by Robert Reed
Bodies and desks rained down on the floor again.
Diamond stood. He wasn’t sure when he stood or how, but the half-repaired body knew what to do. Seldom was beside him, stunned and limp. Diamond dropped the coral gun and picked the boy up and ran to the window, and he shoved Seldom onto the walkway and then did the same with Elata.
The police blimp was dropping back into view, both engines running full.
Tar`ro got behind Diamond, put a hand on him to shove him onto the walkway, but Diamond slipped sideways and ran to the big desk. The desk was again where it belonged, and Nissim was behind it, on his knees and bloody hands, fighting with his legs to stand.
Marduk hadn’t stopped falling. Branches exploded beneath them and the big limbs dropped to new perches where they would slow again, and each time the floor fell out from under them for a moment and then jumped up again.
Diamond tried to help the Master stand, but the boy wasn’t strong enough and they helped each other find their feet and run.
Tar`ro grabbed Diamond and threw him onto the walkway.
“When we break, grab hold,” he shouted.
Those words meant something, but he didn’t know what.
A web of soft rope and handholds was laid over a skeleton of boards, and the walkway was covered with scrambling bodies. But there were people still left in the room. They were classmates and little kids and a few adults, and Karlan. Not one day of Diamond’s life would pass without those faces and those voices coming back to him, calling to nobody but him, hands rising to where they always seemed within reach—some days thousands of hands wanting this single boy to rescue them—and his sorrow and the fierce anger would always make him fall quiet, if only for an instant.
Diamond crawled out onto the walkway.
The blimp started to lift higher, engines screaming, as if the machine was gamely attempting to hold Marduk still in the air.
Then Nissim and Tar`ro were behind Diamond, kneeling, fighting with the release mechanisms. The pressure was relentless. Worse, Tar`ro wouldn’t drop his gun and Nissim’s bloody hand had to be weak. Nobody could get past the two men, and nobody on the walkway could help. Pulling free was all that mattered. Ropes creaked sharply and the great tree picked up its velocity and then slowed once more, for the last time, and then somebody yelled, “Catch her,” as a tiny girl flew up at the two kneeling men.
In reflex, Nissim grabbed Prue before she fell into the open air.
Then Karlan emerged from the crowd, slapping the gun out of Tar`ro’s hand and pushing all three of them back up the walkway. That nearly grown man was huge and dangerously powerful, and he had no trouble winning a patch of terrain where he could turn, reaching down with both hands, one grand tug finally causing the releases to trip, saving all of them.
Then the walkway broke free, hooks and the blue school and the doomed tree left behind, and the man who had saved everybody looked up the walkway, smiling at them, shouting, “Hold tight you shits! Hold tight!”
THREE
Only powerful noises could reach across the Creation.
King’s father was a ripe example. Nothing about that human was physically impressive. His skeleton was a collection of narrow bones draped with weak pink muscle. Small eyes and small teeth and a youthful, inconsequential face made for a forgettable presence. His brown hair held no special tone. His skin was pale enough to look sickly. On social scales, the man was neither charming nor energetic, and despite a life spent in public realms, he had never told one joke worth its breath. Father’s most famous feature was a high-pitched voice, like a bird’s cackle pushed through some boy’s wet throat. When he laughed, he giggled. He would use the smartest, most reasonable words when addressing an audience, yet everything they heard sounded small, nearly weightless. On those very rare occasions when the Archon shouted, the voice had a nasty habit of shattering in embarrassing ways, threats emerging as sharp, silly daggers that left his enemies grinning, ready to mock him as soon as they were out of earshot.
Father had many, many enemies.
“Which is a mark of strength,” he often told his adopted son, using the quiet voice that both of them preferred.
Powerful noises didn’t need to be loud. One smart whisper delivered by the right mouth, inside the proper moment, would make the entire world shiver, and that whisper could only come from his father:
A frail, tiny creature named List.
Father’s enemies were King’s enemies. Each was a coward hiding in some other room, preferably straddling a distant tree. Their foes teased Father for how he sounded and for everything that he said. They mocked him by calling him a bureaucrat, or worse, a lowly clerk, and even more insulting, they claimed that every success in his father’s life was earned by stupid good luck. Yet no enemy ever dared speak that way directly to List, and that held true long before he had a monster for a son.
One day, King told his father, “I can always hear them talking about you.”
Smiling, the Archon said, “Your ears are better than mine.”
“And there’s more of them,” said his son.
“I was making a joke,” Father said.
“And you aren’t a funny man. That’s what everyone claims.”
King had studied many topics, including human politics. There were nine Districts with outlier communities haunting the surrounding wilderness, and each district had its strengths and its own Archon. An Archon rose to his office or her office through angry contests called elections, and sometimes luck was involved, but most victories came from careful hard and nearly invisible work.
The District of Districts hung above the world’s center. Bloodwoods were the ruling trees. Giants compared to all others, they were vast pillars wearing short stocky branches and spear-like blackish-green leaves. Bloodwoods weighed surprisingly little for their volume, yet they were strong enough to reach far deeper than the world’s lesser forests. The heaviest rains washed over them with the morning, and the strongest sunlight made them creak and roar as they grew. The bark was thick and as dark as the leaves, while the flesh inside had many colors. The “blood” in the name came from the countless splinters, huge as well as miniscule, each one sharp enough to pierce the heaviest leather. Every finished bloodwood plank was said to carry at least a few ruddy drops—traces of the foresters and millers and carpenters who sacrificed flesh to make their livelihoods.
King lived at the Archon’s palace, inside giant rooms made from corona parts and polished, heavily waxed bloodwood.
Alone in the world, his armored body had nothing to fear from sharp lumber.
In this world, King was a species of one.
Strong and tall and still growing, the Archon’s adopted son had always appreciated his nature, each day offering up new lessons underscoring how special he was.
Humans had only two ears, while King had ten.
Humans were immune to most sounds, but King could hear the highest notes inside a bird’s song, and even more impressive, he could listen to the clattering clicks of the tiniest leatherwings—the flying rats that came out only in the night, filling the forest with their bug-hunting voices.
Physicians and other specialists had examined the Archon’s son. Every portion of King had been measured and imaged, and pieces of him were cut loose and then reattached again, sometimes in novel locations. Expert faces watched spellbound as the finger or several plates of armor silently rejoin the host body. A few surgeons were allowed to cut into his deepest parts, and that was how King learned that in addition to odd-shaped guts and nameless organs, he had eight ears hiding inside his purple blood and his purple meat, absorbing not just the world’s high-pitched squeals, but also the deep low throbs that only a few scientists knew about.
The Archon of Archons was proud of his son, and he was scared of him.
Fear was completely reasonable. On that score, father and son were in full agreement.
In the same way, King and List appreciated how badly things had gone when Diam
ond stepped into the world. Father had decided to flush the boy from his home and his old life, and the boy went farther in less time than he had imagined. But seeing a chance to teach the papio lessons in real power and real strength, both of them had seriously overstepped, and the lessons ended up being theirs to learn.
“I tried too much, which spoiled the prize,” said Father. “And of course I didn’t take your feelings to heart, did I?”
King had multiple hearts and mouths and eyes, and he ate like ten healthy men, growing every day.
“I was crazy with rage,” King admitted.
“And you tried to do too much.”
“But I learned, just like you learned.”
Send Diamond back to the coronas: that’s what King wanted, and he nearly succeeded. But he was hundreds of days wiser now, and unlike humans, he wasn’t so crippled by pride that he couldn’t see the good fortune in his failures. Life changed after that very bad day with Diamond, for the better. The human-like boy remained tiny compared to him, and weak, condemned to a small life in an isolated District. What’s more, King was no longer a surprise waiting to be seen. He was free to wander where he wished inside the Archon’s palace. Allies and opponents came visit the world’s most powerful man, and after being introduced as the famous son, King would select a piece of floor to defend through the evening, using those hidden ears to absorb every awful word being whispered about the host. He was also free to travel with his father, walking among the small and the poor. These were the people who appreciated their Archon. Freed of pretensions about power and wealth, they could love the world’s ruler, offering hands to be touched and happy words, even as they wisely kept their distance from the monster standing silently to one side.
Father and son had a shrewd difficult love for each other, with respect built from past misunderstandings and threats that neither would forget. Perhaps they looked bizarre, walking together in public. But when it was just the two of them, and when they were talking quietly, the best parts of their relationship came into view. King would give his impressions of the day, sometimes quoting whole speeches from the admirers, and then Father sucked air through his little teeth before giving advice about leadership and the fickleness of human nature.
Humans rarely impressed King.
One night his father said, “You hear quite a lot, and that might have value. Or maybe that’s a distraction. But I do know that you’re missing the spine in these perfectly rendered words.”
“What do you mean?” asked King, the plates on his shoulder lifting slightly.
“Those people don’t adore me,” the Archon said. “They show teeth and use the right words, but they don’t actually worship anybody except themselves. And that’s the way my species has always been.”
More plates rose, but his son said nothing.
“Next time, ignore the noise but watch their honest eyes. What these people enjoy are my policies, although they know almost nothing about my decisions and my laws. They heartily approve of my tone, which reassures them without making them spend much effort. Decisions carried out in my name are what make me real. Where I take no stand, they don’t see me. And even my richest, most learned supporters don’t often think about me. The wealthy and the comfortable relish my tax codes. They love my commitment to order and one particular species of fairness, the one that blesses them. They worship the eternal supremacy of the District of Districts. Bright as they might be, the very best place they can imagine is the place where they happen to live today. The world they see is the world they want. That’s what their eyes are seeing when they sing about whoever is in charge, and that fortunate soul is temporarily me.”
King wasn’t easily amazed. Yet inside that one conversation, after the boy’s armor had laid flat and he stared at the message itself, he discovered that people weren’t as simple as he had envisioned, and the Archon was the best among them—a subtle creature wielding an array of talents that his young son had still not begun to understand.
That was why King was at his desk, conscientiously reading his daily lessons.
It was morning in the world, and he was hard at his studies, just like every other morning and through most of every day too. Eventually King would take charge of the world. His name and nature had settled that matter long ago. But first, before that great day, he had to learn quite a lot about these red-meat creatures, their honest eyes and their fluid, fickle affections.
King preferred to stand while studying, and his tutor stood nearby, about to ask one of her nagging questions. This morning’s book was ancient—a government text about the weights of ordinary objects—and she would want her pupil’s interpretation about the language or the hand that wrote the words, or maybe she would use the document as evidence that jooton nuts were exactly the same size now as they were five hundred generations ago, only they were called ooloo nuts by the dead souls that ate them for breakfast.
King felt ready for any question.
But when she finally cleared her throat and spoke, he didn’t hear her voice. He didn’t hear any words or the hint of meaning wrapped around this exceptionally dull lesson.
A low sound had washed into the room.
His buried ears heard the intrusion, and he felt the vibrations with his bones, and some part of his rapid, ill-mapped mind recognized what he was hearing. Yet he had never experienced any sound so enormous or deep in the register. This happened on occasion—the unexpected would arrive along with a potent sense of the familiar. Ancient memories teased him while he spread one hand across the time-worn page, both thumbs extended. She spoke and the moments passed, and he ignored everything but the distant rumbling, trying to decipher distance, trying to guess a direction. But the vibration ended too soon, forcing him to wait, holding his breath and focus against the pressure of an old woman’s words.
Then another deep rumbling arrived, followed by several more woven over one another. Suddenly five recitations had passed with the same spent breath inside him, and the tutor was watching her singular student with a guarded expression. What was happening? Was the monster angry, and if so, was she going to suffer now? King’s talents were gradually improving when it came to reading faces, and he remembered one very good lesson:
The proper noise could make any human happy.
King abandoned his desk, intentionally towering over her. “I don’t mean to be rude, Master. But something awful is happening in the Corona District.”
The woman was relieved first and then startled, that wrinkled, spent face believing him. But she insisted on asking, “How would you know?”
There was no time for responses, polite or crude. Alarms were already sounding inside a distant room, and people were running in the hallways outside, familiar voices saying something about test and false reports, begging that this was nothing but a security trial, please.
King broke into a hard, breathless sprint.
Father’s favorite office was at the end of a long hall. The room was no larger than any other, but it offered wide windows looking across the District. There were no canopies in bloodwood country. Trees grew towards the morning’s brilliance, branches covering the trunks from their broad foundations almost to the pointed tips. Branches never reached far into the air. The sun was welcomed, able to rise up to the highest portions of this forest, which was only one reason why this District was the ruler of the others—the reliable fire from below washed away shadow and the other species of darkness, letting a multitude of crops grow and grow.
The boy found his father standing before a long table. Ornate receivers were clasped in both hands, and more receivers were on the tables behind him, pulled from their cradles. Dozens of voices were shouting from the outlying districts, each voice sputtering, distorted by the long reaches of wire. King heard the words and understood what they were describing, but what did more than impress him—what shook his unbreakable mind—was the utter terror filling the only face that he had ever loved.
“Hold tight you shits. Hol
d tight.”
The walkway dangled from the blimp like an exhausted arm. Boards and rope and assorted bodies were being dragged backwards through the roaring air. Big hands and long toes clung to the webbing. Diamond’s tiny hands fought to keep their grip. The blimp was dropping every drip of ballast water and two emergency slugs of black iron, and the twin engines pressed past full-throttle, threatening to explode as the aircraft fought for speed, for altitude, for any unlikely blessing.
The holes inside Diamond’s chest were healing, and he was breathing again, the new heart pushing pristine blood. The boy made himself look up the walkway. Seldom and Elata were stretched out on their bellies before him, side by side, faces hidden. Brown uniforms and blowing hair carpeted the walkway all the way to the blimp’s opened nose. Three police officers were standing inside the nose. One man was desperately trying to grab the nearest boy, cursing him when he wouldn’t reach out. Another man did nothing but point empty eyes at the tree in front of him, at Marduk. The third officer was flushed in the face, cheeks ballooned outward to create an odd expression, and a moment later he tipped forward, leaning with poise, even grace, as he threw up a breakfast of berries and curdled milk.
With every breath, the sun grew more brilliant.
Buried inside the screech of engines, Diamond was certain he heard people wailing. But only people in the distance and only behind him. Nobody trapped on the walkway wasted their strength making noise.
Good was squatting beside his boy, four hands locked in place, and he tilted the long head sideways, broad black eyes unblinking and amazed.
Diamond shoved his left arm under and then over the tight webbing, as if his short limb was a needle and he was sewing with it. Forcing his arm into a position at once painful and secure, he grabbed the webbing with his left hand and let go with his right and both clumsy boots, allowing his weight to hang from the shoulder.
