by Patrick Ness
And in an instant they go black.
And then we hear gunfire from a different direkshun–
Just one gun, lonely on its own somehow–
Bang and then bang again–
And the Mayor’s already grabbing his rifle and I’m right behind him, cuz it’s coming from behind the power stayshun, off a side road near the empty riverbed and some soldiers are already running towards it, too, with Mr O’Hare, and it gets darker as we all race away from the army camp, darker with no more sounds of anything happening–
And then we get there.
There were just two guards on the power stayshun, no more than engineers really, cuz who’s gonna attack the power stayshun when the whole army’s twixt it and the Spackle–
But there are two Spackle bodies on the ground outside the door. They’re lying next to one of the guards, his body in three big, separate pieces, blown apart by the acid rifle things. Inside, the power stayshun is a wreck, equipment melting from the acid, which is just as good at destroying things as it is people.
We find the second guard a hundred metres away, halfway cross the dry riverbed, obviously firing at Spackle as they ran.
The top half of his head is missing.
The Mayor ain’t happy at all. “This isn’t how we’re meant to fight,” he says, his voice low and sizzling. “Slinking around like cave rats. Night-time raids rather than open battle.”
“I’ll get reports from the squadrons we sent out, sir,” says Mr O’Hare, “see where the breach was.”
“You do that, Captain,” the Mayor says, “but I doubt they’ll tell you anything other than that they saw no movement at all.”
“They wanted our attenshun somewhere else,” I say. “Looking out rather than in. That’s why they killed the spies.”
He looks at me slowly, carefully. “Exactly right, Todd,” he says. Then he turns back to look at the town, darker now, with townsfolk out in their bedclothes, lined up to see what’s happened.
“So be it,” I hear the Mayor whisper to himself. “If that’s the war they want, then that’s the war we’ll give them.”
The Embrace of the Land
(THE RETURN)
The Land has lost a part of itself, the Sky shows, opening his eyes. But the job is done.
I feel the hollowness that echoes through the Land at the loss of those who led the smaller attack on the heart of the Clearing, those who went knowing they probably would not return, but that by their actions, the voice of the Land might sing on.
I would give my own voice, I show to the Sky as the campfire warms us in the cold night, if it would mean the end of the Clearing.
But what a loss the silencing of the Return would be, he shows, reaching out his voice to mine. Not when you travelled so far to join us.
Travelled so far, I think.
For I did travel far.
After the Knife pulled me from the bodies of the Burden, after I showed him my vow to kill him, after we heard the approach of horses on the road and he begged me to run–
I ran.
The town was in burning turmoil at the time, the confusion and smoke letting me pass through the southern end of it unseen. Then I hid myself until nightfall, when I made my way up the crooked road out of town. Sticking to the underbrush, I crept up, zig by zag, until there was no cover left and I had to stand and run, fully exposed for the last stretch, expecting every moment for a bullet to the back of my head from the valley below–
An end which I craved but also feared–
But I made it to the top and over.
And I ran.
I ran towards a rumour, a legend that lived in the voice of the Burden. We were of the Land, but some of us had never seen it, some of the young like me, born into the war that left the Burden behind when the Land made a promise never to return. And so the Land, like their battlemores, was shadows and fables, stories and whispers, dreams of the day the Land would return to free us.
Some of us gave up that hope. Some of us never had it, never forgiving the Land for leaving us there in the first place.
Some like my one in particular who, though only older than me by a matter of moons and likewise never having seen the Land, would gently show to me that I should let go any hope of rescue, of any life other than one we might carve out ourselves among the voices of the Clearing, telling me this on the nights I was afraid, telling me that our day would come, it would, but that it would be our day and not the day of a Land that had clearly forgotten us.
And then my one in particular was taken.
And so was the rest of the Burden.
Leaving only me to seize the chance.
So what choice did I have but to run towards the rumour?
I did not sleep. I ran through forests and plains, up hills and down, across streams and rivers. I ran through settlements of the Clearing, burnt and abandoned, scars on the world left wherever the Clearing touched it. The sun rose and set and still I did not sleep, did not stop moving, even when my feet were covered in blisters and blood.
But I saw no one. No one from the Clearing, no one from the Land.
No one.
I began to think I was not just the last of the Burden but the last of the Land as well, that the Clearing had achieved their goal and had wiped the Land from the face of the world.
That I was alone.
And on the morning I thought this, a morning where I stood on a riverbank, where I looked around yet again and saw only myself, only 1017 with the permanent mark burning into his arm–
I wept.
I crumpled to the ground and I wept.
And that was when I was found.
They came out of the trees across the road. Four of them, then six, then ten. I heard their voices first but my own voice was only just beginning to come back, just beginning to tell me who I was again after the Clearing had taken it away. I thought it was myself calling to me. I thought it was my own self calling me to my death.
I would have willingly gone.
But then I saw them. They were taller than the Burden ever grew, broader, too, and they carried spears and I knew that here were warriors, here were soldiers who would help me take revenge on the Clearing, who would right all wrongs done to the Burden.
But then they sent greetings I found difficult to understand but that seemed to say their weapons were merely fishing spears and themselves simple fishers.
Fishers.
Not warriors at all. Not out hunting for the Clearing. Not coming for vengeance on the death of the Burden. They were fishers, come to the river because they had heard the Clearing had abandoned this stretch.
And then I told them who I was. I spoke to them in the language of the Burden.
There was great shock, an astonished recoil I could feel, but more than that, too–
There was distaste at how shrill my voice was and of the language I spoke.
There was dread and shame at what I represented, what I meant.
And there was the briefest of pauses before they crossed the final stretch of road towards me, before they came forward with their assistance and help. And they did come forward, they did help me to my feet and asked me for my story, which I told in the language of the Burden, and they listened to me with concern, listened to me with horror and outrage, listened while also making plans for where to take me and what would happen next and reassuring me all along that I was one of them, that I had returned to them now, that I was safe.
That I was not alone.
But before they did all of that, there was shock, there was distaste, there was dread, there was shame.
Here at last was the Land. And it was afraid to touch me.
They took me to an encampment, deep to the south, through thick woods and over a ridge of hills. Hundreds of them lived there in bulbous secreted bivouacs, so many and so loud and curious that I nearly turned and fled.
I did not look like them, being shorter, slighter, my skin a different shade of white, the lichen I
grew for my clothing a different type. I barely recognized any of their food or their shared songs or the communal way they slept. Distant memories from the voices of the Burden tried to reassure me, but I felt different, I was different.
Different most of all in language. Theirs was almost unspoken, shared among them so quickly I could almost never follow it, as if they were just different parts of a single mind.
Which of course they were. They were a mind called the Land.
This was not how the Burden spoke. Forced to interact with the Clearing, forced to obey them, we adopted their language, but more than just that, we adopted their ability to disguise their voice, to keep it separate, private. Which is fine if there are others to reach out to when privacy is no longer wanted.
But there was no more Burden to reach out to.
And I did not know how to reach out to the Land.
While I rested and fed and was healed of all of my injuries save the red pain of the 1017 band, a message was passed through the voice of the Land until it reached a Pathway, where it went straight to the Sky faster than it would have otherwise.
Within days, he arrived in the encampment, high on his battlemore, a hundred soldiers with him and more on the way.
The Sky is here to see the Return, he showed, giving me my name in an instant and ensuring my difference before he had even seen me in the flesh.
And then he laid his eyes on me, and they were the eyes of a warrior, of a general and leader.
They were the eyes of the Sky.
And they looked at me as if they recognized me.
We went inside a bivouac secreted especially for our meeting, its curving walls reaching to a point far above our heads. I told the Sky the story as I knew it, every last detail, from being born into the Burden, to the slaughter of us all, save one.
And while I spoke, his voice surrounded me in a sad song of weeping and sorrow which was taken up by all of the Land in the encampment outside and for all I know every part of the Land this world over, and I was held in it, the Land placing me at the centre of their voices, their one voice, and for a moment, for a brief moment–
I no longer felt alone.
We will avenge you, the Sky showed me.
And that was even better.
And the Sky keeps his word, he shows to me now.
He does, I show. Thank you.
This is only a beginning, he shows. There is more to come, more that will be pleasing to the Return.
Including a chance to meet the Knife in battle?
He looks at me for a moment. All things in their due course.
As I watch him stand, a part of me still wonders if he is leaving the possibility open for a peaceful solution, one that would avoid the outright slaughter of the Clearing, but his voice refuses to answer my doubts and for a moment I am ashamed to have thought them, especially after an attack that has taken part of the Land.
The Return has also wondered if I have a second source of information, the Sky shows.
I look up sharply.
You notice much, the Sky shows. But so does the Sky.
Where? I show. How does the rest of the Land not know of it? How does the Clearing–
The Sky asks now for the Return’s trust, he shows and there is discomfort in his voice. But there is also a warning. And it must be your unbreakable bond. You must promise to trust the Sky, no matter what you might see or hear. You must trust that there is a larger plan that might not be apparent to you. A larger purpose that involves the Return.
But I can hear his deeper voice, too.
I have lifelong experience with the voices of the Clearing, voices that hide, voices that twist themselves in knots while the truth is always more naked than they think, and I have far more practice at uncovering concealment than the rest of the Land.
And in the depths of his voice, I see not only that the Sky, like the Return, can conceal with his voice, but I can also see part of what he is concealing–
You must trust me, he says again, showing me his plans for the days to come–
But he will not show me the source of his information.
Because he knows how betrayed I will feel when he finally does.
[TODD]
There’s blood everywhere.
Across the grass in the front garden, on the small path leading up to the house, all over the floor inside, way more blood than you’d think coulda come outta actual people.
“Todd?” the Mayor says. “Are you all right?”
“No,” I say, staring at all the blood. “What kinda person would be all right?”
I am the Circle and the Circle is me, I think.
The Spackle attacks keep coming. Every day since the first one on the power stayshun, eight days in a row, no let up. They attack and kill the soldiers who are out trying to drill wells to get us much-needed water. They attack and kill sentries at night at random points on the edge of town. They even burnt down a whole street of houses. No one died, but they set another street alight while the Mayor’s men were trying to put out the first one.
And all this time, there still ain’t no reports from the squadrons to the north and south, both of ’em just sitting there twiddling their thumbs, no sound of Spackle passing ’em to make it into town or on the way back from another successful attack. Nothing from Viola’s probes neither, like everywhere you look, they’re somewhere else.
And now they’ve done something new.
Parties of townsfolk, usually accompanied by a soldier or two, have been going thru the outlying houses one by one, scrounging whatever food they can find for the storehouse.
This party got met by Spackle.
In broad daylight.
“They’re testing us, Todd,” the Mayor says, frowning, as we stand at the doorway of the house, some way east of the cathedral ruins. “This is all leading up to something. You mark my words.”
The bodies of thirteen Spackle are strewn about the house and the yard. On our side, there’s a dead soldier in the front room and I can see the remains of two dead townsfolk, both older men, thru the door of the pantry, and a woman and a boy who died hiding in the bathtub. A second soldier lies in the garden, being worked on by a doctor, but he ain’t got one of his legs no more and there’s no way he’s long for this world.
The Mayor walks over to him and kneels down. “What did you see, Private?” he asks, his voice low and almost tender in a way I know myself. “Tell me what happened.”
The private’s breath is all in gasps and his eyes are wide and his Noise is a thing you just can’t bear looking at, filled with Spackle coming at him, filled with soldiers and townsfolk dying, filled most of all with how he ain’t got one of his legs no more and how there ain’t no going back from that, not never ever ever–
“Calm yourself,” says the Mayor.
And I hear the low buzz. Twisting into the private’s Noise, trying to settle him down, trying to get him to focus.
“They just kept coming,” the private says, still pretty much gasping twixt each word but at least he’s talking. “We’d fire. And they’d fall. And here’d come another one.”
“But surely you must have had warning, Private,” the Mayor says. “Surely you heard them.”
“Everywhere,” the private gasps, arching his head back at some new invisible pain.
“Everywhere?” the Mayor says, voice still calm but the buzz getting louder. “What do you mean?”
“Everywhere,” the soldier says, his throat really grabbing for air now, like he’s talking against his will. Which he probably is. “They came. From everywhere. Too fast. Running for us. Full speed. Firing their sticks. My leg. My LEG!”
“Private,” the Mayor says again, working harder on the buzz–
“They just kept coming! They just kept–”
And then he’s gone, his Noise fading fast before stopping altogether. He dies, right there in front of us.
(I am the Circle–)
The Mayor stands up, his face
all annoyed. He takes a long last look at the scene, at the bodies, at the attacks he don’t seem able to predict or stop. He’s got men around him, waiting for him to give ’em orders, men who look increasingly nervous as the days go on and there ain’t a battle in front of ’em they can fight.
“Come, Todd!” the Mayor finally snaps and off he stomps to where our horses are tied and I’m running after him before I even stop to think that he’s got no right to command me.
{VIOLA}
“You sure you ain’t got nothing?” Todd asks over the comm. He’s riding Angharrad behind the Mayor, away from an attack on a house outside of town, the eighth in a row, and I can see the worry and weariness on his face even in the little screen.
“They’re hard to track,” I say, lying on the bed in the healing room again, my fever up again, so consistently I haven’t even been able to visit Todd. “Sometimes we see little glimpses of them, but nothing useful, nothing we can follow.” I lower my voice. “Plus, Simone and Bradley are keeping the probes closer to the hilltop now. The townsfolk are sort of demanding it.”
And they are. It’s so crowded up here now there’s almost no room to move. Very poor-looking tents, made of everything from blankets to rubbish bags, stretch all the way down to the main road by the empty riverbed. Plus, things are growing scarce. There are streams near here, and Wilf brings up vats of water twice a day so our water supply problems are less than what Todd says they’re facing in the city. But we’ve only got the food the Answer was keeping for itself, supply for 200 that’s now got to feed 1500. Lee and Magnus keep leading hunting parties, but it’s nothing compared to the stored food in New Prentisstown, guarded heavily by soldiers.
They’ve got enough food but not enough water.
We’ve got enough water but not enough food.
But neither the Mayor nor Mistress Coyle would even consider leaving the places where they’re strongest.
Worse, rumour spreads almost instantly in a group of people this close together, and after the attacks began on the town, people started thinking the Spackle would attack us next, that they were already surrounding the hilltop, ready to close in and kill us all. They weren’t, there’s been no sign of them near us, but the townsfolk keep asking what we’re doing to keep them safe, saying it’s our responsibility to protect everyone on the hill first, before the town below.
