Chaos Walking

by Patrick Ness

  And so they show me the way to the Sky as I move through them up the road and I feel like a leaf floating on the river, above it, on it.

  But perhaps not of it.

  And then they begin to send ahead news of my coming.

  The Return approaches, they show, one to the other. The Return approaches.

  For that is their name for me. The Return.

  But I have another name, too.

  I have had to learn what the Land calls things, pulling words from their wordless language, from the great single voice of the Land, so that I can understand them. The Land is what they call themselves, have always called themselves, for are they not the very Land of this world? With the Sky watching over them?

  Men do not call them the Land. They invented a name based on a mistaken first attempt at communication and were never curious enough to fix it. Maybe that was where all the problems began.

  “The Clearing” is the Land’s name for men, the parasites who came from nowhere and sought to make this world a nowhere of their own, killing the Land in huge numbers until a truce forced a separation, the Land and the Clearing for ever apart.

  Except, that is, for the Land that was left behind. The Land that remained as slaves to the Clearing as a concession to peace. The Land that ceased being called the Land, the Land that ceased being the Land, forced even to take on the language of the Clearing. The Land that was left behind was a great shame for the Land, a shame that came to be called the Burden.

  Until that Burden was erased by the Clearing in a single afternoon of killing.

  And then there is me, the Return. So called not only because I am the single survivor returned from the Burden, but because my return has caused the Land to return here to this hilltop, after the years of truce, poised and ready above the Clearing, with better weapons, with better numbers, with a better Sky.

  All brought here by the Return. By me.

  But no longer attacking.

  The Return approaches, shows the Sky when I find him, his back to me. He is addressing the Pathways, who sit in a semicircle in front of him. He shows them messages to take throughout the Land, messages which pass by so quickly I have difficulty reading them.

  The Return will relearn the language of the Land, shows the Sky, finishing with the Pathways and coming over to me. In time.

  They understand my words, I show back, looking out at the Land who watch me as I speak to the Sky. They use them themselves when they speak of me.

  The words of the Clearing are in the memory of the Land, the Sky shows, taking me by the arm and walking me away. The Land never forgets.

  You forgot about us, I show him, heat behind my words that I cannot suppress. We waited for you. We waited for you until our deaths.

  The Land is here now, he shows.

  The Land has retreated, I show, with greater heat. The Land sits on a hilltop when it could be destroying the Clearing now, right now, this very night. We outnumber them. Even with their new weapons, we–

  You are young, he shows to me. You have seen much, too much, but you are not even fully grown. You have never lived among the Land. The heart of the Land weeps that it was too late to save the Burden–

  I interrupt him, a rudeness unheard of in the Land, You did not even know–

  But the Land rejoices that the Return was saved, he continues as if I had shown nothing. The Land rejoices that it can avenge the memory of the Burden.

  No one is avenging anything!

  And my memories spill into my voice, and it is only here, now, when the pain of them grows too great, when I am unable to speak the language of the Burden, it is only now I speak the true language of the Land, wordless and felt and pouring out of me all at once. I am unable to stop from showing them my loss, from showing how the Clearing treated us like animals, how they regarded their voices and ours as curses, as something to be cured, and I cannot stop from showing the Land my memories of the Burden dying at the hands of the Clearing, of the bullets and the blades and the silent screaming, of the field of bodies piled high–

  Of the one I lost in particular.

  The Sky shows me comfort in his voice, as do all of the Land around us, until I find I am swimming in a river of voices reaching out and touching mine to soothe it and calm it, and I have never felt so much a part of the Land, I have never felt so at home, so comforted, so at one with the single joined voice of the Land–

  And I blink as I realize that this only happens when I feel so much pain I forget myself.

  But that will pass, shows the Sky. You will grow and heal. You will find it easier to be among the Land–

  I will find it easier, I show, when the Clearing are gone from here for ever.

  You speak the language of the Burden, he shows. Which is also the language of the Clearing, of the men we fight, and though we welcome you as a brother returned to the Land, the first thing you must learn – even as I tell it to you in language you will understand – is that there is no I and there is no you. There is only the Land.

  I show nothing to him in response.

  You sought the Sky? he finally asks.

  I look up again into his eyes, small for the Land – though nothing like the hideous smallness of the eyes of the Clearing, small, mean eyes that hide and hide and hide – but the eyes of the Sky are still big enough to reflect the moons, the firelight, me looking into them.

  And I know that he waits for me.

  For I have lived my life among the Clearing and I have learned much from them.

  Including how to hide my thoughts behind other thoughts, how to conceal what I feel and think. How to layer my voice so it is harder to read.

  Alone among the Land, I am not fully joined to the Land’s single voice.

  Not yet.

  I make him wait for a moment more, then I open my voice to show him the light I saw hovering, what I suspect it to be. He understands in an instant.

  A smaller version of what flew over the Land as it marched here, he shows.

  Yes, I show and I remember. Lights in the sky, one of their machines flying down the road, so high above it was almost nothing but a sound.

  Then the Land shall make an answer, he shows, and he takes my arm again to lead me back to the hill’s edge.

  As the Sky watches the light hovering out from the hilltop, I look down upon the Clearing as they settle in for the night. I look among their too-small faces on bodies stocky and short in unhealthy shades of pink and sand.

  The Sky knows what I am looking for.

  You seek him, he shows. You seek the Knife.

  I saw him in battle. But I was too far back.

  For the Return’s own safety, the Sky shows.

  He is mine–

  But I stop.

  Because I see him.

  In the middle of the camp, he is leaning into his pack animal, his horse, in their language, talking to it, no doubt with great feeling, with great anguish at what he has seen.

  No doubt with great care and emotion and kindness.

  And this, perversely, is why the Return hates the Knife, shows the Sky.

  He is worse than the others, I show. He is worst of all of them.

  Because–

  Because he knew he was doing wrong. He felt the pain of his actions–

  But he did not amend them, shows the Sky.

  The rest are worth as much as their pack animals, I show, but worst is the one who knows better and does nothing.

  The Knife set the Return free, the Sky offers.

  He should have killed me. He killed one of the Land before with the knife in his voice that he cannot put down. But he was too cowardly to even do the Return that favour.

  If he had killed you as you wished, shows the Sky in a way that pulls my eyes towards his, then the Land would not be here.

  Yes, I show. Here where we do nothing. Here where we wait and watch instead of fight.

  Waiting and watching is part of fighting. The Clearing has grown stronger in the time of tru
ce. Their men are fiercer, as are their weapons.

  But the Land is fierce, too, I show. Is it not?

  The Sky holds my gaze for a long moment, and then he turns and speaks in the voice of the Land, starting a message that is passed from one to another until it reaches one of the Land who I now see has prepared a bow with a burning arrow. She takes aim and lets the arrow fly into the night, sailing out from the hilltop.

  The entire Land watches it fly, either with their own eyes or through the voices of others, until it hits the hovering light, which spirals and spins and crashes into the river below.

  Today was a battle, the Sky shows to me, as a small outcry rises from the Clearing’s camp. But a war is made of many battles.

  Then he reaches across and takes my arm, the one on which I keep the sleeve of lichen growing heavily, the one that hurts, the one that will not heal. I pull away from him but he reaches again and this time I let his long white fingers lift it gently from the wrist, let him brush away the sleeve.

  And we will not forget why we are here, the Sky shows.

  And this spreads, in the language of the Burden, the language that the Land fears for its shame, it spreads among them until I can hear them all, feel them all.

  Feel all of the Land saying, We will not forget.

  As they all see my arm through the eyes of the Sky.

  As they see the metal band, with writing on it in the language of the Clearing.

  As they see the permanent mark upon me, the true name that sets me apart from them for ever.

  1017.

  {VIOLA}

  The urgency of Bradley’s Noise is awful.

  “You’re not dying,” I say from the bed where Simone is injecting bone-mending into my ankles. “Bradley–”

  “No,” he says, holding up his hands to stop me. “I feel . . .” “I can’t tell you how naked this makes me feel.”

  Simone’s turned the sleeping quarters of the scout ship into a makeshift house of healing. I’m on one bed and Bradley’s in the other, his eyes wide open, his hands mostly to his ears, his Noise getting louder and louder–

  “You’re sure he’s going to be all right?” Simone whispers close to me as she finishes the injections and starts bandaging my ankles. I can hear the strain in her voice.

  “All I know,” I whisper back, “is that men here got used to it eventually and that–”

  “There was a cure,” she interrupts. “Which this Mayor person burnt every last bit of.”

  “Yes,” I say, “but at least that means one is possible.”

  Quit whispering about me, Bradley’s Noise says.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “For what?” he says, looking over, and then he realizes. “Could you both possibly leave me be for a while, please?”

  And his Noise says, For Chrissakes get the hell out of here and give me some peace!

  “Just let me finish up with Viola,” Simone says, voice still shaky and trying not to look at him. She ties the last bandage around my left ankle.

  “Could you grab another one?” I ask her quietly.

  “What for?”

  “I’ll tell you outside. I don’t want to upset him any more.”

  She looks at me suspiciously for a second but then grabs another bandage out of a drawer and we make our way to the door, Bradley’s Noise filling the little room from wall to wall.

  “I still don’t understand it,” Simone says as we go. “I’m hearing it with my ears, but I’m hearing it inside my head, too. Words–” she looks at Bradley, her eyes growing wide “–and pictures.”

  She’s right, pictures are starting to come from him, pictures that could be in your head or hanging in the air in front of you–

  Pictures of us standing here watching him, pictures of himself on the bed–

  Then pictures of what we saw in the probe projection, of what happened when a flaming Spackle arrow hit it and the signal gave out–

  And then pictures of the scout ship coming down from orbit, pictures of this planet far below as they flew in, a vast bluish green ocean next to miles of forest, not even thinking to look for a Spackle army blending into the riverbank as the ship circled over New Prentisstown–

  And then other pictures–

  Pictures of Simone–

  Pictures of Simone and Bradley–

  “Bradley!” Simone says, shocked and taking a step back.

  “Please!” he shouts. “Just leave me alone! This is unbearable!”

  I’m shocked, too, because the pictures of Bradley and Simone are really clear and the more Bradley tries to cover them, the clearer they get, so I take Simone’s elbow and pull her away, hitting a panel to close the door behind us, which only muffles his Noise in the way it might muffle a loud voice.

  We head outside. Girl colt? Acorn says, coming over from where he’s been munching grass.

  “And the animals, too,” Simone says, as I rub Acorn’s nose. “What kind of place is this?”

  “It’s information,” I say, remembering Ben describing how New World was for the first settlers, telling me and Todd that night in the cemetery which seems so impossibly long ago now. “Information, all the time, never stopping, whether you want it to or not.”

  “He seems so frightened,” she says, her voice breaking on the word. “And those things he was thinking–” She turns away and I’m too embarrassed to ask if Bradley’s pictures were things he was remembering or things he wished for.

  “He’s still the same Bradley,” I say. “You’ve got to remember that. What would it be like if everyone could hear all the things you didn’t want to say out loud?”

  She sighs, looking up to the two moons, high in the sky. “There are over two thousand male settlers on the convoy, Viola. Two thousand. What’s going to happen when we wake them all up?”

  “They’ll get used to it,” I say. “Men do.”

  Simone snorts through the thickness in her voice. “Do women?”

  “Well, that’s sort of a complicated issue around here.”

  She shakes her head again, then notices she’s still holding the bandage. “What did you need this for?”

  I bite my lip for a second. “Now, don’t freak out.”

  I slowly pull back my sleeve and show her the band on my arm. The redness of the skin around it is even worse than it was before, and you can see my number shining in the moons-light. 1391.

  “Oh, Viola,” Simone says, her voice dangerously quiet. “Did that man do this to you?”

  “Not to me,” I say. “To most of the other women, though.” I cough a little. “I did this to myself.”

  “To yourself?”

  “For a good reason. Look, I’ll explain later, but I could really use a bandage on it right now.”

  She waits for a moment, then keeps her eyes on mine as she wraps the bandage gently around my arm. The coolness from the medicine feels immediately better. “Sweetheart?” she asks, so much fierce tenderness in her voice it’s hard to look at her. “Are you really okay?”

  I try a barely-there smile to shake off some of her worry. “I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

  “I think you do,” she says, tying off the bandage. “And maybe you should start.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t. I’ve got to get to Todd.”

  Her forehead furrows. “What . . . you mean now?” She stands up straighter. “You can’t wander down into the middle of a war!”

  “It’s calmed down. We saw it.”

  “We saw two huge armies camped at the front line and then our probe was shot out of the sky! There’s no way you’re going down there.”

  “It’s where Todd is,” I say. “It’s where I have to go.”

  “You aren’t. As Mission Commander, I forbid it and that’s the end of it.”

  I blink. “You forbid it?”

  And I feel a really surprising anger start to rise from my belly.

  Simone sees the look on my face and softens her own expression. “Viola, what you’
ve obviously survived for the past five months is beyond amazing, but we’re here now. I love you far too much to allow you to put yourself in that kind of danger. You can’t go. No way.”

  “If we want peace, we can’t let the war get any bigger.”

  “And how are you and one boy going to stop that?”

  And then the anger really starts to rise, and I try to remember that she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what I’ve been through, what me and Todd have done. She doesn’t know I’m about a million miles past people forbidding me to do stuff.

  I reach over for Acorn’s reins and he kneels down.

  “Viola, no,” Simone says, stomping over–

  Submit! Acorn yells, startled.

  Simone takes a frightened step back. I swing my sore but mending leg over Acorn’s saddle.

  “No one is the boss of me any more, Simone,” I say quietly, trying to stay calm but surprised at how strong I feel. “If my parents had lived, it might be different. But they didn’t.”

  She looks like she wants to come over, but she’s seriously wary of Acorn now. “Just because your parents aren’t here doesn’t mean there aren’t still people who care for you, who can care for you.”

  “Please,” I say. “You have to trust me.”

  She looks at me in a kind of sad frustration. “It’s too early for you to have grown up this much.”

  “Yeah, well,” I say, “sometimes you don’t have a choice.” Acorn stands up, ready to go. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Viola–”

  “I have to get to Todd. That’s all there is to it. And now that the fighting’s stopped, I’ll have to find Mistress Coyle, too, before she can start blowing things up again.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone at least,” she says. “I’ll come with you–”

  “Bradley needs you more than I do,” I say. “Whatever you might not want to find out, he needs you.”

  “Viola–”

  “It’s not as if I want to go riding into a war zone,” I say, a little softer, trying to apologize now that I realize how scared I am. I look up at the scout ship. “Maybe you could send another probe to follow me?”

  Simone looks thoughtful for a moment, then she says, “I’ve got a better idea.”