Текст книги "Monsters of Men"

Автор книги: Patrick Ness

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Текущая страница: 31 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

[TODD]

I catch the Mayor with the first VIOLA I hurl at him, see him stumble to one side, not quite quick enough to dodge it–

But he’s already turning and firing his Noise back at me and tho I duck again I feel like the top of my head’s being ripped open and I jump off the little flat of sand and concrete, down the slope towards the waves, rolling in the sand and snow but getting outta the Mayor’s eyeline for a brief second–

“Oh, but I don’t need to see you, Todd,” I hear–

And bam another blast of white Noise, screaming YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING–

And I roll back up, gripping the side of my head and I force my eyes open–

And I see the river up the beach in front of me, dumping itself into the ocean and I look out to the water beyond it and see wreckage floating there, getting tossed in the waves, wreckage of trees and houses and no doubt people–

People I know–

Maybe even Viola–

And I feel a rage rise in my Noise–

And I get to my feet–

VIOLA!

I think it at him and I realize I’m doing it without having to find him, that I just feel where he is instinctively, and I send it to him and turn to look and he’s falling back hard onto the concrete square, catching himself with his wrist–

Which I hear break with satisfying snap.

He grunts. “Very impressive,” he says, his voice husky with pain. “Very impressive indeed, Todd. Your control is better and stronger.” He starts pulling himself to his feet with his unbroken arm. “But control comes at a price. Can you hear the voice of the world gathering behind you, Todd?”

VIOLA! I think again at him–

And again he staggers back–

But he don’t fall this time–

“Because I can hear it,” he says. “I can hear it all.”

And his eyes flash and I freeze–

And he’s inside my head, along with the hum, connecting to me–

“Can you hear it?” he says again–

And–

And I can–

I can hear it–

There, like a roar behind the roar of the waves, the roar of the river–

A roar of everything on this planet that lives–

Speaking in an impossibly loud single voice–

And for a second I’m overwhelmed by it–

Which is all he needs–

There’s a flash of pain in my head so bright that I black out–

Falling to my knees–

But only for an instant–

Cuz in that roar of voices–

Even tho it ain’t possible–

Even tho she ain’t got Noise–

I swear I heard her–

I swear I heard her coming–

And so without even opening my eyes–

VIOLA!

And I hear another grunt of pain–

And I get back up to my feet–

{VIOLA}

The ground starts to slope steeply down and we’re seeing the ocean constantly now–

“Almost there,” I gasp. “Almost there.”

Boy colt, Angharrad says–

And with a jump, we clear the last line of trees out onto the beach, Angharrad’s hooves kicking up snow and sand as she scrambles to turn left, towards the abandoned town, towards the river–

Towards Todd and the Mayor–

“There they are!” I shout and Angharrad sees them, too, surging forward across the sand–

BOY COLT! she shouts–

“TODD!” I yell–

But the waves are crashing too loud and huge–

And I swear I hear something, Noise coming from the ocean, and I get a glimpse through the crashing water of dark shapes moving beneath–

But I keep my eyes ahead, shouting, “TODD!” over and over again–

And I see–

He’s battling the Mayor, across some kind of sand-covered square in front of what looks like a chapel–

And I get a sinking feeling of how many terrible things have happened to me and Todd in churches–

“TODD!” I call again–

And I see one of them staggering back from what must be a Noise hit–

And then the other jumping away but grabbing his head–

But I can’t tell which is which from this distance–

They’re wearing those stupid uniforms–

And I’m seeing again how tall Todd’s grown–

So tall it’s hard to tell him and the Mayor apart–

And worry clenches my chest even harder–

Angharrad feels it, too–

Boy colt! she calls–

And we race even faster–

[TODD]

Get back, I think at the Mayor and I see him take a step back but just the one and another flash of Noise comes back at me and I grunt with pain and I stumble to one side and I see a broken hunk of concrete in the sand and I grab it and spin round to throw it at him–

“Drop it,” he buzzes.

And I drop it–

“No weapons, Todd,” he says. “You don’t see me armed, do you?”

And I realize I don’t, he ain’t carrying a gun and the scout ship’s too far away to be of use. He wants us to just fight with our Noises–

“Exactly,” he says, “and may the stronger man win.”

And he hits me again–

I grunt and hit him back with a VIOLA and take off running cross the little square, slipping on the snow and heading for one of the wrecked wooden houses–

“I don’t think so,” the Mayor buzzes–

And my feet stop running–

But then I pick up one–

And then the other–

And I’m running for it again–

I hear the Mayor laugh behind me. “Well done,” he says.

I scramble behind a pile of old wood, laying down low so he can’t see me, tho I know that don’t have no effect, but I need a second to think–

“We’re well-matched,” says the Mayor. I can hear him clearly despite the surf, despite the river, despite everything that should be blocking him out. He’s talking right inside my head.

Like he always has.

“You were always my best disciple, Todd,” he says.

“You SHUT UP with that talk,” I shout back, looking round the wood pile, seeing if there’s anything, anything at all that’ll help–

“You control your Noise better than any man but me,” he keeps saying, getting closer. “You control other men with it. You use it as a weapon. I’ve said from the very beginning that your power would outstrip mine.”

And he hits me again harder than ever and the world goes white but I keep thinking Viola in my head and grip the planks of wood and I pull myself to my feet and I think with the heaviest buzz I can muster, GET BACK!

And he steps back.

“Whoo, Todd,” he says, still acting impressed.

“I ain’t taking yer place,” I say, stepping out from the wreckage. “No matter what.”

And he takes another step back, even tho I didn’t tell him to.

“Someone has to,” he says. “Someone has to control the Noise, to tell people how to use it, tell them what to do.”

“Nobody has to tell nobody nothing,” I say, taking another step forward.

“You never were a poet, were you, Todd?” he says. He takes another step back. He’s on the edge of the sandy square now, still holding out his broken wrist, a bloody bone poking out thru the skin, but it don’t look like he’s feeling no pain. The only thing behind him is a long slope down to the waves and the dark shapes lurking beneath–

And I see how black the eyes of the Mayor are, how echoey his voice is becoming–

“This world is eating me alive, Todd,” he says. “This world and the information in it. It’s too much. Too much to control.”

“Then stop trying,” I say and I hit him with a VIOLA.

He flinches but don’t fall down. “I can’t,” he says with a smile. “It’s not in my nature. But you, Todd. You’re stronger than I am. You could handle it. You could rule this world.”

“This world don’t need me,” I say. “For the last time, I ain’t you.”

He looks down at my uniform. “Are you sure about that?”

I feel a rush of anger and hit him hard again with another VIOLA.

He flinches again but don’t step back and hits me with his own blast. I grit my teeth and ready another one, ready to fling it into his stupid smiling face–

“We could stand here all afternoon blasting each other into gibbering wrecks,” he says. “So let me tell you the stakes, Todd.”

“Shut up–”

“If you win, you take over the world–”

“I don’t want–”

“But if I win–”

And suddenly he’s showing me his Noise–

The first time I’ve seen it, seen all of it, in I don’t know how long, maybe even old Prentisstown, maybe not ever–

And it’s cold, colder even than this freezing beach–

And it’s empty–

The voice of the world surrounds him like the black beyond coming in to crush him under an impossible weight–

Knowing me made it bearable for him for a while but now–

He wants to destroy it, destroy everything–

And I realize that’s what he wants–

That’s what he wants more than anything–

To hear nothing–

And the hate of it, the hate in his Noise, of his Noise, is so strong, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to beat it, he’s stronger than me, he’s always been stronger, and I’m looking straight into the emptiness of him, the emptiness that lets him destroy and destroy and I don’t know if–

“Todd!”

I look away and the Mayor calls out as if I’ve ripped something from him–

“TODD!”

And there, thru the snow, riding my horse, riding my bloody great horse–

Viola–

And the Mayor hits me with all he’s got–

{VIOLA}

“TODD!” I yell and he turns to see me–

And he calls out in pain from an attack by the Mayor and he reels back, blood flying from his nose, and Angharrad screams out Boy colt! and rides right for him across the sand and I’m still calling his name, calling it with all my voice–

“TODD!”

And he hears me–

He looks up at me–

And I still can’t hear his Noise, just what he’s using to fight–

But I see the look in his eye–

And I say it again–

“TODD!”

Because this is how you beat the Mayor–

You don’t beat him alone–

You beat him together–

“TODD!”

And he’s turning to the Mayor and I can see the nervousness on the Mayor’s face as I hear my own name roared out as loud as a thunderclap–

[TODD]

Cuz she’s here–

She came–

She came for me–

And she calls my name–

And I feel her strength coursing thru my Noise like a fire–

And the Mayor staggers back like he’s been punched in the face by a row of houses–

“Ah, yes,” he grunts, hand to his head. “Your tower of strength has arrived.”

“Todd!” I hear her call again–

And I take it and I use it–

Cuz I can feel her there, riding to the end of the world to find me, to save me if I needed saving–

Which I did–

And–

The Mayor staggers back again, holding onto his broken wrist, and I see some blood trickling outta his ears–

“Todd!” she says again but this time in a way that asks me to look at her and I do and she stops Angharrad at the edge of the square and she’s looking at me, looking right into my eyes–

And I read her–

And I know exactly what she’s thinking–

And my Noise and my heart and my head fill up fit to burst, fill up like I’m gonna explode–

Cuz she’s saying–

She’s saying with her eyes and her face and her whole self–

“I know,” I say back to her, my voice husky. “Me, too.”

And then I turn to the Mayor and I’m filled with her, with her love for me and my love for her–

And it makes me big as an effing mountain–

And I take it and I slam all of it into the Mayor–

{VIOLA}

The Mayor’s flung backwards down the slope, tumbling and sliding towards the crashing waves, before stopping in a heap–

Todd looks back at me–

And my heart leaps to my throat–

I still can’t hear his Noise, even as I know he’s gathering it for another attack on the Mayor–

But “I know,” he said. “Me, too.”

And he looks at me now, a twinkle in his eye, a grin on his face–

And though I can’t hear him–

I know him–

I know what he’s thinking–

Right now, at this moment of all moments, I can read Todd Hewitt without hearing his Noise–

And he sees me doing it–

And for an instant–

We know each other again–

And I can just feel the strength of us as he turns back to the Mayor–

And he doesn’t hit him with Noise–

He sends a low buzz through the air–

“Walk backwards,” Todd says to the Mayor, who’s slowly got to his feet, holding his wrist–

And he starts to walk backwards–

Backwards towards the surf–

“Todd?” I ask. “What are you doing?”

“Can’t you hear ’em?” he says. “Can’t you hear how hungry they are?”

And I glance into the surf–

See the shadows, the huge shadows, big as houses, swimming this way and that, even in the crashing waves–

And Eat is what I hear–

Simple as that one word–

Eat–

And they’re talking about the Mayor–

Gathering around where he’s walking backwards towards them–

Where Todd is making him do it–

“Todd?” I say–

And then the Mayor says, “Wait.”

[TODD]

“Wait,” says the Mayor.

And it’s not a controlling thing he’s trying, not a buzz returning along the one I’m sending to him, the one that’s making him walk towards the ocean, to drown himself in it, to be eaten by the creachers that are swimming closer and closer, waiting to get a bite. He just says, “Wait,” like he’s asking politely.

“I ain’t sparing you,” I say. “I would if I thought I could save you, but I can’t. I’m sorry bout that, but you can’t be saved.”

“I know,” he says. He smiles again, full of sadness this time, sadness I can feel is real. “You did change me, you know, Todd. In a little way, for the better. Enough to recognize love when I see it.” He looks over at Viola and back at me. “Enough for me to save you now.”

“Save me?” I say and I think Step back and he steps back one more step.

“Yes, Todd,” he says, sweat forming on his upper lip, trying to resist me. “I want you to stop forcing me into the surf–”

“Fat chance of that–”

“Because I’ll go into it myself.”

I blink at him. “No more games,” I say, forcing him back another step. “This is finished.”

“But Todd Hewitt,” he says, “you’re the boy who couldn’t kill.”

“I ain’t no boy,” I say. “And I’ll kill you.”

“I know,” he says. “And that would make you just a little bit more like me, wouldn’t it?”

I stop, holding him there for a second, the waves crashing in behind him, the creachers starting to fight amongst themselves, and boy are they big–

“I never lied about your power, Todd,” he says. “Powerful enough to be the new me, if you wanted–”

“I don’t–”

“Or powerful enough to be like Ben.”

I frown. “What’s Ben got to do with it?”

“He hears the voice of the planet, too, Todd, just like me. Just like you will eventually. But he lives within it, lets himself be part of it, lets himself ride the current of it without losing himself.”

The snow’s still falling, sticking to the Mayor’s hair in white bits. I realize again how cold I am.

“You could be me,” the Mayor says. “Or you could be him.”

He takes a step back.

A step that I didn’t make him take.

“If you kill me, it’s one step further away from being him,” he says. “And if that’s as far as the goodness of you has changed me, goodness enough to stop you becoming me, then that’ll have to do.”

He turns to Viola. “The cure for the bands is real.”

Viola glances at me. “What?”

“I put a slow-acting poison in the first batch to kill all the women. The Spackle too.”

“WHAT?” I shout.

“But the cure is real,” the Mayor says. “I did it for Todd. I’ve left the research on the scout ship. Mistress Lawson can easily confirm it. And that,” he says, nodding at her, “is my parting gift to you, Viola.”

He looks back at me, the sad, sad smile on his face. “This world will be shaped by the two of you for years to come, Todd.”

He sighs deeply.

“And I, for one,” he says, “am glad that I shall never have to see it.”

And he spins round and takes one big stride toward the surf, then another and another–

“Wait!” Viola calls after him–

But he don’t stop, he keeps striding, almost running, and I feel Viola slip off Angharrad and both of ’em come over next to me and we watch the Mayor’s boots splash in the water and he wades in deeper, a wave nearly knocking him over, but he keeps upright–

He twists back to look at us–

His Noise is silent–

His face unreadable–

And with a yawning grunt, one of the shadows in the water breaks the surface, all mouth and black teeth and horrible slime and scales, surging towards the Mayor–

Twisting its head sideways to grab his torso–

And the Mayor makes no sound as the huge creacher slams him into the sand–

And drags him back under the water–

And as quick as that–

He’s gone.

{VIOLA}

“He’s gone,” Todd says, and I share every bit of the disbelief in his voice. “He just walked in.” He turns to me. “He just walked right in.”

He’s breathing heavy, looking startled and exhausted by what’s just happened.

And then he sees me, really sees me.

“Viola,” he says–

And I take him in my arms and he takes me in his and we don’t have to say anything, anything at all.

Because we know.

“It’s over,” I whisper. “I can’t believe it. It’s over.”

“I think he really wanted to go,” Todd says, still holding me. “I think it was destroying him in the end, trying to control it all.”

We look back at the ocean and see the huge creatures still circling, waiting to see if Todd or I will offer ourselves up next. Angharrad sticks her nose right between us, bumping Todd in the face, saying Boy colt with enough feeling to bring tears to my eyes. Boy colt.

“Hey, girl,” Todd says, rubbing a hand along her nose but still holding onto me, and then his face looks sad as he reads her Noise. “Acorn,” he says.

“I left Bradley behind,” I say, tearing up again. “Wilf and Lee, too, but I don’t know what happened–”

“The Mayor said Mr Tate failed him,” Todd says. “Said the Spackle failed him, too. That can only be good.”

“We need to get back.” I twist in his arms and look at the scout ship. “I don’t suppose he taught you how to fly that?”

And then Todd says, “Viola,” in a way that makes me turn back to him.

“I don’t wanna be like the Mayor,” he says.

“You won’t,” I say. “That’s impossible.”

“No,” he says. “That’s not what I mean.”

And he looks me in the eyes.

And I feel it coming, feel the strength surging through him, finally free of the presence of the Mayor–

He opens up his Noise.

Opens it and opens it and opens it–

And there he is, all of him, open to me, showing me everything that’s happened, everything he felt–

Everything he feels–

Everything he feels for me–

“I know,” I say. “I can read you, Todd Hewitt.”

And he smiles that crooked smile–

And then we hear a sound up the beach, back where the trees meet the sand–

(THE SKY)

My battlemore makes the final leap onto the beach and for a moment I am dazzled by the ocean, the sheer huge fact of it filling my voice–

But my mount races on, turning towards the abandoned Clearing settlement–

And I am too late–

The Knife’s one in particular is here with her horse–

But the Knife is nowhere to be seen–

Only the leader of the Clearing, grabbing onto the Knife’s one in particular, his uniform a dark blot against the snow and the sand, and he is holding the Knife’s one in particular close to him, imprisoning her in his arms–

And so the Knife must be dead–

The Knife must be gone–

And I feel a surprising hollowness because of that, an emptiness–

Because even the one you hate leaves an absence when they go–

But those are the feelings of the Return–

And I am not the Return–

I am the Sky–

The Sky who made peace–

The Sky who must kill the leader of the Clearing in order to secure that peace–

And so I race forward, the figures in the far distance coming closer–

And I raise my weapon–

[TODD]

I squint thru the snow, which is getting thicker by the minute–

“Who’s that?” I say.

“That’s not a horse,” Viola says, stepping away from me. “That’s a battlemore.”

“A battlemore?” I say. “But I thought–”

And the air is torn from my lungs–

(THE SKY)

He pushes the girl away, seeing me coming, and I have an open shot–

I hear a voice behind me, shouting something in the distance–

A voice shouting Wait–

But it is hesitation that has hurt me in the past, being at the moment to act and not acting–

And that will not happen now–

The Sky will act–

The leader of the Clearing is turning to me–

And I will act–

(but–)

I fire my weapon.

{VIOLA}

Todd makes a sound like the world collapsing and grabs at his chest–

His bloody, burning, smoking chest–

“TODD!” I shout and leap for him–

And he’s falling back onto the sand, his mouth open in pain–

But no air is coming out or in, just raking, choking sounds in his throat–

And I’m throwing myself down on top of him, blocking another shot if it comes, reaching for his burning clothes, which are disintegrating across his chest, just vaporizing away–

“TODD!”

And he’s looking into my eyes, terrified, his Noise wheeling wildly out of control, spinning with terror and pain–

“No,” I say, “No no no no no–”

And I can barely hear the hoofbeats of the battlemore still racing for us–

Barely hear another set of hoofbeats behind that–

Hear Ben’s voice echoing across the sand–

Wait, he’s yelling–

“Todd?” I say, tearing the melting clothes off his chest, seeing the terrible, terrible burning beneath, his skin bleeding and bubbling and still that awful choking sound from his throat, like the muscles in his chest have stopped working, like he can’t make them move to take in a breath–

Like’s he’s choking to death–

Like he’s dying right now, right here on this cold, snowy beach–

“TODD!”

And the battlemores are closing in behind me–

And I hear the Noise of 1017, hear that he fired the weapon–

Hear as he realizes his mistake–

That he thought he was shooting the Mayor–

But he wasn’t, he wasn’t–

And Ben is riding in behind him–

Ben’s Noise ramming forward with fear–

But all I can see is Todd–

All I can see is him looking back at me–

His eyes wide open–

His Noise saying, No, no, not now, not NOW–

And then he says, Viola?

“I’m here, Todd,” I say, my voice breaking, shouting with desperation. “I’m here!”

And he says, Viola? again–

Asking it–

Asking like he’s not sure I’m there–

And then his Noise falls completely silent–

And he stops struggling–

And looking right into my eyes–

He dies.

My Todd dies.