Monsters of Men (65 page)

Because when the Land mourns, we mourn together–

And his grief overwhelms me, becomes my own, becomes the Land’s–

And I see the full extent of my mistake–

A mistake that may have ruined the Land, a mistake that may have cost us our peace, a mistake that may destroy the Land after all I have done to save it–

A mistake that the Sky should not have made–

I have killed the Knife–

I have finally killed the Knife–

The thing I have wanted for so long–

And it has gained me nothing–

Only knowledge of the loss I have caused–

I can see it written across the face of the voiceless one–

The voiceless one holding out a weapon she does not know how to use–

And so I open my voice and I show her–

{VIOLA}

His Noise opens up in front of me and it shows me exactly how to use the weapon, where to place my fingers and how to squeeze it to send out the white flash from the end–

He’s showing me how to kill him–

Viola,
I hear Ben say again behind me.
Viola, you can’t.

“Why can’t I?” I say, not looking back, keeping my eyes firmly on 1017. “He killed Todd.”

And if you kill him,
Ben says,
where will it stop?

This
does
make me turn around. “How can you say that?!” I shout. “How can you say that with Todd there in your arms?”

Ben’s face is clenched and shuttered, his Noise giving off so much pain I can hardly bear to look at him–

But still he’s saying it–

If you kill the Sky,
Ben says,
the war will begin again. And we’ll all die. And then the Land will be killed in huge numbers from orbit. And then the settlers who come down here will be attacked by the Land that remains. And there will be–

He can’t go on for a second but then he makes himself, makes himself say it in his own voice–

“There will be no end of it, Viola,” he says, cradling Todd against his chest.

I look back to 1017, who hasn’t moved. “He wants me to do it,” I say. “He
wants
me to.”

“He wants to not have to live with his mistake,” Ben says. “He wants the pain to end. But how much better a Sky will he be knowing what this mistake feels like for the rest of his life?”

“How can you talk like this, Ben?” I say.

Because I hear them,
he says with his Noise.
All of them. All the Land, all the
men
,
I hear every one of them. And we can’t just let them die, Viola. We can’t. That’s the very thing Todd stopped here today. The very thing–

And then he really can’t go on. He holds Todd closer to him.
Oh my son,
he says.
Oh my son–

(THE SKY)

She turns back to me, still pointing the weapon, her hands placed exactly on it now to fire it–

“You took him from me,” she says, her spoken words breaking. “We came all this way,
all this way
and we
won
! We
WON
and you
took
him!”

And she cannot say anything more–

I am sorry
, I show again–

And it is not just the echo of the Source’s grief–

It is my own–

Not just for how I have failed as the Sky, for how I have put the entire Land in danger after saving them from it–

But for the life I have taken–

The
first
life I have taken, ever–

And I remember–

I remember the Knife–

And the knife that gave him his name–

The knife he used to kill the Land at the side of a river, a member of the Land who was merely fishing, who was innocent, but who the Knife saw as an enemy–

Who the Knife killed–

And who the Knife regretted killing every moment since–

Regret painted on him every day in that labour camp, every day as he dealt with the Land, regret that drove him mad with anger when he broke my arm–

Regret that caused him to save me when the Burden were all killed–

Regret that is now my own to carry with me–

Carry with me for ever–

And if that for ever is only as long as the next breath–

So be it–

The Land deserve better–

{VIOLA}

1017 is remembering Todd–

I can see it in his Noise, see it as the weapon trembles in my hand–

See Todd stabbing the Spackle with the knife when we came upon it on the side of the river–

When Todd killed the Spackle even when I was screaming for him not to–

And 1017 remembers how Todd
suffered
for it–

Suffering I see 1017 start feeling in himself–

Suffering I remember feeling, too, after I stabbed Aaron through the neck underneath the waterfall–

It’s a hell of a thing to kill someone–

Even when you think they deserve it–

And now 1017 knows it as well as Todd and I do–

As Todd did–

My heart is broken, broken in a way that will never be healed, broken in a way that feels like it’s going to kill me, too, right here on this stupid, freezing beach–

And I know Ben’s right. I know if I kill 1017 then there’s no way back. We’ll have killed a second Spackle leader, and in their greater numbers they would kill every single one of us they could find. And then when the settlers arrived–

Never-ending war, never-ending death–

And here’s my decision again–

My choice to send us deeper into war or keep us out of it–

I chose wrong before–

And is this the price I pay for having chosen wrong?

It’s too high–

It’s too
high–

But if I make this personal again–

If I make 1017 pay–

Then the world changes–

The world ends–

And I don’t care–

I don’t
care–

Todd–

Oh please, Todd–

And,
Todd?
I think–

And then I realize–

My heart aching–

If I kill 1017–

And war starts again–

And we’re all killed–

Who will remember Todd?

Who will remember what he did?

Todd–

Todd–

And my heart breaks even more–

Breaks for ever–

And I fall to my knees in the snow and sand–

And I yell out, wordless and empty–

And I drop the weapon.

(THE SKY)

She drops the weapon.

It falls to the sand unfired.

And so I am still the Sky.

I am still the voice of the Land.

“I don’t want to see you,” she says, not looking up, her voice cracking. “I don’t want to see you ever again.”

No
, I show.
No, I understand
–

Viola?
the Source shows–

“I didn’t do it,” she says to him. “But if I see him again I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself another time.” She looks up beside me, not at me, not able to face me. “Get
out
of here,” she says. “Get out of here!”

I look to the Source, but he is not seeing me either–

All his pain and sorrow, all his attention fixed on the body of his son–

“GO!” she shouts–

And I turn away and go to my battlemore and look back once more, the Source still huddled over the Knife, the girl called Viola slowly crawling towards him–

Excluding me, forcing themselves not to see me.

And I understand.

I climb back up on my mount. I will return to the valley, return to the Land.

And we will see what the future of this world holds for all of us. The Land and the Clearing both.

Saved first today by the actions of the Sky.

Saved again by the actions of the Knife.

Saved once more by the actions of the Knife’s one in particular.

And now we have done all that, we will have to make it a world worth saving.

Viola?
I hear the Source show again–

And I notice a puzzlement growing in his grief–

{VIOLA}

Viola?
Ben says again.

I find that I can’t stand up and so I have to crawl over to him and Todd, crawl next to Angharrad’s legs as she paces in sadness, saying
Boy colt, boy colt,
over and over again.

I force myself to look at Todd’s face, at his still-open eyes.

Viola,
Ben says again, looking up at me, his face streaked with tears–

But his eyes are open, wide open–

“What?” I say. “What is it?’

He doesn’t answer right away, just puts his face down close to Todd’s, peering into it, then looking down to where his own hand rests on all the ice he packed on Todd’s chest–

Can you–?
Ben says, stopping again, concentration crossing his face.

“Can I what?” I say. “Can I
what,
Ben?”

He looks up at me.
Can you hear that?

I blink at him, hearing my own breathing, the crash of the waves, Angharrad’s cries, Ben’s Noise–

“Hear
what
?”

I think
–
he says, stopping again and listening.

I think I can hear him.

He looks up at me.
Viola,
he says.
I can hear Todd.

And he’s already rising to his feet, Todd in his arms–

“I can hear him!” he’s shouting from his mouth, lifting his son into the air.
“I can hear his voice!”

“And there’s a chill in the air, son,”
I read, “
and I don’t mean just the winter coming. I’m beginning to worry a little about the days ahead.
”

I look over at Todd. He still lies there, eyes unblinking, unchanged.