Scorched Earth

by Tommy Wallach

  “What’s so funny?” Kita said.

  Clover realized he’d been smiling. “Nothing, really. Just thinking how strange it is that after everything that’s happened, the fate of the Descendancy is gonna come down to a question of faith.” He handed her a saw. “Now get to work. It has to be exact. And fast.”

  She took the saw. “I still don’t see how two wooden circles are gonna stop a war.”

  “Well, we’re gonna be here for a minute. How about I explain it to you?”

  “Really?” Kita set the teeth of her saw to the edge of the table and bore down. “Finally!”

  * * *

  As he mounted the interior staircase of one of the buildings around Annunciation Square, the broad round of plywood tucked awkwardly under his armpit, Clover considered how, in the end, every battle had to be faced alone. Even if you were surrounded by other people, and even if those people wanted to help you in every way they could, the real war was always an internal one. Your fear versus your courage. Your ignorance versus your willingness to learn. Your selfishness versus your selflessness. So there was something fitting about ending up on his own in these final moments. He and Kita had parted ways about fifteen minutes ago, as his plan required synchronized action across a great distance. And though she was as brave and resourceful as anyone he’d ever known, he was still scared for her.

  Up on the roof, a humming generator was plugged into the back of one of the giant floodlights Chang had installed to illuminate the square during his grand turning of the tables. Hopefully Kita was standing before the other one by now, or would be soon. From here, Clover could see nothing of that far-off roof but the light itself, round and white as a full moon.

  He allowed himself a moment to inspect the floodlight’s construction. At least a hundred individual bulbs, each one the size of two fists put together, had been screwed into sockets in a concave steel frame; together, they created a light so potent that he couldn’t look directly at it. Even with the rain and the inevitable diffusion, the bright circle it projected onto the square below was distinct. Bodies moved in that circle, blades flashed, lives were ended. But Notre Fille still stood, and as Clover watched, Sophian soldiers began to stream out the front doors of the church. The result was three armies all fighting at once—an incomprehensible and lunatic chaos. They were all there now; all that remained was to deliver the message.

  Clover tugged at the cable powering the floodlight until it came free. The light immediately died. He looked back to the other rooftop. “Come on, Kita,” he said under his breath. A flicker, as of something passing in front of the light. A moment later it went out, casting the entire square into darkness.

  He began to count, just as they’d planned. “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”

  He placed the wooden circle in front of the floodlight, careful not to break any of the bulbs. To his relief, it looked to be just the right size.

  “Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…”

  He threaded a length of wire through the hole he’d drilled in the top of the plywood and wrapped it around the metal casing of the spotlight, tying it off so the disc hung right in the center.

  “Ten, nine, eight…”

  He adjusted the light so it pointed at the facade of Notre Fille, rather than the ground. A bullet whizzed just past his ear, though whether the shot had been fired intentionally or accidentally was impossible to know.

  “Seven, six, five…”

  The cable nearly slipped from his fingers as he prepared to plug it back in.

  “Four, three, two, one…”

  He jammed the plug into the floodlight just as the other one turned on across the square. Suddenly two perfect annuli were projected onto the front of Notre Fille. The square was silent as the men of the Descendancy gazed upon those light-forged rings—the most important symbol of their religion, a reminder of the philosophy of peace upon which their entire civilization had been founded. And in the reflected light of those rings, the Wesah warriors began to kneel down, just as Clover had requested, lowering their heads and their blades as if offering themselves up as a sacrifice. No one could fail to connect the gesture to the symbol. Swords clattered to the cobblestones as two thousand men in red and gold went down on their knees, their faith revitalized in the face of this impossible manifestation of divinity and humanity at once.

  Only the Sophians were left standing now. Clover knew the annuli would mean nothing to them, but he was confident it wouldn’t matter. For all her flaws, Zeno was no Chang—she’d never encouraged needless slaughter. It was only a matter of seconds before the Sophians all lowered themselves down to the ground alongside their Wesah sisters and Descendancy brothers.

  Out of sympathy, or gratitude, or some tenacious remnant of faith, Clover did the same. He found tears springing to his eyes and let them fall, let the rain wash them away.

  It was done. The war was finally over.

  10. Paz

  IT HAD BEEN ZENO WHO saved them, appearing in the sacristy just as the clock began to count down its final minute. She looked like some kind of divine spirit, her hair an aureole of henna red and silver, the hem of her robe brushing softly against the marble floor. They made space for her in front of the explosive device. She examined it for a few seconds, solving the maze of wires with subtle movements of her head, then extended her hand palm-up. “Knife, please,” she said.

  Paz obeyed. Zeno used the blade to pry up more of the device’s casing, and when she spotted the cable she was looking for, she crimped and cut it. The clock finished its countdown about two seconds later, and some kind of chemical spewed out of the tube and splattered fruitlessly on the table. Immediately Zeno turned and strode back into the nave, but stopped momentarily to gaze around the room, taking in the sculptures and the stained glass, the vast painted ceiling and the golden annulus behind the ambo. “I’m glad this place wasn’t completely destroyed,” she said. It was probably the closest she could come to calling it beautiful.

  The three of them followed Zeno outside, where those Sophians she’d managed to round up in the few minutes she’d been gone were just joining the mad scrum already in progress between the Wesah and the Protectorate. The four of them stood at the top of the church steps, watching as death was doled out liberally and at random. Was Terry out there fighting, or was he already among the fallen? Would it even matter if the battle went on like this, or was the inevitable conclusion the annihilation of all three armies? When Chang’s floodlights went out and the annuli suddenly appeared on the facade of Notre Fille, she thought it had to be some kind of practical joke: surely you couldn’t stop a war with a couple of rings of light.

  But then the Wesah were all kneeling, and the Protectorate followed suit. Only the Sophians were left standing. If any of them had looked to the ruined portal of Notre Fille in that moment, they would have seen Zeno there, her figure as distinct as a lighthouse.

  “I’ll admit it,” she said. “I didn’t see this coming.”

  “Who could?” Paz whispered.

  Slowly—as slowly as an old empire collapsing—Director Zeno lowered herself to her knees.

  * * *

  The fighting had ceased about two hours ago, but Paz had spent most of the intervening time looking for Clover and Kita with Clive. Though the war was technically over, it felt as if it might start up again at any moment. Men and women who’d just seen their friends and loved ones killed were compelled to walk alongside the killers. The simple beauty of that initial truce had given way to a more complex reality; the three armies still wandering the battlefield in a daze had no common faith or philosophy, no shared history or vision for the future. In circumstances like these, the smallest altercation could quickly escalate.

  Eventually Paz and Clive found Clover and Kita, and together the four of them returned to Flora, Zeno, and Athène in the narthex of Notre Fille. It was there that Zeno had half asked and half ordered them to sit somewhere out of the way while she and Athène arranged for the dismissal of t
heir respective armies. Clive had suggested they return to the late Archbishop’s quarters, where they’d now been waiting for over an hour.

  “This is crazy,” he said. “After everything we’ve been through, how’d we end up stuck in here doing nothing?”

  “We have to leave this part to Zeno and Athène,” Paz replied. “I’m sure they’re as eager to sort everything out as we are.”

  “But who’s going to speak for us?” Clover said.

  Paz frowned. “Who’s us?”

  “The Descendancy. Sophia has Zeno. The Wesah have Athène. We have no one.”

  It was true. Chang had disappeared; most likely his body was among those piled up in the square, yet to be identified. And with so many Protectorate leaders dead, to say nothing of the culling of the Church hierarchy and the literal destruction of the Library, it would be difficult to determine who had the authority to represent the Anchor in the negotiations that were likely already underway.

  “Does it even matter?” Kita said.

  “Of course it matters!” Clover said. “Don’t forget there are more Descendancy citizens than Sophians and Wesah put together. The people need to have a say in their own future, otherwise we’re just planting the seeds of the next war.”

  “Could one of us represent the Descendancy?” Clive suggested. “We’ve been in the middle of all this from the beginning.”

  Kita laughed. “No offense, but you and your brother are two of the most famous traitors in Descendancy history.”

  “I wasn’t actually a traitor,” Clover corrected. “I was working for the Library the whole time.”

  “Good luck convincing anyone of that now that the Epistem and Archbishop are dead. Besides, people never really trusted the Library anyway. They thought the Epistem was keeping secrets.”

  “Which he was.”

  “Exactly. That’s the whole problem with scholars—and with priests too. All those secrets. It’s why we ended up with Chang as our leader. Soldiers are easier to relate to.”

  Paz looked to Clive. She could see in his eyes that they were thinking the same thing.

  “We don’t know if Chang was telling the truth,” he said.

  “We could find out.”

  * * *

  The five of them descended from the heights of the church and returned once again to Annunciation Square. The three factions had each retreated into its own corner—the Protectorate to the northeast, the Wesah to the south, and the Sophians to the west. There were some promising signs of collaboration—Wesah missives and Descendancy women were tending to the wounded without regard for nationality, and Paz spotted a Sophian and a Protectorate soldier awkwardly hammocking a body away from the battlefield—but the overwhelming feeling was still one of tension and enmity. She didn’t let herself look at the faces of the dead; she wasn’t ready to know if Terry was among them.

  They left the square by way of the Silver Road. Though the storm had finally broken, rainwater still ran torrential through the city’s gutters and thundered down through the sewer grates. Paz wasn’t sure what time it was, but it felt as if the sun might rise at any moment. How long could one night go on?

  At last they reached the Bastion. Paz was surprised the building had survived the conflict untouched, but on further consideration, it made sense; Chang had abandoned his erstwhile headquarters relatively early on to pursue his strategy of moving through the city underground, and the Bastion didn’t have the symbolic value of the Library or Notre Fille. Still, it was strange to see the place looking so pristine after the devastation of Annunciation Square, like something out of a fairy tale—the castle left untouched for a thousand years. The portcullis was up, the gates wide open.

  “You know where to look?” Paz said. Clive nodded. “Then lead the way.”

  Paz remembered all too well the first time she’d come to the Bastion, bound and gagged, praying for some kind of deliverance—be it rescue or death. She’d been tortured here, nearly driven mad, and though most of the words inscribed in her skin were hidden beneath her hair now, she could still feel the burn of the needle as it marked her, the pitiless look in the tattooist’s eyes, the soreness that lasted for days afterward. Clive must’ve noticed the way she stiffened as they passed through the gates.

  “All that’s done,” he said, taking hold of her hand. “Nobody can hurt you anymore.”

  Paz smiled. “People can always hurt you.”

  Their steps echoed down the long, empty halls. Some of the windows looked out on the training fields where she and Clive used to walk, where they’d fallen in love. And were all their troubles really over? Just like that? Were they at last free to stop running and try to build a life together? It seemed too good to be true—and at the same time, frightening.

  The Bastion infirmary was a long, high-ceilinged room with red tile floors. A couple dozen beds, their sheets tightly fitted, their pillows perfectly centered, were lined up against either wall like soldiers at reveille. Clive said it wasn’t really a proper hospital, merely a place for recuperation for those soldiers who took ill or were injured in the course of training; that explained why none of the casualties from the battle in Annunciation Square had been brought here, and why only one of the beds was currently in use. Its occupant had sat up as soon as the door opened, scrabbling in the drawer of his bedside table and pulling out what appeared to be a letter opener.

  “Stay the fuck away from me!” he shouted.

  Clive smiled. “Hey, Burns. Long time.”

  “Clive?”

  The marshal dropped the letter opener and slipped out from under the sheets, throwing one leg and one stump over the edge of the mattress; Paz made sure not to stare. His crutches were leaning up against the bedside table, and he took a moment to fit them into his armpits before galumphing across the infirmary. Kita held back as the rest of them all collided in an extremely inelegant group embrace with Burns at the center.

  “Daughter’s love, I can’t believe it’s you,” he said from inside the clutch. He smelled of disinfectant and tobacco.

  “I don’t understand,” Clover said, after they’d finally separated. “How are you alive? Chang chopped off your leg.”

  “He did indeed,” Burns said, glancing down at the small, neat knot in his left trouser leg. “But I’m not sure he ever planned to kill me. Turns out good advice was in short supply. I told him that’s what happens when you purge everyone you see as a threat.”

  “So you’ve been helping him?” Clive said.

  “More like trying to check his worst impulses. Did it work?”

  Paz wondered if Burns was to thank for Chang’s decision to spare her and Clive when they ran into each other in Notre Fille. “I think it did,” she said.

  “So where is he, then?”

  “Gone,” Clive said. “Probably dead. The war is over.”

  Burns shook his head and snickered. “And I missed the whole damn thing. So who won?”

  “That’s a little hard to say. Clover here kinda convinced everybody to lay down their weapons and parley.”

  “Did he now?” Burns looked to Clover, and then to the girl holding his hand. “And who’s this one? She a spoil of war?”

  “My name’s Kita Delancey. And I’d slap you if I knew you better.”

  Burns laughed. “Ooh. I like her, Clover. Helluva lot better than the last one.” He glanced suggestively at Paz. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Paz replied, frowning in mock upset.

  “So what are you all doing here, anyway? You miss me that much?”

  “We’re here because Zeno and Athène are going to be talking terms soon,” Clive said. “And right now, there’s no one around to represent the Anchor.”

  “And you think I know somebody?” There was a pregnant pause. Burns frowned. Then he grunted. Then he frowned again. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

  * * *

  They returned to Annunciation Square with Burns in tow and were surprised to find that the place
had almost completely emptied out. A Descendancy woman helping to clear the rubble explained that the Sophian and Wesah armies had left the city—apparently Zeno and Athène didn’t want the citizens of the Anchor to feel like they were being occupied. To Paz, it meant only one thing: if Terry was still alive, he might very well be on his way back to Sophia—or whatever was left of Sophia anyway. Paz pulled Clive aside just as the group was entering Notre Fille.

  “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

  “Okay.” Clive called out to the others. “You all go on. We’ll catch up.”

  She and Clive walked across the narthex and into the nave. The place was no longer empty—dozens of Descendancy men and women, including no small number of soldiers, were spread out around the pews—praying, sleeping, or just gazing dully at the walls, trying to process everything they’d been through. Paz found a spot far from everyone else, in the middle of a pew near the back of the room. Her heart fluttered with dread as she took hold of Clive’s hands.

  “I have to go back,” she said, already feeling the pressure of tears building behind her eyes. “Before I get caught up in anything else here, before you and I can figure out what comes next, I have to go home and look for my brothers. They were my responsibility, and I abandoned them.”

  Clive took this in with his usual stoicism. “How long?”

  “Long enough to get there, make whatever arrangements I need to make, and come back.”

  “If you come back.”

  “Of course I’m comin’ back.” She squeezed his hands tightly, as if by doing so she might convey the intensity of her intention, the depth of her love. “You can come with me if you want.”