The Unspoken: Book One in the Keres Trilogy (27 page)

I hear a noise like gears creaking and look around the stalls- suddenly a huge wild boar is barreling towards me, tossing its tusks and snorting madly through its flaring nostrils. Panic takes over, and without thinking I drag my thumb over the fishing net band tattoo and throw a red wall at the boar. It slams into it and dissipates into a thin mist. I turn to look at Loshee in alarm. She is leaning against an empty weapons rack with her arms crossed, smirking.
“
Not awful, but you are already sweating.
”

I brush my sleeve across my forehead in frustration. Why does everyone down here get such a kick out of watching me tailspin into hysteria? A pack of wolves is bearing down on me now, their fangs dripping with a sticky yellow foam. I pull my thumb over the wings on my forearm and throw a whirling tornado which sweeps them aside like so many dry leaves. As soon as their mist fades, out of the corner of my eye I see a jungle cat stalking me. Instead of sending a wall from my net tattoo, I imagine sending a tight web of steel threads that dig into the ground, snaring the cat. Then, I immediately turn to fire off a magus that picks up a fellow Unspoken, who is about to be disemboweled by the claws of an enormous bear. I follow that closely with a red light box which falls over the bear, trapping it.

Loshee steps on a red button next to the green one on the floor and the clicking, grinding gear noise slows to a stop.
“
Not bad. I thought the last one would trip you up, not being sure how you felt about the rest of us and all.
”
She eyes me critically.
“
Least I know your instinct is to save.
”

My instinct is to save
, I chant repeatedly in my head while
I brew inks that afternoon. I knew instantly, almost without looking, that the person dressed in black with the strange spiked hair was friend and not foe. That they should be saved. Do I feel like I belong here? With these people? I search my feelings, probing them for tender spots of like or aversion and find nothing that convinces me either way. The only irrefutable thing is the knowledge and skill I am gaining. But even as I think about the important role I will be able to play once we escape Chelon and The Mothers, a black thought slips over my satisfaction. How will I keep the Heavy from pressing all the air out of me when I am forced to throw a lifesaving magus? How do I avoid dying when I try to save my friends?

When we were in our eleventh year, Doe contracted harshpox. She was taken from our residence block to be quarantined in the Healers
’
Building. With only the five of us left, we felt off-balance, empty and intensely alone. The Healers told us to prepare ourselves, that Doe was near death. If she died, her body would be taken to the other side of the outer wall, burned in the pit, and her ashes buried between the trees that surround Chelon. We would not be allowed to see her. The natural death of a child is uncommon, but not unheard of. There are eight or nine Play Groups who lost a member to disease or in an accident during Service hours. Without a full set of six members, the odd one out was simply not Banded when they entered their eighteenth year. If death is a judgment, a punishment, the entire Play Group is executed on the Quad in front of the population. It
’
s called an Extinguishment, with the offender always the last to be put to death, so they may watch what their actions brought to their Play Group members. Public slaughter is an extreme rarity, but the most recent occurrence is never too far out of living memory to make it feel impossible.

Doe was kept away from us for a little longer than two weeks. During that time we roamed the residence compound, the Quad, through Pedagogics lectures without purpose, like ghosts of ourselves, aimless like lambs who have been separated from the herd. It wasn
’
t that Doe was a group leader, or even that her voice was needed to propel us forward through the days. I suppose we would have reacted the same way if any one of us were removed from the group, because each of us is a keystone in our functioning arc. Remove a keystone and the arc crumbles. Remove one of us and the whole group falls.

Today, I look at the five members of PG3456 as we wait in line at the Necessities Center. We have our fifteenth year clothes in large laundry sacks which we sit on, waiting for the annual clothing trade out to begin. Harc has taken on a nervous, involuntary jerking motion whenever a Mother appears. It looks unnatural on her, like it belongs to Doe or Merit more than to her. She hasn
’
t tried to take anything else from the factories, choosing to keep her head down instead. I hope she is at least learning how to weave fabrics. We will need clothing on the outside, as we aren
’
t used to having pants and shirts wear out, and someone will need to know how to repair or replace them. Harc is the only one of us in a position to learn anything in that line. She has kept a haggard expression since Sotter stepped forward to take the blame for her theft of the scissors. Harc
’
s face remains pinched, as if she
’
s continuously thinking of that moment, trying to go back to it and step forward herself. But even she knows it would have done no good. Sotter
’
s Play Group finally appeared on the corrections board with a punishment of halved food rations for a week. Nothing that holds a candle to what would have happened to PG3456 if Harc had confessed.

In the weeks that followed, Frehn was able to not only talk to Sotter, but her entire Play Group. He starts games on the Recreational Fields with other PGs and PG3453 joins in. They are able to talk frequently without attracting the attention of The Mothers. Still, the twelve of us avoid being involved in the same activity- it would be strange if PG3453 started eating with us in the canteen, for instance. But on the fields or during free time when other members of groups are interacting at the same time, we blend in.

“
Why have us get in line so early if they aren
’
t going to start the trade-in on time?
”
Frehn says in frustration, peering around me to the front of the line. I know he wants to meet Poy and Revvim from PG3453 on the Quad for a game of cards.

“
I think they have started, there
’
s just a problem,
”
Doe says.
“
There are Mothers up there now.
”

“
Someone must have lost something. Well, pull them out of the line and let the rest of us move,
”
Frehn says.

A few minutes later, The Mothers come gliding down the line. A PG is trailing behind them, heads hung, laundry bags on their backs. The line begins to inch along and we make it to the Clothier Counter an hour or so later.

“
Bag, ticket,
”
says the Keeper behind the counter.

I hand mine over and the Keeper counts each item, inspecting it carefully. She makes a note and pins it to my bag, then hands me a new bag with a list of contents sewn onto a fabric tag.

“
Next in line,
”
she calls out.

We all make it through the trade-in without incident, the Keeper never even glancing at any of our faces. She seems intent on getting each of us through the trade-in quickly so she can pull down the counter shutters and block everyone out.

We haul our clothes for the sixteenth year of our lives back to the block and unpack. I carefully tack the fabric list in the closet to be sure I keep track of every item. I saw a Play Group bullwhipped once because one of the boys lost a handkerchief while playing in the fields. Ever since then, I have checked my clothing list each night before going to bed to be sure I still have everything assigned to me.

Once everything is put away and after glancing at the painted hand above my door, I wander back in the common room and fling myself into a chair. Play Groups aged fifteen through seventeen were released from Service for the afternoon so we could attend trade in, so we have hours to kill before dinner. Going back to the Warren isn
’
t an option after being dismissed. Neither is joining a game on the Recreational Fields- it is too cold this time of year and there
’
s no snow covering the ground yet to provide seasonal activities. The card game Frehn has planned under the heat lamps on the Quad feels like dull work.

Wex comes out of his room and sits at my feet, resting his arm over my legs.

“
Is it safe?
”
he asks me.

“
Huh? Oh, yes, the room is clean,
”
I answer, the weight of his arm demanding my whole attention.

He sighs with contentment and leans his head back against the arm of the chair,
“
There are definite drawbacks of you being an Unspoken, but that trick is not one of them. Not having to worry that we
’
ve missed something in our search is almost a balance to not knowing what you do all day.
”

I can say nothing. My hand is millimeters from his head and I want to sink my fingers into his thick hair, running them through over and over.

“
I
’
ve started a map,
”
Wex starts again,
“
of everything I can see through the outer wall and everything I can pick up from the leaders who load the trains. They
’
ve talked to the traders you now. Actually talked to people form outside of Chelon. Harc is working on one for the inner wall of Chelon. I think the best thing to do, once we get out, is follow the river up to the mountains. Best to stick close to a clean water source.
”

Sure, whatever, just don
’
t move.

“
That opens us up to a lot of problems though. It will make us dangerously easy to follow and track. But I don
’
t know who they would send after us once we get past a certain distance. Somehow, I can
’
t picture The Mothers coming after us, and the five in black are too old,
”
Wex trails off, his fingers playing with the embellishments on my pants cuff.

“
Unless that
’
s what the Unspoken are for,
”
Harc says from her door.

I look up at her, startled, and Wex withdraws his arm. I want to pull it back across my legs and fling a magus to push Harc back into her room, slamming the door in her face.

“
You think that
’
s what the Unspoken Service is? To bring people back?
”
Wex asks her incredulously.
“
Doesn
’
t seem like it would be worth the effort to have a whole Service for something that only happens once every sixty years.
”

“
No, I think they do all The Mothers
’
dirty work,
”
Harc replies, avoiding my eye.

“
And what exactly would be considered dirty work to a Mother?
”
I shoot at her, feeling a warning shove from the Heavy as the words leave my mouth.

“
Chasing people down, for starters. Making sure we have no options but to obey is another. Maybe teaching The Mothers everything they know about torture, building their torture devices, perhaps. That
’
s why you aren
’
t punished with us, because your Service taught them everything they know,
”
she spits the words out like they are hot embers and they burn me like fire.