The Ask and the Answer (50 page)

506

"We'll win," she says. "I reckon we just might." One last look.

One last look where we know each other.

Right down to our souls.

And I slap Acorn hard on the flanks.

And off they go, over the rubble, right down the road, tearing hard toward the people who (I hope I hope I hope) can help us.

I look down at the Mayor, still lying on the ground. I hear the army marching down the hill, two miles away, if that.

I look for the rope.

I see it but before I pick it up, I take a second to close Davy's eyes.

(Viola)

We fly down the road, and it's all I can do not to fall off and break my neck.

"Watch for soldiers!" I shout in the space between Acorn's flattened-back ears.

I have no idea how far into town the Answer's managed to march, no idea if they'll wait to see who I am before they blow me off the road.

No idea what her reaction will be if she sees me-

When
she sees me-

When I tell her and everyone else the things I've got to tell them-

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"Faster if you can!" i shout and there's a jolt like an engine firing and Acorn goes even faster.

She'll head for the ship. No doubt about that. She'll have seen it land and gone straight for it. And if she gets there first, she'll tell them how sorry she is that I died so tragically, how I fell so cruelly at the hands of the tyrant the Answer are trying to overthrow, how if the scout ship has any weapons that can be used from the air-

Which it does.

I lean down farther in the saddle, biting hard against the pain in my ankles, trying to make us go even faster.

We get well past the cathedral, down through the rows of shuttered-up shops and bolted-in houses. The sun is completely down, everything turning to silhouette against the darkening of the sky.

And I think about how the Answer will respond when they find out the Mayor's fallen-

And what they'll think when they find out
Todd
did it-

And I think of him-

I think of him-

Todd
, Acorn thinks.

And we race down the road-

And I nearly tumble off as a
BOOM
rises in the distance. Acorn shudders to a halt, twisting round to keep me on his back. We turn and I look-

And I see the fires burning down the road. I see houses on fire. And stores.

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And grain sheds.

And I see people running this way through the smoke, not soldiers, just people, running past us in the dark.

Passing us so fast they don't even stop to look at us.

They're fleeing from the Answer.

"What is she
doing?" I
say out loud.

Fire
Acorn thinks, nervously clattering his hooves.

"She's burning everything," I say. "She's burning it all."

Why?

"Acorn-" I start to say.

And a horn blows a deep, long call across the entire valley.

Acorn whinnies sharply, no words in his Noise, just a flash of fear, of terror so sharp I feel my heart leap, echoed by the disbelieving gasps of some of the people running past me, many of them shouting out and stopping, looking behind me, back toward the city and beyond.

I turn, even though the sky's too dark to see much.

There are lights in the distance, lights coming down the zigzag road by the falls-

Not the road the army is on.

"What is it?" I say to no one, to anyone. "What are those lights? What was that
sound?"

And then a man, stopped next to me, his Noise bright and circling with amazement, with disbelief, with fright as clear as a knife, whispers, "No."

He whispers, "No, it can't be."

"What?"
I shout. "What's happening?"

And the long, deep horn sounds again across the valley.

And it's a sound like the end of the world.

509

THE BEGINNING

510

511

THE MAYOR WAKES before I even finish tying his hands.

He moans, pure, real Noise ratcheting from him, the first I've ever heard outta his head, now that he's off-guard. Now that he's been beaten.

"Not beaten,'' he murmurs. "Temporarily waylaid."

"Shut up," I say, pulling the ropes tight.

I come round the front of him. His eyes are still misty from my attack but he manages a smile.

I smack him cross the face with the butt of the rifle.

"I hear one stitch of Noise coming from you," I warn, pointing the barrel at him.

"I know," says the Mayor, a grin still coming from his bloody mouth. "And you would, wouldn't you?"

I don't say nothing.

And that's my answer.

The Mayor sighs, leaning his head back as if to stretch

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his neck. He looks up into the colored glass window, still standing, impossibly, in a wall all its own. The moons are rising behind it, lighting up their glass verzhuns just a little.

"Here we are again, Todd," he says. "The room where we first properly met." He looks around himself, at how he's the one tied to the chair now and I'm the one out here. "Things change," he says, "but they stay the same."

"I don't need to hear you talking while we wait."

"Wait for what?" He's growing more alert.

His Noise is disappearing.

"And you'd like to be able to do that, too, wouldn't you?" he says. "You'd like just for once to have no one know what you're thinking."

"I said, shut up."

"Right now, you're thinking about the army."

"Shut
up."

"You're wondering if they really
will
listen to you. You're wondering if Viola's people can really help you--"

"I'll hit you again with the damn rifle."

"You're wondering if you've really won."

"I have really won," I say. "And you know it."

We hear a
BOOM
in the distance, another one.

"She's destroying everything," the Mayor says, looking toward the sound. "Interesting."

"Who is?" I ask.

"You never met Mistress Coyle, did you?" He stretches one shoulder and then the other against his binds. "Remarkable woman, remarkable opponent. She might have beaten me, you know. She might really have done it." He smiles wide again. "But you've done it first, haven't you?"

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"What do you mean
She's destroying everything?"

"As always," he says, "I mean what I say."

"Why would she do that? Why would she just blow things up?"

"Twofold," he says. "One, she creates chaos so it's harder to fight her as an orderly enemy. And two, she obliterates the safety of those who won't fight, creating the impression that she cannot be beaten, so that everyone's that much easier to rule when she's done." He shrugs. "Everything's a war to people like her."

"People like you," I say.

"You'll be swapping one tyrant for another, Todd. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you."

"I won't be swapping nothing. And I told you to be quiet."

I keep the rifle pointed at him and go to Angharrad, watching us both from a cramped space in the rubble.
Todd
, she thinks.
Thirsty
.

"Is there a trough still out front?" I ask the Mayor. "Or did it get blown up?"

"It did," the Mayor says. "But there's one round the back where my own horse is tied. She can go there."

Morpeth,
I think to Angharrad, the name of the Mayor's horse, and a feeling rises in her.

Morpeth
she thinks.
Submit
.

"Attagirl," I say, rubbing her nose. "Damn right he'll submit."

She pushes me playfully once or twice then clops off outta the rubble, making her way round the back.

There's another
BOOM.
I have a little flash of worry

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for Viola. I wonder how far down the road she's gotten by now. She must be getting near where the Answer is, she must be-

I hear a little stirring of Noise from the Mayor. I cock the gun. "I
said,
don't try it."

"Do you know, Todd?" he says, like we were having a nice lunch. "The attacking Noise was easy. You just wind yourself up and slam someone with it as hard as you can. I mean, yes, you have to be focused, tremendously focused, but once you've got it, you can pretty much do it at your will." He spits away a little blood pooling on his lip. "As we saw with you and your
Viola."

"Don't you say her name."

"But the other thing," he continues. "The
control
over another's Noise, well, I must say, that's a
lot
trickier, a
lot
harder. It's like trying to raise and lower a thousand different levers at once and, sure, on some people, some
simple
people, it's easier than others and it's surprisingly easy on crowds, but I've tried for years to get it to work as a useful tool and it's only recently I've had any level of success at all."

I think for a minute. "Mayor Ledger."

"No, no," he says brightly. "Mayor Ledger was
eager
to help. Never trust a politician, Todd. They have no fixed center, so you can never believe them.
He
came to
me,
you see, with your dreams and things you said. No, no control there, just ordinary weakness."

I sigh. "Would you just be
quiet
already?"

"My point is, Todd," he presses on, "that it's only today that I've been able to even come close to forcing
you
to do

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what I want you to do." He looks at me, to see if I'm getting it. "Only today."

Another
BOOM
in the distance, another thing destroyed by the Answer for no good reason at all. It's too dark to see the army but they must be marching into town by now, down the road straight to here.

And night is falling.

"I know what yer saying," I say. "I know what I've done."

"It was all you, Todd." He keeps his eyes on me. "The Spackle. The women. All your own action. No control needed."

"I know what I've done," I say again, my voice low, my Noise getting a warning sizzle to it.

"The offer's still open," the Mayor says, his voice low, too. "I'm quite serious. You have power. I could teach you how to use it. You could rule this land by my side."

I am the Circle and the Circle is me,
I hear.

"That's the source," he says. "Control your Noise and you control yourself. Control yourself," he lowers his chin, "and you can control the world."

"You killed
Davy,"
I say, stepping up to him, gun still pointed. "Yer the one with no fixed center. And now yer
really
gonna shut the hell up."

And then a low and powerful sound rumbles thru the sky, like some giant, deep horn.

A sound God would make when he wanted yer attenshun.

I hear whinnies from the horses out back. I hear a filament of shock race thru the still-hiding Noise from the people of

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New Prentisstown. I hear the steady marching of the army's feet collapse into a racket of sudden confuzhun.

I hear the Mayor's Noise spike and pull back.

"What the hell was that?" I say, looking up and around.

"No," the Mayor breathes.

And there's
delight
in it.

"What?" I say, poking the rifle at him. "What's going on?" But he's just smiling and turning his head. Turning it toward the hill by the falls, by the zigzag road coming down into town. I look there, too. Lights are at the top.

Lights are starting to come down the zigzag.

"Oh, Todd," the Mayor says, amazement and, yeah, it's
joy
coming thru his voice. "Oh, Todd, my boy, what
have
you done?"

"What is it?" I say, squinting into the dark, as if that'll help me see it clearer. "What's making that--"

A second horn blast comes, so loud it's like the sound of the sky folding in half.

I can hear the
ROAR
of the town rising, so many asking marks you could drown in em.

"Tell me, Todd," the Mayor says, his voice still bright. "What exactly were you planning on doing when the army arrived?"

"What?" I say, my forehead furrowing, my eyes still trying to see what's coming down the zigzag road, but it's too far and too dark to tell. Just lights, individual points of 'em, moving down the hill.

"Were you going to offer me up for ransom?" he goes on,