lopsided. “Well,” he said, “there is the militia, should it ever come to it… and there are members of the guard who…” His words disintegrated as his head swooned. Iliff thought he was done for the night, but with one final gasp he cried, “Men of means, Iliff! Men with weapons!”
Lucious crawled for his tankard, but finding it empty, brushed it aside and lay his head back down. By the time the tankard rolled off the table and clattered to the floor, he was snoring against the crook of his arm.
* * *
The vote was held late the following day in the marketplace. Hundreds of workers filed in from the walls and down from the quarries, many of them trailing stone dust. Farmers arrived too, as did guards and blacksmiths, tanners and tailors, weavers and woodworkers, midwives and healers—people of every occupation. There was much excitement around the elections, and for the first time in a long while, Iliff watched the people’s colors swell. They voted in their occupational groups, dropping marbles into long ceramic cylinders. A collective vote was then held for positions, such as Iliff’s, that did not belong to a specific group.
Though Iliff could not see his container for the fact that the voting was held behind partitions, Gilpin would later tell him that he could hardly get his own marble inside by the time his turn had come. “They may not all delight at your stone walls,” Gilpin said. “But they do know that you were favored by the King and that you raise the walls for their benefit.”
Lucious did not appear for the voting and was one of two Assembly members to be removed from his seat. As Iliff stood waiting for his own votes to be counted, he worried where Lucious might be and what he might be plotting. His words from the night before, though slurred, continued to resonate sharply for Iliff.
Did Lucious really command the loyalty of the militia? he wondered. Were there members of the King’s Guard ready to dissolve the Assembly at his word? He had no reason to believe Lucious’ claims, but neither had he good reason to doubt them. Lucious was close to the militia and several members of the guard. Iliff had seen some of them leaving Lucious’ cottage at odd hours in the last weeks. And why not? Lucious had known the King’s end was near. He had known that he would soon be losing his brother’s patronage. It stood to reason that he would take steps to ensure his continued influence within the Kingdom. His warming toward Iliff in the last year may even have been a part of this calculation.
A swell of cheering roused Iliff from his thoughts. He turned to find an elder standing beside him, announcing his victory. But even in the midst of victory, Iliff could still hear Lucious’ voice:
Yes, they cheer you now, but one day they will cheer your replacement as they dismantle your walls. Mark my words. If it is left to them, they will expose themselves—and you—to the horrors that lurk out there.
But though the voice in his head sounded like Lucious’, Iliff knew that the thoughts were very much his own.
Chapter 15
One morning, a month after the elections, Iliff and Gilpin were departing for the wall when a guard appeared and addressed himself to Iliff. “Skye wishes to meet with you, Master,” he said. “She is outside the west gate.”
Iliff turned to Gilpin. “Will you be all right?”
“Don’t worry about me, my friend. I can take charge.” Gilpin winked and tilted his head. “Now go on lest you keep a lovely woman waiting.”
Iliff felt his pulse quickening as he went with the guard toward the gate. He had not been alone with Skye since their day on the wall walk, when the walls were made of timber. That seemed so long ago. And though he anticipated seeing her again, he also feared that she and the Assembly had come to some unfavorable decision regarding the stone defenses.
She stood just beyond the gate, looking over the tilled fields. Her hair, fair and silken, was unencumbered for the first time in as long as Iliff could remember. At all of the meetings and celebrations it had been confined inside a headdress. Now it spilled down the back of her umber cloak. She turned and lowered her head in greeting. Iliff bowed in return, his head faint with the image of her. Before he could speak, she took his arm.
“Accompany me on a walk?” she asked.
“Yes, of course.”
They made their way toward the woods, to the King’s Preserve. It was still early and their breathing steamed the chill air. The two guards followed at a distance. Skye led them
onto a path that meandered inside the pristine wood. Birds twittered and took flight at their entrance, alighting on branches where green buds were just beginning to appear. Iliff glanced nervously about. Seeing this, Skye laughed.
“When was the last time you left town?” she asked. “The last time you strolled in the woods?”
“I don’t know,” Iliff admitted. “Years, probably.”
Skye smiled but said nothing.
“What is it?”
“I was just thinking about how I found a man sleeping in the wide open once. Nothing for cover but the cloak around him. Nothing for protection but a sharpened stick.” She nodded toward the towering stone walls that showed through the trees. “If I did not know you, Iliff, I would not believe you to be the same person.”
Iliff watched her as she spoke. He noted the prominence of her cheek bones, the faint lines that fanned from the corners of her eyes when she smiled. As impossible as it seemed, Skye was nearly as old as he was now.
“Indeed,” Iliff said. “Much has changed since then.”
“And yet, much has not.” She stopped him. Though her touch was gentle, her face became tense. She glanced back toward the guards, who were just entering the wood, and moved nearer to Iliff. “The Garott want to make a truce,” she said.
“A truce? How did this come about? When?”
“They learned of father’s passing, and believing that I had assumed power as queen, they got a message to me.”
“Tell me you did not meet with them.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Two nights ago. But no one knows of it yet.” She glanced back again. “Not even the guards.”
Iliff was going to ask how she managed to get to a meeting unseen, but then he remembered that it was this skill that had led to their own meeting on the lakeshore years before. A terrible realization dawned on him.
“You went alone.”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes. He could have lost her. They all could have lost her. His voice became stern. “Do you realize the danger you put yourself in? Why did you not have them come to you? Why risk a meeting beyond the walls? What if it had all been a ploy?”
“I hear your concerns,” she said. “And you are right, of course. But I sensed that the message was genuine.” They began walking again. “You see, where written words are most often read, I feel them. I feel the intention of the mind behind them. But I could not be entirely certain. After all, it was only my feeling, and the Garott have been known to deceive. That is why I did not invite them here. It is why I chose to meet with them alone. Because if I was wrong, Iliff, I did not want anyone else to suffer for my mistake.”
“But why take the chance at all?”
“Uncertain though it was, there was the promise of peace. It was what father always wanted. For us as much as for them.”
“For them?” Iliff could not believe what he was hearing. “But they are warmongers, Skye. They are murderers. How could anyone wish peace for those who have caused so much pain.”
Skye smiled sadly. “At a glance it would seem this were so, that we are the good ones and they the bad. But the history of our races is more involved.”
She looked around, then led Iliff to an aging tree circled with vines. She ran her hand along a pair of the vines, one of them darker than the other. “Do you see how these twist round each other? It is as though they are fighting. And yet, which one is aggressor? Here it would seem this one, for it is the more apparent of the two. But farther up, it would appear the other one, no?” Iliff leaned his head back. “But look how they start out,” she said, kneeling to where a thick root erupted from the ground. Several vines emerged from the root, including the two she had just touched. “Such is their existence, Iliff. And such is the history of our races.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I told you that our people are descended from the Sun.” She stood and straightened her gown. “According to the legend, so too are the Garott.”
“How is that possible?”
“We come from a common race. The story goes that many generations after arriving from the Sun, there was a King who made it his mission to restore immortality to himself and his people. But instead of blaming their fall on their fascination with this world, he began searching for other reasons. He finally decided that the bloodline had become tainted. He fashioned the perfect image of the race in his mind and banished all those who did not conform to this image. Those with midnight hair and eyes were the first to be cast out.”
“The Garott,” Iliff said.
Skye nodded. “They were sent to the east. The Hinterlands. It is a mean, desolate place, Iliff, where a people must become mean themselves to survive. Is it any wonder the Garott are as they are?” Her face dimmed for a moment. “But while their banishment brought more uniformity to what would become my race, it did nothing to dispel the fog of forgetting. Nothing to clot the bleeding of mortality. Indeed, we became more mortal. And that is the great joke, Iliff. Of the races, the Garott are the slower to age.”
Iliff had often wondered how Lucious retained the strength and color of middle-age while those around him paled and diminished.
“So you see, ours was the first act of aggression,” Skye went on. “The cruelest, you could say. But though the Garott were cast out, our races remained bound. For even after our common origin had been forgotten, still we sought the other out. Still we fought and made fragile truces, again and again. That is the second joke, Iliff. Though we are no longer bonded in flesh, bonded we remain. As bonded as ever.”
Iliff became uncomfortable. He turned from the tree and continued down the path. “These are fascinating stories,” he said. “And in light of them, I can appreciate your sympathies. But I doubt much that the Garott know the stories nor care for your sympathies. And in the end neither will protect you.” He waited until he could hear her footsteps coming up beside him. “Nor will they protect your people.”
When she did not respond, he turned to face her. But she was no longer there. He looked to the other side of him. She was not there either. Impossible! He had just heard her soft tread upon the leaves. Iliff wheeled completely about. The guards, who remained some distance behind, did not seem to see that anything was amiss. Not knowing where else to look, Iliff began searching the lower branches of the trees.
“You needn’t worry about me,” Skye said. Iliff jerked his head back, startled to find her in the very spot where he had last heard her. “I have other powers for when stories and sympathies fail. I am not as helpless as you seem to believe.”
“What—? Where did you go to?”
“Nowhere,” she said, smiling. “I stood right here watching you turn in circles. That was before you believed I had turned into a bird and made for the trees. But it is nothing so magical as that. There are places in the mind by which we perceive. I simply laid a finger over your perception of me for those few moments and so became invisible to you. Be assured, I only did it to make my point. And having made it, I will not practice it on you again.”
“And that is how you got to the meeting?”
“Yes,” she said. She took Iliff’s arm as they resumed walking. “Upon passing the south gate, I made for the shore, where two of their soldiers were waiting. I hid near them and performed a feeling. Though they guarded their thoughts, I sensed no deceit in them. I revealed myself. With my permission, the soldiers bound my eyes and helped me into a small boat. Upon reaching what I guessed to be the far shore, they placed me onto the back of a horse and we rode into the woods.”
The thought of Skye being carried off by the Garott angered Iliff.
“We rode for an hour, perhaps more,” she continued. “The men did not speak, but I could sense their apprehensions. We stopped and I was helped from the horse. I heard the soldiers straining to lift something from the ground. They led me down a staircase and into a space where I could smell earth and metal. I sensed the presence of another. When the soldiers unbound my e
yes, I found myself in a low room supported by wooden beams. The room appeared to have been constructed in haste, probably for the purpose of our meeting. A dark, battle-scarred man emerged into the light of the lantern and greeted me. He did not need to tell me that he had sent the message, for the same feelings that had emitted from the written words now came off his person. He introduced himself as Grier.”
Iliff felt himself tensing.
“Do not worry,” she said, patting Iliff’s arm. “He was courteous with me, even though I felt that it did not come naturally. He is a tactical man, a man of action. Indeed, he wore a metal breastplate and sword throughout our meeting.”
“And what if he had decided to raise his sword?”
“Then I would have been the only one to suffer for my error, as I said.”
She speaks so calmly, thought Iliff. “Were you not afraid?”
“Of course. It is natural to fear that which we oppose, and which seems to oppose us. But if we only ever heed our fears, then we will only ever remain in opposition. There is no resolution in fear.”
Iliff thought of Troll and how he continued to deny the creature’s nearness, despite the fact that another treasure had been found in the clearing just that week, this one the gold scepter.
“Grier thanked me for agreeing to meet with him,” Skye went on. “He expressed his regret at my father’s passing. He told me that they had suffered a similar loss, for their sovereign passed this winter as well. ‘And though we mourn his loss,’ he told me, ‘as I know you mourn yours, perhaps there is an opportunity here, a chance to meet one another without being encumbered by our pasts. A chance to deal with the other without falling into the old patterns of thrust and parry.’ I agreed with him.
“Then, by a show of faith, perhaps, he lowered his guard from his thoughts. ‘We are a troubled people these days, as you perhaps know,’ he said. ‘The hunger and illness that afflict us now, we did not know in the Hinterlands. Not to this extreme. These lands, which always appeared so lush from far away, now shrink and shrivel from our touch. It seems that we are poison to one another. No one wants to go crawling back to the harsh lands of our past, but we are divided as to the way forward. There are those who believe we should keep conquering and expanding, convinced that this world will one day yield to us—that it has to. But I am not one of them. Not anymore. And as the newly anointed sovereign,’ he said, ‘I have more than a little say in the matter.’”
Lights and Shadows (The Prisoner and the Sun #2) Page 9
