by Patrick Ness
The Mayor breathes heavy for a second, then his voice becomes scarily silky. “Are you riding into town all alone, Mistress?”
“Not alone, no,” she says, pointing at the probe that hovers above the camp. “I have friends in high places.”
Then we hear a familiar distant booming on the far hilltop to the east. The scout ship’s rising slowly into the air and Mistress Coyle’s a beat too late hiding the surprise on her face.
“Were all of your friends in on your little plan, Mistress?” the Mayor says, sounding happy again.
My comm beeps and this time Viola’s face pops up. “Viola–”
“Hold on,” she says. “We’re on our way.”
She clicks off and I hear a sudden new uproar from the army around us. Mr O’Hare is coming into the square from the main road, pushing Mistress Braithwaite before him in a way she ain’t taking kindly to at all. At the same time, Mr Tate’s coming back round the foodstore with Mistresses Nadari and Lawson and he’s holding a rucksack out at arm’s length.
“You tell your men to get their hands off those women,” Mistress Coyle orders. “Immediately.”
“They’re just swept up in the spirit of things, I assure you,” the Mayor says. “We’re all allies here, after all.”
“Caught her right at the bottom of the hill,” Mr O’Hare’s shouting as he gets closer. “Red-handed.”
“And these two were hiding explosives in their quarters,” Mr Tate says, handing the bag to the Mayor as he reaches us.
“Explosives we used to help you, idiot,” Mistress Coyle spits at him.
“It’s coming in for landing,” I say, putting a hand up to my eyes to shelter ’em from the wind as the scout ship starts its descent. The only place it’s got to land is on the square and that’s full of soldiers, already scrambling to get outta the way. There don’t seem to be too much heat or nothing coming off it but it’s still ruddy huge. I turn round to get my face away from the rush of air as it makes contact with the ground–
And when I do, I glance back up to the zigzag hill.
Where there are lights gathering–
The door of the scout ship drops open before it’s even fully landed and Viola’s there immediately, using the opening to hold herself up, and she looks sick, sicker than ever, sicker than I even feared, weak and thin and barely standing and not even using the arm that has the band on it and I shouldn’t have left her, I shouldn’t have left her up there alone, it’s been too long, and I’m running past the Mayor, who’s reaching out to stop me but I dodge him–
And I’m reaching Viola–
And her eyes are meeting mine–
And she’s saying–
Saying as I get to her–
“They’re coming, Todd. They’re coming down the hill.”
The Voiceless
(THE RETURN)
This is not what it seems, shows the Sky, as we watch the strangely feeble projectile rise slowly in the air, heading towards the north edge of the valley, where the Land is already easily getting out of the way of where it might fall.
Be watchful, the Sky shows to the Land. All eyes be watchful.
The Clearing began to show strength. On the very morning we started attacking them again, they suddenly knew where we were coming from. We all watched that first attack through the eyes of the Land performing it, watched to see how the Clearing had regrouped itself in its new unity, to see where its strengths lay.
And those voices were cut off in a flash of fire and splinters.
There can only be one explanation, the Sky showed in the hours that followed.
The Clearing without voices, I showed.
And the Sky and I returned to the Pathways’ End.
The Pathways’ End binds the voices of those who enter it.
The knowledge of who the Source was, that he was the Knife’s father in all but fact, that he was the one the Knife missed in his voice when he thought no one was listening, that this man had been within my reach the entire time, a way to strike back at the heart of the Knife–
These feelings blazed in me, so bright and forward it would have been impossible to hide them from the Land. But the Sky ordered the Pathways’ End to speak as one, encircling our voices, ensuring that what we thought on this subject remained along this Pathway only. It would leave our voices like any other, but it would never enter the voice of the Land. It would come straight back here to Pathways’ End.
We understood the voiceless were oppressed of late, showed the Sky as we stood on either side of the Source on the night of the Clearing’s first fightback, but now they have joined the battle.
They are dangerous, I showed, thinking of my old master, who would wait behind us in silence and beat us without warning. The voiced Clearing mistrusted them, even while living among them.
The Sky held out a flat hand over the chest of the Source. And so now we must know.
His voice reached out, surrounding the Source’s voice.
And the Source, in his endless sleep, began to speak.
We were silent as we left Pathways’ End that night, silent as we climbed back down the hill and into the camp on the hilltop overlooking the Clearing.
That was not what I expected, the Sky finally showed.
No? I showed. He said they were dangerous fighters, that they helped bring the Land to its knees in the last big war.
He also said they were peace-makers, the Sky showed, stroking his chin. That they were betrayed by the voiced Clearing into their own deaths. He looked at me. I do not know what to make of it.
Make of it that the Clearing are more dangerous to us than ever, I showed. Make of it that now is the time to end them once and for all, that we should release the river and erase them from this place as if they never were.
And the Clearing that is on its way? the Sky asked. And the Clearing that will certainly arrive after that? Because where there have been two, there will be more.
Then we can show them what will happen to them if they do not reckon with the Land.
And they will use their superior weapons to kill us from the air, where we cannot reach them. The Sky looked back over the Clearing. The problem remains unsolved.
And so we sent out more raids each day, more tests to these new strengths.
We were fooled and beaten back each time.
And then today, the Land was captured by the Clearing.
And was returned. With two different messages.
Emptiness.
That was what the Land who returned to us showed, the one who had been tortured by them, forced to watch another be killed next to him, and then sent back by the leader of the Clearing with a message of exactly what he wanted.
A message of emptiness, of silence, of the silencing of all voices.
He showed you this? asked the Sky, watching him closely.
The one showed us the message once more.
Showed us the utter void, the complete silence of it.
But is it what he wants? the Sky showed. Or was he showing us himself? He turned to me. You said they regard their voices as a curse, as something that must be “cured”. Perhaps this is all he really wants.
He wants our annihilation, I showed. That is what it means. We must attack them. We must beat them before they get too strong–
You are purposely forgetting the other message.
I scowled. The other message, the one delivered by the Knife, who had also obviously begun to take the voice “cure” and hide himself like the coward he is. The Sky asked the Land who returned to show us the Knife’s message once more and there it was–
His horror at how the Land had been treated, an old horror, a useless horror I knew all too well, and how he, and others, too, including the ones from the vessel and the Knife’s one in particular, how they did not want war at all, that above all else they wanted a world where all were welcome, where all could live.
A peaceful world.
The Knife does not speak for them, I show
ed. He cannot–
But I could see the idea of it churning in the voice of the Sky.
He left then, telling me to stay back when I went to follow him.
I seethed for hours, knowing he could only have gone to the Pathways’ End to consider how to betray us into peace. When he finally returned in the cold darkness, his voice still churned.
Well? I showed angrily. What do we do now?
And then came the whining sound in the air, from the strangely slow rocket.
All eyes be watchful, the Sky shows again, and we watch as the rocket makes an arc and curves back towards the ground. We watch the air above the valley, too, for a bigger missile or a return of the flying vessel, watch the roads that lead from the valley, watch for armies on the march, wait, watch, and wonder if this is an accident or a signal or a misguided attack.
We watch everywhere except the hill at our feet.
The explosion is a shock to every sense, jarring the eyes and ears and mouths and noses and skins of every portion of the Land, because part of us dies in it, torn to pieces as the lip of the hill erupts once more, members of the Land dying with their voices wide open, sending the actualities of their death to us all, so we all die with them, are all injured with them, are all covered in the same smoke, the same showers of dirt and stone, showers that knock down both me and–
The Sky, I hear–
The Sky? starting to pulse through my body, The Sky? a pulse carrying itself through the entire Land, because for a moment, for the briefest moment–
The Sky’s voice is stilled.
The Sky? The Sky?
And my heart surges and my own voice rises to join the others and I stagger to my feet and fight through the smoke, fight through the panic, calling The Sky! The Sky!
Until–
The Sky is here, he shows.
I reach for the rocks that cover him, and other hands come, too, digging him from the rubble, blood showing on his face and hands, but his armour has saved him, and he stands, smoke and dust twirling around him–
Bring me a messenger, he shows.
The Sky sends a messenger to the Clearing.
Not me, though I begged.
He sends the one who was captured and returned. We all watch through him as the Pathways follow him down the rocky face of the hill, stopping at intervals along the way so that the voice of the Land can reach into the Clearing like a tongue, speaking through the one chosen.
We watch through his eyes as he walks into the Clearing, watch the faces of the Clearing as they step back, opening up a path, not grabbing him, not cheering over him as they did last time, and in their voices, he can hear the order given by their leader to let him come to them untouched.
We should release the river now, I show.
But the Sky’s voice pushes mine back.
And so the Land walks through their streets, leaving the last Pathway behind him, making the final steps across their central square himself, towards their leader, a man called Prentiss in the language of the Burden, standing there waiting to receive us as if he was the Clearing’s Sky.
But there are others, too. Three of the Clearing without voices, including the Knife’s one in particular, whose face the Knife thought of so regularly I know it almost as well as my own. The Knife is by her side, silent as before but even now his useless worry is obvious.
“Greetings,” says a voice–
A voice not the leader’s.
It is one of the voiceless. Through the clicks they make with their mouths, she has stepped in front of the Clearing’s leader, her hand out, reaching for our messenger. But her arm is grabbed by the leader of the Clearing, and for a moment there is a struggle between them.
And then the Knife steps forward, steps past them.
Steps up to the messenger.
The leader and the voiceless one watch him, each held back by the other.
And the Knife says with his mouth, “Peace. We want peace. No matter what these two tell you, peace is what we want.”
And I feel the Sky beside me, feel his voice take in what the Knife has said, how he says it, and then I feel him reach out even further through the messenger, out into the Clearing itself, reaching deep into the Knife’s silent voice.
The Knife gasps.
And the Sky listens.
The Land does not hear what the Sky hears.
What are you doing? I show.
But the Sky is already sending a response through the Pathways–
Sending the voice of the Land speaking as one down the hill and along the road and across the square and into the voice of the messenger–
So quickly the Sky can only have been planning it all along–
A single word–
A word that makes my voice rise in uncontainable rage–
Peace, the Sky shows the Clearing. Peace.
The Sky offers them peace.
I storm away from the Sky, from all of the Land, walking, then running up the hillside to my private outcropping–
But there is no getting away from the Land, is there? The Land is the world and the only way to leave it is to leave the world altogether.
I look at the band on my arm, at the thing that makes me for ever separate, and I make my vow.
Killing the Knife’s Ben won’t be enough, though I will do it and make the Knife know that I did–
But I will do more.
I will block this peace, I will block it if it kills me to do so.
The Burden will be revenged.
I will be revenged.
And there will be no peace.
[TODD]
“It’s obvious,” the Mayor says. “I will be the one who goes.”
“Over my dead body,” Mistress Coyle snaps.
The Mayor smirks. “I can accept that as a condition.”
We’ve all crammed into a little room on the scout ship. Me, the Mayor, Mistress Coyle, Simone and Bradley, with Lee, his face covered in scary-looking bandages, on one bed and Viola, looking awful, on another. This is where we’re having the most important talk in the human history of New World. In a little room that smells like sickness and sweat.
Peace, the Spackle said to us, Peace coming thru loud and clear, like a beacon, like a demand, like an answer to what we’ve been asking.
Peace.
But there was something else there, too, something digging round in my head for a minute, like when the Mayor does it but faster, sleeker, and it weren’t like it was coming from the Spackle in front of us neither, it was like there was some kinda mind behind his, reaching thru him and reading me, reading my truth, no matter if I was quiet–
Like there was just one voice in the whole world and it was talking only to me–
And it heard that I meant it.
And then the Spackle said, Tomorrow morning. On the hilltop. Send two. He looked round to all of us in turn, stopping on the Mayor for a second, who stared back at him hard, and then he turned and left without even seeing if we agreed.
That’s when the arguing started.
“You know full well, David,” Mistress Coyle says, “that one of the scout ship people has to go. Which means there’s only room for one of us–”
“And it won’t be you,” says the Mayor.
“Maybe it’s a trap,” Lee says, his Noise rumbling. “In which case, I vote for the President.”
“Maybe Todd should go,” Bradley says. “He’s the one they spoke to.”
“No,” the Mayor says. “Todd stays.”
I spin round. “You don’t get a say in what I do.”
“If you’re not here, Todd,” the Mayor says, “what’s to stop our good mistresses from planting a bomb in my tent?”
“What a splendid idea,” Mistress Coyle smiles.
“Enough bickering,” Simone says. “Mistress Coyle and I would make a perfectly good–”
“I’ll go,” Viola says, in a quiet voice that stops all of us.
We all look at her. “No way,” I st
art to say, but she’s already shaking her head.
“They only want two of us,” she says from the bed, coughing heavy. “And we all know that can’t be the Mayor or Mistress Coyle.”
The Mayor sighs. “Why do you two still insist on calling me–?”
“And it can’t be you either, Todd,” she says. “Someone has to keep him and her from killing us all.”
“But yer sick–” I say.
“I’m the one who fired the missile into the hillside,” she says, quiet. “I’ve got to fix it.”
I swallow. But I can see on her face how much she means it.
“I can actually agree with that,” Mistress Coyle says. “Viola will be a good symbol of the future we’re fighting for. And Simone can go with her to lead the talks.”
Simone stands up a little straighter but Viola says, “No,” coughing some more. “Bradley.”
Bradley’s Noise sparks with surprise. Simone’s would, too, if she had any. “The choice isn’t yours, Viola,” she says. “I’m Mission Commander here and I’m the one–”
“They’ll read him,” Viola says.
“Exactly.”
“If we send two people without Noise,” she says, “how’s that going to look? They’ll read Bradley and they’ll see peace, for real. Todd can stay here with the Mayor. Simone and Mistress Coyle can keep the scout ship in the air above the talks at all times to keep us safe, and me and Bradley will go up that hill.”
She coughs again. “And now you all need to leave so I can rest up for tomorrow morning.”
There’s a silence as we all think about this idea.
I hate it.
But even I can see the sense of it.
“Well,” Bradley says. “I suppose that settles that.”
“All right then,” the Mayor says. “Let’s find a place to have a few words about terms, shall we?”
“Yes,” Mistress Coyle says, “let’s do that.”
They all start filing out, the Mayor taking one last look round before he leaves. “A mighty fine ship,” he says as he disappears out the door. Lee goes, too, using Bradley’s Noise. Viola starts to say he can stay but I think he’s leaving us alone on purpose.
