Wixon's Day

by Phil Williams

  Marquos gives a light laugh back, shuffling to get more comfortable on the floor, and Hart tries to step over him to fire up the hobs. Marquos wraps the blanket tightly around himself, backing against the wall to avoid the Kand’s feet. He yawns and lies with his eyes open, staring at Hart’s thick woollen socks, noting the worn holes in them and the braised skin beneath. Marquos gradually pushes himself up to a sitting position and mumbles “You never really stop, do you.”

  Hart looks down at him and shrugs, turning back to preparing her drink. He stands up behind her and says “It’s okay to take a few minutes out for yourself, you know.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hart replies coldly, “I just slept for hours.”

  “That’s not enough though,” Marquos says. “You’ve barely taken a break since we set out. You haven’t even changed your clothes.”

  “It’s how I keep going,” Hart flashes him a dismissive look. “Beats curling up and feeling sorry for yourself. How about you get the fire going already?”

  Marquos sighs, turning away from her to do as she asks. She leaves a hot drink by his side as he piles wood into the furnace, and she takes another through to Copin who stirs noisily with mock horror at Hart’s generosity. She then disappears onto the deck, preparing the gas lanterns for their departure. Copin calls out to the pilot as he watches after her, and Marquos regards him warily through the bedroom doorway, from the full length of the cabin.

  “You know what it is she likes about you, the same thing she doesn’t like about me?” Copin says boldly, the grin on his face now stirring ill feelings in Marquos. The pilot shifts a little closer, answering “What makes you think she likes me at all?”

  “Doesn’t take a genius,” Copin says dismissively, then laughs. “Even though that’s precisely what I am. But what she likes about you, the same thing she hates about me, is that you’re as listless as her. She doesn’t know what’s right or wrong out there. She fights for us, for sure, but she doesn’t really know why.”

  “She’s had friends killed in the wars, just like you.”

  “That’s not why I fight,” Copin shakes his head. Marquos edges closer, the loud echo of the Kand’s booming voice unsettling him, as Copin continues “I know how to change the world, see. I’ve told her time and again. We’re so close now, too. When Thesteran lies in ruins, we’ll have all the opportunity to lay waste to the rest of the Estalian Empire. We can destroy all the industry that’s darknening our world.”

  Marquos gives a cursory glance back to the bomb bag. He doesn’t want to get into it with Copin, but cannot help uttering “Do you have any idea how many people will die?”

  “If it’s everyone in Estalia it’d hardly be enough,” Copin tells him roughly. “There can never be too high a death toll for this war to be won. Thesteran is just the start, my friend. When we are done here, our triumph will be felt in full force in the Metropolis. Only then will the world be free.”

  Marquos hesitates. Feeling the Kand’s mad eyes glaring at him, whilst refusing to meet them, he already knows the answer to the question that he doesn’t want to ask. The words slip out anyway, “If this thing...works...then you’d do the same in the Metropolis?”

  He finally looks up at Copin again for an answer. The Kand’s large face nods with slow deliberation, a foreboding grin showing quite how eager Copin is for this eventuality. Copin says “A necessary evil. One that’s not something all Kands are prepared to accept.”

  Marquos gives him a narrow look, wanting to decry such thinking with the warnings of Rosenbault and the inhumanity of it all. He wants to argue this man into submission, to make him see sense and give him some appreciation for the value of all life. But more than anything, Marquos wants to stop talking to him, and drags himself away, edging back down the cabin. Copin laughs again, and concludes, “That’s what she likes about you! Your ability to ignore the truth!”

  Marquos does not turn from the Kand until he reaches the stairs, at which point he turns and sees Hart stood in the doorway above, watching the conversation with a grim expression. Marquos climbs the stairs and slips past her onto the deck. He asks quietly “You don’t agree with all this, do you?”

  She answers cryptically, with quiet dismissal, “We’ll take one step at a time, Marq. That’s all.”

  9

  Kail’s Shroud hangs over the waterways for most of the morning, until it blends into the distorted green world of the Meth Fields. Marquos quietly guides them on as Hart sits alongside him, whittling away, and Copin finally drags himself out of the cabin, his arm tied in a makeshift sling. The main pain of his wound has subsided, or he has simply chosen to ignore it; either seems possible for the way he is able to carry himself again. The effort of movement saps much of his energy, though, and coming up to sit on deck with the others wears him down. He barely speaks, and his odd forced comments about the terrible weather generally go without response.

  They make it into the Meth Fields by midday, and the Kands slip into the cabin to hide. Marquos does not want to dwell in the city, and avoids the busier canals through the centre, not wanting to risk running into anyone he knows. Having passed the last trading post without human contact, Marquos tries to find a small market to make some discrete purchases. The owner of the shop, another erratically enthusiastic trader like Brax, is eager to hear tales of Marquos’ travels, but reveals that he knows something the pilot does not.

  “You came in through the North Canal, so you must’ve been in Thesteran, am I right?” the trader is saying, packaging the food items that Marquos has asked for.

  “No, I came from the east,” Marquos replies distantly. To his surprise, the trader does not ask what he was doing out east, instead commenting “Disappointment, thought you might have some news on the fires.”

  “The fires?” Marquos says, interest piqued. Wheeler Tan’s comments on the trouble in Thesteran, previously forgotten, creep back into the pilot’s mind.

  “I guess you know less than me.”

  “So tell it. I’m heading there direct from here.”

  “The city’s ablaze, man! I don’t know what caused it, I don’t know what damages is done, all I know for sure is that the fire’s spread all over. We’ve heard rumours of Kand rebels, Norgang bandits, even inter-guard rivalries, so who knows what to believe. Might be it was started by accident even! Result is the city is on fire, though, and everyone’s gone nuts. We’ve already had a few ferry-loads of people coming here to get away, but they’re even less in-the-know than we are. Just panicked and fled. There’s all sorts of looting, I reckon it’d be right up a scavenger’s canal to get in on it.”

  “Yeah,” Marquos says, hurriedly helping the trader pack his goods into the crate. The trader grins at him, seeing the urgency in the pilot, thinking he has estimated correctly, and says “You be sure and bring whatever you get back here, right?”

  Marquos dismisses him briskly, scooping up the crate and rushing away. He unmoors the Hypnagogia and begins a hasty exit from the Meth Fields. He calls down to the Kands to keep the fire going, giving them only a brief explanation that there is trouble in Thesteran. By the time they reach the outskirts of the Meth Fields he is left tensely gunning the throttle, rooted to the spot and staring out at the water ahead. Hart emerges from the cabin, noting the pilot’s dramatic mood. She perches on the wall next to him and says “I think you’re the one that needs to learn to relax.”

  “Thesteran’s ablaze,” he explains simply, looking to her for a reaction but finding it barely registers with her. He continues “That means all your people could be in trouble.”

  “They’re always in trouble,” Hart says.

  “And it means that all my people could be in trouble,” Marquos says. “Everyone. We’re all in trouble.”

  “You really bought into this Rosenbault nonsense, didn’t you? The world’s not going to end if a few people die.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Marquos glares at her.

  “It didn’t end
when the Border Guard sacked Byfraze,” Hart gives him a cold look back and the pilot goes quiet, not sure how to respond. She looks down at the wood in her hands, the same piece from the night before. She had been whittling on it during the night and carved it into something more elegant, which she now holds out to the pilot. He takes it and looks at the carefully carved tube, now hollowed with small holes dotted along it. Marquos marvels at it for a moment, amazed that Hart has been able to create something so delicate, in so short a time, with such a crude knife. Hart says “Go on, try it.”

  Marquos runs a hand up and down the instrument, carefully touching its delicate trimmings. A simple pattern wraps around it, incongruous floral shapes. The pilot holds the flute in front of his lips and watches Hart as she watches him. He blows a note, adjusts himself and blows another, stronger and clearer. He tests the notes, putting his fingers over the various holes, then gives a simple scale. It has a more natural sound than his old flute; the wood hollows out the notes, makes it that much more haunting. He plays the first few notes of his favourite tune, and looks at Hart for approval. She gives him a nod to continue. The Kand listens calmly as Marquos sounds out the first verses of the tune. He feels the rhythm taking over him and relaxes into playing. He plays it again, then again, growing louder and more confident. He has missed this relaxing sound, and releasing his morose emotions through such evocative melodies. It makes him smile, as if the ballad is speaking his thoughts clearer than he ever could, an emotional sound full of feeling and meaning without the complications of language. He plays until the boat reaches the turn to Chapel Way, where he is finally distracted and lowers the flute to turn.

  When Marquos offers the flute back to Hart, whispering thanks, she pushes it back to him and says “It’s for you.”

  The pilot looks at the instrument with some surprise, touched. Hart looks away, though, her expression less amiable. She murmurs “The night that the floating castles moved into Byfraze, after the riots, a small group of us were huddled at a fire. Outside the city. We could still see it lit on the horizon, and throughout the night we heard the thump of distant explosions. Every flash of light meant more Kands dead. Elzia’s message had spread to everyone by then. Our people were fighting against a common enemy, out there across the sea, which would destroy us all if we tried to grasp at our own freedom.

  “Jurgen had a fiddle that he played to try and lift our spirits. He played all sorts of up-tempo tunes, telling us to smile and dance for we had survived the day and we would one day strike back with full force. He played some comical tunes, and it made people laugh. Then he played some patriotic tunes, and it made people feel strong. We turned our mourning for the day’s defeats into a celebration that we were still alive, and the group was filled with hope. Until Jurgen took a break. He ran into the trees to piss, tripping over himself in a panic after running out a lengthy jig that left him desperate, and we were all laughing about it. He’d been hopping from one foot to another during the jig, and we thought he was trying to get people dancing, so some of the group had joined in, until he cried out that he was about to wet himself,” Hart smiles at the memory. “He very nearly did, and we were all watching. No one noticed that Frezo had taken the fiddle until he started playing. The first few notes cut through our laughter. Some of the more boisterous men made fun, thinking that Frezo was doing it for a joke, but he looked so serious, and played it so beautifully, that they all went quiet. After all the uplifting music, in the middle of such merriment, he silenced us with Wixon’s Day.

  “We sat…transfixed by the music. Slow, deliberate notes, every one of them…straight from the heart. It sent a chill down my spine, and I’m sure it had the same effect on the others. They hung their heads, looking at the ground and trembling in shame. With that music, Frezo was saying what we should all have been thinking, and he was saying it without words. As he finished the tune, there was the sound of sniffing behind us, someone was crying. We turned to see Jurgen, returned to the circle and stood watching with his face aghast. Tears were streaming from his eyes. He told Frezo to play it again, and Frezo did. This time, though, Jurgen joined in. He started singing the words, even as he was on the verge of crying. After one verse, we all began to join in. By the end of the song, we were almost shouting it, not with the celebratory tone of before but as a release of our anger. Our frustration. When the tune came to an end, everyone went quiet. We had all lost friends and family in the riots. We had all believed in something that proved only to destroy the lives we once enjoyed. We were all damned…by the people who drove us to fight.

  “Not another word was said that night. Jugen marched over to Frezo and the two men hugged, and then people started to turn in. The next day, the fighting continued. I saw Jugen killed before my eyes, I heard Frezo had taken his own life later. By the end of the week, not one of the people I sat around that fire with was alive.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Marquos tells her weakly. “I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Hart says simply. “To you it’s just a tune you heard once. To me it says everything there is to say about our war. About any war. I doubt you even know the words.”

  “I do.”

  “It was written over half a century ago, when the Border Guard first defeated the Gentars in a pitched battle outside Byfraze. Wixon was our God of War, and the day was specifically chosen for the battle because we thought it would give us strength. It was all just a show, though. The Border Guard gave us every quarter we could ask for, knowing that we never stood a chance. They rolled out steam-tanks and flame-guns, whilst we had knives and stone-throwers. It was a massacre.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marquos lowers his head, “I won’t play it again.”

  “Please do,” Hart replies. “It’s a healthy reminder.”

  “No, I didn’t mean to be so thoughtless.”

  “Play it,” Hart tells him, firmer, “Please.”

  Marquos eyes her, lifting his flute back to his lips and starting the tune again. He plays with greater caution now, his notes unsteady, and his uneasiness gives the tune a broken, eerie feel. The flute weeps. Hart closes her eyes, taking it in, then begins whispering the words, barely audible behind the notes.

  “We began Wixon’s Day, latched our weapons to fight, as the pipes called to play, we’d be men by the night…” her voice wavers as the notes do, the weight of recollection affecting her. “We marched through the morn, spent our strength evensong, found our youth was all gone, horror ruptured our sight.”

  She pauses as Marquos changes key and tempo, the chorus taking hold.

  “Now freedom’s a thing on which I’ll never sing...For I saw on those fields what we hoped to steal. The death of Wixon shall plague all to the core, knowing as we wage war it sheds tears ever more.”

  Marquos lowers the flute, looking warily at Hart, and she continues her whisper, more tuneful now, to the next verse.

  “Blessed be those that fell, for they escaped all our plight, where survivors still dwell, knowing the means to fight…I’m still marching on, every step’s twice as long, knowing we were all wrong…to believe in our rights. I’m still marching on…every step’s twice as long…knowing we were all wrong…to believe in our rights.”

  Marquos shuffles next to Hart and puts an arm around her shoulders, holding her to him as she shudders. She does not cry, or even look especially sad, she just looks tired, drained by the burden of living. She says, as though directing her thoughts to the world in general, “We have to keep fighting, even if we know it’s hopeless. When we sang that song, after the riots, that’s what everyone was thinking.”

  “And that’s what you’re thinking now?” Marquos asks her quietly.

  “My family are all dead, Marq. Everyone I’ve cared about has been claimed by this war. It’s what I’ve always been thinking.”

  The pilot goes quiet again, not wanting to make things worse. He guides the boat along calmly, merely rubbing Hart’s shoulder for support. She lets him hold h
er, remaining stiff in his grip.

  “Thank you for the flute,” Marquos says. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she mumbles back, and finally squirms out from his arm and walks into the cabin. He watches her leave.

  10

  At the first lock on Chapel Way, Marquos pulls the Hypnagogia aside and starts to operate the gates himself, not wanting to disturb the Kands from the cabin. They are well aware he has stopped, though, and before he has even left the boat Hart reappears on the deck and climbs to shore to help him. She does not speak as they unwind the gates and pump the lock full, and as they set out again she perches at the bow of the boat, looking out ahead. Copin emerges with a grin on his face, looking over to Hart and back to Marquos.

  “If you two get married out of all this,” the Kand says, with a laugh, “I’d better be invited to the damned wedding.”

  “Give it a rest,” Marquos replies, annoyed. Copin only laughs more at inspiring such a reaction, going on “I guess neither of you are the marrying type. Making things official and involving other people, that’d be way off wouldn’t it?”

  “I’ve barely been able to hold a conversation with her,” Marquos frowns at the Kand, finding himself genuinely riled by such crash suggestions.

  “Are you kidding?” Copin shakes his head at the pilot’s ignorance. “I’ve been working with her for seasons and you know how much she talks to me? She certainly never made me a flute.”