Текст книги "Monsters of Men"

Автор книги: Patrick Ness

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

{VIOLA}

It’s Ben.

I can see him as clearly in the Noise of the crowd as if he were standing right in front of me. There’s the Spackle that tried to kill me, 1017, riding a battlemore, and Ben’s sitting behind him on another one, the song he’s singing coming clear, I heard a maiden call from the valley below–

But his mouth isn’t moving–

Which must be a mistake of the crowd Noise–

But he’s there, riding up the road, and since no one here can know him, his face must be accurate, it must really be Ben–

And I can feel the Mayor’s medicine surging through me and I use my new strength to start shoving people out of the way even harder–

Because in their Noise, I can see the Mayor pushing forward ahead of me, too–

And I see that Todd’s reached Ben–

See it like I’m right there–

Feel it like I’m right there because Todd’s own Noise has opened, as he’s got farther away from the Mayor and closer to Ben, his own Noise is opening as wide as it used to be, opening with astonishment and joy and so much love you can hardly bear to look at it and those feelings are surging back along the crowd like a wave and the crowd is staggering under it, staggering under the feeling that Todd’s transmitting to them–

Transmitting it just like the Mayor can–

[TODD]

I can’t even say nothing, I just can’t, there ain’t no words for it as I’m running to him, running right past 1017, and Ben’s coming down off his battlemore and his Noise is rising to greet me with everything I know about him, everything since I was a baby, everything that means he’s really Ben–

And he ain’t quite saying it in words–

And he’s opening up his arms and I’m throwing myself into ’em and I’m hitting him so hard we fall back against the beast he was riding and–

How big you’ve gotten, he says–

“Ben!” I say, gasping the words, “Aw, Jesus, Ben–”

You’re as tall as me, he says. Big as a man.

And I’m barely noticing that he says it a bit strange cuz I’m just holding him tight and my eyes are leaking water and I can barely speak as I feel him here, right here, right here in the flesh, alive and alive and alive–

“How?” I finally say, pulling back a little but still holding onto him and I can’t say no more but he knows what I mean–

The Spackle found me, he says. Davy Prentiss shot me–

“I know,” I say and my chest gets heavier, my chest weighing down and my Noise feeling heavier, too, heavy like it ain’t felt in a good long while, and Ben can see it and he says–

Show me.

And I do, right there before I can even get any proper words out, I show him the whole terrible story of what happened after we left him and I’d swear he was helping me do it, helping me show him the death of Aaron, the wounding of Viola, our separation, the attacks by the Answer, the banding of the Spackle, the banding of the women, the deaths of the Spackle, and I look over to 1017 still up on his battlemore and I show Ben all about that, too, and everything that followed, Davy Prentiss coming round to being human and then dying at the Mayor’s hand and the war and more deaths–

It’s all right, Todd, he says. It’s all over. The war is over.

And I can tell–

I can tell he forgives me.

He forgives me for all of it, tells me I don’t even need to be forgiven, tells me I did the best I could, that I made mistakes but that’s what makes me human and that it’s not the mistakes I made but how I responded to ’em and I can feel it from him, feel it from his Noise, telling me how I can stop now, how everything’s gonna be all right–

And I realize he ain’t telling me with words. He’s sending it right into the middle of my head, actually, no, he ain’t, he’s surrounding me with it, letting me sit in the middle of it, knowing it to be true, the forgiveness, the – and here’s a word I don’t even know but suddenly do–absolushun, absolushun from him if I want it, absolushun for everything–

“Ben?” I say, feeling puzzled, feeling more than puzzled. “What’s going on? Yer Noise–”

There’s a lot we need to talk about, he says, again not with his mouth, and I start to feel weird about it but the warmth of it is all round me, the Ben of it’s all there, and my heart just breaks open again and I smile back at the smile he’s giving me–

“Todd?” I hear behind us.

We turn to look.

The Mayor stands at the edge of the crowd, watching us.

{VIOLA}

“Todd?” I hear the Mayor say as I stop right beside him–

Because it is Ben, it is, I don’t know how, but it really is him–

And he and Todd turn to look, a dazed cloud of happy Noise swirling round them, expanding over everything, including the Spackle still up on the battlemore next to them and I move toward Ben, my own heart surging–

But I glance at the Mayor’s face as I run past–

And I see pain there, just for a second, fleeting across his gel-shiny features, and then it’s gone, replaced with the face we know so well, the face of the Mayor, bemused and in charge–

“Ben!” I call and he opens an arm to receive me. Todd steps back but the feelings from Ben are so good, so strong that after a second Todd embraces both of us together and I feel so happy about it I start to cry.

“Mr Moore,” the Mayor calls from a distance away. “Reports of your death seem to have been exaggerated.”

As have reports of yours, Ben says, but in the strangest way, not using his mouth, using his Noise more directly than I’ve ever heard–

“This is most unexpected,” the Mayor says, glancing at Todd, “but joyful of course. Very joyful indeed.”

But I don’t see much joy behind the smile he’s giving.

Todd doesn’t seem to notice, though. “What’s with yer Noise?” he says to Ben. “Why are you talking like that?”

“I believe I have an idea,” the Mayor says.

But Todd isn’t listening.

“I’ll explain everything,” Ben says, using his mouth for the first time, though his voice is scratchy and clogged, as if he hasn’t used it in ages. But let me say first, he says, back through his Noise, reaching up to the Mayor and the crowd behind him, that peace is still with us. The Land still wants it. A real new world is still open to all of us. That’s what I came to tell you.

“Is that so?” the Mayor says, still smiling his cold smile.

“Then what’s he doing here?” Todd says, nodding at 1017. “He tried to kill Viola. He don’t care about peace.”

The Return made a mistake, Ben says, for which we must forgive him.

“The who did what now?” Todd says, perplexed.

But 1017 is already turning his battlemore back towards the road without acknowledging us, riding back through the crowds on his way out of the city.

“Well, now,” the Mayor says, his smile still stuck there. Ben and Todd lean into each other, the feelings rolling off them in waves, waves that make me feel great in spite of all my worries. “Well, now,” the Mayor says again, a little louder, trying to make sure he has all our attention. “I would very, very much like to hear what Ben has to say.”

I’m sure you would, David, Ben says in that weird Noise way. But first I’ve got a lot of catching up to do with my son.

And there’s a surge of feeling from Todd–

And he doesn’t see the glimmer of pain flash again on the face of the Mayor.

[TODD]

“But I don’t unnerstand,” I say, not for the first time. “Does that make you Spackle now or something?”

No, Ben says, thru his Noise, but way clearer than Noise speech ever usually is. The Spackle speak the voice of this planet. They live within it. And now, because of how long I was immersed in that voice, I do, too. I’ve connected with them.

And there’s that connected word again.

We’re in my tent, just me and him, Angharrad tied outside in a way that blocks the opening. I know the Mayor and Viola and Bradley and all them are out there waiting for us to come out to tell ’em what the hell’s going on.

But let ’em wait.

I got Ben back and I ain’t letting him outta my sight.

I swallow and think for a minute. “I don’t unnerstand,” I say again.

“I think it could be the way forward for all of us,” he says with his mouth, croaky and crackling. He coughs and lets his Noise take over again. If we can all learn to speak this way, then there won’t be any more division twixt us and the Spackle, there won’t be any division twixt humans. That’s the secret of this planet, Todd. Communication, real and open, so we can finally understand each other for once.

I clear my throat. “Women don’t got Noise,” I say. “What’ll happen to them?”

He stops. I’d forgotten, he says. It’s been so long since I’ve really been around them. He brightens again. Spackle women have Noise. And if there’s a way for men to stop having Noise – he looks at me – There must be a way for women to start.

“The way things’ve gone round here,” I say, “I don’t know that yer gonna have much success with that kinda talk.”

We sit quietly for a moment. Well, not quietly, cuz Ben’s Noise churns around us constantly, taking my own Noise and mixing it in like the most natural thing in the world, and in any instant I can know anything and everything about him. Like how, after Davy shot him, he stumbled into the undergrowth to die and lay there for a day and a night before he was found by a hunting party of Spackle and then what followed was months of dreaming where he was nearly dead, months away in a world of strange voices, learning all the knowledges and histories of everything the Spackle know, learning new names and feelings and unnerstandings.

And then he woke up and was changed.

But was still Ben, too.

And I tell him, thru the best use of my Noise, which feels open and free again like it ain’t done for months, about everything that happened here and how I still don’t quite unnerstand how I ended up wearing this uniform–

But all he asks is, Why isn’t Viola in here with us?

{VIOLA}

“Don’t you feel excluded?” the Mayor says, pacing around the campfire one more time.

“Not really,” I say, watching him. “It’s his father in there.”

“Not his real father,” says the Mayor, frowning

“Real enough.”

The Mayor keeps pacing, his face hard and cold.

“Unless you mean–” I say.

“If they ever do emerge,” he says, nodding at the tent where Ben and Todd are talking, where we can hear and see a cloud of Noise spinning denser and more intricately than any usual man’s Noise, “please send Todd to retrieve me.”

And off he goes, Captain O’Hare and Captain Tate following him.

“What’s with him?” Bradley asks, watching the Mayor leave.

It’s Wilf who answers. “He thinks he’s lost his son.”

“His son?” Bradley asks.

“The Mayor’s somehow got it into his head that Todd’s a replacement for Davy,” I say. “You saw how he was talking to him.”

“I heard some of it through the crowd,” Lee says, from where he’s sitting by Wilf. “Something about Todd transforming him.”

“And now Todd’s real father’s here,” I say.

“At the worst possible moment,” Lee says.

“Or just in the nick of time,” I say.

The curtain of the tent opens and Todd pokes his head out.

“Viola?” he says.

And I turn to look at him–

And when I do, I can hear everything he’s thinking.

Everything.

Clearer than before, clearer than seems possible–

And I’m not even sure I’m supposed to, but I look him in the eyes and I see it–

In the middle of everything he’s feeling–

Even after we fought-

Even after I doubted him-

Even after I hurt him–

I see how much he loves me.

But I see more, too.

[TODD]

“So what happens now?” Viola says to Ben, sitting next to me on my cot. I’ve taken her hand. Didn’t say nothing about it, just took it, and she let me and we sit side by side.

Peace is what happens, Ben says. The Sky sent me to find out about the explosion, to see if peace was still possible. He smiles and again it’s thru his whole Noise, reaching out to us so that it’s hard not to smile yerself. And it is possible. That’s what the Return is telling the Sky right now.

“What makes you think 1017 is trustworthy?” I say. “He attacked Viola.”

I squeeze Viola’s hand.

She squeezes it back.

Because I know him, Ben says. I can hear his voice, hear the conflict in it, hear the good that wants to come. He’s like you, Todd. He can’t kill.

I look at the floor at that.

“I think you need to talk to the Mayor,” Viola says to Ben. “I don’t think he’s too happy that you’re back.”

No, Ben says. I got that impression too, though he is very difficult to read, isn’t he? He stands. “But he needs to know the war is over,” he rasps in his spoken voice.

He looks at me and Viola sitting there, gives another little smile, and then leaves us in the tent.

We don’t say nothing for a minute.

Or for another minute more.

And then I tell her the thought that’s been coming ever since I saw Ben.

{VIOLA}

“I wanna go back to old Prentisstown,” Todd says.

“What?” I say, surprised, even though I’d seen it swirling in his Noise.

“Maybe not old Prentisstown itself,” he says. “But not here.”

I sit up. “Todd, we’ve barely started–”

“But we will start and soon,” he says, still holding my hand. “The ships’ll come and the settlers will wake up and then there’ll be a new city. With all new people.” He looks away. “After living in one for a while, I don’t think I like cities much.”

His Noise is getting quieter now that Ben’s left, but I can still see him imagining life after the convoy, things getting back to normal, people spreading up the river again. “And you want to go,” I say.

He looks back to me. “I want you to come with me. And Ben. And Wilf and Jane, maybe. Bradley, too, if he wants, and that Mistress Lawson seems nice. Why couldn’t we all make a town of it? A town far away from all this.” He sighs. “A town far from the Mayor.”

“But he needs to be watched–”

“There’ll be 5000 new people who’ll know all about what he is.” He looks down at the ground again. “Besides, I think maybe I’ve done all I can for him,” he says. “And I’m tired.”

The way he says it makes me realize how tired I am, too, how tired I am of all of this, and how tired he must be, how tired he looks, how worn out and through with it all, and my throat starts to clench with the feeling of it.

“I want to go away from here,” he says. “And I want you to come with me.”

And we sit there in silence for a good long while.

“He’s in your head, Todd,” I finally say. “I saw him there. Like you’re connected somehow.”

Todd sighs again at the word connected. “I know,” he says. “That’s why I wanna go. I came close but I ain’t forgot who I am. Ben reminded me of all I ever need to know. And, yeah, I’m connected to the Mayor, too, but I’ve pulled him away from all this war stuff.”

“Did you see what he did with the crowd?”

“It’s almost over,” Todd says. “We’ll have peace, he’ll have his victory, and he won’t need me, even tho he thinks he does. The convoy’ll come, he’ll be the hero but he’ll be outnumbered, and we’ll get the hell outta here, okay?”

“Todd–”

“It’s almost over,” he says again. “And I can hang on till it is.”

And then he looks at me in a different way.

His Noise keeps getting quieter, but I can see it there still–

See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it to his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and–

“Oh, God,” he says, looking away suddenly. “Viola, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

But I just put my hand up to the back of his neck–

And he says, “Viola–?”

And I pull myself towards him–

And I kiss him.

And it feels like, finally.

[TODD]

“I’m in complete agreement,” the Mayor says to Ben.

You are? Ben says, surprised.

We’re all gathered round the campfire, Viola sitting next to me.

Holding my hand again.

Holding like she ain’t never gonna let it go.

“Of course I am,” the Mayor says. “As I’ve said many times, peace is what I want. It’s what I genuinely want. Believe it out of self-interest if nothing else.”

Excellent then, Ben says. We’ll continue with the council as planned. That is, if your injuries will allow you to take part?

The Mayor’s eyes spark a little. “What injuries would those be, Mr Moore?”

There’s a stillness as we all see the burn gel covering his face and the bandages on the back of his neck and head.

But no, he don’t look like he’s feeling any injuries at all.

“In the meantime,” the Mayor says, “there are certain things that need to be done right away, certain assurances to be made.”

“Assurances to who?” Viola asks.

“The people on the far hilltop, for one,” the Mayor says. “They may not be gathering themselves into the Army of the Martyress just yet, but I would feel no surprise if Mistress Coyle had left instructions with Mistress Braithwaite should she fail. Someone needs to go back up there and settle things.”

“I’ll go,” Mistress Lawson says, frowning. “The mistresses will listen to me.”

“Me, too,” says Lee, aiming his Noise away from me and Viola.

“And our friend Wilf to drive them,” says the Mayor.

We all look up at that. “I’ll fly them,” Bradley says.

“And be gone all night?” the Mayor asks, looking at him hard (and I wonder if I hear the hum–) “Not to return until morning with a burn unit far surpassing anything we have in the city? Plus, I think you, Bradley, need to go back to the Spackle today, right now, with Ben and Viola.”

“What?” Viola says. “But we agreed on tomorrow–”

“By tomorrow, the schism Mistress Coyle wanted may have taken firmer hold,” the Mayor says. “How much better if you, hero of the first talks, come back tonight with matters already settled? With, for example, a river flowing slowly down the banks?”

“I wanna go with Ben,” I say. “I don’t–”

“I’m sorry, Todd,” the Mayor says, “I really am, but you have to stay here with me, as usual, and make sure I don’t do anything anyone would disapprove of.”

“No,” Viola says, surprisingly loud.

“All this time and you’re worried now?” the Mayor says to her, smiling. “It’s only a few hours, Viola, and with Mistress Coyle gone, the credit for winning this war falls solely to me. I’ve got plenty of reason to behave, believe me. The convoy may just crown me king.”

There’s a long pause where everyone looks at each other, considering this.

I have to say that all sounds rather sensible, Ben finally says. Aside from the king part, obviously.

And I watch the Mayor as everyone starts talking it thru. He looks right back at me. I expect to see anger.

But all I see is sadness.

And I realize–

He’s saying goodbye.

{VIOLA}

“That Ben’s Noise is amazing,” Lee says, as I help him up on the cart that will take them back to the hilltop. “It’s like the whole world in there, and everything is so clear.”

We decided, after a bit more debate, to go with the Mayor’s plan. Me, Bradley and Ben will ride up to the Spackle now. Lee, Wilf and Mistress Lawson will go to the hilltop to calm things down. Todd and the Mayor will stay in town to hold things together here. And we’ll all try to get back together as fast as we can.

Todd says he thinks the Mayor just wants to say goodbye to him in private, now that Ben’s come back, and that it would probably be more dangerous for Todd not to be there. I still argued against it until Ben agreed with Todd, saying it was the last hours before real peace and whatever good influence Todd had over the Mayor, now was when it would be needed most.

I’m still worried, though.

“He says it’s how all the Spackle talk,” I say to Lee. “How all the Spackle are, how they evolved. To fit the planet perfectly.”

“And us not so much?”

“He said we could learn if he did.”

“And the women?” Lee asks. “What about them?”

“What about the Mayor? He doesn’t have Noise any more.”

“Neither does Todd,” Lee says, and he’s right. The farther Todd gets away from Ben, the quieter he is. And then I see Todd in Lee’s Noise, see me and Todd in Todd’s tent, see me and Todd–

“Hey!” I say, blushing red. “That didn’t happen!”

“Something did,” he mumbles. “You were in there for ages.”

I don’t say anything, just watch Wilf yoke up oxes to the front of the cart and Mistress Lawson fuss over supplies she wants to take back to the hilltop.

“He asked me to go away with him,” I say, after a long minute.

“When?” Lee asks. “Where?”

“When this is all over,” I say. “As soon as we can.”

“And will you?”

I don’t answer.

“He loves you, you idiot,” Lee says, not unkindly. “Even a blind man can see that.”

“I know,” I whisper, looking back over to the campfire where Todd’s saddling up Angharrad for Bradley to ride.

“We’re ready,” Wilf says, coming over.

I embrace him. “Good luck, Wilf,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yoo too, Viola.”

I embrace Lee as well who whispers in my ear, “I’ll miss you when you go.”

I pull away and even hug Mistress Lawson. “You’re looking so healthy,” she says. “Like a new girl.”

Then Wilf strikes the reins and the cart starts making its way around the ruins of the cathedral, around the lonely bell tower, still standing after all this time.

I watch them until they disappear.

And then a snowflake lands on the tip of my nose.